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edharrisdaily · 4 years

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Here’s what Westworld looks like if you only watch the Ed Harris scenes

I fully recognize that I am watching this show wrong, but nobody can stop me

Back when Game of Thrones was still on, I watched the first handful of seasons through completely. But as the series moved past what George R. R. Martin had already written, I started losing interest. The story didn’t seem as solid, and the character motivations started getting wobbly. Watching the show turned into paying attention when my favorite characters were on, and otherwise zoning out. Eventually, that half-watching turned into scanning the credits for the names of my favorite actors. No sign of Aidan Gillen? I’d skip the episode entirely. I fully accept that this is a bad way of watching anything, but I’ve been watching Westworld this way, too.

I love Ed Harris, even though I’m also intensely scared of him. (Or maybe because of that?) I love how incredibly weathered his face is, his gravelly voice, and the fact that he looks totally unapproachable. So as my investment in Westworld waned — it feels too gamified, and character development was being put on the back burner in favor of more and more twists — I dropped back to just watching the Ed Harris scenes. It’s not that I admire his character — the Man in Black is a heartless killer — but I do admire his performance. Even in something like National Treasure: Book of Secrets (which is, to be clear, a great movie), he can make a one-dimensional character feel fully human, simply by how seriously he seems to take his work.

You don’t need to have watched any shows this way to know that cherry-picking scenes means not getting a full picture of what’s happening on a show. In terms of specific storylines, I’ve been told I missed a detour to Shogun World, as well as most of the self-contained episode “Kiksuya.” And broadly speaking, I can tell I’m missing much of the philosophizing about artificial intelligence and the nature of free will that’s supposed to make up Westworld’s backbone. The bits and pieces of it that creep into the Man in Black’s storyline can be confusing as a result. But that doesn’t make my Ed Harris bingeing any less enjoyable.

The “all Ed Harris” version of Westworld is a story about legacy. The series’ main themes — the idea of loops and repeating behavior, the question of what’s real and what isn’t, and robots breaking free from the people who made them — are still present, and form the springboard for the Man in Black’s storyline. Chunks are missing in the form of the scenes with Jimmi Simpson, who plays William, Harris’ younger self. But the story is still clear, and the big first-season twist is still tragic: the young man Dolores (the show’s lead character, a robot played by Evan Rachel Wood) fell in love with aged into her tormentor.

The show’s second season becomes much richer, since it doesn’t have to deal with hiding the Man in Black’s identity and extends to his life outside of the Westworld park. Though the bulk of his scenes still take place in Westworld, the most affecting ones are those that focus on his family life, either in flashbacks set in the “real” world, or as his daughter tracks him down to free him from his obsession with this man-made world. These personal details are what make the show fascinating to me; the shoot-’em-up action is just a perk.

The Ed Harris Only approach to watching Westworld doesn’t necessarily make the show any better or worse. I’m definitely not watching it as it’s meant to be watched, which renders any criticism I might have on the series irrelevant. And this method still hasn’t freed me from the show’s fondness for gotcha reveals and florid monologues. But watching this way highlights a microcosm of the show that sheds some light on what Westworld does best.

Questioning the nature of existence and free will is most interesting when it’s tied to characters who have been fully fleshed-out, people we can relate to in one way or another. None of us have been in the Man in Black’s exact shoes, given that we don’t live in a world full of perfectly human-looking robots. But the sense of having to put on a mask in order to be more relatable, having trouble communicating with loved ones, or becoming obsessed with seemingly impossible things aren’t alien experiences to us.

My habit of essentially creating TV supercuts of my favorite actors is definitely a symptom of how much media there is to consume, and how little time we have to consume it in. It’s not how I’d ever dream of recommending watching a movie or show to a friend. (When I actually admit I do this, I normally frame it as a joke or a bit, not something to be taken seriously.) But it’s my way of gaming how Westworld has turned itself into a game. As a whole, it’s not a show I enjoy unconditionally, so I’ve found the method of watching it that works for me. Now that the third season of the show has begun, I’m planning on keeping up the same way… once Ed Harris finally shows up again.

#ed harris #article #q

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jungnoir · 6 years

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Detective au + Renjun. My request is a drabble. Thanks.

elementary;

huang renjun | all you leave behind is the ghost of your touch on Renjun’s skin and the memory of a person who had finally gained that upper hand. detective!au, criminal!au. | 2k words. | fluff(?), flirting, I don’t really know what genre this is, not humor but it’s kinda close.

a/n: i love how straightforward this request is sfhisjfi here ya go. definitely based reader off catwoman because why not amirite

“Hello, detective. You’re quite punctual today.”

Renjun slides inelegantly to the doorway of the exhibit floor, the polished marble that made up the ground he walked on costing more than the net worth of half the citizens in the city combined. He only ever showed up to places like these when he had cases to solve, and he very rarely got to enjoy the glimmering chandeliers and pristine paintings hanging from the walls. Even now, as he was surrounded by jewels of all shapes, colors, sizes, and origins, you were the only thing that had his attention. You were the case he’d been dying to solve ever since you’d first appeared on his radar, and you were the case made with a diamond shell. Nothing could crack you open, not like the others.

You, his “arch nemesis” when put so informally, had gone from being a thorn in his side to a knife in his back. With each victory you claimed, that knife kept on twisting.

“Your clues are getting less obvious. What, are you afraid I’ll catch on to you faster if I know where to look?” “On the contrary, detective. I know you’re smart enough to figure me out.” The fact that you were dangling upside down from a rope going up and out of a vent in the ceiling made your wicked grin look like a frown. Pearly white teeth shined back at him as you raised a hand and waved, the tips of your black gloves looking particularly sharp at the ends, resembling feline claws. He was certain he’d never let those claws get too close to him.

The young detective makes a quick surveillance of the room, checking for anything out of the blue in case you decided to up the challenge again. You had managed to hack into the system (denying all outside access in the process) and switched off the alarm to get in only to quickly switch it back on the minute Renjun entered the gallery, your orders for him and him only to enter having been no surprise. It was your usual demand: always him, always alone, and always right when you were just about to get away with a crime. You absolutely loved getting him one-on-one, but that didn’t mean you didn’t like adding a little fun every now and then, just to tease him more.

Renjun straightens from his defensive stance slowly, watching you with the same intensity you watch him with. When he sees you don’t plan to pounce, he begins to walk forward, ever so slowly. There are red lasers running haphazardly along the floor, all ready to switch on the very loud and very expensive alarm if, god forbid, he managed to step too close to one of them. You watch his movements with great curiosity, grin reducing into a smirk of sorts. You always did love that little frustrated look on his face.

“You’ve been at this game for months. I’d think you’d have been able to fill an apartment with all the jewelry you’ve got.” Renjun glances your way as the stunning diamond necklace glints in the glass case right underneath you, “You probably don’t need this too.”

“And miss the golden opportunity of watching some wealthy old dinosaurs sniveling on live TV about their precious, ancient jewels going missing? I think I’ll pass. I mean, really, who sets up a snatch like these in plain sight for any other reason than for them to be stolen?” “I think you miss the whole point of museums, kitty.”

Your grin comes back tenfold at the use of the name you’d signed off with the first time you’d committed a high-profile crime like this one. It was a name you’d fashioned for yourself, and you had to say, you rather enjoyed hearing the young detective say it through clenched teeth, seething. It was rather cute. He was rather cute.

“You’re probably right,” you purr, “what can I say? I see a pretty thing and I just want to take it… better watch out.” The last part of your statement goes right over his head and it’s as much as you expected. Despite the fact that he was a kid genius, he was rather a dolt in the face of flattery.

The boy continues to proceed toward the middle of the room, the light shining from inside the glass case where your desires currently lay casting a warm glow on his features. The closer he managed to get, the more his furrowed brow became prominent. Swiftly, you pulled yourself up the rope so that you were hanging right side up this time, one hand clutching your escape route and the other resting over your heart, “You’re too young to look that stressed, detective. Am I stressful for you?”

“Yes!” Renjun answers with no hesitation, halting in his tracks to be sure that he doesn’t trip the alarm in his vexation. “Is that what you wanted to hear? That you’re starting to outsmart me? That I may actually be coming to a dead end with you? Because if that’s what it takes for you to stop, I will admit it to the whole city.”

You blink, “So I see you’re nowhere near figuring out my motives either.”

If Renjun’s stare could shoot daggers at you, they would most definitely be embedded within every part of your skin by now. The look he gives you could rival that of an angry bull. You have the nerve to even pity him, eyes softening just a little behind the slim mask that covers your face from your hairline to the very peak of your nose.

“Want me to tip you off?” You offer, resting a hand on top of the case to tap your nails along the surface in a discordant rhythm. The sharp point of one of them traces a circle between every few beats.

Renjun’s face falters for a moment, clearly confused. Your offer baffles him and it doesn’t take a genius to know why. He was never used to getting tips, hints, or help. After all, he was the Huang Renjun: graduated early from high school top of the class, grades so exceptional that top tier universities around the world were itching to take him in, to claim him as part of their student body. Why, who wouldn’t want such a bright kid walking their halls every morning? You didn’t blame them in the slightest, but you’d always found it quite sad how many of them wanted him more for his reputation than his mind.

It started as a simple rivalry, your young eyes that never followed anything but the words on a page or the numbers on chalkboard had been caught by someone for once. A challenge. A contender.

You had done everything in your power to pass him up from kindergarten all the way to high school, doing above and beyond the expected and then some to beat him. No matter how hard you both worked, neither of you could ever pass the other, not really.

Not until your sophomore year of high school, when he entered the nationwide science and research symposium (well under the minimum age to even participate, but his deception of age was overlooked in the end) and won, sweeping out contestants twenty years his senior and you, too, in the process. From there, it was no longer a competition between you and Huang Renjun because as far as the entire world was concerned, no one was and no one ever would be in his league. Renjun was the face of youthful intelligence. Renjun was unparalleled… except that once, he was.

It was as prominent then as it was now with you staring at him face to face (or rather, face to mask) and challenging him to crack the code. You dared him to remember you. Before you had arrived on the scene as “Kitty”, it was believed there wasn’t a mystery that that boy couldn’t solve. And yet…

Renjun finally exhales a loaded breath, your eyes widening a little in anticipation. Just as quickly as you’d gotten excited that you’d really gotten under his skin, he snarls, “In your dreams.”

Your snort rings out in the silence, just as your nail stops circling the glass. The trace you’ve made causes a perfectly rounded cut of the supposedly “impenetrable” casing fall in and leave a nicely sized hole in its wake. Perfect diameter for you to slip your arm in, pick up the necklace, and- “Well, I do dream of you, detective. Maybe that’s because it’s seldom you ever get close enough for me to do anything else.”

Renjun’s mouth drops a little and you think for once that he might have gotten one of your little jokes, but his eyes are clearly focused on the necklace in hand. He hadn’t even noticed what you’d been doing. Was he making this incredibly easy or were you just getting too good? Regardless, you slip the necklace into the small pocket at your thigh, feeling around for something to throw. When your hand catches onto the handle of one of your throwing knives, the instrument slipps into the palm of your hand and then slides right back out of it in the direction of the floor with expert ease.

The moment the blade pierces the connection between one beam of light and the another, a shrill blaring sound nearly deafens the two of you at once. You barely wince at the noise, finding the nervous look on Renjun’s face far too amusing. The doorways and windows are suddenly barricaded by heavy steel doors meant to keep any intruders from getting out once they’d gotten in, but you’ve got your own escape plan already. By the time those fools got access back to the system to shut it off, you’d be long gone from here.

In fact, you’re just about to shimmy back up your rope when Renjun surges forward, fear of tripping the alarm now irrelevant. His hand grasps your wrist and you look at him in real surprise; never had the two of you made contact like this before. It was always a fun game of cat and mouse with the figurative cat in this case never getting close enough to touch.

You are rendered speechless for the first time in his presence, unsure what to do first. Did you shake him off? Wait for him to say something? Relish in the moment before it eventually all came crashing down?

Renjun decided for you.

“You know, I never saw it before,” he says in a low breath, yet you’re able to hear it over the blaring alarm miraculously, “but I’ve only known one person in my whole life who could actually give me a run for my money. Know anything about that?”

You feel yourself slowly swell with pride and an abundance of elation. This, this. Never had he admitted to your power over him, and now you knew that he knew it too. You were his equal in every sense of the word, and if there was anyone who could tie the world’s favorite boy genius up in his own knots, it was you.

You slip your arm from his grasp and raise the nails on your glove to gently caress the underside of his chin, the boy visibly shivering under your touch. The sounds of law enforcement banging on the steel doors sounds so distant in this moment, a breath shared between the two of you lasting a lifetime almost. You clutch his chin in between your fingers with finality and lean forward so that your nose just grazes his own, “Why, detective, it’s my job to make the mysteries and your job to solve them. You’ll have to find out yourself.”

His eyelashes flutter. Just out of your peripheral, you see his hand inching slowly toward your face. His fingers just skim the brim of your mask before you tug on your rope twice, your accomplice getting the signal to yank you upwards and away from the scene.

All you leave behind is the ghost of your touch on Renjun’s skin and the memory of a person who had finally gained that upper hand.

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darkspellmaster · 6 years

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Anon Asks in my Inbox as of 10/29/18 –Afternoon edition

Updated link of the Master Guide: http://darkspellmaster.tumblr.com/post/179532344635/update-and-edit-and-master-post-to-the-fokker

1. i(.)imgur(.)com/2UHctWY(.)png this picture works if you paste it into your address bar and just remove the ( ) symbols around the dots. It's his left hand since you can see the overside. Wether you find it weird to hold someone at the waist when kissing them or not is irrelevant, the arm and hand does not vanish which is the main point. Add it to your post so people can see for themselves.

Thank you for the picture Anon, due to the blanket removals of BTISudio related things I’m holding off putting the image up and I’ll use something as a representation of the arm motion that you have up. Again apologies for not being able to put the picture up. But I see it, and you’re right the arm is there, but it’s a really weird way of placing it as the natural cure of a kiss like that would have it where one person would have their hand higher than the other. Like I said it’s a weird position.

I’ll link your said picture so others can look at it. It’s in the main one.

2. You say in 4 that the studio leak image is that of a cropped shot of the previous leak as they cut off the other mouse - but that's not true. You can clearly see the mouse on Pidge's shoulder.

Added the Edit to the post anon. Thank you. I explained why I missed it. It’s still a bit odd that the mouse has not moved at all.

3. The voiceline thing that one anon was talking about was, somebody took lines Lance’s VA said in other shows/games he worked on and they also picked some lines from the 1 voltron VR game and put it together in one clip. The person included some random lines from the other characters too. And claimed it was “leaked audio” they got. Never said how they got it. Clearly fake, and a whole bunch of K/L fans obsessed with it for a bit before they lost interest.

Okay so they claimed to have data mined. That’s interesting because normally you would only be able to do that with games, since there is a lot of dialogue that is recorded and then left in there when they choose not to use it. Actors will record hours of dialogue for a game and then studios may change plans on how they are going to use it.

For example, Yuri Lowenthal, who voiced Yosuke, for Persona 4 had lines that indicated that at one point in the game they were planning to have Yosuke be a love option for the MC, but then dropped that plan for whatever reason. This was later data mined by fans from the finished product. But I’ve never heard of a way to data mine for recordings via a tv show, since the extra tracts would be left off the final disk, and you would have to have access to the main audio recordings of the show, and I don’t think Andrea would just go leaving them out there.

I’m sorry that the fans had to deal with that. That’s also a low thing to do because it cuts into issues with the whole audio department and such. Also it sucks for the fans because it’s a cheap way to get attention and isn’t fair to the listeners nor the actors.

4. I didn't see this added yet, but there was a Plance fake "leak" that got a DMCA takedown here on Tumblr from DreamWorks 3 days ago. The artist admitted it was fake when posted, it was meant as a joke and to show how easy it was to make a "leak." This kind of takes validity away from "posts are getting taken down so it must be real!" Sounds to me Dreamworks just wants all of this to go away (since it's upsetting fans or whatnot.)

Yeah I got one too way back on the 24th, and realized that that was probably why my first post was taken down. I’m trying to be more cautious out of respect for the BTIstudio. But yes, using any form of intellectual property:

Name of studio, logo of studio, art, dialogue, written words, even plants and other items.

Can be subject to claims. So even if it’s something made to debunk, if it so much as has a whiff of anything that could be connected to the actual studio, then that stuff has to be taken down for copyright reasons, and I completely understand that.

Next time I go to my convention in May, there’s a lawyer group that shows up and I’m going to try to ask about leaks and fake leaks and blanket take downs and the rules of it all.

5. Honestly Shiro's sight lines in the first 2 pics make more sense if someone shorter was standing next to him. In the third, (I) it's a profile shot so it'd be easy to rotate or tilt the head up/down if this Fokker is a dummy stand-in for another character and (II) Shiro's hand is literally on Fokker's ass due to hand position and the dude's height which is A LOT for a Y-7 show. Now if it were a shorter character, Shiro's hand would be at his waist. 🤔

Interesting catch there. In the original art where the head shot seems to have come from, the eyes are pointed down and to the left away from where Roy is looking.

This would leave us with the question of who is shorter than Shiro right now, as the only ones I can point to are Pidge, Romelle, Allura I think, or one of the Aliens. Keith, Hunk and Lance are all about the same height to him, and since he is looking slightly sideways it makes me think he’s looking at someone who is not the person with him. It’s a weird line of sight that is for sure for the shot.

6. Apologies if I misread this, but I think you implied the crisscross watermarks were a function of VSI Chinkel software and therefore would only appear on their studio's work. However in the other Chinkel studio shots, that crisscross isn't there. Watermarking is done by the originator (I.e. Dreamworks) not by the recipient. Also the pause | | in the upper right hand of the wedding is from the program the leaker is watching it in (VLC media player, specifically)

Yeah I thought that it could be something that happened there. But you’re right that the other image clearly shows that it’s not happening on the main one. I’ll have to edit that factor. Still the actual dubbing equipment, according to their website is one of a kind.

The thing about the VLC is also right, since we use it at my college. However I don’t know of any dubbing studio that would use VLC when they have access to more expensive and better software to watch media on. Also most get it in some digital form that they could play on Adobe or other media player that is far more useful for pausing and doing scripting, and seeing where the audio track is and what it’s doing. So I find that someone using an Open source tool is strange, at least to me, when it comes to a professional workplace.

7. that dude isn't roy, i think, he has the same skin tone as adam.

Oh anon, bless your heart here. Your right in that it’s not Roy himself, because that would land them in real hot water. He’s a look alike or representation. I don’t know if the character has a name at this point, but I’m calling him Roy as it’s easier than calling him “The dude that’s clearly a homage of the guy from Macross that was an inspiration to Shiro himself as a character.” Because that would take way to long. As I said before, this could be what someone thinks Adam without glasses and longer hair would look like.

8. I also thought Roy's arm disappears through Shiro, but in another pic of that kiss that's in a google doc going around debunking the leaks, his arm is very much in that photo and around Shiro's waist like you'd expect. Ngl, that threw me off because I'm starting to think I imagined things and only saw flaws where there weren't actually any at all.

And this is kind of the purpose of leaks that are not clear, or are not right, or have bad resolution. They are there to cover up the mistakes or things that make people realize they are false.

It’s one reason art forgers will be very careful to not make mistakes, but the issue is that there are always tells. Some are very very tiny and you have to take them under a microscope and look at them with the eye of someone trained to find them out.

As for the situation, take a break from it Anon. Go outside, enjoy the fall weather, watch another show or find something else to do. As I keep telling people, relax. No one has a horse in this race, I certainly don’t and nether should you. Our focus should be more on the real image that came out from JDS and LM and figuring out what was up with the table and, hey, on the plus side we have a “The End” shot. XD

9. Saw an anon point out that the “missing arm” is there and they are right. It is mainly behind shiro’s new arm and the hand is on his waist. It is a very normal way to hold someone, just because you can see the majority of it, doesn’t mean it isn’t there at all.

As I said I edited the post to reflect that info. The arm may be there, but there’s still something off about the whole thing to me. And again, if I’m wrong, oh well, if I’m right, oh well. I have no horse in this race and honestly am not into the ships.

10. Lotor’s statue isn’t 3D.... it’s very clearly painted... I think you’re starting to reach a bit with some of your debunking.

Changed the statue to an actual screen shot that I have to reflect it better. The thing is to me it looks like what you would do with a matte painting over a 3D image to create a more statue like approach to things. Since we have the white light filter over it, it makes it harder to see if it has the same 3D like rendering as Aang’s statue. Also between the time that Korra came out and now, they may have made the program smoother so it’s harder to tell if it’s 3D or not.

While I agree that they do some statues in normal drawings, the other ones, like Lotor, seem to need details, and I feel like a 3D rendering would be a better way to do it than, a 2D drawing.

11. I so want to believe they’re fakes. So much points to it, but one thing bothers me: this is an awful lot of trouble that someone has gone to, for a cartoon!? I mean finding photos on I’m assuming private Instagram accounts or other social media to highly edit? No one can actually find the originals. Plus Chinkel do actually use the multiple watermarks thing. So? Maybe those ones with the cast in them are real. They seem like far too much trouble to fake unfortunately 1/2

2/2 and I’m gonna stab a guess here and say that DreamWorks and whatever other studio it was, aren’t taking any real action besides silently removing the images but not saying anything because they feel like the images don’t give away a huge plot spoiler? Just the supposed one year later thing? Like I said it’s far too much trouble to go to. Someone would’ve had to literally scour the ENTIRE French VAs’ personal social media to find that cast pic, because no one else can find the original.

To be honest Anon, you would think that right? But the thing is that there are people out there that do this for fun. Namely because they know that it upsets a fandom and they’ll try to stir up the fans and then sit back and laugh at them.

Given the incident with the actresses and the cloud leak, it can be done. Seriously you can hack anything that has some sort of connection to the net. There’s always a back door, and it’s something that the “White Hats” have been trying to deal with for years. Social media isn’t a safe place when it comes to keeping pictures and such because people can and will break in, all the time. Remember the Sony leak not that long ago?

The photo with the cast is real, I just think the image on the screen is not. BTIStudio was sending takedowns, I got one on the 24th of October from them from a Mr. Rachel in the IT department. So my guess is it was a blanket take down regarding the name being used, since BTIStudio is now owned by Investors Shamrock and Altor, who just got the studios recently so there may be business reasons, or intellectual reasons “name being used” to pull it down. As another anon pointed out a Fake debunking image got pulled too because of them showing how to do it.

It's work, but for someone who has the time and skills it’s not insanely hard to do. Because of digital media and how good Photoshop, illustrator, and several other programs are now, it makes it easier and easier to copy art and make forgeries. It’s something artists are dealing with right now because people are finding ways to copy and sell fakes of their digital paintings.

12. Something else I noticed about the fake leaks - Ezor's eyepatch. So far, none of the galra with missing eyes wear eyepatches. They all have some sort of cyber prosthetic. Like Sendak, Ranveig, Branko, and Janka. Why would Ezor have a normal eyepatch while the rest of them don't? Doesn't make sense

That’s an interesting point there too. Given what we’ve seen previously, it doesn’t make sense to change up how a character is shown to have a wound like that covered. Unless she couldn’t’ get it done, but that doesn’t make sense either since if she was working with the Blade they would have set her up with stuff on earth by now. And Ezor doesn’t strike me as the type to be all “No I won’t have something cyber put on me” that’s more Zethrid.

13. The photo with JDS and Lauren are from His official Twitter account.

Thanks Anon, I think I’m going to do some Theories about that when I have a moment. After I finish sewing my costume’s sleeves, and getting done with the prologue to my novel.

I did see it, and it’s interesting, especially with the Red ribbon of fate, the candles and the silver piece on the side. Though that could have been there from another event. XD

14. I saw that apparently the joke fake "pl/ance leak" was taken down by DW because of copyright as well? if so that proves that the leaks don't need to be real to be taken down.

Yup! As long as it has something that equates to “Intellectual Property” studios and copyright owners can take anything down. It’s a huge issue with Youtube and their review groups and such. That’s why the Essay’s have evolved so much to only put shorter clips in and other aspects.

Fan Art can be copyrighted if it’s too close to original works, or even fake fakes like the Plance art. Most studios just go “Anything that has our name on it, take it down” even if it’s not a real leak.

15. I think that the anon who mentioned the "fake Klance voicelines leak" is talking about the fake audio leaks that were taken from Jeremy's line from another show and claimed to be about Klance and also a fake picture of Keith with Lance's jacket on .

Well that’s different. As I said, data mining is a bit hard to do from a tv show since there would be no additional tracks. It’s why most people don’t do that when it comes to creating fake info about a show and typically stick to art, or altered scripts since it’s easier to do. Typically all tracks that are recorded are edited and the ones that are not used are stored on a server that’s not easy to access and isn’t even on the net, it’s in an in house server.

As for the picture, huh, I think I heard of that one but never saw it.

#voltron #vld #voltron legendary defender #fake voltron leaks #voltron leaks #ask darkspellmaster #anon asks #answered questions #hope this helps people

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kierongillen · 6 years

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As i’ve seen this happen more than once, what goes through your mind when a big plot twist or piece of the puzzle gets unintentionally spoiled by the fans theorizing the future of the book? Does the rest of the story gets put on temporary hold to try to figure out how to write something new or is the story set in stone no matter what may happen? If someone were to spoil the ending of the entire book completely unintentionally and you were able to experience the reaction, will it change a thing?

Oh, god, no. Never change anything if someone’s guessed something. Nothing good lies in that direction.

Why?

Okay, let’s talk - with no specifics - Game of Thrones. If you go into the depths of fandom, Game of Thrones is - to some degree, in some areas - a solved problem. There’s a good selection of fan theories (some of which have come to fruition) which have so much meat on them it was clear they have to happen, or the book would break its structure and become unsatisfying.

These twists are available to anyone who wishes to google for them.

The vast majority of people don’t. So… why change the direction of the story? What’s the point of fucking over the enjoyment of the vast majority of people (i.e. making your story make less sense, as you’re abandoning the already existent thread) for playing gotcha on a tiny fraction of your audience?

(As a quick aside - compare and contrast theorising in a fanbase with actual events in the text that’s being adapted. Clearly, anyone who is watching GoT could have googled the synopsis of the book. Equally, anyone who’s read the books knows the big beats. Does the adaptation change the big beats? If surprise to everyone in your audience is all that mattered, you would. We don’t.)

It’s also worth noting that, while obviously some complain on the nature of the adaptation, most fans of a book generally complain that they wish it was more like the book. In other words, things that surprised them (i.e. differed from their knowledge of the text) were less satisfying. They wanted to see the big dramatic beats, even if they’re stripped of their surprise.

Surprise only matters the first time you read something. For me, any worthwhile piece of literature exists to be re-read, and will open up more upon re-reading. In other words, knowing the twist should add to the re-reading of the book. If it doesn’t, and renders the story less than it was, it’s probably a bad twist - which is one reason why I don’t tend to call them “Plot twists” to myself. I call them reveals. The plot doesn’t contort. It’s merely revealing something in the nature of the world the reader was unaware of.

(As an aside, this means that someone who has guessed successful the direction of the plot is actually effectively skipping to their second read of the book earlier.)

There’s the other side of this as well - not just whether a plot beat has been guessed, but the almost inevitability of a plot beat being guessed. GoT fans have had twenty years to puzzle this out. In that period, a mass communication device emerged which allowed fans to talk to one another and share ideas. This machine would have torn apart any plot.

No one individual needs to guess anything. People can make one step in a chain, and then that step is exposed to thousands of minds. If even one of them can make the intuitive leap to the next step, then it continues. No one person needs to be clever enough to see the whole thing. The internet hivemind is Miss Marple, seeing through the most contorted of machinations.

(In passing, this is one reason why Alternate Reality Games are hard to do, because the mass hive mind will figure almost anything out, almost instantly. Equally in passing, the failure to understand this is another reason why Ready Player One is bad, but that’s irrelevant.)

In other words, the reason why twists are guessable is the same reason they are satisfying. A twist that isn’t foreshadowed sufficiently to give the possibility of being guessed by someone is not a satisfying twist, as it - by definition - came out of nowhere.

To make this specific to my own work. In the case of the biggest and most intricate of my current books, WicDiv, we sell about 18k in monthlies and sell 18k in trades (in the first month of release). That’s our hardcore devoted readership. How many people of them actually read the essays in the WicDiv tags? I’d say 500 at the absolute maximum, and likely a lot less. So for a maximum of 1.3% of our readership, we’d derail a still effective twist for everyone else? No, that would be a bad call.

Especially - and this is key - the people who have chosen to engage with a fandom are aware that they may figure something out. They are trying to figure something out. Why take that pleasure away from them?

In a real way, I think, in long form narrative, pure plot twists which no-one in the world guesses are dead in the Internet age, at least when dealing with any even vaguely popular work of art. You can do them in short form narratives (like a single novel, a single movie and perhaps a streaming TV show they drop in one go) but for anything where you give a fanbase the chance to think, it’s just not going to happen. A creator should be glad their work is popular enough to have enough fans to figure it out.

Yes, I may have overthought this.

But that’s only half the question.

How do I actually feel when someone guesses something that’s going to happen? Well, this is long enough already. Let’s put the personal stuff beneath a cut…

I’d say you sigh “Oh, poop”and shrug.

And then you get over your ass, because you know all the above is true. Writers are often meglomaniacs who think they can control everyone’s response to their work. We don’t. We can’t control everything. We can barely control anything. We really have to let go. I’ve said WicDiv is a device to help me improve as a person? It would include in this area. I have to learn to let it go, and internalise all of the above. If I can make most of my readership have the vague emotional response I’m looking for, I’m winning.

I’ve mostly succeeded at this. I’m certainly better than I was 2 years ago.

(’ll probably write more about spoilers and twists and stuff down the line. I’d note that setting up twists that *are* easily guessable by the hardcore is part of the methodology. Having a nice big twist foreshadowed heavily is a good way to hide another twist behind it. “Hey - pay attention to this less subtle sleight of hand while I perform the actual sleight of hand over here.”In which case, there’s far less of an Oh Poop response and more of a cackling evil mastermind response.)

The sigh can occasionally be accompanied with a “Hmm. I wouldn’t have posted that” or - more likely - “I wouldn’t have posted that THERE.”

To stress, what follows, isn’t about my work per se, but culture generally, and very much personal. This is stuff which good friends disagree with me on.

As a fan, I never tweet my own fan theories. I only tweet joke ones. Even my crack theories I don’t tweet, as they’re normally so bizarre that if they actually DO happen, I wouldn’t want to take the thrill away from people. Even in person in conversation I make sure we’re going into a deep fan hole before sharing them, aware that they may be true.

In a real way, the more likely I think something is true, the less likely I’ll say it. As this is my job, I tend to see basic structural ways stories are heading way in advance of most people. I’m a composer. I know how music works. You have a vague sense of what way they’ll go.

(One day I’ll write down my crack theory for the end of the previous Game of Thrones season. Maybe after next season, as it’s not impossible that they may end up doing it, though it’s increasingly unlikely.)

If I had a really good theory I’ve gathered evidence for? You can guarantee I’d put it beneath a cut. That’s the stuff which bemuses me. It’s a cousin of posting major spoilers about any piece of culture the day it comes. The worst is one regular twitter trope - I’m always bemused when people do a “Calling it! XYZ will happen” tweet. Which strikes me a little like standing up in the cinema 20 minutes into a film and shouting out that you’ve guessed the ending. This ties back to the stuff I wrote above about twists being less effective in the modern age, except in a place you can control the context and conversation. People may message in movies, but they rarely message everyone in the room.

(In passing, as it’s vaguely on topic - you may remember the research from a few years ago saying people who know a twist enjoy the story more than people who don’t know a twist. Even this is true - and a single study should always get an eye-brow raise - but it strikes me as a confusion over what “enjoy” means. All pleasure isn’t equivalent, and you can only have surprise on your first time through a work of art. That’s novelty. You can have that and then gain the “Not surprise” experience second time through. If you spoil a work, it means the “novelty” experience is something you will never have. You may enjoy something more if you know the twist but you can always rewatch it to get that pleasure. If you’re spoiled, the individual specific pleasure of that first watch has been stolen.)

But that’s conversation of social mores. Really, it doesn’t change anything in terms of how we act… and sometimes, I even grin when someone gets a twist in advance. If someone gets it, great. The machine is working as intended. It’s actually kind of worrying if no-one is thinking something is up in an area you’ve set up to be iffy. And… the alternative is worse - hell, there’s buried twists and details in Young Avengers that no-one’s managed to figure out yet.

Twist ending: oh, no, I was a ghost all along.

#writer advice #WicDiv #Journey Into Mystery #young avengers

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Attack on Titan Season 4 Episode 16 Review: Above and Below

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This Attack on Titan review contains spoilers.

Attack on Titan Season 4 Episode 16

“There’s much to learn from an enemy.” “Including how to make more enemies.”

Attack on Titan treats the Titan serum as one of the most powerful substances that can pollute and transform somebody’s body, but this final (sort of) season proves that denial and egotism make an even more dangerous cocktail. There’s a simple scene between Yelena and Dot Pixis where the latter is forced into submission and almost seems to respect Yelena’s cold and calculated ability to double cross her own people in favor of the changing tide. Yelena chastises Pixis for his decision to not side with her, Zeke, and Eren sooner, but it’s really a conversation that’s applicable to everyone.

Yelena and Pixis’ discussion functions as an elegant microcosm to the larger debates that break out between every faction of characters whose beliefs become at odds with one another. Scrutiny isn’t always a bad thing and characters like Eren used to understand that. Yelena doesn’t know if she’s right. Nobody knows if they’re right. However, these characters have been pushed this far and committed so many sins that considering anything else would be sacrilege. Delusion has become the new religion because doubt is now a force that’s more destructive than bullets. “Above and Below” is not the very end of Attack on Titan, but it does close the book on a lot of its past and presents very changed teams for the upcoming final battle.

Much of the second half of this season has been focused on the many pieces of Zeke, Eren, and Yelena’s master plan. “Above and Below” puts it in plain sight and wants the severity of these actions to be out in the open. Everyone believes that this strategy involves reuniting Zeke and Eren to trigger the Rumbling, which is true, but Yelena hints at an even more grim solution that involves either Eldian euthanasia or sterilization to permanently remove them as a threat to the Founding Titan.

It’s a bleak endpoint for the series and the stakes have reached such a diabolical level that characters act as if their brains have overheated and nothing makes sense anymore. Jean is still in disbelief over the nature of Eren’s actions and it’s hard to tell if Armin is actually moved by Yelena’s impassioned speech regarding Zeke and Eren’s intentions or if he’s just lost it. Attack on Titan has reached a fascinating point where it’s hard to take anyone’s reactions at face value or consider if they’re part of a more intricate con, which is perhaps most prevalent in Gabi and Pieck’s encounter with Eren.

Attack on Titan Season 4 Episodes 14 and 15 Review

By Daniel Kurland

Attack on Titan Season 4 Episode 13 Review: Children of the Forest

By Daniel Kurland

This whole season has carefully juxtaposed the later stages of Eren’s journey with the first steps in Gabi’s adventure. Both characters are presented with many flaws, but it’s been a challenging process to put Attack on Titan’s previous baggage aside and attempt to accurately determine which of these characters is the lesser evil and “more right.” Gabi and Eren have extremely similar backgrounds, but these episodes have pitted them against each other and made a showdown feel inevitable. “Above and Below” creates a ton of tension when it forces Gabi into an unlikely alliance with Eren after he uses Falco’s life as collateral. These two reflections of the same image must work together and this becomes a more stressful exercise than if Eren and Gabi were locked in combat.

It’s also pretty perfect that during this pact Eren refers to Gabi as “the brat who killed Sasha.” Not only does this indicate that he might not even know Gabi’s name, but he so casually throws around Sasha’s death in a way that emphasizes just how hollow he’s become inside. Eren promises Gabi the safety of Falco if she works with him, but I wouldn’t have been surprised in the slightest if Eren just pulled out a gun and shot Gabi and Falco in the head after he gets what he wants.

It’s utterly crazy that in only a season’s worth of time it’s now very easy to picture Eren–the show’s protagonist–in this disaffected light. There have been frequent moments this season where Eren’s dark turn has reminded me of Walter White’s descent in Breaking Bad, but there’s a lot of overlap between the two of them as Eren presses his forehead against the barrel of Pieck’s gun and fearlessly taunts her to pull the trigger. This meek individual has turned into someone that’s now more frightening than the person with the loaded weapon.

Slices of Pieck’s backstory come forward during this hostage situation and it acts as another slick way to remind the audience that every player in this struggle is a real character with a life, family, and people that they care about. The enemies aren’t just mindless monsters anymore. Eren remains unphased, but his smug demeanor disappears when Pieck and company are the ones that pull off the surprise betrayal. Eren narrowly survives, but it shouldn’t be dismissed that these plucky kids nearly killed Eren and ended this whole thing.

Despite how you feel about Gabi, Pieck, or the Marleyans, it’s hard to deny the brilliant nature of this plan. It also allows some cathartic momentary justice for Porco Galliard and his Jaw Titan, who Eren used to kill the Warhammer Titan, but also nearly killed himself and tried to gruesomely disfigure. It’s inspiring to see all of these Marleyan fighters spring together when nearly everything else is left in disarray.

It’s impressive how focused Attack on Titan’s season finale is and there are major threads from the past few episodes that are left unresolved. I can’t imagine how someone that believed that this was the anime’s very final episode would feel around the halfway point when “Above and Below’s” leisurely pace is established and it’s clear that nothing is really getting resolved here. It’s a surprisingly subdued finale and it’s telling that the episode’s priority is to make the ideologies of the different sides of this war crystal clear.

Major characters are shelved to the background and material that seems like it would have been the focus of this episode, like if Levi and Zeke are still alive, gets brushed aside. Even larger questions remain unresolved such as whether Falco is effected by the small amount of Zeke’s spinal fluid that he inadvertently ingests. This season teases the return of Annie as well as Historia’s pregnancy, but these exciting storylines now feel slightly hollow with no payoff. Some of these developments may have worked better if they were held off on entirely until the next batch of episodes.

“Above and Below” makes a lot of decisions that a season finale shouldn’t do and in many ways it feels more like a regular episode that only tells a fraction of its story and is dependent on the episode that follows. With what’s covered in this finale it wouldn’t have been impossible to deliver a version of this episode where some of Reiner and Marley’s attack against Eren actually happens. “Above and Below” pointedly concludes just as chaos breaks out and it intentionally leaves the first strike of this war for the final final batch of episodes. What this speaks towards is how these sixteen “final” episodes really act as more of an extended prologue for what will really be the concluding installments of this incredible series.

This bait and switch isn’t a problem, but there are likely many people that blindly went into this season with every expectation that it’s the ending, only to figure out the hard way that this isn’t the case. This could sour some viewing experiences, either for this finale or the season as a whole, especially since Part 2 isn’t coming out for practically an entire year.

It’s not dissimilar to the understandable outrage that some people experienced towards Final Fantasy VII Remake when they learned that it’s part one of a series and doesn’t cover the full story. It wouldn’t have been difficult to add Part 1 to the new Final Fantasy game, but it’d be even easier to have added it to Attack on Titan: The Final Season. If anything, showing that this final season requires two sections to be fully covered would create greater anticipation for the epic story that’s being told.

It’s a minor complaint against an exceptional season of television and one that will become irrelevant after all of the episodes are released. The structure of this season’s release doesn’t rob these episodes of their layered storytelling, stunning point of view work, and the emotional gut punch that’s accompanied the transformation of the series’ beloved characters.

“Above and Below” is an unusually direct installment and at one point Pieck asks Gabi, “Are we Marleyan? Or are we Eldian?” This question will be more important than ever as Attack on Titan heads into Part 2 of its Final Season, yet the audience already seems to understand that there is no difference between the two. These are all just people that want to have futures full of possibilities and families and friends that can thrive rather than live in fear.

This may seem like a glib oversimplification to a very busy season of television, but the conflict has literally built to a point where the embrace of two brothers will cause catastrophic danger. Hugs and handshakes are now tools of destruction and the situation between Eren and Zeke becomes metonymic for all of humanity. Reconciliation is impossible and there’s an overpowering feeling that Attack on Titan can only end in complete annihilation.

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The War for Paradis begins in Winter 2022!

The post Attack on Titan Season 4 Episode 16 Review: Above and Below appeared first on Den of Geek.

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guidetoenjoy-blog · 5 years

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Branded Worlds: how technology recentralized entertainment

New Post has been published on https://entertainmentguideto.com/must-see/branded-worlds-how-technology-recentralized-entertainment/

Branded Worlds: how technology recentralized entertainment

I love Hollywood box-office numbers because they provide a hard statistical view of cultural currents. Did you know, for instance, that there had never been a weekend when 8 of the top 10 movies in America were sequels — until this month? Or that, while almost 400 movies were released in the first half of 2018, nearly 40% of their total accumulated revenue came from just four releases, all of which were superhero sequels?

This is not what was supposed to happen. Ten years ago people thought that visual storytelling would be democratized; that new cameras, new editing suites, cheap streaming, and BitTorrent would combine to render high-cost obsolete-infrastructure Hollywood irrelevant. A worldwide cohort of genius independent filmmakers would use this new generation of accessible tools to slowly supplant Hollywood studios and producers as the drivers of visual and narrative culture.

Hoo boy, did that ever not happen. Instead we just added a few new gatekeepers to the entertainment oligarchy: YouTube, Amazon, Netflix. Instead of a new era of auteurs, of unique voices and stories, the entertainment industry has had enormous success doing the complete opposite: doubling down on sequels, and expanding brands and franchises into massive worlds of corporate-licensed, committee-written, producer-driven branded entertainment, often spanning movies, television, books, video games, and amusement parks. The Marvel Cinematic (and televised) Universe. Worlds of DC. Star Wars. Star Trek. The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Jurassic World.

This is not in and of itself a bad thing. I’m a fan of most of those myself. But it’s worth asking; why didn’t we get that decentralized diaspora of auteurs that was once widely predicted? And what are the longer-term effects of the triumph of Branded Worlds on the grassroots, and the next generations, of pop culture?

There are two answers to the first question: cost and time. Maybe it’s a lot easier to shoot and edit movies/TV than it used to be, but sets, locations, actors, scripts — those are all expensive and difficult. Better amateur work is still far from professional. And while it’s true we’re seeing interesting new visual modes of storytelling, e.g. on Twitch and YouTube, it’s very rarely narrative fiction, and it’s still distributed and monetized via Twitch and YouTube, gatekeepers who implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) shape what’s popular.

More importantly, though, democratizing the means of production does not increase demand. A 10x increase in the number of TV shows, however accessible they may be, does not 10x the time any person spends watching television. For a time the “long tail” theory, that you could make a lot of money from niche audiences as long as your total accessible market grew large enough, was in vogue. This was essentially a mathematical claim, that audience demand was “fat-tailed” rather than “thin-tailed.”

But it seems that the demand for entertainment is quite thin-tailed indeed. The more options we have, the more we seem to want characters we already know, in worlds with which we’re already familiar. This makes sense — it takes a lot of work to engage with a new world and a new cast, with no guarantee at all that they will be worth the effort. But the result is that Branded Worlds increasingly feel like vast open-world video games, even including side quests (Rogue One or Ant-Man And The Wasp) along with the “main story,” and a seemingly endless amount of new downloadable content.

I also suspect that many-chaptered, many-charactered worlds are more viable than they used to be because we’re more connected to them. Did you miss a Marvel movie leading up to Infinity War? Well, you can recap its handful of key and killer scenes on YouTube, in fifteen minutes, without having to rent/watch the whole thing. Did you miss the last episode of a TV show, or do you just want to skip to its conclusion? If it has enough cultural resonance, Vulture or The AVClub probably posted a recap you can use as quick Cliff’s Notes. We can dip our toes into Branded Worlds whenever we like, in between diving into them at a movie theater or serious bingewatching session.

The other interesting question is: what does the growing supremacy of Branded Worlds mean for the next generation of writers, directors, and producers? Obviously producers will try to turn tentpoles into sequels, and sequels into franchises, as before; but now they have a new goal, that of transforming a franchise into the apotheosis of a Branded World. (Game of Thrones, The Hunger Games, and Westworld are obvious candidates, though each faces its own set of hurdles.)

Obviously writers and directors are incentivized to create what is most likely to be successful. This doesn’t mean the complete absence of standalone one-offs — we’ve also seen that horror, long a springboard for auteurs breaking into the biz, seems to give us one surprise crossover hit every year, such as Get Out and A Quiet Place. But it does mean that creators will focus on worlds as much as stories, and that fanfiction will become a completely viable path into the industry — after all, writing within a Branded World is simply paid fanfiction. (Creators will also be incentivized to write stories which might do well in China’s burgeoning market, but that’s a different post.)

Again, none of this is intrinsically bad. What I worry about a little, though, is whether the demand for entertainment is so thin-tailed that, as the number of Branded Worlds increases, that demand begins to end with them. It’s pretty clear that once a Branded World gets big enough it doesn’t necessarily have to be good to be successful. (See Age of Ultron, Batman v Superman, the bad Star Trek movies, arguably Solo, etc.) Left-field hits like Get Out are funded because their collective batting average is acceptably high. If Branded Worlds take enough of the mindshare of the masses that the batting average of original works drops faster than their production cost, then we’ll start seeing even fewer of those.

Will that happen? I can’t say — but I can tell you that a good way to measure whether it’s happening is to look at the weekend box office a few years from now and see if, for the first time, fully 9 out of the top 10 are sequels. Watch the numbers; they rarely lie.

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thehowtostuff-blog · 6 years

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djgblogger-blog · 7 years

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Is artificial intelligence a (job) killer?

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This image was produced by the AI algorithm of the neural network 'Deep Dream Generator'. lylejk/flickr

There’s no shortage of dire warnings about the dangers of artificial intelligence these days.

Modern prophets, such as physicist Stephen Hawking and investor Elon Musk, foretell the imminent decline of humanity. With the advent of artificial general intelligence and self-designed intelligent programs, new and more intelligent AI will appear, rapidly creating ever smarter machines that will, eventually, surpass us.

When we reach this so-called AI singularity, our minds and bodies will be obsolete. Humans may merge with machines and continue to evolve as cyborgs.

Is this really what we have to look forward to?

AI’s checkered past

Not really, no.

AI, a scientific discipline rooted in computer science, mathematics, psychology, and neuroscience, aims to create machines that mimic human cognitive functions such as learning and problem-solving.

Since the 1950s, it has captured the public’s imagination. But, historically speaking, AI’s successes have often been followed by disappointments – caused, in large part, by the inflated predictions of technological visionaries.

In the 1960s, one of the founders of the AI field, Herbert Simon, predicted that “machines will be capable, within twenty years, of doing any work a man can do.” (He said nothing about women.)

Marvin Minsky, a neural network pioneer, was more direct, “within a generation,” he said, “… the problem of creating ‘artificial intelligence’ will substantially be solved”.

But it turns out that Niels Bohr, the early 20th century Danish physicist, was right when he (reportedly) quipped that, “Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.”

Today, AI’s capabilities include speech recognition, superior performance at strategic games such as chess and Go, self-driving cars, and revealing patterns embedded in complex data.

These talents have hardly rendered humans irrelevant.

New neuron euphoria

But AI is advancing. The most recent AI euphoria was sparked in 2009 by much faster learning of deep neural networks.

Artificial intelligence consists of large collections of connected computational units called artificial neurons, loosely analogous to the neurons in our brains. To train this network to “think”, scientists provide it with many solved examples of a given problem.

Suppose we have a collection of medical-tissue images, each coupled with a diagnosis of cancer or no-cancer. We would pass each image through the network, asking the connected “neurons” to compute the probability of cancer.

We then compare the network’s responses with the correct answers, adjusting connections between “neurons” with each failed match. We repeat the process, fine-tuning all along, until most responses match the correct answers.

Eventually, this neural network will be ready to do what a pathologist normally does: examine images of tissue to predict cancer.

This is not unlike how a child learns to play a musical instrument: she practices and repeats a tune until perfection. The knowledge is stored in the neural network, but it is not easy to explain the mechanics.

Networks with many layers of “neurons” (therefore the name “deep” neural networks) only became practical when researchers started using many parallel processors on graphical chips for their training.

Another condition for the success of deep learning is the large sets of solved examples. Mining the internet, social networks and Wikipedia, researchers have created large collections of images and text, enabling machines to classify images, recognise speech, and translate language.

Already, deep neural networks are performing these tasks nearly as well as humans.

AI doesn’t laugh

But their good performance is limited to certain tasks.

Scientists have seen no improvement in AI’s understanding of what images and text actually mean. If we showed a Snoopy cartoon to a trained deep network, it could recognise the shapes and objects – a dog here, a boy there – but would not decipher its significance (or see the humour).

We also use neural networks to suggest better writing styles to children. Our tools suggest improvement in form, spelling, and grammar reasonably well, but are helpless when it comes to logical structure, reasoning, and the flow of ideas.

Current models do not even understand the simple compositions of 11-year-old schoolchildren.

The success TV series ‘Westworld’ by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, portrays our relationship to AI characters.

AI’s performance is also restricted by the amount of available data. In my own AI research, for example, I apply deep neural networks to medical diagnostics, which has sometimes resulted in slightly better diagnoses than in the past, but nothing dramatic.

In part, this is because we do not have large collections of patients’ data to feed the machine. But the data hospitals currently collect cannot capture the complex psychophysical interactions causing illnesses like coronary heart disease, migraines or cancer.

Robots stealing your jobs

So, fear not, humans. Febrile predictions of AI singularity aside, we’re in no immediate danger of becoming irrelevant.

AI’s capabilities drive science fiction novels and movies and fuel interesting philosophical debates, but we have yet to build a single self-improving program capable of general artificial intelligence, and there’s no indication that intelligence could be infinite.

‘I am sorry Dave I’m afraid I can’t do that’: the iconic reply by AI computer Hal 9000 in ‘2001:A Space Odysssey’ by Kubrick.

Deep neural networks will, however, indubitably automate many jobs. AI will take our jobs, jeopardising the existence of manual labourers, medical diagnosticians, and perhaps, someday, to my regret, computer science professors.

Robots are already conquering Wall Street. Research shows that “artificial intelligence agents” could lead some 230,000 finance jobs to disappear by 2025.

In the wrong hands, artificial intelligence can also cause serious danger. New computer viruses can detect undecided voters and bombard them with tailored news to swing elections.

Already, the United States, China, and Russia are investing in autonomous weapons using AI in drones, battle vehicles, and fighting robots, leading to a dangerous arms race.

Now that’s something we should probably be nervous about.

Marko Robnik-Šikonja receives funding from Slovenian Research Agency.

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astralmorganite · 7 years

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3.3.2017 - Vows

Often I find myself wondering what I might write about the next time I get a chance to blog. While out and about my daily life, I can typically narrate the introduction paragraph in my head, regarding a few different topics. But it always seems that once I am sitting here, with tumblr open and ready to go, my mind suddenly draws a blank. It’s as if I suddenly realize that I had nothing to discuss beyond the introductions to certain topics, so I drop the idea entirely and then spend my time blankly staring into my empty post until I think of something better. But then that supposedly better topic becomes devoid of interest for one reason or another, and it all starts again. Part of me thinks this is just another manifestation of my depression; the lack of interest and the ability to give up quickly is telling. But perhaps I still have a chance to save the integrity of this blog post.

It’s March now, which means we are inching ever so closely to the big wedding day. Lately I’ve had to remind Parker that he needs to work on writing his vows, not because he doesn’t want to, but because he’s not very good at remembering to do things. We may be hiring an ASL interpreter for our ceremony, which means our vows need to be done a little sooner than later so the interpreter can go through them. I think Parker thinks he may have more time than he does to work on them, but while I sit here and somewhat chastise him, I must painfully admit that I have not quite worked on mine either. That is to say, I haven’t worked on mine on paper. I have done a lot of thought about how I want to write my vows; the format by which I pledge myself to him. I’ve come up with a theme, and a general outline of how I think it will turn out, but I have yet to actually pen the words I want to say.

I’ve decided the theme of my vows is going to be about choice. I spent a lot of time evaluating what made our relationship different, especially considering that about this time last year we were preparing for Parker’s sister to get married. In her wedding, she and her now-husband talked a lot about how they considered each other god-given blessings; that through their religious convictions, they had become worthy of each other. Personally, I don’t subscribe to this ideology in the slightest. Whether or not God exists does not change how I behave in my day-to-day life, and I don’t consider most of the sins of Mormonism to actually be problematic at all, therefore rendering their “worthiness” tests to be rather insignificant to me. But I found the common belief between them touching, and the idea of being fated to someone has always felt romantic to me. However, I find it more and more difficult to believe in some kind of fate guiding my life. I remember as a teen, it was much easier for me to identify with supernatural beings, but now it just seems improbable and illogical. But I did come upon a personal revelation regarding what I DO find equally romantic, and logical. This was the notion of individual choice, the idea that out of millions of people, Parker chose me.

Okay, well, more realistically he chose me out of thousands of local users of the dating site we met on, but the point still stands. Every day is a choice; there is nothing forcing us to be there for each other but our own personal drive to be what the other person needs. Parker currently has no obligation to put my life above anyone else’s life, but he chooses to honor me. And the same applies from me to him; I don’t have to be there, but I choose to be there. I choose to make his day better, I choose him before all else. And to me, it is the greatest honor to be both his secret keeper, and the recipient of his affections.

I intend to expand upon this when I write my actual vows, but I like this concept. It reminds me of a moment in the TV show, Rick and Morty on Adult Swim, where Morty confronts his sister, Summer. In this scene, Summer is upset over her parents’ marriage, and the implication that her birth ruined them, so she attempts to run away. Morty approaches her with the comforts of logic, saying to her:

Morty: That, out there, that's my grave.

Summer: Wait, what?

Morty: On one of our adventures, Rick and I basically destroyed the whole world, so we bailed on that reality and we came to this one, because in this one, the world wasn't destroyed and in this one, we were dead. So we came here, a- a- and we buried ourselves and we took their place. And every morning, Summer, I eat breakfast twenty yards away from my own rotting corpse.

Summer: So you're not my brother?

Morty: I'm better than your brother. I'm a version of your brother you can trust when he says "Don't run." Nobody exists on purpose, nobody belongs anywhere, everybody's gonna die. Come watch TV.

This moment is so critical to me. Throughout my life, I’ve comforted myself through believing that I had a significant purpose, like I was cosmically significant in some way that just hadn’t manifested yet. In my early teens, it helped as a significant motivator to move past my suicidal thoughts; I have to stay alive, I have a purpose to fulfill! But I have learned the last few years how damaging that mindset was to me in the long run. I feel grateful that these ideologies got me through high school, but once I graduated, it felt as though it was time for my significance to burst through me. It never came. That moment of suddenly finding my place in the world never happened. It wasn’t as if I wasn’t trying; I attempted to follow Mormon rhetoric and strictly followed a Mormon lifestyle for a long time. But when no relief came, I soon realized that I was living for the church’s benefit, not my own. Of course they benefit from me proselytizing and paying tithing. But I was no longer benefiting myself. I soon found resources that proved the Mormon church was lying to me, and decided for myself that the church was provably false. I broke off an engagement that would have led me to the Mormon Temple, and never looked back.

And since then I’ve learned to find meaning in insignificance. It’s true that in the context of that scene, Morty has concrete proof that multiverses exist. He has seen how insignificant his life decisions have led him; every choice he could possibly make has already been made on infinite numbers of other dimensions. He’s even met and interacted with other versions of himself before! How can he deny that he is just one of literally millions of outcomes that could have happened to him? In his mind, because all outcomes exist regardless of the actual choices he makes, his purpose is irrelevant. The version of himself that chose to commit horrible atrocities is the same Morty who stands before his sister. The Morty who would tell his sister that it’s ok, she has a purpose in life, also is the same Morty who tells her it’s ok to not have a purpose in life. This is only further evidence that if the choices are irrelevant, then there is no fated purpose to a single person’s existence. Ergo, nobody exists on purpose. However, in reality, it’s much harder to prove that multiverses exist, and that choices are widely irrelevant, except for in a cosmic sense. Speaking much more largely, aside from destroying our own planet, there isn’t really anything humanity can do to destroy the entirety of our Universe. The life choices of one individual does not change how the universe works, and even further does not even change how the Earth itself works. Nature will always be here, regardless of whether or not we sustain ourselves. For after humanity dies off, the Earth will still be here. Only by the inevitable heat-death of the sun will the Earth finally rest, but even then there is no human on earth who can stop that.

Where was I going with this? Oh yeah.

Because our choices are irrelevant in the cosmic perspective, our cosmic purpose is non-existent as well. But just as Morty tells Summer not to run away from her life, we also cannot run. Just because there is no greater purpose for us, does not mean that we should spend our time in despair. It merely means that we must create our own purpose. Nobody belongs anywhere, but the place that you create for yourself.

I have created for myself a space within the world Parker and I have constructed around us. Meaning comes from the things we do together, all of the good and all of the bad. It’s meaningful for us to cook dinner together, to play video games and to discuss and critique media. It’s meaningful to us to work through our mental illnesses together; to triumph over the darknesses in our lives. We have made meaning between each other by building up our history together, by always putting each other first, by spending our time together.

It’s nice to have a place in the world, especially knowing it’s one he and I have created for ourselves.

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junker-town · 7 years

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The 5 people you meet at every Super Bowl Party

The Super Bowl is like every other holiday, in that it's rife with cliché and its participants are entirely predictable. Here is a guide to the five people who will be at every Super Bowl party in America this Sunday.

There are family holidays, such as Thanksgiving and Christmas, and then there are friend holidays, such as Halloween and the Super Bowl. And the latter is unique: some of your friends are knowledgeable and invested in the spectacle at hand, while others are curious at best, and more interested in hanging out with their friends than anything going on in the game.

And God bless them all, because everyone should enjoy Super Bowl parties on their own terms. Every year, though, predictable and sometimes-maddening tropes will present themselves at your Super Bowl party. Here are the five people you will almost certainly encounter.

1. The person who brings a laptop

If you're watching the Super Bowl in the 2010s and you're curious of a particular statistic, you can probably just look it up on your phone. So if you bring a laptop, it means serious business. It also means that you're taking up valuable space on the coffee table, that a drink is going to be spilled on your laptop at some point, and that fellow party-goers will wonder what the Hell is wrong with you and why you can't just be a normal person.

Odds are high that Person Who Brings A Laptop is a sports blogger. Without exception, sports bloggers are irredeemable joyless lumps who have to turn to the Internet because nobody in real life will understand their hilarious inside joke about, I don't know, Wes Welker or something, doesn't matter. Don't sit near or talk to this person.

2. The person who enthusiastically cites "we're talkin' about it right now!" to argue for the effectiveness of a particular commercial

It's fun to debate over Super Bowl commercials from a business angle. You aren't a marketing executive, and neither is anyone at your party, but you're fine with a little amateur speculation.

One person at the party is more than fine with it. This person has been waiting all night for the conversation to turn to commercials. When someone says something like, "there's no way that ad was effective," he slowly turns to face you, and with wide-eyed earnestness, he says ...

BOOM. This person just rendered decades of advanced market trends, demographic studies, and advertising psychology completely irrelevant, and he's dominated the conversation in the process.

See, he sees things that you don't (and misuses the phrase, "case in point"). He's really got an eye for this kind of thing. You can keep on going like "I don't know about this" and "I don't know about that" if you want, man, it's your life. But this guy? He cuts the shit, man. He cuts to the quick.

Know that this is just the introduction to a minutes-long spiel that he delivers with supreme confidence because he delivers more or less the same spiel every year.

He is really smart.

3. The person who has to sit on a piece of exercise equipment because there isn't enough furniture

Some Super Bowl parties are hosted by people who are accustomed to entertaining guests. Some are not, and as a consequence they do things like fail to piece together a proper seating arrangement. At these parties, three or four people get a decent seat. Your other options, listed from least to most undesirable:

Ottoman

Desk chair

Patio/camping furniture

Cooler

A milk crate

The floor

Exercise equipment (pictured)

Plastic chair from host's child's Fisher-Price picnic table

Lap of significant other that basically everyone at the party (significant other excluded) knows you are planning to break up with in the near future

4. The person who is all about looking up the 'Too Hot For TV' portion of a commercial online

Of all the cliches dragged out for the Super Bowl every year, the worst is the generation of artificial controversy. Ad agencies create commercials that they know will be rejected by the network for one reason or another, and when they are, they're all TOO HOT FOR TV TOO COOL 4 SCHOOL YOU GUYS and show them on YouTube.

GoDaddy popularized a common variant: a TV-friendly 30-second commercial that segues into a CONTROVERSIAL accompanying second portion found online, with the TV version implying that there will be sexual content in the Internet version. This is popular with the "I didn't know there was sex on the Internet" demographic.

During the Super Bowl, you will probably see this stunt pulled at least once.

And at least one person at your party will totally mark out over it.

5. The non-football fan who is trying really hard to make salient societal observations

This person isn't a football fan, but is all about singling out football-centric minutiae and blowing it up into an indictment of football and of society at large. For example, this person will always assign erotic qualities to the players' tight pants, and/or the quarterback's snap behind center.

After a few drinks, this person will move on to the larger issues. A lot of the larger issues.

A word of advice, and this is really important: the moment this person starts discussing politics, immediately interrupt him with a summary of a This American Life podcast or something. This person will then shift gears and start on a line of discourse about "who ACTUALLY makes our hacky-sacks." This discussion will be insufferable but preferable to the alternative.

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Attack on Titan Season 4 Episodes 14 and 15 Review

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These Attack on Titan reviews contain spoilers.

Attack on Titan Season 4 Episode 14: Savagery

“You know what I hate the most in the world? People who aren’t free. They’re no more than cattle.”

”I wanted to talk with you guys…”

Those were the ominous words that Eren shared with his old comrades and new enemies at the end of Attack on Titan’s previous episode. This anime regularly features an exceptional amount of destruction courtesy of deadly powers and brutal battles, but this season’s development of Eren Jaeger is so substantial that seven words can be even more terrifying than dozens of strikes.

So, they talk. Nearly a third of this episode is talk as Eren calmly dresses down his best friends and every second of it is emotionally explosive. Floch takes over the Survey Corps with fellow Jaegerists and he talks to them to sway the masses and inspire a revolution. Zeke even talks to Levi in a manner that allows him to let down his guard enough that he’s temporarily able to make a play to escape. Attack on Titan is full of painful physical altercations, but “Savagery” is all about how the savage nature of words can hit harder than any Titan punch and sometimes be even harder to recover from.

Mikasa and Armin try to properly get inside Eren’s head and understand his recent actions, but he has absolutely no interest in justifying himself or explaining his actions like he’s a super villain in the third act of a story. Eren’s goal is very simple and rather than waste any time he systematically hits his friends with mind games where they’re left destabilized and vulnerable. Eren’s words are devastating, but his ice cold expression through the whole chat is just as alarming. He’s lost the Kruger outfit, but he’s even more unrecognizable.

Eren is absolutely ruthless when he flatly tells Mikasa that he’s always hated her and doesn’t flinch when her tears start to run. He knows better than anyone else how much this callousness will destroy Mikasa as well as how integral she’s been in his prolonged survival for all of these years. It’s heartbreaking to see Eren so thoroughly abandon the few remaining people that actually care about him as a person and don’t just view him as a means to an end or a weapon of destruction. He praises Zeke just as much as he insults Armin and Mikasa.

Armin and Mikasa are stunned through most of this and they have every right to be. A lot of time has passed offscreen, but it’s ridiculous to think that season three concludes with Eren and Armin excited about the future while they splash in the tide of the sea and now they’re decking each other out while they spill each other’s blood. It’s been a while since a conventional fistfight has come up in Attack on Titan and it hits even harder since it’s Eren and Armin.

There are clear parallels in the choreography of Eren’s beatdown on Armin that mirror the Attack Titan’s assault on the Armored and Jaw Titans. It’s a breaking point for this duo that have always had each other back and the audience is still left to question if Eren has truly fallen for Zeke or if there are still other levels of deception present here where this behavior is a mask for something bolder.

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Every second that passes in this conversation there’s another grain of the old Eren that falls through the hourglass and he’s less recognizable from the moment before. Every word bites and it’s even more gutting when Mikasa instinctively defends Eren and attacks Armin over the situation like she’s some brainwashed partner in a toxic relationship (and in many ways, she is). Mikasa is still compelled to help Eren, even after all of this and she’d probably even go down smiling and thank Eren if he just snapped and decided to eat her. Some of this has to do with the chilling information that Eren reveals about the nature of the Ackermans and how Mikasa is basically imprinted to him on some degree, but even without this inherent connection it still feels like Mikasa would selflessly be by Eren’s side and hope for the best.

Another component of Eren’s plan plays out elsewhere with Hange, Floch, and the new trainees in the Survey Corps. Floch is able to so swiftly influence these recruits and poison the well, which makes for a frightening extrapolation of the Jaegerists’ previous terrorism. So many honorable characters have fallen over the past episodes, but it stings to watch a group like the Survey Corps become completely bankrupt of values and just another tool for the enemy. So many characters use words like the ammunition for a weapon in “Savagery,” but it’s a strategy that fails Hange. She tries to share the news that the wine is spiked with Zeke’s spinal fluid, but she’s ignored and her treatment remains horrendous. It looks like she’s set to be a hostage for the time being, that is if she’s not just outright killed as some trust exercise that Floch puts his new recruits through like he does with Keith Shadis.

Whether Floch and company believe or care about Zeke’s spinal wine is irrelevant because everyone gets to figure this out the hard way once Zeke puts his power into action. The forest very quickly fills up with Titans and the second half of “Savagery” is full of action to balance out the war of words that happens earlier. Many of Marley’s residents get triggered by Zeke’s gambit and it’s exciting to see the side effects of this “wine hangover” go fully into effect.

Unfortunately, Levi’s own men enjoyed these libations, which forces him to take down his comrades with zero time to contemplate alternatives. This decision clearly weighs heavily on Levi and reflects how committed he is to his mission. “Savagery” makes this exercise especially painful as Levi sees the faces of his friends before he cuts down their Titan forms.

This is a mentally exhausting maneuver for Levi, but it’s also a stunning action sequence that’s one of the best fights in Attack on Titan since season three. There’s wonderful choreography to Levi’s carnage as he takes advantage of his claustrophobic settings. It’s satisfying to see the anime go all out with this encounter and that Levi doesn’t stumble over these obstacles and allow Zeke to get away.

The tension between Levi and Zeke has been present in Attack on Titan for seasons and the assault in Liberio only teased the tension that exists between these two. This has been a long time coming and it’s given the attention that it deserves. Perhaps the best part of it is that Levi shares this success with Erwin and declares that this is just as much his victory and that his spirit can find some peace now.

A lot is left up in the air by the end of “Savagery” and each episode continues to unearth the status quo more than before. Levi and Zeke’s story concludes on the most disturbing note of the lot as Levi keeps Zeke in a form of grisly suspended torture that would make Asami from Audition blush. It’s the most extreme action that Levi has ever taken and it’s another reflection of how everyone is getting pushed past their limits.

However, these past few episodes have proven more than anything that this type of radical behavior seems to be the only way to survive and those that don’t adapt to these heartless ways are the ones that get trampled over by “progress.” Zeke just wants to return to that game of catch from his innocent youth, but it’s impossible. The kids in Eldia and Marley are more familiar with hand grenades than they are with baseballs. “Savagery” begins this thought and “Sole Salvation” shows that the two can sometimes be equally dangerous.

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Attack on Titan Season 4 Episode 15: Sole Salvation

“Sole Salvation” begins right where “Savagery” finishes, but the two episodes are structured so differently that it’s hard not to get whiplash when watching them back-to-back. Levi’s torturing of Zeke greatly intensifies, yet the episode retreats into Zeke’s subconscious as he mentally suffers for his actions and hopes to stumble upon absolution while he physically gets ravaged and turned into living viscera.

This flashback into Zeke’s childhood and one of his last remaining moments of true innocence might initially feel like a disappointment from the heavy action that’s present in “Savagery.” However, it’s presence here is not unlike how memories from past Titan bearers will flood the current users at unexpected moments. They have no control over when these memories will overlap with their own and are left to ponder the greater significance of it all.

The purpose of “Sole Salvation” is nebulous at first, but then it becomes clear why this piece of the story is currently being told. “Sole Salvation” functions as a release of pressure from a run of episodes that have become impossibly tense. In the past, flashbacks have been utilized to fill in context from different perspectives and also allow the audience a much-needed breather. The jump backwards this time seems like it’s a gentle form of escapism, but there’s still a dark edge to it that amplifies the dread that’s prevalent in the present. It’s not so much a reprieve from danger as it is an explanation for the bloody turn that’s about to take place.

“Savagery” highlights Eren’s rage towards the “cattle” and “slaves” of the world, yet “Sole Salvation” underscores that these are exactly the conditions that brought Eren and Zeke into this world. Grisha’s entire mindset towards family and children is even comparable to a cattle breeder. The biggest question that’s hung over the second half of this season is how exactly Eren and Zeke have come to terms with each other and “Sole Salvation” beautifully gets that point across in the most tragic way possible.

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Zeke and Eren are two attempts at the same idea and they’re able to find an empowering and dangerous invincibility in their dark roots. It’s almost as if they consider their increasing need for bloodshed and violence vindicated because they were always designed to be destructive weapons. One doesn’t get upset at an atom bomb for exploding . Eren and Zeke are just the two explosions at the end of very long wicks that Grisha lit years ago.

Zeke’s upbringing succeeds as a valuable counterpoint to what’s been shown with the childhoods of Eren, Grisha, Reiner, Gabi, and Falco. Grisha hammers in the ideology to his son that if he hates the world then it’s his responsibility to change it. This mantra soon becomes synonymous with Zeke’s desire to become a Warrior, which begins as an extension of his father, but blossoms into a bold act of independence. A young Zeke gets pulled in two directions as he forms a friendship with Tom Ksaver, a Titan researcher and the previous bearer of the Beast Titan.

Tom’s influence on Zeke is a vital part of the boy’s development and Ksaver feels like the type of productive person that Grisha could have become under purer circumstances. Tom selflessly uses himself as a guinea pig for the sake of knowledge, whereas Grisha endangers his own family for data.

Tom isn’t without his own sins and he becomes a mentor figure for Zeke, but it’s fascinating to consider how differently Zeke and Eren’s lives might have gone with someone like Tom as their father. They could maybe be living normal lives rather than the immensely complicated scenarios that their existences have become. They’re ready to commit genocide to an entire group of people and Eren and Zeke still treat this like the lesser of two evils. It’s just an extended game of catch that’s been going on for generations.

“Savagery” and “Sole Salvation” do not mess around and in a season of very strong episodes they’re two installments that immediately stand out and feel memorable, but for completely different reasons. Both entries are emotionally draining and connect on every level. It genuinely hurts to see these characters tear each other down after they’ve gone through so much together.

So much of the second half of this season has revolved around Eren and Zeke’s secret plan and with only one episode remaining it’s truly unclear where this all will land. Eren’s half of the plan seems to be successful, especially from the Jaegerists’ perspective, but Zeke appears to have hit a real roadblock that may or may not ruin what Eren has in motion.

Other crucial players like Gabi, Annie, and Reiner also need to fit into all of this somehow. Attack on Titan has always been heading towards a dark and depressing ending, yet the moral compasses of so many characters have become magnetized and off center that even the “winners” might be too disgusted with who they’ve become to be able to celebrate.

At the very least they’ll probably stay away from the wine.

Savagery: 4.5/5 Sole Salvation: 3.5/5

The post Attack on Titan Season 4 Episodes 14 and 15 Review appeared first on Den of Geek.

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Life Lessons Gamers Can Learn From MMORPGs

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If you ever worry that the hours you plough in to open world video games is time wasted, don’t sweat it. Every minute in a fantasy realm has actually been spent enrolled in a complex training simulation preparing you for the banal realities of 21st century life.

The creator of Dead Pixels – a comedy series about Meg and Nicky, two gamers utterly devoted to fictional fantasy MMORPG Kingdom Scrolls – explains how online games have been stealthily shaping us for the real world through nine simple life lessons.

Lesson 1: Submit to the rules

Games basically train you to be a good functioning member of capitalist society, a good employee. You have to submit yourself to a rigid set of rules, learn what you’re not allowed to do and get on board with that, or you’re not going to get anywhere. Subvert the rules if you want to, but if you do, you’re never going to make any progress.

Lesson 2: Grind away

To progress anywhere, you need to accept drudgery. Grind away. Do lots of busywork. If you’re happy to do that and to turn up for work every day, then you’ll go a long way and be rewarded with lots of nice shiny things and make money and XP and get levels. If you choose not to do that, then you’ll languish and essentially never amount to anything.

Lesson 3: Money gets you further, quicker

The more fortunate people in life will always get ahead. In Fortnite, you can buy tiers. My 10-year-old son will tell me that some friend of his is already on Level 40 because they’ve just paid his way to the top. That’s a good life lesson to accept – that however hard you work, if people have more money and more access than you, they’re going to get ahead of you first. It might sound bleak, but it’s useful to know.

Lesson 4: Really bad, unfair things can happen

Games are much needier now than they used to be, they actually want you to have fun. Back in the day, Spectrum games, 8-Bit games and platform games required much more skill. Once you’d bought a game, it was basically ‘Fuck you, we’ve taken your money. If you can’t get through it, tough shit’. Nowadays, because of season passes and subscriber models, games want you to be happy and keep playing. They’ve stopped teaching us to be patient.

Play pretty much any modern MMORPG or even FPS, and there are never really any consequences. You can’t ever really die and even if you do, often your progress will be reset within the last few minutes. It’s very rare that you get to something beyond your skill level. I’m playing Doom Eternal at the minute on the Switch, and there’s only so far you can really fall in that game. Original Doom was incredibly difficult and very punishing. That’s something games used to teach you but don’t anymore: that really bad things can happen and we just have to deal with it.

Lesson 5: Stay in your lane

You made a choice at the start of the game as to your character class, and built up that character every time you played. After 100 hours, if you decide that you don’t want to be a warrior, you want to be a mage, you’re basically fucked. You have to start again, retrain and go through every step of it again. It’s the same in real life if you were a plumber and decide you want to go and be an optometrist, it’s tough shit. You’ve got to relearn your craft and start again.

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Lesson 6: Rewards > Escapism

In an online game, how often do you get on a dragon and fly through rainbows and under waterfalls? You don’t. You grind for items and mine for gold, and pull up the weeds in Animal Crossing. You’ve got this paradise island and you spend your time on it breaking rocks like you’re in a chain gang.

We enter these online utopias thinking, ‘My job is bullshit and I hate it and I’m miserable so I’m going to play this game where I can do anything I want’ and then what we do in the game is a form of busywork that more or less mirrors our day jobs. That’s because something innate in us that likes rewards and likes being told that we’ve done something well, so we’ll do these things because there’ll be a little reward at the end. The reward won’t necessarily make the game easier or more pleasurable, but we still covet it.

Lesson 7: Bureaucracy is in our blood

I remember playing a side quest in Elder Scrolls, going to see this woman who was locked out of her house in a little village. She’d lost her keys, so you had to search all of the places in the village to find this woman’s keys. At that point, it occurred to me that I was simulating the absolute worst part of my actual day, which is ‘Where are my fucking keys?’ The worst thing is, I’m just doing it for some incremental increase in XP which will ultimately increase my level which will mean I can access a new part of the game which will look like this part of the game, and will have enemies in it that will be benchmarked to my new level, so they won’t be any more challenging or any more fun than the current game. We, irresistibly, are drawn to bureaucratic systems.

Lesson 8: Change is the only constant

More so than they did before, games are constantly changing and shifting. The idea in Dead Pixels season two is that in-world game Kingdom Scrolls has shifted to focus on a different demographic, moving away from being for the hardcore and trying to grab that Fortnite market. In season two, characters Meg and Nicky feel like that world doesn’t value them anymore, it’s just going after a younger audience. Ultimately, they realise that there’s no choice but to get on board with it and try to enjoy it.

Your relationship to those properties and those worlds does change as you grow older. It’s like the Toy Story thing, there’s a time in your life when it’s time to put down childish things and become a grown-up and that’s a tension in Dead Pixels: how much longer can Meg and Nicky stay in this world?

Lesson 9: You don’t have to be in the same room to be with someone

To be slightly less bleak, the biggest benefit of online gaming is the connection you have with other people, to the extent that the actual game pretty much becomes irrelevant. The fact that you’re doing busywork doesn’t really mean anything, because you’re doing it with someone – especially right now – that you can’t physically be with. In lockdown, Fortnite essentially became the school playground. My son’s a social butterfly on there, he has scheduled activities all afternoon with his schoolfriends.

In Dead Pixels, Meg and Nicky can physically be together but they’re more comfortable when they have a third element to communicate through. That’s a huge positive and something I’ve experienced playing games with my brother, who I don’t get to see as much as I’d like. That’s at the heart of this show, that’s really what it’s about: here is a world that allows these two people to connect and communicate in a way that they can’t in real life.

As told to Louisa Mellor

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Dead Pixels season 2 starts on Tuesday the 26th of January at 10pm on E4.

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