irarelypostanything

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Creative Writing And Meeting An Author

About 12 years ago, as a college student, I took a 17-person, 10-week creative writing class under an author. I've been name-dropping her too much...I don't want to draw attention that way...I'll just call her YL. There are a few wrinkles in the story. One, I had no clue who she was until after the class was over. Two, I was angry at the end because of how much I felt she had ripped apart my second manuscript, which in hindsight seems kind of petty and childish and dumb. It was only later, when I mentioned my name while visiting home and my dad showed me he already owned one of her books, that I realized what kind of opportunity I had had.

I never read her books. I read half of one, I think, but in the last few years she's produced more. One thing she said, once, was that writers are depressed. It was just kind of an aside, and obviously a joke. She was drawing a writer and a reader, describing them as sender and receiver, and to represent the writer she drew a stick figure with a sad face.

I think she was really sad. On her Wikipedia page, it said that before she came to our college, she had attempted suicide twice. Her recent books were written, reflecting on her experience after one of her children killed himself.

She knew all our names. She knew more about my backstory than I knew of hers. Once, a whole year or so after the class, I asked if she remembered me and she not only remembered my name and major, but also said she remembered my stories. When she introduced herself to us, I only remember her saying something generic about how she studied science but decided to write. I don't remember her saying anything about ever being published, let alone winning awards and becoming internationally recognized.

Maybe that was just her. Maybe she preferred to stay out of the spotlight unless she felt it was of great benefit to others.

[irarelypostanything]

Hello, Tumblr

...it's been a while.

I have been writing on Medium in three separate blogs. One thing I have been thinking about is creative writing. Medium is somewhat restrictive. There are certain new rules they rolled out in August, such as how a blog post can only be monetized if it has been read by someone for more than 30 seconds (?). Here, we have no such issue. Blog posts can't be monetized, period. No photo to look up to make this thing SEO-able...that's not how you use the term...no description to write to get more eyeballs. You just kind of write. Then maybe a million people will be upset and draw attention if you write something blatantly offensive, but I will try not to do that. It can be a page, a paragraph...anything goes. I've been thinking of getting into creative writing again. Maybe not here, just in general.

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All The Random Thoughts (social media, blogging, tech layoffs)

I had three ideas for a blog this morning (it’s 3:30AM): *Write about how proud I am for waking up that early, with self-deprecating humor.  Heavily imply that I immediately fall asleep while writing it *Talk about over-sharing.  Talk about our tendency to experience vicariously instead of “looking into ourselves,” outsourcing our emotions *Finally, talk about IBonds as an investment.  Talk about that encounter with a YouTube singer who said she hates talking about money, so she decided to talk about personal finance...but in reality she was more comfortable talking to her youtube audience about it than she was to people in real life.  An IBond makes enough to keep up with inflation, period.  Full stop.  There are drawbacks to that When I blog now, it’s for money...sort of.  The blog has all but flatlined.  In 2022 it made $1300, pre-tax, and in February 2023 I think it’s made about $6.

There’s this weird thing that happens to me when I blog.  I suppose when I write, in my dream I envision this one person getting to know my thoughts and really benefiting and really feeling good because they found it.  That hasn’t been my experience.  When you blog, you write for the world - so in my first experience going viral, I remember how every single sentence of what I wrote on Medium was scrutinized, with whole Reddit threads spawning about a single number I included after a 5-second Google search.  In hindsight I’m glad, because it was quite a story and because the post was innocuous, but at the time it was pretty overwhelming and really not that fun.

Had I known about monetization, maybe I would have at least made a few thousand dollars from it.  Then again, maybe it would be much lower...and the people on HackerNews would probably have hated it more.

****

So someone on Medium wrote about a rude customer, as she works in service.  I thought, huh, if he filed a formal complaint and you feel it was unfair, maybe you shouldn’t blog about it to the world with your real name.

But who am I to judge?  I’m doing that right now.  The internet is not really that anonymous, and in many cases it is really not that hard to find out who people are.

I was thinking about that, and then that famous Google TikTok of someone who used to talk about how great Google was, then talked about how abrupt the layoff was.  Naturally, as this is the internet, people descended on her with all kinds of comments that were variations of, “maybe if you spent less time making TikToks and more times working, you wouldn’t have gotten laid off.“

Data point of one, but I know at least one person in a similar position (business) who DIDN’T make TikToks about the Google campus and was laid off.

*****

On a recent popular blog post on one of my three Medium tech blogs, one person wrote, be concise. Don’t waste my time. Consolidate that shit and deliver what your title said.

I didn’t like it.  It was too commanding, reminding me of a stern middle school writing teacher telling me why I got a C for my work.  But he had a point.  At least here, on Tumblr, I can feel a little more comfortable being a little less coherent.  No one really reads my Tumblr unless I use hashtag RWBY, so...again...I picture that one person reading it and really connecting to it.

Which is dumb.  That’s what journals are for.  I suppose my thoughts here are somewhat filtered, but not that filtered.

Which is a segue to the one on TikTok crying about Google.  Why would you record yourself crying?  It shouldn’t be judgment, it should be something said earnestly.  Why do people do that?  Why do I do that?  I suppose I wouldn’t make a TikTok, as video is not my medium, but I probably would feel the urge to write something about it, even if I didn’t state the company or the circumstances very explicitly.

Why would you first response, when you start crying, be to make a video of yourself crying?

******

I recall that in college, I once asked Sonya what she was reading.  She would spend her time reading actual literature, while I was stacking self-help.

Now I am surrounded by hundreds of dollars worth of self-help bullshit, all of which is relatively expensive, whereas you can get the complete works of Shakespeare for 50 cents if you’re feeling fancy or 0 cents if you know what a library is.  50 cents gets it to you on Kindle.

Maybe I should see what Shakespeare says about this, or at least one of the shit self-help books.

#personal #blogging #tech #tech layoffs #medium #tiktok

[irarelypostanything]

Did Social Media Improve Our Lives, Or Ruin Them?

I had a recent experience with dating apps...wait, what am I saying?  I have had approximately seven billion experiences with dating apps.  It’s just that I use the term “experience” loosely.  Generally on an app, my experience goes something like this:

*I like a bunch of profiles, write a bunch of messages, change pictures, and do a number of other things for a few hours

*Absolutely nothing happens

*Rinse and repeat

That’s more of a “me” problem, but...I’ve been thinking about some things.  First of all, a dating app is essentially a hybrid between social media and romance.  I could write and write about the value of going outside and talking to that one person we have known since childhood, or destiny, or in-person human interaction, but I would be doing so on Tumblr.  Take everything I write with a grain of salt, dating apps are efficient.

I think there’s a lot to be said about how, on a dating app, when you swipe one way you’re saying, “Hey, I like you.  I think we may have a future together.“  I imagine various scenes in Everything, Everywhere, All At Once.  Imagine if instead of taking place in one building, the entire movie was just one character in a room.  It would just be her swiping, and maybe everything else would be hypotheticals of the life she’d live with other people if she’d swiped a certain way, or used a different emoji in the third message.

Pretty boring movie, right?

Only, real life isn’t THAT different.  If you went to a coffee shop in another hour, maybe you’d never meet.  If you decided not to go to that one party, maybe you’d never meet.  If nothing else, apps increase the probability.  You get a window to talk, and the app pushes you together.  Certain things are active, and certain things are determined by the all-knowing, ever-mysterious algorithm.

A lot of the things programmers have built are not that different from that dating app.  The app makes money a certain way, generally by a paid tier, and so it tries to get people to pay.  For the longest time, websites like Facebook simply tried to maximize time people spend on the site in order to increase revenue via data-selling.

And now Medium.  Your jokes, your sadness, your writing...money.  Easy.  The more attention YOU GET, the more money you make.  It’s like they were on the same team as Facebook, but they got so lazy that they thought...hey...why don’t we give the USERS such a small cut of the pie that they become the ones in sales?

So why do we do it?

Well, for starters, money.  But there’s something harder to describe, even though I think everyone is aware of it.  Humans crave acceptance, and humans crave validation.  It’s why it can feel so devastating when that match of two months un-matches (though many would say keeping a match for that long is a mistake), or that girlfriend of 2 years sends a single break-up text.

When you put something out there that’s yours, completely yours, it feels like anyone who “likes” it is saying...”Yes, I see you.  I understand you and I approve of you.“  The best thing you can get is that “follow” notification.  That says, “I want to get to know you better.  You are someone I want to know.“

I have similar thoughts about the church and how it draws people in using the device of acceptance, but that’s a topic for another day.

And so...there it is.  Here I am, rambling on this blog with thoughts like that instead of talking to someone about them.  People will read it, MAYBE, and maybe some will think wtf is this and move on with their lives, but out there SOMEONE will read this and it will resonate.

And if that happens, I get the little indication that someone SEES ME.

*****

In conclusion, there is no conclusion.

See you guys on Medium.  Coming up is “8 reasons to date a computer programmer,” but on second thought maybe you shouldn’t because a few of them are responsible for that god-forsaken madness called dating apps.

[irarelypostanything]

Why I (kind of) left tumblr (ish)

Hey, guess what?  Looks like one of my RWBY posts just got a dozen or so reblogs.  It’s a reminder to me that Tumblr remains a fairly active forum for fans of TV series to speculate and agree and disagree.

I recall one discussion I had about RWBY that became a very intense argument, with lots of swearing, and I remember thinking...arguing anything else may have been more productive.  Technology.  Politics.  What have you.

But the more I dig into Medium and Twitter, the more I think it may be the opposite.  Like if you’re on Twitter arguing about the war, or policy, you’re basically arguing life or death on points that tie to some tightly-held ethical beliefs.  I rarely see people persuaded one way or another, it’s just that these kinds of arguments are necessary in a democracy.

So if we’re going to argue about TV shows on Tumblr...fine.  Maybe it’s a “more power to you” kind of thing.  And if we do reach a conclusion that some show is good and some show is overrated, then we’ll do so without constantly questioning the other person’s qualifications and background.

Why did I leave Tumblr?  I left Tumblr because of Medium.  For a year or so, I had a blog that was getting quite a bit of attention and made $1300.  Then the bottom kind of fell out.

******

By the way, Better Call Saul was AMAZING.

[irarelypostanything]

The Blogging Adventure Continues

Okay guys, in about seven months on Medium.com I’ve made about $700.  The important thing to keep in mind here is that it’s definitely not a pyramid scheme.

The thing about pyramid schemes is if anyone tells you it’s not a pyramid scheme, it’s probably a pyramid scheme.  But this is different.  I mean, obviously it’s not a pyramid scheme.  It just FEELS like a pyramid scheme.

So you write blog posts, right?  And you make money if more people click on your posts and also pay $5 a month.  Clear business.  No shade.

BUT, lots of the ultra popular content is by people who write about how much they make on Medium.  Then they start making even more money by starting private coaching.

Well here, this is Tumblr.  I’ll give you my private coaching for free:

-Write consistently -Write humor content and make fun of a lot of people -Be consistently consistent There.

****

In other news, some guy named Tim Denning (who has approximately 3 billion followers on Medium) wrote an article called You Will Screw Yourself Financially If You Save.

I thought it was pretty irresponsible of him, so I wrote a parody of it called You Will Screw Yourself Financially If You Save, Keep The Money Under a Mattress, Then Set The Mattress On Fire.

For some reason, my parody article got to the front page of some news site called smartnews.  It’s not news.  It’s not smart.  No one is commenting on it or liking it.  Clearly they don’t hate it enough to make accounts just to insult it, but they’re sure as hell not making accounts to like it.  It got about 1400 clicks so far, and just straight-up 0 comments and 0 likes.  It also doesn’t make money because I decided, oh well, let’s at least let these smartnews people read the damn thing.

*****

hashtag side hustle

#Side Hustle #definition of insanity #definitely not a pyramid scheme

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Genuine Emotion

“What is grief, if not love persevering?“

That wasn’t me, that was something from Disney+...a service I have cancelled.

I was listening to a song called Kremlin Dusk, and I had it on repeat for a really long time.  It makes a reference to “The Raven,” and the speaker of the song says that she “was always searching for her Lenore.”  It got me thinking about something.  Maybe, in this really twisted way, her “dream” is to have a perfect lover who dies.  Then the idealized dream is kept.  It’s this trap, this kind of endless desire to have a perfect narrative, instead of a genuine connection with someone.

I talked to a coworker, who is a little more traditional.  I said: “Maybe we should just be grateful for the time we have.  Maybe it’s too much to expect, to have someone for a lifetime.”

Her response: “If a lifetime is too much to ask, then that is an indictment of our society.”

And then I thought that maybe it was like this: MAYBE it’s too much to ask to be with someone for a lifetime, but then if you never see them again you do the opposite.  A wedding, in the traditional sense, is love “until death do us part.”  Well, cutting someone else off is like an unspoken pledge: “Until the day I die, I will never see, touch, or interact with you again.”

And I really just wanted to talk to someone, but some people don’t want that.

And if you really care about someone, you will respect their wish.  Also...legally.  You can’t just insist on having a last conversation.

But it’s like you know someone, and then you don’t.  You hold a possibility of a future, and then you don’t.  Maybe for some people, it’s just like pulling off a band-aid.  Or not even that.  Maybe it’s like pulling out a thorn.

I kept looking for something, but I don’t know if it’s here or if it even exists.

#spilled ink #prose #ten-minute freewrite

[irarelypostanything]

Blogging - Medium vs Tumblr

Okay, so like I wrote in a previous post...

I haven’t been using Tumblr much because I’ve been blogging across three separate Medium accounts.  That’s been going...okay.  Functionally speaking, I think Medium is better than Tumblr in almost every way.  It’s easier to write on it. It auto-saves.  You can seamlessly add pictures and videos and customized graphics (not that I do that), so it has a more professional look and feel.

...which is a good segue into its bigger problem - Medium is a blogging site that pretends to be a news site.  The people you find on it are just other bloggers, and they don’t incentivize professionals to write, so you pay $5 a month to just read a lot of bloggers.

Then, to counteract that, maybe you produce.  Maybe you even make more than $5 a month.  And now you’re perpetuating the cycle, producing non-professional content for some grateful fans and a few angry people who are expecting some sort of professional publication but are just getting your content instead.

Huh.  Second person.  Okay, maybe I’m projecting.  Yeah, I’m definitely projecting.

I write satire tech content, and I’m salty someone wrote, “Thank you for helping me decide not to subscribe to Medium.”

****

So it goes without saying: If Tumblr cost money to use and could also make a user money (technically there’s ad options I won’t go into), it would completely change the dynamic.  

They could also opt for something like YouTube, where it’s only “free” in quotes, but I think how it works now is better.

Nothing on Medium is really...raw.  Well some of it is, but mostly it’s just dominated by very LinkedInesque cliche.  You know, like #hustle and pull yourself up by the bootstrap css framework

Not sure why I kept that line in

Whereas here it is completely raw.  Pure emotion.  I am feeling so much in these sentences.  Do you feel my feelings?  The sheer rawness and emotion is spilling onto the page like ink in #spilledink 

Sorry, what were we talking about again?

****

Final thought: The money is nontrivial.  You can make a lot more money on it than I thought your average person realistically could, and if anything that’s part of the problem...

Like $60 a month, maybe even $100-$300 depending on your niche

And that’s excluding the small number of people who make thousands

[irarelypostanything]

Why I Enjoyed Ice Queendom More Than The Original RWBY

*Spoilers*

Last time we were here, I wrote a summary of a popular YouTube video called “RWBY is disappointing and here’s why,” which was roasted pretty hard by some user named rwalrus.  He cussed at me a lot and insulted me a lot, but his points were valid:

*It’s not really fair to say that RWBY dropped the plot point of stealing dust in season one - it’s implied that this helped them with their weapons and explosives in season two (I’m going to say “season” instead of “volume” and no one can stop me)

*Ruby is a designer and made her own weapon, but that’s not unique - a bunch of characters designed their own weapons

*Criticizing the plot structure of season two is a waste of time

I guess my opinion overall is that the fanbase is kind of split into two halves right now: The half that loves everything about RWBY and still watches it, and the half that is highly critical of RWBY but still watches it. 

Anyway, what follows is just going to be my personal opinions.  It’s just that, and not everyone will agree:

1. It takes advantage of its animation team and budget

The way they released season one of RWBY, it was not very coherent - the episodes were not the same length, the animation was not as good as it was in season two and after, and the trailers varied quite a bit in tone.  In Ice Queendom, the white and black trailers are integrated into the episode.  It doesn’t include the red and yellow trailers because these don’t completely fit into the new story, but they arguably don’t have to be - we get a revealing shot of both Ruby and Yang visiting their mother’s grave

2. The character motivations are clearer

It takes a little while to get invested into the RWBY characters because it doesn’t really dive into character flaws until later.  Ruby is young - but she’s also some sort of powerhouse who has a fairly easy time transitioning into leadership.  Weiss is prejudiced, then changes her mind and isn’t.  Ruby’s feelings of her mother do not really appear until seasons two and seven, and Weiss’ family dynamics are not really explored until season four.

The new series explores these things with brief flashes:

*Ruby mentions her insecurity at probably not being accepted into Beacon; she expresses it to her supposedly dead mother

*All of Weiss’ family dynamics, including her relationship to her butler, are revealed in a matter of minutes; somehow they also manage to cover the White trailer in this time

*The story is told from Weiss’ point of view, so the viewer has more sympathy for her distrust of Ruby - who falls asleep in class and doesn’t seem to work as hard

*It seems to be hinting at one of the aforementioned YouTube video’s biggest complaints: That Weiss gets over her hatred fairly easily.  It seems like this conflict will be more fleshed out here

Nitpicks

-I kind of wanted to actually see Roman fight in the semi-finale, instead of just kind of running off like he actually does

-When Weiss challenges the decision to make Ruby leader, the response is that the other teachers trust Ozpin absolutely - they would trust him with their lives.  I think this is a way more interesting response than what she gets in this series, which is that she throws too many tantrums

Anyway, I think everyone is pretty happy with this AU semi-remake - but I guess I’ll wait and see if anyone has critical comments for me.

#rwby #rwby ice queendom #15-minute freewrite

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[irarelypostanything]

apologies to anyone who ever thought i was cool and reached out to me only to discover i am just a weird little hermit who can’t carry on a conversation to save my life

[irarelypostanything]

I didn’t stop blogging

Actually, I blog more than ever before. There was that whole Curt Corginia thing, the one viral post and the insanity of that.  Then I thought, why should this half-assed Infinity Train reference name get all the glory.  So I also started blogging regularly on my regular Medium, and shared time with Curt Corginia, and also got on HackerNoon and FreeCodeCamp with my own name.  

Felt pretty good.  Felt the little feel-good chemicals. Then the Curt Corginia post hit 200,000 views.  I learned that someone else made $4000 for that many views, but I didn’t make a dime because I didn’t use a paywall.  So I built a third account, Kurt Shiba Inu, to see how paywalls worked and if I could make money.

Getting to 100 followers took time, but after that I started earning more quickly than I thought.  This isn’t like, REAL money.  This was like, McDonalds money.  Or Spotify Premium money.

And even now, with that much, I feel the need to share with anyone on Tumblr who still reads this that yes, you can make McDonalds money or Spotify Premium money or maybe even real money on Medium.  But it seems icky.

Not like, ooooo money is terrible we will all burn in hell icky.  More like...I don’t know...you have to have a Medium membership or advanced hacking abilities to clear your cache to know what I’m talking about.

It seems the people who write REAL money just kind of write bullshit, myself included.  It’s not the kind of writing with raw emotion, it’s the kind of self-help crap that you find on LinkedIn.  Then the really successful people do that 1000 times a day.  And then, like the lottery, every post is this silent little prayer that you’ll make $30,000 on one blog post, which some people do.

And you know what REALLY makes money?  Stupidity, misinformation, and racism.  It’s like Facebook if every like you got was worth a small fraction of a penny, so you had to be REALLY LOUD AND REALLY STUPID.

We’re probably all going to hell for this, and if you don’t write on Medium there is still hope for your soul, but oh well.  

I donate 1% of my earnings to combatting climate change, so I think I’m good.

P.S: I also disabled Facebook and Instagram, not because I became not addicted to social media but because Medium basically hijacked all my social media time

#personal #medium #blogging #money #side hustle #did i really just tag side hustle #WHAT HAVE I BECOME

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I’m reading that book Sorry I’m Late, I didn’t want to come.  I’m about 25 pages in.  I like how it’s not really self-help, and more like a narrative - it’s the admittedly generic idea of someone trying to put herself out there.

And I think is worth thinking about is what she says about vulnerability.

There are two types of conversations, she says - the surface level, and the deep.  It sounds cliche, I know, but she finds herself in this active group where they try to bring out the deeper part of each other.  The vulnerability.  The pain.  They talk about how conversation tends to be this constant boasting, but it’s the people we’re vulnerable to that we really relate to.

And then there I was, the reader, listening to her tell me about it.  And then there she was, sharing all of us this story about what she was insecure about.

****

I don’t know if it’s really such a hard and fast thing.  I mean, you can list all of your insecurities and sometimes, it seems like too much.  Especially if you seem like you’re not trying to find a way through it.

But it made me think about how writing is like a...disturbance.  I wondered if maybe the people who do it are sharing a part of themselves, or expressing pain, or both.  Because interesting writing tends to be conflict-driven, right?  Otherwise it reads more like a greeting card, a LinkedIn status, a Facebook yearly update.

But you can be positive.  You can share happiness.  I think.

I guess what I mean to say is that it’s worth thinking about.  Are we connected through pain?  Calamity?  That part of ourselves that can’t sleep, that part of ourselves that goes at length about the jobs we can’t get, the people we loved who never reciprocated, the deepest fears?

We can share dreams, too.  It just seems so packaged sometimes.  It’s like we have this set number of things we’re allowed to talk about, like a TV show or a political thing, and we fail to realize that we can change the game.  You know, just have a conversation.  I guess.

We’re all in some degree of pain, and maybe talking through it eases it.  

#spilled ink #prose

[irarelypostanything]

Unnecessary Arguments - "Arcane"

*Spoilers*

Person #1: I was reading an article the other day, I believe by ScreenRant or CBR, about how Silco is exactly what Jinx needed

Person #2: You mean Powder?

Person #1: No, I mean Jinx. He appreciated her. He loved her unconditionally. At the end of the day, he was the best father

Person #2: And I was reading a Medium post about how their relationship is toxic

Person #1: How?

Person #2: Well first of all, it's kind of implied. Why do you think Jinx was so emotionally damaged after the time skip? Obviously Silco subjected her to violence. Not only that, but I'm surprised no one else theorizes that he exposed her to toxins, making her insane

Person #1: That's because it's a garbage theory. You think she went insane because of toxic water, and not because she's responsible for the deaths of her friends?

Person #2: Honestly? Probably both. I think either of those two things will do it. I just...it kind of pisses me off that everyone is portraying Silco as this wonderful man even though he's the one who killed all these people to begin with, and set the actions of the show in motion

Person #1: No, the plot of the show was set into motion by Vi's dumb decision to break into some lab and steal really important stuff. Why is no one blaming Vi?

Person #2: Because Vi was a kid...

Person #1: Punching Jinx when she needed her the most. Great sisterhood right there

Person #2: She was stepping away, to give her space. Then she ran back and got arrested. For ten years. And oh my god, Vander. Now THAT'S a good father. Even in that drug-induced rage, he instinctually knew to protect his daughter. His last words were to protect the girl responsible for all that chaos

Person #1: They weren't there for Powder when she needed them the most. That's where Jinx came from

Person #2: No, the crazy guy employing children into a drug empire, killing people left and right, and slaughtering the one enforcer who could have brokered peace is the problem

Person #1: May he rest in peace...

#arcane

[irarelypostanything]

"Arcane" Pitch Meeting (ScreenRant Rip-Off)

*Spoilers*

Producer: So I understand you have a new TV series for me

Writer: Yes, sir, I do. It's called "Arcane," and it's a prequel to "League of Legends"

Producer: Right, this is going to get people thrilled about the video game. Before we begin, how much money were you thinking this would cost us?

Writer: Oh, I was thinking maybe 100-

Producer: Million? You're asking for 100 million?

Writer: I suppose $100 million would be...acceptable. Might be a little difficult, but I'll see what we can whip up

Producer: Sorry, the Riot Games budget has been kind of tight these days

Writer: I was thinking we'll need a theme song by Imagine Dragons

Producer: Naturally

Writer: ...an outro song by Sting, a full cast of A-list actors, and access to the Fortiche animation team with all the money they want from us

Producer: Granted. But what is the actual story?

Writer: I was thinking we'd focus on Vi and Jinx. I always had a backstory in mind for them when we first wrote them into the game

Producer: Great! So a fun little popcorn thriller about a superhero origin story?

Writer: ...No

Producer: A child-friendly merchandising scheme similar to the Lego Movie?

Writer: Every time there's a cool action scene, a child will get murdered to remind us that we should be ashamed of ourselves for celebrating violence without realizing the ramifications of war

Producer: Oh

Writer: We're going to start with Jinx, only she's an innocent little girl whose parents have been killed and who has serious abandonment issues. In spite of this, she shows no obvious signs of psychological disorders

Producer: Uh-oh

Writer: Yeah, and we're just kind of going to explain how she got the way she is.

Producer: Does she fall into toxic water?

Writer: Yeah, but that's not really the gist of it. Basically, she accidentally kills her own friends and has the tormented images of their corpses etched into her memory

Producer: Oh my god, what is this show?

Writer: She'll kind of get adopted by this guy named Silco, and his deal is he's this drug lord who distributed something called Shimmer, which is a little bit like cocaine and steroids but a lot more terrifying

Producer: I don't know how I feel about this

Writer: You'll love it, even though half of the people you care about will die. There are these two conflicted sides of a city - one is relatively wealthy, and one is completely poor and disgusting and drug-infested. Silco rules the "underside," and Vi gets picked up by an "enforcer" from the surface side before a time skip

Producer: So it's kind of like a battle between surface and underside? Jinx is like the champion criminal, and Vi gets adopted into this kind of police family?

Writer: No, Vi spends ten years in prison

Producer: Oh, she does?

writer: Yeah, and even after all that time she still goes after her sister, to save her, but her sister has been traumatized by years of extreme violence and inner conflict. Silco is going to reveal that he always cared about Jinx, which is going to be really sad when she instinctually kills him and then passes the point of no return in her transformation. So what do you think?

Producer: Can we tone down some of the violence?

Writer: No

Producer: Can we have a cute Teemo cameo?

Writer: No

Producer: Can we change the climactic moment so that Silco is a little more of a stereotypical villain, and we don't feel emotionally devastated by his death?

Writer: No

Producer: Will the show be good?

Writer: Yes

Producer: All right. I hope you at least don't end on some cliffhanger that likely kills everyone's favorite character

Writer: No promises

#arcane

[irarelypostanything]

Unforgettable Scenes - Jinx lights the flare

*spoilers*

In this scene, Silco appears to have the upper hand.  He is ready to kill Vi and Caitlyn, as was his plan, but Vi unexpectedly breaks down a pillar.  Silco is apparently struck, possibly fatally, and then the screen cuts to black.

This is when “Guns for Fire” plays.  Jinx, shown in an upside-down reflection, remembers her sister’s words and lights the flare to draw her.

The implication here is that Jinx never gave up hope that one day she might find her sister again--if she had, the flare would have already been used up.  Vi spent possibly a decade in prison, and Jinx only lit it when she was sure.

Vi and Silco, juxtaposed, crawl their way out of death’s grip.  Silco, who does not seem visibly damaged, is enraged.  While Caitlyn helps Vi up and the two run away together, Silco angrily beats his henchman.  It is never completely clear to me why Silco is so motivated to stop Vi and Caitlyn--whether this is because their plan threatens him, or because Jinx’s devotion to her sister overshadows his love for her--but he is pissed.  It is a rare moment for a character who usually seems so calm.

Behind Jinx are the hallucinated projections of her two brothers.  A few comments have pointed out that they are both wounded--they represent her repressed memory of seeing them dead.  This image has haunted her for years.

Caitlyn and Vi escape through a tunnel, juxtaposed with the bullets enforcers load.

Finally, the two encounter the enforcers.  Vi shoves them and runs, but is shocked to recognize the flare she gave Jinx all those years before.

#arcane

[irarelypostanything]

Unnecessary Arguments - Aggretsuko, Season 4

*Spoilers*

Person #1: Okay, I’ve been browsing Reddit and Google and…many people agree with me. Another great season

Person #2: No, it was not great

Person #1: What? How dare you

Person #2: Lots of potential, especially on the last episode’s Reddit thread. A news report of depression statistics, Ton looking at a train and visibly sweating, possibly indicating a desire to end it. And he had some brilliant characterization this season. It seems like he’s out to get Retsuko at the first opportunity, when in reality he is a fundamentally decent man. Retsuko, in contrast, is actually willing to throw him under the bus when the chips are down…which she has to grapple with

Person #1: Yeah, I agree. All brilliant plot points

Person #2: Equally compelling is the idea to coerce a middle-aged mother into resigning so she can become a full-time mother. Sexism on full blast. The next thing we know, everyone’s working together, they’re spying to obtain a locked flash drive it would be way easier to hack remotely by installing a rootkit on Haida’s computer and copying while the flash drive is inserted

Person #1: I don’t know what those words mean, and neither do you

Person #2: And they’re arm wrestling, and Retsuko reveals she has superpowers, and it’s just…ugh. I don’t know. You ever hear the phrase, “folding a winning hand?”

Person #1: The reason this season works so well is because it puts Haida front and center and elaborates on his character

Person #2: Does it? I feel like it really makes up out of character things for him to do. Cook the books? Write some code that streamlines their process? Is there anything to foreshadow he would do this before?

Person #1: Well, the whole point of the season is his inability to ask Restuko out after five years of knowing her. And the insecurity that stems from this

Person #2: Actually, he did ask her out before. Also, their relationship was much more meaningful in the previous season, when he breaks her out of her trauma and allows her to recover. And he has a great relationship with her ex. I don’t know, very out of the blue

Person #1: I feel you need to rewatch the whole series. You don’t know what you’re talking about

Person #2: Maybe. Actually, no, shut up. Screw you. You know I’m right. They had the potential to make another devastating season with all the right build-up, exploring these dark and deeper themes, and instead they just kinda threw it out. Like some people on Reddit said, bringing people back indicates they were never actually in trouble

Person #1: No, the company is likely still in danger

Person #2: Okay. Whatever

#aggretsuko #aggretsuko season 4