#it wasn't just an arbitrary decision i mean.

[blueskittlesart]

can you expand on your purah thoughts

i've been waiting for someone to ask me about purah since botw came out. im obsessed with her. let's talk about it.

what we know about purah's life pre-calamity is limited, but we do know that she was a sheikah tech researcher in her 20s when the calamity hit. in her diary, she says this about the calamity:

Ganon had been dormant for 10,000 years. Perhaps his power had been building all that time. The slaughter that followed was arbitrary and merciless. The destruction complete. We lost everything... Hyrule Castle, Princess Zelda... Well, perhaps not everything was lost. A youth named Link was brought to me a hundred years ago, covered in wounds and on death's doorstep. Link... So young, yet so courageous. He was the youngest knight to have ever been appointed to the Imperial Guard at Hyrule Castle. He was also a gifted swordsman who was selected as captain of Princess Zelda's personal guard. I thought his skills would be enough to defeat Ganon in glorious fashion... Since ancient times, the royal family of Hyrule and us Sheikah researchers have had a strong bond. Their pain is our own. We took the swordsman and the Sheikah Slate Princess Zelda left behind to the Shrine of Resurrection. Although the Slumber of Restoration had not been fully tested, we decided to put the swordsman under to save his life. It was the best we could do...

What this tells us is that Purah was present and involved in the war effort pre-calamity, and she, like most other hyrulians, bought into the idea that Link was strong enough to defeat ganon. it was only after his defeat that she saw him for what he truly was: a child. "So young," she says. There's a clear undertone of regret in the way she talks about Link and the slumber of restoration. It wasn't fully tested, and she knew that it would likely cause him more pain in the long run, but it was the best she could do. It also implies that she believes Zelda is dead, or, at the very least, unreachable in her current state.

Purah was a researcher of ancient sheikah tech pre-calamity, and one who was very close to Zelda, meaning it's very likely she was heavily involved with the development of the guardians and divine beasts. When this tech was ultimately turned against hyrule and used to decimate their armies, Purah likely felt more grief than most. this was her tech, her brainchild, that was killing thousands of innocents. When link was brought to her, inches from death, covered in wounds inflicted by guardians, she would have known exactly what it was that did him in. For all intents and purposes, she killed him. it was her technology that led to this. Her decision to put him in the untested and potentially dangerous shrine of resurrection is an act of desperation -- not just an attempt to save hyrule from the calamity, but an attempt to prove to HERSELF that her tech is capable of more than senseless violence. that she's capable of saving this boy who she has caused such suffering for.

For 100 years, she has no idea if her gamble has worked. Presumably, it's only after nearly a century of radio silence from Link that she begins working on the anti-aging rune. in her diary, she says:

This technology will enable us to make retired warriors young again, thereby strengthening the Hyrulean army. When Calamity Ganon inevitably returns, we'll be ready. Our offense will be solid, and our defense impenetrable. The need for this tech pains me, but I truly hope to use it to attain everlasting peace for all.

it's interesting, here, the way she equates youth with strength. I think it's likely that, subconsciously or not, she is remembering Link and the other young champions. She believes that they COULD have won the war as they were, if only HER tech hadn't gone haywire. In her mind, the young soldiers and champions she saw weren't doomed until SHE doomed them. With this rune, she is once again clinging to the hope that her inventions will be able to do some good in the war, to somehow make up for the suffering she caused. I think this is also a big part of the reason why she tests it on herself rather than a third party -- she would rather put herself in imminent danger than let someone else suffer the consequences of her actions ever again.

The self-inflicted de-aging is also especially interesting. The way her BOTW diary is written suggests that the anti-aging rune affected not just her body, but her mind, too. there are noticeable changes in the way she writes as her body ages in reverse -- the diary becomes more juvenile and carefree the younger she gets. This is an especially important piece, the fact that she was mentally affected by the de-aging. Before the de-aging process, based on her diary, purah comes off as a very wise, very careful, very grief-stricken woman. Every decision she makes is rationalized and carefully tested in such a way that no one (except her) gets hurt. She looks back on impulsive decisions she made in her youth with melancholy regret -- "I thought his skills would be enough." "it was the best we could do." but she moves forward regardless, attempting at every turn to correct her mistakes in any way she can. "The need for this tech pains me, but I truly hope to use it to attain everlasting peace for all."

And her de-aging rune works. but when she tests it on herself, she accidentally takes herself back to the mindset of a six-year-old child. She remembers what she's doing and why she's doing it, but the wisdom and impulse control and regret that came to her with age and experience have all left her now. She has the boundless optimism of a little girl -- the same boundless optimism that likely led her to utilize the guardians and divine beasts pre-calamity, and with none of the fear of consequence she learned in those hundred years past. When link comes back, she's playful and carefree with him despite her knowledge of who he is and what his return means. She's dismissive of the choice she made to put him in the shrine of resurrection -- when link tells her he doesn't remember her, she says:

"Really?! Well! I'm so shocked I don't know if I'll ever be able to recover from this! Even though, 100 years ago, I took you to the Shrine of Resurrection after Calamity Ganon fatally wounded you... Even though I was the one who put you safely into the Slumber of Restoration... Hmm... As expected. After 100 years in the Slumber of Restoration, subject...has...lost...all...memories. Noted! Oh, sooooorry... I have a bad habit of taking notes rather abruptly like that. It's a charming quirk, isn't it?"

and in her diary:

I can't believe it... Our hero, Linky, has awoken from his 100-year slumber! As expected, he has lost his memory. The Slumber of Restoration... I really should have done a test run on that thing first. Well, live and learn. In any case, he got the ancient furnace working, so now I can start my research once again. Finally!! ☆ Only a truly gifted and heroic swordsman like him could have achieved all that. ♪ Speaking of...this seems like a good opportunity to get him to do some other chores for me too, heh. ☆

All the regret and careful wisdom she spoke with when she was still her accurate age has been replaced with childlike curiosity and mischief. She has, essentially, zapped the war right out of herself. In conversation, she consistently frames this as a mistake, an experiment gone wrong, but I almost wonder if that's truly the case. In totk, she re-ages herself only up into her 20s, the age she was just before the calamity hit, and her diaries reveal that this was a deliberate decision. She decided to put herself back into the headspace of a researcher unburdened by past failures, rather than putting herself back to a true "normal," i.e. her accurate age. I wonder if her regret over what happened in the calamity became too much to bear; if, after a hundred years of not knowing if her final desperate gamble had paid off or if she'd just killed a 17-year-old, she decided to take matters into her own hands and get rid of the guilt. Being the first test subject for the anti-aging rune, she had no idea what the effect on her body would be -- it was an act of self-sacrifice just as much as it was an experiment. Whether the consequences were intentional or not, whether she expected to die, or lose her memory, or nothing to happen at all, taking her life into her own hands with an untested piece of ancient technology was likely her attempt to atone for her sins -- to sacrifice herself to tech she didn't fully understand in the way she'd unwittingly sacrificed so many lives to the guardians during the calamity. the result of the experiment is a little girl with the mind of a seasoned veteran researcher but none of the inhibitions, and while that luckily ended up working out for link, it could just have easily have led him down the path of destruction again.

Ultimately, purah is a selfish character. she chose to put link in the shrine of resurrection in order to prove herself and her tech, ignoring the potential danger to his life. She chose to de-age herself and get rid of her guilt, ignoring the ramifications her experiment could have had on Link and his journey when he woke up. but for all her selfishness, she still cares very deeply for those around her; for her friends, for her family, for the soldiers and princess she lost in the war. She cares so much that she's incapable of dealing with her own guilt over their fates. She is a researcher, and all she knows how to do is make things, so she makes things that she desperately hopes might undo the harm she's caused.

#no readmore you all are going to look at this. PLEASE SOMEONE ELSE TALK ABOUT PURAH PLEASE PLEASE PLEASEEEEE BE INSANE WITH ME #SHES EVERYTHING. SHE IS EVERYTHING TO ME. THINK ABOUT HER. TALK ABOUT HER. I AM NO LONGER ASKING #zelda analysis #asks

[janmisali]

... did the IAU only find out that Pluto didn't clear its orbit in 2006, making them realize that it actually wasn't a planet after all? What was the new discovery that ended up showing that their definition of a planet was completely inadequate?

it was a series of discoveries from 1992 to 2005 that led to the decision, but in particular the discovery of Eris, an object more massive than Pluto in the same belt of trans-Neptunain objects that Pluto is in.

I don't think the way "clearing the orbit" is usually explained is very helpful for getting laypeople to understand what it means. it does sound kinda arbitrary if you just look at the official definition without first fully getting why it's a concept useful enough to come up with a definition for it.

the Solar System can be thought of as being divided into these "bands". some of these bands have one large object in them that gravitationally dominates the entire band. anything else in these regions of the Solar System either has an orbit directly influenced by that large object, or doesn't have a stable orbit at all. (there's a lot of confusion about this point. "clearing the orbit" does not mean the area around the object's orbital path is empty, it means that anything that is in the orbital path is either unstable or has an orbit that's directly influenced by the object in question.)

however, there are other regions of the Solar System between the regions dominated by these large bodies where there are many many smaller objects with orbits that all cross each other and don't significantly impact one another. the first of these that was discovered was the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. the Kuiper Belt, where Pluto is, is another example.

so, in the study of the dynamics between objects in the Solar System (this is one of the primary things the field of astronomy does), it's useful to have a single convenient word for "object which gravitationally dominates all the other objects in its associated region of the Solar System", and in 2006, it was decided by a vote in the IAU that the word "planet", which until that point didn't have a very strictly defined definition (it was, at best, a catchall category for anything that went around the Sun that didn't belong to any other category), would be used to refer to that concept.

and as I've said before, using a common word to refer to a highly specific concept for technical purposes is completely normal. every single field of study does this. the other uses of the word "planet" still exist, but in a classification system, it's important for people to agree what the classifications themselves mean, and the technical definitions that are established should be useful to the field of study that they are made for.

so, to answer the actual question. the realization that Pluto doesn't clear its orbit happened gradually over the course of about a decade. we realized that, in terms of its role in the dynamics of the Solar System, it is more useful to group Pluto in with the other trans-Neptunian objects in the Kuiper Belt than it is to group it in with the planets, and that there are a lot of Pluto-like objects in the Kuiper Belt.

#jan misali

[a-secret-bolton-vampire]

I have my own criticisms of House of the Dragon, mainly that there isn't much room for certain characters to get good characterization and they could've done with either more episodes of splitting the first and second half into two seasons. I also think the Rhaenys breaking through the floor scene of the Dragonpit just did not make any sense (I mean, disregarding conveniently leaving the greens alive, how did Rhaenys not get crushed from going through the floor???)

On the other hand, there is criticism of the story that feels almost arbitrary or just straight up lying about the source material. For the record, I'm not really on team green or team black, but Fire and Blood gives the blacks all the best characters and the greens are just universally shitty and evil. But honestly, no matter which side each character is on, they are still pretty fucking flat.

Rhaenyra is like a more incompetent Cersei but with a dragon. All the big decisions made by the head of the blacks is made by Jacaerys instead because Rhaenyra is too busy all upset that Luke died to rule effectively (wtf??? Are you serious??? Aegon is actually proactive after Blood and Cheese but both Rhaenyra and Helaena are too emotional to do anything... it's not a good look).

Alicent is like a competent Cersei. I love Cersei, but Alicent is also very much the "bitch stepmother" stereotype and another example of George writing women as being unable to be friends. I'd rather if Alicent wasn't a Cersei clone with a colour scheme change. Then Aegon is just a lazy drunk, and Aemond... Aemond is like a shōnen anime character with all the nuance that implies.

Helaena gets zero characterization, other than "she was beloved, she's not as pretty because she's fat, and then she goes mad and kills herself the end." And then there is Daemon, the pedophilic child murdering power hungry narcissist that George calls "one of the greyest characters," which honestly makes me question if he even knows what moral greyness even is.

In general, the book version of the characters are just all around awful, unlikeable and devoid of nuance or complexity. And if the response is "but that's the point"... then idk what to say other than there is a difference between characters being morally bankrupt and characters being likeable. For instance, I love Daemon! He's one of my favourite characters! I am also aware he is an unrelenting piece of shit. It's part of why I adore him on page (but more so in the show).

The criticism, then, that I've seen, is that House of the Dragon is picking sides, whitewashing Rhaenyra and the blacks and shitting all over the greens. There are also complaints that the show made Daemon too evil and removed all his complexity, and Alicent is too innocent and not nearly as interesting as book Alicent. The thing is... the show characters are infinitely better than the book characters, in every conceivable way, and it pains me to hear people say otherwise.

Yes, the greens are still more villainous than the blacks. It's unavoidable when one of the core beliefs of the greens is "but muh male primogeniture." And yet the show definitely does a ton of heavy lifting to add complexity to the greens. Aemond, Alicent, and yes even Aegon, are given great, sympathetic backstories and are now rich, three-dimensional characters.

Aemond is still edgy. Again, unavoidable given he has an eyepatch (oh my god imagine a fem!Aemond... that's doing things to me). But he was bullied by Rhaenyra's kids as children, and Luke did cut out his eye. Worse still, Luke is never punished for it. So Aemond has good reason to be resentful of the blacks, and of Luke. But the show also makes it clear that the rivalry with Aemond and Luke is basically a very drawn out childhood spat. Case in point, the look on Aemond's face after Vhagar vhagarizes Luke and Arrax. He didn't want Luke dead, he just wanted his eye. And well, when you act like a child with WMDs... doesn't end well.

Aegon is still a piece of shit. The show didn't necessarily "add" him being a rapist, it's implied he's one in the book anyways. But again, the show does incredible heavy lifting for Aegon's character! He's a bad person still, and a villain, but the show expanded upon how Aegon became that way.

From an early age there was a pressure put onto him by Alicent to be prepared to rule. However, he seems to have not been very good at understanding the lessons. Viserys was an absentee father, doted on Rhaenyra but gave little attention to the rest of his children. He is constantly criticized for his faults by Alicent, and he takes Viserys's actions as him thinking he is an unworthy person. That feeling of disappointing his father, wanting his affection that he never gets, turns to self loathing and self-destructive behaviours.

Alcoholism, reckless behaviour (especially sex, he doesn't care about the consent of the women he sleeps with; also running off and hiding when he hears his father is dead), depression, laying in bed all day and having to be forced to wake up... these are not things a person with a good upbringing experiences. Yes, he is privileged, that doesn't help. But when you are so self-hating and do things to actively make yourself feel worse with no time spent thinking of consequences, that is something you see in people who have trauma from childhood abuse.

(I'm familiar with how this works as someone with borderline personality disorder. Neglect, abandonment, and harsh imposing of rules fucks up your ability to lead a normal, happy life. I need to clarify this because people will think I'm defending him, but this isn't a defense, it's an explanation for why he acts this way.)

Only when he's crowned and the crowd cheers for him does he finally feel as though he is loved for the first time. And that, of course, will have dark consequences down the line...

But the best example of lifting the greens to become more likeable and interesting is Alicent. One of the best show changes was making Alicent and Rhaenyra childhood besties. I know not everyone liked this decision, but it was crucial that this change happen for several reasons; 1) Female friendship is so rare in A Song of Ice and Fire. Like, think about it. Cersei has no female friends because she's a misogynist herself. Catelyn seems to only think about women with descriptions of child-bearing hips (wtf??) but at least she has Brienne, I guess, and Lysa hates everyone. We have some examples of actual friendship between women, but it's pretty rare. 2) It makes Alicent more sympathetic. This is huge because Fire and Blood gives her pretty much nothing. Making her younger, and have less agency, with a neglectful father, allows for her to be more understandable and complex. 3) It makes the rivalry between her and Rhaenyra all the more tragic. They are great friends (history might even call them "good friends") who are driven apart because of the misogynistic society they live in, which is very fitting for the themes of the story.

Yes, Alicent is whitewashed in the show. But, and this might be controversial, whitewashing isn't necessarily a bad thing. The fact Alicent has less agency is also fitting with the themes of the story. Making the story centered around both her and Rhaenyra's relationship is interesting and honestly, for the better. Aegon and Rhaenyra, both in book and show canon, don't interact much. They just hate each other. Making it about Alicent and Rhaenyra adds more emotional intensity to it all. And again, focus on the relationships of female characters is imo, a good thing!

Alicent and Rhaenyra are absolutely incredible character foils too. Both have lost their mothers. Rhaenyra is allowed much more freedom by her father. However, Alicent isn't given much freedom by her father. Rhaenyra indulges in the pleasures of life, but Alicent sacrifices that to be a dutiful wife and queen. Rhaenyra wants to break barriers on gender norms, while Alicent has internalized misogyny and believes in male primogeniture. When Viserys dies, it is Alicent and Rhaenyra who try to keep things peaceful and diplomatic, whereas the men in their lives (Otto and Daemon, respectively) do everything they can to push for war.

Finally, it is implied by Rhaenys that Alicent is using Aegon as a way to have power on the Iron Throne. Very hard to get into this briefly (I've already gone on so much longer than I wanted to), but I think she can both believe in male primogeniture and be resentful that she doesn't get the same power that Rhaenyra does. In this way, she is somewhat using Aegon as a way to get to power.

Compare this with Rhaenyra and Daemon. Rhaenyra is Viserys's chosen heir. Daemon is resentful that he was no longer the heir, and it's pretty clear that he wanted to marry Rhaenyra to get closer to the Iron Throne as well. As much agency as Rhaenyra has, she is still being used by the men in her life. And this is where we segue into the final topic of this; House of the Dragon's portrayal of Daemon Targaryen.

I already feel like I'm going to inflame a fandom war given everything I've said, but I'm going to say it anyways! Daemon is my favourite character in the show. Seriously, he's so fucking good! He is an absolute joy to watch onscreen. He is exactly how he is in the books; charismatic, mercurial, violent, impulsive, and cruel. You never quite know what he's thinking, what he's going to do, how he's going to fuck shit up.

On the other hand, there is some disappointment that Daemon is made perceptively more evil in the show. We know of a few scenes that showcase Daemon's humanity that the show cut. The most likely reason is simply for time and pacing purposes. I don't think there is secretly a conspiracy to make Daemon look worse (honestly it's a bit absurd to think this). And even if those scenes were added, it wouldn't change the fact that Daemon is not a morally grey character, and in fact, one of the central villains of this story.

He canonically loves taking girls virginity. The book makes it clear it's like, young teen girls. The show has only a throwaway line that Mysaria could bring him "a maiden," which is likely reference to that. Daemon is also the Commander of the City Watch. He's the coppiest cop that ever copped. ACAB includes the gold cloaks, all of them, including Daemon. They are all bastards, but Daemon is known for his sadistic pleasure of inflicting cruel punishments onto criminals.

He hurts his brother, repeatedly. He makes fun of Baelon's death the night of his funeral. He steals a dragon egg, lies about Mysaria getting pregnant, just to get Viserys's attention, and when Otto comes he nearly instigates a war against Viserys before Rhaenyra intervenes to stop the two. Mysaria is very much not happy about being used, as she easily would be killed, and Daemon knows this, he's not stupid.

When he learns Viserys is sending him help, Daemon gets so fucking pissy he beats the messenger to death because he wants to prove himself and not be helped by his big brother. He returns to King's Landing and reconciles with Viserys... except no, he hasn't. Viserys welcomes him with open arms, is jovial, loving. And Daemon repays that kindness by grooming and seducing his daughter, ruining her reputation, and then has the nerve to ask to marry her just so he can be close to the Iron Throne.

Daemon murders his wife. Is bold enough to almost kiss Rhaenyra in front of Viserys at her wedding. Doesn't allow Laena to go home. Rejects Viserys's help again at her funeral. Just murders a guy at court before the king. Goes more than a little mad upon Viserys's death, ignores Rhaenyra's commands, does everything he can to instigate war, and even strangles Rhaenyra.

In no universe does this ever get justified as "but he really does love his family." If he loved his family, he wouldn't hurt his brother so much over and over and over, for years. Sure, he probably loved him in his own way, but the way he treats Viserys and Rhaenyra is absolutely abysmal. He's a terrible brother, a terrible husband, and would make a terrible king.

This doesn't even cover Blood and Cheese, one of the most disturbing things any character has ever done (he wasn't there but he's responsible for it). Him killing Aemond at the end isn't even close to a redemptive act. That one act does not wash out the inordinate amount of evil things he's done.

I know I made a post recently about how love is love and it shouldn't be turned into something dark and sinister, but there are exceptions. If you ship Rhaenyra and Daemon, good for you! I don't really care what people do. But this relationship is pretty obviously abusive. More obvious in the book but still present in the show, Daemon groomed and sexually abused Rhaenyra. He does seem to like her, in some way. He has genuine affection for her, no doubt. He can both be using her and care for her at the same time.

But just because he loves her doesn't mean he won't hurt her. Look at how he hurts Viserys. It's why I really don't think Daemon strangling Rhaenyra in the show was "character assassination." It fits perfectly with the character that has been established. Sure, more moments of humanization would've been nice, but it wouldn't change the fact he is, and has always been supremely evil, book or show.

I know I just shat on Daemon a ton, but he is still my favourite character. He's such a joy to watch, he is undoubtedly complex and entertaining, and he has such charisma and swagger, played expertly by Matt Smith. But there is really no excuse for his actions. You can enjoy villains all you like, nothing wrong with that. We just can't excuse them to justify why we like them. Villains are very fun, and often get to be more dynamic than heroes!

So now comes the end of my mini-essay... this is just half-cobbled together stream of consciousness crap, because I got a little ticked off at how many people just say things about House of the Dragon "ruining characters." Some of these characters are George's. Some of them aren't; they are way better.

(I didn't even get to talk about Viserys! The second best character in the show and one George openly has said was better than his version.)

#asoiaf #asoiaf discourse #house of the dragon #daemon targaryen #alicent hightower #aegon ii targaryen #aemond targaryen #fire and blood

[sabakos]

I know we all rightfully dunk on English orthography for being horrible but I feel like English grammar is kinda broken in the same way?

Maybe the concept of grammar itself is what's broken, but English grammar rules just seem very... underdetermined? As in, there are actually far fewer "correct" ways of phrasing something than the rules would imply, and making something flow correctly might potentially even require breaking those formal rules, even in "formal" English.

As a native English speaker, I don't consciously think of what these unwritten rules are, but I often find myself applying them when reading my own work or copyediting others. Something like adjective order or which preposition or conjunction will fit in any highly particular context just comes automatically to me, as it does (I think...) to almost any other native speaker, even if we have to knock things around a bit first to find the right arrangement of words. Sometimes there probably are formal grammar rules underlying these somewhat arbitrary seeming decisions, but if so, it seems odd that no one ever had to teach them to me in school, but that instead they taught me a much more simplistic set of rules that don't actually fully describe and even contradict what sounds "right" in regular speech.

It's appealling to think that this is because grammar education itself is somewhat of a farce, and that learning rules isn't as helpful as building intuition. But it could also be that the rules are useful approximations that give a baseline, and that that baseline allows the deeper complexities of sentence structure to more easily come from repeated exposure and use. This whole post could also just be the madness talking, and perhaps I've invented a whole set of arbitrary rules that no one else follows, and maybe even the admission that I'm a native English speaker is news to you all because you actually think my writing style is awkward and stilted, which made you assume that I wasn't. But I think even *that* would probably validate the point I'm aiming at because it would mean that there are unwritten rules that the rest of you all know, and that I'm just bad at them. I don't have words to describe this, or methods that would allow me to investigate it.

What makes me think that this isn't just madness is that I can often identify non-native speakers, even if their English is very good and they follow all of the grammar rules well, because they are consistently worse at the unwritten rules. And even they do follow *some* of these unwritten grammar rules, which is probably a mixture of the repeated exposure they've had to native speakers and that as second language speakers they probably had to learn a broader and more thorough set of rules than I did. Admittedly I do read and write and copyedit more than an average native speaker so it's possible I'm more attuned to the awkwardness, but I suspect this also means other Tumblr people are more likely to know what I'm talking about.

And this isn't mere dialect chauvinism here - Americans, Australians, and Canadians follow the same sets of these rules that British or Irish people do, across both formal and informal registers, with only minor vocab substitutions that don't seem *wrong* to me grammatically so much as unfamiliar. Whereas Euro English speakers and some Indian English speakers seem consistently worse at following these unwritten rules, which I'd attribute to English not being their native language and a resulting lack of exposure to how native speakers use the language.

But without getting too prescriptive, it seems like it should be possible to describe these rules, or possibly restructure grammar education differently, which might help clarify where non-native speakers are going astray if they care to. This is not a problem that needs to be solved for me though, I can understand what most non-native speakers are trying to communicate even if they aren't anywhere near fluent and often even if they break several of the "formal" grammar rules, just perhaps some of them might find it useful? Or possibly it would be maddening and less useful than further exposure, I do suspect that the arbitrary nature of orthography alone has already tried most second-language English learners' patience. So ultimately this is just for my own edification, navel gazing into what makes English composition flow better, I want to know why I think the things about the language that I do and how to speak meaningfully about it with others.

#yet again ancient greek has made me squint harder at english #so yeah this is kinda about koine greek also

[xxmothangelxx]

A Discrepancy in Character

TW; violent ideation, all the bad things that comes with exploring Tang Yun

Wanted to write some LiXuan but also wanted to do a Tang Yun character study so I mixed em both to make this 🫂 apologies in advance for the philosophical jargon slightly present, I study it so I should at least try to put it to use lol

Anyway enjoy A Discrepancy in Character – in which Li Ling unknowingly spills his guts to Tang Yun about his new boyfriend and the former is incredibly, bitterly jealous. Do keep in mind this is written from Tang Yun's warped perspective so it isn't fully (if at all) reflective of the actual characters and their relationships 💔

Tang Yun was about ten years old when he realized he was a bad person.

Tang Yun understood this concept, however he also believed in objective good and bad. Perhaps it was because he was raised in a household that valued a vision of perfection and pushed their children to be their very best, but he knew that by any and all personal and societally accepted definitions of good and bad, he was bad.

Some people may argue there's no such thing, that a person's goodness and badness is purely subjective and morality is a man made concept. Just because something is 'bad' to one person does not mean it isn't 'good', good and bad are arbitrary terms that only complicate human behavior. If anything, decision making should be dependent on whether or not a certain ideology or thought process is beneficial to human progress and well being, not whether or not it fits somebody's flimsy definition of 'morally good'.

The day it sunk in was when his brother got confessed to by a girl in their class, this was shortly before their esper transformations so at this point they were just regular kids. They looked dangerously alike to the untrained eye, but to the kids they spent most days of the week with, telling them apart was no impressive feat. Yun had the ashy pale skin, Xuan had the soft tan. Yun was always frowning, Xuan was always smiling. Yun had a neatly done braid whilst Xuan's was always loose from playing around. Yun radiated misery and gloom whilst Xuan radiated fun and adventure.

When the girl confessed, Tang Yun was hidden behind a tree, and watched with wide eyes as his brother raised his hand and shook his head, saying a soft, "I'm sorry, but I don't feel the same way."

He couldn't for the life of him remember who the girl was, but he did remember her being very pretty, and a few of the boys he knew liked her. Tang Yun himself wasn't too interested in her, and yet he still felt an odd sense of anger that it was Tang Xuan that got the confession, not him.

It had always been like that, with Tang Xuan being leagues ahead of his brother no matter how many years went by. Of course it was Tang Xuan who got to be patroned by Sun Wukong, whilst Tang Yun got the stupid macaque, of course it was Tang Xuan who became the esper union's poster boy whilst he was forgotten, of course Tang Xuan's tranformation made him so bright and noticeable whilst Tang Yun's made him look even more grim.

This dynamic continued even after Tang Yun betrayed the Esper Union and joined the Shadow Decree, everyone was so concerned about how his side switching would affect poor little Tang Xuan the angel, not what would have made Tang Yun think to leave anyway. It was always about him, he remembered that girl Tiye always going on about being the center of the universe, but in reality it was Tang Xuan. Everything was always all about him to the point where even he couldn't give less of a fuck how his unstable brother was doing, when Yun was at his lowest and most desperate his brother too busy playing superhero with the rest of the 'big three' to care, it was perhaps a good thing he left the Union before he had a chance to do something drastic to himself or even Xuan.

Damn it all. He hated him.

Which probably explained why he was gnawing at his palm in teeming rage as the man beside him began to talk about him.

He didn't know how it happened, some man with long unruly hair accidently hit him when he slumped down, he said sorry and blamed it on him 'overthinking' something. Tang Yun didn't care, he wanted to go but his anxiety was preventing him from speaking up, the man then began to talk more, about how he recently confessed his feelings to a co-worker and the two were now going steady. He talked about how respected and well loved the co-worker was and how he didn't feel deserving of this relationship. Again, Tang Yun didn't care but the man just wouldn't shut up and kept rambling. He kept his hood up, Hyde had always told Decree members to at least try and stay hidden when out and about, though it seemed Yun was the only member who cared to follow that rule.

It wasn't until the man began rambling about how 'cute' his new partner was that it became relevant to him. He mentioned his long red hair that reminded him of the red lotus flowers his mother had loved, how he was so small and yet so filled with life and energy, how his amber eyes and freckled face made his heart beat fast and his mouth run dry. He went on about how friendly and eager to help people he was, and how everyone loved him for it.

Tang Yun felt his breath hitch, he couldn't be talking about Xuan, could he? Surely not, there were many freckled redheads out there, didn't mean it was...

"Sometimes when he hang out, we get approached by these young kids and they're always like 'Tang Xuan! Tang Xuan!', it's so weird because usually I get so jealous when I'm out with people and that happens, but with him I don't mind... I don't mind anything when it's him," the man said, his hooded seatmate watching in fascination as the fingers of his four surrounding arms twiddled in excitement, "he deserves it, y'know? Other espers – they get all their hype because they're just cool and have powers, but Tang Xuan? He tries, he's probably the most hardworking person I know, how he found interest in my slacky self is a mystery."

Tang Yun supressed a scoff, Tang Xuan was about as hardworking as a snail. He remembered getting better grades than him growing up, but his parents didn't care that their perfect son was behind his classes and their failed one was doing the best because Tang Xuan is just that fucking lovable. It was the same in the Union, Tang Yun would put his all and no one would bat an eye, Tang Xuan would put in bare minimum and everyone would kiss the ground he walked on.

It made him so very angry.

"He makes me wanna be... better, he's the only person to make me feel nervous in his presence. It's weird, even with my old master – who I respected more than a majority of the adults in my life – didn't make me stutter over my words and trip into walls and do all the stupid things that people do when they're... in love, yeah, I'm pretty sure I love him," the man then chuckled, "love... we only just started dating, but I really think it's love."

If so, then Tang Xuan didn't deserve it. That selfish, uncaring, self centered, status obsessed swine didn't deserve any of this. He didn't deserve to have someone love him so deeply that he spills his whole heart to a stranger who hasn't even said a word to him. Tang Xuan, who has never cared about anyone but himself, was now in a relationship with someone who dearly loved him... what did Tang Yun have? The Xie twins to occasionally hang out with? The memories of a time when him and his brother cared for one another?

It simply wasn't fair, why was it always Tang Xuan who got everything? Why did he have the adoration? The fans? The abilities? The looks? The lover? The Tang Xuan that didn't even ask him how he was doing when he was on the the verge of ending it all, the Tang Xuan who stood there as his teachers and parents berated him and did nothing, the Tang Xuan who branded him a villain simply for reaching his limit... he was the one who got all the glory, he was the one who got all the love.

"I remember when I told him I liked him he was like, 'but Li Ling, you have so many admirers! So many women who adore you! Why me?' can you believe it? He really thought he wasn't 'worthy' of me! In reality I don't deserve him... no one does really."

The man – Li Ling, the name sounded familiar but Tang Yun wasn't sure they had ever interacted – was right, but not in the way he meant it. No one deserved to be around someone as unfeeling as Tang Xuan, someone who valued love as little as he did.

It truly made him want to rip the man's throat out and feed it to wild dogs, Tang Yun was the one who valued love of all sorts, he wanted to fall in love and give love and be surrounded by love but no one seemed to fucking want him. It was as if the world was ripping love of all sorts away from him for committing the ultimate crime of existing. He tried, he tried so hard and he always received nothing in return, but Tang Xuan got it all... he always got it all.

Tang Xuan probably didn't love Li Ling the way Li Ling loved him. As he peered from under his hoodie, he looked as the fuchsia eyed esper looked to the ground with softened eyes and soft peach tint to his cheeks. Li Ling was so very much in love, though Tang Xuan could never be capable of loving him like that. Surely not the Tang Xuan who left a girl in tears after she confessed, surely not the Tang Xuan who ignored him ad he was on his knees, practically begging for help, for any sort of closure.

Why did that brother of his get it all?

Li Ling eventually brought out his phone, "speaking of Tang Xuan, he just messaged me – ah, he wants me to come bowling with him, Lewis and Tiye. Might as well, don't got anythin' else to do... oh, my bad for overloadin' you stranger, got carried away... but thanks for listening...?"

Tang Yun paused, Li Ling didn't know him, and his name wasn't spectacular, "Yun." was all he said.

"Alright, Yun! Say, you're friends are real lucky to have such a good listener like you, maybe we can talk again some time, see ya!" And with that, Li Ling got up and floated away.

Tang Yun sat there, thinking over what he had just said, a good listener? No one had ever told him he was a good listener, if anything they always complained that he didn't talk enough. Li Ling though... Li Ling was considerate enough to find the good in his lack of talking, referring to him as a good listener.

Tang Yun eventually got up, holding his hood tightly with a quiet growl. Li Ling was too good for Tang Xuan, and maybe when he eventually kills his brother, the man will realize he did him a favor.

#dislyte #dislyte six eared macaque #dislyte tang yun #dislyte sun wukong #dislyte tang xuan #dislyte nezha #dislyte li ling #dislyte li xuan #lixuan #li ling x tang xuan #shady writes dislyte

[musical-chick-13]

The workshop thing wasn't great in that respect but it wasn't that bad either because it was so clear that people were jealous when they were being harsher than the professors, who did step in at points when it veered from critiquing stylistic choices into doing exactly what people who think tagging fics on that post is okay are doing. It didn't discourage me from writing but it did solidify my decision not to major in creative writing (this is probably also why I in particular was a target: it wasn't my major, it was a hobby, but I was as qualified as them and got as much praise as they did and even one time more than them on the very first exercise of my first workshop, which probably didn't sit right with them, but only fueled me further because I am nothing if not a creature of spite).

And that's the thing too: so many people can't grasp that there's a huge difference between "this isn't for me" and "this has a lot of issues". Which to preface, unless someone's asked you to beta for them keep your mouth shut. They're doing this for free. Exit out if there are too many errors or whatever (and errors isn't even exactly the word I want but I'm exhausted and didn't sleep enough last night). Not that those people SHOULD beta either even if they were asked, honestly, because they clearly do not have a grasp on what constructive criticism actually is or how it works. You don't need a workshop to learn that either, just basic human decency and Google.

But like anyways. In the workshops I read plenty of things I just Did Not Vibe With, but were objectively very, very good art and you could tell how much care the author put into them. Sometimes things just aren't for you and the author didn't poorly execute that concept, actually.

I ran into this a lot in Performance World, too, back when I was trying to get a singing/stage performing career off the ground. There are SO many threads of that part of my life I can relate to this discussion and it would take far too long to explain them all, but there VERY much was a culture of perfectionism. Jealousy and extreme competition were incredibly prevalent, lots of "stay in your box," lots of complaining if people didn't stay in their box. Even when we were learning (or doing community theatre just to stay in practice or build up a resume), the stakes always seemed astronomically high. Someone could do a passable or even genuinely good job; but if it wasn't good in the "right" way, then it was still seen as meaningless.

For courtesy's sake, I'm putting the rest of my thoughts under a cut, because. Well. This got long. As answers by me are wont to do.

There also was a lot of "pick a genre" and "this is the only MEANINGFUL type of music/art/etc." The opera crowd hated that I liked musicals and pop music because those styles were all "stupid" and "frivolous" and "simple" (which isn't. even true, no art form is a monolith, and what those words mean is going to be different for every person, but, you know). Everyone else hated that I sang opera because it was a "pretentious art form" and "boring" and "sexist/racist/etc." (Those first two are incredibly subjective, and plenty of modern opera works exist that seeks to not uphold those forms of prejudice.) There was "if you look like [x], then you can't do [y performance type]." "If your voice sounds like this, then you can't EVER pursue ANY roles outside of this small pool of stuff because you need to know your place; if you don't, people will think you're making Bad Art." And then you, at best, get shamed, and, at worst, can't make a living.

All of this, of course, was a matter of opinion. Most of it, like you said, boiled down to the fact that people were doing things that weren't, actually, bad or untalented or ineffective--they just didn't work for people. They didn't meet some arbitrary, subjective standard that had no real, concrete, actual meaning. But when people with any degree of power start taking their artistic opinions as immovable fact, we end up with...well, we end up with the current theatre climate, and we end up with whatever is happening in fandom communities right now. (Because just as there are some people who, for insisting on a lack of constructive criticism, should not be beta readers, there are some who should not be educators or directors.)

There were a lot of reasons that I eventually stopped performing publicly/on stage. But a big part of it was that I just didn't want to deal with that culture anymore. When I made the decision to walk away, I had gotten to the point where I'd started to hate singing. My primary form of expression, of catharsis, of solace, since I was eight or nine years old. And luckily, withdrawing from a professional pursuit of art has helped me get some of that back. But I see those same issues--that same negativity, that same judgment--starting to pop up in something that isn't even meant to be for money or a career or anything other than personal expression. I see so many people getting discouraged, starting to lose the love they had for that expression. My love of art was almost taken away from me, to the point where for a very long time I couldn't even do it for fun, alone, in the private comfort of my house. And if I can do anything to prevent that from happening to someone else, I sure as hell will.

I'm glad that you were still able to get some good out of that workshop, because that's not always easy to do when the people around you are acting like that. (And kudos to realizing that you didn't want to do this as a major/career, that's not always easy to do either.) And I know I've talked more about professional art, but this is so prevalent in the way people talk about community theatre, too. Being upset that a student production doesn't have Super Stellar Voices/Acting, ragging on amateur singers just for posting a karaoke video on their personal Facebook page, expecting Met-opera-level singing quality or Shakespeare-scholar levels of acting text analysis from a group of volunteers who are spending their precious few after-work hours to put on a musical, just because they want to share that story with people. I've seen lots of comments that it's not meaningful because it's "bad." When. I've done a lot of community theatre. Plenty of it is not bad, actually. If you hate it that much, you don't have to attend a production. (Just like how. if you hate a fic. you can hit the back button.) And even if it is "bad." It's still going to be meaningful to someone. Even in a "bad" production, at least ONE of the actors or crew members will have a good time helping create it. And at least ONE audience member is going to have a good time; whether that be because they simply love theatre, someone they love is involved with the production, or because they don't care about an arbitrary "quality" measurement. And I absolutely think the same thing is true of writing, and of fanfiction especially.

If, for example, someone goes to karaoke and screams "I Dreamed A Dream" from Les Mis extremely off-key and grating, because they're experiencing a shitty situation and just need some catharsis? I don't have the right to rag on them for that, I would be an asshole. If someone posts a cover for fun on YouTube of...I don't know, "Take On Me" and can't hit the high notes, but wants to pay tribute to a song they love, who the fuck would I be to take that away from them? So if someone writes a "silly" or "stupid" or oh-God-forbid "cringe" piece of fanfiction (which. AGAIN. do not have any concrete meaning because those are SUBJECTIVE TERMS) to get some feelings out or to talk about how much they love a fictional character. Well, I think if you call them names over that and try to publicly shame or harass them, then, quite frankly, you are engaging in pointless, cruel, and braincell-less behavior. And you can stay 10,000 feet away from me.

#mc13 lore #oh my god this is so long I'm so sorry #multi t(ASK)ing #amateur art #fanfiction #taking my life in my own hands by putting this in something other than just my ask tag but so be it #there have been a lot of productions I've seen or been in--both professional and not--where I thought the overall vision didn't #translate very well or I didn't enjoy it or I thought that the artistic choices people made didn't successfully do what it seemed like #they were trying to do. but you know what? I've never seen a production. not even of HEATHERS the show (which is my absolute #least favorite thing in the world). where there was not even ONE good moment. there was always someone whose voice I liked. or a line #delivery that I thought was executed well. or a joke I thought was funny or a passage that I thought was raw/emotionally resonant. #and I think you can tell where I'm going with this but: yes this is true of fanfic too.

[jadagul]

I beat FFXII today. (I want to go back and do some more completionism, but I beat the final boss and watched the credits.) And honestly, while I didn't hate it, I was disappointed.

I have about 90 hours in the game. That's about twice as long as the next-longest Final Fantasy I know my playtime for (for a single playthrough, I mean). And that seems like a good thing—there's lots of Content—but to me it underscores how empty the game is that I have twice as much time in it and it feels like much less has happened.

The story just generally felt underwritten; I've said it before and I stand by that. It's not that anything was bad; it just felt like characters had isolated scenes with isolated character beats that weren't prepared or resolved. They probably should have taken some of those extensive space airship battles that definitely aren't from Star Wars and replaced them with cutscenes involving the actual characters in the actual story.

It didn't help that there were often hours of play between one plot scene and the next—another place the long playtime rears its head. Of course, a lot of that was me going off on sidequests. This game has a ton of sidequests, and at least most of them it telegraphs pretty clearly. That's nice, in that it shows you the content; but it winds up keeping the focus off the actual story when there are hours of "go kill random bosses" in between each story quest.

And it also always hurts me as a somewhat-roleplayer to go do sidequests when in theory my characters should be under time pressure. ("Oh, there's a giant sky fortress leading a fleet towards my hometown. Now is a perfect time to run errands!) One of the things I most liked about Breath of the Wild is that it basically justifies your desire to run around sidequesting rather than fight the final boss. That's a diegetic, in-character decision that gets discussed.

And the climax feels equally half-assed. I was genuinely surprised that the game ended where it did; it really felt like it needed at least one more act. (I hadn't planned to finish tonight!) The final final boss is way more arbitrary than most FF final bosses, and might even beat out FFIXs. And honestly the credits didn't wrap up nearly as much as I expected, either.

And the gameplay wasn't awful but wasn't super fun. The gambit system was neat, although I kept wanting it to be more fine-grained. (I wish I could and two gambit instructions!) The fights were sometimes a little too chaotic to tell what was going on clearly, and I really don't like the reliance on fuck-you "this boss is immune to everything for the next thirty seconds" fields.

Some of the bonus bosses were interesting and tense and fun. But if you're doing them, the story bosses then become pretty trivial. At the same time, even with doing a bunch of the optional content it's easy to be missing what I think of as core abilities, which made the optional content not really feel optional to me. (And I still don't have any of the, like, top two or three tiers of abilities or equipment. God only knows how boring the final boss would be if I'd actually done all the sidequests first.)

So yeah. I got 90 hours of playtime, and I'm probably going to get more, and I don't regret playing it. But I was disappointed, and I'd have a hard time recommending it.

#video games #final fantasy #final fantasy xii #ffxii

[genderkoolaid]

autistic genderqueer trans guy here:

my experience with gender is, like.... it's all a performance. a game. a drag show. a performance for myself, not for other people, but still--at the end of the day? to me, none of this is actually, like, Real. boys and girls aren't real in the sense that they exist outside of the collective human decision to say they do. biological sex isn't real, either. it's all arbitrary categorization, not a concrete thing.

That doesn't mean i don't believe in it--i do think gender is real in a social sense & i think it is extremely important to a lot of people. and like... i get dysphoric & don't like being misgendered or deadnamed. i am a boy. it wasn't a choice. But gender is a thing i Do With My Brain, not a thing i Have Naturally, because I've never understood social constructs very well in the first place. they get fucked up when i try to be involved with them.

my autism is directly connected to why i identify as bigender; i am agender in one sense, but the gender i have a lot of fun Doing and Behaving and Being socially is the gender "boy". I have zero funtimes Doing and Behaving and Being a girl. (femininity can be fun, though.) I also really vibe w/nonbinary transfems specifically because i think they and i have a similar connection to femininity; we both picked apart girlhood and decided what we did and did not want to keep. for me, i did not keep "girl" at all, but i kept some warped drag-esque queered version of Performing Femininity.

Ohhh I relate to this so hard anon, especially vibing with nb transfems & gender just being a performance.

Like, it's a performance for everyone, but for me gender is like 90-95% social. It's about how I interact with people and exist in my communities and how I am perceived, and then there's 10-5% which is my actual complex, very personal emotions, which I think is a reason why I prefer the term transsexual (the transition of my body is what matters most to me, whereas my actual gender just Is). I consider myself agenderflux above all else because my boy/girl/enban identity is laid across my agenderedness. I just Am, and I have feelings with you could call a gender (although that feels too limiting tbh), but what matters to me is how I go about my performance, which I care a lot about.

EDIT:

oh also same autistic genderqueer trans guy who just wrote an essay in yr inbox: another thing is that i am always doing gender Wrong, because im always doing social constructs wrong. i am genderqueer because my experience of gender is inherently queered & different--i think if i were happy as a girl, i still wouldn't be cis, bc i would still be genderqueer.... because, well, autism.

^^^ this too!! my womanhood is completely detatched from my AGAB or cisness (for transsexual reasons mentioned above). like my female gender is AutisticQueerGirl

#tysm for sending this in #i love talking 2 other autistic ppl about gender. we are so cool #m. #ask box #autigender

[canmom]

continuing to read Worth the Candle, circa ch43.

this continues to clear the bar of being an actually interesting litrpg isekai and also (sigh) ratfic, which I didn't realise at first, but i saw an article on the author's blog which named it as such - which mostly seemed to mean 'fiction which spends a lot of words on thought processes' - but now a little of that bayesian stank is getting in there. but nevertheless, well first it's About Grief in a way that's written in a way that feels raw and genuine enough that it resonates; chapter 42 in which are shown how the protagonist went to pieces has some particular insights on what it's like, thinking particularly of

Looking back, I have to wonder how much of Reimer being a dick to me was just him trying to process the grief in his own way, in the same way that I started to lash out at pretty much everyone around me for every little slight, or anything that could possibly be interpreted as disrespect to Arthur. I was his best friend, and he was mine, that was how I saw myself after his death, and I applied as much paint to our relationship as possible, until it was sometimes hard to remember that I’d been anything but a perfect friend.

and it makes me think like. i wasn't one of Fall's closest friends by any means, indeed for most of this year she wasn't speaking to me for complicated psychosis reasons, and although we'd started to rebuild things at the end and i was really looking forward to spending more time with her, the huge public show of grief I made - it was genuine, but i was certainly partly grieving that i hadn't done a better job of being "Fall's friend" when she was alive.

and second is the author has clearly spent many years reading the same sorts of D&D board I grew up on, so the metafiction aspect builds on a familiar suite of concepts and is thus quite compelling. the author's game design digressions are on point.

and third, or I guess continuation of second, I'm in a very well run D&D game at the moment which is like, highlight of every week no question, so it's on the brain. this is unapologetically a self insert story, but that results in the author/MC's D&D games and the thought and passion he puts into them ringing very true.

it's way longer than it needs to be, I think, and puts little attention on prose styling - it's perfectly serviceable, and does have a recognisable voice, but mostly just 'gets the job done'. the ratfic angle means a great deal of time is spent analysing, planning and deliberating in enormous detail, which doesn't stop people whining in the comments.

but the virtue its prose does have is that it's frictionless. I'm like a little under a fifth of the way in, which means I've read about a sizable novel already, but it really doesn't feel like it.

speaking of which, I've never seen a more condescending set of AO3 commentators. it seems like litrpg attracts a certain kind of reader who isn't shy about saying they think the MC is unbearably stupid, and then backseating the writing in general and the character's build decisions, which seems an absurd thing to get hung up on.

the way this kind of thing works, you've got the small scale series of arcs - 'how will the character solve this problem' - and the longer mystery arc - 'what is revealed about the System underlying it all' - but all of that is just kind of arbitrary really, because what it's really about is the gradual unfolding of theme and character.

why does Juniper have to fight a unicorn? because his reasons for designing 'unicorn as possessive, controlling man with timeline alteration' gives insight into his relationship with Tiff, and more generally serves as an illustrative example of the reasons we play D&D and write fiction. because that's one of the things the story is quite overtly talking about. oh, but you'd better write another post about how the protagonist is unsympathetic because he didn't put a point in luck lmao

anyway i think this is kind of what Baru Cormorant might look like if Seth was less ambitious and of course a less ruthlessly demanding editor. this might seem like an odd comparison because Seth's prose is punchy, poetic and rich with information and Baru is a grand epic about imperialism etc. with a highly driven protagonist, while the characters in WtC spend most of their time trying to solve the problems their last adventure caused and it's a more personal story. but the reason I draw it is that both wear their themes on their sleeves, both seem to be written by caring and passionate people with 'approximate knowledge of many things', both are shaped by desires to write fiction which approaches character in a certain way, both prefer to communicate directly rather than dissemble through subtext and implication... maybe it's just that the image of each author i receive through the text is someone i think i can understand.

anyway no more tonight i must sleep.

#fiction #novels

[hrkrkrwpfrbrbrlablblblblwhitooap]

(i did actually hyperfixate on tom in august of 2021 as well, i just figured that was unimportant as making the point of a dormant hyperfixation becoming active again wasn't gonna change anything). also no offense and god bless amen but there's a big difference between tom taking a break in regards to main channel videos, and tom scott plus. as previously mentioned, plus videos are likely quite anxiety inducing (and time consuming!) regarding whatever it is he's doing and are not his main focus so. yeah. he's gonna take a longer break in regards to that channel. like is this only making sense to me or

i don't mean to come across as argumentative, i truly don't! unfortunately this is just how my personality is sometimes. when i said "don't dunk on tom..." i was mostly speaking in regards to the anon who made the confession (?) in the first place. things you might not know has been going on for almost 10 years. tom quite literally said himself (likely with different words, the video i'm referring to is no longer on his channel) that the series has more or less run it's course and will become an irregular series in april of 2024 (if i remember the dates correctly). so, like i said, it makes complete sense that newer videos are likely not to par with 2017-2019 videos. and like. sure. it all comes down to preference. but when people are still consistently subscribing, and tom hits 1 million views (or more!) on a new main channel upload in one day, the opinion that his content isn't as appealing anymore is likely an unpopular one

i agree that tom should branch out more in regards to where he films. and like you said yourself, it's unfortunately likely language barrier + filming-in-public laws issues. tom schedules when he films his videos waaaay in advance it seems, e-mailing whoever he needs to e-mail like. at the absolute very least a few weeks in advance. for all we know, he could be scheduling to record videos in the three continents he hasn't filmed in right now as a last hurrah for things you might not know! he might not, and we shouldn't necessarily get our hopes up, but he might want the series to more or less retire with videos from places he's never been to before

the criticisms are valid, i just think it's a bit silly to complain over the quality of his content (in regards to the level of professionalism, not location) when he's uploaded every single week for the past almost-decade. like, be grateful he doesn't upload once a month y'know?

1) Tom has said himself multiple times that TS+ has basically become the main channel now in terms of the effort he's putting in, and given that he's decided to wind down the actual main channel, I assume it's only going to become more prominent going forward. Given that, I disagree with the sentiment that it's something he'd disregard so much as to walk away from it for (so far) two and a half months, nearly a quarter of the year, unless something has gone wrong behind the scenes to delay the return well beyond the intended date.

2) I think you are still failing to grasp my point that him saying the main channel format has run its course and he's done all he can do with it is in fundamental contradiction to the fact that it literally has not touched over half the globe yet. Some things you'll start to notice if you follow a lot of Tom's content (over periods much longer than two years) is that he tends to make up some very arbitrary rules for how to Do Content and then hold himself to them for no real reason, and he has a tendency to disavow or even delete anything he made more than about three years ago (with a very small number of exceptions). He's used the ten-year limit as an arbitrary rule for doing content before (Europlop) and this decision, to me, has the vibes of being driven more by these two factors than by an actual objective assessment of the situation. At the end of the day, whatever, it's his choice, but I feel like I have a right to be disappointed that he's making this decision instead of using the momentum he has to start branching out more.

3) It's worth noting that the sub count and views have both been heavily affected by the fact that he won the algorithm lottery with the garlic bread into space video in 2018, partially thanks to a well timed Reddit post. That got over 20M in the first two weeks - far and away his highest view count at the time, and that video is still his second most viewed ever - and there was a clear turning point after that video where his sub count started going up much faster and average video performance went from 100-200K views per video to 500K pretty quickly. (All of these numbers have since been run a lot higher by the 4.5 million subs he's gained in the past five years, but I was there and made note of these analytics as it happened, because they were interesting to me.)

Once you get over that hump to being a popular creator that the algorithm favors, there's sort of a snowball effect: it puts your videos in front of more faces, more people subscribe to you, and those subs give you more views on future videos, which makes the algorithm more likely to put them in front of more faces, etc. Obviously there are some really stupid things you can do that would stop this snowball, like saying "I just want to get dicked down again :/" and leaving forever, but it's a lot easier to keep it going once it's started - i.e. the videos that keep people who already noticed you coming back don't necessarily have to be as good as the one that went viral enough to rope them in to begin with.

All of which is to say: Getting more views and having more subs now than his content got back then doesn't necessarily mean the average person would think it's better content; it just means The Algorithm has decided he's worth putting into more people's feeds (and that YouTube has more users than it did back then - the genZ and genα folks who have gained computer privileges in that time probably watch a lot more YouTube than the old folks who died out of the potential viewer pool, and the pandemic and accompanying push to move all entertainment from linear TV to streaming for many people only exacerbates matters). I think a better metric to get a barometer for how much your audience is enjoying your content is the ratio between view count on a video and sub count on the channel - it's not perfect, but gives you a sense of how likely an existing subscriber is to actually click on the new video and watch it. In late 2018, with ~500K views on most videos in the first few weeks and about 1.5M subs, that was approximately a 1:3 ratio; his recent videos are kinda all over the place but a lot of them are only 1M to 1.5M which (against 5.8M subs) is more like a 1:4 or 1:5 ratio. That would seem to indicate that, while his audience may be larger now, on average they are less dedicated. (To contrast - the lowest of the TS+ videos still hit a view count that is almost 1/2 the subscriber count - ca. 350K views against ca. 800K subs)

I really don't want to get so deep into the rest of this but given he didn't specifically solicit ideas from latam, africa and asia when calling for suggestions for the final year of TYMNK I highly doubt he is planning to branch out any more than usual... and fwiw, making videos every week at the same time is one of those arbitrary rules I was talking about; maybe there is some marginal Algorithm Benefit but there are plenty of channels which upload less frequently or predictably than he does and still do just as well.

#and re. your other message: talk to the people in the replies yourself. I'm not a messenger pigeon and frankly I agree with them.

[2n2n]

Hanako was working to destroy the yorishiros since the beginning, we know this. Now the real question is: what was his wish originally? Because I'm positive he did not care at all whether Nene lived or died in the beginning, at least not enough to ask god for a wish about it

*shaking you by the shoulders* I DON'T KNOW!! Its the best question ever! This single panel complete shakes everything we know about Hanako, and his relationship to Tsukasa's plan, and what he's been doing this entire time

Tsukasa, the chessmaster of all of this who we would assume is playing him under the table, is confused and surprised Hanako is aware of the mechanism he's been feeding into. He assumed Hanako had to be ignorant to be going along with it. He didn't think Hanako would agree to any of this directly until certain factors. Tsukasa's been very patient and keeping himself at bay, assuming he had to do that.

So, doesn't that mean him and Tsukasa have been working together, willfully, for an unknown amount of time? Spiritually, I mean-- they never communicated-- but it would seem as if Hanako perceived what Tsukasa was doing, recognized it, and went along with it, long ago. He wasn't being tricked into destroying the yorishiro for arbitrary reasons. THIS Hanako is now cast into more suspicion than he already was:

we know this Hanako is already familiar with Urabon, already familiar with what the mysteries do, already knows the short time limit til Urabon, which was egregious enough ... Tsuchigomori is right to call this extreme, as much as the Clockkeeper calls Hakubo's measures extreme..... (and Hanako agrees with Hakubo's measures)

.....but if he knew about the wish from God, that destroying them returns the power possibly to the original God..... then he does have another motivation. And I agree: I don't think he was considering saving Yashiro until as far as Picture Perfect, yet he was agreeable to this plan from early on. I think his revelation and fear over valuing her life, as it manifests in him, is honest..... so his motivation wasn't that.

If I were to be right about Tsukasa being functionally the God, is Hanako aware of that...? Is he completely being cheeky here, happily referring to his brother's blessing on all he does....?

He's a smart boy, and he isn't ignorant of the mechanisms at play like Nene or Kou.... he could observe that Tsukasa appointed a mystery, and went from being so weak as to be dispelled by some water thrown by Yashiro, to being strong enough to defeat a mystery in their own boundary. Pretty far back, Hanako could have known what Tsukasa was doing, and played along ....

he's just.... at the very least, not a victim of anything Tsukasa's doing, at this point. He has his own agency, his own agenda.

For the record there's also no reason I can see for why he can't blip himself to Nene after Tsukasa blips her to the innermost reaches:

However, if Hanako was with Nene, she'd just harass him to help her not harm Sumire, and Hanako doesn't want to play a harsh tyrant.... sooo... Tsukasa's choice to leave her stranded alone, to force her to make her own decision, to feel trapped and helpless, is smart, and probably something Hanako understood, after a moment, as actually important....

I have no idea what he was doing playing with Tsukasa's plan.

Maybe he was simply feeling 'over it'? At around the time that woulda been dawning on him, he said he's indifferent to people living or dying, after all.....

.....so maybe he saw Tsukasa's machinations, knew the general shape of things and the ultimate boon for him, and said, "ah fuck it, lol. I've been a mystery for long enough.... if you say it's over... then, okay. Sounds interesting. I'll go along with it, and see if anyone can stop us." Maybe he was feeling frivolous. Maybe it was as simple as just having no real attachments or motivation to resist it more than a bit for show.... Hanako is amenable to being killed... if anyone meaningfully rose against him and Tsukasa, maybe he could just see it as 'time's up'. or 'ohp, that's that then, ah well, it was fun for a second' Maybe the possibility of it turning out in their favor is just, interesting enough to permit, after all these years of feeling little and caring about nothing.

I've always thought about ah, how at the start, Hanako's concept is to destroy yorishiro just to figure out who's doing the shenanigans. At that point in time, I think he's... maybe legitimate. Maybe.....

However....! Once he does know it's Tsukasa.... the original reason he was doing any of this is forfeit. He knows exactly who is responsible. He's had no reason to destroy any yorishiro after that, but he had a good cover/excuse to do it anyway, and now it seems, he appreciated that cover Tsukasa provided. If he's known it was Tsukasa from early on, and he knows the consequences, then it's been Hanako protecting Tsukasa for a long time, to not alter any of his behavior, and to continue with his front. Mutually beneficial.

Hanako makes his gesture to un-appoint Mitsuba when Tsukasa appoints him, but after he's flung out of there the once, he completely stops bothering to show any effort towards doing that (I'm sure he also just doesn't want to bother fighting Yashiro about it, on top of Tsukasa....). For a long time now I'd say Hanako's efforts as a mystery have been 'for show' and very half-hearted.

#avvy's JSHK #this isn't really a planned post so it may see edits as i just woke up lol

[mermaidsirennikita]

Jason Sudeikis had a image rehab? Why? I only started registering him with Ted Lasso and now with all the drama with Olivia Wilde and thier kids

It wasn't anything huge, but Ted Lasso, imo, made a lot of people identify him with Ted Lasso--super wholesome, bargain basement Coach Eric Taylor (Kyle Chandler >>>>), the "ragtag team of soccer players/entertainers" thing. And I think that was preceded somewhat by him settling down with Olivia and having two kids.

But before Olivia and honestly... probably during... Jason has a reputation for comedy that was a bit raunchier? Which, like, there's nothing wrong it, it's just nothing like Ted Lasso. He was the Sardonic Guy with a tiny bit of an edge on SNL. He was very "bro". He hosted the MTV Movie Awards (which is where I believe he made the "I might be a dad soon" joke about January, the one that makes me think he almost definitely isn't her baby's father) he was in some fairly racy movies (Sleeping with Other People, Horrible Bosses, to a lesser extent We're the Millers). Ted Lasso is barely a comedy in that it's more "feel good/inspirational"; Jason was a raunch com guy. He came up with the class of like, Kristen Wiig and Andy Samberg (who imo was never quite as edgy~, tbh) and Fred Armisen. Fred Armisen I want to point out... Because Fred and Jason are or at least were pretty tight on SNL. And Fred has been referred to by women he's dated and himself as like... Kinda pretty awful to be with. Not saying that means Jason is that way, but since people on the internet seem to assume that being vaguely associated with someone means you're fundamentally the same person as them, it's weird to me that Jason doesn't get this treatment. It's almost like people only do that when they have other, more arbitrary reasons to hate someone!

Anyway, Jason was known as kind of a dog in Hollywood, and that did not change, from what the rumor mill says, when he got with Olivia. He allegedly began dating a younger Ted Lasso employee/coworker (idk the exact deal, but I know she worked on the show) while he was with Olivia, and named the character of Keeley after her. A lot of people reported that they began dating in 2021, after he and Olivia broke up--but a lot of articles actually report them dating "again" in 2021, which suggests it started earlier. Might I add, Jason had known Keeley since filming Horrible Bosses 2. Which was released in 2014. Make of that what you will.

I'm not saying that Olivia didn't leave Jason for Harry.... I don't know the timeline there, and frankly, it's funny to think of Ted Lasso getting cucked by Harry Styles. But I don't think that was a situation where she shot first, if you know what I'm saying.

The thing is that Olivia is another one of those people that I don't like. But for the second time today I say I don't have to like you to be fair. She's been subjected to some really intense sexism from the Harries, who are now co-opting Florence Pugh (not a woman without bad decisions herself, might I add) as their righteous victim to come down on Olivia. Because she's fucking the guy they either wanna fuck, or they wanna see fuck Louis Tomlinson. It has nothing to do with her dating her star (something I can think of like... an outrageous amount of male directors doing over the history of cinema, without anyone caring). It has nothing to do with whatever hypothetical feud she may or may not have broiling with Florence Pugh, a concept that has been derived largely from an absence of social posts. It has nothing to do with whatever she may or may not have done to Jason Sudeikis, which we don't know about beyond rumors and whatever bullshit he pulled to make their damage more public. It comes down to an obsession with Harry Styles.

[stonewallsposts]

Gen Alpha kids 

When you swipe to the left on Android phones, there are a bunch of articles that are supposed to be related to things you like. I found one today about Gen Alpha kids. 

A lot of the attitudes that the writer assigns to Gen Alpha kids are not really particular to this current Generation, they are, in fact, just human nature. There are several quotes from various experts: 

"They are persistent seekers of justice, and as a result, will stand up to someone three times their size without hesitation," 

“For example, if an adult enforces a no-electronics rule at dinner but then uses their own cell phone, they are likely to question the inconsistency and challenge the rule,” 

“Generation Alpha can oftentimes challenge and refuse to accept the status quo, questioning rules and customs that may seem arbitrary or hypocritical,” 

"They are fearless, tenacious, always go after what they want without a second thought, and never back down from a challenge," 

If I look at the behavior alone- they challenge rules and particularly inconsistent application of rules, they go after what they want and don't back down, that stuff is just regular human behavior that we discipline out of kids through time. They are innately selfish by nature and will grab what they want from other kids. They need to be taught to share and disciplined into social behavior.  

Some of the motives ascribed to them as to WHY they are like this, namely this: "They are persistent seekers of justice" are probably more attributable to the adults. I mean, we're all about justice when that justice means someone else needs to share with US, not as concerned about justice when it means we need to share with them.  

But who doesn't question rules that seem arbitrary or hypocritical? This isn't behavior specific to Gen Alpha, it's just basic human nature. We all do this. 

One of the reasons proffered for this alleged unique behavior is the "Millennial parents, who employ different strategies than previous generations." 

Uh, I have some news for the writer: I, a boomer, had some of these same dumb ideas when I was a young parent. I too thought that I would not be the kind of father who said things like: because I said so! I would sit with junior and walk him through the rational thought processes, and junior, being fully rational too, would see the beauty of my concern for him, and accept the direction given to him. Or, as the article puts it, "allowing the child to be part of the decision-making process and seeking to better understand them,” says Ryan Fedoroff, MEd, of Newport Healthcare. “This develops independent thinking and problem-solving skills in children, which can make them feel empowered, more confident, and practically fearless." 

Sure. Allow your child to be 'part of the decision-making process' which will allow him to 'better understand' the process.... which will 'develop independent thinking and problem solving skills in children', which in turn 'can make them feel empowered, more confident, and practically fearless.' And what, boys and girls, could possibly go wrong if your four-year-old is empowered, confident and practically fearless? 

Except, and here's what happened in my case, junior wasn't as rational as I had thought he would be. He was immature and selfish. Selfish because he was a little human and, like all of us, wanted what he wanted, and immature because, well, he hadn't had time to mature. What I had missed in all this was that being rational about where you fit in the scheme of things takes time. It takes failure and the wisdom that comes from learning from those mistakes, and that only comes through time. So rationally walking junior through why he can't have flaming hot cheetohs for every meal was a real waste of time, and at that point I discovered the wisdom of MY father and pulled out the old gem: you can't because I said so.  

There was a viral video some years ago when mom was trying to reason with a little kid- maybe 4 or so. And he kept interrupting and saying, "But Judy ( I don't remember the exact name), listen! You're not understanding..." He wanted what he wanted and wouldn’t be dissuaded or reasoned with. Every time she would try to reason with him, he would interrupt and continue to push the same point, which was no more than saying: But I want it!!!! That's not his fault, his reasoning just isn't up to level yet. And it's up to the parents to understand that, not act like he is more mature than he is. Sure, giving junior that much rope to argue his point might feel empowering to him, but to what end? Junior feels empowered to forward purely selfish arguments. 

The characterization in the article is that "authority imposed on children" is "harsh". Well, you don't want to impose harsh authority on little boo-boo, do you? What a meany you would be. But the fact of the matter is that as the adult, you are responsible for junior. That makes you, wait for it... the authority. Of course, authority can be either harsh or not. But the law makes the adult responsible, and therefore the authority, whether the adult likes it or not. By all means, you don't want to go out of your way to exasperate your kids, but those kids actions are legally on you. So you ARE the authority. And if that seems harsh that you will have to tell Junior to listen to you whether he likes it or not, and if he doesn't, there's gonna be some paddling in the future, then that's the way it has to be. You ARE the authority, you have the wisdom and the experience, and junior will have to listen to you whether he feels empowered or not. He can get empowered as he gets older. 

Motives 

I can't help but feel that a lot of the motives attributed to the kids in this article aren't really correct. They sound like the adults quoted in the articles are just projecting on to the kids.  "They are persistent seekers of justice"  "They are defending each other, defending their families, defending strangers, because they feel so connected to others,"  “Events experienced by this age group, particularly related to racial injustice and equality, like Black Lives Matter, have increased awareness and influenced a commitment to addressing racial inequalities,” 

I'm not convinced that giving these kids devices does anything towards making them ferally empathetic. My own experience with my grandnieces and nephews is that they are nearly zombies in front of their ipads. I say hello, and if I’m lucky, I may get them to look up and acknowledge me. They are utterly zoned in on their devices and are losing human connection. Watching videos of teachers talking about the ipad kids is telling me the same thing. Hopefully this isn't widespread, but as much as Gen Alpha is growing up on devices, they seem severely socially, emotionally, and intellectually retarded, not extra empathetic.  

"They may also have an easier time setting boundaries and expressing themselves than previous generations because of their confidence and being raised knowing all feelings are valid (even if all behaviors aren’t)." 

One of the things the teachers on these ipad kid videos are saying is that the kids are unresponsive, and if they are "setting boundaries" it's to tell the authorities in their lives that those authorities "can't tell them what to do, cuz, you aren't my mom!" 

I suppose you can spin that kind of disobedience as "setting boundaries and expressing themselves" and having "confidence" and "knowing their feelings are valid"… but in reality, it also makes for completely self-absorbed humans who won't learn or cooperate. 

The article does acknowledge this, in much nicer terms than I did. The trick in child-raising is to find what junior is good at, and teach him to use those strengths for the good, while mitigating the bad effects. Because just about any trait we have will have both good and bad usages.  

[leicamoments]

Competition Time

I see the new year round of competitions has started...announcing the commencement of the 2024 process to apply for the merry-go-round.

I've not entered a competition in around 30 years and refuse to do so these days. For the record, the last one I entered was the Wanderlust competition and I won my category...the image being published in their book, in the magazine and shown at various exhibitions.

It wasn't the first competition I had won - but it certainly was the last.

Why? Because most of the competitions I see these days fail on three fronts.

Firstly, there are too many of them that require you to pay to play. Why should you have to pay to enter one of your pictures, for the judges to look at?

The body running the competition can make money from publishing the photo(s); they can get sponsorship for the competition; they can get publicity for running the competition that boosts their sales or membership.

So, my advice is, don't pay to enter any competition!

Secondly, Gratuitous copyright grabs. There are competitions that essentially take your copyright, or certainly ensure that however good your image is and however commercial it could be...you won't ever make a penny from them because they enforce an exclusivity clause or hold the rights to publish.

So again, don't give in to that small print clause.

Thirdly, a lot of competitions boil down to a popularity vote. Favouring those people with large social media followings, associations with groups or companies, or simply are shameless enough to relentlessly market their image at people asking them to vote for it.

A popularity vote, where the image may not be even be looked at by those that vote...simply, in my eyes, invalidates the competition and results.

At the end of the day, those competitions that don't fail the above tests are essentially a subjective process of the 'here and now'. What I mean is that at the given time and place, with the person(s) asked to make a judgement on what is in front of them...it is simply a comparative decision.

That doesn't mean your image isn't good enough. It doesn't mean that your picture isn't superb and deserves to win. Not at all, it just means, at that time an arbitrary decision was made to rank photos in a particular order...when at a later date, they could be put in a totally different order.

I've seen so many professional photographers putting up on their websites that they are an 'award winning' photographer and that may well be true, but what in the end does that mean?

Most of the awards that they list may well be competitions that you've never heard of and may find difficult to find out much about. Who says that they are even real competitions!

I've seen several photographers that base their whole marketing of their company and themselves on being 'award winning'; and when you look at the images they've won awards for...it may very well be the same photo entered into 20 competitions over a period of ten years.

I find that a questionable practice - but believe me, it does happen (and far more frequently than you would imagine).

So no, I don't enter competitions. I don't say that I am an award winning photographer. I don't care about that side of the industry.

For those that win the big, recognised and prestigious competitions - I am genuinely in awe of some of the work that is shown; but the rest...as Shania Twain said...that don't impress me much.

For the pay to play and popularity vote awards...If that's your bag...then fine...I wish you luck!

#Competition #competitions #photography #photographic business #business #award winning #winner #photo #photograph #thoughts #opinion

[mariaxia]

after six years, part 1: making the switch

It's been a long time since I've posted here. It boggles my mind that my first blog entries here were from over six years ago. It still feels as though my "switch into tech" has been a recent development, but on reflection I think I've gone through a lot of ups and downs with it in a way that I haven't really processed, because I think of it all as just being one big block of time of "being in tech". But these days I've been thinking about how I really want to complicate this word, "tech," because actually everything is technology. It feels almost stupid how long it's taken me to realize this, but everything truly is technology, and what I think of as my era of "being in tech" has actually been many distinct eras, some decidedly not technologically-minded at all: I was at times a skeptic, a learner and a dreamer, an experimenter, a job seeker, a happy corporate stooge, an unhappy corporate stooge, a theorist. And even now, as I venture into different fields, I feel a return to that spirit of curiosity that makes me realize that (1) technology is not interchangeable with computers, and (2) it's time to reflect.

Six years ago, in 2017, I was unemployed. I had abruptly quit a job, with no plan lined up. It felt like throwing up: my body just decided to do it. My legs walked into my manager's office and my mouth opened and two weeks' notice fell out. The job I quit was in the non-profit public interest legal sector: I was what they called a housing advocate. I worked there for only two years, but that job gave me my politics. It taught me what it meant to be a worker, and also what it means, specifically, to do work in the public interest. It shattered my naive idea of it--that it would be heroic and ennobling--and replaced it with the mundane reality of it: painstaking drudgery and paperwork, imperfect people, visible setbacks, barely-visible progress, many moments of being an asshole to somebody and getting used to it. Sometimes this idea that I was part of a fight for a more just housing system offered the romantic notion that the difficulty was the point: that my under-compensation and boredom and frustration at work was a much-needed reality check on the road to learning how to do this type of work for the long haul. But sometimes it felt like the veil lifted and the whole non-profit industrial complex would look like a scam, truly pointless, a way for capitalism to launder itself, and even if this was all very black and white thinking, it was certainly true that if I wasn't working this job, twenty other qualified people (whether some Ivy league white kid with four years of college Spanish and family money, or a city college grad who grew up in public housing and dreamed of becoming a lawyer) were yearning to fill my spot. So I quit.

I've narrativized my "switch into tech" in at least ten different ways. I've had to explain it to other employers, to people I've dated, to people who call me asking if they should do the same. Usually I'm juxtaposing tech to public interest law, because people want to know why I left one and went into another. But to do that would be to skirt over the months of hand-wringing unemployment in between, when I was so demoralized by the outcome of pursuing various dreams (trying to dedicate myself to writing, trying to dedicate myself to the social good) to try to articulate and then pursue another dream that was sure to end up with me being mentally and financially unstable. I thought about going to art school to try and become a painter. I thought about going to design school to try to become a landscape architect. I thought about trying to become a mathematician. I thought about trying to become a doctor. In the end, the decision to pick up coding felt almost arbitrary: it was there, and it seemed like it couldn't hurt, it could only help, and everything else looked like a bad option. I wasn't trying to be something. I was just trying to get away from direction-lessness.

Then came six months of a truly invigorating time. I felt intellectually stimulated for the first time in a long time; my learning was gratifying and also purposeful. Doors seemed to open everywhere: I could focus on databases! I could focus on compilers! I could make fun games! There were communities for every niche interest, and theoretically there were jobs waiting at the end of it. After three months of self-study, of having convinced myself that I could program, I enrolled in a coding bootcamp, and I crushed it, and I had five job offers within a few weeks of completing the program, three of them with six-figure starting salaries, something I never dreamed I could achieve.

I took one of the jobs that would let me move to a city and live with my boyfriend of the time. My first two years in that job were so lovely. I loved the work. I loved how much I was learning, I loved the mentorship of my coworkers and the collaborative dynamic we had. I felt that my work was meaningful; what was particularly meaningful was how responsible I was for it, how the quality of my work mattered to me and mattered to those around me in a way I hadn't felt in a long time.

I don't feel this way now, but now I am tired, so I will have to write about those subsequent years as an unhappy corporate stooge some other time.

[29pageshomestuckeveryday]

Homestuck, page 3,098

==>

Author commentary: Now they're invoking the highly cursed name of Ricky Schrodinger, which I guess should actually be spelled Schrödinger, but whatever. Way back (in the last book) when the adventures of Daverezi were more about funtimes rather than edgytimes, Terezi threw some dancing Schroders at Dave in quite a playful and hilarious way. But that doesn't mean all the Schroder bullshit wouldn't be chucked into the story blender just like everything else always is, and resurface later as a grotesque, re-amalgamated narrative constituent to function as a symbolic Franken-totem in the rollout of Dave's longer arc, a figure that synthesizes a sort of platonic coolkid persona with the widely referenced quantum mechanical dual-state of mortality captured by the Schrödinger's cat paradox. Dave's condition of being alive or dead, as tied to a coin flip and other such arbitrary factors and decisions, is inextricably tied to his identity. The decision he makes is what collapses the wave form dictating his life or death, and these circumstances are also true of his heroic path, which could similarly be viewed as a wave form. Then, as if this Schrodinger boondoggle wasn't enough of a kick in the nuts, Terezi drops what seems to be the heavy line here. At least it's delivered that way, even if it's not that clear to the reader why this statement about luck is profound or significant. But one thing we do know is that bringing luck into the conversation is a surefire way to make us think about Vriska, and that maybe Terezi is knowingly referencing Vriska as well. Luck is a very Vriska-coded concept by now. So when we hear Terezi mention it, we know the thought of Vriska can't be far from her mind, and many of the things she was just saying to Dave probably have a lot of pertinence to her troubled relations with Vriska. Speaking of which, here's the 8ad 8itch herself, right on the next page. I guess you could almost say...this was a deliberately chosen transition device? Crazy. But before we trudge through the grueling nastytimes of that scene, what does this final money-line even mean? Can it be distilled with just couple more lines in this note? All right, let's try this out: Terezi saying luck doesn't matter explicitly conveys, almost through a mindful force of assertion, a diminishment of luck's relevance. It therefore corresponds to a diminishment of Vriska's relevance, which, as we know, might as well be her kryptonite. That's basically what Terezi is to Vriska: her one and only weakness, and not just in a tactical sense.

#gif #pesterlog