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thatlittleegyptologist · 8 months

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On places like tiktok and youtube shorts I have seen an increase in AI generated videos. By far the most popular genre i have is history/ historical conspiracy. How do you feel about people essentially auto generating fake history?

I mean, how I feel largely doesn't matter because I'm no one.

The problem we have with the over proliferation of memes/AI/short form content is that it discourages the viewer to seek anything deeper and with more and more people relying on this content for news/facts/entertainment.

We already know the dangers of how social media gives tiny serotonin boosts, which keep us coming back for more (see: doom scrolling, and outrage baiting), so we get addicted to only seeing things in very short bursts. Long form content, which would likely discuss things with more nuance but doesn't give a person that serotonin, boost i.e. it's boring, so people abandon it for the short form and don't read anything longer that would likely contradict the short video they saw. They implicitly trust what they see to be true, and therefore will spout that until it becomes 'fact' because of course it is they saw it on TikTok right? (see the post I reblogged yesterday where someone said 'oh there's a third shaker in a historical condiment set and no one knows what it is' in a tiktok...and...it was immediately debunked but no one on tiktok is gonna know that because they've just scrolled away for their next serotonin hit).

This goes in hand with the trend over the last decade or so of actively saying derisive things about academics (from any background) that are usually dressed up in the guise of progressive language, but is more or less the anti-intellectual rhetoric we've seen from those who'd prefer you didn't listen to academics. You know the stuff 'academics are hiding X from us', 'academics don't want you to know this', 'academics hate X group of people'. This sort of behaviour allows those who can play on your ignorance to further manipulate you by discouraging you from seeking more information because you now no longer trust the exact people who could give you the right information. It's an Us vs Them mentality, which has proved so lucrative in partisan arguments. You see it here on Tumblr all the time in the 'if you like X show you're bad an irredeemable and you must be blocked, but if you agree with me you're good and righteous'. Or the way people will treat headcanons about history as fact. Someone, way back in 2011, headcanon'd Hatshepsut as trans because they were trans themselves and they liked how she used both pronouns. I remember that post well. Somehow it morphed into 'no she's definitely trans and all those Egyptologists who are like 'hang on wait what no that's not how that works?!' are in fact terrible people who are denying you the truth and are transphobes' (yes, this is a continual fight that several Egyptologists have here and no matter how we phrase it someone claims we're covering something up and it's Frustrating). But again it's the 'you either accept our way of thinking or you're a bad person' mindset. It's all facets of the same behaviour.

So how do I feel about it? Helpless. I can try and try to get people to listen, to maybe stop and think about things for a second before they just blindly parrot it until it becomes a 'fact' that I can no longer fight without someone insulting me. But the people making this content do not care about whether it's true or not they just want the views and I cannot fight against people who wish to lie to you for the superficial boost having thousands of views on a 20 second video gives them. It is exhausting. I can't stop them from doing it, so all I can do is be prepared to sit here and write another long cited post where I have to explain that the truth is far more complicated and nuanced than you will ever get in short form content.

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musashi · 1 year

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I’m Going to Change Your Mind About Manfred von Karma: An Essay

alright been a while since i was particularly autistic on here but I’ve been meaning to make this into a General Masterpost for a while so here we go.

Today on Autism: the twitter/tumblr AA fandom, manfred von karma, over-villainification, and why fanon manfred (fanfred) is in fact fanon and indisputably a freezing cold take.

alright, so first we have to define some things. first off: what the fuck am i talking about when i talk about “fanon” in relation to mvk?

specifically, i am talking about the interpretation of his character that i see mostly prevalent in tumblr, twitter, and AO3 as spaces. this interpretation pretty universally places him as an unrepentant child abuser. the extent of this abuse varies from fanwork to fanwork, most often it is verbal but occasionally it is physical instead or in tandem. usually this abuse is directed at miles but often bleeds into franziska as well, with some alternate takes proposing that one of them is the favoured child and the other is wholly disposable in manfred’s eyes. again, which is which can vary. i’m not going to go into explicit detail about this, but just for a quick visual aid, let’s utilize AO3′s tag filtering system.

as of this moment, if you go into mvk’s tag on ao3, there are 1102 total works that he features or makes an appearance in. ao3 allows you to filter out tags you might not want to see, so i’ve gone ahead and done that with all the child abuse tags i see used on the site, as well as a special custom tag the AA fandom has for mvk specifically. that should be the first indication that this particular interpretation about him is common. here’s my filters:

doing this knocks the work count down to 943. that’s roughly 150 works shaven right off the bat, and that is 1. only the works people bothered to tag him in and 2. only the works they bothered to content tag. there are countless fics about miles and franziska where he is not a central character, but his proposed abuse is a part of the narrative important to them as characters. so these numbers don’t even fully exemplify the problem.

having spent some time in multiple AA spaces, i have noticed this interpretation only really seems prevalent on tumblr, twitter, and AO3. in other fan spaces like discord servers, forums, on youtube, in twitch communities, i literally do not see this anywhere.

so. why is this the prevailing interpretation on these websites? well, that one’s easy for me to answer: miles and franziska are incredibly queer & nd coded. they are incredibly full of trans/gay swag and incredibly autistic, and miles isn’t just coded as neurodivergent, he very loudly very canonically has PTSD that causes him to struggle with everyday life. this is played straight and normalized in canon. there is no disputing this.

historically, queer and nd people are not treated very well by, well, anyone. including our own parents. we have sky-high rates of child abuse among us for perceived imperfection, and the rest really just writes itself. we latch onto characters that we see ourselves in, and we write what we know, and unfortunately what a lot of us know is heartbreak.

this is bolstered by something i noticed just anecdotally, having read through the entire mvk tag a million times: people who are attached to miles and franziska tend to write him as an abuser. people who are attached to any of the pre-DL6 crew (gregory, gant, & blaise) do not.

to get this out of the way, there is... literally nothing wrong with this. there is nothing in canon that contradicts that opinion about manfred. there is no problem if you want to write him that way, and if writing him that way is a form of healing for you, i want you to write it to your heart’s content. i want you to write and write and write until one day you feel better, and then i want you to write some more. listen. i love you. i feel you. i understand.

the problem is that this opinion has become SO parroted (hahaha, like the-- like in the game when--like wh--) that it has now been more or less canonized in the eyes of this swath of people. it is not canon. it is a headcanon. i will hereby be referring to this headcanon’s version as “fanfred,” because it’s fucking funny and my clown shoes honk and squeak as i move.

when challenged on this point (“what basis to we have for manfred von karma being abusive to his children?”) here is the one single piece of evidence that team fanfred brings to the table, these lines from case 1-4 of AAI:

here, manfred brushes off his daughter’s attempt to connect with him and calls miles worthless to his face. undoubtedly, and without question, there is no part of this that is not incredibly fucked up.

but... i do have some counterpoints, regardless.

point 1: AAI, imo, should be considered dubious canon. it was not written or directed by takumi and there are a lot of little inconsistencies in characterization that seem to fly over the AAI team’s heads--the biggest one for me personally is how in the AA trilogy, franziska never ever uses her whip on miles, except once in bridge when he’s having a trauma episode. this is a very small piece of characterization that means a lot to the people who notice it! but it’s ignored in aai, where she whips him nonstop like he’s an unruly showhorse.

all that to say, the aai team has their own interpretations of these characters. there are subtleties they miss, and choices made that might seem obvious upfront but fall apart under a microscope. this is kind of how i feel about mvk being kind of a shitty dad here, especially because...

point 2: this is ooc even for this game. reminiscence is a case i have memorized front to back, these lines come out of fucking NOWHERE. the tone set for miles & manfred’s relationship at the beginning of the case is not adversarial or unpleasant! they talk about the case with one another, very politely take turns proposing ideas and theories, and miles listens enraptured hanging on mvk’s every word. he wants to do good. he wants to be perfect. and mvk wants to see to it that he achieve that goal. if rell and faraday hadn’t gotten murdered, we would have gotten mvk as co counsel! every day i think about how we were robbed of that. nothing leads up to this line above. it is weird, confrontational, triggered by nothing, and way out of left field. not to mention directly contradictory to what mvk said at the beginning of the case, claiming to expect perfection from miles. it’s a weird fucking outburst, a sudden statement, which brings me to point three:

point 3: lead poisoning. more on that later.

[EDIT APRIL 2023: holy fucking shit. alright, nevermind, throw all this off the table: this line was a fucking mistranslation. as one of my youtube commenters pointed out:

‘The Investigations quote is actually a translation error. Karma didnt call Miles "Worthless" on the original JP version, he calls him "半人前" what means "an amateur / someone without experience" (what, for every single meaning of the word Miles actually IS in this case. It's literally his first case and he wasnt supposed to be anything more than a assistant untill like 5min before the game starting).

The translation put a really heavy amount malice on Karma's phrasing that simply doesnt exist on the original (and I actually got my DS the first time on years to confirm this). Maybe because they knew so many fans had this vision of Karma (or are "Abusive Karma fans" themselves), because there's no way this kind of translation wasnt done on bad faith... It's the worst option you could take (as in: the only one that wouldnt work in the context out of 10 others) and seems like a proposital Character Assassination on the translators part.’

so, holy fucking shit. i was right. it WAS ooc, because that shit was thrown in randomly in english for no apparent reason]

but even if we DO decide to consider AAI indisputable canon. then that, i feel, opens up a whole new can of worms. if AAI is canon material, what else can we consider canon material? because i’ve got quite a lot of material of one manfred von karma from other dubiously canon sources, and uh. the fanfred crowd is not gonna like it.

from the mangas we have manfred keeping no less than 5 photos of franziska on him at all times and showing them off to his opposing counsel with little to no prompting. we have him screaming at badd to keep a careful watch on his kids, not wanting to deny them their time at a real crime scene investigation but being worried to the point of seething rage.

(a bit more subtle, but from this same manga we have him getting his feefees hurt because kay calls him scary. i really love this because 1. it’s a parallel to pearl doing the same thing to franziska in bridge, and 2. it’s just really funny that von karmas want little girls to like them and view them as heroes of justice so bad but are constantly dissuaded by their resting bitch face. manfred has two daughters, he’s so used to little girls thinking he’s cool.)

in the live action movie, we have a beautiful scene where mvk and miles talk about the importance of not losing yourself in the pursuit of courtroom victory. i really love mvk in this movie. my friend once described him as someone’s grandpa who’s just lost in the mall.

in the anime! oh! the anime! let me count the ways i love thee.

in the aftermath of DL6 manfred comes to move miles out of his empty childhood home. seeing him balled up and unresponsive on the couch, mvk takes off the scarf he’s wearing and wraps it, tenderly, around miles before escorting him out of the house.

by miles’ own admission, he considers mvk the only person who was there for him after his father died.

sound the turnabout melody, an episode about miles’ life growing up with the von karmas, is my favourite piece of ace attorney media in the history of ever. it contains:

mvk asking and outright encouraging miles on the prospect of being a defense attorney

franziska, age 8, who has noticed that the new boy living in her home has never once smiled. she spends the whole episode trying to figure out ways to fix this. she demands (demands!) mvk

take them to a trial

take them to the mall

take them to fucking IHOP

and mvk complies with all of this. he buys franziska build a bear, and when she’s too sad for pancakes because miles has run off after his dog, the two of them go searching.

by the way he lets miles keep his dog, too.

the reason miles ran off is because he happened upon a criminal and saw through her lies. franziska and manfred fall back around the corner, watching him seek the truth and corner her. when she begins to get unruly, they step in, presence imposing as they protect miles. there is a lingering set of shots on manfred’s powerful finger snap, his eyes burning into her, and franziska with her riding crop, ready to fight a grown woman three times her size. miles is a part of their family. they love him.

miles apologizes for all the trouble. mvk says, let’s get pancakes. miles wins several thousand dollars in reward money for finding a dog and says, can i donate it to an animal shelter? mvk says, of course you can. it’s your money.

mvk was intending on only looking after miles temporarily as a foster parent. he states, outright, that he suspects this impulse came from guilt. he says, in few words, that he regrets what he did, and views taking on miles as his karma for it.

the episode is about miles feeling lost and alone, like he has nowhere, like he has no future. he doesn’t want to be a defense attorney anymore--it reminds him of what he’s lost. mvk watches him corner this criminal, and thinks, quietly, are you a prosecutor, boy? at the end of the episode, after franziska and mvk have solidified his importance in their family, manfred ties a cravat around miles’ neck. miles understands this gesture means he is a part of their family and, for the first time in years, he smiles with his whole face. the episode ends with him finally feeling as though he’s found his truth, his place in the world.

many people interpret manfred as losing respect for miles, berating him, or being otherwise cruel and abusive to him when he loses his first case in turnabout sisters. in the anime, he just seems perplexed!

he gives him some advice about not having feelings. it’s cliche anime villain, but fuck’s sake, it’s not cruel and unusual. today i experienced a fanwork where manfred slapped miles in the fucking face and called him every horrible thing under the sun.

in every single canon i can think of, there is more evidence that manfred was exactly as he seems--a stern mentor, who is cold and calculating and precise, but who has a clear charisma and functions as miles’ rock. in every single canon, miles loves and respects him. miles wants to be more like him. miles views him as an irrefutable part of getting through the trauma of his father’s death. franziska, too, talks about him with stars in her eyes in every canon. he is everything she aspires to be, he is her hero. fanworks where manfred forced these children to be mindless prosecuting machines pale entirely in comparison to what is in these ‘dubious’ canons, where they choose what they do because they want to stand tall beside him.

so. let’s talk about what manfred von karma is instead of what i personally believe he isn’t.

manfred von karma is a despicable fucking human being. he robbed two men of their lives. he ruined the life of every single character in the OG trilogy. do you have a character you like in the OG trilogy? manfred von karma ruined their life. every single horrible thing that has ever happened in ace attorney’s og trilogy happened because of him. and it didn’t even happen for a good reason. it happened because he was a petty, vengeful, impulsive coward of a fucking man who could not process or face head-on one single, meaningless imperfection. it happened because there was a gun at his feet and no one around to stop him. and he almost got away with it. he was so close.

he is a murderer. and a cold, calculating manipulator. he is both a fucking idiot and highly intelligent in covering his tracks. he is all these things.

so... why does he also have to be abusive?

isn’t... doesn’t that kind of... blunt the tragedy of it all?

what is a more heartbreaking story to you--

a monster of a man, imposing and cruel to his proteges, controlling and vile and unconvinced of their worth, exposed for the murderer, for the criminal he is? or...

or manfred von karma, stern-browed but loving father, who leads them with a steady hand and holds them when they falter, who was supposed to be their guiding star, and who turned out to be the monster in the shadows all along?

what is more compelling? miles and franziska finding out the truth, and shrugging it off with a, well, that makes some sense. or miles and franziska, curled up in one another’s arms in an empty house in germany, desperately combing their memory in tatters trying to look for a sign, any sign, anything they could have pinpointed that could have clued them in on the fact that he--

but of course there wouldn’t be anything like that. von karma is perfect.

turnabout goodbyes is certainly interesting. there’s a lot of really unhinged shit going on there. herr turkey vulture is off his fucking rocker in goodbyes. the level of premeditation is a very interesting contrast to the impulsivity of DL6. not to mention it’s just a very fucking random thing to do, framing miles for murder. it’s the one reason i can kinda see where the fanfred crowd is coming from, because it is just... pointlessly evil. what revenge is there left to get? gregory edgeworth is dead. he cannot see his son be jailed.

this brings me back to lead poisoning. i don’t really have anything more to say on that, or a big analysis to give. i just think maybe we should talk about the very real possibility that mvk is lead poisoned to shit. he acts kind of crazy sometimes. calling his kids worthless out of nowhere when 2 seconds ago they were all just talking normally. screaming in the middle of court cause his routine got interrupted. framing miles for murder in excessive detail. just girly things. i feel like his brain just rotted and rotted and rotted as the years went on until eventually he was like YEAH sure whatever i’ll really stick it to gregory, the corpse, by framing his son. that’s just my onion, though.

some other things that annoy me are when people make him transphobic, homophobic, all the phobics, again it’s all just so... excessive. but i get REALLY pissed off when people make him ableist. if you want to write ableism, ace attorney has a billion able-bodied characters you can use for that agenda. manfred von karma is disabled. in canon. i feel like it’s kind of a slap in the fucking face to erase that about him.

again, i personally find the story less compelling if he was abusive. i find it shallow. i would much rather read about someone loved and revered exposed for the monster they are. i want to read stories about franziska shattering to nothing and sobbing in his room when she gets the call from miles, trying desperately not to think about the way her father used to sing her lullabies and bring her sweets and teach her calligraphy. i want miles to be trembling in the defendant’s chair while that metal detector beeps, i want him to be staring at his shaking hands unable to believe it, trying to find any other line of thought. i don’t want their reactions to ANY of this to be ‘yeah, that tracks.’ i want denial. i want heartbreak. i want screaming in the detention center.

it is fine if that is not what you want, but i am tired of the reception my take gets in fandom. people on this website have not only forgotten the rule about not tagging your hate, but they are insistent that their interpretation is the only one. they act as though fanfred is the only truth. they act as though it is canon, and they call us abuse apologists for disagreeing. i once saw someone in the mvk tag saying if you liked manfred or kinned him you were a horrible person. i rather like my mvk kinnie friend. all he does is cry over seals, talk about thomas the tank engine, and come into the group chat where he then proceeds to tell dad jokes in character. he’s really good at motivating me to do my laundry.

if you need to process some shit you went through growing up, i love you. if you want to write what you know, i love you. but please understand that i, as an abuse survivor myself, am not compelled by narratives of abuse. i am not compelled by torture porn about the characters i relate to. i was not given a happy, loving home growing up. it’s for this reason that i want to give the characters i love and relate to what i was deprived of.

i want to change the fandom’s mind about manfred von karma. i want to shift the narrative away from this my way or the highway mentality. if i didn’t, that’s okay. but if i did for you, maybe give me a reblog, or come talk to me abt him :] he is my favourite villain in any series ever, i think. i’d love to hear what others think.

#pwaa #ace attorney #karuma gou #manfred von karma #wendy rambles #wendy rants #simmering sapphire

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miles-edgewords · 2 months

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I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how much I wish we were taught in school how to interact with people online (and just how to use the internet in general) and then I remembered that I can type.

So, without further ado, I present…

How to Argue with People on the Internet

A (sort of) comprehensive guide on discussing everything from world peace to your blorbos

Forewordwarning: This is a long (but hopefully useful and entertaining) post. You have been warned.

SECTION I: The Decision

I have read SO many posts that essentially say “want to stop getting annoyed and fighting strangers? Just don’t! Simply do not!” and if that works for you? Fantastic! That is commendable and I salute you for it and I’m only a little bit jealous. (Okay, maybe more than a little bit jealous.) But if you’re like me—an absolute yapper, that is— you will likely find yourself in quite a few situations where you simply must yap. The urge is too strong. The stupidity of this collection of pixels on your screen that may or may not be the vessel for another human somewhere in the world is too much and you just have to tell them so. I understand. I will not tell you to hold back. I will, however, advise that before engaging with any individuals, you follow a few simple steps that I like to call “RAT”— otherwise known as Rest, Analyze, and Type.

Let’s say, for a moment, that you’ve just run into a comment hating on your favorite character in your favorite TV show. Yes, that one. You want to reply—but wait—you’ve just remembered to use RAT first! You intelligent human, you.

First, you REST. You take a moment to bookmark the comment (whether mentally or literally is up to you) and you step away from your phone (or you do what I do and look at that one youtube video of a parrot asking Alexa to fart 939472 times, you know the one) and you wait. Is this comment something you’re willing to take time out of your day to handle? There’s absolutely nothing wrong with deciding that it is, in fact, worth it— but it’s important to consider it first. You won’t ever have time to talk about the things you’re actually passionate about if you reply to every comment that bothers you. (Trust me— I’ve been there.)

Now, if you’ve decided to continue, reopen the comment and ANALYZE. This can mean many different things depending on the situation: is this comment generated by an AI? Is this person expressing a genuine opinion, or are they a troll? Have other people argued with them? If so, how did they respond? These are all important questions to ask, but it’s okay if you don’t know the answers to all of them. Just get the best information you can; you can always come back to this step later.

Finally, it’s time to TYPE. Let those words fly, friend! You tell ‘em!

SECTION II: Debating vs Fighting

So, you’ve RATted it up, and now you’ve decided it’s time to yap. But how to go about this? Should you be aggressive? Appeal to the enemy? What to do? Don’t worry, I’ve got another acronym for you! It’s time to take MOUSE into account: Motive, Openness, Understanding, Success, and Education.

First, think about your own MOTIVE. What do you want to accomplish? Do you want to change the other person’s mind? Are you unconcerned with changing their mind, instead going in with the intention to change the minds of others who might be reading through the conversation? Do you not care about changing anyone’s mind and simply want to discuss the topic at hand? All of these are valid, but they’re all very different. Deciding what your goal is prior to replying is one of the most important things about debating, whether it’s over the internet or face-to-face.

Once you’ve got that cleared up, it’s time to consider your OPENNESS and UNDERSTANDING. How open are you to potentially having your mind changed? Can you see a piece of truth in the other side of the argument? Do you understand where the commenter is coming from, or are they just being ridiculous? It’s okay to have opinions you aren’t open to changing on a whim— everyone has core beliefs that shape who they are as people. But sometimes looking at the other side through a lens of open-mindedness and a desire to understand is the most effective thing you can do. Give it a try— the worst thing that happens is the other person being just as bad as you thought they were.

Next, it’s time to address SUCCESS. What would succeeding look like here? This is similar to MOTIVE, but now we’re looking at the potential completion of the debate. What is the outcome you’re striving for?

Finally, EDUCATION. Is this a fact-based topic you want to educate people about, or is it purely opinion-driven? Either is fine, but if it’s fact-based, you should brush up on the facts of the situation— you don’t want to be caught in a lie and potentially humiliated, I hope. Also, misinformation on the internet is a huge issue. But mostly the humiliation thing.

Section III: Tips and Tricks

My last acronym contains an assortment of tips and tricks for internet usage and communication: Consent, Anonymity, Privacy, Yapping, Blocking, Apps, Reason, and Ability (CAPYBARA).

One of the most important things in life and on the internet is CONSENT. Now, this doesn’t mean you have to ask permission to voice your opinions— just that you should take into consideration the actual, living person on the other side of the screen. (Unless you’re arguing with an AI, in which case I suppose it probably doesn’t care much one way or the other). Ask before you DM people unless they state that their DMs are open. If someone blocks you, DO NOT make another account to harass them (yes, even if they’re really terrible). Consent online may look different than it does in real life, but it still follows the same ground rule: when in doubt, ASK.

ANONYMITY is another important thing to consider when you’re surfing among the virtual tides. Remember that even if someone displays their real name and picture on a website, you still don’t know them. They could be someone entirely different from the persona they’ve put up on the internet, and that’s okay. We all act differently depending on the situations and settings we’re in, and that’s dialed waaaay up when social media allows us to literally customize ourselves into what we want other people to see. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t treat people as if they’re real, but it does mean that you should take everything with a grain of salt— especially if someone is being an absolute jerk.

Okay, PRIVACY is the one section in here that anyone under a certain age probably did learn in class— along with its annoying younger cousin, PIRACY (you wouldn’t steal a CAR, would you?) You probably know by now that you shouldn’t share personal data online, so I won’t go into this one too much in this post. There are a billion textbooks about it, and as important as it is, it’s not something I’m really qualified to cover. Just don’t do anything stupid and you should be fine.

YAPPING— everyone’s favorite thing to do on the internet! For the most part, this is a reminder that you should have fun. If you feel like you can’t yap about your interests in the space you’re in, maybe you should relocate— whether that’s to a different app, a different blog, or even just to a different comment section is up to you. You should feel free to voice your opinions and talk about the things you love (within reason—don’t get yourself on an FBI watchlist—but you get the idea).

BLOCKING is one of the most underrated features on many social media apps. There is absolutely nothing wrong with blocking someone and moving on. It doesn’t make you a coward; it makes you someone who values your own time and safety. You are never obligated to argue with someone just because they said so. And—this is one of my favorite internet secrets—you can block people you agree with. If someone’s posts are well-meaning and useful, but they upset you or make you uncomfortable? You can still block them, or mute/restrict them if the app you’re using allows it. You are not a bad person for not wanting to see things that upset you in your day-to-day life. You can support good causes without reading about tragedies every morning. Digging yourself into a depressive hole isn’t going to help anything. Please, please use the block button. It’s there for a reason.

APPS are another variable you should consider when catering your online experience. For instance, you can make a nuanced post on Tumblr and more realistically expect reasonable replies because you aren’t confined to a tiny amount of characters. Trying to express the same point on Twitter, however, likely risks people getting extremely angry at you due to the nature of the app not allowing nuanced conversations. That’s not to say Tumblr is necessarily superior— just that they’re different areas with different setups. The reason Twitter is so no-nuance a lot of the time isn’t just due to the people— the app is deliberately set up so that users can’t make multiple points in one post. This also attracts people who don’t want to have nuanced conversations, which feeds the cycle. This is an (extremely oversimplified) explanation of why most social media apps feel so separate from each other, even if you follow all the same people. You should know your audience—but you should also know your stage.

It’s important to have a certain amount of REASON and common sense when you’re talking to someone about the skrunkly little guys in your favorite movie. It’s not that you can’t be passionate—I once essentially made an entire powerpoint presentation about why I think my opinion about a fictional cat person is the correct one—but you need to remember that not everything is the same level of seriousness. Expressing an opinion about whether Team Rocket are actually villains is not the same thing as expressing an opinion about the upcoming US election. (Though I think Team Rocket could potentially do an okay job, to be honest. Meowth 2024?) You can 100% have intense, long discussions about fictional characters, but it’s never worth genuinely harming your own mental health or attacking someone else because of an opinion that ultimately doesn’t hurt anyone. It’s okay to agree to disagree.

Lastly, remember that a lot of this is not intuitive. Your ABILITY to make smart decisions online is a skill that takes time to develop (as is evidenced by 99% of past me’s Twitter posts) and it’s important to give yourself grace. As much as the internet hates to admit it, we all make mistakes. Just own up to those mistakes and move on. It’s okay to delete a post you made because you don’t agree with it anymore. It’s okay to come back to an argument and apologize for going too far. It’s okay to not be perfect. Accept the consequences of your own actions and move forward.

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maudeboggins · 5 months

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that somerton plagiarism video is really eye opening. this is definitely something i've notice in the past few years. i would look up something, do some very basic research (like read the wikipedia page) on topics such as food or fashion history. then i'd look up videos or podcasts to learn more. and the people making these videos or podcasts (who often describe themselves as historians) are just parroting the wikipedia page! sometimes they do things to make it seem like they're doing original research by speculating on topics, but it's almost always poorly done (i don't want to give real examples since i dont want to drag anyone but reading a wiki entry about, say, medieval headwear then "speculating" on how it was made or worn rather than finding books or articles by real historians who explain the construction and wear isn't research it's just lazy). it's bothered me so much because i'd love to have videos i could watch with real research presented in an accessible way but lately i'm finding that just getting like, textbooks or history books by academic historians and researchers provides a lot more real information than "youtube historians"

but the worst is that when it's a topic i don't know about, i don't know if these "youtube historians" are doing real research or reading wiki pages. like i saw a video that said "audrey hepburn popularized short hair for women" which isn't true historically, or even for the time period (the whole point of roman holiday is she gets inspired by the existing italian cut!!!) but it's presented as a fact from a "fashion historian." but then i know a little about 20th century hair and fashion and audrey hepburn so it's easier for me to discern that that fashion historian is not a good historian.

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smallishbabes · 2 years

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The Smallishbeans Fan Starter Guide

Have you seen Smallishbeans in videos and/or on your dashboard and thought “hey he seems cool I wanna check him out” but don’t know where to start? Well this post is for you!

“Who is Smallishbeans?”

His name is Joel and he’s a British survival builder who appears in SMPs such as X Life, Empires SMP, and 3rd Life and does lots of challenges like doing hardcore for 24 hours, not using a crafting table, and spending 100 days in a world to name a few. He’s the MCC competitor who keeps spilling his keyboard and had to get a sippy cup for the tournament, first person to ever 1v3 and did it against pink parrots MCC 8, won MCC 10, and attained the lordship Joel Jumperman after getting 8th place in MCC 9. He’s also LDShadowLady’s husband and frequently collabs with her. He was initially known for playing Call of Duty, in fact Smallishbeans was his Xbox gamertag, but now he’s the Joel we all know and love, who loves to cook, loves his wife, is a big nerd, got two pets, loves to mess with his friends, and play in block game :)

He also looks like this, this, and this (the last one is his og skin and the one his current skin is based off of):

And here are a few examples of his builds:

“Where can I find him?”

He posts videos and streams on Youtube. He usually streams when it’s MCC b/c he personally doesn’t like the stress of streaming but he has streamed plenty of times before in the past. As of when I’m writing this, he’s planning on streaming more during Empires season 2. He also has a Twitter and Instagram if you wanna check him out elsewhere. His channel also links to his clips channel, Smallishbeans Clips, and extra videos channel called, More Smallishbeans.

“Where do I start?”

Anywhere! He doesn’t have any heavy lore if that’s what you’re worried about. I think the only thing he references is Jeremyism, which is a religion centered around naming everything Jeremy and also praying to Donkey Jeremy which he did during X Life. Joel doesn’t reference other series too unless it’s multiple seasons and he usually mentions it offhandedly. I’d say just start with a one off video or short series and then move to a long series.

“How would you describe him?”

Extra, sarcastic, overconfident while also being insecure, crazy, mean girl, pathetic, funny, angry short king, and bi wife

“What videos do you recommend?”

I’ll give you my favorites!

1.16-1.17 100 days series

24 hrs of hardcore again

Empires season 1 & season 2

Double life series

Last life series

100 hours of hardcore

Him making mcyters do parkour for money

X Life series

“Any Smallishbeans blogs you recommend?”

Aside from me, there’s also minecraftbee, sarioh, elbowreveal, mcytheap, pebbltree, condorclaw, unicornhazel, savviathan, navy-leader, pockopeas, harley-the-pancake, king-of-mezalea, digdeepergravedigger09, renchanters, and devilart2199-aibi. Obviously there’s tons more I haven’t listed, but these are good to start with. (Also if you’re a Joel blog and reblog this, feel free to use this post to promote yourself. The more Joel blogs the better)

That’s all you need to know! If you have any further questions or if you just wanna talk about Joel, feel free to ask me! I admit, I’m not a Joel encyclopedia, but I’d be happy to help as best as I can! Have fun watching him! :D

#mcyt #smallishbeans #joel smallishbeans #empires smp #trafficblr #empires smp s2 #empires season 2 #llsmp #dlsmp #double life smp #last life smp #mcc #i think those are all the ones I mentioned #it’s not the most perfect thing but hey no one else did it so here I am #long post #arah post

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stheresya · 5 months

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recently i was watching an youtuber react to a right-wing conservative complain about evil being too normalized in hollywood nowadays. he was upset that villains always have sad backstories that, in his mind, were an attempt to justify their evilness. and one of the examples he cited was kylo ren from star wars. he thought the idea of rey (the heroine) and kylo (the villain) falling in love was absurd, because kylo was evil and thus did not deserve love nor sympathy from any of the good guys. isn't this familiar? only i'm used to hearing this from people who claim to be in the opposite side of the political spectrum.

this also reminded me of another time i witnessed another right-wing influencer call grrm "sick-minded" for including incest in his work. mind you that this person was a fan of asoiaf and did not have any issue with all the other violences in the series. only the incest was just too much. this made me think of antis who occupy horror/gothic fiction spaces who looove spooky aesthetics and gore but lose their minds if someone holds special interest in a problematic character or relationship or, heaven forbid, if someone eroticizes the grotesque.

i'm from a country where the death penalty is outlawed. my country also has one of the highest crime rates in the world. of course, this could be explained by the fact that we have a lot of social inequality as a result of centuries of colonization + some imperialism because we're America's backyard. but some politicians and influencers try to get it all that this is a morality problem, that some people are just born rotten, all to justify them enforcing harsher security policies (re: killing people), which obviously affects poor the most. they hate the idea of morally reprehensible characters being humanized in media because it puts to question their black and white worldview, a view that is only possible through the dehumanization of 'the other' (usually poor and bipoc). the idea that people resort to crime because they are led to by the harsh conditions they live in infuriates them because, in some way, it puts these people as victims of their circumstances, victims of a harmful system that they keep enforcing. and so they need pop culture to keep reinforcing the good vs evil mentality, because nothing is more threatening to the authoritarian worldview than nuance.

anyway, this made me come to the realization that we're too obliging with antis. we treat them like misguided teenagers who just need to live a little more and understand that fiction isn't reality, that fiction exists as a safe space to allow our imagination to venture in the wildest and darkest places. but this is a case of a harmful ideology infiltrating spaces that should be celebrating freedom of creativity. everyone knows (or should know) that believing the main role of art and fiction is to promote good morals is borderline fascist rhetoric. certain "progressives" are parroting that idea by turning it into rainbow puritanism. but it's still conservatism nonetheless. just because they don't use god's name to justify their stances doesn't make their goals any less conservative.

#mine.txt #mucho texto

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fetchingfletchling · 27 days

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No pressure 🩷 ✨💖 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! 💖✨ Hope you have a great night!

Omg hi! I love your writing and you seem like such a sweet person, I feel honored to receive this 🥹🫶🩷 I hope you also have a great night, thank you!!

Hbhjsjdj *tries to come up with 3 cool facts*

Oh I guess no one here would actually know this, but I can draw. I'd say drawing was my first creative passion. When I was a kid everyone just gassed me up about how good I supposedly am at drawing (even though my drawing skills were the same as most kids' around my age lol). So I just went with it and it's been my number one hobby ever since. Although I take longer breaks regularly to prevent burnout. And I keep getting into new things all the time, so it's not something I do every day anymore.

I have a growing obsession with parrots. Everyday I go on youtube and watch silly little videos of them to get a serotonin boost.

I'm actually really into astrology and tarot. Like REALLY into it. It just tickles my brain so well to find stories within symbols and interpret them.

#Ask #Ask game

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piqueconcentration · 1 month

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Sonny Boy Retrospective

Originally written 11/27/21

When I was very young and enjoyed things like the Alice in Wonderland remake, I remember I asked my mom what made something (I’m assuming that I asked about movies but for the purpose of whatever this is I’ll say all media, even though that is absolutely not something a child would say) “good.” I asked her because I had noticed that she usually wasn’t very fond of the movies that I liked, which I said were “good,” and I couldn’t really find much value in the old movies that she would talk about. In response, my mom said that she thought the way to tell was if the movie made you feel something. As I was, I took that definition and stored it in the important section of my brain and I’m sure I parroted it off to people who did and did not ask- this was before I recognized my own opinions.

In any case, the divide between knowing what most consider to be objective quality in any media versus just knowing that it made you feel something has become something of great import in my content-addled brain. I can say that a camera angle or shot is really cool or difficult to pull off while secretly holding the knowledge that I watched a video about something mildly related on youtube, and I had miraculously become a connoisseur of film after falling down an internet rabbit hole of people with all their own opinions, presenting them in a carefully crafted or just very loud manner. I can absolutely tell you a fun fact about a script in some movie that is considered “good” by the masses (that absolutely must be above my age- if the piece is popular among my peers, that is a big no-no) that I can’t tell if I actually enjoy or not because of all of the armchair cinema genius I have consumed over the years of lying on my stomach, arms draped over a pillow with a phone in hand.

This is not to say that I have learned nothing from the videos I have watched, in fact I hold a great respect for their creators in all learning domains- it is much more a Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of a young [My Name]- my younger self (but older than in the first paragraph- you get the idea) was due for a bit of a reconstruction in terms of my ability to form my own thoughts about the media that I present to myself. Even now, though I have more faith in my ability to actually know whatever the fuck I’m talking about, if i tried to fully separate my thoughts from the part of me that yearns for pop-culture centric admiration, I would have trouble finding the line between what I know because I know it myself and what I know because it relates to something that someone else said at me. I have not fully rid myself of the epigonic urge.

Anyway, I just finished watching Sonny Boy. As I’m writing this, I’m worried that I may have written more in the introduction than I will have written in this whole-ass thing because the surge of motivation to write after watching will have faded by the time I get to the godforsaken point; the point being: Sonny Boy is really quite good. I could say that the animation is beautiful and the music is powerful and the story is impactful but there are an extraordinary amount of anime like that that I haven’t bothered to watch, and if my goal is to get people to actually watch Sonny Boy and not just put it on their “plan to watch” list to die of neglect, I want to take a different route.

A haiku~

I don’t understand

What the fuck happened at all

But it made me feel.

I will also say that I actually understood the plot more than the friends who watched some of it with me, so there’s that, as well. Another thing: I’m usually not a fan of shows or movies that are incomprehensible- I tend to think that one of the most important challenges of the creation of these things is relaying information to the audience with as few barriers as possible (which, I’m now realizing, is super ironic, considering I’m an American who regularly watches Japanese television in Japanese with English subtitles, not to mention the state of the translation of the show in question, which I’ll get to later), while it may have been one of my favorite shows at the time, it is difficult for me to look back fondly on the last few episodes of Neon Genesis Evangelion because I don’t really feel smart enough to either form a satisfying interpretation or piece together the jumbled information, gorgeous as it may be.

Sonny Boy, like many anime, is about high schoolers. The similarities with the other anime that I have seen mostly end there. One day the school is transported- actually, no. I think, honestly, it’s best if you go in blind. The sheer number of concepts -ideas that I hadn’t thought anyone would have the literary courage to expand upon- that are introduced is immense. Each episode feels like, at their least intense, an invitation to look back at your mind and your comfort zone- a philosophical stroll where you can choose how deeply you want to explore the themes through your own level of engagement. At most intense- a stupefying accusation where, in my case, my sentence was to sit in silence for several minutes after the episode ended, mind completely caught up in that painfully perfect outro song.

In all honesty my personal high school experience, externally, wasn’t that bad- there wasn’t really any social hierarchy at my school, I had a lot of good teachers, I found some really wonderful friends; but if I’d had bullies or social trauma or if most people actively disliked me instead of just thinking I was awkward and leaving me alone- I think Sonny Boy would have made me bawl my eyes out (it did get pretty close regardless). I don’t usually cry that often, but if you do, tread with caution.

It’s difficult for me to judge the show by comparing it to others, though, and I think that has something to do with its structure. Each episode is layed out/edited, it seems, not with narrative cohesion or continuity in mind, but with the flow of the emotions that it attempts to evoke. Scenes happen one after the other, but the first may be in the “present” and the next may be a memory, or a shot from the future. Honestly, using the word “present” doesn’t feel quite right because there often isn’t a continual flow at all- past and future and middle occurring side by side in seemingly random order. But it isn’t random. Somehow, I have no idea how, the editors or storyboard artists or whatever -I don’t know how it was made- put the whole thing together without making it feel jarring or really that disorganized, there’s just a shift from perceiving the show as a sequence of events to a strung-together series of feelings where, at the end of the episode, sometimes it makes sense and sometimes it doesn’t.

It has some problems. Usually I can’t really comment (thankfully- I’m conceited enough with scripts in English) on anime scripts and dialogue because I can’t understand Japanese aside from your usual anime and manga phrases/words that are repeated ad nauseum. In this case, I will only say that the official English translation (for the subtitles- the show probably wasn’t popular enough to warrant a dubbed version) is not good when compared to the ones for most other seasonal anime. You can usually tell what the subtitles mean, but it’s a puzzle for the audience, not the creators- words are jumbled up, there are typos and grammatical errors, many phrases are just off enough to make you think about how they were probably translated by someone who just mostly understood English, and by that point there have been two more lines of dialogue.

Also, sometimes the editing does bug me. Maybe I would benefit from a rewatch, but there were definitely a couple times when I got to the end of an episode and just had even less of an idea of what was going on than what is required to get the desired emotional impact.

Sometimes I will read a review of something, and, as a human, I tend to most heavily remember the negative things that were listed, so I’ll say this: I adore this show. It hit me like an emotional truck. It has one of my favorite soundtracks in any piece of media. It has taught me things (not entirely sure what yet, but I’ll figure that out in time- I know that I learned) about the nature of will and familiarity. One of those shows that I will absolutely recommend, but it affected me so much that I might not want to watch it with you.

I don’t know. Maybe it just hit me harder for whatever reason. I realize that a lot of this analysis has just been me writing about my own experiences, but that’s what this show did to me. I was left with not just emotion, but the desire to look back on my own life. It made me actually create something, which, for me, is the ultimate compliment. If you can get this box of raw spaghetti to willingly get up and write, you have achieved more than the majority of my thirteen years of schooling.

It also has the best soundtrack of any I've ever heard.

In short, Sonny Boy was a very fulfilling drug trip of a show. I feel like I’ve undergone a change and had an intensely meaningful experience, but trying to wrap my head around how I got there is too much for me to handle. What I mean to say is that, though its inscrutability may be a deterrent to some, it happened to give me a clearer view of the show as a whole. I can’t tell you exactly why I love it so much, I can’t tell you why it was created or what definitely happened in the story or even what it’s really about, but for me I know, without a doubt in my mind, that it’s “good.”

#sonny boy #anime #anime review #anime recommendation #writeblr #I wrote this a long time ago when I was in college #pique concentration

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untitled-smp · 1 year

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Meet the Players! [Untitled SMP]

Six/6 - SixMix - he/it - @a-bowl-of-six-mix

Joined: Season 0

Faction: Corroded

Socials:

Tumblr: a-bowl-of-six-mix

Instagram: 6planets

Toyhouse: 006

- / - / -

Howdy! My name is Six, I am a lowly college student who way back when during the Don't Go Outside Years wanted a group to play Minecraft with and ended up asking to join Untitled! Here I am now, and the rest is history.

- / - / -

What's your favorite block in Minecraft?

Oh god, just one? Incapable of that sort of decision. Dark prismarine, deepslate tile, crying obsidian to name a few.

What is your favorite Minecraft mob?

Hostile would be skeleton, passive is parrot with snow fox in close second!

What is your unpopular Minecraft opinion?

Achievement hunting is fun! Its one of my favorite aspects of late game in any game.

What underrated aspect of Minecraft is your favorite?

The ambient noise in the End and the Nether, I get the vibe that a lot of people find it creepy but I love it!

What style of building do you most enjoy working in?

Freestyle usually? Or simple things, like remodeling generated structures. I'm not much of a confident builder, but I just make what I think looks pretty or pleasing or fits a theme I feel like using for the season.

What builds are you the most proud of and why?

For nostalgia my S0 base is close to my heart, but my pride and joy to this day is my S1 base. Located about 5,000 blocks into the nether! We don't talk about how the area my nether portal connects to looked like (spoiler- it's a mess).

What is the most challenging part of the game to you?

Probably redstone? Like a lot of people I just do not get it. I enjoy most aspects like early game, exploring, collecting resources, making farms, etc. I also struggle a bit with late game and what I want to do, after my to-do list is empty.

What's a weird fact people might not know about you?

I played Animal Jam for several years of my formative life and there used to be a few YouTube videos I was in back in the day, which are now sadly lost to time (shoutout if you remember WhiteWolf4444, thats me lol).

What do you enjoy outside of Untitled and Minecraft?

Many things!!!! I like to draw, and play a few other video games in my free time. I'm a long time fan of FNAF, Undertale, Subnautica, and a few others I'm definitely forgetting. I also spend a lot of time outdoors (I'm a Natural Resource Science major).

#untitled smp #minecraft smp #meet the players #sixmix #six #theecryptiid was killed by magic

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gritsandbrits · 8 months

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"they have no power nor say over what should go towards a black woman character." I would even argue they have no right to dictate what kind of character you should and shouldn't write! People like that are gonna hate any character that falls under certain minority groups so why should I or anyone else listen to them?

Clock it. The whole show did a lot fo characters dirty yet it's just Andra that catches all the smoke. Mind u Injustice!Andra wasn't good either in fact she was a straight up traitor which completely goes against Andra at her core (the one thing Revelation got right is Andra is LOYAL & Teela's close friend). They also accuse her of being a lesbian when, save for ship tease, nothing indicates that she and Teela are in a romantic relationship. They only say that just to drag her that much more and he-man is not that kind of show to focus in romance in the first place.

It's also the idea fandoms have they think no one is allowed to like a widely disliked character. Like I have my share of disliked characters but I try to give them grace (all jokes aside) and improve their writing in my AUs. I don't barge into people'd spaces and force them to hate this character cuz I do. Like imagine I walk up to a Sentinel prime fan and start shittalking Sentinel in their face? That's rude! Or tell a fan of 2018 Adora that their show sucks and they can never EVER like this character? That's also rude.

But apparently for certain ones they are soooo irredeemably bad, they deserve to die or NEVER improve and that includes fanfiction. What gets me is there's black ppl in the fandom, some of us are more than willing to give andra grace and acknowledge her bad and good parts. But fans don't listen to us. They rather parrot a popular youtuber than try to listen to a variety of perspectives.

#sorry for the long tangent but that anon made me SO MAD #gb asks

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cloudbrooksblog · 8 months

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my misinformation journey (lmao)

When i was like 11 or 12, I was watching a movie with my sisters. I'd recently watched a Cinema Sins video on the movie. I parroted things that were said in the video.

My sister pointed this out. She said, "you got that from a Cinema Sins video, didn't you?"

I was intensely embarrassed, so much that I still think about it. Of course, I'm 17, so it was relatively recent, and also parroting other people word for word is cringe, but it's also because I attempted to deny it. And later on, I couldn't figure out why it was wrong. If I saw the flaw after he pointed it out, why is it bad to make the same comment? I can see that he was right, even if I hadn't watched the movie on my own before that. Even if I hadn't double-checked, he presented the evidence to me.

I was evaluating my actions in a flawed way. Obviously, there's something annoying about someone pointing out petty flaws in something you're just trying to enjoy. In the Helluva Boss fandom, I've learned that. But it's also flawed in a way that's extremely important once you bring it to a more serious context.

Near the start of this year (2023) I was in an online discussion, in the comments of a Youtube community post. There was a meme about Hamilton (the musical), and I recalled my sister saying the creator of the musical (Lin-Manuel Miranda) was white. I parroted this without double-checking. If you'll see my profile picture, this was insane of me. I left the situation only halfway learning the lesson, but at least I didn't argue with people calling out my bullshit that time, and at least I apologised. I'm saying this as a personal acknowledgement of my growth since 12 years old, but compared to the bare minimum there's no silver lining. It's a flaw of mine that still needs work to this day. Speaking of which...

Talking out of your ass/bluffing is a thing that's easy to spot in others, especially if you disagree with them or are more knowledgeable about the subject than they are. I said that while talking out of my ass. I have one singular example of this from a podcast I recently watched where Fredrik Knudsen (documentarian) went onto the Official Podcast and fact-checked one of the hosts, who was being extremely judgemental, speaking about subjects that Fredrik knows tons about, and also was being extremely disrespectful to Fredrik the entire time via interrupting him. He also used the word "schizophrenic" as an insult. Remember that.

It was easy to spot then, but that's because it was an extreme example with a (hyperbolically) fact-checking expert present. I can't think of other examples off the top of my head, and I'm not going to check. I think a better framing would be to point at that situation as one single example of this flaw being fatal, rather than using it to generalise, unless I plan on checking. I'm trying to get better at it, but this post isn't just a personal benchmark, I promise.

I watched a video about AI by a relatively small Youtube creator named Jimmy McGee today. I absorbed the information without really thinking about it. I already mostly agreed with him, and what I didn't agree with him about I was simply neutral on and/or uninformed about. In the comments of a video called "The Dream of the Internet", there's someone using the word "schizophrenic" as an insult; an awkward synonym for the word "batshit". I also recently saw it being used as an insult by the previously mentioned podcaster, and overheard it being used as one while out in public. This is more frequent use than I'm used to witnessing. I wanted to make a post about it. I connected it to the way Andrew Tate and Sneako have undeniably made an impact in our culture already-- According to the viral video of teenage Sneako fans, and some vague anecdotes about Tate fans being numerous and loud. There's nothing wrong with believing individual anecdotes, but there's something wrong with basing a portion of your worldview on them, in my opinion.

The fear of mind control-- of algorithms designed to keep you glued to your screen-- is brought out in me by these anecdotes. It was almost certainly created by them, I reckon. I connected these fears and anecdotes with some final parts of McGee's AI video, and suddenly there's a fully-formed opinion: "Casual ableism is becoming more common because ableist people are getting popular online-- all because of the algorithms that want you glued to their sites".

It's an unnuanced, reactionary opinion. I'm glad I caught myself. This flaw of mine is something I started thinking about vaguely after the Hamilton thing, because I TRUSTED my sister, and I was CERTAIN she told me that, but it was also put at the forefront of my mind after seeing the podcast episode where a host got continuously spotted talking out of his ass in a way that's extremely easy for anyone to do, especially myself. Even though I'm against cringe culture, extremely left-leaning, etc, I still talk out of my ass like Alex Jones does. I steadily work on it, slowly, and now that there was an example where I caught myself BEFORE posting, I thought I'd make a post analysing myself. Thank you to anyone who read this. Pls don't roast me too hard about it LOL

#not actually word vomit this time #i proofread this shit #does this count as an essay /j #tw ableist language #i know i mentioned being 17 in the paragraph before i mentioned being in the helluva boss fandom. what can i say? i live on the edge #if you want me to answer for it just shoot me an ask i guess #misinformation #social commentary #im not that proud of the post or the fact i did any of these actions #im proud of myself for explaining it. for having the words #It's going to get a singular note #and thatll be fine #im literally overexplaining myself so hard rn #im gonna stop typing before i make your brain EXPLODE /lh #personal

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signalwatch · 1 year

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Nintendo Watch: The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)

I officially entered a new phase of life on Saturday when I went to see The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) with a cohort of second graders in support of my nephew's birthday. I'm now an uncle who goes to movies he didn't select. It's a good thing.

I am not anti video games, but I can describe my relationship to gaming as "apathetic". The how's and why's of this phenomenon are uninteresting and best served in a dedicated blog post. But even when we got our first Nintendo Entertainment System, I didn't have any Mario-related games. I was spending my money on comics and tapes at the time. Aside from a brief flirtation with a Wii and Mario Kart, never got into it.

That said, I recognize that Mario is essentially Mickey Mouse to a couple of generations. I'm incredibly bad at predicting what will stick and what's a fad, and thought a plumber fighting turtles was just another thing that would come and go, like Ikari Warriors. I'm still stunned anyone cares about Pokemon in this year of our Lord, 2023. But the companies have gotten very good at punching the buttons that work well for children, year after year, as well as opening the gates for nostalgic teens and adults. I'm pretty sure we already had a gritty Power Rangers reboot.

Back in the 1990's, I was offered the opportunity to see the Super Mario Bros. movie starring the late, great Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo. Despite the fact I'd go see *anything* during this window, I took a pass. All I remember is Steanso returning and saying "you dodged a bullet".

A cynic looking to parrot the cultural complaints about He-Man in the 1980's will look at the new movie and say that this film is a toy commercial for the games and products of Nintendo. That's only partially true. Look, this movie is not something I would have seen if not for participation in family activities, but I get that for a lot of people, this is the first time the world of Mario has been fully realized in modern, cinematic terms, and without a whiff of that old hobgoblin of film-adaptations, a reimagining. It's... Mario. And Luigi. And Princess Peach. It's a celebration of Mario and Nintendo, and that's okay.

It's 90 minutes-ish of telling a very Nintendo story about Mario doing all the shit he does in the games and defeating the bad-guy to save the not-in-that-much-need-of-saving Princess Peach.

You know what my favorite part was? There's no real learning or character growth. There's no long stretches where characters talk about who they are and what they care about and you hear kids shifting and talking to their parents. A scene or two happens, but only in dual-beat short scenes meant to pace the movie a tad. It doesn't drive the plot. Mario is not here to teach anyone life lessons, he's here to punch things and hop around. This is literally a video game movie, and while modern video games can do complex storytelling for adults, that's not really Mario's niche to explore the workings of the human heart and psyche anymore than it's GI Joe's niche to explore the military industrial complex. Kids don't give a shit about that, and neither do most young adults. They came to see him put on a cat suit and drive the fuck out of Rainbow Road.

Speaking of, the movie is full of in-jokes, references, etc... as you'd expect. YouTube will be littered with 20 Nintendo Easter-Eggs You Missed! videos for months to come.

Yeah, there's a bunch of big-name talent on the movie as voice actors, and they manage to dodge the goofy "It's a-me! Mario!" shit without being weird about Italians. You can look up who's in the movie, but I suspect you already know.

The movie is fine. I won't make the mistake my friends who have kids make that declare "my kid liked it, ergo, this is a good movie." That path leads to madness. Instead, I can see that the film is intended to appeal in a certain way, and nobody tried to outsmart what Mario is or does and how his world works, and it's fine. No weird re-do's on major characters or concepts thrown in that are anathema to actual fans. No one is talking down to the audience, they're showing the audience the game in the coolest, boldest way possible. If you like that stuff. I'm still like "whatevs", but I had a good time sharing Junior Mints with my niece. And my favorite part was probably the ape city and whatnot. Quality Donkey Konging.

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musherum · 2 years

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thinking this morning about how early heterosexuality, and its associated rules, tropes, and memes, are shoved down our throats as children, and how it continues to affect us later in life. even and especially when they work against us

a few months ago, my niece was here visiting. she isnt even six. but already shes playing at having crushes on random depictions of men - on youtube, in pictures, in cartoons - in a way that feels very obviously groomed into her by the media she consumes. talking about some pictures of men as depicting cute and desirable men, and others not. it strikes me as very obviously learned behavior, and it made me think about how even in media aimed at young children, the narrative of heterosexual attraction is forced early on. before children even really know what a "cute boy" is, what attraction entails, they are taught the tropes of heterosexual attraction. they are taught that what is normal and expected is for a girl, even a child, to be obsessed with cute boys

what really struck me, though, was how she felt compelled to force a narrative of heterosexual attraction, even when one was clearly not there. i have three cats at the moment - two of them, a "boy" cat named loki and a "girl" cat named grey kitty, absolutely hate each other. the girl cat hisses at, scratches and fights the boy cat at every turn. she hates his guts, to put it plainly, she wants him dead. but if you ask my niece, she'll tell you they're actually in love, and that grey kitty just acts aggressive and angry towards loki to hide the fact that she has feelings for him. shes said this, aloud, to all of us on multiple occasions, she gets such a kick thinking about it.

and like... isnt that so insidious? the fact that media has ingrained in her not only the idea of heterosexuality, but also this memetic idea about attraction between men and women, and so young. and its an idea shes just soaking in at face value and parroting back out, completely unchallenged by anyone around her! she's treating it as a cute little romantic narrative, when its a trope that is routinely weaponized against women. its a trope that will be used against her, in the future: whenever she expresses frustration or dislike towards a man, the man and the people around him will be trained to see that as "proof" that she secretly has feelings for him, that he just needs to bother her more, needle her more, harass her more, until she breaks. heterosexual indoctrination happens young and leaves its scars on all of us, influencing our behavior for the rest of our lives - i knew that before, of course. but actually seeing it in action, seeing these harmful ideas that will be used to perpetuate the dynamics of misogyny and heterosexuality, actively taking root in a young mind, getting to personally witness it? its deeply disturbing, on a level i wasnt really ready to reckon with.

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the-canine-king · 4 days

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not to be hater on main (and also it's going here since i think i'm gonna end up rambling too long on twt lol) but i really hate a lot of artist youtube content. honestly if you're looking for basic fundamentals, look for the professional artists that has worked in the industry for years and has a book published (loomis and hampton) rather than a random 18yr old student.

i mean, at least some videos are titled "how **I** draw _____" rather than "how to draw _____" and it's a bigger bonus if they mention which artist/ resource they studied rather than throw the method's name off hand.

i'm gonna be a super hater and art snobby here but i watched a video where it was really.... wrong? and also their fundamentals are pretty bad. i have a lot i wanna say here. (idk what got over me but i get really snarky here lol, there's extra notes at the end)

their use of the loomis method. i mean, idk if this is a modification of the loomis method that i've never seen but i've seen TWO artist mention the horizontal line in the classic set up is the EYE line. if we're following the book, it's the BROW line. and then they say "oh drop the horizontal line down halfway *and a little bit under*" tf you mean "a little bit"? just drop it half way for the brow?? GAH, looking at their basic structure from drawing from references really annoy me. like. YOU'RE NOT... DOING IT RIGHT...

them and 90% of videos bashing on loomis method for "not allowing different characterization. am i insane?? did we read the same book?? he LITERALLY DRAWS examples of varied head shapes?? literally mentions how you imagine the skull like clay and you disform it into a specific shape?? i can't find the exact line but i'm pretty sure he mentions how everyone had a similar basic head structure but it's up to the artist to figure out how it varies for the specific person. while yes it doesn't show better examples of different features in terms of race, but that doesn't mean he doesn't guide you on trying to understand the basic echos of the form across everyone that lets you use it to artistically form it for the specific model/ character. like it's so weird to see everyone parroting the same "issue" w/ the loomis method when loomis' book literally acknowledges it and says to know follow the measurements for every head

the lack of understanding/ shaping of form and the planes of the head. i mean idk if it's bc they didn't know the asaro head but them tracing a portrait to fit such arbitrary lines implying the planes was so AUGH. like it's so clear they don't have a good understanding of the lips and jaw/ planes of the cheek. how do you trace the photo (AND STUDIED HAMPTON'S BOOK) but not understand the lips and chin like cmon. i get it if it was more of a gestural approach but you're literally tracing so i mean lol.

their flat ass basic forms. lol. idk, like at least be capable of drawing a circle. and then drawing their guidelines following the form of a sphere. idk i started laughing when "this is how you draw the head in different angles" and it's incredibly flat. no form. no "space". you're just arbitrarily doing the motions without considering the shape you want to draw. if you want to draw a convincing head you have to draw a convincing shape

idk like. their art is genuinely not bad at all, way better than what i can make. and i understand that everyone has a different approach and etc etc like if this is how THEY do it then it's whatever. but at the same time it's really hard to look past as this is the most popular video over 1mil views and many taking this to heart in the comments. it's also probably a stylistic choice but style should not excuse poor foundations lol. i think it's heavy handed on the fact that the artist intuitively knows what looks better and can adjust it themselves but it's terrible advice for a beginner since the beginner wouldn't know what to adjust (they wouldn't have to learn to adjust if they learned how to draw the foundation better but whatever) lol

the way that **I** want my art to look and art that appeals to me is to have a big emphasis on 3d space and form. if the construction phase (foundation) is too flat your whole drawing would look flat. i'm still studying artist that manage to make a drawing feel like it's 3d on paper but i'm slowly getting the forms down.

i think i'm also just really irritated at this new wave of artists (at least on toyhouse) so adamant on NOT learning the fundamentals. like one one hand i get it if you don't care about improving, bc you're still improving if you're drawing for fun. however if you want to draw better quickly and more effectively then yes you have to learn the basic foundation. it's even more irritating when their excuse is "i don't want to learn realism" LIKE?? where do you think art comes from, JUST your imagination? it comes from life and your experiences. your memories, you clown. you live life and then draw out what you SEE and experience in the world. how do you draw a horse if you've never properly studied one. how do you draw a convincing person if you never understand how we actually look. you're not doing "realism" you're building your understanding of the world to make a world in your art. you're building your understanding of proportions and measuring. you're building your understanding of light and shadow. you're building so many foundational stuff that's found in every single art field and art style but you're too close minded you brush it off as "just realism"

i would end it off with "how **I** draw the head" but that's pretty hypocritical lol. if you read all this and wanna know what i looked at that's actually very helpful, literally just read hampton's "Figure Drawing and Design" and loomis' "Drawing the Head and Figure" that's literally all you need. (hampton also has a youtube channel where he goes over the head in a little series of videos, worth checking out if you don't know where to get the book or you just want the head chapters explicitly drawn in real time)

loomis helps a lot w/ figuring out the basics of basic, but hampton helps a lot more w/ more clear examples and an extra guideline to help place the eyes

#king speaks #phew sorry i rambled a lot #idk i'm very passionate about art #or at least fundamentals of stuff #if i get hate from this that'd be really funny lol #their art is loads better than me i will admit it #their teaching though? would not recommend

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