At the bus stop one time there was a gaggle of preschoolers waiting to catch the bus for a field trip day, and someone walked past with a couple of friendly little dogs, to great general delight.

But after a little bit, the dogs were getting overwhelmed, and the preschoolers were gently coaxed to back off so the person with the dogs could continue on. Specifically, one of the preschool teachers said, "Sometimes, when you're small, being surrounded by big people can be a bit scary and overwhelming. Even if they are friendly."

This was recieved as great wisdom: after all, the preschoolers were also small, and understood how scary and overwhelming big people could be! And the dogs were indeed even smaller than the preschoolers, so it made sense.

What was funny and charming was that, upon absorbing and reflecting on this wisdom, they all felt the need to tell it to one another. In tones of great insight, they turned to one another and said, "Did you know? Sometimes when you are small, being surrounded by big people can be scary and overwhelming! Even if they are friendly!" Back and forth, without any particular concern that they were all saying the same thing. Have reached comprehension of an insight, it must be shared!

I must say that this behavior is less charming in tumblr users than in preschoolers. Not least because tumblr users, having gained a little analytical skill to misuse, insist on Summarizing and Generalizing and Unifying the insights they repeat, quickly turning any interesting new information into formulaic dogmatic mush.

Anyone saying to viewers or fans confused or dissatisfied by Bo-Katan's character in S3 "to understand Bo in The Mandalorian you need to go watch Rebels!" is, I think, missing the bigger issue.

Maybe Rebels addresses her arc really well and builds on TCW characterization? That's great! But the writers of Mando are not addressing it. They even appear to be currently, actively ignoring and/or retconning large portions of TCW and Rebels.

For "cinematic universes" (*gag*) like this, it's important to either adequately recap relevant existing canon, or clearly restart from square one. That way, even a casual viewer can understand the characters and and their motivations relative to the show they're watching now.

It is not a reasonable expectation to have every viewer need to have seen 4 seasons of an animated show to adequately understand a character who's been dropped into the 2nd season of a completely separate live action one.

Some decent groundwork was laid in season 2. We can't, nor should we, have all information about a character revealed to us immediately, that would just be a sloppy infodump.

Bo-Katan is the leader of a faction of Mandalorians who want to retake Mandalore. Cool. She's got a grudge against Gideon who, as we found out via Din in season 1, is responsible for the Great Purge of Mandalore, a complete bombing that made an already inhospitable landscape completely unlivable. So on and so forth.

However, at the end of season 3—a season where Bo-Katan is heavily featured—we still have received no clear explanation or recap of her backstory outside of her surrender to Gideon. There have been many opportunities for different characters to know and address that she had a leadership role in a literal terrorist group, Death Watch. It's very relevant, but it's never addressed. Even if we're going with it being previously resolved, it's a very significant and relevant part of her backstory and Bo-Katan doesn't even have private moments of reflection that might explain that to us, the audience.

She preaches about the failures of a divided Mandalore, despite having explicitly and repeatedly contributed to that division in very recent history. There's no self-awareness. from her or the writers.

If Favloni & co. want to retcon previous material—it's annoying, but they're technically allowed to do that.

However, they are not clearly committing to previous canon, nor are they doing the work to clearly establish new canon.

Regardless of the why for any of this, the fence-sitting makes for a mediocre product that tries to do both. The end result is a messy and inconsistent characterization and half-baked backstory that feels incomplete and leaves me asking the show I'm currently watching, "wait, did I miss something?"

Some additional gripes/support for my opinion that the creative team isn't committing to a clear plan for her characterization:

Bo specifically states that the planet and city didn't always look like this. But—

Completely omits that she's a key reason why it was wrecked twice over. Seized once by Maul, which I don't fault them for not acknowledging in live action because casual viewers would be confused (though technically the Solo movie did it so like, pick a lane), then later bombed into oblivion by the Empire.

She mentions her father, and that he's dead. Completely omits that she had a sister who's also dead, and who technically also died defending Mandalore (Satine's cultural genocide against her own people, which also oddly resulted in a population of seemingly all-white pacifists, is a rant for another post). There is room for a compelling and clear in-universe explanation for this! Like maybe she's in denial or tortured about it, and that's why it's not brought up. But we the audience still need to know that. However, it looks like they've just written Satine out. Maybe it would too clearly place Bo-Katan as a Bad Guy which is inconvenient for them because they don't want to take the time to address it, despite this season spending a lot of screentime with her.

They're even ignoring her characterization previously established within this same show with her showing explicit disgust for Din's faction in season 2, then somehow being fine with joining them in season 3.

the relationship between labels and someone's personal/social identity is kinda getting completely demented due to capitalism and social media

skz talker ep 63 ilyyyyyyyy

I have complex feelings about From Software games.

Pros:

Cool monster design (faves include Dancer, the deer things from Elden Ring, Curse-Rotted Greatwood, Mergo's Wet Nurse, Executioner's Chariot)

Sometimes the armor looks cool

Reading player-left messages is a lot of fun

It is satisfying to beat a boss

Cons:

Game just. Assumes you know how to play. EXTREMELY hard to pick up as a first time player, especially if you are neurodivergent in ways that affect memory or attention span, or disabilities involving fine motor control of the hands or delayed reaction times.

Playing on controller is damn near mandatory. They do have keyboard controls, but they fucking suck.

You aren't given much direction, just tossed into the world and left on your own to figure it out. I've only played DS3 and ER so far, but at least DS3 has a linear path to follow. ER elects to drop you pretty much directly in the open world and the only direction you are given is a trail of sparkles leading in the direction of where you should go from the resting sites.

People who play souls games, in my experience, get really pissy if you play poorly for whatever reason. For me, it's mostly because I'm stuck on keyboard and trying to remember all the controls is rough, and sometimes to reach some of the more common auxiliary buttons you have to remove your hand from primary control. A controller would definitely help, but that's not something I can manage rn.

The storytelling sometimes feels very tell-don't-show and is often left intentionally vague, which just isn't a style of storytelling I like. I'm cool with some ambiguity and room for speculation, but it sometimes feels like they left it up to me to write the story.

I think the player characters/character creation is ugly as fuck. It did get better with ER, but like. Dark Souls was released two months before Skyrim and look at this

I suppose that's pretty petty for a game that heavily encourages you to wear a helmet most of the time, but I like the process of character creation. It's part of my ritual as a gamer to create a character to my specifications to connect with them. I do something similar with my dnd characters too.

also i'm not sayin ppl AREN'T allowed to criticize hatty time or anything but some people get mega nitpicky for no reason about some stuff and i'm like ??????? sorry i hate to break it to you but that was never the intent for it to be that Deep... like maybe at one point they considered it but that time has gone by and the direction of the story changed....

Listen I don’t typically get itchy and shitty over fictional discussions because they’re. Fictional. But nothing gets on my nerves like “Rose Quartz is the most evil piece of shit in that entire show.” Because it’s really not hard to detect that her redemption arc is in reverse. It’s really not. It takes about 2 seconds of critical thinking.

anyways as a natural blonde person I will never forgive what y'all did to blondeness and having actual natural pale hair

I might still go get drunk after lmao

Actually, fuck it, I'm in the mood for late night talks and rambles. I wanna talk about how Hufflepuff doesn't actually work at all in the Harry Potter universe. Let me explain:

"Those patient Hufflepuffs are true and unafraid of toil".

Hufflepuffs are known for being kind, loyal and patient. They're loving and unafraid to stand up for what's right. Which means they would actually be considered the most evil witches and wizards because they'd defy the most rules and help those who are the most hated. They would harbour those who are rejected, they would push back against the status quo, they would help Slytherins and protest against Azkaban. They would detest how the Wizarding world is run, I fact, I could even see them hating the phrase "The Wizarding World" and seeing it as sexist.

Hufflepuffs would be the biggest rule breakers out of all the houses; they would be seen as villains because they'd be full of people who would not tolerate how the Ministry of Magic is run and rebel against it. All the anarchists would be Hufflepuffs, all the anti establishment punks would be Hufflepuffs. If you wanted sweet, honey, cosy people as your image, you'd have to switch around the moto and make pride and liars the motto.

Because those who are genuinely unafraid of toil do not come in shining armour, but worn and used rags. They are the "Good Samaritans", not the rich pleasent people who smell of sweets and cleanliness. They're the underdog to be certain, and wouldn't appear sweet and appealing, because they're those who are out fighting for what's right and that's not where the rich and pleasent folk are, that's where those who are downtrodden are.

The Hufflepuff Common Room would be a place to help Slytherins who are scared to return home or who are scared of being picked on for being Slytherins. It would be a place where House Elves would go if they wanted to be freed, there's be a whole ass boot and clothes at the ready and a person about to help make it happen one way or another. Hell, they wouldn't have even existed at this point in the narrative if we've actually made a huge collection of "fuck the cruelties of the establishment" people.

Of course, JKR is a bigot of every type compiled into one person, so of course slavery , police brutality and the gap between the rich and poor in the system of the wizarding world would still be seen as okay to "those who love justice" in her mind and even mock those who try make things right or even a bit more bearable (like Hermione, because of course everything the only girl in the main trio does is seen as a giant book-series-long joke of how "a silly girl can't ever be right because girls being smarter than the boys isn't allowed, so she needs to be mocked and showed she's too arrogant for that! Since a girl that knows too much is just too arrogant for knowing anything" because JKR is sexist as fuck in those books).

But being a bit more hopeful here for five seconds and forgetting the writer, if possible, let us just appreciate the fact that Hufflepuff is the biggest plot hole for simply existing. Either the Sorting Hat was lying or the motto isn't true because half the universe wouldn't exist how it is if it were. Could you imagine if you made an automatic assortment of every person who stood up for the downtrodden? Protests would be so much easier if we had one of those. Could you imagine the protests possible if one didn't even have to look for people to organise and find solidarity with? If you didn't even have to find everyone who would support it, but all grew up in the same school house group?? The wizarding and witching world would be full of unions, slavery and police brutality would be a past matter and capitalism would be dead. Also there would be far more push for using magic to help muggles. Like, there's no way they wouldn't have a "let's open the wizarding world" protest every year from Hufflepuffs. They would and you know it. They would literally be the ones sent to prison for refusing to be shitty and since keeping the status quo has been the main method of the shitty keeping said cruelty alive and well.

Of course idk about the origins of the trend necessarily so this is just personal opinion but meal prepping really feels like one of those things that could hugely benefit people w depression/executive function issues but gets dogged on a lot because u typically only see health nut grindset influencer types singing its praises. Similar to bullet journaling. Like I know that if I could cook my weekly meals for 1/3 meals of the day all at once so I don’t have to worry about gathering the motivation to cook in the next few days that would be crazy helpful. Maybe that’s just me though.

finished a book 😊

what the fuck is my package doing

Made the mistake of taking a peek at genshin fandom beyond the tiny tiny little circle I've cultivated on my dash..... never again *shudders*

I saw this really interesting video, which talked about my two biggest gripes with challengers' discourse. Which are that everyone keeps saying Art is the heart of this movie, and secondly, the insistence that Patrick doesn't love Tashi, only Art. The creator pushes back against these two narratives, and I wholeheartedly agree. Patrick is arguably the heart of this movie.

Two of the most important scenes in the movie are the churro scene and the scene between p/t out in the storm, and they both centre around Patrick.

The entire movie is about passion and purpose in life, and Patrick is the passion.

I mean, a lot of people assume Patrick didn't really have feelings for Tashi, but the only person who says that is Art. Who is vying for Tashi and is his biggest competitor. The reason I empathise with Patrick is that he is genuine and loving to Art; he does love him. However, we are shown no evidence to suggest that Patrick is this shitty boyfriend, apart from what Art says when he's trying to get into Tashi's head because his jealous. We find out that they're talking every week while he's on tour (normal relationship shit). It's Art who insinuates that Patrick is cheating while on tour. The only person in this movie who says Patrick doesn't love Tashi is Art, and it's obviously very intentional.

I think the reason both Tashi and Art push Patrick out of their lives is because he forces them to comfort parts of themselves they are not yet comfortable with. I mean, it's obvious why Tashi would react that way to Patrick; she's just lost the most important thing in her life. However, I think it's tragic from Patrick's point of view as well. I mean, what did Patrick really do? He got into a fight with his girlfriend because she hurt his feelings.

And no, he's hurt was not about Art. The fight made him feel unimportant, which made him feel like she didn't actually care about him. And that's where Art comes in, because who was going around telling Patrick Tashi didn't give a shit? You bet ya. Art. Art absolutely got into his head. And even if he clocked it, in that moment, he still allowed it to get to him because he was emotional and upset. And because he was too hurt to support her, he was thrown out of Tashi and Art's lives.

And here's the thing, Patrick never saw Tashi as an idea. He saw her as a real person, unlike Art kinda did. Patrick wasn't going to let Tashi treat him like shit just because she was special. And, tbh, if Tashi hadn't gotten injured, I think it's something she would have eventually been grateful for. But instead, she got hurt; she pushed Patrick away, and Art slid into his place, telling her that she could be his entire world and the star. That's not healthy, and sorry to stay a little manipulative.

And let's talk about Art. Patrick and him were literally fire and ice. They always had this underlying desire. They were perfect opposites. Let's face it: Art could never replicate what he had on the court (and off) with anyone else. But instead of confronting his feelings, he took the first chance he had to get Patrick out of his life.

The girl I was watching said it perfectly, "Art and Tashi allowed themselves to find consolation prizes in each other and allowed them to run from parts of themselves they didn't want to comfort and in turn enable each other's worst habits."

Art tries to become a tennis superstar so Tashi can live through him, and Tashi gives him a family so he can finally be confident in who he is. But is there any passion? I don't know; I think at some point, it drained; nothing about what I saw on screen apart from their initial get-together screams passion.

Cue Patrick walking back into their life and showing them how they can feel. Art was always going to let Tashi live through him, but that was never going to be satisfying for her. Tashi needs to find a way to create an identity for herself, separate from him. And I believe it'll be the only way she'll live a satisfying life. That's why they need Patrick: to make them realise that and to help them rediscover their passion.

I think people think that Art is the heart because Patrick admits to being a piece of shit. But the truth is, they're all dicks; Patrick was just the only one who was willing to admit it.