The City of Love

This is a form of backdoor bigotry from both normative facts (there are more straight than gay relationships) and well represented bigoted beliefs (men are superior to women).

It's a nice way to know there's hidden AI but also... fucking gender essentialist bullshit. There is no reason for it to think he is a woman other than the fact that he has healing magic. None.

Eventually I did start reading books again, and I’m happy about it, but honestly? Who cares if what I was reading for a long time wasn’t published by a paid author? Reading fanfic brings me joy, a very specific kind of joy that I can’t always get from books, and allows me to share that joy directly with the authors! That’s amazing, and something you rarely get with books. All of which is to say:

If you’re the kind of person who used to read so many books and now you read nothing but fanfic, you should feel ZERO shame about this.

If you’re only reading poetry, or only short stories, or only fanfic, you’re still reading stories. Even if all you’re reading is twitter or tumblr, you’re still reading stories.

Even if you’re reading nothing at all, I still don’t think you should be ashamed. 

You love stories, and you will read more when you have the spoons to do so. And in the meantime, stories come in other forms, and right now maybe you’re getting your stories from TV or movies—enjoying them, thinking about them, dissecting them with like-minded fans, writing meta about them—or maybe you’re writing your own stories in your head. Those are all good and valid ways of experiencing stories! And when you find that you need more than that, maybe you will read books again eventually. 

Is it good for your brain to be challenged by something new or different or thinky once in a while? Absolutely, and if you feel up to a challenge, go for it! Enjoy expanding your mind, and take pride in every page you read. Read with a friend for extra encouragement, maybe! If you’re reading what feels like the literary equivalent of meal replacement shakes or fast food now—you’re still reading. You can absolutely think critically about whatever you’re reading now. You might be amazed at what you can discover by just thinking deeply or talking with friends about the media you consume, even if it seems shallow or easy.

And this is going to make a lot of people very angry to hear.

But a lot of y'all on this website are truly deeply genuinely never going to be capable of any kind of real narrative analysis--and I don't mean 'being right all the time' I mean 'meaningfully engaging with the text in any way'--

The match cuts were meticulously designed and put there to communicate something.

The VA's delivery of a line was being directed. Inflection and tone change the meaning of dialogue. This is intentional. There are entire teams of people shaping those choices and deciding which take to use based on what works best for the story.

Information is being revealed in a specific order, on purpose, to craft an emotional arc and guide the audience's understanding.

A character's romantic preferences are only, and SHOULD only be, their primary motivation if the genre is romance. That is why there is a genre called that. Most stories are other genres.

Creators who dislike a character generally give them LESS attention, MORE boring storylines, and LESS screentime.

Sometimes curtains are just blue. But if the shot composition or written narration takes time to HIGHLIGHT, especially more than once, that the curtains are blue, then the blueness of the curtains is by definition narratively important.

"Cite your sources" is not a witch's curse that banishes People With Different Opinions to the shadowrealm of Being Wrong. Someone making points that challenge your perceptions, while including screenshots and explicit examples, cannot be dismissed with "cite your sources" because they are literally doing that. Don't @ me on this one I've seen shit in the wars, y'all.

Failing to understand these things WILL bar you from ever really engaging with or understanding any narrative more complicated than Paw Patrol for the rest of your life.