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originalaccountname · 15 days

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I think that, on the topic of Dazai being "made for the dark", it's useful to take a step back and compare him to other characters that had a similar path to his.

Kyouka wasn't always in the PM, and was forcefully brought in when she was a shell of herself. She had natural talents for the skills needed to be an assassin. These skills were nurtured by people who have known darkness their entire lives, who saw them as useful and fulfilling. Except Kyouka didn't like killing, despite being good at it: she didn't want to have to do it. She got help and got out, but she still uses these skills in her new world, just not the same way.

Jouno used to be an executive in a criminal organization. We have seen Jouno in the Hunting Dogs be cruel and mocking. He very efficiently threatened civilians, caused psychological harm to Kunikida while trying to recruit him, roped a child (Aya) into being his witness, and in the past tried to coax a criminal into committing suicide. His own partner, Tetchou, chastises him for these terrible habits, and yet, he wants to help people! Gratitude from the people he helped is worth more than anything, and that's all he needs to be on the side of justice, his strong criminal leanings irrelevant.

Dazai is much like them. His skillset and fragile moral compass were incredibly well-suited for the mafia life. He has talent for business, negotiation, torture, strategy, improvising, etc., and has no qualms about killing. His obsession with death led him to pick the PM as his path, his apathy, skills and insane luck made him at home in organized crime. Yet, his health was getting worse, which meant him being suited for the dark, him being "built" for the mafia life, didn't mean his spirit was. When he left to help people instead, he found more friends, more fulfillment and got better. His previous skills are repurposed or hidden away until needed.

BSD is full of characters who were good at what they did, but unhappy, unfulfilled or unhealthy in their lives. I'd argue that even more characters actively live in that limbo, looking fit for the lives they live, but would be better in a different one, maybe even one a bit harder for them.

Dazai was "made for the dark" the same way Kyouka was made to be an assassin. Dazai found fulfillment in helping people the same way Jouno did. The original statement isn't incorrect, but it's not an absolute truth either; feeling trapped into something you don't like or is harmful to you while being good at or enjoying it is a very common thing that BSD regularly pushes to the full scale of a character's motivations. To not reject how one was "made for" a certain life while fighting or yearning for a different one is compelling: it's spitting in the face of fate in favour of your happiness, it's having agency over your life. It's a good message.

#bsd #bungou stray dogs #bungo stray dogs #bsd meta #bsd dazai #bsd dazai osamu #apparently i talk sometimes

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cycle-hit · 2 months

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to see a milgram character as a "good person" or "bad person" is a failure of media literacy for milgram. the entire lesson of the milgram project is that thinking in such black and whites, to deem someone as "good - innocent/forgiven" and "bad - guilty/guilty" only causes damage. the prisoners voted forgiven are not helped. the prisoners voted guilty aren't either. the lesson is that such a mindset will never help you- that it will harm whatever youre touching with it.

we cannot stop this, either- we have to keep choosing one or the other, because an abstained vote is impossible. we just have to keep choosing to shock them, over and over, no matter how much they beg us to stop because there is no other choice. you as an individual can refuse to vote, but someone else will always choose to. it is better to put in a vote, in that scenario, than to have it be uncounted entirely.

stop shoving characters in such black and white boxes. this is a story about nuance. they are not only "good", they are not only "bad". acknowledge that they are both. acknowledge that these characters are deeper than that. this is, quite literally, the "look deeper" media, you're supposed to be analysing. you're supposed to be theorising and looking at evidence under a microscope.

you're supposed to be acknowledging nuance, because anything could be true and anything could be incorrect. even a theory you prize could be completely wrong, or a theory you hate could be completely right. theorising about a character is not to "excuse" their actions or make them more "sympathetic", but rather to explain their actions. to flesh them out.

plus, as a bit of rant, you've all gotta stop dismissing people's theories completely just because you believe your own is oh-so above it. acknowledge a theory's evidence, acknowledge a theory's points, acknowledge why it could and could not be true. don't become obsessed with the black and white "I Choose To Only See The Worst Of This Character And Nothing Else Because That's My Preference!!! I'm Just Critical!!!" or "I Choose To Only See The Good Of This Character And Nothing Else Because That's My Preference!!! I'm A Moral Paragon!!!". jesus fucking christ.

i sincerely hope this doesnt make you believe that i think im above this same mindset either- i'm very much not. i can be guilty of it as well. but the important thing about analysing media is the ability to acknowledge every possibility, every point of view, anything that's possible. to discard any bias you may have in order to figure out what's going on in a clear and succinct manner that is closest to the truth. please remember this!

#interestingly most if not all of the prisoners also seem to have a very black and white belief of “good” and “bad” people as well #a bit of rant but i hope my point gets across! i fear i mightve gotten a bit off topic #milgram #haruka sakurai #yuno kashiki #fuuta kajiyama #muu kusunoki #shidou kirisaki #mahiru shiina #kazui mukuhara #amane momose #mikoto kayano #kotoko yuzuriha #milgram analysis #i hope. this reaches the people i intended to. but this post is also kind of swinging a baseball bat at everyone/a lot of posting i see #(not exclusive to tumblr)

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sarcasticgaypotato · 8 months

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thoughts on Caroline?

What to say about Caroline?

She's a massively important character to the franchise, but she barely speaks. She's constantly present in the story, but she's only acknowledged a handful of times. She's everywhere and nowhere, she's everything and nothing at all.

She's GLaDOS, but she isn't, or is she?

Depending on your perspective of Caroline, we either know a lot about her personality or next to nothing.

I think my initial impression of Caroline as a character was much more negative because it was shaped by fanon interpretation.

It's probably not a huge secret that I don't enjoy c/aveline, and that WAS the majority of Caroline content for a long time. I honestly kind of resented that ship, partially because it practically became a given that where there's Old Aperture, there's this ship. These two who barely interacted were EVERYWHERE, and I always got the feeling that the only reason they were popular as a couple was because it's a m/f ship, and the Portal fandom was practically beside itself with excitement to focus on any male character.

I'm not here to ship-bash, if that's your cup of tea, good for you. But personally? Not for me, and it negatively colored my perception of her for a while. It felt a bit like she was a character defined by fanon more than anything else, just there to be in a relationship with Cave (healthy or otherwise) just so it can end in tragedy when he puts her into the robot. I understand why people might enjoy that, but I've always felt like it cheapens GLaDOS's (and by extension, Caroline's) story to make it all amount to just 'being the girlfriend of a mad scientist and tragically paying the price.'

Cave's a creep! He, in my opinion, probably thought his relationship with Caroline was much more friendly than it was. She responds to him like a secretary who knows how to please her boss— "Yes sir Mr. Johnson!"— but nothing personal. She was probably nice and polite because she was a secretary, and look at the era she lived in. If she wasn't all sweet and cheery, Cave probably would've told her to smile more.

So does that mean I think she's the opposite of what we hear? Is she sadistic and cruel like GLaDOS is? No, I'm not saying that either. I'll get into who and what I think Caroline is in a second, but above all else I wanted to point out my frustration with how she's portrayed in connection to Cave. Making her Cave's love interest is boring and bland to me, basing their connection off of the same level of friendliness from her that I've shown to people working in customer service. It's just part of the job.

For Caroline herself? I'm also not a fan of 'evil Caroline' takes. I mean I love a girlboss, but it sort of misses the point here. If Caroline was always evil, sadistic, and scheming, it waters down GLaDOS and her development. If Caroline is too similar to GLaDOS, it takes away from the weight of who and what GLaDOS is. If they’re too dissimilar, it’s difficult to imagine the connection between them.

The fandom was so obsessed with the incorrect— and stupid— idea that Caroline is Chell’s mother that it missed the much more obvious metaphor under their noses. Caroline is GLaDOS’s mother.

Cut from the same cloth, GLaDOS is born of her, but she isn’t her. Without Caroline, GLaDOS would never exist, but it would be absurd to say that GLaDOS is the same person that Caroline is. GLaDOS grew, changed, and became who we saw at the end of Portal 2 much in the same way that anyone grows into being their own person, not a copy of their parents.

Here I go talking about GLaDOS in this ask about Caroline— it’s impossible not to.

If you want my personal take on Caroline?

I think she was a smart woman, keeping up with the actions of a madman and holding her head above the flood of insanity. I think she was able to look the other way when she had to, anyone who worked at Aperture needed that dubious morality. That being said, I think she had a heart. We can all debate until we die whether or not GLaDOS was remotely truthful at the end of Portal 2 about deleting her, but I think there’s a reason she attributed her act of compassion to Caroline— it wasn’t Caroline forcing her hand (claw?) via possession, but rather, she is the only framework GLaDOS has to reference that feeling. That scene is definitely GLaDOS projecting her own emotions onto someone else to avoid confronting them, but I don’t think she would make that comparison for no reason, Caroline might have been how she learned that emotion, even if the feeling is all her own.

Ultimately, Caroline is a character we will only really ever understand through the lens of other characters. We can only try to extrapolate who she is from what we see and hear, but she will likely always be a bit of a mystery. She’s the ghost haunting this franchise, and I kind of love her for it.

#portal #portal 2 #caroline #GLaDOS #I'm not going to call out specific fics or headcanons #but there are definitely takes on caroline that grind my gears #especially when I see them everywhere #I could rant plenty more about all this but I tried to contain myself #tl;dr we can have an interesting character that isn't just 'GLaDOS lite' or 'Cave's girlfriend' you guys #I know shocking concept #but it's true

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marukrawler · 6 months

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Maybe it's because Sellon didn't have a arc of her own. and despite her relatively good character development, she had few episodes that focused on her and had little involvement in the season compared to Alice or Fabia.Although it's a little unfair to compare one of the main characters and the antagonist of the first season.Fabia, despite her poorly developed character, also had a great influence and participation in the season.I think it's also influenced by the fact that Shun is considered a bit ooc in ms due to the poorly written plot and incorrect dubbing

yeah, i don't know about that, chief.

having a character arc of some kind or good character development isn't the be-all and end-all when it comes to shipping. people can ship two characters for a multitude of reasons that range from being pretty basic ("they look good together" or "they had (1) single interaction and now i'm hooked) to being because of whatever deep and intimate relationship those two characters might've had in canon. implying that shunfabia and shunalice are popular ships because fabia and alice have more screen time or because they have arcs or good character development is just false. shun doesn't play a significant role in the journeys of either alice or fabia and and vice versa so i fail to see why that has anything to do with why they're popular ships.

and as for you saying that sellon had little involvement in her own season compared to alice or fabia, that's also not true. sellon and mag mel practically had a hand in everything that happened in ms1. she was incredibly vital to the progression of the plot. you're right in that it's unfair to compare sellon's screen time to that of fabia and alice but you're also incorrect to state that sellon had little involvement in ms1 when she's one of the major players advancing the story.

you're also very mistaken to say that sellon had "relatively good character development."

sellon remains entirely unchanged throughout ms1. her story starts and ends with her being exactly the same person. now, is it a bad thing to have very little to no character development? not necessarily. giving every single character a personal arc or development of some kind is just not feasible. sometimes a character simply exists to embody a certain theme or highlight another character's traits, like a narrative foil.

in sellon's case, she exists as a foil to shun just like anubias is a foil to dan. sellon and shun have different principles, morals and values but on some level, they also share similarities. the reason why it's so easy for sellon to manipulate shun is because she understands him in a way no one else does.

sellon exists to highlight the worst parts of shun, the part that isolates himself, relies only on himself and pushes forward in reach of his goal to the point of obsession. we saw this when sellon encouraged shun into becoming the leader of the brawlers and almost destroyed himself trying to preserve the integrity of the original bakugan battles, and we see it yet again when shun destroys a potential escape route from interspace because of his relentless pursuit to unleash his anger upon sellon. that same unwavering dedication towards a goal at the cost of everything, even one's own life, is what sellon admires about shun and it's what makes them alike.

sellon fulfills her character role perfectly and the same can be said for fabia. she's a princess, a leader and acts as the beacon of hope and strength for her people. her characterization, as well as her dynamic with the brawlers and the gundalians, greatly showcases what a compassionate and kind person she is. there really isn't much need for fabia to change as a character because she's already amazing as is.

the dubbing of ms1 is the only that i'll lend some credibility to. not only does sellon always sound like she's scheming, shun also sounds like he's annoyed by her and generally wary of what she says, which is completely different to what happens in the japanese dub. i imagine this is precisely why fans didn't see a romantic connection between the two, which is sad but understandable. i suppose that's just another thing the dub ruined alongside fabia/mason lol.

#bakugan #also alice is also not the antagonist of the first season #masquerade is #even if they are two parts of the same whole alice is not responsible for masquerade's actions and doesn't have the same views as him

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dungeons-and-dragon-age · 1 year

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some more incorrect quotes, cos they're fun xdd

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Dorian: We can bake these cookies at 400 degrees for 10 minutes or 4,000 degrees for 1 minute

June: How about 4,000,000 degrees for 1 second?!?

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Varric: I hate the countryside. It’s dirty. It’s unclean. And what is that smell?

Liam: That would be grass.

Varric: Disgusting.

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Liam: Honestly, I don’t even play an active role in my life anymore..

Liam: Things just happen and I’m like “Oh, is this what we’re doing now? Ok.”

---

Noya: What doesn't kill me better start running, because now I'm fucking pissed.

---

Liam, texting Fenris: Fenris there’s a spider on the outside of the bathroom door can you get rid of it?

Liam: Pls hurry because I’m going to cry

Liam: Fenris

Liam: Fenris?

Fenris: Fenris is dead. You’re next. Love, Spider.

---

Addie: Can we go out to get icecream?

Liam: Did you ask Pa?

Addie: He said no.

Liam: Then why did you ask me?

Addie: He’s not the boss of you.

Liam, internally: It's a trap, it's a trap, it's a trap-

---

Noya: Are you busy?

Sten: Yes.

Noya: Cool, listen to this-

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Zevran: We’ve been conducting an ongoing study to see what Kala will and will not eat.

Alistair: Grass? Yes!

Zevran: Moss? Yes!!

Alistair: Leaves? Ohh, yes!

Zevran: Shoelaces? Strange but true!

Alistair: Worms? Sometimes!

Zevran: Twigs? Usually nah.

Alistair: Rocks? Usually!

Zevran: Morrigan's cooking? Inconclusive!

Wynne: How did you… test this?

Zevran: You just hand her stuff and say ‘eat this’ and if she eats it, she eats it.

Wynne: ... I don’t know how to feel about this.

Morrigan: IS THAT WHERE ALL MY SPARE SHOELACES WENT?

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Kala: You are an absolute fucking dork.

Alistair, singing: Yeah, but I'm your dork!

Kala: *sighs* Yeah, you're my dork.

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Ari, to the party: And remember, if I get harsh with you it is only because you’re doing it all wrong.

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June, trying to comfort Cullen: What's the problem? Anxiety? Low self-esteem? Obsessive thoughts of random arson? I've been there.

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Liam: I dunno if I'm ready to process the ramifications of this bullshit.

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Cullen: So, June is no longer allowed to take the trash out at night.

Cass: Why?

Cullen: Because I've caught her trying to train raccoons to fight five times in a row.

June: You'll be thanking me when the third raccoon battalion saves your ass.

---

Var'Renan: *raises eyebrows*

Noya: Put those back down!

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Kala: That's ridiculous, Alistair doesn't have a crush on me.

Zevran: Yes he does.

Leliana: Yes he does.

Alistair: Yes I do.

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Ari: Do you ever get pre-annoyed? Like you already know someone is going to piss you off?

Josie: What? No, I—

Solas: *enters room*

Ari: *jaw clenches*

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Neira: Sometimes I wonder if I’m hearing voices.

Neira: Then I remember that’s the last bit of sanity I have trying to get me to fall asleep at a reasonable time.

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Morrigan: Ugh, there’s always that weak bitch in the group who isn’t down with murder.

Morrigan: *glares at Neira*

Neira: Well, sorry I have morals!

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Jowan: You’re overthinking this.

Neira: You don’t know the appropriate level of thinking, Jowan. What if I’m underthinking?

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Alistair: Bottling up negative emotions is bad for your health, so you shouldn't do it.

Kala: I know, that's why I bottle up all my emotions, both positive and negative, so it cancels out.

Alistair: Th-that's not how that works-

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June, reading a recipe: Beat three eggs?

Sera: It means like in hand-to-hand combat.

June: Ohhhh-

Cullen: Both of you get out of this kitchen.

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Liam: Fine! I don't give a shit!

Merrill: You seem to give a lot of shits for someone who claims not to give a shit.

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Neira: My expectations are low, but they can always go lower.

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Ari: Who hurt you?

Sera: *snorting* What, do you want a list?

Ari: ...Yes, actually.

---

Krem: Welcome to Fucking Applebees, do you want apples or bees?

Cass: Bees?

June: THEY HAVE SELECTED THE BEES!

Cass: Wait-

*Sera approaches, shaking a jar of bees menacingly*

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Liam: Swear words are illegal now. If you say one you'll be fined.

Addie: Heck.

Liam: You're on thin fucking ice.

Liam: Oh no-

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Solas: This is a very powerful artifact. You’d be messing with forces you don’t fully understand.

June: That sounds like a dare to me.

Solas: Oh my god.

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Neira, making coffee: This is going to fix everything

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Cassandra: Yesterday, I overheard June saying “Are you sure this is a good idea?” and Dagna replying “Trust me,” and I have never moved from one room to another so quickly in my life.

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Lilian: I love the term 'partners'. Are we dating? Are we robbing a bank? Are we the dedicated detectives who investigate these vicious felonies and are members of an elite squad known as the special victims unit? Who knows.

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Zevran: Hey, can I get a sip of that water?

Kala: It’s not water.

Zevran: Vodka! I like your sty-

Kala: It’s vinegar.

Zevran: …What?

Kala: It's vinegar, PUSSY.

---

Ari: *closes a cabinet*

*a crash is heard behind the cabinet door*

Josephine: What was that?

Ari: The sound of someone else's problem.

[insert dejected Trifles Minutiae noises]

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Lilian: I need to dye my hair.

Lilian: Or get another tattoo.

Lilian: Or a new piercing.

Sebastian: ..... Why?

Lilian: To, you know, appease the mental breakdown gods.

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Merrill: Would you stab your best friend in the leg for 10 million gold?

Liam: You stab me, and then when my leg gets better, we buy a big-ass house.

Varric: You can stab me too, then we'll have 20 million.

Liam: Good thinking.

---

June: *makes Cullen a cup of tea but puts salt in it*

Cullen: *sips tea*

June:

Cullen: *finishes tea*

June: Didn't it taste bad?

Cullen: Yeah, but I didn't want to hurt your feelings so I drank it all.

June, tearing up: Oh, okay.

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Random Orlesian at a political dinner: How many kids do you have?

Ari: Biologically, emotionally, or legally?

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Var'Renan: Creators, give me patience.

Noya: I think you mean 'give me strength'.

Var'Renan: If the Creators gave me strength, you'd be dead.

#incorrect quotes #my ocs #im too tired to tag ocs rn imma do that tomorrow #also if anyone does this too please do tag me! incorrect quotes are always v fun to read hehe #oc: neira surana #oc: kalagna brosca #oc: liam hawke #oc: lilian hawke #oc: june trevelyan #oc: ari adaar #oc: noya tabris #oc: var'renan mahariel #oc: adriel #ok. i think that was all of them xD

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tellthemeerkatsitsfine · 1 month

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Very pleased to see that Dominic Maxwell at The Times has written an article about how Jerry Seinfeld is correct when he says PC culture has ruined comedy (I won't link to it because fuck that guy, but I guess in the interest of being fair to him, I will clarify that he did not specifically endorse Seinfeld's more outlandish claims about "the extreme left" taking over, but Maxwell did agree with the idea that comedies that appeal to "a niche" are less funny than comedies that appeal to "everyone" (everyone who saw themselves in the broad comedies where only a few demographics were represented), and agreeing with that is enough to make him a dick). He's my least favourite comedy reviewer (of the ones I actually read sometimes). I first took against him over the review of Andy Zaltzman's stand-up show from just after John Oliver left The Bugle, calling Andy a "left behind sidekick" and spending a bunch of the review explaining how Andy could never have the successful TV career that John did because he's not telegenic enough, even though it was a review about Andy solo stand-up show that had nothing to do with either John Oliver or TV. Since then I've gone to his page occasionally to read his recent reviews, and sometimes he comes up when I search old reviews of something, and I almost always disagree with him, even if it's just in a little way. So I'm pleased to have a legitimate moral reason to dislike that guy now, rather than just thinking he's incorrect about comedy and shouldn't have been so mean to Andy Zaltzman. Turns out the guy who writes for The Times is a dick, who would have thought?

Jerry Seinfeld specifically cited Cheers and M*A*S*H in his comments. I grew up watching Cheers, M*A*S*H, and Seinfeld nearly every morning for years. Not because they were on TV, but my parents had the DVD boxsets and I watched every episode until I had them memorized. I enjoyed them all, but Cheers and M*A*S*H significantly more so than Seinfeld.

It's such an odd idea to me that anyone thinks that's where comedy should have stopped. I was obsessed with them, but I was about 10. I re-watch them occasionally now (Cheers and M*A*S*H, not Seinfeld) and they make me laugh, but there is just nothing in those shows that makes me think you couldn't make that today, or that no one's making anything as funny as that today. The joke rate is no higher than the joke rate in plenty of more modern sitcoms. The jokes are not better and are in some ways worse, than what I see in more modern sitcoms. I watch them with a bit of nostalgia but even if we do assume that nothing in comedy should matter at all besides laughs per minute, they don't objectively stand out as better than modern shows. They look like prototypes for modern shows.

I'm talking about Cheers more than M*A*S*H, I guess - M*A*S*H, more than Cheers, had some unique stuff going on in it that I haven't seen since. But the unique stuff was mainly based on what they did with characters and plot and, crucially, setting. If you judge a comedy only on laugh rate and consider nothing else, M*A*S*H doesn't stand out significantly more than comparably good comedies from other eras either.

I loved Cheers, but obviously lots of things are as funny as Cheers. What an odd thing to say, to suggest otherwise. This was a bit of a tangent as I was not planning to dignify Jerry Seinfeld's attention-grabbing comments by responding to them (and I wish the people with actual platforms would do the same because then maybe people would give up on trying for attention that way, though I have to admit Chortle's collection of headlines responding to him the other day was funny), the point of this post was just to say I'm glad I can now justify writing off Dominic Maxwell as a dick. Fuck that guy.

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worlds-best-sippycup · 11 months

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ASOIAF CLASSPECT POST

Hey, kids! Today I’m going to be talking to you about Homestuck. And also ASOIAF, I guess.

Classpect analysis is a form of analysis where we internet-bound losers look at characters through the lens of the Homestuck classpect system, which assigns every character an ‘Aspect’ that is a bit like a personality grid, and a ‘Class’ that determines their powers in the game SBURB, but more importantly for us, their place in the story.

Still here? OK.

JON SNOW – RAAAG- Oh, too much? Ok, ok.

Aspect: Rage. Rage players have an antagonistic role in HS itself, but those are destroyer classes. Rage is about, not just anger, but truth. Seeing the world for what it is, and breaking down lies and false systems until something better is achieved. Sound familiar? It’s an aspect that fits well with Jon’s sort-of proto-human-rights-activist story. For the class… Jon ultimately applies this change of ways to the world around him, and it’s not for his own benefit. His aspect is his downfall. Simultaneously, he’s really really good at what he does, and his sway and effects of his actions are vast. So, I might put him as Witch of Rage. (I prefer this because it gives Ghost a place as his familiar. Good wolf. Best friend.)

However, he’s also really overconfident that he knows what the truth is, despite, say it with me ‘you know nothing Jon Snow’. And his overconfidence does lead to his death in a way; where he is so focused on the right thing and the truth, that he misses the lies spreading around him. So Seer of Rage is also an appropriate option.

TYRION LANNISTER – Tyrion is a Hope player. Point-blank, he is the aspect of Hope. He’s got the privilege, the self-centredness, the ability to bounce back from the deepest shit like the world’s grossest morally-greyest phoenix, the sex-obsession… For the class, I’d say Maid, because of their tendency to fix themselves with their aspect. Tyrion’s Hope only really affects himself. I truly believe that hope is a key word in Tyrion’s arc, and his whole life. no matter how depressed he gets, it’s hope that pulls him out, and forwards.

CERSEI LANNISTER – Is a Void player. Her worldview is distorted, and she revels in lies without seeking out the truth. It’s not that she is an idiot, but her refusal to question things trips her up. She surrounds herself with toadies and shmucks, and she seems to genuinely believe that she did fine by Sansa.

She also has a lot of the same personality flaws as the other Thieves in HS (self-obsession, overt conviction in her own incorrect logic, utter and unbelievable selfishness), so I call her Thief of Void.

Although – Seer of Void works just as well, and has quite a vibe to it. Cersei being so self-assured, but seeing only irrelevance.

JAIME LANNISTER –

I think Jaime is a Heart player. Every action that he takes, even the most selfless, is self-centred. He never considered any reason to explain himself after Aerys, because he knew he was in the right, so what else could matter? Statistics would also imply that Heart players tend to have extremely strong relationships, and Jaime is very attached to Tyrion and Cersei and to his admiration for Arthur Dayne. He also does self-reflect a lot for someone… bad at it. Overall, I’d say… Page of Heart? For a character so badly in need of psychological growth, and so tied to the idea of Knighthood. Although, I’m not positive about him having the promised secret potential of Pages. Maybe Maid of Heart, for a man who has to change his self-image over the course to the series.

BRIENNE OF TARTH – Knight of Breath. This one was easy.

Breath is freedom. It is innocence, childlike idealism, and self-sufficiency. It is associated with the ‘Hero’s Journey’ and with the ‘forward momentum’ of the plot as opposed to the interpersonal relationships that fall under Blood.

Brienne is free. Even if she suffers horribly under the misogynistic state of Westeros, compared to so so many of her fellow women, she is almost unbelievably self-motivated. She’s a gnc female knight, come the fuck on. Her idealism defines her, her clinging to her morals in the face of everything is the core of ASOIAF, this dark, dark story. She is rarely seen (apart from the beginning, where she’s with Renly) in a city or even a building, she’s in constant motion. Also, she’s blue. Class-wise… Knights protect others in Homestuck, they serve under/with others with their Aspect powers just like Pages do, and they have the same self-esteem issues. Brienne, is a knight not only in the way she reforms that title from the dark definition it has through ASOIAF, but in the class sense. She serves Catelyn, she is underconfident and puts up a façade to help, she gives Breath to Jaime.

ARYA STARK -

She’s a Time player, for sure – never still, always running from/to something or another. The constant danger she’s in might be a part of that, sure, but even in AGOT, she is implacable, always seeking out a better place for herself. And although Doom is suffering and death, Time is the aspect of the dead. Arya’s story is about finding a place for a human girl among the dead and ghostly. She orders her friends around through her own vision, and seeing is another big motif for her – she sees her mother’s corpse, she loses her eyesight and sees through the eyes of a cat, and so on. Thus, I dub thee Mage of Time.

SAM TARLY – (my beloved my beloved my BELOV-) He was originally a tossup between Mind and Light, both being intelligence-based aspects, but the reading-people part of Mind and the cunning ruthlessness of Light neither fit him. I took a step back and thought, maybe Space. He is a protector of new life (with Gilly and her baby) and remarkably selfless. His intelligence allows him to see a bigger picture than most. While Mage (the active, less overconfident Seer class) does fit him, his tendencies towards cowardice and need for others’ help make me go for Page. So, Page of Space. My poor lonely son.

part 2>>

#mine #asoiaf #valyrianscrolls #jon snow #tyrion lannister #cersei lannister #jaime lannister #brienne of tarth #classpect #arya stark #samwell tarly

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twdmusicboxmystery · 1 year

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So, here‘s a bit of a weird question: In all the years you‘ve been a member of TD and shipped Bethyl, did it ever cross your mind that their relationship could be inappropriate? Especially in S4. I know they were both adults, but, nonetheless, Beth was eighteen.

I used to think that it was inappropriate until I made a deep dive into their relationship. Beth and Daryl never meant for this to happen. They became friends and it just sort of happened, but he never looked at her in the wrong way. Never like a potential love interest since she was so much younger, Hershel‘s youngest baby girl. But outside of the prison walls, forced together, something blossomed.

If you don’t know their age it ain’t even bad, they look amazing together, work so well together, complete each other in a way that nobody could ever understand. And not knowing their age, you would think Beth is a fully grown woman in her thirties with a big emotional intelligence. That’s why Daryl fell for her in the first place. She wasn’t Hershel’s little baby anymore. She was a woman, a very good one at that and it did something to Daryl.

But if you do know the age, that’s where it gets weird, in a way. Sometimes my mind would play tricks on me, saying that he‘s a pedophile, but that would also mean that he could’ve potentially seen Sophia in that way wich was never the case. To him, Beth way a fully grown woman and to be honest, she was more mature than most the gang.

I don’t really know where I‘m going with this, but I just wanted to get it out and get your opinion on it, because I feel like I need someone else to confirm that their relationship was, in no way, inappropriate.

No, I've never thought their relationship was in the least bit inappropriate. And in all honesty, that's not even an opinion. Beth was 18 in 4b, so suggesting Daryl was a pedophile because of her age is legally, factually, and yes morally incorrect.

I'm always disturbed when people drag Sophia into it. Daryl had almost zero direct interaction with Sophia. He looked for her obsessively because she was an innocent child he clearly compared to his own childhood experiences of not being looked for, and because Carol was becoming one of his closest friends. But there's a world of difference between age 18 and age 8. They're not remotely close to one another in any way.

Look, I actually know several people who are in age-gap relationships, and they're very positive, healthy, loving, and long-term relationships. As long as everyone is over 18--and again, it's a fact that Beth was--age ceases to be a thing at that point. Because there can be relationships in which both partners are the same age, and it's still toxic. And there can be age gap relationships that are genuine and healthy.

So, we need to stop asking about the age of the people involved and just start asking whether the relationship is healthy for both parties. Toxicity is based on how people act in a relationship and what they're after. People in this fandom need to stop fixating on age. Once all parties involved are legal, it ceases to be a thing.

I hope that answers your question. Xoxo! 🍀💝

#beth greene #beth greene lives #beth is alive #beth is coming #td theory #td theories #team delusional #team defiance #beth is almost here #bethyl

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bestworstcase · 1 year

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do you think there's anything to be implied about the quality of rwby's writing and framing in light of how much of the audience misinterprets salem/oz and the role of the gods? i see so many people reading the lost fable as a straightforward condemnation of salem and ozma as a pretty basic tragic hero that it makes me nervous about the future of the show and that IM reading too much into things when i see more nuance in salem. are that many people really that shallow when engaging with rwby? idk

nah people are—well tbh i think what it comes down to mainly is that fandom is not really centered around critical analysis, it’s centered on transformative engagement, and while these are by no means mutually exclusive endeavors they are in fact. Different. analytical vs transformative approaches to the text are different endeavors with different goals requiring different skillsets and can but do not inherently overlap. frankly in fandom spaces i think real textual analysis is not just ancillary but actively discouraged; nobody is quicker to respond to analytical discussions with “it’s not that deep” than a fan who doesn’t like the discussion and there is a noticeable tendency in fandom spaces for any analysis that isn’t 100% ebullient to be read as negativity or critical—e.g. note the frequency with which my reading of ozma is interpreted as character bashing—which isn’t to say that fandoms do not engage analytically at all, but in broad terms there is something of an unspoken… chilliness toward textual analysis in fandom culture. and i am saying this from the perspective of having written a lot of textual analysis and a lot of fanfiction across different fandoms; there is A Pattern. you write a detailed analytical breakdown of your reading of a character and see people tagging it fandom negativity while gushing about the detailed character study you wrote based on that same reading enough times and you start to pick up on the fact that maybe fandoms are not really built for analytical engagement. there is also the whole thing where fandom has an entire category of headcanon predicated on “this thing happened in the text but i don’t like it so no it didn’t” and a second entire category predicated on “this has no basis and is possibly out of character but i like it so happened actually” lmao [TO BE CLEAR THIS IS NOT A VALUE JUDGMENT I HAVE NONSENSE HEADCANONS ALSO ITS FINE.]

anyway this is all fine but! because fandoms devote the bulk of their collective energy into pouring out vast endless streams of like, fanfic and fanart and headcanon and “ship dynamics” [i still do not quite understand what these are] and incorrect quote mills and so forth you tend to get a sort of collective flattening of the text. there is a tendency for characters to be stripped down and reduced to small easily-manageable sets of tropes derived more from aesthetics and first impressions and for any moral complexity to be boiled down to simple black and white and for unique worldbuilding to be smudged a bit until it resembles its nearest recognizable trope. there is a sort of creative entropy. a smooth surface is easier to write on. also sometimes fans do not Obsessively Rewatch The Show four times in the space of a year and over time details get memetically blurred and this, obviously, is detrimental to the overall fidelity-to-canon of popular fanon.

and then like the thing to remember about rwby is it’s a very detail-oriented story, and one that respects its audience. the one downside of that storytelling approach is that fandom is uniquely ill-equipped for it (think about how many people Completely Missed that ironwood was on the express train to fascism land in V4-5 even though. the narrative made it like. hilariously obvious)

In Summary i lived through the fandom where the protagonist after two years of increasingly toxic behavior towards her bestie, charbroiled her friend’s arm into a shriveled blackened husk and not only did not apologize but had a whole episode about being mad at the friend for being upset and then 95% of the fandom was shocked when the friend went “fuck you” and stole the magical artifact whose power was involved in the charbroiling incident all of four episodes later; and almost two years later half the remaining is still Discoursing about how the friend “didn’t have a reason” for betraying the protagonist. tts was a show written with small children in mind. i have witnessed Actual Forty Year Olds insisting that this character’s betrayal was petty and childish. rwby is a lot more tightly-written and nuanced and not a disney princess cartoon and while it does benefit from its fandom not being mostly Disney People the fandom is still. A Fandom. doing what fandoms… do.

#i really cannot emphasize enough that the salem nonsense is not ANYWHERE EVEN CLOSE TO the level of the cassandra tts nonsense #like every single episode that is About Cassandra is about rapunzel being an egregiously bad friend #(cause tts went ‘this girl grew up abused in a tower and has negative social skills’ god bless)#and the charbroiling happens because rapunzel uses a Known Dangerous Uncontrollable spell that cass begs her not to use #goes into a trance repeating it and cass grabs her to snap her out of it #and then like two episodes later is like i’m mad at you bc i had it under control and you wouldn’t have gotten hurt if you listened to me #and people are still like ‘how dare this petty egotistical selfish bitch be angry at rapunzel’ lmfao #like at least with salem she’s The Villain yk #not the deuteragonist who gets two seasons of being relentlessly mistreated by her friends and permanently disabled before finally snapping #anyway yeah as a Collective fandoms don’t engage beyond the level of like grade school analysis you get on TVTropes #i.e recognition of common tropes and genre conventions #the rwby fandom is honestly ahead of the curve for having a widespread grasp of what deconstruction is #but it’s still not. great #ironwood is the measuring stick to use here

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the-arcade-doctor · 11 months

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The Cade Crew as incorrect quotes

Dashes, watching Jay: Ah yes. The mysterious and beautiful Jay, so demure… Dashes: …I wonder what sort of melodic sounds this wonderful being makes? Jay: *screaming* Jay: Stressed. ZX: Depressed. Mr. T: Possessed. SRC: Obsessed. Dashes: Impressed. X-TERM: Chicken breast. Everyone: ...What? X-TERM: I just wanted to join in. Jay: Why do you hang out with me? ZX: You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me! Jay: … Jay: I feel a bit sorry for you. Mr. T: Why don't we just call it, "M.C. Donald's?" ZX: Because it just sounds like a stupid rapper's name. Jay: It'd just be like- "Eyo, it's ya boy, M.C. Donald!"

Dashes: So what do you have planned for the future? Jay: Lunch. Dashes: No, like long term. Jay: Oh...um, dinner? ZX: There are some things beyond our understanding. We must accept them and learn from them. Because these moments of crisis are also potential moments of faith. A time, when we either come together or fall apart. Nature always has a way of balancing itself. The only question is, what part will we play? Jay: Did you just make that up? ZX: No. I read it in a fortune cookie once. Jay: ZX: A really long fortune cookie. Jay: I’ve become a bread crumb dealer to four crows at the lake. They pay me with a bit of everything. Like shiny things, fabric, or pens. But recently they paid me with a 20 dollar bill they found somewhere. So I decided to buy them some more expensive bread. They loved it. So they understand what to do. Give me money. I’ve probably racked up about 200 dollars at this point. Is it morally wrong though, I mean. They’re the ones who steal the money from others. Or perhaps they just have a big pile laying somewhere. Should I keep on doing this? SRC: You sound like the start of a Batman villain. *the Squad at Disneyland, in the teacups* SRC, Dashes, and Mr. T: *spinning a little and talking* Jay, X-TERM, and ZX: *flying past them, spinning as fast as they can, screaming* Jay: Is stabbing someone immoral? ZX: Not if they consent to it. SRC: Depends on who your stabbing. X-TERM: YES??!!? Dashes: Your future self is talking shit about you right now. Jay: Jokes on them. I'll ruin their fucking life.

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sasquapossum · 2 years

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In thirty-plus years of working in tech and participating in tech communities (both online and off) I’ve noticed that different specialties seem to have their own distinct and persistent personalities.

Security/crypto folks have consistently been the worst kinds of people. I don’t mean morally, though I could write a separate post about how that does apply to “crypto” as that term has been hijacked by the blockchain crowd. I mean they’re just arrogant, condescending, trollish, etc.

Programming-language types tend to run second, though there are more exceptions. Folks who work on compilers or libraries for “modern” or “high level” languages tend to be bad, while folks who work on interpreted “scripting” languages are often decent.

HPC and embedded folks are generally pretty chill, which is interesting because many of them would be well within their rights to look down their noses at the rest of us. What they do is often both difficult and important. There’s a bit of an old-school hard-ass vibe to many on the embedded side, but they’re not obnoxious.

Database folks are all over the map, as are front-end folks.

Operating system folks (including storage) tend toward the obnoxious side - strongly so among those who work on the Linux kernel.

Network folks tend to be nice enough, but kind of myopic. I’ve met many who don’t even seem to realize that interesting and complicated things happen to data when it’s not in flight. They see all of the - admittedly considerable - complexity in their own world and think understanding it makes them masters of everything. Not so.

I haven’t known a lot of game developers, but the general impression I get is that there are somewhat more devils than angels.

Obviously exceptions abound, as do “Jekyll and Hyde” code-switchers. I’ve known some very cool security and compiler folks. I’ve known HPC folks who were true assholes. One fairly prominent filesystem developer was generous and funny and all-around cool 90% of the time, but I’ve also seen him make some of the most sexist and personally demeaning (not to me) comments of anyone I’ve ever met in tech.

My point here is not just to stereotype or complain but to help people choose their path in tech. There are interesting technical problems in every specialty. Really. It’s often the “vibe” of those around you that will affect your happiness. It’s why I quite deliberately got out of doing kernel stuff around the time that Linux became ascendant. Along with big company vs. small company, tech itself vs. the tech side of some other business, bleeding edge vs. established, private vs. public vs. academic, folks should consider whether the community of practice in each specialty is a good fit for them. If you’re aggressive and competitive and comfortable with a high level of “political incorrectness” try security or kernel work. If you’re more curious and collaborative, maybe try HPC or AI. If you’re extremely diligent, maybe even obsessive, I actively want you to consider embedded systems because I want all of my devices (including my car) to work. As I said, these “personalities” seem quite persistent. Over literal decades, such differences really can affect your happiness, passion, longevity, and success.

#tech #career advice

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voidpacifist · 6 months

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god is an author

DISCLAIMER: this is not to preach at anyone what they should or should not believe! This is purely me divulging into my thoughts about the God I grew up learning about and how I've come to terms with their existence. If that intellectual exercise is totally your thing, please enjoy :)

I've been sitting on this one for some time now, simply because I don't know very many people who study their own theology and pick it to pieces for fun, nor do I know very many people who are interested in theology in the first place. In fact, many people I've met, while not turned off to the idea of an existing and all-encompassing higher Somebody or Something, don't seem to like discussing the topic at all. And as someone who has recently come to confront the fact that their christian values may not even be considered "christian enough" anymore, I have begun to understand the discomfort with the subject matter.

But that brings me to the crux of why I began thinking about "God analogies" in the first place. See, the less I wanted to discuss the semantics about God's existence, the more my brain pushed back with different ways of looking at their existence. Namely, the way we compare them to different human archetypes - God as a father, God as a mother, God as an artist, God as a holy physician, etc. I was having trouble finding one that really and truly encompassed all the facets of their existence while also mirroring pieces of our (human beings) existence. After all, I was taught that we were made in the image of God, so what analogy was best? What analogy would set my mind at ease?

And then, of course, when I discovered the joy found present only in creating, I came a little bit closer to the "right" analogy. For a while, it was easy to think of God as simply a creator, but even that felt too simple. It didn't answer my questions about the problem of evil being allowed to exist, nor did it set my mind at ease about other philosophical and moral quandaries I'd been having. Would I be cast into damnation for allowing myself to feel about women as I did about men? Would I still be a christian if I didn't think of God as a father but rather as a genderless (or all-gendered) being? Would I lose my faith if I allowed myself to question the structure of the religion I'd grown up in? No, calling them merely a creator still left too many gaps in the analogy - a mere creator with no further pretense didn't necessarily account for anything moral, only for creativity itself.

It was a start, because humans are naturally creative creatures, and if we truly are image bearers of a higher power, then that comparison makes sense. But at this point, I was obsessed with narrowing the parallels down to something much more specific to my particular paradigm. Lo and behold, it was right around the time that I arrived at this platform of exploration that I began thinking of them as an author.

Point one: God is an author because they exist outside of the timeline.

When speaking about time as a concept, the first thing that I personally think of is the scene from season three of BBC's Doctor Who where David Tennant's incarnation of the Doctor says, "When you look at it from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly...timey wimey...stuff." And in reference to our human experience, he's incorrect in that regard. We spectate the passage of time from cause to effect to cause to effect. Rinse and repeat. Time is cyclical and linear and a progression.

And, time is entirely out of bounds as well.

Think about it with the fact in mind that the closer to the planet earth that one is, the faster the "clock moves." This is a phenomenon known as time dilation. It's seen in all sorts of scifi films, most prominently depicted in Nolan's Interstellar - time progresses at a far slower rate for the main character, and by the time he makes the return to his family, his daughter is already experiencing the final moments of her life. Decades for her have only translated to maybe two years for him.

Furthermore, if we think about the universe being in constant outward expansion, we can only assume that outside of it, past the edge of matter, there is no time. This brings to mind the concept of eternity, as well as the conundrum of how eternity can simply be. In eternity, everything has already happened and nothing has happened. The same can be said in regards to what is and what will be. How it can be all or nothing all at once is something we are incapable of understanding, because it breaks the rules of our conditions of existence. But for a being such as God? For someone or something that is in charge of all the rules and regulations of everything in the material plane? It doesn't break any rules then, because God is not governed by the rules of our existence - they are exterior to us.

How does that tie back into authorship? I'm so glad you asked.

(And if you've made it this far, thank you for sticking with me through my extremely heady tangent on the rules of time as a concept.)

It ties back into authorship, because every author exists outside of their characters' timeline(s). If time is contained within a story, then eternity is merely outside of that, with the author. James Dashner is not constrained by the events or progressions of The Maze Runner series. J.R.R. Tolkien is not contained by the end or beginning of Middle Earth in Lord of the Rings. In the same way, God did not "begin" when the universe began, because they wrote the universe into existence. If they began with the universe, that would bring up the question, "Who made God?", which would unravel with the knowledge in mind of God being all-powerful.

Points two and three: the problem of evil and the issue of free will.

Firstly, evil. The problem of the existence of good and evil is one that has left many in quite a scramble about how to justify God's existence when abhorrent things are also allowed to occur. And I'm not here to say that I have the definite answer, or that any emotions about the matter are invalid. I simply think this explanation is one that works, so I'll explain it to the best of my ability.

But before I explain, I'll have theological debater Cliffe Knechtle offer some further insight to the age old question, "Why would a loving god allow so much suffering?"

His answer is quite long, so I've condensed it to his first two points for the sake of remaining concise: the extent of God's power, and the concept of free will.

"[But] as a follower of Christ, I have to think, first point: Genesis chapter one records that when God created this, God saw that it was good. When God created that, God saw that it was good. So God did not create evil, suffering, and death. But in Genesis chapter three, we read how human beings rebelled against God, and when we told God to step off, to get lost, to remove his act elsewhere, he partially honored our request. And when God stepped back, chaos, destruction, and death entered.

"So you and I were not born into a fair world. You and I are born into an unfair world. Not because God created it that way, but because the all powerful God chose to partially limit his power by creating me free. If I hall back and slap this man and turn to you and say, 'God made me do it,' I'm a con artist, I'm a liar. God gave me a hand for the purpose of loving and respecting this man. But because I have a free will, I can roll this hand into a fist and send it crashing into this handsome face. If I have the audacity to say God made me do it, I'm a liar. I have a free will. And you and I live in a world where there's a tremendous amount of suffering, evil, and death. That's a direct result of human irresponsibility. Remember - when we human beings rebel against God, God steps back and evil, chaos, suffering and death enter the experience of humankind.

"Now, why? Why did God choose to create us with free will? Ultimately, I do not know. 'Well, come on Cliffe, it would be better if we didn't have free will. We wouldn't have evil and all this suffering and death.' Yeah, we also wouldn't have love. Because in order for it to be real, love has to be free. If it ain't free, it ain't love. If he's been dating somebody for the past two months, and she has said to him, 'I love you,' and tonight his dad calls him up and says, 'Son, I've been paying her one thousand bucks a month to date you,' he'd be royally bummed out. Why? Because you cannot manipulate or force love. And God created us to live in a love relationship with himself. You cannot force love.

"'Oh, but God's all powerful, he can do anything he wants.' No, that's not what the Bible teaches. God cannot make square circles. God cannot make two plus two equal five. And God cannot make himself exist and not exist at the same time in the same way. Impossible. When the Bible says that God is all powerful, it's means he's all powerful over his creation. But obviously, what he's chosen to do is he's chosen to limit his power and give us free will. And that's why you love, and that's why you enjoy it so much when other people love you. Because you know they don't have to love you. You know that they freely choose to love you."

Let's digress and digest.

Oftentimes, when the topic of free will comes up, it turns into a conversation of two extremes - of God as a puppeteer or of God being entirely absent. In order to address the middle ground, we need to explore a new idea: what if our ideas had their own free will? More specifically, what if the people we derive from our imaginations (original characters, imaginary friends, etc.) had a free will of their own?

Fellow authors can attest to knowing a character they've constructed so well that at some point, it becomes less about planning what the character will do, and more about understanding what the character will do. With regards to God as an author, they know us so well that though we have free will, every action we take as people still remains within God's plan, or in this case, "the plot" of our story in this existence. God, existing as they do outside of time, is the constructor of the story we're in and thus, knows us well enough to have both left nothing up to chance and given us the freedom to choose. It is by their will, but it doesn't make us robotic or mere vessels to be filled by command after command.

Which then brings us to the involvement of God when it comes to evil. Personally, I believe Cliffe encompassed this point beautifully: whereas God has limited theirself to allow us our free will, they have also therefore allowed bad things to be present in our timelines. With the further knowledge in mind that nothing is left up to chance (though everything is still up to us as human beings), this also means that evil has a purpose. For whatever reason, whether it be for demonstration or illustration, evil adds depth to the story of our existence in a way we cannot understand. If we understood it, I rather do think we'd have a glimpse into the mind of God theirself.

Point four: God is an author because they know the end.

Now, when it comes to the end, such as where we go when we die or how the world will eventually burn or freeze or result in some other disaster, we have a lot of trouble talking about it. We stress about the little details of what it's like to cease existing. Is there a blinding light before walking through the pearly gates? Is there utter darkness and then nothing, much like falling asleep? Is there a way to even conceptualize it? Do we all get expedited into a lake of fire?

It's admittedly terrifying. And also one of those things that people either preach loudly and proudly about or clam up at the thought of it. In my humble opinion, if we're all just characters with no knowledge of what happens at the end of our story, then we have no reason to be telling others where they're going either. That's up to the author and the character. All I can hope for is that the end will be satisfying, in a way that fully encapsulates the essence of each player and arc.

It brings me to my last point, which isn't a point really, but moreso a question regarding the existence of Jesus: is it God inserting theirself into our story, or have we simply been part of their story the whole time, with Jesus as our glimpse at the one who wrote us into being?

Personally, I think it's both. Because if we are the image of God, as well as created by them, then our story is both perfectly ours and perfectly God's.

#theology #philosophy #essay #theological essay #christianity #religious deconstruction #the analogies we come up with for encapsulating who and what god is

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