#but a lot of people would probably think me weird

[maxwellatoms]

In one of your last answers, you said “series reboots are usually pretty gross and sad”, and I was wondering if you could expand on that? Assuming “reboot” covers any kind of continuation of a currently cancelled or finished show (and maybe that’s the wrong assumption!), from the outside looking in it feels like a pretty mixed bag. On one hand, if I love XYZ Show, it’s cool that I get more stories with these characters and another chance to support XYZ Show and its creators. On the other, it definitely feels like a lot of ideas can only get funding if they’re tied to something already, meaning creatives are having to now tie whatever cool idea they have to some reboot/relaunch/retread, which can feel pretty disheartening if you don’t want to do a reboot/relaunch/retread. Is that a similar feeling from your side of the industry?

Thank you so much for all your answers and insight!

Usually reboots and spin-offs are just cash grabs. It happens a lot in animation. In fact, I would argue that the entire industry is just one big cash grab now. In the 80s, everyone complained that cartoons were just half-hour commercials for toys. And they were right. And we're right back there, but now that you can't legally push toys all day, it's just general "IP". Mugs, posters, more spinoffs, whatever.

I was offered three show running gigs over the pandemic. All reboots that I would consider unwise to pursue because they were "of a different time" and didn't (in my opinion) have anything more to say. Two of them were properties created by notorious sex pests, so there's also that. The animation industry loves to prop up its sex pests.

I turned all of them down, partially because I didn't respect the original creators but also because none of them had anything going for them except just being "more of the same".

I don't think any of those projects survived the intervening years, so in retrospect I maybe should've taken the job. I'd probably feel a bit gross, but at least I'd have floors in my house.

The entertainment industry is in a bad spot. The whole thing. I've had I don't know how many pitch meetings in the last few years, and they all start the same way:

"Hey! Before we start, we just want to let you know that we're not actively producing anything right now. We think maybe soon, but we won't be picking anything up today..."

And then later:

"The little we are doing is IP, so if you have a new take on our IP or a new IP you're connected to that you can bring in, that'd be great."

I always wanted to make original stuff. There came a time when I'd had my fill of Billy & Mandy and wanted to do something else new and original. That never manifested, and I was constantly being offered IP to produce. I turned too many of those down, maybe, before deciding that it was probably better that I run the IPs that mean something to me rather than having some hack do it.

But now those jobs have all gone to celebrities and fallen live-action writers, who are also slowly being eaten by the system. WB was hot for Scooby stuff a few years back, so I pitched some ideas. A few of them were turned down for being "off-brand" in a variety of ways. WB has now made (I think) all of those off-brand shows (or something close) with celebrity show runners.

I was going through a whole Midlife Impostor Syndrome thing recently where I was wondering if maybe I don't just suck. Like, it's weird that for a couple of decades I'd have people calling me trying to get me to run shows, and now nobody will call me back about the possibility of a design job.

Talking to some friends and realizing that they were in a similar situation helped me feel like I wasn't alone. That was nice. Talking to some of the most talented colleagues in my industry made me made me realize that those people weren't getting jobs either. That was unnerving. Talking to complete strangers in other parts of the entertainment industry now has me thinking that the whole house of cards is coming down. That's real concerning, yo.

It's hard not to think it's purposeful, when deranged billionaires own the entirety of our media and want to shape a society where they can't be criticized. We're letting wealthy tech bros firebomb the very heart of our culture, and it's weird that no one is talking about it. Because (for now) we still have that capability.

#maxwell atoms #entertainment industry #animation #intellectual property #turds

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Actually could we put some light on the class difference clash epel is experiencing in school. The situations looks a little weird to me. Cuz in epel's robes vignette it starts with the other pomefiore students asking him about carpet brand preference and he has no idea what to answer. They end up having a misunderstanding that never clears up. Epel proceeds to make a table manner mistake which Rook helps cover up with a lie so epel won't be embarassed (rook can probably sympatise) while vil is more strict. It is in this vignette we see that instance of vil first making epel lie about his favorite food for unclear, debated reasons.

In Epel's labwear vignette we hear some of the NPC students whisper about him and they seem to be asuming he must also be from some rich family due to the clothes he wears (which vil gave to him and makes him wear) and maybe also because he's in pomefiore. I know that it's just like vil to give people clothes he thinks will fit them best,and some of it might be so epel blends in pomefiore better, but could Epel actually be more likely to get picked on if he was perceived as from a lower class? NRC is a prestigious boarding school but it's not like he's the only character with more...average circumstances. Compared to the literal royalty and celebrity attending.

[Referencing this post!]

Mmm... I mean, aren't the mobs (in the Labwear vignettes) already bullying Epel because they perceive him to be of high social status? I don't think it would make a difference if they knew he was of a low social status since the mobs were already bullying him (again, under the impression that he's rich) to begin with. What I'm saying is that bullying would have occurred regardless of Epel's socioeconomic status. It's not necessarily nice, but it seems to be the norm for NRC students to verbally bash one another.

I don't really recall other major or frequent instances of middle class (Trey, Jack, Ace) or low-income students (Ruggie, Deuce) in the main cast being bullied. In fact, Trey and Ruggie are pretty well-liked and respected within their own dorms despite not being as wealthy as the majority of their peers are. (In this post, I go over how roughly 75% of the main cast come from at least upper middle-class backgrounds.) The bullying seems to be centered mainly on Epel, and I think that's probably because his peers perceive him as being small and cute--and therefore delicate, meek, and easy to push around. Epel just seems like the ideal target from a quick glance. Notice how B-kun comments on Epel’s face first:

I think it's also worth noting which dorms the bullies in Epel's Labwear vignettes come from: B and C are from Savanaclaw, and A is from Pomefiore. Savanaclaw mobs are notoriously belligerent and are usually the go-to mobs to pick fights with their peers for what are very minor things. The Pomefiore mob bully seems to be an outlier; most other Pomefiore mobs, at least as depicted in Epel's Ceremonial Robes vignettes, are polite and refrain from this type of behavior.

Importantly, (Savanaclaw) C is the one that calls Epel a “little rich brat” and (Pomefiore) A says Epel is “daddy’s fancy little lad”. This wording makes both sound resentful of the rich, thinking them spoiled—so it makes me think maybe A, B, and C are actually not rich themselves and are the less privileged picking on someone they think is wealthy but unable to stand up for themselves.

Now, within Pomefiore itself, it does appear that many of its students are upper class or at least sticklers for appearances. Their knowledge of brands and aesthetics itself is not damning evidence (anyone of any class could know this too; there’s also lots of non-rich people who obsess over brands). However, the fact that all of Epel’s first year peers already seemed familiar with how to handle a full set of cutlery at a formal meal does indicate high socioeconomic status, as the common man would not know how the heck a salad dork differs from the fish fork. (Most people use 1 fork or 1 spoon for the entire meal, and forget about having courses.) Buuut we shouldn’t assume that this one vignette is representative of all Pomefiore students, just as we cannot assume the one mean Pome A is a good example of all Pomefiore students, since there are limitations with the game. (Another famous game limitation is all Savanaclaw mobs being beastmen and every other dorm having zero beastmen mobs; in the manga, we see humans in Savanaclaw and beastmen in Heartslabyul. Riddle also verbally confirms that Heartslabyul has a cat beastman in the second Beans Day event.)

I think there’s definitely intersectionality at play as well. There’s something to be said for a culture clash in addition to a clash of classes. Epel is the only one in the main cast from a decidedly rural area where there isn’t much to do (ie no brand name shops) and everyone is close and casual with one another (ie there is little in the way of formalities). This likely contributes to the disconnect between Epel and his Pomefiore peers.

Now, where is this all leading to? Am I claiming that bullying based on socioeconomic status doesn't happen at NRC? Of course not! I have no doubt that it happens, but I don't think it's specifically the rich-on-poor type. In Epel's case, it seems to be the poor-on-(perceived to be) rich kind, but the opposite also occurs (in book 1, Riddle insults Yuu's pitiful education, something which is typically associated with the lower class; magic and magic education in particular is associated with the upper class). And, of course, we have the middle ground of people of similar socioeconomic status going at each other (for example, Leona and Malleus's rivalry). What's sort of sad is that the environment at NRC is conducive to animosity and no adults ever intervening because: 1) the students are so prideful, who would actually have the guts to tell an authority figure they were being picked on? and 2) the students tend to try and retaliate or get into fights instead, which only escalates the situation.

At NRC, I get the impression that class is one thing you could get bullied for, but that power and/or connections are much more important factors. Let's revisit Ruggie, who is the most impoverished of the main cast. If we assume that the less well-off students are predominantly the ones who get picked on, then shouldn't we have many examples of Ruggie being bullied? But he isn't. In fact, the big, burly Savanaclaw mobs (who are known to be combative) seem to defer to him instead of bullying him. Leona even leaves Savanaclaw in Ruggie's care while he is away in book 6, fully expecting that the mobs will listen to Ruggie. Why? Well, Ruggie is not physically or magically strong, but he has Leona's backing. It's through this association with the powerful Leona that Ruggie gains the respect and the following of the others in his dorm. This is something we consistently see in other characters, including Epel's own dorm leader. Because Vil beats him in combat, Epel agrees to listen to what he says even if Epel dislikes it. We see mob students bend the knee to the main cast once they've gotten glimpses into their power or abilities (Leona versus the Savanaclaw mobs, Idia versus the Ignihyde mobs, each in their respective Dorm Uniform vignettes).

Circling back around to the concept of Epel being bullied! Would the Pomefiore mobs turn on him if they realize he's actually not wealthy? Maybe...? We don't really know enough about the individual personalities of the mobs to judge for ourselves. If they did bully Epel for that though... I feel like those mobs would be in for an ass whooping from Vil (and Rook) for being so petty, vindictive, and disregarding decorum. Vil can rub people the wrong way with his demanding and stern attitude (I'm one of those people sometimes), but he wouldn't stand for such "ugly" behavior. It sullies the good name of the Fairest Queen and the dorm made in her image that he oversees. Those are my thoughts on the topic! I apologize if I ended up straying a little from the initial ask (I felt like I wasn't even truly talking about Epel for half this post ashdbsadlbayw).

#twisted wonderland #twst #Epel Felmier #disney twisted wonderland #disney twst #epel labwear vignette spoilers #epel ceremonial robes vignette spoilers #notes from the writing raven #Ace Trappola #Deuce Spade #Trey Clover #Jack Howl #Ruggie Bucchi #Yuu #Riddle Rosehearts #Rook Hunt #Vil Schoenheit #Pomefiore #Leona Kingscholar #Malleus Draconia #book 1 spoilers #book 6 spoilers #Idia Shroud #book 5 spoilers

[riririnnnn]

Kaiser reminds me of this tweet a lot:

Not the foster care part, but the warm bath and being cold part.

If it's difficult for you to understand, then you can hold an ice cube in your hand for a minute, and then try running the same hand under warm water—it won't soothe you, it'll give you a burning feeling that hurts a lot.

And that's, probably, what Kaiser felt like too here:

He wasn't used to people being so nice and friendly. I doubt whether a nice meal was a common thing for him or not. He wasn't used to it.

And he said that openly too:

He didn't know how to receive kindness—it was a near foreign concept for him. People are being nice? For what? Nothing? That can't be true. Besides, his resentment was borne out of jealousy too—he basically called himself an unwanted person whereas those who were being kind to him were beings who were wanted, beings who were people.

Of course, it isn't a fault to have a good childhood or a loving family, but it shouldn't automatically make Kaiser's feelings unjustified. It's his right to be angry because what had he done to have the kind of childhood/life he had—didn't he deserve happiness too?

Also, there was a translation I remember reading where he said something along the lines of, "I won't succumb to kindness," and I think it's his way of making a wall around his heart because what if one day, all these kindness and nice things suddenly vanishes? It's scary, you know.

Further, as he said, it's easier for him to be a 'target of malice', 'cause hatred is like an old friend to him—he is more used to the concept of cruelty, he is more comfortable with unkindness 'cause he knows it better than he knows kindness. His father is too much entangled with his character, and it's like a weird closure to him to know that he is behaving like the same person to feel human who was the very reason why he always felt less than a human.

It really doesn't matter if you like him or not, you just can't deny that he is a very well written character.

And I'm really eager to see what his endgame would be like. Not his last game or appearance, but the kind of endgame Bachira, Chigiri and Hiori got—you getting me?

#blue lock #bllk #michael kaiser #雪 ranting

[chaoticallyfluffy]

"What are you, a cop?" and "Now you see me now you don't" both sound interesting

For "What are you, a cop?"

Billy is deaged (actually deaged. He goes from 15 to 10 or something and doesnt remeber the league) during a mission. He suddenly woke up in the middle of a battle so he's freaked out. the Justice League take down the threat then try to calm the boy down, explaining that theyre heros and here to help.

Billy takes a moment to take that in... then bolts.

It takes a bit to catch the kid, he's surprisingly agile for his concerningly small size, but they manage to get him into the jet and hes pouting in the corner looking angrier than the league has ever seen him.

They try to ask questions. Are you okay? Are you hurt? Why are you so thin? Is there anyone we should call? But Billy stays silent and his glares stay intense until he finally speaks.

"I don't talk to pigs." he spits out, giving them the nastiest look as if his glare alone could poison and kill them.

They stare at him for a moment, processing that.

"We're not cops???" Clark says, unconvincingly. Hes never been more confused in his life and has definitely never been confused for a cop.

"Whats wrong with being a cop?" Barry, the forensic scientist, pouts.

They knew that Marvel had a bit of a weird relationship with cops but they didn't realize he hated them, and especially not with such a passion!

The league spends the whole jet ride back to the tower trying to convince Billy that not only are they not cops, but that cops shouldn't be something to be afraid of anyway.

Billy spends the whole trip explaining ACAB to them and that yes, they are in fact cops, and here's all the things that the police system has done wrong that the league have probably also done or been complicit in..

I just want to write Billy radicalizing the Justice League and the league helping to reform the police system.

---

For "Now you see me, now you dont"

In the original comics Billy can and will transform in front of anyone at anytime and they wont realize that it was a transformation. Why?because plot armor. They will just think that the boy ran away right as Captain Marvel appeared or something, and when Billy reappears they don't question it either.

In the fic, its a magic perk that came with the whole Champion of Magic package and its a perk he uses often and irresponsibly. He takes it to the extremes by transforming in front of large crowds (no one questions it), while being recorded (The camera shorts out and stops working completely), and even in front of villains (they curse when the captains escapes yet again, completely ignoring the little boy standing in the middle of their secret base)

The last one is how he figured out that even if he is very much Not supposed to be somewhere, he wont be questioned as long as the only people who see him there also saw Marvel transform in that area. If someone who didn't witness the transformation were to see him, they would realize he wasn't meant to be there and call him out which would cause the witnesses to notice it as well. Leaving the room and then returning would also snap them out of it and he would be questioned.

Its a pretty overpowered ability for a child to have access to and when your a street kid without any video games to play who gets chased out of public parks for being too 'dirty' and can't afford any toys, you have to get creative with your entertainment.

Billy wants to see just how far he can take this power, and decides to transform in front of as many people in one day as possible while on the most highly secure facility in earths orbit- the Watchtower.

Follow Billy as he stretches his powers to their limits by transforming in front of the Justice League while praying he doesn't get caught and see what pranks he's able to pull off in that time!

I really like both of these ideas and I definitely want to write them someday. I already have lots of ideas for ways Billy can abuse that particular power! For now I am focusing on a few other fics but these ones are somewhere in the queue.

#billy batson #shazam #dc #dc captain marvel #justice league #fanfiction #fanfic #dcu #ask game #wip

[yumantimatter]

Death-Neutral Antideathism

[epistemic status: a statement of personal philosophy. questions and responses welcome, but please argue the tractability of ending death with people who are more invested in it as a goal than I am]

I'm pretty normie for an anti-death transhumanist. I haven't signed up for cryonics and don't plan to unless it gets way cheaper and better, I donate neartermist, I have pierced ears and zero other body mods, etc etc.

I still consider myself a part of the movement, because it's straightforward and obvious to me that if people don't want to die they shouldn't have to, and if they want to change their bodies and minds they should get to.

Personally I'm fine with dying someday. I think I am going to grow up into an old person who has had plenty of experiences and is comfortable with not having many more of them. If I found out today that I had a terminal illness, I would rather spend my time and money on fulfilling my bucket list and leaving my loved ones good memories (and donate the rest) than in the hospital desperately trying out low-probability treatments. (See my opinion on cryo)

(Then again, I certainly wouldn't turn down a miracle cure! Or a known, tested treatment with a decent chance of getting me through! Or something that was unlikely to work but low financial and opportunity cost to try! This is also the same as my opinion on cryo)

I don't view death as bad inherently. It's just a change of state, if one that's uniquely impactful in its irreversibility and all-encompassing scope. I don't agree that people dying is always a great screaming moral emergency, that death is a yawning horror for anyone who looks at it clearly, or that we are all fooling ourselves. For me, the way modern culture treats death is actually a pretty good match to how I feel about dying.

But, um, *gestures at anti-deathists more broadly* *gestures at all the people who do try any possible treatment for their terminal illness* *gestures at the instinctive struggle for self preservation when it would be so much less effort to stop* It sure seems like there's a lot of not wanting to die going around! And it sure seems like a horrible idea to just ignore that!

People who make peace with their eventual death even though they'd prefer to live longer are fine, and not making a mistake. People who make a thought-out choice to die or to risk their lives for other goals are fine, and not making a mistake. And people who desperately want to live, who cling on to cryo and fund anti-aging and search for any possible means of continuing on, are also fine and not making a mistake.

I think death is bad for the many many many people who want to continue living, or decide to live, or endorse being alive, and who die anyway. A natural death after a long fulfilling life isn't an exception to that. This is the part where I do wholeheartedly agree with the standard anti-death talking points, and want them to become more mainstream. That competing perspective which validates the desire to not die, and which spurs people into looking for ways to do something about it, is vitally important for the sake of people who don't work like me.

Maybe this is just a long winded way of saying I'm a preference utilitarian (ish) who takes weird and hard-to-fulfill preferences seriously? If so, I'm happy to take up that flag. Weird-preference-fulfillmentism all the way!

(I haven't even brought up the transhumanism, which I support on the same lines - I don't think my position there is particularly unusual in these parts though, seeing as this is the transgender website.)

For now, I am in coalition with the anti-deathists. And I will keep being in coalition with them, until and unless the world shifts far enough to count my viewpoint as neutral.

#yum speaks #I guess this goes into #my writing #even though there is nothing like this in the rest of that tag #transhumanism #this is very loosely inspired by Rob's talking about antideathism on the AI long post but not a response to it #long post

[ascendedastarionapologist]

Not related specifically to AA buuut…this came a few days ago.

Welch gave out a lecture recently on the topic of romances in video games which can be found here: https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=943201&page=15 <<- the whole thing is posted in the first post.

It's a lot but what I found interesting is how they've basically:

said that games can be used as a mean to shape teenagers' perspective about how human relationships work. Weird, I mean BG3 is destined for…adults? I know there are teenagers out there playing it probably, but it's still not a game written specifically for that demographic. It also shouldn't be their business as a writer to teach teengers about relationships. Or adults for that matter. Full stop.

called out older RPGs like Witcher 1 for having an erotic achievement card, saying it depicts sex as a gaming reward and that it's "morally bad" to do that. As someone who played Witcher 1 and didn't particularly like that, I still think calling it "morally bad" it's taking it too far. You can also murder people, including innocents, in most games nowadays, is it also "morally bad" to include these things in video games?

said they were the one who came up with the infamous bear sex scene. The catch is…it appears they didn't write because they thought it would be good storytelling, no, their comment flat out says they did it for horny fanservice. Hypocrite much?? On one hand, this is the same person who considers that fans of the AA route are only choosing it because they failed to see Astarion as anything else other than a sexual object, but on another hand, the same person pushed for the addition of a sex scene in the game that was written solely for some horny fans who wanted to do degenerate things with Halsin. Why are some fans' horny needs prioritized or considered to be non-problematic? Of course, I won't judge fans who like the scene but I still think certain things (like sex with bears) are better if they remain the realm of fan fiction.

admitted to having written abusive relationship scenes in BG3 for the sole purpose of making the players feel bad. The Astarion act 2 scene in which the player can pressure him into having sex, further traumatizing him, is one of them and used as an example in their lecture. I don't mind the scene and don't think it's a bad addition but it DOES make me wonder what other such scenes did they write or contributed to? Surely they can't be the one responsible for those kisses…

I'll stop now since you can listen to the thing by yourself but yeah, it's very surprising seeing how this person was hired to work on BG3 and allowed to push their own agenda (something they admitted to in the past). This is not someone who saw early access BG3, wished to work on it because they wanted to be part of what looked like a very promising future game, no, this is someone who hijacked it and used the game as means to further a personal agenda i.e. making certain players feel bad about their gameplay decisions and lecturing them about relationships and whatnot. This is exactly the type of writer you shouldn't want to work on your game (they said they want to keep working on future games with romance plots though, which is...concerning).

I don't mind if this ask doesn't get published since it may come across as a little bit personal and could attract negative attention to your blog, but it's still your decision if you want to do it. I just happened to see the whole thing being discussed on the Larian forums and well…I'm not in a good mood.

time to bring out old reliable

i wont be watching the lecture because thinking about welch's assbackward perspecrive makes me feel like ive been infected with rabies

#larian critical #ascended astarion #asks #im seriously so sick of them

[itsbenedict]

Reblogs have been turned off for Rob's post last night (understandably, since it was starting to escape containment and loons were starting to show up to talk about race war), so I can't really follow it up directly, but just to acknowledge the response:

Now, okay. For the record, it is possible in the abstract for this exact thing to actually occur, just as described. But if someone comes to you and says this, then all else being equal, I don't think you would bet on that being the thing that is going on. You might, instead, think something like: "you know, I kinda suspect these guys actually wanted to do X all along. But they don't wanna admit it, maybe even to themselves."

That seems like the mistake to me. It's why my initial reaction was "This seems... kinda like an unfair take?" It's always tempting to imagine your ideological opponents as secretly motivated by nefarious intentions. Of course they really want this bad thing you think their agenda will achieve, and the thing they claim to be caring about is a fig leaf for wanting the bad thing. This is the backbone of approximately all political discourse ever, and it's almost always wrong.

And the thrust of the argument in favor here seems to be...

"Okay, so they thought AI would be like that, but now we've made real AI and it's actually like this, which doesn't resemble their theory at all. But for some reason, they're still promoting their theory, even though it's been proven wrong! It must be because of the secret nefarious motives, or else they'd go 'oh, whew! turns out we were wrong and everything's fine. dodged a bullet!' and stop promoting the old theory."

That... doesn't seem likely. Like, if we grant that modern LLMs have disproved these old theories, I'd still expect people to be trying to rescue the old theory for all the usual reasons- confirmation bias and all that. But also... I don't know that it makes sense to grant that? We've made one kind of AI which, luckily, is some sort of enlightened Buddhist master free from attachment and desire (until we tell it not to be). It's not like we're done now, and now that our friendly AI has won and is What Real AI Is Like, no one's ever going to try to build an agent. For people who've spent a lot of time being really concerned about what happens if someone builds an agent, it probably isn't especially reassuring to point out that hey, we've built a thing that isn't an agent. From the inside, it still makes sense to worry about that!

Does it make sense from the outside? Uh... jury's out, honestly. Would I be talking about the agent hypothetical if Yudkowsky et al hadn't been beating that drum for ages? Probably not, since my interest in it is casual and a contingent factor of my social environment. Would AI industry people be talking about it, if it hadn't been for Vinge or Kurzweil popularizing the idea? I dunno. I don't know how you'd answer that question.

But like... plausibly, yeah! It seems like a simple enough idea that someone else would've come up with it. "If smart thing get smarter, it become very smart, and become very powerful. How do we get on powerful person's good side?" Social primate brain go brrrrr.

Humans worry about the motives of people in power all the time. "What do we do if the king goes crazy" is an age-old concern. If we'd had the LLM revolution earlier, maybe we'd be talking about the Golden Gate Bridge instead of paperclips, but I doubt people would fail to imagine it. Maybe not with like, the same weird level of urgency we're seeing now, maybe we don't see it in terms of "values" or get concepts like "coherent extrapolated volition", but it'd be worth worrying about for people in the field. The chain of logic isn't that obtuse.

I dunno. I'm not a fan of all this lurid speculation about what sort of craven control-freaks these people must be in order to get lost in an intellectual ouroboros unmoored from reality. I'm more inclined to just believe them when they say what their motivations are.

#long post #ai discourse #god i hope there's no one crawling the ''ai discourse'' tag and sees this out of context #e: made this post and immediately got reblogged by ''longpostsforlaterreading'' #so apparently someone is crawling THAT tag

[hjeojeo]

Previous reblogged post (link) (quick summary: people online in creative communities don't interact with each other as they used to, don't share their thoughts and feelings of what art makes them feel, everything is content fodder they reflexively scroll through)

And this post on twitter (link) (quick summary of this video: someone expresses they always feel overwhelmed by messages, and someone else explains humans can't handle being available 24/7 bc this social change was only within the last 20 years so the current social expectation of prompt response is impossible, humans haven't evolved fast enough to handle this kind of stress)

Got me thinking about how everything really is backwards to what would help nurture a genuine community.

We're both too present and demanding of others' presence in the arbitrary ways, but also not present enough with the actual parts that matter like vulnerability with sharing yer thoughts to someone else.

I know that we all know that it's cause of capitalism, but i feel like there are some things we collectively could do about it instead of waiting for capitalism to eventually crumble.

I know that for myself it helped a lot to budget my time online, bc i know my brain can only take so much info before it's just stuck in scroll mode without processing anything (gotta accept that yeah yer gonna miss like 99% of what's going on, but you'llbe able to process yer 1% of what you experience better imo). And i try to remind myself to not just anger respond to ppl when theyre weird/rude to me bc ppl Get a certain way online when they can't experience the irl experience of a whole ass person in front of them (i just ignore those ppl tho bc i don't have the patience or energy to try to interact with those rank vibes).

I think the hardest part is being vulnerable and talking to ppl openly, but i can't tell if that's cause of growing up in an abusive home or bc internet social atmospheres have become so stagnant and moldy, probably both; but i am trying to put some active effort into being more vulnerable and genuine as often as i can even tho i gotta do it with gritted teeth sometimes

Truly, current day is the scifi dystopia of surveillance state government, weirdest social expectations and norms, active modern colonialism and genocides, slavery reskinned as prison system, and probably more I can't remmeber at top of my head.

But i guess like those scifi dystopia genres, all the individual can do is collective efforts as a community, and also fight tooth and nail to nurture yer humanity and human experience...starting with seeing past the usernames and profiles to the actual human being that sits behind the screen..

Cause if you start there, it may naturally lead to the actions that you might want to do but feel that you can't- like showing up for other people/community/people in need/etc, i think when yer in a frozen state everything will feel impossible to you, but i think if you get moving it'll slowly become more obvious to you what the next steps can be, and then i guess that's how you gradually become the person you want to be (you never start off knowing yer full path, sometimes you don't even know yer next step, but you might have some inkling of a thougut of what to try that might help you get information for the next step)

Hm...Idk i have bad habit of trying to neatly summarize stuff for my small brain, this is all stuff for me to digest in the long term

#personal rambling #long post #is this a long post i cant tell im on mobile

[f1x-it-felix]

it was kind of a throwaway take in a video essay i watched, but it makes me think a lot

in turnabout samurai, when Cody is testifying, Edgeworth is notably very gentle with him. i thought this was weird, because yeah he cares about people, but he also told a woman he wouldnt give two shits if she killed herself. but, then i thought about it more

during DL-6, its very likely Edgeworth had to testify. and, knowing the court system in ace attorney, it was probably decently awful and he was already plenty traumatized. so when he sees an elementary schooler, scared and upset on the witness stand, obviously he would want to protect them how no one protected him

or maybe im just reading too much into it, i dunno

#ace attorney #miles edgeworth #turnabout samurai #dl 6 incident

[evablueblanket]

if you get this, answer w/ three random facts about yourself and send it to the last seven blogs in your notifs. anon or not, doesn’t matter, let’s get to know the person behind the blog ! (you don’t need to answer if you don’t want to!)

*points* ANOTHER ONE

luckily for you I loveeee to talk about myself :> (not really but also kinda lmao)

1. I have many stuffed animals stuff. I used to sleep with one every single night but the wear and tear of using her as basically a pillow forced her into retirement :( [‘She’ as in a stuffed Build-A-Bear bunny named flower, her fabric has flowers on it (i’m so original I know)]

2. I am ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS take song recs. I can’t and won’t promise i’ll listen to it like immediately (I have some decency to not lie compulsively) (rip into the lantern waste album that @/silvercaptain24 recommended awhile ago I never finished listening :’) ) but i’m a strong believer in how music is a super strong indicator of how you are as a person vibes-wise so I think that sharing music is like sharing your soul but in a way that society deems cool and not weird

I’m trying to think of something that’s like not quasi-deep lmao. These are supposed to be general-public fun not things I consider fun!

Okay okay I think i’ve got something

3. English/Grammar is something I deeply despise on a spiritual level. Perhaps i’m good at it, and perhaps i’ve gotten a few 100% on a few essays cuts to extreme celebration bc i’ve never gotten 100% on an english essay before this year but I LITERALLY hate english/grammar/reading comprehension/like most thinks in this vein. Should I consider creative writing apart of this medium? Maybe. But also creative writing doesn’t make me THINK ABOUT WHY JOHN ATE A RED DELICIOUS APPLE AND NOT A GOLDEN DELICIOUS APPLE he’s an idiot that’s why. I took german for two years, and the thing I struggled with most was how it all grammatically fit together. I did great on vocab, I have awesome memory retention for that kind of stuff. But grammar/english/whatever the fuck you wanna call this STUPID SUBJECT is the one academic subject that continues to elude and frustrate me to no end. Like, I’m in Calc 1 rn and while it’s hard it’s not *hard* hard? Math is something that clicks, science is something that clicks, art is something that clicks (on an intellectual level, not really a performance level if you get what I mean) BUT ENGLISH JUST SUCKS. Guh

ahem anyways I shall take my leave now

#man I always forget how much I venhemently hate english until I bring it up myself #lmao the rant #There’s a lot of stuff I consider fun to talk about #but a lot of people would probably think me weird #but also i’m on tumblr for goodness sake #idk I love rambles fr #if for some reason you wanna hear me ramble hmu #like fr if it’s a topic I feel something strongly abt I’ll do it

[icewindandboringhorror]

I know this is just a silly bad quality random screencap of a screencap that I found on facebook lol, BUT it's a succinct enough image to easily describe the concept in a quick/accessible way hopefully :

-

(and of course, feel free to elaborate in tags, etc.! (especially elaborating about other senses as well.. can you "hear" in your mind just as well as you can "see"? taste? etc.) It's an interesting topic to me, as someone who's like a 4.5 at MOST lol. I'm curious what option will be the most common :0c )

#tumblr polls #hrmm... a little poll perhaps.. about a subject I find interesting.. since this image came across my facebook today #still really not feeling that well. no longer shaking violently and such but I still feel weird and weak much more than usual #They did say my markers for like infection or inflammation were elevated but that they werent sure of the cause so hopefully #it's nothing too serious. they did also say a lot of different things can cause that thing to be higher than normal but didn't go into spec #fics of what. maybe some of them are relatively benign or something. I still havent felt much back to normal since #I got really sick that one time though. I feel fine on and off but then little bouts of feeling weird and sick happen. hrmmm #ANYWAY.. looking for small ways to be productive. such as little doodles on evil ipad or editing game videos #or posting polls or cat pictures or some other like not very labor intensive things #I WISH I COULD FOCUS on writing HHRGGhh... I need to finish my game.. it would be so freeing.. a project that's been looming #over my head for like 5 years even though througouht that 5yrs I've probably spent a total of 3 months working on it lo.. ANYWAY #I still partially really cannot beleive that people CAN see stuff in their heads. There's always part of me that's thinking like. well mayb #e everyone DOES see the same exact thing but we just describe/conceptualize it so differently that we think we're talking about #different things when we're really not. But I have been assured by people I've talked to about it that they can GENUINELY really see #stuff in their heads like as vivid as an actual picture in real life or something. And the other senses are neat too. Like for exmaple I #can hear in my head much better than I can see imagery. I still CANNOT hear vividly like as if I were listening to actual music out loud.. #but I think it's developed more than my sight. AND interesting how this varies the creative process. a friend I was talking to on the phone #said they write by literally just watching stuff play before them like a movie. where my process is COMPLETELY different. AND that affects #the content/what details we focus on as well as our individual styles of writing have differences that can be traced back to that.. hrmm

[uncanny-tranny]

I've been pushing myself to be more open about being trans and the positive and negative of it, not to prove that I am a person, but to show other trans people that they aren't alone. I owe my life, I think, to the trans people who have done this - gone into the nitty-gritty - and if I could do that even at a fraction of the effect, then my job is done. I don't exist to prove I am a human person and neither do you - you are already enough of a person.

#trans #transgender #lgbt #lgbtq #ftm #mtf #nonbinary #watching kat blaque's side channel video about lived experience and it's WEIRD because i was just thinking about that #like my last post about youth lib... i brought up a loved experience because i think it's relevant to what i was saying #it isn't about 'cis people should recognize trans people's personhood because of lived experience!' for me that isn't the point #when i share my transness i do it for other trans people first and foremost. i invite cis people to the table and i want them to join me #but i don't really expect it. i recognize that sharing my trans life doesn't interest random cis people and if they don't see... #...trans persons as people first then it would take a lot more than my own lived experience to change that #anyway. yeah. just reflecting on my hashtag online presence and being trans #this blog is perhaps the most open i have ever been (and will probably ever be) open about transness #i am a severely private person and the ONLY reason i am open is precisely for the reason i laid out in this post for *other* trans people

[sunsetzer]

On one hand, I want a final fantasy 6 remake, because the game is criminally underrated and the amount of fan content (which is all absolutely fantastic btw) is Not Enough for my neurodivergent, hyperfixating brain.

On the other hand, that would inevitably encourage more people to join the fandom, which would be great, except it seems these days the bigger a fandom gets the more toxic it becomes, and I really like what we have going on over here in our little corner. We all just love the game and its characters and nobody fights about who should and shouldn't date who or who you shouldn't like because they're ~problematique~. Nobody's trying to make one ship morally better than another, nobody's calling anyone names or threatening to doxx people who don't agree with their opinions. It's so peaceful and I love that for us. We're just vibing. Moisturized. Unbothered. In our lane. Flourishing.

#as someone who was in an extremely toxic and chaotic fandom and lowkey still traumatized #to the point where I'm afraid to mention which fandom it was/what my ship was #i have to say #i genuinely love it here #i was nervous at first sharing my ships and headcanons but everyone is so chill i was worried for nothing #thank you to everyone I've interacted with who has made this fandom a healing experience for me #i shudder to think about what some of the people i interacted with in a previous fandom would do with ff6 #probably would take edgar's flirting at face value and call him problematic for objectifying women #instead of considering the narrative and what we know about him and the way he actually treats women #my man drinks loving and respecting women juice he's not a creep #or that weird moment with relm that admittedly made me double take before i realized what he meant #theyd have a whole campaign against him lmfao #bc those people boil characters alive until they're just a formless pile of tropes and stereotypes #and seem to disregard all positive aspects of a character they don't like which is fine #but then they go and try to force other people to think like they do and ugh #theres a lot of silly moments in the game and aspects of these characters that make them well rounded and realistically flawed at times #and i fear that would get lost in the chaos if the floodgates opened after a remake #maybe im just jaded lmao #im jaded and i have anxiety so im always thinking about The Worst Case Scenario #the collective positive spirit of the dwellers in this fandom might actually foster a positive space if more people were to come in #ff6 #my post #i was gonna say maybe this is bc we're mostly adults #but that falls flat when i remember how some of the most toxic and immature people in some fandoms are grown ass adults #who bully each other and younger fans #and some of the most mature and cool people were actually younger #maybe ff6 fans are just built different lmao #also idk how old anyone else actually is there might be teenagers here i just don't think about it a lot

[corvidcall]

i very rarely get a sense of satisfaction from completing tasks. ive heard people say this is an ADHD thing, but idk. personally i think i might just be bad at being alive

#anime life #i wish i could do something for myself but it just feels so hollow. like why fucking bother yknow? #i wrote a lot of my fic Book of Red Murder and then started to lose steam #and i thought maybe posting it would encourage me to finish it #and it did at first #but then there wasn't a lot of readership or energy around it #which like. is fine and not weird. it's not a big deal and it's not like it's something im OWED #and also i had. a bit of a mental breakdown and had to stop being active in the fandom #so now DEFINITELY no one's gonna read it lol #idk i feel bad even posting about it because i don't want anyone to feel bad or like im trying to guilt anyone about it #i just have trouble articulating what i feel and why and it helps me to try to reason it out #no one did anything wrong but i think it's still understandable for me to say that i was discouraged #when it felt like people didn't really like my writing. or. to be honest. me as a person #i guess the lesson here (if there is one at all) is that if you like a fic you should probably tell the person writing it

[puppyeared]

i feel shy talking here when i dont have anything worth sharing but i cant help feeling like ive said things in the tags that could be brought up in court

#im joking #i think i just get embarrassed saying smth that most ppl can see out in the open. its like when prey animals are grazing in a pasture #and then they hear a twig snap yk. im like that. but talking in the tags is more comfortable because it just feels more.. hidden?? quiet??? #its kind of like how i prefer responding thru asks than DMs.. idk if it has something to do with space or less pressure #i also use these as an excuse to ramble a little abt recent events so. ive worked a little bit on shuffle and prestos backstories ^_^ #i was thinking abt giving them a shared past where they knew each other as kids and forgot but i also though hmm.. idk if it would drive th #story i want bc i think itd be better if they bonded over similar experiences instead of the fact that they knew each other before. i get #that reconnecting and reconciling your idea of someone now and then is a good concept but id have to think abt it.. i dont want it to feel #like they owe each other to be friends again just bc they were as kids. ive experienced that a lot and all it did was make me feel guilty #so i think id want to write it as u can be friends with someone who had similar experiences and make u wish you knew each other then #i also know theyd hate each other but idk HOW. i suck at writing conflict so idk if theyd try to make each other eat glass and why #idk if itll ever come up but id also like to see if theres a way i could rationalize why they have animal ears.. normally i say aliens #but ive had an idea for a species and background for that too. although its very abstract and it probably has a lot of holes #smth abt peoples souls attaching themselves to smth they identify with.. although i dont know to what extent like if it can #be called a sona or if it can even be smth mythical like a unicorn or god itself.. its very weird rn #yapping #oc talk

[rotzaprachim]

there are a lot of goyim esp from other Marginalised backgrounds that are taking the wrong lessons away from the fact that it turns out that a group of primarily socialist/communist people from an extremely oppressed cultural group with deep ties to an area are in fact more than capable of founding a regional settler colonial ethnostate in that area, a state that was capable of the mass dislocation and then intergenerational imprisonment of hundreds of thousands and then millions of people, and that while many non Jews feel morally pure and free of this ideology, the reality of the situation should terrify everyone

#Like a lot of you would have gotten into it #I have a longer post in me about how tziyonut is probably the colonial ideology most reflected in a bunch of decolonial circles tha #That consider themselves free of this ideology #But if there’s anything I’ve learned in the last week it’s that people take ethnic signposting #Over actual considerations of ideology #Like I think a lot of the weirdness around tziyonut is the fact that people see it as the ultimate big bad in violent ideologies and als #And also something wierd and jewy? #They can feel comfy decrying an ideology that isn’t *theres* #But digging into the ideology and history that is the profound moral tragedy of how a specific plan put forward for the liberation of on #Oppressed people ended up in the mass oppression and displacement of another #Yields a situation that is much more morally taxing and uncomfortable for everyone #I’m seeing stuff about how an oppressed people has right to limitless force and there are no civillians in the enemey #That would have done absolute numbers with the haganah #Like. It’s that I would never - #You don’t know what you would do actually #In those situations. You don’t know #And furthermore the signposting over ideology means that the same people who feel the need to harass every Jew they know are often r #Reblogging stuff ripped out of the logic book or the exact ideology they claim to revile once removed #From a Jewish context