Bioluminescence series by Rob Rey

(Rob Rey’s Tumblr)

so I'm listening to a podcast talking about character agency and it's helping me realize what made vld steadily lose engagement after season 2, was the characters steadily lost their agency until they did nothing to affect the direction of the plot. The characters stopped informing the plot, and the plot started informing the characters.

Absolutely. Great observation!

But you’re doing something all professionals do - further their learning.

The EPs - and even DreamWorks - acted unprofessionally when creating/executing the plot of VLD. The EPs are amazing artists. There is no doubt that Voltron wasn’t visually compelling.

But there is also no indiction that either EP ever cracked open a book on plot, and even though I know someone did - a writer doesn’t switch character arc endings by accident— a simple reading of the first three “books” of The Screenwriter’s Bible would have helped the EPs avoid many of their plotting mistakes. (Honestly? It’s like they read the book and decided to do the exact opposite.)

But a lack of plotting expertise and knowledge in and of itself is not an issue - as long as the EPs rely heavily upon a competent head of story, which they didn’t.

Most writing books will tell you - storytelling is instinctive. Structure in the usual format - intro, rising action, climax, falling action, conclusion - one can do just by watching/reading, but actual plot takes experience and continued learning (where you learn nuances, like plot twists, the art of dialogue, and character agency). That really separates the true storytellers from the amateurs. (Again, kudos to you for studying your craft!)

Voltron’s story was an absolute mess after Season 2 in every sense of the word, and it was clear how inexperienced the writers were. Whether the loss of May Chan was that great, Tim Hedrick wasn’t as skilled as he appeared or he got tired of fighting the EPs - leading to his ultimate departure from the series, along with some directors - or the EPs were really that incompetent - or maybe it was just the Perfect Storm - DreamWorks needed to act to save the story and their one-time good name.

LOUD SIGH. I mean, let’s go back to a basic principle in writing plot - the narrative question.

According to Jane K. Cleland in Mastering Plot Twists, “Much as a company’s brand represents a promise to a consumer, so too does a narrative question represent a promise to your readers. It sets out the primary conflict that supplies impetus for readers to read on. It provides enough information so that readers can make educated decisions about your story is to their their taste. If your readers’ interest is not captured, so be it. If it is, they’re likely to finish the story because they want to learn the answers implicit to the narrative question.”

At the beginning, Voltron raises the query, “They brought another one.”

That’s actually the series’ question, the one we wait to be answered. Shiro is the “other one.” So who is the first? You can make the assumption that there was someone else in the prison - whom we never meet but who was inferred in Season 5, Episode 1 when Matt was late to the shuttle after searching for his dad.

Ready for the mind-blowing part? The narrative answer to “They brought another one ” is actually Zarkon. He was the first Black Paladin. Shiro is “another one,” the new Black Paladin. But then the narrative breaks apart when Keith becomes a third - and isn’t a Black Paladin. The narrative makes that clear over and over again - going insofar as forming the Blazing Sword with Shiro or Zarkon only.

And if Shiro is actually “the other one,” then we needed see to be that as the narrative promised - wielding the Black Bayard and embracing his role fully as the Black Paladin - which is not what happened. It is what would have happened if the narrative question had been answered. Instead it was abandoned and forgotten by the EPs. And that’s one of the many reasons the lion swap didn’t work - cuz it isn’t true to the narrative question - and that’s also why so many disheartened fans watched to the end. They waited to see Shiro - who was established as the new Black Paladin in the very first sequence of the series - once more fly Black.

(It also would have fulfilled the narrative promise - that Shiro was the other one and no one else in the story.)

Instead, Shiro is killed and returns but not included in plot other than window dressing. In fact, Voltron itself doesn’t do better than the first Paladins - that “dark history.” The original Paladins lost their leader, Zarkon. And the new Paladins? Though Allura didn’t end the story as the “leader,” she was head of the coalition at one point. So the new Paladins didn’t save their leader, either. (Or Shiro, really. Or Kuron.)

So…why did we watch Voltron Legendary Defender - to see history repeat itself? We’re all doomed to fail…? Is that the answer to the narrative question? “There is another one - maybe - but he, too, will die, and so will his commander. And they won’t be able to save each other, either.”

Thus, ultimately, I feel Voltron was not so much a disaster in plotting, though it was. I feel it‘s true failure was in its humanity - or lack thereof. In a story that was to show and celebrate all races, genders, sexualities, and people with disabilities coming together to create the greatest weapon against evil - our trust and love in each other - Voltron Legendary Defender showed evil triumphing over good.

…and I’m running out of ways to express this point or my level of disgust. But I will say this - that ending was an epic reversal. Terrible messaging, terrible delivery and terrible implications - but you don’t get a more epic reversal than the most powerful weapon in the universe on the supposed side of good, being defeated by the forces of evil.

Of course, in a kids’ show where viewers expect the heroes to win - no level of reversal is going to satisfy viewers as they watch the strong-willed heroine walk off to her death, especially the WOC heroine.

At what season did voltron start to go downhill?

ya know i’ve been trying hard not to v-slur on main anymore because it’s 2019 and at some point you just have to Let It Go™, but i’ve finally reached a point where i can actually talk about it without burning up in righteous fury so here goes:

VLD started going downhill in S3, for a very specific reason.

i’ve said it before but it’s always worth repeating: SF/fantasy lives or dies on the strength of its worldbuilding. solid, consistent worldbuilding is key to ensuring the willing suspension of disbelief from your audience. a lot of people make the mistake of thinking that, because it’s SFF, you can just ‘make things up’ - because isn’t it all just made up magic mumbo-jumbo? you can just fudge it, right? but the opposite is true. the more fantastical the story elements, the more precise and consistent you need to be in your worldbuilding details. this is about as close as the genre gets to a golden rule: include whatever you like, no matter how fanciful or creative, but for the love of all things holy make sure it follows a set of logical rules.

consistent lore helps to keep the fantastical elements feeling real and solid, but it also prevents them turning into a deus ex machina. magic is the classic example of this. if you read any writing advice at all about writing in fantasy settings, you’ll see the same guidelines repeated over and over again: your magic system should have rules. without rules, “magic” becomes a cheat code that gets you out of any plot problems. magic without rules and constraints feels too all-powerful, too easy - the audience will get bored of it. the same is true for almost every fantastical SF/fantasy element you include in the story. if there’s no rules - if the magic or the advanced tech can just do whatever you need it to do, whenever your characters are in trouble - then the story looses any sense of tension. there are no stakes, because the over-powered magic-using heroes can just wave their hands and magic their way out of everything.

this is… pretty much what happened to VLD.

voltronmort is a science fantasy space opera about magical robot lions. it’s deep in the intersection of two genres that rely heavily on solid worldbuilding to keep them together. if your story has magical robots you need to make sure those magical robots abide by a set of rules that make logical sense. this is just… SF 101. like. don’t write SF/fantasy if you’re not prepared to really nerd out in the worldbuilding, dude. honestly.

for the first two seasons, VLD kept its worldbuilding pretty rock solid. the show had problems, sure - people will point to weak spots in S1-2 and moments that could have been handled better - but whatever its other flaws, it stuck to its own rules for how the world and the Lions worked. then we got to S3, and all that flew out of the window.

there is a reason why many people didn’t bother catching up on VLD after S3; why many casual viewers dropped it after S2 and never got back into it. it’s not just because of Shiro going missing (he is arguably the show’s most popular character). it’s also because S3 is where the worldbuilding started getting shaky, and there is no faster way to make a SF narrative fall apart at the seams than going “we can just fudge this a bit, can’t we?” no. no you cannot fudge it. you broke a perfectly good space opera is what you did. look at it. it’s got deus ex machina out the wazoo.

S3 is where Lion-Paladin bonds got thrown out the window in favour of “something something training wheels Lion something second in command Lion something” and boy howdy did that massively impact on the general quality of storytelling. i really cannot stress enough how much the Lion Switch utterly destroyed VLD. and no, that’s not me throwing my toys out of the pram over my fave getting screwed over - i did that already, i’m past that. no, this is about basic SF/fantasy writing. it’s about the number one thing you Do Not Do when writing SF. and VLD did it, because the showrunners fell into the trap of thinking “hey, it’s SF! we can just make shit up, right? we can fudge it!”

*stares into the camera like i’m on the office* that is not how Rule of Cool works.

giant magical robot lions that combine into a bigger robot is… a pretty daft idea, actually. yeah i said it. it’s inherently kinda ridiculous. but S1-2 managed to sell the audience on that concept for a number of reasons: firstly, because it was just really earnest about it, and secondly, because there was some solid lore to back it up. S1-2 had an underlying theme of elemental symbolism that tied the Paladins to their Lions. it never got really spelled out in canon, but it was implied throughout. Lance, the Paladin of Water, loved mermaids and missed the rain; his Lion got stronger when they visited a water planet, and it had watery powers like an ice cannon and a sonar cannon. Keith was fiery and unpredictable, and the Red Lion was the same, and it also had a fire cannon. and so on. the Lions had personalities, and those personalities matched with their pilots, and both Lion and Paladin felt tied to their own unique element. the solid, reliable Paladin of Earth; the astronaut Paladin of the Cosmos. all that good jazz. even without being shoved in your face, this undercurrent of elemental coding and matching helped the Lion/Paladin connection feel solid and real. that, in turn, helped the whole story feel deeper. S1-2 were widely regarded as really good, solid, amazing television - proof that you can sell people on the most ridiculous concepts as long as you back it up with consistent worldbuilding that makes sense and follows a solid internal logic.

then S3 dropped, and half the team switched Lions, and suddenly the lore wasn’t consistent anymore. and that was the point where VLD started to fall apart.

the frustrating thing is, voltronmort had really great worldbuilding. but in S3, the showrunners’ desire to switch up the Lions overrode the pre-established show mythology, with disastrous results. the only thing worse than not having consistent lore is taking actual, solid, well-thought-out lore and then putting it through a shredder so you can ‘handwave it’ for plot reasons. the Lion Switch in S3 didn’t make sense, and from there, it was all downhill.

pre-S3, Lion-Paladin bonds were presented as an important part of the show’s mythos and the characters’ individual arcs. they were based on matching temperaments and “the quintessence of the Pilot is mirrored in his Lion” - the idea that Lions and Paladins were fundamentally the same, that at their core they shared the same values and personality that allowed them to bond and work closely together. not only was this a cool SFF concept that promised some interesting storylines to come, it also helped to keep the world feeling real and consistent and believable.

post-S3, Lion-Paladin bonds became a cheap deus ex machina. Keef is the leader because the Black Lion picked him. but… shouldn’t Allura be the leader? she was already the overall commander of the team, after all. but nope, “Black picked Keef!” became the deus ex machina that justified a completely nonsensical reshuffle. i have pointed out numerous times that this shuffle made no sense so i’m not going to rehash that in detail, but the Lion Switch is so out of wack with the rest of the show’s mythology that it doesn’t survive even the most cursory application of Fridge Logic. if you really think about it even a little bit, it crumbles under the weight of logic. it also relies on some fudged, made up new ‘rules’ that never existed before. “oh, the Red Lion is the second in command Lion” uuuhhh… since when?? “Blue is the training wheels Lion!” that doesn’t even make a tiny amount of sense. it’s a trainwreck. it’s complete garbage.

the Lion Switch is what you get when two showrunners who don’t respect the genre force through a reshuffle based on plot reasons and/or their own personal, selfish preferences. the lore has to get junked in order to make it happen, but they don’t care because they think you can just “make it up”. which is what they did. and the result is a mess that never really got back on track. from there, it was all downhill. multiple aspects of the story started unravelling. Allura’s magic became a giant deus ex machina that was wheeled out during season finale fights and then promptly forgotten about. the Lions’ personalities disappeared, presumably because they were inconvenient now. don’t even get me started on S7′s “oh Shiro is just. not a Paladin anymore because. uh. well. LOOK OVER THERE! AN EXPLOSION!”

in many ways, VLD is an object lesson in how NOT to write science fantasy. i could write a whole thesis about all the many many ways VLD fucked up what should be easy staples of the genre (how can you get clones that wrong i’ll never understand). but if you want to find the linchpin - the one thread that was pulled that made everything start to fall apart - it’s the Lion Switch. if you want to know the season where VLD started to get irredeemably bad: S3, and the Lion Switch. that was the start of the inexorable slide into pointless boring garbage.

usually i avoid getting into anti-ship metas (ship and let ship and all that), but since A/L was canon on the show, i figure it’s fair game for analysis. and it’s been long enough that i think i can just speedrun through my thoughts on the whole thing. this is just based on canon A/L, btw - people will do whatever in fanon, that’s none of my business, maybe there’s some great fanon takes out there. but these are my issues with canon A/L, as i see it.

Tl;DR: i hated it and everything it stands for and represents.

longer version: i found canon A/L to be grossly misogynistic in a way that precluded any possibility of enjoyment of it on my part. it started out sexist and continued being sexist from start to finish, with barely any let up. not only did i find it tiresome in the extreme, i also very seriously question why that kind of relationship was allowed to play out in a show for kids. it played into some of the worst Nice Guy tropes, and none of Lonce’s sexist behaviour was ever questioned or condemned within the narrative - if anything, he was rewarded for that bad behaviour by getting what he wanted: Alurra’s affections.

again, i could write a thesis about this, so here’s a brief bullet-point rundown of the major issues that bothered me:

unwanted flirting: from the outset, L constantly flirts with A, even though it’s clear she doesn’t like it and isn’t interested

this flirting often takes place in stressful or dangerous situations. they’re under attack - L is flirting. A is upset and worried that Zarkon is tracking her - L is flirting. they’re heading out on a dangerous mission - L is flirting, and asking for a kiss. this is just examples from the first two seasons. it’s beyond tiresome

unwanted flirting in the workplace is sexual harassment. yes, i know that sounds dramatic, but that is what this is. it’s not funny or cute or endearing - it’s just annoying and creepy. this kind of behaviour should not be presented uncritically in a kids cartoon. little boys watching this will get the impression that this is okay, that this is how you get a girl to like you. little girls will get the message that they have to just put up with this because ‘boys will be boys’. it’s a hard nope from me

flirting with everything that moves: besides flirting with A, L constantly flirts with girls wherever he goes

from a narrative standpoint, this makes L’s interest in A seem shallow and insincere. it feels like she’s just another trophy that L is chasing; just another ‘cute girl’ he wants to score with

yes, i know he got a whole speech later about how he “really likes her” but it’s hard to take that seriously when he spends the rest of the time playing up to his Loverboy Lonce persona

possessive jealousy: this is a big red flag for me and something i really can’t overlook. despite the fact that L flirts constantly with other girls, the minute someone pays any positive attention to A, he’s acting jealous and angry

this jealousy takes the form of possessive entitlement

this happened when A went missing with Keef in Ark of Taujeer; when Mat showed up and complimented her; and when Ltr was around

again: this isn’t funny or cute or romantic. L glaring at Mat for daring to say something nice about A wasn’t a ‘funny moment’, it wasn’t romantic, it wasn’t proof of L’s deeper feelings for A. it was grossly sexist. it was creepy and possessive and a massive red flag

the fact that the show tried to play this off as something funny and cute was - again - deeply worrying to me. this is a show for kids. when you present it as funny, you normalise it as acceptable - even sweet! endearing! and it is none of those things.

A is allowed to not be interested in L. she is allowed to get compliments from other men. but the show didn’t present it that way, and that is not only deeply hypocritical - it’s textbook Nice Guy misogyny

literally L might as well have had a monologue complaining about being left in the friendzone, because that is the exact vibe i got from him

the fundamental hypocrisy of this double standard is rooted in sexism. a male character flirts around? well, boys will be boys! a female character so much as glances at another man? how dare she! doesn’t she know a perfectly Nice Guy has a crush on her?!

L’s ongoing jealous behaviour undercut any nice thing he did for her. it was hard to see any of his attempts at friendship/support/comfort as genuine, selfless attempts to be there for her and offer her the support she needed. instead, it just came across as a Nice Guy trying to wriggle out of the ‘friendzone’ by being performatively nice to the girl he has a crush on

honestly it reminds me of that take down of the friendzone that’s like “women are not vending machines that you put kindness tokens into until sex falls out”

it felt like that was how L treated A - that he was entitled to the reciprocation of his feelings, entitled to her time and affection cos he was a ‘nice guy’, and everything nice he ever did for her was tainted by the shadow of his possessive, entitled behaviour.

for me, personally, it was very hard to see past this dynamic that rumbled along in the background. call me biased - accuse me of shipping goggles - i don’t care. i got heat and hate for shipping A with a man who actually respected her from the start, always valued her opinions, always looked out for her, and never once made her feel uncomfortable. perhaps that biased my view on A/L, to the extent that i care about A as a character and didn’t want to see her shoved with the shitty Nice Guy who pestered her with unwanted flirting until she gave in and dated him.

everything about how A/L played out in canon is objectionable to me. i still can’t think about it without experiencing a wave of disgust. and it’s because canon prioritised L’s feelings over A’s. what she wanted didn’t seem to matter. L had a crush on her for ages, and the show acted like he was entitled to have those feelings reciprocated just cos he’s a guy and she’s a girl and she can’t possibly turn him down. everything about this put L’s feelings up on a pedestal, and treated A’s feelings like they didn’t matter. it didn’t matter that she spent 7 seasons of the show disliking him and finding his flirting annoying, and only responding positively to him when he put his romantic feelings aside and offered her friendship instead. none of that mattered. as soon as he expressed “genuine” feelings for her, the narrative called upon her to drop all her (entirely reasonable) objections and give in and date him.

personally, i don’t see anything romantic in this dynamic - all i see is a female character being forced into a relationship with a male character because he’s had a crush on her since episode one, so OF COURSE he has to “get the girl”. A was treated like a prize that L was entitled to because he had “genuine feelings”. misogynistic behaviour was handwaved away and excused, or presented as normal and just “proof” of L’s “deep feelings”. it followed a tired, sexist narrative: a guy is dickish and annoying towards a female character, and she shows no interest in him, until! he suddenly confesses his feelings! he’s in love with her! at which point all objections on her part melt away and she’s suddenly all “oh of course i will date you if you love me”. but like… does she love him? does she want to be with him?

in A’s case, all signs pointed to ‘no’. there just wasn’t enough, in seasons 1-7, to indicate that A had any meaningful connection with him, or affection for him. was L supportive of her? i guess, sometimes, but (a) the sincerity of that was always undermined by his other shitty behaviour and (b) just because she’s grateful for his occasional moments of support doesn’t mean she is or should be in love with him. did she enjoy his company? occasionally. but she also found him annoying and yelled at him. she clearly disliked his flirting, especially in the first couple of seasons. there’s not enough there for me to think “ah yes, she has reason to like him back”.

stories, in many ways, are required to be more realistic than real life. i heard that LM tried to justify canon A/L on the excuse that “oh sometimes people end up with someone you don’t expect!”. and i guess that’s true, in real life, where people make bad and questionable relationship decisions. but a story needs to hang together; it needs to carry its own weight. A’s sudden reciprocation of L’s feelings came out of nowhere, because there wasn’t enough done to establish any affection on her part in the earlier seasons. and honestly even if they had done more work to establish it, i still would be like “oh no A hunny what is u doing” because. well. *gestures broadly at all the misogyny*. to me, A/L is the epitome of “we accept the love we think we deserve”, and i think it’s just a very sad reflection of where A ended up as a character that the show had her falling into L’s arms and being pathetically grateful that he cared for her even a little bit.

i’m aware i’m probably biased when it comes to this ship. but i’m biased because L’s unwanted flirting in S1-2 seriously turned me off to the possibility of this being a ship i could get behind. i just could never see past that. i couldn’t forgive it, in large part because the narrative acted like there was nothing to forgive.

A deserved better. i’ll always believe that. she deserved better from the show as a whole, but she especially deserved better than being shoved with some Nice Guy character who didn’t respect her, acted like he was entitled to her affections, and continued to pester her with unwanted advances long after she made clear she wasn’t interested. and the fact that all this happened and was presented as cute and romantic just makes it all the more objectionable to me.

Remembers how they were trying to fix killing off shiro by bringing him back and just letting him be the black paladin again and have cool teleporting powers and a lot of screentime and bonding with the team and then they gave that role to a dog while Shiro spends all of season 7 dissociating because they couldnt bare to see Keith not be the leader I guess. Even though Keith could have been a well rounded character without Needing to be the leader

college is starting and rape culture is still extremely prominent and men can be fuckin gross so I’m here to let y’all know Amazon is selling pepper spray for only $8.

over 50% of college sexual assaults happen within the first month of college.

to my fellow freshman girlies out there, go parties in groups, don’t walk alone late at night, and if you sense some shady shit going on don’t hesitate to interfere. trust your gut. people are getting sicker by the minute and nothing seems to be changing anytime soon.

PS: CHECK YOUR LOCAL LAWS REGARDING WEAPON PURCHASING

I cannot say how happy it makes there's other idiots out there who feel bad about killing bokoblins.

I guess it's a testament to how lonely Link makes you feel that we all latch on to any creature that is willing to interact with us

shiro what exactly were you planning to do i mean honestly

This photo means a lot to me. And I’ll tell you why. 

Natalie Portman, as we know, was shut out of Marvel. She chose not to sign any new contract not just because of the way her character was treated (though there is that) but because Thor: The Dark World was slated to be the first Marvel movie directed by a woman, her friend (and eventual Wonder Woman director) Patty Jenkins. Portman hadn’t planned on being in The Dark World, but lept at the chance to be a part of feminist history and to be directed in what would have beenJenkin’s first film since her 2003 Oscar-winning Monster. Portman signed a new contract with Marvel. They fired Jenkins soon after. Portman was crushed because she essentially had been duped into a contract for a film that would keep her away from her young son and force her back into a one-dimensional role under yet another male director. And we all remember how awful that movie was. 

When it came time for the third Thor movie, they tried to get Portman under contract again. And she said no. Marvel decided to spin the story to make it seem like it was all their idea. At first, they went for the lame and nonsensical: 

When Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige was asked about why she wouldn’t be in the third film, and said there were “many reasons, many of which are in the film, so you will see that” continuing with “There are only a couple of scenes on Earth in this movie. The majority, 95 percent of the movie, takes place in the cosmos.” (x)

Seeing as The Dark World also took place in space, this answer didn’t have a lot of credibility. When Portman said she was “done” with the Marvel Universe, Feige got vicious in interviews, telling reporters that Valkyrie was in Ragnorak to be better than Jane Foster and a better match for Thor. 

“We wanted Thor to encounter somebody that was near his equal and that his relationship with Jane may have evolved in unexpected ways in between The Dark World and Ragnarok, and we wanted to pit him against a character who was much more his equal and in many ways his superior.” (x)

Feige implies that A) Valkyrie was in Ragnorak to be a romantic interest for Thor, B) Valkyrie is better and more powerful than Jane Foster, and C) Jane Foster was always Thor’s inferior. 

What’s ridiculous is that Ragnorak had a “sorry Jane dumped you” throwaway line to explain Portman’s absence. And instead of saying that Jane and Thor broke up in interviews, a line that does not spoil literally anything about the film, Feige chose to attack Jane’s strength and capability, which would have been a very special dig at Portman. 

Do you want to know what none of this sounds like? Taika Waititi’s opinion. Waititi is a master storyteller who does not sacrifice his feminist views for laughs. You can bet that Feige’s ridiculous slams on Portman and her character Jane– disguised as “promotion” for WAITITI’S FILM– would have troubled him immensely. This is a man with a Māori father, who had to use his mother’s maiden name– Cohen– for earlier work because an indigenous last name kept him away from opportunity. This man does NOT fuck around with entertainment that gets its power off of sexism and inequality. He knows from experience just how infuriating it is when it comes to directors missing out on opportunities because they aren’t a white man. 

So how does he fix this? How does he fix the idea that Jane Foster can’t go to space, or that she’s not powerful enough for Thor, the god of thunder? 

He makes her Thor. 

Waititi saw Portman / Jane Foster’s name dragged through the mud by Kevin Feige in order to promote his movie, and when he got hired to direct again, he decided to right those wrongs. This picture means everything. He is on his knee, handing her Thor’s hammer, essentially saying, you will never have to go through that shit with me. With me, you’re a god. And the expression on her face, after Marvel attempted to break her, doesn’t need words. 

What a photo. What a film. What a man. 

Wait wait our idea of dirty medieval peasants is based on a *tax aversion scam*??? Please tell me more I need to know this. *bounces excitedly*

shortly after william the conquerer came to power he initiated something known as ‘the doomsday book’- he sent envoys to survey his new lands to record the properties he now controlled so they could pay accurate taxes. every acre of field, every mill, livestock, buildings and their relative size- all would be recorded to determine the wealth of each settlement so a percentage could be expected as rent. for an example of what this book meant;  the previous king was aware of and collected taxes from about 20 grain mills in england, william’s audit shot that number above 200. you dont know the meaning of ‘pedantic’ untill you start reading about medieval grain mills, theres a church that paved its floor with confiscated ‘illegal’ millstones to ensure that the town had to get its flour from the church’s official mill and one war simply about stealing the same millstone back and fourth for quite a few decadesof course word of these envoys traveled faster then they did, virtually every town they came to had time to claim they had far less taxable wealth then they actually did have by the time the audit arrived. in one of the more over the top cases an entire village pretended to have caught insanity- when the taxmen arrived they saw screaming laughing idiots with underwear on their heads so they left as fast as they could considering at the time insanity was thought to be literally contagious. it would be over five years before anyone tried to audit that town again. its safe to assume a large number of other villages also had sudden cases of strange diseases, mysteriously disappearing cows, or very large shrubberies and haybales shaped like buildings and you dont need to look over that hill either. thats not even touching how many small communities just plain didnt technically exist because they were too small, somewhere weird, or in legal limbo of who owned itof course when the feudal part of feudalism started moving its gears you found that the local lord of that village was unlikely to divulge the exact amount of rents they could collect to THEIR lord either, knowing that the more they admitted to receiving the more they were expected to hand over. this was not exclusive to england either, the more you learn about feudalism the more you have to ask how all these minor lords out in the boonies kept having the money and soldiers to do all the political intrigue bullshit, the answer is also tax evasion. each village kept claiming it had fewer people living in shittier houses with less land and fewer livestock then they actually had, and each local lord kept claiming they were receiving less rents then they actually took so were also adverse to an accurate audit.their knowledge of tax loopholes also extended to finding out that clergymen were either exempt from tax or received a far lower rate of tax, so proving you qualified as a clergyman was an endeavor that paid dividends. specifically to prove you were clergy you proved that you could read and write enough Latin to satisfy an official, so you could spend some money to hire someone to tutor you enough Latin to fake it. its estimated that due to this fully ten percent of medieval english households wrote ‘clergy’ on their tax forms.another and even more extreme example was the peasants revolt of 1381, london was swarmed by the unwashed masses from all sides instigated by an official trying to collect (a lot of) unpaid poll taxes, an angry mob driving a teenaged king Richard II to retreat to a boat in the river, and culminating with 1500 peasants being executed by an emergency militia. this doesn’t sound like a huge success untill you dig into some of the details- peasants from a large number of villages all arrived at london at the same time, leaving dedicated forces specifically to stop ships from acessing london to break the siege, the peasants executed a select number of court officials and started burning paperwork- but systematically only burning the ones detailing who owned plots of land, debt records, and a few criminal records. the peasants who besieged london and scared the king into the river had successfully purged a whole lot of debts and reclaimed a lot of land in one very ballsy and highly coordinated move that relied on them being seen as illiterate dirt farmers with no ulterior motives besides pitchfork mob riot and trying to kiss the queen mother while they touch everything in the tower of london with their grimy hands

reading letters from 1818 is wild

“it’s that time of the year when I get colds for no apparent reason again” have some Clairitin hon

Also, the EPs sidelined the only two main characters who had clear reasons to fight the galra. I will never understand 1) how they could miss that, and 2) how every other writer in the room wasn’t yelling, “No, you idiots, you cannot simply ignore the plot we’ve spent two entire seasons setting up. It will not work.”

I mean. The only reason I can think of to be that incompetent at storytelling is to basically never have read a book outside of a classroom, ever. It’s baffling.

Italics.

… it’s the exact same pose….

You guys remember how Shiro was woven into nearly every plot going on in voltron?

-Voltron itself: Shiro started it all, his landing on earth was literally prophisesed in those cave drawings with the blue lion.

-Blades of Marmorra: Shiro was the one they trusted and believed in. They betted on him and was the key to victory.

-Zarkons hold on the black lion and therefore voltron: Shiro broke that hold and was the direct rival to Zarkon.

-Haggar: Shiro was literally her personal plaything. She experimented and tortured him. He had more motivation than nearly anyone to bring her down.

- The Holts: Shiro saved Matt’s life and was the reason they all basically survived.

The only thing he wasnt really involved in was the Altean heritage and alchemy part.

They tore him out of these plots and by doing so ripped it apart. And we were left with the lose strands of what used to be a naritive.

Who do you think was the first person Steve Rick Rolled?

Steve discovers Roll Rolling one night while working through the list of music recommendations Sam and Natasha had given him.  At first he thinks it’s a random ad popping up in the middle of the music video. Then he reads the comments. Nearly every one involves swearing and the term ‘Rick Roll’d.’ Google, as always, is unbelievably helpful and Steve laughs out loud to himself upon reading the Wiki page.  

Sam is first.

Steve:  Otis Redding is terrific - thanks for the recommendation. Found one you might like. Let me know what you think.

He pastes the link into the text before hitting send. He smirks and waits.

Sam:  Steve Rogers, you Rick Rollin’ sonofabitch! Dammit, man. Who knew Captain America was such a troll?

Steve’s sharp bark of laughter echoes off the walls.  

Steve: On your left

Sam:  You’re an asshole

Sam:  Fifty bucks says you can’t get everyone else

Steve:  I won’t feel bad taking your money, you know?

Sam:  That’s why you’re an asshole.

IDEK you guise.

In science fiction, AIs tend to malfunction due to some technicality of logic, such as that business with the laws of robotics and an AI reaching a dramatic, ironic conclusion.

Content regulation algorithms tell me that sci-fi authors are overly generous in these depictions.

“Why did cop bot arrest that nice elderly woman?”

“It insists she’s the mafia.”

“It thinks she’s in the mafia?”

“No. It thinks she’s an entire crime family. It filled out paperwork for multiple separate arrests after bringing her in.”

M*A*S*H was ahead of its time.

Artists Covertly Scan Bust of Nefertiti and Release the Data for Free Online

An Iraqi/German pair of artists just pulled off what might be one of the most digitally-enhanced art heists in recent time. They covertly scanned the Nefertiti bust (with an Xbox 360 Kinect sensor, no less) and released the 3D printing plans online. They did so as an act of defiance, as the bust was actually looted from an Egyptian site by German archaeologists.[x]

[article by Claire Voone /Hyperallergic]

Last October, two artists entered the Neues Museum in Berlin, where they clandestinely scanned the bust of Queen Nefertiti, the state museum’s prized gem. Three months later, they released the collected 3D dataset online as a torrent, providing completely free access under public domain to the one object in the museum’s collection off-limits to photographers. Anyone may download and remix the information now; the artists themselves used it to create a 3D-printed, one-to-one polymer resin model they claim is the most precise replica of the bust ever made, with just micrometer variations. That bust now resides permanently in the American University of Cairo as a stand-in for the original, 3,300-year-old work that was removed from its country of origin shortly after its discovery in 1912 by German archaeologists in Amarna.

Nora Al-Badri and Jan Nikolai Nelles with the 3D bust in Cairo

The project, called “The Other Nefertiti,” is the work of German-Iraqi artist Nora Al-Badri and German artist Jan Nikolai Nelles, who consider their actions an artistic intervention to make cultural objects publicly available to all. For years, Germany and Egypt have hotly disputed the rightful location of the stucco-coated, limestone Queen, with Egyptian officials claiming that she left the country illegally and demanding the Neues Museum return her. With this controversy of ownership in mind, Al-Badri and Nelles also want, more broadly, for museums to reassess their collections with a critical eye and consider how they present the narratives of objects from other cultures they own as a result of colonial histories.

The Neues Museum, which the artists believe knows about their project but has chosen not to respond, is particularly guarded towards accessibility to data concerning its collections. According to the pair, although the museum has scanned Nefertiti’s bust, it will not make the information public — a choice that increasingly seems backwards as more and more museums around the world are encouraging the public to access their collections, often through digitization projects. Notably, the British Museum has hosted a “scanathon” where visitors scanned objects on display with their smartphones to crowdsource the creation of a digital archive — an event that contrasts starkly with Al-Badri and Nelles’s covert deed.

3D rendering of the bust of Nefertiti

“We appeal to [the Neues Museum] and those in charge behind it to rethink their attitude,” Al-Badri told Hyperallergic. “It is very simple to achieve a great outreach by opening their archives to the public domain, where cultural heritage is really accessible for everybody and can’t be possessed.”

In a gesture of clear defiance to institutional order, Al-Badri and Nelles leaked the information at Europe’s largest hacker conference, the annual Chaos Communication Congress. Within 24 hours, at least 1,000 people had already downloaded the torrent from the original seed, and many of them became seeders as well. Since then, the pair has also received requests from Egyptian universities asking to use the information for academic purposes and even businesses wondering if they may use it to create souvenirs. Nefertiti’s bust is one of the most copied works from Ancient Egypt — aside from those with illicit intents, others have used photogrammetry to reconstruct it — and its allure and high-profile presence make it a particularly charged work to engage with in discussions of ownership and institutional representations of artifacts.

“The head of Nefertiti represents all the other millions of stolen and looted artifacts all over the world currently happening, for example, in Syria, Iraq, and in Egypt,” Al-Badri said. “Archaeological artifacts as a cultural memory originate for the most part from the Global South; however, a vast number of important objects can be found in Western museums and private collections. We should face the fact that the colonial structures continue to exist today and still produce their inherent symbolic struggles.”

Al-Badri and Nelles take issue, for instance, with the Neues Museum’s method of displaying the bust, which apparently does not provide viewers with any context of how it arrived at the museum — thus transforming it and creating a new history tantamount to fiction, they believe. Over the years, the bust has become a symbol of German identity, a status cemented by the fact that the museum is state-run, and many Egyptians have long condemned this shaping of identity with an object from their cultural heritage.

The heist: museumshack from jnn on Vimeo

Ultimately, the artists hope their actions will place pressure on not only the Neues Museum but on all museums to repatriate objects to the communities and nations from which they came.

Rather than viewing such an idea as radical, they see it as pragmatic, as a logical update to cultural institutions in the digital era: especially given the technological possibilities of today, the pair believes museums who repatriate artifacts could then show copies or digital representatives of them. Many people have already created their own Nefertitis from the released data; the 3D statue in the American University in Cairo stands as such an example of Al-Badri and Nelles’s ideals for the future of museums, in addition to being one immediate solution that may arise from individual action.

“Luckily there are ways where we don’t even need any topdown effort from institutions or museums,” Al-Badri said, “but where the people can reclaim the museums as their public space through alternative virtual realities, fiction, or captivating the objects like we did.”

3D-printed bust of Nefertiti

[source: Hyperallergic, emphasis mine]