#this damn novel fundamentally changed me | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ms-demeanor · 9 months

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since twitter has become actively hostile to its users, so they came to tumblr, and reddit has become actively hostile to its users, so they came to tumblr, what do we do now that tumblr is becoming (more) actively hostile to its users? i’ve been here for over a decade so i know tumblr users are the type to cling on despite everything and revel in undoing every change, but i’m so tired of the way this website breaks the way it fundamentally works in order to appeal to new users. the twitterfication of the site seems so much worse than when people jumped ship after the porn ban, and even then, only small communities (and twitter) cropped up as solutions. you might not be the person to ask for a definitive answer, but i figured a tech blog might be interested in considering - what do we do when there’s nowhere left to go?

Okay so, I mean this very seriously: how has tumblr meaningfully become like twitter?

I don't personally find the sidebar view obnoxious and it seems to me like just another layout change that's pretty typical to tumblr. New users are getting signed up with a bit more emphasis on algorithmic feeds, but that is still very easy to change (MUCH easier than on any other social platform) and the algorithm has been there for everyone for quite a while, we just typically don't notice it because a lot of long-term tumblr users don't go into the "for you" feed.

I don't think that tumblr *has* fundamentally broken the way that it works to appeal to new users. My dash now is still very much like my dash in 2019, and still very much like my dash in 2018 (though much less pornographic). Reblogs are still reblogs, likes are still likes. Replies, for all that they seem like they've been around forever, are new and good and I think they work well. I'm irritated that the notes menu doesn't have a "view all" option but I think that's a worthwhile tradeoff for an easy way to see tags.

I *do not* understand why tumblr has broken linking back to previous reblogs but I don't think that's out of an effort to act like twitter; it is a bizarre choice that I dislike and don't understand but I also don't think that it has fundamentally changed the way the site works and i mean you've been around long enough that I'm sure you've had the same experience I have of going into the notes of a post and randomly clicking until you found a version that you wanted to reblog without a bunch of bullshit at the bottom. Tumblr has always kind of sucked, this change DOES suck but it doesn't suck in a way that is particularly novel or insurmountable. (For instance, I think this change sucks MUCH LESS than when they made posts with links invisible to the search, that is something that is genuinely bad that has been long lasting but doesn't get brought up much in lists of the ways that tumblr has gone wrong)

Tumblr *is* changing, but I think it is changing more incrementally and less terribly than other parts of the internet. I also hate the floating clown, the login walls, the dash-only view for blogs (you can't archive it and I HATE that), and - to an extent - the new lightbox on mobile. And I dislike that less than I thought I would but I don't think it's a fundamental change that necessarily impacts my interactions with the site - it *adds* a feature that I don't care for but it doesn't *break* anything that I require to have a good time on tumblr - in that way I think of it very much like Live. People hate Live so much and I find that perplexing because it is so easy to simply ignore it.

But that's not really your question; that's just some stuff I want people to think about because as much as tumblr has changed in the last two years it is nowhere near as fucked up as the recent things that twitter and reddit have pulled.

So, as to your question: where do we go?

Well. Not to be an extremely old person on the internet, but damned if I don't miss email lists. And forums. God I miss forums. Neither of those things has all the bonuses of platforms like twitter or reddit or tumblr or facebook, but they were great ways to hang out with people you liked on the internet.

The internet is changing. I can feel it, you can feel it, I'm pretty sure we're all like cattle in a field lifting our noses and hearing some distant rumbling and becoming slowly aware that it's almost time to run. There's a coming stampede and it isn't here yet but you know it's on its way. You're not imagining that, that's how things feel right now and there are a shitload of things contributing to it.

Things like SESTA/FOSTA and KOSA (which has not passed yet but is a big red flag waving on the horizon) have been eroding away the way that users on various platforms can function. Some platforms have consolidated in ways that harm users; some new platforms have popped up and shaken up the map of the internet; some platforms are being torn apart brick by brick by owners who don't care about the users. It kind of seems like people are actually looking up and realizing that advertising is A) bad and B) doesn't actually work and I think we're running straight toward another advertising-based crash like we saw in 2017. It feels like all the desperate things that tumblr is doing is just rearranging deck chairs on the titanic as the internet as a whole starts to sink into the ocean.

Honestly, I don't think it's that bad. I think it *feels* bad, but I think we're looking at a slow whimpering death of the platforms, not a bang. I think tumblr is going to hang on at least for a few years and I think it's going to end up like livejournal and myspace, which both still exist as websites that are recognizable as updated versions of the sites they were in 2004-2010. The thing that I think would really, honestly hurt tumblr in a fundamental way is if it moved to a more algorithmic and data-sales based model of advertising, and I think that's still pretty distant. I think Automattic is aware that killing the chronological feed would be the one unforgivable sin that would cause a mass exodus and a final crash, and I think when we see that, when we can't just scroll through the feed and see what our friends did that day in order of when they did it, that's when the party is over here.

But that's still not answering your question.

So, where do we go? What do we do? Well, for now, I'd say it's a good time to get contact info for your friends across various platforms. Get email addresses, get phone numbers.

Now is also the time for you to set up a personal website. NeoCities is currently the best place to do this, though it takes a lot more effort than just starting a blog on tumblr. I think that various oldschool blogging sites like Wordpress and Blogger/Blogspot/whatever the hell the google one is are a better place to have your emergency backup than a more platform-y platform if you aren't up to doing something with NeoCities.

If you've got the ability to do so and a group of people who are interested in the same core subject, set up a forum. There's a decent amount of off-the-shelf forum software out there and a text-and-small-images forum isn't prohibitively expensive, but it's never going to be huge and you're never going to have the kind of spread and virality and random connections that you would on a platform with millions or billions of users.

If you can't set up a forum, setting up or joining a discord server for your friends is a decent enough option at the moment, and may be a very good option for people who are looking to keep their interactions more private.

But yeah i think right now is a great time for people to start setting up their own personal websites, to start visiting actual webpages again, to start bookmarking their friends' websites, and to start collecting contact info that isn't tied to platforms.

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bsd-fan · 1 year

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Dazai osamu: Evolution

In a lot of ways this is where my Dazai analysis will really start, this is going to be insanely long so be prepared. It also has spoilers of the manga, anime, and most of the light novels.

I’ve talked about how is a mistake to measure Dazai’s character growth in terms of morality, because that has never been the main point of his characterization. Being a “good” or a “Bad” person is not as important as the fandom makes it to be. Dazai is unapologetically a morally grey character and he will always be. However, this doesn’t mean that Dazai hasn’t changed.

He has and it goes far beyond him changing into a boring trench coat and calling himself a detective. He has changed so fundamentally speaking that I’d go and say that right now is the most developed character in this area and the thing that make this even more surprising is that his character growth has not finished yet. He keeps evolving.

To understand this let’s start analyzing him chronologically:

Fifteen year old Dazai is probably the lowest we’ve ever seen Dazai. Starting fifteen, Dazai is showed to us as someone who genuinely wants to die, he is /not/ attempting suicide as a joke, is not a comedic relief. Fifteen year old Dazai wants to die with a desperation that borders on madness. He is so tired of living, so bored of life and the people that surround him, about how predictable they are, about how easy is to manipulate them, there’s not a thing in this world that can surprise him, he is living in this permanent state of numbness. He is completely lonely in a world that will never be able to understand him. And let me make a pause to talk about the fact that it has been /heavily/ implied that Dazai was living in this situation for a long time. People loves to blame Mori for Dazai’s personality but this is simply and canonically speaking not true.

Dazai has already formed most of his worse personality traits by the time Mori found him. Let me remind you that they met when Mori saved Dazai’s life /after/ he attempted suicide at fourteen. Fandom loves to act as Dazai was a perfectly healthy kid that Mori ruined when that’s not true. Mori made it worse, yes. But he wasn’t the cause of it.

“Miscalculation.

You misjudged the situation, he told himself. You failed to pick the optimal solution. You shouldn’t have chosen this child to help you. Dazai is unpredictable. He can be sharp but in a dark, twisted way. He’s observant. He’s cold and calculating with no equivalent even in the mafia, where the most evil reside”- Mori about Dazai, ligh novel fifteen.

I will talk about this more depth in another essay about Soukoku and the mafia but this is important to aknowledge. Dazai was like this even /before/ Mori’s influence, Mori was scared of him even when Dazai was just a child because he saw how deeply disconnected from his humanity he was. How cruel, cold and calculating he could be.

So going back to the main idea, at this point of the story, Dazai is already numb, manipulative, and machiavellian, he doesn’t trust in anyone and his only real connection is with Mori that looks at him like a convenient weapon to wield. But the most important trait of Dazai at this age? Is how deeply apathetic Dazai is to everything. At this stage of life Dazai lives in a pure nihilism, he doesn’t believe in /anything/, he conceives life as completely meaningless, he doesn’t see a point in existing when there’s no a reason for it. It’s so bad that it’s funny. Mori knows about the /raw/ potential in Dazai, about how valuable he can be as a tool but he can’t use him because Dazai is so unmotivated that he simply doesn’t give a damn about anything. He is a genius and he only uses his intellect to try to kill himself. He can’t be bothered with anything else, even breathing is an annoying task and a waste of effort and then…this happens:

I’m not pointing this out as a soukoku shipper because this is not even a soukoku analysis, this is all about Dazai. People will always talk about Fifteen importance for chuuya, but fifteen was also fundamental in Dazai’s arc.

Cold and apathetic Dazai was literally kicked in the face by his biggest narrative foil. Chuuya who is loud, and ridiculously emotional, who can’t for the life of him hide his expressions, who is a terrible liar, impulsive, pathologically loyal to the point of idiocy, and so fucking full of vitality, so hungry for life. And so /unbearable human/. And then Dazai gets annoyed, and surprised, and out of nowhere he is screaming at the top of his lungs, showing /emotion/, he is curious, he is intrigued. He went from saying that breathing is such a hassle to fucking throwing a party and singing happily while he, in person, decorates, he even got a cake for fuck’s sake.

He doesn’t understand chuuya, he is curious about the sheep dynamics and as the story progresses we realize that this is probably the first time that Dazai fucks up, he failed to predict a situation, he didn’t saw it coming.

He wasn’t able to realize that Chuuya was Arahabaki, he didn’t even thought about that possibility. Because since the first moment, he never thought that chuuya could be something else than human. He didn’t saw Rimbaud coming because the idea of a person going that far for someone else? Is ridiculous, it doesn’t make sense, is illogical. It’s not how people are supposed to act.

“-So it’s all for your partner-Dazai said listlessly- Betraying the mafia, spreading rumors about the old boss’s resurrection, this fight we’re in now…it’s kind of hard to believe, to be honest

-Maybe for a slimeball like you it is- Chuuya scoffed. He looked up at Randou- Throwing everything away for your friends is a perfectly respectable reason to risk your life if you ask me”- Dazai and chuuya, fifteen years old. (Pause to scream about how much I love chuuya, help)

So basically every thing that happened in fifteen leads to this:

And this guys, is one of the angular stones in Dazai’s development.

“The boy’s eyes were as clear as the sky on a sunny day; they lacked any shred of trepidation. This was not something earned, for only those determined to live could possess their heavenly blue sparkle”- about Dazai, fifteen.

This is the /only/ moment in the entirety of the series where Dazai not only doesn’t want to die, but that he /actively/ is looking towards life. The only moment in all bsd, Dazai is excited at the perspective of living. Fifteen is so important because this is the first time, Dazai’s view of life is challenged. Dazai was wrong. He made mistakes. People are not as predictable and boring as he thought. Dazai doesn’t suddenly start thinking that life has meaning, but he starts thinking that it /may/ exist, he just hasn’t found it yet.

This scene makes a radical switch in Dazai’s character because his primary goal changed from wanting to die to finding a reason to live.

In fifteen Dazai found hope, and everything that came after is possible because of this.

And it’s logical to an extent. He doesn’t understand life, but maybe if he understands death he can come closer to understand it. People always lie but when they are about to die? People become genuine, pretensions disappear, what do you cling to when you don’t have anything? When you’re dying, why do you keep fighting? If he can understand this, then maybe he can understand the sense in life. Maybe he can connect with his own desires and emotions. Maybe he can find his own reason to exist.

Unfortunately this doesn’t last.

By stormbringer, Dazai falls into despair once again, he goes back to looking for his death.

“Dazai glanced back at him, perhaps amused by this, then he muttered as if he was talking to himself. -I couldn’t find anything in the end’- Dazai osamu, stormbringer

“It seems true that he wants to die. It seems that all the value standards of living reflected in his eyes are just as worthless and ugly as scrap iron”- Oda about Dazai, The day I picked up Dazai osamu side A, translated by poppopretty

For a long time, I thought that was the culmination of Dazai’s development as a character. He went from wanting to die to trying to find a reason to live, he struggles but he is trying.

I was wrong.

Chuuya solves his main conflict in stormbringer, Dazai doesn’t. To understand this, we need to understand that one the main themes in Bungou stray dogs is existentialism.

In simple (extremely simple) words existentialism can be defined as: “ the philosophical belief we are each responsible for creating purpose or meaning in our own lives”. Which means that in a way existentialism also understands that life can be meaningless, that maybe there’s not a big purpose in existence BUT that doesn’t have to mean that it has to stay that way. Existentialism defends that people can find their own purpose and maybe is not something big, it may be not life changing for others, but is something people cling to and that’s enough to give sense to the world. I will be talking more in depth about this in chuuya’s analysis but right now the important thing is to understand that this is not enough for Dazai.

He /needs/ a bigger purpose, a better answer, something objective and logical, something that can’t be debated. Because if it’s not, then Dazai’s genius mind will pick on that and he will once again be drown in desperation. Dazai needs an absolute answer.

Enter oda, the catalyst of Dazai’s next biggest arc as a character. But first let’s understand sixteen year old Dazai’s perspective of live, shall we?

“- you said it is foolish to die, right? So here is my question. If dying is foolish, then why do we have to die?

(…)

-So, you mean life is not something to regret?

-No, it is worse than that. Even though we are all promised death, from the beginning, all human beings were born with a present desire called “I don’t want to die”. This is also one hundred percent true. That is why, that desire will never be fulfilled”- The day I picked up Dazai Osamu, transplanted by poppypretty

So, to summarize Dazai can’t understand what’s the point in living if by the end there’s no real point in it. There’s nothing there, there’s not a reason to suffer so much because that’s what he is doing. He is suffering. He is all alone, feeling like an alien in a world of humans, just using a mask and trying to hide how really inhuman and empty he is behind all of that and for what? The world is senseless. Worse than that, there are not a lot of things he cares about but when he finds something worth preserving, he loses it. Dazai is in a horrible situation because his intelligence alienates him and isolates him from other people but it’s not enough to win against the senseless of life. He lives at edge, trying to predict and control everything to protect himself and the things important to him, he purposefully goes along with the alienation and isolates himself more thus going farther from his humanity, and at the end is worthless. Because it doesn’t matter how intelligent he is, is still not enough, he will never be able to control everything, he will never be able to predict everything with 100% of accuracy because life doesn’t work in that way, is all about chaos. And Dazai can’t deal with that.

Time passes, by eighteen years old, Dazai in a lot of ways gets worse. He is the “Demon prodigy” destructive, cruel, a master in torture and his mental state continues to get worse and worse but funnily enough he is still standing and that’s thanks to two things:

1) the hope he found at fifteen and never let him. Yes, Dazai goes back to wanting to die because life sometimes becomes unbearable but his goal is still to find a reason to live. And that didn’t changed.

2) his friends. Odasaku, Ango and Lupin bar are important things for Dazai. He is still lonely but it’s a little better

Then everything goes to shit.

But I want you to understand this. After Oda decides to die, Dazai tries to stop him and this is what he says:

“-Find something to rely on. Expect good things to happen from here on out. There’s gotta be something…Hey Odasaku, do you know why I joined the mafia? (…) I joined the mafia because of an expectation I had. I thought if I was close to death and violence-close to people giving in to their urges and desires, then I would be able to see the inner nature of humankind up close. I thought if I did that…I would be able to find something-a reason to live”- Dazai Osamu, Dark era.

This is frankly tragic, because just as I said in previous analysis. Dazai’s worse trait, the real cause of all his suffering is his complete lack of self awareness. His main problem is not his lack of understanding of life, is the lack of understanding of himself. He thinks that understanding human at their most basic, desperate state will make him understand better humankind and that ultimately will make him closer to his humanity. But that’s not how it works. He can’t just watch from afar and expect that to be enough. Dazai needs to connect with himself, even the worse parts of himself, even the parts he doesn’t want to see instead of covering them up, he needs to let himself bond with other people, he needs to connect with his own emotions and desires. He needs to leave his overly complex ideas behind, to go down from the high horse he is in, to stop with the omniscient being act that aggravate his isolation and alienation, the things that ultimately make him perceive himself as something inhuman. He needs to accept that at the end of the day he is just human, just like the rest of the world and he is just as powerless as them.

Now let’s go to arguably Dazai’s most important scene as a character: Odasaku’s death

People love to make this scene about soukoku and it’s fucking ridiculous.

People will take this scene and put it as evidence for the “Chuuya’s always the second choice” theory that they came up with (even if the whole theory is fucking ) but specifically this? Dazai leaving the mafia? Has nothing to do with chuuya. It’s part of his /individual/ character development and exactly what it should be.

Let’s start analyzing it

Dazai arrives and Oda is dying, he is desperate to save him even when he know is too late and the Odasaku says something. And this, this guys is what ultimately leads to Dazai’s character growth.

“-you told me if you put yourself in a world of violence and bloodshed, you might be able to find a reason to live (…) you won’t find it-Odasaku said in an almost whisper. Dazai stared at him- You should know that. Whether you’re on the side that takes lives or the side that saves them, nothing beyond your own expectations will happen. Nothing in this world can fill the hole that is your loneliness. You will wander the darkness for eternity”

“ That was when Dazai first realized: Sakunosuke oda understood him much more than he’d ever imagined- right up to his very heart, almost to the center of his mind. Dazai didn’t realize until then that someone had known him so well. For the first time in his life, Dazai wanted from the bottom oh his heart to know something. He asked the man before him:

-Odasaku, What should I do-“- Odasaku and Dazai osamu, Dark era

This is the most important scene for Dazai. He has always been lonely, he has always lived with the knowledge that it doesn’t matter how much he tries, no one will ever able to understand him but then just minutes before oda’s death he realizes he was wrong. To say that he left the mafia for oda is as inexact as saying that he decided to live for chuuya. It’s simply not true. He was heavily influenced by both of them but at the end of the day it was for himself.

“People live to save themselves”

I’ve say it before but this sentence is the core of bsd. If you want to analyze a character in this series, not matter who, you need to start by this quote. Dazai is not the exception to it.

He joined the mafia trying to find his own salvation, to get closer to his humanity, to find his reason for living, to find answers and he left because he realized it was useless. He always knew in a way, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave because this was his only chance, the mafia was his only hope, was the only thing he was clinging to. Even in his worst moments, Dazai still clung to the idea that he would find what he was looking for. But then, while dying oda talks to him and he realizes that there was someone who understood. Someone who knew about his pain, someone who understood his desperation, someone who looked through the mask and realized how utterly broken he was. And thing is, he failed, he tried the logical option and he found nothing but then maybe oda, oda who knows him best, oda who probably understands him better that he understand himself can tell him what to do. That’s why Dazai is so desperate in this scene, asking what to do. Because this is a new chance, there’s new hope. What Oda said might sound horrible but it was exactly what Dazai needed to hear and is the reason I was wrong.

Dazai doesn’t read as a character who went from wanting to die to wanting to find a reason to live.

Because to begin with, what Dazai was looking for was completely unreachable because it doesn’t exist. He can be looking for a reason to live all his life and he won’t find it because there’s not an absolute answer. There is not a bigger motive. The world really is senseless, that’s how it is. And Dazai needed to understand that. That’s why oda tells him to forget all about that silly hope. Because is useless.

“Be on the side that saves people. If both sides are the same, then choose to become a good person. Save the weak, protect the orphaned. You might not see a great difference between right and wrong, but…saving others is something just a bit more wonderful”- Oda Sakunosuke, dark era.

But that doesn’t mean than living is worthless

And this is how we come to Dazai’s real change as character. Dazai goes from nihilism, to a failed attempt of existentialism to absurdism.

Absurdism is the philosophical theory that existence in general is absurd, meaning that the world lacks meaning or a higher purpose. It also refers to the discrepancy between two things such as: the conflict as a colission between a rational man in an irrational world. In simple words, absurdism refers to the struggle of the man to find sense in a senseless world and we can see the mental impact of this struggle in the form of existential crises (yes, just like Dazai) Okay so I swear this made perfect sense in my own language, I’m gonna try as best as I can to explain it in English. Absurdism is different from existentialism because it doesn’t think that you can find a sense in the world, it really defends that not matter what you do, you will never find anything, that it doesn’t matter what you cling to in the great scheme of things it still means nothing, and in a way this need to find a sense in life will lead to more chaos BUT it also defends that you have to keep living despite that, maybe out of pure spite of it. Things doesn’t need to make sense to be worthy.

Absurdism says that there are three options to deal with this problem

Suicide: the pure desperation of trying to reach something that doesn’t exist will lead to the rejection of life. But this is not the correct answer (Cough, young Dazai, cough)

Religion: trying to cope, clinging to the idea that there’s a higher purpose. (Cough, Fyodor, Cough)

Rebellion against the absurd: which is the right answer, the individual needs to learn to accept the absurdity of the world and of his own existence but keep opposing to it. Which means, that the individual keeps living clinging to little things that may not have sense, but that are still worthy and valuable. In even simpler terms, absurdism says “do what you have to do to stop from killing yourself, not matter how stupid that thing is”

Cadmus explained it even better using this example:

You all know about Sisyphus, right? If not is basically this man that was punished by the gods. The punishment consisted of rolling a massive rock up a hill, but it doesn’t matter how hard he tried, at the end of the day, once the rock reached the top it would roll down again. So it was a completely senseless punishment. Not matter how Sisyphus tried he could never win against the absurdity of it. And this also happens with human lives, we do meaningless things all the time, knowing that at the end we will die. Not matter what we do, if we end up as vagabonds or if we find the cure against cancer, the result is still the same, we will all die, so everything we do in life is pointless. BUT Cadmus said that you still can’t give up. Because at the end, sisyphus needs to stop caring about something that he can’t change, the result will always be the same but the important thing is the instant of happiness when he comes close to finishing his job. The moment when the rock reaches the top? seconds before it rolls down, that satisfaction? Is what life is really about. And that’s exactly what Dazai is trying to do right now.

He won’t find sense in life, but being in the ADA is a little more beautiful and that alone is reason enough to be there. Maybe he is not a good person, maybe he doesn’t understand morals but he is with people he has come to appreciate in a better environment doing something that he enjoys more and that’s enough.

There’s this omake in bsd that shows a conversation between Atsushi and Dazai. And Atsushi asks Dazai, why he is in the ADA because someone as intelligent as Dazai can surely find a job with better pay, and Dazai looks at him and tell him that it’s true, but he is fine where he is because he likes to use his brain to help people. That guys, is absurdism right there, Dazai acknowledges that it may not makes sense but he likes what he does and that’s enough.

This change has been gradual and Dazai still struggles with it. He still has problems with the idea of letting things go, he still is a manipulative bastard and that will never change, because at this point is just a part of his personality, he still is trying to control everything but at the same time he also is ready to accept that sometime you just don’t have the answers and that’s part of humanity. This is one of my favorite panels on earth:

Dazai is trying to convince kyouka of living, to choose to do something different from the things she’s good at, if that what makes her happy. This is one of the few scenes Dazai accepts that he is not omniscient, that there are no answers for all the questions, and that we are all a little lost because of it. This is also the first time Dazai is not in desperation while saying it. His growth is not about becoming a good person, he still does horrible things, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t changed. To accept that life is senseless but it still is worthy, to accept that he can’t control everything but the possibilities of it are not necessarily something to be afraid but opportunities? /That’s/ his character growth

This whole arc is a masterpiece because it highlights Dazai’s growth. He is against Fyodor, who in a lot of ways is just like him but at their core they are completely different.

This hands down is my favorite Dazai’s panel because is all about his growth. Because he can see what Fyodor doesn’t. Fyodor see himself as a god, Dazai doesn’t because he knows that it doesn’t matter if they are pulling the strings, they are still isolated and alienated from everything, the people that really is moving the world is the one out there, the people that jumps even when they don’t know if they will be caught. The people that don’t know half of what they know but still are able to move in the middle of the uncertainty. And that’s something that neither Fyodor nor Dazai are able to do. But Dazai is no longer in pain because of that, he now understands the problem and is trying his best to overcome it. Dazai stopped resenting the world for being senseless and illogical and is learning to accept it and just adapt as best as he can to it. To give everything for the people he cares about even when there’s no guarantee that it will end well, but Dazai is trying and that’s what matters.

I really wish I had the time to make a better analysis but I don’t. Even then, I wanted to share my pure love and admiration to this character. Dazai is so beautifully written and by far the most complex character in this whole story, all of his development as a character is simply fascinating and the way Asagiri is writing him right now has me screaming and running in circles.

#bsd #bungou stray dogs #dazai bsd #dazai osamu #soukoku #skk #dazai analysis #bsd spoilers #this is annoyingly long

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demigod-of-the-agni · 7 months

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any cool desi books/media to recommend??

Okay to be fair I am not the biggest consumer of desi media HOWEVER. I have a few niche favourites (some of them come from my research for my Major Work in my final year in high school but here's a quick list):

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri - god this entire book changed me fundamentally. It was like watching my own life play in fast-forward and getting hit in places I didn't want to be hit. if you are a first-generation desi in a western country, you will be on the ground sobbing

If You See Me, Don't Say Hi by Neel Patel - a collection of short stories that methodically break down some of the most subtle and pervasive stereotypes within desi cultures. I've only ever had time to read the first two stories but I'm hoping to get the full book someday

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhump Lahiri - an anthology I read for my senior year as well. Another one of this heart-wrenching pieces that just resonate with me like damn.

The Aru Shah series by Roshani Chokshi - it's Percy Jackson But Make It Desi and honestly such a fun read!! Reading about the Potatoes (this is what the reincarnated Pandavas call themselves not joking) is always bound to make my day

The Age of Kalki series by Vishwas Mudagal - I read this purely for inspiration on my own original novel, and it was fun to use for comparisons for research and my writing. Also, spy stuff and action and all that

The Spider-Man: India comics - hey, desi stuff is desi stuff, and I enjoy anything that has my boy Pavitr in it (I'll enjoy it even more when @/marvelentertainment hires me to write him a book)

The Ms. Marvel show and comics - in Iman Vellani we trust 🙏 also my girl has such a wonderful variety of comics like. she's so cool. i love her. hoping that Iman does a masterful job as she writes Kamala's newest comic

18 Days by Grant Morrison - listen. there is a 2015 graphic novel and there is a 2010 artbook for the 2015 book. They are both the same thing: a retelling of the Mahabharata but make it electronic/futuristic. Read the graphic novel for the story, but I HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend the 2010 artbook as well because my god the ART is just gorgeous. It obviously provides insight on the creation of Morrison's 2015 book but god it is just. so so sooooo good. Mukesh Singh is a beautiful artist I need to have his art tattooed on me

Any desi movies from the 90s-00s - my experience with tamil movies in that time period have always been good ones!! They're chill, they're funny, they're silly, they're romantic, they're thrilling. literally all of my favourite song come from this period (don't disregard movies from later periods either, I watched Brahmastra a few months back and it was lit as fuck).

English translations of popular desi stories - and these stories can be anything. from ye old prevailing Ramayana and Mahabharata to anything written by contemporary desi authors. They've got a lot to share

On a side note me complaining to my desi friends that I want good tamil representation in western media often led to me getting smacked in the face with Never Have I Ever (by my DESI friends! who say it is very good!!) and i just want to say no. don't watch that. as a tamil person living in a western country, i apologise for who Devi Vishwakumar is as a person. i will personally pay for your therapy (has only watched two episodes and was immediately turned off)

I'm giving y'all a whole day to ask me whatever

#agni of wisdom #me when. me when i don't engage with desi stuff outside of funny tamil musicals #you can very much tell that most of the stuff is india-centric. and like. yeah. i'm sorry. i haven't really delved into desi media-#-in other countries aside for some research. india is not the only south asian country and i absolutely recognise the fact that i should-#-probably widen my horizons #MARVEL HIRE ME PLS 🙏🙏🙏 I CAN MAKE PAVITR SOOOO POPULAR YOU HAVE NO IDEA 🤪⚡ (<- delusional)#desi media recs #desi #desi books #desi tumblr #me having no idea what desi tags to use lmfao

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jacksoldsideblog · 6 months

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can you talk a bit more about the self destruction aspect of fight club?

Yeah sure!

Fight club hits this interesting destructive nexus of nihilism, anarchy, marxist alienation, anti consumerism, and male sociology.

Starting with the marxist alienation bit; the fundamental underpinning of the novel is essentially that the narrator's job and society has driven him insane. He is part of a machine that trades human lives for inconsequential profit. His job is supposed to be about protecting people but instead it's about damning them. All his coworkers seem fine with this. He is getting away with it. His company is getting away with it. He is firmly aware of just how much his job and other jobs like his are accepted and accomadated for. He has no control over himself as a cog in the system. He knows he cannot actually stop what's occuring. He would just be replaced. The company would get away with it in the end. Ford Pinto. Etc.

This is inherently distressing. People don't naturally wish to do that. He sees no fruit of his labor beyond enabling death.

This alienation is common, and consumerism is given as a balm for all the post-industrial foie gras in the making in industrialized countries. Don't worry, all that angst and discomfort can be solved by buying things. Buy things. It will make you feel better. Buy things. It'll make you a better person. Buy things. It's a measure of success.

Nevermind that you're a feedlot for corporate profit.

This, too, chafes at the end of the day. Frankly, it develops this hate for the world that is like this, and for him, being a part of it. He finds everything including himself repulsive.

He, quite literally, can't sleep at night because of how fucked all of it is.

So what do you do? Honestly. How can you change it? Can you change it? Is it worth trying to fix?

It all feels meaningless. It feels pointless. It feels cruel.

In the 90s especially, there was a huge nihilistic push. I think it's important to consider ideological shifts like these in the framework of "how does this benefit the ruling class?"

nihilism has two thoughts on it, rejection and acceptance of nietzschian affirmation of life. do you reject and turn away from the world for its atrocities? do you embrace its horrors?

Fight Club, like most things, has a bit of both. Reject the world. Embrace the ugliness. Stew in your own shit.

But still, you still know it's all going on. You want to kill that corpse you're all rotting under.

Your reaction to this omnipresent pain of society is in very large part influenced by society itself. And society says, I'm indestructable. The shadow of history leans too large. You can't escape me.

And society teaches men, embrace destruction. Violence, war. Your ability to hurt is what makes you strong, full people. Your ability to destroy outweighs your ability to create — if you create, it's so you have absolute power to destroy.

So with abject hopelessness and a profound lack of creation instilled by society, he turns to destruction. Of himself, of society, of the burden of history.

He finds himself prone to anarchism, because his rebellion is based in the destruction of now and before, not the creation of a better future.

Even though, at heart, this is all a protest of the cruelty of this society against people, he finds himself unable to hate. Misanthropy, the easy drug, the one you are led to because it makes you far less effective at enacting change in society.

And misanthropy says hating people and especially yourself is good. Great even. And the rest of your burgeoning philosophy says, destroy. Destroy the past. Destroy now. Destroy your future.

So he goes and goes, until Tyler isn't real and he's about to blow up a building to destroy the burden of history, or blow up building to destroy credit scores, and he's kinda doing that martyr thing. Because he doesn't really have anything to live for, his idea of a future is vague and unrealistic. Because he's doing this to destroy.

But he stops it all.

And with the book, he realizes that we arent all simmering sacks of shit, not snowflakes either. We just are.

Misanthropy was useless. Destruction was useless.

Anyway, in my opinion it's just a very good ride of how these thought processes can interlock and feed each other to render your rebellion and anguish useless. Most of us won't try to bomb buildings of course, but this sort of mentality is actually extremely common. You see it a lot in environmentalism and climate change talk, which makes it so interesting to me that it's in the book too a bit. Again, that burden of history, that longing for destruction of unwanted responsibility.

It's a cautionary tale of sorts. Honestly I consider one of the biggest 'morals' of fight club to be; reject misanthropy. Don't hate thy neighbor. Try to build something.

The narrator isn't a cautionary tale against feeling that alienation and anger at society. It's just about, don't let it push you into making it worse. Don't lose sight of wanting something better.

#asks #fight club #what a ramble haha #i think you get the idea though

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slightlyaggressiveaffirmations · 1 year

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So, Slightly Aggressive Affirmer, what's your whole deal?

Great question, Clive.

(Sorry, I thought you were some sort of chat show host called Clive. Let me readjust my worldview)

Great question, friends. Why did I write Aggressive Affirmations in a consistently reliable, ritual manner for 5 years and then stop doing it and constantly keep coming back and promising to start again and never making good on it?

Well. There are actually 3 answers to that question.

Answer #1

To begin with, let's reposition our worldview - just as we did with Clive. Now, let's change the way we see me, The Slightly Aggressive Affirmer. What if we put a new filter over me - we'll call it the "Autism Filter". I haven't got the money to go through the diagnosis process but it's looking pretty likely.

With that filter on, look again at my being absolutely focused on writing affirmations for 5 years and then stopping to suddenly focus obsessively on my research work for the next 2 or 3 - except for the two months I took off to sit on the porch every single day and write a medieval romance novel.

Now I want to get back into affirming again and I try to - I still feel it's important and I keep saying to myself I'll do it - but I just don't have that obsessive drive to do it anymore.

I think if we look at this with the autism filter, it starts to paint a pretty clear picture of what might be going on here...

Answer #2

It became more and more difficult, and more high stakes to write affirmations, as the number of followers kept growing. There are now 15000 - although who knows how many of you are still on Tumblr? But that's a lot of responsibility and it became very stressful to keep making sure SAAs are for everyone and that no one feels excluded by them (excepting people who should always be excluded, like Nazis). When it was just a few random people reading affirmations, it was much easier to chuck in a few and whatever. But the more the blog grew, the greater the stress.

Answer #3

I started writing Slightly Aggressive Affirmations for myself. I was the only one following the blog and it was set to send ME reminders of my own value - in the kind of aggressive language necessary to get through to me - because I was extremely low on confidence and needed real force to get it in to my head. But then things snowballed.

Thing is - I don't need them any more. It's harder to think of the kinds of things I should write, because I know longer need them myself. I have Slightly Aggressively Affirmed myself to a really great place, in terms of my self confidence and self love. I still have bipolar, and right now my life isn't going so great, so I get depressed but I do not believe fundamentally, at my core, that I am bullshit trash.

My primary emotion nowadays is possibly worse! I'm driven by anger a lot of the time - I've got a lot of deep rage, caused by long ago trauma. (I'm in therapy, don't worry). But I think most people would agree that I'm a fundamentally different person to who I was pre-pandemic. I'll tell you more about it some time. But I am drastically different - and definitely more than SLIGHTLY aggressive most of the time.

In conclusion, I believe affirming used to be an autistic special interest of mine and now it is not - but I'd love to make it one again! Especially now my two-year long, 65 000 word research project is finished. But it's much harder to get back to where I was, because the number of followers I have now is different, Tumblr is different and I am hugely different as a person.

Thankyou for reading this short essay/memoir. I'll see what I can do about a little affirming tomorrow.

Always remember that YOU MATTER!!! YOU ARE IMPORTANT!!! YOU ARE THE ONLY FUCKING YOU IN THE WHOLE DAMN WORLD!!! THINK ABOUT HOW FUCKING MAGICAL THAT IS!!!

#admin note

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witchofthesouls · 2 years

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Following up on that take about TFP Megatron, this is something I’ve wanted to talk about for awhile. When Optimus became amnesiac after the battle with Unicron and went back to Orion Pax, did anyone else notice the strange, tenderness and delicateness of their relationship? Especially with Megatron being so uncharacteristically patient with Orion?

it could be Megatron just manipulating Orion or me reaching as a MegOP shipper, but I think when Orion came back, so did Megatron’s feelings for him.

Megatron hates Optimus prime, but he loves Orion Pax. And I think if he could, he’d get rid of the former and keep the latter.

What’s your take?

I think it can swing one way or the other or even both. Megatronus/D-16 and Orion Pax had forged an alliance among the lower classes and like-minded individuals to bring change to the dying and oppressive state of the Golden Age of Cybertron.

The Decepticons were dangerous. Not in violent acts, but what they represented. Fundamental and irreversible change to the status quo of Functionism. That mecha should not be corralled and defined by their own functions, determined by their frames. (Which makes me kinda side-eye the advertisements that Megatron enjoys My Little Pony, but that’s a different story.)

When Ratchet recalls the events that led up to the War, he says, "It was here that [Megatronus] begins to reveal his true colors." But we should also take into consideration of Ratchet’s biases and that he’s an unreliable narrator; he describes a young Orion Pax finding out the corruption and inequality through his work in the Iacon Hall of Records and being moved to mentor the miner-turned-gladiator. In the Aligned novels, Orion hailed directly from the Wastelands, outside the safety from the walls of a city-state, the guy didn’t even understand Neocybex or whatever language the city-dwellers used.

I’ve seen takes with Orion being very ignorant by his own high-caste status and was mainly pushed by his own innate goodness and idealism, but I have yet to see takes on Orion’s unique position being from the absolute boonies and snatched up by Alpha Trion. I mean, you’re telling me that a very respectable individual in a very important position adopts a literal feral barbarian man/child and no one makes a comment? I don’t think so!!

Ratchet has his own ingrained prejudices: it’s shown how he speaks about the locals on Earth and how he dismisses Bulkhead not being a scientist as well as how all the Autobots fell apart when their Prime was taken away from them.

So back to Ratchet’s recall: the Autobots view Megatron as the megamanic that doomed their society, but the Decepticons view him as their liberator from chains.

Megatronus demanding to be named the next Prime is a power move on his part. Not in a way to consolidate absolute power, but it puts the old guard in a really tough position. The massive crowd against them won’t be swayed by pretty words or empty promises, but like Pits, they’re going to validate the uprise with the holiest of relics. Personally, I truly believe that the Senate endorsed Orion to break the revolution and its base.

I also think that Megatronus and Orion, while on the same team for a better, had played cards too close to their sparks, and believed the other mech to betray the cause. I mean, he wasn’t kidding that Orion would have made a great Decepticon, but there arise so many misunderstandings from this.

Honestly, the whole thing is really damn tragic when it’s broken down.

Megatron is really tsundere when you think about it. For all of his harshness, he does care, deep, deep down.

Why else would he demand sets of partners on missions after MECH got Breakdown? Why else the Vehicons were color-coded after he latched a car off the deck of an air-bound Nemesis? Why else he kept taking back Starscream?

Optimus-to-Orion brought out some of Megatron’s past before the wretched meeting, but he still manipulates the situation to keep him in the dark: decode the library and how Cybertron became a wasteland.

Megatron is not Megatronus/D-16, just as Optimus is not Orion Pax. They are very two different people shaped by what happened. If anything, it just hammers the tragedy of what happened.

#ask #transformers #transformers prime #tfp #optimus prime #optimus #orion pax #megatron #cybertronian culture #my thoughts #I thought they both played their cards without telling the other #maybe they thought to salvage to the situation #too bad they couldn't talk #I have had many thoughts regarding this okay?!#maccadam #tf headcanons #ratchet

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veilchenjaeger · 2 years

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considering each of the mxtx main pairings, which do you think would be most fun as a f/f ship, and please also talk about why (and what, if anything, changes about the dynamics)

Excellent question that I'm not yet fully qualified to answer bc I still haven't read the entirety of TGCF - but I'm pretty sure that my opinion on this won't change even once I have. I just think that the objectively correct answer here is Bingqiu.

I mean, from what I've gathered from the first 2.5 volumes of TGCF, F/F Hualian is like... partly canon anyways, due to the general gender stuff TGCF gods seem to have going on. And Wangxian would be interesting mostly due to the fact that the MDZS universe seems to be the most sexist one out of MXTX's universes, but I'm personally a little tired of Narratives About Historical Sexism. I'm absolutely deeply in love with fem!Xie Lian and Lan Wangji and I would let both fem!Hua Cheng and the Yiling Matriarch step on me, but the thing is.

Bingqiu.

BINGQIU. F/F Bingqiu fucks so hard! LIKE. OKAY. The thing about Scum Villain is that this story happens on approximately five different layers. You have the actual "reality" of what is happening in Scum Villain, including the emotions and experiences of the characters, but this "reality" is also shaped by the fact that it's a novel, and a particular genre of novel (a stallion novel at first and a danmei novel later on). There is a meta level built into the story. On top of that, you have the additional layer of the original PIDW plot, which again is driven by the conventions of its genre. These are all layers Shen Qingqiu is aware of! But there's ALSO the world Shen Yuan and Airplane are from, and their experiences in that world, including the tropes they know of and the internet they interact with, direct their actions in the world of PIDW as well as the way PIDW itself was written. And then there's obviously the actual meta level, the one that we and MXTX are on, where MXTX writes trope subversions and commentary on webnovel genres and internet culture that we as readers can pick up on. I love Scum Villain.

Anyways, all that means that if you change something as fundamental to the narrative as the gender of its main characters (bc gender dynamics are pretty damn important for a story that is in part about male power fantasies), you have to adjust every single one of those layers. Which I think is dope.

Luo Binghe has a lot of character traits, but on the first meta level, Luo Binghe is primarily the protagonist! So if Luo Binghe is a woman, PIDW can't be a stallion novel. What, then, is PIDW? I think there are a bunch of different options, and every single one creates a slightly different dynamic! Additionally, every single one creates a very slightly different Shen Yuan, AND - and this is vitally important to me - every single one creates different commentary on the second meta level. Subversion and commentary are such a huge part of what Scum Villain is (and what Bingqiu are) that I, at least, want that layer to stay intact in this AU.

I've talked about this before, I think, but I want to talk about it more. Scum Villain is in part about the effects male power fantasies have on men! If PIDW were a reverse harem novel targeted at straight women, for example, Scum Villain might be about the effects female power fantasies have on women! You'd have Luo Binghe, who can have everything she wants bc she's the protagonist, but whose life has to be centred around romances with various men. I'd love to read a deconstruction of the reverse harem genre, bc it's such an alienating type of story for me as a lesbian - like, this type of female power fantasy hinges on the protagonist being attractive and attracted to men; it's unimaginable to have a classic female power fantasy without a romance with a man! On the other hand, PIDW as an erotic novel targeted at men would create so much fun commentary on sapphic sexuality. That's probably my favourite version of F/F Bingqiu, so I'm picking that dynamic to talk about in-depth:

Shen Yuan, in this, hate-reads a bad porn novel where the badass female protagonist - her favourite - is objectified and over-sexualised on every second page and exists to be masturbation material for the primarily straight male audience. I imagine that she writes a lot of rants in the comment section about how sexist PIDW is and how Luo Binghe would be an exceptional female character if she weren't the protagonist of a porn novel.

Luo Binghe, protagonist of a porn novel, after the Abyss starts to utilise her looks and her sexuality to make her way to the top. In the Scum Villain setting, of course, she's however deeply in love with Shen Qingqiu, who unfortunately is the only person her seduction techniques don't work on – because Shen Qingqiu is horribly attracted to Luo Binghe, but can’t detach her perception of Luo Binghe as attractive from the objectifying descriptions she read in the original novel. She already brainwashed herself into believing that she was never affected by Luo Binghe in writing, just disgusted by the fanservice, and now she brainwashes herself even harder bc Luo Binghe is a real person she knows now and not a sex symbol to get off to. (Plus, she’s into the submissive pouty housewife act! That’s even worse! She’s not even close to admitting she’s into women at all, she has to brainwash her way out of that!)

Meanwhile, everyone wants Luo Binghe except for the one person Luo Binghe wants to want her! I imagine that would mess with her head, especially after Shen Qingqiu’s death. Her relationship with her own sexuality is also pretty messed up, because her experience with it is focused on making herself desirable to other people, not on her actual desires. Luo Binghe, who only knows how to perform for the male gaze and gets no satisfaction from that vs. Shen Qingqiu, who can’t deal with the fact that she feels sexual attraction to a woman written for the male gaze. I think that sounds suitably disastrous for Bingqiu, and I feel like these are also extremely common wlw experiences. Layers! I want them to kiss, and I want them to kiss on the meta level! (And I want Luo Binghe to become comfortable with being seductive for the person she actually desires, and Shen Qingqiu to admit that she wants Luo Binghe.)

Finally, I think that there's one aspect of Scum Villain that would work better if Bingqiu were women, and that's Airplane. Like, PIDW is bad because Airplane had to abandon every notion of writing a serious, good story in order to make enough money to eat. In the end, the changes Shen Qingqiu makes to the novel are much closer to the original outline and Shang Qinghua is pretty satisfied with them. But like, danmei is a popular genre. Internationally popular, by now! You can make money with danmei! I think that particular message would be a bit more poignant if PIDW ended up as a baihe - the kind of story you wouldn't tell if you wanted to make money.

#/thanks for enabling my lesbian bingqiu obsession #/it was really fucking difficult not to write an entire novel here #/tl;dr: the answer is BINGQIU A MILLION TIMES #[epistulae ad atticum]#girls night girls night girls night #genderbend #svsss

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gods-of-mischief · 7 months

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What happened with: Maybe we could figure it out together? [Thoughts after S02E06]

My impressions of the story that I loved so much and that destroyed me so emotionally.

Yes, the second series is brilliant outside - great acting, visuals, music, epic finale. Yeah, it's beautiful at first and I can understand so much excitement and ovations about how great it is. But… when I look at the first series and compare it to the second, there are so many things missing. Damn it!

First season had soul, the creators focused mostly on the characters, on their growth, on emotions, on details, on the play of colors. For example, the scene in the Citadel and the conversation between Sylvie and Loki… absolutely breathtaking scene that they turned into a farce in the second series. (When HWR had erased Sylvie from the scene it was so gross it almost made me jump out of my chair.) At what point did a show that was about two people and their journey become a show about one person? What happened with "You go. I go.", "Maybe… maybe we could figure it out together."?

Why did Marvel put out a novelization confirming their feelings for each other, all that unspoken words, if they didn't want to work with that relationship properly in the second season? The relationship between those two was the heart of the entire first season. Yes, Loki was looking for Sylvie… yes, he was looking at her with his sad puppy eyes every time he saw her… but so what… for what? If they never once discussed about things - what happened, about their feelings, anything about them at all? And at the end, out of the blue, "I'm doing it for you"… but all the time without you.

They use his love for her to learn to control the slippage, to work things out, to sacrifice everything for her and for his friends. But when has Loki ever had time to truly be friend anyone other than Mobius? Yeah, they were dealing with the same problem, but before his "rewriting the story", those people were almost strangers to him… and he sits there with Sylvie at the bar and tells her that he's all about his friends… where some deeper relationship is pulled out of absolutely nowhere.

They both mutually think the other doesn't need the other in their lives anymore, and the way Loki handles everything on his own makes it seem that way. Still, it's Sylvie who makes him start to change why he does what he does along the way. So why wasn't there a scene where he finally fills her in properly on all of this? Why did they show us that he "trying everything" at the Citadel when it didn't seem like that at all, and make Sylvie out to be some obsessed murderess who can't see or hear what's going on around her? Why were there so many allusions to enchantment when they never used it to allow Sylvie to finally fully understand Loki? And I can think of more and more questions like that! I don't even want to imagine what the "real memories" Loki left in Sylvie's head after all this.

I also don't understand how they made the main female character a completely peripheral character that they clearly didn't know how to handle or lead. They had her thrown in for a twist here and there, but otherwise they had her there for decoration? Such an interesting character that they turned into a looped figure that doesn't understand what's going on. A side character who just stood on the sidelines for nothing? The girl was a goddess, just like Loki, so what the hell? That's how untapped the potential is. It was a pain to watch and especially in the finale. Sophia, I'm really sorry. You and Sylvie deserved so much better. That mysogyny was disgusting.

I really tried to take all the episodes with a grain of salt, expecting that there was surely a reason… that everything would somehow become clear, that I couldn't judge without the whole context… but the whole picture just confirmed to me that the creators were just pushing the story and the characters into situations that absolutely missed the fundamentals of the first series.

Yes, it could have had exactly the ending it had, if it had to be. But the path should have been different. Why does he have close people around him and then he is alone in everything? I stand by the fact that this should have been handled by both of them. That they should have either ended up there "at the end of time" together or they should have given them some kind of goodbye, a scene where they talk about it, where Loki tells her he doesn't want her to go there with him, that he wants her to live (like when it was in NWH between Peter and MJ, for example, when he told her what was going on, what he had to do and they dealt with it together) or a scene where Sylvie was free to make her own decision. She should have been able to decide and have a say in all of this.

For me, this build-up was unprecedentedly cruel to them from start to finish. I have to say that the ending made me cry, and I can count on one hand the number of times I've cried at a movie or TV show. This completely destroyed me, how long nothing. What was it supposed to give me? No matter what I do, it will never be enough? Will I have to lose everything I want and live with my biggest fears forever? Or?

So… in summary, if you're all about the epic story and not the characters and real relationships, you'll probably be thrilled… otherwise, you might have the same mixed feelings as I did. I know that Marvel is no soap opera… but they often present love and relationships in a very painful way, I get really sick of it sometimes. It's not always about epic twists and sacrifices…

I'm still here. I love Sylki, I love Tom and Sophia. But the second season hurts like hell. I don't even know if I want to see it again. To be honest, I don't even know how to deal with it. Is there any hope? Who knows… it's getting harder and harder to hope.

#loki #marvel #sylki #sylvie #sophia di martino #tom hiddleston #loki and sylvie #spoilers #what happened

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aj-lenoire · 1 year

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okay so one of the changes made when the hunger games books were adapted into the films was something they did with cato—the scene on the cornucopia, where cato has peeta in a headlock, is quite possibly the most devious scene in the film, and the best change made (closely tied with the scene where haymitch convinces seneca crane to make the rule change)

in the novel, cato has one line; he warns katniss what happens if she fires an arrow at him, “shoot me and we [cato and peeta] both go down”. he smiles triumphantly and laughs a bit, and coupled with katniss’ internal monologue when she blows up their supplies, it adds to the idea that he’s not quite there, that he’s not totally sane

in the film, however…

Cato: Go on, shoot! And we’d both go down and you’d win. Go on. I’m dead anyway! I always was, right? I didn’t know that until now. Isn’t that what they [the Capitol audience] want, huh? No! I can still do this. I can still do this. One more kill. It’s the only thing I know how to do. Bring pride to my district. Not that it matters.

now whilst i love suzanne collins and she is a damn clever writer, i think in this case the movie did it better, because this little monologue makes cato go from a generic short-term villain (compared to the long-term villain of the capitol) to a complex and almost tragic character

in both the book and the movie, his death, which a lesser story might frame as a victorious moment for the heroes, is unsettling and tragic, but it’s done in different ways.

yes, he’s a volunteer, a career, but district 2, more so than the rest of panem, has been completely flooded with propaganda and treated more favourably. we see it more clearly in the third book, but the first two show us in part that district 2 is very much how the capitol wants it (and the other districts) to be; it’s completely brainwashed. unlike 12, 11, etc, there’s not such a lack of resources that widespread (but low-level so as not to result in punishment) resentment fosters within the general population. 12 in particular is governed much more loosely, and people have greater freedom because of it. but in 2 the majority of the population is totally loyal, unquestioning, and caught up in the idea that the capitol really is generous and the games really are a glorious opportunity

in the film he’s 18, in the book he’s 16. that makes him, fundamentally a kid. he’s a kid who’s been brainwashed, who hasn’t had the chance to think for himself if maybe the capitol isn’t all that great, who has been fed nothing but heaps and heaps of propaganda, in a district that pretty much buys it wholesale, so he would have likely not come across anyone like, say, gale, whose personal hardships (and to some extent the less strict government) gave him the opportunity to question the capitol and think for himself

I’m not saying he’s totally innocent, obviously–there’s parts in both versions where he shows genuine amusement in hunting and killing his fellow tributes, and only when he’s on the other end of the weapon does he realise that no, this actually isn’t a game.

in the middle of the night, surrounded by vicious attack dogs, knowing that he’s going to die no matter what, cato finally understands what the games really are. terror and subjugation. much like a ww1 soldier having romanticised ideas of war and glory, only to be met with the miserable, awful reality of the trenches, he has bought into the government’s propaganda at the cost of his life, and even worse, his humanity. he’s a kid who never had the chance to think for himself, to be anything other than a tribute, a killer. killing is the only thing he knows how to do.

it is what he has been trained to do his whole life, in the academy for the career tributes, he has been told that he can rise above his life as slave to the capitol and bring pride to his district. but ultimately, it doesn’t matter. whether he dies or becomes a victor he’ll just be a piece in the capitol’s games, he’ll just be another slave. he’ll only one step above district 2′s population, just like they’re only one step above all the other districts. he’ll still be far below the capitol, the people who made him this way.

#the hunger games #hunger games cato #aj watches #aj abstractions

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samwellwinchesterthebrave · 8 months

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Okay so I am being nitpicky and somewhat of a book purist but the more I think about it, the more I get annoyed.

Warning for Wheel of Time show and book spoilers ahead

Perrin killed Geofram (i think that's his first name) Bornhald. And Dain sees him do it, which is probably what's going to spark his obsession with bringing Perrin to justice. But, in the books, Geofram is killed by the Seanchan and no one knows what happened except for Child Byar, who was told by Geofram it was Perrin's fault and he's working with the invaders.

Now, Perrin kills him because he killed Hopper, who was attacking Valda to save Perrin from him (phew). Which also did not happen in the books. Though Hopper's death was just as poignant and had me tearing up. But what annoys me is that Perrin killed Geofram and Dain sees it. Because that is going to fuck with some Perrin plotlines later on. So I feel like a whole chunk of Perrin's mid-novel plot is going to get completely rewritten. Or they're going to have to either rewrite Dain's character, personality, and motivations. We'll see.

I'm also a little iffy about Rand using the One Power to kill Turak. In the books, they actually do duel and I always thought it was a fascinating scene. It showed how far Rand had come in learning the sword and just how much farther he had to go to really earn the heron mark. And the desperation and struggle made for excellent reading and feels. You feel the same desperation for Rand as he beats Turak, just barely and because he's still technically a beginner.

I am also pissed that the never-healing wound in Rand's side was given to him by Mat. That was not in the least bit necessary to change and it takes away some of the characterization and danger of Padan Fain. We lose some evidence of his obsession and hate. It also adds trauma and a burden to Mat that is unneeded considering what he's going to go through at Rhuidean and after.

Look, I fully admit a lot of this anger is book purism and that some things aren't gonna translate well to screen so need to be changed. But these seemingly small changes are gonna ripple further into the narrative and grow larger and possibly change fundamental plotlines for some characters. I'm iffy if they're gonna be able to do it justice.

And another thing. The whole vision of Rand fighting Ishamael in the sky. Another small decision that's going to have ripple effects later on. Everyone at Falme saw the vision in the sky. That's a huge part of why they truly believe Rand is the Dragon Reborn. They saw him take on a Forsaken and win. And now, all they have is a dragon made of fire that literally could mean anything. I'm pretty sure they did it because of vfx costs but damn. It's sad.

Though I am pleased to meet Moghedien. She's my favorite of the Forsaken and I'm already delighted by her actress. I'm looking forward to her plotlines

#sam rambles #wheel of time #wheel of time spoilers

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x0401x · 1 year

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Oie! Fellow brazilian here! Como vai? :D First, wanted to thank you all your content, specially richard and tsurune! Got to know (and love) both because of you! :3 Secondly... Have you watched Tsurune ep3? What did you think? I haven't read the novels (yet) so I'm curious if they are still being somehow faithful to the source material, or if they have started to take their liberties already. Muito obrigada e espero q restinho da sua semana seja especial ☆

Oiii!!! ❤️ That’s such an honor for me, Anon! Thanks!

Now, about this episode, the content we’re getting in the anime right now is, like, 95% original, but the changes are indeed in accordance to what we get in canon, except for two things:

1) The bromance between Minato and Seiya. KyoAni insists on keeping this Minato obsession going on and I’m pretty sure that’s because it’d render the whole first season completely meaningless otherwise, lmao. Also because KyoAni is still toning down Minato and Masaki’s relationship, as well as Seiya’s relationship with Kaito and Minato’s relationship with Shuu, so they gotta get the gay from somewhere. Somewhere safe, where they have an excuse for it. Not to mention that we never really got any closure for Seiya in S1. We didn’t get the scene from volume 1 where Minato frees Seiya of his burden, and in the anime, they made it so that the accident really was Seiya’s fault to some extent, so I don’t know if we’ll ever get this character development at all. The narrative makes a proper conclusion seem necessary, but at the same time, it also seems to glorify the problem.

2) The way that Masaki is portrayed. No matter how hard KyoAni tries, they really don’t know how to handle him as a character. I get this feeling they interpret him so wrong on so many aspects that they don’t even realize just how wrong they got him, ‘cause I can guarantee it’s way more than just the “I’m using y’all for revenge against my late grandpa” shitshow from the first season.

As far as the novel goes, Masaki is fundamentally a pure person. Not as in innocent (that’s Minato), but as in enlightened. The anime tries to depict him as just knowledgeable, but they forget that he’s also wise. He’s thoughtful, specially of Minato and Kaito. And as you’d expect from someone who’s neck-deep into Shinto and Zen, he’s unapologetically virtuous and pretty damn sharp in his teachings. But that’s where the difference between anime and novel is most glaring: in the original, he goes on about it the right way. Anime!Masaki stabs where it hurts; novel!Masaki helps pull off the band-aid. What makes Minato ache isn’t that Masaki lectures him. It’s that Masaki is kind and considerate of things that hadn’t even gone through Minato’s head when lecturing him. Very obvious discrepancy, but damn, the animators sure are bad at noticing it. The problem with this is that they might spiral back into making Masaki look like an asshole all over again.

In fact, they already kind of are.

In the novel, Minato gets banned from the dojo because of an injury that he got on his hand during the prefectural finals. He was supposed to rest so that it could heal, but Minato being Minato, he didn’t want to miss practice. It was not only painful for him, but also started to badly affect his shooting, which is where Masaki stepped in and told him not to come to practice for a week. A whole different picture, isn’t it?

Meanwhile, the anime. Oh, the anime. Right after giving us the non-canon Everyone Can See It about Seiya’s obsession with Minato yet again as if we need or want any more of that bullshit, this time through Eisuke (who in the novel did it with Minato, referring to him and Masaki), KyoAni once more fails dramatically at getting the point of Masaki’s character. First, we begin with him admonishing the boys in an irky, passive-aggressive way. Then, we have Seiya calling him out for the way he’s talking, and not only does he agree that it was terrible, he actually bends down and rewords it... except he only makes it worse.

Just in case anyone is wondering: no, that’s not how he breaks the news to them in the novel, and the ones who scold the boys are actually the girls’ team. Also, this isn’t the moment where Minato gets banned from the dojo. That’s another issue for later on. Like I said, whole different picture. But KyoAni is definitely trying to paint anime!Masaki’s approach as a valid teaching method, just maybe a little rough around the edges. However, by banning only Minato from the dojo simply because he’s the one who spoke up what everyone else was thinking, anime!Masaki is undebatably being unfair and unreasonable. And I’m sure this is groundwork for Masaki to get disappointed again at his inexperience as a mentor, so that we can have the dark brooding Masa-san that KyoAni swears we love but literally none of us asked for. I’m so not looking forward to this.

We could’ve just had Minato get his injury during this match. He hits his hand two times either way, and that’s why it gets so bad in the first place. It could’ve still happened in this season, but nah, why be mindful of the narrative at all? Consistency? Don’t know her.

But well, we all saw this coming. It’s not a surprise. I’m still enjoying S2 despite the annoyance, and I hope we’ll be able to keep up this pace if that means it won’t get any worse. I’m just a little worried by how boring this episode was, though. Without Kazemai as main focus, it feels like we don’t get much emotion from the other characters. We just got introduced to Tsujimine, but aside from Eisuke and Koushirou, nobody left much of an impression.

It also worries me how not involved the characters are with each other. There’s Minato and Seiya, Nanao and Kaito, Minato and Shuu, and now we’re starting to get Eisuke with Minato and Seiya, as well as Ryouhei and Shuu (+Sae and Toujou). But that’s about it. Nobody else seems invested in anybody, except maybe Masaki, who is invested in his boys, but it feels weird to see him invested in them equally, and even weirder to not see Minato invested in him. It’s almost bizarre how they’re just... not in each other’s orbit in the anime. Like, at all. I guess this is what makes the anime feel so detached from the canon even though it’s trying to get closer to it now.

As always, here’s to praying for the best but knowing that we’ll probably only get some crumbs of what could’ve been.

#tsurune #tsurune tsunagari no issha #narumiya minato #takigawa masaki #takehaya seiya #tsurune kazemai koukou kyuudoubu #kyoani #kyoto animation

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