#also the image quality got really bad when i posted it for some reason??

[shreksstepfather]

Below the cut is a comic about Gaia with lyrics from Mars by Sleeping at Last!

Yippee... :(

#click the pictures for better quality!! #gaia #ocs #the warren #not warrior cats #blood tw #long post #i put the pages under a cut because i don't want to subject random people to seeing THAT much of my ocs #also the image quality got really bad when i posted it for some reason?? #sorry bout that guys

[nika-vincent]

Long post warning.

I'm trying to put together some thoughts (also based on recent discussions with many great folks) about the romance path with Halsin in the form that it is presented in the game at the moment with the hope that Larian will notice our comments on this. And part 2 about Halsin's personality in the game. Please, fear not, it will be without aggression. So take some tea, my friends, and let's get started!☕

From the very beginning of EA, we had an image of Halsin that stood out not only by his appearance (it was difficult to not notice the thirsty comments of fans about this), but also by the excellent qualities of his character. He is one of those characters who sincerely wants to help us with our parasite and not try to use us in a bad way or even kill us.

He has the impression, you know, of a big adult man who at first glance looks serious and rather harsh, but when you learn more about him, you realize that this is a man with a kind heart, caring, protecting, not leaving you in trouble. He reminds me of Hagrid from the Harry Potter universe. And this image of him was so loved by many people (including me) that we wanted to see more of it when the game was released. There was no limit to my delight when, after the release of the game, we were able to ask about his hobbies. Gods, how all these cute things fit him that he loves honey and carves wood in his spare time.🥰 I want more of this!❤

We began to fantasize about what a romance with Halsin could be, and expected that these beautiful traits of his character would manifest themselves here. That he will be protective for Tav, gentle, romantic and caring. I was incredibly happy that we were finally given the opportunity to have a romance with him and the words during the PFH that Halsin and Astarion had become the most popular characters of EA gave great expectations.

Of course, after the release of the game, many things have remained behind the scenes for now, due to lack of time to implement the rest of things I believe, and I assume that there is a chance of adding this with patches. But let's move on to the things we have at the moment.

What surprised me not in a good way was that I noticed some strange emphasis on Halsin's sexuality and various jokes towards his body in the game itself. I assume that perhaps the developers wanted to make some kind of reference to the thirsty comments of fans about Halsin, which can often be seen on the Internet. But I think it would be better to leave it between fans, and not literally implement it in the game. I do not deny his sexuality myself and say that his arms are made for hugs! But there should be a limit to everything, I think. I can make an exception about the fact that we can ask about why he is so big for an elf. It looks quite harmless and even his reaction amuses.😁

The reference to 'Daddy Halsin' in his ending was great and really funny! It looks unobtrusive and does not create the feeling of awkwardness and discomfort that we got from some of his stories from the past...

The story of Halsin's sexual past and how the romance with him is presented in the game has been most criticized by players, and there are several reasons for this. We found out that he had many lovers throughout his life (So it is lovers, not special loved ones). And then we also learn that when he was a young druid, he traveled through the underdark and found himself a guest in a noble Drow house, in which the matron and the patron showed interest in him and chained him for three years in their bedchamber, where he played the role of 'guest, prisoner and consort'. Honestly, the last thing I expected was that Halsin would get such a backstory, given that we had kept in mind for so long the image of him which I described at the beginning of this article. It literally took me by surprise. And especially the fact that he talks about it so calmly and even with a note of gaiety, as if this is a common thing that could happen to anyone.

I don't understand the need to add such things to him. Perhaps the developers wanted to show in this way that a man with such an attractive appearance is obliged to have a hot sexual experience and give him an image of something like a Faerun Casanova? If so, it turned out to be quite inappropriate and even creepy, and the players perceived it more as a sexual abuse towards him than as an experience.

It can be noticed that even Halsin himself is not very enthusiastic with the fact that remarks about his physique are the first thing people talk about. Clipping from @lylakoi 's screenshot:

And all this strongly contradicts how we initially fell in love with Halsin and how we wanted to see him and his romance in the release. The romantic relationship between Tav and Halsin at the moment looks more built on physical attraction, rather than on love, care and mutual respect. Most likely, this is due to the noticeable lack of romance content at the moment and more soft things and scenes will be added to the patches that would dilute it well so that it does not catch the eye. I just wanted the romance to be less fixated on lust, and more on feelings and romantic things between Tav and Halsin.

The most terrible thing that literally brought tears to my eyes is the fact that he can talk about his feelings and love only when we ourselves can behave like an abuser with him, when we decide to break up with him and change our minds. We see how much it hurts him that we are playing with his heart. Because at the moment there are no other romantic scenes in the game in which we can discuss with him our feelings and that we love each other, as it happens with other companions.

Polyamory also does not work quite correctly in the game, because it seems that he wants Tav to be poly in the relationship, not him. It looks something like: 'You're all I want, but don't get stuck on me and find someone else' uhh, what? I only want to romance you, why should I find someone else? This dialogue is appropriate if I was already in a relationship with another companion and would like to be with Halsin too. But if I want to have a romance with him alone, then I believe that the dialogue should be different and not insist on 'sharing' if I have not a relationship with anyone.

Given the whole story that he only had lovers and sexual slavery, I assume that Halsin has never experienced true love with anyone, and only knows how to be used by everyone. If this was the original idea of the writers, which has not yet been brought to its logical end, then the role of Tav in the romance with Halsin here should be quite important in order to see the development of their relationship. The main goal in the romance should be that Tav will allow Halsin to feel what it's like to be truly important and loved. Remember when in the act 2 he was touched by the fact that Tav shared a campfire and their company with him. Screenshot by @lylakoi :

It is clearly evident that such things that someone does for him are unusual to him and touch his very heart. Most likely, he is used to giving, not receiving.

The bed scene with him is absolutely beautiful, I can even give a standing ovation.❤ I would only add after that a scene where Tav and Halsin are lying side by side, looking at the stars and having a romantic conversation. That would end the night perfectly.🙏

It is necessary to add more soft interactions for Halsin, so that there is more emphasis on the development of his personal qualities. We are well aware of his attractiveness and there is no need to emphasize this once again with strange jokes and stories with sexual abuse.

The Interaction in the camp with owlbear and Scratch will be great for him! Maybe even add some scenes with companions in act 2, where Halsin would try to calm the guys arguing with each other. That would add +1 to his personality traits. Also, more of his reactions to any events or during the dialogues with someone will not hurt.

For a romance, I would suggest definitely adding a scene with a date. Even a scene where Halsin would give an ornament for Tav that he carved out of wood. Maybe some episode in the city that would shock him (For example, he witnessed the rough treatment of animals or orphans) and make him turn into a bear from rage and we would try to calm him down by choosing the option 'reach out and stroke him' (Yes, yes, I mentally create fanfics during 3 am, don't blame me😅) Also a scene where we could hug him and confess that we love him. And now the romance no longer looks focused on lust.

The opportunity to go with Halsin in the ending also deserves to exist. Halsin mentioned that he would like to have a family, so he and Tav could perfectly help orphans together in Thaniel's world.🙏

That's all for today. My opinion about Larian has not changed for the worse, for me they are still great guys who delight me with their positive attitude to the community. Unpleasant situations can happen, it is inevitable. But there is always a chance to fix something. I really want to hope that they will cope with everything and listen to our feedbacks and everything will gradually get better with the patches.❤

Thank you for reading this review to the end.🙏❤ I also suggest joining the discussion to Larian's discord in the 'bg3-feedback' section.

#baldur's gate 3 #baldur's gate #baldur's gate 3 spoilers #bg3 spoilers #bg #bg3 halsin #halsin #halsin romance #druid halsin #halsin x tav #larian studios #ps5 #pc game

[i-heart-hxh]

Hey! Hope you’re doing well, I’m sorry I haven’t responded to that last question of mine you answered but I absolutely loved it! Your answers are always super insightful. Today though I want to ask about another scene that I believe has big Killugon implications, but I have yet to see a single person really cover so far. I noticed it as I was re-reading the manga and instantly I knew something was up (oh and apologies in advance for the image quality but I had to take them off of my physical manga copies with my phone lol):

Now for context this scene takes place in the direct lead up to the palace invasion, which each character having a short inner monologue about how they feel in the lead up to the fight. In the case of Shoot he chooses to focus on Killua and how he has changed since they’re fight, noting how Killua look very sad every “once in a while”.

Now when I first got to this panel I was a little caught off guard as I feel most readers would be, the reason being that prior to this scene we haven’t had any indication that Killua was sad at all. After all this is post-needle Killua after his big emotional fight with a Rammot, he hadn’t shown any signs of further sadness since then and, as Shoot says, was a lot more confident in himself and his abilities. So why would Togashi deliberately choose to draw attention to Killua’s feelings this way, and why now when there was no prior indication that he was feeling bad at all?

Well, I think the reason lies in a pair of scenes that happen prior to this revelation by Shoot, the first of which is this:

Again, this is in the lead up to the palace invasion where the gang is working out their final plan of attack, while Palm is already enacting her part of the plan in the palace by herself.

Now this scene is interesting to me for a few reasons:

1. Togashi is using all this space (almost two and a half pages of it) to convey to make it clear to us how worried Gon obviously is about Palm since there’s a high chance she could die or already has at this point.

2. Togashi chose Killua specifically to be the one to explain this part of the plan to Gon, even when the more obvious choice would have been Knuckle or Shoot since they were with Morel and Knov when the plan was first made.

3. Killua is very clearly annoyed/dismissive/generally just put off by Gon’s worry about Palm, and is so harsh to Gon in the way he handles it that BOTH Knuckle and Meleoron call him out on it. Clearly there’s something more going on with Killua that Togashi wishes to highlight here, to the point where a scene about Gon’s feelings and worries about Palm quickly turns into a scene about KILLUA’S feelings about Gon’s feelings and worries about Palm!

But that’s not all! There’s also this science which takes place directly before we get Shoot’s reflection on Killua’s feelings:

Again we see Gon ask about Palm the second he has the opportunity and is once more clearly upset by the fact that there is still no word from her.

So why do I bring these two scenes up? Well because when Shoot says that “once in a while” he sees Killua get very sad, we as readers have to then ask the question of when he would have the opportunity to be around Killua enough to gauge his emotions this way, as prior to this the gang has been very much speedster from one another for awhile.

In fact, some of the only scenes we see Killua and Shoot even in the same location are both instances where Gon asks about Palm, which would logically imply that it was some point during those interactions where Shoot came to this conclusion about Killua’s feelings. And considering how Killua’s reaction to Gon’s worries about Palm, it only makes sense that this is what Shoot saw. Killua getting visibly sad when Gon shows concern for Palm.

So essentially, I believe that what Togashi was trying to get the reader to understand in this scene was something like this: shoot comments on how sad Killua is. “Sad? Why would he be sad?” The reader thinks, “he didn’t seem sad at all prior to this, what is he sad about?” They then think back to how annoyed Killua was when Gon was talking about Palm and think “well he must be sad about that then, but he’s never liked Palm, why would he be sad that Gon cares about… OH, maybe he’s just jealous!”

And THAT I think is the point of this scene, or at the very least to keep Killua’s sadness in the back of the reader’s mind for later where it’ll come to fruition.

Now, obviously anyone who knows the story knows that Killua has his big emotional scene with Palm where he confesses that he thinks Gon cares more about her than him, and how heartbreaking that is for him to feel. When you first read that though it may seem to come a little bit out of nowhere and a bit delusional on Killua’s part if you take it on it’s own. However, in the context of this scene with shoot and Gon’s earlier vocal worry about Palm, it all starts to make sense. Killua sees this play out and gets jealous because he thinks Gon cares more about Palm, whom Killua still would think is Gon’s romantic partner because Gon never showed interest to him in stopping his date with her and they never officially called off their “relationship”. So to Killua Palm means more to Gon because she’s romantically involved with him (in his eyes) and he gets sad and… well… jealous honestly whenever he’s reminded of that fact. I don’t really see any other way to explain why Killua would think Palm is more important to Gon than him keeping the context of these scenes in mind.

It also doesn’t help that Gon basically confirmed it by pushing Killua away after he expressed so much outward worry for Palm so yeah. Oof. It makes sense why Killua thinks the way he does and this whole scene is Togashi hinting at that early on. That’s why he orders these scenes the way he does and why he brings Killua’s feelings to light there for the reader to notice.

But honestly what REALLY got to me about this scene, and what inspired me to write this whole long ass ramble on the first place, was one key detail. Togashi chose an objective character like Shoot (who’s about as objective as objective can be in this situation) to clearly highlight Killua’s deeper feelings for the reader in a way Killua himself can’t.

Sound familiar? Well it should because there is one other VERY important scene where Togashi does the exact same thing, and it happens a bit later on:

(I had to cut out the first page for the sake of image number limits, but we both know what scene this is lol)

Isn’t it funny that Togashi would parallel Shoot’s revelations about Killua’s feelings here in the most romantically coded scene in the entire manga, with an equally objective character in Meleoron pointing out the same thing?

It’s hard to articulate this part but I hope you see what I’m getting at here.

It’s a very curious choice by Togashi indeed, to frame those hidden feelings that Meleoron sees explicitly around romantically love, and parallel that with Shoot’s earlier revelation about Killua being very sad even prior to Gon pushing him away… very curious indeed.

Anyway, wow this went on for longer than I thought but I needed to get this out of my head. If you have any insight I’d love to hear about it because I haven’t heard anyone talk about this scene and I need to know I’m not just crazy with what I see lol. To me, it’s just another case of that subtle, genius storytelling g by Togashi, but let me know what you think. Thanks!

Wow, this is a wonderful piece of meta, thank you so much for writing it all up and submitting it to me!! I had noticed/considered how snappy Killua gets to Gon when Gon is worrying over Palm, but this is a very carefully considered argument that the jealousy over Palm is an important part of Killua's sadness and uncertainty about his place in Gon's life going into the palace invasion. I had mostly read Killua's sadness here as Gon being distant prior and Killua picking up on that, Killua just generally being worried about the outcome, plus being hurt that Gon wants to fight Pitou on his own. I think those are all factors, too, but it's true that Killua is very focused and worried specifically about whether Gon considers him just a teammate or a friend.

I've always thought this whole dilemma comes off as "odd" in the sense that it wasn't long ago that Gon openly stated that Killua is his best friend in the whole world, under no uncertain terms. Why would Killua doubt his friendship with Gon? Plus there's the whole theme of not having to "qualify" to be a friend (an attitude towards friendship that Killua later passes on to Ikalgo). It's worth noting he's worrying about this prior to Gon's breakdown in front of Pitou and the "It's none of your business" (essentially) line that breaks Killua's heart. This happens just a bit before they confront Pitou.

I'm having a hard time explaining this because it's more of a feeling I have about this scene than something I can concretely prove, but I feel like from a purely friendship standpoint, it's strange for Killua to be so fixated on whether they're friends or not when Gon has stated his friendship with Killua over and over again. Even if Gon has been more distant and insists on fighting Pitou alone (which is definitely part of the problem here), it's not as though there's some clear reason presented that shows Killua has been demoted and Gon no longer considers him a friend.

EXCEPT...Killua is so devoted to Gon that he has it in his mind that he and Gon might do a lovers' suicide if worst comes to worst. If Gon cares more about Palm than him, where does that put him? This whole struggle Killua is having of friendship vs teammates makes so much more sense when you consider Killua having romantic feelings for Gon, whether or not he's aware that that's what they are. And it especially makes sense tying in with the argument you're making, that the whole situation with Palm is a big piece of what's bothering and hurting Killua and causing him to doubt his standing with Gon. It is also a logical build up between the date with Palm and the ultimate climax of this subplot, where Palm assures Killua that he's the one means the most to Gon, and the only one who has any hope of saving him.

I think this whole friendship vs teammate thing is Togashi code for what Killua is really struggling with, which is the strong romantic feelings he has for Gon and his concern that they're not requited. Of course it's improbable Jump would allow Togashi to state this outright so of course he has to frame it differently, but as usual he makes it clear what he's really saying in a number of ways for those of us who look into it deeply, while also not alienating readers who aren't interested in viewing it in that light.

What you're pointing out here makes this whole subplot more clear and understandable, and also further cements the romantic reading of Killua in Chimera Ant Arc--bravo for pointing it out! I think you're totally right on your reading of this, it ties so much together, and it seems like carefully laid puzzle pieces all arranged in a meaningful order.

This is why I love discussing HxH with people--even after all the times I've watched and read the series, all the meta I've read through the years, there's always some new way to see things or something I hadn't considered yet. Togashi is truly a genius storyteller, and it's an absolute blast pulling apart his writing because it's so rich and filled with intention. Even tiny scenes and little snippets of dialogue that don't seem that important in the big picture can have so much meaning once you make connections like this.

Thanks again for sending this in, it was enlightening to me and I'm sure it will be for lots of other people as well! Feel free to send more observations any time!

#hxh #hunter x hunter #killugon #gonkillu #gon #killua #meta #long post #asks #tjlnn22 #my posts

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

My whole renewed dive into trying to save all the John Oliver files I can get my hands on, which within a week escalated to me buying a new 1TB hard drive just to see how big a John Oliver folder I can make, started when it was noticed that this video was taken off YouTube:

I was glad I’d saved a copy of it, because I don’t trust anything to stay anywhere on the internet, if there’s something I like I immediately put it on my hard drive so it can’t disappear. I'm making this post mainly for anyone else who might not have saved this before YouTube took it down, here's where you can download it. Because no one should be denied the really fucking weird 25 minutes with baby comedians from 1997.

A few years ago I read this quote from Richard Ayoade, which I annoyingly can't find now, where he said he doesn't like this documentary, that they were just students and obviously didn't know what they were doing and some film people came in and said they wouldn't look bad in it but of course they do look bad. It was something like that, I can't find the exact quote. But I remember finding it odd, because surely no one is judging these people's actual comedic skill based on a few clips from a 25-minute video of when they were students. People just share it because it's funny to adorable little baby versions of the comedians who are famous now. Obviously they weren't doing high-quality comedy, they were like 19, no one cares.

Since then, I have learned that this is not quite true, and Richard Ayoade did, in fact, have reason to object to his weird student sketches being out there. Because apparently, some people are judging their comedic skill based on the time in 1997 when he and John Oliver did a weird sketch on a fence. My deep rabbit hole dives of about 18 months ago led me through a lot of old comedy message board threads, including one from 2006 of people absolutely ripping that video apart as a sign that comedy is well past its peak and this newfangled crop of comedians are all shit and the once-great institution of Cambridge Footlights has fallen. By 2006.

I normally don't link to things things directly from a message board on here, seems too close to that horrible thing where you take screenshots from one social media and post it on a different social media to make fun of it (so instead, I just occasionally see something I disagree with on a message board, and then write a post on here refuting it without posting the original context, to people who don't know what I'm talking about), but it feels more acceptable if it was from 2006, I think. It's not like the person who posted that in 2006 is likely to still be hanging around Britcom social media seeing who's quoting them. So I think... I think I need to quote just a little bit of it, because there was this one really long aggressive rant from this one 2006 post that was the funniest fucking thing (I won't like but it's not hard to find on Google):

I mean, I can't really communicate how bad it was, to be honest. But it was just the fact that you saw the two cunts writing the thing, sitting in a daylight-filled bar, giggling into their lager. You got the picture? Ugh. And John Oliver, who is the spitting image of David Baddiel (intentionally of course), is there with his pencil and notepad suggesting the lines with a grandiose smugness that made me really ill, and his mate (the blandest man ever) is there, with his jumper and his shoes, salivating over the comic genius he sees before him. Cunt, cunt, CUNT! They also have three girl-ones with them, all of whom have no talent whatsoever. You see one of them auditioning, where she has to do some improv, and she's shit... but the president (who looks like a fifteen year-old John Lloyd) can be heard wheezily guffawing at everything she says. And this serves only to make her improv even worse. And John Oliver is the worst. Or the one that got to me the most. With his hair.

That is, in case anyone's wondering, why my current Tumblr bio ends with the line: "John Oliver is the worst. Or the one that got to me the most. With his hair." It's a quote from a guy in 2006 who was really really mad about a 25-minute Footlights documentary.

So I would like to state, for the record, that by sharing this video, I am not endorsing the actual quality of the comedy in the few little sketches we see. I am also not endorsing the class system, the hold that a few elite institutions have over entire industries, Richard Ayoade's views on transgender people, or trivia in pubs. I just think they're adorable baby comedians as well as an interesting snapshot of comedy history. I'm pretty sure that's all it's supposed to be.

I am also not endorsing the class-based dominance of elite institutions when I say I still want that sitcom between two student comedians, Kim Tey and Wark Atson, who have to band together to get through their year-long university comedy play while hiding from everyone but each other their respective secrets of not really being a student there, and not really being Welsh. Madcap farcical hi-jinks ensue. People would watch it. I do not endorse the class-based dominance of elite institutions but I do quite enjoy Footlights stories, so I'm glad they made a really weird documentary with some of them. Also when I go to the UK this summer I've booked off one entire day to take the train to Cambridge and run around feeling like I'm in Harry Potter (Disclaimer: I also do not endorse JK Rowling's views on trans people, or at this point, on most things. Why can't we have nice things?).

I do not endorse the class-based dominance of elite institutions, but also,

And that probably the only time you'll hear someone compare John Oliver to John Robins (very different comedians, really), especially on a post that started out just being a way to share a video that's been taken off YouTube. Download the Google Drive link if you want to keep it, everyone. That was supposed to be the point of this post. It's a good video. It features Richard Ayoade and Matthew Holness and either that woman from Peep Show or her sister, I get them mixed up. And also it features John Oliver with, to be fair for one moment to that guy in 2006, quite Baddiel-like hair.

[hologramcowboy]

Many of us have speculated over what’s wrong with Jensen and why he seems so unhappy. But I wonder if a big part of it (not all since he clearly doesn’t like being around his wife, either) is The Winchesters. I don’t believe that he actually thinks the show is good, not if he has eyes and ears. I think he arrogantly assumed that if Dean was attached to it, it would be a success no matter what the quality was, but I don’t think he saw the quality being THIS low. I think he’s embarrassed to be attached to it. He looks like he’s in physical pain when he has to do Lives for it. And his Tweets or Instagram posts about it are minimal. I think he must have faced some heat from the higher-ups for the show's underperformance, and they likely forced his hand and that’s when we finally saw him on social media, tweeting (or he took some advice from Jared, too little too late). I think he’s feeling a little humiliated right now. And frankly, if that’s part of why he’s unhappy, he brought it on himself for the way he acted with the whole nightmare prequel.

Despite what it may sound like, I truly hope he figures things out and finds something to be happy about in his life, but I also hope he took a lesson from the prequel debacle (both about professionalism and friendship) and learns from this mistake.

You make an excellent point, the backlash for the prequel and for the nepotism he demonstrated surely got to him but it does seem his pain runs deeper than that. I will say something I learned from an Acting Coach friend who has a degree in Psychology, people who are extremely beautiful are used to being worshiped, when something happens that causes contrast to that they can experience trauma. Meaning, Jensen is not used to being criticized, especially since people fake most things and worship him in exaggerated ways to get on his good side and be able to get close to him. There are a lot of psychological aspects to consider as even that is extremely damaging, never knowing who truly loves you for you and who is just aiming to take advantage. But my point was, it's possible Jensen is experiencing an emotional collapse because after building an unrealistic superego based on the image his "fans" developed of him, he is now facing criticism for very valid reason and as an extremely attractive person, who is used to being worshiped, that does register as a trauma on some level which only amplifies his clear depression. I agree, his tweets show he's not really into the show, he did no research prior to beginning live-tweeting and continues to do things halfa****, in all of his interviews his lack of excitement and lack of authenticity came through. He stepped on a dear friend to get his prequel so there's no doubt also a guilt factor, as he is human, after all. Same goes for the live, he seemed off and was trying to overcompensate.

He also seems to be surrounded by leeches, people who are only interested in taking advantage of his image and money. Danneel being the prime example, her entire career was built by banking on his image and influence and making him insert her in his deals. I too hope he finds what he is looking for in terms of fulfillment, happiness and well-being. Of course, like you, I also hope he will take the wisdom from his past experience and apply to the future to avoid recreating painful situations that cast him in a bad light. That's the thing about dark night of the soul, you do come out of them wiser and more capable of building the life you actually want because you learn through all the contrast.

Sending you Love, thank you for enriching me with your perspective.

#jensen critical #anti the winchesters

[extremelyputridfishbreath]

hope you don't mind me asking, what's up with ncp?

bad writing quality, wasted my buddy @/selfawarecobalt's time by having him draw something for a party that (as of now) never got used and also didn't credit him for drawing the hydro hopper stampbook page, inaccurate mascots (but hey this was one of scrabble's direct influences so when you think about it it's actually Good /j), the flash client is extremely laggy and can be borderline unusable with how many ads it has, probably some other gripes im forgetting atm

buuut since i'm already complaining about ncp i might as well talk about cpl too in case anyone wants to know my deal with that, it's owner did not (at least by the time of this post i do not Know if it has happened since then) repay memorydatas/garianna, a former member of staff the 8 dollars and pizza he owed her, posturing themselves in a way that makes them look more official, ben worked on this game too and did Not get credited on the official site anywhere at any point while he worked on the game. also they have a habit of acting like they created features from the original game so...lol?

like this is from their latest post about their wayback (basically renamed anniversary party) and...bro. you didn't craft NOTHIN', every single wayback party room is not only official art but with waaaay worse quality for zero reason. like i cannot stress enough that the swfs are ON club penguin wiki for most parties, a lot of them didn't look so grainy and at the very least nothing from 2008-2009 looked this bad.

there's also the problem of pointless changes nobody asked for that don't suit the game and make things more difficult, and nothing is a better example than their new psa test. and like, hey. i fucking love the psa/epf, i always have loved the psa and epf even when i was playing the original game as a kid, almost every oc i post about (torrent, richter, rolly, gin, scrabble, blanche, sonata, etc) is either associated with the agencies as well, an agent or is their adversary because it's my favorite part of the game. i'm not against changing the quiz to keep it fresh. and if we got a entry exam like the epf's (before they replaced it with the new as3 HQ :( i really wish they made an actual new test for the epf after blackout, but whatever) that would've been really cool! or if they had more fun questions like say, "what would you do if a villain was in front of you RIGHT NOW!!!"

but like. let's look at the original quiz, taken from club penguin mountain's tutorial for it. as a refresher, your account needs to be 30 days old in order to become an agent on the original game and typically the average cpps that has the psa around sticks to that age restriction.

pretty straightforward because y'know, middle schoolers were the intended audience. maybe a little boring for new and old fans, but still understandable and pretty obvious what the answers are, regardless of if you remember them from playing as a kid or not. the only change is how you activate the quiz, because in the original game the ui was different (image below is from a walkthrough video from 2008)

meanwhile, with cpl... (as taken from cplcheats)

the original psa quiz was, like i said: straightforward. answer the questions correctly and boom: you're an agent! and if you get it wrong, that's okay- you can try again as many times as you want until you get it right.

the club penguin legacy psa quiz is going to alienate new and old players. it's not straight forward: you are presented with the code screen with no context as to why and no text prompt when it happens. you aren't going to puzzle this out without explicitly being told what to do: even if you found the boiler note by yourself, nobody is going to know to click the coffee stand note because it was never clickable in the original game. but activating the quiz at all all depends on you thinking to walk over to the changing booth...which players wouldnt typically do if theyre trying to become an agent. it's just a baffling choice. the code idea isn't bad, but it needs more context (ex: revamped quiz you do that gives you hints on where to find the paper slips before you enter the code).

#im not gonna talk about how using paige's expedition design and calling her a psa agent makes zero sense continuity wise #continuity errors that retroactively make nothing about the cpl psa storylines make logical sense. i will not talk about continuity errors #nobody but me cares about- #like yeah. club penguins (epf) timeline is kinda a mess but still.

[trinketfairy]

I'm having an autism moment but the quality control decline at Jellycat makes me feel very autistically frustrated.

Some points:

Prices are getting higher while quality is decreasing. We've seen it, Jellycat has acknowledged and commented on it, and we know that JC isn't the only one who's guilty of this. But what frustrates me a lot is knowing that, despite JC's comments on their quality control and their promises to "do better," they haven't really been sticking with their word. I feel like there's been a consistent uptick in posts on the Jellycatplush subreddit of people complaining about quality even after they made their statement in January of this year and for good reason- their final products just aren't meeting the price tags anymore.

I suppose some of this has to do with the increase in popularity they said they had experienced in 2022 that they struggled to keep up with, and I imagine they're trying to keep up with the demand by loosening quality control to get more product out, but I think they're really shooting themselves in their feet for this because JC was once revered for their quality. I know I myself have said in the past that I thought the price of their products were totally worth it because I truly believed that the quality lived up to those price tags. Nowadays I can't say the same thing about them anymore.

What sucks further though is the fact that all of this product is just going to waste now. Many people have said that they were so disappointed with what they got (especially when you consider how much money they have to fork out per plush these days) that they ended up returning it to JC, which ultimately ends up being tossed in some landfill somewhere. Polyester and plastic fabric isn't exactly the definition of environmentally friendly!

Ultimately, these factories are going out of their ways to produce subpar products under what I imagine are more strict codes to get more product out, which end up being returned by the buyers because they're so disappointed in the quality control and thrown into the garbage. Or if they're not returned by the owner, then they'll still probably end up there anyway because they're defective and not as likely to last as long.

What I think should be done instead is offering discounts on defective products- within reason of course, nobody's going to want to pay any amount of money for a plush that's practically falling apart, but minor defects I could see selling fine enough because A) customers won't have to pay the full amount for a subpar product, and B) they also will know exactly what they're getting and not being set up for disappointment. I'd love to buy defective jellies, so long as I'm not paying the price of a high quality one!

But understandably, I think the above point could have a bad affliction on their reputation as a company, that they'd have defective plush to sell in the first place, which is why I don't think they do it. They've already built their image on being a higher-end plush brand, so I feel like advertising products that exist to be defective would be bad publicity.

Side note: I fear for the safety of the literal babies chewing on their toys if their quality continues to dwindle. There are specific safety protocols that toy manufacturers need to adhere to in order to produce toys for babies- the 3+ age rating exists for a reason! I don't think it's quite gotten to that point yet, but it's in the realm of possibility if JC continues down the road they're on.

I could end this by saying something about the effects of late stage capitalism on product quality control and, eventually, environmentalism and safety, but I don't imagine anyone is following a blog about children's toys to hear political commentary which is understandable so I'll save it for now.

#journal #Partially inspired by that one Reddit post I saw earlier about someone wanting to sell secondhand defective jellies at a discount

[mosssyyycat]

Does the new warrior cats art look AI to anyone else?

Originally I just thought the artist was lazy or inexperienced, I was a little confused when some people pointed out that it looked AI generated, but after looking closer, I kind of believe it? I could be completely wrong, but I’ll give images as examples for why I believe this. I also don’t own the book yet, so I only have the images uploaded to the official website to use, and I’m unsure if there have been changes to the art since that.

Disclaimer

Some of this information I have I got from other people, I cannot confirm if it’s true, so please don’t take my word for some of this (for the things I’m unsure if it’s true or not I will link back to where I got the information when I can)

I love warriors, I love the stories, characters, unique wood building, all of it! I’m not hating on the books or authors in any way with this post, this Is just a speculation about the cover art. What’s inside the books is still great and i look forward to every book!

I first noticed the art looking AI on a post which mentioned the ableist choices the artist made, hiding cats Injuries behind plants and things like that.

Link to the post https://www.reddit.com/r/WarriorCats/comments/17blwe7/the_new_warrior_cats_ultimate_guide_art_is_hiding/

Some people pointed out that the artist seemed inexperienced in cats, and it’s possible that they were just unsure of how to draw the injuries, which I could believe. But I saw a comment on there saying this same artist did the covers for a book series they read and this person whitewashed the characters on the covers of the books. I don’t know anything of the series so I can’t confirm this, but the comments stating this were found on the post linked above. If this is true, I wouldn’t really trust this person to not decide it would be faster to AI generate their art and just go over it to make it look better.

For the same reason, unless it’s confirmed in some way, I don’t believe the warriors team made the choice to hide the characters disabilities, especially since the previous ultimate guide they did show their injuries. Why would they just suddenly change their mind? And I doubt the last book they did art for asked them to whitewash the characters either. I think it’s just this artist being not so good.

Also knowing the book had previously said Ivy was brown/red and Dove was yellow because who ever added their coat color just color picked from the art with extremely harsh lighting, it would make sense that they also missed some of the things like AI or hiding disabilities. It’s possible whoever was doing that part maybe didn’t really know the characters well enough to catch these things. (or else I don’t think they’d be calling Dove yellow and Ivy red haha)

Here’s the art I’ve seen that has me suspicious..

The first one I believe is Crag.

If you look at the bottom right of the cat, there’s a weird area that looks like his body got cut of and all they did to cover if was add three purple strokes. And his body is just a big blob..? Like, on the left it almost looks like the start of a leg but then it’s just a weird thing sticking out?? I don’t know, it just looks weird to me. You can also see at the bottom left of his body it gets cut off.

Second is Stormfur and Brook.

Brook’s body just melts into the ground, it looks like a badly taken photo or something, like the quality around her body is just really bad. Where are her legs??? Someone please help her find her legs. Stormfur, help her find her legs…

Third is Mudclaw. Not only does his left cheek look really weird, LOOK AT HIS TAIL???? I genuinely don’t understand how someone could draw it like that without going “hm.. that looks kinda weird.” It looks really AI generated. The bottom left corner the plants look really melty and weird… like how do you draw like that? Idk

He also doesn’t have legs, but a body that’s seems to melt together, with some weird looking shapes in it.

There’s also Half Moon’s eye looking really weird, Blackstar’s art… just look at the bushes.. it looks straight out of Dora? Like it’s not even realistic???? Harestar’s mouth looks like it’s covered in blood or something, honestly I don’t know what to say about it. I won’t link these ones but you can find them in the official warriors website, or in the book if you have it.

This art is pretty old, but Sol is known for his big ears, long muzzle, and short fur which is much longer around his neck and tail tip, making him resemble a lion, he has red/orange, white, and black patches. This guy did not do that.. at all. And notice how everything is SO RED you can’t see the real colors of anything, except those blades of grass at the front. That’s so ugly???? How did he think it looks good..?

Ending on a positiv note, Feathertail’s art is SO PRETTY!!! Same for Rootspring!! And what I assume is Ravenpaw and Barley is very cute! I have seen some other really pretty ones but I’m not sure who they are. I really hope the art isn’t AI generated. And though some of these look really bad, some of them are so pretty too! I’m not exactly sure what to think honestly. But I do slightly hope they get a new artist. But if they don’t, at least the books are still good! I’m not buying them for the cover anyway, so I guess in the end it doesn’t matter all that much. But still, I’m curious what other people think? Is this AI, laziness, simply the artist not being skilled enough with cats?

#warriors #erin hunter warriors #warrior cats

[meowstix]

RATING EVERY BEYBLADE DRAGON

IT'S APPRECIATE A DRAGON DAY AND OF COURSE, I AM ALWAYS APPRECIATING DRAGONS BUT TODAY I'M GONNA DO IT EVEN MORE! and well. beyblade sure does have many dragons! so i looked through em all (or atleast, as many as i have good pics of) and i am going to rate All Of Them. i'm also gonna be rating these out of 5 stars because i'm really bad at rating things out of 10

unfortunately, because i cannot find any high quality pictures of many bit chip-exclusive designs, some of them will not be mentioned. trust me i wish i had pics of em all

dragoon/seiryu: the azure dragon, the absolute og. i mean not THE original but i don't have any good images of ultimate dragoon or whatever it's called's bit chip. 5/5 it's fucking seiryu

cyber dragoon: i've literally been insane about the digital sacred beasts plotline for MONTHS now. not quiiiite five stars but almost.

dark dragoon: i only ever got halfway through the movie i'm gonna be real. nothing Bad about this one but if i want a seiryu recolor i'd definitely go for cyber dragoon instead, 3 stars

gaia dragoon/koryu: this is probably the closest bsb has to an average western dragon, not too much of note although the colors.. do not look very threatening to be honest. 3 stars, gets one taken off because i swear i had a render of it and i'm genuinely pretty bummed i couldn't find it

dark gaia dragoon: as i said before i never finished the movie so i have no idea how this thing is in that. looks sick as fuck in the concept art though, 5/5 stars

amphilyon/amphisbaena: yeah so for some fucking reason this is the only sacred beast besides the main 5 to have a name other than that of its corresponding bey. not sure what's up with that but honestly this thing looked way cooler when we saw it in season 1 than it is in full color. 3 and a half stars, i'd put it at 2 and a half but giancarlo is neat

DRAGOON VARIANT LIGHTNING ROUND

ice: it sure is dragoon and it sure is ice. not much of note here, 3 stars master: i'm not fond of any of the master variants but this is probably the second best one behind master draciel. 1 and a half stars spark: if the fact that i went and drew it once didn't tip you off i think this one goes fucking hard. 5 stars, wish we saw it in the anime death: i don't have anything to say other than yeah that's sick. 8/10 rock: it barely resembles seiryu but it DOES remind me of dire miralis from monster hunter so that's a plus, 3 stars metal: is it me or do the metal variants look slightly fucked up. i'm gonna be real i kind of wish these designs were used for the digital sacred beasts though ig that defeats the point of those being copies. anyway gonna give this one 3 and a half stars knight: this thing looks so generic it's insane i would see this in a set of fantasy-themed stock art. zero stars it's not even fucking blue kids: weird little freak. 2.5 stars

that completes bakuten shoot, leading into metal fight. i know almost none of these and if i missed any, it's because i'm mainly going off the ones listed in @mach-speed-spin's post on dragon beyblades.

L-drago: like the ONLY cool creature design i saw in mfb before i dropped it. 4/5 i don't care if it's evil i think it's Neat

orochi: this is just a skylander you can't trick me. it would make a damn good one though, 2.5 stars

leviathan: yeah this one goes pretty hard. 4 stars

i'm gonna be real mfb didn't have a lot in the first place but i hit the image limit so dragooon (three Os) and behemoth aren't here sorry to any fans of those

finally is burst, which i keep hearing has too many dragons, and to that i say fuck you there's no such thing as too many dragons. for the record because of how many variations some of these have across the seasons i'm only gonna be rating their original designs.

wyvern: that's a wyvern alright! 4/5

quetzalcoatl: i wasn't sure whether to count this one as a dragon but wikipedia says quetzalcoatl is a dragon so i'll take their word on this. 2 out of 5, it's fine i guess.

longinus: banger design but i would punt lui without hesitation given the opportunity. goes from a 5/5 to a 3/5 because of that.

fafnir: almost a pretty solid dragon design but idk man the beak is really throwing me off here. 2.5 stars.

bahamut: oh this is ABSOLUTELY a banger, and associated with a character who deserved more screentime. 5/5

kukulcan: another one that's apparently a dragon according to wikipedia. kurt's actual character is neat but his design made me go "wait this guy looks kinda like ghasem" and his avatar made me go "wait this looks kinda like quetzalcoatl". 2.5 stars

salamander: the only dragon introduced in cho-z and honestly i don't even have anything to say here just look at it. that thing's fucking awesome, 5 and a half stars

dragon: that's a dragon babe! 5/5

diabolos: this thing looks like it wouldn't be out of place in a hot sauce ad. decent design but the pattern on it's front kinda throws me off, solid 3 stars

genesis: I'VE HEARD THIS THING IS A DRAGON ENOUGH THAT I GUESS IT GOES HERE BUT LOOKING AT IT I'M NOT SO SURE ABOUT THAT. THAT'S A FUCKED UP MAN. 1.5 stars, i don't know yugioh much but this thing looks like it would probably be pretty at home there

apocalypse: it doesn't really feel like what i'd expect an apocalypse dragon to look like which holds it back, but i do prefer it over genesis. 3.5 stars

happy appreciate a dragon day, and remember to appreciate your local dragon, everyone!

i wanted to put a gif of seiryu here but since as i said i hit image limit here's a link to it instead

#rat chat #beyblade #bakuten shoot beyblade #metal fight beyblade #beyblade burst

[radigalde]

Okay, so, I started BG3. But this post is not about spoilers. It's about how it looks.

You see, I preordered it when it first became available, and participated in Early Access for most of its duration (except for two last patches). As you may know, during the development Larian abruptly changed the system requirements. And while my laptop with old GTX1050 was sitting comfortably enough in the middle of the old requirements, it's barely able to crawl under the minimum of the new version.

So, while the game was running smoothly with the medium graphic settings at the start of EA, by druids patch I couldn't even get to the first settlement because of the freezes, textures lagging in and out of their blurry existence, T-posing, etc. It was pretty bad.

Reportedly, the final game should have been optimized a bit better, so I decided to give it a shot and see how it looks like on the same laptop almost 3 years since the first download.

Yeah, I know that the cloud gaming exist. It costs money and needs a speedy internet connection.

And the game greeted me with this.

(Changed everything from medium to low except for the texture quality - it's still on medium. Had to say goodbye to the distance blur as well)

Compare it to this from 2020 (screen from another person with approximately same old settings, my screenshots of the old character creation room didn't survive):

Or this (mine 2020 screenshot outside of the character creation):

Same laptop, same graphic card, 3 years of development in-between.

Which is especially gutting, because the hair quality was really good during the first EA patches even on the lower graphic settings and older machines. But at some point the developers decided to change it, turning it into greasy looking pixelated something.

Larian, why :(

Some hairstyles managed to lag through into something decent.

Others did not.

The hair's reaction to lightning in this room/location is atrocious btw.

Even when the textures are fully uploaded.

It's a LED wig, I got it.

Comparison of the first model appearance vs after the textures loaded in is quite funny, though.

It jumped to the left version each time I moved the camera in/out even a tiny bit, loading the textures from the right anew. Each. Time. The same happened during the last patches of EA, except that back then the loading could take a few minutes. Now it's either ~15 sec or not loading at all here.

Tbh, after seeing all of that in the dressing room, I dreaded of what would I see during the main game.

But it's surprisingly better. Almost no jarring rounded pixelation, and no jumping between abyssmal low and normal version of textures.

The reaction to light still sucks sometimes. The hair pick too much from the light sources that are barely visible otherwise and don't light up anything else to the same degree.

As for the optimization: yes, it indeed became better. Still not the first EA release quality for me, sadly, but by far better than the latest EA patches. Textures are way more steady now: they still take a few seconds to load in during the big cutscenes, but it's like nothing compared to the previous mess. During the regular exploration gameplay character (and most of environmental) textures are always steady. I even managed to watch the full crashing cutscene as a, well, cutscene instead of three half-loaded frames that took 20 min to render. And I was running freely on the beach despite the falling ash and everything that almost killed my frames back then.

Also, it still doesn't heat up my laptop all that much, which is a pleasant surprise.

Well, stay tuned for more cursed images, I guess.

Isekai-d into a mobile game.

Oh, and Lae'zel is a fiery redhead on her character portrait for some reason, and other characters' hair is displayed like brighness/contrast +100. I think, something is deeply wrong with the dressing room specifically after all.

#baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #min graphic playthrough

[duhragonball]

If you dont mind me asking about Super Hero, how do you feel about the new animation after you've watched the movie? For me, I think its still pretty awkward in slow parts but on the flip side it did make the fights feel really fluid.

I just got back from watching the dub in IMAX, so yeah, feel free to ask me about this movie! And that goes for all of you out there, too. (I'm pointing at you right now through the screen.)

Okay, so this movie was done in all 3D, CGI, whatever people call it. I've been hearing people gripe about it for a long time now, because there are a lot of people who worry about the future of 2D animation, and also there were fears that the quality would suffer, because a lot of animated shows make the jump to 3D thinking it'll be easier, and it ends up looking like crap.

All I know is that this movie looks pretty hot-damn amazing. I kind of wish the final battle wasn't so murky, but we're talking about animation, not color palettes. As far as the importance of 2D animation, I'm not qualified to speak on that. I'm just a dumbass consumer, but it seems to me that if traditional animation is such a precious, valuable thing, then it can survive the advent of new technology. Television didn't obsolete radio, and e-mail didn't kill the post office. I don't see how complaining about 3D animation does anything to help 2D flourish.

As far as quality concerns go, I think the fanbase was particularly concerned because Dragon Ball has tried dipping it's toe into 3D before, and it hasn't gone well...

It's hard to convey in a still image, but these particular shots from Res F and DBS Broly were very conspicuous, because the characters' movements looked very stiff and uninspired compared to the footage surrounding it. I think Battle of Gods had a little CGI in the Goku/Beerus fight, but it's harder to spot, at least for me. With Res F and Super Broly, it's like Toei felt more comfortable using 3D for longer, more prominent parts of the movie, and I remember them getting some flak from the fans about it. These look like screenshots from the Raging Blast games, not feature-length films made years after the PS3's heyday.

The thing is, okay, I can't speak for everyone else, but my beef wasn't with the quality of the 3D in these shots. My problem was with how awkward it was when they switched back and forth. The 3D assets looked noticeably different from the 2D models, and there was no sense of a "rule" to it. Like, if all the fight scenes were in 3D and the rest of the movie was in 2D, I'd go like "Okay, this is how the movie works." Instead, they just sort of picked a few seconds and decided to animate it differently from everything else. That's what made it jarring. That's what took me out of these two movies.

At the time, I thought to myself, "If they made the entire movie like these brief segments, then it wouldn't be bad at all." To be sure, the CGI characters in Broly aren't as appealing as the 2D animation we got. I'm not saying the movie would have been better if it had been all 3D. What I'm saying is that it would have been less disruptive than switching it up late in the film.

To give an example of what I mean, in the late 90's, Toonami had a show called the Real Adventures of Johnny Quest. There was a lot of 60's nostalgia in the 90's, so the idea was to do a "modern" version of the old Johnny Quest cartoon. It was mostly 2D, but they had a gimmick where the characters would go into some virtual reality world and fight bad guys in there. And all the VR action looked like this:

And yeah, it looks like shit, but in the 90s, this was cutting-edge, and they made it the selling point of the show. The point was that they knew they couldn't animate the whole show this way, so they came up with an in-story reason for the change in visuals. It doesn't matter if Race Bannon looks different from his 2D model, because this is his avatar in the virtual reality system. But if they could have animated the whole series in 3D, that probably would have worked too. I mean, that's what Reboot did, and Beast Wars, and people loved those shows.

So yeah, when I first found out DBSSH was going to be all 3D animation, I wasn't too surprised, since the previous three movies seemed to be practice runs for something like this. And I wasn't too concerned, because at least they were fully committing to it. If all the characters had looked like Goku, Frieza, and Broly up there, I would have still enjoyed the movie. Hell, if they looked like Race Bannon and Ezekiel Rage, I would have dug that too. I'm not that choosy when it comes to Dragon Ball. That's probably because a lot of the classic episodes look like this:

But before some OG DB purist tries to weigh in, let's check out an example from pre-Saiyans Dragon Ball, back when it was """"good"""

I'm not trying to be a smartass with these gifs, either. These are clips taken from a couple of episodes I really enjoy. I liked them so much that I made these gifs, but I'm not ashamed to admit that they're not exactly sterling examples of 2D animation. People have been making cracks about Yukio Ebisawa's art direction for years, but every 6th episode of Dragon Ball and DBZ has his name on the credits. If you're into Dragon Ball, you gotta admit you enjoy some crap animation. You like good animation too, but it's pretty much impossible to skip the goofy shit and just watch the really good stuff.

That's why I've never understood the animation snobbery in the fandom. At its core, Dragon Ball is a franchise that is not afraid to cut corners from time to time, and even make jokes at its own expense. The Super Saiyan form was invented so they could draw Goku's hair faster in the comics. They could do a movie with sock puppets and Clutch Cargo mouths and I'd be like "Yep, typical Dragon Ball."

And yet, I think there's a genuine sense of pride in the franchise, too, a desire to surpass limits and try new things. The first several dozen episodes of the DBS anime were disappointing, but they turned it around by the end. And these movies seem to represent a sincere effort to really do something special with the characters. I think that's why they dared to make an all-3D movie starring Piccolo. It would have been easier to just stick to the formula and have Goku fight Frieza some more, but they wanted to do more. And the bet paid off. Super Hero is a visually stunning movie. If those wonky moments in the previous films helped them get to this point, then it was more than worth it.

One of these days, they might screw up royally, and I'll probably join in on complaining about it. I'm still sore about DBS Episode 5. But my biggest complaint about DBS 5 was that it was badly animated and it was just retelling a story we already had from the movies. If it had been a badly animated episode with new material, I would have probably accepted it. In the end, I'm more concerned with the story. Tell me something compelling, something good, and I can deal with substandard visuals.

#dragon ball #dragon ball super super hero #ask duhragonball

[bizarrepotpourri]

I received a link to the article above in my inbox and of course they had to remind me of a work-in-progress story that I can't finish. Mostly because as unashamedly horny as I am, I find writing sex scenes awkward.

From the nerdy point of view, the article - a bit rambling and stream-of-consciousness, as befitting "rough draft notes" - gives some really good points that fit with my #Special Officer 432 stories, like:

the British relationship with the noose is intertwined with concepts of celebrity which remain relevant to this day. That is to say, the gallows is both a stage and a celebrity drama.

This is, pretty much, the vision of a society I had in mind while creating the fictional Kingdom. I focused on it the most in "The Murderous Brat", where I wrote down four different tabloid headlines including absolutely spoilerrific "YES SHE DID" and went with a full battery of jabs (and a booster) against lowbrow sensationalist "reporting" by the tabloid press. Because the more I researched, the more I noticed the pattern.

There must also be a charismatic quality in the criminal, or alleged criminal, if not in themselves, then in how they are portrayed and what they come to represent. Take for example how Beatrice Pace, who was tried in 1928 for the murder by poisoning of her husband, attracted huge crowds of sympathetic women to her trial. While acquitted, it is clear this ‘fandom’, for want of a better word, and her image as tragic widow cum black widow would have followed her to the gallows.

When it comes to the stories outside of the Officer series, my intention is to make the characters distinctive in some way. Sometimes, they're inspirational in a bad way, for leading a band of brigands or pirates, sometimes they're supportive in some dirty way, like offing their perverted step-brother to save their sister or providing certain solutions like Aqua Tofana to other women. Even the narrator in "View from the Window" hints that she's ideologically motivated, part Greta Overbeck and even larger part Charlotte Corday. I want the readers to know that when they go, they go for a reason and are resigned but somewhat proud of their fate.

Celebrity must be built up, and raised to a crescendo. But then the celebrity must be brought low and destroyed, through their hubris, restoring order or the illusion of it. This degradation is a public spectacle, or at least comes with it an audience of some sort or another.

Well... This explains why the condemned in my stories are executed naked or mostly naked - aside from the expectations of the genre, it also fulfills this need for degradation in a straightforward and aesthetic way. You have a seductive woman on the scaffold, exposed at least partially, and in a moment you will witness her meet her grisly end.

This audience for celebrity must also be urban in nature, and atomised on a personal level, a product of industrialisation and post-Enlightenment society.

And this is where Mr Hay is wrong. Very, very wrong as history proved multiple times already. The fascination with criminals and their executions dates back a long, long time and both ballads and horror stories from the Medieval era prove that making someone famous or infamous doesn't need the trappings of modern society to happen. For example, we have the story of Klaus Störtebeker, as famous for his life as he is for his death. The popularization of print merely helped save some of the stories for posterity.

The rest of the article goes into a lot of interesting details about the case of Marie Manning and her husband, both executed in 1849 for the murder of Marie's lover. While I knew the basics of the case and got the idea for a story from it, it turns out from Mr Hay's notes that there's more to it when it comes to Marie's role in planning the whole thing than Wikipedia cared to publish, and the quotes from contemporary press he brings up indeed prove the sensationalistic tabloid approach to such cases. It also, unfortunately, throws the entire concept I had out of the window, even more than my dubious ability to write sex scenes. Oh well.

#Ravenka nerdposting #Ravenka hornyposting #capital punishment #Marie Manning #history #sociology #writeblr #my writing #creative writing

[phoenixblack89]

Ya know you'd think someone who does a lot involving the Internet for their work (promotion and selling etc) would be aware of reverse image search.

Rant ahead.

Especially when they're claiming they're the original artist.

I mean I knew for sure id seen some of the art my friend claims she's the original artist of is by other people. I figured that it was merely practice (this was a few years ago now bare that in mind it's around 2014 time before I even started posting mine online again)

However around 2020 she began selling pieces she'd drawn on fb and at car boot sales (think of craft fairs but not just craft if youre not from the UK) and made a fair amount of money. Enough to begin to do her current business of handmade paint as well as her actual legit job of being a promotion assistant for a disco/bouncy house/dj business.

And she stopped selling her art and didn't post it anywhere but would show me. And it got me a tad suspicious cos she seen me posting mine and while I don't have a massive following for my art the few people who interact make me smile if I've had a bad day.

She recently began asking if I'd help her get back into the swing of social media for her artwork. She said she didn't have time for taking photos of her art and do the business photography, I offered to go and take the photos and send them via email. Which I did because I'm a good friend and wanted to be supportive.

However....

I did notice that her style was inconsistent. You can tell when my friend has truly drawn something and when she's copied. I mean this in the nicest way but she can not for the life of her draw faces.

All her humans look like pugs. There's not a lot of facial definition around key structural places like the eyes and nose. The nose is always a big give away for me. I have given her pointers on them in the past and I can see a little improvement. And she does have some sketches that I can see she's worked on and made notes on to make progress.

It's kinda like she gave up on her art and didn't improve past senior school with it. That is probably the best way I can describe how I see her skill level. It's stuck in final year of school.

Now the art thief issue is that she loves anime, and Disney, and pokemon, and digimon. And I have reverse image searched her art work of these fandoms.

All are available to find online with much better quality of work.

There's also a rather well known youtuber whose arkwork she has taken and sold for her own profit. Which I cannot prove as she cleared the fb profile she used to sell it on completely recently.

And I know she is still doing this type of behaviour currently.

I really don't know what to do about this. I've asked her point blank before are you tracing/using this person's such and such as reference and got told a short sharp no. Same as when I ask if she's still sleeping with her employer really.

I rarely show her what I'm working on for this exact reason.

She's also the reason why I don't have any of my artwork prior to 2006. She borrowed my file to draw one of my earliest ocs and her mother threw it out cos she had the bright idea to put my artwork (a very full arch lever file full) into a carrier bag to bring back to me instead of leavijng it on her desk. Her mother assumed it was trash and away it went. It's the one thing I will never forgive her mother for EVER!

#art theif #phoenix rambles #fml #Best friend is a moron #Who lacks several morals and needs a good lot of sense shook into her

[unearthlytwilight]

so... 20E complete!

spoilers: he was hit and also did not crit. this run is surprising and not always in a good way

Liveblogged thoughts (long, lots of swears and images, one video) below:

Huh. I guess Nils just gave Ninian a power-up. Sure, that can happen.

cute that she has Ninis' Grace equipped. I remember getting that back aaaaall the way back in 7x.

also, remember that that chapter boss was so scared of failing those assassins that he took poison after he died? feel like that might be relevant soon

Eliwood really letting her help because he wants her to feel better. what a guy

hot damn, a Restore staff! also the lady getting mad that it's the middle of the night is funny

I forgot there were wyvern riders this map. the poison was annoying

the enemy monks suck. not sure if that's just light magic being bad or enemy quality but :/. also I forgot this game had enemy monks. Black Fang enemy monks at that! that's relevant to a magic system lore tidbit

Ninian got a level! didn't catch a screengrab but it was all the stats she can get I think so. yay

Fiora also got a level! at least she's getting strength (Florina callout post)

FUCK Oleg moves. he missed though so it's fine

stole his Hero Crest. maybe take some dodging lessons here, Eliwood, I have it on good authority Canas loves teaching

I know it's just because of the blinking but. the smug in this image. Eliwood clowning on Hector will never not be funny. friendship goals

oh look it's Eliwood acting out of noblesse oblige rather than simple niceness again. it's almost like it's an integral part of his character

*item get sound* Isadora get! because the game apparently thinks I need 5 cavaliers. I do not

not gonna use you, Isadora, but you make some good points. also you're pretty

still really like [Mark]'s integration into the story. they're a presence and acknowledged but they're not the focus. unlike some more recent games *cough Fates and Engage cough*

not a lot to say here. just good power of friendship stuff

man, I understand that you're trying to to be nice but... your father literally died in your arms very recently. please stop apologizing it's uncomfortable

yeah! power of friendship. it's executed pretty well here.

this plot decision is... confusing. the main villain sits around twiddling his thumbs while the Black Fang plotline happens. we already know his motives, but he doesn't get to act on them for quite some time because reasons. on the other hand, it's nice to see an FE dad actually accomplish something with his death

...I'll go into how this is handled later. suffice to say I have issues with it but not the usual ones.

a miniboss squad, you say? fun times! anyway, off she goes to do crimes

this becomes 20 times funnier when you consider later revelations about Sonia. that's all I'll say for now.

and so Limstella valiantly journeys offscreen to murder important people. iirc they aren't relevant for a while so. that's happening

next time: stat snapshots! 21E has lots of plot, so while that's happening you all can look at what horrors level-up RNG has wrought on the blorbos

#fire emblem #fe 7 #fire emblem blazing sword #twilightplays: fe7

[twslug]

gonna answer all the q's of that one post i rbed like two days ago or something, answers below break if u gaf (really not groundbreaking info)

answers start here:

that i don't have to do a lot of things (both academically and in my personal life) that i don't want to do but pressure myself to do anyway. a lot of things really and truly Do Not matter

isolating myself due to anxiety or aimless frustration that i don't have an outlet for,,, big fan of Being locked in a room for hours

fav self care is skin care/workout and good music, i'm listening to my girly pop playlist post-workout (current song is toxic by nico rosberg aka britney bitch, so just envision these mentally ill answers with fergie and britney and katy perry and rihanna in the background)

most vivid memory is definitely not a visual memory, i've got some memory loss so i don't remember much of anything about my life. HOWEVER i have an echoic memory, so i really latch onto peoples' voices. i looove f1 with all the different accents and languages (lowkey linguistics hpfx) so i can have drivers narrating my thoughts. charles's voice is super imprinted on my brain because he has a very unique (imo) speech cadence and choice of wording in english, same for max (both verstappen and fewtrell), lando, and other random celebrities or youtubers or irls or characters etc etc.

would like to recieve some emotional/social support, was kind of pushed to the side because my brother is more extroverted, better at school, had asthma and ocd and several food allergies, but i was left to my own devices because i was much quieter and in the background.

have always wanted to be able to take academics into my own hands, as per the last answer, i am very quiet irl and have a hard time asking for help so i spend a lot of schooling teaching myself, so i've mastered the ability to put my head down and succeed by myself but at what cost yknow, i cant even speak to professors or other students

apathy. chronic, neverending, borderline infectious apathy. im very stubborn so if my brain has become apathetic about something then you will never get me to care about it, even if i myself want to

rly gets to me when people are mean to people i like, for an f1 example, idk i like a lot of the drivers but seeing people be blatantly mean to them (criticism and affectionate jabs are Fine) really makes me feel upset and/or almost ill, i get rly anxious for some reason like i'm the one being insulted

no i don't cry. not really (back to the playlist, family ties by baby keem just came on TURN THIS SHIT UUUPPP) anyway i dont really cry, lots of apathy, forced to be the quiet kid etc etc

have done lots of improvement on my body image and having confidence in what i say/believe, esecially in a family setting, lots of my problems are from childhood and being overly quiet/shy, so i rly struggle(d) with speaking my mind but now Nobody has anything on me, my moms dad was a county sheriff and i openly rip on cops in front of her like fuccckkk off u made me like this

was very mentally ill at the time (was also during covid, so i was really mentally unwell), and they had their own problems, ended up having a rly toxic relationship. neither of us had redeeming qualities, said some things we shouldn't have, like mutual punching bags

wish i could connect to my new roommates for this upcoming college/university semester, again: very bad at talking to people, maybe it will be better when we all live together (copium)

POLITICS TIME: i get irrationally angry at people who know nothing about the US south, i live here and it pisses me off when most political "hot takes" about american southern conservatism are boiled down to classism and/or racism, drives me fucking insane

i only like affectionate teasing if i know you rly well or the jab isnt something im insecure about, but im a bit of a hypocrite because i playfully insult people all the time, good rule of thumb i follow is just never go for appearance, all makes u look like a dick

prefer to be numb, because even though its one of the worst things to ever happen to my Cranium, i have a really easy time letting things go and not being upset over things i should probably be upset about. its kind of peaceful when u come to terms with it

talent ive overlooked/lost is ,,,,,,, i actually dont know, i think ive honed the things im really good at, i was really good at being a stage manager in school theatre (was assistant director and stage manager for les mis in 10th grade, bitches love my organizational skills), maybe i pick that up again somewhere

call me seb vettel the way i really liked dark blue in the but switched to loving bright bright #ff0000 red, like the brightest u can get... good shit... Also british racing green forever and always

my stuffed animals :-) no harm in keeping them, i suppose

well this ones easy because i dont like talking about infodumping about the innerworkings of my Psyche but here we are, i feel a bit bothersome, hence this entire post being hidden under a page break ..

LAST ONE (current song playing is dancing in the moonlight by king harvest, for those of u following along athome), i believe people think im much kinder than i think i am. if that makes sense. i know the things ive said to other people, about other people, about myself, etc, and i just feel this kind of imposter syndrome whenever people say they think im rly kind or fun to be around because i know deep down i am miserable and evil and nasty... And dont even hit me w that "bad people dont care that theyre bad so u caring makes u not bad" no no no, thats the thing, i dont care . i am Evil... ebil,,,,,, Deomn evil

#SORRY FOR TALKING SO MUCH #twslug.txt #okay goodnight to everyone who read Any of this :-) #and to the rest of u... gn i guess.... wtvr #not f1

[jtblog]

TIL about social media policy and community standards

Social media platforms are bad (this is an understatement with a lack of context, but soon you'll understand).

Labour, but reproductive?

Labour comes in different forms, many of which I didn’t know. As talked about in lecture, reproductive labour consists of acts of work that help “renew” the person working and where they work. Reproductive labour extends into types of qualities like care, socialization, and planning, as listed in the lecture slides. It is so disappointing to see this type of labour go unnoticed and unrewarded, although it occurs everywhere and is essential for other forms of labour to occur. Understanding how reproductive labour is mostly associated with women makes society’s lack of acknowledgement make a lot more sense to me.

It's the patriarchy at work again.

Information from my prof's (Madison Trusolino) lecture and slides.

2. Facebook is sexist and racist.

This image is from Facebook's slides which train their content reviewers. Oh dear.

It’s not surprising that Facebook is a terrible platform that doesn’t care for its users. What is surprising to me are the secret guidelines enforced by the platform regarding its differing demographic groups. Facebook teaches its content reviewers to remove hate speech about white men over hate speech towards female drivers and black children. Facebook views all races and genders as equal. The platform personified would most likely say, “I don’t see colour.” In fact, they would also be the type of person who wouldn’t speak up against hate symbols, because that is exactly what is said in their guidelines. My goodness.

Thank you to ProPublica's article for rightfully exposing this platform!

3. TikTok is homophobic.

Can we stop supporting these social media applications? Time to become cave people again.

Shadow-banned videos during the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 were widely talked about in my social media feeds, as most of the videos that were shadow-banned included important information that wasn’t covered on the news. However, videos aren’t the only thing TikTok shadow-bans. TikTok receives views largely from LGBTQ+ content creators, but chooses to censor their work out of homophobia and out of the fear of receiving backlash from conservative countries. The platform removed the hashtags “gay,” “lesbian,” and “transgender” in specific regions. This means that although local creators post with the hashtags, their content is not discoverable to their public.

The PinkNews article is linked here.

4. Facebook risks their users’ safety with the Real Name Policy

Again, Facebook? Are we surprised at this point?

Learning about Facebook’s Real Name Policy shocked me. (Facebook does not have the best track record and it shows in this blog). The policy essentially forced drag queens and other people off the platform until they displayed their legal names on their accounts. It was intended to address impersonation, but even when people are impersonated on the platform, Facebook doesn’t really do anything about it. People that didn’t fit normative identities, performers, and even victims of abuse and stalking were put in danger by Facebook.

Source is here.

5. Content reviewers have the worst job ever.

I liked the photo, but the following information is not from The Guardian. Pretend that logo isn't there (but credit goes out to them :D).

For some odd reason, I thought that bots reviewed the content posted on social media platforms. I think the artificial intelligence hype got to me. Finding out that content reviewers are people forced to signed NDAs came as a surprise to me. (The NDAs are already a warning of how bad the content they review can get). The mental health risks that content reviewers face every day at their job are astounding. They don’t get mental health support and are often diagnosed with PTSD, which is another indication that social media platforms don’t care about their workers.

The information is from Madison Trusolino. Credit to her again!

If you liked the facts I listed or if you'd like to learn more, follow me on my blog, jtblog (creative name, I know).

#reproductive labour #facebook >:( #facebook is being bad again #mark zuckerberg #tiktok #real name policy on facebook #content reviewers