#uninformed speculation

[collapsedsquid]

You see stuff about "generative AIs are not sucking up all the power", they use some amount of power to train them models and a small amount to use them. But then there's "data centers for generative AI are taking up more and more power." Can both of these be correct, is there a contradiction there?

I think there is a way to reconcile those I think, and that is that many AI models are being quickly built, tested, and thrown away. That is also what you might expect if these things are being developed into useful tools as well. Does raise questions of how to calculate of amortized power use of models by generative AIs, I think I will leave those to the reader though.

[cat-appreciator]

I haven’t played BG3, all my knowledge of its plot comes from Tumblr, but I think this one wizard guy everyone likes was raised by his cat? Or something? The cat is a mother figure to him.

That one wizard from that one game and his cat 🔮✨

[sparring-spirals]

There is a universe in which i was caught up properly on CR whenever what the fuck went down and Imogen verbally and definitively declared that- after everything leading up to this and the back and forth and indecision- that she'd be willing to take down her mom if need be. and i would have been deeply insufferable and writing 20+ separate meta posts and liveblog yelling posts and shitposts. This is not that universe so instead we will put this post here where i can have wildly uninformed (aka 20 eps behind) Emotions about it until someday i actually catch up.

(I know. i accidentally wrote potentially wildly off base/deeply out of date meta again. what can i say. i like shaking the concept of An Imogen (even if it is Outdated Imogen) in a jar. sorry.)

Because i was watching long enough, I think, to see Imogen in the throes of the hope for something better, to understand that Imogen was viewing her mom was a figure and an idea and an answer, that would make things easier. Her mom was- gone, so early. And so her mom, in her mind, was not a person she was an idea, and there was so much hinged on that! Dogged determination and anger at her father and a deep seated dislike of the powers in her hands and head even as they gave her a guilty rush. There were promises there that maybe no one else had made, but Imogen believed. Things built up. Expectations made. Lore crafted, even unconsciously, around someone who was, yes, important to Imogen, but more importantly: Missing. Gone. A blank slate to be filled in. A promise of an answer guide to open questions.

And then she meets her mom, and Liliana Temult goes from a figure to a person- with all the bells and whistles and rough edges. She meets her mom and her mom turns her away. Tells her to run. Tells her she should go. Tells her to leave.

And Imogen doesn't. In the same way she kept visiting libraries, keps asking, kept pushing for answers when it was just about her magic and her headaches and the voices. Imogen always, always wants to know. She keeps digging, she keeps trying, she reaches out, over and over and keeps trying to touch this figure in mist until she's real under her hands, and. Evidence piles up- of deeds gone wrong, blood on her hands, a figure standing next to Otohan (her friends bodies scattered, lifeless, around Otohan). She keeps reaching out, keeps trying, and is rebuffed, over and over. Things get worse and the skies get redder and magic goes dead and she's still- unsure, because what if there's a better reason, what if there's a better way, there has to be a reason, why. There has to be, right- maybe if- maybe. Maybe-

Its just like- a person as an idea. As a symbol. As a promise. One you build yourself up around and towards. One you talk about, not talk to.

And then the fog clears, and they are a human.

(And she's your mom, and she's not what you imagined. She's done you wrong. She's done your loved ones wrong. She's hurt you. She's hurt others. She's going to keep hurting you. She is going to keep hurting everyone. She is too far gone to reason with. She is not listening to you. She is flawed. She is. dangerous. She looks so much like you. You look just like her. You are so similar. You have always known you were similar. You always hoped. You.

Are not her. You are not hers. She is not yours. She is not who you thought she was. She was always someone else. So are you.)

Imogen walks through the bases pretending to be her mother. Liliana is a known face- a powerful one, a figure people fear. A well known silhouette. Imogen slips into the shadows of it, sometimes, when it serves her, but we know- she knows- its all an act. All a lie.

Liliana, after all, is alive, and well, making choices that she believes in and fighting for things with a dogged determination maybe only matched by her daughter.

Imogen knows this. I think. There's a part of her that maybe wishes that wasn't the case.

"There is no loyalty with this blood." And after all- only living people bleed.

[corneille-moisie]

story time, i guess

so like last week, i was listening to like i think it was Klaus Nomi's eponymous album, and i was reminding me of some Shilfee and Tulipcorobockles songs, so i had a little "oooh" out loud. my partner wanted to know what the oooh was about so i explain that im listening to klaus nomi ("who ?" ".... "kla-ow-s no-me" "oooh ok") and that it reminds me of shilfee. then they go like "shilfee and what ? that rings a bell", so i'm like "yeah, dead leaves is one of my favourite songs of all time :)" and they reply that they might have heard a cover at one point and i took a second to stare at them before saying that i didn't think so and to look up that dead leaves lol. they did look it up and were like "yeah no i did indeed not know this but that sounds like other things i could be into" (they then proceeded to click on gnarled pity while i was chuckling in the back ajhkjshdgjkahsgd)

and today, i relistened to dead leaves again cause it had been a while, and it confirmed that i was right and there seems to be a lot of klaus nomi in at least the Chichiro album from Shilfee (im not too familiar with the rest but im gonna fix that soon :)

[cnowy]

Y’all… like we all know why Jared wasn’t participating in geeks and nerds for Harris, right???

(cough cough cough)

Trump supporter

[sayruq]

Last week, Politico reported that President Joe Biden would “consider” conditioning military aid to Israel if the country launches a large-scale invasion of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians are sheltering. “It’s something he’s definitely thought about,” said one of the four anonymous US officials cited as a source. This was about as weak of a position as could be imagined: The President had definitely thought about maybe doing something. Still, even this proved too much. One day later, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the article was based on “uninformed speculation” by anonymous officials and that he wouldn’t be entertaining hypotheticals about how the US would respond to a major invasion of Rafah, which US officials have signaled they would accept in a more limited form. The dismissal was the latest indication of the administration’s almost complete unwillingness to even discuss imposing serious consequences on Israel for waging a war that has killed more than 30,000 people, most of whom were women and children. Instead, the administration has adopted a newfound feeling of impotence. As State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller put it last month, “The United States does not dictate to Israel what it must do, just as we don’t dictate to any country what it must do.” The absurdity of this position was made clear when a reporter interjected, “Unless you invade them.” Miller couldn’t help but laugh. It has been obvious for months that there are many things the Biden administration can do to restrain Israel and distance itself from a war that has been condemned throughout the world. The problem has not been a lack of options but a lack of political will. Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator who is now the president of the US/Middle East Project, told me, “I think many of us who had very low expectations of the US and of Biden have had a rude awakening as to how much lower the actual performance has been [compared] to even the lowest of low expectations.”

As evidence of how important US backing has been for Israel, Levy cited veteran Israeli journalist Yoav Limor, who wrote in Hebrew earlier this month that without “Biden’s support, Israel would long ago have been forced to stop the fighting in Gaza due to a shortage of weapons, while at the same time it would have been forced to deal with United Nations Security Council resolutions (and possibly sanctions) against it.” Still, Levy thought it might take weeks or months of sustained US pressure to compel Israel to change course. In any case, Biden is under no obligation to provide thousands of bombs to a country whose leader has consistently ignored him as Israel wages a brutal war that has leveled much of Gaza and caused children to die of starvation. “We need to stick to our own values,” Ford said. “If our values say, ‘Starving children is way beyond the pale,’ then we need to react to that and take stern action, whether or not it changes Israeli policy.”

[mortishine]

rant ahead, may be upsetting to survivors of grooming / sexual assault. see tags for context / summary. if you cannot bring yourself to read, at least reblog these:

victim statements: chaos (chaosblast) , imani (geencream) , more coming soon probably

donation links can be found here

the more openly predatory kittycorn gets, the more she just proves everything that was said about her. not even in the “believe it and fuck off bc i know its not true” way, shes just admitting shes into children and actively encouraging people to feed her fetishes.

honestly? part of me is glad shes going mask off about it now. because now people dont have to pull out a long document or speculate, we can just point them to her official blog for it and thatll be enough to paint the picture.

notice how the only people defending her now are the confirmed preds? how even previously uninformed proshippers have turned against her? theres a bit of a silver lining here, kit keeps making it easier and easier to call her a pedophile and justify hatred towards her. she keeps proving exactly what she wants to run from, i wouldnt be surprised if she just openly victim blames nick, imani, etc. real soon.

she does not care for healing anymore, i dont know when she stopped caring but she has completely ditched the concept of recovery as anything but an r-word she can use as an excuse. if she truly was “pro FICTION” she would never have even thought of normalizing her kinks to OTHER SURVIVORS OF THE SAME SHIT.

the shipcourse is the LEAST of my worries, but the extent shes taking it to is so blatantly tangled with her real actions. this is not a case of “big scary antis harassing a 24 year old minor🥺🥺🥺” this is a grown adult refusing to confront her trauma and instead grooming her (ex-)partners into being just like her.

she, the groomers she associates with, and anyone defending her or keeping quiet need to be locked the fuck up. now. i usually hate saying this because i am radical when it comes to promoting recovery. but they keep actively fucking denying help so i will not bother.

[bioethicists]

there's definitely smth to be said irt the way in which these terms manifest as a form of self-censorship panopticon etc etc but i want to gently suggest that

1) taboos + fears regarding discussions of death + suicide have existed long before tiktok. tiktok's censorship of these terms is related to this cultural taboo, fearmongering over "social contagion" of things like suicide, + sanitizing the platform for advertisers. some of you have forgotten the tumblr era where ppl censored words like rape or incest with asterisks bcuz we feared the mere word may upset or trigger others. tiktok is not manufacturing a taboo; it is responding to one + actually, children are refusing to accept that taboo by using these terms to continue to have conversations about these issues on that platform.

2) "kids are not mature enough to talk about death" is the exact rhetoric that causes this issue. how is that not the same attitude that tiktok employs? do not let your fear of modern social media lead you to conclude that the next generation is inherently more vapid/immature/uninformed!!! children should be discussing these issues + telling them they're "not mature enough" is just a condescending way to ensure they remain fearful of these conversations. reassure them they can use the full words without consequences (then do not impose consequences, including insulting their maturity or intelligence or forbidding them from discussing it) + talk with them about these issues.

3) we can talk about shifting trends in social media or cultural norms among children without talking down to them or excluding them from the conversation. adults were writing their hands about our gay fanfics + trigger warnings + american horror story self harm gifsets 10 years ago. teens have thoughts + agency + you don't have to speculate about how these things affect them because you can simply ask them.

[1moreff-creator]

Theory: Mai Akasaki’s Sixteen Killers

The theory that everyone in DRDT’s killing game is responsible for the death of Mai Akasaki. 

If you’ve been around the DRDT theorizing sphere, you might have caught sight of a very particular thought floating around; that one way or another, everyone in the killing game is responsible for Mai’s death. It comes up every now and then, so I figured I'd throw in my own take on the matter. Let’s pull a Poirot, and solve this Murder on not-quite-an Orient Express!

CW: Murder, suicide, poison, mentions of religion

The Prologue: Mai is Dead? Who is Mai?!

Alright but maybe I should explain who the hell I'm talking about for the uninformed :v

Mai Akasaki is a more or less secret character, who’s only had nine seconds of screen time in the main series (Teruko’s dream in 1-6), but is most likely Unnamed Classmate from the Bonus Episodes. A full introduction and several important theories I believe about her can be found in my Mai post. Although some parts of that post are outdated, it gives what I consider to be a good overview of everything we know about her. 

But in case you don’t feel like reading 15k words of rambling about this cryptid of a character, here’s quick summary:

-Probably part of Hope’s Peak East Class 27, classmate to most if not all the cast. After all, she’s Unnamed Classmate from the BEs. 

-Really nice girl everyone adored like a god.

-Xander and her fucked around (presumably staging some kind of rebellion against Hope’s Peak).

-She found out (per Veronika’s Mai quote, “A for who didn’t foresee the consequences”). 

-Presumed dead. 

To elaborate on that last point, given it’s part of this post’s thesis, I’ll quickly show the evidence. 

Most explicit. Mai’s numeral XI (and if you don’t know what a numeral means in the context of LGI, or what a "Mai quote" is, I urge you to read my secrets masterpost. This isn't an entry level theory lol :v) shows up alongside “God is dead,” alongside with an arrow pointing at Mai’s portrait when the word “God” shows up on screen. Not only that, this is the only grey numeral in the entire MV.

Then, just one line afterwards, the Kubler-Ross model of the five stages of grief shows up, a model often associated with death.

Even more evidence: the flowers in her tattoo are probably Mai flowers, a discovery by the-fox-in-the-socks. These flowers are associated with the legend of a girl named Mai who, among other things, died. Read their post for full clarification. 

So… yeah. Mai’s dead. But, can we really claim the cast is to blame?

The Basis: Someone’s Fault

There is currently one person in the cast who is heavily suspected to be in some way responsible for Mai’s death, two more who I brought up in my Mai post as likely candidates as well, and even more which have looser connections to her death. 

Teruko - Via Second Anniversary Art.

This gif shows Mai’s gloves disappearing from the top of a frame otherwise containing only Teruko, and in the middle flashes a code that (by rearranging the “rows” of the columns in numerical order) translates to “It’s all your fault.” So, Teruko at least is probably implicated, presumably through her luck if nothing else.

Xander? - Via Sixth Bullet

The LGI MV tells us there are six bullets to find, with the hint that we can’t actually find all of them. Indeed, only five bullets can be found. However, that could lead someone to speculate that the sixth bullet is loaded in the gun. Said weapon is labeled “(not a) prop gun”, connecting it to Xander, and aimed, while not directly at the Mai portrait, still too close for comfort. The idea here is that Xander might be considered responsible for her death because it was his idea to rebel against Hope’s Peak, and that may be what got her killed. If that makes no sense to you, again, please read the Mai post, I've already written too much about this girl to repeat myself too much T_T

Whit? - Via Tetraphobia

When Whit’s numeral XV appears on screen, we also get the instruction “subtract 4, due to tetraphobia.” XV - 4 = XI, which is Mai’s numeral, again “God is dead.” This could connect Whit to her death, with the idea being that he’s Whit so if there’s a way to look suspicious he’ll take it. That is to say, I actually don’t know how Whit could be connected to Mai’s death :p The only way to salvage Whit’s innocence in regards to Mai is to assume the tetraphobia thing is meant to connect him to footnote 11 instead of numeral XI, but footnote 11 is the Diana one, and while there’s ways to make that work, theorizing about Diana is genuinely harder than theorizing on Mai. So, for the purposes of the post, we’re gonna ignore that connection to Diana, and say that this could connect Whit to Mai. 

Ace??? - Via Highlighted Text

This is the most recent allegation to come up, and it’s based on an observation regarding Eden’s dialogue in 2-16.

Eden [2-16]: I never said that I forgave him. It's just that... The Ace I met for the first time wasn't a murderer.

The bolded text is peculiar. While it could just be for emphasis, it’s also possible it’s bolded to bring attention to it because it’s an assumption which is wrong. As in, Ace was a killer since the start of the killing game. If that’s not about Taylor (which it very well could be considering Ace’s dialogue, let's not ignore that), it could be about Mai. 

Veronika??? - Via Mai Quote

Veronika's Mai quote: A girl who didn't foresee the consequences.

Hers is the one that references consequences, after all!

Yep, that's the full connection.

David???? - Via Mai Quote Order

His Mai quote is the only one after Veronika’s in the Mai order given by the source code of Mai’s page, an order which has not been entirely forgotten. This could maybe make him suspicious if you squint harder than anyone’s ever squinted before. Does this one even make sense to anyone who is not me? Who knows.

Min????? - Via Footnote 6

Footnote 6, “[Prayer]”, flashes on screen at the same time Min’s numeral X is there.

Since Mai is a “God” in the MV, the prayer goes to the God, the scene is referencing Min’s murder kinda through the trial… Yeah this is uber weak. It’s kinda similar to saying Eden’s suspicious because her Mai quote makes no sense; just because it’s weird doesn’t mean it can be cleanly connected to the Agenda.

Yeah that’s kinda it. But, if only a few characters are being even tangentially connected to Mai’s death, how is it possible that everyone is catching an allegation? Well…

The Thread: Rule 14 & “Murder on Orient Express”

“Rule 14: All murderers must be held accountable for their crimes."

The strange wording in this rule has been a topic of speculation for a while. You could take it to mean that blackeneds who lose trials get executed, but then it wouldn’t be “all murderers,” it would just be “the murderers who get found.” Thus, the theory that there could have been multiple murderers in the cast even before the killing game properly started was born.

This is especially notable given a recent reveal: MonoTV's purpose.

MonoTV (DefaultTV) [2-16]: But there is no reason for me to punish Ace a second time. That would fail to serve my purpose. Ace: What? Charles: Your purpose? DefaultTV: Naturally. To run this killing game until the death of every participant.

There is no rule that states anything along the lines of "everyone has to be dead by the end," not directly. That is, of course, unless Rule 14 applies to everyone. If all murderers must be held accountable for their crimes, and everyone in the cast is (by some loose definition of the word) a murderer, then it follows that MonoTV would be designed to "punish" (read: kill) each and every one of them.

And this isn’t the only allusion to the possibility. The next topic to cover would be “A Murder on Orient Express.” Uh, spoilers for the book, but it’s a murder mystery where the big twist is that every suspect, every passenger in the train, had a part in the death of the victim. 

How is this connected to DRDT? Well, for starters, it’s one of the books referenced in LGI, with three appearances; one is just a reference to the David reveal, but the other two are more notable, one being attached to Teruko’s numeral XIII and the other directly preceding the “democratic-ly” shot, which directly references the killing game. A connection to the protagonist, the “main antagonist” and the killing game itself could be noteworthy…

If this wasn’t LGI. Teruko’s numeral is also attached to text from “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas,” the David scene has references to “Dogra Magra” and “No Longer Human,” and if it’s just about number of appearances, Hamlet has a whopping eight showings. If showing up in LGI was all these stories needed to be considered plot relevant, we’d need to figure out a connection to, like, a million other books, a scientific paper and several Wikipedia articles.

No, the more relevant references to Murder on Orient Express actually come from the main series itself. For starters, Teruko references Agatha Christie in 1-1. 

Teruko [1-1]: Strychnine... I think that many mystery novels mention that sort of poison. A****a C******e uses it as the murder weapon in one of her books.

However, Agatha Christie has written more than one book. In fact, the book Teruko references is "The Mysterious Affair at Styles," which I researched but couldn't find any way to connect it to DRDT (unless the concept of double jeopardy somehow becomes important). No, we need something else to refer us to Murder on Orient Express.

Which gets us to the biggest connection between DRDT and the book itself. And because dev hates me, specifically, it’s of course, in Thrown to the Wolves. 

Like, really, why is this execution in particular the most theory relevant execution in the history of fangans? I take psychic damage every time I revisit 1-12 please save this poor Min fan-

The final question Min receives is “Who wrote the murder mystery novel Murder in the Calais Coach?”. And “Murder in the Calais Coach” is the US’ localization of “Murder on Orient Express.” Notably, this is the only time in the main series (as far as I remember) that a proper noun referring to a real thing isn’t censored with asterisks; TEDtalks, Agatha Christie, and Amazon have all been censored this way. 

Xander [to David, Prologue-2]: You're just as incredible in real life as you are in your T*****k videos!

MonoTV [2-14]: But ever since I ordered 100 tons of concrete blocks from Am***n, I have been blacklisted from all online order companies.

This gives us an explicit connection, at least. Sure, it’s not guaranteed to be important just because it showed up in Thrown to the Wolves (I doubt the Riemann Hypothesis or that one enzyme system are important to DRDT), but combined with the other Agatha Christie reference and the lack of asterisks, it really seems like this could truly be significant.

So we've drawn the link between the book and DRDT. Combining it with what we talked about earlier about Rule 14 and MonoTV's purpose, it really seems like there's a solid argument to say that the whole cast might be responsible for the death of one particular person. And if that's the case, because of what we talked about even earlier, it's very possible that refers to Mai's death specifically.

Further evidence is MonoTV's Mai quote, "It's all your fault." The fact that the mascot of the killing game is saying that on Mai's page already suggests a connection between Mai's death and the origins of the killing game, so combined with the fact the purpose of this game is killing all its participants, it can potentially be taken as further evidence for the "Mai on the Orient Express" theory.

Now, to be clear, even with all of this, the evidence is... extremely loose. Understandably so; Mai and the killing game's origins are series wide mysteries which likely won't even get close to being solved until much later, so any theory which connects them is going to lack any amount of truly significant evidence. However, I feel there's enough there to at least consider it for the time being, and to keep the possibility in mind going forward. That's kinda the thesis of the post basically, "keep this in mind in case it comes up again" :v

As an add on though:

Alternative Theory: Unique Victims

Also known as: Holy shit is that a motherfucking Milgram reference?!!??!?

The idea here is that instead of everyone being responsible for Mai's death in some abstract manner, they all each killed at least one person before the killing game, but they each have different victims. "Killed" by a very loose metric, mind you, where being partially responsible for someone's suicide counts as murder in the eyes of the killing game organizers for some reason. This would be consistent with the previously mentioned Rule 14 interpretation, though the connection to Murder on Orient Express is notably weaker, as you need to generalize "everyone is responsible for the death of one particular person" to "everyone is responsible for someone's death." The advantage it has over the other theory is that we have a better idea of what each person's murder could be:

-Levi killed four people, that one's easy.

-Arturo blames himself for Felicity's death, at least.

-Min poisoned her competition. Potentially non-lethally, but potentially lethally as well.

-Teruko still probably holds some responsibility in Mai's death, or at least believes she does.

-Ace has been implied to blame himself for Taylor's death.

-Charles and Whit have Elliot and Elizabeth respectively. We don't know the full context of those two's deaths, so Charles and Whit could be responsible technically somehow.

-Veronika's done something worse than her motive secret implied, which could be murder. There's no evidence for it, but you know, it's possible.

-We know less than zero about Diana, to the point it's not impossible to make a theory that David caused her death.

-Xander has survivor's guilt... It's really not the same thing but y'know. You can kinda twist it into self-blame for death.

-Maybe Eden tried to kill Xander when she gouged out his eye? (Again sorry if you don't know what I'm talking about, should've read my secrets masterpost :p). If the cast calls Nico a murderer for attempted murder, then this could work. Technically.

-Hu attempted suicide. This is the biggest stretch in history, but there's some way to call Hu her own murderer with the same idea as before, that attempted murder still makes you a murderer. You know, ignoring that attempting suicide is completely different from murder. I'm trying, okay?

-Maybe Arei ruining her sisters' lives can be considered murder? Absolutely not, but again, I'm trying.

-If J, Rose and/or Nico killed someone before the killing game, it's never been implied. So, yeah. We're cooked on that front.

There's admittedly more set up for it than I'd realized before writing all that, but it's still not particularly perfect. I'll point to Arei as a particularly big problem for this theory, because there's almost no way for us to easily learn that she's killed someone now that she's dead, assuming her secret isn't somehow considered murder. Not to mention that Rose would probably have her murder as her secret if she remembers doing it. That, alongside with the Mai theory's closer connection to Murder on Orient Express, is why this post is mostly focused on said Mai theory; I find that to be the stronger possibility.

But of course, that's just my opinion. These theories are highly speculative and very likely to be wrong, but I wanted to get them out there somewhere. Hope you enjoyed them, and thanks for reading! If you made it this far, then you deserve a copy of Murder on Orient Express to read... or something like that. See ya'!

[real-batman-thinker]

People say that dc stands for disregard canon and haha yes funny but also let’s talk about that. It’s is literally a modern mythology!

(Spoiler: I can love and hate Bruce Wayne and all of your headcanons are actually canon)

The idea of “canon” is actually quite new in terms of human storytelling goes. Especially before we started writing non-religious texts, we have spent centuries we were telling ourselves and our communities the variations of the same stories over and over again.

Our memories aren’t perfect and the stories aren’t being told in a vacuum. This meant that each version shifted to meet the storyteller, story receiver, and the context in which it’s told.

This meant that while there was some nebulous core that all the variants of a story floated around, there was a level of flexibility embedded into the medium.

That’s why, for example, we can see so many different variations of Greek myths all claiming to be the “real truthful version” of the myth. It’s not that alternative versions of the myth were lies or uninformed, it’s just that the myth was too big to be held by any one story.

Similarly, DC comics and their characters have been in public imagination for 100~ years. These stories and characters are MASSIVE. There is no possible way to contain it all in one story, and that wouldn’t be fun or impactful, hence, why they are always resetting things.

It is also helpful to think about collective storytelling and the fact that even specific comic runs are rarely the result of one individual lone wolfing it out.

So if we know that the DC world is too big to be confined to a single story, that those stories are collectively created, AND that stories exist to fill needs – then all our fan speculation here is contributing to the myth of the DC characters!

If there is a need for themes/strengths/moral lessons that speak to the tumblr audience and if the story can fit, and still be identified as being in line enough with the original myth, that it is a part of the mythology (as simple as that)!

And I know there tends to be this weird reverence for commercialized work (and an inverse undervaluing of the importance of fan works), BUT with how long DC has been running it is likely that every person who has been contributing to the comics (at least for the past forty years) was once a fan. It has always been fan-work.

But yeah, as long as you can make a compelling argument for it’s connection to the nebulous story core (and such arguements whether implicit or explicit are necessary for any head canon/interpretation to go viral on this website) then you are joining your ancestors in a long line of contribution to mythology!

Happy myth making :)

[sgiandubh]

https://www.ddinstagram.com/stories/bartleydunnes/3555991037576149336?utm_source=ig_story_item_share&igsh=eDByZXR6eGVxeHR6

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 & 🇮🇪

🤫🤫🤫

Dear Hush Hush Anon,

You know, I sometimes wish some of you would do their proper research before stepping in here with faux candid bullshit like this.

This is the story you speculate about:

I am not very sure what made you tick, but certainly not the same thing that made me do so - relevant in a heartbeat.

Let's see what I do think this is all about:

OK, so this venue is literally inspired by a well-known and beloved Dublin joint with the same name. What is more, they prominently feature 'artwork from artists around NYC and Ireland'. So even if their food has very little to do with Irish fare, they market themselves as an Irish pub, hence the flag - zero to do with C, sorry about that.

Which is more, a 'new Irish pub', which explains why Ashley Hearn more than probably arranged the visit and was part of it:

She follows their account, but they do not follow her: So does the Sassenach Spirits account, and these are mutual follows - this is mostly about business, here:

Likewise, they do follow S - who does not follow them in return, however:

But look who also followed their Instagram Account, Anon:

That's right, Anon. Cirdan's son, S's nephew. Ostensibly on a trip to the Big Apple and having some fun with Uncle - and why not, pray tell? This is what people normally do and if one can combine business and pleasure, even more so. Your implied speculation? Eh, not so much: it's because of uninformed waxing lyrical like this, that we became the laughing stock of this fandom.

All I see in here is a business networking visit and some shared pints of beer with family. What I also do see is Ashley more active on the sales front than Lazy Alex ever was: games of thrones took way less than that to spark, mark me.

[transmutationisms]

hey you know it may be weird as hell to dig up personal health information of marginally famous people and speculate wildly about whether any of their issues are caused by covid or its vaccines, but at least it's also smug, stigmatising, medically uninformed, framing illness as a personal failing, & completely anecdotal and therefore useless from a public health perspective 👍

[rei-ismyname]

Heroes for Hope 'highlights'

In 1985 Marvel and DC both decided to do a charity comic raising money for and attempted awareness of the then famine in Ethiopia. Despite Marvel having a murderer's row of talent on the book - Heroes for Hope starring the X-Men - it's godawful and problematic AF. It sold well, bringing in $150K, but Oxfam refused the donation and any association - calling the book 'racist, sexist, and reprehensible.' This led Marvel to donate to an organisation focusing on the entire African continent (?) instead. Jim Shooter hates Oxfam to this day. Seriously, he blogged about it.

The action kicks off with Rachel screaming her head off and the X-Men running out the front of the mansion to find a barren desert in place of their front yard. Just like Ethiopia from those ads! 🙄 This is how the X-Men are informed of the famine and they vow to help.

Upon arrival they witness a starving swarm of black bodies rushing into the plane's propellers, only to be held back by a handful of white people. Get used to this imagery, cos there's a lot of it - but zero black voices except for Storm. What were they thinking?

The clumsy notion of the mutants not experiencing bigotry here is presented as a thing? I have no idea what this panel is trying to achieve tbh. The people are starving to death and even Kitty can't cheer them up.

Superhero comics are fundamentally unable to do anything about famine or any real world inequality. A capitalist entity from the imperial core clumsily trying the same is a pretty good analogy for how nothing ever gets better. Nevertheless, a bad guy was chosen for them to punch. They don't cause the famine but they 'feed' off it. For some reason it manifests as Uncle Sam taunting Storm with racist stereotypes and throwing pies in her face. It's ridiculous. They defeat the bad guy and it's beyond pointless.

There's exasperation that their powers can't solve a famine. 'I don't know if there is a way of winning' says Kitty. Honestly they're just saying things. No coherent messaging or statements here, except maybe 'famine is bad.'

Each page is written by a different person (this one by George R R Martin of all people) and overseen by editorial, so I'm pretty sure the irony of this panel is unintentional. 'Shit sucks, can't fix it easily, try not to think about it' feels like an accidental metatextual statement about this approach.

Jesus fucking Christ. This is the final panel after the X-Men have helped a little and left. This white lady works for a famine relief organisation and for some reason feels hope. A single tear flows down her cheek at the thought of the X-Men/Marvel/America returning with 'the aid needed to end this tragedy.' Yeah, that didn't happen. If I was being charitable I'd speculate that this is a self aware nod to making white people feel good while not helping/actively contributing to global inequality.

I'm not being charitable though. Oxfam was right and this is some tone deaf shit. I think having the X-Men go to an unnamed part of Africa, assumed to be Ethiopia, was a mistake. Real world misery and comic books don't mix well - you end up with an insincere and uninformed mishmash of the two and it's depressing AF for all the wrong reasons. It centers mostly white people with orientalised generic African people in the background. I think a thoughtful approach is possible, but this isn't that. At least they raised some money I guess?

[flowercrowncrip]

Sorry if this is a weird question but have you ever thought about getting bottom surgery? Is that even possible for wheelchair users? It seems like it would get squished or something which is 😬

I know when people get top surgery they can't use mobility aids that require a lot of upper body exertion, so was using your chair more difficult?

I'm not really looking into top surgery for mobility aid reasons and since I'm kinda small up there anyway, but I reeeeealy want bottom surgery and can't find any resources on whether my disabilities will complicate things ;^;

I’m actually in the early stages of pursuing bottom surgery myself! I annoyingly can’t find many people talking about it at all, let alone wheelchair users. Even my GIC doctor isn’t entirely sure right now.

Right now the doctor at my GIC is informally asking surgeons whether they’d be able to take me as a patient before making a formal referral. I’m not sure where you are but In the UK you need a second opinion from an in person appointment with a doctor at a different clinic just to get a referral for bottom surgery (but not top), and since none of the clinics in England except my current clinic would accept me as a patient, it’s looking like I might have to go to Scotland for that one short appointment. (My doctor is also trying to see if we can make an exception to the in person rule on disability discrimination grounds because travel is harder for be, but as far as I know that hasn’t happened before so I’m not holding my breath).

My GIC doctor doesn’t know for sure what the exact complications of being a wheelchair user are likely to be if I get surgery, but said I was likely to experience more discomfort after surgery and might need longer in bed during recovery. He also said it was possible that a surgeon might say that metoidioplasty could be more possible me than phalloplasty, which I’m really hoping isn’t the case because ideally I want phalloplasty. We also don’t know what the implications are of me having a catheter.

All of this is really hypothetical at the moment though, it’s all based on my doctor’s vague hunches and third or fourth hand information, and also trans healthcare here, especially around meta and phalloplasty is shockingly awful, other places in the world are way ahead. I’m planning to share more when I have concrete information than my doctors relatively uninformed speculation

In terms of top surgery I had no issues at all about using my power chair joystick after. I was in hospital longer than most people (a couple of nights after surgery) so didn’t use my chair for that time, but I don’t think it would have been too difficult. I found as long as my elbows were by my sides I was fine and since I use my arm rests anyway there were no issues with me steering my chair. Even my chest harness caused no issues. I definitely think propelling a manual chair or using crutches would have been a bad idea in the first few weeks, but with support people and/ or a hired or borrowed powerchair and things like transfer boards if needed there’s definitely ways around that for anyone who really wants to surgery (if it’s not so important to you and you don’t want to go through that, that’s totally valid, but I also don’t want people to think it’s impossible).

[sapphiresaphics]

So these are screenshots in the Bridging the Rift documentary about the creation of Arcane. This is from episode 3 which debuted in August 2022. The episodes are all up on YouTube for free btw.

You can see them working on designing Lest.

Viktors metal hands.

And a very close to completion shot of Caitlyn in S2E1 handing tea to her grieving father.

Season 1 was released on November 2021. This documentary came out almost a year after the first season aired and they were already deep enough into season 2 that shots and characters from Act 1 were already nearing completion.

Amanda Overton has said in interviews online that season 2’s story was finished being written before season 1 even aired. The voice actors for Maddie and Sky both have said they recorded their lines for season 2 right around when covid hit in 2020. And these glimpses behind the scenes seem to confirm that. You can’t be working on near completed shots if you don’t have a script and dialogue already written and recorded.

This is why I really hate the speculation that the season was “rushed” or that the issues people have with this season are the result of Netflix or some corporate overlord cancelling future seasons or forcing them to add stuff they didn’t want. From all the evidence I can see and from all the information we’ve gotten from the writers themselves, both seasons of Arcane were written back to back and completed before season 1 even finished airing.

I know that if you had issues with season 2 it’s easier to blame some sort of external force for what’s wrong, but so far all of the evidence just points to this is how the season was written for good or bad.

Also we neee to clear some things up. Christian Linke may be going around giving interviews, but that’s mostly because he’s the show runner and producer. That’s a technical term for the guy who funds the project and makes sure it’s on budget and gets done. He doesn’t really have a lot of story credit, he’s a music producer. So take whatever he says with a grain of salt.

The REAL people you should be listening to are people like Amanda Overton who have not been shy about taking about their process in writing the series. She’s answered a lot of questions about the series in YouTube videos like this.

Additionally, you need to understand that Netflix is mostly just the distributor. Riot funded and produced the whole show on their own. And while they had some Netflix censorship guidelines they had to follow (for scenes where the lesbian sex got a little too spicy), Netflix has no control over the series. They did not cancel the show early. They do not promise them 5 seasons and suddenly cut it back to 2. Netflix is in it for the viewership only. If they actually DID cancel the series, Riot could easily just keep producing more shows and release them on any other streaming platform instead. Netflix holds nothing over them.

I guess all I want to do is show how LONG of a process all of this was and to give some insight into the making of the show. I want people to understand these things so they’re not out here coming up with conspiracy theories and out what they THINK went wrong. Uninformed speculation is not useful or productive.

Personally, I loved season 2 and the “rushed” feeling has been dwindling the more I rewatch the show and appreciate what they were doing. I strongly recommend that if you have issues with the show, go back and rewatch the entire show from start to finish. I’m finding stuff in season 1 that only makes more sense now that season 2 is out.

[tchousovitina]

Expanding on something I said in the tags of another post but it really does feel like there's 2 buckets of criticism lobbied at Simone.

One type is truly vile and unwarranted shit, like what was levied at her after she pulled out of Team Finals in Tokyo, by conservative media personalities, uninformed randos, trolls, etc.

The other type is completely fair comments to make, like disliking someone's floor music, criticizing their form, speculating about a skill that might get downgraded or any number of normal but negative comments for a fan to make. But no human being is equipped to be inundated with that volume of strangers talking about them and criticizing them, it's not something I'd wish on anyone.

The problem is that fans in the second group are not doing anything wrong, but they are the ones that Simone and other name searching gymnasts tend to go after. Even if they aren't actually attacking you, the total effect can feel like every thing you're doing is being nitpicked and the criticisms all blend together, so you lash out at the easiest target. And because the person you're lashing out against is just a normal fan with a much smaller following than you, you instantly get a bunch of validating comments about how right you are and how mean they are, and they get harassed by your followers. You don't actually lash out at the first group because you know they're awful people and they'll just harass you more if you do.

It's shitty behavior from Simone that comes from an understandable emotional place, but at this point she's 27 years old, she's responsible for curating her own experience and her triggers don't entitle her to be a dick to people. This is the type of thing she (with the help of her therapist) should realize and come up with strategies to deal with because she's hurting herself and others at this point.