#burritosong

[intosnarkness]

Why is my cat always wet

you live in houston, the air is soup

[jinlian]

Thanks for answering my ask about Giddon/Bitterblue. I'd love to hear your thoughts on how it's handled.

the moment i clocked it was going to happen all i could think was how important the rest of that development was going to be and how cashore had to proceed very carefully. and i think no matter what, not everyone would be okay with it, and that is completely understandable. how it did end up playing out was, for me, all right in the end--of course if someone disagrees, i can definitely understand that point of view as well. 

i don’t believe that age gaps are inherently bad. however, the context of when a relationship develops and the ages at which the two partners meet are the most important factors for whether or not i think it enters the realm of being bad. i don’t see an issue with a relationship between two people meeting at the ages of 50 and 60, for example. but if they’ve known each other since--say--10 and 20? yikes. of course, since bitterblue and giddon were introduced to us at 10 and 18, respectively, it doesn’t make for a great setup.

so it was important to me to know the nature of their relationship at those younger ages--if they even had one at all!--and how and when did it grow (in any sense). there isn’t any evidence they interact in graceling. from there, we don’t have any sense of their having even been introduced to each other until bitterblue, when she is 18 and he is 26. and to be fair, that’s not a great look for a relationship between them, either. i don’t think they were close? she attended council meetings--he does grow closer to her in this book, as they comfort each other. so from what we see of them in bitterblue--and if i remember correctly, which i might not--i don’t think the two of them ever had much of a friendship or even an acqaintance-ship until she’s in her late teens. maybe i just hope that, because otherwise i will have a much bigger problem, but i believe that to be an accurate reading.

from there, how does cashore handle the question of power imbalances? i do think overall she is incredibly conscious of power and who holds it: this very topic even arises in winterkeep, including what factors matter, like gender and size. i was very happy with that discussion. i would have liked to see her look explicitly at age in this case, which she unfortunately did not, so that’s a criticism of mine. for someone who is very concerned about relationships and power like cashore, i am a little surprised she didn’t include it! i will give her the benefit of the doubt on this one, though, if you remember some of what she’s talked about on her blog regarding her own experience with sexual abuse and pedophilia. while she is of course not infallible, i do think she tries very hard to be a responsible writer.

i find it very important as well that bitterblue has multiple romances and sexual partners between bitterblue, where she first has feelings for saf and sleeps with him, and winterkeep, where her relationship with lovisa’s uncle (can’t remember his name right now? help) is in part what kicks the whole thing off. giddon, to his credit, does seem to pine silently and privately. he doesn’t display behavior to me that can be read as grooming or predatory. additionally, bitterblue has far more wealth and political power than giddon; she is self assured at this point and supported by plenty of people; and by the time anything even remotely happens between them, she is in her mid-twenties and he is 31.

it’s the context for me that made me okay with it in winterkeep. and again, i certainly understand the criticisms and am not saying everyone needs to agree, i’d be happy to have further conversations around it. (i’d like to point out saf and skye as another “bwuh?” couple with an age gap--though i was very pleased to see our former male romantic lead, whom we already knew was bisexual, find a boyfriend. yes, bitterblue, you’re right he has to stop falling in love with royals, though!) the timeline of development, the mutually-respectful rapport between them, and balance of power are crucial here. 

ultimately, i just wish i could be a fly on the wall when they have to tell katsa they’re getting married, lmao.

[americachavez]

I really had to go and Google who tf dmitri krushnic is in order to understand half the posts you make 😭 everyday you make me learn new things about white men I can't believe this

calling him dmitri is the only way I can reclaim my agency

[intosnarkness]

Why does new Trek suck so much

Because we as a society no longer have an interest in utopian stories. We can imagine a thousand ways that we will tear each other apart, but 0 ways that we come together and thrive. And Star Trek that involves tearing each other apart isn’t Star Trek.

[intosnarkness]

Good news! Peri is the Pantone Color of the Year!

As well he should be, look at the definition, the saturation. The spots. He earned it.

[intosnarkness]

Combo of just a dude + wholesome bean

deffo just a dude. vibe with that hard.

here is a gif that comes up when you search "precious bean"

(what kind of mutual am i)

[intosnarkness]

If Home Alone and Die Hard are the same movie then why do I hate Home Alone and love Die Hard

Okay, let's play a game. Imma describe a plot and you tell me what it is.

mystical forces inspire a royal killing spree hamlet or macbeth?

a band of friends journeys to recover an item that could spell ruin? lord of the rings or tom green’s circa-2000 vehicle road trip

a girl longs for freedom from her culture and her fate the little mermaid or the hunger games?

lone person has to foil robbers in a closed building with no backup. they set up a series of traps and end the day victorious, reunited with their family die hard or home alone?

When I say they’re the same movie in an Aristotelian sense, I mean that they have the same plot conceit. Details differ, of course. Aesthetics differ. But if you boiled the movie for three hours and drank the plot syrup after, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

You like Die Hard better because it’s an action movie and not a comedy? Because the stakes are different? Because Carl Winslow SHOT A KID? Because there are people in it who have lines and aren’t white? Because it uses the starkness of the construction of an office building to set off the violence rather than the pageantry of Christmas in someone’s home? IDK dude. They’re different outfits on the same mannequin, but you respond to the clothes, not the form they hang on.

[intosnarkness]

burritosong replied to your post “I have come to believe that Geordi La Forge got his bionic eyes in...”

WHERE'S THE ESSAY SAM

OKAY it goes something like this:

In the current day, medical science has been built on the back of unethical research, often including torture of marginalized and disadvantaged people. (see: Tuskegee syphilis experiment, “the unfortunate experiment” and the medical advances gained fro the nazi atrocities in concentration camps) So this is not unprecedented.

In the Star Trek universe, the Borg kidnap and forcibly operate on unwilling people. They also have superior technology to the federation, with ability to decimate them in battle (Wolf 359). It is a plot point that they remove the prosthesis from Picard after The Best of Both Worlds and have the technology to edit Hugh’s programming in I, Borg. This implies that someone, possibly on the Enterprise, is studying Borg Tech in 2366.

In the case of Geordi, we know that the VISOR causes him pain and the actor hated wearing it. However, he refused “natural” sight on at least two occasions - both from Q powers/Riker and Dr Pulaski. He liked that the VISOR gave him sight in the electromagnetic range. We must assume that, given he was in pain but wanted to maintain his enhanced vision, Geordi would have gotten the cybernetic implants if they were available.

So at some point after first contact with the Borg, the implants must have become available. Geordi got them between 2371 and 2373.

If I am right and the tech for Geordi’s eyes is developed from Borg tech, which is gained from the subjugation of unwilling assimilatees, then I feel that Star Trek owes us a conversation on the ethics of using data that was gained unethically.

I won’t take a side here (I don’t understand the argument well enough) but I can’t believe that TNG would shy away from it when they touched on so many other things.