i feel like people aren't getting how dire ai is. we are running out of drinkable water. our brains aren't engaging as much with what we see and hear. people near data centers don't get clean water and experience electricity blackouts. it's being used to make pornography of underaged people and women. it often just lies. it affirms everything. it lies. it has made people kill themselves. it lies for gods sake. and people act as if im dramatic for being staunchly against it. 'now i KNOOW you hate ai and whatever, but look at this cute video' this isn't me being a new age puritan about internet videos, this is about the fucking earth and our future living on this planet. people are suffering now, people will suffer more, and my friends and parents will roll their eyes and think im annoying for despising ai so explicitly. we need to wake up because we cannot live like this
I'm an emotional abuse survivor, and Ragatha's story in Digital Circus hits me like a train and genuinely, I have no idea how no one else is talking about it
I knew FROM THIS MOMENT exactly why Ragatha is the way she is. The way she pulls herself short because you DO NOT TALK about what you go through, you do not tell anyone what your parent does to you or says to you. No one gets it. It's embarrassing. It's too much.
But her torture scene in the new episode just cemented it for me.
It's always at the dinner table. You can't get away at dinner. You have to sit with your abuser, who has probably already hit their limit for the day and is looking for someone to unleash their stress at. And you have to take it, because it gets SO much worse if you get up from the table before you're finished.
All the mannequins make me wonder if Ragatha has a big family. That's an awful lot of people who have already been beaten down and aren't speaking up to defend her.
Ragatha is a rag doll because Caine can see in her mind files that she's been used that way all her life. Thats how she sees herself. She's a soft thing to be thrown about. She can stand up to rough treatment. You can fling as many knives at her as you like and it doesn't matter, because she's made of stuffing, it doesn't hurt. You can just patch her up and keep going.
But if course it hurts. Look at her.
(and obviously her mother didn't *actually stab her in the eye*, come on guys.)
But I have to go back to how Ragatha's mother is shown here, because it speaks volumes to Ragatha's entire character. It's so screamingly obvious to me, probably because I mould my own life exactly how Ragatha does, for better or for worse.
The mother looks like Ragatha. She has the same hair, the same body type.
And the whole time she's abusing Ragatha, she's *smiling.* She's enjoying it. She's exactly the type of vile bully that comes up with her most hurtful thing to say, and smiles in your face while she says it, because it makes her feel good.
THAT is why Ragatha is so accommodating. THAT'S why she doesn't tell Jax to fuck off until she's given "permission" by Pomni at the softball game (who immediately gets freaked out by her big feelings and tells her she's being irrational).
THAT is why she tries to keep the peace and not upset people. THAT is why, almost to the very last, she tries to placate Caine.
Because she thinks that if she hurts someone's feelings, *SHE IS EXACTLY LIKE HER MOTHER.* And in Ragatha's mind, there is nothing worse in the whole world than finding out you're just like your abuser. Cosmically, you might even think that's why they hurt you in the first place. Because you're bad. You deserve it.
So you make nice. You stay quiet. You give compliments. You make sure everyone is happy.
You pick yourself up and keep going, despite constantly being knocked down, dismissed, laughed at. You try your best not to set them off, not set *anyone* off, because if they freak out, you end up being the villain. And there's always that tiny part of your brain that is terrified, deep down, that you are going to hurt people in the same way you were hurt.
Okay apparently this whole fucking time I was incorrect about how James' semblance works and frankly- fuck you I'm actually ignoring it being some passive constantly running bullshit. I don't do this often if ever but FUCK THAT.
Mettle CAN and COULD be INTERESTING - in fact I find it fascinating because HOW. THE. FUCK. DID HE DEVELOP THAT AS A SEMBLANCE - WHAT HAPPENED - AND HOW IT TIES INTO THE TRAGEDY OF HIS CHARACTER - but, it's merit, it's potential lies in it being a conscious choice, in it being a decision to double down on what he's doing and something he has to ACTIVELY decide to do. These actions are nothing but his own and that is important to the autonomy of his character, to the impact of everything he does. Fucking, with the idea of it being a CHOICE, I raise you, him relying on it more and more, doubling down, not turning back, becoming the epitome of Sunk Cost Fallacy by Vol.8 because he's running on fear and panic and if he DOESN'T use it - if he doesn't have it active he is going to break and crumble, he'll buckle under everything set before him, so there's no other option than effectively overusing it to the point of absolute tunnel vision. He can keep going with it, he has the aura to do so, and he just keeps fucking going because if he stops he doesn't know what will fucking happen. So this is the only way.
Cause like I've interpreted Mettle as being an active decision, it's something that can be activated and deactivated, it's not always there, it simply helps and allows him to make the difficult choices - whatever those may be to him - but he still has to choose. But idk the idea of committing to things in such an extreme way adds more weight to everything, all of his choices. Also yeah it's probably near impossible to tell when he's using it, it definitely could come off as just a part of his personality.
Idk it being passive and ALWAYS there feels like SUCH a copout and frankly to me takes away so much from him - he is a character who we know barely anything about, we don't know why he does things the way he does things, we don't know what's going on in his head, he is a blank slate technically that could be interpreted in SO many ways, ways that could easily add more meat to him being a "dead at the beginning" type of guy - hell his death was something written at THE START of RWBY, he's LITERALLY a walking tragedy - but no fucking, in canon he's like this because of something he cannot help, we're just gonna take away any interesting bits about him and his potential past that could have shaped him and instead basically go 'hes like this because of his semblance, which is always there and that's why he's the way he is'.
Anyways fucking, add it to the pile of "take my posts n yappings with a grain of salt cause I am running on my on interpretations since canon gives us NOTHING" fucking something something the canon way Mettle works is a dumbass decision and I'm electing to IGNORE IT.
My lovely guild @thefiercesquad hosted a small Valentine's Day get-together last month, and I was inspired by one of the photos we took, with all six of us posed on one side of a long table like The Last Supper :P
From left to right, the characters belong to: me, @victoria-moonhunter-thaumaturge, @merlinmaycry, @amselthebird (who was also our party host and an exceptional castle decorator!), @runicwizards, and @nightside101.
I wanna add I went through the code (all you can see of it) with my physicist friend since he can read way more code than me, and Kinger did not kill Caine. Bubble did. (Or for technicality’s sake, ‘the other program’ but…c’mon, it’s him)
Kinger tries to turn Caine off, and the command is rejected. He tries to debug Caine, and it is rejected. He tries to modify Caine, and it is rejected. He tries to adjust admin controls. The system then begins to initiate a lockout. He tries to stop the lockout. No dice. He initiates a daemon he created and whoever is answering code goes ‘whoa! When did you make that?! You always were clever Grant’
The system then initiates a ‘security error-reverting to a previous save state. Do you want A, B, or C?’
Kinger picks C because that would be the most recent. The system goes ‘no command received’ even though he did respond, and keeps throwing up similar errors and terrible shutdowns while ignoring his input commands. It suggests rebooting to the auto selected most stable state, and he says yes. It throws up the command ‘delete Caine’ while he’s going to hit Y to the previous question, and before having received input. Kinger immediately tells the code to cancel the previous command, and successfully inputs two attempts to undo that command before he is locked out. Neither generates a response.
Anyway so yes he hit the key but it was a trap. There’s no way he could have avoided it, because he didn’t do it
Also like Caine woulda had it coming. Do what you gotta do when someone is torturing your friends etc this isn’t bc it would be bad of him if he had. It’s bc Kinger is so much love that when he brings up the plan he says he can stop him ‘while we figure out how to fix what’s wrong with him.’
Like, even after all the unimaginable horror Caine has put him through, he doesn’t even consider that he might should kill him. He looks at this thing he created and tries to take care of it. That’s so intrinsic to who he is. It isn’t about right or wrong or justice it’s just about making sure no one feels like they’re nothing, because it’s all you can do in the end
I've read a few recently published books, and there's this recurring pattern where if anyone does anything bad and interesting, they have to later talk about it in a way that makes it clear that it was a misunderstanding/ justified/ not their fault, so they're still a good person. and if they have a disagreement with another character, they have to therapy talk it out, regardless of their background. it doesn't matter if this is a street urchin with three teeth who just stabbed and kidnapped someone, you will get eloquent sterile therapy speak that will smooth out any possible emotional tension. and everyone asks for permission before they kiss, and waits for a clear enthusiastic yes. again, doesn't matter the character's background or situation, they will ask "can I please kiss you," because if they didn't, that could get all yucky and uncertain, couldn't it? and if a character is from a rich family, they will hate being in a rich family, and hate wealth signifiers, and actually be all for class equality. and everyone is casually queer, without thought being put into how that would mesh with the society that is being described. like yes, this is violent class-based system obsessed with inheritance, but no, it's not actually a problem that the child they've coldly groomed to take on the family mantle is unwilling to beget an heir because of gay. the parents might be terrible, cruel and fascistic, but they're not homophobic! I don't know, it just seems like EVERYTHING that could actually be messy gets sanded and sanded until it's smooth as a shark, but the Fun Violence is allowed to stay, because bloodshed doesn't actually bother anyone or have any consequence apart from your rogue character shrugging and going oops, was that me? the rogue is still a good person though. if you think they're not, just wait for the two solid pages of introspection. and yes they started the book by slitting two throats, but that was fine. they will ask permission before hugging you.
whenever i see a post about someone wondering how an asexual and a sexual can be in a healthy relationship there’s always someone being applauded for saying well asexuals can have sex too or just because someone’s asexual doesn’t mean they won’t have sex but i have never, not once, EVER seen someone say well hey, some sexuals don’t have sex. you can have a full relationship without sex. just throwing it out there
Everyone in the notes saying polyamory and open relationships are great fixes for this too are missing the point. Ace people can have sex—and, yes, some enjoy sex. Yes, open relationships can be loving and healthy for ace people too. But ultimately you’re saying asexuality needs to be fixed by access to sex somehow. To quote op ‘you can have a full relationship without sex’. Your suggestion to find sex outside of the relationship with an ace partner completely misses that point.
#it may be surprising to learn this. but allos can choose to be celibate. famously there are entire religious orders where this is a thing #and a catholic nun who stays celibate her whole life can in fact still have a very full and meaningful life with important relationships #it’s not the end of the fucking world #there are people who don’t drive too. there are people who have never seen a mountain. there are people who don’t play video games. #human experience is too wide to be like ohh if you never do This One Thing then you are sufferinggg like chill maybe
Due to my weird childhood and my weird brain, I have this very unhelpful compulsion to conceal Everything I do from Everyone. I Cannot be observed performing any action, no matter how mundane. My nervous system is convinced I'm gonna, like, Get In Trouble for eating food at dinnertime or sleeping in my bed at bedtime.
I've taken to asking myself, "Okay does this task actually require subterfuge or am I stealing a balloon on Free Balloon Day"