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oxtoxtoxto · 8 months

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i think i had an epiphany about pokemon black and white.

i think it was released about 5 or 6 years too early. what do i mean by that? BW came out in 2010, around a decade ago, and im going to assume it probably started full development not that long after HGSS finished up development, which would have been somewhere in 2009.

2009 was definitely a complex time, especially in Japan, but it was a *very different* time to now.

See, I think team plasma would have had a much more smooth narrative if they had incorporated the idea of *misappropriating progressive language*, and otherwise misusing certain terminology to the point of rendering it completely meaningless in its prior context.

we know the language bigots use to talk about minority groups nowadays, right? how there's pieces of language that used to serve a *very specific purpose* to refer to a *very specific kind of act* (such as grooming, a term which is now just thrown at the LGBT community whenever a bigot feels they need to drum up hate) which have now been sandblasted down into just another sneer to spit at people they hate?

and how by doing this they've tainted the usefulness *of those terms* to the point where it's genuinely impacting people's ability to report on certain things?

this was not as close of a topical issue in 2010 as it is today, where language is increasingly being weaponized due to the availability and reliance on social media our society has increasingly found itself with. this is why i think in a better world, pokemon bw would have come out in 2015, maybe even *later*, when this shit not only really began to develop into the cancerous issue it is now, but also when people began to actively speak out about it in a way that was wide-reaching.

think about a reframing here. at its core, team plasma is a pokemon welfare organization being used as a front as an elaborate way to dismantle any potential threats ghetsis might have to succeeding in a coup. ideally, this means trainers are pressured into releasing their pokemon and the ones who aren't have theirs *taken by force*, causing immense trauma to both pokemon *and* person, thereby necessarily weakening them in the process.

so, lets approach it as it might be done today. the first thing you do is you start widening the meaning of *abuse* and applying it in situations where it absolutely isn't the case, just to *force* people to legitimize a conversation that, say, owning a house pet might qualify as pokemon abuse.

you muddy the meaning of abuse until you have caused schisms in local culture. you rely on what examples of abuse you can find--neglect, power-hungry trainers who do view their pokemon mostly as instruments to increment ever-higher in ranking, but you do not turn you ire, *specifically*, on them. you turn that blame on your real targets: everyone else.

and all the while, what *abuse* or *neglect* or *mistreatment* even means when it comes to pokemon is muddled. people start reporting people for what they perceive *as* abuse even when it's not, and wasting the time of the organizations designed to look after this kind of thing, while also making anyone who reported things and got a "this wasnt abuse" feel validated that, yes, *everyone is in on it*.

with of course the occasional group of aggro anti-trainers reporting in such large numbers that the legal bodies involved have to investigate and maybe even separate pokemon and human because, well--look at all of these reports. there might be something going on.

and this snowballs. those who dont immediately bend to the pressure are targeted. they get picketed, they get people screaming at them. they have their organization decried as "abuse enablers" and with the way social media flattens nuance and these people already making sure to leave out all of the important details, many of these figures become hated by people who have been caught up in a cultural hate furor towards someone who has really been the one looking after these issues. people who are good, but are now demonized by a very vocal and aggressive group.

and then, you twist the knife, because with the eradication of all meaning to terms like *abuse*, you also make it a lot easier for abusive trainers to get away with what they're doing so long as they just pay the correct kind of lip service. just look at ghetsis: he has a hydreigon that genuinely seems to fucking hate him, judging by its frustration. abuse doesnt actually *get reduced*, because the words have been muddled so much the kind of clues and hints that might help a pokemon abuser get caught and put away are lost in the endless froth of vitriol.

abusers dont get hurt by this so long as they know how to phrase it.

and when you add in that the people who would actually be handling cases of abuse and mistreatment being either demonized, bent to the will of an angry mob, or too terrified to speak out, real abuse goes untouched.

people, *figureheads* of the movement, become untouchable because they crusade for the campaign with the right combination of words that *surely* they're not using this as a smoke screen to cover for their own goals.

this, this right here? i think people have always been aware of how language can be shaped like this, but genuinely the last 5 to 8 years have been the absolute worst of it, and most obviously criticized. if BW came out during this period, and used this as a touchstone rather than the absolute stance it does, it could have been a much more nuanced and compelling narrative.

the point is, though, Pokemon BW could have come out in the late 2010s and probably had a much stronger real-life example to build on and work with. The conversations we are having today are eminently relatable to Team Plasma's goal, it's just *too early* to have that connection.

It also would have permitted some nuance within the narrative. As it stands right now, the Pokemon universe simply rejects the idea that mistreatment of Pokemon is a realistic idea in the first place. Even among some of the darkest, and arguably the most likely teams to abuse their Pokemon (Galactic and Rocket) mainly view their Pokemon as integral sources of power that they must nourish and improve for their own benefit. It's not a purely benevolent reason, no, but Cyrus has a Crowbat (only evolves with high friendship) and while some of it is anime apocrypha, virtually *nothing* implies that Giovanni mistreated his Pokemon, and that Team Rocket mainly mistreated Pokemon via stealing them in the first place or by attempting get rich quick schemes (slowpoke tails).

In other words, the only group that has been shown to actively and aggressively *abuse pokemon* is team plasma itself, where in one of their first appearances two grunts, claiming to want to protect Pokemon, repeatedly kick a fucking Munna not ten feet away from you.

These would be the leaders, the problems, the actual criminals stringing the others along who have been caught up in the momentum of finally having someone to just *hate*.

This would let the story also progress as you work your way up from the grunts (who may fall anywhere on the scale between shitheel or ideological warrior consumed by the movement) to the admins (who are all eerily powerful, well-connected, and giving away hints that their Pokemon are mistreated, its just that they have the language and reputation to avoid scrutiny) and finally to Ghetsis, who is the embodiment of these leaders in the worst way possible. Part of the story, then, would be figuring out where N falls, if what he's saying is just lip service or the truth, and it would make his struggle to reconcile the world Ghetsis has painted for him (one of casual Pokemon cruelty and Pokemon forced into subservient roles to do as humans wish) against the one he faces (one where Pokemon and humans work together--not always perfectly, but with a lot of care) and the slowly dawning realization that everything he's been told is a projection of how Ghetsis and his admins actually feel about Pokemon a lot more meaningful.

You could even include hints. Admins putting their Pokemon away whenever N is around, almost in a panic because if N got a single chance to speak to any of their Pokemon, the entire plot would go up in smoke.

N not knowing about certain operations or being intentionally redirected to you to keep him occupied as Ghetsis and his admins are finally allowed to throw their weight around.

By making it much more reflective of trends we know about today, you could get a fair bit more intense narrative about deceit and the real fucked up consequences of this kind of thing.

#pokemon #pokemon black and white #ramble #this is almost wholesale copy-pasted from a discord conversation #just wanted to preserve it for posterity #oxto ramble

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zelda-the-sacred-realm · 9 months

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As much as I enjoyed the story of totk, I feel like it doesn’t really do ganondorf justice in terms of personality and goals. Throughout the game all he does is boast about his desire for power and how he hates how peace has made people go “soft”. I don’t necessarily think that he has to be this tragic sympathetic figure, I just wish he had the same depth and nuance that the other characters had in the game.

I always thought a great way of demonstrating a more complex and nuanced approach to his character would be dark foil to Link. Him growing up as a sorta chosen one and hero of his people with initial goals being the power to provide for his people and create a world of great warriors. However his pride and ambition combined with his transformation into the demon king corrupted and warped his mind until all he cared about was his own power to make the world as he saw fit. By the time Link and him meet, he’s resigned himself to his role as the villain of this story cause he believes that this is what the world intended for him. Him consuming the secret stone also highlighting the moment his armor finally breaks as he can’t bear to think of the idea that everything he’s fought and sacrificed for was all in vain. So he’d rather give it all up just to say he at least destroyed the man that ruined his plans once and for all. But his last ditch effort to wind not only destroys his mind as well as omit his influence on hyrule, but he’s defeated shortly after by the light dragon and Links combined efforts. In the end Ganondorf was his own worst enemy.

I like your thoughts on Ganondorf, I also think that he is always the villain positioned in the story but that he doesn't have an obvious reason to be so evil.

Unfortunately, the biggest problem with some games is that little attention is paid to the motive of the villain, it is easy to create a character, position him and tell the player, here, he is your enemy. But why is that character evil? Why does he want to kill and conquer? What's in his past? Ganondorf doesn't respond to any of these, and maybe that's the reason why I'm never interested in him at all.

I have an example of a really well developed villain, he's from Final Fantasy XV and his name is Ardyn. An incredible story was developed for him, he was a good person, dedicated to saving his people from a deadly virus, the brother, on the other hand, was selfish and violent. Well the oracle announced that Ardyn should ascend the throne, but his brother knew it and set a trap for him, which ended with the death of the oracle herself, who was also Ardyn's sweetheart.

Moral of the story is that his brother ascended the throne and locked up Ardyn, and for many years Ardyn swore to destroy the family that descended from his brother.

For me this is an example of how to characterize a villain, giving a reason for his actions.

Sorry if I dwelt too much, but the topic interested me a lot, so I hope that sooner or later Nintendo will take care of giving Ganondorf a motive, so that maybe the players can also understand him.

Thank you for discussing this topic with me!

#zelda tears of the kingdom #legend of zelda tears of the kingdom #tears of the kingdom #tears of the kindom spoilers #tloz totk #totk spoilers #ganondorf #totk ganondorf #ganondrof #calamity ganon #ffxv spoilers

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cosmicjoke · 6 months

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Hi Cosmic! I’m not sure if you talked about this already or not, but I really want to hear your thoughts on this because I still see so many takes regarding this topic it makes my head hurt, it’s exhausting.

What do you think about Gege’s comment about Gojo not committing to women / his inability to be loyal to a woman.

I still see Gojo getting dragged and simplified, reduced to stereotypes to hell and back because of what Gege said. I’m just wondering what you think, I trust your theories and insights the most.

You know, I really don't know what to make of it. I used to think Gege was just trolling when he talked shit about Gojo, or put him down, but given the way he handled his death against Sukana, I'm not so sure anymore. I think the dude really might hate Gojo, which is totally bizarre, given what a great character he is. But it almost seems like Gege hates how popular Gojo is and was, and so he lashed out against that by saying shit like that, like Gojo is a womanizer, Gojo would make a terrible boyfriend, etc... Saying girls should be more into Nanami. It's just strange. Why would he even care that Gojo was popular with women? You would think he would be happy that he created a character that so many people loved.

What Gege did with Gojo's character after he died, his conversation with Nanami in the airport, also seems to confirm his dislike of him, with him more or less solidifying the take on Gojo of being a shallow, selfish idiot, in defiance of the more nuanced and complex takes on him, of his seemingly dimwitted and blase attitude toward things being nothing but an act to cover up his own, emotional trauma and pain, a coping and defense mechanism to protect himself from ever experiencing again what he did when he lost Geto.

Part of what upset me so much about Gege's handling of Gojo's death was that he seemed to nuke all of that, all of that characterization and all of that depth in some petty act of revenge for Gojo being so popular. Much like how Gege's writing over the last, several years, and particularly in Gojo's fight with Sukana, has done away with all sense of logic and narrative coherence or cohesiveness, the sudden declaration that Gojo really was just a selfish asshole this whole time made zero sense in the context of what we've seen of him and what his stated motivations were since the start of this story. It felt to me like Gege was willing to undo all of his own, hard work simply because he got mad that Gojo connected with so many people, and so he decided to stick it to them by telling them they were wrong to like him at all in the first place. I'm just speculating, of course. I have no idea if that's what Gege was actually doing. But his writing has been so bad, and really noticeably has taken a dive in quality over the last few years, and when you couple that with his comments about Gojo, it seems possible to me that he purposefully wrecked his own characterization of Gojo out of pettiness.

It's either that, or Gege really is just a shit writer who can't maintain any kind of consistency in his work, and who simply ignores his own earlier writing when it proves inconvenient to what he wants to do now. Whatever the case may be, he fucked it all up, imo, and now the Gojo haters have plenty of ammo to use in their criticisms of him.

So, I blame Gege for all the Gojo haters having grounds to stand on. It's hard to defend Gojo from haters when his own creator hates him too.

#Gojo Satoru #jjk #jujutsu kaisen

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lovecolibri · 1 year

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SaL anon here bestie and *deep sigh* here we are...again. Not to get off topic but have you ever seem The Green Mile?? I have a complicated relationship with that movie but I the thing from it permanently imprinted on my brain is when the warden comes in demands "What in the Blue Fuck was That!?" It a whole ass mood right now after watching that clip and I highly recommend just watching that line to get the full effect.

Why, for the love of God, are we bringing up Shannon again??!! She didn't even really come up during Eddie's PTSD arc but we're just gonna randomly insert her in a episode sort of about death?? Of course we are because KR has literally no new ideas. Oh except for this season where she's like "You know what hasn't been done yet?? We haven't emphasized importance of family by blood so we'll redeem all the horrible parents with zero effort to let everyone know your grudges are petty and just hurt you." You know why that hasn't been done Kristen??!! Because this is a show about FOUND family, realizing your importance and worth in a space that's safe for you to do that, and having the support you need when the bad times come!! She has actually forgotten the very foundation of this show and I'd scream but I'm also so, so tired. You know what time it is then 🍸🍸🍸. Gonna read comfort fic and find a comfort show to put on when that gets hard. Cheers friend!!

Bestieeeee! What. The fuck. Is happening?! I didn't answer this Friday and I should have because yesterday was a WHOLE other mess! I feel so bad for dragging you into this show just in time for it to all go to shit. We survived RNM, we don't deserve to suffer like this again! 😩😩😩

Your "KR has literally no new ideas" line is SO apt after that clip yesterday literally recycling the eddieana meeting. Parallels can be used and be effective but after she literally just re-did Buck's fight with Bobby over returning to work with Eddie (only to not show their apology or Eddie's decision to return to work on screen), and re-did Eddie's "it's time to get back out there after Shannon and figure out what you want") s4 arc last week, this "Buck meets a girl on a call in the exact same way Eddie met Ana" just looks...so so so lazy. Not to mention Buck and Eddie are only ever with women after they meet them on calls, AND we are reverting Buck back to season 1 "a relationship with THIS women must be able to fix me" which is just...gross. Buck was always one of my favorite characters but GOD I dread his personal scenes now because KR just doesn't know what to do with him unless it's trying to get into his pants in some way and she doesn't understand any of the motivations or what drives him as a character. Stop ruining my boy!! GOD I need her off this show like, YESTERDAY.

ANYWAY

This whole Shannon thing has me so 🙄🙄🙄 because as good as Ryan and Gavin are and Eddie/Chris scenes always are because they play so well off each other, this is like, the LEAST interesting thing they could have done and it's clearly not about Chris or Eddie or their complicated history with Shannon, it's just being used to push the "Eddie choosing someone to date for himself" idea. They could have given something deep and emotional this season like Chris now being old enough to start asking harder questions about Shannon leaving and Eddie trying to navigate that with him, or having a talk about Chris starting to be interested in dating and asking Eddie some hard questions about why Eddie isn't dating again since Ana has been gone for so long. But nope! It's "let's pretend this parent never did anything awful and there are zero complex feelings about them" hours once again. Thanks, I HATE it. And for me it ruins the nuance of Shannon's character because she WAS just a person who was struggling. But where Eddie thought his son didn't need *him* so much as he needed Eddie to provide for him and once he found out Chris just wanted to spend time WITH him he fought tooth and nail to make it work no matter how hard, Shannon decided it was too much and cut off all contact because keeping in touch with her son and making sure he knew he was loved wasn't as important as her not wanting to be put in an awkward position. And that's life! And Chris and Eddie should be allowed to acknowledge that they loved her at some point, Chris should be allowed to have good memories of his mom, and still be allowed to acknowledge that she abandoned them and hurt them deeply and there are complex feelings around that!

These complex parental relationships leading to the found family of the 118 has ALWAYS been at the heart of the show and you're right that KR has NEVER understood that and has spent this season undermining that bond across the whole team and any time the story tries to emphasize the found family it's also still pushing the blood family importance so the storytelling comes out confused and in opposition to itself giving the audience emotional whiplash. I'm just so very very tired of this. I'm positive it's too much to hope for but with audiences tuning out and the constant complaints at how the show is handling arcs and pacing and KR's choices, and even now articles by people who often write about 911 calling out the inconsistencies, maybe the negotiations for renewal will come with some stipulations on who gets to be in charge. Even if I didn't love EVERY storyline choice in the early seasons, the episodes themselves were ALWAYS enjoyable overall and there was so much good stuff going on it was easy to let the stuff I didn't like as much roll past, so it would be good to get back to that sort of vibe again and KR has proved over several seasons that she is NOT up to that task. With the Tarlos wedding wrapped up, we might get...I don't want to say "lucky" because I don't think Tim is the greatest thing ever, but we might get some bit of pacing and consistency and flow back in the show (I know LS has some pacing issues as well but that feels to me more like them having to work around RL's insistence on centricity than anything else)

Oof. Lets see if we can make it through these last few episodes with this dating nonsense, the sperm donor arc and L coming back, and maybe even a Tay Kay jumpscare. Can't wait 🙄 At least Ravi is back home and the finale emergency looks like it will be good and we're getting injured Chim so we're going to get *some* crumbs out of this mess. And then it will be summer and I've got a fic idea started soooo, we'll see if I can get anywhere with my astronaut!Buck, NASA medic!Eddie Countdowns inspired thingy. Cheers my friend, we are going to NEED IT. (But hey, if we survived RNM, we can do ANYTHING. But also we shouldn't have to and I need this show to STOP IT.) 🍹🍹🍹🍹🍹🍹🍹

#my sweet nonnie friends #sleeping at last anon #911 #911 spoilers #anti shannon diaz #for blacklisting purposes #*oh ariana we're really in it now.gif*#brb gotta go scream into the woods for an hour #and then binge more fic until i stop wanting to pull my hair out #why can't normal things make my brain produce the good chemicals? this is bullshit

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the-fantabulous-toast · 2 years

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hello dont suppose youd mind saying why for all mankind is centrist? or no any analysis of that? (i have no investment in the show i just like reading analysis)

The show isn’t so much centrist in its text, but moreso in its implicit politics. It makes a lot of starting assumptions visa-vi what the “neutral position” is, and builds everything on top of that, baking unexamined bias into the very fabric of the story.

You can tell a lot about a show’s politics by what positions it rejects out of hand. There are multiple instances where a character will essentially turn to the camera, waggle their eyebrows, and say “Isn’t socialism such a ridiculous idea? Here in America we have capitalism, which is obviously superior.” It ain’t subtle. It makes gestures towards social progressivism, but at its core the show is fundamentally conservative. In later seasons there’s a lot of talk about free markets and neoliberalism, which I guess makes sense since they’re set in the late 80s/early 90s, they were topics of conversation at the time, but I think it’s telling that rather than interrogating those concepts, the show treats them as a given. As far as the show is concerned, these concepts aren’t ideologies, they are Facts. (semi-related sidebar, saying “what if Steve Jobs was Elon Musk and was black” and then putting that guy in the position of a ruthless and manipulative antagonist feels pretty gross, but I don’t feel qualified to unpack that.)

Due to the show’s setting during the Cold War, it’s basically required that at least some dialogue occur between the two ideological positions at either end of that conflict, and that absolutely does happen here. The American side is frequently shown to be incredibly flawed, and is very often wrong about stuff. On the other hand... I’m not about to say that the Soviet government was anything other than an oppressive/repressive authoritarian regime, but the decision to cast almost every Russian character as a mustache-twirling cartoon villain seems, I dunno, unfair somehow? Even the most reprehensible American characters get layers and nuance and heaps of backstory, meanwhile the most complex and sympathetic Russian character gets “manipulating you but feels bad about it.” Every other Russian is shot and performed like a bad guy in a Marvel movie.

Its treatment of gay characters is also worth noting. They spend a little while talking about the Pink Scare, a drive to root out secret homosexuals in government agencies. In order to dodge the inspectors, the only lesbian character pairs off with the only gay character, who acts as her beard. The Pink Scare is a real thing, and this sort of thing absolutely did happen. Later the lesbian character is on a failed mission in space, and thinking she’s about to die, comes out to her mission commander. He takes it poorly, saying she should have kept it to herself. In fairness, this is framed as wrong by the show. But also, she does keep it to herself. Her orientation is never mentioned again, and later she runs for president as a Republican, in an era where the Republican platform was exceptionally homophobic. She’s presented as a successor to Reagan. Granted, the story isn’t finished, and they might still do something with her character, but right now it doesn’t seem great.

Then there’s the show’s gender politics. Sexism was and is a major issue in the space program, especially during the period the show is set. Its a major topic of conversation throughout the show, and textually a lot of what they’re saying and doing is good. My favorite character in this whole thing, Danielle Poole, is a black woman who gets to take the first steps on Mars, which is nice. Oooon the other hand, in terms of what actually happens, things look less great. The show has a sizable main cast, but it consistently centers Ed as the de facto main character. I hate Ed. The entire plot is fueled by Ed’s fragile ego, and the show bends over backwards to give him what he wants. The wants and needs of every other character, man woman and child, are sacrificed to prop up his masculinity. He’s impulsive, emotionally unstable, controlling, and self-centered, and the show is in love with him.

Finally, there’s the basic assumptions of the show’s premise. It presents an alternate history in which America lost the space race. They seem to have forgotten that, by almost every metric, America lost the space race in reality too.

The USSR set the record in:

first to orbit

first living thing to orbit

first living thing retrieved from orbit (alive)

first man to orbit

first woman to orbit

first multi-crew spaceflight

first spacewalk

first to orbit the moon

first to land on the moon

first robotic sample return

first to escape Earth’s sphere of influence

first to flyby Venus (also netting them first to reach another planet)

first to orbit Venus

first to land on Venus

first flight in another planet’s atmosphere (a feat only recently matched by the Mars Ingenuity helicopter)

first to flyby Mars

first to land on Mars

first single-module space station

first multi-module space station

also, tragically, the USSR also set the record for the first deaths in space.

Meanwhile, the USA set the record in:

first spy satellite

first to orbit Mars

first man on the moon

After that folks usually stop counting, but for completeness’s sake, the USA also got:

first to flyby Mercury

and Jupiter

and Saturn

and Uranus

and Neptune

Now obviously the outer planets and the moon are not minor achievements, but even with those milestones taken into consideration the USA was absolutely thrashed by the USSR. The writers of this show are drowning in the koolaid that is the American narrative of the space race. American history textbooks begrudgingly cop to the Soviets getting first orbit and first man to space, and then spend the rest of the time exclusively talking about the Apollo program, the only unqualified W America ever got. The show spins its alternative reality off of what it assumes to be actual history, not realizing that the foundation they’re building on is slanted.

There isn’t nothing to recommend here. The production is inspired, and as much as I hate the writing, I do keep coming back to find out what happens next. The show has good ideas. I mean, they blew up Margaret Thatcher, for one thing. They’re trying their best to present a nuanced and realistic alternate history, but in my opinion they haven’t done the necessary introspection to do that goal justice.

In summary, show sucks lol

#for all mankind #toastpoasting

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quibbs126 · 1 year

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Aight, so a while ago I had an ask about a theory that Dark Enchantress Cookie was the one who made the Strawberry Jam Sword, intentionally trying to bring Dark Choco Cookie to the darkness. And while I think it’s a cool idea, as stated in the tags, I have a few personal narrative problems with it, and now I think I’ve got my thoughts better articulated, so I just want to discuss them in greater detail.

Disclaimer to @cessmaga who sent this to me, I’m not trying to rag on you or your headcanon I swear, I just feel like explaining my thoughts a bit more. Also it’s relevant to my next post but I thought it was too off topic to include there, so I’m making it its own separate post. That’s kind of the main reason I’m doing this. Also I’m not sure how popular of a headcanon/theory that is, but I’m approaching it as if it is one, or at least a known theory amongst the community

So first off, like I said, I feel like it’s too easy. By having Dark Enchantress Cookie be the one who made the Strawberry Jam Sword and thus directly responsible for Dark Choco’s misery, it means that all that suffering can just be pointed to the main villain being responsible. It wasn’t some tragic accident, just the main villain trying to get another follower. It gives us an easy target to blame, and we don’t have to think about nuance in the situation, you know?

Second, I dunno, it feels like it’s just too cruel for Dark Enchantress Cookie? Like yes I know she’s the villain, but she’s not like Palpatine or the Overlord where she’s basically evil incarnate; Kingdom has shown her to be a more complex character than that. Her motivation is in some ways right, trying to make a better world for Cookies, she’s just going about it in the wrong way. And you can understand where her motives come from. And from what I’m able to gather she’s a relatively chill person/boss, she just loses it when people don’t see the truth of the situation and seemingly choose to stay ignorant. Why then would she go out of her way to create a sword that would cause endless torture to the son of one of her oldest friends? Yeah she hates them now but nothing says she’d go that far. And from what I can gather, it’s not like Dark Cacao Cookie did anything to warrant that rage, and Dark Choco on his own is completely innocent here, he’s not responsible for anything that happened with the Ancients. So why do all that? Just to gain another follower? No one seemed that bothered by him leaving the CoD, other than the fact that one of their members betrayed them. Also she doesn’t seem directly responsible for any other members turning to darkness (aside from maybe Pomegranate), so this would be an odd exception. She seems to mostly just find people to join her group

Edit: upon looking at more stuff, maybe she would be that mean. So maybe disregard reason 2. But I think the other ones still hold up

Edit edit: okay so I was basing that off of events from Ovenbreak, but upon further thought that might not apply to the Kingdom version of DE. She seems to be portrayed in a more grey light (a dark grey, but still grey nonetheless), whereas Ovenbreak DE seems more inherently villainous, if that makes sense

Thirdly, if Kingdom ever decides to go with a redemption for Dark Enchantress Cookie/White Lily Cookie, then there’s gonna be a problem here, specifically with Dark Cacao Cookie. Because (assuming he learns the truth of what happened with Dark Choco, which I imagine he will) the Strawberry Jam Sword is the thing responsible for what happened to his son and all of the misery they’ve been through; to find out that there is someone directly responsible for creating that sword and putting his son through all that torture, you know his rage would know no bounds. And for the one responsible to be Dark Enchantress Cookie/White Lily Cookie, there would be no forgiving her, no matter what, because this is personal. Because she had the audacity to go after his son, who had no involvement in any of this. Yeah basically what I’m saying is that Dark Cacao Cookie would never be able to forgive her for what she’s done. And as I feel like one likely way for her to have some form of redemption is to have her old friendship with the other Ancients come into play, and that wouldn’t work as well if one of them hates her. Not to mention, it’s a point of no return for her, it’s crossing the line to a point where redemption becomes difficult to believe. It’s like how in Layton, Bronev is responsible for the death of Sycamore’s family, a character we’ve grown attached to and like, and thus we have a hard time accepting Bronev’s redemption, as that’s something you can’t really ignore. Though at least there, the narrative gives Sycamore no reason to forgive Bronev for what happened, whereas in Cookie Run, Dark Cacao would likely have to, or at least be willing to accept her willing to change and give her a fair chance

So yeah, while the idea is interesting, I personally don’t subscribe to it because of its narrative consequences

Though that’s not to say I don’t want to know what’s up with the Strawberry Jam Sword, because I do

#just thoughts I wanted to get out #I should probably be studying but whatever #my other post I mentioned is gonna be just some personal speculation on what the lore of the Strawberry Jam Sword could be #I just wanted to explain myself in greater detail #again not knocking on anyone who thinks DE created the sword #cookie run kingdom #strawberry jam sword #dark enchantress cookie #speculation #theory #ramblings

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vampire-nyx · 2 years

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i personally as a trans person do not see chihiro as trans... is the media transphobic? yes most likely. did the characters arc feel strange and perpetuate harmful stuff? absolutely. but that doesn't make the character trans if they themselves never express wanting to be a different gender. chihiro wants to be a boy. that is their character arc. ranka i say is definitely more complex than that, since i feel they are very clearly shown as a drag performer, but many trans women in japanese media are also shown heavily as drag queens, but its when they keep the gender expression outside of work, i typically do view it as confirmation that this character is most likely, and in most cases, trans, because they choose to present that way because that is their comfort or makes them happy. chihiro meanwhile is not happy as a girl, and i think presents almost a narrative foil to the trans experience. chihiro feels forced to uphold everyone elses idea about their gender, and so they presented as a girl because they felt that was more safe rather than it was something that would make them happy. they don't present as a boy because people misgendered them when they presented cis, which is the opposite of many but not all trans people. they don't dress like that to trick anyone, or get anyone hurt, and again, while the story line is clearly iffy in a lot of ways, that doesn't necessarily means chihiro is trans in canon. that's not to dismiss anyone elses thoughts, really, i love trans headcanons for them, i think it's fun to explore whatever and personally really enjoy agender or gender apathetic chihiro after they learn to deal with their own internalised stuff about what gender means to them and not anyone else. i do think there's a clear difference between how their character acts and why versus say ranka or any other character in media by the way of how their reasonings for what they do are presented. ex: ranka willingly dresses and acts that way, against others judgements rather than chihiro dressing that way because of peoples judgements. (i cannot speak on helena from friends since i haven't watched that show)(and i really hope this doesn't come across as mean because I really admire many of yours thoughts on stuff, but thought I'd at least add some of my perspective? dunno, no pressure to think the same or anything, I've just thought about this sort of topic alot when it comes to trans and genderqueer characters in Japanese media)(which is very different from say western media but thats something I think has a lot of nuance since it has such different cultural understanding than what we might be used to, and i think that should be acknowledged) //gen+nm

This is exactly what I'm talking about, and this is no hate to you anon it was very kind of you to patiently try to explain this to me /gen, but I've Considered all this already

My point is, I don't care what canon says. I never will, a transphobic writer will write ANYTHING to deny that a caricature character is trans and/or supposed to represent trans people/experiences, I don't Care what the characters arc is when they are a clear, obvious trans caricature (especially when that arc is a COMMON TRANSPHOBIC NARRATIVE USED AGAINST REAL LIFE TRANS PEOPLE TO DEVALUE THEIR EXPERIENCES AS FAKE), and the passive defending of that writing by deferring to canon when the caricature is discussed is exactly what I'm angry about

Like I never claimed any of the characters were canon, even for the ones that are (i.e. birdetta), my point was that I don't care if they are or not, they're trans caricatures and it's not okay for real people to say caricatures are okay and reinforce and play into them because the writers made up in-universe justification for it

#sunny speaks

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yuna-writes · 9 months

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Moral Judgement

I’m pretty sure when most people watch Oppenheimer, they are not really going to analyze some of the moral complexity surrounding the inventor and invention. I’m sure some would consider it, but I think the ideas are rather complex and it would start to make them question about their own sense of right or wrong which I think many people will start to find themselves feeling uncomfortable.

There’s no denying that the nuclear bombings in Japan was a crime against humanity. If it is a crime against humanity, then the people who decided that fate would make them terrorists. The nuances is that shortly after the bombings, Japan surrendered and the war ended. It leaves me wondering what was the right or wrong way to go about the situation. Ideally, it would be best if there was peace instead of war. I think I remember addressing this to someone about it, she thinks people can’t pass moral judgement on other people because we are all flawed and sinful. She was a religious person so she believes in the idea that moral judgement is up to God to decide who goes to heaven or hell.

That’s why whenever I re-watch old shows I used to see a kid, it made me questions my views on certain characters. When I re-watched Death Note, my views on Light changed a bit. When I was a kid, I used to hate Light because he would try to eradicate criminals around the globe and he would kill anyone who tried to stop him. I thought through the logic, and in the second arc it shows the world where crimes were greatly reduced and there were no more wars. Logically speaking, it does make sense in a way certain people shouldn’t exist because their influence creates suffering to other people. If the Death Note was a real invention, I think many people would justify writing down Putin’s name on the notebook to end the war with Ukraine and Russia faster. I know there’s going to a be people who would disagree and question whether using the notebook would be morally right. They might say that ending Putin’s life might not end the war, but I personally disagree on this. I think Putin has a lot of influence and power over the Russian government. If he was removed, then the war would end sooner and there would be no more causalities from the war. If we have observed throughout time, the war ended shortly after Hitler died. There are patterns to prove that usually political figures are the driving influence to war.

Therefore, when it comes to politics, I can’t seem to side with either one belief and I also feel like people misunderstand me a bit on this. In a room, I understand why people would feel emotionally charged and upset when they see the bombings in Japan because it does seem like a crime against humanity when they see innocent civilians die, but I also see the nuances to the problem and I come to a realization I’m not really in the position to pass moral judgement to a very complex and nuanced issue. In a room, I would not be very emotional. I would probably be neutral on the topic which I think people can’t seem to understand why I came to that conclusion. It doesn’t mean I’m apolitical or don’t care about politics. I do care about politics, but the problem isn’t so simple to be reduced to just simplistic ideas such as right or wrong because that various across people’s perspective on the issue. I agree to some extent that I’m not a god to make moral judgements, and no one is. I’m not a religious person, but maybe there are truths that this type of judgement relies on a higher being or a God.

#notes

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ouyangzizhensdad · 3 years

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I'm gonna go on a limb here and say something I've been thinking about. So, I watched cql before reading the novel, and when I first read mdzs I have to say I was a bit thrown off by the Phoenix Mountain kiss, so of course my first instinct was to come to this hellsite and try to find what other people thought of it. The more I looked into it, the more I was convinced that the reason so many people hate it so irrationally and why it is apparently so hard for some to analyse any possible meaning beyond the obvious things in that scene, is because people that were introduced to mdzs via cql often go into the novel trying to get some sort of "fandom experience".

What I mean is that people will read mxtx's work and expect to get the same gratification they get whenever they find a good fic. Something tailored to their taste and characters built upon the preconceived ideas (often fanon) they have of each of them. It's a problem I've noticed a lot with queer media reception by people who are active in fandom. It's one of the things I am critical of and why I am so adamant to join fandom discussions, because I feel like many fandoms have created spaces where the queer characters are made to be these perfect examples of representation, so whenever queer characters are allowed to be flawed and make bad decisions people often jump on the bandwagon of calling it problematic and homophobic, instead of putting some effort into reading further than what is in plain sight and being critical of the possible meaning behind the character's actions.

Sorry for the long ask, but I wanted to get this out of my system. Tried my best, but English is not my first language, so I'm sorry if anything is weird or hard to understand.

Hi anon,

I think you are definitely unto something when you say: “people will read mxtx's work and expect to get the same gratification they get whenever they find a good fic. Something tailored to their taste and characters built upon the preconceived ideas (often fanon) they have of each of them.” It certainly would explain why so many people, even while aware that the series is an adaptation of the book, say stuff like “novel!LWJ is OOC”. They might have approached the novel as just the “fanfic” of CQL that includes “canon Wangxian”, without considering how much had been potentially changed through the process of adapting MDZS and making it palatable according to censorship.

I agree with you that the current state of fandom, where fic writers seem focused on avoiding being Problématique at all cost, has not only stiffled creativity but created in certain fans unreasonable expectations towards other works. Fandom, as a creative context, is generally focused on (self-)indulgence, on feel-goodness, and is largely pretty dry in terms of themes. But to expect all creatives to have the same “goal” or approach when it comes to art is simply ridiculous. For some people, art is a safe means through which to explore difficult, violent or outlandish set-ups. Art can be used to make people feel uncomfortable, unsettled just as it can be used to make people feel uplifted and moved. Art can be focused on exploring nuanced and controversial topics. Art can be used to portray irredeemable assholes, losers or monsters. Art can be depressing and deny us any feelings of satisfaction. Art can do so many things! And, yes, sometimes creativity is mobilised in the service of writing the nth wholesome gay coffee store AU for a popular anglo property: but that’s neither the norm nor the rule.

I think as well in terms of queer representation that we lose a lot when we try to argue that the only way to “fight” homophobia is to present queer characters and queer relationships that are Unproblématique and fit a constantly-shifting standard of what is “not-homophobic”. Take the current obsession with the idea that all gay men must be vers or otherwise be a homophobic stereotype: putting aside all that needs to be unpacked in that belief, imagine a world where it’s the accepted idea everywhere that you can’t write about gay men lest they be vers. How many queer experiences would we be erasing in the process? Or, again, this weird idea that it’s “bad” to write in fem queer men because that’s a stereotype, when the real issue is just that fem queer men have generally only been written as one-dimensional characters present in the narrative for comedic purposes or stereotypes, and not as fully-fledged humans with complex internal lives and relationships. As a Problématique Gay, I hate the idea that only perfect queer narratives can exist. Nah, people, queer existence is complex, and queer people are not perfect (although we’re cooler than the str8s). It’s just.... believe me, the continued existence of homophobia is not determined by whether characters in books have the “correct-according-to-you” kind of sex or whatever.

NB: I have to say, as well, that the first time I came across the Phoenix Mountain kiss, I thought (in bad faith) that it had been added just as a sort of unfortunate fan service since the novel was published chapter by chapter. But when I finished the book and thought back on it, the inclusion of the Phoenix Mountain kiss made sense, narratively and thematically. It also forced me to recognise that, even if I had read MDZS before I ever watched CQL, I had started reading MDZS with my own preconceptions (which were certainly not helped by the framing of the translation) : that it would be a middling danmei full of the same tired tropes. I was glad to be proven wrong!

#anon ask #fandom discussions

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benice-espeon · 3 years

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So, what is a pro-shipper?

I see a lot of bad and weird definitions floating around, especially from antis. I figured I‘d make a post with my personal definition, and the one many people in my pro-ship friend circles use as well. Also I can‘t format this well because I‘m on mobile, lol.

Edit: reformatted on desktop so things are under a cut now. Long post below!

So, first things first, pro-ship does not automatically mean someone ships things that are considered “problematic”. Pro-ship does NOT mean “problematic shipping” as I‘ve seen a fair few people define it (lol). Pro-shipping means being against the idea of harassing or being rude to others on the basis of them having a ship you don‘t like. That‘s it! Nothing to do with abusive dynamics or anything like that, it just means “cool, you ship that. I don‘t, but I‘ll respect your ship.”

A lot of pro-shippers I‘ve met are actually highly uncomfortable with “problematic” ships. Many have ships they dislike, or even hate. We all have dynamics and tropes we don’t like, either. And that‘s okay! The point is, and never was, shipping things for the sake of being problematic, or shipping everything. It‘s a pushback against fandom harassment culture, which leads into the next point.

The anti-anti movement (also known as pro-shipping. The terms are interchangeable) started as a pushback against the trend of fandom “antis”; people who would dedicate entire blogs to harassing people over their ships and shaming, accusing, and otherwise being awful to others on the basis of ships. First and foremost, pro-shipping is an anti-harassment movement. Yes, it has evolved further, but that was the original purpose of it.

Now, here‘s a few misconceptions about pro-shipping cleared up, based on my own experiences as well as many others I‘ve talked to:

- Pro-shippers don‘t believe fiction affects reality!!!

False. Most pro-shippers do understand that fiction affects reality. HOWEVER, we also understand that the effect isn‘t a 1:1 ratio, and the ways fiction affects reality is very complex and nuanced topic. Yes, fiction has an effect on reality, but reading something in fiction will not automatically make someone agree with what is presented, especially if what‘s presented is already seen negatively in one‘s experiences.

- Pro-ship/anti-anti is a pedophile dogwhistle!!!

Also not true. Enjoying something in fiction is not an automatic reflection of one‘s real life morals. This is just a generally stupid take.

- Pro-shippers support pedophilia/incest/abuse in real life!!!

Many pro-shippers are actually survivors, and are very adamantly against such things! We understand that problematic fiction is problematic for a reason, but again, enjoying something in fiction is not an automatic reflection of one‘s real life morals.

And a bit of an FAQ:

- Why would you support problematic fiction if you don‘t consume it?

This is a big topic right here that I can‘t really explain in a few sentences. I‘d suggest doing some research on why censorship is bad and who it has affected the worst historically. It also might be worth looking into library codes of conduct and how even libraries are actively against any censorship.

- Why would people consume problematic content anyways, especially if you don‘t support it?

A lot of reasons! The human mind is really interesting, honestly. Sometimes people simply want to see a different point of view or dynamic. Fiction is a wonderful place to explore these things that can‘t be explored in real life, and can be a wonderful creative outlet. For problematic content, many people use it as an outlet for their own personal trauma. A big part of the appeal is that when you‘re creating, you control the outcome, and many survivors find that extremely comforting! Aside from all that, it really isn‘t anyone‘s business why someone is consuming a certain kind of fiction. People don‘t owe you an explanation for you to decide whether they are allowed to consume certain content. Anyone can consume any fictional content! It‘s that simple.

- Ew, why are you getting off on my trauma?

It‘s not yours! It‘s fictional. The trauma is happening to fictional characters and even if you find similarities, it probably isn‘t yours because I can almost guarantee the content creator doesn‘t know you.

- But your content is gross! I can‘t support that!

And you don‘t have to! A large part of being a pro-shipper is encouraging the curation of your own online experience. You can block people, tags, words, etc. so you don‘t have to see it. There‘s no shame in not wanting to see certain content. The problem arises when you harass others over it.

-What about [insert problematic group irl]?

Pro-shipping is entirely about fiction and fandom. Once you step outside of the fandom space and into the real world, pro-shipping doesn‘t matter, and has no affect on other opinions. Sure, many of us share other opinions, but being a pro-shipper is solely about fictional discourse.

So here‘s the bottom line, being a proshipper means being anti-harassment, anti-censorship, pro-curation (such as blocking), and just having fun! Enjoy your favorite fictional content, and don‘t be ashamed to do so.

#long post #like really long post #this is mostly an opinion piece btw #feel free to send any more questions my way #i may update this in the future and format it better lol #proship #discourse #anti discourse #fandom discourse #anti anti #proshippers pls interact #proshipping #proshipper #anti harassment #c

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angelofmusings · 2 years

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Aromantic Exclusion as a Consequence of Amatonormative Fiction

A lot of times people (alloros, usually) create these elaborate systems of worldbuilding that promote complex relationships and lead to a unique storytelling platform. And that’s great! But the thing is, when the concept is based on an idea of universal experiences, especially attraction, there will always be someone who’s excluded.

If you’re familiar with discourse around aromanticism in fandom spaces, you probably know where I’m headed with this. While being specifically geared towards the experiences of a certain group isn’t by definition undesirable, it does lead to comprehensive exclusion of those who do belong within a space. One of the clearest examples of this exclusion occurs with the idea of “soulmates” and specifically “Soulmate AU” fanfiction. The essential premise is that everyone, or usually at least every human/angel/[species that the canon focuses on], has a person (or sometimes multiple people) who they’re destined/fated/magically compelled to have a long-term romantic & sexual relationship with. Obviously this leads to the possibility of being paired off with someone you hate, but plenty of authors have explored that option (although rarely without the relationship working out a hundred thousand words later). The reason this premise is so troubling is that, as written, it leaves no room to opt out of the system.

See, the main issue here isn’t just about it being specifically romantic. As alloros love to mention, “soulmates can be platonic!” (I’ll discuss why this is problematic later.) The first thing that most people fail to grasp is that we don’t have any issue with other people doing romantic stuff with each other. However, when the choice is taken away and it becomes a requirement, we lose the ability to remove ourselves from a system that is at best hostile — and often is actively harmful. Forcing anyone to participate in a relationship hierarchy, especially when their autonomy is violated in the process, serves to reinforce amatonormative ideals, even if you rebrand it as “platonic” soulmates (which are still implied or stated to be more important than platonic non-soulmates, family, mentors, or any other relationships). Because let’s face it: exclusive, long-term, platonic relationships which are more important than other relationships? That’s effectively equivalent to exclusive, long-term, romantic relationships except you aren’t calling it romance. It’s still forcing people to participate in a system that is broken for them.

I’m not going to get into the nuances of how soulmate AUs often portray unhealthy relationship dynamics in a favorable light. (Because obviously you can’t end the relationship, so it must be love, because of course there’s no way that soulmates can actually hurt each other. /sarcasm.) The fact of the matter is that no matter how pleasant and loving the relationships are, they’re still being forced on everyone, and even in those versions where some people are “missing” a soulmate, it’s seen as something deserving of pity. This, of course, is a clear reflection of amatonormativity — even ignoring the frequency with which this lack ends up being “fixed” by the end of the story.

“But why is fiction being an accurate reflection of the real world bad,” one might ask. And it would be the case that it is not bad per se, but not being “bad” doesn’t mean no harm is caused. See, it’s typically a lot easier for an individual writer to change their worldbuilding than for an individual person to make the same change in the real world. This is doubly true for societal issues; and so by mimicking a facet of society that causes such harm. While I firmly believe that no topics should be outright forbidden, it is important to be conscientious and intentional about how your words will affect others.

None of this would matter nearly as much if this final piece wasn’t in play. As I mentioned earlier, one of the most common reactions to being called out on amatonormative worldbuilding is that “soulmates can be platonic!” Rather than asking what the specific problem(s) are, they assume that the only issue is the actual label applied to it. This instinctual, defensive response shows that for most writers, there is no interest in changing the underlying structure which causes the problem. Instead, they want to apply a new paint job, a fresh outfit, a shiny new cover, to the same endlessly recurring issue. This lack of foresight shows that writers tend to not consider aromantic experiences when setting up their worldbuilding, and no amount of “platonic soulmates” can fix that. So no, I don’t like the idea of soulmates. Or amatonormativity, but honestly, by now the first has become a symbol of the latter.

#aggressivelyarospec #aro week #asaw 2022 #asaw #aromantic spectrum awareness week #actually aromantic #angelofmusings lives up to their url #long post #aromanticism #i fucking hate amatonormativity #aro thoughts #soulmates cw #aro discourse #<- i don’t like adding that tag but it is what this essay is about #but please engage respectfully and with intention #essays for aro week #btw this is the first of multiple things i’ve written for asaw

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meichenxi · 3 years

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Hey! I hope you feel better soon

We haven't had a good long linguistics rant from you in a while!! How about you tell us about your favourite lingustical feature or occurrence in a language? Something like a weird grammatical feature or how a language changed

If this doesn't trigger any rant you have stored feel free to educate on any topic you can spontaneously think of, I'd love to hear it :D

ALRIGHT KARO, let's go!! This is a continuation of the other ask I answered recently, and is the second part in a series about linguistic complexity. I suggest you check that one out first for this to properly make sense! (I don't know how to link but uh. it's the post behind this on my blog)

Summary of previous points: the complexity of a language has nothing to do with the 'complexity' of the people that speak it; complexity is really bloody hard to measure; some linguists in an attempt to be not racist argue that 'all languages are equally complex', but this doesn't really seem to be the case, and also still equates cognitive ability with complexity of language which is just...not how things work; arguing languages have different amounts of complexity has literally nothing to do with the cognitive abilities of those who speak it.

Ok. Chinese.

Normally when we look at complexity we like to look at things like number of verb classes, noun classes, and so on. But Chinese doesn't really do any of this.

So what do Chinese and languages like Chinese do that is so challenging to the equicomplexity hypothesis, the idea that all languages are equally complex? I’ll start by talking about some of the common properties of isolating languages - and these properties are often actually used as examples of why these languages are as complex, just in different ways. Oh Melissa, I hear you ask in wide-eyed admiration/curiousity. What are they? By isolating languages, I mean languages that tend to have monosyllabic words, little to no conjugation, particles instead of verb or noun endings, and so on: so languages like Vietnamese, Chinese, Thai and many others in East and South East Asia.

Here’s a list of funky things in isolating languages that may or may not make a language more complex than linguists don't really know what to do with:

Classifiers

Chengyu and 4-word expressions

Verb reduplication, serialisation and resultative verbs

'Lexical verbosity' = complex compounding and word forming strategies

Pragmatics

Syntax

I'll talk about the first two briefly, but I don't have space for all. For clarity of signposting my argument: many linguists use these as explanations of why languages like Chinese are as complex, but I'm going to demonstrate afterwards why the situation is a bit more complicated than that. You could even say it's...complex.

1) Classifiers

You know about classifiers in Chinese, but what you may be interested to learn is that almost all isolating languages in South East Asia use them, and many in fact borrow from each other. The tonal, isolating languages in South East Asia have historically had a lot of contact through intense trade and migration, and as such share a lot of properties. Some classifiers just have to go with the noun: 一只狗，一条河 etc. First of all, if we're defining complexity as 'the added stuff you have to remember when you learn it' (my professors hate me), it's clear that these are added complexity in exactly the same way gender is. Why is it X, and not Y? Well, you can give vague answers ('it's sort of...ribbony' or 'it's kinda...flat'), but more often than not you choose the classifier based on the vibe. Which is something you just have to remember.

Secondly, many classifiers actually have the added ability to modify the type of noun they're describing. These are familiar too in languages like English: a herd of cattle versus a head of cattle. So we have 一枝花 which is a flower but on a stem ('a stem of flower'), but also 一朵花 which is a flower but without the stem (think like...'a blob of flower'). Similarly with clouds - you could have a 一朵云 'blob of cloud' (like a nice, fluffy cloud in a children's book), but you could also have 一片云 which is like a huge, straight flat cloud like the sea...and so on. These 'measure words' do more than measure: they add additional information that the noun itself does not give.

Already we're beginning to see the outline of the problem. Grammatical complexity is...well, grammatical. We count the stuff which languages require you to express, not the optional stuff - and that's grammar. The difference between better and best is clearly grammatical, as is go and went. But what about between 'a blob of cloud' versus 'a plain of cloud'? Is that grammatical? Well, maybe: you do have to include a measure word when you say there's one of it, and in many Chinese languages that are not Mandarin you have to include them every single time you use a possessive: my pair of shoes, my blob of flower etc. But you don't always have to include one specific classifier - there are multiple options, all of which are grammatical. So should we include classifiers as part of the grammar? Or part of the vocabulary (the 'lexicon')?

Err. Next?

2) Chengyu and 4-character expressions + 4) Lexical verbosity

This might seem a bit weird: these are obviously parts of the vocab! What's weirder, though, is that many isolating languages have chengyu, not just Chinese. And if you don't use them, many native speakers surveys suggest you don't sound native. This links to point number 4, which is lexical verbosity. 'Lexical verbosity' means a language has the ability to express things creativity, in many different manners, all of which may have a slightly different nuance. The kind of thing you love to read and analyse and hate to translate.

But it is important. If we look at the systems that make up the grand total of a language, vocabulary is obviously one of them: a language with 1 million root forms is clearly more 'complex', if all else is exactly the same, than a language with 500,000. Without even getting into the whole debacle about 'what even is a word', a language that has multiple registers (dialect, regional, literary, official etc) that all interact is always going to be more complex than one that doesn't, just because there's more of it. More rules, more words, more stuff.

Similarly, something that is the backbone of modern Chinese 'grammar' and yet you may never have thought of as such is is compound words. We don't tend to traditionally teach this as grammar, and I don't have time to give a masterclass on it now, but let me assure you that compounding - across the world's language - is hugely varied. Some languages let you make anything a compound; some only allow noun+noun compounds (so no 'blackbird', as black is an adjective); some only allow head+head compound (so no 'sabretooth', because a sabretooth is a type of tiger, not tooth); some only allow compounds one way ('ring finger' but not 'finger ring': though English does allow the other way around in some other words), and so on.

You'll have heard time and time again that 'Chinese is an isolating language, and isolating languages like monosyllabic words'. Well. Sort of. You will also have noticed yourself that actually most modern Chinese words are disyllabic: 学习，工作，休息，吃饭 and so on. This is radically different to Classical Chinese, where the majority were genuinely one syllable. But many Chinese speakers still have access to the words in the compounds, and so they can be manipulated on a character-by-character basis: most adults will be able to look at 学习 and understand that 学 and 习 both exist as separate words: 开学，学生，复习，练习 and so on.

I'm going to sort of have to ask you to take my word on it as I don't have time to prove how unique it is, but the ability that Chinese has to turn literally anything into a compound is staggering. It's insane. It's...oh god I'm tearing up slightly it's just a LOT guys ok. It's a lot. There are 20000000 synonyms for anything you could ever want, all with slightly different nuances, because unlike many other languages, Chinese allows compounds where the two bits of the compound mean, largely speaking, very similar things. So yes, you have compounds like 开学 which is the shortened version of 开始学习, or ones with an object like 吃饭 or 睡觉, but you also have compounds like 工作 where both 工 and 作 kind of...mean 'to work'...and 休息 where both 休 and 息 mean 'to rest'...and so on. So you can have 感 and 情 and 爱 and 心 but also 感情 and 情感 and 爱情 and 情爱 and 心情 and 心爱 and 爱心 and so on, and they all mean different things. And don't even get me started on resultative verbs: 学到，学会，学好，学完， and so on...

What is all of this, if not complex? It's not grammatical - except that the process of compound forming, that allows for so many different compounds, is grammatical. We can't make the difference between学会，学好 and 学完 anywhere near as easily in English, and in Chinese you do sort of have to add the end bit. So...do we count this under complexity? And if not, we should probably count it elsewhere? Because it's kind of insane. And learners have to use it, much like the example I gave of English prepositions, and it takes them a bloody long time. But then where?

Ok. I haven't had a chance to talk about everything, but you get the picture: there are things in Chinese that, unlike European languages, do not neatly fit into the 'grammar' versus 'vocabulary' boxes we have built for ourselves, because as a language it just works very differently to the ones we've used as models. (Though some of the problems, in fact, are similar: German is also very adept at compounding.) But as interesting as that difference is, the goal of typology as a sub-discipline of linguistics is to talk about and research the types of linguistic diversity around the world, so we can't stop there by acknowledging our models don't fit. We have to go further. We have to stop, and think: What does this mean for the models that we have built?

This is where we get into theoretically rather boggy ground. We weren't before?? No, like marsh of the dead boggy. Linguists don't know it...they go round, for miles and miles and miles....

Because unfortunately there isn't a clear answer. If we dismiss these things as 'lexical' and therefore irrelevant to the grammar, that is a) ignoring their grammatical function, b) ignoring the fact that the lexicon is also a system that needs to be learnt, and has often very clear rules on word-building that are also 'grammatical', and c) essentially playing a game of theoretical pass-the-parcel. It's your problem, not mine: it's in the lexicon, not the grammar. Blah blah blah. Because whoever's problem it is, we still have to account for this complexity somehow when we want to compare literally any languages that are substantially different at all.

On the other side of things, however, if we argue that 'Chinese is as complex as Abkhaz, because it makes up for a lack of complexity in Y by all this complexity in X' (and therefore all languages = equally complex), this ignores the fact that compounding and irregular verbs belong to two very different systems. The kind of mistake you make when you use the wrong classifier intuitively seems to be on another level of 'wrongness' to the kind where you conjugate a verb in the wrong way. One is 'wrong'. The other is just 'not what we say'. It's the same as the use of prepositions in English: some are obviously wrong (I don't sleep 'at my bed') but some are just weird, and for many there are multiple options ('at the weekend', 'on the weekend'). Is saying 'I am on the town' the same level of wrongness as saying 'I goed to the shops'? Intuitively we might want to say the second is a 'worse' mistake. In which case, what are they exactly? They're both 'grammar', but totally different systems. And where do you draw the line?

Here's the thing about the equicomplexity argument. As established, it stems from a nice ideological background that nevertheless conflates cognition and linguistic complexity. Once you realise that no, the two are completely separate, you're under no theoretical or ideological compulsion to have languages be equally complex at all. Why should they be at all? Some languages just have more stuff in them: some have loads of vowels, and loads of consonants, and some have loads of grammar. Others have less. They all do basically the same job. Why is that a big deal?

Where the argument comes into its biggest problem, though, is that if a language like Chinese is already as complex as a language like Abkhaz...what happens when we meet Classical Chinese?

Classical Chinese. An eldritch behemoth lurking with tendrils of grass-style calligraphy belching perfect prose just behind the horizon.

Let's look at Modern Chinese for a moment. It has some particles: six or so, depending on how you count them. You could include these as being critical to the grammar, and they are.

A common dictionary of Classical Chinese particles lists 694.

To be fair, a lot of these survive as verbs, nouns and so on. Classical Chinese was very verb-schmerb when it came to functional categories, and most nouns can be verbs, and vice versa. It's all just about the vibe. But still. Six hundred and ninety four.

Some of these are optional - they're the nice 'omggg' equivalent of the modern tone particles at the end of a sentence. Some of them are smushed versions of two different particles, like 啦. Some of these, however, really do seem to have very grammatical features. Of these 694, 17 are listed as meaning ‘subsequent to and later than X’, and 8 indicate imposition of a stress upon the word they precede or follow. Some are syntactic: there are, for instance, 8 different particles solely for the purpose of fronting information: 'the man saw he'. That is very much a grammatical role, in every sense of the word.

The copula system ('to be') is also huuuuuuugely complex. I could write a whole other post about this, but I'll just say for now that the copula in Classical Chinese could be specific to degrees of logical preciseness that would make the biggest Lojban-loving computer programmer weep into his Star Trek blanket. As in, the system of positive copulas distinguishes between 6 different polar-positive copulas (A is B), 2 insistent positive (A is B), 19 restricted positive (A is only B), and 15 of common inclusion (A is like B). Some other copulas can make such distinctions as ‘A becomes or acts as B’, ‘A would be B’, ‘may A not be B?’ and so on. Copulas may also be used in a sort of causal way (not 'casual'), creating very specific relationships like ‘A does not merely because of B’ or ‘A is not Y such that B is X’.

WHEW. And all we have in modern Chinese is 是。

I think we can see that this is a little more complex. So saying 'Modern Chinese is as complex as Abkhaz, just in a different way' leaves no space for Classical Chinese to be even more complex...so....where does that leave us?

Uhhhhhh. Errrrrr.

(Don't worry, that's basically where the entire linguistics community is at too.)

The thing is, all these weird and wacky things that Classical Chinese is able to do are all optional. This is where the problem is. Our understanding of complexity, if you hark back to my last post so many moons ago, is that it's the description of what a language requires you to do. We equate that with grammar because in most of the languages we're familiar with, you can't just pick and choose whether to conjugate a verb or use a tense. If you are talking in third person, the verb has to change. It just...does. You can't not do it if you feel like it. There's not such thing as 'poetic license' - except in languages like Classical Chinese, well. There sort of is.

The problem both modern Chinese and Classical Chinese shows us to a different extent is that some languages are capable of highly grammatical things, but with a degree of optionality we would not expect. Classical Chinese can accurately stipulate to the Nth degree what, exactly, the grammatical relationship between two agents are in a way that is undoubtedly and even aggressively logical. But...it doesn't have to. As anybody who has tried anything with Classical Chinese knows, reading things without context is an absolute fucking nightmare. As a language it has the ability to also say something like 臣臣 which in context means 'when a minister acts as a minister'...but literally just means...minister minister. Go figure. It doesn't have to do any of these myriad complex things it's capable of at all.

So...what does this mean? What does all of this mean, for the question of whether all languages are equally complex?

Whilst I agree that the situation with Classical Chinese is fully batshit insane, the fact is most isolating languages are more like Modern Chinese: they don't do all of this stuff. And whilst classifiers and compounds are challenging, they're not quite the same as the strict binary correct/incorrect of many systems. I'm also just not convinced that languages need to be equally complex. However.

HOWEVER. In this essay/rant/lecture (?), I've raised more questions than I've answered. That's deliberate. I both think that a) the type of complexity Chinese shows is not 'enough' to work as a 'trade off' compared to languages like Abkhaz, and b) that this 'grammatical verbosity' and optionality of grammatical structures is something we don't know how to deal with at all. These are two beliefs that can co-exist. Classical Chinese especially is a huge challenge to current understandings of complexity, whichever side of the equicomplexity argument you stand on.

Because where do you place optionality in all of this? Choice? If a certain structure can express something grammatical, but you don't have to include it - is that more complex, or less so? Where do we rank optional features in our understanding of grammar? It's a totally new dimension, and adds a richness to our understanding that we simply wouldn't have got if we hadn't looked at isolating languages. This, right here, is the point of typology: to inform theory, and challenge it.

What do we do with this sort of complexity at all?

I don't know. And I don't think many professional linguists do either.

- meichenxi out

#and that my friends is why I love Classical Chinese so much #askies #meichenxi manages #thank you karo that was very very very interesting!!#it's late now so I'll check over it again tomorrow but I don't imagine I'll be inundated with reblogs lmao #linguistics #lingblr #langblr #classical chinese #chinese #modern chinese

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who-is-page · 3 years

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We sort of started this discussion at Chimeras' Othercon panel, but I wanted to keep it going so I figured I would send an ask. What do you think it would mean for our community to drop the focus on voluntary and involuntary identities? I agree that we fundamentally should, but a bunch of things immediately jump to mind.

Our community has spent years leaning heavily into the lines between voluntary and involuntary identities and taken special care to make massive distinctions between them, leaving little to no room for grey area. It's no bit surprise that alterhuman spaces have had actual, legitimate, longstanding issues of grilling and gatekeeping. Nonhumans with nuanced and complicated identities are forced to shove themselves into a box to fit into the community, and the ideas we have about certain identities needing to be involuntary are absolutely baked into many aspects of our community and its history.

At the same time, we have used this unjustified gatekeeping in part to protect the community from genuine threats and appropriation of our terminology. The way we have limited our concepts of who is allowed to identify in what ways is generally wrong and has no doubt harmed a subset of kin, but at the same time is understandable in the sense that it has a cause. Yes, this was an issue even before KFF, but KFF certainly don't make it easy to create space for genuine voluntary kin and other voluntary alterhumans.

How do we create the space for nuance and fluidity and complexity in these terms and identities after we have spent so long defensively creating rigid boundaries and restrictions regarding the ways people are allowed to identify? How do we address community gatekeeping while also protecting our community from the people who use our identities and terminology in bad faith?

I have a lot of ideas, but this is obviously a very complex topic that we can't just solve in a day. I was just curious to hear your thoughts, if you had any. Hopefully once our personal website is up one of our first essays will be about this issue. (Also, how is Page? /hj)

So I know we’ve been sitting on this ask for... -checks watch- ...almost two weeks now, but it’s genuinely because I just wasn’t sure how to answer it for a good long while, and I didn’t just want to throw out some haphazard, half-hearted answer to such important questions. So here’s our thoughts on the debacle.

Voluntary and involuntary is a focus I doubt we’ll ever see any of the alterhuman communities permanently drop, for several reasons.

The first and foremost being that, by the definition of the term “alterhuman,” defined here as “a subjective identity which is beyond the scope of what is traditionally considered ‘being human’,” both experiences at their most extremes technically fall underneath the label, rendering the distinction (to some) vitally important to helping understand and define their identity/identity labels. The difference between KFF as an alterhuman identity and forms of otherkinity as an alterhuman identity, for instance, as you mention.

And then there’s the societal factors to consider. People like nice, neat little boxes: people like to be able to compartmentalize their communities, with no overlap, with no spillage, with no complications or grey areas or nuance. It’s a fact of life that people often instinctively want to water down labels and identities into more easily digestible formations, though there are arguments around why people precisely do it. And, as you point out, that often means alterhumans and nonhumans with more complex or nuanced identities typically get shoved into one box or another that they may not perfectly fit into.

When we zero in on specifically the otherkin community, this becomes even more complicated given the community’s rife history: abusive p-shifter groups, the appropriation of language by roleplayers and fiction writers, zoophiles attempting to forcibly associate otherkinity with pro-bestiality movements, and the blatant general misinformation spread by laymen and academics alike, just to name a few relevant problems the community has faced and continues to face. The community is stubborn to a fault, largely because it’s had to be in order to survive. It holds to its preconceived notions and rigid boundaries like a dog with toy aggression to their favorite plush stegosaurus. Fittingly so, really.

So how do we take that stubbornness and change it to be more inclusive to our own? How could we, while still surviving all that onslaught and more? That’s the big question.

In regards to the larger alterhuman community, we’re blessed in the fact that it’s still such a young concept: it hasn’t quite yet had to face the “pathological anger” Religious Studies professor Joseph Laycock has described otherkin as bearing the brunt of. It’s still a community figuring itself out, with much of the anger you find related to it aimed at specific subsets of community within it, rather than at alterhumanity as a whole. And I think the fact that the alterhuman community is still metaphorically air-drying on a table means we have the opportunity to prevent anti-nuance and anti-complexity attitudes from taking hold in it. How we do that is another battle in itself-- I feel like the encouragement of inclusive dialogue, of open discussion intermingled with considerate or civil attitudes, within alterhuman-marketed spaces is a good starting point. I also think that the encouragement and legitimization of “alterhuman” as its own standalone term would be a positive force, where it functions as a broad, diverse identity label in addition to being an overarching, joining umbrella label. A label where someone doesn’t have to give details away of their identity if they don’t feel comfortable doing so, or shove themself into a box they may or may not actually feel they fit into. Something functionally similar to how many people use “queer,” if you will.

But that still leaves aside the issue of identity and terminological misuse, I am aware. And that is...an abstract thing to ward against, at absolute best. I think that the defining of our own spaces not only through our words but also through our actions would perhaps be the best thing we could do, realistically. The cultivation of websites, of group projects--books, zines, comics, pictures, forums, anything!--, of community-led conventions and meet-ups and howls and gatherings. Things which foster and build a community identity of sorts is the best defense against those who would try and distort that which makes us, us.

Zooming back in on the otherkin community, these answers change slightly, because--going back to the clay metaphor--the otherkin community has already metaphorically been glazed and baked (in the fires of hell). That history is cemented, the ways people have wronged it and continue to try and wrong it is cemented, the assumptions and attitudes are cemented.

With the otherkin community, I think that the burden of changing minds and pervasive attitudes falls a bit more onto the shoulders of “community leadership,” because of how the community functions and values both community experience and articulation. There’s a reason we don’t have a term comparable to “greymuzzle” in any of the other alterhuman communities, after all-- it’s a well-known and often aggravating quirk of the otherkin community, to hold certain individuals in such high esteem and put them on a pedestal because of their longevity and the things they’ve done and said. I hate to say that they have to set an example, but in the otherkin community that really is one of the best ways to advocate for change, or to push against those gatekeeping and grilling attitudes--by those who are largely well-respected putting forward ideas that have previously been mocked or disavowed, pushing debates on their legitimacy into community consciousness until it eventually trickles into community normalcy and foundation.

(This is, as you can imagine, a double-edged sword depending on how it’s used. But that’s a discussion for another day.)

That’s not to say that the ideas of creation and creativity with the goal of cultivating an inclusive community identity, like I suggested for the alterhuman community, is inapplicable to the otherkin community: but the otherkin community already has a long-term community identity, so it’d moreso be creation and creativity for the sake of formative inclusion. “History is always written by the winners” is a very, very literal phrase in its application to the otherkin community. Our community memory, for lack of a better way to put it, sucks from individual-to-individual. The future of the otherkin community, its eventual-history, is determined by its historians and creators of today: day-to-day arguments and discussions, unless deemed historically relevant by one archivist or another, disappear to the sands of time, and much more long-term recordings such as essays, websites, comics, etc., often go far beyond just its creators hands and get passed around and down for years, potentially. If you want a more nuanced and inclusive community, you have to dig up the clay for it, shovel by shovel, and bake it yourself, brick by brick, and eventually, with luck, or enough backing prestige, or just because those bricks are so astoundingly solid people can’t resist taking some to build their own foundations to nonhumanity, things will change. It will take time above all else, but once it’s there it will be impossible to remove, because people will just assume those bricks have always been there given enough years.

But those are just some of my thoughts and opinions on it. It’s an issue with so many layers of complexity to it, that there’s really no perfect answer out there that I can offer, and I know even what I’ve shared here has its flaws and drawbacks. I’m sure plenty of my followers also have additional thoughts on the subject, and I’d love to hear from other people what they think in the replies and reblogs.

(Also, Page is a very tired boi.)

#long post #otherkin #alterhuman

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