#further thoughts

[kuripon]

The entire BatFamily, no exceptions, would absolutely have been outside, therefore would have had no choice but to enter the dungeon.

[dragontamer05]

So have been thinking a lot on how the SOS signal ended up down with B, and I feel it's not far fetched to say it's not a coincidence. Would not put it past Sentinal to have dropped it down there to cover his tracks abd prevent anyone else from tracking down the Primes / coming to their aid.

That said for B-127 to have acquired it either he really has been down there a LONG time or he didn't discard the signal/message right away (for some reason)

Also interesting to note is how Elita had 0 idea who the High Guard was and Orion only seemed slightly familiar where as B-127 was very familiar with them - is he just a giant fan bot or did he learn of them during one of his many previous jobs?

Most confusing is how long in this particular universe is a Cycle? (There seems to be no one consistent agreed usage of the term through the many continuities) Personal best guess is 1 Cycle = 1 Year but their year is not the same as 1 Earth Year give Cybertron is typically depicted as much larger the Earth, like Saturn size.

And 1 Year on Saturn is 29 on Earth making 50 = 1450 Earth Years.

and 1450 years. would be more then enough time for the Matrix to fall into Myth (for any bots not alive at the time of the Primes before they were killed) and for Sentinal to have pretty much fully established Mining for Energon as the new status Quo which everyone none the wise.

Which leads back to how old is B, how long ago did he make Steve/find the Signal (and for that matter how old is D and Orion)

I know B is typically depicted as being young naive bot but like for I won't lie in that there feels like a case here that B could be older or at least much much closer in age to D16/Megatron and Orion/Optimus here. Just very very socially stunted abd immature because of how long he's been alone. At the very least I find the thought amusing.

[leam1983]

Monsterfuckers Gonna Monsterfuck

I think Bill Skarsgard's Orlok was spared from Sexyman-ification for a grand total of... a week? Maybe? It's only been a few weeks and the leading discourse on Eggers' Orlok already seems to gyrate around the notion that Mr. "I am an appetite, nothing more" would've actually been a pretty decent husbando.

Plus, it fails to mention how Walt, Sarah and I got our kicks out of seeing the Hellsite imagine Ellen, Thomas and Orlok as a polyamorous couple...

Of course, the Blood Libel discourse had to come out of the woodwork, too, when I'm fairly certain Eggers' Orlok has a lot more to say about Slavic culture than the 1922 version's sociocritically obvious Jewish dogwhistles...

Personally, I don't know. If a guy looks half-dead and tells me in no uncertain terms that the only way he can express affection is by treating me like a man-sized Capri Sun, I dunno.

Not getting a Goth Boner out of this one, kids.

[bees-and-mice-and-frogs-and]

I think a lot of people make the mistake, when considering Dystopia, of assuming the author is attempting to predict the future. Like they have a crystal ball or a particular ability with tea leaves. This isn't a new problem: people have been doing it for as long as dystopias have been written. It's not helped by the typical study of these texts, which posits questions like "Which is a more accurate prediction, 1984 or Brave New World?".

Dystopia is an exploration of the present through extremity. Every author of dystopia has looked at her surroundings, and has asked the question "what if we turned this up to 11?" Famously, Atwood rejected the label of sci-fi for The Handmaid's Tale because nothing she wrote was made up: it had all happened to women at some point or was currently happening to women.

Any criticism of a dystopia that attempts to treat it as a serious play by play prediction is a look that is mostly unproductive. Criticising dystopian texts has to come from the point of view of addressing the logical steps the author has taken and for an incomplete understanding of their subject matter. One might criticise Lord of the Flies, for instance, on the basis that Golding presents the feral and savage* nature of children as innate, rather than as a result of the very taught systems of power that prove their salvation.

It can be interesting, of course, to consider what has and has not changed between the writing of a piece and the current day. Certainly it can be said that the austerity of perma-war Airstrip One did not continue to the present day and that the collective distraction of Fahrenheit 451 has only become worse. This cannot form the basis of criticism or praise however.

*I chose this term specifically for the Eurocentric connotations surrounding the global majority and indigenous practice. I believe the thesis of that book is "if good English children fall to savagery when the guiding influence of the Empire and british society is removed, what hope is there for the empire's subjects?"

[saiikavon]

Should say it’s easy for me to get caught up in the culture of a specific fandom, too. Some fandom circles I’m in are very insistent about comments, so I comment more on those than I do in fandom circles that are a little more relaxed about it. Kind of like fandom code-switching. It’s interesting.

[explorersaremadeofhope]

luca marinelli: speaks Spanish with an Argentinian accent

whichever fucknut directed Dangerous Fortune: lol that's neat! we don't need that

[grifters-bone]

I feel like the horror is taking a back seat to the plot right now. I don’t mind it too much, I do enjoy learning some more, but I’m hoping the spook picks up soon so that I can be terrified while wondering what dumbassery Jon’s going to pull next.

Leaving the scalpel anywhere near Melanie was a Bad Idea Jon and you should’ve known it.

[depizan]

I actually do have one other writing weakness. Villains. I’m really not very interested in villains. (I’m sure no one could tell that at all from the, oh, five minutes total screen time my villain has in my fics.)

Villains are useful. They set plots in motion, cause problems, and all that. And some people enjoy making them far more than that. (And I certainly don’t object to fiction with three dimensional villains who do more than show up periodically to be jerks and gloat a bit.) But I’d rather spend my time with good or neutral people.*

You’d think I’d solve this by having non-villain antagonists. And I do sometimes! But that can result in the opposite problem, leaving me with a character I’m more interested in than I should be and a strong desire to bring them back for no reason other than that I’m inconveniently interested in them.

Hell, I don’t even know what my long term plan is with my villain. Will he meet an untimely (but justified) end? Will he be hired by General Failfish because there is no justice in the universe? Who knows? Certainly not I.

*Also, I work in customer service. I am reminded day in and day out why one might want to be a very bad no good person and install an alligator pit for really annoying people. No need to encourage my design plans for a new complaints department.