CephalonC

I mean, there's about 3 to 4 depending on your interpretation.

And no, I don't appreciate the cursed knowledge of sexual puns on my part, but you know, furries, am I right?

Just replace the "twitter .com" with "nitter .net" on any link, and you can see stuff without logging in, which is what I use.

Despite it not being a solid majority overall, it's still quite significant that there's such large percentages, which shows it's less of a minority than you might think.

So I'll mention this first as it feels fairly relevant, but the article talks about how successful Game of Thrones was, though I'm not sure I'd attribute that success to the fact it had sex scenes.

As it is, Game of Thrones is a fantasy with lots of dramatic elements to it, and seemingly good writing for the most part, until whatever happened towards the end that ruined that for a lot of people. If they wanted sex to be part of the story, they could do so without ever really showing it on screen, but still being significant and more than just mentioned to have happened.

It could be implied through another character who found some indication of it after, or if no signs of it could be found, through the characters involved themselves, but just before or after it was done. And by doing that, you get the information of how the characters feel about it by how they react and respond, without just blatantly having all the complications of a sex scene included.

To me, showing a sex scene feels like the opposite of the phrase "show, don't tell", despite it quite literally being showing. It's just showing that it happened, almost like it's "telling" us directly that it did, rather than "showing" that it happened through interactions with the characters or environment before or after, which opens up so many more story and writing opportunities than just "telling" us it happened by just showing the sex that looks mostly like every other sex that has ever happened.

And the times a direct sex scene is actually good for the writing and story? Not everyone might understand what's being communicated with the sex scene, either because they'd rather not see sex in the first place, or because the body language and other tells are more subtle than what you can accomplish without sex in the first place.

So back to my original mentioned point, the success of Game of Thrones really doesn't seem like it entirely hinges upon the fact you see characters having sex lots of times, but rather mostly the writing, with which the sex scenes can be rendered unnecessary to convey the same story, without excluding parts of the audience that don't want to see sex in their fantasy drama for whatever reasons they might have, of which there's many possible reasons.

And all that without even getting into the problem of genuinely bad sex scenes that either don't contribute anything at all to the plot or development of characters, or even pointlessly harm the actual plot and development just by being there.

And of course, something else the article talks about that I agree with, you don't have to have characters immediately jump to having sex from the moment they start liking each other, you can have emotional or platonic bonds that form without that, and without which it just feels significantly more meaningless. Sex isn't some central point from which all relationships universally revolve around, and you can have characters enjoying time with each other, including in a bed together, without it consistently becoming yet another sexual moment mostly in an attempt to appeal to the viewers rather than the actual characters themselves.

"Gives me conniptions"

I'm aware of that definition, but from the conversation I've had here with someone from Hexbear, I wouldn't jump to quite that overgeneralization, as clearly that isn't the universal view from there.

I don't entirely doubt there's the possibility that some people there might think more like that, but it's a group within the overall group, and seemingly one that is looked down upon by others there.

Though bringing that up, that does give me curiosity as to how a sort of broad poll on how Russia is viewed, specifically whether with or without nuance, would go there, as it might help sort out that exact problem of if it's a minority there that believes Russia is entirely right or not.

The reason being for it being a sort of poll, is it would be significantly easier to put numbers or percentages to the result there, and being far more generally accessible, rather than discussions and replies that would be hard to really count accurately due to the sheer number of users.

Of course, that might not work, but it brings the discussion to the topic of what might clear things up more, and that seems like a step in the right direction I'd think.

On the second part, I kind of said "world police" as a more broad generalizion of all the stuff the government does for the sake of simplicity, but elaborating helps for those unaware of the extent of it.

On the sixth part, I ended up not recalling that being a thing, but as you bring it up, yeah, something probably should be done about the upper class being able to profit from violence, as that profit helps nobody except those who don't need it, and encourages more violence for a cycle of more profit and violence.

And I'm glad I got it as well as I did, I really enjoy understanding different people's perspectives and the reasoning behind them.

I'm going to type this response out as I read to get a better sense of understanding, and go back over after I've read it all.

I've known some friends of mine that are more anarchy leaning, so I get that to a degree already. And funnily enough, that right wing conspiracy stuff my parents are addicted to kind of feigns at class solidarity, but then they get too lost in their hatred of basically anything that isn't cis straight white Christians etc. and go back to fighting amongst themselves in some kind of spiritual war between themselves and the "Satanists" they've made up to label their "enemy", so not really any progress there.

Summarizing the second part in my sort of unfancy and simpler way, the US really needs to stop trying to be this "world police" that it thinks it is, especially given the problems within the country itself, and let more different countries work together through compromise to contribute to progress in the world.

Third part, essentially "it may not be the best possible option, but it can be a step in the right direction in some way, and it's way better than letting more power and control be centralized in one place".

Fourth, pretty much "economy and material for the people, along with the pressures within and without their country, define politics and society, not their leader's ideals".

Fifth, different people have different ideologies on what is exactly best and how much the conflict should be focused on, but generally based on the previous points, and on class solidarity most of all, which I can agree with.

Sixth, basically we want the war to end sooner so the people caught up in it don't have to keep suffering through it, which I absolutely agree with. Though I will say what might seem possible is for Putin to lose support from the I guess "upper" class, realizing it's not worth the losses and putting an end to it, though that's being optimistic considering it's the same class that has enabled it to continue. Otherwise, it would probably take a force neither side seems quite capable of to end the sort of ongoing stalemate.

Again, open to correction here, I've not been too focused on the progress of things there, so the situation could easily have changed since I kept up with it.

Seventh, I get the sort of idea to it, again, it's putting the best, or in this case, the least bad, for all the people involved over what would supposedly be "best" for the state and upper class, which totally makes sense in that regard, though I think I'm not quite getting the whole idea of the paragraph across on my end.

And the last one, just basically saying the exact specifics differ for everyone, of course people are people, and everyone expresses what they think in their own unique interpretation, sort of like how I'm interpreting all this here and now for a better understanding. And those interpretations all have their equally unique reasons behind them, usually for some form of comfort or knowledge, or just trying to find humor in even the darkest of things.

And the last bit, I think you did well, and given what I've typed, it seems to have gotten across pretty decently from what I can tell anyway.

That more nuanced reasoning was what I was noticing from that reading replies I mentioned.

And I'm not certain on it, but I have a feeling generally being more direct with expressing that support as being specifically for the positive things that came from those places, rather than what might look to an outsider as broad and without nuance support for those places as a whole, might do better.

People often have flaws with them, and understanding nuance is a common point of lacking for many. Especially when some people might say the same thing but without that nuance, or in some cases, the opposite of it entirely.

I've read through some of the replies within this post, and I think I'm gradually getting the idea behind it, though I'd gladly take a more direct explanation or summary.

My main concern is just with modern Russia's government, and its more regressive aspects, along with their actions within the war with Ukraine.

But I'll absolutely state I'm not very knowledgeable on a lot of the details behind it, aside from Russia's news putting out whatever they can to justify their actions to their population, but I'd take correction if that part is off course.

For a bit of additional context, I've been living with my parents who have since 2016 been going further and further off the deep end of right wing conspiracies about everything, and one of the things I often notice from those places is an unwavering support for modern Russia, partly or mostly for said regressive aspects.

So because of that, I do have a level of bias against Russia, but again, I'll take a look at other points of view regarding it.