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cs-discourse · 5 years

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here we go

https://cs-discourse.tumblr.com/post/179953845684/uuuuwuu-every1-whos-concerned-abt-biased-judging

ok this attitude has been pissing me off long enough that it's time for one of my Big Ole Posts (tm) about how shitty this is! thanks.

uuuuwuu every1 whos concerned abt biased judging in comps is just soooow entitled !!!1 i cant bewieve ppl wouldnt want some1 whos literally explicitly stating at this point that they trust their friends more to "demonstrate dedication to the character" they assign to a design to b an influence in judging comps !!!!!11 bc artists Never weigh in on other artist's comps, so obviously thes ppl just want fwee merc designs !!!1!!1 also my last braincell just died pleas h

so here's the og post in question for quick reference

i honestly have no idea why people keep bringing up this idea of bias in judging competitions because, while i do think there is a type of bias that certainly exists, i think a lot of so-called "bias" that people have is ... not whatsoever like what people think it is lol. artists are people and there's always going to be SOME kind of bias no matter what you do, because it's literally fuckin impossible to NOT be biased. by that i mean:

your taste in plots/types of characters/medias influence your judging

quality of writing or art can influence your judging

the person who's applying for the adopt you may have previous judgement about

even if you say you aren't biased, you STILL have preferences and tastes in things that you prefer more than others, which in of itself is a kind of bias

people who know you (friends for example) will naturally know what your taste is.

a competition is judged based on what form the artist thinks is best, right?

NEWSFLASH EVERYONE'S IDEA OF "WHAT'S BEST" IS DIFFERENT FROM PERSON TO PERSON ..... "BEST" is literally the most subjective thing there is, and while i agree that there are certain aspects of art and writing that you can use as objective measurements of tangible skill, it's... still subjective. what people think is "best" will vary from person to person because we all have different tastes. so, essentially, this boils down to the idea that the winner of an adopt competition will ALWAYS be the form the artist liked best, because that is what the artist perceives as best. so like. when people appear biased in adopt competitions towards friends or certain circles, it's probably because they're literally friends because they have similar tastes in things, and therefore the form the artist likes best is naturally going to be from someone who shares similar tastes.

so whenever i hear about """bias""" in competitions i just kind of roll my eyes tbqh because it's usually followed by complaints of "BUT I PUT IN SO MUCH EFFORT" or "I WROTE SO MUCH MORE THAN THE WINNER" uhhhh. if adopt contests were won by effort alone it wouldn't be a contest, it'd be an endurance test lol. literally just "who has the most time to waste writing out 60000k words of absolute meaningless fluff"... because, i hate to break it to you, but ANYONE can write 5000 words of mindless drivel that has literally no substance to it.

now in caps for emphasis. takes a deep breath

THERE IS NO SKILL NEEDED TO BLOAT YOUR WORD COUNT.

YOU DO NOT NEED TO KNOW HOW TO WRITE WELL TO WRITE 5000 WORDS.

YOU JUST NEED TO KNOW HOW TO TYPE AND PUT SENTENCES TOGETHER.

quality > quantity, always. like, i'm sorry you put in so many hours of effort but, those people who win with MUCH smaller wordcounts... did they not work to get as good as they did with writing? you put in 5 hours into one tryout. but others, take me for example: i have been writing for over 10 bloody years. i've worked hard to improve my writing, so you can't tell me i "didn't put in as much effort" as you because i did. i put in YEARS of work to get better so doing simple things would take me LESS time now. inb4 IT'S UNFAIR! dude, the literal definition of a contest is for the best to win. it wouldn't be a contest if it wasn't like that lol. it'd just be charity. what you should be doing instead of complaining about it is ASKING FOR CRIT and WORKING TO IMPROVE like a good sport? i get that it's discouraging but you should be prepared to lose when you join a contest. it's valid to be upset about but the moment you say you deserve it more than others JUST because of your effort, then i have a problem.

and you know, there's gonna be times where i think a comp winner is objectively less skilled than other tryouts. honestly i just kind of shrug that off on account of different taste lol. sometimes that's just how it be, bc of those predetermined biases i mentioned before, and maybe a judge and i are just in completely stages of life so what i call quality might not appeal to the judge. that's also fine. anyway this really got off on a tangent but i'm leaving it in bc i think it needs saying. back to the og post

> i cant bewieve ppl wouldnt want some1 whos literally explicitly stating at this point that they trust their friends more to "demonstrate dedication to the character" they assign to a design to b an influence in judging comps !!!!!11

wtf didn't i address this in a different post

here let me link it for you

https://cs-discourse.tumblr.com/post/179841459154/post179838988303-the-difference-is-that-you-have

which was replying to this: https://cs-discourse.tumblr.com/post/179838988303/179837734509-idk-anon-i-kinda-agree-with-the

i said it once but i'll say it again: artist entries aren't main adopts lol. people don't work for artist entries. all you fucking do is post on one like "can i have this pls" .. there is... no effort put into that lol. main adopts you WORK for. it's a CONTEST. claiming an artist entry is NOT a contest. if a bunch of little nasty gremlins come running up to me like a hungry horde trying to be the first one to claim my design, i think giving friends first pick is COMPLETELY FINE, BECAUSE WHAT DID ANYONE ELSE DO TO "DESERVE" THAT DESIGN? nothing. you did. nothing. you're literally coming here with this attitude that NOT GIVING THINGS AWAY TO STRANGERS FOR FREE SOMEHOW EQUALS BIAS? i literally do not understand your logic whatsoever. like. i'm trying really fucking hard. at least with main adopts the "payment" is the effort you put in trying to answer the artist's prompt. i know i sound super dumb repeating myself but i don't know how much simpler i can make this concept tbh

and this is EXACTLY why i say ya'll are fucking entitled because merc and any of the kal artists could be making REAL $$$$ selling their own designs and adoptables and art and NOT deal with all the bs ya'll throw at them. they're literally here because the ENJOY MAKING ((( FREE ))) CONTENT for you, and they're not obligated to do this. they can stop whenever they want. if you had to pay per hour for the length of time collectively worked by ANY species artist staff, the lot of you would be fucking broke. i'm actually constantly shocked that species artists work like, 8 hours or more on some of these gorgeous designs just to give them away for free in a contest.

so, yeah, as someone who hasn't spent my entire life on CS (i've only been here for a year and a half), ya'll seem pretty fucking entitled to me lol. the world outside CS rarely gives out such gorgeous designs in write-to-adopt contests so i'm honestly baffled at the amount of bloody entitlement i see

>bc artists Never weigh in on other artist's comps, so obviously thes ppl just want fwee merc designs !!!1!!1

this part i don't actually understand what you mean. do you mean they... help judge other comps? or like, enter them? i don't get what you mean by "weigh in" but listen, lol. just because something DOES happen doesn't mean it gives you a good reason to assume the worst. i mean... of course it happens. it's statistically impossible for skewed contests and bias to NOT happen, because there's always going to be cases of it happening. but like, what proof do you have that merc will be biased lol? like, real proof? because your main point i've basically debunked and don't believe in at all. do better than "i cant bewieve ppl wouldnt want some1 whos literally explicitly stating at this point that they trust their friends more to "demonstrate dedication to the character" they assign to a design to b an influence in judging comps !!!!!11" because this doesn't make any sense to me for the reasons i already listed above lmao. if artist entries were supposed to be contests they'd be contests. what the hell makes you important enough to get first dibs on a stranger's work. ARTIST ENTRIES AREN'T EVEN MADE TO BE GIVEN AWAY, THEY'RE MADE AS ARTIST ENTRIES.... LIKE.... JESUS i struggle to understand ya'll

anyway im done here, if you wanna actually talk and debate this hmu on discord at lysander#9229 bc if you actually talk to me instead of spew this hot mess on the blog i might actually listen to you and change my mind and be nice about it instead of being a condescending bitch.

wait one more thing

>also my last braincell just died pleas h

yea clearly

p.s., why do you ppl keep going to the blog to give critique on merc's designs when on literally every other design merc makes there's this:

https://www.chickensmoothie.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=3950980

here i even linked it for you. idk why it's so hard for yall to give constructive crit like decent human beings

#cs discourse #submission

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sly2o · 6 years

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Unlocking Season 4′s potential: a Riley story (I swear this isn’t crack)

TL;DR: I think Riley was supposed to be a LI for Clarke, and Monty + Harper filled a story-line that Bryan + Miller was supposed to have, and that Miller was supposed to go to space.

We know that when the actor who plays Bryan abruptly left the show to pursue another role, which resulted in the parts written for him being given to a new character named Riley. So with the information we have, what was Bryan supposed to be doing in 4A and 4B?

Well first let’s ask ourselves…

What was Riley supposed to be doing before this shift in plot line?

Answer: Clarke.

I call forward as evidence:

1. The awkward hug.

Clarke clearly recognizes Riley, and clearly has a history with him. This is never resolved (and evidently never will be). Why waste the audience’s time with this?

2. Niylah’s out of character return

When the actor who got cast as Riley had to shift into Bryan’s role in 4A, someone else had to shift into what had originally been carved out as the Riley role. Hence the return of Niylah.

Why on Earth would Niylah want to climb into bed (so to speak) with the very kru that killed her family? Why would she want to tend bar for the people who executed her father? After the violent interaction she had with Skaikru in Season 3 where they stormed her home - which resulted in it being attacked by ALIE - why would she want to be anywhere near Skaikru ever again?

Clarke’s magic ladybits can only explain so many of these questions without some very explicitly stated plot - and helping make rations is hardly good enough.

How Niylah turned around to accepting Skaikru is 100% glossed over... almost as if it wasn’t planned for.

3. Niylah’s extremely lacking season 4 character arc.

If Niylah’s presence in the Skaikru area was planned all along - why didn’t she play a role in helping free Bellamy in 4x11? Surely she’d want to help all the people she had traded with in the past survive the radiation blast.

If her presence was planned all along, why did she play a bizarrely helpless role in stopping Illian when he arrived at Arkadia to blow up the place? What happened to the capable Niylah who lied to the Prince of Azgeda in the premiere of Season 3?

98% of Niylah’s role is season 4 was to be a place of comfort for Clarke to go to, where Clarke could exposition her internal thought process.

Because that was what Riley’s role was supposed to be - and it would make sense in the context of a new character whose role was crafted to serve this piece of plot.

4. Timing of Riley’s and Niylah’s appearances

Niylah doesn’t show up until episode 5, which is a few episodes after Riley is introduced. In theory, if Riley had stayed in his original role this would have been enough time for Clarke to catch up with Riley and do her usual grief bang move with her old love interest.

Furthermore, the fact that Riley gets a reaction, introduction, and hug - and Niylah just sort of shows up should raise some alarm bells about how she was not originally supposed to be in this season.

What was Nathan supposed to be doing this season?

Last year Jarod Joseph tweeted he would be back in Season 4 in a “big way”… and yet the season showed us otherwise. Aside from break up with Bryan, sharing moon-eyes with Jackson, and being a guy with a gun when you need a guy with a gun.

So what was he supposed to be doing?

Answer: part of the Monty/Harper 4B plot.

Supporting evidence:

1. Riley being built up in 4A and then being sidelined in 4B just to die.

The writers had to dispose of Riley after he filled in the role of Bryan in 4A. As much as we all love Riley, let’s be real, he was never Spacekru material. There also wasn’t space to resolve his character in the finale (see below) because Niylah had taken his role so he just got... disposed of.

2. Bryan’s planned path of descent in 4A.

We know that the episode where Bellamy talks down Riley from assassinating Roan was supposed to be Bryan. We know that Bryan was headed to a darker place with respect to his mental health. The break up with Nathan (or what was at least going to be the start of a line of major fights) likely didn’t help either. Season 3 had already established that there was strain in this relationship (Bryan and Miller taking different sides in the Pike/Kane leadership) so this also wasn’t coming out of nowhere. Speaking of which…

The scene where Harper accidentally is linked to an Arkadian dying was probably Bryan’s last straw. But for Harper it was... the only straw? How did she break so fast? Being cut from the list could have added to that... but it seems a bit like she was shoehorned into a role meant for someone else.

3. People arguing that they want to live in 4A and then deciding to die in 4B?????

Both Harper and Riley are a part of the mob that are pissed at Clarke for creating the list and excluding them. Now just a few weeks later they are OK with dying? That’s not right. How did their anger turn in that direction so quickly?

4. Monty on double comfort duty at the DNR den

For me this one of the most compelling reasons for why Harper was supposed to be Bryan.

I believe Monty and Harper were still supposed to both be at Arkadia, but they were both supposed to be there because of Jasper’s importance to Monty. This would have been mirrored by Nathan and Bryan also being there and having a very similar fight to the one Harper and Monty had in the actual episode. By having these two pairs there (Monty + Jasper, Nathan + Bryan) it would have really drawn out the parallels between these journeys with respect to mental health.

But instead we essentially had an understaffed Monty running back and forth between two people to comfort them which made for awkward pacing during the episode.

The impacts of Bryan’s replacement on the finale.

Nathan and Bryan were supposed to go to space.

If the above scenarios had come to pass, then Nathan and Bryan would have been with the Arkadia group, meaning they would have been able to go to space. If this had happened, it would have really helped frame Octavia as alone again underground isolated from her peers.I also get the impression that Nathan + Dad Miller were filling in a storyline that someone else was meant to have, to echo back to Tor Lenkin and his kid and really emphasize that “are we really doing this again?” parallel. I think the kid everyone joked that Jaha adopted was supposed to be that kid. Instead that new Tor and his kid got sort of shuffled to the side as the writers scrambled to shoehorn in how they would save Nathan when he had been left off the list.

Emori was supposed to be kicked out of the second dawn bunker.

The Arkadians pushing around and then kicking out Niylah didn’t make very much sense... Why would her [grounder] people abandon her? Because she spent 2 months hanging out over at Arkadia? That seems a little bit like an over-reaction. Are we supposed to believe she was so bad at trading that she had no favours she could use to get picked by her people? I hardly believe that. Again - what happened to the Niylah who could boldly lie in the face of the prince of Azgeda?

Now go back to the finale and imagine it was Emori who got kicked out by the Arkadians — this is a highly believable scenario because Emori has no people to speak for her since she was cast out for being different. John following his heart again because they are going to make it together in the bunker. Clarke giving her helmet to Emori would have meant so. much. more. on the heels of Emori being thrown out of the second dawn bunker, combined with how Clarke used the nightblood on herself instead of Emori. And then Emori saying “can’t we wait a little longer?” for Clarke after all that? Ugh my emotions.

...And now the crack

(Look I have no self control - I can’t write meta without including crack)

Was Clarke supposed to be pregnant?

YEAH I KNOW, OK, BUT HEAR ME OUT.

1. Why has Jason insisted on calling Madi “Clarke’s child” as opposed to her little sister? Is it a hang-up from where the plot was supposed to go?

2. Consider this: what if for “science reasons” the nightblood only worked because of the child inside her? Quite frankly we had an entire episode around why nightblood can’t be made in a laboratory on Earth, and it was enraging to see it work in the end because that means more people could have survived. It would have been much more satisfactory to see that it was Clarke’s unique scenario that that saved her life. (Also explains the throw up in the finale). Plus it would help stress in season 5 that Clarke owes her very life to her child which is why she always puts the child first. It also explains why it was six years of time gap. A five year old (remember, we lose almost a year because pregnancy time) is old enough/big enough to get into trouble on their own. Four years old is kinda pushing it on the “this is way too young” spectrum.

Some Last Thoughts

Something I hope I haven’t stirred up, but that I will mention in case I did, is that I hope this doesn’t come off as anti-niylah/niylarke. My complaints are really that Niylah and her relationship with Clarke could have been done way better in this season. Ultimately it was great relationship for Clarke to have (and honestly, probably a better pairing than Riley + Clarke would have been), but the execution was really off for all the reasons I named above.

I think a lot of the pacing problems with the season can be traced back to Bryan’s exit. It makes me ask - why didn’t they just recast? But I guess that’s not really something they do with this show (except for Madi?? IDK)

I’m sure there are other pieces to this puzzle I am missing, but I find this concept so easy to lock in with the season that I just can’t help but believe it was what was originally written.

Either way it’s unprovable and not canon... but I thought I’d share my speculation for what might have been with you all. Hope you enjoyed.

#the 100 #the 100 meta #the 100 speculation #the 100 riley #clarke griffin #nathan miller #I wrote a version of this before the finale #and then became doubly convinced it was true after watching the finale #anyways this is all speculation at this point since it's entirely unprovable #but I wanted to share

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