#Big thoughts

[jonnywaistcoat]

What’s your opinion on the contrast between “silly” and “serious” spaces? Do you think people can have very serious interpretations about a genuine piece of media and also be goofy about it? I’m asking this particularly because I’ve seen people in the Magnus podcast fandoms fight about people “misinterpreting” characters you, Alex, and the many other authors have written. Are you okay with the blorbofication or do you really wish the media you’ve written would be “taken seriously” 100% of the time?

And follow up question, what do you think about the whole “it’s up to the reader (or in some cases, listener) to make their own conclusions and interpretations and that does not make them wrong”, versus the “it was written this way because the author intended it this way, and we should respect that” argument?

This is a question I've given a lot of thought over the years, to the point where I don't know how much I can respond without it becoming a literal essay. But I'll try.

My main principle for this stuff boils roughly down to: "The only incorrect way to respond to art is to try and police the responses of others." Art is an intensely subjective, personal thing, and I think a lot of online spaces that engage with media are somewhat antithetical to what is, to me, a key part of it, which is sitting alone with your response to a story, a character, a scene or an image and allowing yourself to explore it's effect on you. To feel your feelings and think about them in relation to the text.

Now, this is not to say that jokes and goofiness about a piece of art aren't fucking great. I love to watch The Thing and drink in the vibes or arctic desolation and paranoia, or think about the picture it paints of masculinity as a sublimely lonely thing where the most terrible threat is that of an imposed, alien intimacy. And that actually makes me laugh even more the jokey shitpost "Do you think the guys in The Thing ever explored each other's bodies? Yeah but watch out". Silly and serious don't have to be in opposition, and I often find the best jokes about a piece of media come from those who have really engaged with it.

And in terms of interpreting characters? Interpreting and responding to fictional characters is one of the key functions of stories. They're not real people, there is no objective truth to who they are or what they do or why they do it. They are artificial constructs and the life they are given is given by you, the reader/listener/viewer, etc. Your interpetation of them can't be wrong, because your interpretation of them is all that there is, they have no existence outside of that.

And obviously your interpretation will be different to other people's, because your brain, your life, your associations - the building blocks from which the voices you hear on a podcast become realised people in your mind - are entirely your own. Thus you cannot say anyone else's is wrong. You can say "That's not how it came across to me" or "I have a very different reading of that character", but that's it. I suppose if someone is fundamentally missing something (like saying "x character would never use violence" when x character strangles a man to death in chapter 4) you could say "I think that's a significant misreading of the text", but that's only to be reserved for if you have the evidence to back it up and are feeling really savage.

I think this is one of the things that saddens me a bit about some aspects of fandom culture - it has a tendency to police or standardise responses or interpretations, turning them from personal experiences to be explored into public takes to be argued over. It also has the occasional moralistic strain, and if there's one thing I wish I could carve in stone on every fan space it's that Your Responses to a Piece of Art Carry No Intrinsic Moral Weight.

As for authorial intention, that's a simpler one: who gives a shit? Even the author doesn't know their own intentions half the time. There is intentionality there, of course, but often it's a chaotic and shifting mix of theme and story and character which rarely sticks in the mind in the exact form it had during writing. If you ask me what my intention was in a scene from five years ago, I'll give you an answer, but it will be my own current interpretation of a half-remembered thing, altered and warped by my own changing relationship to the work and five years of consideration and change within myself. Or I might not remember at all and just have a guess. And I'm a best case scenario because I'm still alive. Thinking about a writers possible or stated intentions is interesting and can often lead to some compelling discussion or examination, but to try and hold it up as any sort of "truth" is, to my mind, deeply misguided.

Authorial statements can provide interesting context to a work, or suggest possible readings, but they have no actual transformative effect on the text. If an author says of a book that they always imagined y character being black, despite it never being mentioned in the text, that's interesting - what happens if we read that character as black? How does it change our responses to the that character actions and position? How does it affect the wider themes and story? It doesn't, however, actually make y character black because in the text itself their race remains nonspecific. The author lost the ability to make that change the moment it was published. It's not solely theirs anymore.

So yeah, that was a fuckin essay. In conclusion, serious and silly are both good, but serious does not mean yelling at other people about "misinterpretations", it means sitting with your personal explorations of a piece of art. All interpretations are valid unless they've legitimately missed a major part of the text (and even then they're still valid interpretations of whatever incomplete or odd version of the text exists inside that person's brain). Authorial intent is interesting to think about but ultimately unknowable, untrustworthy and certainly not a source of truth. Phew.

Oh, and blorbofication is fine, though it does to my mind sometimes pair with a certain shallowness to one's exploration of the work in question.

#Big thoughts #Big rambles #These are my current thoughts at least #They will likely change #As all things do

[its-always-sunny-in-city17]

drawing cardassians with their eye ridges kinda looking like eyelashes is kinda funny me thinks. like dukat just looks like a teenage girl now. ignore garak

#star trek #big thoughts

[questionablemargot]

okay y’all. spencer reid fans buckle up, cause i have some thoughts. i wanna talk about post-prison era reid. we all love him, but i've been having some major thoughts about it. one of the main things about post-prison era reid, is that he masks so heavily, and none of his autistic traits are shown anymore. now i'm all for trauma making a character mask more, but cm didn't really view it like that, and i dont like that. another thing about post-prison reid is that he no longer gives any fucks and will fuck you up. i love this, because it personally feels like, after years of being ridiculed for his autism and how it affects him, he fights back against it. you can try and ridicule him, but he's gonna put up a fight, and you're not gonna win. a lot of people like post-prison era reid because of his hair- which is completely valid,, fluffy haired reid is amazing. but i feel like we as a fandom are not talking about the drastic changes in his character enough. yes! post-prison reid is awesome! but let's talk about why. how he went through trauma and it changed him fundamentally. how he masks so much he's almost unidentifiable. everything that made reid him before, doesn't anymore, and reid has to figure out who he is without that. he has to figure out IF there is a him without it.

in conclusion: post-prison era reid is so so interesting, and we as a fandom don't go into WHY post-prison reid is, if not the best, one of the best, eras of reid enough.

#criminal minds #spencer reid #autism #big thoughts #dr spencer reid #mgg #matthew gray gubler

[pistachi0art]

More Ben fam stuff I believe I have neglected to put here

#Neo’s way more of an E boy now #men’s fashion can be difficult sometimes aight #small things #the twins are Marley n Neo #bc YES I take back what I said about Ben not having any twin siblings #I like twin dynamics ok #and Cohen! #I’m going through his design n personality and have landed on ‘moody singer who writes songs about how shitty everything is’ #he’s also like. coping bc he took Ben’s ‘thing’ #long story short Ben really liked singing when he was younger but never wanted to pursue it #and Cohen just happened to also be really good but not as good as Ben so he claimed that singing would be HIS thing #and now he feels guilty bc he knows that Ben never pursued it bc Cohen took that confidence from him #and it was really more about the fame n glamour for Cohen too so #he feels his singing is ingenuous #lmao #lore jumpscare!!! #big thoughts #late night posting #benrey fam

[sweetpeapoppy]

#BIG THOUGHTS #fernando alonso #lewis hamilton #fewis

[honestmouse20]

ough wait i just had a realization. I may be super late to this but like, what if part of the reason Lloyd was so fond of harmless pranks and ‘being evil’ (stealing candy) was because of his Oni side. It was chaos right, like he ran around looking for friends/attention yes, but he also was just having fun causing pure weird chaos. Maybe that’s why he wasn’t ‘evil’ enough for school, he was never evil. He was just part Oni and had a natural affinity towards causing mischief bc it made his Oni side happy. 

I also think he never fully Stopped pranking the ninja. He tuned it down because he was aged up and yk, they’re usually pretty busy saving Ninjago City from destruction yet again. But I bet he still does it. Maybe he doesn’t steal but I bet he’ll hide favorite pens/important tools from the others just to see their reaction. They all know it’s him. 

#idl does anyone else see what im seeing lol #like we saw in one of the later seasons that garmadon #despite being fully Oni and 'only the evil' was able to find compassion and shit #so like what if being oni isn't pure evil #it's just #chaos #big thoughts #ninjago #d rambles

[bakedbakermom]

i know others have touched on this before but as i'm currently in s6 on my rewatch i am thinking Big Thoughts and trying to write them down into something coherent.

so much of s6 involves dreams and resets and circular storytelling that ultimately has little to no effect on reality. (the ouroboros of it all.) mulder and scully appear to be learning the same lessons over and over, retracing their steps again and again without actually moving forward. scully first talks about the endless line in never again, and then again in dreamland about how they are in the car together driving past people living "real lives" while they just keep driving. she wants a life, he wants the chase, and how do they reconcile the two? she is asking him - in her subtle circling-the-issue (the ouroboros of it all) way - to Get Out Of The Car With Her, live a normal life With Her.

never mind that the car IS their normal life. she doesn't see that yet. he doesn't see that yet. so they keep driving.

in a way, the whole season is Monday played out in long form. they are repeating the same story over and over because they haven't learned the lesson yet. in a season heavy with Wizard of Oz references, it comes down to this: if i ever go looking for my heart's desire, i won't look any further than my own backyard.

i mean, let's look at some themes shall we:

Drive: we can't get out of the car (literally)

Triangle: mulder is trapped in a ww2 funhouse mirror of his real life and the big thing he comes away understanding is that he's in love with scully, meanwhile scully learns just how much of the world she's willing to burn down (literally all of it) to help him.

Dreamland: mulder would hate a normal life, scully doesn't actually want to get out of the car

How the Ghosts Stole Christmas: scully's back in the car (both literally and "maybe i did want to be out there with out") and mulder is recognizing that it can't all be about him and also YOU IDIOTS ARE SO IN LOVE EVEN THE JADED DEAD CAN SEE IT

Terms of Endearment: what do we really want in this life, and what are we willing to do to get it?

The Rain King: what you want is right in front of you (you idiot)

Tithonus: what is eternity without love

Monday: the ouroboros will only break when you figure out what you need to do to fix it

Arcadia: okay maybe playing house/getting out of the car isn't right for either of us

Milagro: agent scully is already in love

The Unnatural: (incoherent sobbing i cannot talk about this one it's Just So)

Three of a Kind: mulder isn't even IN this one but scully will stop drop everything to get in the car fly to vegas at 2:30 in the morning because she doesn't want to get out of the car if he's not coming with her so i guess we may as well keep driving

Field Trip: their worlds are not complete without each other

obviously i'm leaving some out, mostly mytharc and "meh" episodes that i don't remember well enough to analyze right now but you get the picture.

and it's like ??? these beautiful idiots keep saving each other and throwing themselves on the knife to protect each other and and and and OPEN YOUR GODDAMN EYES

#big thoughts #txf #s6 #liwl does a rewatch

[anartisticdreamer0]

i think *frequently* about two of Tallulah’s backpacks, one called “La Luna” and one called “El Sol”

and the fact she originally designated only one as hers

and the other was designated as Wilbur’s.

my roman empire.

#MY ROMAN EMPIRE. #MY LMANBURG PHIL #MY UNF- #but yes i think about this a lot #to the point that its the reason for a song on my lullah playlist #big thoughts #big FEELINGS #qsmp #qsmp tallulah #qsmp wilbur

[drowsystarlight]

Quick and messy sketch but here is my Runner Five :333

Sheet belongs to @crownleys!!

#zombies run #zombies run fanart #runner five #neeks draws #they’re the love of my life rn #my quiet little stabby child #also if the design reminds you of Frisk; there is a reason why #reason being 1) i used to look like this 2) i love undertale 3) frisk gender neutral game mc icon tbh #anyway i have their story all in my head….. the question is if id be able to get it out LMAO #big thoughts #i have my own Magnum Opus oc story in the works so i have no idea if my little brain can even HANDLE ALL DAT #anyway this sheet is amazing thanks to puptart in the zr server for letting me know it exists

[spaceagesparkledust]

I think Dark Water broke my brain. I'm going insane.

#going to mc-heckin explode #big thoughts #big big big thoughts #doctor who #doctor who dark water #clara oswald #missy #twelfth doctor

[kurlik42]

A sudden question

#objectum #objectophilia #big thoughts #Looong bois and girls hehe

[its-always-sunny-in-city17]

chose like the three people i think would deviate a lot- but like i think the TOS starfleet uniforms would've been pretty customizable.

like if you really wanted to be cozy you could be cozy and if you wanted to be a slut you could do that too.

#star trek #my art #big thoughts

[lieutenantbiscute]

Shell Shocked thoughts

Been thinking about how Raph and Mona would definitely take the boys topside early on by having them spend time at Aprils farmhouse!

Letting the kids play around in the grass and mud, having them sunbath with Leo and Donnie. Which turns into napping for the afternoon ;;

Ralphie and Michael gardening with April and Mikey. Turns out the kids have a green thumb! Once Danny sees the stars he wants to spend hours just out in the open air stargazing. This later turns into a habit he and Leon share when their thoughts get too loud.

Raph saying “ya know your mom came from a star.” And it just sticks with the two of them. The boys playing pretend as they roughhouse in the front and just ahhhhhhhhh summers with the Hamato family @ the Farm house guysssss

But also the quiet moments when the boys get to ‘meet’ their grandfather. It takes Raph a while to actually take about Splinter while at his grave with the boys, Mona is there and helps to fill in the gaps Raph can’t really say.

It’s an innocent thing too. Michael and his waving at the cold stone, Leon and Danny casually saying ‘well duh that’s grandpa! He has dads last name!’ Ralphie and Michael worrying later on when Raph stops talking; ‘what’s wrong chichi?’

#teenage mutant ninja turtles #shell shocked au #tmnt 2012 #rottmnt #I have many thoughts #big thoughts

[kilgarraghforever]

Time is weird. Like, all of history exists, everyone who has ever lived, and we don't know who most of them are. We will never know who most of them are, and a lot of the ones we do know are only in the context of their relationships with other people, like all of those merchants complaining about Ea-nasir's shitty copper, or all of the servants who have ever worked for some monarch or other. And that really screws with my head because I don't want to be forgotten. I don’t want to have such a little impact on time that the only thing I'm remembered for is having a relationship with someone else. I don't want to be the footnote in someone else's story.

#time #rambling #ea nasir #existentialism #big thoughts

[ozzymilly]

Musings from an autistic adult age regressor

|

It’s sometimes really odd for me to regress because I am aware I work differently than some other kids do. Even when I was physically a child I knew there was something off about me and how I interacted with the world. I remember forcing myself to have imaginary friends but I knew they weren’t real and it felt so tedious pretending someone was there when I knew they weren’t. I remember watching other kids scream and run around, smacking into each other recklessly but it seemed too painful and uncomfortable so I never joined in (at least not willingly). I remember being regarded as very mature for my age but never fully relating to adults either because even they didn’t seem to understand me. I remember trying to mimic what I saw “normal kids” do on tv in my real life in hopes of somehow magically fitting in. I remember wanting to talk about toys and video games and movies and tv but the only people who would listen were adults who clearly didn’t care. I remember trying to play dumb in hopes that people seeing me as a simple minded kid would make me into one. I remember worrying I was letting the adults in my life down by not being cute and childish enough, like I somehow took away their kid. I remember thinking I just needed to wait a little longer and then I’d get it, “how to be a kid” would suddenly click in and I’d know what to do. But that never happened, instead I became a teen who couldn’t relate to people, and now an adult who can’t relate to people.

Even in a whole community of people who regress like me I feel different and I just don’t relate to a lot of people’s coping mechanisms. However I guess that’s how its always been and I’m not so much upset as I am surprised that even now I don’t know how to be a kid. But I can still try.

Ultimately regressing makes me feel safer and warmer that I usually do, it’s like a blanket for when the stress gets too high and I can’t think straight anymore. I’ve never been good at crying, tears just don’t come to my eyes, but regressing helps me clear them out. A warm blanket, a nice snack, and the presence of my own mind do me quite well. Maybe what I need to learn from this is not that I’m failing my regression but that I’m succeeding, I truly am me.

Enough rambling, I’m gonna have some tea, watch mlp, and then snooze. Long live the weird kids.

#oz talks #long post #agere boy #safe agere #sfw agere #agere #musings #agere musing #big thoughts #actually autistic #nighty night

[your-local-hyperfixater]

im playing ac odyssey and how can Kass kill like a bunch of people without a second thought but is like 'nooo dont jump' to that one guy in Pephka. like imagine an ac game where its encouraged NOT to kill anyone bc the protag has morals. I think that would be so interesting. it would create a need for stealth too if its in another open world game like odyssey

#evetyone already knows how shit ubisoft is so its whatever but i would love to see it #its just so confusing to me how the protags can just kill guards senselessly #guards who are just doing their job and most of the time are not affiliated with the order/templars #but then get emotional when it comes to a singular person #it might be because in most of those quests theyre just random innocent people which is fine #but it still confused me #like not all the guards are bad people they have families too #like i might be wrong here and misinterpreting things but i just think ots weird #like if you value life then would you not value everyone's life #even if theyre just guards #it would be so fun to have them like actually debate it within themselves #like 'is this really necessary?' maybe even after they meet a guard who is just doing it to support their family #idk once again i know ubisoft has been slacking when it comes to morality in their games but its fun to think about #it amuses me #rambles #big thoughts #ac odyssey #ac