#briar rambles

[briarhearts-art]

satbk au where instead of being the lady of the lake, amy tries to pull caliburn out of the stone and isn't able to- so instead she just carries the sword AND the stone around like a hammer and becomes king arthur instead

[briarbramble]

Something I really want people to understand about the whole sanitisation of the internet thing is that these companies (and also governments sucking the dick of authoritarianism) aren’t just censoring like porn or body horror or gore or like drug use etc. They’re age restricting content and language that wouldn’t even be out of place in a doctor’s office, a national health service healthcare advice page, or a PG 13 movie!

Or… a video game actually, aimed at kids. In fact, I even have real actual proof for that last example. It’s what sparked me to write this post.

And I really need people who actually believe that these controlling systems of censorship and surveillance that are being put in place to “protect” children and teens to see this crash out and really truly read all of it! Please! Because you all seriously need to know how ridiculous this is getting and what these systems actually do! And if anyone wants to add more examples of this in a reblog chain then please do! The more evidence showcasing this bullshit the better!

So, last night on Bluesky I came across a screenshot of a game I play, a first party Nintendo game to be specific. The screenshot was marked as “explicit content” by the BlueSky moderation team, not the post’s author. If I was not using a VPN set to Ireland, I would not have been able to see the post at all! All because I live in Scotland, which is now eternally handcuffed to England via a fucking bear trap. And the day I hand over my passport to a social media company or let their dodgy “ai” phrenology bot scan my face, will be a freezing cold day in Thatcher’s personal circle of hell.

So, what’s wrong with the screenshot? Did someone mod the game? Did someone make like idk pixel art in it or something? No. It is a normal screenshot of vanilla gameplay that happened to include a depiction of a penis. Content that is actually in the game in fact. Knowing that now you might say “well okay, but that’s genitalia and nudity! So of course it got flagged.” But now you might be wondering what 1st party Nintendo game would have a depiction of a penis in it that is accurate enough to be flagged by an auto moderator? Well I’ll show you! It put it under the read more so I wouldn’t spoil you! I bet the suspense is killing you! Go take a look :)

(Mild edit, I decided to censor the pfp and name of the OP of the post to protect their identity, I completely forgot to do that)

Well here it is! Here’s the offending screenshot that is tainting and ruining the Innocence and Pure Souls of The Children! Take a good long look at it! :)

…

That’s fucking ANIMAL CROSSING!

That’s Animal Crossing! One of the most kid-friendly games I can think of! That’s Mineru looking at the Statue of David in Animal Crossing: New Horizons! That is vanilla content, it’s in the actual base game! It is not modded! It was willingly put there by Nintendo because it’s a real fucking art piece that anyone of any age can see in the Galleria dell'Accademia di Firenze (Academic Gallery of Florence) in Italy!

Like oh my fucking stars, I am climbing the damn walls! I am officially losing my collective shit over this!

I don’t care that it’s clearly a false-flag and it happens all of the time! That’s not good enough.

If an auto-moderator false flagging benign bullshit as being “explicit content” and blocking certain people from seeing it, to the point where it’s just considered to be a given that it’s going to fuck up constantly, then I consider that to be a feature, not a bug! Like part of the problem IS that the auto moderator bot can’t understand context, and the companies who run these sites know that and they don’t care!

It’s not just annoying and a bit embarrassing for BlueSky, a lot of independent creators and self-employed people rely on social media for a living, when their posts get false flagged it drastically reduces how much reach they get in a heavily oversaturated, competitive market! And as I said before: I cannot see posts like this if I don’t use a VPN (which might quickly cease to even become an option), hand over my fucking passport or try to trick the phrenology bot because I do not look like I am in my mid 20’s!

And I can foresee this quickly becoming the reality of basically everyone online in the next few years if not next few months if people don’t fight tooth and nail right now to push back against this bullshit, to protect the autonomy of ALL people online. And yes, that includes kids and teens!I don’t care how annoying or inherently stupid you think they are, they deserve autonomy, agency, the dignity of risk and to have full control over their online experience as much as the rest of us do because they’re people! And prohibition has literally never worked to “help” anyone!

I could talk so much more about this but this post is long enough, apologies! I never intended to yap this much, but here we are. I have a lot of thoughts about this, and I’m very nervous to share them but idk I thought this was important enough to risk any potential backlash that might reach my inbox.

[briarborealisart]

I legitimately could write so many essays or video essays on the dream SMP if I actually sat down to do it

- retrospective: dream smp's place in internet culture; how a very unique set of circumstances led to the explosion in popularity

- retrospective: rise and fall of the dream smp; something about how scheduling issues and various other things caused the actual story of the server to fall apart in many ways

- legitimately probably dozens of character studies and story analyses i could do especially about tommy dream and wilbur who are my favorites and have such a unique narrative dynamic

- i have this one fucking batshit theory/take from ages ago (just after tommy died in prison) in which pandora's vault is representative of the actual moral center of the dsmp and tbh i think i cooked with that one

- the impact of fanon on canon and my own personal experiences with Canon As A Suggestion

- the unique space the medium occupies: cc! and c! blurring the lines between actor and character, the weird half-lore segments, the fact that it started out as a bit and became something So Serious, the way that live-streamed minecraft roleplay actually works as a storytelling medium

- legitimately i could probably write really good literature reviews on certain subsections of fanfiction especially sbi tropes.

- subpoint: how the dream smp's specific boundaries and culture made gen fic far more popular than ship fic and how that is so nice to see as an aroace person specifically but also just in general

- just a personal essay on how important and impactful the dream smp was to me As A Person and how it's still a piece of media that is really really important to me, and how i balance that with the feeling of cringe and also The Controversy

- an exploration of fandom space and culture through the dsmp and my experiences in it autoethnography style

like i have So much to say all the time this doesn't even really cover it. exile's impact on the story. when the lore became actually serious. wilbur's entire character arc. tommy as an unwillingly willing protagonist. the discs. THE DISCS. the way that i would rewrite the story if it were me telling it. the way that since it was roleplay it was essentially a first draft and that should be taken into account when analyzing it. Literally Any Fandom Discourse. Literally Any Personal Essay. Literally Any Character Analysis. if i had the time and energy to actually do research for these things and put them together i would be so banger for real

[briarborealisocs]

favorite niche piece of media? elaborate.

ok i don't know exactly how niche this is but my favorite movies of all time are both like. not extremely popular so

ok my two favorite movies of all time are tied and it's the prestige and the count of monte cristo (2002)

so. the prestige. it's a story about two magicians in 1890s london. they hate each other. they hate each other so much. i can't even explain the movie without giving anything away because it's an absolute masterclass in foreshadowing and well-earned plot twists. it's sort of a mystery but not really. it's DEFINITELY a drama. it's the world's greatest revenge story. it's about hatred and obsession and how they ruin your life. it's about magic. it's about humanity. it's about not believing the obvious answer even when it's right in front of you because it's too simple. nikola tesla is there and plays a major role in the story. it's a frame narrative with three levels - you're watching the story of a man reading a diary about how that diary's author was reading the first man's diary. there's a murder trial. the plot twist is so well earned. it's a million times better on the rewatch and i catch a new detail every time i watch it. the cinematography is absolutely gorgeous. if you're paying attention you can catch the biggest plot twist 10 minutes into the movie but no one ever does, which is in and of itself the thesis of the movie. michael caine plays the best character in the movie. i think everyone should watch the prestige

the count of monte cristo (2002) is the most recent(?) film adaptation of a famous classic french novel by the same name. it's ALSO a revenge story. it is probably the most satisfying revenge story ive ever seen. the absolute catharsis of watching the main character's revenge plot come together and get executed flawlessly is like doing straight heroin. napoleon bonaparte is there and plays a minor role in the story. there's a scene that makes me cry. if you asked me what love looks like i would point to that scene without hesitation. richard harris plays the best character in the entire movie. there's several extremely punchable men. they all, in fact, get punched. henry cavill plays an entitled rich 16 year old boy with daddy issues. the pacing of the story is phenomenal. my favorite scene in the movie involves a hot air balloon and an absolutely pimpin outfit, complete with cane

i love these movies so much. the prestige i watch when im in the mood for like an insane drama but the count of monte cristo is just a feel good "sit back and relax and eat some chocolate" movie

[briarfox13]

Update

Sorry I’ve not been so active guys recently! We had a blue screen of death on the computer and it took a while to get fixed. Installing everything was such a pain. But I crocheted a pretty scarf so I wasn’t too bored XD

But now it’s back and I can finally play Metro Exodus and my other games! I’ll be posting lots of screenshots, and I know it’s not for everyone so feel free to blacklist it. I’ll be using the tags: Metro 2033, Metro Last Light and Metro Exodus depending on the game. 

I don’t want to make people see stuff they don’t want to, or see spoilers! I know not everyone has played it yet (yey for Steam Preorders =D) 

I promise I’ll get back to my drawing and DA, ME and Witcher stuff soon =D I have a new Shepard to introduce you too!!

I also promise I’ll catch up with all the things I’ve been tagged in! 

[briarbramble]

Okay but like the first Tailing to either accidentally or purposefully kill a human must’ve had like A Whole Fucking Crisis afterwards seeing that same alien, who was Definitely Dead, just swimming around again! Good as new! Exact same lil guy! Like I’d lose my fucking MIND!

Fuck Masefield, that doesn’t hold a candle to the hysteria that would induce into a species that has just met weird sapient aliens who can’t breathe their salt-water atmosphere but they’ve somehow managed to “invent” (in quotations because Alterra stealing from the Architects isn’t inventing shit) immortality!

Like that Tailing just held that alien’s lifeless, limp, soft, weird little body in their claws. Their weird Bones or spine or whatever just… crumpled, not breathing their weird air anymore, and yet here they are again! They’re back! As if nothing fucking happened! Surprise bitch!

Like holy fuck? How do you even begin to process that? How do you tell other people about this without seeming like you are batshit insane, you’ve just been microdosing shrooms or something? You can’t! You can’t tell anyone this without having your sanity brought into question! The first Tailing to report this to their group must’ve been treated as though they were like stage 4 Masefield or whatever.

[briarbramble]

Okay so something I’ve not seen anyone talk about is this line here that Rauru says in AoI to the Knight Construct

This struck me as really odd when I first heard it because of who Rauru has for an older sister!

Not only does Mineru more than once (as of the small free update) put her spirit into a Flux Construct but Mineru at multiple points is shown to value constructs beyond just being fascinated by them as a researcher, she specifically refers to them as “friends” and values them as companions and allies.

Which as an aside this is just— awww! This is really adorable, I fucking love this detail about her so much, and I love that it comes up more than once! (Yes I’m sneaking in some Mineru appreciation, fucking sue me).

But this then makes what Rauru says here even more strange, has he never spoken to Mineru about her area of special interest before? That… doesn’t sit right with me. This game never gives me the impression at all that Rauru isn’t close with his only other family member. I do not believe that him and Mineru simply don’t spend time together, we get multiple side missions of specifically these two together where they talk about things, one of them being the damn Knight Construct! In addition to this Rauru clearly highly values his big sister’s insight, that’s how Mineru is able to be so persuasive with him on multiple occasions.

So he certainly thinks highly of her and deeply trusts her wisdom to the point where he lets her have a great deal of sway in his decisions, so like… why does he have such a different view of constructs than Mineru?

It’s not that I don’t like this detail or even disagree with Rauru as a person feeling differently towards constructs as Mineru does, I just wish they’d taken the chance to explore this and just given us a bit more dialogue to give us more context. After all Rauru does seek Mineru out to talk about constructs and well spirits and souls, and she’s literally the perfect person to consult about that, it’s just strange that it took so long for the story to show us Rauru talking to Mineru about this.

Like Rauru clearly has a lot of hang ups about constructs and tbh I think he has every reason to feel super fucking uneasy towards constructs that specifically are combative, and I wish they’d like touched on why Mineru not only lacks this sense of unease towards them but she actually cares for all of them (not just steward constructs) as companions and speaks highly of them!

Like this split in Rauru and Mineru’s views of their own culture and technology is super fucking interesting and I’m disappointed that they didn’t really do anything with it outside of this specific context with the knight construct :/

[briarbramble]

So I’ve started playing Subnautica Below Zero (well… I’m about 20-30 hours in) and dare I say I like it more than Subnautica one! Purely because Pretty and Very Fun and not as scary as the first game, and I also really like playing as Robin, I love her a lot actually!

But also… AL-AN. Fucking hell— I wanna fuck the alien okay? Wow, what a fuckable alien, what an awkward, sassy bastard, I fucking adore them! I’m jealous of your Robin, I want the alien in MY head making blunt, inquisitive comments about the random shit I’m doing! When it will it be MY turn??

Idk what it is either, maybe it’s the soft, measured way they speak? Or the way they word things? Or the fact that I need to build them a body like Mineru, I hope their backstory is fucking tragic, please game, please tear my heart to shreds! I want to cry like I cried over the Sea Empress pleaseeee! Like I’ve also not even seen what they look like yet, I’ve only gotten small glimpses from statue I scanned (I’m so glad they seem to not be bipedal omgg) but idk something about them really does it for me.

So yeah, I might be absolutely insufferable about them in the near future lol