#is this even coherent. does this say anything meaningful

[welcomingdisaster]

thinking about a discussion i saw this morning (please accept these very half developed ideas!) and i do think that part of the reason that the silmarillion fandom pays less attention to female characters (outside of misogyny, which is also a huge part of it) is that basically every single woman is a wife, and most of them are mothers?

i can't help but notice that the majority of popular male characters are unmarried and childless (looking at ao3 statistics, with the notable counter-examples of elrond, who is very often a child in fanfic, and feanor, arda's most divorced elf). which is possibly because many of the most influential male characters in the silmarillion are unmarried and childless, but it does feel a little disproportional.

some very disorganized thoughts on this phenomenon, presented with very little confidence because i'm just bouncing ideas around:

queer ships are far more popular in the fandom as it stands now, because it is heavily queer, and there is very little woman-to-woman interaction in the silm. the majority of the most popular m/m ships are based on some meaningful interaction between the characters. many of f/f ships involve characters that have never met (indis/miriel, finduilas/nienor) or have very limited interactions (thuringwethil/luthien). ------------ this does not explain, however, why m/m ships between people who have no interactions at at all (erestor/glorfindel, celebrimbor/maeglin, etc) routinely get more attention than f/f ships.

basically every woman's story is defined in relation to her husband's (and usually children). idril, i think, is the semi-outlier here (and to some extent aredhel). but even then -- the majority of the male characters, even if they are married, have a lot of story outside of their marriage/relationship (so much so that characters like finrod, fingon, and angrod can go from married with children to unmarried in some drafts have very little changed!). can that be said of any married female character in the text? i don't think so. once a woman in the silmarillion marries and has children, the progression of her story is almost always defined very heavily by her relationship to her husband and children. fingon rules the same and dies the same whether or not he has a wife and son -- idril's story would be very different without tuor and earendil. feanor gets to do a lot of things after his marriage to nerdanel -- fingolfin does very much after his marriage to anaire. both of the women disappear from the story once their marriages are no longer relevant. ---- here i will note that some male characters ARE heavily defined by their relationships to their families. turgon, whose motivations are very heavily based around the death of his wife and protecting his daughter, comes to mind. so does thingol, whose wife and daughter are equally central to his story. that said, neither of those characters is popular in fandom.

to expand on the previous point: characters whose main stories are romance stories, including male characters, do not tend to be very popular. earendil has just under 700 works on ao3. beren has just over 500. (elwing and luthien, for reference, have just over 700 and 800 respectively). despite our love for shipping, the fandom seems to be disinterested in parts of the book with a heavy romance focus. is it possible that the fact that nearly every single woman having a prominent romance arc "turns fandom off" them?

only four unmarried women come to mind as counter examples (watch me miss someone obvious). these are finduilas, haleth, findis, and lalwen. findis and lalwen are footnotes that disappear quickly from the story without being given much to do (which doesn't stop us with erestor or caranthir, but still). finduilas, despite being unmarried, is heavily defined by a tragic love triangle. haleth is the notable exception -- i would say she is more popular in fandom than many women, but less than most male characters. the only real explanations i can give for her getting so little fandom attention is misogyny/bias, the general fact that humans in the silmarillion get less love than elves in fandom, and and possibly her having little connection to any of the other popular characters outside of caranthir.

that being said, i do still think misogyny/the general fandom tendency to ignore female characters in favor of male ones is responsible for a good chunk of the difference. i also really welcome feedback on these thoughts because i feel very uncertain of them. the more i think about it, the more i can find counter-examples and outliers to a lot of the trends i'm talking about here -- perhaps i overgeneralized. is there no coherent analysis to be drawn here?

currently leaning in the direction of "this is a vague but not all-encompassing trend in the text, which affects fandom to some extent without explaining the preference for male characters and m/m ships entirely."

#can you tell i'm procrastinating schoolwork LOL #lena speaks #the most tentative of metas #is this even coherent. does this say anything meaningful

[txttletale]

Hey can you explain why so many MLs support DPRK? Like I get that any enemy of the West is probably less bad than Westerners are told, but it's still a hereditary dictatorship! That alone seems like a good reason to strongly oppose its current government even if they do have good trains and are ostensibly "communist" in the face of Western aggression or whatever. It seems like one of the goofiest tankie positions, which I say as someone who's generally sympathetic to a lot of ML arguments.

sure. let's start by drilling down into what 'support' or 'oppose' means--in the vast majority of the world, a marxist-leninist's "support" for the DPRK is in fact neglible. obviously we are not, say, sending the DPRK weapons, or volunteering our labour en masse, or anything that would constitute real material support--because there is nowhere in the world except the DPRK (and perhaps the ROK, but there is of course no organized marxist-leninist mass movement there) where that kind of support would be feasible. likewise, the most strident and pure of heart moral condemnation of the DPRK does not actually have any effect on how that nation is governed--the WPK don't care about your opinion!

so firstly we have to acknowledge that 'supporting' and 'opposing' the DPRK are not especially coherent concepts to apply to MLs (or anybody) in the vast majority of the world. as in all cases, the state you live under the jurisdiction of is the one you are most capable of meaningfully opposing or supporting! and--for most MLs across the world, that state is going to be a participant in the brutal United States sanction program against the DPRK. so when it comes to one's 'position' on the DPRK, as a marxist-leninist one shouldn't be thinking whether they wish to morally condone or endorse the DPRK, but rather what meaningful political struggle they can engage in as regards to the DPRK. and as it turns out, the most meaningful political struggle that marxist-leninists living within the reach of US empire can engage in wrt the DPRK is the struggle against the continued deliberate starvation of that nation and its people!

of course, there are many ways to participate in that struggle. but when it comes to ways to participate in that struggle solely by expressing facts or opinions (as in, the kind of "support" or "opposition" you will witness just by following social media feeds, which is what you're asking about)--debunking propaganda about the DPRK and emphasizing the humanity of its residents weakens the ideological base for continued sanctions, while loudly and proudly condemning it--even fairly condemning it, because of course every socialist project has its errors and wrongdoings--contributes to that ideological base.

tldr: if you live outside the DPRK, the only way you can meaningfully 'oppose' its government is by contributing, materially or in propaganda, to the constant USAmerican efforts to destroy it and replace it with something worse. likewise, the only way you can meaningfully 'support' it is by fighting against those very efforts--so of course, marxist-leninists in the world outside the DPRK are going to 'support' the DPRK, because what that means is fighting against the material sanctions regime and its ideological underpinnings

#ask #also worth noting that 'dictatorship' is not a very meaningful or coherent term to marxist-leninists #like. ultimately the US is just as much of a 'dictatorship' even if capital crowdsource which of two guys gets to live in the fancy house #those two guys--as is well observed even by social democrats--will pass the same laws for the same class interests

[gittetj]

You've mentioned that you hc Reigen as ace, can you elaborate?

I agree w/ that but can't sort my thoughts out well enough to make a coherent analysis ;w;

Yeah, that's the vibe he gives me. No concrete "evidence" and I don't care all that much about the sexual orientations of fictional characters, but I guess for me, the headcanon comes down to three things:

1) Reigen is super disinterested in other people being attracted to each other. I feel like there are several small examples of this, but first one that comes to mind is that case with the esper who can astral project and uses it to stalk his neighbor. When they discover this, Reigen has such a non-reaction. I've seen a lot of people bring up these panels

which, yeah, but when they find the culprit, Reigen also doesn't express much of an opinion. It's just "it's a stalker, stalking is bad and illegal, this is a job for the police." No more introspection from him, he immediately moves on, it doesn't interest him. Mob is the one doing all the reacting.

2) Reigen never resorts to flirting despite how he's known for bullshitting his way through anything else to complete a job. Like, no matter how horny Studio Bones is for the guy, they can't change this. He could deliberately capitalize on the fact that a considerable amount of his income comes from massaging middle-aged ladies who find him attractive, but he doesn't. It's accidental. It does not even seem like something Reigen thinks about.

3) Reigen's a self-conscious person, yet doesn't act like it bothers him that he's seemingly never been in a relationship before. He explicitly has a crisis over being lonely in the confession arc, but it's about friends and connections and doing something meaningful with his life. Romantic relationships don't factor into it, even though it easily could, considering it has great thematic relevance for Mob who spends the entire story being in love. Not that you can't fall in love with someone if you're ace, this goes a little bit into aro territory I guess, but either way.. it just gives me that vibe. The indifference. I mean, even in chapter 99 when Mob point-blank asks Reigen for advice about Tsubomi, Reigen first asks Serizawa, then looks it up on his phone, exactly like he would with any other topic he doesn't know jack shit about.

Also, at the end of the scene, he muses about what's important in a relationship, and his conclusions just.. don't sound like he's talking about romance? To me?

I don't know, that entire scene gives me flashbacks to being younger and not yet knowing what asexuality (or aromanticism) is and having to navigate conversations like that without giving away that you fundamentally can't relate to this thing everyone else is so preoccupied with.

Them's my takes, I don't have much else to say about it.

#I remember a million years ago I set out to write an ace reigen post bc someone else asked me about it and now I guess I did #mp100 meta #reigen arataka #mob psycho 100 #replies

[lili-of-the-wildfire]

okay fine, u all forced my hand in this one. these are MY azzie headcanons, mostly based on what’s canon in the books but i’m nothing if not a woman who would have been forcefully lobotomized so there’s also some delusion sprinkled in. enjoy 😙 (not proof read or correctly punctuated or even coherently arranged, we die like men on this blog)

* he may be a bit quiet in some situations, especially when meeting people who’s intentions he hasn’t quite figured out yet, but if he does nothing else, he’ll offer up a small smile in greeting. he’s not just going to sit there aloof in a corner, sans introduction.

* he’s a total vibe reader tho, his line of work has made sure of that. like he just knows when something is off about someone even if there is evidence saying otherwise. and he’s right every time, damn him.

* he tucks his hands behind his back out of habit, not necessarily shame. he used to be far more insecure, but as the centuries dragged on, he’s become less and less ashamed of what was done to him as a defenseless child.

* that’s not to say he’s fully healed and moved forward, just that time has given him some perspective and wisdom.

* (btw he loves hand massages with your lavender and lemon verbena lotion and he is not afraid to admit it)

* when he gets himself into trouble he tries to slink off into the shadows slowly, instead of disappearing all at once. nobody has a problem calling him out on it, but sometimes he honestly does get away with it.

* he has TASTE! he took one look at cassian and feyre’s gods awful decorating and didn’t even remove his outside clothes before he was fixing it.

* he and his mate’s house would look like something out of a Williams Sonoma holiday catalog.

* the two of you would put up lebron numbers on a joint pinterest account in a modern au.

* he’s quick as a whip with his dry humor and comebacks, and while cassian may be his main target, the two of them combined?? Mr. your mother and Mr. two hundred years at least TOGETHER? jesus it’s a wonder rhys came out of Illyria with the ego that he did.

* he differs from his brothers in that PDA is not his jam. he’s not getting blowjobs at the dining room table or fucking in tents while people die outside. he’s definitely not fingering you for the first time in a shabby inn, either. he’s more publicly reserved than that because he favors romance more.

* you know how rhys/feyre and cassian/nesta fucked before they were in any sort of relationship? azzie’s not doing that with someone he genuinely wants to pursue a relationship with.

* consider the following: does a man who’s spent centuries pining after the same woman come off as anything other than a romantic? no, lovely reader, not in the slightest.

* he’s got the softest heart, i just know it. while he’s kind, he has his reserved exterior, but i think once you get past that as a relationship develops, he’s so tender and thoughtful.

* his gift to nesta was so personal and thoughtful despite their superficial relationship, and he expected nothing in return. imagine what he could come up with for someone he knew on a more personal and intimate level!!

* his gifts may not be as over-the-top extravagant as Rhys would prefer, but they’re so well-planned and personal because he actually listens to you! and he watches you! and he takes the time to actually think about what would be useful and meaningful for you (Mor could NEVER, luv u tho baby)

* while he’s not overtly sexual, Azriel is a FLIRT! a shameless flirt! he doesn’t need to resort to poetry because when you exasperatedly tell him “stop trying to distract me, I’m busy!” he just arches a thick brow, looks you up and down and says “make me.”

* BROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

* And your cheeks heat a bit because he’s looking at you like he knows exactly what you’d taste like and he’s starving for it and then he just laughs and you realize you’re a fly that got stuck in those honey-trap eyes again

* So you huff and roll your eyes, turning to leave the room but a hand on your wrist tugs your momentum backwards and suddenly there’s another hand cupping your cheek, thumb stroking along your jawline.

* A deep hum rumbles from the back of his throat, his gaze dragging from your mouth up to your eyes, “Do that again, I like watching your eyes roll back for me.”

* ladies/theydies i am PROFUSELY sweating !!!!!!!!!

#azriel x reader #azriel #azriel fanfic #acotar

[edwad]

Do you ever worry all of the critique you're mounting on Marx is "too academic"? Not that it's necessarily incorrect, but that it won't translate these into changes in political practice in the world even if it's accepted that your critique has merit?

If Marx was just an abstract philosopher who was fumbled around with in the hands of academics only, perhaps this question would seem absurd. But that's not the case for Marx - he and his thought, however incomplete and incoherent, is still grappled with by political actors, however incompletely and incoherently themselves.

And there a whole world of "politics" that "the Left" the world over, still haunted and driven by Marx and Marxism, takes part in...organizing parties and taking part in elections, (intra)-union organzing, legal advocation, protests and mass demonstration, education and seminars, fighting guerilla wars, building communes, etc...and I presume that you are part of the Left that sees all of this action as pointing towards, if only potentially or latently or incoherently, towards revolution and communism.

What are you hoping your intervention does in this world? Are you aiming for a specific, identifiable change in the world of politics and of the Left? Or does the critique justify itself on intellectual grounds alone, even if one can't imagine clear changes in politics and social practice following from it?

i always think it's a bit funny when people level accusations against me of being too "academic" when not only am i totally outside of academia but i probably had less (and worse!) formal schooling than them. i don't say this because i think you're making that kind of case (i certainly read you as being more charitable than that, although maybe you really are going for a dig, idk), but because i think it's clear that even undereducated lowlifes like me have some vested interest in these things for both theoretical and practical reasons. its not about job security for me in the ivory tower, its just the kind of things i think about on the way to and from work (my long reblog earlier was written on the way to my store). to more directly address your question, i think these things have meaningful stakes which aren't reducible to the luxury of academics peddling abstract thinking (although, most of my academic friends are pretty broke too, so im not trying to joust with them here as much as with this notion of an institutionalized marx scholarship that im somehow dabbling in). the takeaway here shouldn't simply be "what if marx is wrong about the political economists he's working with", it's "what if marxs analysis of the system, and by extension, his critique of it, falls flat"

this has political stakes for anybody whose political thinking and aspirations involve using marx as a resource. if he gets capitalism wrong (and, if immanent critique means anything, how could he get that part wrong while adequately understanding the system which is supposed to directly account for the object he is critiquing?) then what does that mean for our anti-capitalism? sure, we could be productively misreading him and still demanding things which maybe aren't justified by his analysis but which are worth pursuing, but how can even tell? by what standard? what if actually our well-intended political maneuvers simply make things worse, as plenty of liberal thinkers would suggest? we can say "yeah well they're dumb liberals so they don't know anything", but this only works if you can safely assume you're right and that they're wrong on the basis of a semi-coherent understanding of the world around you. the ways you struggle against that world is shaped by your understanding of it, and the things you hold against it or the possibilities for what it could be are entirely bound up with what can only be called a "theory" of the system. i think the theory we have of the system has significant political/practical consequences, and if marx is wrong about all of this then we'd be forced to rethink what that means for us as marx-influenced communists.

in that sense, im not demanding a particular change in political strategy, im interested in posing a problem which i think we have to be able to answer. otherwise the whole thing collapses and we might as well settle for social democracy or whatever.

[kyouka-supremacy]

part 1- alternatively Atsushi made Akutagawa do that promise because he wanted to be proved right. Because he didn't believe Akutagawa was capable of such humanity and had his firm imaginary version of Akutagawa (you've made many posts about that already) and would get offended whenever Akutagawa would go off-script, even for stuff like grocery shopping or stuff like being chatty. And Akutagawa was so perceptive and wise recently Atsushi wanted to prove himself that he was actually right

about Akutagawa and be comforted in his worldview. He doesn't have to think critically about Akutagawa or go outside of his black and white worldview if his doubts about Akutagawa being all that bad were gone, so he wanted to be like "I was right all along actually he's the actual worst", cue why he was so bewildered to witness Akutagawa actually keep his promise, be there for him, and sacrifice himself for him, and why he was so utterly numb in the aftermath and couldn't proccess it. Which is why all of us have trouble pinpointing when Atsushi fell in love, it seems weird that he was "firmly not in love" prior to that and only fell after 88, because stuff prior seems to suggest otherwise (be it 84-87 or stuff waaay prior). there was all that build-up in SSKK, all that slowburn that didn't get anywhere. Be it cannibalism, all the banter, or all their meaningful interactions, nothing enough to fall in love at the time but too much to be dismissed so there was a "Crossroad" of sorts ? But also Atsushi was pretty uncomfortable with the sort of mental intimacy he was starting to get with Aku and hard in denial, and wanted to go back to his comfort zone, the "akutagawa is evil and not a person capable of feelings" so he made Akutagawa agree to that promise. And if Aku broke it where he could see Atsushi would be fully justified to go all out against him. I doubt even readers really expected Aku to keep that promise until the end AND YET, Akutagawa prove us wrong, he prove us wrong and he prove Atsushi wrong and he assert his humanity and character so beautifully I was breath-taken, if we go by a SSKK-shipper premise, that's my favorite premise because it's way better that way in my opinion, Atsushi placing his trust in someone dubious is not anything new in this manga (he wholly trust DAZAI of all people), he's someone who likes to be in his comfort zone and doesn't like to think too hard about morality so him digging his heels in and wanting to go "gotcha ! I knew you were the actual worst !" (even after seeing Aku keeps his promise he couldn't trust him vs Fukuchi) and getting his world-view utterly upended and thinking really hard in the aftermath and making a serious attempt to make amends (as seen in round 1 of SSKK vs Fukuchi and  round 2, or between 88 and 107), and adjust his worldview due to Akutagawa more than we see him do in other instances. But we also get the Atsushi trusting Akutagawa despite all odds, in ch107 and after, and believing in his character and his humanity. Even after the big bad Akutagawa has become a soulless vampire helping the end of the world of all things.  And it's a development I like

I think this is a plausible and coherent interpretation of the canon material! I don’t agree with it – and I’m going to elaborate on why in a second -, but I think the elements you brought in support of your take are fully sensate and make a perfectly valid interpretation of canon and of Atsushi’s character.

It’s just, to me, that’s a bit too cruel for Atsushi to do. Atsushi has already been horrible to Akutagawa (that’s why Dazai-san abandoned you and disappeared and so on), but it was also moments of great stress where he kinda snapped. Atsushi does hate Akutagawa – at least for as far as chapter 51 goes, I’d say -, but to be fully intentionally hurtful, to basically plan so that he could humiliate Akutagawa? I don’t think he’d go that far. If anything because Atsushi’s hatred for Akutagawa more frequently than not translates in “I don’t want anything to do with this dude” rather than “I want to actively take part in offending him”.

There’s another point I already fleetingly mentioned in my previous reply, but that I think is relevant: Atsushi would never wish for Akutagawa to not keep his promise for the simple fact that Atsushi does not want people to die. Atsushi is greatly affected by people dying, and has repeatedly shown reacting strongly against the idea¹; Atsushi may be selfish, and he’s not an hero, but he does share that little human decency that makes him sad when people die. Killing people mercilessly, without regret or second thought is exactly what he accuses Akutagawa of doing (“a murderer who just wants to bandy his power around”, chapter 35). I think here we’re tracing a thin line between “Atsushi hates Akutagawa because he kills people” and “Atsushi wants Akutagawa to kill people so that he has a reason to hate him”, but the first affirmation must be the one to be preferred when analizing what went on in Atsushi’s mind when he made Akutagawa promise, because Atsushi's wish for people not to die comes before hating Akutagawa both chronologically (he hates Akutagawa just because he’s wanted people not to die in the first place) and thematically (people not dying has the priority over hating Akutagawa and thus wanting to see him fail).

In the end, I fear that saying Atsushi wants to test Akutagawa specifically in order to confirm the image of ruthless man he has of him may end up being a logical fallacy. In order to prove Akutagawa is bad Atsushi should acknowledge that he holds preconceptions towards Akutagawa, admit that he holds prejudices he wants to prove. But Atsushi is not aware of the prejudices he holds for Akutagawa, he just instinctively and unconsciously assumes he’s bad. But if he’s not aware of such, than he has nothing to make Akutagawa prove, because Akutagawa just is bad. I hope this makes sense. If Atsushi’s words to Akutagawa represented a test, I can’t see it as anything but a genuine test of Atsushi sincerely wondering whether Akutagawa can be up to the challenge of keeping the promise, and hoping that he would- hoping, even if for just one soon to be forgotten second, in the good that’s in Akutagawa.

I don’t know if I’m landing in shipping territory now, it’s hard to tell because sskk’s bond in canon is already enough deep and complex without me having to do anything. But like… I do want to belive Atsushi was slowing shifting in his perception of Akutagawa after what they went through together in the cannibalism arc. I know I’ve made several posts on how the image of Akutagawa Atsushi has in his mind is strikingly different from the real Akutagawa, and how it’s very hard for him to get over the prejudices he holds… But he did change his mind in the end. Atsushi did reach his hand towards Akutagawa after Akutagawa sacrificed himself for him. And it may have all happened in the fight against Fukuchi (that was indeed a moment of primary importance for Akutagawa’s personal redemption to Atsushi’s eyes), but isn’t it also sensate to believe some seeds of growth had been planted beforehand? I think it’s fair to believe it was more gradual than what it may seem at first look: Atsushi’s stubborn insisting that Akutagawa is heartless, then, may actually be his way to suppress his subconscious telling him that maybe Akutagawa doea have an heart after all. And growth doesn’t happen linearly, one can have their own relapses, so I think it’s still coherent (and human) of Atsushi to be disbelieving of Akutagawa keeping his promise even after he himself made him do it.

Now, I LOVE the idea of Atsushi willingly pulling out (taking refuge in, even) the “Akutagawa is an horrible person” argument in response to them having gotten closer, I especially /love/ the idea of Atsushi getting uncomfortable with emotional vulnerability². It’s brilliant. I’m such a fan of characters having sudden relapses as soon as they realize something in the relationship they’re in has changed. I can see Atsushi starting being more hostile, because hostility is familiar, hostility is something he knows, hostility is something he can work with; he doesn’t know what it feels like to care for Akutagawa, he doesn’t want to care, he’s confused and scared, and that’s why he wants to go back to the interactions he’s used to (which is nothing but an illusion, because nothing can ever stay the same, and everything changes). I’d totally read a fic on that.

Btw I’m once again carrying forward: the shipping scenario of Atsushi ending up subconsciously (but never intentionally) wishing for Akutagawa to break his promise so that he doesn’t have to fight him and kill him. Because Atsushi is a selfish person at his core, and honestly he would have people die rather than lose the person he loves. I’d love to read a fic that tackles this aspect.

Thank you again for your elaboration, this sure gave me a lot to think about!!!

¹ I feel like it’s particulay impactful how mad he was at Kyouka in chapter 27, whereas he’s never shown being anything but kind and compassionate with her. Additionally, the “We won’t kill! That’s not what the Detective Agency does.” From Dead Apple (immediately followed by threatening Akutagawa’s life, but like, I guess to Atsushi Akutagawa is just special)

² That’s not something I ever considered before, but I feel like it fits Atsushi’s character a lot. To make a similar comparison, it’s like sskk and physical touch: the most instinctive take is often to label Akutagawa, the serious, grumpy, scarred one as reluctant to touch, and the sunny Atsushi as the touch starved one. But I find the reverse take to be a more nuanced interpretation: Akutagawa grew up in the slums with a family of ragged orphans, in extremely poor an unhigenic circumstances; he was probably used to body proximity, as well as sleeping near other people. Atsushi grew up all alone, and was even often put in isolate cells. He is the one who’s always ever known hurtful touch, whereas it’s easier to believe Akutagawa, while sure knowing it well too, might have rarely experienced what it’s like to feel a touch that isn’t destined to harm. The same could have happened with emotional vulnerability: Akutagawa has a sister, maybe he *is* more willing to it (which, don’t get me wrong, is still super little. It’s just that Atsushi is a lost case and is easily topped). Atsushi grew up completely alone (the orphanage environment wasn’t hostile just on the end of the directors, but on the one of his fellow orphans too) and taught to constantly suppress his own emotions together with his inner self.

#Btw The School of Athens by Raphael. That’s you and me discussing sskk Anon #Then again I feel weird saying Akutagawa is more kin to emotional vulnerability than Atsushi. #Yeah‚ that can’t be right. They’re both equally terrible. #Funny enough thinking back to the Atsushi Fitzgerald match in chapter 34‚ Atsushi seems inclined to think people won’t keep their promises #atsushi nakajima #ryūnosuke akutagawa #sskk #shin soukoku #bsd #bungou stray dogs #bsd analysis #people asks me stuff

[kelticangel]

Been seeing lots of hopeless romantic aroace posts lately and while I really don't want to co-opt the aroace narrative and momentum, it's made me think about my own experience. So I'm gonna share a bit in hopes of sorting my own thoughts 💜 Please bear with me as this might not be fully coherent

I consider myself a hopeless romantic, and I'm asexual, but I've been vibing (a little uncomfortably) with the idemromantic and panromantic microlabels. And despite all of my recent questioning, I still feel like most of that is accurate about me. Most? Most. I think I've figured out why those microlabels weren't quite sitting right

I think they're a product of purity culture

Let me explain

As a teen, I felt like I wasn't "allowed" to make deep friendships with boys. It wasn't explicitly forbidden or anything (my parents were actually v supportive of me) but I definitely felt the social pressure to only be friends with girls because otherwise someone might think I was romantically interested and "how dare I lead someone on if I'm not wanting to date or beginning to plan for marriage." That was the feel. This was super tough for me because I've always gotten along better with guys than with girls - I just never had much in common with the giggly, makeup wearing, outfit shopping crowd

So I learned to associate all of the close connection I felt with guys with the feel of romance. Playfulness was called flirting. Wanting to spend time with someone was called crushing. Etc, etc, etc. You get the picture. And while I'm genuinely romantically attracted to masculinity, regardless of the person's gender, it so ended up that I never had much practice at being just normal friends with someone masculine

I've always felt like I suck at making good, deep, meaningful friendships. I fall into mom-friend mode with most people who have more stereotypically feminine traits, which limits how much I feel like I can be open with them. And my silly unpracticed skill at being normal around masculinity means I sometimes romanticize relationships when I'm actually trying to just be good friends. And then I scare them off with my weirdness or intensity

So, where've I landed, then?

Ace: No question. I'm not even demisexual or greyace or anything

Romantic: Hopelessly so

Panromantic: Yes ... sort of? Maybe andro-romantic is a better word? Is that even a word?

Idemromantic: Yes, but this is one that I think (for me) is the product of dysfunction and can be fixed. (Please note that I'm not saying idemromantic orientations are problematic in general)

Gonna leave this here 💜 Maybe it resonates with you, maybe not. If it does, know that you're not alone

#shower thoughts #asexual #romantic ace #panromantic #still figuring this out at 40

[mdhwrites]

What are your core problems with The Owl House?

I'm feeling sick so I'm doing one that's weirdly a little simpler. Not simple but simpler. (It did not stay simple. Shocking, I know.) So if I were to be objective, I think the core problem with TOH is ego. I've been saying it a LOT recently on my Discord that "Ego is the death of art." Eventually, once you get your head shoved so far up your ass, you just stop being able to produce something good because you can't even make the statements you're wanting to make. That's the real death knell for TOH. It is so focused on being special and being meaningful that it forgets to be fun but it's also so self satisfied and convinced that its elements are sacrosanct that they don't question how they're using those elements or what they're actually saying. There's a reason why I'm personally happy as an author that I normally figure out themes within my works post figuring out what they're going to be like because my first goal is just making sure the story is COHERENT. And TOH doesn't give a FUUUUUUU- But subjectively... It's the characters for me that are the core of what lost me with TOH and what attracted me at first. S1 doesn't have the greatest cast. I literally brought in a two off antagonist in Boscha to have a third main character in my stories and focused WAY more on the Blights than literally ever including King in Power of Love. But... That is also is fine because just Amity and Luz in S1 by themselves has an incredible amount of potential as well just being incredibly likable. In fact, for all the shit I gave Eda and King a literal day ago, S1 of them are... enjoyable enough. King's joke is well and truly played out by then so I literally could not care about him but he is the best comic relief in S1. Not a high bar but he does clear it. Meanwhile, Eda has enough interesting going on with the curse to make her flaws not as apparent. Lilith is a compelling antagonist and the possibility of her bringing her more interpersonal comedy style into the main cast was exciting. Gus and Willow are barely characters but they're written likably and don't ever do anything truly wrong which could be said about them for the whole show.

And that also just kind of brings up the awkward element of S1. You have Amity and the curse but otherwise... It all feels like setup. Like we're seeing the first traces of these characters but we still haven't gotten a good, deeper impression of any of them yet. Including the world quite frankly. For fanfiction this was AMAZING. Everything was setup to go in a billion different ways, especially with Amity and Luz (individually or together) and it was exciting to theorize about. I tempered my expectations of course, I doubted I'd ever get the true nuance of my own version of Odalia and Alador but... I expected something a little smarter. The show seemed like it trended that way after all. That a bit more care and realism was put into the characters of the show. And then S2A is... more setup. Or just entirely changing characters to new forms of themselves that we still don't really know. All we do know is that they're less compelling. Amity becomes literally nothing more than Luz's girlfriend and how easy her change becomes more and more apparent with each passing episode. We get Momma Eda in one of her like... Two, maybe three appearances as any sort of criminal in S2 and they're ALWAYS motivated by someone else's scheme. I guess maybe not with Reaching Out but I'd have to check. The point is that the firebrand version of Eda is FIRMLY dead. Lilith becomes a total joke who's hard to even give credit to for the curse because Affearances is making her nothing more than a pathetic woman with unresolved mommy issues because... Sure. That's what the ex-coven head is just like now. Willow has ALL traces of either her morality or really any personality just gone for half a season, in part because she has no part in this season. She even insults Gus for his illusions in Escaping Expulsion in a scene where I SWEAR they swapped Amity and Willow's lines. Not that either should be pushing for bum rushing the door but it makes more sense coming out of plant goddess Willow than theoretically smart girl Amity.

And then you have Luz who is acting even more indignant this half season? Like not a lot has changed but the shifting tone is catching up to how they write Luz. How she can so quickly get annoyed at things not going her way or people not treating her like she's special. How she'll use her friends for personal gain. How she needs to be better than everyone else, both in her eyes and the writer's eyes. All while this isn't getting properly getting interrogated by the characters or even a bit of snark from Eda like it would in S1. It frankly reminds me of something I would say about bad porn: It's Barbie dolls being mashed together. They may have a little flair, like this one is wearing a skull hat or this one is non-binary, but as far as real personality goes... It didn't matter. You could swap out anyone and the writers would force it to work regardless. What personality was there was becoming increasingly cookie cutter or accidentally mean and cruel, just like toxic beauty standards. It's not Barbie's fault that sticks on a torso is the beauty standard to America but it also has no interest in being smart enough to make an appealing doll while avoiding reinforcing the worst parts of it.

And like bad porn, the reason this is done is similar. Rather than actually dealing with the emotions and complexities present in the topics and actions that are desired for the story, they make it so the characters just do it anyways. In porn, you get fucking. In The Owl House, you get... Subversion and representation I guess. But like sex with no setup or emotion, you need to only want the face value elements of these things or else you're just going to feel like you're watching other people having a MUCH better time than you while you're wondering why you're there. Also, yes, this is a weird metaphor. It's mostly done I believe. I do want to mention though that this is why my erotica series struggled to have a lot of sex scenes because those books took themselves and their characters and concepts pretty seriously so I couldn't just ignore the characters if they just weren't in the mood.

The fact that the main payoffs are emotional and metatextual statements that are poorly setup is a REAL problem. It has the feeling of a highschooler who's spent too much time on Twitter seeing their seven year old baby sister playing with her dolls and stopping her from doing that to then put the Barbie on a soapbox and lecture their sister about how dolls are oppressing her and having fun like this is awful. It's not just boring, it's literally anti-fun. Worse yet, it's not smart enough about the topics not to feel mean spirited and somewhat misguided in how its doing it. As an example, they wanted good queer rep. Unfortunately, Amity turned into an incredibly bland trophy for Luz, as boring a pointless as any straight female love interest frankly, and Raine is criticized by much of the fandom for obviously existing only for Eda. They're not just turned into a sexy lamp: That's almost their point from go with how little time they AREN'T just about Eda. This all culminates in the real turning point of the series. Now yes, I've said the point of no return is Escaping Expulsion but that episode is more the objective core issue's turning point. It's the show going "We're not as smart as we think we are and so are going to murder some of the elements that are stopping us from doing whatever we want to... But that doesn't mean we're gonna have fun with it either. Instead, we're going to act lazy, bitter and make the laziness and forced aspects of this episode way too apparent as we move on to what makes us feel special like Lumity." For the characters, Yesterday's Lie is the final nail in the coffin. I've talked before about how Vee's callout of Luz not only makes the problems of S2A being awkward with Luz's character more questionable, it throws her entire CONCEPT into question. Whether she ever was made an outcast because of others or because she told other outcasts to go fuck themselves. Why didn't she know anyone like Mascha after all? They clearly exist in Gravesfield. Why was she trying to be a cheerleader when she clearly isn't interested in sports or athletics. At least most of the time. S1 seems really fucking confused about whether or not she's a nerd or a truly basic bitch school kid who likes everything at least a little bit. But you didn't question it until the new statement that wanted to be made with Luz was "We have a dramatic, changing protagonist who is not just a ball of sunshine but also capable of extreme levels angst and change. She's not just another cartoon main character."

Boy that statement is reeking of ego though, isn't it? Especially when the point Luz isn't going to become "Reality matters over fantasy, others are more important than me," but instead her character finish is "I literally need everyone to recognize that I'm the most special person on the planet and I will only properly listen to anyone who is like me since I blatantly ignored everything my mom said until she earned my attention by being a closet nerd." Luz's character finish is REEEEEALLY BAD.

And no, I don't blame this on the shortening. Just look at fucking Amphibia. It has a VERY vivid cast that mostly keep to their own roles that are dictated by their personalities and despite the lack of time characters like Sasha get, the show knows how to sell their personalities, their relationships, what they're doing, etc. like that almost instantly and part of that's because it's having fun. It's willing to take things to the extreme from go. Sasha's INTRODUCTION is convincing someone to turn themselves into a CLOWN and leave their entire life behind so as to make it so she's no longer guarded. You are sold IMMEDIATELY on this being some master manipulator... But then she also saves Grime and her manipulations are through kindness rather than cruelty like most others which reinforces the loose threads we already had on Anne and her's relationship. You can see she's such a close friend... But why she's not a GOOD friend. And you know all of this by the end of S1 where she gets ONE AND A HALF EPISODES. That is frankly more than I can say about, especially firmly, the majority of TOH's cast by the end of S1. MAYBE Luz and definitely Amity clear the bar but that's the main character and her love interest. Not King. Not Eda. Not even Belos, the main fucking antagonist. I could have speculated on him but I could have told you more about Grime through the toads, Sasha and effectively his ONE episode than I can about the leader of the ENTIRE ISLES.

It really does continue to make me wonder why I'm not compelled to write Sashannarcy instead of Lumischa, the two share a lot of similarities after all, when even S1 has Sasha and Anne as so much more dynamic than Luz and Amity. I guess I liked the playground though. There was more empty space for me to play in with my own writing and I definitely will admit that the fandom, for both TOH and Amphibia, have made me feel far more connected to the shows than the actual products. I'm just weird that way I guess and it's probably why I keep ending up here. Where the show has gone fallow on me and I no longer see the characters as fun people with potential but instead just mean spirited Barbie Dolls.

It happened to me with MLP and it happened to me with TOH. *sigh*

============

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead, If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

And finally a Twitter you can follow too!

#the owl house criticism #toh critical

[alectology-archive]

What you dont like about sanderson writing?! I'm starting to read his books and so far i like it, but i always appreciate other opinions

that’s fine, I’ve already stated plainly on my blog before that I can recognise why his books are probably enjoyable for a lot of people because he structures his stories in ways that make them very readable. a lot of people probably enjoy his plot twists too, although I always thought he was very cruel and cynical with his storytelling (re: specifically with how he pokes fun at himself and the genres he’s working with in a manner decidedly meant to evoke ridicule. like… where is your fucking whimsy! he has no respect for the artistic process of writing besides telling stories - and as a writer myself I can’t abide that kind of an author being paraded around as an aspirational figure) and very disconnected from reality (specifically with respect to Reverse Misogyny, Reverse Racism and Oppressed People Should Find A Middle Ground With Oppressors. it frankly disgusts me) besides being just terrible at handling any theme even if I can concede that some of his ideas are good (on that note, I think his worldbuilding is also very overrated, constituting a mish mash of different concepts that don’t quite cohere. you can tell that he used to run dnd games). I just think his stories are probably more comparable to pjo, writing and skillwise, and I enjoyed one of them better (it was pjo). I also outgrew young adult long ago, which means his works could never appeal to me even if he wasn’t Like That (whatever That means when you’re a kind of very privileged white mormon guy who has a very protective fan base). The problem that is the terrible quality of his work also mostly stems from pumping out 500k-1 million words a year. it’s just not possible for any of that to be very good, I’m sorry. at one point quantity does very much become indicative of quality. no good or sane writer would publish any of that material unless it was heavily, heavily edited (his books are not well edited either, but I feel sorry for whoever his editor is). I don’t think there’s a single line anybody could pull from his works that I would find poignant, meaningful or quotable precisely because of his tendency to put down on paper anything and everything that occurs to him (there’s a reason why his works read like a disjointed stream of consciousness). his works also convey the sort of smug, contented state of confident self-possession he’s managed to reach where he’s comfortable publishing any piece of bad writing (I’m saying this after reading the first couple chapters of tress of the emerald sea, so I don’t think anyone can really accuse me of not reading his recent and therefore, supposedly, better works) because he has an established fan base that’s ready to eat it up. he also does suck at writing women. like a lot. it’s a conversation that nobody is really ready for even when they critique the deplorable depictions of oppression and class dynamics in his books - his male characters are always the real stars of the show and are clearly very dear to him besides being the vessels through which he inserts a lot of religious commentary that specifically stems from his background. he also does (consciously and unconsciously) insert lot of conservative rhetoric in his books when he’s writing his female characters.

whatever - I’m not stopping you from enjoying his stuff. but to put it very crudely, I think his stories also suffer from the same issues that the mcu does.

#this is probably not a great response because I’m in class but it’s my most measured one yet. success. #you can check out my ‘brandon’ tag for other complaints/criticism/general #thoughts about his body of work if you want. #I would attach actual quotes and critique his writing and grammar and sentence structure if somebody asked but I did delete all the #ebooks of his stuff I had for my own mental health. I just don’t care enough about somebody I hate That Much to spend a lot of time #critiquing. I’d rather critique even the worst of sjm’s stuff probably. idk. #asks #anon asks #brandon #sanderson critical

[bitimdrake]

rereading nightwing (2011) #30 and god i have. so many thoughts about it. And also I still cannot get a coherent hold on it.

This post is really just a mess of me rambling for myself and spewing thoughts out, so I'm putting it under the cut and read at your own discretion and curiosity.

first off, we basically only talk about the middle part, but this comic is actually three sections and it's. bad?

it's just so awkward. This is a transitional issues, but it's not even a well executed one. It's not even a mediocre one. It's very blunt and inconsistent in abruptly shoving the story forward to make way for a Grayson status quo.

The three sections all have different styles and very different tones, but they are also directly related to each other. So it's not like they work as three different vignettes sharing an issue. But they also don't make a particularly cogent whole.

And they definitely do not come even close to the kind of satisfying ending you'd typically want to see at the end of a run.

Like: the first section is Leslie recounting to Bruce how she ran into Spyral. A section which, you will note, does not include our lead and title character in any way, nor is it remotely emotionally relevant or meaningful to him on first read, nor is it remotely related to anything in the run previously. It's a Batman Inc scene that got lost and landed in the wrong issue.

And then the second section (Bruce fights Dick until he agrees to go undercover) and the third (intro to Grayson with Dick doing international crimefighting to lure in Spyral recruitment) are plot-wise directly connect and yet. Could not be more at odds.

sec. 2 Dick has a very bad time being pushed into this by Bruce, and he hates it, and the whole thing is very violent and dark and grim, and Dick ends the section saying things can never be the same between him and Bruce.

and then sec. 3 Dick has a classic inner monologue about who he is and where he's been, that includes how Bruce saved him from being an angry, revenge-obsessed kid, and how he loves his family and is defined by being a legacy. And shows zero concern at what he's doing except a mild mention that after the Crime Syndicate he wanted to go back but he couldn't.

are you seeing what i'm talking about here. are you seeing how this is technically a continuous plot, but on every other level makes no goddamn sense

anyway let's talk about dick and bruce, but first specifically about Bruce because I still do not get him here

"get him" does not mean "agree" (or even "empathize") but literally just get it. Even when I fucking hate him I have at a basic level understood what was going on in his head previously. I do not now.

Bruce was already abusive ofc, but the thing that really threw me off the first time I read this--and that still feel jarring--is how completely different this is from any of his previous violence towards his kids.

He's not suddenly lashing out in a moment of high emotion. He waited for Dick to be ready and laid out the rules (non-rule) of the fight. And it's not even about some deeply personal matter that he's getting emotional over. Yes, Dick's recent brief death is a key part, but mostly Bruce is monologuing about the danger of this one random secret organization.

The whole thing is so planned, which is never something I've thought of his previous physical abuse, and it feels fucking awful.

It also just feels so irrational. And not in a "people who are very emotional make questionable decisions" way, but in a "I'm genuinely struggling to understand how the character got here way"

Bruce is upset that he recently watched Dick die. No question there. And so he....wants to send Dick undercover with Spyral?

??????

Like I can try to explain this as some variation of the classic 'push people away so caring about them won't hurt me again', but that's really not how it feels? It doesn't track. Bruce has pushed Dick away plenty before, and he does it by some combination of explosive anger, complete emotional shutdown, and literally telling Dick to leave. But like. This is not that. He's instead ensnaring Dick in a long fight and longer conversation and telling him not to leave, but to go do something specific. And it's not even really pushing him away!! Because Bruce is still asking Dick to do a thing for him, under his control! No. wrong vibe. Explanation rejected.

Second attempted explanation: section one of this issue ends with Leslie telling Bruce that, because of super Spyral interrogation powers, she might have revealed his identity and can't even remember. So Bruce is deeply troubled by that, and Dick's identity was just revealed to the world which compounds things ("you let them give your secrets to the world"), and now he is deeply concerned with figuring out what Spyral knows/stopping info from spreading and sending Dick to handle that.

I also hate this explanation. It feels dumb. Ridiculous priorities. (also, boy, it does not paint Bruce in a good light. but the bad light it paints him in is an all new one.) Ugh.

I really really just cannot create an explanation for Bruce here that feels coherent with my understanding of him, and I hate that.

And my understanding of him is of him as an abusive father!! So imagine how inexplicable this must feel! But this is the wrong kind of abusive father for what he's been before idk i don't even know if i make sense anymore

new thought time

for the first ~2/3 of the fight, I was thinking that on reread, I could kinda see how some very dumb and oblivious writer would not see how horrific and abusive it would be in the end:

Two characters are disagreeing, and one is going to convince the other by the end. So it's dramatic, and makes the art reflect the story, to have them spar as they're talking! Both script and art are a spar!

Bruce is trying to ~prove Dick will never break~ so it'll be fitting for him to fight Dick, and then call it off when Dick indeed proves he won't give up an gets the upper hand!

Misjudge just how violent the fight will come off. Write panels where Dick is on the ground looking up/being beaten by Bruce/getting injured, because you're going for the classic structure of the hero getting their ass kicked at the start before turning things around later on, but accidentally make those too pained.

blah blah blah, completely overlook the fact that these two are father and son with the power dynamic that implies, and fail to tune the dialogue so that you don't realize it seems less like Bruce is convincing and more like he's coercing

and maybe, theoretically, a writer with real bad instincts could think this would be less horrific than it is

...I thought for the first chunk of the fight, still trying to come up with a rational explanation for this scene, even if only a Doylist one

EXCEPT

Towards the end of the fight, Bruce literally says he knows he's hurting Dick, "my family," and calls Dick "my boy" and then punches Dick in the face so like. I'm sorry you can't do this by accident. If you wrote this by accident you are simply too stupid to be alive and I refuse to believe you can exist.

so anyway I don't have a Doylist explanation for this either :/

they really did just straight up have bruce beat up his son and have said son literally say it could never be the same between them after this, and then were like. yeah :) this is fine :) back to bruce solving crimes as batman :)

FINAL SECTION: random assorted things that make me mad

right before the fight when Alfred can't get into the cave and Bruce, who planned this, lies about it being a malfunction he's fixing

alfred tries to ask if he's alright after "master richard's... the boy's passing". Quote Bruce "Dick was never a boy." (this would make me want to slap him in the best of circumstances but I just want him dead)

the beat early on where Bruce gets a good shot in and Dick is sitting, and he pauses to ask Bruce what's really going on, and Bruce kicks him in the face

genuinely just the number of panels in this that are Dick on the ground, Dick getting punched/kicked/hit, Dick slamming into some solid piece of the environment

Dick keeps questioning this idea and bringing up new points and then just outright asking how Bruce can do this to him. And literally never once does Bruce reply to any of it.

Literally the entire fight Bruce spends monologuing, completely ignoring everything Dick says, as if he's not talking at all.

The only thing that Bruce does respond to is how Dick is doing in the fight. He breaks his monologue to commend Dick on fighting well, but not even once gives the tiniest acknowledgement that Dick is also saying things.

Just the fact that Dick "wins" by dropping down to Bruce's level of violence.

when bruce says the "we fall so we can get back up" and Dick says, no, someone pushes us and we get up to push back, it's fucking sad. I think this is meant to be his victorious moment of turning the tides, but it's upsetting to me! That Dick "it's about catching people when they fall" Grayson has been pushed to reject all of that and is now only talking in terms of fighting!!! I don't like this quote I judge anyone who uses this as a great quote representative of dick grayson, sorry, it's not, it sucks

Dick cracks his head on a railing owie

as soon as Bruce gets properly decked and hits the ground, he calls the fight off :) Because this proves to him that Dick won't break in Spyral, of course, and confirms his stupid plan will work :) and definitely not because Bruce can dish it out but can't take it :)

unreal how much I hate him

And finally! Amidst all of that, amidst all the blood and violence, the single moment that made me most want to shove Bruce through a woodchipper!

"I know I'm hurting you. My family. I'm making that sacrifice. Because I don't give up. I don't give in."

shut the fuck up you fucking martyr hurting your family is not sacrificing shit

man, I really did start this post with story analysis and a genuine curiosity to find sense in chaos. My primary emotion was the fervor of solving a story like a puzzle. But now I am simply going to kill.

#* #*dc #dc #dc reading tag #i don't. i don't think this mess of a ramble deserves a real tag but uhhh #dc ref #i fuckin guess

[sixth-light]

some actual thoughts on Nona the Ninth

I hesitate to call this a ‘review’ because even five days later I’m not sure how capable I am of coherent discussion of this book, but more or less: a review. Absolutely giant enormous spoilers for the whole book under the cut, etc. 

The one thing I can say coherently is that this was probably my favourite book of the series so far (I know, big call) and that is pretty much down to two factors: Some Of These People Liked Each Other to a much greater extent than the first two books, and the gore level was slightly toned down by being filtered through Nona’s highly selective PoV. OK, no, four factors, the third being that I really love a selective narrator/outside PoV story and this managed the neat trick of being an outside PoV story on the whole series to date - both in terms of being set on a non-House planet and largely featuring a new cast of characters, and being through the eyes of an amnesiac character who only knows what she’s been told about necromancy, the Empire, Resurrection Beasts, etcetera - and who hasn’t been told everything by a long shot.

The fourth factor (deeply unsurprising given what I’ve reblogged/talked about with this book to date) is the way that Nona is gleefully, unrepentantly, truly madly deeply a piece of New Zealand science fiction where the first two books had the odd fun reference and a very Kiwi sensibility to them, but largely didn’t require you to know anything about NZ to engage. Clearly this one is still enjoyable if you don’t, but it does shit like dropping “Dilworth” in the first paragraph. You don’t get that? Not this book’s problem! It’s in large part about a bunch of assholes starting a murder cult in GREYTOWN in a cryo research facility that LOOKS LIKE A FREEZING WORKS. The antagonist STARTS THE APOCALYPSE BY NUKING MELBOURNE, which, I just cannot express enough how much this is in dialogue with our self-image as a country and people(s) in a way I find intensely gripping. The NZ literature scene is absolutely fucking allergic to sci-fi and fantasy fiction if it isn’t targeted at teens or children, and Tamsyn Muir is out here writing a gonzo space opera about lesbian necromancers in a space empire founded by Kiwis, in which someone makes a ‘spray and walk away’ joke. I would like to send her flowers, and also the head of Steve Braunias, whichever she would prefer. 

OK, where was I? Um, yes! I liked this book! I am not as big a Palamedes&/Camilla fan as some people despite writing my only TLT fic from Palamedes’ PoV but I loved them in this and I started crying so hard in Paul’s birth scene that I had to put the book down. Relatedly, what this book does with gender???? Absolutely fucking unmatched. Pyrrha is incredible. I want to know what her original name (& all the Lyctors’) was so badly because there is no fucking way a group of millennial Kiwis were ACTUALLY called Augustine, Mercymorn, Cassiopeia, etc (Nigella and Alfred???? maybe????). I had no particular horse in the race regarding Nona’s true identity - I was half-convinced she was Harrow for about half the book but also not fully convinced by a long stretch, and the Alecto reveal made absolute sense. I very much need her to murder John a lot. I’m not sure what is going on exactly with Gideon/Kiriona but it’s definitely something about her soul and also the fact that she’s much more of an asshole from an outside PoV, which is OK, I love her anyway, she deserves to be a bit of an asshole. Clinging to the idea that Muir’s “never ever ever getting back together” line is being clever about names or something. 

But in general I have no idea what is actually going to happen in Alecto the Ninth and you know, I’m fine with that, I’m just here for the ride and also Coke Zero jokes. Magnificent, outstanding, punching above our weight science-fiction speaking, frame it and put it in Te Papa (preferably next to Phar Lap). Did you know that it’s very meaningful part of Corona’s BoE name is “He Found It In Him To Forgive” because that’s a line from probably one of the most famous NZ songs about recovering from a breakup??? God I love these books. 

#nona the ninth #the locked tomb #ntn spoilers

[eelhound]

"Physicists are more playful and less hidebound creatures than, say, biologists — partly, no doubt, because they rarely have to contend with religious fundamentalists challenging the laws of physics. They are the poets of the scientific world. If one is already willing to embrace thirteen-dimensional objects or an endless number of alternative universes, or to casually suggest that 95 percent of the universe is made up of dark matter and energy about whose properties we know nothing, it’s perhaps not too much of a leap to also contemplate the possibility that subatomic particles have 'free will' or even experiences. And indeed, the existence of freedom on the subatomic level is currently a heated question of debate. Is it meaningful to say an electron 'chooses' to jump the way it does? Obviously, there’s no way to prove it. The only evidence we could have (that we can’t predict what it’s going to do), we do have. But it’s hardly decisive. Still, if one wants a consistently materialist explanation of the world — that is, if one does not wish to treat the mind as some supernatural entity imposed on the material world, but rather as simply a more complex organization of processes that are already going on, at every level of material reality — then it makes sense that something at least a little like intentionality, something at least a little like experience, something at least a little like freedom, would have to exist on every level of physical reality as well.

Why do most of us, then, immediately recoil at such conclusions? Why do they seem crazy and unscientific? Or more to the point, why are we perfectly willing to ascribe agency to a strand of DNA (however 'metaphorically'), but consider it absurd to do the same with an electron, a snowflake, or a coherent electromagnetic field? The answer, it seems, is because it’s pretty much impossible to ascribe self-interest to a snowflake. If we have convinced ourselves that rational explanation of action can consist only of treating action as if there were some sort of self-serving calculation behind it, then by that definition, on all these levels, rational explanations can’t be found. Unlike a DNA molecule, which we can at least pretend is pursuing some gangster-like project of ruthless self-aggrandizement, an electron simply does not have a material interest to pursue, not even survival. It is in no sense competing with other electrons. If an electron is acting freely — if it, as Richard Feynman is supposed to have said, 'does anything it likes' — it can only be acting freely as an end in itself. Which would mean that at the very foundations of physical reality, we encounter freedom for its own sake — which also means we encounter the most rudimentary form of play.

Let us imagine a principle. Call it a principle of freedom — or, since Latinate constructions tend to carry more weight in such matters, call it a principle of ludic freedom. Let us imagine it to hold that the free exercise of an entity’s most complex powers or capacities will, under certain circumstances at least, tend to become an end in itself. It would obviously not be the only principle active in nature. Others pull other ways. But if nothing else, it would help explain what we actually observe, such as why, despite the second law of thermodynamics, the universe seems to be getting more, rather than less, complex. Evolutionary psychologists claim they can explain — as the title of one recent book has it — 'why sex is fun.' What they can’t explain is why fun is fun. This could.

I don’t deny that what I’ve presented so far is a savage simplification of very complicated issues. I’m not even saying that the position I’m suggesting here — that there is a play principle at the basis of all physical reality — is necessarily true. I would just insist that such a perspective is at least as plausible as the weirdly inconsistent speculations that currently pass for orthodoxy, in which a mindless, robotic universe suddenly produces poets and philosophers out of nowhere. Nor, I think, does seeing play as a principle of nature necessarily mean adopting any sort of milky utopian view. The play principle can help explain why sex is fun, but it can also explain why cruelty is fun. (As anyone who has watched a cat play with a mouse can attest, a lot of animal play is not particularly nice.) But it gives us ground to unthink the world around us."

- David Graeber, from "What’s the Point If We Can’t Have Fun?" The Baffler, January 2014.

#david graeber #quote #quotations #play #fun #pleasure #ontology #physics #quantum mechanics #uncertainty principle #free will

[thesherrinfordfacility]

hi! i love reading your thoughts because they're often so different from my own, but i wanted to ask you something about crowley and the way the abuses he's suffered at heaven/hell's hands have manifested in him. specifically, in his avoidance/tendency to flee as a means of protecting himself & aziraphale. i think it's rather unkind of fandom to just jot that all down to cowardice and to constantly criticize him for "running", esp when in never actually follows through on those threats. (part 1)

good morning nonnie!!!✨

sure thing, more than happy to discuss and at least put down my own thoughts! first thing im going to say is that whilst this is a recurrent theme throughout the whole show, ep6 feels like the pinnacle of everything re: crowley's trauma, and as i said to someone else recently, the reason why i find the Feral Domestic™ so delicious is because it is so well written. these are two characters that are having their own one-sided conversations, even if the dialogue matches up and fits coherently; they chronically misunderstand each other, are both crumbling under the things not being said, and each time you watch it, you can see things from the other's perspective and think that they are in the right. suffice to say, to my mind, there isn't necessarily any right way to interpret it, and all interpretations are valid!!!

let's talk crowley; i mean, you're right - it's not cowardice by the definition of the word. crowley doesn't lack bravery, but the way he manifests that bravery is very different to aziraphale's. i feel in this particular dilemma, personally, aziraphale had the right of it (fighting for change, however it may have come across to crowley, and however naive) - mainly out of the projection that i think it's the logical, most meritable action to take, if successful would actually mean they can be potentially be together in peace, and i would probably have done the same thing. now, we can surmise that that's not at all how it'll go down, and it certainly doesn't mean at all that crowley's reaction is wrong.

i do feel that sometimes the fandom does gloss over crowley's more... problematic... tendencies, and justify it by his trauma. his actions borne out of that trauma are understandable, they hold water, but they're not excusable. again, personal interpretation, but i can't rationalise some of crowley's actions out of anything than avoidance and a maelstrom of harmful, emotional internalisation - manipulating aziraphale/tempting him to kill adam/warlock, keeping key information from aziraphale especially that directly affects aziraphale, his saviour complex going too far and not only robbing aziraphale of some agency by doing so but it resulting in aziraphale believing it's necessary to make crowley happy, his superiority complex (aziraphale has one too, i will add), his habits of putting aziraphale down during stress/desperation... again, we can trace these all back to elements of his trauma, but it doesn't justify them.

that to me is a kind of 'running away'; it isn't that he's a coward and won't face up to the trauma in any meaningful way - it's not a question of a lack of bravery - but that he's so avoidant of examining that part of himself and his history that it holds him back from healing, and in doing so, i think, he possibly expects and anticipates aziraphale to live in that pain with him. maybe because aziraphale is a comfort to it, a balm that lessens the sting? maybe because he needs something to make him feel better about himself? idk, but whilst all things i can empathise with, one of the first things i saw in that scene is that crowley seems to think aziraphale should have remained in that inertia with him, kept the status quo, run away together. and when it turns out aziraphale truly belongs outside of that pain and doesn't want to live in it... well, put very over-simply, crowley couldn't handle it.

crowley is not at all wrong for running from his trauma. it was and is, by all inference of the material we have so far, incredibly painful, and possibly even shameful and humiliating and lonely. but in the same way that humans who don't reckon with their trauma are not lesser for not dealing with theirs by avoiding reconciling with it, it doesn't fix anything to do so. fix is the wrong word actually - it doesn't help at all to keep being in that pain. and it will usually result in it hurting those around you too, those that you love and love you in return. and bearing in mind - whilst aziraphale is smart enough to definitely know at least the general impact the fall had, and how heaven had treated/harmed crowley in the events that followed, crowley's never actually told aziraphale any of it (as far as we're aware). he even downplayed it to aziraphale - "sauntered vaguely downwards"... aziraphale is smart, but he is likely to take crowley's word at face value in this respect.

ultimately you are completely correct; it is not at all fair for anyone, aziraphale included, to expect crowley to return to the source of his pain. we know that, we know that the suggestion of returning, of being restored, must be inconceivable to him. but does aziraphale know that? how can he possibly know the full depth of why crowley won't return? beyond saying "they're toxic", and "when heaven ends life here on earth, it'll be just as dead as if hell ended it"... both of these reasons for rejecting the offer, bear in mind, are reasons why aziraphale wants to go back - to change it! it's fixable! he can resolve that! but if crowley had said, "i can't go back, it's the source of all pain for me and i want nothing to do with it"... im not entirely certain that aziraphale would have left.

can't also disagree with you that aziraphale isn't manipulative in his own way, because he absolutely is! aziraphale is equally a little shit for it throughout the entire show! but i truly don't think this is the scene where he's trying to be, or even is - i think he truly sees the offer as a way in which crowley could be happy again, create in utter joy like he did in the pre-fall scene, be shown respect and a means of apology for making him fall... it's meant, to me, out of love and devotion to crowley as a person, this good and kind person that he loves, and wants to facilitate in his happiness as aziraphale believes it could be. now we know that that would never be the case, and it's incredibly naive and reductive for aziraphale to assume this... but does aziraphale? it's not an action or offer made out of any superior or malicious intent, imo, but a way that aziraphale can protect crowley and they can be together without needing to run away... something that aziraphale only considered once offered the power to restore him.

i could talk a little more on crowley physically running away, especially how it's depicted in the book vs. show, but i think my answer is likely to get completely unwieldy if i do rn! but hope that maybe goes some way to at least depicting my understanding of what happened... again, i don't think any interpretation is necessarily wrong, and until s3 comes around and these two buffoons actually talk to each other, we won't know for sure!!!✨

#in this house all opinions are valid if you can argue them well enough #good omens #ask #crowley meta #feral domestic/final fifteen meta #s1 meta #s2 meta

[sapphire-weapon]

Sick of you getting shit, it must be exhausting. Here's something else to break it up.

Do you prefer OG or Remake (so far)? Why?

Favourite ships other than Leshley/Eagleone?

Favourite CGI work?

Favourite RE game outside of OG4 and RE4make?

In all fairness, I have no right to complain about getting shit when sometimes I go out of my way to stick my hand in a manure pile. Aeon anon was one thing, but I actually genuinely literally asked for this one LMAO but I appreciate u anon

Do you prefer OG or Remake (so far)? Why? Remake for a few reasons -- not least of all gameplay reasons. I don't see a reason to play OG RE2 ever again -- not to say that I don't see a reason to refresh myself on RE2's story ever again, though. But, at this point, I'd just watch it on YouTube. I have no desire to ever go back and play it again, because RE2make's gameplay is superior by every conceivable metric. I almost feel the same way about RE4 and RE4make, though OG RE4 does have a particular atmosphere slightly apart from RE4make that I really enjoy and might want to get immersed in again sometime in the future.

I also didn't realize just how fucking bad the actual dialogue in OG was until the Remake series started to come out. Like... I always knew that OG wasn't about to win a Pulitzer or anything, but huge parts of it are just total nonsense. I feel like, in hindsight, RE fandom's imagination filling in the blanks did a lot of heavy lifting for us back in the day.

I also just prefer things to be consistent and coherent in the way the Remake series is, simply because it was written and developed all at the same time.

OG will always be important to me and I'll always love it, but I'd be lying if I said I was more excited for RE9 than I was to see where the Remake series is going to go next.

Favourite ships other than Leshley/Eagleone? Chreon and Valenfield are my other two big ones. Jilleon and Cleon are my two B-grade ships that I indulge on every once in a while and enjoy. Everything else falls somewhere on the spectrum of "painfully apathetic" to "yeah it's fine, I don't hate that."

Favourite CGI work? Death Island, and it's not even close. Dylan had a message and a purpose that actually felt meaningful and was connected to the characters in a personal way, which is something that RE villains outside of Wesker and Krauser notoriously and consistently seem to lack. It's also the best characterization for most of the main cast (other than Chris, whose portrayal was mid) that we've either ever seen or have seen in a very long while.

Though I will say that if Leon were to be removed from Damnation, Damnation would run away with the title of "best CGI work" and leave Death Island in the dust. But that's not how Damnation went. So DI wins.

Favourite RE game outside of OG4 and RE4make? The original REmake. RE2make took a swing at it, but REmake is still the undisputed heavyweight champion and the King of Classic Survival Horror. When I think of survival horror as a genre, I think REmake. It is Shinji Mikami's magnum opus for a reason -- and it shines as the highest tier quality of survival horror because he is the father of the genre to begin with. There's something very, very special about that game that I haven't seen replicated since. I think the people who want a Re-REmake are philistines and I'm not joking.

[itsevanffs]

For the writing ask game, 19 & 29?

19. what is your most-used tag on ao3?

'age difference', surprisingly (or not). it's currently got 8 uses, but that will be nine when i'm done with this motherfucking pornshot i'm still wrestling with.

29. what's your revision or editing process like?

so, my editing process is kind of unique, i think, in the way that it's not much of an 'editing process' at all. i tend to edit on the go, which is to say, as i'm writing i hop back to the previous paragraphs and adjust things that need to be adjusted, smooth things out that feel janky, and adjust plot beats when necessary (which includes frantically pinging my friends for kinks to include.) it's a part of the writing process. i don't actually sit down to edit.

i do have a revision process, though, and i can show you it.

----

want to know more? have a look at this ask sheet for fanfic writers, and choose a number! or, if you can't find the question you'd like, just pop me one of your own in my ask box, which is open to anons and non-anons alike.

----

the first step in my revision process, much like plotting an extremely complicated fic, is to note down every big story beat i've got. (i've been organising to rewrite/revise my fic 'in the dark', so that makes for the perfect example. spoilers ahead, mostly for published chapters.) in practice that looks like this:

this list (of which i will not show its entirety) goes to article 74, which is in fact the end of the fic. when i'm revising a fic i plan out to the precise end, and i won't move on from this planning stage until i have the end in sight. this happens with the big, complicated fics too, which is why you haven't seen any of them yet. (sorry.)

next, i digitalise the list and strip or add certain aspects. the digital list is 75 articles long, and has, among other things, 'drunken mistakes' removed, as well as some articles later in the story (around the middle) added. it's very rudimentary and not padded in the slightest, and often 'masked' so to speak since i tend to write in public:

these are all published scenes, so it's nothing you haven't seen before.

next, i go onto the detailed outline, which sections the articles/scenes into chapters. itd's revision will have 17 chapters. the summaries of the scenes range anywhere from this to this to this:

these include a short (ish) description of the scene itself, underneath a chapter (in this case, the chapter's title, too, since i have already chosen those, but in other circumstances it would just be a number), and can include offhand comments by me about, well, anything, can be detailed, and can include allusions to overarching story beats (like in 10, with tom setting lily up as complicit, which is a theme that comes back multiple times across the first half of the fic).

then i start rewriting:

this does say 'annotated' but it's not very annotated. shh don't tell my old self that, it's a secret. i start with copying over old paragraphs that i particularly like (see: opening sentence, 3rd paragraph, partly) and rework the spaces between those paragraphs to flow more coherently.

meanwhile i choose sections to 'discard':

these are scenes that i don't intend to include in the final story that i'd written before in the heat of the moment which i later felt added no meaningful contribution to the text, and at worst even ruined the pacing or undermined a theme i was trying to set up.

important: I NEVER GET RID OF ANYTHING. a collection of, like, twenty to fifty thousand words has a file size of maybe, at the absolute most, half a mB? which is nothing. for reference: cumulatively i've written almost 700k of words that i can meaningfully measure (so in my google docs alone) and, assuming i have nothing else in there and it's just writing, i've used 3.5GB of 15GB of storage. (fun fact: google docs are not the only thing i keep on my google drive! i do huge spreadsheets, have old songs on there that i haven't deleted yet, and 2.66GB of that 3.5GB is a single recording of a radiohead glastonbury performance.)

that's almost 200 stories, averaging at well over 3k a piece (i've got averages, since i'm a bit of a data freak), totalling to less than one gigabyte in storage. the original version of in the dark is my largest document file at 72,551 words and 155 pages, and it is just shy of 750KB. trust me: you have space for every story you'll ever write and then some. never ever get rid of anything you write, because one day you'll be sorry.

i've reused countless old ideas for new ones. 'at the expense of the world' is half as old as i am (wouldn't you like to know) but i only found a way to express it in a way i liked earlier last year, wouldn't you know it. so, yeah, even when i completely turn a fic upside down and shake it out, i never ever get rid of even a single word. i always keep a copy of the complete original somewhere. and i suggest you do the same! you may find yourself recycling ideas later.

but that's my revision process, which is marginally more in-depth than my editing process will ever be. hope this was at least somewhat interesting.

#ask game #ask me #writing process #in the dark (hamlet fic)

[bayleafpsa]

Gather 'round kids, it's Complaining About DD2 Time, and since this is my private hole I'm not gonna be too polite about it.

Spoilers to be expected, obviously. Please, if you like dd2 and its backstories, do not go ahead and read. I'm not going to convince you it's bad and you're not going to convince me it's good. This is for my own sake and to any that want to read someone expressing their own annoyance at length.

Now, I was never a DD2 nay-sayer. And gameplay-wise? This is not a bad game. It's not DD1 and I'm glad for it. It had the balls to try something new and it succeeded there. The main issues were patched out in early access, the visuals are STUNNING and the music is as good as always.

But story-wise? As a sequel to DD1? As an opportunity to expand the lore of beloved characters? It failed so, so hard. Like, "what the fuck are you doing, how are you doing this to the characters you wrote"-hard.

Characters have their mistakes whitewashed from their dd1 portrayals, random trauma is dumped on them without any sense of character progression or central motivation. Dismas is by far the worst offender on the whitewashing front, but he's not the only one. It's not enough for them to be normal, kind of shitty people in bad circumstances, they gotta go through the meatgrinder! Audrey HAD to kill her husband, he was an abusive monster and probably going to kill her first! Dismas was just a hungwy boy! Boudica was a dumb teen and also didn't run away without a fight! It's not enough for Alhazred to live with Space Satan inside his head because of his ill-advised search for power, he's got to have dead friends to be sad about! Sexual repression, humiliation and banishment aren't enough for Junia, she's got to be tortured for days and see all her friends and acquaintances die in one of the most horrific ways!

Sometimes even their personalities seem to have been overwritten. Para's morbid obsessions and general lack of ethics are lot more subdued. Sarmenti isn't a overtly violent and secretly depressed clown, he's more about his music than anything. Dismas' isn't hiding a heart under 10 layers of whiskey, sarcasm and false confidence, he's just sort of sour. And boring.

And somehow the exception to all this blorbofication is Damian who goes from "miserable guy who gets a few too many screws lose and joins a cult" to... a fucking torturer. Which is never addressed in a meaningful way because *key jingling noise* LOOK A FIGHT WITH DEATH that's more interesting, right? Dude has three completely different beats to his backstory and none of them lead to any satisfying conclusion or unifying theme.

Did they forget this is the guy who was eager and willing to give himself to the Heart of Darkness as the ultimate sacrifice? Why is he denying death now? Where did the religious motivation of his pain obsession go? Did he just knock at St Martha's dressed as a beggar and ask if they were hiring torturers? What did he do that got him kicked out by people who think branding children is ok? Why does a convent have a dedicated torturer on the payroll anyway? Are we just going to forget that Junia beat him with a stick? Now everyone's buddies? What? What's happening here? Why is Death less trouble than an Examplar?

I'm not opposed to Damian being shown as a dick, I'm sure he is one given his belief system but please, for the love of god, tell ONE story and make it coherent.

Which brings us back to Junia. How the hell does the end of her shrines connects to her now? If she was condemned and never absolved by authority, just knocked out her jailer and made a run for it, why does she have Vestal armor and act as a member of the Church? Who even let her leave? Why isn't there a bounty on her head? What authoritarian religious authority would have let a heretic that says the Light told her it was ok to fuck run amok? It was more important to end her story on a shock twist than to have it make sense, so we jut don't know.

On the topic of adding shit for the sake of it: why wasn't it enough to have Sarmenti be a normal guy pushed too far by a bunch of asshole nobles? What exactly does the evil magic song add to it? If he has to have something to regret about the whole thing, why not just add innocent victims to his rampage? Or have him do questionable things in his despair to never be trapped again? Again, write ONE story well instead of adding incrongruent shit that looks cool!

And I'm gonna go out and say it... I'm not the biggest Reynauld fan in this fandom, not by a FAR shot. I think he's an interesting dude. And of course he'll have a special place in player's minds as one of the dd1 starters. But that shit at the end? Unnecessary spit in the eye for anyone who gave a damn. If you were hoping for him to show up in the game, I don't know how you'd read this besides "lol fuck you he's DEAD and also not fucking important".

When I first heard about something involving him at the end of the game I was accepting. Sure, he'll turn out to have been devoured by the Heart of Darkness and show up as a surprise part of the end boss, right? Tragic and painful, but not a bad end for him story-wise! It would have been the sort of cruel twist I'd have expected from Darkest Dungeon. It takes the character and does something interesting with him! What better to represent our ultimate failure than reminding the characters and the player of everyone we sacrificed in the first game? If he's going to be dead, it might as well mean something.

But nope. He's. Not there. Not even as a grave. His fucking helmet is lying around and used as a candlestick. Apparently by Dismas, who of course has no reason to give a fuck. The hell, man.

And the overall arc? I was so there for it. Redemption, failure, struggle against impossible odds, one must imagine Sisyphus being happy, that's my jam. But as it turns out, it was a straightforward hero story. Sure, there's the sting that the darkness in people's hearts will show up again and bla bla bla, but that's standard fare too. The hopeless struggle wasn't at all hopeless, you just had to kill the big monster. Which fixes things because... I don't know, cosmic therapy? A wizard did it? Where did the cultists go? The fanatics? What about the Heart of Darkness, why is it just chilling with all the blood that's been spilled? I get that they wanted to write something more hopeful, but to sweep aside all the worldbuilding that suggests that it shouldn't be this easy feels cheap and unrewarding. I expected some sort of twist, a terrible cost that is worth it regardless.

What I got was a candlestick helmet.

#darkest dungeon 2 spoilers #this is just venting #you haven't seen the last of me #there's plenty of salt left