#i mean in some parts of history you can like idk in the context of the show let's look at...Bugs | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sweetfairydreams · 4 months

Text

ok this will be a long post. be warned!

let me dive a little deeper into how will and james have been reborn. and when i say reborn i truly mean reborn. in a sense that: they are not just souls and bodies that once lived in the past, but they are re-living their own lives in a new world and context.

(yes this is just a theory (( a book theory)) since we didn't got a full vision of their past yet, but with the little we have i can safely say i have something here!)

ok let's start with will then, sarcean actually. what do we know about sarcean's past? we know he was part of the sun king's army, he was the 'Dark General', the king used sarcean's dark power on his army and paraded him around on his cavalcade, but always kept a tight hold on him. we learn that the lady was not allowed to be with him, that when exposed to the world the king always made clear to say that sarcean was different, that he was dark, manipulative and a threat. you can sense that sarcean was inside the king's court, but he was never really welcomed, he was there to be a weapon ? controlled ? both ? then once sarcean tries to 'betray' the king, he throws sarcean in a prison. sarcean is then saved by visander who eventually will become a champion of the light, but used to be loyal to sarcean. he falls for the lady, briefly, but then he falls for anharion. he gets anharion's loyalty and becomes the dark king.

now we see will, born from a mother that resented him, that was from the blood that should destroy him, from the same light that the sun king irradiated. a mother who kept him alive only so she could control him, keep him on a tight hold. a mother that then tries to kill him, but only puts him on this path to eventually encounter a kind of guardian from the light that helps him escape imprisonment. he falls for katherinne, briefly, but then falls for james that naturally swears his loyalty to him.

with will's story, for me at least, it is very clear that everything that happens with james and will in the present is an echo, a metaphor for what has happened in the past. they are truly reborned. pacat insinuates that in many points of the book, these are not only "coincidences" they are reflexes of their past lives.

"of course you are." the end of the first book is meaning that yes james is following will because that is what he was meant to be doing. but, in the present, james gives his loyalty to will willingly. no collar is needed, he just naturally trusts will because will was the only person in his life that wanted to set him free.

so if we follow with this logic that, whatever happens now is a reflex of what happened in the past, then sarcean didn't have to collar anharion to get his loyalty, that maybe he even represented freedom to anharion. this collar is sooo sketchy (and i just know it will end up just being some kinky shit sarcean and anharion were into)

jokes aside, we already learned by now that apparently everything about this collar was just inventions of the greedy that had it through history. one thing pacat is really heavy on this series is about how stories can be changed, specially as time passes. just look at the stewards.

to strengthen my point let's think about the time will confronts cyprian saying that it was acceptable for the stewards to use dark magic for the good but will can't use his own powers for good. idk sounds maybe something like the sun king using sarcean's power on his army, but also placing him like a terrible evil creature ?? uhhh ok then!

now dive into james story then, born in a home that pledged about serving the light, about opposing the darkness, but that when they find out about who a kid supposedly is they all turn against him, try to kill a child for something they don't even really understand. so he runs away and finds a new home in the darkness, in the memories of a dark king that he carries inside of him. he becomes "the traitor" for his family. for the light. once again the story seems to be retold.

so that makes one think that anharion maybe had his reasons to betray the sun king, that his loyalty to the darkness could be a refuge. freedom.

i'm not very good writing my thoughts down, i have so many on this and wanted to see if anyone else shared these, so please comment your theories here if you wish! i'd love to hear some more thoughts.

#dark heir #dark rise #dark heir spoilers #will kempen #james st clair #cs pacat

147 notes · View notes

zagreuses-toast · 9 months

Note

I come from a place of sheer curiousity and I just wanna ask genuinely- you say that you're a fan of 13s/ the chibnall era. Why? Doctor who is my favourite show and I've connected with every incarnation deeply and immediately, but have never been able to "click" with 13, despite my best efforts. What is it that you like about her? What is it that you like about chibnalls writing? I want to know and I want to like her/it too, but as of right now, I just... don't. Obviously you're not obligated to, but can you explain why?

Ok so this ended up being a Long Post, so I'm putting my response under the read more. Also I'm assuming you've actually watched the Chibnall era up to The Power of The Doctor, if you haven't then heads up for spoilers and stuff that might not make much sense without context.

Oh and I'm gonna @ @rearranging-deck-chairs and @ssaalexblake because I see their DW opinions all the time and they're really good and they can probably give more nuanced answers on some things. (Idk how well I did on explaining why I liked some of them, and it really is up to personal preference on some things)

Thirteen herself:

There are a lot of reasons I like Chibnalls era, but one of the biggest ones out the gate is definitely Jodie and her acting in the role of the Doctor. I think the way she balances bouncy gregariousness with the colder more angry and mean aspects of the Doctor is great. She does this thing where she can just make her eyes go dead and then smile like it's a threat, like she's gonna bite, especially when going up against villains. It's great. And Jodie herself is a delightful person.

Beyond just physical acting choices, I find the thirteenth Doctors struggle between her anger and secrecy, vs her desire to connect and her joy at life very very compelling. She keeps this distance that's really interesting I think, where she's genuinely attached to and trying to be a friend to the Fam, but still trying to keep her whole past out of the deal, which doesn't work that well, as we see in s12 and Flux. She's surrounded by death and haunted by the knowledge of how little time she has with her friends, (Grace, and she just came back from bill) but she still wants and needs that connection, and she learns to live in the present a bit. I made a whole post about her final regeneration speech here. I love her arc a lot even if it hurts. Also she's such a horrible hypocrite about so many things, which also makes her a fun character to rotate in my head and study like a bug. I do see it as being on purpose, some people seem to think it's just bad writing that she contradicts herself but imo that's a big part of her character.

Chibnalls writing:

I personally like the timeless child plot because :

There are a lot of stories and ideas in the Chibnall era I like, and a lot more I find very compelling. Whatever your opinions on the writing (and I definitely have had a lot of critique for some bits), there were a lot of ideas introduced that were fun and interesting. One of the weaker points of the era IMO is having so much fun stuff set up, but only shallowly or quickly exploring it, and then adding more stuff on top.

A lot of things didn't get the exploration/screen time I thought they deserved (especially characterization and interaction/dialogue wise). But that just gives my brain more to chew on at the end of the day, and I do love what was done during the seasons itself, not just all the potential stuff.

1) I can connect with it, I know Chibnall was coming at it from a place of being an adoptee, but as a native person the story of a kid taken and raised into an imperial/colonial society, who had their history stolen and their body exploited to further that societies ends, hits very close to home.

And 2) I have a "everything is true at once" approach to canon and I think the more origin stories we make for the Doctor the funnier it is.

This era had a lot of repeating themes, ideas that showed up and we're explored in a lot of different circumstances, often with a rule of 3 aspect to it. One is themes of Empire and Exploitation. Particularly through the stenza in s11 (empire using up planets, introduced to us basically doing foxhunts for clout, but with People instead of foxes), the dalek specials, the Cybermen in s12, and Division/the timelords in flux (as well as the sontarans &co).

Within that there's the repeating motif of how by exploiting people or their beliefs for power the imperial power/bad guys sew the seeds of their destruction. From Tzim Sha using the Ux and them turning against him, to the Division being destroyed by the Ravagers, who they tried to use to get rid of the Doctor/the old universe (and the doctor and even the master going rogue in the first place). Hell even Kerblam! (I know I know) Has a version, where the AI system being used to do terrible things is the one to call the doctor for help!

Another standout are themes of breaking cycles, Ryan is estranged from his dad and was distancing himself from Graham, but they both put in the work and grow extremely close over their two seasons. He also chooses to leave the TARDIS when he realizes he's absent from his friend's lives and wants to be present. And the Doctor gets to break the cycle of exploitation that Tecteun started, when she meets a vulnerable being with mysterious power (the energy being from TPOTD) she helps it free itself, on a way she wasn't helped.

Individual character stuff:

Going again into more individual character stuff I love, I've gotta give it to Sacha Dhawan for being a fucking superb Master. His acting is bonkers amazing and he does a great job portraying the sorta huge personal crisis the master is going through, and externalizing via evil schemes. At the end of Twelves run we saw Missy try to be like the doctor, to get her friend back (and even succeed a bit) but end up dying for it. Now we come back to a master who died trying to be like the person they see as their only equal, and has discovered (wrongly) that they were never equal to begin with, that the doctor is so much more than them. So he tries to make her like him instead, and If she won't become like him and kill them both along with the rest of gallifrey, then he will become her properly this time (by body snatching), ruin her legacy, and die with her eventually (overtaking her in the same way his whole existance has now been caused/overtaken by the doctor in his eyes, because of her being the source of regeneration)

Also can we talk about the Yaz?? I've been dying to talk about Yaz!!! I love her a lot and I find her fascinating, shes probably my favorite companion based on just sheer amount of time spent Thinking about her. Her doctorification/character arc is so good

Yaz is into the travelling and saving the day lifestyle the Doctor gives her for the responsibility of it all, for feeling useful and capable and good. Her early characterization Monet's include her complaining about not having more interesting jobs as a cop because she wants responsibility, she wanted to be important and helpful (that's the entire reason she became a cop, to help people like she was helped when she was in a dark place, and she finds a better way of doing that with the Doctor). And she GETS THERE, narratively and on a character level, she spends three years on earth with her own companions! She co-pilots the TARDIS and can fly her herself! She saves the day when the master steals the doctors body! And most of all SHES EXTREMELY SAD AT THE END BECAUSE THE PERSON SHE LOVES DIED BEFORE HER!! JUST LIKE THE DOCTOR !! (ugly crying) (I could write a whole other post about thasmin, good and bad, but a lot of people have put it better than me)

Also, I'm a big TARDIS girlie, she has somehow ended up being one of my favorite characters in doctor who, and the chinball era does so much fun stuff with the TARDIS!! Different writers take different approaches to the TARDIS, and how alive vs inanimate, or how active vs passive she is. I think the Chinball era had something special in terms of the way the TARDIS was depicted, and I loved it a lot. We never really get to see past the control room but it's a gorgeous control room! And throughout the era the TARDIS just feels so alive, it's always humming and beeping and chirping, I especially love the moments when the lights change color to match the doctors mood (mostly to blue, for sadness, sometimes red to yell at that dalek that one time). And speaking of the doctor, starting with ghost monument thirteen has a bunch of sweet moments of banter or just ~emotions~ with the TARDIS. I genuinely teared up a bit when she entrusted the timeless child memories to the TARDIS,and before her regeneration speech when she asked the TARDIS to look after her. Because who can she trust with her past AND her future except her oldest truest friend.

I could add a lot more of specific things from the era I love (solitract my beloved) but I think this is getting long enough as is lol.

#doctor who #thirteenth doctor #chibnall #jodie whittaker #flux #timeless child #dw #also sorry about answeing so late i forgot this in my drafts lol

123 notes · View notes

endiness · 9 months

Text

for people who actually care about basing their opinion off of all of the information instead of, idk, none or clickbaity article headlines... here is what tomasz baginski said in his interview when it comes to changing things from the books:

There is also the question of the recipient’s sensitivity. I often point this out to others [in the production team], such as how they simplify politics in the plot. We, Poles, see various political events differently because of our history and experiences. We see more nuances. Especially in the context of what is happening beyond our eastern border. We can recognize this gray area where various influences and powers flow. It is more understandable and transparent to us. For example, that this person is good and this one is bad, but also a little good, and here it’s rather gray and we understand why this good hero does some unpleasant things. We catch it in three seconds. I had the same perceptual block when I presented Hardkor 44 [a never-made variation on the Warsaw Uprising] abroad years ago and tried to explain: there was an uprising against Germany, but the Russians were across the river, and on the German side there were also soldiers from Hungary or Ukraine. For Americans, it was completely incomprehensible, too complicated, because they grew up in a different historical context, where everything was arranged: America is always good, the rest are the bad guys. And there are no complications. When a series is made for a huge mass of viewers, with different experiences, from different parts of the world, and a large part of them are Americans, these simplifications not only make sense, they are necessary. It’s painful for us, and for me too, but the higher level of nuance and complexity will have a smaller range, it won’t reach people. Sometimes it may go too far, but we have to make these decisions and accept them.

and here is the thing he said about tiktok in an interview over a year ago when talking about s2 because for some reason we're bringing this up:

BAGINSKI: I see the fastening of the processes Jacek Dukaj wrote about in his book – "Po piśmie" ("After the script"). We resign from cause-and-effect chains, from the linear narration. This book-like narration. When it comes to shows, the younger the public is, the logic of the plot is less significant.

INTERVIEWER: What is significant, then?

BAGINSKI: Just pure emotions. A bare emotional mix. Those people grow up on TikTok, Youtube, they jump from a video to video...

INTERVIEWER: You're talking to such person.

BAGINSKI: So, it's time to be serious: Dear children, what you do to yourself makes you less resilient for longer content, for long and complicated chains of cause an effect.

INTERVIEWER: You're talking about something else that's hidden between your words. What you mean is that you don't know how to make a show kids'd like to watch.

BAGINSKI: Generally, I try to know what people react to and like to watch. Long and complex narratives will remain, it'll be like a classic shelf in a bookstore. People will still read that, it will be popular at some point. But the edge of the mass audience is moving a bit into the a less linear narration, less cohesive one. I think it's inevitable. As reading is not natural for the human brain.

INTERVIEWER: Yep, you gotta learn it, it's hard.

BAGINSKI: Oh, in this sense, yes. You need a lot of effort to learn to recognise all these symbols. You probably don't remember that. If you're a genius, you read when you're 3. It's some big effort for your brain, moreover, it's not natural. The things we receive with our heads... There's nothing literary there. We have to learn literature. Learn to receive it and write it. It's like mathematics, a lot of abstract symbols you have to learn to recognise. People who understand it will remain, the people who work on narration, they have to work on texts. But, more and more people won't need it. Why write if I can record or say it? Why write if I can receive emotions in a different way. It's a controversial thesis. When Dukaj published it, there was a lot of arguments like: "But I still read! My friends, too!" However, we talk about trends in a scale.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah, it's not about you or your friend.

BAGINSKI: We talk about global trends. The success of TikTok wouldn't be possible without that. It's happening. It's just easier to watch and click, watch another one, than read a book and follow all those twists and plots. We'll see how it goes. I think The Witcher is safe for now, there are still a few more years... Maybe it's because of the generation.

in either case, it’s pretty obvious he’s not blaming ~*~the fans~*~ for the changes the show made to the books but talking about how american/western media is made and younger audiences who grew up on social media in general.

#the witcher #tomasz baginski #tomek baginski #!txt: the witcher

62 notes · View notes

softlyapocalytpic · 1 year

Text

Fallout 4 Companion Backstory Headcanons

A list of headcanons just for context of my writing later on, and cuz it’s fun to share! This won’t be exhaustive by any means, but more just a fun something with some of my thoughts ✨. I’ll do the other games some other time after thinking on them, but mostly my thoughts are about Fallout 2 which no one ever talks about lmao

Preston

Somewhere between 24 - 27. He feels young still, but not young enough to FEEL young… y’know what I mean.

Can’t explain it, but for years he’s always lived by train tracks in my mind. Walking down them with a radio in a rucksack on his shoulder or something like that.

Grew up (at least until he was seventeen) with his Mom & Dad. Quiet life by a forest. (I’m just imagining Oberland Station aren’t I lmao). They die either when he’s around 13, 17, or shortly after he joins up with the Minutemen. Raiders. Whatever settlement/farm he grew up in is gone now in part because of death, and the other reason is people moving on to somewhere safer.

I kept trying to make him the eldest brother, but honestly I think he might just be an only child?? Definitely big brother’d the younger kids in the settlement, but had an older kid or family member who he looked up to at least for a little while.

I can just imagine that older sibling person becoming a Minuteman and Preston hears back from them sporadically in his childhood, or a squad coming through when he’s somewhere between 7 - 10 years old and having that typical hero worship moment when he looks up at them with those big ol’ eyes and gets his hat from them. Made up his mind then and there to join one day.

While his education wasn’t the most robust in the world, I think he was always looking out for brochures, books, pamphlets, anything with a little bit of history in it. He got most of it cheap because it was junk that wasn’t going to get sold otherwise, and he keeps all these different papers/clippings in old banged up cookie tin that takes with him everywhere. Lost it in Quincy, but eventually gets it back when the Minutemen reclaim it from the Gunners.

Piper

Not any older than 25, but she feels more like a 23 or 24 to me. Let’s go with 24. Feels like that if she lived in modern NYC she’d fit right in with the hustle culture and rooftop bars where you can see all the lights of the city.

She grew up on the Northern outskirts of the Commonwealth closer (but not right next) to a huge forest up there.

Her settlement had rickety ass walls that technically had walkways to patrol the entire perimeter, but like… holes everywhere. Animals get into all the time as well as attacks just generally messing it up.

She’d go on the walkways sometimes and stare off towards the horizon thinking about making it big and living in ✨Diamond City✨. It was always her dream to live there.

Mom died shortly after she gave birth to Nat, but her dad never made her feel his grief about it. Definitely got this mentality of putting on airs to seem more put together than you are from him, which she now does for Nat. Or tries to anyhow

Moved to Diamond at least five years ago. I could see the argument for like 2 or 3, but I like the idea of her coming to Diamond City as a very young adult after saving up a lot of caps to move with Nat.

Can be classified as a bisexual disaster, but I like to imagine her with a heavy preference towards women and femmes. I just want some sapphics alright.

I don’t remember her attitude on the Silver Shroud at the moment, but fuck if she seems like she ADORED the Mistress of Mystery and desperately want her to find out about the whole academy and everything. It sounds so up her alley!!!

Danse

Idk if it’s contentious or not, but Cutler was a real living person that Danse knew. Broadly speaking none of his memories are false because broadly speaking he lived them!!! Like, everything before living in Rivet City is implanted, but I love Danse the scrappy youngin with little meat on his bones alongside Cutler, and the two them joining the BoS together

But you may say, Astra! Synths body weight doesn’t change and they don’t age. I call bullshit!!! I tried to play in the framework as much as possible but it doesn’t make any sense to me that they wouldn’t age/change form & weight at least a little!!! Synths… aren’t machines. They’re fleshy computers with an extra piece installed to interface with them. If they eat a stupid amount of fancy lad snack cakes, or go through intense physical training, their body will change! Okay rant over.

Also, I could see why people might want him to have more false memories considering that him questioning his identity and the entire basis of it is… a pretty big deal to his character, but with the story he tells… why make that up? I don’t think he’s an Institute plant, and why would the RR do that to him? It doesn’t make sense. And like the idea that what he’s been through is real even if he doesn’t realize it for a while. He’s a real person with a real life- it just started a little differently.

I can’t decide on him being formerly a courser or not… I think I’ll go with no, but maybe he was considered for it. I think it’d be too much like Harkness if he was, but regardless two synths… right under Zimmerman’s nose. Yikes.

I think he was a fresh recruit during the time of the LW, and at least for my story he will be. Doesn’t think about the LW too much except when he sees the propaganda posters everywhere. Doesn’t get the hero worship everyone else has.

As for his physical age, I think most people would clock him at very late twenties or early thirties. (I think other Danse’s could be a little older, but for my purposes I like him hear.) He doesn’t know how old he is actually but has a round-a-bout idea of what he thinks he is. For BoS documentation reasons they list him as 29, but he feels older than that.

I like to imagine Danse looking up to Harkness a little bit when he was younger, modeling after him in some fashions.

Deacon

He’s somewhere in his mid to late 40’s, but at this point he doesn’t even know how old he actually is, though he has a good idea of the ballpark.

He did actually grow up at University Point, or at least near it, and he spent ages combing through the library and all the rotten wood so he could learn about the world. Was a real nerdy kid.

He grew up eating Mirelurk pretty regularly as a consequence of living near a nest of them. They would have to regularly hunt there in order to keep everyone safe, which meant getting creative with it!

After what Kellogg did to UP there’s almost no one left who can remember who he was before the Railroad. There might be some people who moved away before it was razed to the ground, or who might have gotten away with just their life, but Deacon hasn’t seen or met them around the wastes, so he’s them as dead.

This is kind of to my point with him: Deacon is liar, but he doesn’t intentionally lie about the big stuff. If any of this isn’t true it’s because he’s buried it deep in himself, or lord so many times, and so much time has passed that he’s reforged new details.

Yes, he’s never been to Greenland or been all the way over to the Mojave, but he had traveled a lot and heard countless stories! Always an element of truth to what he’s saying (but sometimes it takes a journey to get there).

Ah, and in case it’s not clear, Johnny D & Deacon are the same person! Deacon started as a Runner and then took the entire weight of the world on his shoulders, but he does genuinely kind’ve see Johnny D and those early versions of himself as a separate entity. He was different back then, and while he knows it was him it’s hard to internalize that it’s all the same story.

I’ve struggled a lot with my iteration of who I think Deacon is and what his backstory is! There’s a lot of different cool takes on his character, but I found that this is the iteration that feels most true to him for me. I love different versions of him! But this is my him.

MacCready

Same Lucy from his childhood. I know it’s not technically canon, but I think it’s better if they’re one and the same.

His parents are absolute no bodies. People who are either dead or ad good as dead. Never meets them again nor does he want to, but he did runaway to get away from them when he was six or five years old.

Caravan so a dying child on the ground and dropped him off at Little Lamplight. Would’ve died of dehydration if they hadn’t found him.

LW was his hero growing up and they were actually really close! As a byproduct of that he got to know some of the people around her, mainly Butch & Charon.

The BoS, a couple years after he left, cleared out Little Lamplight and took in most of them to become apart of the army. It was pretty brutal. There’s a lot of reasons he’s not a fan of them, but this ranks pretty high up there.

I think by the time we see him in Goodneighbor he’s been in the Commonwealth for at least a year if not a little more, and he’s been out of work for three of those months. Dropped off when he figured out they did shit like what they did to Quincy.

I forgot who, but someone said something about there being a bunch of different bounties on Deacon’s head and MacCready being the only one to realize it’s all the same guy. I feeeeeel like that’s probably true, but I also like the idea that they’ve run into each other a lot for a variety of reasons, and now Mac has started to put together an idea of how to spot him. Mac’s seen him in the Capitol Wasteland and all over the Commonwealth. Mac thinks he’s annoying and creepy, but the rapport (especially as time goes on) only gets better generally speaking.

Like I said this list isn’t exhaustive, and I might even add onto it with time, but it felt like something fun to publish while I work on other stuff! I don’t really feel as tho any of these are particularly groundbreaking or super original, but I think it’s usually about the execution than just the idea of what it could be.

#fallout 4 #piper wright #preston garvey #my writing #fallout 4 headcanons #paladin danse #robert maccready #fallout 4 deacon

139 notes · View notes

loving-n0t-heyting · 2 years

Text

epistemic status: i wish this weren’t true but can’t see how it isn’t, more emotive than analytic

The western response to Putin’s annexation speech is fucking with me simply bc, afaict, setting aside the topic of the annexation itself, the speech is 95% true and pertinent and damning and the press (and others I would expect better from) is reacting to it like it’s a bunch of borderline psychotic word salad or a form of verbal terrorism or both at once

You have the guardian describing it as the rambling screed of an angry taxi driver, but idk, having read the actual text I think it has a pretty clear and straightforwardly argued thesis: US military and financial hegemony is just the latest phase in a continuous 500yr-long history of western international subjugation and terror and vassalage, which western elites look upon as their very life and will fight to the last of their subjects to preserve, while Russia will refuse to be cowed. And the core claim here about western hegemony is absolutely correct! He’s just right! Right, and damning

I mean, yes! I, too, would like to see some of these rules! I think these are some reasonable points! (“Well, but he’s a hypocrite! He started the war!” Ok, who is whatabouting now?)

No two moments of the speech have attracted more attention than the “barely concealed nuclear threat” and the concluding batshit remarks about gender and sexuality. Let’s look at those in turn shall we?

Putin does, indeed, state outright that the US has set a nuclear precedent, but look at the context:

Is there some whataboutism going on here? Sure. Does it carry some implication of willingness to escalate? Yea ig. But what could any hs students scoring above the 50th centile on the reading comprehension portion of the ACT divine as the clear overall message being argued here? That the US abd its allies since WWII have demonstrated a total unrenounced and gratuitous disregard for innocent human life in the course of subjugating their enemies and lording over their “friends.” And it’s fucking true!! Mass murder has been the calling card of US interventionism for the last sixty some years, and all in the service of a network of vassal states it cynically presents to the world as its peers and allies! Any threat of aggression here is secondary to the correct and utterly pertinent analysis of American global rule being decried!

And finally he does end the speech by dredging up homophobic panic about the end of traditional families and gender roles that could have well been copypasted from one of the more articulate screeds on /pol/. Ofc this is stupid. But what, to be even-handed, is the unspoken claim of the media reports harping on this globohomo fearmongering despite its occupying a tiny overall fraction of the text itself? What is the obvious implication of fixating on putins nationalist fag-hatred in the midst of characterising his speech denouncing American world domination as the conspiratorial ravings of a lunatic? That the evil he is castigating, the international system of unilateral military and economic terror on the part of Washington and her friends, is the true guarantor of queer liberation. And if putins bigotry is revolting this cynical pinkwashed apologia in return has to come close

None of this, ofc, excuses the annexations or legitimises the phony electoral veneer, let alone the invasion itself. But my God! Truly this makes me understand where the tankies are coming from!! It’s one thing to decry the act, another to suggest this speech is anything worse than a litany of truths in the service of a lie! But these swine, these vampires, these bloodthirsty warmongering brutes are so totally accustomed to the presupposition of their own common sensicality and so inured to criticism they cannot perceive a list of fair charges against them for what anyone with eyes to see can readily acknowledge it in fact is

#putin/ukraine

220 notes · View notes

nanabansama · 5 months

Note

hi, this is tsutsumi-kurose!! i have sort of a two part question haha, i was rereading the picture perfect arc, and it seems like shijima and tsukasa have worked together before? in 54 she says "no good ever comes from dealing with you," as if she's done it a lot, so i was wondering if you had any thoughts on that, because idk if that familiarity ever gets explained?

also, in 52 shijima tries to convince him not to "grant her wish" by saying "honorable no. 7 will be angry!" and in 91 when tsukasa tells sakura he sent nene to no. 6's boundary she asks "did your brother say it was okay?" and it's so interesting that these two people who have at least some history with tsukasa seem to think he is swayed by hanako's thoughts and feelings, or like he'd want or need hanako's permission for things. tsukasa certainly doesn't give the impression that he cares much about getting permission for anything, so I was really struck by these instances and i was wondering if you had any thoughts about them!!

hope you're having a nice day!! ☺️

Oh hello!! Hello!! I'm a big fan of your posts 🤝

Great questions by the way! I hadn't thought very deeply about these before.

1. Have Shijima and Tsukasa worked together before?

I don't think so!

In Chapter 54, we glimpse a flashback of when Tsukasa approaches Shijima about his master plan to create the Picture Perfect world.

Shijima is hesitant about being around him, and for good reason. I mean, she says it right there: she heard about No. 3.

Her focus on No. 3 in their conversation makes me think her reaction is related more to Tsukasa stealing his heart than any actual business he and Shijima might have done before. You could argue that she's only bringing it up because it's Tsukasa's latest misdeed (Hell, it could've happened just a day ago depending on when this conversation took place) but...

I think it's good to recognize Tsukasa and Shijima's history as supernaturals.

You might already know, but Shijima likely died in 1999 or 2000.

You can see her birth year was Showa 58, which is 1983.

She also celebrates the Year of the Rabbit (notably not the zodiac animal of the year this was posted):

As for Tsukasa... I'm inclined to believe he's been locked away the entire time he's been a yorishiro, until he just recently broke out. If not, he was at least locked away for a substantial amount of time.

He tells Amane "Long time no see", and Amane is absolutely terrified. The strength of his reaction makes it easy to believe that Amane hadn't talked to Tsukasa since he murdered him.

As such, I just don't see any place in the timeline where Tsukasa and Shijima could have worked together... but hey! That's just the way I see it.

2. "Honorable No. 7 will be angry!"

I really like this line! And I like the idea that people might assume Tsukasa doesn't want to anger Hanako, for any number of reasons. Could be because he's his brother, could be because he's his yorishiro...

But here's Shijima's line in context:

Tsukasa is breaking Nene out of the jail that Hanako just purposefully put her in.

Shijima has been having to put up with Hanako's crap all day too, btw. Look at this bossy little jerk:

He's a bully!!! And a powerful one, at that. Shijima is aware of this, and it's why he's able to push her around.

Taking all of this into consideration, I don't think this line holds much deeper meaning... onto the next one!

3. "Did your big brother say it was okay?"

Taken from the DBS Scans fan translation.

So... I think Sakura is saying this because Tsukasa was meddling with Nene again.

What can I say?! Hanako's kinda obsessed with her!!

Taken from the DBS Scans fan translation.

Naturally, anytime someone messes with his assistant, he's going to be upset. I think he makes this kinda obvious, too. Most members of the cast must be aware of his giant crush on Nene.

In summary, I think these two aren't necessarily saying these lines because Tsukasa cares about Hanako's opinion, but because they do. Sakura and Shijima could suffer some repercussions if Number 7 decides to interfere in these situations.

Anyway, thank you for the questions!

#asks #jshk #tbhk

20 notes · View notes

t00nyah · 1 year

Text

so. i was very bored. and on character ai there's an alternate timeline ai that can come up with things that could happen and such. so i was like. okay let's go wild let's make an au were octarians won the great turf war. so there it is, an au created with ai deciding what would change in characters' lives, what would they end up doing, and, of course, me finilazing it with my headcanons and adding some flavour to some of ideas.

so. yep. octarians won, and, just like in original series, the losing side, inklings, are living in the domes. in my head they still have the great zapfish, while octarians go into a more sci-fi direction and make their own power sources. inklings are...kind of almost erased from their history. i don't know why it clicked in my head, it just did, maybe there's a better way to implement things, okay. x)

onto the characters...

callie and marie didn't form a duet without contest and end up having the most ordinary jobs. i know, right?

callie is a teacher and marie is a journalist! i personally really loved callie as a teacher and i'm just. yeah. marie. you know. marie had me suffering.

i would have design notes here but there's not much to tell so if there's something catching your eye that you think might mean something - it probably does. idk.

i took pearl's money. that's right. now she's forced to work as barista. by me. i want you to know that it was VERY hard to decide what would pearl do now that i stole her money but holy fuck coffee shop aus got to me. (i'm also very proud of the logo i came up with hehe)

alright. so. there's a hard one. and by that i mean in my headcanons three's family is ... one of those traditional families ... you know what i mean. so... here goes kaori, using she/her and having a big identity crisis she's not really able to solve. a little hard when you're not so sure what to make out of it and don't know if you can tell anyone how you feel. kaori does not like when adults make the distinction between girl things and boy things, she's not that into skirts honestly, she's just wearing it to please her parents. kaori is studying to become a scientist to work on improving life in the domes. that's good, right?

speaking of scientists, of course there's an extraordinary - marina ida. we all know marina, she's too smart for all of us. she's helping in multiple researches and is very widely known. (and also gets lots of MONEY for that). *re-reads ai's entry on marina and looks away* UMM okay i totally forgot that part where she's also a professor in university. WELL NOW I KNOW the context to something else. maybe.

so, eight... nana in this au *looks at coroika*, is a student (idk, highschool maybe...i dunno i dunno i think i messed up) who got a bit carried away with a project. and started her research on inklings, because there's a theory going among the historians that the inklings still do exist... so nana, as a very passionate when she has interest octoling, goes to explore on her own! she gets into the domes and meets kaori eventually, who's...got a good eye on weird features and recognises nana as an octoling. not exactly friendly at first, but what can a squid like her do anyways?

eventually they kinda get stuck along because nana wants to KNOW. kaori just desides to go against her better judgement and give her a tour. and leads her to the best coffee shop she knows. they bond with each other eventually and become friends :) and nana works hard to get heard and get inklings to surface somehow maybe, though it doesn't seem like they want it THAT much? i mean, they're established their society already, why would they? they be chillin'. (but yes kaori gets to see the surface FOR SURE.)

i REALLY didn't want to leave four alone on her introductory pic poor lonely squid</3 so there she is! surume, that one school student who's drawing on each lesson(me). she's also *looks at ai's statement* is popular on social media for her art.

she doesn't really meet kaori that often, but when their class goes to see a college where kaori studies, you know, to show their possibilities, where they could go after school or something like that, so they sort of...know of each other? very awkwardly and formally have met each other? kaori will probably die of embarassment when sees surume again because thinks she made a bad impression? lol!

if you follow me you may have noticed that i'm projecting my gender crisis on three hard and usually the one they're consulting with is four... and it stays true to this au, i really want kaori to talk things out and, ay, it's way easier to open up to a stranger sometimes. so yeah. i think it will happen in my au. surume explaining kaori all the stuff about gender identity and sexuality because there's a little more of society pressure in this au... they'll get there eventually.

bonus: ref for marina in her regular clothing! she's so pretty...

another bonus: marina meeting a pretty barista...

so yeah. yeah. marina gets into the domes because nana has caught her interest with her project, so she meets pearl. because if pearlina doesn't happen the universe will explode and we all know that.

also there were doodles i made on our first wbf that you now know the context for :]

thank you for reading this far! it was... a long one... yep. i also really want to thank everyone who's following me fr fr i'm very happy to get feedback and to know that you enjoy my art! love ya'll<3 /p

separate versions under cut

#splatoon #splatoon au #takopolis au #thats what i call it FOR NOW bc i have no better name for the city :(#agent 3 #agent 8 #agent 4 #callie splatoon #marie splatoon #marina splatoon #pearl splatoon #FINALLY its been....*uses calc* ALMOST TWO WEEKS since i started #yeah no that's literally almost as much as i spent on 24hour setup and splatoween splatfest (its 18 days vs. 13 days)

107 notes · View notes

makoodles · 9 months

Note

Why is our girl sleeping with other Na’vi warriors to piss off neytayem?!?! Girl u trying to catch Na’vi std?!?! Honestly I just think she just annoyed with his presence because he totally fucked up the first meeting by being like “humans don’t belong here” or some shit and girlie just like “bitch tf? I was born here dipshit!” Also I imagine either the scientists only taught about 21st center earth not 22nd century just to show what earth looked like before it got hella fucked up and if she asks they just say humans were too greedy and fucked the planet up thus this why they are here. But yeah reader eagerly will talk about earth especially the plants and animals that used to exist and the way she talks almost seemed like she was there when earth was green and not you know, got the info from books. (Plz as someone that will info dump about the long and strenuous history about orcas and blue whales being enemies for centuries due to orcas hunting whales calves for centuries now make any blue whale that sees an orca just chilling or even hunting like a penguin just murk/harass the orca on sight now. About how orcas and humans used to hunt together to take down large whales! About the fucking orca destroying those rich mf’s boats off the coast of Greece. Literally just info dump for ages about all the animals man.)

best part of fucking aliens is that STD's can't be passed from one species to another, so we can go wildddddd lmao

i'm hoping it makes sense in the context of the story, but essentially reader doesn't like neteyam (reason is undecided yet, maybe just because she thinks he's cocky and over-confident when he returns after those years away with the Metkayina). i also imagine that it's super lonely as a human on pandora - i mean, growing up the same as spider means that there's no other humans your age on the planet, so you're going to gravitate towards the na'vi your age instead. but that would definitely come with its own problems when you start craving intimacy and companionship.

idk idk we'll see where it goes! i have no idea what i'm doing, i'm just hoping it comes together lmao

#asks #neteyam

38 notes · View notes

pynkhues · 9 months

Note

I don’t know if you’ve seen the cut lines from the S4 script yet (where Stewy references some semi-ominous sounding games he remembers from when he and Kendall were growing up like Punch-Chess and Dinners for Winners) but this kind of made me think back on the games throughline (motif?) with Logan. We get to see how insane Boar on the Floor was in real time and we’ve gotten a pretty good sense throughout the series that Logan has a penchant for framing violence through the lens of games (not dishonestly might I add – I think there’s a reasonable read of Logan whereby he himself doesn’t view his games as a means for violence at all but just as tools or in some cases, truly just games).

Recently I’ve seen some discussion that kind of lumps together games the kids played (Bitey, Dog Pound) with Logan’s games (Boar on the Floor, Dinners for Winners) and that struck me as kind of odd. Rightly or wrongly, I’ve been mentally distinguishing between the games the siblings play with each other as different from the games Logan concocts. It might just be me, but Bitey and Dog Pound read to me as within the realm of reasonable kids games (noting that a ton of kids play kind of insane games lol). I also just feel like the power structure is…different when it’s just the siblings? Does that make sense? Whereas when Logan invests games for his kids, there’s something more…uneven and off-kilter about it to me. Idk – do you think they’re all part of the same motif or that there’s some level of distinction? Maybe I just to think about it more haha – I guess this is a super long round-about way of asking: how do you view the use of games (“games”?) within the context of the show?

Oh, yeah, I totally agree that the games the kids play with each other are very different from the games that Logan concocts, anon, but I’m not surprised to hear that people consider them in the same sort of discourse. After all, the games that the kids play with each other, now that they’re all adults, are viewed through the prism of the power dynamics in the current family unit.

In other words, even games that are on paper the sort that any kid plays (Dog Pound being a good example – my five and seven year old nephews actually play a pretty similar game at the moment called Puppy and Person, although I think their game involves more patting and cuddling than Roman and Kendall’s probably did, haha), because we’re encountering it with Kendall and Roman in their late-thirties and through the lens of undealt with sibling resentments and adult competition, they can be mistaken for the same sorts of games that Logan played / still plays with the kids.

In that sense, I think the clearest point of distinction is the fact that Logan is never really a player in the games, he’s the overseer of them – the judge, jury and executioner – and we’ve seen that twice. The first time with the baseball game in the pilot, and the second, of course, with Boar on the Floor. Interestingly, the only time we’ve actually seen him participate in a game as a player was in I Went Shopping in the Thanksgiving episode back in S1, and well, we all know how that ended.

Games are integral to the show, and it’s interesting because I don’t think they have any one particular meaning. I think the writers like them as a shorthand to convey certain themes and relationship dynamics, I think they’re an efficient and compelling way to move plot forwards, and I think the writers like to use them to trojan horse the history of abuse within the Roy family, which is exactly what that new excerpt from the script of 4.04 demonstrates.

Critically though, I also think they’re significant thematically in depicting both childhood and masculinity, and I think that’s really where the distinction comes in when it comes to the games the kids play together (yes, even Dog Pound, as much as that game [and Kendall] wants to pretend to be about masculinity, I personally don't think it is at all), and the ones Logan does.

So, let’s talk about childhood.

Games are integral to childhood, there’s no getting around that. Games are what teach children social skills and curiosity, strategy and the ability to both win and to lose, which is, of course, also the skill to enjoy success and sometimes embrace failure too. One of my current jobs is in a company that does play-based theatre for children, with a special focus on traumatised children, so I could talk a lot about this and the evidence behind it, and how crucial games are in empowering children and helping them develop agency away from the family unit, but that’s kind of where this story stops, because while games should help children to grow into playful, empathetic and inquisitive adults, the Roy children do not play games with outsiders.

The Roy children have lived in a completely insular world – a playground their father has built them, as Marcia so aptly put it – and so these games don’t evolve. Instead, these games like Bitey and Dog Pound and even Kendall’s LEGO become manifestations of current anxieties, insecurities and resentments, and an encapsulation of Shiv, Roman and Kendall’s arrested development.

(Maybe interestingly, I consider Connor slightly less arrested than his little siblings, and I do think a part of that is from his parentification, but also a proxy result of effectively having been raised in those formative childhood years as an only child, especially if he was, as Alan Ruck has said, about fifteen when Kendall was born).

Of course, Logan encourages this.

Logan’s inability to face his own mortality or seal off his own legacy requires him to keep his children, well, children. He needs them under his thumb, sure, but he also, I think, needs to keep them young so that he can feel young. Needs the promise of his own future reflected in the length of their own, and his frequent infantilisation of all four of them is a part of what keeps them regressed and reading meaning into games they played and places they lived when they were too young to know any better.

Let’s talk about masculinity.

Funnily enough, I actually talked a little about this in the context of Tom and Greg back when s3 was airing here, but a few years ago, I read Anna Krien’s Night Games which is one of my favourite non-fiction books of the last decade.

The book itself is about masculinity, sport and sexual assault, in particular patterns of gang rape by teams in Australian football and cricket, but she goes a lot broader in terms of games and male intimacy, and in particular how team sports give men a sense of community which, as a result of toxic masculinity, is generally reinforced by ‘othering’ outsiders of the team / environment, whether that be players on the opposite team, perceived interlopers, women, or even members of their own team who don’t participate in the right way with the group.

I don’t know if any of the writers would’ve read Night Games (it’s an Australian sports journalism book after all, haha), but I think they do understand deeply the way masculinity operates in these circles and the ways games of any sort can be utilised as a shorthand to exert power and solidify connection. Boar on the Floor is, of course, the clearest example of this, where Logan utilises the context of the game to dig out his betrayers, and while the first round has everyone as an unwilling participant, once a smaller group of 'others' are picked in Tom, Greg and Karl, the safety of being on the right team makes everyone becomes complicit in the second round.

This is something Logan’s a master of and what he does routinely with his children in general, but also in the rules of the games Stewy talks about in the 4.04 script. Those games are about the othering of a person and the increased intimacy of the rest of the team. If Dinners for Winners has the loser acting like the help, the winners are the rest of the family celebrating their renewed bond as, well, winners.

I don’t think the kids are immune from this in their own behaviour. In fact, I think the biggest examples we see of the kids engaging in this particular type of game play is in Roman’s treatment of the child during the baseball game in the pilot (and I actually am reading the scripts [albeit very slowly, haha] at the moment and read 2.01 last night and was pretty fascinated to discover that the boy’s father is one of the landscapers at The Summer Palace), and in the sequence throwing back to Kendall’s bachelor party with the tattooing of the homeless man’s head with Kendall’s initials.

These aren’t complete games, and interestingly they don’t create the same sense of shared compliance and group intimacy in the way Logan’s games do – no one’s fully on board with Roman’s behaviour, and Roman betrays the group bond in terms of Kendall’s bachelor party by telling Gerri and trying to use it against Kendall – but I view that as more a reflection of Roman and Kendall’s failures in masculinity and authority than in anything else.

It’s that failure there though which, in many ways, further separates the games Logan plays with them to the games they play together. Roman and Kendall continue to fail to imitate their father in his particular brand of games, because Logan knows how to divide and conquer, which they simply don't.

That also though is a direct contrast to the games the kids play together, because those games, whether they be Bitey or Monopoly or even Dog Pound, those games are about shared connection. After all, Kendall wasn't the one who sent Roman away, Kendall was just playing a game with his brother, no matter what they both have inferred in it over time.

#i can't speak to the nanny game shiv and roman played either yet because i'm not up to that in the scripts #but i would say that's potentially another example of the kids playing at logan's types of games #because it involves the othering of a person i.e. the nannies #but then again it also could be a reflection of the insularity of the children?#idk!#i'll have to read it in context #thanks for the ask sorry this took a minute #hbo succession #succession meta #kendall roy #roman roy #shiv roy #logan roy #welcome to my ama

42 notes · View notes

notsogreatpotoo · 9 days

Note

1, 7, 13 and 17 for your ask game!

hello!! thank you for the ask friendo :]

ask game link for reference

1: favorite or funniest nicknames you've gotten

I haven't gotten a ton of nicknames that I've liked, bc usually nicknames are based off of your 'real' name and I'm closeted to most people I know irl, but one of my friends nicknamed me Emsy, and some of my friends used to call me Mouse in middle school bc I was a very wide-eyed and confused child. but I do really like nicknames when I get them :]

7: an excerpt from your funniest, weirdest, or worst essay from middle school or high school

okay so freshman year of high school, we read romeo and juliet, and i had read it before but not in an academic context and so when my teacher said we were going to write an argumentative essay on which character was to blame for the whole... situation, i was like. no. that's not the point. so i very spitefully wrote an essay that i ended up getting an A on, which was cool because it very much did not fit the prompt. here's the intro:

Placing the blame for the deaths of Romeo and Juliet has been debated for centuries. Their tragic fate leaves the audience wondering: who was most at fault? Can the blame even be fairly shifted onto only one person? In the play Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, two people become infatuated with each other, but their families have an ongoing feud that limits their relationship. Many characters have expectations set for the two, whether those expectations be that they should be enemies or that their love will fix the feud. They eventually take their lives as the result of a misunderstanding. However, it is clear that Romeo and Juliet’s deaths are ultimately caused by the toxic society and surroundings their own families helped create, and the arbitrary laws of society that their families enforced.

idk, i just think it's funny that younger me was like, i don't want to do this. i'm not gonna blame one character, that's not the point of the story. fuck society.

13: something you really want someone to ask you about

i could literally talk at you forever about my oc insert hunger games fic, the first part and the second part (wip) (i have three parts planned) are currently almost 46000 words and the main character is the closest thing i will ever have to a child. i've decided i'm gonna post the first chapter of it on ao3 in a few days and then figure out a regular update schedule after stuff gets straightened out (i'm moving), but if you ever want to get distracted send me an ask about literally any of it

17: government assigned ao3 tag (choose one you really like, one that seems accurate to your life, or find a generator)

one i really like: Mutual Pining

if i'm in the mood to read fics with ships, i'll find one of my fandoms and sort by mutual pining. i love these fics bc usually the complications are internal emotional complications instead of things like cheating. (note: i do not support censorship. just because i don't like reading about cheating does not mean i support censorship of that sort of reading material. curate your own experience, do not attempt to control others'.) i also like fics that have a little bit of emotional build up through pining or smthn bc it helps me get more invested :]

one that seems accurate to my life: Alternate Universe - College/University

mostly self explanatory (i'm in college and it feels like a different universe)

generator assigned tag: Historical Inaccuracy

as a History major that's hilarious

thank you again for the ask!!! :]

#ask!!!#mutuals

8 notes · View notes

tanadrin · 7 months

Note

Does Dan McClellan ever explain how he's a Mormon? I started listening to Data Over Dogma the other day, thanks your regular comments about it, and I'm absolutely boggled that this dude can say this shit and then go to church on Sunday.

he talked about his biography in his Mormon Stories appearance. he converted as an adult, around 19 or 20--he describes himself as feeling kind of aimless in life, having social connections through friends and family members to the mormon church, and being drawn to it that way. inferring a little bit from the context, he seems to have landed within a pocket of mormons that were either pretty pro-lgbt or not strenuously anti-lgbt--enough that that didn't put him off, given his agnostic and not particularly conservative background.

he's an interesting case, for sure! he explicitly avoids talking about his personal beliefs, so i can only guess what his exact though process was. but the impression i get is someone who 1) was strongly drawn to the social aspects of organized religion (and mormonism is very tight-knit socially), 2) was willing to suspend judgement on the more out-there elements of doctrine (the really off-the-wall historical stuff), and 3) isn't too pressed about the truth claims element of religion, or doesn't personally find that the most important part of religious experience and feeling.

and yet it is still kind of strange to me to listen to someone who is very thoughtful about the cognitive science of religion, who deeply understands the textual history of religious scripture, and who understands why you can't use faith-based arguments as part of any coherent methodology in the analysis of that scripture, to try to mount a defense of religiosity in general. i mean plainly people can do it. but i can't imagine how, unless there is some deep cognitive dissonance at work. i think that even if the truth claims of religion aren't the most important part of religion to you, they're plainly incredibly important when it comes to, like, how religious traditions are differentiated--if the truth claims don't matter, there's much less reason to be mormon vs episcopalian vs baptist.

i could see salvaging out of all that some kind of general moral therapeutic deism, or ultra-reformed judaism, or other spiritual-but-not-dogmatically-religious worldview--but belonging to an avowedly dogmatic, hierarchically organized religious institution, with the kind of internal discipline that means members like dan are (let us be charitable) less than entirely open with their criticisms less they face larger-scale social consequences--a problem not even modern Catholics face--and one which is nonetheless built on an unusually recent, and unusually disprovable set of truth claims like mormonism is--like, idk. it's really hard to imagine someone who knew all the stuff he knows about biblical history being drawn to mormonism if he had learned that stuff first. and if that's true that feels kind of like an indictment of the religion? like it really is mostly contingent features we don't care about in any deep way.

that makes more sense for ethnoreligions like judaism, and out of all american religions, mormonism is probably closest to being an ethnoreligion itself. it's pretty culturally insular compared to mainline protestantism. even most flavors of fundamentalist evangelicalism. the closest analogue is maybe the primitive baptists? and they're a tiny denomination. but if it was really a self-sustaining culture it probably wouldn't need a centralized hierarchy that excommunicated dissenters who got too big a public profile for criticizing the church.

18 notes · View notes

thatlittleegyptologist · 11 months

Note

You said questions about Acient Egypt might help taking your mind off of things.

So I went through some books (not AE, media designer) and stumbled upon some hieroglyphs. Since this is not even about AE I'm highly skeptical about their accuracy.

This portion of the book is about the development of script and writing. (Pictograms and hieroglyphs are mentioned very close together but it doesn't explicitly say hieroglyphs are pictograms)

The text under the picture says: "The picture writing/hieroglyphs/pictographic script of Egypt from prehistoric times. Elements later got adopted into the known hieroglyphs."

The words in the picture left to right, top to bottom are as follows: eye, sun, angle, horn, walking/arriving, star, moon, cry, fly, mouth, row/to paddle, walking back/return

I guess my question is: How accurate is this? Especially the walking towars or walking away one's? Iirc hieroglyphs are read towards the was a person hieroglyph is facing so wouldn't walking towards and walking away from something depend on the reading direction?

Thank you in advance!

I hope you are feeling better soon <3

umm...well it is and it isn't

To start off with, let's cover the easy part: if using 'walking away' or 'no' then yes the legs can face the opposite direction. This is something the Egyptians do to demonstrate the 'movement' of the word to those who are illiterate, so if they see the legs facing the wrong way they know the word means 'moving away' or 'no'. Culturally, oracles (used for legal disputes) moved forwards for yes, and backwards for no ('n in Egyptian being the word for 'no' which has the backwards legs), so in the correct context it's understandable to the Egyptians. It is true that you read into the faces, but as with every rule there are exceptions!

Now, as for the other part: It's sort of a yes and no situation. It's not wrong per se, but it's a weird way of talking about it...as well as a weird set of signs to use (the Moon sign is literally a variant of the much more common one so it's like ????). There's a proto-literate script that develops around 3400 BCE, where you've got the clay labels for Scorpion I in tomb UJ at Umm el-Qa'ab (Abydos) and the signs are already pretty recognisable. They didn't get 'adopted' into the hieroglyphic system, they already were the hieroglyphic system just the earliest form of it. I mean they're using them to write information down and communicate it, and they're using pictographs as well as phonographs. It's such a weird way of talking about hieroglyphs and their history. If you look at the Abydos clay labels you can already see signs for Horus, the North/South plants, the birth hieroglyph, and a numbering system. Some of the signs in the example above are much more complex (the crying eye) than what existed at the time of the Abydos labels (which are mostly birds), so it can't be said that that sort of sign was an early addition and folded in later on.

idk, it's just...not wrong but it makes my brain itch unpleasantly

36 notes · View notes

transmalewife · 11 months

Text

does anyone have any leftist reading on the subject of tourism to recommend? Specifically about how travel for fun, education, sport, friendship or whatever might work in a communist or anarchist or socialist society. Because like yeah, open borders or no borders whatever, cool. But that usually only gets discussed in the context of permanent immigration

Idk I guess I just find it hard to imagine how it could be organized since where I live the most obvious ways capitalism has made things worse over my lifetime have all happened because of and through the lens of tourism. Rents literally doubling over the last five years, while the standard of living falls because apartments are bought, split into tiny pieces and renovated to accomodate a couple days of living at most. The specific kind of gentrification that is NOT being pushed out by richer people moving in permanently, who might cause more expensive shops and services to replace the affordable ones, but do still need the basic necessities everyone does to live. Instead, all hairdressers, repair shops, clothing stores (especially thrift shops), pharmacies, post offices etc etc close and are replaced by luxury boutiques, clubs and stores whre you can only buy snacks, alcohol and microwave meals. Restaurants and bars hiking up prices because most of their clients come from places with stronger currencies etc etc.

At the same time though I believe travel is a crucial part of a fulfilling life for most if not all people. I believe people have the right to see and appreciate the culture and history of other places and also like... maybe go somewhere warmer and lay on the beach sometimes, even if they prefer to live and work somewhere colder. Or go skiing even if they chose to live somewhere warm and without mountains. Or even just like... vacation in a big city if they live in the countryside and vice versa. Or pop over to another continent to visit an online friend maybe. Although obviously intercontinental travel would have to be hugely limited until and unless we find ways to do it that don't destroy our planet.

At the same time some precautions do have to be taken to protect historical and especially sacred sites. Like, I don't think endless crowds should be allowed to trample through historical buildings and also open borders obviously doesn't mean white tourists get to go camping on Uluru. But on some level I do believe everyone who wants to should get to see Venice at least once in their life. But that's probably not feasible so like... who gets to decide? On what merit? Are historians, artists, journalists privileged? Or should it be a lottery?

Also I think there's a significant amount of tourism that would simply die out if going to that place wasn't a status symbol. Like you cannot convince me that if you spend 2 weeks by the pool in an enclosed luxury resort it makes a difference that it's on Hawaii rather than like... in florida. And then theres places like the Hamptons. What the fuck is the point of the Hamptons, other than bragging rights?

Obviously I know none of this is even remotely the main pressing issue to solve about a potential communist society, but then again, that's why I'm asking for reading materials, because it so rarely gets discussed. I mean I bet Marx wrote about it, which, great, point me to the relevant fragments please and I'll have a look but also this is an issue where a modern perspective would be really important. I don't think Marx, for all his wisdom, really has a solution to "what are the ethics of taking an 8 hour flight to visit a tumblr mutual".

Or maybe this whole thing is me being cynical and this is another place where things would sort of just regulate themselves. Anyway. Send me reading recs and let's very unscientifically try to check if it could work. Do try to be honest, like I've been several times as a kid and I would still go again in a heartbeat.

btw the goal of the poll is to get some kind of percentage that can be compared with the world population and how many tourists venice can support per year, though I obviously know tumblr skews mainly american and european

#mine.#leftist #tourism #venice

38 notes · View notes

flecks-of-stardust · 1 year

Text

i don’t have enough evidence to make this an actual big post but i still wanted to put it out into the wild, but honestly ever since approaching (some of) bug fables’ world from the perspective of underspecification, i’ve been much less frustrated with it. it’s also fun to contrast the underspecification of bug fables’ world with the inference heavy world of hollow knight.

what i mean by underspecification is the deliberate act of saying something while leaving out certain aspects that are assumed to be common knowledge. one of the more prominent examples i can think of is eggs; when you say ‘egg,’ it’s almost always understood that you mean chicken eggs, and not duck eggs, goose eggs, quail eggs, or even turtle eggs. this is because of the high prevalence of using chicken eggs in recipes due to the domestication of chickens, and so saying ‘chicken egg’ is redundant unless more than one type of egg is used. in contrast, inference is when there is no shared knowledge, but there are clues in what is said or in the environment that point to a certain fact.

in the context of bug fables, i find the idea of underspecification to be particularly useful with the world of the four kingdoms. i’ve wondered for a while now why the ant kingdom is so catered to what team snakemouth needs as an explorer team, while none of the rest of the ant kingdom is shown; for a kingdom supposedly as great and as prosperous as the ant kingdom is, we do not see any sprawling residential areas, nor a schooling area (ann isn’t even in school, and apparently never is), nor even a graveyard to bury the dead. none of the hallmarks of settlements seem to be accessible to team snakemouth. but when i look at this from the perspective of underspecification, it both makes more sense and is more interesting than criticizing an indie dev team for what they likely did not have the time and budget to make. we do not have access to the broader residential area, the schoolyard, the graveyard, and other parts of the ant kingdom because team snakemouth already knows where they are, and there is no need to point it out. they have no need to wander in the residential area because there is nothing they need there. they have no need to go to the schoolyard because it’s not relevant to their mission. it would be nice to have that option as a player, but to team snakemouth, everyone already knows where all of these locations are, so why point them out? it would be redundant and weird.

conversely, in hollow knight, the knight is not presented as a local resident of the area. they do not know hallownest or anything about the general area. though not all information is freely given to them, there are aspects of the environment that do allow them to piece together the history of hallownest, particularly with areas like the white palace. so underspecification isn’t particularly useful here since there’s no shared knowledge, but there is a lot you can infer from.

this is messy but idk, the concept of underspecification is fascinating. i think it’s more fun to work with than the alternative.

#bug fables #hollow knight #i still stand by the fact that moonsprout should have put way more work into building the world #particularly with the contradictions #but this satisfies my worldbuilding itch

126 notes · View notes

lizkreates · 8 months

Text

Trigun Vol 1 - Part 1 (Ch 0-3)

*cracks knuckles* I'm going to throw a bunch of stuff down, like some story-structured thoughts (which might be a bunch of nonsense, but I'm gonna try!) and parts that catch my interest. Sorry if I repeat anything, I started lurking at TriMax Vol 5. :'D Here we go!

Trigun wastes no time jumping into the mysterious destruction of July. The prologue was short sweet, and now lives in the back of your mind.

The phrase "The same song of humanity sang." paired with the artwork implies that humanity's path was not one that flourished but one of destruction. Humanity brought our problems with us. Without the drawing, the line itself can be looked at positively or negatively depending on your outlook. **SPOILERS for new readers** For a story whose main protagonist isn't human, it is a gut-wrenchingly human story.

Vash looks so baby-faced here!! I love how contradictory the idea of a pacifist gunman is, at least in the story's context, where most of them choose violence.

Oh so THIS is how violent No Man's Land is.

That's Tonis!! I totally didn't catch that in any of my reads before; he looks so different in TriStamp.

Ow Vash's first signature smile. :')

The girls!! I love their intro so much, it sets them up, idk how to explain it, as people, they have their own goals. I love how the guys who made the crude jokes were immediately met with consequences. 98 really leaned into "the expense of women as a source of entertainment" which bugged me, glad to see that the manga does it less and less as you progress. Trigun would be a very different story without its feminine undertones (not just in gender) starkly contrasting the world. (I'm sure someone's written an essay on it, I'd love to read it!)

"This is the first time the name Vash the Stampede appeared in the annals of history, about a shadow of a blonde-haired man, who still lingered among the mountains of rubble."

Interesting choice to frame this as already written history! That means at least someone survived to tell the tale.

So about Vash's outlaw name "The Stampede" - HOW LONG HAS HE HAD IT?? Was it given to him after July? Before? Did he give it to himself? Did some coin it for him? How about Humanoid Typhoon? I need to know. (If you know any fic that covers this, I am chopping at the bit for it, plz send it to me.)

Come here. Closer. We need to talk about RESOURCES. Briefly. I understand I need to suspend my disbelief when something is drawn to look cool and emphasize the scale of a threat, but I like hard science. In a resource-scarce environment like No Man's Land, manga-size Goseff would be a costly and massive drain on supplies, unless Father Nebraska has his own Plant. Stampede did a more realistic take, which was nice to see!

Anytime I see wood or a lot of organic material in abundance I die a little on the inside. :') *cries over world-building* But we're here to enjoy the story! The world-building given to us is just enough so we can follow the plot.

The first mention of "Him," Knives! I love it when Nightow does an extreme vertical, half-face, close-up, of Vash, it's so dramatic. I want to appreciate how skillfully Vash's revolver is drawn here too, this man thrives on complicated designs.

98 was my first introduction to Trigun, so I didn't realize until I read the manga that they dropped his bounty here. In 98 they dropped it after the 5th moon incident. Trying to keep the canons straight is hard sometimes. :')

#Trigun #trigunbookclub

14 notes · View notes