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kyluxtrashpit · 4 months

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Transferring this post from twitter, with some edits and additions, because the mess that was the development of the sequel trilogy fascinates me on an extremely deep level

Okay so. You’re probably aware that Adam Driver gave an interview a few weeks ago where he said that the original plan for Kylo in the sequel trilogy was to get progressively eviler throughout. Which I’m not here for redemption vs corruption arc discourse, that’s not what this post is (because I prefer a secret third option), and what I want to dig into here is what makes this an incredibly curious statement

Because this is the first time anyone involved with the ST has mentioned there ever being a plan. So, let’s explore that for a second because why is he saying something that’s completely at odds with every other piece of information we have?

(behind a cut for length, as I went and pulled a bunch of interview quotes and other materials and then analyzed them, you can scroll to the very bottom for my conclusions if you like)

So first, I went and found this, which I purchased many many years ago in 2017

In it, an interview with RJ himself confirms what the story has been for a long time: there was no plan, there was no required plot points, no endgame to lead to, just absolute freedom (I recall reading this then and feeling a spark of confusion and concern - what do you mean there was no plan?)

I also found this, and while I don’t have the TLJ art book to verify it, another person on twitter confirmed it and also advised that RJ was even in the know regarding the Aftermath series (confirmed by him and Chuck Wendig at a convention) - so he knew a lot. And this plus the above shows that if there was a plan, it was abandoned before TFA was even released, likely even before it finished filming

And then we have the rather well known moment when JJ himself pretty much confirmed that the ST should have had a plan (question asked was about sw, even if JJ didn’t say it himself). Could this be shade at abandoning a plan instead of never having one? Maybe. But it’s unclear

And as our last piece of evidence, we have confirmation from RJ that he asked JJ to change the ending of TFA. Which once again shows TFA was not finished when RJ, who explicitly said he was given no plan to follow, was writing TLJ

And that was the story all along, confirmed multiple times over. We can say for sure that as of the writing for TLJ being started, which was before TFA was even finished, let alone released, there was no plan. So it is certain that if there ever was a plan, that plan was abandoned at the very latest in early 2015, but I suspect 2014 is more likely

So why would AD say there ever was one? He has no reason to lie and I don’t think he is, he has nothing to gain and everything to lose by doing so. But with so many other pieces of evidence directly contradicting what he’s saying, I think we can also say that RJ is telling the truth too. But how can both be true?

Well, knowing the mess that is d/lf and also how disney treats actors I think it’s one of two possibilities:

Option 1: there was indeed a plan, likely pitched by JJ himself, and that d/lf agreed to that plan with no intention of ever following it through. They sold the actors on the plan, telling them it was a capital P Plan, but then didn’t ever tell them it had stopped being the plan, so that’s also why we saw the actors becoming increasingly frustrated throughout the series. They were told there was a plan, what the plan was, and then watched none of that come to fruition because it had secretly been abandoned long ago without their knowledge. It’s extremely scummy, but I could see disney doing it

Option 2: the plan was never a firm capital P Plan but rather was just the initial concept JJ had. No one ever committed to it, but since the actors couldn’t see the script, JJ’s initial vision was used as a “here’s my concept” kind of thing to sell the actors on without it being a firm plan. Just a concept that was used at the time but later discarded, as I’m sure a good number of concepts were. But it would be easy for that to get misinterpreted by the actors, and this gives us the less scummy option on the mouse’s part because it’s more about miscommunication than anything else

And if it is option 2, it’s also possible that the actors did know it wasn’t an confirmed plan, just a concept, but clung to those concepts since they were all they had. Which I can understand, given that not knowing the eventual story makes their jobs harder. I can totally see AD sticking with that initial concept even if he knew it wasn’t a “plan” per se, because he had literally nothing else to go on and he needed something to play the role. And once again, given how increasingly frustrated the cast got over the course of the trilogy, I suspect this experience would have been shared among the whole cast

Overall, I lean towards option 2 on this, because even though I do think disney is pretty fucking evil, option 1 might actually be a contract violation or at least open up the possibility of one. And plus, the entire story group would have had to be in on it, and if they did straight up knowingly lie to the entire cast and JJ, I just feel like that would be something which that many people can’t keep secret (plus wouldn’t RJ have accidentally spilled the beans when talking to JJ? Or was he in on it too? Too many players imo). I know it’s disney, but still, things leak all the time (as those of us who followed the tfa or tros leaks know lmao). Plus, I do agree with the adage of assuming stupidity over overt malice when in doubt, so I’m going to stick with that here

So ultimately, my suspicion is this was never a true, capital P, confirmed Plan, but rather the initial concept they used in place of a real plan (which they never made) because d/lf had nothing else to use to sell the actors on it and the actors had nothing else to cling to when actually playing the characters, so they used it where they needed gaps filled. And with it being more likely just a vague concept that was never committed to and was abandoned in 2014 than anything else, well, no matter how good or bad it might have been, I don’t even think it’s worth considering as something we ever would have gotten. It clearly wasn’t in the stars (ha) from very early on and thus belongs in the pile with the rest of the surely very numerous concepts that never came to fruition

And this, kids, is why trilogies need to be fucking planned lmfao

#these are just my thoughts #if there's any other evidence out there that contradicts this I'd be interested to see it #or any thoughts really #but I think this is as close as I'm going to come to cracking it until we someday get a tell all book lmfao #kylo ren #text #my post #meta #I guess

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stormblessed95 · 2 years

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Why do you think we don't ever hear of sightings of Jikook out together "ALONE" anymore? Like lately when JK goes out, he is alone or with friends, but never JM & same with JM. There use to be sightings of them all the time. Ice Skating, Movies, Shopping, just standing randomly at a busstop. The last time we know of was White Day, but they still were not alone. I'm not trying to debunk Jikook & I'm not insecure. I guess puzzled is a better word, considering how inseparable they seem in Memories.

And Anon 2 from the opposite side of the spectrum here:

Thinking Jikook are going to be spotted out together publicly sope, Namjoon & Hobi, Hobi & Jimin + how they are with their other friends at other concerts is incredibly unrealistic. They’ve got a image to portray for one, that they aren’t THAT close and two they’re together all the time at “home” why would they go out to a concert together or football game or a museum date. They’re gonna choose less public occasions like the white day dinner with their shared friends that people only knew about because someone took a picture. They didn’t sign anything to make people aware. We wouldn’t of known that hopeminkook went out together with HER until Hobi shared it with us. We don’t KNOW.

I had like 8 anons over this topic asking or throwing fits over the same thing anon 1 is asking about. And I've seen this Same ask being tossed around to other jikook blogs as well. So I deleted most of them, blocked the gross ones and decided I would actually answer this question. And bare with me anon if you actually care to know what I think and aren't just here sowing discourse. Because it'll be a longer post. And some of it aligns with anon number 2. And almost all of it comes back to my favorite phrase to throw at my insecure/other shipper anons. Object permanence.

Again, bare with me. If I forget a "date" I'm working off memory here. So ya know, keep in mind that I, too, am only human.

I think a lot of people struggling with lack of content must mean lack of contact (for jikook). And that's simply not true. But people fall into the pitfalls, especially when they haven't been here since 2013, of seeing content all at once and then being greeted with no content. Or slowed down content, and then they panic. They used to be SPOTTED OUT ALL THE TIME they must just never see each other anymore. Well, let's ACTUALLY look at all those times, and all those dates, shall we?

2014, Jimin and Jungkook go out on a chicken dinner "date." They were never spotted by fans. The only reason we know they spent this time off work, off camera, hanging out, is because Jimin posted about it in his blog. Photo captioned: “for dinner, we ate some delicious chicken~~~ jungkookah, hyung likes chickennnn ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ give me one don’t shove it in my mouth you punk!!!!”

May 2016, again Jikook had a spicy chicken dinner "date" alone, and weren't spotted. The only reason we know about it is because Jimin again, shared it with us. If he didn't share, we would never know. The "before" video too. JK decided to stay up late and hang out/eat with Jimin even though he originally planned to sleep instead. Also in August 2016, fans spotted Jikook out walking in the streets together, JK walking with a bike. When they noticed they got spotted by fans the fan said Jimin "hailed a taxi and they ran away together"

In 2017, when they were given free time by the company, everyone went off to do their own thing and jikook went bowling together. Not spotted by fans, but it was shared in Burn the Stage Ep 5.

In October 2017, they were spotted in Toyko together several times. Which they then also posted about and then never shut up about lol

January 2018, jikook watching the first snow together. Alone. Again, we only know about it because they shared it with us. Not that they were spotted.

February 2018, Jikook went out to dinner and an escape room with Sungwoon, the day after valentines day. Jimin came home early from a Japan schedule right before this too. Left their autograph and was spotted by fans

Summer of 2018, Jikook were spotted seperated from the rest of the members and camera crews before they left Malta hitting up a few stores and going shopping together. They also took the boat back out to watch the red moon together after dropping all the rest of the members back off.

Also summer of 2018, Jungkook told us about how he hung out with Jimin over the break and did bowling and went out for Karaoke. They weren't spotted. We wouldn't otherwise know. And they've mentioned going to do Karaoke together multiple times as well as bowling together many times. And again, summer of 2018, they were spotted by a non army (other kpop stan) standing outside together hanging out at around 1 am.

October 2018, Jikook were spotted by an ARMY riding the bus and they were out alone shopping together.

November 2018, Jikook flew in with the rest of BTS from Japan and then immediately took off on their own and went to dinner as well as then went ice skating and were spotted out together as well as the restaurant sharing an autograph.

In 2019, while in Paris they went shopping together and were spotted by fans. While in London they went out to eat, to see the London Eye and London Bridge with Jimins friends. And in LA they were spotted seeing Avengers End Game together and afterwards went out to dinner together. JK later talked about it at a fansign and they posted a video in the car together coming home. They also stayed late at a concert for a bit when the members had all already left the staging area to watch the fireworks together. Not spotted by ARMY but shared by themselves. In 2019 as well. Jk confirmed that over the break the only members he saw at all were Jimin and Hobi. Not spotted once by fans, but they still spent time together even during all of Jimins traveling around the world.

In 2020, they were rumored to have been spotted at a convenience store together. As well as in September, Jimin confirming they spent the night together.

In 2021, they shared a vminkook trip to the beach, where the Above photo was shared. No one spotted them, but it still happened. As well as in 2021 they shared about how they were practically stuck like glue through the entire time they were in LA (Nov - Dec 2021). Including how they walked together everyday and worked out together everyday. JK Visited Jimins rooms and hung out there all day. And months later, a fan (who happened to be a tkkr since 2014) shared a video of jikook walking into her gym in LA at 3 am to workout alone together. Basically confirming a fan sighting and confirming everything they shared in that vlive as well too. As well as in 2021 (September) they were spotted getting pre travel covid tests done at the same clinic together.

In March 2022, they were spotted by fans out to eat during White Day with a friend, maybe more at a lowkey restaurant. JK also that year shared how when he got out of covid quarantine that he went to Jimins room and got a hug. As well as yoonminkook and staff all went out to eat after the concert in Vegas in 2022, where the waiter who served jikook kept talking about how excited he was to have served jikook, where they sat together at their own table during their closed down restaurant party with drinking and everyone singing lol

So. Out of 10 years of being together as a band. Jikook have been spotted out together by fans approximately 14 times. If we add a few of the others that I included here (which doesn't even scratch the surface of all the times they've shown us how they are always together) that brings us to 25 times they were together that we know of off camera. And again, there is TONS more as well as staff commenting about how jikook are inseparable and literally always together and comments from the two of them about how much time they spend together, etc. You had 3 of those times (2 being a spotted by fans and 1 being told by JK) happen in 2022. And it's technically not even September yet. When in other years, the most frequent year of fan sightings was 2018, in which there were 7 times. And 4 of those times were shared with us by jikook themselves not random spotting. And 4 sightings spread across an entire 12 months, is not THAT much if you actually think about it for the other years to be a drastic decrease like people are saying.

It seems like so much because it is. There is no other BTS duo that has been caught hanging out by fans nearly as much or as often. Nor have any duo told us about hanging out off work/off camera nearly as much or as often. They do, it happens, but not as frequently as our stuck like glue duo. So from 2013 to 2022, there were at least 14 fan sightings of jikook. BUT You recongize that spread over the years, that's a lot of fucking time in between sightings, yes? Good. Glad we are on the same page. I also hope you recongize that during all these years where we got anywhere from zero to 7 jikook sightings of "dates" out and about, they were also being spotted doing things individually as well. Like getting food, going shopping, going on bike rides, seeing concerts. As well as doing those things together with other friends/members and individually with other friends/members. None of that detracts from how often and how close they are. And how they are constantly together. Choosing to spend so much of their free time together. And everytime people lose their minds about it, they make a comment about being "stuck like glue" over that time period.

It's a pattern, and the Rollercoaster of Insecurity has to be as exhausting for everyone else as it is for me. Why be puzzled when it's clear how much time they spend together. Especially when you saw people claiming they grew distant in 2021 (just like they are doing now) and memories proved how they literally were always together and they didn't even know the meaning of the word distance. People need to relax and I'm tired of repeating myself. 😭😅

Anyway. I hope this helped at least a few people recognize that this is just a pattern repeating itself again. And that you get bogged down by content and then confused when content slows down. But Jimin and JK have lives outside of content, which includes their relationship together. And lack of content, does not mean lack of contact between them.

#jikook #kookmin #jikook off camera #jikook dates #jikook over the years #jikook off camera dates #jikook stuck like glue #lack of content does not mean lack of contact #insecure jikook shippers

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mays-corner · 10 days

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(This post is a bit random so if you get it you get it if you don't get it it's fine)

It's 2024. I should be going to the disco, which I dislike.

Instead, I decided to hyperfixate on a Welshman.

One thing that baffles me to this day, and trust me it has happened more than once, is has anyone ever tried to protest at least a bit to still have Matt as John? Did no one try hard enough? Or have the attempts failed?

I mean-

I'm a newer fan (even with content crumbs I am a fan) still, so I can't be sure, but I'm amazed that in all these years that have passed, no one ever did anything, and now he can't even play Constantine (I think).

And now, the only role I've seen is him dubbing John 💀

Ignoring this discourse about John, I've decided to search for other roles, movies, and series, and what I've found was interesting, to say the least.

I am becoming passionate about him for various reasons. Other than wanting to revive pre-pandemic activities, I have noticed a pattern: I enjoy searching for things that I only watch. These are some thoughts I had about some things I could not find in Italy:

Hard to find (for example, I'm still searching for "The Halcyon," and the funniest thing about this is that in Italy, it was shown on TV (on an RAI channel, RAI is an Italian broadcaster) during 2017 and it's not available on their platform.

Region-locked content (the DCAU being region-locked is such a crime; we only have House of Mystery, and that's it) or even trying to watch a simple cameo when the entire series is region-locked (the Harley Quinn one). However (and this is good news), while searching for Away (one of his movies to watch), I found Tubi and used a free VPN. It was slow, but it worked, and I watched it.

Expensive (I paid Assassin's Creed Black Flag in installments, so that wasn't expensive, but still...)

It was a play, so they haven't recorded it, but to see and better understand the role he played (in this case, read), I read Thérèse Raquin by Émile Zola, and it was still effective.

Not even available on Chili (an Italian streaming platform on which you can rent or buy movies), the title only appears but is not available for streaming (lol).

Using Vinted or secondhand shops in general (it’s not the best time for me to go fully secondhand, but I suppose I could find some things there).

At the moment, I've watched just what I could easily find without resorting to piracy (which is ironic, since in Assassin's Creed Black Flag, Matt voices Edward Kenway, a pirate.).

In this list of things I could easily find, we have:

Constantine (thanks to another fan)

Criminal Minds/Criminal Minds Suspect Behavior (I had Disney Plus for a month, so I've watched it from there)

Flypaper, Adverse (Prime Video)

Arrow (Prime video)

Legends of Tomorrow (Netflix and Mediaset infinity)

House Of Mystery (Amazon prime, you have to rent it but still)

While writing this I found that "Layer cake" is on Sky, which I have and Now TV too.

Pocket Money (While watching it I just understood two words out of an entire short and I'm a c2 in English 💀)

Away, Wild Decembers, Armistice, Blood Monkey

So, you might have been asking yourself... Have I gone mad? To search and find for stuff not even available in my own country? In my own continent, too?

But I thought this is what comes with being a fan of someone, even if the career is what it is.

Considering me being unlucky, I was never able to see Matt when he acted and then had premieres at the same time.

Asssassin’s Creed Black Flag? I was 10, a child, lol.

Legends Of Tomorrow? I liked anime, manga and everything japanese.

And the list goes on...

It's nice to see what was like and what I couldn't live, gosh, I'm praying hard that we get to see him act again, I want and I wish to be present, live or not.

I wanted to make a really nice speech but nothing comes to mind, when I get it maybe I'll post it 💀

#matt ryan #nbc constantine

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wangmiao · 3 months

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Shipper Tag Game

thanks so much to @godotismissingx for tagging me again!

1. What ship were you completely obsessed with when you were a teenager, but now you don't care anymore?

i'll be honest LOL i was oblivious in stuff like this when i was a teenager. yes, i'd drool over celebrities and characters, but i never knew shipping was a thing.

2. Which ship would you consider your first one?

i got into the fandom culture very late, so my first ship was joseph chandler x emerson kent from whitechapel

3. Your first fanfic belonged to which couple?

i honestly don't remember. i got into fanfic pretty late too. maybe whitechapel as well?

4. Do you remember the first couple you saw a fanart over?

nope

5. Did you ever get into ship discourse?

i don't really do discourse most of the time.

6. Did you used to have any no-otp or have it currently?

i don't know how you define no-otp. like is it just something you don't ship, or you hate? there are ships that i don't like, and i just don't mention them at all on my blog. if you know that i've watched a show or film, but i never mention or reblog a popular ship from the show/film, that's probably my no-otp...

7. Who were the couple in the last fanfic you read?

LOL i'm predictable, shi qiang x wang miao (shiwang) from three-body. i'm especially into reading fanfic recently. one of the first things i check every morning is if there's new shiwang fic.

8. Currently, do you have any OTPs?

shiwang has been living in my mind rent free for an entire year now, and i haven't gotten tired of them yet...probably never will...

recently i'm into cheng bing x pan dahai from the lonely warrior and tang chuan x shi hong from the devotion of suspect x.

and just to name a few other otps: guang hongfeng x zhou xun in day and night, lee joongyeop x cha jaehwan from chimera, lee chang x youngshin in kingdom; cheng fengtai x shangxirui from winter begonia, agron x nasir from spartacus, jack x ianto from torchwood, and my first whitechapel ship is always very important to me.

9. Is there any couple that, to this day, you are extremely mad about not getting together?

i'm used to not having ships be 100% canon. what can you do? sigh!

10. Is there any ship you used to dislike but now you think they are kind of interesting?

can't really think of anything

11. Do you have any ship that, in the past, was considered normal but now you would be cancelled over?

can't think of anything either...

12. What was your favorite crack ship?

i don't really have one...xD...

13. Who is the couple you read more fanfics of?

definitely shiwang...i kinda stopped reading fanfic in early 2019 due to the original sin/原生之罪 drama and a family incident...i might have tried some fanfic occasionally, but i generally wasn't in a mood for fanfic until three-body aired in 2023.

another reason is back then, most chinese fanfic writers don't really use ao3, so lots of fanfic for day and night and original sin was on lofter and weibo instead of ao3. and it's a pain in the ass trying to track fic on those sites. but now, most of the shiwang fic would be on ao3. and because shiwang is very loved in cfandom, new fic never stops coming.

i do read western fandom fanfic too, but definitely not as much as the chinese ones ever since i got back into cdramas in 2017.

14. What most of your ships usually have in common?

give me all of the dilfslove or dld (dilf loves dilf) LOL.

enemies to lover is something i always like. though how you define "enemy" would be very different in different ships. i also tend to ship work partners (detective duos; cop & some kind of consultant; villain duos)

15. What you absolutely hate in a ship?

maybe the lack of chemistry? if i can't feel the chemistry between the actors, no matter how romantic or hot the plot is between them, i probably won't ship them.

tagging @bahoreal @xinxiaojie @yohankang @zhivchik @a-very-fond-farewell @randomingoftherandomness only if you haven't done this and want to do it; also tagging any followers who want to do this.

#hey i got tagged #shut up kun

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causesciencethatswhy · 6 months

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"You see, if people don't have the same respect for JK, that's valid. He chose easy success over everything else they stood for for years."

Dear Anon, if you just want an excuse to be able to hate and criticize jungkook, just say that. no sane army who genuinely loves and respects jungkook as a person and artist would ever say something like this over an album that was not written by him or because scooter was involved. some of you are trying to gaslight people into thinking it's okay to "lose respect for JK" and to criticize him in everything he does over some freaking song credits and marketing strategies and that's just wild to me. I find it hilarious that some of you are acting like suddenly JK is going against everything BTS believes in when BTS themselves used similar strategies when they released English songs like Dynamite and Butter (actually they even went beyond). your statement is basically saying that BTS themselves chose the "easy way out" and went against their own words. The only difference in JK's solo career is that scooter is involved and he helps get better playlisting. scooter has some good connections in the industry but he's not some mastermind behind the music industry that magically makes artists be successful. jungkook would have been just as successful without him, trust me. I just think that some people are not ready to admit that to themselves so instead they use the "scooter and "payola" (which is a dumb drag because if you actually know what payola means you'd know it doesn't apply to JK at all) excuses to discredit Jungkook's huge success. They can't admit that with or without scooter, jungkook would have been able to pull huge numbers by himself, even close to breaking BTS's own records. this all comes from a place of jealousy tbh... the jungkook "favoritism" discourse has been around for yeaaaars. even back in 2017, some deranged fans would trend hashtags for JK to leave the group because, in one specific performance, he got to be the center of the performance. year after year people would complain that he got the most lines in songs (he's the main vocalist, shocking!), that he'd be in the center of choreos and performances way too much (he's the center of the group, shocking as well!), that he'd get better treatment and so on... even though back then he didn't have any solo songs and he was amongst the members with the least solo activities, he was still portrayed as the favorite simply because he fulfilled his given roles within the group.

Truth be told, a lot of people have always had a problem with JK for "stealing the spotlight" of their biases whether they'll admit it or not. obviously, each member is targetted by solo stans and antis but JK's case is special because since he has so many roles within BTS and has the "golden maknae" title, he is often seen as perfect and is object of some fans getting jealous of him. this jealousy is showing now more than ever because now in comparison to the past Jungkook is active on social media, he does the most live streams, he always has a ton of content to offer, exudes confidence, gives off "idgaf" energy, and is often the talk of the town for everything he does because he's just that popular (even though each member often goes viral and is incredibly popular, some members often get more attention than others which is normal, it doesn't make the other members "victims" - looking at you solo stans). Plus, as we all know, confidence is a threat to people who are insecure with themselves so no matter how nice and humble he is, no matter how many times he talks about his goals as a solo artist, some people will paint him as a chart-hungry artist who only cares about achieving big numbers because he chose to sing pop songs in English and is confident about it.

I could go on and on about this subject but I think I made my point clear for the most part. People who genuinely love and support jungkook and are true "ot7" would never say stuff like anon said. You can be a critical fan and express your opinions about their music and even their marketing strategies for sure but "losing respect" for JK, seriously? acting like he is going against BTS beliefs when BTS themselves have followed similar strategies in the past for their English releases? I can tell when people have genuine criticisms but have a genuine love and support for the artist and when they just want to look for excuses to criticize the artist in question and anon, you're definitely not the former...

You put everything perfectly into words anon. Especially how people are threatened by his confidence and self assurdness . It's intimidates them and leaves a lot of them insecure. And yeah, jungkook being the 'favourite' discourse has been going on for as long as I've been in the fandom and at this point I do not give a fuck what any of them have to say. Jungkook and Bangtan are grown ups who are veterans in their industries. They do not need advice from fans with savior complexes.

#jungkook #bts #anon ask

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likeadevils · 1 year

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Hi! This is probably annoying of me to ask at this point, but can you explain the platypus milk thing? I haven’t been on tumblr since pre-rep 2017, so I feel like I’m missing something!!

the anniversary of the First Platypus Cult Meeting is coming up in february— the 24th i think? maybe 25? and @imhereonthekitchenfloor has all of the posts from that queued if you want to see the start of the joke, but the basic is

swiftie tumblr was pretty slow and had been for months

a few blogs were fucking around having food discourse (specifically about milk funny enough) earlier in the night but nothing was really taking off and people had mostly gone to bed

@singlethread was like. hey you guys wanna hear a fun animal fact? platypi don’t have nipples! instead they sweat milk!

queue the obvious question. what does platypus milk taste like

(here’s my claim to fame in the cult: nobody fucking knows. the only written record i can find of it on google is this guy richard owen (inventor of the word dinosaur, certified weirdo in MANY ways) who tasted, get this, the milk from a taxidermied platypus. he said it tasted mostly like nothing and a little bit like the alcohol-y scent of preservatives. i can rant about this for hours.)

(further research has yielded that platypus milk is high in fat, and thus naturally much more creamy than cow milk. this is still just an educated guess though nO ONE HAS TASTED IT AND THEN DESCRIBED IT ON THE INTERNET)

so that gets tossed around a bit and lots of very silly barely comprehensible jokes were made about everything and anything platypus related and it all had big like. sleepover past midnight everyone has lost their MINDS energy

god this is so chaotic i love you guys so much i want to send you all a friendship bracelet

a friendship bracelet with PLATYPUS MILK in it

hey guys we’re sounding a bit culty

oh my god guys swiftie blood cult

oh my god what if we make friendship bracelets with platypus milk and a little drop of our blood ❤️

and it was one of the first big fandom nights in the post-taylor tumblr sphere and kinda ended up defining what we were gonna look like and brought people together in a really wholesome way and is also just. a really funny topic of discussion so every few weeks we just start talking about it again! there’s a few Notable Cult Members (@thenighttrain lived in australia at the time and this was tasked with acquiring the platypi, @whoisidsbanyway-ewww and @imhereonthekitchenfloor were making a ton of funny jokes, i’m sure there’s like half a dozen other people i’m forgetting) but mostly the cult is nebulous and always accepting new members and jokes

#asks*#sorry for taking so long to answer this but it was truly just three conversations happening all at once and none of it was sane #but all of it was wonderful #platypus milk

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myjunkisyuzuruhanyu · 11 months

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Re: last anon, No, Fantasy on Ice isn't for retired skaters only, but you can notice certain patterns of who are the MALE, ACTIVE, SINGLES skaters they invite. Notice how Kao isn't invited this summer (he was last year). Notice how Shoma isn't invited since 2017. Fantasy on Ice only invites men (especially Japanese) who Yuzuru fans are less likely to be hostile to or feel insecure about, for the best of everyone to be honest. Shoma was received really coldly the last time he went in 2017, his Japanese fans still remember that. It's just a different audience from other shows. Like you don't see Shoma fans at The ICE mass insulting and giving backhanded comments on SNS to Nathan or vice versa, which was what happened to Shoma in SOI 2023 especially in the early shows when he was just landing 2A and 3S, implying he doesn't care about fans or shows by only jumping easy jumps (despite news of him getting injured at Worlds). Only in the later SOI shows when Shoma landed 4T and 3A (and after the One Piece on Ice news broke) the comments got a bit more even and fair to Shoma (and the fans who insulted him got busy insulting Kenta Kojiri who went to SOI and was disappointed that Yuzu was skating Ashura-chan instead of his more skating-oriented programs).

⬆️Here you have some additional information @anon!

____

Just saying in the audience I was in Osaka at SOI 1/4/2023 I didn't notice anyone being openly disrespectful towards any skater. You just could see that ppl were fans of different skaters. Some waved a Shoma banner, some a Yuzu banner, some a Kazuki banner or other banners of other skaters and different flags. The audience weren't all Yuzu fans either. As not everyone was giving Yuzu a standing ovation you could very well tell apart who's his fan and who isn't, same goes for every other skater there. So actually from my perspective it looked like a wildly mixed audience who all cared for different skaters. In my experience hostility is often used on sns and hardly directed at the skaters in the moment of the show. Not saying negativity doesn't reach the skaters anyway but at least not like this.

And y'all know more fans = more bad fans too...sorry but that's the truth...as Yuzu has the most...well...(this should not be an excuse for bad behavior just why objectively bad behavior is exponentially high with Fanyus BUT also bc it is sadly kind of popular to be an a**hole among Fanyus...sorry not sorry)

@rabidline Not sure if that comparison you used about Nathan at the Ice is a good one as Nathan is liked among Shoma fans a lot (and I feel like always was well appreciated) and Yuzu is not by a majority of Shoma fans. Who knows how the Shoma fans reaction would be? I don't think Yuzu would be welcomed by them at the ICE either...I don't think we will know though as this won't happen...so who knows 🤷‍♀️

Anyway Yuzu and Shoma in one ice show can be difficult which is a shame bc it should not be like that.

___

I actually don't follow any of the fan "discourse" or dissing or whatever discourse there is online from Yuzu or Shoma fans against each other since Worlds so can't say anything about it.

It's definitely for the better to not care about any fans. Never felt more at peace myself when I just don't read and don't care. I highly recommend not giving a fck. Was a long road to here and probably one that starts to waver once the actual competition season starts again...but whatever makes you feel peace DO IT...none of this fandom or any of the skaters is worth it tbh

#replies #or more like additional remarks #shoma uno #and additional ranting not directed at rabidline ofc who just gave more context #I feel like i am at a farewell point to the fandom...i just post what i like and watch what i like and that's it #at least for the off-season #I wonder how long this 'do not care' for myself will hold up but that's feeling good so far

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kimyoonmiauthor · 8 months

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Literary theorists being AHs to women and PoCs

‘cause if I have to suffer, then you should also know how much of an AH these people are, so you can examine if their theories are even worth believing or if you SHOULD pay attention to their blind spots instead of saying it’s irrelevant to literary discussion. Personally, I think the fact they are unwilling to mention PoCs, particularly Black people and willing to actively dump on women is very relevant to current academic discourse. You can’t ignore Kant’s views on women, and see that the majority of the people who won in the end were people who showed hatred towards women.

Robert Scholes being an AH, Page 26-page 28 (Hilarious, but also homophobic and misogynistic) For context, EM Forster is gay, which makes this really homophobic.

Picture credit: https://www.brownalumnimagazine.com/articles/2017-03-03/memories-of-bob-scholes

‘Cause you see folks, the only decent writers in the world are men, cishet men. (notice the sharp sarcasm here).

E.M. Forster on Gertrude Stein (From Aspects of a Novel, a series of lectures he gave)

Credit: Getty Images https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/licensed-image?q=tbn:ANd9GcSjNW-FA-n5bkXFk2MFmMGMcBy1SJtQj185hrMceQN_8rK2L-6f2cu7Ct-PooBt8M6Mt7ffTDt5SPHpj00

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/70492/pg70492-images.html

Granted, a Modernist (and gay himself, openly so at the time he gave this lecture), but still, the dumping on Gertrude Stein seems to be a tradition that extends to other people afterwards (Rowe did it sideways, Lajos Egri, directly). Seriously? Dump on the lesbian Jew trying to encourage ways to describe TRAUMA. OMG, we shouldn’t talk about trauma.

But I disagree heartily--we have entire story structures devoted to dreams that play with sense of time and reality *because* of Gertrude Stein. I mean, how could you conceivably get Inception without Gertrude Stein’s theories of how to move language and time? Besides that, you have Dream Diaries (Japanese), Dream Record (First Chinese then Korean--not imported into Japan because there was a war), and then the whole of Dream Time from Aboriginals which predate her. Non-linear storytelling has and can work--but you need thematic plotting to be stronger and tone plotting to really be tight (pacing helps, but isn’t as critical as the other two). Thank the Modernists for the European white version. I mean, Magic realism, anyone???

If you want to find ways to break linear time and describe trauma itself, and the feeling of missing time--Modernists are your best bet to find techniques to get you there. (Kinda Post Modernists, though I resent the focus on readers a lot--I heartily disagree, BTW, that Structuralists and Post Modernists are the same thing... as argued in this paper here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B0080430767039516.

Post Modernists tried to find further ways to break the rules and structure by bending to the reader.

Structuralists tried to impose a bunch of rules and binary. Like say, the panopticon and prison system/School system. There’s rigidity everywhere with Structuralists and Eurocentricism.) Or as the Raw and Cooked put it, a binary of acceptable and unacceptable, when some cultures don’t work off the Bible. So I think this paper here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B0080430767039516

is more likely.

John Gardner, The Art of Fiction for Young Writers, published 1983

Picture credit: https://blog.bookstellyouwhy.com/john-gardner-and-the-art-of-fiction

No one is surprised that its all men mentioned, right?

But what makes ignoramuses bad writers is not just their inexperience in fair argument. All great writing is in a sense imitation of great writing. Writing a novel, however innovative that novel may be, the writer struggles to achieve one specific large effect, what can only be called the effect we are used to getting from good novels. However weird the technique, whatever the novel’s mode, we say when we have finished it, “Now that is a novel!” We say it of Anna Karenina and of Under the Volcano, also of the mysteriously constructed Moby-Dick. If we say it of Samuel Beckett’s Watt or Malone Dies, of Italo Calvino’s The Baron in the Trees, or Kobo Abe’s The Ruined Map, we say it because, for all their surface oddity, those novels produce the familiar effect. It rarely happens, if it happens at all, that a writer can achieve effects much larger than the effects achieved in books he has read and admired. Human beings, like chimpanzees, can do very little without models. One may learn to love Shakespeare by reading him on one’s own—the ignoramus is unlikely to have done even this—but there is no substitute for being taken by the hand and guided line by line through Othello, Hamlet, or King Lear. This is the work of the university Shakespeare course, and even if the teacher is a person of limited intelligence and sensitivity, one can find in universities the critical books and articles most likely to be helpful, the books that have held up, and the best of the new books. Outside the university’s selective process, one hardly knows which way to turn. One ends up with some crank book on how Shakespeare was really an atheist, or a Communist, or a pen-name used by Francis Bacon. Outside the university it seems practically impossible to come to an understanding of Homer or Vergil, Chaucer or Dante, any of the great masters who, properly understood, provide the highest models yet achieved by our civilization. Whatever his genius, the writer unfamiliar with the highest effects possible is virtually doomed to search out lesser effects.

Gardner, John (2010-05-20T23:58:59.000). The Art of Fiction . Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

OMG, give this guy a prize, he managed to mention a Japanese man Kobo Abe. /s https://literariness.org/2019/04/15/analysis-of-kobo-abes-novels/ But then fails to mention the names of the authors of some of the novels he’s talking about (I’m literally begging Writer’s Digest, Knopf, etc to force these people to give better citations)

The closest he gets to noting a Black person is noting American Jazz on the page where Chapter 2 starts, and then fails to mention Jazz musicians. No, I’m serious. What makes a person an AH? The inability to mention a single work in 1983 by a female author?

Though the fact is not always obvious at a glance when we look at works of art very close to us in time, the artist’s primary unit of thought—his primary conscious or unconscious basis for selecting and organizing the details of his work—is genre. This is perhaps most obvious in the case of music. A composer writes an opera, a symphony, a concerto, a tone poem, a suite of country dances, a song cycle, a set of variations, or a stream-of-consciousness piece (a modern psychological adaptation of the tone poem). Whatever genre he chooses, and to some extent depending on which genre he chooses, he writes within, or slightly varies, traditional structures—sonata form, fugal structure, ABCBA melodic structure, and so forth; or he may create, on what he believes to be some firm basis, a new structure. He may cross genres, introducing country dances into a symphony or, say, constructing a string quartet on the principle of theme and variations. If he’s looking for novelty (seldom for any more noble reason), he may try to borrow structure from some other art, using film, theatrical movement, or something else. When new forms arise, as they do from time to time, they rise out of one of two processes, genre-crossing or the elevation of popular culture. Thus Ravel, Gershwin, Stravinsky, and many others blend classical tradition and American jazz—in this case simultaneously crossing genres and elevating the popular. Occasionally in music as in the other arts, elevating popular culture must be extended to mean recycling trash. Electronic music began in the observation that the beeps and boings that come out of radios, computers, and the like might sound a little like music if structure were imposed—rhythm and something like melody. Anything, in fact—as the Dadaists, Spike Jones, and John Cage pointed out—might be turned into something like music: the scream of a truck-tire, the noise of a windowshade, the bleating of a sheep.

Gardner, John (2010-05-20T23:58:59.000). The Art of Fiction . Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Iunno, is it glaring to you? It’s glaring to me. Avoid talking about Black people challenge. I can name at least a few off the top of my head. Dizzy Gillespie? Billie Holiday? Ella Fitzgerald? And then he mentions white people before then? I’m groaning.

And that’s the thing, particularly about Black authors/Black people, they are either not mentioned by name, but their work is--WTF, or totally skipped, probably because the whole of Black literature goes against these white men’s structuralism, and postulations. On one hand, I’m glad they left them alone, but on the other, the saying this is the only way, while glaringly missing the obvious really is sickening.

As for dumping on women--well... should we go back to Aristotle being an ass and starting the whole anti-choice campaigns because somehow Aristotle is Jesus, even though Jesus didn’t say anything about Ensoulment at conception? And then indoctrinated white women trying to rescue Aristotle from taking the axe because all of his scientific ideas were wrong? (Just axe him--he was popular with the Victorians for a reason--he was a misogynistic asshole and that reinforced their worldview very well.) (And if you think I don’t have references for the anti-choice statement... oh wait for it... I so have it)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ensoulment Wikipedia, but I found scholarly articles too--not sure you want to be buried with that. Aristotle is not Jesus. !@#$ And Aristotle thought women got their soul later than men, because, as I said, royal asshole, to the point I want to do a whole long rant about how much of an irrelevant ah he was.

#fuck misogyny #misogyny in academia #anti-blackness in academia #story structure and misogyny #structuralists #em forster #robert scholes #John gardner #aristotle is a misogynistic ah

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yoonieisakoreaboo · 2 years

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Yooniesim (ceci) has previously said tim (timmssimms) and mack (mack3030) are "desperate for attention and martyrdom" which is a valid statement, yet it seems she herself is in the exact same boat.

From July to September this year, ceci has posted 396 times. That's 396 posts in 3 months.

That is a stark contrast to the grand total of 0 posts in 2021 and 251 posts in 2020.

And let's think.... what major sims event/discourse exploded around this time?

Whether yoonie wants to admit it to herself or not, she is desperate for attention. This is the most traction her blog has ever gotten since she started it in 2017. It only makes sense that she would try to lengthen the sudden surge in popularity by continously going after new blogs and capitalising on the outrage culture in the community.

Yoonie's sentiment about paywalling makes a lot of sense, and I partially agree with her. It seems she has gotten sidetracked. Instead of "Uplifiting always free creators" like she said she would on Aug 4th

she has ended up posting useless ask after ask littered with millenial-coded shady kpop gifs for the better part of a month instead of cultivating the community she wants to see. What exactly makes her different from mack3030 or timmsimms?

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28whitepeonies · 2 years

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i think what this fandom is lacking right now (besides basic common decency and empathy towards closeted people and being respectful when they have to perform their closets sometimes) is perspective and expectation management. like for example, i’m seeing a lot of people saying that this stunt “feels like 2013”, and that no other girlfriend has been on tour as much as olivia and harry hasn’t had to “endure” anything like this before and ofc the whole hastag freeharry thing. but what people fail to understand is, this stunt looks different from anything we’ve seen before because harry is in a place he’s never been before in his career. he’s never been more famous, more relevant and, consequently, more visible. so it’s obvious that a pr/bearding relationship isn’t gonna go about the same way as it would’ve back in, let’s say, 2017. now, if you’ve had different expectations as to what harry’s life would look like right now, that’s on you. he’s under no obligation to meet those. and it’s really fucking entitled of fans to think they know what’s best for him than he himself does. there's just such a severe lack of nuance when it comes to this fandom and interpreting what goes on. and you shouldn’t be supporting harry because you need him to be your walking gay parade every day or if you’re just waiting around for him to come out because he doesn’t own you that. no queer person does. queer people don’t have to just survive, we’re allowed to live whichever way we want. also, i think i’d be much simpler if people simply just owned up to their feelings instead of fruitlessly attempting to come up with seemingly “ethical” reasons why a certain thing bothers them. like whenever there’s a new beard in the picture, it’s always like “oh this person specifically is BAD she’s the PROBLEM if it was ANY other person i’d be fine with it!” like c’mon now love we all know that’s not true. like just say that it bothers you when closeted people have to perform their closets then maybe try to redirect your anger and frustration at systemic homophobia as a whole and not individuals. (sorry for the rant, i’m a little worked up)

Good morning anon

Thanks for your thoughts. There's quite a lot in this, and surprisingly to precisely no one I have thoughts, so I'm probably just going to focus on the main points.

I do think that when an artist grows in popularity in the way that Harry has over the past few years that fans who have been around for a long time or who run fan blogs, and therefore often have high level of engagement with everything they do, have a lot of difficulty adjusting. Part of that likely comes down to how fans interpret different types of engagement. I don't think this is unusual and I don't think that it's inherently an issue if folk are able to recognise but that recognition doesn’t seem to be happening here.

I am not a fan of large gig venues, I'm always going to prefer venues of less than 2,500 people - the smaller the better personally. That means that if I want to see Harry (and I suspect after this tour, Louis) again I either go anyway or I don't right and whichever of those I chose is fine and if I go, and I don't have a good time I think it is important for fans to be have space to say 'I didn't enjoy this as much as x' or 'I don't think I'd go and see Harry again because y'. Where the issue arises for me, is when you start to make that a problem that Harry should solve. Ultimately I choose what I engage with and Harry chooses what he does.

Now let's apply that to beards - I think fans having space to say things like 'I don't like the way this relationship is being so heavily focused on because x' or I don't want to engage with media on Harry or Louis' relationships any more' is really important.

I also think it's really important that if you're having a negative reaction to something to think about why and then you can draw some boundaries. But a lot of the discourse around both Harry and Louis (but I am going to focus on Harry here) shows a real lack of interest in how the world works, the reality of being closeted, and a downright denial to acknowledge that they have agency here.

The position Harry has managed to create for himself continues to fascinate me, and while I think it's likely this relationship with Olivia was borne out of more traditional movie PR tactics (which are very fucking common people) it is useful to look at what Harry is also working on (ie My Policeman) and think about why such an act of heterosexuality might be required if he is to retain the ability to perform that he has at the moment.

Now in all of this my concern over how Olivia is treated by fans is actually far less to do with Olivia herself and far more to do with the implications of the level of misogyny that's being directed at her and what that tells us about the level of hatred being directed at a woman for her existence. I am pretty confident Olivia is capable of looking after herself, she's been in that industry long enough that I have no doubt she has encountered a whole range of misogynistic assholes, and if she's not what then I am saying in my little corner of the internet will not do anything to help. Equally, my concerns about the demands placed on Harry are ultimately less about Harry and are more about demands on artists and on queer people, in terms of how they should be representing themselves and at what point you might consider them to be queer enough.

And while I do occasionally spam post my thoughts on things I’m less interested in what individual people are doing (although as @jlf23tumble puts it I do care about blogs who have ‘hive minds’) I am far more interested in what is happening on a mass level because it’s when people act collectivelyvthat real change can happen, but equally (whether deliberately or not) where the real harm can be caused.

#anon #once again #sorry but this is a long one #long post #it is 8am #on a Saturday #you didn’t task for all this #but I read this while walking the dog #and then of course it sat in my brain

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rhiannonsage · 5 days

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Sufea Mohamad Noor

One of the first artist talks we had was from an artist called Sufea Mohamad Noor, and what a great way to start! she is an artist, curator and fundraiser based in Liverpool who completed a diploma in Cultural Heritage studies in 2014 and received her MA in Art Gallery and Museum studies from the University of Leeds in 2019.

Sufea’s artist talk was a step into a new world for me, as is the world of contemporary art altogether, and I found myself listening with deep intent.

Something that became apparent throughout our talk with Sufea was her interest in useful art and postcolonial discourse, within the context of contemporary art. Her practice involves text paintings, artist books, zines, printed textiles and communal meals.

One of Sufea’s first steps into the contemporary art world was commissioned by her art teacher, for the ‘cornmarket acoustic club’ “for traditional contemporary folks, blues, roots, covers and original songs”, in which she illustrated two birds singing into a microphone. – I found this piece particularly endearing, art for arts sake and with the intent of pleasing her teacher, a step into the world of contemporary art while it could just be for fun.

Something that Noor highlighted throughout her talk was the problem that lots of contemporary artists face when making art for other people, they lose the will in making art for themselves. Noor was told by a friend of hers at the Royal Standard to start making work for herself. I can see this being a recurring problem for contemporary artists – following their passion and making it their job, but in order to have an income, they take jobs where they are making art for others, there then becomes a danger of losing the love that they once had for making art – Sufea highlights that it is important to remember to make for yourself, even it may be hard to find the time, to stay connected to the love they have for their work.

Sufea’s choice in material for her work is particularly interesting, she loves using found materials, such as things she has found around the house. ‘there is a lot of value and fun and something quite human about making art with accessible materials, she touches on the problem of the climate crisis – she is aways collecting things and doesn’t think we need to go out and extract new materials when in a climate crisis, especially as an artist. So, instead, Sufea uses the things around her to create her works, such as, The Reality of Being a Working Woman (2017), which was made on a paste packet.

Sufea went on to explain her various jobs and opportunities, such as working with the Liverpool Biennial, taking part in the Assemble & Granby workshop for Turner Prize (2015), The Good Society Sunday Lunch for Bluecoat – all examples of making for others – one that stood out was the work she did for the Liverpool Biennial, for which she curated and exhibition with the biennial volunteers called ‘Recurring’ in 2013, calling themselves ‘Not Just’ as in not just volunteers, this led on to the topic of Sufea having to curate shows so she can show her own work, touching on another issue of how hard it can be for artists to showcase their work, this kind of effort put in by Sufea shows only a fraction of her resilience as an artist.

One of the things I found really interesting about Sufea and her work is her engaged role in her art and her society, it isn’t just practical art that she does for other people, her most interesting pieces and endeavours are the ones she does for herself, and you could see a shift in her when she spoke about these things. She had a larger sense of, well deserved, pride in her work. I found The Resilience Garden for the Liverpool Biennial (2018) a really interesting example of socially engaged practice. Sufea made tea and syrups from produce in the garden, using the beauty of nature and its functions to bring people together. Sufea used the natural elements of the garden to create something that can be enjoyed by everyone, bringing all social statuses together.

This leads on to the Sufea’s creation of the ESEA creative network (East Asian Networks) (2021) which marked the first official heritage month. This is s network about listening, sharing, healing, and helping, and their mission is to increase the visibility of their representation and voices in Liverpool and the UK through their creativity and community. the ESEA coffee mornings are spaces for the members to just talk and create for themselves, this kind of social practice and activism feels like the core of Sufea’s work, creating a space specifically for Asian artists to be supported and cultivated, breaking down the barriers that have been placed before them.

A piece of work that encapsulates this is Sufea’s Stop Asian Hate, for the Independents Biennial (2021). During covid when there was a lot of hate crime towards the East Asian communities. – Sufea spent her residency at the Independents Biennial to map out and understand the evolution of diversity and inclusion terminologies used to describe racially marginalised people. – Sufea believes in tackling big themes in her work, and also believes that you can challenge established narratives of race and interrogate post-colonial discourse without surrendering herself to a toxic ‘them and us’ culture, which frequently plays out in online spaces.

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hikarry · 2 months

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Are you reading the whole Dan Brown/Robert Langdon series? I tried but honestly couldn't go past the first one. To top it all off, the books are gigantic! I was absolutely bored by half of it

But someone has to read them so pop off king

I will read until one of them is so utterly awful I can't find arguments to like it anymore.

We have a very similar series by a Portuguese author here (but with 12 books - and counting - in the series instead of 5) and I was honestly committed to completing the whole series until I read the most ridiculous plot I've ever come across. Much like Robert, the main character is also a History teacher (in the faculty I study at btw) and most of the books were around history and religion till suddenly book 9 is about space and unidentified metal cubes that can eat metal and human flesh. At the end of the book, the main character supposedly dies in the middle of space, but in the epilog, somehow, he is alive and kicking and on Earth? When NASA made it pretty clear, there was no time to rescue him before the oxygen ran out from the suit? I stopped reading and collecting then. In my mind, Tomás died in book 9 in space. I'm not touching that collection again with a 9 foot pole

If the same happens to Robert's series, I'm also giving up and moving on to greener fields

So far I've read two of the collection. The DaVinci's Code I read back in 2017, and I just finished Angel's & Demons. I remember liking DaVinci's a lot back then. I was quite unimpressed by A&D. Like, sure, I read this type of book for the historical and religious discourse but...idk. Maybe I had my expectations too high?

I'm starting on The Lost Code and so far so good

I mean, Dan Brown is quite an easy light read. You don't have to think much, he is holding your hand through the plot the whole time

I like to read more plot heavy books in between his books/similar books to like give my brain a rest, you know? I'm entertained by the history and religion of it and, at the same time, not straining my brain

That said, could live without the romance. The Portuguese collection committed the same sin - going as far as making the main character a straight-up cheater in books 8 and 9 - but welp. I honestly skip those scenes. It's probably one of the reasons I read these books so fast

#asks #anon #dan brown

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maximonth · 3 months

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The Ethics of AI: Navigating the Moral Landscape

A wide range of stakeholders are involved in the development and application of AI: governments, corporations, researchers, universities, associations and non-profit organizations. These actors need to collaborate on how social, economic and political issues intersect with AI technology. Often, they must also consider the ethical implications of their decisions.

The question of whether the human mind can be digitized and turned into a computer program or algorithm is one of the most complex questions of AI ethics. While the answer to this question may seem trivial, it is a central issue for the future of our civilization (Seay 2017).

Science fiction has been playing with the idea of ethical AI for a while now, most notably in Spike Jonze’s 2013 film Her, where a user falls in love with his operating system. However, this is only a small part of the story. AI has the potential to influence our lives in many other ways, including in medicine and business, as well as influencing our culture, society and economy. This makes it even more important to think about how we should design AI systems and what the consequences of their use could be.

In his 2010 book Best VPN Services of 2024 The Moral Landscape, neuroscientist Sam Harris offers a framework for addressing these issues. He describes the concept of a “moral landscape” as a conceptual space representing all possible experience. The peaks of this landscape represent the heights of well-being, while the valleys represent the depths of suffering. According to Harris, there is no single best way to live, but different cultures and ethical practices can move people across this landscape.

Despite this, most of the ethical goals outlined in various guidelines remain to be largely unachieved or are being undermined by other trends. These include safety and cybersecurity, the science-policy link, public awareness of AI risks, fostering diversity in AI and social cohesion, the protection of whistleblowers, transparency and openness, or the military AI arms race (Lonsdale 2018).

The problem of opaqueness is exacerbated by the fact that AI is anthropomorphised, which leads to misplaced conceptions of its moral agency. In addition, the lack of mechanisms to enforce ethical principles means that there is no eminent threat from unethical AI – which has the effect of stifling its own growth.

To overcome this challenge, it is necessary to change the way we look at ethics in general and AI ethics specifically. Instead of focusing on checkbox guidelines technology website that seek to subsume as many cases as possible under the same universal principle, we need to build a more situation-sensitive approach, focusing on virtues and personality dispositions, knowledge expansions, responsible autonomy and freedom of action. In other words, we need to transform ethical discourse from a deontologically oriented, action-restricting ethic based on universal abidance of rules and laws into microethics that are sensitive to specific situations and technical assemblages. This will require a substantial shift from the description of technological phenomena to the creation of tangible bridges between abstract values and technical implementations.

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ailtrahq · 7 months

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Steven Schoenfield, former managing director at BlackRock BLK and current CEO of MarketVector Indexes, anticipates the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will greenlight a Bitcoin BTC/USD spot ETF within "three to six months." This prediction was shared during a panel on ETFs at CCData’s Digital Asset Summit in London, Decrypt reported.Schoenfield's remarks came in response to Martin Bednall, another ex-BlackRock director and now CEO of Jacobi Asset Management, who opined, “the SEC will probably approve [all ETF applications] at the same time; I don’t think they want to give anybody first mover advantage.”This insight into the evolving stance of the SEC towards Bitcoin ETFs will be of interest to attendees at Benzinga's Future of Digital Assets conference on Nov. 14. The event promises to shed light on the rapidly changing landscape of digital assets.Schoenfield's current estimate is more optimistic than his previous one, where he believed the industry would wait "nine to 12 months" for approval.He noted a shift in the SEC's approach, stating, “Instead of completely rejecting the whole list, they've asked for comments, which is a marginal but significant improvement in the dialogue.”He also referenced the Grayscale lawsuit, which the SEC lost, suggesting it might pave the way for the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust to transition into an ETF.BlackRock, a financial giant overseeing $9.42 trillion in assets-under-management (AUM), appears to be in a prime position to secure approval for a Bitcoin spot ETF, given its impressive track record of a 575-1 success rate with the SEC for ETFs.This potential move by BlackRock is a far cry from 2017 when its chief, Larry Fink, labeled Bitcoin as an “index of money laundering.”In a related development, Monique Le, the head of digital wealth and individual investor at BlackRock, is slated to share her insights at Benzinga's Fintech Deal Day on Nov. 13. Her appearance is particularly noteworthy given BlackRock's significant position in the ETF landscape and the ongoing discussions about Bitcoin spot ETFs. The event promises attendees a chance to meet and engage with transformative Fintech business leaders and investors. Given the caliber of speakers like Le, tickets for Benzinga's exclusive Fintech Deal Day are in high demand. Secure yours now to be part of this pivotal discourse in the financial world!——

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causesciencethatswhy · 3 months

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There have been several explanations, from the get go, that the companion program is a 24/7 deal. Not one, not two, but at this point at least half a dozen. I think anyone "having doubts" at this point just secretly enjoys creating false drama. Bit like when Jikookers are so bored with the lack of content that they start reading the cult crap instead of just blocking on sight as they should if they truly valued Jimin and Jungkook (and BTS). BTS makes zero drama about their situation, the same can't be said for ARMY so far. Especially in shipper spaces. As a Jikook lover from my very first day knowing BTS in 2017, I find disturbing that so called Jikook-supporters are more aware of the cult rethoric than most ARMYs. Maybe take a minute to wonder why that is and how healthy this is for your mental health.

I won't say that anyone having doubts , is secretly looking for drama. I would say it's quote the opposite, and most people who do get wrapped up in what antis/tkkrs are saying do so is because when you care very deeply and invest a high amount of emotional energy into anything, people who are trying to ridicule or diminish it's value get under your skin much easily.

I've also had my fair share of fandom induced spirals, where someone said something terrible or misinterpreted the words of the tannies or jkk and it really disturbed me for a while. I seeked out the thoughts of other fandom people I trust for reassurance. Is it the most healthiest way for engaging in fandom, not really. But it does happen and the best we can hope for, is that slowly we're able to disengage from the constant discourse without it affecting our mental health and if that involves seeking out what others in the same space as , feel, its not really a problem.

Insecure jkkrs that are hellbent on showing others that their opinion on jikook are superior or better are the ones that i personally really hate and avoid and block..

But yes, I do agree that jkkrs who constantly keep up to date with what tkkrs are saying and put them on blast to their big followings do more harm to jikook than good, and should refocus their energies to celebrating jikook/bts than the constant shooter Olympics. It's not healthy for themselves or any of their followers who are prone to anxiety and depend on bts/jkk as a safe space.

#jikook

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