After seeing the whole PV for Dir En Grey's 「The Devil In Me」 I'm not sure what to make of their use of AI in the video. I think the kneejerk is to say "It's AI, so it's shit", but the framing of an unknown person interacting with an AI chatbot to consume John Wayne Gacy content, becoming obsessed, wanting the AI to impersonate Gacy, then asking the computer to generate the inner mind of Gacy is an interesting idea. The AI is not showing us what's in a serial killer's mind, it's showing us what it thinks represents a serial killer's mind based off provided input ("abused by father"? HERE IS A BIG INTRUSIVE MAN'S HEAD). And then text blips like this:

"The deceased" is vague enough that it could be refer to deceased serial killers like Gacy; we cannot know their inner world (not even when he was alive-- that guy was full of shit). It could also refer to how true crime tends to place focus on the murderer while victims are reduced to names and their final outward moments. Entire lives reduced to characters in a serial killer's story. I'm relieved to see the entire PV isn't AI, but its use here seems to go beyond just flashy aesthetic and have some kind of narrative purpose. I'm so curious to know the band's thoughts behind the video, but I know we're not going to get that. I suppose I can demand an AI to impersonate Dir En Grey and give me fake answers, too.

OKAY NOT DONE TALKING ABOUT THE LITTLE GARDEN ARC

ESPECIALLY THE NARRATIVE PARALLELS BETWEEN ZORO AND SANJI AND DORRY AND BROGGY??? THE FACT THAT THOSE PARALLELS PARTICULARLY IMPLY THAT THEY HAVE A SPECIAL BOND THAT WILL LAST LITERALLY FOREVER???

THE VISUAL WHERE THE AUDIENCE REALIZES THAT THE MOUNTAIN RANGES WERE SKULLS?? PAIRED WITH THEM LYING IN THE SAME POSITION AS ZORO AND SANJI'S TWO DINOSAURS LEFT BEHIND ON THE BEACH?

average tumblr user notices single instance of symbolism, more at 11.

but usopp getting more moments of bravery!!! WE STAN HIS ARC!!!!! I LOVE HIM!!!

zoro getting to laugh and tease people this arc was beautiful, i love that stupid cunty bitch

sanji getting his part of the arc done through cunty trespassing, lying through his teeth, and beating up animals? FANTASTIC THANK YOU FOR MY LIFE (specifically thank you for that twisting move he did with his heels around the vultures head. how does it feel to live MY. D R E A M)

LUFFY WAS SO SHAPED. I WOULD KILL FOR HIM. HE'S SO FERAL.

and calling it now, nami is absolutely going to get malaria girl is the QUEEN of "it's nothing [2 episodes later it is in fact a resonant Something with excruciating plot relevance and emotional stakes attached to it"

almost simped for crocodile but miss all sunday was Right There MA'AM. MA'AM. RESPECTFULLY AND ASEXUALLY, TILL THE BED FUCKING BREAKS--

also he has a giant gold pet which i don't fuck with. also his rings remind me of redd white from ace attorney who is Unfuckable as he is a murderer of a mentor figure (other forms of murder have not detered me from simping in the past. in fact it is typically a point in a character's favor)

also oh my god tumblr makes so much more sense now that i am attempting to use it while high, my fluency rate and understanding of how every person on this platform is distressingly and hilariously comfortable assuming their experience is universal

okay but the still of the giant's weapon shards thrown over their head in victory? makes me insane, will never be over it cannot fucking handle it will be crying forever and ever

Never have I been more grateful that time travel exists in the X-Men universe.

Got asked for my professional opinion today on a complex legal issue by a much senior coworker 😭🥺 on the basis of my response, i got asked to join in on a meeting with some higher ups to explain what I had explained to said coworker 😭🥺 I am going to get a good grade in Career and Being Smart, something that is both normal to want and possible to achieve

*uncontrollable guttural screaming intensifies*

One of these days I'm going to write that tma+a81 crossover au where Somewhere Else is The City and then it's all going to be over for you fools

I wish I wasn’t so obsessed with this GI Joe-ass looking man, but here we are

oh it's horrible; i love it

I have a shift at my side job in the morning and I can't believe I'm going to have to pretend to be a normal human when all I want to talk about is having spent a day booping people on the interwebs

r e s p e c t f u l l y

today's sleep-deprived thought (family time is over, I'm still in the initial crashing-and-recovering stage, there's some messy sleep schedule happening here in the interim) is that I do wish I were a man.

and that's not the end of the conversation, not for everyone. "if you wish you're a man, then you are one" is useful trans 101 but I've seen too many nonbinary folks who just... have that wishing as part of their experience. and I think there can be a hunger for the kind of affirmation that (I think) some trans men get, when they "pass", when they're in safe environments. I wouldn't dare pretend it's easier. but.

maybe I'm just not far enough along yet to know which way I want to go. I've spent so long at the starting block squinting ahead and trying to plan my route, and I don't think I know myself well enough for that to have been enough.

maybe some of it's just that throwing the roadmap aside means you need to find your own ways to affirm yourself, your own things to celebrate. maybe it's just that I'm still caught in not understanding what nonbinary gender is - I'm someone who generally wants to understand the shape of things, the systems and the reasons, and everything I've seen suggests that gender is a debate that maybe isn't worth having, when there are people who would be hurt by trying to pin it down.

or maybe I am a man, and there's just so much baggage in that, so many (shitty) expectations and so little chance I'll be seen as one without a buttload of hormones in me and, frankly, significant changes in my behaviour too, that I can't approach it head on.

it's a lot. and it's kinda scary. (I share that with myself at sixteen. if they were right all along, that'll be some kind of funny.)

but this sleep-deprived thought is reassuring me that this is a step in the right direction. if this is what I need in order to get there, then... waiting won't help. I have to take the first step and feel out the second.

of course, given the state of the uk and the world (and my life) I may never be able to reach a point that feels like it's enough. or if I reach it, I may not be allowed to stay there. and at least I'll have that in common with a lot of other folks, living and historical.

it would be simpler, maybe, if I knew I were a man right off the bat. but it would be even simpler if I had claws and fangs and could burn down the cities of those who wished me and mine harm, so, y'know, there's a bit of a hierarchy going on here.

(note to self: story where someone is stuck on an endless waiting list and so transforms themself into a dragon instead. I think it would be cathartic to write. I think I'll need it before the end.)

I'm doing a thing soon and it scares the living daylights out of me. I'm doing a thing soon and it's not going to be nearly enough. but it's the right move, or as close to it as I know how to manage right now. it's a step in roughly the right direction. and if I forget that tomorrow, in all my worry, in all my wanting things to be easier, I bloody well hope I can make my way back here quickly.

.

A two-sentence thought/observation I had about Stranger Things’ Vecna is ballooning into a several-page thesis on how to construct a memorable villain, visually/aesthetically, and you are all going to hear about it. Eventually. 

I've gained some followers overnight, so hello to you all. I hope you're aware of the fact that, as per my bio, I am only here to write long, annoying essays on WN and mostly doctor superion fic :)

I'm just. So tired. I can't be the only gentile who thinks that wishing violent death on anyone who thinks the geopolitics of the I/P conflict aren't as black and white as "Israel bad, Palestine good!" or "Palestine bad, Israel good!" is, y'know. Bad?

Like, you get these kids (as well as people who are old enough to know better) who want to prove they're More Leftist than Thou who will shout about how much they hate Nazis and fascism, and then turn around and say that the Israelis should be cleansed from Palestine, often while spouting straight-up word-for-word Nazi propaganda.

It's really been jarring seeing so many people whom I had previously admired and respected for their leftist views and takes not only start falling for and parroting virulently antisemitic propaganda, but outright stating that anyone who thinks Israel has a right to exist at all should be murdered horribly. They're going on and on about all of the Islamophobic attacks happening around the world right now (of which there are a lot, no denying), and yet they're dead fucking silent about all of the antisemitic hate crimes happening at the same time.

Again, it's possible to want a free Palestine and a free Israel at the same time. It's possible to believe that both Palestinian children and Israeli children deserve to grow up without having to worry about bombings and terrorist attacks. It's possible to want peace and freedom for one without wishing terror, genocide or subjugation on the other. It's not a zero-sum game, for fuck's sake.

Also, it still galls me how many white Americans I see rabidly calling out for the blood of the "colonizing Jews" while they themselves live in a country which was founded by European invaders who committed wide-scale genocide against the native populations and whose government has been gleefully committing all manner of war crimes and atrocities across the world ever since. If Israeli civilians deserve to die for their government's crimes, then what do we deserve?

gods nov 5th is the gift that keeps giving