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dnp-pet-rectangle · 1 month

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WAD reflection from the perspective of a theatre director

Inspired by @/calvinahobbes who did an amazing job breaking down the show’s metaphors & using her English degree in this post, I wanted to share my perspective on it (even a month later) & get use out of my theatre degree lol. Also, warning, this will be very much a long, long essay with run-ons. I have ADHD & I love when my frequent hyperfixations intersect 🤪 There are major spoilers.

My Background:

I am a semi-professional theatre director, but more broadly, a theatremaker. I have a theatre degree from New York University’s Tisch School on the Arts (NYU Tisch), where I did a conservatory program with one of their studios which focused basically on those who wanted to do a little bit of everything and create new works & was the only studio training directors & playwrights. I originally went into the program as a performer. I did not mean to end up concentrating on being mainly a producer & a director, but that’s a whole other story. I also through that program had to take theatre/performance studies courses, which I loved for the most part & is an interesting interdisciplinary field. But I will try to define terms just in case since anybody reading this may not know any or all the specific terminology I might use. In short, I have a fancy degree that apparently should cost $300k 🤡 & I’m gonna actually use it with doing this lol

Setting the Tone:

While Dan might call this a comedy special or comedy show, and thereby comparing it to other comedians, I actually think he is doing himself and We’re All Doomed (WAD) a disservice. I saw folks compare him a lot to Bo Burnham in the chat (who was actually was accepted and almost went to NYU Tisch for a different studio that focused on solely experimental work), which makes sense considering the theatrical nature of both of them. However, Dan actually goes further into the realm of theatre because of how he utilizes his crowd work (I’ll go into that later). I recognize traditional comedy specials/standup as having jokes or stories, when doing you know like late night talk show interviews, that can be made outside of the context of the show & slip into a conversation. Or with Burnham’s Inside Out, the songs & other parts can be done or understood mainly out of context, as seen through Bo uploading them to his YouTube channel. Comedy specials have the sections of their comedy stand-up thread together, but what Dan has done is weave his sections together. The length along with the intermission/interval being a part of WAD, adds to my point that he is not treating this as different material he tested out at different comedy clubs, but as something cohesive storytelling pieces. I think in terms of testing, Phil was the main sufferer audience member of the initial materials being created.

Anyway, you cannot as easily remove it from the context at certain points, because the transitions & the order of these different sections are treated as equally important, rather than a means to move on to the next section, with some possible space for improv.

Basically, I’m bi. Sorry, my brain started thinking about BIG when I started writing “basically” at the start of that sentence. Actually, what I am trying to say is that I would classify We’re All Doomed as a one-man performance piece/show, so I will be treating it as such in my review/reflection/breakdown. The comedy of it is important and there, but I don’t think it captures what WAD entirely is.

Also, unfortunately due to where I was at mentally at the time & the location it was being performed at, I never saw this live. To be honest, how it got framed marketing-wise did not help me feel connected with the actual purpose of the show, with hope being a key element. So while this was filmed, I am as much as possible trying to remove the cinematography as an element of my analysis. However, some things might be clearer on film, as with theatrical directing, you cannot add a zoom or crop & instead are trying to ensure moments are clear to an audience by what they see and hear through drawing their attention to it. With theatre being mainly about the live output by performers and intake by the audience, at the end of the day, what my job as a director is is to direct not only how the performers share the story, but also direct the audience on what is important to catch for understanding.

Breakdown of Thoughts

Originally, I wanted to rewatch the show again, and started to, but considering I ended up writing about a whole page worth of things for each minute of the show & I was sleepy by the time I was like 5-10 minutes in, I decided to be nice to myself & stay up all night in my comfortable bed instead of staying up all night at my desk trying to take in-depth notes 🙃

I’m gonna breakdown this analysis/reflection into further sections, just to give myself some anchors & break up the blocks of text. Also as a way to just be that pretentious, maybe with an academic flair, as is fitting to be for something about Dan Howell (said affectionately 💕)

The Script/Writing

When considering the text of the show itself, two things came to mind for me:

(1) This is definitely what I would call intertext. Intertext is a piece of writing that relates to another or more other writings through allusions. WAD is an intertext which alludes mainly to other works of Dan’s on his YouTube channel. The ability to get the true impact of the show relies on you knowing Dan (as his internet persona) on some level. And as a theatre maker & longtime fan, I love that it is, it’s what the piece needed to be. As a theatre producer, the hiatus from engaging with his audience and the limited runway given to reactivate interest in him and his creative work I think made it difficult to get that audience in some venues, along with some other funkiness (mainly with promo) I am less knowledgeable on. But I think Dan has already learned/continues to learn from that, which I think may have been valuable for him. (sidenote: I need the tea on all that because I love knowing how presenting venues work with performers, as well as the lack of understanding they have of internet culture as it relates to venue leadership.)

(2) This was a work he made for himself. He mentions this both in the show & in reference to WAD multiple times. But I think what truly came to mind for me was that it is still powerful for him to write for himself. He is writing for what he needs to be hearing or wants to be processing creatively.

I think why it is powerful is that Dan has discussed before how much stress he put on himself regarding danisnotonfire, and later Daniel Howell, videos, focusing on the audience, and how he was presenting a specific style/quality of video to them. Add in the layer of being closeted & actively fighting internalized homophobia, and the anxiety he built up makes sense. And I might personally attribute that more to his need to pass as straight & catering I believe at one point to an audience of cishet men, whether actual or perceived by him. Not all videos, especially the most impactful ones in my opinion, rely on this, but it was a key piece of what he made during his rise in popularity on the platform. This catering slowly decreased with the amount of uploads he was doing, along with a more tangible understanding of his audience thanks to the tours he did with Phil. Basically I’m Gay I think was the true shift where he gave himself permission to write work that had a main audience of himself. That’s where his best work has come from, and I think since then, he’s been able to have the space to process things creatively through his writing.

The Relationship Between Performer & Audience

When I was in theatre school, my directing teacher would constantly talk about not just considering the relationship of the performers on “stage” (I did a lot of more immersive work & we only had black box theatres, which is literally a room that is floor to ceiling black) but also the relationship of the performers & the story with the audience. By Dan knowing mainly who his audience would be, the show can now play with that understanding in mind.

This leads to my point that, overall, Dan does not use the fourth wall, and I think that is what makes We’re All Doomed work. It may also be why he called it a comedy show, idk.

For those who don’t know what the fourth wall is, it is a term from theatre originally that is about the way in which a traditional theatre stage (called a proscenium) has three physical walls around it, while there is no 4th physical wall, so the audience can see the performance. If does exist physically, it is only the curtain that acts as the 4th “wall”. So, in order to keep it as a separation between the performers and the audience, the actors treat the side where the audience is as a fourth wall. When someone breaks the 4th wall, this is when they speak to audience directly, rather than to another character. Examples from English-speaking pop culture would be the asides from Hamlet or Ferris Bueller in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. But when you are the only person on stage, the only way to have a fourth wall is when you don’t reference that you know there’s an audience there. Hence, a monologue where the character is talking to themselves or an entity that is not the audience directly (or assigned to be the audience by the director), it is the closest you can have a fourth wall when alone.

Dan in his videos and in his previous tours with Phil never were without direct engagement of the audience (obvious with the naming of Interactive Introverts). It was never not a variation on him speaking with the audience in any type of dialogue, even if done parasocially.

Some of that is not new to theatre, but I would say is that it has become more of a trend within new theatre starting in the early 2010s to have more interactivity and a more authentic, explicit message that no performance will be the exact same. I definitely saw that in the shows I saw both Off-Broadway (which sidenote, all that means is that there’s fewer seats in that theatre, not about quality of the work or how worth it is to engage with) and larger settings like Broadway and the West End. That’s what I love about theatre, and why my own work is more about immersion and direct audience engagement.

Now Dan’s creative works have never been skit only or interested in telling a story outside of the realm of connecting with an audience as a variation of himself, so again, him not using the fourth wall overall is appropriate and fits in with what I mentioned about intertext. The piece does however start with a fourth wall for the music number, which I will walk through fully sharing why I am saying that about the song & dance opening after establishing some other concepts to help build understanding.

Design Can Work With You or Against You

I just want to say out the gate that the design was done really well, and I immediately felt a need to emphasize it after watching the first 10 minutes again.

First, let’s talk about the orange & black aesthetic of the show. Dan may have simply said that the orange just looked cool, but I think I would attribute more meaning to that color. Orange brings to my mind at first instance both a bright happiness/warmth and a sense of caution and warning, like road signs (at least those in America). The themes of the show reflect these two ideas and plays with the tension between them. I don’t know if he or the team meant to have that be a conscious choice, but there’s a joke I’ve had with other directors of when they get complimented on something unexpected, they just nod and say “yes, that was a choice”, even though it was just a random thing that happened or was something that you just thought would be cool to do. Orange runs through the show’s designs and it becomes clear that it is a tool for contrast and emphasis for the points Dan & the director want to make.

Now with the design team of costumes, lights, sound, and media, I can see a clear cohesion. Good theatrical design has the designs act as a character or highlighter in the story. Bad theatrical design can take away/distract from the core intensions of the show. It was so clear to me that the design was a character. And seeing that there were two media designers make complete sense considering the labor lift of both creating the projections displayed, but also creating/filming pieces of the media itself. The music/sound and lighting work well to articulate the manic feelings it means to instill in the audience and seeing it as a director, I assume part of the creative discussion was about parts of the media played they wanted to make sure were heard, and the lights help catch attentions in service of those pulled out moments. For costumes, I think Calvina did well in her post at articulating the elements of the costume and the progression it goes throughout the show. I’d rather not take up space to say the same thing truthfully.

With all the design elements, I think three characters could be defined (not including the audience), two as main characters, and one as a supporting character. I would name the main characters as “the Circle” (the looming set piece throughout hosting the projections used throughout) and “Dan On Stage/Dan performing” (the one in the physical space) with the “voiceover Dan/inner voice Dan” as a supporting character. The voiceover only exists in the beginning, and it is only shared with us to demonstrate the way in which the Dan On Stage singing is not really that aggressively optimistic and wholeheartedly believes the words he is singing. He is not the Dan we know from the Internet, so we can cathartically laugh at the attempt to pretend everything is fine. The voiceover only has one role, and it is to force Dan to confront this breakdown has an audience.

Staging an Opening Sequence: Our First Stage Character is the Circle

In directing classes, often what you focus on is called stage pictures, which is meant to help you consider what the actual imagery you want to ensure the audience absorbs for their understanding of the piece. The first and last stage moment of each act should tell a basic story of what happened, and therefore, are heavily emphasized as important for directors. The Circle (capitalized for reference purposes) being lit up before the show starts and then again in conjunction with the light flashes and sound establishes the importance of the Circle to the show. When the projection comes into play, showing the speech of a 15-year-old Greta Thunberg before beginning to add more, we are then introduced to the purpose of the Circle to be an output/portal for the overstimulation of messages, in this case, I would claim it being what comes from the Internet.

The music/sound and lighting work well to articulate the manic feelings it means to instill in the audience and seeing it as a director, I assume part of the creative discussion was about parts of the media played they wanted to make sure were heard, and the lights help catch attentions in service of those pulled out moments. The Circle also through some of the lighting moments, mimic that of a clock, which again adds to the doomsday, the "end is near" type energy. To have the end of the opening sequence build to an explosion which then shows solid orange at the end while Dan is in silhouette begins the introduction to the orange emphasis & proposes a sort of prophet-like version of him after the apocalyptic imagery disappears as he rises to be seen. What we have opened with is setting the tone to how we should view these two characters of the Circle & the Dan on Stage.

Song Time!

Dan is such a theatre kid & I love that for him. His dramatic side shows through the moment he used a rise to start his show at the top of the stairs, first in a place of seriousness with the sharp lighting and smoke to then bring in a very happy music number. The contrast & switching of expectations is a key of comedic works, and shows through most of the phandom who did not know WAD started with that, as it is indeed funnier if it comes as a shock. The movement & music mimic what folks attribute to as musical theatre, which is campy, happy singing. Knowing he was the one who suggested the song for TATINOF, I am loving Dan clearly wanting to have that opening number of a musical moment, even if it is dripping in irony. The Circle & the lights in this acts as a supporter to the message of it being sunshine and rainbows, with literal rainbow lights included. (Sidenote: I am 99% sure the pigeon coo is Phil, so if anything, I’m disappointed he was not credited as Pigeon sound effect AND remote crisis manager. Idk why I could tell, but both times now, it’s what I immediately thought when hearing that part)

I think of the musical number as the only place where he does have a fourth wall, because the number does not directly reference the audience at the start. It’s a one-man moment and it is about the performance not the audience engagement. It starts falling away when he starts pointing out the “and you”s, but the voiceover is the real break in our understanding of the world. It is emphasized by the color inversion of the sun & sky media of the Circle. The director is saying, this is important to how you now interpret what you’ve seen & will see, this is another shift from what was established of this world.

I should mention “world” is the terminology used to name what the environment the story is being told in with consideration, especially in theatre, of how much of a need there is for suspension of disbelief. I believe this term is also referenced a lot when discussing the fantasy and sci-fi genres, since those also requires some distancing from reality for the audience. This ties into a phrase I will probably end up using a lot of “rules of the space”. When establishing this world for the show you are presenting to an audience, there is a type of logic that must be established in order to understand what is the baseline for what the audience will be engaging with over the span of the show. But the voiceover immediately changes the rules of the space, because it messes with the Dan on stage, and messes with the messaging of the Circle. It adds a new context to the Dan On Stage, as while a fan will know that this song is not in alignment of our knowledge of Dan Howell, we get confirmation that this indeed ironic and outside of the branding that Dan has boxed himself into over his time on YouTube.

But the voiceover is also not in alignment with that “branding”. It expresses concerns related to the Dan On Stage’s mental wellbeing. There is no irony or subtext in that voice, it is the most direct in speaking to Dan On Stage, because it is being said by a variation of Dan in voiceover to himself. These could be seen as questions he knows to ask himself, but as someone who advocates for mental health & shares now about being openly gay, I interpret that he may feel he cannot express that outside of his mind for fear of undermining his advocacy points. The discussion of the “wonders” of the Internet also continue building in the tension that exists throughout WAD of how Dan feels about that space. The voiceover then proposes at first a type of equal extreme, which only sees the Doom, and as someone with clinical Depression myself, I think is only a furtherance of the breakdown, rather than the reality check it started off being. Not that what is listed is wrong by any means, but the barrage of it is meant to expand the drowning feeling, not act as call to action or consideration of the intricacies for engaging in the world. With the Circle’s sun imagery & the music having been inverted and shifted to something more sinister, Dan’s movement up the stairs fits a type of circular moment from the first entry of him, where the image of the prophetic figure is questioned on how he alone will solve the climate emergency. The slap & break of character for the Dan on Stage serves to confirm our understanding of the voiceover as the voice in Dan’s head & indeed there are not two Dans.

Also, the sparklers 🎇 showing up really make the key change for the song, but my producer brain is going, “girl, of course you lost money on this show, was that so VERY NECESSARY?” But the dramatic Gemini theatre bitch in me would 100% want this too. I just don’t have a capita£ester working to get sponsorship money in my life, so I have to be reasonable 😔 Also, the confetti with the high note is peak theatre gay so I again, love that for him. And of course, the confetti is orange.

Hints of Orange

When the song reaches its end & the Circle starts showing squares of orange, rather than a full background, this acts as a seed for the breakdown and waterfall of cubes, which Calvina speaks to the orange cube hint at the beginning in her post. The sudden cut-out with Dan simply lit replicates a moment the Circle is not present. The Internet is not present. To crawl to a microphone, the message is not “hey this guy needs two mics”, because we see one on his face, but that the wired mic (which I will now label as “The Microphone”) is a metaphor. It’s a crawl towards sharing out, not suppression. Only when the voiceover of himself points out the audience does he does a full fourth wall break. The suppression did not work, and neither he nor the audience can believe that it was the Truth.

The wire of the Microphone being orange showcases that it was meant to be seen. I don’t think it even in play in terms of the sound, like it might not even be on, considering the feedback nightmare it would likely cause. And no standard microphone used on stages has orange wires, because that would pull the audience’s eyes to it. But that’s the point here.

The rules of the space are now this: the Circle is not always active, the Microphone has significance, the Dan On Stage knows there is an audience. None of these were true before, even the Circle was on before the start. This draws the audience to know there has been a shift & to have the first words said into the Microphone be “We’re All Doomed” solidifies the song moment was a blip, that this is really where we start at. As an example, in the social media section, Dan does a deliberate wrapping of the wire on his hand at the same time the Circle scrolls to the social media icon. It is how the director & Dan are ensuring that we understand “what he is saying and what is been shown on the screen are in tandem”, so if you’re paying attention to that wire, it signals you should look up too.

Every other prop, except I believe the gavel and wig, is also orange. The bubble gun is mainly what comes to mind for me, since the cubes are not as activated as props necessarily. But if an item is to enter the stage, what I interpret it as is that it must be orange, there must be high contrast, nothing in the physical world on the stage can become blurred, only screens have that privilege(?) to have things blend together.

The Power Struggle Between Dan & the Circle

Once Dan has begun directly conversing with the audience, the rules of the space are:

(1) Dan On Stage acts, the design elements react (not including the Circle)

(2) The Circle and Dan have a symbiotic relationship, as neither have complete control over the other & react to what each other are doing

(3) The icons are our guides in understanding the sectioning done throughout the show

(4) Having “One Good Night” is the goal to reach at the end of the piece

As a person, as well as discussed throughout the show, we know that Dan has a contentious relationship with the Internet. It is what has given him his living but has also caused some of his worst moments mentally (2012? I don’t know her). It is the space in which lets him have an audience who have mainly showed him support, but also the space that has fed the cynicism that fuels his clinical depression. There lies in the way in which the Circle exists on the stage & looms over Dan in the background. It’s a necessary evil of what appears on the screen.

Why do I then say that the design elements are reacting? Well, if we remove the Circle from the equation, the lights, sounds effects, and props are all cued off of something Dan does like the clown honk. However, the Circle sometimes cues off what Dan does, but sometimes instigates what Dan speaks to. That especially is evident when video clips play that invoke what media Dan has been contending with on the Internet and the consequences of those things.

The Circle exists throughout both Act One & Act Two, but only becomes passive to the piece when Dan directly shows vulnerability & the removal of protective irony. Calvina spoke to this when discussing the costume choice of him opening the jumpsuit in Act Two to show the orange tank underneath.

Cubes as Articulators

Oh Creator did I have to dig deep into my brain for this term of articulators. So my directing instructor had some key terms that I think I don’t think are universally used, even by American theatre directors or at least in academic settings. She defined articulators to basically be elements that helped give almost like checkpoints for the progression of a throughline in a show. For WAD, that is easily those orange cubes.

When static is displayed on the Circle’s screen each time we transition to a new section, it is not the typical emulation of TV static, it is that sea of orange squares. It is an articulation of those fear, issues, concerns, all those pinpoints Dan speaks to why he says “We’re All Doomed”.

That’s why there is the culmination of the orange cubes falling on him, when he reaches the top of the stairs at the end of Act One. When he circles back to the same stage picture of him at the top, it can been considered a repetition of the prophetic imagery I pointed out from the opening sequence. What changes is that the orange squares enter the physical world, falling onto Dan. He can no longer say they live in his head. They are here and stay in the space until the end of the show. In Act One, they are the looming issues that signal the Apocalypse. In Act Two, they are the rubble that must be sorted through.

Calvina was the one who named it rubble and the cubes as representations of Dan’s problems. To have the audience actually able to take a cube home, she argued, would be symbolic of the audience helping carry that weight. While I’d love that, I mentioned in my tags on her post that I think mentally, that rubble would still be at his feet, even with taking home that visual metaphor. This is Dan we’re talking about, and with personal responsibility being a topic of the show, while it’s not his burden to bear alone, he does have to recognize it exists.

I think the repetition of the prophetic imagery comes to its climax when in the aftermath found in Act 2, voting who to fire into space can and does end up with him being sent by the audience. It represents an understanding of where he exists now from where he did at 18 in terms of social, political, and economic access and the possibilities of his influence. There is a responsibility there that ties to how he can move in the world now publicly, so why wouldn’t he have an existential crisis?

It is a Comedy Though, Right?

This is hundred percent comedy, and obvious dark humor at that. As a director, I love comedy, especially this type, because when an audience gets to laugh, the armor gets stripped away. They have no built-up resistance that let’s any uncomfortable point be heard effectively. It’s why the end’s vulnerability is effective, because we have already joked and laughed about our pains and our desire for escapism. Now we are able to move on into a place of reflection.

To underline why I say this is not stand-up comedy is that Dan has made it a stage show, just one that has comedy as a vehicle for telling this “story”. His interactions with his audience, through both quips based on audience reactions or “heckling” as well as explicitly asking for input into who to shot to space or what to add as a mad lib (generic brand for law purposes), are about being blended into the loose narrative constructed already, not actually to be reactionary like most crowd work I associate with stand-up comedy.

If anything, I could argue that it could be considered a comedy special that “Dan On Stage” is trying to make, but there is actually conflict being introduced that disrupts his set (both the comedy one and the physical one). There is clearly a showing of meta, as Dan makes sure to share thoughts on the creation of the show, the reactions from his overall show branding & imagery, the use of the lift because it was expensive to have. Dan’s comedy style can never be told without reference to behind the scenes, because if this is a creative means to process feelings, there are things about the show & its making that impact what needs to be processed too. It is also related to how his work is strengthened by acknowledging the two-way street of being in a parasocial relationship with his audience.

Can We Have One Good Night?

Another term central to what my directing teacher spoke of was the “Core”, usually a question, though not always, that motivated what was being explored over the course of a theatre piece. At the top, as Dan on Stage exaggerates that love doesn’t exist (which Dan refutes as being an actual belief of his during the afterparty) and other sardonic phrases, he also states he wants to give his audience one good night, because he recognizes the escapism his audience finds in his solo and joint content. We’re All Doomed’s Core is “can we just have one good night, even in the midst of the horrors we have outside of these theatre doors?”. But I would also say that in terms of where his writing was at the time of WAD’s inception and the naming of his mental health book as You Will Get Through This Night, it feels more like Dan himself has been grappling with a Core of “can I have one good night? Or a full 24 hours where I feel mainly happy when all I am bombarded with about the world is suffering?” I think night can be both literal, since we know he has had sleep issues, and metaphorical, as the night can represent this depressive episode he was writing himself out of.

When the mood tracker gets discussed in the last portion of WAD, to see a sea of neutral or uninterested emojis demonstrates when he took the time to do it, the answer that night was “no, not really” 😕. The main one mentioned is the ritual of “Fry Day” he has with Phil (sidenote: why are these British men not calling it “Chip Day”, since this ritual falls on a Saturday?), which is a rare smiley face. The question he likely has then is “can I ever have a good night again?”

So for him to then turn to his own videos during one of those nights, to a video where he states his famous “embrace the void and have the courage to exist,” that showcases what I mentioned of his best work being written for himself, in this case, a future version of himself.

Ending Sequence: Where Do We Land?

When the Circle does not display any media, it again shows the orange square motif, but after mentioning his own video, he turns to his audience for glimpses of what joy exists even in the face of Doom. The Circle changes into a display of different submitted clips showcasing this joy and hope that Dan was clearly looking for throughout this piece. He walks towards the top of the stairs to witness these clips. I cannot for my life at this point having now been separate from it for about a month, but I believe before the submitted media sequence, he states the famous line again of “Embrace the Void and Have the Courage to Exist”. With this last thing spoken, it gives that emphasis needed to take in the message emotionally and then witness what the Void (in this case the Circle) can offer.

A Good Director Should Go Unnoticed

When someone is not versed in theatrical directing, if the audience cannot tell what was a choice by the director or even consider the director themselves, this is weirdly a good sign. It means that it feels natural to what they are witnessing and to the messages that are meant to be communicated to the audience. As someone who also works in government, it feels very similar, as only bad work is evident to the general public. Obviously that is not true for everyone, but is an overall trait I think impacts both an understanding of public service and directing.

I am not familiar with any of the work of Ed Stambollouian, who through research, looks like he has done work with comedians like Joe Lycett (who I am also not familiar with) and directed TATINOF, but also more stripped down, exploratory theatre. Through a quick review of his portfolio, one, I am not shocked that Dan tapped him to assist with directing since there is a familiarity and two, his background tells me he knows how to direct for writer-performers, which is what comedians really are at the end of the day.

To direct for those who are doing one-person shows that they both wrote and performed, it is especially tricky to have the artist hand the reins over to the director. The director in this case acts as the artist’s eyes, because an artist cannot clone themselves. It is impossible for them to wear multiple hats at once, where they can give quality, objective feedback to themselves while also doing a full out performance. For Ed to be someone Dan has worked with before, there is already an established understanding of each other’s work styles, and a trust that otherwise would have to be built up before the work can truly begin to finalize the piece.

In short, Ed Stambollouian and the creative team on We’re All Doomed did an incredible job bringing what I understand Dan intended when he started writing this down in isolation. And @danielhowell you whole-heartedly deserve to call this your magnum opus. What can I say (sorry I can't help lovingly poking fun at you), your artistry shines throughout the show. I hope this too can be something your future self can turn back to.

🧡

(bonus) Thoughts on Orange Carpet & the Phil element

I didn’t fully rewatch the orange carpet, just to keep myself on task & not bring Phil too much into the main reflection without explicit reference in the show, but hearing Dan go “I’m alive in 3, 2…” made me laugh both times. He understands that we just want to know he has a pulse, ya know? Also them pretending it totally was live, when those fools (affectionate) cannot run a real live broadcast from their home for their lives. It just ran too smoothly, esp. in the transitions, for it to be anything but some very, very light editing on one improvised take they did. But I always support them in their acting, no matter how bad, like with DITL Australia’s opener or pretending there were not two apartments or that Google Feud being back was unplanned or Dil being pregnant with a statistically rare alien child or Phil living in a tiled, cramped bedroom or...

Also, Dan’s little laugh at the end of Phil’s sign-off is so fond it hurts. It also hurt that the VOD was hard to scrub through, so another deduction for the Kiswe platform.

Anyway, I’m glad that Dan was able to find space outside of the Dan & Phil branding of the 2010s as well as the image he was forced to manufacture for his YouTube presence, but also realize that with having a core audience that wants him to simply be happy, he can recognize that Phil is part of the things that make him happy. And can do so openly.

He is his own person, but it has been clearly emphasized now that Dan has no interest in not acknowledging that Phil always is and will be part of his present and future. He has made work like WAD & "Gay and Not Proud" to explore his way of thinking without the support of Phil present in the filmed/performed aspect. Dan acknowledges this intention, which is evident with him shooing away Phil at the beginning of “Gay and Not Proud” to process it alone.

It is also evident with the ending of “Daniel & Depression” and the WAD end credit of remote crisis manager showcasing the caretaking role Phil often plays in Dan’s life. But we know that caretaking is reciprocal, considering Phil's tactics with glue as well as his continuing health issues and anxieties. Dan has seen who he is without Phil by his side everyday in the public eye & has no interest in maintaining that Phil is absent for public projections.

I obviously do not know Dan Howell, or anything about him outside what exists on the internet. But in performance studies, there is a foundational understanding that there is no way to not be performing in some way during your day-to-day. Performing is not inherently a bad thing, as there are different roles you take on in your life, where how I engage at work is different from how I am hanging out with friends. This also has basis in gender studies, such as ideas that you can perform your gender "wrong". What has been so interesting to me in this phandom renaissance is the way Dan and Phil each perform as themselves in front of the camera now. What they share out and the layers they include--or choose to not remove--have been stated by them explicitly to be the most authentic they have ever been, without obviously removing their right to privacy. During the height of the glass closet that was their 2018 content, I remember thinking that it was going to be the most they would show us in the vain of "if you know, you know, and we know who will know". After the coming out videos of 2019, obviously that's not true, but the return of dapg has signaled a message of "we know you know, if you've been in the know" while veiled in a way that is not immediately perceivable by those who are casually engaging with their content. It is an authentic portrayal of themselves without filter, while also providing themselves space to not have to announce everything to the world. When you are in the know, it definitely targeted and causes psychic damage, but I am ready for anything and everything they throw our way.

#we’re all doomed #wad spoilers #daniel howell #danisnotonfire #dnp #dan and phil #dan howell #theatre analysis #performance studies #theatre director

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lurkingshan · 10 months

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The Asian Drama Generational Trauma Challenge List

gif by @youdontloveme-yet

As @waitmyturtles has been making her way through her OGMMTVC I have been continuing to watch way too many dramas and thinking about the ones I want her to watch when she’s done with that project. And because I know Turtles, it’s always the dramas that feature themes around intergenerational trauma, filial piety, and lots of emotionally fraught interactions between parents and children that ping my “Turtles needs to watch this” radar. As I was mentioning the shows I wanted her to watch, Turtles joked that maybe I should make her a new challenge list that is focused on intergenerational trauma.

And if y’all haven’t learned this about me yet, you should know that I have no chill and absolutely will embark on a whole project because you make a stray comment in my direction. So here we are!

gif by @piningbisexuals

I wanted this list to be inclusive of a broad range of Asian dramas, exploring how it shows up in different Asian countries and through both het and queer lenses, so I consulted quite a few friends. Shoutout to @wen-kexing-apologist, @so-much-yet-to-learn, @bengiyo, @shortpplfedup, @ginnymoonbeam, and @emotionallychargedtowel for helping me refine this list. We landed on the following criteria:

Modern dramas only—not necessarily current but set in a time period recent enough that we don’t have a whole additional set of social mores to layer on top

The drama explores intergenerational trauma, not just intergenerational dynamics (so shows like Reply 1988 that are very much about family but not necessarily trauma are not on the list)

Intergenerational trauma is a primary focus and a major theme of the drama, not a background theme, a surprise reveal, or just part of a character’s backstory to engender sympathy (waves goodbye to most chaebol romcoms)

We are using the word trauma in a broad sense here–a lot of the complex trauma featured in these shows would not meet the formal DSM diagnostic criteria as a Traumatic Event

We did apply a quality filter–the execution of the story needs to be good enough that the intergenerational trauma themes stay intact, even if the drama overall is not a total slam dunk

gif by @gifetc

Note also that this list is not chronological and there is no suggested watch order. I also do not recommend binging all of these dramas one after the other. Some of these shows are heavy and you’ll want to space them out. This is a challenge to complete over time!

I decided to share this on tumblr in case others are similarly weird and wanted to undertake this challenge with us. If any of you see this and decide to watch some of these, please tag me with your progress and thoughts! I have also linked each show’s MDL page so you can see the synopsis and general warning tags, but if you want specific content warnings for any of these shows, feel free to comment or message me.

gif by @wanderlust-in-my-soul

So after a lot of preamble…

Generational Trauma Challenge List

10 Years Ticket (Thailand, YouTube)

180 Degrees Longitude Passes Through Us (Thailand, Gagaoolala)

About Youth (Taiwan, Gagaoolala)

Bad Buddy (Thailand, YouTube)

Come and Hug Me (S Korea, Viki)

Flower of Evil (S Korea, Netflix or Viki)

GAP (Thailand, YouTube)

Go Ahead (China, Viki)

It’s Okay to Not Be Okay (S Korea, Netflix)

Khun Chai (Thailand, YouTube)

My Mister (S Korea, Netflix)

Our Dining Table (Japan, Gagaoolala)

SKY Castle (S Korea, Netflix or Viki)

Something in the Rain (S Korea, Netflix or Viki)

Until We Meet Again (Thailand, Viki or YouTube)

gif by @gabrielokun

Good luck, happy crying, stay hydrated, and please pace yourselves!

(Tagging friends @neuroticbookworm, @kyr-kun-chan, and @chickenstrangers who I have already discussed this with.)

#bad buddy #flower of evil #180 degree longitude passes through us #come and hug me #our dining table #until we meet again #gap the series #go ahead #it's okay not to be okay #khun chai #about youth #my mister #10 years ticket #sky castle #something in the rain #intergenerational trauma challenge #shan recommends

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chaosisunderratedd · 22 days

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Theory based on today's episode (6/4/2024):

SMG3 wasn't in today's video probably because of his 'slip up' in the Once upon an SMG4 episode. In the first episode (Mario's Mysteries) he was shown to be trapped somewhere along with Tari and Meggy. The footage of them being trapped was shown to us by Mr. Puzzles himself, before quickly switching to another channel proving that we weren't supposed to see them at all. In the second episode he says "I wish we could all escape from here" to which Mr. Puzzles (later abbreviated as PV for Puzzlevision) responds with “Whoops must’ve been a programming malfunction.” This could point in the direction of all the characters that are making appearances on the big screen are not the real characters, rather robot versions of them. That would also explain why SMG3 doesn’t appear in the episode, if he malfunctioned he would need to be fixed to ensure a ‘slip up’ like this never happens again. This point is further proved when PV says “We can’t have that” and waves what I assume to be the magic wand of the fairy godmother, aka a stick with a remote stuck to it. The wave of the wand causes all of the character’s eyes to turn to static, like TV static. As far as I know, humans, meme guardians nor any other human/humanoid character in the SMG4 universe can do that. It isn’t a human trait at all, it’s a robot trait.

Maybe SMG3 is out of commission because PV fears that SMG3 could be the only one to stop him. And that would make sense. So far all main characters have had their own arc of sorts. SMG4 with ‘It’s Gotta Be Perfect’, Meggy (and Tari?) with Western Spaghetti and Mario with WOTFI 2023. The only one left is SMG3. And since SMG3 had similar wishes in the youtube arc, wanting to take over SMG4’s channel and all, PV fears that SMG3 would know of a way to stop him. Not even all of the characters in the SMG4 universe have to be trapped in an undisclosed location, that we saw only once (in Mario’s Mysteries) they could have been led to believe that SMG4 is directing all of this, and nothing big is happening. It could be just the main cast. Mario, Meggy, Tari, SMG4 and SMG3. They would have the most chance and plot armour to stop PV.

During today’s episode (Scooby Mario, Where’d You Go!) Luigi and Mario break into a room that’s not supposed to have been shown (timestamp 8:03). In that room they see multiple TVs showing multiple scenes from the episodes that have already been aired and scenes that are happening in the current episode, like security camera footage. Scenes shown in particular are (in order): The gang running away from Luigi.exe, the scene where SMG4 shows Luigi how to get colours from Mario’s Mysteries (specifically the colour red), the scene of SMG3 and Luigi dancing from Once Upon an SMG4… and a giant spinning wheel, similar to the ones seen on game shows, with members of the main cast stuck to it. Basically, all the episodes that have been aired and what we could assume to be a shot/scene from the next episode. We’re three episodes in so far and we potentially know what is going to be in the next episode. That leaves the last episode. Will it be a movie like IGBP, WS or WOTFI? I doubt it. It could be the episode where SMG3 re-appears, if he won’t already be in the fourth episode. The three episodes we’ve gotten so far have been between 10 and 15 minutes long, so the last episode might leave us with a cliffhanger. A cliffhanger which could lead us into the next SMG4 movie.

It is clear that PV wants to control the show and use the characters as puppets. He was the one that offered the cursed keyboard to SMG4, causing the IGBP incident, he’s the one who led them to the showgrounds, he gave One shot Wren the power to control the simulation from WS, he caused WOTFI ‘23. Intricately leading them to the moment he would be able to take over their minds, bodies, possibly create robot versions of them? It would be a shame for PV to let it all go to waste right?

I could also draw a few parallels to other arcs. The Anime arc for example, Francis was bullied as a kid for his interest in anime, maybe PV was bullied in his childhood and something caused him to want his own show. Maybe he didn’t get enough attention as a child, hence why he’d seek out validation by saying “What did you think of today’s episode?” at the end of every video and asking us to rate him/the shows at puzzlevision.tv. It also seems he doesn’t like getting bad reviews, he strives for perfection. We could call him a perfectionist because of him being unhappy after our ratings of the episodes. Both episodes 1 and 2 have been rated a 3.5 which apparently doesn’t meet his expectations. We can also see that he is obviously copying already successful shows such as educational shows for kids, fairy tales, Scooby-Doo and the clip of what seems to be a gameshow. I could say something about Genesis and Revelations too, where Niles brainwashed/manipulated Axol, SMG0 and Melony and where he brainwashed multiple Mario recolours into being brainless zombies. Niles wanted to create a world for himself and SMG0, PV wants to create a successful show. And maybe he brainwashed the SMG4 crew into submission. After seeing what happened to SMG4 and Mario in Mario’s Mysteries, this explanation makes sense. When TV time begins, Mario and SMG4 sit down to watch TV and upon seeing the channel switch to the footage of Tari, Meggy and SMG3 being in a dark room their smiles start to fade. PV then hits the TV and the channel switches to footage of the three dancing, PV apologises for showing ‘a show for adults’ and plays the bee movie with bonus features, to which SMG4 and Mario respond with excitement, completely forgetting about seeing their friends trapped in some dark room. I’ll mention the YouTube arc once again and say, SMG3 also wanted to take over SMG4’s channel and completely kick out the original crew. PV obviously doesn’t want to do that, since he’s keeping the entire crew in the show and using them to create what he sees fit.

After a whole bunch of brainrot, 1.1K words and horrifying wrist pain, I hope you enjoy reading and I'm sorry if it doesn't make any sense (english isn't my first language-)

happy reading ig

#smg4 #smg4 puzzlevision #smg3 #smg4 smg3 #smg3 smg4 #smg4 meggy #meggy spletzer #smg4 tari #tv adware #mr. puzzles #smg4 mario #smg4 mr puzzles #smg4 brainrot

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creature-wizard · 4 months

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Yes, Gigi Young is literally just another conspiracy theorist.

Since I have this anon who's upset that I made a post awhile back criticizing some shit Gigi Young said, I figured I'd pop into her YouTube channel and see what she's doing these days.

I watched the video titled "The Occult Purpose of War & Satanic Super Technologies," which was uploaded in November of 2023, as well as the video titled The Esoteric Keys To Disclosure: 10.It's a Genetic Modification Cult, which was published back in September of 2023. So just to be clear, these are fairly new videos. This is basically what she believes and teaches right now, as of the time I am making this post. (December of 2023.)

Before I go into what she specifically says, I'm going to say right now that a lot of the stuff she's saying is basically the same stuff pushed by Fritz Springmeier, a far right conspiracy theorist with a history of extremely shady behavior and an undeniable mancrush on Dr. Joseph Mengele. (The guy really liked to talk about how handsome and irresistible this professional Nazi torturer supposedly was. I still feel queasy at the memory of reading what Springmeier said about him.)

Springmeier's work was influenced by the likes of Edith Starr Miller and Alexander Hislop. Edith Starr Miller was into all that Protocols stuff, and basically attacked anything that didn't conform to her ideals of what true Christianity was, claiming it was part of the Evil Conspiracy. Alexander Hislop was the Protestant dude who pulled a bunch of shit out of his ass about Roman Catholicism secretly being the continuation of an ancient Babylonian mystery cult.

Springmeier basically claimed that the world was under the control of thirteen Satanic bloodlines. In terms of what the conspiracy was supposedly up to, it was all a blend of the antisemitic hoax The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion with early modern witch panic and blood libel. He modernized it, of course. Springmeier claimed that the conspirators were experimenting with the creation of human/animal hybrids and developing advanced mind control technology.

It does not actually matter whether or not Gigi Young personally considers herself part of the far right in any sense. What matters - literally all that matters - is that she is spreading their beliefs and their rhetoric.

The impact and devastation is the same regardless of what Gigi Young personally considers herself.

She could hang a trans flag on her wall, wear an "I ❤️ Communism" shirt, spit on Hitler's picture in front of the camera, and it would not make a single iota of difference.

So in The Occult Purpose of War & Satanic Super Technologies, Gigi Young essentially proposes that a reason for Israel's assault on Gaza is that the satanic families supposedly controlling the world want to start World War III, for the purpose of conducting a massive blood ritual to summon the Antichrist. Here's a direct quote:

I absolutely think that they want to create World War III. World War III needs to happen for there to be enough blood in the soul for Ahriman to incarnate or for the Antichrist to incarnate. There needs to be a global war for the Antichrist to come into being.

The idea that there is a satanic cult that wants to bring about the rule of the Antichrist is basically the Christofascist conspiracy theory. The blood ritual element is another permutation of blood libel.

Young goes on to say that she believes that there's a faction within the dark elite that view nuclear bombs not as a weapon, but as an occult ritual.

She also makes indirect reference to the conspiracy theory that CERN was meant to open a portal to hell by claiming that particle accelerators tear a hole in the veil that allows demons to come through.

She repeats other common far right conspiracy theories, including the one where the conspiracy supposedly has Babylonian origins and practices dark rituals for the purpose of mind control over the populace, and that the conspiracy is genetically modifying plants and people for evil conspiracy reasons.

She also referred to elemental beings as "subhuman," which is a eugenicist term - literally a translation of untermensch. The fact that Young uses this word tells you something about the ideological bent among whatever people and literature influenced her beliefs.

In her video titled "The Esoteric Keys To Disclosure: 10.It's a Genetic Modification Cult," she talks more about this alleged satanic conspiracy. She claims that the conspiracy was told by demons and fallen angels that they were descended from alien gods, and that the conspiracy is all about genetic modification in order to become gods themselves.

So first of all, claiming that beliefs you disagree with came from demons and fallen angels is a move right out of the Christofascists' playbook. Normal people just accept and admit that people just come up with shitty ideas sometimes.

Secondly, Young's objection to the idea of alien ancestry and alien genetic modification in this video are very clearly part of her broader antivax and anti-GMO views. She believes that GMO foods are the work of the conspiracy, and that vaccinations were created by the conspiracy to modify people's genetics. She's literally an antivaxxer, y'all.

And like. The way to handle these conspiratorial alien origin myths isn't to reframe them in a slightly different conspiracy theory. The way to handle it is challenging and destroying the conspiracy theory altogether. It literally makes no different whether Young believes humanity is descended from aliens or not, so long as she's pushing this kind of conspiracy narrative.

Her views on GMOs and such this are pretty obviously informed by an attitude that natural = pure = good. What she's trying to pass off as anti-eugenics is actually a kind of belief in genetic purity, which is itself a form of eugenics.

She even claims that the downfall of Atlantis was caused by genetically modifying organisms. She claims that genetic modification actually "degenerates" the form. (For someone who claims to hate Nazis so much, she sure does use their language.)

She apparently believes that the conspiracy has a depopulation agenda. This one's been circulating far right conspiracy theory circles for decades.

She makes some bizarre claims about New Age alien beliefs. She tries to pin the whole thing on Scientology, which she claims was Nazi esotericism. While it's true that Scientology and New Age alien beliefs are similar, the latter were developing well before Scientology was a thing. Scientology, rather, was influenced by the ideas of its time. And while it's true that Nazi ideas have influenced New Age beliefs, Gigi Young cannot actually point to any specific cases; instead, she acts like the entire thing is ultimately a Nazi conspiracy, which is bullshit.

She also acts like New Age spirituality is extremely materially reductive. While I do think that New Age spirituality can be somewhat materially reductive, it's nowhere near to the degree that Gigi Young is describing. She seems to think that New Age ideas will somehow lead to people accepting DNA modification through vaccinations, which is just bizarre given how New Age is also rife with antivax conspiracism.

Her radfemmy gender essentialist shit comes back when she blames the world's condition on the overgrown and distorted male impulse that wants to control the feminine and take over creation, and says that if you're creating something in a petri dish, you're not allowing the holy womb of the woman to create life, which is what it's for.

So yeah, no, Gigi Young is not better than these New Age conspiracy theorists out there, not even a little bit. She's every bit as bad. Don't be fooled by the fact that she's dunking on people you hate; she's still pushing the same kind of conspiracy crap they believe in.

#gigi young #conspiracism #conspirituality #conspiracy theorist #conspiracy theorists

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kanmom51 · 11 months

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Felt like I had to bring this back

Please forgive me @juliapark13 for hijacking your post, but I just had to, it being the perfect example of not only how stupid people are, but also of how there is no problem for people to make assumptions as to the members sexuality when it's about assuming they are straight. It only works in one direction though.

This ask:

And this post linked:

Because, I too feel for either of their non existent girl friends, former (past 7 years), present or future.

With all the noise about the word girl maybe or maybe not being in a snippet of a maybe JK song on his maybe album, I thought it fitting to bring a few posts back.

All part of my hardcore expose proving once and for all that, you guessed right, JK ain't gay.

RB - the Jikook conversation transcript.

Hickey-gate.

It's true. They have been covering for each other for years.

JK ain't gay pt. 1

JK ain't gay pt. 2

JK ain't gay pt. 3

JK ain't gay pt. 2 of pt. 3

And if talking about the gf...

I'm guessing that now with this shit circulating it's time for a part 4 of this expose then, right? I mean the word girl in lyrics to his song (maybe). That would surely mean he's straight, right? Cause Ricky Martin is 100% straight, always was.

Wait, he's not?

But surely he was when he was singing:

"Woke up in New York City

In a funky cheap hotel

She took my heart, and she took my money"

No?

Shite.

Could it possibly be that a queer artist sing a song with lyrics that have zero to do with his own personal life? Could it be?

Could a queer artist create art (song, dance, paintings, acting etc.) that has nothing to do with his sexual orientation?

And now I'm being dead serious. This is total bull. Of course queer artists create art that is not necessarily personal. Queer singers singing songs about loving women, queer actors playing roles being in love with a woman all while they are gay. Queer artists painting women.

Now about this song snippet specifically:

We don't know if this is an actual song or perhaps a guide song.

We don't know what he is actually saying there (I've literally heard so many different versions of it, some with girl some without).

We don't know the full lyrics of this specific song.

We don't know if this song is on his album.

We don't know what this album consists of, how many songs, how personal it is as a whole, who wrote the lyrics to some or all of his songs.

We just don't know.

If the song or songs on his album have female pronouns and talk about love and attraction to females, and if JK tells us the album and all songs on it are personal to him, only then will people be able to come around to our blogs and claim some sort of proof that JK might be interested in women.

But does that rule out him being queer?

Heck no. Cause you know, bisexual is a thing. Pansexual too.

But there is no talking to these people. When you are a brainless moron it's hard to understand that love is love is love. You also can't possibly see what these two have been up to for the past 7 years or so. You can't see, you can't hear everything they've showed us, told us. What a kick in their gut it was when JK came live in the past couple of months with JM on the mind. And what a kick in the gut it will be for them if we have a Letter like song on his album. Here's hoping. Yes, that's me being as petty as fuck.

#Jikook #Kookmin #minkook #Jungkook #JK #Jimin #JM

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destinationtoast · 1 year

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"Entertainment" and modern AI-fandom interactions

There's a 1985* sci-fi short story I once read by M.A. Foster called “Entertainment” that predicts what will happen in an increasingly AI-generated art world. I can't find any excerpts or summaries of it online, but what I recall is:

In the future, humans can prompt machines to create any art -- e.g., "What would a collaboration between early-era Peter Gabriel and late-era Beethoven look like, with a music video directed by Werner Herzog?" (That's a made up example, but someone originally gave me the story because Peter Gabriel and early Genesis are actually referred to in the text, and I was at the height of my fandom. XD ) An AI then comes up with a bunch of different examples, and the human who gave the prompt chooses the one(s) they like best. They then release the creation to the broader world, and people make micropayments to stream it. Everyone competes for attention, hoping to go viral or at least make a decent living.

(There's a dystopian aspect, where if you don't make enough money and your balance drops below zero, you disappear back into the human factory to get remade. Also, people don't have sex in person -- they pay each other for the rights to their likeness, and they have sex with simulated versions of one another. All of which is rather interesting, but not as directly relevant to the point I'm making here.)

M.A. Foster did an impressive job foreseeing a bunch of aspects of modern AI and online culture (especially keeping in mind that there was no Web or social media or digital streaming or online micropayments at the time this was written). And it’s becoming easy to imagine that we may reach a point where many of the story’s predictions about art come true, as well.

Currently, you can give increasingly complex prompts and get AIs to respond with something that makes sense and seems like a valid reply. Newer AIs often create text and images that are both exciting and terrifying due to what feels like a sudden potential to blend in with or replace human output. Fandom, along with everyone else, is unnerved. After all, will we still need fan creators in a world where we can prompt AIs to do this?

(source)

Or this?

(source)

Or when AI can even take the prompt “Professor Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr kissing next to a conflagration” and output this?

(source)

Okay, there’s definitely still some funkiness going on there with some body parts; cherik fanartists can still obviously do better, for the moment. And more generally, AI output is still frequently goofy, full of embellishments and fabrications, literally tasteless, and/or flat-out wrong – but we can see so many promises of how good it will get. And we can imagine how AI output will increasingly be incorporated into transformative fandom and shipping culture.

But all of the above examples illustrate another thing that M.A. Foster got right: If you want AI to produce something really interesting and compelling, it's important to have a human come up with a good prompt and then select the best output.

This isn’t new; for years, we have been living in an increasingly curatorial world. For instance, with stock photos of nearly everything, and digitized versions available of much of the world's art and photography, and endless hours of new YouTube & TikTok videos uploaded to the web every passing minute, it's much easier these days to create new images or videos or other visual works without being an artist. But building a compelling visual work based on others' images -- a mood board, edit, collage, fanvid, etc. -- still benefits enormously from being driven by a human with a particular sense of style and particular goals in mind. And the more that any human wants to see something that is different from the most common or most popular images that already exist, the more likely they are either going to have to create it themselves – or at least push the AI really hard in that direction via increasingly specific prompts and feedback. (None of these roles are unique to online culture, either – art commissioners have historically prompted things, and art collectors and museums have curated them -- but these days we all have access to a much wider world of online works, and we all curate our own tumblrs and pinterest boards and so forth, even if we don't explicitly create curatorial works for fandom.)

The thing I found most unrealistic about "Entertainment" was that people weren’t tempted to try their own hand at creating art; it was a purely remix + curation culture. In reality, even if AIs get really excellent at creation, so good that their fic and art are as good as your favorite fan creators’ work, I don't think they're ever going to suppress our own creative urges. We live in a world where there are already 313 Dean/Castiel high school AU hurt/comfort fics – and yet people were still inspired to write/update two more this week. People are not going to stop creating new fanworks just because the AIs are increasingly able to join in and create more. And, for some time yet, humans are still going to lead the way in creating new canons with compelling stories and characters, which machines will then learn from and remix. (That is another thing that human artists have also always done -- drawing inspiration from and remixing one another's art -- and something that fandom in particular is pretty great at.)

TL;DR human contributions to fandom will still be very important for fandom for the foreseeable future. Even if the internet -- and now AI -- have helped us shift from spending more time as solo creators to also having increasingly active roles as prompters and curators.

---

This post was partly inspired by @fansplaining 's latest discussion of AI & recent fandom panic, "Artificial Fandom Intelligence", as well as @cfiesler 's post, "Elon Musk did not create an AI trained on your fanfiction." They also addressed other issues that fans are worried about, like the idea of AIs and their creators getting credit and/or monetary reward for new fanworks trained on existing human-generated fanworks. If you've read other good meta about any aspect of fandom & AI, I'd love pointers -- please feel free to share in the notes!

*At least, it was collected in a 1985 anthology called Owl Time; I’m not sure when/where it was originally published.

#ai #gpt3 #dall e #chatgpt #m.a. foster #ai and fandom #all the thinkiness #op #50 #100

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coexistentialism · 4 months

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did anything in particular help u get over denial bc u don’t know much abt your alters? I feel like a silly to think I could have this disorder bc I’m very clueless

Hmm... Other than my diagnosis and generally teaching myself, I'm not entirely sure.

Note here when I say "you" in this post, I'm not directing this at you, Anon, specifically!

Mostly just a lot of research. Like so much research. Please, PLEASE do research - actual research - if and when you can, even if you have to find audiobooks or find alternative ways to research, as long as you are not solely getting your information from social media! Including me man! Do your own research! I am a human being too and I am capable of being wrong! I would LOVE to share places where I research, how I research, etc. if anyone is interested in a post like that.

Talking to other systems, being in (...good..) system spaces, and learning about other systems' experiences, both different and similar to my own. You can browse blog pages, forum posts, Reddit, Tumblr, read books, watch short films made by people with DID/OSDD, find other YouTubers to watch, etc. I can also share a post about some stuff I recommend, like Forums and Reddit posts and blogs.

Throw out OSDD versus DID. I'm so serious. I think some people who question DID/OSDD have treated questioning it like way too seriously and I kinda just wanna go. Who cares man. If you suspect you have DID or OSDD, who cares, just say you suspect DID or OSDD. You. Don't need to narrow it down to one, I promise you it doesn't matter as much as the internet acts like it does. I think the DID criteria could do with changing and to be less restrictive in order to include a wider variety of presentations and experiences. At the end of the day, when somebody says they're an OSDD system, this means SO many different things for SO many different people. You ask one person with OSDD what that means for them and they might have a totally different answer than someone else with OSDD. I just think people should learn to be okay with saying "I suspect DID/OSDD, I don't know which" more often instead of attempting to figure out which one they have. The reason it's so confusing is because OSDD doesn't have criteria. It doesn't have criteria for you to meet and the internet makes shit up about OSDD, so you get fed misinformation about it and things don't add up and don't make sense because it's misinformation. So just throw this out and learn to be okay with not knowing whether it's DID or OSDD. It's okay. You don't have to narrow it down. Relax NFDKJASKD

Tips:

PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, ANYTHING THAT YOU READ ABOUT DID/OSDD ONLINE THAT YOU FOUND HELPFUL - SAVE IT SOMEWHERE! I promise you will want to look back at them and read them over and over again several times and each time you do, you will realize things you hadn't before. So often, I've gone back and read research papers that I've read in the past, or books, etc. and found that I understood them much better, that they made me realize a lot more about myself, etc. than the first time I read them. Or the second time, or the third time, etc.

Lots and lots of journaling, even if you think it's useless/pointless, even if you think it's unhelpful, even if you don't understand the point. I did not understand how journaling would help me figure out my alters because I was expecting myself to magically find something written there like the next day with no memory of it, and it. Does not fuckign work that way LMFAO at least not for most people. I was expecting the wrong thing, I was assuming that that was the indicators of switching I was looking for, that I was supposed to communicate to my alters in that way, but I knew that that wasn't an experience I would have, and I obviously didn't experience it, so I didn't understand the point. It soon became clear how wrong I was NFKSDNFJKADNKJDASF

It's okay to be ""cringe."" It's okay to be ""weird."" Let yourself be weird as Hell. Let yourselves be "cringey." It's okay. Be free. NFDJFNKDSA

Allow your experiences to Just Be. You don't have to figure out if that experience was a switch right now, you don't have to figure out if that voice you heard was Truly An Alter right now, I just mean that you don't have to overthink it and you can allow your experiences to simply happen and then analyze them later. It's okay. Even if they are weird, even if they are cringey, even if they're embarrassing. I mean, so long as no-one is harmed, but even in that case, it's okay to put safety measures into place, or find alternatives, find coping skills, or if something harmful has already happened, to attempt to mend it, and analyze things later, etc. Things will come to you as long as you let them, but you won't be able to figure things out if you refuse to allow experiences to simply happen instead of overthinking it, like I used to do where I constantly just felt like "but that's not truly an alter, so-" and just refused to let things Just Happen.

Most importantly: take your time. seriously. this is a process that can - unfortunately - agonizingly take several years. but the pay-off is worth it and when you start to feel that denial lessen, you will look back and feel as if no time as passed (or is that the dissociation NFJDASNFK

I think that's about everything I can think of so far!

#inbox #my posts

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tofupixel · 6 months

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hi! apologies for the random inquiry but you're the first artist that came to mind especially since you run a big art discord! no pressure to respond if this is strange lol

do you or your followers happen to know any good art forums/spaces one could use for personal art critique/advice? like, in my case i'm struggling with a very specific thing in my art and would like to get advice from people on how to improve, but i don't really know anywhere to turn to where it would be ok to do that.

theres a lot of free online resources like youtube videos and stuff but my problem kind of is that i don't exactly know what i should be studying to improve my issue. like if i knew it was an anatomy issue i would know to look for anatomy study resources, etc. but since i don't know i'd like someone to have a look at my art and tell me what the most glaring issue is so i can focus on improving that.

I hope that makes sense! I don't have any connections to anyone really which is why I'm sending you a random ask lol. If you or your followers have any ideas that'd be awesome! If not then no worries at all!

In my server we have a dedicated thread for feedback, but I actually don't know much about how other people run their servers.

Direct link to feedback thread if you're in my server (you need art role to view it)

I found a community on Twitch full of pixel artists like myself who are very happy to give feedback if you ask for it. Some have redeems for it if you don't feel comfortable just dropping in and saying "hi crit me please". I recommend NickWoz, I've been in his community for a few years now and helped me a lot in my growth. It is a pixel art stream though so it might not be super relevant to you

I'm also quite receptive to people just dming me for critique and I know a lot of other artists also don't mind it. I always try to help if I can so feel free to dm

#qna

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silicon14blog · 1 month

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I feel like one under looked detail with the dark fountain creation film in the Queen's Mansion is, well, how on earth does it exist?

(Ignore the youtube bar)

No seriously, HOW and WHY does it exist? We are given two contradictory views of how history works in a Dark World. The first one is that the dark worlds has always been there but it wasn't until the Dark Fountains created by the Knight did a direct connection to the light world and the dark world was made (and also causing the rulers to act oddly) which can be seen in Sweet, Cap'n, and K_K's shop dialogue. This could perfectly explain why the film exist, a darkner simply came across the Knight and recorded their actions (ie creating the fountain), right? Except.....

This line (alongside a couple of other lines/how the Card Kingdom is completely gone by the start of Chp. 2 according to Lancer) implies that instead of the above explanation to a Dark World's history, it actually starts the moment a fountain is created (well kind of but that will be touched on in a moment), and ends when it is sealed. Okay, it could still be a darkner who just shortly gained their form and recorded it as the first thing they did, except when we actually see how one is formed, it's all in the light world, and it isn't until the entire room is covered is the dark world seemingly truly created, meaning there is brief time for a lighter to record the event, meaning it's possible the film is NOT showing the Cyber Dark World but rather the library computer room in the process of being converted to it. To drive in this is not being shown within a dark world, only the Dark Fountain creation in the light world is shown creating smoke, but not when we go seal it.

Okay so we established that a Darkener probably couldn't have recorded till at least the world was fully formed, which is unlikely that this is when this was recorded due to presence of smoke. So who is recording this? The only candidate that isn't the Darkner (not entirely discounted them, just unlikely) and doesn't go into wild speculation into a new character we haven't seen is the Knight themselves, but why?

Well here is where the more speculative side of the post is, which is that they recorded this video for Queen. Remember this video does come from Queen, so I'm wondering if this how she became aware of the specific mechanics of opening dark world AND the fact that the dark world is in a library in the light world, which I feel like it is kind of important due to how to only other way possible way we know so far of a Darkner to actually view the light world is through a shadow crystal, which are enigmatic items themselves. Another reason I feel like the Knight is this is because they were the person to convince the King to battle against the Delta Warriors, and rebel against the lightner in a greater sense. I have feeling they did something similar to Queen, only instead of appealing to her sense of abandonment, appeased to her sense of helping the lightner, instructing her on how to expand the Dark World. Maybe they turned on the library laptop's webcam, and filmed themselves doing it, and left, which is why the Queen has the footage in the first place.

In conclusion, I feel like the fountain film in the Queen's mansion is actually the Knight recording themselves as a way to tell Queen on what to do when more Lightners arrive later. I admit, I feel like there could be some holes in here that I don't see, and one I do see that the TV smiles, implied to be Tenna, right before the credits of Chapter 2, so it's possible queen was the first one to get a form before the others and this is where this recording comes from. Let me know what you think of this in the notes!

#deltarune #deltarune theory #deltarune analysis #deltarune speculation

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meatsex · 17 days

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You ever think about if you really like red vox, or only like it because famous funny streamer man guy is making it, and if the lyrics are even made well? This isn’t directed at you specifically, this is just a thought I’ve had.

yeah, ive thought abt this kind of stuff, i dont think its unusual for ppl to think that when they listen to music made by a youtube funnyman (since theres many such cases)

i cannot say if they are a good band in a technical sense or not cuz im no musician, but i think i have enough proof to tell i like red vox because of what they make and not because vinny twitchman is the lead singer

ive tried listening to music by other youtubers before but almost all the time it falls flat unless its like a one time thing usually, but i (personally) feel like red vox has both incredibly rich music AND lyrics

there is a couple of songs i listen to i think "i feel like x word or y thing could have been connected a bit better here" but it feels solid and, what matters to me, actually impactful, a lot of these songs feel and sound so emotionally charged i kinda worry some times, and listening to them in a bad day might break me, i joked abt this before but i call another light "my second the downward spiral" just because of how heavy it can feel at times (especially the first and last songs)

it also helps that a lot of what music vinny likes and probably inspires him usually aligns with what i like too (talking heads, radiohead, nin, even elo which i didnt know he liked until a recent stream)

also i should mention this here which i funnily enough mentioned to a friend some days ago, but the reason i began to make so much vinny art in the first place its *because* i began listening to red vox, ive been a vs fan for years now, but when i draw him a lot of times i mostly think of him as "singer of red vox" than "twitch streamer vinesauce" (which doesnt mean i dont like making fanart of him as a streamer) + other more personal connections im too lazy to write about, which explains why im always making him look kinda melancholic or just more akin to the emotions his music evokes

sorry this ended up being so long but i cannot be asked about my interests and reply in a normal way

ultimately if you like something you just like it and theres nothing wrong with that even if its funny youtuber music, i think id rather support and get supported for the thing im making than for a brand name but thats on every different person to choose

#ask #anon #po/box #brother i have too many ask tags

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nobodysdaydreams · 7 months

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THE WOLF359 CAST IS INCREDIBLY TALENTED AND I LOVE THIS! (or my reaction to the Wolf359 Live Show)

"Another Wolf359 reaction already? But Bods, I thought you said you were busy?" Yes indeed I am my friends, if I wasn't busy, I would have finished the podcast by now. In my younger days, I did all of ATLA in a weekend. Sadly at this age, I can't be doing that kind of bingeing. I'm also tired, because I've been studying all day and figured why not take a little break and watch the Wolf359 Live Show?

I firstly wanted to give a shoutout to @commsroom for not only telling me about when to watch the live show (after episode 26), but also telling me that it is on youtube where you can watch it live so thank you so much!

Tagging the mutuals who got me invested in this, and if you want to be tagged or untagged from these posts, lmk, or you can follow my blog or simply follow the tag "#bods wolf359 reactions". Anyone who has followed me for a while knows my updates are inconsistent, so I apologize in advance for that and for any spelling/grammar mistakes in my posts. Especially in this one because it is late, and I am tired.

@sophieswundergarten @oflightningandstars @acollectionofcuriousreblogs @herawell

Wolf359 Live Show Reaction:

"First ever life show" - are there other live shows?

Oh okay this is very helpful. So it's in the middle of Episode 26, so right in the middle of what I just listened to, that makes a lot more sense.

I honestly don't care about the audio quality difference this is amazing.

Uh...pretty sure Cutter is not the forces of good... see Doug this is why you always read the fine print! It's like that ominous song...the one that was a tik tok audio? The one about an evil corporation in space? I think it might have been video game music? You guys know what I'm talking about please tell me I didn't imagine this.

YES THE ONE COPY OF HOME ALONE 2 COMES BACK!

PLEASE- the way Doug is telling the story is the way I tell stories "Hilbert strikes back: specifically Doug's circulatory system" 😂

"Palpatine MD" 😂

I love how they enter in as their characters are introduced.

I love Hera though it is weird to hear her voice clear without coming through the intercoms.

Zach is doing a fantastic job I love how he's moving around Minkowski to play both Hilbert and Doug 😂 and he's doing a great job switch characters.

Lovelace!

I love how he crosses over to whisper to Hera, I can just see Doug's character whispering into her intercom or in the general direction of the computer even though it doesn't make a difference to her.

I also like Hera's character position on stage away from the others, it's kind of symbolic.

"Team Eiffel's on the case" I have literally used the phrase "Detective Bods is on the case" multiple times on this blog, why do I relate so strongly to every ADHD character I come across sasjdkfjsl;kdfj;slk. Not the talking to himself too... NOT THEM LOOKING AT HIM IN THE BACKGROUND...oh no...

I love how Hera says "yeah we're all here" when she's always there.

17 months Doug? Oh dear...

"No one told me it was my job" Valid Doug, valid, what you're told when you're spaced out doesn't count. ADHD rule #1. Oh she told him multiple times? Well maybe they could have written it down for him. Would that have been too much trouble?

Hilbert shut up.

Poor Hera. The way she shuts them down 😂

SHUT UP HILBERT. THANK YOU.

Oh not the Pyrce and Carter thing again. Do we ever get to meet Pryce and Carter? Do they work for Goddard Futuristics? Is this a NASA textbook? At first I thought she said something about a price and then "Cutter", and I was like "PLOT TWIST" but never mind it's just the tips book.

Minkowski's Lovelace impression 😂 HIS HERA IMPRESSION IS JUST A HIGH PITCHED VOICE. Hahaha...his Hilbert is hilarious. Her Doug impression. 😂

"No no she's Eiffel, that's impossible" This is perfect, and then the switch back to Hilbert. Comedic perfection. I love it so so much.

"Hilbert you're fine try to be less fine" I love Hera.

"Can I ask you to act like an adult?" "That's not my thing" the comedic timing of this is excellent.

"What do you even do here?" Hold Hilbert's Decima virus of course.

Comms line? With who?

PLEASE 😂OH MY GOODNESS CUTTER. The way he stands up from the audience with his smug little smile...

You just know he's been waiting his entire life to play a role like that. Honestly me too, so good for him for getting to live the dream. DID HE JUST PAT THE HEAD OF A RANDOM PERSON IN THE AUDIENCE. HE DID. HE EVEN HAS A SUIT.

"We'll break bread, we'll dance, we'll kiss-" Cutter man, I'm pretty sure you can't say that. I know that you're an evil corporation that murders people on the regular and unethically experiments on people in space so the law can't get you, but you don't even have one HR rep?

Another call Cutter? What deployment?

"He remotely destroys station, then goes on lunch break" Yep sounds like Cutter.

The way Cutters reenters... it's so dramatic I love it.

They are really gonna have to make sure their stories match.

Huh. "Communication problem of our own." I wonder what that could be Cutter? A little issue at Command?

"Alone at last" That sounds creepy Cutter.

Oh so Cutter worships at the alter of the Pryce and Carter manual too. Maybe he forced them to write the book and killed them. Maybe he wrote it under two pen names to make it sound more legit. Either way I can't imagine him memorizing anyone's book but his own.

CUTTER'S ASKING ABOUT HER FAMILY? oh he's threatening her. IS HE THREATENING HER FAMILY?

They are very low on toothpaste.

"I want to help in every way I can, but I can only do that if I know what's going on" Cutter I hope you die. Painfully. Very slowly and very painfully, and if it doesn't happen in the show, I'll write it into a fic.

Oh he's speaking to Hera now because of what she said... that's interesting. Cutter didn't think of Hera as a person or member of the crew before he realized that Minkowski did.

Doug is me cramming for my exams. DOUG IF ITS NOT A VIDEO CALL YOU CAN WRITE STUFF DOWN.

Or fake an illness.

Oh dear poor Hera.

"Manufacturing errors." I hope that doesn't mean anything bad for those robots, otherwise that has to be sad for Hera to hear.

Okay...I love how Hera and some of the other actors look straight at the audience like they can't see Cutter, but Cutter looks directly at them as if he can see them. It adds so much to the creep factor.

Oh my gosh that manual again. Why is he obsessed with it?

"You'd be shocked at how much I know about the Hephaestus" Cutter knows everything.

AND DO NOT CALL HERA PATHETIC.

Oh my gosh Hera talked back to him for a second. I think she's the only one who ever does thus far, which is odd considering all her code that stops her from doing that.

"A real person" THAT CROSSES A LINE CUTTER.

"I don't know if someone like you can understand this. We're trying to change everyone's lives" CUTTER SHUT UP. YOU ARE THE ONE WITHOUT A SOUL YOU HAVE NO ROOM TO TALK.

YES HERA TALK BACK TO HIM.

Hera's memory files? Personality setting? oh never mind...this is awful that he can just go in like that. Maybe that's why he programmed her with the ability and personality that would talk back to him. So that he can get the truth from someone he can easily destroy.

"The people who made you decided you were a mistake, and you were so desperate to rise above who- what you are" Who made Hera? Are they important? Or did Cutter just scrape her up from a tech company that didn't want her? And Cutter "correcting" himself on that line I hope he's blown into space.

"Don't you dare" wow Hera's still talking back. "You have no idea." DID SHE JUST CONFESS THAT HILBERT IS STILL ALIVE. Oh Hera...

"To err is human" oh dear...

Doug looks terrified. Me too buddy.

It's okay Hera. You deserve better.

"I'm sick!" I love that.

Cutter's like wow, I should have started with him.

The way he puts his hand on Doug's shoulder as if they are in the room together, like he has a way to reach them even if they can't get back to earth, I love the choices the actor's are making.

He knows that Doug doesn't know Pryce and Carter. He's been listening in on him. For sure. Bro. Not everyone has read your manifesto that you by this point probably ghost wrote under two fake names and declared the best book of all time. It's like when a professor uses their own text book, I've heard this song and dance before.

Cutter. Doug should have memorized it but YOU HIRED HIM. He is CLEARLY in no way qualified for this line of work. YOU know that. YOU'RE using him as a science experiment. If I knew my professor was using me for lab science that could kill me at any second, do you think I'd waste time studying for their pop quiz on silly tips?

"How did Renee stop him?" Just say that it was all a blur Doug.

"Getting around security protocols, tricking a multiple PhD...stellar Doug" "Thank you?" Doug that's not a good thing. A target is on your back right now.

Not the arm on his shoulder again. Cutter for SURE killed their HR rep and their IRB rep, and ethics department.

"I would have had to skin you alive" There is no "had to" here Cutter.

3 seconds or incredibly painful things will start happening. WHAT THINGS?

DOUG HOW DID YOU FUMBLE THAT? YOU COULD HAVE JUST PRETENDED YOU WERE NERVOUS BECAUSE YOU FAILED. YOU HAD THE PERFECT OUT RIGHT THERE.

"I got the feeling that I would be the same convo you and I just had" I love the fourth wall break.

Oh dear. LOVELACE YOU BETTER BE QUIET. NO NOT ALL THE STUFF DOUG YOU AT LEAST KEPT LOVELACE QUIET. DON'T BLOW THAT TOO.

"Is there anything I can do for you? I want to help you?" Get. Them. Back. To. Earth.

Cutter's little schoolboy laugh. Oh yikes. He's mad now.

Good job Doug, take the fall. Good solider. No, what are you doing, just say you forgot, don't say you kept information from him intentionally. Faking incompetence is so much easier when you actually are incompetent.

The ultimate sacrifice. He will memorize Cutter's stupid textbook.

"If you keep anything from me again, holiday's over..." I don't like it.

"I want to know the second anything new happens with those transmissions".

Haha...well as a matter a fact, after that last episode...

Exactly. Shut up Hilbert.

Yeah the book is unusually dark. Pryce and Carter have clearly been through some stuff, or it's Cutter being ominous with his ghost written book. At this point, he either wrote it under fake names, or he's a Pryce and Carter fanboy. (Is it spelled Pryce or Price, I just realized I have no idea. I've heard of the last name Pryce, so I'd assume that's how it's spelled?).

"Did I mention that I'm sick"

Careful what you wish for.

Well that was amazing. I loved the way the cast used the space to make the characters come alive, the way they moved, the choices they made, it all fit really well. I really enjoyed watching this. It brought me back to when I used to do high school theater. I kinda of miss it. Hilbert, Cutter, and Doug are exactly the kind of overdramatic and unhinged roles I always loved playing (that is if I was lucky enough to have a director who went for gender bent casting, we as a society really need more comedic relief and unhinged women roles with crazy accents). Although I did once win a medal at state in middle school for a 10 minute monologue that was very much in the tone of Minkowski. I was playing a babysitter.

And ask the show said: back to work. Thanks everyone for listening, I hope you enjoyed my reaction. Only two more episodes left in season two so we should be done soon. Excited to see what comes next!

#bods wolf359 reactions #w359 liveshow #wolf359 live show #w359 #hera w359 #wolf359 #wolf 359 #isabel lovelace #hera wolf 359 #renee minkowski #doug eiffel #alexander hilbert #wolf359 reactions #w359 reaction #w359 reactions #wolf 359 reactions

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