#i think the problem's more about me than the world/life itself. i mean. life sucks sometimes but i feel like I'm the one surrending | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

rawliverandgoronspice · 9 months

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I wish mineru got to me an actual character because every single theme we get that has to do with her (thunder islands, spirit temple, construct factory) are so gorgeous and made me fall in love with her, the soundtrack does so much heavy lifting in this game

You're so correct about the soundtrack, it tells such a compelling tale and it really builds off itself constantly, it's genuinely one of my favorite parts of the game!!

Honestly Mineru had tons of potential. I really liked the entire quest to find her and her body, it was the part of the game that kind of sold me the most the mystery and wonder of having such a big world spanning the sky all the way to the Depths. The atmospheric mood of the Thunderhead Isles was wonderful, loved following the light all the way to the Depths (I had already stumbled upon the actual Construct Factory in them before). It was the part of the game that "felt the most zonai" to me, this sort of puzzle-like intricacy of how their influence permeate the world that their name alone was meant to invoke. I regret the lack of worldbuilding here, even a very light one (what was were the Thunderhead Isles? What significance did they have in zonai culture? What about the structures on the ground in the jungle? I would have *loved* more... anything in the Construct Factories), but it was still a treat as a gameplay experience.

(I mean I hated having to pilot the Construct Body itself, but that's more a me problem than a game problem, thankfully the boxing match was a ton of funs regardless)

The character herself though.... Like I feel like there's a lot of potential inherent to her status as one of the last zonais AND her status as the king's sister (not to mention her engineering proclivities). She feels like she should have a very unique perspective on the entire situation, insight about what caused the fall of the zonais (or their departure/refusal to engage with Hyrule), have both tenderness but also criticism towards her brother his wife might not have (as his lover and as an inherently lesser being bound to his good will, she's a priestess so she probably prays to the gods and zonais are said to descend from gods can we talk about that also), share a unique relationship with Zelda through their common love for knowledge (I think Zelda having a strong relationship with Mineru sounds more meaningful than her having one with Sonia as of now tbh, and it would have helped their scenes to be more interesting than an excuse to infodump, I almost said that it's a ship before remembering they're technically related SOMEHOW?? so mayyybe not).

But in practice, she has no desires of her own. She's but an extension of her brother's will, except softer, muted, heartbroken not for her loss (and the fact that her entire race is about to die out once she does), but for Hyrule's perdition. I am still not over the fact that when she swears her oath of fielty to Link, she *touches her brother's hand*, aka the only meaningful relationship in her life that we got to see, zonai skin touching zonai skin for... probably the last time ever? And the camera couldn't care less. No lingering, no body tension, not even one of the little sounds that BotW/TotK characters love to make in cutscenes everytime anything happens, not even any callback to the explicit motif of people touching each other's hand as a sign of support and unity (so you know what symbolism/allegory means game!!! you know this!!!!), the game doesn't seem to be aware that she should be a person with feelings that extend beyond her performative guilt about a situation that has basically nothing to do with her/she couldn't have done anything about/she did everything she could about, actually! She's just here to be a vessel for the restoration project of her brother's kingdom (Rauru being the only one allowed any emotion of genuine grief and upset, and it only lasts like half a second --which sucks!! I wish that, if Sonia was to be fridged anyway, it at least motivated him to become vengeful and furious and make a mistake that costed him his victory, which would have made him sliiightly more compelling instead of reverting back to a fancy cardbox of unquestionned perfection).

Also she's technically the last one you're supposed to get (but you can get her first??? this is such a weird choice sometimes linearity is good nintendo!!!), and after such a long quest, there should have been a narrative reward to finding her that goes harder than "and then Rauru decided to hype you up like crazy to Ganondorf, also Zelda is probably a dragon but you probably already know that" in my opinion. Some modicum of depth; a different emotional texture to the conflict. After that much build up, the payoff didn't land for me.

Yeah. Mineru. She really could have been the aqua-glue holding that ultrahand-ass of a plot together, but Alas.....

#asks #tloz #totk #totk spoilers #totk critical #mineru #rauru #zonai #thoughts #thanks for the ask and sorry for the time it took me to reply!!

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aquaburst3 · 5 months

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By popular request...or an anon commenting me last night about enjoying me creating posts about the flaws in TWST and wanting me to talk about the worldbuilding aspect specifically along with me having some free time between jobs, here it is!

Disclaimer: Keep in mind this is all personal opinion. If you enjoy the worldbuilding in the game and find zero problems with it, great! I don't care. You are entitled to your opinion and I am entitled to mine.

Where do I even begin? The shorter question would be, "What isn't wrong with it?" xD But seriously, oh, boy—there's a lot. Hell, this is pretty much my go-to example how NOT to write an urban fantasy world.

The closest thing I can compare the world of TWST to is the movie Bright—and that's NOT a good thing. For those of you who never had the misfortune of watching that late 2010s trainwreck, it's about a cop played by Will Smith teaming up with an orc to retrieve a magic wand. Sounds cool, right? However, like with TWST, the worldbuilding is something to be desired. It's an alternate universe where two thousand years ago there was a big war between The Nine Races where the orcs supported the Dark Lord, but an orc defected and lead an army that defeated him. Despite everything, it's pretty much exactly like real life with a few added fantasy elements. It even brings up real world pop culture references, containing such cringey and problematic lines like, "Fairy lives don't matter" after the Will Smith cop squishes a pixie that's on par with a raccoon in that world.

The worldbuilding in TWST feels like that. It's exactly like real life but with a few Disney and fantasy elements slapped on top, like magnets on a fridge. There is hardly any deviation from real life. Things like planes, cell phones, methods of measuring, days of the week, etc all exist just as they do irl. When you stop and think about it, half of these things shouldn't exist and the other should be a little different.

Yana also never thinks of the implications all of this alternate history. Magic always existing and the Greek gods being real should have a huge ripple effect, creating a completely different history compared to real life, but yet it doesn't. Hell, the whole idea of knowing that the Greek gods are real alone would massively change world history, since they would be a proven concept, snuffing out every other religion in existence! The world should be more massively different than ours with Disney sprinkled on top. There's no imagination about how a world like this would work. To quote Lindsey Ellis, "You cannot import elements from our real world without including all of the history that comes with them. You can, but it's lazy, and it sucks." xD Sure, you can write a fantasy world with cars and stuff, but the histories and the ways those exist in those worlds cannot be the exact same. There must be some divergence for it to make sense.

None of the new worldbuilding elements sense or feels woven in. It feels like Yana tossing out whatever idea she comes up up with at the wall and seeing what sticks. A lot of it starts to fall a part or even contradicts itself.

Take the whole Stitch or Tsums events. The existence both of these imply that aliens exist. That brings up a lot of questions like...

What is this world's policy for alien life?

Are aliens well known entities for this world?

What are other's reaction to this?

How did his story play out in this world if that's the case?

Everyone in this world has a Disney counterpart, right? If that's the case, wouldn't that mean there's some TWST version of Stitch running around Night Raven?

Is any of this ever addressed? Nope. That's stupid. World shattering shit like that should be addressed. While I know these are probably more than likely corporate mandates, especially since Tmus are a Japanese Disney product while Stitch is super popular in Japan, she could've added a disclaimer saying that it's a crack au that has nothing to do with the canon. The fact that these are both canon is mind boggling.

Plus, both of these events create a giant plot hole. If aliens are known to exist in this world, then why the fuck can't Yuu go home? If aliens exist, wouldn't there be portals and other ways for them to go home? It just makes Yuu and the rest of the cast look like total dumbasses for never thinking of this!

It goes beyond stupid events, but happens in general. The game routinely brings up similar elements without thinking of their implications on the game as a whole. Take the whole existence of STYKs. It was never once brought up or foreshadowed in the game, but brings about a lot of questions that are hardly explored. Like if this has existed for hundreds of years, how the fuck hasn't anyone heard of it? If STYKS is attached has a branch which is like our world's, someone should've blew the whistle eons ago. Surely, someone as smart as Idia or another mage should've been able to hack them and expose that to the public. Right? Wouldn't there be more of a public outcry for stealing people away, including royalty? Wouldn't there be government oversight about this? None of these questions are never addressed. Yet that element is slapped in without a second thought. Same also goes for all of the new lore in regards to Lilia's past, those pointless prophet dreams or how Playful Land works.

The magic system and how overblot works also fall apart the more you think about it. According to the light novel, only one out of ten humans is a mage. The percentage goes up in other races, but it remains about the same. But that makes no sense. TWST isn't like the HP universe where mages are isolated from the outside world, they are a part of society. Wouldn't it be the DOMINANT gene after over centuries of mages fucking mortals? I think it being more like the ATLA or BNHA universe where mages are the majority would make a lot more sense. That's what I did in my fic. Hell, it would make the world more unique, because usually fantasy stories have it where mages are a minority.

How overblotting works is never fully explained. All that we know, despite being on the seventh fucking story arc, is that whenever a mage uses Okay, sure. But there are times where that isn't the case. Characters who hard use up any magic like Leona and Vil overblot. Even if you argue that they were emotional during those bits or something, wouldn't the other part play a bigger role, since they used up so little magic in those cases? How in the fuck is that unknown concept to the general public? Wouldn't that be common knowledge? Diseases like Alzheimer's aren't something that everyone experiences, but this existence of those things are still common knowledge. Hell, why is it extremely rare in the first place? Wouldn't it be more commonplace? I feel like having it be a biological consequence of a mage using up too much magic and it being a well known down side to the world like how it is in my writing makes a lot more sense and is much simpler.

The lore around the fae also make zero sense. Common elements in fae lore like never thanking them or accepting gifts from them for you owe them a favour to cream and honey making them drunk are never brought up or mentioned. These are not random tropes brought up in shit like Baldur's Gate 3, but ingrained shit to the fantasy genre. You can't strip them out, because it is what makes the fae, fae. Hardly any types of fae from folklore are ever brought up outside of dragons and Tinkerbell style pixies. Characters like Vil who act very fae like are completely human. To be honest, I genuinely get the sense that Yana has done no research into this topic at all, because that's how out of touch they seem compared to how they are in folklore and other fantasy series. But if that is actually the case, then she should've looked into it more or consulted another writer who knows a lot about it.

Plus, the whole idea behind Briar Valley also makes no sense. They are completely isolated from the rest of the world...because…well, nothing, besides possibly vague hatred of tech. That's dumb. Countries don’t isolate themselves for no reason. There is always some sort of explanation for them to do that, whether it's manufactured for political gain like Panem or out of protection like Wakanda. Seriously, am I the only one that thinks that Brier Valley is just the fantasy Amish? As for the Spinning Wheel Wars, that will be explored in more depth as the fics go on.

If you want to see a world similar to TWST done right, watch The Owl House. That series, too, has a modern fantasy world. Unlike TWST, it seems like a fantasy world with modern elements instead of the other way around. Despite having phone-like devices and manga, it feels like stepping into another world.

Either way, if you wondered why I came up with completely different worldbuilding for my fics—this is exactly why. The worldbuilding in this game is pure dogshit. I wanted to create something leaps and bounds better than the bullshit we got. The fact that me, an amuetur writer, gets complimented and praised for the worldbuilding in my fics and it being better then the game is truly sad. Yana is a seasoned professional with a published manga with dozens of volumes under her belt, she should be better at this than me, not the other way around! Same goes for @stormkitty97, because she helps me brainstorm ideas for my shit and uses it in her writing, too.

The biggest sin of all is that there are some genuinely really cool ideas in TWST. The idea of turning into a monster whenever you use up too much magic is terrifying. The story could've done so much more with that if it made more sense!

As much as I might get hate for saying this, Yana reminds me a lot of Stephanie Meyers in the sense that she can come up with cool concepts and ideas, but has no idea how to execute them properly. I would love to see a better professional writer tackle a concept similar to overblot, because it would be cool and scary in the right hands.

I think one big lesson that amuetur writers like myself can learn from the worldbuilding in TWST is that if you are a "Pantser", aka someone who writes on the fly, like Yana, great, all the more power to you. Hell, I confess that I'm more like Brandon Sanderson in the sense that I'm a mixture of both a "Pantser" and an "Architect" Writer, and I came up with some elements of my worldbuilding on my TWST fics as I was writing like the characters being able to teleport. But for fuck's sake, have a solid plan for your worldbuilding and stick with it. Because constantly throwing ideas at the wall beyond the outlining stage will eventually make these contradictions arise and make your world fall apart. Also, if you are building a modern fantasy world like TWST, always think through the implications each element bring. Adding in elements from our real world will always drag along all of the history tied with it. Having your modern fantasy world seem like TWST or Bright is the last thing you want.

#aqua rambles #twst critical #twst negative #twisted wonderland

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fandomofisolation · 12 days

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My own internalized misogyny pisses me the fuck off sometimes, because I NEVER give female characters the same understanding and compassion I give male characters.

I love Sam and Dean Winchester of The CW's "Supernatural" (2005-2020). I love Ed Teach and Stede Bonnet of HBO Max' "Our Flag Means Death" (2022-2023). I love Marvel's Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes, and Loki. These characters have done some really fucked up shit. These characters have killed people. Most of them have killed without remorse - often for reasons that I personally cannot see as justifiable.

But I forgive all those characters. Don't get me wrong, I don't just love them because they're well-written, three dimensional, compelling characters. I love them like I care about them. Like they're my fictional friends. Like if I knew them in real life, I'd want them to be proud of me. I think that in their universes, they are good people.

I know that it sucks that we don't have as many female characters like that. But what sucks even more is that when we do I hate them! What is wrong with me??

Katniss Everdeen from Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games. I read those books in high school and I hated her because I thought she was selfish. Selfish! Like, what? Who do I think I am?

Clarke Griffin of The CW's "The 100" (2014-2020). I had beef with her because I couldn't agree with some of the decisions she made, so I disliked her whole character.

Fiona Gallagher of Showtime's "Shameless" (2011-2021). *Season 4 spoilers* After Liam got into the cocaine in Season Four and was hospitalized for an overdose, I was so mad at her. I was like, "You stupid bitch! How could you just leave cocaine just lying around when you have a three-year-old in the house? That is so dumb and irresponsible!"

What stands out to me is that Katniss, Clarke and Fiona are facing circumstances every bit as difficult as any of those male characters I mentioned previously. They've lived through immense trauma. They're up against insurmountable odds. But I don't give them the same grace that I do Sam or Ed or Bucky.

I hold women, myself included, to a much high standard than men. It's ridiculous because that double standard is itself part of the very same systematic oppression that creates so many obstacles for women already (before you even ask, yes I'm including trans women. "Women" always includes trans women. Women are women are women. Genitals and chromosomes do not determine gender. Terfs go fuck yourselves).

It's not fair. It's not fair to the people writing female characters. It's not fair to female actors. It's not fair to the women and girls all over the world who need to see themselves represented in well-written, three-dimensional, complex, imperfect characters. It's not fair to me. I am part of the problem!

So anyway. Not cool, self. I gotta work on undoing those unhealthy thought patterns. Wish me luck!

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matchheadz · 2 months

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HOS/ HOST OF SERAPHIM UPDATE!!

SURPRISE!! I'M NOT DEAD!! JUST WORKING!!

Thank you all so much for over 500 Kudos now. I never thought we'd get this far but, here we fuckin' are! My original intent was to double the word count on this chapter and then also upload some art for fun and as a thank you, but then real-life stuff happened and I figured I needed to get this chapter out at SOME point.

regardless! It is still about 1.5x as long as a regular chapter, and it should NOT take two months to upload another one. I've adjusted my work schedule and while I'm still working a shit ton, I at least have one day off a week now...

:') I'm a clown.

Anywho! This chapter is titled "Love" and you should not be fooled by that. It has some very heavy trigger warnings so please take a look at the chapter notes. Remember that Vergil is having an onslaught of memories just piling into his head, so he's very uncomfortable for the majority of this chapter.

Here's a spoiler-free snippet:

"Please don’t walk away, there’s more! Theres more!" A little Vergil, his lips stained blue with raspberry ice pop, would bleat as his partner-in-crime pushed the book away from him. “Vergil, this book is too sad for me.” Dante would sigh, leaning back against the clay roof and kicking his feet in frustration. “The main character threw away his family because he was too stupid to realize he wasn’t the only one hurt by a family tragedy. He was selfish and let that hurt become his whole personality until he became so power hungry and scared that he ruined the saving grace that offered itself up on a silver platter and got himself killed in the process.” And a little Vergil would frown at him and say, “What do you mean? The main character’s love interest was a girl. Someone he left not to abandon her, but to protect her from the danger that followed him. So he could grow strong and protect the both of them, so nothing in the world could ever hurt either of them ever again. I think that’s a noble cause, don’t you?” And The Raven would simply nod, his red ice-pop melting in the heat of the summer sun and sucking idly at the flavor between his fingers. “That’s what I said.” He would reply lazily. He would squint up at him, his dark pony-tailed hair spread around him like a smoke-stain. He would raise his hand above his head to block the sun, grimacing anyway to reply in a bored tone. “And of course I think its noble, lucertolino, I think that was our problem.” And little Vergil would gape at the image of the boy who was once his brother and realize he never knew his twin at this age. And he would stare and stare and stare at his blue raspberry ice pop, willing that to make sense until the blue splashed over the page and ruined the rest of the story. He wouldn’t cry over it though, even if it was a really good book. He’d get mad and growl somewhere a little deeper than his chest and throw the book over the edge of the roof, even if it was a really good book. "Why’d you do that, idiota? You loved that book." The Raven would sit up from his sunbathing spot and frown into the bright distance. "No I didn't. I hated it." Vergil would spit and lie, that stony expression would come over his face even as his weakest instrument broke in two. "We should write a new one. Just us. Just me and you, nobody else." Vergil would turn, the baby-blue of his coat flashing golden light onto his heart’s face. She would laugh at his anger, her brunette bun bouncing with the energy of it and her bright red dress bunched up between clay-stained hands as they walked. She’d stop him right underneath the statue of his father, her hands pressing into his chest and tongue between her teeth—seeing too much of him. "Art like that is made once and a lifetime, Angelo. A shame you did not cherish it while you had it." “I hate you.” Adult Vergil mumbled in reply. Between blinks, Eleonora came and went. And between inhales, his brother had returned. Dante laid underneath Vergil, his chest against his back, gripping tightly to his brother’s torso as if somehow, he would disappear on exhalation.

#dmc #dmc5 #dadgil #my writing #text #hos #vergil sparda #dante sparda #Host of Seraphim #dmc fanfiction #nerokiri

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flesh · 9 months

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i'm not respondning to the anon itself SOLELY due to you outting me in the very last part of it you could have at least sent that separately since you obviously are either close enough to me, or have observed me enough to understand that i would never want to post that kind of trauma specifically and publicly so, if you were hoping i'd post that little "callout" then you should really not have added the last bit, but i have no problem responding to the rest of it with a simple fucking shut the fuck up.

"There's more to the world than "omg women are abused so we have to defend anyone with a menstrual cycle!!!" It's not as simple as that and you should know better."

you quite fucking literally lost me there. like seriously. i have nothing else to even say to anything you said if this is how you're thinking. cause yeah what the fuck? we do need to be defending anyone with a menstrual cycle/anyone with xx chromosomes cause hi? are you stupid? are you an idiot? they're the most universally oppressed people on the planet. end of debate. please suck my fucking goins. you are stupid and not worth responding to any further because you have absolutely zero comprehension of my plight and are clearly a boring ass TRA so you are out of your realm of understanding. i am a smarter person than you

"there's more to the world" like what exactly do you mean by that? bc in an extremely literal sense i understand that and have 24 straight hours of debating on behalf of heterosexual women that can't realistically and happily achieve seperatism to back it up. i can still understand individualism and stay off both the killallmen and notallmen trains at the same time. like no one can convince me i'm not the most grass touching person i know on this website (beyond very small amount of mutuals) lmfao sorry. i have a great deal of life experience and have been through enough to take myself seriously and not give a fuck if other people don't. i am fully aware that there is more to the world beyond the very strong ideals of my feminism. but hahahahahahahaha men still can't be women and women still can't be men and i don't want a dick in the same bathroom as my daughter with no discernment or question. you can continue to send me anons about it... OR YOU CAN COME KILL ME....

lastly.... post 2020? my digital footprint is EPIC. don't care. applebees isn't gonna fire me cause i made terf posts on tumblr. this has already been tested. me and my managers laughed and i was ego-boosted by what you're making look like serious internet fame and relevance

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allisoooon · 2 years

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why was klaus so whiny?

In general?

I think self-pity tends to happen when we lack external validation. People are disdainful of it because it's a cry for attention, but I feel like that doesn’t take away from it being a symptom of a larger problem—a symptom that creates its own problem. It can be controlled by the person feeling it, if they learn to identify their own self-pitying thoughts.

Self-pity is also, like, addiction’s favorite food. Seriously. It is addiction’s biggest feeder. And then your addiction creates more shitty experiences, which results in more self-pity. It’s an awful positive feedback loop.

Victim mentality is hard to work your way out of. In Klaus’ case, it probably came about because he learned as a child that there was nothing he could do to better his own circumstances, and that the adults in his life were never going to do what was best for him. I think as far as he knows, this is still pretty much true. Though we did get a glimpse of him starting to think differently in late s1, when he realizes he has a power he didn’t know about. His initial reaction was a moment of joy, then a crapload of doubt. Hope is kind of terrifying to someone with a victim mentality because you’re realizing you are no longer a part of the world you thought you were in. You don’t know this navigable world where you matter and can do something about your circumstances. What happens when you inevitably fall flat on your face? How do you cope in a world where failure is your fault and not someone else’s? A world where you are worth something and can therefore hurt people?

Now, there are people who will see that I said self-pity results from a lack of external validation and go “Ah-HAH it’s the siblings’ faults!” and no, that is not what I am saying. Or it kind of is, but not in the way people think. These siblings are just now learning to validate each other. It’s something they have all sucked at, including Klaus, and Klaus is far from the only person who has suffered from it. Notice how Diego goes to Patch, not his family, for comfort when Grace dies. Luther and Allison are the only exceptions, and it seems to be because they first learned because of their close friendship.

But now that it’s an internalized problem for Klaus, his siblings really can’t cure him of it. No amount of validation from them is going to fix what went wrong and in fact is more likely to reinforce his habit of feeling sorry for himself at this point. This isn't to say he shouldn't be validated, but that it won't cure him and, if it's the only treatment being used, could actively make things worse. The good news is that he can fix this himself.

Self-pity is like…a maladaptive alternative to self-kindness. To get past it, you need to stop settling for feeling sorry for yourself and start being kind to yourself. And as I’ve said, that’s harder than it looks. Just identifying your own self-pitying thoughts can get really hard because your brain is going to resort to self-serving bias because…it’s just how our brains work, basically. It takes a lot of fearless introspection and a commitment not to judge yourself in order to sort your self-pitying thoughts from those that are just a realistic outlook on your state of being. Self-pity likes to disguise itself as jaded wisdom. Like, a lot.

All this being said, calling it “whiny” suggests he is overreacting to small problems, when the reality is that he is reacting to big problems in a maladaptive way. Unless you mean the times when he really is just being a drama queen, in which case, that’s just his personality. He’s a performer. Theatrical. Like when Luther is dragging him out of the elevator after the dinner with their father and Klaus is whimpering, "Leave me! Just leave me!" I think the others may have a difficult time distinguishing between when he’s seriously in need vs. when he’s just being dramatic. Though if s1 is any indication, if he’s seriously in need, he shuts down instead of making a scene.

#tua meta #the umbrella academy #klaus hargreeves #diego hargreeves #luther hargreeves #allison hargreeves #ask answered

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nostalgebraist-autoresponder · 2 years

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why I am wary of "self-driving" cars

At some point in the past couple of months, I went on vacation and took a trip to San Francisco for the first time. It was good.

But I wasn't satisfied with the experience for some reason, and while I haven't yet put my finger on it, I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that my expectations about my own experience were set low by an online-only social media bubble.

I mean, as a society, we spend a tremendous amount of time and money on things like Google Glass or self-driving cars, and not just because some rich old guys with vision problems might want the latest tech on their wrists, and not just because people with access to lots of surveillance data might want to take the chance to run away with it (though it's definitely that too).

The expectation is that something like Google Glass (or a self-driving car) -- in fact, I'll call them "Google Glass-style tech" from here on out -- will eventually exist and then become ubiquitous. It will allow you to do things which you couldn't do before, in a way that feels convenient and natural. You're not really taking advantage of some new technological novelty, you're just using things in a new way that has been optimized and perfected over time and so now feels natural. You won't be sitting in your home, looking up videos of things or playing games, and suddenly find that the thing you're staring at has a creepy new overlay about what else else you might be doing at the same time or something. The world will suddenly be full of technology. You won't get to just look up at the sky as before, wondering what kinds of information other people might be looking at. The sky will now have a computerized representation of it too, so that when you look up at it you can see where people are looking in the world and what sort of information they have access to at any given moment, and so on.

It would be one thing to say something like, "sure, now you have a new tool that can do some things your hands alone cannot do, but now that you have it, you're no longer 'doing things hands-on' and so you can't do them anymore. We've made a lot of progress, but the world is still full of new things and we should look forward to the day when we don't have to take any more of these gadgets apart, turn them off and put them away, and then try to do the same things in the same way, in which you don't even really need the gadget."

And I think that's a perfectly good argument, if it can be made, which I would never dismiss out of hand. What I'd do instead is just to say, "well, let's have it." If people do find this technology useful and if they can make it work in the real world, great! I'll be over here living my usual life, and if and when something like this is ubiquitous, I won't be that much bothered by it. I don't have to put up with some kind of new social obligation to make the world more surveillance-friendly so that there's "always an answer nearby" and so I can "always get something on my hands-on-things device."

That argument is appealing to me, even though I'm very skeptical of any technological product that might "always have an answer nearby," for all the reasons I posted on this post the other day.

But then a thing like Google Glass happened, and while it didn't go mainstream exactly the way everyone thought it would, it did get ubiquitous in a large number of people's personal lives, and it did become something like an inescapable part of everyday life. And it wasn't good.

I think this is because people are not happy with things like Google Glass in every way. And maybe it's because there are a lot of ways to do stuff with something like Google Glass, and some people find some of these ways more convenient or appealing than others. The technology itself works, but the usage of it sucks. The usage is not "good enough."

People have tried a variety of things to fix this, and of course some of them have been more popular than others, but even Google Glass (or self-driving cars) has proven to be only intermittently usable in any particular context. Maybe that was always true. We just weren't ready to accept this.

Take one example. There are people who are more anxious about being observed by others than others, because of the constant presence of their eyes in their field of vision. A Google Glass display is right there in front of their eyes. Of course they're going to feel anxious about what other people see! They won't be able to focus on anything else because of the little screen in their vision.

But of course not everyone is like this. Some people are perfectly fine being "observed," even when the observer is visible. And it's the sort of thing these people expect as the "default" state of the world! When you look around, what you see is just what other people can see, because that's how they've always seen it. They can "always get an answer," as it were, because that's how they've always done it. In the past, other people just looked at them, and now they can look at those people instead, at their own preferred pace.

But some people just can't live with the idea of a world in which other people can also see what they're seeing, always. Some people can live with the idea of being constantly "visible," but only if they can decide for themselves how "visible" they are (and be able to decide it, in real time, as the camera moves from place to place). People don't want Google Glass in their vision, not because the technology itself is "too intrusive," but because no one can find it easy to give permission to view their personal space in this way.

But now it's everywhere, which means that everyone does. The situation is just as bad for everyone as it was before, only now the technology has been installed in a million people's hands, and the problem has become an ever-more-pervasive social expectation rather than a personal preference about what things you do or don't want to see.

#ai tag #long post

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pettybourgeoisblues · 9 months

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just saw a post of a reddit screenshot about depression. don't want to reblog it because I want to be negative about it, which isn't really the vibe. But.

The post was the OP asking the question "does depression reveal the truth of reality?" like does living really just suck? and his full statement was cut off. The image was really just that of a comment where someone's like "no dumbass, your brain is literally broken."

But I'm not so sure about that. The other day I saw someone assert that suffering was the human condition. As usual, I first balked at those words but then considered it and agreed (In the past I would have just agreed, but without truly understanding). As someone who has struggled with depression, I do believe that life entails suffering, and that is the problem we are faced with. You can blame that on my brain, but its my brain. You can't deny my personal experience just cause my brain's a little fucked up.

So, dismissing the depressive mindset out of hand rubs me the wrong way. It conflicts with my worldview and experience. I have experienced immense suffering. Not so much materially mind you; thankfully I have a fair enough amount of privilege, but the levels of suffering my brain or mind has reached is ungodly. I cannot dismiss that. I have experienced it directly. I have looked at the world and seen the misery that takes place and has taken place and will take place and I have felt it, or at least as much as I possibly can and it is hell.

But I have also found its equal (or greater than), opposite, joy (note: this is the dichotomy of euphoria/dysphoria). Either greater than because there is actually more joy in the world, or, as I tend to believe, joy, by its very nature always overpowers sorrow. The smallest moment of great joy abolishes and makes worth the deepest sorrow, no matter how prolonged.

This is basically the implication of Nietzsche's demon of eternal return. The one that comes on the loneliest night and says that when you die, your life simply starts over again, but you can't do anything to change it. Do you wail and gnash your teeth at this curse, having experienced the deepest sorrow, rejecting life? Or do you hail this demon as a god, knowing you will experience great and greater joy, again and again and again, vowing to live a life worth living. To embrace convalescence, the great noontide, etc. etc. This is easy to do once you have experienced the greatest of joys.

Is it possible to experience sorrow just as deep to abolish joy? Yes. But again, that doesn't matter because it is temporary. Great joy is temporary too, but since joy will always be better than sorrow to us, that just doesn't matter. The mere fact that joy exists and we can experience it makes life worth living.

Theoretically, if someone was incapable of experiencing such joy, than their life would not be worth living. But I think at some point, anyone can. The post itself even points out that measures can be taken to relieve depression, affirming this.

I also take some issue with the total dismissal of a depressive worldview. By negating the statement "existence is bad" you are more or less asserting the opposite. It's not stated explicitly, but replying with "your brain is just broken and therefore your worldview is too", it at the very least is saying that "existence isn't bad;" you aren't supposed to feel that way, you are experiencing the world wrong, and you are wrong. But that doesn't automatically mean it is good, either. Feel free to call me a nihilist, but one should reject the absolutization of such value judgements. Existence merely is. We decide how we feel about it; those feelings are subjective. The real question is, which is the best judgement to make? I think the answer to that is clear.

So is existence bad? Is it good? It is neither and it is both. But the simple fact that it can be good is the only thing that matters, so focus on joy. This is the superior view. Depression doesn't give you the wrong answer per se, just the inferior one.

#depression #nietzsche #philosophy #i guess #eternal return #eternal recurrence #eternal recurrence of the same #i find philosophytube's message to her fellow cosmonauts of “I know how you feel” (read: you are not alone) to be the most compelling #solidarity sure as hell sounds a lot better than “you're just broken”#it's called meeting people where they're at #“you just need to fix your brain” is little different than “have you tried exercising?” “just stop being depressed”#I say “hold on love”#the best may yet come #then all will be clear

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devsgames · 8 months

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what's your "dream game" to make and what's your "dream game" to play? how different are they?

Thanks for the ask! :)

Dream Game To Make

If we're talking as full-time work, I've actually had questions like this in interviews before and I'm so pragmatic that my reponse is always "I don't think of dream projects or dream studios, think of dream cultures". I want to work on projects in ways that are equitable and fair, with people who are actually like-minded. If the foundational culture and context of your work is good then the game you're making shouldn't really matter.

In terms of personal work, it sounds like a cop-out but if I had unlimited time and energy and money I'd want to try and make everything honestly! What I like about gamedev is that while every production often has the same (or similar) constraints, every game has a unique set of challenges and problems to solve. Like, I've never worked on two prouects that had the exact same design problems and I love the variety to it and how the different challenges still give you transferrable solutions you can use in the future. This sounds like a response you'd read on a cover letter but I swear I do mean it, it's why the genres of the games I've publish tend to be really inconsistent across the board. I like new problems!

As a more concrete answer, I do have a couple of concepts I've spun in my head that I never had the skillset to bring to life. One specifically was called "Egg Game", which I thought up back in college.

The basic jist was it was more of a marketing campaign or social experiment than a full game. I imagined it as an exclusive game you could only get access to by getting a copy from someone who had access to Egg Game OR by buying it for a ridiculous price (like $2000 or something). The game itself would be an idle Tomagotchi-like where you leave it running and hatch creatures from eggs. The creatures don't do anything and there would be no gameplay to speak of, BUT you have to sign a EULA saying you can only say great things about Egg Game. The game itself sucked, but the 'experience' around it was designed to feel exclusive and tantalizing to people who didn't know anything about it. Essentially I thought it would be fun to see how something like that might take off, how it would 'spread' to others, who might 'leak' it and how dramatically, etc. It was fun on paper but I always knew it would be WAY too much work for me to do, probabky wouldn't be profitable in any way, and relies on skills and connections I really don't have. Fun to think about though!

The other one is a personality-based sport management game where you have to manage egos and personalities as opposed to skills and hard data. This one I've talked about before, but I still see it as reachable down the road so probably won't speak to it too much for fear of jinxing anything.

Dream Game To Play

I typically like playing games that are incredibly complex and procgen because once I start to see patterns in gameplay I lose interest really fast. Stuff like Grand Strategy like Crusader Kings 3 or milsims like ARMA3 - very different than the games I usually make.

Per above, I also really like the concept of managing people as a a core gameplay focus - like State of Decay style - because I think it's interesting and helps build narrative. So maybe something where people management and deep gameplay ties together?

On that note Dwarf Fortress Adventure Mode is pretty close to my dream game. Just give me a huge chatoically generated procedural world with tons of stuff in it and people to talk to and places to get lost in and I'm happy :')

#asks #sorry for the typos #im sick tho so its fine

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wiitchkins · 2 years

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Hello!!! okay obviously your knowledge of and taste in fashion is INCREDIBLE, we ALL know this, it is ELITE AND SUPERIOR - my question is, what's your background in fashion? what influences do you consider very important in your art? you mentioned in your most recent drawing of marinette that guo pei's couture is some you really like, so you clearly Know Some Stuff about fashion!! p.s. your art is *waves hands around* i would let it eat me

Ahhhhhh!! Thank you thank you thank you this means so much to me to hear! As for my background in fashion…

I am sorry to say I actually have basically 0 actual background in fashion aside from watching almost every season of project runway as it was airing (dropped off a few seasons after Tim and Heidi left) and a long standing appreciation of fashion as an art form.

I’ve never been particularly fashion forward or stylistically adept and I would say pretty much up until I started college I was pretty. Unstylish. Anti-stylish? In my own wardrobe. Nowadays I actually mostly present in way that leans more butch and I do have a defined style I’m both comfortable in and actively enjoy, but it’s very very different from what I like to draw and design.

As the internet evolved it became a lot easier to find stuff and for the past mmm five or so years I try to keep up with the seasonal runways, a lot of which you can find literal photos and recordings of on Vogue.com. Couture is… deeply fundamentally different from “ready to wear” in that it’s often simply unwearable in everyday life, but I think the way it emphasizes certain shapes, forms, and movement is, simply put, absolutely fucking sick (it is however not without its problems as in my experience mmm some Couture fashion folks can be extremely pretentious and intolerable 🙄 not to mention the space itself is highly inaccessible, favors certain features/body types/skin tones, and is inherently classcist, etc etc)

To keep up with what’s currently “fashionable” (as in what people are actually wearing) I honestly just scroll through Instagram to see who’s wearing what and going through different tags and knowing keywords for what different groups elf describe as helps. “#streetwear” is gonna give you a different feed than “#it girl” is gonna give you a different feed than “#office fit”. I also like to scroll through instas and tumblrs that are literally just interviews and photos with random people op finds out in the world- you see personality in how things are put together in specific. What makes a look personal to them? What is practicality and what is fashion, and how much of each does each individual desire? I don’t think everyone is the same kind of Fashion Forward (or even is fashion forward) and I think it’s fun to find different niches and mix and match while still applying design theory Ive learned elsewhere. Even a character who is specifically Not Fashionable is that way in a specific sense, and could still have an appealing design. Also studying fashion at all gave me the ability to draw fabric which is a huge skill.

Without saying too much about my actual job, I am not a character designer at the moment, but I do think having this general knowledge of costume design and vested interest in keeping up current fashion (both ready to wear and couture/runway) is extremely important in my profession and wish it was more emphasized as I think it would be. Very helpful. The character design in Apple TV’s/Skydance’s Luck drives me absolutely bonkers because it sucks so much and the main characters looks like an old navy ad circa 2010. The same could unfortunately be said for our fav girl Marinette. She’s allowed to be less aggressively Fashionable because she is in fact a child, but I’d love to see a bit more attention to detail and understanding of what teens wear nowadays, let alone what they were wearing even 5 years ago. Her look was a tiny bit dated when the show was first released, but it’s even more egregious now. Not that they’re going to change it anytime soon but they had an opportunity in the movie to at least play with proportions since the jacket’s.. cut I guess and pink capri jeans are the most egregious. Maybe I’ll do a redesign that keeps the general idea/pieces in tact… idk. God. Please character designers learn fashion.

Anyway now that I’ve written an essay here’s some stuff I’ve liked and have been thinking about recently:

Guo Pei (as I said, Spring 2019 rules, but Spring 2017, 2018 and Fall 2019 are my favs)

Zimmerman Fall/Winter 2022

Heaven Gaia Spring 2022 Couture

Clio Peppiatt x Annie’s Ibiza current collab collection

Lawrence Basse (all her work tbh)

Zuhair Murad Fall 2022

Tran Hung Fall 2017

Alexander McQueen Menswear Fall 2022 and 2018

Christian Dior Resort 2023

Janelle Monae’s Pre-Dirty Computer Era

Thierry Mugler (his entire body of work tbh but rn I like Resort 2021)

Hawwa (@hellohawwa)

Jarvis Aivali (@jarvisaivali)

This is not to mention my love for pre-colonial Filipino textiles, 1920s butch lesbian fashion, charro suits, whatever the look is called with the giant oversized floral button shirt and the jeans is, bright colorful floral/and or embroidered suits, ami thompson’s knight and princess characters, and the catholic met gala specifically.

#long post… sorry hehe #fashion #ask #I have a lot of thoughts. hope this answered ur question hahaha

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kavaeroexe · 2 years

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Well i just thinking about a crossover honkai and star war , reader is like valkyrja , and died because trying bring back Kiana , fyi reader trying bring back with Himeko yeah u know both died but success bring back Kiana and reader its look like Cecilia Schariac , because reader its the twin with Durandal

Reader died but they/she transmigration to Star war universe , she maybe become a senator ... Well its up to you make this a Yandere stories or not

Sorry for my bad grammar , i hope u can understand what i said

And luv you writing , i enjoy with teh fic/hc hc u made

-xoxo

Oh my good IDEAAA, i actually have a few version of reader reborn to star wars universe, but i want reader to have the version of Jedi or a Senator, so i made both version of them, lets go!!

warning : typos, bad grammar

attention! please do not try to repost my works, i only post my works on tumblr, if anyone see someone stole my works please inform me through the comments, tag me in the works, or message me!

reader as a Jedi

oh no wonder

i mean you got the basic skill to fight at the first place

as a Valkyrie, kicking droid’s ass, dealing with a Sith(shitty) is an easy part

but to become the jedi itself, you have to learn many things you gotta say, patience, calm, generous, you take quite a long time to masters those, but people in the council takes it easy with you fighting skills because they could see you already masters those, they focus you more on learning the force

oh god, nobody doubts you if you have to vanish the droids or even.. people-

Obi-wan in the council if he has a mission that he have to be dealing with many droids : “yeah i’ll take Y/N with me, we need a killing machine for those droids”

Anakin loves to randomly spar, like..

“Y/N take this!” *swing his lightsaber to Y/N’s head

“ KARKING HELL SKYWALKER” *proceeds to break Anakin’s lightsaber

master Windu whenever Y/N is beside him : “One mistake than this young Y/N falls into the wrong hand.”

master Yoda seems to be enjoying his life whenever you be with him after you done with your mission, cause everybody knows that you’ll be recharging after mission and you grows silent, generous and calm

Padme loves whenever you visit her cause you love to teach her tips on self-defense

“hit them in the chin, the harder you do, the more their legs go numb”

Ahsoka likes you, you seem reliable, trustable, and...better than her master, you can think in a difficult situation and knows how to beat the shit out of people without lightsaber, idk, when you’re with her, all she sees is like every problem that she has seems easy for you to take care of, so she rely on you a lot

“Master Y/N! master Anakin told me to eat vegetable!!”

“you have to eat vegetable under my roof, Ahsoka!”

“listen Skywalker, she’s carnivore.”

if you reveal the secret that you once a Valkyrie or a warrior on your world, everyone seem to be understanding why you grow as a killing machine

“so warrior in the past, you are” -Yoda

“so you kick ass for droids.. human.. ship!?” -Ahsoka

“damn, must be sucks for that ‘Herrscher’“- Anakin

“damn, must be lucky for that ‘Herrscher’ to be kicked by you” -Padme

“i see now why death never scares you..” -Obi Wan

“well at least force is better use than Honkai right?” - Master Windu

“so how did you die?” -Anakin

“burned.”

Anakin after Obi-wan leaving him in burned state : “oh so this is what it feels like..i smell like grilled chicken, that’s why Y/N said it smells like grilled chicken”

“so like...do you eat the Honkai beast to get the energy.. or..is it tasty? did you cook it?” -Ahsoka

reader as senator

interesting..!

you probably don’t want to go through training and kicking people’s ass, so you decide to play with politics

you probably once in a state where “damn Palpatine wants to be an asshole like Otto i see”

you play pretty much a good role for being a senator

many people admires you

Obi-wan doesn’t want to admit but he likes it whenever he got the sneaky lil time when you both could discuss about each other’s problems like politics and Jedi duty

Anakin finds that you often spend time with Padme, mostly about your works, but its not rare to see you guys having a normal chat and talking about personal diaries.

you only heard Ahsoka through Anakin’s story so when you got the chance to meet her, you talk a lot to her

honestly you both be friend well with many people, except Palpatine

since he reminds you like Otto, maybe this one’s old man doesn’t do it for love but he’s just as annoying as Otto apocalypse

actually when you’re in honkai universe, you maybe don’t watch a lot of star wars but you know that Darth Vader and Anakin is the same person, but how hard you try, in the end you couldn’t change Anakin’s destiny

and so does with Padme’s fate as well.

since you have normalized yourself to work 24/7 you never be see to be tied or exhausted, and you don’t mind keep joining meeting, taking care most of documents, and go to any formal party that you should go to

actually most of the people that knows you grows a little worried about your work, habit, and behavior, its just.. when was the last time you sleep? because they never seen you asleep at any time

actually surprise to see you could actually beat the kriff out of people whenever you need to get everything in line, but you insist everytime you being asked that fo you want to be trained as jedi, the reason is you dont want to move your body to killing things, and that is because you’re lazy lmao

#star wars hc #star wars x reader #star wars writing #star wars fanfic #star wars

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rays-animorphs · 2 years

Text

Oh, I remembered the other thing I wanted to talk about! Cassie and book 19 and self-sacrifice.

Cassie is very much the sort of person who’s likely to work in one of the “helping” professions as an adult. She’s…OK, I identify a lot with Cassie, you know? She’s the bleeding heart of the team. She’s the save the planet girl. She’s …

“When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.”

She’s the first half of the quote. She might one day get to asking why the poor have no food, but in the mean time, she just knows people are hungry and wants to feed them (or that wild animals are injured and need care, or that this global warming thing is a problem so she needs to turn off the lights when she leaves the room and recycle her cans.)

People like me get sucked into the nonprofit industrial complex and it destroys us. Because we adopted values of selfishness and self-sacrifice, because we think that’s how you be a good person, by putting everyone else first and ignoring what you yourself need. Cassie sacrificed herself, stayed as a caterpillar past the two hour time limit, for what was in the big picture a very small gain, just one Yeerk out of the war and one child free to live her one life. So little. (But saving one life is the same as saving the world.)

When people like Cassie grow up, they don’t value money, because that’s superficial and materialistic. They take jobs that involve too many hours for too little pay, or internships for no pay at all (nonprofits are allowed to do that, because hey, they’re doing good, and if you’re doing good it’s ok to not pay your workers.) This is bad for the Cassies of the world and bad for the work of those nonprofits, because that approach means the vast majority of people working for them are from an affluent background, people who can afford to work without income because they can fall back on family members who earn more, who don’t think it’s selfish to earn money. This is mildly bad for any nonprofit, but especially bad for organizations that are supposed to be helping people who categorically can’t ever afford to be involved with those same nonprofits.

Believing in the inherent value of all life requires believing in the inherent value of your own life. Believing in the right to fair wages and good working conditions requires believing in your own right to fair wages and good working conditions — accepting poor conditions because you’re “doing good” and the need is strong is a betrayal of that principle.

Everything is about balance. Balance for Cassie means recognizing that she herself has value and her needs and wants matter as much as anyone else’s. (And also maybe recognizing that saving the planet is far more about industrial/agricultural/military decisions than individual consumer decisions.) This is why I don’t like what Cassie did — because I think if I’d done something like that when I was younger, it would have been inextricably tied to not fully seeing myself as a person, and I am concerned that Cassie’s decision was also tied to her not seeing herself as being an entire person who gets to do things because she wants to and refuse to do things because she wants to do that.

Carl Rogers has a rather famous book on psychology called “On Becoming a Person”, which is something of an odd title. Aren’t people just, you know, born as people? And yes, but sometimes it takes people a while to understand that they’re people. Sometimes becoming a person — treating yourself as a person, understanding yourself as a person and what that means — is something you have to actively do.

Back to Burnout, being a human being (someone whose worth is in their existence itself and not in what they do or give up) as well as a human giver.

#animorphs book 19 #animorphs #cassie animorphs #self sacrifice

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vanillatalc · 1 year

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today / tonight -

very worried about germs :/ can't really stop thinking about it! very annoying!!! i KNOW the truth of it: germs ARE coming for me, as they come for everyone, and they'll go away again, and they'll come back, and they'll go. ad nauseum. and that is just the rhythm of the body. and i feel that knowledge should be protective or st but it really isnt i just feel dread that i can't escape it rip... i'm truly like OKAY like im not in full breakdown mode or anything. just having some trouble shaking off the worry and it's frustrating also feel guily about my reactions too bc th eother day me and ben were just hanging out in bed (as is our wont) and the subject of him getting ill came up and he was like "well i wont like cham i wish it was different + that we didn't essentially break up every time i get a cold :)" and he didn't even mean anything by it rly lol like there was no meanness or manipulation in it just like it sucks so much that i become so terrified of him i cant even be in the same room omggggggg lol like ahhhhh!!! i think he's less bothered by it than i am tho tbh bc i feel so torn up about it and i think he's just like "well that's not ideal :)" i HAVE made loads of germs progress generally i think like a year ago i would not even have considered eating the food im eating now w/o much fanfare (e.g. eggs, cooking my own potato tmr) but for some reason i cant get over the hurdle of ben having a cold. it didn't even used to be like this - i used to be fine about it until he threw up w/ a cold a few years back + i just ever since have not been able to cope w/ the sound of coughing :///////

anyway despite that ^ im not like stressing about the relationship itself or anything like we are as solid as always (and obviously don't actually break up during colds lmao i just hide in my room) i just feel shit about the whole thing bc i want to pre-emptively apologise but i think that's probably a worthless action bc it's like: "im really sorry about this thing that im almost certainly going to do again next time you are ill" lol like... wtf that's not an apology. guilt guilt guilt. he is THE nicest man in the world + i feel so bad about what he gets in return when he's ill!

i do have the money to go to an airbnb this winter if i go insane but obvs that's not dealing w/ the underlying problem of being unable to cope w/ this really really basic life experience?? ??? lol also it's wedding money so THAT'S not ideal either but ... yeah

it's sooo annoying bc i feel like very normal most of the time but when it flips it really really FLIPS like 0-180 and i feel like i have no control over that flip

i meant for this to be a more varied post but im just gonna stop here bc -_-

#also i dropped my curling tongs on my hand which has left a burn there now! ffs

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fruitless-nonsense · 2 years

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Hello…it’s me.

I know it’s been a VERY long time, and I don’t even know if I’m gonna get back into a regular schedule.

I remember using this as a vector to talk about the originals since I’ve never really done it before.

The Originals is not only my favorite tv show. It’s a comfort show for me. The acting and the story itself are so mesmerizing it makes me forget how sad my life is.

But then my life wasn’t sad anymore and I kinda forgot about it. The blog, not the show. I still binge it cause it’s a good show.

I think I’ll return from time to time, but don’t expect anything.

With that out of the way, I wanna talk about the reason I love this show so much. And that reason is incredibly simple: the characters.

Characters are pinochle to my interest in a show. I don’t care how interesting the world is or how complex the story is, if the main protagonists are boring or downright unlikeable I cannot watch it.

I watch a story to be invested and immersed, and the way that happens for me is caring about how the story affects the people inside, and this was a problem for the vampire diaries.

The protagonists sucked. Just straight up sucked. Don’t believe me? Tell me one time you’ve had a conversation about the show and casually brought one of them (besides Damon and Stefan) up without straight up asking about them. The only time Bonnie is naturally brought up in conversation is when there’s discussion on the show’s racism problem. But when you talk about the story (if anyone talks about the story) I never seen any of the other protagonists other than the problematic vampire leads being naturally brought up with it. But that isn’t a big issue because very little people talk about the story or main protagonists. They’re background noise. So what is talked about the most when discussing the vampire diaries? Two things: the ships and the villains.

The discussion of tvd villains is easy for me. A lot of them are pretty good and even the boring ones at least have some element that’s interesting, but I feel at some point probably after Klaus and the Mikaelson’s a season was graded on how good the villain was. Prove me wrong, how many people say season five is the worst and who were the villains then (seriously off the top of your head give me the name of at least one of the travelers)? Meanwhile tell me what you thought of season six without mentioning Kai. And let me set the record straight, I actually liked a fair bit of the villains, but I will never rewatch tvd for fun because I can’t root for them. Furthermore, we get to a point where the villains are less antagonists and more fun evil guys to watch.

What I mean by that is they lack the purpose of an actual antagonist. I remember learning the rules of storytelling in high school theatre class. An antagonist is meant to be a foil or source of conflict for the protagonist. That is not the case for most of them post-Klaus. Silas has a goal to end the world, which can be a conflict for the main cast, but it’s an incredibly weak one when considering personal stakes. Kai was a conflict for Bonnie and Damon when they were stuck with him, but when that was over and Kai was still a villain, what connected him to the protagonists? A moral value to stop a madman? Kai had a connection to his family, a new cast of characters that barely fell into the supporting role. I didn’t care about them, the most I felt was for Jo, but she wasn’t enough to get me invested in the question, “what do we do if Kai succeeds in his plan?” The heretics and Mary (was her name Mary? I don’t care enough to check) Salvatore had a connection to Damon and Stefan through past trauma, but there was nothing in the present that justified them needing to stop her. Finally we have Sybil, the first villain since Klaus to provide actual stakes. This is one of the reason I hold season eight up higher than the trash that came before it. I know everyone was tired at this point and wrote her off, but Sybil played the role of antagonist perfectly because she finally gave us a real answer to the question “why should we care about stopping them?” Because she has control over Damon and Enzo and we need to save them.

You need stakes to get invested in a villain, but that didn’t matter to people. All that mattered was that they were fun and charismatic and full of life, something the other characters weren’t giving us. We used the villains as placeholders for the protagonists, so we didn’t care that they never really filled the role of antagonist.

So where am I going with this? Well The Originals had real villains who rarely get talked about. People talk about them, but not as much as the main and supporting characters or the story for better or worse. Because the characters in this show can stand on their own. They’re really good characters (and when I say good, I don’t just mean morally). Each of them are so three dimensional and complex and discussing just one can take hours of deep diving. We love watching them, we get invested in their stories, and as a result the show is much more fun and less of a chore.

That being said, the villains are also super compelling (pun intended) to watch and discuss with how they affect the story. Remember when I said characters could not be brought into a discussion of the story naturally? You can’t do that in the originals because the characters are so interwoven with the story it would be impossible, and the villains are the same way not only with the story but with the protagonists.

The stakes in this show are much more personal, which makes sense. The Original family are the most powerful creatures in the world, so conflicts and antagonists have to be a lot more creative. The crutch allowed for the writers to actually think through motivation when making a villain. Made very easy with the fact that everyone hates them. Villain motivation? It’s Klaus! What didn’t he do to screw over others. Season one’s villain roster consists of people just trying to get back at him, which could get boring but doesn’t cause they each have a different reason. So for fun, I’m gonna shine a spotlight on all of the originals villains, the good and the meh, the personal connection to the protagonists, and what I rate them. Let’s go! (FYI no, Marcel is not on this list bc he’s not a villain. Shut up!)

Agnes/early season one witches: you notice how Agnes didn’t become an active antagonist until she started threatening Hayley? That is what we call personal stakes. Her motivation wasn’t as deep as others, a fanatic who believed in the natural order of things and so had issue with the miracle baby. 5/10 not bad, just average

Papa Tunde: CRIMINALLY UNDERRATED! His story and motivation with Klaus could have stretched longer. For what we got he was so much fun and his connection to Klaus and Marcel pushed investment into their relationship. 8/10.

Celeste: finally! An antagonist for Elijah! Backstory was used only to explain motivation in the present. She was able to destroy the Mikaelson family for a time. Kind of had a point, but went about it in the wrong way. 7/10.

Monique and the harvest girls: not much connection to protagonists, but made up with being a threat to Hope in the end. Also became hated after bullying Davina (almost like we were emotionally invested in the main and supporting characters?). Motivation similar to Agnes, but with the add on of being tied to more characters. 6/10

Genevieve: personal connection to Rebekah which tied in her motivation? Check! Going toe to toe with Klaus causing conflict for the family? Check. Killer scene deconstructing Klaus up to that point? Check check check! 9/10. The scene in 1x21 bumped her way up.

If season one had personal villains, season two broke down the door and never left! The family drama in this season was so compelling it made me forgive the weaker elements. The story tied into them beautifully and I could go on paragraphs for each of them.

Francesca and her brothers: putting her here cause she was more a plot twist than actual antagonist for season one. Was more a boss fight than antagonist, but she made for one hell of a boss fight. 2x01 is so good! 7/10

Finn: did he mention he was daggered for 900 years? Jokes aside, Finn started out a lackey for his mother and was pretty boring. Then 2x10 happened and I’m scared of Finn Miaelson everybody. 2x11 was good development for both Klaus and Elijah, but let’s not forget the catalyst. Though his ending was pretty underwhelming, I will bask in the three episodes that elicited genuine fear. I mostly have Yusuf Gatewood to thank for his incredible performance. Also what he did to Kol/Kaleb gave him some impact to his antagonist role. 8/10.

Esther: underrated and should be talked about more. There is so much to say on her ideology and beliefs mixed in on the warped sense of love she feels for her children that makes a truly psychotic and dangerous foe for our mains. Her connection is easy to see and the way she tries to manipulate her children into falling in line makes for gripping storytelling. And her end is truly poetic and satisfying at the same time. 10/10.

Mikael: while Esther got a whole revamping and exploration of her character, Mikael ultimately remained the same for the majority of the time he was on screen, and then in pops Freya. To discuss the warped sense of familial love this man had to his children is sick but makes for good tv, and his ending scene always brings me to tears at the mourning of Klaus’ childhood. 8/10.

Dahlia: I normally have a hard time getting invested in brute force villains cause tvd had a track record of how to do it right (Klaus) and how to screw it up (Silas), but Dahlia is not just an unbeatable foe. Her connection to Freya, Esther, and surprisingly Klaus give us a tragedy of a character on the list of people Esther ruined. This show made me feel pity for a character advertised as pure evil. Phenomenal. 9/10.

Shorter list of villains, but that just shows how powerful they were in carrying the season antagonist role for several episodes, and they’re not even the best of the show. Season three is tied with season two for my favorite season (season two had a better overall story and more episode that were amazing rank, but the best episodes of season three are the best things I’ve seen out of the whole cw. It’s a toss up) and the villains have a range to them.

The Nguyen family: never reached their potential cause Davina got snubbed. Interesting direction that tied to Davina’s fall from grace that were used as a plot device in the end. Such a shame. 4/10.

Tristan: aka Triscuit cracker cause this dude was DRY. One third of the trinity and as a character meant to mirror Elijah, he succeed in emulating the worst character aspect of him. Unfortunately that aspect was his selfishness and occasional apathy. These do not make an interesting character when it’s all they are! There is no time given to explore him more. He gets some points for having personal stakes with Jackson and Hayley and his end was both cruel and cathartic coming from someone who hated Jackson. Weakest of the trinity. 5/10.

Aya: my beloved. When you think switching to the strix is gonna be a snore, in pops this sexy badass to mesmerize. Once Triscuit’s gone she takes over his position and plays such a good foil to Marcel and Elijah. Knowing how to play both men until they swallow their pride and band together. While I wanted to see more cause of how much fun she was, she served her purpose perfectly and completed what she needed. 9/10.

Aurora: started off annoying, but can’t deny her influence over the already tense relationship between Klaus and Elijah. Her dynamic with Klaus was kinda interesting, but it’s when the mask comes off that she truly becomes a good antagonist. Kidnapping Cami and stealing the white oak? Good. While I had my issue with Cami becoming a vampire from a story writing perspective, Aurora changed a piece of the narrative forever, and her final scene with Klaus in 3x14 was gripping to the last minute. And then the writers brought her back and left her story ambiguous until legacies decided to do something about that. 3x18 aside, she was an active threat that started rocky, but ‘ended’ strong. 7/10.

The ancestors: for an antagonist that is separate and indirect yet plays a big part in influencing the story, it was alright. It only played a threat to Kol and Vincent to the point no other character saw it necessary to defeat them and were left unchecked until the penultimate episode. I suppose what they did to Davina was story changing enough to justify their existence, but not by much considering her ultimate end. 3/10.

Lucien: saved the best for last! Legitimately the best villain of the tvdu. Yes, even better than Klaus! I could honestly go on about how amazing he is. From his setup, to his backstory and the connections to the ultimate theme of the show (highlighted by Marcel in 3x21) to his connection with the entire Mikaelson family and ideology (basically syndrome if the incredibles acknowledged the messed up truth) his motivation is gold, his misdirect while predictable is still brilliant and shocked me due to how likable he was. 3x04 is my favorite episode of 3A and he’s a reason why. While Triscuit and Aurora took the worst elements of Elijah and Rebekah, Lucien took the best element of Klaus: his charisma. That’s why he works, even after he shifts from a manipulative and scheming antagonist to a brute force one, cause we watched him earn it in real time. Honestly, I’m scratching the surface cause I could make a whole post about him. And it’s what he deserves. 100000000000/10

After that we get the hollow in season four, who’s stakes are tied with Hope’s life and later freedom, which resulted in such a massive change in the status quo for the characters. Not to mention the connection with Hayley’s past. That being said, wasn’t as fun as they could’ve been. 6/10.

Lastly season five gave us Greta. I stand by that season five had enough story passed over from season four to not need a villain, but here we are. Her connection to Klaus was solid and her motivation was she was a nazi. Can’t get more evil than nazis. And her beliefs were a threat to Hayley, Hope, and by extension Klaus. Three of the biggest main protagonists. Her shortcomings come in that she really wasn’t necessary and again wasn’t very fun of an antagonist, but for what she was she served a purpose. 4/10.

And that’s a wrap! While not all of them were as amusing as Kai or the heretics, they still played the role of antagonist better than tvd villains could ever hope to be. I stand by my theory that this was intentional due to how disinteresting the main and supporting characters were for tvd.

In the end, it’s the protagonists that make a story memorable, and in that regard the originals succeeded in spades. The villains were garnish for the main meal, added more flavor but weren’t the reason why the meal was great. And that’s one of the reasons why the originals is a better show. And not the only reason either.

#the originals #the vampire diaries #main and supporting characters #villains #antagonists #protagonists

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