#tbh i dont have much faith in reform

[seal-berry]

capitalism is fucked up because communing with the invisible hand of the market is weird and every single product release and decision is forced by competition to be this a b test human psychology thing. like if u are making a site, objectively the color of your buttons? can affect your click rates a LOT. why some colors "good" some colors "bad"? probably some mix of culturally specific and instinctual and individual factors that across the population, average out-- even if a "good" color increases sales overall its possible some may be turned off by it etc etc. and then theres the whole thing with specific cases and niche markets etc etc.

and the terrifying thing is like. all this stuff is fake, but it affects your real money coming in. which is significant whether you're a small independent business or a huge soulless conglomerate. and now take that button color decision and multiply that times... every other design choice on your site, products, packaging, etc. At what point does compromising your brand to fit these subconscious ideally performing structures taint the original product to the point where it loses its appeal? Are you willing to compromise any artistic decisions in the first place? Many products are built from the ground up with these constraints in mind, or at least with the flexibility to mold to fit the current constraints plus be re-buildable as they change.

Because oh yeah, they change. There is some amount of long term subconscious bias shifting, but there's also things like google's algorithm changes. A subtly different stream of people (maybe a lot more but, likely since your optimizations may break, a lot less) are going to your site. All those tests, if you did them, might not be accurate anymore. In the moment though, the catastrophic traffic loss is also the kiss of death, you have to try REALLY hard or have a lot of money to survive it. even still that money can go pretty fast if you have any overhead at all.

so, this setup where things are getting increasingly difficult in a lot of places, a some point down the line of staying alive, if you dont use these optimizations you may just not survive. (especially against venture capitalist-fueled competitors if youre unfortunate enough to encounter them, because they will jack up the price of doing business in your respective niche or even introduce flat-out harmful practices) Now multiply that instability times any other platforms or services you depend on-- any disruption to them causes disruption to you. Almost every single website I have made or seen a business make using a third party has eventually been forced to change their entire layout. Possibly multiple times.

And the thing is. There is another activity where it can sometimes involve a similar type of inferencing. Making art, if it at least gets to start out as just for yourself to some extent, is also a balance between understandability, (your idea of understandability) mass appeal, (as much as you feel is necessary) and individual vision/intent. it's just that in capitalism you are asked to do it for your survival, or work for companies and businesses which on some level are affected by it and, thus, can throw your life into disarray simply because of a change in the market or an arbitrarily shit decisions that can happen at any point in an increasingly long chain. It's really hard to escape it unless you have access to fuck you money, so in modern capitalism everyone gets the awesome privilege of knowing that their life hangs in the balance of a bunch of delicate strings, many of which are intent on optimizing for profit and survival aka squeezing rent and goods and necessities higher in a fucked up test of how much they can possibly get, or self-destructing in the name of short-term profit.

this situation is responsible for inducing a lot of the anxiety ppl have right now and i dont say that to discredit the awfulness of the condition at all, its very real. its cruel that the things that can harm us are so abstract in nature now, and that abstraction is of course a weapon to make it impossible for you to do anything to stop it ahead of time.

Self help says dumb shit like "modern stressors are not like the tiger chasing you in the jungle" but they miss that that's worse. Because the same peril exists, and in fact is worse now-- in the natural world there is danger, but a human needs to fuck up pretty bad to get thrown out of the tribe, and the brain craves that security. In the modern day you can easily slip through a crack and get ground to dust and that's a feature not a bug. (in fact that tribal security is the carrot that is used when the stick of homelessness has not yet been reached for) We feel the same desperation of survival but the walls of abstraction between us and that truth create the impression that being upset about this makes you unwell and will likely bring on the gaslighting about everything actually being ok and this system is the best we could ever possibly hope for. They didn't even have to abstract things that much, there's really only a few layers here, and yet it is enough. And the closest thing to a tribe most have now is that goddamn invisible hand (products and services designed down to the bevels and colors to scratch the brains itch for security and novelty just enough to keep you functional)

#capitalism #self help #modern hell #tbh i dont have much faith in reform #its a nasty nasty world we live in #I get that getting mad at human stupidity is like #i should be mad at those who capitalize and manipulate the ignorance and not the ignorant #and yet at times i still find myself reeling against the ignorant #especially those who i know could learn and choose not to because not acknowledging reality is comfortable

[vultures-and-scavengers]

For the Star Wars asks. 1, 11, and 14!

1. do you find force users or non-force users more interesting?

i answered 1 here but i always take an opportunity to not shut up so im going to talk about the force users i do find interesting- and thats force users who are good but are part of an organization they grapple with, or mavericks who go off to do thier own thing. this changes era to era so im gonna go chronologically with the order and type of jedi i find interesting for each. which generally aren’t any canon characters because SW writers aren’t willing to consider the in-universe implications of some of their writing decisions

SWTOR Sith: Sith who don’t do evil things. I’m talking Sith who have personal moral code, sith who live with honor in their lives, sith who are attempting to reform the Empire. sith archeologists who are trying to recover history from their glassed homeworlds.

SWTOR Jedi: Jedi who say, revan’s murder droids are a little fucked up, dont you think? jedi who believe in the republic and want it to be better than it is. jedi who think belsavis is a little fucked up. 

KOTOR Sith: kreia kind of cornered the market on interesting, tbh. but sith who joined revan and felt they have maybe no choice to go back to the jedi order, even though they joined for the reason of protecting people from mandalorian raids, and so they keep on with revan without believeing in it or they go their own way. also the monkeys paw aspect to the force that hits the sith pretty hard in KOTOR2, thats fun to play with

KOTOR Jedi: was revan the only one who got a personality transplant? were there jedi who didnt go to war and regretted it? i have questions and i need answers

TCW Jedi: “i cant reconcile being a good person and having a clone army” jedi, “i dont want the senate to decide which people im compassionate towards” jedi, “i love the order and i want it to be better” jedi

11. who is the most underrated character?

JESSE. he goes through this huge background character arc, and the writers dont... super seem to consider him a lot, but its fine, ive been out here making jesse meta for forever.

jesse and barris post order 66 brotp

jesse becoming an arc trooper

previous jesse ask

he goes from a squad leader who is professional, warm, and dutiful, while also quick to react and yet has a foot-n-mouth problem in deserter to a far more jaded leader (and i would argue he’s still a leader in umbara, since he’s one of the ones that speaks up the most and decides to to fly the ships into the seppies supply ship with hardcase and fives). then by the time of bad batch and order 66 he seemed to hit more of an equilibrium, but then maul. which by the way, people who ship maul and jesse are an instant block from me. shits gross.

and admittedly i like him because i see my own flaws in him. he’s struggled with a loss of faith (this isn’t ever talked about, but like... he tattooed himself with the republic symbol and then umbara. he had a loss of faith.), he struggles with saying things to people he cares about that hurt their feelings accidentally. he definitely seems to be more comfortable as the second in command rather than the first in command, and yeah, same.

i need you to know how hard i worked to not turn this into a 5 page essay. but the tl;dr is that he has some interesting character development, i think you can pull a lot from the moments he is in, he’s a veteran member of the 501st but rose through the ranks in the 501st rather than becoming an arc and rising through the ranks outside the 501st like fives, and has a strong mentor relationship with rex that hits bumps in umbara.

14. what is your favorite alien species?

twi’leks! though pantorans are sneaking up behind them. i just really like designing twileks. like as an alien species, they’re ripe for so much creativity with colors and designs and outfits and backgrounds.

man i just think they’re neat

#arc trooper jesse #i love him so much #thank you for the ask! #its writing essay night #whitephobic-rex

[marypickfords]

ooh hello!! i was just reading the wiki articles for novitiate and first reformed (2017) last night and wondering what you thought about them! clearly there's religious theme going on lol i've never seen them but they look quite interesting and you happened to reblog a novitiate photoset. (-:

omg anon thats so funny bc i’ve seen some first reformed posts lately in my dash and i was staring at them thinking ‘would be sooooooo much better if it was a woman as main character’ and seeing novitiate today got me thinking about that again.

well starting this with saying that i was raised catholic and as a lot of catholic kids i had ppl in my family trying to make me get more into it and i got some books when i was little about this saint (my love saint therese de lisieux, still get a lot of things about her from my family to this day! ldsfkm) and i read a lot about her, she was a nun ofc, and i was kinda obsessed with all of that - the life the sacrifices pain etc. very catholic tbh sdflkmfs. SO yeah movies like that always speak to me in a way. as a lot of people i have a complicated relationship with faith and i don’t really care for like catholicism as the institution it is but anyway that’s not what you asked.

so first novitiate, i love it! it has very much all of that that draws me to faith and questioning and sacrifice and desire. it’s a beautiful coming of age story and a lovely movie and i adore movies set in a place where many girls/women live together it always makes everything better for me. i watched it as soon as it leaked at like 1am and i was heart eyes emoji thru the whole thing. it’s quiet but also raw and just. very beautiful, totally recommend you check it out!!

now.. first reformed. idk about that one. to me it’s so obviously written by an old man. you know that feel?? it feels old. winter light by ingmar bergman is one of my favorite movies of all time and def one of my favorite bergmans and this feels like it has a lot of elements of winter light though ofc with a slighly different focus (in the case of first reformed global warming and humans ruining everything) but it doesn’t come close to having the heart winter light has. 

i know it got to a lot of people but it didn’t really get to me bc i’ve seen winter light a few times, yk. and in that movie at least we get a female perspective (ingrid thulin speaking looking straight into the camera gave me LIFE and totally shocked me into silence when i first watched it). in first reformed as much as it wants to be a story about humanity it feels like it’s a man man man movie, the women are just background, one treated like shit and the other glorified but you never really learn much about her, it’s all about her role in regards to the men around her. also i hate the ending dkslfmskdlfms. but idk it didn’t offend me and i liked some scenes here and there but yeah it was totally obviously written by an old man and imo that hurt it. 

i dont know i can’t say much since you haven’t seen them but yeah it’s worth a check! or watch winter light loll

thank you

#anonymous #SO yeah like i think as this story is kinda old #the priest questioning things etc #i'd much rather see a woman's perspective #basically movies about nuns >>>>>> #mind you in winter light the priest has total disregard for women as well #but at least ingrid has a voice

[survivorfillory]

Tribal Council #6 - Clownie

You should take it as a sign of just how much I hate Alice Quinn as a character that I’ve decided to break the 4-4 tie for the tribe name in favor of a literal demon...

Welcome, Clownie Tribe, to your first merged tribal!

You were all asked questions, but I had zero interest in coming up with 11 game-related questions for y’all, so this is what happened instead!!!

Colin - If you could change Ten (10) Seasons of Survivor to make it so your favorite from the season wins, but in exchange, Cirie Fields was never on Survivor, would you do it?

I dont even think I've watched 10 seasons of survivor tbh and I love Cirie so uh I'm gonna say no???

Dani - What song does the viewing lounge need to know about RIGHT THE FUCK NOW?

Dean - Which Harry Potter character got the worst translation from book to movie?

that would easily be Ginny "waste of space" Weasley. Who literally was reduced to Harry's love interest - even Katie Bell was more interesting than Ginny... where was all the character development? The building of a strong, independent character in her own right? No, let's take everything meanigful about Ginny and make here this boring character who is only concered about Harry and what Harry thinks of her.

Dennis - What’s your most embarrassing childhood memory?

I had an older cousin who I overheard say she was going to be a porn star one day. I had no idea what that was (9yrs old). One day we went to the mall with her parents and a kiosk was selling license plate holders. One said "#1 porn star". I very loudly said "look Angie! #1 porn star!! For you!!" The look on her parents face....

Jacob - You’re at a karaoke night and you have to sing a song. What’s your go-to track?

recently i would go for space cowboy by kacey musgraves too but supercut and dancing queen is my long term brand

Jess - Congrats on immunity! Assign a Buffy the Vampire Slayer character to each tribe member, but don’t give any reasons why you chose them.

Colin- Spike

Dani- Buffy

Dean- Angel

Dennis- Xander

Jacob- Rupert

Jess- Faith

Kage- Riley

Lily- Dawn

Maynor- Oz

Nicole- Cordielia

Stevie-Wesley

Kage - How old were you when you found out Santa wasn’t real? What was the last straw in your belief?

No answer...

Lily - What Disney movie makes you cry the most?

Ah Sweet, Drewie. This is the best tribal question you have asked me all season. Tbh I don’t cry at movies often in general...but I bawled on my 2nd viewing of Up. I don’t want to get into the details but damn. I was real sad. Not sure if I can watch it again.

Maynor - What obscure Pokemon should be the star of their next animated movie, and what would the story be?

i want to see a movie on Delibird. Have a female shiny amd a normal living in the snowy mountains. Where they are going to have to save xmas because a gengar and an alakasam stole the ice heart from their village. And alakasam n gengar live in a cave up the mountain. So they have to travel up and face some of their hencemen (gastly haunter abra kadabra onix hypno drowzee) while the final battle gengar takes down shiny female delibird and she falls into a cave hole not to be seen ever again. Then normal gets emotional and defeats gengar and alakasam. Looks for shiny deli and cant find her. Goes back to return the heart. Articuno comes in thanking deli and reveals that the shiny deli fell on articuno where it was sleeping.

Nicole - What’s your biggest unpopular food opinion?

bitch I love Brussels sprouts idc what anyone says

Stevie - What is the best Emma Stone movie, and why did you pick Easy A?

The best Emma Stone movie is in fact Easy A. First of all, who doesn’t love a good coming of age movie? Especially one shadowing The Scarlet Letter that most people probably had to read in high school. The cast was just great. Penn Badgley? Amanda Bynes pre total meltdown? Aly Michalka? Stanley Tucci? Lisa Kudrow?! ICONIC CAST. And we can’t forget Patricia Clarkson, the reformed slutty mom who brought her husband back to the Hetero life from his stint as a gay man because she is THAT bitch. Their family dynamic was fun to watch in every scene and I needed more of it. “Spell it with your peas!” So she didn’t say “Twat” in front of her little brother is one of my favorite moments. And shortly following the black brother talking about him being adopted and their dad saying “Who told you?!” Is still one of my favorite lines because they are a white family and it’s obvious that they did not have a black baby naturally. Every scene with the family is just filled with jokes and I love it all.

Next we need to talk about Amanda Bynes. The Jesus freak purity cult leader who clearly just needs to get laid. She goes from 0-100 REAL QUICK and down to -100 in a blink of an eye and I feel she did it so well because that’s her in real life. Having a boyfriend that was sleeping with the guidance counselor, who was 22 or something and still in high school, and got chlamydia whilst being in the Jesus purity group was just wild. Honestly thinking in depth about it, this whole movie was just wild. Amanda Bynes’ character was the antagonist that you love to hate and she definitely made the movie.

Seeing Aly Michalka in action again was truly a blessing. The nostalgia of seeing her alone from her Phil of the Future days was enough for me to love her character throughout no matter how much of a stupid bitch she was in the movie when she turned on Olive. Speaking of this, we need to talk about the root of that happening. When Olive gets a card from her grandmother in the mail and it sings “Pocketful of Sunshine” by Natasha Beddingfield. ICONIC SONG. And Emma Stone opens the card and says “ugh I hate this song.” Then proceeds to spend the entire weekend jamming out to the song (FROM THE CARD, NOT DOWNLOADING OR STREAMING) until she wears out the card and it dies. Then she lies and says she visited her older brother at college and lost her V card to a guy at his college. Which I think might be community college? I don’t remember fully. What later on in the movie SENT ME was when her phone rings and her ringtone is Pocketful of Sunshine. I was DEAD.

Most importantly Woodchuck Todd was my favorite storyline. He didn’t believe the sluttiness of Olive because of what she did for him from spin the bottle in 7th grade. I shipped them the whole movie and loved how cheesy all of it was. The most exciting part was the musical number of knock on wood at the end during the basketball game. Stellar performance, so extra, and Emma Stone killed it. So yeah these are all the main reasons why I love this movie and I could easily talk about every single thing that happened and dawn over how much I love it all but I will keep it to these fave scenes.

La La Land was a great movie but this was just so entertaining and funny and a great story. And honestly all of it was a bit ridiculous but not too ridiculous that it went to far. It was the right level. Another honorable mention would be Crazy, Stupid Love because that was also a stellar cast, really funny, and overall just great. Had a great reveal in the end. Easy A was just one of the most memorable movies I’ve seen and I love it equally as much, if not more, every time I see it. Thank you for coming to my TedTalk

If anyone has a power and would like to play it, now would be the time to do so!

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NO ONE STANDS.

Once the votes are read, the decision is final. The person voted out will be asked to leave the tribal council area immediately.

I’ll read the votes.

First vote: Stevie

Second vote: Kage (self-vote)

Votes 3-11, and the sixth person voted out of Survivor Fillory and Further,

Kage

Kage, I’m sorry, and I hope you’re doing and continue to do better, but the tribe has spoken.

#tribalcouncil