#you have to think critically when you're posting

[harmoonix]

🧚🏼‍♀️Fαιɾყƈσɾҽ🧚🏼‍♀️

*Unlock your inner fairy*

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Come away with me now to the sky

Up all the hills and the sea

Far beyond where memories lie

To a place where Im free to be me

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🧚🏼‍♀️ - Earth Risings (Capricorn, Taurus, Virgo) have that amazing personality thanks to their strong aura and energy. They're that chill yet wholesome person

🧚🏼‍♀️ - Midheaven in Fire Signs will mostly wanna have a job based on their desires and on what they truly want/desire from life

🧚🏼‍♀️ - Having your 4H in an earth sign it can indicate your home can be your biggest comfort, out of all the places

🧚🏼‍♀️ - Moon aspecting the Ascendant brings that type "serene" energy to the native, calm, peaceful, I love how they resemble those things

🧚🏼‍♀️ - Saturn aspecting Venus want a high standard relationship because for them loyalty and teamwork matters a lot in the relationship

🧚🏼‍♀️ - Pluto aspecting Sun/Moon/Ascendant can be judged for who their are, or heavy criticized, it's important to be you even if you have haters

🧚🏼‍♀️ - Moon in Gemini/Gemini Degrees 3°, 15°, 27° moon loves this energy of self - expressing, I always think about this placement as "life in colors"

🧚🏼‍♀️ - Neptune aspecting Mars will always have a fiery energy, is electrifying and yet charismatic, full of boosts of energy

🧚🏼‍♀️ - Juno aspecting the IC (4th house) will have that familiy oriented spouse, possibly someone who wants also to live a traditional marriage life

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Let the stars fill your soul, when the moon cradles all

So, to yourself be true

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🧚🏼‍♀️ - When you have your North Node in your 9H you gonna decide which faith you wanna follow, which religion, education, schools, you have free will in that area

🧚🏼‍♀️ - North Node in the 3rd/5th house gives you the chance to express yourself how you want, you achieve things in your life by being yourself

🧚🏼‍♀️ - When you have your Mars in your 3rd/6th or 8th house Mars will react either very energetic either very tired. It's important to keep a balance between how lazy you are and how productive you are

🧚🏼‍♀️ - Water Suns can easily attach emotionally by others, crying in the same time?? Girl yes! Telling your secrets to each other? Girl no! There always should be a boundary between you and your emotional side

🧚🏼‍♀️ - Neptune in the 2H/4H/9H/12H can come from a background with a spiritual family, like your family members can be into spirituality

🧚🏼‍♀️ - Mars/Pluto or Venus in the 5H get tempted easily, like their lust is overdosed here, take care at your temptations especially if you're in relationship

🧚🏼‍♀️ - Suns in the 12H can have a various impacts, on the good side this placement can help at growing spirituality and the bad side it is that it will make you to self - doubt a lot (You're worth it🫶🏼)

🧚🏼‍♀️ - I already said in numerous posts that Venus in Earth Signs men are gentlemen, like their aura is screaming that (GENTLEMAN/MY MAN) I'm looking at Taurus Venus while saying this ofc

🧚🏼‍♀️ - My Juno is in fucking Aquarius okay..so there was once an Aquarius Sun guy who saw me as his "relationship material" and I was like "Um nope" his Juno was in Capricorn while my Sun is in Capricorn and I had no like for him 😅🫶🏼

🧚🏼‍♀️ - Can we appreciate Capricorns for wanting to date older people so they don't have to suffocate themselves with the ones who have not matured at a certain time

🧚🏼‍♀️ - Cancer Moons will basically attach to your heart like a spider cloth, and it maybe devour it at some point. If you love them they gonna "devour" your love

🧚🏼‍♀️ - Moon in the 1st/3rd/5th/9th houses love to party and enjoy life, the soul of the party placement literally

🧚🏼‍♀️ - Juno in 2H/Juno in Taurus is giving spoiling spouse,girl "you wake up with 24k gold earrings beside your bed from your spouse"energy

🧚🏼‍♀️ - Aries/Scorpio and Sagittarius Mars are those bad bitches who nobody plays with like, they don't accept it

🧚🏼‍♀️ - Mars in the 11H or Mars in Aquarius can become quite obsessive/possesive around their friends but in the same time can have lots of conflicts with them because after all Mars is the planet of war

🧚🏼‍♀️ - Stellium or lots of placements in the 9th house can show love for traveling/exploring/ even learning new things

🧚🏼‍♀️ - Stellium in the 5th house or in Leo can indicate a lot creativity, a very talented person, can indicate you love being yourself as well

🧚🏼‍♀️ - Juno in the 11H or in Aquarius can indicate your husband will for sure be one of your closest friends

🧚🏼‍♀️ - If someone has Pluto - Sun aspects you can tell they can be misunderstood a lot, is hard to fit in the norm if you're just trying to make a difference

🧚🏼‍♀️ - Aquarius Suns and Risings are different from their family members or relatives, like when you go for example and visit their family, these natives will always stand out of them

🧚🏼‍♀️ - Sun in your 6H/12H can make you just tired or drained easily, try to not force yourself to do certain things if you don't really want that

🧚🏼‍♀️ - Mars in the 1H/Aries Mars is an icon placement, it shows a lot of motivation and energy towards the things you wanna do in your life

🧚🏼‍♀️ - Jupiter conjunct/trine/sextile Mars makes you extremely ambitious, very desirable, and you can actually manifest things so fast with these placements

🧚🏼‍♀️ - Venus aspecting the Midheaven (in good aspects) can be appreciated at their work for their personality/aura/vibe

🧚🏼‍♀️ - Having more Cardinal Signs in your chart than others (Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn) shows you're not afraid of change, sudden changes, you're ready for everything that comes in your life

🧚🏼‍♀️ - Chiron aspecting Ascendant (all aspects) can indicate a very big journey when it comes to self - discovering and healing yourself!! Your healing era is precious

🧚🏼‍♀️ - Having your 8H in a fire sign shows a person who is very sensual/passionate/has lot of desires and lots of naughty thoughts

🧚🏼‍♀️ - When you and a person share the same Lilith sign, you can both understand eachother on a psychic level, you can also tell which bad traits you have to eachother

🧚🏼‍♀️ - Pisces Saturn has a lesson about becoming more spiritual and finding your inner faith in a way, being more connected with yourself

🧚🏼‍♀️ - Sun/Lilith or Saturn in the 10H can have really big issues with their dads, the dad can be controlling/strict or just mean with some of these placements

🧚🏼‍♀️ - Chiron in the 2H can also be about being more healthy in your diet, like eating more healthy food and keep a balance in your body

~ Bad bitches grew up with Tinkerbell 🧚🏼‍♀️🫶🏼 ~

#astrology #astro observations #aesthetic #autumn aesthetic #birth chart #astro notes #astrology observations #placements #astro community #horoscope #ascendant #fairy #magic #aesthetic fairy #magic aesthetic #fairycore #fairytale #childhood #inner child healing #venus #sound of the nature

[imsobadatnicknames2]

How can you consider yourself any sort of leftist when you defend AI art bullshit? You literally simp for AI techbros and have the gall to pretend you're against big corporations?? Get fucked

I don't "defend" AI art. I think a particular old post of mine that a lot of people tend to read in bad faith must be making the rounds again lmao.

Took me a good while to reply to this because you know what? I decided to make something positive out of this and use this as an opportunity to outline what I ACTUALLY believe about AI art. If anyone seeing this decides to read it in good or bad faith... Welp, your choice I guess.

I have several criticisms of the way the proliferation of AI art generators and LLMs is making a lot of things worse. Some of these are things I have voiced in the past, some of these are things I haven't until now:

Most image and text AI generators are fine-tuned to produce nothing but the most agreeable, generically pretty content slop, pretty much immediately squandering their potential to be used as genuinely interesting artistic tools with anything to offer in terms of a unique aesthetic experience (AI video still manages to look bizarre and interesting but it's getting there too)

In the entertainment industry and a lot of other fields, AI image generation is getting incorporated into production pipelines in ways that lead to the immiseration of working artists, being used to justify either lower wages or straight-up layoffs, and this is something that needs to be fought against. That's why I unconditionally supported the SAG-AFTRA strikes last year and will unconditionally support any collective action to address AI art as a concrete labor issue

In most fields where it's being integrated, AI art is vastly inferior to human artists in any use case where you need anything other than to make a superficially pretty picture really fast. If you need to do anything like ask for revisions or minor corrections, give very specific descriptions of how objects and people are interacting with each other, or just like. generate several pictures of the same thing and have them stay consistent with each other, you NEED human artists and it's preposterous to think they can be replaced by AI.

There is a lot of art of the internet that consists of the most generically pretty, cookie-cutter anime waifu-adjacent slop that has zero artistic or emotional value to either the people seeing it or the person churning it out, and while this certainly was A Thing before the advent of AI art generators, generative AI has made it extremely easy to become the kind of person who churns it out and floods online art spaces with it.

Similarly, LLMs make it extremely easy to generate massive volumes of texts, pages, articles, listicles and what have you that are generic vapid SEO-friendly pap at best and bizzarre nonsense misinformation at worst, drowning useful information in a sea of vapid noise and rendering internet searches increasingly useless.

The way LLMs are being incorporated into customer service and similar services not only, again, encourages further immiseration of customer service workers, but it's also completely useless for most customers.

A very annoyingly vocal part the population of AI art enthusiasts, fanatics and promoters do tend to talk about it in a way that directly or indirectly demeans the merit and skill of human artists and implies that they think of anyone who sees anything worthwile in the process of creation itself rather than the end product as stupid or deluded.

So you can probably tell by now that I don't hold AI art or writing in very high regard. However (and here's the part that'll get me called an AI techbro, or get people telling me that I'm just jealous of REAL artists because I lack the drive to create art of my own, or whatever else) I do have some criticisms of the way people have been responding to it, and have voiced such criticisms in the past.

I think a lot of the opposition to AI art has critstallized around unexamined gut reactions, whipping up a moral panic, and pressure to outwardly display an acceptable level of disdain for it. And in particular I think this climate has made a lot of people very prone to either uncritically entertain and adopt regressive ideas about Intellectual Propety, OR reveal previously held regressive ideas about Intellectual Property that are now suddenly more socially acceptable to express:

(I wanna preface this section by stating that I'm a staunch intellectual property abolitionist for the same reason I'm a private property abolitionist. If you think the existence of intellectual property is a good thing, a lot of my ideas about a lot of stuff are gonna be unpalatable to you. Not much I can do about it.)

A lot of people are suddenly throwing their support behind any proposal that promises stricter copyright regulations to combat AI art, when a lot of these also have the potential to severely udnermine fair use laws and fuck over a lot of independent artist for the benefit of big companies.

It was very worrying to see a lot of fanfic authors in particular clap for the George R R Martin OpenAI lawsuit because well... a lot of them don't realize that fanfic is a hobby that's in a position that's VERY legally precarious at best, that legally speaking using someone else's characters in your fanfic is a much of a violation of copyright law as stright up stealing entire passages, and that any regulation that can be used against the latter can be extended against the former.

Similarly, a lot of artists were cheering for the lawsuit against AI art models trained to mimic the style of specific artists. Which I agree is an extremely scummy thinbg to do (just like a human artist making a living from ripping off someone else's work is also extremely scummy), but I don't think every scummy act necessarily needs to be punishable by law, and some of them would in fact leave people worse off if they were. All this to say: If you are an artist, and ESPECIALLY a fan artist, trust me. You DON'T wanna live in a world where there's precedent for people's artstyles to be considered intellectual property in any legally enforceable way. I know you wanna hurt AI art people but this is one avenue that's not worth it.

Especially worrying to me as an indie musician has been to see people mention the strict copyright laws of the music industry as a positive thing that they wanna emulate. "this would never happen in the music industry because they value their artists copyright" idk maybe this is a the grass is greener type of situation but I'm telling you, you DON'T wanna live in a world where copyright law in the visual arts world works the way it does in the music industry. It's not worth it.

I've seen at least one person compare AI art model training to music sampling and say "there's a reason why they cracked down on sampling" as if the death of sampling due to stricter copyright laws was a good thing and not literally one of the worst things to happen in the history of music which nearly destroyed several primarily black music genres. Of course this is anecdotal because it's just One Guy I Saw Once, but you can see what I mean about how uncritical support for copyright law as a tool against AI can lead people to adopt increasingly regressive ideas about copyright.

Similarly, I've seen at least one person go "you know what? Collages should be considered art theft too, fuck you" over an argument where someone else compared AI art to collages. Again, same point as above.

Similarly, I take issue with the way a lot of people seem EXTREMELY personally invested in proving AI art is Not Real Art. I not only find this discussion unproductive, but also similarly dangerously prone to validating very reactionary ideas about The Nature Of Art that shouldn't really be entertained. Also it's a discussion rife with intellectual dishonesty and unevenly applied definition as standards.

When a lot of people present the argument of AI art not being art because the definition of art is this and that, they try to pretend that this is the definition of art the've always operated under and believed in, even when a lot of the time it's blatantly obvious that they're constructing their definition on the spot and deliberately trying to do so in such a way that it doesn't include AI art.

They never succeed at it, btw. I've seen several dozen different "AI art isn't art because art is [definition]". I've seen exactly zero of those where trying to seriously apply that definition in any context outside of trying to prove AI art isn't art doesn't end up in it accidentally excluding one or more non-AI artforms, usually reflecting the author's blindspots with regard to the different forms of artistic expression.

(However, this is moot because, again, these are rarely definitions that these people actually believe in or adhere to outside of trying to win "Is AI art real art?" discussions.)

Especially worrying when the definition they construct is built around stuff like Effort or Skill or Dedication or The Divine Human Spirit. You would not be happy about the kinds of art that have traditionally been excluded from Real Art using similar definitions.

Seriously when everyone was celebrating that the Catholic Church came out to say AI art isn't real art and sharing it as if it was validating and not Extremely Worrying that the arguments they'd been using against AI art sounded nearly identical to things TradCaths believe I was like. Well alright :T You can make all the "I never thought I'd die fighting side by side with a catholic" legolas and gimli memes you want, but it won't change the fact that the argument being made by the catholic church was a profoundly conservative one and nearly identical to arguments used to dismiss the artistic merit of certain forms of "degenerate" art and everyone was just uncritically sharing it, completely unconcerned with what kind of worldview they were lending validity to by sharing it.

Remember when the discourse about the Gay Sex cats pic was going on? One of the things I remember the most from that time was when someone went "Tell me a definition of art that excludes this picture without also excluding Fountain by Duchamp" and how just. Literally no one was able to do it. A LOT of people tried to argue some variation of "Well, Fountain is art and this image isn't because what turns fountain into art is Intent. Duchamp's choice to show a urinal at an art gallery as if it was art confers it an element of artistic intent that this image lacks" when like. Didn't by that same logic OP's choice to post the image on tumblr as if it was art also confer it artistic intent in the same way? Didn't that argument actually kinda end up accidentally validating the artistic status of every piece of AI art ever posted on social media? That moment it clicked for me that a lot of these definitions require applying certain concepts extremely selectively in order to make sense for the people using them.

A lot of people also try to argue it isn't Real Art based on the fact that most AI art is vapid but like. If being vapid definitionally excludes something from being art you're going to have to exclude a whooole lot of stuff along with it. AI art is vapid. A lot of art is too, I don't think this argument works either.

Like, look, I'm not really invested in trying to argue in favor of The Artistic Merits of AI art but I also find it extremely hard to ignore how trying to categorically define AI art as Not Real Art not only is unproductive but also requires either a) applying certain parts of your definition of art extremely selectively, b) constructing a definition of art so convoluted and full of weird caveats as to be functionally useless, or c) validating extremely reactionary conservative ideas about what Real Art is.

Some stray thoughts that don't fit any of the above sections.

I've occassionally seen people respond to AI art being used for shitposts like "A lot of people have affordable commissions, you could have paid someone like $30 to draw this for you instead of using the plagiarism algorithm and exploiting the work of real artists" and sorry but if you consider paying an artist a rate that amounts to like $5 for several hours of work a LESS exploitative alternative I think you've got something fucked up going on with your priorities.

Also it's kinda funny when people comment on the aforementioned shitposts with some variation of "see, the usage of AI art robs it of all humor because the thing that makes shitposts funny is when you consider the fact that someone would spend so much time and effort in something so stupid" because like. Yeah that is part of the humor SOMETIMES but also people share and laugh at low effort shitposts all the time. Again you're constructing a definition that you don't actually believe in anywhere outside of this type of conversations. Just say you don't like that it's AI art because you think it's morally wrong and stop being disingenuous.

So yeah, this is pretty much everything I believe about the topic.

I don't "defend" AI art, but my opposition to it is firmly rooted in my principles, and that means I refuse to uncritically accept any anti-AI art argument that goes against those same principles.

If you think not accepting and parroting every Anti-AI art argument I encounter because some of them are ideologically rooted in things I disagree with makes me indistinguishable from "AI techbros" you're working under a fucked up dichotomy.

[eloise-t-g]

long post ahead. i wanted to respond to some of the things i've seen people saying about the watcher situation. i honestly just needed to get some of this stuff off my chest lmao.

"sorry, the bridge has been burnt and i can no longer support watcher" - valid.

"i'm happy with this compromise and will continue to watch their content" - valid.

"oh so they apologise, change nothing, and now people are happy to give them money?" - things have changed. they compromised and completely changed their plan for the new website. did you not watch the update video? they're also issuing refunds to anyone who wants one.

"i bet people who over-reacted feel real stupid now!" - some people over-reacted, but a lot of people had valid criticisms and concerns. they shouldn't feel stupid if they expressed it in a non-abusive way.

"yay, we successfully bullied them into changing their minds!" - you're ... you're proud that you bullied someone? this isn't fucking elon musk or jeff bezos. these guys aren't multibillionaires exploiting their employees. these are three youtubers who want to pay themselves and their employees a living wage, while making content they're proud of, and they made a simple fucking mistake. stop throwing around the term 'eat the rich' as though it applies here.

"the apology video is clearly PR!" - yes, watcher is a business. this is how a business responds to situations like this. they had abuse hurled at them for 48 hours straight, they shouldn't feel bad for wanting to make sure everything said in the video was 100% agreed upon and analysed beforehand.

"steven was clearly the one behind this, he should be fired or step down!" - was he? do you know that for a fact? cause from what i saw, all three of them got in front of the camera and made the announcement video together. i agree that he should step down as CEO, but only because they clearly need someone who has actual business experience leading them (if you remember, ryan and shane stepped down a while ago because they didn't want to deal with that side of the company anymore - in the same video, they thanked steven for being the sole reason watcher was still going).

"they shouldn't have been silent the whole weekend" - maybe so, but it's clear they went into lockdown/crisis mode. also, businesses aren't open on weekends. i think it's fair that they waited until monday and took their time with it. maybe they should have tweeted something like "we're sorry and we're working on an explanation", but that just would have given people another place to attack them.

"you're all being parasocial" - i've seen this used against both people who are supporting/giving the team the benefit of the doubt, and people who are against everything. a lot of people (myself included) have used this experience to realise they were developing/had developed a parasocial relationship with these men. this is a good thing - it allows us to recognise these things and make changes within ourselves.

i think generally people are more parasocial towards youtubers than celebrities in films and tv shows. YT feels like there is a barrier removed between the creators and us; it makes us feel like we know these people in a way that we don't know actors who are always playing different roles. YT makes it easier to believe we're seeing the real people, when we really don't know them at all.

"why should i pay someone who owns a tesla?" - you don't have to. also, steven has been working consistently for years. it doesn't surprise me that he has enough savings for an expensive car. people are allowed to own things that you and i can't afford.

"they're embarrassed to be youtubers" - might be true, who knows. but for me it feels more like they want to be taken seriously as filmmakers/television producers, and don't feel like they can do that on YT.

"there's clearly money mismanagement going on" - i think this is likely. i personally don't know what it's like to run a business like this, which is why i've been watching videos from other youtubers who do. since they're saying they don't know where the funds are going, i'm inclined to believe watcher's budget is way off what it should be.

"why didn't they initially say they were having money troubles and might close doors?" - i can see both sides of this. i believe they should have recognised that their audience would have been more receptive to this kind of honesty. however, if you're asking people to give you money, while also saying the venture might not work out, it doesn't engender a great deal of trust. why should i pay for a 12 month sub if it's possible watcher will fold in 6? who will be around to issue me a refund then?

"we were happy with blue and yellow text on a screen!" - valid, but it's clear that they weren't. they clearly want to push themselves further creatively. on the other hand, it definitely feels like they got impatient and wanted that future creation to start now, when they don't have the funds for it. they shouldn't have tried to force their loyal audience to pay for content the audience didn't ask for.

"i don't want to fund steven, andrew, and adam flying around the world eating expensive food." - very valid. i wonder how different things would have been if this 'Worth It' revival had come around 6 months earlier. it still would have been tone deaf in a global living crisis, but i don't think people would have been this upset. what i don't understand is them doing this show if they genuinely couldn't afford it, which is the implication i got from them announcing it just before announcing the paywall.

"why don't they move their office out of LA?" - that would be incredibly expensive, especially for a company that is struggling financially. they would have to uproot their entire lives, and would probably lose a great number of their staff who don't want to/can't move. they would have to completely start over, which is something i imagine they're desperately trying to avoid.

i think the cancel culture that has grown in popularity over the internet over the last few years has led people to believe that:

they can say whatever they want online with no consequences.

people aren't allowed to make a single mistake, and should understand that when they do, it's okay to for others to spew hate and awfulness towards them.

part of me doesn't even know why i made this post, i think i just got sick of seeing the same complaints and questions lmao.

#watcher #steven lim #ryan bergara #shane madej #watcher entertainment

[anonymous-dentist]

It's been a couple of days since the last QSMP lore stream and merch drop, and there have been two DRASTICALLY different responses from the fandom:

What the fuck oh my god why did they do this what the fuck >:( I'm very angry >:( I'm on twitter btw

Yayyy omg the Lore is back!!! :D :D :D Fuck twitter btw

I've seen SO MANY passive-aggressive posts coming from users on this website that are all saying something along the lines of, "I'm happy that the server is getting back on its feet! The eggs aren't in a coma btw, they're just out of service (looks at angry twitter users who can't get over the fact that things aren't being solved immediately)."

And, really, I think almost everybody on this website has missed the reasons why other fans are upset over the recent lore stream and the merch drop. They think it's all just whining about how things haven't been solved immediately, but it's really actually all about how things don't seem to have been solved at all.

See, the thing with the Egg Lore Stream was that, uh. None of the admins currently on hold know whether or not they have a job, including known egg admin Ryan. You might know them as Sunny's Actor, and they were pretty taken aback when Egg Lore was revealed to be happening last Saturday... without Ryan, or seemingly any other known admins whatsoever, knowing. And Ryan isn't a former employee, they're a current employee. They haven't been let go.

Ryan, and other current employees, have all been stating that communication between the QSMP higher-ups and the other admins hasn't gotten better at all. Nobody knows if they even still have jobs because the only way they find that out? Through livestreams.

Ryan, and any other suspended egg admins sticking around, only found out that they aren't, like, fired because of a goddamn lore stream.

And for former admins? It's interesting how the admin team put Pomme and Dapper in the little coma machine despite Pomme's actor, Lumi, and the French all saying that they'd rather Pomme die than get replaced, and Lumi isn't going back to the server. And Dapper's admin, Shade, isn't going back without Lumi.

So imagine being them and finding out through this stream that, oh, wow, you're just going to be replaced. An entire language group is quite possibly going to be lost, but it's fine! Actors can just be replaced, right?

Just like how Twitter admins can be replaced by a bot after being fired in the middle of the night with no warning.

Oh, and shall we mention how it seems that the whole Money Thing isn't going anywhere? How we had a paid writer admin come out and say that even after the changes were starting to be made internally that the higher-ups changed the writer's description of the Pomme figure to be as soulless as possible, because if there's one thing the QSMP admin team seems to have, it's a grudge against the French. But then, remember? The writer said that, despite being paid for February and being promised to get paid for March, that they haven't been paid? And they don't think they ever will be?

And how they thought they would be fired for speaking to their friends, aka former admins?

I think that quite legitimately every admin that has come out after leaving the company, or who is still part of the company but who still made a statement anyway, has said that they hope that the QSMP can continue because they believe in the project, but they don't know if it will because nothing seems to be changing behind the scenes.

But, yeah, sure, okay, say it's all just people whining about how change hasn't been immediate. It's people just complaining about the lore! They need to grow up, right? They need to touch grass? Right?

But, well. Being critical is absolutely vital. Does that mean people should harass the admins? Absolutely not. But that does mean that people should be like, "Hey, so why is the admin team still being so shady?"

Things can't be fixed immediately, but it's been over a month. The problems with communication are still continuing! They haven't stopped! It's just that nobody on this website is listening to the admins anymore.

Trusting ccs is fine and all, but keep in mind that they didn't know what was going on before, either. With the general lack of transparency still going on behind the scenes, how would they know if it's all been fixed now?

#i'm losing my MIND with all the people in the tag #attacking people who are concerned about the project #like. there's stuff to be concerned about! #why did you all stop caring the second it turned april

[writingquestionsanswered]

I don't understand why other people's fanfictions are so good, but mine are so bad. I think I'm making a mistake somewhere but I don't know where.

The fiction written by others are very good, but when I read my own writing, I feel like they are terrible.

Can I fix this feeling? (sorry for the bad english. )

Fan-Fiction: Feeling Inferior

It's very, very difficult to judge our own writing accurately. We can be our own worst critics or our own biggest fans. The reality is, we're often unable to see our own strengths and weaknesses. That said, just because you feel like your writing is terrible doesn't mean it is.

This is why it's so important to get other eyes on our fiction. That can be alpha readers, such as friends or family members who enjoy the source material, or you can sometimes find people online who are willing to beta and give you feedback. Either way, you need other people to be able to tell you where your story shines and where it needs more polish. That's the only way you can learn what you need to improve and what you already do well.

Outside of that, the best you can do is keep writing, keep learning about the craft of writing, and see if you can figure out what it is that the other stories are doing that you're not, then learn how to do those things. You will get more confident in your writing as time goes on! ♥

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I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking ♦ Learn more about WQA here

#wqaadvice

[destinysbounty]

Yo what if you went off about s3, it'd be cool

The love triangle, the quick tech development, whatever you want, I wanna know what you think

(I saw you in the tags of that post, please gimme the analysies. pretty please)

The entirety of my thoughts on Ninjago's technology are long and vast and complicated, and I could probably make a full video essay on just that topic alone. But for the sake of simplicity, and also because I'm too lazy to write a 10k-word essay with screenshot evidence on why Ninjago tech isn't actually anachronistic, I'm going to just focus on the season 3 issue for now.

Now, one criticism that often gets lobbed at Rebooted is the matter of the technology. How did Ninjago suddenly become a hyper-futuristic technoscape in the span of what couldn't be more than a year? At first glance, I can understand how that might feel unrealistic. I used to feel the same way! But it actually makes total sense when you realize that this technology probably already existed, if only in a beta form, for years before s3 started.

But wait! If the technology already existed in some form, then why wasn't it used? Why did Ninjago only become a cyberpunk dystopia during s3??

The answer to that question is something that sounds like a no-brainer, but should probably be said anyway: just because a technology exists, doesn't mean it is democratized. That is to say, just because a society has made certain technological advancements, doesn't mean everyone in that society can actually access those advancements. Look at any country in our contemporary world - richer and more industrialized communities typically have better access to cutting edge developments, whereas more rural communities may not even have reliable internet access. Even Ignacia, which is one of the most rural communities we've seen in the entire show, was depicted as having landlines and telephone poles in the very first scene.

Moreover, it's reasonable to assume that robotics and digital technology has existed - and fairly advanced - for decades in-universe.

My evidence? The creation of characters such as Zane and Unagami. Both were invented roughly 40 and 20 years pre-canon respectively. Coding, and especially programming an AI like both characters are classified as, requires the existence of a computer. Which means that computers existed as early as the Serpentine War. (Unless Zane is the product of magi-tech, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Especially since Zane's original body also has other functions that, to my knowledge, wouldn't be possible without programming. For now, I'm proceeding under the assumption that Zane was created purely with technology.)

For these reasons I would argue that certain technologies, and in particular digital technology, have existed in-universe for a lot longer than we might think at first glance - but due to what appears to be some very extreme wealth disparity, technology has only recently become more widely accessible within the last few decades.

Think about it. Most human settlements we see are fairly small and rural, except for Ninjago City. Ninjago City is the only city we've seen on-screen in the entire series (with a few small towns here and there, but it's mostly just villages). And even then, the cost of living in Ninjago City itself is astronomically high. There's clearly something funky going on with this country's distribution of wealth.

With that in mind, it makes total sense that the tech we see in s3 was at least in development a lot earlier than anyone might realize. It's just that it was too expensive and exclusive for anyone in the general public to actually use it.

Now, let's look at this in the context of Rebooted.

Imagine you're a multi-millionaire tech mogul and the CEO of a very powerful tech company. The city is in shambles in the wake of an apocalyptic battle against Lego Satan. You take this opportunity to spearhead the reconstruction efforts. On top of being an impressive PR stunt, this is also great for business as it presents you with the perfect opportunity to populate the city wholesale with your own products: flying cars, holographic floating streets, AI vending machines, elaborate VR and AR setups, mechanical spider wheelchairs, the whole nine yards. The government probably even writes you a big check to make this process more accessible to your consumers - I mean, to the citizens of your the shiny new corporatocracy you may or may not have stumbled into creating. Whether or not you employed lobbyism to get this check is neither here nor there. After all, this is for the greater good! And to finally seal the deal that this city has become a Borg Industries outpost, you rebrand Ninjago City to New Ninjago City. This isn't just a city anymore, it's a corporate asset. It's an ad campaign. It's a way of life.

This also explains why all the tech mysteriously vanishes after s3 ends: supply and demand. A robot apocalypse is, among other things, bad for PR. I don't wanna think about the existence of a Lego Stock Market because that will hurt my brain, but a robot apocalypse is definitely what I would classify as a "black swan event" (an unpredictable crisis that severely disrupts the stock market). The company starts faltering financially because of all the public backlash, people stop buying and investing in their tech, their stocks start to crash, and Borg Industries has to roll back on their infrastructural monopoly. And so the technological status quo is (mostly) restored.

The theme of s3 isn't "technology bad" - at least, it shouldn't be. If you're as brainrotted as I am then the theme of s3 instead becomes, "maybe you shouldn't let one sole company have a total monopoly on your society's infrastructure because they might accidentally start a cyberpunk dystopia". And that is a...disturbingly apt moral for our current day and age (cough cough Amazon).

...can you tell I've been listening to The Fine Print by Stupendium on loop for too long?

#sorry this took so long to respond to! #i have a lot of thoughts about ninjagian technology but most of them are haphazard and unorganized #so it took me a while to properly sort my thoughts in a way that was comprehensible to anyone other than myself #ninjago #ns3 #ninjago rebooted #ask #destiny post

[uncanny-tranny]

Good news! You aren't required to make your hobbies and passions "marketable." In fact, your crafts, hobbies, and passions don't even need to be public if you so choose. You don't have to spend all of your energy becoming perfect if you aren't enjoying the process. You are not a product, you are a person, a creative, and your work also does not need to be a product.

#positivity #yet another post that's like... thinnly-veiled as being for myself #i find myself freezing with anxiety when i think about the things i used to do (writing especially) because... #...i had felt this force to make it ~content~ and ~marketable to an audience~ and it was so fucking daunting... #...it felt like being a gladiator in a coliseum #even now i fight the urge to equate being marketable to being acceptable and worthy of admiration and praise #i wish i hadn't burnt myself out of writing by doing this because i'm simultaneously grieving my writing and hating it #and it sucks the life out of what makes you feel like a person and it takes the art out of art #so be free! pist your art or don't! you are beholden to nobody!!! #(obviously this is not the case for professional artists who rely on their art to keep them alive) #(and i criticize heavily the idea that audiences are entitled to an artists labour) #(i understand that this isn't universal and if it doesn't apply to you then you don't have to take me seriously) #(if you are a professional artist or what have you i hope you are able to feed and house yourself off of that career!) #(i hope you are able to live a happy life and be able to keep loving what you're doing)

[lunityviruz]

If you wanna see a loser bitch get mad as hell tell a fanfic writer to PROPERLY tag their fic as rape. Not just write "noncon" in the post but go into the notes and actually tag it as "tw rape" because they get mad asf when you call them out on it. How the fuck am I supposed to find good smut fics when each and everyone of yall are sexualizing and romanticizing rape and using the excuse that it's "dark content" no nigga you're fucking weird. You're a weirdo with a rape fetish and you're projecting it through a fictional character who has nothing to do with that and you refuse to tag it because you want notes and interactions with more people who say shit like "Omg X character nonconning his darling is sooo hot 🥺💗🎀🌸".

Don't get mad at me for calling you out on it because if you didn't write it in the first place, and if you actually tagged it I wouldn't have to see it at all.

#rants n rambles #it's so fucking pathetic #this shit has been going on for YEARS #like since 2020 I literally saw the rise in it #I've heard so many excuses for it #“it's just fiction” PLEASE DEVELOP A FUCKING BRAIN PLEASE REALIZE THAT FICTION CAN AFFECT REALITY and that when you constantly put it in a #good light you'll end up becoming numb to IRL and thinking its okay #“it's my coping mechanism” based on your a/n its not and second just cuz you're “coping #doesn't mean we have to be exposed to it. buy a journal hoe or keep that shit in the notes app. #“dont like it don't read it 🤬🤬🤬🤬” dont like criticism? gouge your eyes out. or dont post it. OR TAG IT PROPERLY. #this exact reason is why I dont read smut of a certain mha character #because yall are potential rapists projecting onto him #yes fiction doesnt affect reality but there is a difference between fictional murder and fictional rape #neigh #i shall not tag him #mha smut #cod smut #<- seen it here a few times #shigaraki tomura #<- tagged it #shigaraki smut #<- #tagged it again 😔

[front-facing-pokemon]

#dustox #hi! if you're coming from the cascoon post's tags‚ you already know what's up. i just woke up and i need to take my meds but i have yet to #and i have to go to work in an hour and a half. yippeeee! anyway. i think there was a shadow dustox in pkmn colosseum? #either that or i remember it super vividly bc one of the guys in pyrite town had one. which i think might (also?) be the case #i remember pretty much every pokémon those guys in pyrite town had. bc as a kid i always went back to battle them #i would always go back to check to see if they were done fighting me. and when they wanted to fight me again i would always be surprised #every time. as a kid. i thought eventually they'd stop or something i didn't even know that i was effectively just grinding #but also i was really bad at catching shadow pokémon bc i didn't know anything about type matchups. i thought the whole #not very effective and supereffective things were just totally random. so i always thought it was so funny when it said #it's not very effective… a critical hit!! because i thought that made no sense. because i didn't know what the fuck it meant #luckily‚ now i do. my brain is very filled with pokémon knowledge……… #i'm gonna get off my tag-soapbox and take some meds. y'all remember to take yours‚ too‚ now

[genericpuff]

you ripped off your entire "theory" about LO being made for kids from Pyrrhic Victoria's latest video lol. Word for word, that's pretty hypocritical but then I guess that's to be expected from the person who still financially supports Webtoon and LO even though you've based your entire image off how much you supposedly hate LO

if I "ripped off" P&V then this is news to me because I've only watched each one of their videos once (they're long and they cover a SHITLOAD of topics, bruh) and it's been ages, BUT-

This honestly makes for a great segue to talk about opinion sharing in the fandom in general because ima be honest with you, there's like... only so much you can talk about in the LO crit community. Like as much as we make fun of the stans for all sharing one echo chamber of opinions, the ULO community isn't that much different in the sense of like, having the same takes and opinions about the topic we've chosen to unite on and being hyper passionate about it to the point of having the same conversations at least ONCE per week. Like it's just a webcomic about pink and blue people, a lot of takes are pretty much the exact same and that's not a BAD thing but ... both P&V and I have been in the ULO stratosphere for AGES now so ?? There's only SO MUCH to cover about LO before it all starts blurring together lmao I can't "own" an opinion, and they undoubtedly know that they can't "own" any one specific opinion either, especially within a fandom like this. C'mon now.

"LO is made for babies" or "LO is marketed to children" is also one of the way more common takes, that's like saying I'm ripping off panel redraw accounts for doing my own panel redraws. LO's been compared to other things that are commonly marketed to children like MCU films, Disney movies/shows, etc. time and time again because that's been SUPER common knowledge for YEARS now prior to any of us joining the community, regardless of "who joined first", it's literally WT's entire business model and it's pretty plainly obvious. The specific comparison I made was just one that came to me during a ramble on stream the other night and I wanted to put it to paper because that's what I do here. If that specific comparison has been made in the past already in a 3 hour video that I completely forgot/didn't realize, then great! I'm not the only one who came to this conclusion! Thanks for the validation!

None of this is with shade at P&V or even you, btw, I think it's honorable you want to stand up for them if you enjoy their stuff and I can't harp on you for that but like... this ain't it? Y'all gotta understand this community is still HELLA small as far as fandom culture goes, we all know everybody, have helped build these parts of the community together from cardboard and glue whether or not we still directly affiliate with each other, and share many of the same takes and schools of thought that stem back YEARS before even WE were in the community ourselves so it's kinda silly to try and point fingers at any one person and say "abc is ripping off xyz!" esp when the "ripping off" is just like, having the same opinion about something? A lot of both our takes also intersect with takes from other antiLO accounts and channels that pre-existed theirs and my own. It's a fandom, after all, no single person can lay claim to any specific opinion we're all coming from many of the same schools of thought with foundations that pre-exist us, it's just different people delivering their own unique spins on takes that have been heard many times before. Some of us do re-imaginings, some of us do panel edits, some of us just crack great jokes about it. We're not all pals with each other, we're not even all from the same platforms or community bubbles, but I think we're all pretty familiar with each other's content and what each one of us is about for the most part.

I know you're likely not gonna take "trust me" as a promise that I'm not ripping anyone off, but like... trust me, I'm not sitting here sifting through P&V's 15+ hour video backlog and going "huehuehue I'm gonna steal this!" because I would gain nothing from doing that and their content is ultimately just part of a bigger genre of topics and opinions that are constantly being re-assessed and re-discussed as the comic goes on, they were just the first ones to make an ongoing Youtube series about it (which is commendable in and of itself with how much content they've made around it, most other Youtubers just review it once in 20-90 minutes and call it a day).

P&V's contributions to these discussions have their own personal unique flair to them but the opinions themselves aren't all brand new revelations. Back when I still watched their videos, their alternate scenarios as to how something could be written were pretty neat because it came with their own unique experiences and viewpoints as webcomic creators which isn't something you'll find on every other account. But "LO is marketed to children and here's why" isn't exactly one of those takes because it's one we've all talked about in the community LONG before those videos even existed. And it's been talked about since before any of us were in the community, period. So... yeah, that's pretty much all I have to say on that lmao it's not that complicated, there's no "conspiracy" going on here, it's a Tumblr post about something that's already been talked about in the past by many others, my guy.

As a closing note, accusing me of being hypocritical on the basis of something you don't even have facts on like "financially supporting Webtoons and LO" is such a silly hill to die on, c'mon pal. You want me to stand here and tell you my side of it as if you're even gonna believe me? Because even if I do say "actually, I no longer even have the Webtoons app on my phone and I can't even remember the last time I paid for coins on the app because all the series I usually FP nowadays are on hiatus and I stopped FP'ing LO back at the start of S3" are you really gonna believe me? Did you even bother to read through the majority of this post? You want receipts or something? What do you want from me? I got nothing to hide, but I'm not gonna sit here and try to explain myself to someone hiding behind an anon filter who's already decided I'm a hack so idk what you want 🤣 Even if I did still FP the series, what then? There are people in this community who do still FP to keep up on content so they can keep talking about it, why is that a crime all of a sudden? Since when did this become some kind of weird "prove you're loyal" indoctrination? Or are you just mad my takes are basic?

#anon walks into an antiLO blog and goes 'you built your entire image around hating LO' #like okay welcome to red lobster ofc we serve lobster what else did you expect #welcome to social media where people show you what they want you to see #i do have a whole life outside of here y'know #y'all just don't know it exists because this is the only place where the majority of you engage with me #no shit it's gonna look like my life revolves around antiLO when that's the only menu you're being served #never mind the 2000 page webcomic series i worked on for a decade #or the day job i have that's not even related to comics at all #imagine really thinking one blog on tumblr is someone's 'whole image' #this place ain't even my whole night #lore olympus critical #anti lore olympus #antiloreolympus #lo critical #ama #ask me anything #anon ask me anything #anon ama #spicy post

[iguessitsjustme]

Listen. Do I know it's a bad idea to go into the MDL comments? Yes. Do I do it anyway? Of course I do. I'm nosy. I want to see what disasters are happening in there.

#also thanks to that i'm able to see what users are lowkey bullying people for daring to not like the show #not even saying anything bad about the show but just offering honest criticism #and i get to block them #and maybe one day if i block enough users #the mdl comments will be safe for me #but also i don't want that because it's the lowest stakes drama ever #i'm not involved i'm just watching #they don't know me they know nothing #i don't post on mdl except once maybe twice and that's only when i'm looking for information #like who is this random side character or does this have a dvd release #but boy oh boy it's like watching the world's most unhinged train wreck #i can't even say it's the gayest train wreck because i do not think the worst offenders are even queer #i mean they might be but most of them have in their bio and have mentioned in their comments things that make me go #mmmmmm you're the problem i have with fandom coolcoolcoolcoolcoolcool #say you're supporting the actors all you want but you're still on the internet bullying the actor's fans #i should really get ready for bed since i didn't sleep last night

[daz4i]

i do think the whole "ganging up on one person for a week then moving on" culture of the internet is egregious enough and it's the worst when it happens to ppl who haven't done anything wrong but "body language experts" on tiktok decided are evil or w/e. but it's also still bad when the person's worst crime is just kind of being a dick. this includes creators and somewhat public figures like youtubers or artists etc like i truly think the best thing to do is ignore them. they either made a mistake and are gonna learn from it, or they're just gonna keep being a dick to get more attention. and it's ESPECIALLY bad when the "kind of being a dick" event took place months or even years ago and you're bringing it up publicly to cancel someone (even more so when they clearly changed since then). like why does everyone on twitter think it's their job to school a whole adult man for posting something mean. to call out a small artist for being kinda rude to her fan once. can't we just all collectively find a new hobby

#watching vids abt urbanspook and I'm like man. i get why you're angry. but just don't watch his shit 😭 #and ignore him on twitter on god. if him being a dick makes you cringe you can very much just go do something else instead #another example i had in mind here is the drama with ww when in case i make it came out #like a whole album about recovery and changing and apologizing for who you were #but then someone brings up him being kind of a dick a few years ago (and using buzzwords like grooming to make it stand out) #like man we are all people. we're all gonna be mean at some point. we can't be perfect and pleasant and nice 100% of the time #we have bad days or topics that put us on the edge or we become childish when smth we put effort into gets criticized #and yeah we should take a step back and stay offline for a bit but it's easy to not think things thoroughly when you're already upset #and this is exactly why we should be more forgiving when someone does that. imo. yknow? #it's one thing for the people around them to call them a dick and it's another when thousands of strangers gang up on them #just. man. move on. make a private post expressing your rage if needed but leave the person alone. they're still only human

[fabcreature]

in my post about the muppet christmas carol and kermit and piggy's hypothetical kids and interspecies muppet reproduction, i am acting quite serious and really dramatic, because it's funny you know. it's the muppets and we're discussing something meaningless on the internet - of course i'm being dramatic for the laughs

but the amount of people in the notes interpreting the conversation as people (me and others commenting) actually being angry or serious.

they're making me go apeshit.

#WHERE IS YOUR HUMOR WHERE IS YOUR WHIMSY #honestly what kind of pedestal do you think you're on :/ #you think you're better than those who know how to have fun with a meaningless debate? #you think you're better than those who care enough about something to analyse it and discuss it in depth? #oh my god these are the same kind of people who think film critics are incapable of enjoying anything aren't they #because apparently the only way to enjoy something is to turn your brain off to enjoy it and never question anything about it???? #i mean that is one way to enjoy media and there's nothing wrong with it #but y'all you have to understand that i and many others enjoy things More when we think about them deeply #when we analyze them and critique them. to see Why the things that are good work #like sorry i'm interested in art and film making so i want to think about the choices the director has made with camera angles and pauses? #anyway i'm being dramatic for the internet and for the laughs. and yes i deeply care about the muppets. i think meaningless debates are fun #stop being so fucking condescending about it #eg posts

[ssaalexblake]

the life of a 13 era dw fan who doesn't like doing negative fandom things, as in, spending my time going on about what i dislike about it and would rather discuss positive or neural things about it, and how this genuinely Genuinely bothers some people lol

#dw shit #i'd bet a few of my followers could absolutely tick what i dislike despite me not mentioning it #bc i Don't mention it #and they've been around a while #but you've all Really got to stop acting like you can get a good grade in fandom #i don't have to discuss what i dislike abt the era or what i find problematic about it at all #i mean sometimes i do mention stuff if i feel like it #it's not a rule #but i'm not gonna spend a quota of time being negative just to appease the people that do not comprehend that you can just talk #about stuff you like and it not be an issue #fandom is not activism #sure there's shit that leaves a sour taste #but i'm not obligated to go into it if i don't want to #and people being demanding and bitchy on my posts acting like you're entitled to my time #is Sure not gonna convince me to do it #the funniest times are when people demand why i think something is acceptable when like. i don't. why do you think i don't talk abt it?? #and if i Don't find something an issue and you do? well sorry but a neg opinion does not inherently trump a positive one #that is not what critical thinking means #critical thinking about something can lead to a positive conclusion #it's also funny that people act like i couldn't possibly find issue with something They think is fine about it #i do. actually. #shockingly enough i leave you all alone to do you #also some of you need to learn how to strike up a conversation with a total stranger bc hoo boy

[writingquestionsanswered]

Non-Magical & Magical Romance

Anonymous asked: How can we write couples from different worlds metaphorically and literally? I know it's up to me, but how can I write that they want to keep meeting? She's a non-witch and quite despises magical people (who have no contact with the normal world.) Why would they be interested in each other? Why would they want to meet again?

[Ask edited for length]

I'm not sure what you're asking when you want to know how to write a couple "metaphorically" and "literally." Maybe symbolism vs portrayal? No idea, but we'll get to that in a moment. :)

When people are writing an "opposites attract" type romance and say "I have no idea why they would keep meeting" I know there's something critical missing from their story: a conflict.

Stories revolve around conflict, which is a problem in your character's heart and mind, or a problem in their world, and sometimes both. When you're writing an "opposites attract" romance, the conflict needs to be something that causes their first interaction, then keeps them interacting afterward.

So:

1 - What can happen to the woman that causes her to go to a place where she would run into the magical guy? For example, maybe she loses something or something happens that forces her to go looking for an item or information.

2 - What is the guy doing that causes him to be in the place, at the right time, to run into the woman, and what does what he's doing have to do with why the woman is there?

3 - How does the guy's situation cause him to want to get involved in the lady's situation? How do their situations intersect in a complimentary way, even if the people themselves are opposites?

4 - What goal must they both try to reach in order to resolve their individual conflicts? What plan can they create that forces them to work together toward this resolution?

As they interact, they'll start to get to know each other and bond, which will start to make their opposing positions less of a problem.

As for portraying them metaphorically and literally... assuming you're referring to symbolism (as I can't think of another option), you can think about the themes that embody their opposing situations (magical vs non-magical), the themes surrounding the unique relationship that develops (unlikely friendship, forbidden love, opposites attract) and start to look for symbols that reflect these themes and tropes. Then work these into your stories where they make sense. For example, maybe the magical guy has a beloved dog and cat who are very close, and that would be symbolic of the "opposites attract" theme/trope.

Happy writing!

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I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

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[snow-and-saltea]

i know that in media you're constrained with things like budget, time slots and stuff, but sometimes i'm just like. my god. the insane shortcuts people take to write "smart / intelligent" characters, especially in plot-heavy stories, always pisses me off. they write them like they're sherlock holmes (bbc version, derogatory) but they fail to realise that even sherlock holmes (arthur conan doyle) was written with a lot of thought, suffered his own subconscious prejudices and had to learn from mistakes.

i guess what i'm trying to get at is—"smart" people don't magically get good at things overnight, the only difference between them and others is how much they're willing to go through to hone their mental acuity. which means when they try something new, they're going to make obvious mistakes, not understand how things work beyond the surface level, and make mistakes in judgements (like when you don't understand something well enough, your analogies and metaphors aren't 100% accurate or concise).

but it feels like there's a assumption hanging over our heads that, as readers, we don't WANT to see the smart one go through the entire nitty gritty of the learning process. we just want to see them do cool things, piece the puzzle together with a flourish, and clap our hands at the end. and in some parts, yes! that is what i want to see! but i am also interested in how they pieced it together. the joy of mysteries is, to me, that everyone is exposed to the same pieces of information, and we're given the chance to try to piece it ourselves. but then the smart character comes along and interprets those pieces of information in a not-obvious way to us, and it's cool!! years of living with a mind that is primed to turn things over in their head, to make sense of things, reveals to us how differently we experience the same reality, and it's wonderful. i'm able to learn from someone who sees life differently than me, and interpret information differently than me!

but right now i'm often left out feeling flat and confused in the mystery-type plots i've seen. the smart person will have been exposed to information we didn't even get the chance to see and interpret, and then they piece things together and everyone in the story claps their hands at the artificial pedestal that's been propped up under that character's feet. explanations of in-setting magic that can be retconned in and out at any point in time, so there's no logical consistency for us to nitpick or understand, so there's no basis to stand on that the story should be taken seriously. plot twists that make no sense as a gotcha. so many things!!

like. this particular example just my beef with g*nshin, so ignore it if you don't agree or smth. but the use of red herrings in the stories piss me off. the red herrings are either too obvious or nonexistent. they always use some random guy acting suspiciously and have the other characters react to it, as if we can't understand it on our own? but like. these red herrings, in the real world, aren't even red herrings. sometimes people just "act suspiciously" just by virtue of being human, not because they're complicit in some bigger overarching plot. sometimes people just stutter because of their anxious disposition, not to hide a guilty conscience. sometimes people are just defensive and irritable because they're a defensive and irritable person, it doesn't mean they're the ""bad guy"" who you need to crack down on and interrogate even further, especially if there's literally nothing that indicates this character is guilty other than their outward appearances.

but like. the smart characters/protagonist almost never get proven wrong. the stutterer was guilty all along and they're just a bad liar. the defensive guy is selfish and obnoxious, they're defensive because they're hiding something, not because it's a natural reaction on having one's sense of privacy and personal space violated.

the game sure loves trying to do nuance with "not everyone is 100% good or bad, we're all Flawed" but they can't put their money where their mouth is. everyone who is not guilty acts in completely transparent and "good" ways. everyone who is guilty acts in completely opaque and "suspicious" / "bad" ways. end of story. how the hell am i supposed to think anyone in this game is smart when they don't even have to use their brain to sift through, critique, weigh and interpret information? what use is there to do so? just use your eyes and ears. the stutterer is nervous for hiding a secret. the anxious is guilty. the angry is scornful.

there's also another rant here about how g*nshin fucking sucks at writing unique and flawed characters, because they like to make everyone the Specialest Guy In The World, but that's for another day.

#yuu rambles #☠️☠️☠️☠️ #they got better at writing plots with f*ntaine i have to admit. but im going to expect better from the company that makes millions #every month from character banners. if you're going to be a gacha game that exploits people who are prone to addictive habits #you better have a good fkn story to back up for being a blight on society's moral problems. we have enough of those already #also when i mean they got better with f*ntaine i literally meant i was impressed by the bare minimum #as in they finally followed coherent story beats and had decent pacing #ive also had enough of the bullshit magic explanations using ley lines and shit. its so stupid that they even make their in game characters #explain how ''no one really understand how it works but it doesnt matter here's what happened as a result'' #what a waste of talent and money paying the VAs for that kinda bullshit infodump #ok i think thats enough tags for the algorithm to hide my #genshin impact #tag bc i dont want this to show up randomly to ppl who are just vibing and enjoying the game #im critical for my own reasons but i dont want to be a party pooper. you know what i mean? #anyways yeah see ya #also censored a lotta stuff so it doesnt show up in the post tags LMAO