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terramythos · 4 years

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TerraMythos' 2020 Reading Challenge - Book 22 of 26

Title: House of Leaves (2000)

Author: Mark Z. Danielewski

Genre/Tags: Horror, Fiction, Metafiction, Weird, First-Person, Third-Person, Unreliable Narrator

Rating: 6/10

Date Began: 7/28/2020

Date Finished: 8/09/2020

House of Leaves follows two narrative threads. One is the story of Johnny Truant, a burnout in his mid-twenties who finds a giant manuscript written by a deceased, blind hermit named Zampanò. The second is said manuscript -- The Navidson Record -- a pseudo-academic analysis of a found-footage horror film that doesn’t seem to exist. In it, Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson moves into a suburban home in Virginia with his partner Karen and their two children. Navidson soon makes the uncomfortable discovery that his new house is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. Over time he discovers more oddities -- a closet that wasn’t there before, and eventually a door that leads into an impossibly vast, dark series of rooms and hallways.

While Johnny grows more obsessed with the work, his life begins to take a turn for the worse, as told in the footnotes of The Navidson Record. At the same time, the mysteries of the impossible, sinister house on Ash Tree Lane continue to deepen.

To get a better idea try this: focus on these words, and whatever you do don’t let your eyes wander past the perimeter of this page. Now imagine just beyond your peripheral vision, maybe behind you, maybe to the side of you, maybe even in front of you, but right where you can’t see it, something is quietly closing in on you, so quiet in fact you can only hear it as silence. Find those pockets without sound. That’s where it is. Right at this moment. But don’t look. Keep your eyes here. Now take a deep breath. Go ahead and take an even deeper one. Only this time as you start to exhale try to imagine how fast it will happen, how hard it’s gonna hit you, how many times it will stab your jugular with its teeth or are they nails? don’t worry, that particular detail doesn’t matter, because before you have time to even process that you should be moving, you should be running, you should at the very least be flinging up your arms--you sure as hell should be getting rid of this book-- you won’t have time to even scream.

Don’t look.

I didn’t.

Of course I looked.

Some story spoilers under the cut.

Whoo boy do I feel torn on this one. House of Leaves contains some really intriguing ideas, and when it’s done right, it’s some of the best stuff out there. Unfortunately, there are also several questionable choices and narrative decisions that, for me, tarnish the overall experience. It’s certainly an interesting read, even if the whole is ultimately less than the sum of its parts.

First of all, I can see why people don’t like this book, or give up on it early (for me this was attempt number three). Despite an interesting concept and framing device, the first third or so of the book is pretty boring. Johnny is just not an interesting character. He does a lot of drugs and has a lot of (pretty unpleasant) sex and... that’s pretty much it, at least at the beginning. There’s occasional horror sections that are more interesting, where Johnny’s convinced he’s being hunted by something, but they’re few and far between. Meanwhile, the story in The Navidson Record seems content to focus on the relationship issues between two affluent suburbanites rather than the much more interesting, physically impossible house they live in. The early “exploration” sections are a little bit better, but overall I feel the opening act neglects the interesting premise.

However, unlike many, I love the gimmick. The academic presentation of the Navidson story is replete with extensive (fake) footnotes,and there’s tons of self-indulgent rambling in both stories. I personally find it hilarious; it’s an intentionally dense parody of modern academic writing. Readers will note early that the typographical format is nonstandard, with the multiple concurrent stories denoted by different typefaces, certain words in color, footnotes within footnotes, etc. House of Leaves eventually goes off the chain with this concept, gracing us with pages that look like (minor spoilers) this or this. This leads into the best part of this book, namely...

Its visual presentation! House of Leaves excels in conveying story and feeling through formatting decisions. The first picture I linked is one of many like it in a chapter about labyrinths. And reading it feels like navigating a labyrinth! It features a key “story”, but also daunting, multi-page lists of irrelevant names, buildings, architectural terms, etc. There are footnotes that don’t exist, then footnote citations that don’t seem to exist until one finds them later in the chapter. All this while physically turning the book or even grabbing a mirror to read certain passages. In short, it feels like navigating the twists, turns, and dead ends of a labyrinth. And that’s just one example -- other chapters utilize placement of the text to show where a character is in relation to others, what kind of things are happening around them, and so on. One chapter near the end features a square of text that gets progressively smaller as one turns the pages, which mirrors the claustrophobic feel of the narrative events. This is the coolest shit to me; I adore when a work utilizes its format to convey certain story elements. I usually see this in poetry and video games, but this is the first time I’ve seen it done so well in long-form fiction. City of Saints and Madmen and Shriek: An Afterword by Jeff VanderMeer, both of which I reviewed earlier this year, do something similar, and are clearly inspired by House of Leaves in more ways than one.

And yes, the story does get a little better, though it never wows me. The central horror story is not overtly scary, but eeriness suffices, and I have a soft spot for architectural horror. Even Johnny and the Navidsons become more interesting characters over time. For example, I find Karen pretty annoying and generic for most of the book, but her development in later chapters makes her much more interesting. While I question the practical need for Johnny’s frame story, it does become more engaging as he descends into paranoia and madness.

So why the relatively low rating? Well... as I alluded to earlier, there’s some questionable stuff in House of Leaves that leaves (...hah?) a bad taste in my mouth. The first is a heavy focus on sexual violence against women. I did some extensive thinking on this throughout my read, but I just cannot find a valid reason for it. The subject feels thrown in for pure shock value, and especially from a male author, it seems tacky and voyeuristic. If it came up once or twice I’d probably be able to stomach this more easily, but it’s persistent throughout the story, and doesn’t contribute anything to the plot or horror (not that that would really make it better). I’m not saying books can’t have that content, but it’s just not explored in any meaningful way, and it feels cheap and shitty to throw it in something that traumatizing just to shock the audience. It’s like a bad jump scare but worse on every level. There’s even a part near the end written in code, which I took the time to decode, only to discover it’s yet another example of this. Like, really, dude?

Second, this book’s portrayal of mental illness is not great. (major spoilers for Johnny’s arc.) One of the main things about Johnny’s story is he’s an unreliable narrator. From the outset, Johnny has occasional passages that can either be interpreted as genuine horror, or delusional breaks from reality. Reality vs unreality is a core theme throughout both stories. Is The Navidson Record real despite all evidence to the contrary? Is it real as in “is the film an actual thing” or “the events of the film are an actual thing”? and so on and so forth. Johnny’s sections mirror this; he’ll describe certain events, then later state they didn’t happen, contradict himself, or even describe a traumatic event through a made-up story. Eventually, the reader figures out parts of Johnny’s actual backstory, namely that when he was a small child, his mother was institutionalized for violent schizophrenia. Perhaps you can see where this is going...

Schizophrenia-as-horror is ridiculously overdone. But it also demonizes mental illness, and schizophrenia in particular, in a way that is actively harmful. Don’t misunderstand me, horror can be a great way to explore mental illness, but when it’s done wrong? Woof. Unfortunately House of Leaves doesn’t do it justice. While it avoids some cliches, it equates the horror elements of Johnny’s story to the emergence of his latent schizophrenia. This isn’t outwardly stated, and there are multiple interpretations of most of the story, but in lieu of solid and provable horror, it’s the most reasonable and consistent explanation. There’s also an emphasis on violent outbursts related to schizophrenia, which just isn’t an accurate portrayal of the condition.

To Danielewski’s credit, it’s not entirely black and white. We do see how Johnny’s descent into paranoia negatively affects his life and interpersonal relationships. There’s a bonus section where we see all the letters Johnny’s mother wrote him while in the mental hospital, and we can see her love and compassion for him in parallel to the mental illness. But the experimental typographical style returns here to depict just how “scary” schizophrenia is, and that comes off as tacky to me. I think this is probably an example of a piece of media not aging well (after all, this book just turned 20), and there’s been a definite move away from this kind of thing in horror, but that doesn’t change the impression it leaves. For a book as supposedly original/groundbreaking as this, defaulting to standard bad horror tropes is disappointing. And using “it was schizophrenia all along” to explain the horror elements in Johnny’s story feels like a cop-out. I wish there was more mystery here, or alternate interpretations that actually make sense.

Overall The Navidson Record part of the story feels more satisfying. I actually like that there isn’t a direct explanation for everything that happens. It feels like a more genuine horror story, regardless of whether you interpret it as a work of fiction within the story or not. There’s evidence for both. Part of me wishes the book had ended when this story ends (it doesn’t), or that the framing device with Johnny was absent, or something along those lines. Oh well-- this is the story we got, for better or worse.

I don’t regret reading House of Leaves, and it’s certainly impressive for a debut novel. If you’re looking for a horror-flavored work of metafiction, it’s a valid place to start. I think the experimental style is a genuine treat to read, and perhaps the negative aspects won’t hit you as hard as they did to me. But I can definitely see why this book is controversial.

#taylor reads #2020 reading challenge #6/10

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ofravensandgenesis · 4 years

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Meme Tag Games!

Thank you for all the lovely tags!! :D <3 This is quite belated but between some health happenings, the weather deciding to turn the thermostat way up (and the house AC went out), and other stuff, I got swamped for a while there. Here we are now though! :D Tagging anyone who wants to jump in on any of these, namely FC5 GFH tag game; OC Fighting Style; and WIP Day. Continued below the cut because this got long:

FC5 Guns For Hire Meme Game

Tagged by @chyrstis and @amistrio for the FC5 GFH meme, thank you for the tag!! :D <3 We have full length responses with some banter with the human GFH in particular here. I was kind of stumped with how to answer this for Joshua in what he might say as a GFH since his verse is very tailored for him being the Deputy and all the psychic shenanigans. Eventually I got over that and this is basically an AU where there’s another (unnamed here) Deputy who IS slated to be The Deputy that Joshua is trying to help (and convince to do less murder) to explain how he fits into a verse as a Gun For Hire. Psychic shenanigans still happen in this AU of an AU ofc, just it’s perhaps less prominent. We’re skipping over possible musings of relevant sidequests for Joshua relating to the Seeds in this for the sake of time, though I acknowledge that it’s something to explore, likely would impact the endgame with the Heralds, cult, and Joseph depending on the Deputy’s choices of doing a Kill or No-kill run. This verse also assumes that Joshua, the Deputy, Whitehorse, Pratt, and Hudson all got away or were not present for the helicopter crash. Other characters minor and otherwise who are alive in Joshua’s main fic verse ACABH are the same as in that story thus far, such as Rae-Rae and Ryan being alive. We’ll also presume the Seeds are all still alive at the time of these dialogue lines.

Deputy Joshua Raguel Rook

(All images used were public domain and/or labeled free for reuse under creative commons license. Above image was sourced from [here.]) With Fangs for Hire

Boomer: “Hey there boy, how’re you feeling today? Got some venison strips saved for you, you eating enough with all this running around?” [cue more small talk and praise for Boomer about how Boomer’s doing such a good job and Joshua feeding Boomer bits of cooked meat. Will likely sing snatches of cheery dog-themed songs he’s heard when in the party with Boomer and there’s no enemies nearby.]

Peaches: “...I hope that’s not people-meat in your teeth, Peaches, you know how Miss Mable feels about that, it’s bad for your health. I’m also not quite brave enough to want to brush your teeth—though maybe Dr. Lindsey or Wade can offer advice on that. We’ll get you some nice fish instead, that’s a good kitty.” [He’s a bit more shy around Peaches than Boomer bc cougar, but an effort at friendliness will be made.]

Cheeseburger: “...that is one big bear. He’s a sweetheart though. Just...hoping he doesn’t make a mistake of who he’s barreling into. It’s not like we’re wearing team colors or anything.” [Cheeseburger is a sweetie and Joshua likes him, but also: bear. Joshua’s a bit wary around him, but will still feed Cheeseburger salmon when able. May crack a joke paralleling Cheeseburger going “Only You Can Prevent Cult Gun Fire.” Will not crack this joke after any Jacob-region events though.]

With Other Guns for Hire:

Sharky

Sharky: So amibro, I was thinking, you know how those Angels are all dead in the head and stuff? How are they still shuffling around, is the Bliss like a zombie plant or something? Joshua: ...no, that’s more in line with the aliens that Larry keeps going on about I’m sure. Something about brainmelting and bendy straws, I got lost when he started mentioning Navier-Stokes equations for how the...resulting brain juice would be redirected. [Shuddery noise of disgust.] I’m not sure if he’s serious or just fucking with me and referencing Guy’s zombie movie series at this point. Could be either or. The Bliss is more like...like...uh. Like if you lost the keys to your car, but the car’s your body. You get me? Sharky: Damn, remind me never to OD on the stuff, I lose the keys to my car all the time. Sometimes I can’t be bothered to find em and just jiggle the lock so I can hop on in to hotwire the car because I’m in a hurry, you know? Ladies love a man who’s good with his hands, and who’s good with time and can improvise. You think that’d work on the Bliss car keys? Joshua: Maybe? Not everyone seems to be as readily lost to the Bliss at the same amounts. Personally I’d wager you’d be able to find your way back to your body no matter where you were in the bliss if we stood you near a signal fire. Sharky: This is why we’re friends man! Ride or die! ...also can you help me find my keys with that trick of yours, I lost ‘em again. Joshua: Yeah, though did you check under your bed? Also, maybe hang your regular set and a spare set of keys on a hook by the door so you can always find them, just in case you’re in a hurry.

Hurk

Joshua: Hurk. [Said in a Mild, Judgmental Voice of Impending Doom From A Friend kind of tone.] Hurk: Hey man I didn’t do nothin’ to deserve that tone of voice now don’t you start on me. Joshua: How can you say that when you and Sharky went and invented zipline grenade-golf without me last night? And blew up part of the mini-YES-sign. Hurk: Oh man you were talking up Lindsey and with the way the two of you were smiling and laughing, we figured you might be getting lucky so like the proper supportive wingmen me and Sharky were, we left you gentlemen some of our finest booze and sticky green. You did find it didn’t you, I’d hate to waste the gifts of the beneficent Monkey God from above as He Who Likes To Par-tay Above And Here Below On This Earth did command me never to waste beer or the good kush and to always help a brother out who’s trying to hook it up with their fine persons of choice. Joshua: Hurk I’m not— [sighs in accepting and fond exasperation.] It’s not like that with me and Charles— Hurk: Ooooooooooooo, you’re on a first name basis already! I knew you had it in you! Get it man, get it good! I’m not into that, you know I like the ladies strictly, but I will support your endeavors no matter the sex of your fellow party-goer as leader of Hurk Gate and the Bro-iest of Bros. Joshua: Hurk oh my god, I’m not trying to sleep with or romance him. I’m—he’s not looking for that, at least not with me certainly, and I—...just, thanks. I still have most of the beer and weed leftover if you and Sharky are up for graffiting one of John’s billboard signs though. You in? Hurk: Hell yeah man, and oo, you did get some then, Josh you sly dog! Joshua: I DID NOT! [Meta-clarification: Joshua indeed did not, for reasons to be revealed at a later time in the main fic.]

Sharky, Hurk, and Joshua, if one bends the mechanics so they are all in the party together at the same time:

Sharky: Pfhahahahaha oh man did you see the look on those Peggies’s faces when we came just crashing down the mountainside in that burning car? It was priceless!

Joshua: What better way to set fire to mass amounts of Bliss fields than with a moving fireball? Sharky: I know man it was great! We didn’t get too singed or nothin’! We gotta try that burning trash-ball idea next time though, like building a snowman but with fire! A fireman! Ha! That was the easiest fifty bucks of my life, cuz. Joshua: Hold up a tick now, what. Hurk: Sharky man that’s against the betting code! You’re not supposed to tell! Joshua: Oh, you cheeky bastards were betting on if Sharky could convince me to drive the car down the hill, weren’t you. Hurk: Man it’s always a crap shoot with you, specially around cars. That’s what makes it fun, sometimes you get all “guys that’s not safe,” [said with a poor imitation of Joshua’s voice complete with a very terrible southern, Georgian-style accent before Hurk switches to his normal speaking voice to continue,] —and other times it’s just “hold my beer.” You’re not going to go all prim and proper on us now are ya? Joshua: I can’t believe you two. Gambling in Hope County, I’m shocked, shocked. Sharky you owe me half, I’ll buy you a beer first round. Sharky: Hell yeah man! Hurk: Wait a second did you two just con me? I’ve been robbed! Police! Joshua: Hurk I *am* the police, one of them present at least. Hurk: Oh shit son, you right. Help I’m being oppressed by the system!

Nick Rye

[This conversation happens after Seed Ranch has been taken, along with the AU detail of capturing John’s plane Affirmation at the same time, preferably early on, while John is still alive.] Nick: Hey Joshua I was talking to Sharky— Joshua: Oh no. Nick: And he had an idea that wasn’t half bad. Not a good one, and you’d be liable to get killed or captured, but I got stuck thinking on it and wanted to ask: What d’you think would happen if you dressed up like the Father and just pulled a whole Mission: Impossible face-a-roo switch? You can do that imitation of how he speaks and everything, I’ve heard you do it before. And with how high the Peggies are most of the time, they’re so far out of their gourds they wouldn’t notice the differences. Joshua: You mean aside from his brothers and sister noticing he’s suddenly an inch shorter, twenty years younger and the wrong brand of crazy? Nick: Just go off about there being an edit to God’s Plan or something, and you could get makeup or something going on with that age thing. People do all kinds of wizardry with foundation and stuff, though you’d have to ask someone else on that. Maybe Addie or someone she knows? I don’t know if they have aging-up tricks compared to aging-down though. It could work! Might be a quick way to end the fighting if we can just stuff Joseph into a car trunk and then stash him in a bunker somewhere while you’re pretending you’re him. Joshua: Nick my tattoos are different and I’m not going to convince people I’m Joseph if I have to do one of his shirtless walkarounds, NOR am I having sins and Bible verses carved into my hide to complete the look. I don’t think we have any special effects or make up artists in the county who specialize in convincingly fake scars made out of latex or something. Nick: I don’t know, that Guy Marvel might have someone. Or, had someone. He has to be able to afford all those special effects somehow. Joshua: I’m not going anywhere near that guy with a ten foot pole man, he weirds me out. Also consider: I’d have to talk to Jacob, John and Faith as Joseph. I don’t want that kind of responsibility of herding that conversation at the family dinner. Nick: Hoo, good point. So...how is that family bullshit coming along then? Joshua: I have no idea, I’m just winging it, like you are. Nick: [who’s currently flying a plane, thus the slight pun] Heh. Good luck with that then, and let me know if you want me to paint something special on John’s precious little Affirmation next time you take it out for a spin to spite him. Joshua: I’m sure I can think of a thing or two.

Adelaide

Adelaide: Honey you need to take a breather one of these days and just take a load off, if you keep up the way you’re going you’re going to end up looking more like your dad sooner rather than later. You should swing by the Marina sometime and have a yoga session with Xander, really helps get the blood pumping and limber you up if you know what I’m saying. Joshua: [Snorts in amusement.] Is Xander trying to convince you to eat more kale chips instead of potato chips again? Adelaide: Rook sweetie, I love Xander but there are some things a woman won’t put in her mouth, and kale chips are one of them. Joshua: I’ll swing by sometime to help out with the kale chips then, and maybe get in a yoga session at the same time. It’s been a while since I chatted Xander up what with the county going pearshaped. Adelaide: I’ll never understand how you two can eat those things. Ugh. Gives me the willies. Joshua: *I* eat them dipped in homemade spicy nacho cheese sauce. I have no idea how Xander eats them straight and still claims to have working tastebuds.

Grace

[For context: This conversation is based on the AU’s detail that Grace’s father has survived the previous attempt on his life prior to the start of the Reaping.]

Joshua: Did you crack open the extra care packages we dropped off yet Grace, or did your dad get to ‘em first? Grace: You referring to the chocolate bars you stashed in there? I got my share of them out in time. Joshua: Good, I was a little worried when you told me they were missing last time. Thought they might’ve been lifted without me knowing beforehand. Grace: He’s a sly one when sweets are up for grabs. Now if you can do something about the shortage of decent coffee… Joshua: What’s that? A reason to piss John off today and raid his personal stash? Say no more!

Jess

Jess: So. Joshua: So. Jess: Just like old times but with more fucked up cultist family bullshit than before, huh. Joshua: [Sighs.] Yeah. Jess: That’s rough, buddy. Joshua: Least I can steal shit en masse from the cultists and no one else minds right now. For the life of me though I can’t figure out where all of the snacks from Lorna’s went when the Peggies hit her place. I think they ate ‘em all. Jess: [Noise of disgust.] Those two-faced fuckers going on and on about how bad commercially produced food is and how everyone should get back to basics, but there they go snatching up all the frosted cakes and maple bars like it's baby’s first shoplifting spree. Joshua: I know right? Even if they do believe the end of the world’s coming, that’s still rude to clean the store out on the first go around—leave some snacks for the next bunch of looters, god damn.

In Combat

[Note: due to Joshua’s verse details, this comes with the assumption that were one to play in a version of his universe, the Deputy would have a kill/spare mechanic and thus also an option of doing a No Kill run and variations on that spectrum, which Joshua’s mechanics would support more so. This would likely also mean some additional options for the other guns-for-hire and creative use of their canonical loadouts and abilities. Joshua’s setup would overlap with Boomer and Jess’s via the Spotter and Concealment abilities, and he’d be equipped with a bliss dart gun and a scoped hunting rifle. Also melee options and such.] Seeing/tagging an enemy: “Hey look, another whack-a-mole.” / ”Fashionably challenged mountain-man zealot sighted.” / “Enemy sighted.” Seeing/tagging multiple enemies at once: “duck, duck, cultists.”/ “The Rapture called, they don’t want these Peggies back.” / “multiple hostiles in the area.” Bliss darting/knocking out a Peggie at range: “Nap time.” / “Another one bites the dust.” / “Down they go!” / “A little dirt nap never hurt any Peggie. Won’t hurt their outfits any either, a little dirt brown looks better than all of that mayonnaise-white so many of them wear anyway.” Knocking out a Peggie with a non-lethal stealth takedown: “Lights out.” / “Rang this one’s chimes hard enough he’ll think it’s time for morning service on a sunday when he wakes up.” / “Sleep tight.” / “She’s/he’s down.” Sneaking: “Feels like a tuesday.” / “...” / “Five bucks says I can pickpocket the guards and they’d never even know till later.” / “Moving position.” / “Good to go.” Upon witnessing the Deputy killing an enemy: “Was that really necessary?!” / “...shit.” / “Maybe we should disengage and drop back out of sight instead of this.” / “What the fuck!” Reviving an ally/The Deputy: “Don’t you go dying on me! Stay alive, you’ve got so much to live for!” / “Come on, let’s get you patched up, you’re gonna be okay!” / “No no no! Don’t you dare die! Not today!” Hurt: “MOTHERFUCKER!” / “Ow!” / “God damn it, I just patched this shirt! And myself!” / “This is NOT my fucking element, fuck!” / “Why are we even in a situation where we’d get shot at?!” Downed: “Could use a little help over here!” / “Bleeding out, help!” / “...mom?”

Driving

When asked to drive: “...you sure? I really think someone else driving would be a better idea under current circumstances, but okay. Just don’t go making a habit out of this. Please. For everyone’s sake.” / “No.” [This is followed by outright refusal to sit in the driver’s seat.] / [Optionally if Sharky and/or Hurk are around] “Ugh. Just...gotta pretend this is driving through a Clutch Nixon. With live gun fire, instead of just fire-fire.”

When the Deputy/someone else is driving recklessly: “Iwantoffthisride” / “I’m going to have to pick upholstery out from under my nails later.” / “JESUS TAKE THE WHEEL.” / [Recites a Hail Mary.] / “Having a good time! NOT.” / [If it’s Sharky or Hurk driving] “This is the kind of reckless driving I can get behind. Through regular past exposure therapy.” Changing radio stations: [If it’s being changed to Eden’s Gate stations] “Can we not? I’ve heard this music so many times it’s old as hell, however catchy.” / “They did do a good job on the music, I gotta say. More ominous meaning to the lyrics right now in particular though.” / [If it’s being changed to Resistance Radio stations] “Road trip time! Watch out for moose in the road.” / “Hell yeah, crank those tunes!” / “I’m glad we have regular music to listen to still, it’d be such a drag to have to go without it.”

Idle

- [General] “What’s up? Everything going alright with you?” - [General] “I heard of a good fishing spot where the rainbow trout [or other game fish depending on situation/mechanics] are really biting today if you want to take a breather and just do a bit of fishing.” [this dialogue only triggers if the Deputy hasn’t filled out the map yet for fishing spots, and adds one to the map with a notification.] - [General] “Hey, there’s a prepper stash over yonder, if you want to try your hand at getting at it. [This dialogue only triggers at random if the Deputy hasn’t polished off all the nearby Prepper stashes already. Marks a nearby prepper stash on the map and gives a notification.]

- [General] “You know what surprises me? That the Project didn’t try to shut off the power plant to at least portions of the county. Sure lots of people are preppers or woodsmen and such, but electricity makes everything easier for us. Weird, ain’t it? They have the technicians for it I’m sure. Guess we should thank our lucky stars they either didn’t think of that or decided it wasn’t worth it. We’d be straight out of ice cold beer then, Whitehorse would hate that.” - [If the Deputy is taking the no-kill route] “Hey I just want to say...I appreciate you trying not to kill people, even if some of these cultists are absolute motherfuckers who deserve it. We might be able to stop all their prophecy crap dead in its tracks if you keep this up. And...you know. Thanks for not killing my crazy relatives? I think. They’ve done a lot of bad shit and they need to answer for that, but...the right way, not backwoods murder. We’re better than that, I hope.” - [If the Deputy is taking the killing route] “I get wanting to kill the Seeds and the cult...but this isn’t going to end well, even after we’re done. I wish you wouldn’t, but I can’t stop you if this is the choice you’ve made. ...I’m sorry I can’t be of more help to you. I...hope you’ll be alright, in the end. But I don’t think you will be.” [Recall that Joshua Knows What Will Happen To The Deputy if they take the canonically-based killing route. He leaves before the final confrontation, and curiously Whitehorse, Pratt, and Hudson don’t show up in the final scene either—ie, whichever route the Deputy chooses, they survive elsewhere (coughcough Joshua’s secret bunker cough.) The scene with Joseph still happens more or less the same, only the Deputy leaves alone if they choose Walk Away, and ends up alone with Joseph if they choose Resist. Also interestingly enough: Dutch isn’t present on the radio, nor in his bunker. His fish have been taken too. Joshua didn’t have the time to grab everyone, so he tried to grab the ones he knew for sure would die, and warned the others that he foresaw not surviving the Collapse or aftermath, like Mary May and Jess Black, or who suffered serious injuries like Grace. His buds Sharky and Hurk he bribes with beer and weed to hide out in their bunker or hang out in his while this goes down. Boomer, Cheeseburger, and Peaches are all herded to safety (yes there are mechanics for that in the standard AU verse, we shan’t delve into them here though bc spoilers tho.) The others he tries to warn, but whether he managed to get to them and some of the other latter people mentioned above in time or not is uncertain.] - [If the Deputy switched from a killing route to a no-kill route and all of the Seeds are still alive, Joshua sounds relieved] “Hey, I know it’s...it’s hard to hold off pulling the trigger when someone who’s hurt so many people is in your gunsights, but...I do think bringing them in for actual processing through the legal system—a proper trial without bullshit—is the better way. For all of us. Thank you.” - [If the Deputy switched from a no-kill route to a killing route, sounds slightly devastated] “...Why?” - [If the Deputy is doing a “neutral” run of killing significant numbers of cultists, but is sparing the Seeds as they go] “...I appreciate you not killing the murdery head-cult-family members, but…you think we could maybe lighten up on killing the rank and file? They don’t have the big names and they aren’t the leaders, but those are still people. They are responsible for their own actions, not saying they aren’t, but many of them are redeemable. Not all of them, but...maybe we can just lay them out in the infirmary for a good long while instead? Nothing permanent. The bad ones though can fall off a cliff.”

- [If the Deputy is doing a “selective killing” run of not killing rank and file cultists, but is in the process of killing all the Seed Heralds. Joshua sounds conflicted.] “I appreciate you not killing the followers, though some of them are definitely bastards who shouldn’t be allowed to walk free for the shit they’ve done, but...you think we could...maybe not kill the Seeds either? The Seeds are the primary responsible parties, not contesting that, but maybe we can just kick their asses and arrest them instead? It might help dampen the chaos somewhat, maybe we can use ‘em for leverage. We certainly could hide them somewhere secure that the Peggies wouldn’t be able to find ‘em. It’d be easier to talk Joseph down too, using his siblings as leverage.” [See above for killing route ending details.] Also? We’re driving in separate cars. Don’t turn on the radio, stay away from the others. You’re still brainwashed, and dangerous.” [Joshua is disappointed in the Deputy for not having stuck to some manner of universal moral principle.] - [If friendly, and the Deputy is on either a no-kill playthrough or has switched to a no-kill route,] “Hey, you wanna play a game of checkers, or chess? Take five for a bit, if you got the time?” - [If friendly, and the Deputy is on either a no-kill playthrough or has switched to a no-kill route,] “Hey, not to be mushy or anything, but...thank you. For being you. It’s inspiring to see someone’s able to take the higher path when everything’s falling to pieces all around us. Makes me have a little bit more faith in humanity, too.” - [If friendly, and the Deputy is on either a no-kill playthrough or has switched to a no-kill route, and has been on said no-kill route for a decent amount of time,] “Hey, we grabbed some really good produce this time around and sent it on over to Casey. Told him I’d tell you to swing by, and asked him to save some for you in case you were interested. They’ve got some fresh beef for burgers and sandwiches, pumpkin pie, apple pie, loaded baked potatoes, and all kinds of other tasty stuff for a cookout. The Ryes are coming round to help pitch in and organize it all as a little morale boost party. Wanna come? You deserve to put up your feet and relax, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who’d appreciate your company if you felt like joining in. If you’d rather not, I can sneak food to you if you want quiet time to yourself. It’s all good, just tell me what you want and where you want it.”

Location Specific:

- Near where the police station was, if it’s been burned down: [Sighs.] “While I’m not missing the paperwork that got torched, there was a nice feel of history to the old place. Wish they hadn’t burned it down, fuckers. But, well...the Project and the Seeds have good reason to have no love for police and authority figures among others, even before all this horribleness and the leadup stuff came down. So I can’t say I’m surprised they did.”

- Upon entering the Spread Eagle, if friendly: “Finally, a place where everybody knows our names instead of yelling “Deputies!” at us all day! Wanna hit up the arcade? I’ll buy the first round if you get the higher score.”

- Seed Ranch, outside if it hasn’t been liberated, inside if it has been liberated: “Never going to understand why some folks want real airy houses with so much dead space as their main living quarters. Feels more like a knickknack museum you’re supposed to look at, not a home you’re supposed to live in. He’s got all this Eden’s Gate paraphernalia in those glass display cases, and I don’t doubt John’s fervent in his beliefs, but it feels more like a rich boy’s hunting and vacation lodge cobbled together with a vague idea of home. You saw the doghouse out back, right? What’s the point of having a dog live outside if you’ve got ALL this space, it’s all finished wood floors, and you’ve made sure to train ‘em and raise ‘em properly so they know not to chew on the furniture? It’s lonely, that’s what this is. Joseph chides John and all that about learning to love, but it’s a case of the blind leading the blind there.” - Outside St. Francis Veterans Center: [Before the Veterans Center is liberated, if Jacob has captured the Deputy at least once, so the song “Only You” is played around the Center, and the melody starts to be audible in the distance as the group approaches.] “Yeah hey, I’m going to go the other way now and wait for you over here where I can’t hear the song of madness, ‘kay? Maybe you should avoid it too.” [This is followed by Joshua refusing to go too close to the Center, sans possible AU story missions.] - Anywhere near Joseph’s Island: [The first time the party gets near Joseph’s Island,] “Uh. No. I’m not going near that place twice any sooner than we need to.” [Watch Joshua be willing to jump out even into deep water and swim away if the Deputy tries to approach the island with him in tow on a boat.]

OC Fighting Style

Tagged by @chyrstis !! Thank you for the tag!! :D <3 This was another fun one to fill out (and shorter than the above but you know what we’re stapling all of these bad boys into one post bc Why Not.) Have an aesthetic picture of a Jacob sheep skull upon a sheep skin for the fun implications of what that says about Joshua’s fighting style. xD Ram skull image after some searching was sourced from [here], with a creative commons license for free-to-reuse, with some limitations.

Rules: bold = often (or always), italics = sometimes, default = rarely, strike = never

fight honorably / fight dirty / prefer close-quarters / prefer range / chat during / go silent / low pain tolerance / high pain tolerance / attack in bursts / attack steadily / go for the kill / aim to disarm / fight defensively / bait an opponent’s first strike / strike first / provoked easily / provoke their opponent / tease / get visibly frustrated / shout while attacking / use strategy / focus on their battle / experience conflicting thoughts during battle / rush in recklessly / try to read their opponent before fighting / fight wildly / fight calmly, apathetically / fight with anger / fight with excitement / fight because they have to / fight because they want to / fight without regard to wounds / run away when wounded / hide wounds / take a blow to protect another / prefer a blade / prefer a gun (non lethal rounds/tranquilizer darts) / prefer a bow / prefer a shield / prefer a spear naginata / prefer a personalized weapon / prefer psychic abilities / prefer brawling / their greatest weakness is physical / their greatest weakness is mental / their greatest weakness is emotional / transform for battle / fight as they appear / rely on strength / rely on speed / use everything they have / hide their full potential / exhaust quickly / high stamina / doubt their strength / proceed with caution / behave arrogantly / brag after landing a hit / belittle their abilities / use psychological tactics / use brute strength / avoid civilians / strike down civilians / damage surroundings / avoid damaging surroundings / signature fighting style / making it up as they go / mastered skillset / learning their skillset / fancy footwork / sloppy footwork / messy fighter / elegant fighter / accept defeat / refuse defeat / beg for mercy / compliment their opponent / insult their opponent / use unnecessary movements / move efficiently / barely move / prefer to dodge / prefer to block / defend their blindside / has no blindside / use all available advantages / strictly use one main method / play around / hold back / fight ruthlessly / show mercy / wait for opponent to be ready / strike when opponent isn’t ready / fear death / fear pain / fear killing / has PTSD / avoid fighting / has lost a fight / has won a fight / has killed / refuses to kill / want to die standing / would succumb slowly

WIP Day

Tagged by @chyrstis and @hawkfurze !! Thank you for the tags!! :D <3

An excerpt from the current WIP chapter for ACABH: ————————— Weak. He was so weak, barely able to move right now, and he didn’t even know why. There was pain, a lot of pain, a feeling like his bones were on fire and about to crumble under pressure at any moment—but he’d been through worse. In this instance, he could recall that he’d fallen through the sky for a brief tumultuous time before gravity had stepped in, leading to him landing hard upon the road, as if making up for the lack of physics earlier. —————————

#FC 5 #Far Cry 5 #FC 5 AU #Far Cry 5 AU #WIP #WIP Wednesday #ask game #tag game #Deputy Joshua Rook #long post

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vonvestra · 4 years

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"Don’t look at me for Mommy Vestra HCs yet. Right now Hubert just came into existence through budding." I look at you for Mommy Vestra HCs. I'm curious to find out what it takes for someone to willingly marry (or arrange their kid to marry) into House Vestra and have those kids grow up to learn shady stuff, and if House Vestra looks for anything in particular when it comes to marriages. Also Mommy Vestra's favorite food. Bonus points if she makes it past Hubert's 20th birthday

// Spoiler alert: she doesn’t make it past his 20th birthday, but I’m giving you a whole backstory to make up for it.

(none of them have names yet, whoops)

Hubert’s mother was born the last of five daughters in a patriarchal minor house governing territory along the east coast of Adrestia. The head of the house married twice, but had a third, unofficial union with the woman who would be Hubert’s grandmother. The first three daughters were with his first wife, in pursuit of a Crest-bearing heir, the fourth with his second wife for a similar goal, and the fifth with a woman trafficked from Dagda simply in a last-ditch effort to bear a son - Crest or no Crest - who would inherit the house. By the time his fifth daughter was born, he was already getting up in age and further attempts to father children were nearly impossible. His Dagdan mistress stuck around for five more years before she had enough and fled.

So the head of the house turned to arranging marriages for his daughters instead. The eldest two were married off to powerful young nobles, and the husband of the first was set to inherit their house. Negotiations for the third daughter’s marriage were just beginning when the head of the house became suddenly ill and his health declined rapidly until his eventual death. The first daughter’s husband did go on to inherit the house, but in the will, it was the fifth daughter - the favorite in her father’s late age - who inherited a sizable chunk of the house’s wealth and land.

Marquis Vestra, around 30 years old at the time and still unmarried, caught wind of this household’s affairs and began his own investigation. He discovered the youngest daughter’s inheritance and after deliberating with the Emperor about his plans, decided to pay her a visit. Marquis Vestra realized at once that she was in danger and offered a marriage proposal and a position within the Imperial Household. Hubert’s mother - barely 18 - was aware that her options were slim and accepted the offer, knowing that it would provide her some protection from her eldest sister’s husband. Marquis Vestra intended to add her inheritance to the possessions of the Emperor.

The plans for the Insurrection began brewing at this time, and shortly after Hubert was born, Lord Arundel reached out to Marquis Vestra with the suggestion that he should advocate for his wife to be promoted to Grand Chamberlain within the Household. Several months later, the Grand Chamberlain instated at the time turned up dead. Hubert’s mother was approved by the Emperor to take the position.

There was very little love in the marriage between Hubert’s parents. Their relationship had been purely professional from the start, and both of them continued doing their jobs as if they had not been wed. Hubert was merely a byproduct and a necessity of nobility, and as I've mentioned before, he was raised mostly by the servants in the palace.

When the Insurrection happened, it had been partly Hubert's mother's intimacy with the Imperial family (the Grand Chamberlain tends to spend nearly 24 hours with the Emperor and Empress every day, dressing them, preparing their rooms, etc.) that had allowed Marquis Vestra the opportunity to capture Edelgard and her siblings and deliver them to Lord Arundel.

A year after the Insurrection, Hubert's mother was killed by her eldest sister's husband out of vengeance when she was out checking on her estate. Marquis Vestra made an example of her to Hubert in teaching him to be wary of his surroundings and the possibility that there may always be someone lying in wait to stab him in the back.

So she survived until he was 11 years old.Her favorite food was a kind of Dagdan vindaloo which her mother introduced to her, but which she could rarely eat because only the rare traveler from Dagda knew how to prepare it like she remembered. She never learned the recipe herself. However, she's the reason Hubert is so fond of spicy and vinegary foods.

Now for some House Vestra meta:

House Vestra isn't known for being a house of assassins. And for the most part, they aren't. They supply the Emperor's personal guard, and may do things behind the scenes to ensure the Emperor's safety, but it's certainly not an open fact that anyone in House Vestra does assassinations. Hubert may actually be the one who has carried out the most in his family.

To the public, House Vestra is highly secretive and creates something like a veil around the Imperial family. They have tight control over what enters and leaves the palace, what information is disseminated to the public, etc. Similar to Japan's Ministry of the Imperial Household, the rest of Adrestia may actually be pretty frustrated with this distance that the Ministry tries to put between them and the Imperial family. Opinions may also be divided about how much respect this Ministry deserves, and there are conspiracies (championed by the Prime Minister, most likely) that the Minister of the Imperial Household actually puppets the Emperor and takes all of the Imperial wealth for himself.

The head of House Vestra manages everything in the Emperor's life, from ceremonies, to attire, to marriages, etc. The Grand Chamberlain is a high-ranking position within the Ministry that has historically been occupied by individuals who are close, if not related to members of House Vestra who serve other positions. This position is similar to a head butler or a maid.

House Vestra holds a good deal of power, since it's tied so closely to the Emperor, so finding individuals who are willing to marry into the family isn't difficult. The head of the family prefers to marry someone who will benefit the Imperial family, and it's not uncommon for them to snatch up failing or heir-less houses. These unions are rarely ever romantic.

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#boundlesshart #out of character #headcanons #meta #// look what you made me do #// look at it #// this is too much

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panharmonium · 4 years

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just some thinky thoughts about fandom platforms and community that i didn’t know what to do with, so i wrote them down.

[tl;dr - tumblr is weird, pan misses (certain aspects of) Ye Olde Days]

tumblr is such a weird platform.

like. i love my blog as a personal repository of stuff i enjoy, and i’m definitely thrilled to have met the people i’ve met on here - some of them have even become my friends outside the internet, and that’s been absolutely lovely. but in terms of actual functionality when it comes to trying to engage in a fandom...it’s still weird.

i know people will probably get tired of all the “BACK IN MY DAY” fandom analysis posts that float around on this website, but even having been here for years now, it is still really hard for me to adjust to a place that makes it so impossible to find any kind of actual fandom community spaces.

for me, i didn’t even start using tumblr until i was in my mid-twenties, and that was only because tumblr was where most people from LJ had migrated. i’d been Doing Fandom for over a decade prior to that, on other platforms (fandom specific sites/archives and then LJ), so i ended up here kind of out of necessity - the great fandom migration was already mostly complete, by the time i moved.

so i got here, and i got settled, but fandom on tumblr has been so different from fandom as i experienced it anywhere else, and that’s not the fault of any of its users; it’s just an inevitable function of the way this site is structured.

it is SO HARD for us to connect with people on here!

just, as an example from my own more recent life - i’ve been doing a lot of merlin stuff lately, right? that’s where my head is at and that’s what i’m having the most fun with and i would love to be more interactive with people about it, like - to have folks to geek out with about it, you know, to do the things that fandom is for - and if i were on, say, livejournal, back in the day, i would know where to go to do those things. there would be specific spaces built for just that purpose. LJ comms were places where everybody who was interested in a particular thing could go for the express purpose of posting and discussing and interacting about that thing! people still maintained their own personal blogs, but they also belonged to whichever LJ communities reflected their interests. LJ comms and fandom-specific sites were fandom hubs - it was so easy to find what you were looking for.

this functionality doesn’t exist in any meaningful way on tumblr. big, moderated groups/communities aren’t a thing tumblr truly supports. there’s no way for me to go join the “merlin” comm and just be in community with a large group of people who just wanna talk about merlin. the limited “group blog” functionality on tumblr is so non-conducive to actual usage that community spaces like those just don’t really exist, not like Back In The Day.

fandom on tumblr is so very decentralized. the way things are set up here forces all of us to just make posts on our individual blogs, which then might get picked up and put on other people’s individual blogs, maybe. you can’t like...make something (X) Fandom related and drop it in the (X) Fandom LJ Comm like “hey look, something fun to talk about!” you could put it in “The Tag,” but anyone who’s been here for any length of time knows how useful doing that actually is. and you could post it on your individual blog, but it won’t necessarily reach anybody who might want to geek out with you, not if you’re not already followed by someone in that fandom.

and the only other option is to invite yourself onto someone else’s individual blog, which is a) inefficient, when you’re looking for wider community, and b) not something a Painfully Reserved Person is wont to do.

the analogy that works best for me is this: pre-tumblr, fandom hangouts were community spaces. they were cafés with a sign hanging out front saying “star wars here!” or “kanan/hera here!” or “X here!” if you wanted to geek out about a particular thing, you would go to the café and meet a bunch of other people there.

nowadays, if you want to geek out about a particular thing, you have to barge into a stranger’s house. and not everyone is comfortable with that.

the lack of real, threaded comments is also just...i don’t know how to express how detrimental this is to communication and community. i mean, i understand that tumblr’s entire “reblog” system doesn’t really allow it to be a thing, but tumblr’s entire mechanic as a fandom platform has to be questioned, in that case.

how impossible is it to have a conversation on here, the way tumblr is set up right now? i mean - let’s say you make a post, right? one person reblogs it and adds their own text to it; another person reblogs the original version, but says something different in the tags. a third person doesn’t reblog it at all, but hits “reply” on your original post. a fourth person “replies” also, but to the second person’s reblog, in response to the additional content.

NONE OF YOU ARE HAVING THE SAME CONVERSATION. none of you are even aware that the other conversations are happening. the idea of trying to build an actual cohesive fandom community like that is just...impossible. it can’t happen.

when i reblog posts on tumblr, i feel like i’m a dragon collecting a little hoard of shiny things she likes, only i never actually see another person, because i live in a cave.

everybody here lives in a cave.

and like...this is just philosophical, i guess, but. tumblr’s focus on “follower count” and notes is also a thing i don’t really know how to handle.

having people “follow” me makes me feel weird. seeing that people are “following” this blog exerts a bizarre external pressure, as if my little house here could ever be for anybody who isn’t me. it prompts a tiny 'but should you?’ in the back of my head when i post about something that isn’t what all those people came here for, which is ridiculous, because this was never supposed to be a blog for any fandom in particular; it was just a blog for me. i was the only one here when i started, and i literally never did anything to try and get people to come here and join me. it happened accidentally, because bigger blogs than me picked up some star wars stuff i made and passed it around.

but of course, on tumblr, making connections gets conflated with follower/note count, and understandably so, because besides having a higher follower count (aka wider distribution), how are people ever going to reach the other people who are into the same thing they are?

for instance. let’s say you’re brand new to tumblr. you want to get involved in X fandom. there’s no community space here where a new blog with no followers can go and share their stuff with the right audience and meet all the other people who are also sharing their own work. unless you start messaging strangers, your tumblr time is pretty isolated.

whereas - i remember on lj comms, back when people would post as a newcomer, it would be like, ‘hey i’m so-and-so and i love xyz and here’s a picture i drew of x character!!!!’ - and people would actually respond to that. people responded to everything! like. tiny 400 word fics would have 30 comments, and all those people were talking with each other, not past each other, on the same page.

just for fun, while i was typing this up, i went through a month’s worth of posts on an old lj comm i used to frequent. not a single one of those posts was comment-less. every single post, even the tiniest, most insignificant one-line musing, had some amount of discussion attached to it.

whereas now - i don’t know if this is just confined to tumblr, or if it’s a general cultural shift, because even on AO3, i sometimes see people who have written massive sprawling epics and the comment field is just a desert. i once saw the exact same fic posted on ff.net, where it had 20 comments - and then on AO3, where it had zero.

and like, say what you will about ff.net (there’s...plenty to be said, certainly XD ) but commenting patterns were observably different there. and that’s all part and parcel of a bigger discussion, which isn’t really within the scope of these notes, except to say that it’s probably the source of my forever grudge match with AO3′s kudos button, which i realize is an absurdly silly thing to say and i’m smiling at myself even as i type this, but - i gotta be honest - i hate that thing! i can’t stand it! XD

i say that in the most good-natured way possible, obviously; this is fandom, after all, and it’s all for fun, and i love AO3 in every other way, so this is more a minor annoyance which makes me laugh at myself than anything else - but i say again - in the most fun-loving, self-deprecating way possible - that little button is my archnemesis. XD

i totally get why other people love it! it’s a completely reasonable way to feel! but for me, personally, coming out of an environment where the reward at the end of making something was getting to gush with somebody else, make a connection, talk about the thing that gave us So Many FEELS - the kudos button is so. sterile. and. empty. it doesn’t fulfill my urge to connect with people or share fannish enthusiasm in any way. i’d almost rather not even see kudos on my account, honestly, because it makes me feel more disappointed than anything else - like, “oh, man. look at all these missed fandom conversations we could have had.”

and obviously, this is in no way meant as disparaging to people who use the kudos button liberally. it is ALWAYS lovely to show appreciation for someone who wrote something you liked, however which way you are able, if and only if you are so inclined. nobody is obligated to leave feedback - lurkers are a perfectly accepted and long-celebrated fandom tradition; i belonged to that tradition myself, for most of my fandom life - so showing appreciation in any form is already going above and beyond. nobody needs to be harangued with “YOU SHOULD’VE COMMENTED” or “YOU SHOULD’VE REBLOGGED” - none of that stuff is required to participate in fandom; nobody owes comments or reblogs, and creators have to be okay with that. we can discuss and/or lament the structural factors that encourage or discourage participation, by all means, but ultimately we have to recognize that nobody is actually required to respond to things we make. it’s fandom. we’re all here by choice, and people’s participation levels are their own business.

and anyway, i know that lots of authors actually love getting kudos on their work, so my experience isn’t universal, by any means. it’s just a function of my own personal background, and the communities i used to run in - i speak for no one but myself and my own fannish life.

and besides, the entire debate about kudos/comments and like/reblog disparities doesn’t come anywhere near the underlying issues. it’s sometimes framed as “people not participating in fandom appropriately” (and that’s completely unfair; there’s no wrong way to do fandom when you’re not hurting anybody) as opposed to “what is it about our platforms that encourages or discourages participatory fan culture.” like - the only reason we even need to talk about the importance of reblogs vs. likes is because tumblr makes it so darn hard for a person’s stuff to be seen by the “right” people! reblogs are the only way for someone’s work to spread, and even then it’s kind of like throwing a handful of darts at a board and praying one of them will land in a well-connected spot. if a platform like tumblr were set up differently, we wouldn’t even need to have this conversation - there would be places to post your work where people would be specifically looking for content like what you were making. you could make those fannish connections more easily.

*** important to note, too - it’s always worthwhile to remember when reading these “back in the old days” nostalgia posts that pre-tumblr spaces had drawbacks of their own. livejournal was not some fannish utopia, by any means. there were, however, a few structural things from that era that i think were helpful influences on fan culture, and their absence here makes me miss them.

but anyways. those are just some thoughts. and now i’m going back to my regularly scheduled posting, because i DO enjoy this place, even if the platform can be somewhat lacking sometimes - we still have to find a way to have fun, right? that’s the entire point of being in fandom in the first place.

#i've always felt like tumblr was sort of a bizarre place for Fandom Central to have landed anyway #though i do think it's been amazing for graphics editors; gifset-makers especially #i do wonder where we'll end up next #whenever the next big migration hits #anyway back to regularly scheduled posting!#i've got episodes to get through #gotta keep up my momentum so i can GET TO THE END #:D #fandom

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nigeiadigitalmarketingcompany · 5 years

Text

How the Government Can Steal Your Stuff: 6 Questions About Civil Asset Forfeiture Answered

Digital Elixir How the Government Can Steal Your Stuff: 6 Questions About Civil Asset Forfeiture Answered

By Nora V. Demleitner, Professor of Criminal and Comparative Law, Washington and Lee University. Originally published at The Conversation

1. What Is Civil Asset Forfeiture?

Civil asset forfeiture laws let authorities, such as federal marshals or local sheriffs, seize property – cash, a house, a car, a cellphone – that they suspect is involved in criminal activity. Seizures run the gamut from 12 cans of peas to multi-million-dollar yachts.

The federal government confiscated assets worth a total of about US$28 billion during the decade ending in 2016, Justice Department data indicate.

In contrast to criminal forfeiture, which requires that the property owner be convicted of a crime beforehand, the civil variety doesn’t require that the suspect be charged with breaking the law.

Three Justice Department agencies – the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) – do most of this confiscating. Most states also permit local prosecutors to take personal property from people who haven’t been charged with a crime. However, some states have begun to limit that practice.

Even when there are restrictions on when and how local and state authorities can seize property, they can circumvent those limits if the federal government “adopts” the impounded assets.

For a federal agency to do so requires the alleged misconduct to violate federal law. Local agencies get up to 80% of the shared proceeds back, with the federal agency keeping the rest. The divvying-up is known officially as “equitable sharing.” Crime victims may also get a cut from the proceeds of civil forfeiture.

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John Oliver’s ‘Last Week Tonight’ segment on civil asset forfeiture in 2014 used humor to help viewers understand the practice.

2. Can People Get Their Stuff Back?

Technically, the government must demonstrate that the property has something to do with a crime. In reality, property owners in most statesmust prove that they legally acquired their confiscated belongings to get them returned. This means the burden is on the owners to dispute these seizures in court. Court challenges tend to arise only when something of great value, like a house, is at stake.

Unless an owner challenges a seizure and effectively proves his innocence in court, the agency that took the property is free to keep the proceeds once the assets are liquidated.

Many low-income people don’t use bank accounts or credit cards. They carry cash instead. If they lose their life savings at a traffic stop, they can’t afford to hire a lawyer to dispute the seizure, the Center for American Progress – a liberal think tank – has observed.

And disputing civil forfeitures is hard everywhere. Some states require a cash bond; others add a penalty payment should the owner lose. The process is expensive, time-consuming and lengthy, deterring even innocent owners.

There’s no comprehensive data regarding how many people get their stuff back. But over the 10 years ending in September 2016, about 8% of all property owners who had cash seized from them by the DEA had it returned, according to a report from the Justice Department’s inspector general.

3. Who Opposes the Practice?

Many conservatives and progressives dislike civil asset forfeiture. Politicians on the left and right have voiced concerns about the incentives this practice gives law enforcement to abuse its authority.

Critics across the political spectrum also question whether different aspects of civil asset forfeiture violate the Fifth Amendment, which says the government can’t deprive anyone of “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law” or is unconstitutional for other reasons.

Until now, the Supreme Court and lower courts, however, have consistently upheld civil asset forfeitures when ruling on challenges launched under the Fifth Amendment. The same goes for challengesunder the Eighth Amendment, which bars “excessive fines” and “cruel and unusual punishments,” and the 14th Amendment, which forbids depriving “any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”

In 2019, the Supreme Court unanimously found for the first time that these constitutional protections against excessive fines apply not just to the federal authorities but to the states as well.

Some concerns resonate more strongly for different ideological camps. Conservatives object mostly about how this impounding undermines property rights.

Liberals are outraged that the poor and communities of color tend to be disproportionately targeted, often causing great hardship to people accused of minor wrongdoing.

Another common critique: The practice encourages overpolicing intended to pad police budgets or accommodate tax cuts. Revenue from civil asset forfeitures can amount to a substantial percentage of local police budgets, according to a Drug Policy Alliance study of this practice in California. This kind of policing can undermine police-community relations.

The Justice Department’s guidelines state that forfeitures “punish and deter criminal activity by depriving criminals of property used in or acquired through illegal activities.”

However, the Inspector General’s office noted “without evaluating data more systemically, it is impossible for the Department to determine … whether seizures benefit law enforcement efforts, such as advancing criminal investigations and deterring future criminal activity.”

4. What Is the Scale of This Confiscation?

The federal revenue raised through this practice, which emerged in the 1970s, mushroomed from $94 million in 1986 to a high of $4.5 billion in 2014, according to the Justice Department.

The Justice Department says it returned more than $4 billion in forfeited funds to crime victims between 2000 and 2016, while handing state and local law enforcement entities at least $6 billion through “equitable sharing.”

The scale of seizures on the state and local level is less clear.

5. What Happened During the Obama and Trump Administrations?

Under the leadership of Attorney General Eric Holder, the Obama-era Justice Department determined that civil asset forfeiture was more about making money than public safety. It then changed the guidelines for asset adoption.

Beginning in 2015, joint state-federal task forces could continue to share forfeiture proceeds but state agencies were no longer permitted to ask the federal government to forfeit property they had taken on their own.

“I love that program,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in 2017. “We had so much fun doing that, taking drug dealers’ money and passing it out to people trying to put drug dealers in jail. What’s wrong with that?”

Attorney General William Barr, Sessions’ successor in the Trump administration, has also defended this policy.

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Attorney General Jeff Sessions has expressed astonishment regarding the unpopularity of civil asset forfeiture.

6. Congress and the States

When Sessions changed the policy, legislative changes seemed possible. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley sent Sessions a memo about how the federal funds obtained from seizures were wasted and misused. In some cases, Grassley wrote, the government provided “misleading details about some of these expenditures.”

The House of Representatives voted in 2017 for an amendment that would restrict civil asset forfeiture adoption.

The House also approved a bipartisan measure restricting civil forfeiture on June 20, 2019. This one goes further though and would substantially curtail the federal government’s powers.

State governments have also tried to discourage this kind of confiscation. New Mexico, Nebraska and North Carolina have banned civil forfeiture. Michigan has made it easier to challenge these seizures. Californialimited equitable sharing, and other states have increased the burden of proof the government must meet. But in many states, investigative reporting has shown that innocent owners continue to lose their property.

In a Georgia Law Review article, I gave examples of other ways to keep police departments and municipalities funded, such as increasing fines and fees.

Unless the police pursue some alternatives, funding woes will continue to contribute to abusive policing practices that fall most heavily on those who can the least afford them: the poor and communities of color.

How the Government Can Steal Your Stuff: 6 Questions About Civil Asset Forfeiture Answered

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wanna1things · 6 years

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Soulmate!Yoon Jisung

MAN i love him

Genre;; fluff, college au coffee shop au??? i suppose and soulmate au ofc

Warnings;; uhh mentions of stress

Pairing;; Yoon Jisung x reader

Requested;; nope

Soulmate AU Type;; you feel the pain of your soulmate, and you have a matching birthmark somewhere on your body, which fades (slowly) after your soulmate touches it for the first time

Summary;; When life gets hard, the boy at the coffee shop is always there to cheer you up. Maybe it’s just because he feels bad, or maybe it’s something else?

Style;; bullet point

Word Count;; 1333

Also in this series;; Minhyun | Daniel | Woojin | Jihoon | Jinyoung

i love this man i love jisung pls appreciate my boyyyyy anyway idk i kind of got the idea from day6’s when you love someone bc hey i love that song it makes me cry and also i’ve been having a struggle at university recently so;;lol

you were no stranger to the whole ‘soulmate’ thing

your mark was a small heart shape that looked like a freckle on your wrist and try as you might you really couldn’t find a single person with the same mark as you

sometimes your mark would ache a little but it was never anything particularly painful so you just assumed your soulmate either a) had no problems or b) didn’t let things get to them and was more optimistic

you secretly hoped more for b because honestly if your soulmate had never had any problems it would be SO difficult to relate lmao

you tried (sneakily) to get all your crushes to touch the mark but not once did it begin to fade

as you started to lose hope you decided to (cliche) turn to studying

you really loved working with children ever since you were 15 and went and worked in a primary school for a week

so you decided to study education (minor in english!!!) at university so in the future you could be a teacher!!

and there was where you met jisung

from the first time that you met jisung you knew there was something special about him

you’d seen him at your university’s freshers week, he was showing everyone around and telling them all the best places to go, where the best toilets are and the best places in the library

he lead around the confused teens with ease and seemed to make them all just as smiley and happy as he was by the end of the tour

he seemed to brighten up the room when he walked into it, it was like it was impossible to even dislike him let alone hate him

from that moment you wanted to know more about him, but it seemed that either because he was in the year above you or because his major was the complete opposite of yours that he wasn’t in any of your classes

instead the first time you saw him after that day was halfway through the first semester

the stress of it all hadn’t set in yet and you were still in the ‘honeymoon phase’

since the first day when you saw him you’d basically been idolising him in your head and had already had a crush on him despite never having a proper conversation with him

but anyway, your friend really was craving a coffee so you decided to join her in the break between your classes

what you didn’t expect when you walked into your campus cafe was to see jisung, a BARISTA;;

at this point you still had no idea of is name so you took a sneaky look at it while you waited for your friend to order

ahhh… yoon jisung

a different barista served your friend and you were looking off into space when a soft voice called out to you

“Hey, what would you like to order?”

uh oh jisung is serving you??????!!!!

you panicked because you really didn't intend to order a drink and had nOT REHEARSED YOUR ORDER 100 TIMES IN YOUR HEAD you were just accompanying your friend??

“I’ll take whatever you recommend!!”

jisung smiled widely at this and began to make your drink

you were in the post-talking-to-crush bliss when you realised

you had to pay for this lmao

when jisung handed the coffee over to you, you panicked and rushed to get your money out of your bag when jisung stopped you and smiled at you again

“it’s on the house, as long as you tell me your name”

“AHH thank you!! I’m y/n!!”

you picked up the coffee and waved goodbye to jisung before going to sit down with your friend

“y/n… is that the guy you were talking about??”

you blushed and nodded before going to sip the drink he’d made especially for you

he didn’t say what it was but you knew it was coffee obviously,, but it had hints of honey and like honeycomb and it was just really nice

when it was time for you and your friend to leave again you waved goodbye to jisung on your way out and he winked back at you

your heart was racing from that moment up until you went to sleep because ah oMG okay

little did you know jisung was doing the exact same thing

he’d noticed the little heart shaped freckle on your wrist which matched exactly with his

he also noticed how beautiful your smile was

he got a right scolding for giving you a free coffee but he was sure it was worth it to see the smile on your face

but the happiness didn’t last for long

from that day onwards the stress began to set in

instead of going to the cafe for fun, you went there to relax because you found it a bit more calming being there

maybe it was because of jisungs presence but

you’d always order the same drink that he gave you the first time you went there

but of course you’d pay

every time, you tried to at least make conversation with jisung as he made the drink, especially if the cafe was empty

just because he was really nice to talk to he was a good listener and he always seemed to give the right advice??

but within a week or two the conversations had dried out because you were just too stressed to keep up social interactions

jisung had noticed not only because of your attitude, but also because of how his birthmark was gradually getting more painful

when his shift was over he’d sit next to you for a while, slide you a cookie and tell you to stay safe

you really appreciated it, even though you didn’t have the time to acknowledge it

one day thought you were ;; very stressed

your essays were piling up and you just couldn’t seem to get your head around the topics and all the grammar and stuff

jisung noticed straight away when you stepped into the cafe

he gave you the coffee that you always had but immediately went to the manager and ended his shift, promising to make up the hours some other time but this was really an emergency

he took off his apron quickly and ran over to where you sat with a muffin in his hand

you didn’t even realise he was there until he cleared his throat and you looked up at him

he saw how red your eyes were from not sleeping and it really made his heart ache like how his soulmate is going through this pain???

before he knew what he was doing he came over and hugged you

and it was just like that step too far when someone’s nice to you and you just;; burst into tears

jisung patted your back as you let it all out and held your hand and stroked your hair

when you’d finished crying jisung squeezed you tighter and then pulled away

“Y/n… i think we should go and see your lecturers. They will understand.”

you nodded at this and started to stand up but jisung shook his head

“I have something else to say…”

he pulled up his sleeve and showed you his wrist

it took you a while to realise what he was doing but when you saw it you were honestly shocked out of your mind

you reached forward to touch the mark and sure enough it started to fade gradually

you too showed jisung your wrist and he touched your mark softly, and it began to fade too

jisung looked up at you and smiled and you smiled straight back at him

and you leaned forward and pressed your lips against his

and you both felt complete

because god knows how much you wanted him to be your soulmate

and really, you finally had hope that things were going to get better with jisung by your side

i hope if any of you are having a stressful time that you feel less stressed soon!! and remember it is always better to let it out and talk to someone rather than bottle it up!! <3 (i sound like my mum)

#yoon jisung #jisung #wanna one imagines #wannaone imagines #wanna one scenarios #produce 101 imagines #produce 101 scenarios #produce 101 s2 #wannaone #wanna one #produce 101 #yjs #soulmate au #college au #au

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dysfunctional-college-roommates · 7 years

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Okay, so this is my very last-minute gift for @nakasomethingkun through @aftgexchange. So, I meant there to be stuff related to the 4th of July and to Andreil reuniting during their long-distance relationship, and this... sort of has that stuff. Anyways, it might not be exactly what I meant it to be, but I kind of like it, so hopefully you will, too?

[Now on AO3 with some minor edits]

Neil Josten didn’t pay much attention to birthdays. He willfully ignored his own, did little more than slide a phone to Andrew on his, and in that tradition, America’s birthday was hardly a blip on Neil’s radar.

Other people turned the Fourth of July into an entire spectacle party. Other people woke up early, spent hours in the car, and made their way to a beach or a backyard. They made small talk with people they would have avoided otherwise; they drank more than they would have otherwise; they ate food they wouldn’t have otherwise. Other people turned a regular day into something else, like it was so unique that this country had come to be.

Maybe it was Neil’s life growing up that had made him feel this way. When he was nine, all he’d wanted was to see the fireworks. But the FBI had been watching, looking for evidence of his father’s criminal activity. Neil hadn’t understood that at the time, but he’d pieced it together since. He’d been told that he couldn’t go outside to watch from the lawn; he couldn’t even peek out the window. He’d sat on the living room floor and simply listened to the sound of them while his mother read a book. And then he’d gone to bed.

Since then, Neil had spent more than a few Fourths in other countries. Sometimes they were in a city with a large enough population of foreigners that their accents weren’t memorable, and sometimes there had been sparse parties tripping through the streets. When he was fourteen, Neil had heard the commotion of them outside his window, but he hadn’t understood what it was for. He hadn’t realized the significance until the next day, as his mother hurried him past someone’s abandoned American flag T-shirt in the street.

The past few years had been a little better for Fourth of July experiences. There had been waterskiing with Allison (well, watching Allison waterski while the rest of them had struggled to understand the physics of standing on water). There had been grilling with Wymack and Abby (they’d left Kevin with the grill for one minute, and all the burgers had wound up burnt). There had been, best of all, sitting in the house in Colombia with Andrew, lights off, trading truths as the fireworks exploded somewhere else.

But this year, Neil hadn’t given much thought to it. Nicky had said something back in May about petitioning his office for a party (and how it was totally going to work this year), but no one else had brought up any plans for the holiday. Neil, for his part, had expected practice. This was one of the nice things about professional Exy: there were no class schedules to get in the way. Neil’s coach, he knew, was more organized than most with regard to the practice schedule, but Neil kind of liked the predictability. Routine was a luxury that he could suddenly afford.

This was what Neil could expect from his routine: Monday and Wednesday, he was in the weight room in the morning, running light drills in the afternoon; Tuesday, he was running drills all day; Thursday, he played at least one scrimmage; Friday, there were drills in the morning, and maybe another scrimmage. Every third Friday, they had off, though, and Saturday was a free practice day – you were free to do what you wanted as long as it was practice. Sunday was their day off. These were facts that Neil could use to plan visits to Andrew. They were facts that he could use to predict what tomorrow would look like, and that was a comfort to someone who hadn’t always known where or if he would be by the end of the day.

Here was something that liked to muck with predictability: holidays. Holidays shifted trash day so that Neil’s trash was sitting at the curb for an extra day. Holidays closed businesses that he’d needed to get to. Holidays shoved aside the normal setup of stores for weeks beforehand, making it impossible to find the stupid bag of Oreos that had been right there last week.

None of these inconveniences had reminded Neil of the Fourth quite yet – and the explosion of red-white-blue at the front of the grocery story was hardly noticeable against the backdrop of his team’s aggressive marketing scheme. Here was what reminded Neil that the Fourth of July was approaching: on Thursday, Coach Garces sat them down after their last scrimmage and said, “All right, here’s the holiday schedule for next week.”

Neil looked around at his teammates in confusion. He wasn’t quite at home here yet, wasn’t quite sure of himself when it came to speaking up in this group. He’d been so completely comfortable with the Foxes that it was weird, being uncertain now.

In any case, no one else on the team looked confused – or looked, in general; they were all just paying full attention to the coach. She continued, “Now, some of you – you know who you are – have let me down before and will be doing special practices with me all weekend. But the majority of you are getting the benefit of the doubt. You will keep up your training over the next week – I want you running drills on a court at least twice, and keep up your weight-room routines. A single one of you comes in unprepared or hungover next Thursday, and you’re all stuck with me for Labor Day.”

There was silence as the team processed this. Finally, one of the guys recruited around the same time as Neil – something Freeman – spoke up. “Are you serious, coach?”

“We only got a couple days last year,” added Samantha Li, who’d been with the team for a few years now.

“Maybe I’m being generous,” Coach Garces replied, standing up with her clipboard as a general indication that she was done with their questions. As she headed for the exit, she added over her shoulder, “Or maybe I’m showing my gratitude that there was no rotten egg prank this Easter, Bell.” She tapped the doorframe with her clipboard. “Availability schedules for the court and weight room will be up in thirty minutes.”

As several of the players started swearing to Bell that they’d told him she was onto him, Neil just sat there. Just a few years ago, Neil never would have dreamed of choosing anything over the opportunity for extra Exy practice. He would have been in Garces’ office right now, asking if he could join the group who were being punished. And yet –

“Josten!” Samantha Li called from across the meeting room. She was one of the better strikers on the team, so they were friendly. “Hey, you plan on sitting there all night?” she teased. “Or do you want to come out for celebratory drinks? I’m buying!”

A cheer went up from several of their teammates, and Samantha looked around at them disdainfully. “Sorry,” she said, “not for y’all.” Samantha could be kind of ruthless; Andrew, when Neil had first described her, had suggested without concern that if she ever met Allison, they would destroy either each other, or the world. Neil, personally, didn’t think that Samantha could quite measure up to Allison’s level of confidence and unflappable independence, but he wasn’t stupid enough to say so to her.

“Not planning on sitting here all night,” Neil replied, standing to prove his point, “but not going out either. Sorry.” He knew he didn’t sound apologetic, but he wasn’t sorry for that, either.

Samantha crossed her arms, but she didn’t look angry. “Plans?” she inquired. Neil shrugged. He thought about how, just a few years ago, his plans would have been to hole up on the empty court and get in as much extra practice as he could. He thought about players he’d faced off against in college, the ones who’d already been tapped to join the US Court. He thought about Kevin and Ichirou, each awaiting greatness from him, but for different reasons. He thought about Andrew.

Andrew, who expected from Neil only what Neil expected from himself, and only because Neil expected it from himself. Andrew, who was possibly the best goalkeeper that Exy had ever seen, but had already told him, in not so many words, that he refused to be on two Exy teams without Neil. Andrew, who claimed to hate Exy, but put in extra hours when Neil was there. Andrew, who he could be with in just a few hours by plane.

“I might,” Neil said. “Not for sure, but – yeah. I’m pretty sure I have plans.” He grabbed his gear bag off the floor and offered the room at large what Andrew had once called his ‘I’ve hidden the explosives somewhere in this building’ smile. “See you all next week.”

Andrew had mixed feelings about airports these days. He still wasn’t a huge fan of flying, and he was even less a fan of crowds. The crowds were even more of a nuisance these days, with the periodic appearances of Andrew’s face on billboards and commercials (the PR team had only made the mistake of not giving him a heads-up once). There always seemed to be people taking his picture, people staring, people asking for autographs, no matter how many times he pulled knives on anyone who got too close. No matter how many times he categorically refused to give an autograph to anyone taller than he was (he’d picked that one up from Neil).

There was one good thing about the airport, however, and that was that it connected him to Neil. Well, occasionally, Andrew was just the slightest bit appreciative that it brought Aaron or Nicky to visit, too, but that hardly made a dent in the downsides of the airport. The true redemption of the place came from reunions with Neil in baggage claim.

But Andrew was running a little late today.

It was Neil’s fault, of course – he’d called during practice, of all things, and announced that he was about to leave for the airport. He’d given Andrew the arrival time, but with no advance notice, he hadn’t been able to leave early. He’d turned his usual shower into a thirty-second rinse, dumped his gear in a heap in the back of the car, and spent most of the drive breaking the speed limit, but still, he’d arrived after the plane. In fact, by the time he pushed through the doors, the conveyor belt was already starting to spit out luggage from Neil’s flight.

And yet, where was Neil? Andrew watched Neil’s obnoxious orange duffel bag make a lap around the carousel and tried not to think about the last time he’d seen Neil’s bag without Neil. There were a million scenarios that he was carefully not thinking about. He’d scanned every person in the crowd at least five times now – a full plane mulling around, grabbing their bags and greeting their loved ones. Except for Neil.

Neil, Neil, where was Neil? Andrew hated him for doing this to him. Minutes ago, every cell in his body had been zinging with the anticipation of seeing Neil again, and now every cell was screaming with possibility that he might not. He couldn’t stand the fact that he was always so far from Neil, that he was always so out of the loop on what was going on with Neil. He hated that it was possible for him to pass hours with Neil hurt and him not knowing a thing about it.

Andrew was getting ready to sound the alarm, to muscle his way through airport security and damn the consequences. He was ready to search every plane in the airport. And then Neil walked out through the gate exit, chatting with a couple of flight attendants. Neil could start a conversation with anyone, as long as it was about Exy. Andrew was going to kill him.

Neil’s eyes were already darting around the room, even as his hands made gestures and his mouth kept moving. He found Andrew in a matter of seconds, his sentence turning into a smile that did stupid things to Andrew’s pulse. It really was uncanny how easily Neil could find him, and even more so how he could give Andrew these feelings like reminders of being alive.

And Neil was still grinning at him, but he was still talking to the flight attendants, like he had all the time in the world. It was almost unbearable – it would be, if Andrew didn’t like looking at that anticipatory expression so much. Neil’s gestures were faster now, and Andrew knew – he knew – that Neil was talking about him. He’d seen it too many times now, and yet, every time was like the world was ending. Andrew hadn’t seen too many people talk that way about him – like they wanted to be talking about him – before Neil.

Finally, Neil shed his flight attendant posse and sprinted over to Andrew. He still had that anticipation grin when he stopped less than an arm’s length from Andrew. He held out his hand near Andrew’s clavicle, waiting. Andrew responded by reaching up to put his own hand on Neil’s shoulder, a consent through similar action. Neil let his hand gently fall, his index finger curling around the side of Andrew’s neck while the others curved over the top of his shoulder. Andrew let himself rest his jaw against Neil’s thumb as his own thumb stroked along Neil’s jaw.

“I think your bag has gone around three times by now,” Andrew commented, and even after all these years, that quiet tone in his own voice was unfamiliar to him.

Neil was smiling that sort of smile that Andrew didn’t want to name, that it would hurt too much to name. “You could have grabbed it for me,” he commented.

“That is a service I only provide in the event of a kidnapping,” Andrew replied, keeping inflection out of his voice to hide that the association, the possibility had infested his mind so recently.

Neil squeezed his shoulder, as if to say, I’m here, I’m okay. “I should get my bag before they think I’ve abandoned it,” he said. Most of other passengers had already left the area, and only the few who’d taken a detour after deplaning were still looking for their bags.

“It’s been a while since a federal agency had a word with you,” Andrew remarked, a sort of agreement.

Neither of them moved. For minutes, they just stood there, watching each other faces, even though there were no surprises there. Then Neil said, “I don’t want to kiss you in an airport.”

Andrew did not laugh, but he was amused. He did have to admit that it was a very cliché idea, the kiss at baggage claim. He chose not to mention that they’d done it anyways, the first few reunions. Instead, he took his hand from Neil’s shoulder and grabbed his fingers with it instead. He told him, “I think you should get your bag, then.”

#The Foxhole Court #All for the Game #aftgexchange #nakasomethingkun #writing #alcohol mention #I can't seem to tag my person... not sure what to do about that...#this is officially late but I swear it was done before midnight #sorry #I shouldn't have even written that first half - it didn't follow any of the requests #I'm always starting fics in the wrong place

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murasaki-murasame · 6 years

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Thoughts on Tokyo Ghoul :Re Season 1

I just finished rewatching this, so I figured now was a good time to make a big post about it, especially because of how the manga also recently ended and so it’s a lot easier to look back on the story as a complete product.

As someone that’s already read the manga, it’s basically impossible to discuss this season without taking about the entirety of :re, so this is gonna have some casual spoilers for later stuff. It’s also mostly just gonna be me talking about how the anime feels as an adaptation, because of that.

My non-spoilery TL;DR is that I think this was an imperfect but surprisingly great adaptation of a very flawed manga, and I honestly think I prefer it to the manga already. If season 2 can go anywhere near as well as I hope it will, at least now that we have confirmation it’ll cover the rest of :re, I would probably just suggest people watch the anime instead of reading the manga. It’s a shame that the anime side of the franchise doesn’t quite stand on it’s own because of how Root A went, but that’s not super relevant to the :Re anime.

Anyway, more detailed and spoiler-y thoughts under the cut, including some more of my speculation for season 2. [As a fair warning, this got really long, and there’s a fair bit at the end that could be taken as being anti-Tou//ken, even though I don’t mean anything malicious or ship hate-y by it]

It’s interesting to look back at this season of the anime, after having read the ending of the manga, and after having seen how disappointed people were with pretty much the entire second half of :re. People complain about the anime in general cutting out ‘important narrative details’, mainly to do with backstories and worldbuilding, but I feel like those things ended up being a double-edged sword in the manga that ultimately got people’s hopes up, and made them more annoyed at the ending than they should have been.

For instance, the anime didn’t go into Saiko’s backstory, and they didn’t show the fact that Shirazu’s father had killed himself, but it’s not like those things came up again [aside from Saiko’s family being mentioned in an off-hand bit of exposition in the finale], so I can’t exactly say that it took away from the story in any meaningful way.

In general, I feel like anime-only people would mostly just be confused as to why the manga side of the fandom developed such increasingly complicated theories about certain things, and why it disappointed them so much when, for example, Uta ended up just being some regular quirky dude and nothing more. Which I think says a lot about how it’s probably a good thing in the end that the anime glosses over the sorts of details that got people making theories as they read the manga.

The part of the manga that this season covers is definitely the most well-written part of :Re, but overall the series is a bit of a bloated mess, so I’m glad that the anime ended up being almost like a second draft of a novel, that just trims things down to a more reasonable size and pace. The effect should be a lot more apparent in season 2, though, since they’ll probably start cutting out entire story arcs, whereas with season 1 it was mostly just a matter of them shortening scenes a bit and being less repetitive in general with their storytelling.

There’s definitely some small parts where I think they cut a bit more than they should have, though, like how much they heavily gloss over Matsuri’s backstory and reason for being at the CCG, and then the whole Rose investigation. It’s not a huge deal though, since the audience can still basically understand what’s going on. It’s also made a bit better by the fact that those writing issues pop up during the part of the show that was best overall, so it’s easy to just focus on the good parts.

Other than that, I really had no issues with them cutting out story material. For the most part, as I said before, it was just a matter of the anime being less repetitive, and in general it came across like it didn’t need to spell certain things out to the audience as much as the manga did.

One of the more important elements that were cut was how they removed a lot of Akira’s warmer moments with Haise, and in general the whole framing of her being a mother figure to him. But honestly, after sitting on it for a while, I think I prefer it to how she was portrayed in the manga. It feels more in line with her characterization in the first series, and I think it just makes more sense and is more interesting for her to basically hold him at arm’s length most of the time. It’s also just a bit sad how, in the manga, she acted as a mother figure toward him because she was ordered to in order to manipulate him. On a more subjective and broad note, I think the manga slowly got more and more off-putting with how it handled familial or psuedo-familial relationships, in a sort of . . . Freudian way, almost. The stuff with Haise and Akira was a pretty minor example of it, but it ended up being part of a larger whole, so I’m not exactly upset that they just cut that little bit out.

I also think it gave it a bit more weight later on, when she awkwardly tried to comfort him during episode 10. Since it was the most overt act of affection that she’d displayed toward him until that point, and because it had so many conflicted emotions behind it. And in general, they kept her warm attitude toward him during episode 7, so that was nice.

While I remember, I should say that the whole house party scene in episode 7 was a great example of the anime editing down the manga into something more concise and less overwhelming. Changing it so that it was just about Haise, the Qs, Arima, and Akira, made it feel a lot more cozy. It was a little overwhelming to have like twice the amount of characters involved in that scene in the manga.

Anyway, back onto the topic of cut/condensed material, the other more blatant parts are how they gloss over some of the details of the Torso and Nutcracker investigations, which I think was fine. The manga mostly just dropped that police procedural-y tone pretty quickly, so it just feels a bit more consistent with the story’s overall tone, for them to not worry so much about the details, and to focus more on the action. And for episode one in particular, they didn’t really have much choice in terms of how to adapt it, since the end of chapter six was the first good stopping point they had. Anything before that would have made the first episode feel insubstantial, like it was lacking a meaningful hook. So I think they did the best with what they had. I appreciate that they took the chance to actively change how the Torso arc was structured and paced in order to make it fit more reasonably into one episode, instead of being slavishly 1:1 with how the manga did it.

One of the big changes that happened early on which I think got people off onto the wrong foot with the anime, so to say, was the whole taxi scene with Mutsuki and Torso in episode one. Hoo boy, that one sure caused a lot of complaints from people. Personally, I thought it was fantastic. Overall, it feels like the anime treated Mutsuki with more respect and dignity than the manga ever did. Which is one of the big reasons why I disagree with the idea that the anime ‘lacks heart’. In a sense, I feel like it reflects the strict love of an editor, rather than the obsessive love of a fan. But for this in particular, it really does just feel like the people writing the anime care more about Mutsuki than Ishida does, to be honest.

They actually kept like 99% of the content related to Mutsuki and Torso, but just reframed things slightly to be less in-your-face and shock-value-y about it all. The anime already explains how Torso exclusively preys upon ‘women with bodily scars’, and shows him being very specifically obsessed with Mutsuki’s body later on, so really they had no need to actually show Torso ripping open Mutsuki’s shirt and exposing his binder and whatnot. I’ve seen a lot of people accuse the anime of being too blunt with it’s writing, but it’s moments like that which feel like they respect the reader’s intelligence and their ability to put two and two together than the manga did.

Similarly, they kept the part where Mutsuki has social anxiety in the night-club because of people staring at him, but they just left it at that. Which was fine. And during the auction raid, they very bluntly make it clear that he ate parts of those dead investigators to heal himself, and just presented it as a pragmatic choice on his part, whereas I’m pretty sure the manga was less clear about it, and eventually tried to frame it as a ‘big shocking twist’ later on that was meant to play into the whole emerging theme of him being a crazy serial killer or whatever. Yet again, another way in which the anime treats him with more dignity, and isn’t just trying to manufacture forced shock value to surprise the audience.

On the note of the auction raid, it’s kinda amusing to me how that was the part of the story that was probably the most faithful to the manga, and cut barely anything out, but I think we can all agree that it was the worst part of it. To me, it mostly just suffered from the inherent flaws of the source material. The manga could at least somewhat coast by on flashy art and fight scenes, but the general opinion from manga fans has always been that the auction raid was a pretty messy and kinda uninteresting arc. It has good moments in it, but for the most part there’s just not a lot of emotional weight behind the fights, and to be quite honest, Takizawa in this arc is one of the more overtly edgy and over the top parts of the entire series. As a whole he’s a really good character, but man, that first impression of him being a minor character who comes back as a crazy half-ghoul with white hair and scary eyes, and who starts eating people and rambling about fruit sure is, uh . . . something, alright. If anything, the anime’s more subdued art made him come across as being less ‘overwhelming’ and over the top, which was nice.

Although they were just minor cuts to a few lines of dialogue, the auction raid did cut a few things though, which I also think were for the best. During the Mutsuki-Urie hug scene, Urie’s sentence just gets cut off as ‘you’re a . . . ‘, which is honestly way less clunky than the ‘you’re a wo(man)’ way it was phrased in the manga. On the one hand, it’s a very overt indication of how Urie still views him as a man even after figuring out about his biological sex, but on the other hand it’s so awkward and clunky in it’s delivery that most people didn’t even take it that way in the first place. I think it was just fine how it was in the anime, although I do sorta wish that during episode seven they could have included the detail of Urie continuing to refer to him with male pronouns even in his internal monologue, but oh well.

Similarly, during the scene where Suzuya kills Big Madam, the anime just had him say ‘Farewell’ instead of adding ‘Dad’ onto the end. To be blunt, I have no idea what the fuck Ishida was thinking when he wrote that line in the manga, and it’s stuff like this which is why he comes across as having Really Weird hang-ups about LGBT people. That line in particular in the manga was basically just an act of deadnaming, in essence, since Big Madam is obviously a trans-woman who clearly presents and identifies as female. So yeah, cutting that part of the line out in the anime was entirely for the best.

Some people complained about the use of Unravel during the Takizawa fight as being kinda nostalgia bait-y, which I get, but I think it was fine. It was surprisingly fitting, since that whole scene focused so much on Haise grappling with the identity of Kaneki that lives within him. I’m mostly just glad that they didn’t try and use it a second time, since that would have been a bit much.

Though the auction raid was a bit dull overall, thankfully episodes seven through ten were fantastic, and overall the peak of season 1. I really appreciated that they took the time to spread the material from volume four across three episodes. The anime’s definitely at it’s best when it focuses on character interactions/development, and that part of the story had a whole lot of that. Even though I think that for the most part this season was better than it’s respective part of the manga, these episodes in particular were just great. With the rest of the anime, you could definitely say that the manga’s fight scenes are superior, but when the story isn’t focusing on fights, the anime just feels fundamentally better. Episode seven in particular was very nicely structured, and felt a fair bit more fleshed out and cohesive than it did in the manga. I already talked about how the house party was way better than in the manga, but I also preferred how they handled the scene at the cafe, though I’ll wait to talk in detail about the scenes involving Touka and Kaneki until later, since I have a lot to say about that.

Oh, and the visual changes they made for the ED in episode seven were great, and got me kinda emotional, given that I know where things end up, lol. I’m really happy they inserted that one panel of Kaneki and Arima walking together during it, in particular. It really sets up the emotional weight that comes to fruition during the Black Reaper arc.

Although I still think episodes seven to ten were the best part of season 1, as I said above they do also have some of the more unnecessary story cuts. It’s just really easy to not care much for that when it’s surrounded by so much good material.

The final two episodes weren’t quite as great, since they were so action-heavy, but they were still really good, and I think I enjoyed them slightly more the second time around. Episode eleven in particular really nailed all of the emotions surrounding Tsukiyama and his servants. But it was in these episodes in particular that I also really noticed how the anime is a lot more gore-y and explicit than I expected it to be. It’s kinda surprising how often they just outright show characters getting stabbed through their stomachs, and so on. There’s also a lot of limbs being cut off in that whole arc in general, and even though they silhouette Kijima when he gets chainsawed, there’s at least one cut that just outright shows him with the chainsaw sticking into his head with no real censorship.

In general the only real censorship in this season was how some stuff like Hairu’s decapitation was strategically placed out of frame, and also that one scene where Yuma’s tongue was pixelated. But that’s about it. There’s certainly nothing like what we got in the first season of the anime, where obnoxious shadows and black bars got put over the screen during action scenes, or the colour scheme got all weird to try and obscure the gore, or whatever.

A lot of people disliked the overall pacing of the finale, but I thought it was great. It’s easy to unfairly compare it to the previous season finales we had in the anime, but those were largely the products of Morita’s directorial vision, and how much he heavily fleshed out the source material. This was just a more straight-forward adaptation of how these chapters played out in the manga, so it feels kinda mean to bash it for not being as interesting as some of the previous season finales. Though even then, I kinda prefer how certain things were done visually in the anime. Like how heavily they used the checkerboard room thing during Haise’s dream sequence, how they fleshed out the child abuse memory scene to be more than just a single static panel, and in general how they portrayed Haise’s memories of the ‘underground garden’. That place always looked nice in the manga, but I really like how the anime portrayed it. It might seem jarring to some people that it was so bright, but I think it worked really well. For one thing it makes sense for it to be a well-lit area, and it has an interesting contrast against the violence that goes down there. The haziness of it all, and some of the visual effects, also made it more apparent in a neat way that the flowers were a hallucination of his, and not actually real.

I also thought that the scenes with Kaneki after he regains his memories were very well-done. I think some people misinterpreted him as being more hot-headed and angry than he actually was, since I remember there being some complaints about how blunt and monotone he was. It seemed perfectly fitting to me.

Eto’s voice-acting in general was also pretty damn superb, and really added to the experience. She was clearly having the time of her life with that one.

I liked that they waited until the finale to show Eto’s kagune talking. It gave it a bit more impact when it finally happened.

I honestly don’t really have much to say about Karren’s part in it all, but I think it was done pretty well. In general, the anime cut out a lot of her more repetitive scenes that just hammered in things we already knew, so that was good. I also liked how they were a lot less blunt and on the nose with how they revealed that she’s a woman. I still can’t help but roll my eyes at that one panel where Ishida basically goes ‘hey isn’t it such a neat coincidence that the kanji used for Kanae’s name looks like a female symbol :^)’. In general, her whole story arc is mostly just a kinda old-fashioned Mulan sort of arc, but it’s executed pretty well.

Oh, and the anime handled the scenes of her being tortured by Eto incredibly well. The garish purples and reds mixed with the oppressive clock noises were a really nice touch that made those scenes even creepier than they already were.

Before I forget, I should mention that, in a similar way as how I felt about Akira’s character in the anime, I quite liked how they handled Hairu. I get why people were disappointed by her, but I enjoyed the way that they toned down her airhead nature, and how they only really showed how she idolized Arima right before she died. In a way, it just made her seem more professional and self-motivated.

Now that the manga’s over and I’ve had time to look back at it as a whole, and to think about how season 2 will adapt it all, it’s been really interesting to see exactly what the anime kept versus what it cut, and how they reflects upon how they’ll probably handle the next season.

Firstly, they kept pretty much everything that sets up the Black Reaper arc, to the point of even ending the season off with a teaser preview of the big Kaneki-Arima fight. But they also kept details like Shirazu’s corpse being stolen, Okahira getting killed, Hinami getting taken into custody, Akira finding out that Takizawa’s alive, Amon getting teased at heavily, Scarecrow being shown in the auction raid [and even in the OP], Torso becoming obsessed with Mutsuki, etc etc. So it seems pretty clear to me that they won’t really cut much of anything out of that arc when the next season comes around.

One thing they cut, which I haven’t even seen many people comment on since it was pretty subtle, was the detail of Kaneki’s rapid aging and how it affected stuff like his vision and regeneration. The anime never showed Haise wearing his glasses [at least from what I remember], didn’t show him having headaches, and during the finale we didn’t see his weird kagune hand thing. So I think they’re just completely removing that whole detail from the story, which I’m fine with. But it does have some interesting implications for how season 2 will go. Overall, it was a pretty irrelevant plot point that ended up getting hastily resolved anyway, but in practice, it was mostly just relevant to add some more tension to the Goat arc by making it look like Kaneki was at risk of dying, and it helped give a reason for him to become Dragon, since it ended up curing him.

I think the main implication of them cutting it from the anime is that it’d make it a LOT easier for them to just not bother having Kaneki become Dragon, since they wouldn’t need to bother with using it as a way to magically cure him. I’ve been thinking for a while now that it’d help streamline the story immensely if they just have Rize be the one to become Dragon in the first place, and this would help facilitate that.

As I’ve said, from season 1 it looks like they’re being more respectful with how they’re portraying Mutsuki, so I wouldn’t be surprised if season 2 is much kinder toward him than the manga was. They might even more or less cut out the whole subplot of him becoming an antagonist, which would be good since that was just a dumpster fire of bad writing that didn’t even go anywhere meaningful.

One interesting addition they made was explicitly showing Eto delivering the Hangman’s McGuffin book to Haise. That’s a REALLY interesting detail, since in the manga, we found out much later on that Hide was responsible for sending it. I don’t think this is a retcon or anything, though. I think this was how it went in the manga, too. I’ve talked before about how I think Hide had been working with Eto since around the end of the first series, and that for some reason or another Ishida was unable to get around to explaining that, and this makes it seem like the anime might be a lot more open about their connection. It makes a lot of sense to me that Eto would deliver the book on Hide’s behalf. It makes me very excited to see how Hide will be handled in the next season. With the manga, it really feels like Ishida had to scrap a lot of his plans for his character, and so when he finally came back into the story he felt like a bizarre tacked-on remnant of a previous draft, so it’d be great if the anime ends up handling him in the way that Ishida might have originally intended. And on the note of Eto’s involvement in it, I wonder if she might drop a hint to Kaneki about how she sent the book to him. That’d be neat.

They also added in a shot of a missing poster for Hide at the very start of the season, but that’s pretty minor. It at least helps immediately remind the audience that his official status as of that point is ‘missing’, not ‘dead’, though.

Oh, and judging by the scene we got of him during the auction raid, he seems to still have the same injuries as in the manga. I really liked how they just outright showed him having a wheezy, broken-up voice. But either way, it goes to show that they seem to definitely be keeping that detail from the manga. It makes me wonder how they’ll handle things later, especially with the part where Kaneki remembers having eaten him. I wonder if they’d keep it as-is, or try and integrate it into the way that the scene played out in Root A. Overall, it definitely seems like they’re pretty much ignoring the story changes made in Root A, but we’ll see. I hope they at least flesh that part out a bit, since I still feel like the flashback we got to it in the manga just raised more questions than it answered.

It’s pretty difficult to judge the anime as it’s own thing since I’ve already read the manga, but I still think it did a really good job with getting across the emotional thrust of the story, and the character arcs, and whatnot. The Qs in particular were handled fantastically. I got the impression that anime-only people actually liked them, particularly Urie and Mutsuki, slightly more than manga readers did by this point. Probably because they heavily cut down upon the quantity of Urie’s more shitty bits of dialogue, and because they were less overtly weird and obnoxious with how they framed Mutsuki. I distinctly remember that the Mtusuki Discourse [tm] was already a thing by this point in the manga, but nobody watching the anime has any real reason to be all weird about him. So that’s been nice to see.

Haise’s character arc was also handled really well. It really reminded me of how his whole arc was by far one of the best parts of the manga. At least in terms of :re. It’s just a really effective, tragic arc about how he’s stuck living in and clinging onto this fake life, and slowly being chipped away at and replaced by somebody that he effectively doesn’t know. Seeing him be a happy dad taking care of his surrogate found family of misfits is still endearing no matter how many times I read or watch it, and it hurts just as much to see him get ‘replaced’ by Kaneki and immediately abandon the Qs.

Tsukiyama’s part in the anime was also great in general, and also reflected the strengths of the manga. It’s pretty insane how much more interesting of a character he is in this part of :re than basically anywhere else in the franchise. It really helps that they spend like half of the season with his whole story arc being in the spotlight. They really did him justice.

Before I forget, I also wanna say that, even though the animation wasn’t much to talk about [but also wasn’t anywhere near as bad as some recent production disasters I’ve seen], the art itself, especially in terms of character designs and backgrounds, were consistently fantastic. In general, ‘consistent’ is definitely the word I’d use to describe the overall art direction of the anime. On the other hand, the manga is a lot more uneven in terms of it’s art quality, varying from hyper-detailed fight scenes or individual expressions to silly chibi reaction faces or some really sketchy fight scenes, and so on. The anime smooths things out to a nice, consistent mid-ground, which I appreciated. The manga has always been a bit too bombastic and over the top at times, especially with how it handles action scenes, so I kinda prefer how the anime handles it, even if can come across as being more boring.

I also kinda feel like it took Ishida a little while to nail exactly how to draw a lot of the new characters in :re, so them having consistent, clean designs from the start was pretty nice. Similarly, I get why people were annoyed at how the anime slightly changed Touka’s hair-style, but it just makes it more consistent with the rest of the series. In the manga, she ends up going back to her original hair-style and hair colour anyway, so it makes perfect sense to just have her design be consistent from start to finish, rather than making her hair blue and fluffy for a while and then going back to how it used to be. And judging by the s2 key visual, it looks like they might just keep this design for her for basically all of s2 as well, instead of literally just going back to exactly how she styled her hair in the first series. So I’d also appreciate that.

And on that note, I should finally get around to discussing my thoughts on how Touka was handled in general in this season, and her whole connection to Kaneki in particular. To put it simply, I had absolutely no issues with it. I really loved how she was handled in this season, and I think it has interesting implications for how she’ll be handled in season 2, but at the same time I get why some people have frustrations with it.

To start off with probably the most minor thing, they cut out the scene where she was visiting the hospital, although they still showed her flower basket being left on Shinohara’s bedside table. I’m fine with this change, since it felt like such a long-running mystery in the manga that I couldn’t help but feel disappointed when we found out about what was actually going on. And also, since they stilled showed her flowers there, it’s entirely possible that they’ll touch upon it sometime during season 2, and possibly have a flashback or something to reveal that she was the one sending them. So ultimately it might not even be cut at all, just handled slightly differently.

Just to cut right to the chase, it sounds like some people are annoyed that the anime cut out/toned down upon the romantic set-up between her and Kaneki, but that’s actually a big part of why I liked it, haha. Though they didn’t even technically cut much, if only because they barely have any scenes together in this arc of the manga to begin with. But they did cut stuff like that scene where Kaneki wonders to himself if she’s out on a date, and they cut the part where she talks to Tsukiyama about how the :re cafe is a place for Kaneki to return to if he wants to in the future.

I get why that bugs people. I’ve seen a few people complain that because of those sorts of cuts, it’d seem forced and out of nowhere when they get together in season 2. But, well, what if that’s the point? What if they’re NOT going to have them get together in season 2? I haven’t seen anyone really talk about this possibility, understandably, but I think it explains the choices they made with handling Touka as a character in this season.

The biggest point worth considering is the insert song they made for the cafe scene in episode 2, where Haise and Touka meet again for the first time since the original series ended. The soundtrack composer put out an official AMV for it on Youtube that uses that full version of the song. It’s a really wonderfully made AMV, and a very pretty song, so everyone should check it out. Put simply, it’s a song about the bittersweet process of letting go of an old crush, and moving on with your life, even after you have a random chance encounter with that person later down the track.

The lyrics are pretty blunt and unambiguous about it. The chorus is about how Touka kept dreaming that Kaneki would return to her side as if he’d never left her, but the song starts out with ‘I’m waking from this dream. Returning to reality is so bittersweet. I open my eyes, and the illusion is fading, slipping away’, and ends with ‘Although I’ve found you, I know this meeting will not last. I have to let go. Continue finding your own way, though I will miss you. It’s time to wake from this dream’. Especially since :Re already uses the motif of ‘waking from a dream’ to describe how Haise eventually has to give way to Kaneki, it seems very noteworthy that they so overtly used the same motif to describe how Touka wanted Kaneki to return to her, but slowly she comes to terms with the need to let go of that dream. They even play those last few lines during the scene in episode 2 itself, just to make it even more clear what it’s referring to.

So yeah, I feel like that whole insert song helps make it clear that the writing changes made with Touka might just be rooted in the possibility of the anime committing to this idea of her moving on from Kaneki. It’d certainly explain why they cut out the scene where she says that the cafe is a place for him to return to, if she’s already resolved to let him live his own life, while she lives hers. It’s worth noting that, even though it’s technically about the same as it was in the manga, these writing changes put a different sort of twist on what Touka says to Uta in episode seven about how, in response to him asking if she plans to just wait for Kaneki to return, she says ‘I’m going to continue doing what I’ve already decided on’. In the overall context of the anime’s writing, it mostly comes across as her talking about how she’s not just waiting for Kaneki to return to her, but has chosen to move on from him. It’s worth noting that one thing the anime did change about that scene was that they had Haise visiting the cafe and getting served by Touka, shortly before she talks to Uta. The way that we see her, for a second time, treating Haise as just a regular customer, also helps emphasize the overall point.

On the note of Haise’s involvement in that scene, it’s also interesting to me how in episode seven in general they added some original scenes with him that went a long way to emphasize the idea of him being nostalgic toward Anteiku as a whole, more than anything else. He doesn’t even seem to have much of a reaction to Touka the second time around, and as I said above, they cut out the part where he wonders if she’s out on a date, so it comes across a fair bit less like he has a crush on her. And while I remember, I should say that the original scene with Haise remembering Anteiku but not knowing what it really is was incredibly good.

And in terms of the scene between them from episode 2, I still just think overall that it was way better than the manga version of the scene was. It was so good and emotional. In particular I love how the anime really highlighted Touka’s shock upon seeing him again, and the way that she quickly adjusts herself and just treats him as a regular customer. It’s really effective, especially in conjunction with the insert song playing in the background. Haise’s line about how she looked sad, and at a loss, also has even more weight to it if she was resolving in that moment to finally let go of him for good.

So yeah, I honestly think that the anime might just not have them end up together at all. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have them hook up anyway, to be faithful to the manga, but it does feel like the only real explanation for why they’d make all those subtle but important changes to how they wrote her parts in season 1.

To begin with, I still think that even if they did include their whole romance in season 2, they wouldn’t really have the room to include ALL of the stuff between them from the manga. For one thing, I doubt they’d be able to animate the sex scene because of broadcast regulations and whatnot, and since I feel like the whole 24th Ward arc is one of the first things they might cut in order to fit the rest of the manga into twelve episodes, it might be difficult to include their wedding, or Touka’s whole pregnancy drama. And if they avoid having Kaneki become Dragon, they wouldn’t need to use his wedding ring as a plot device to have everyone find and rescue him. Plus, in general, even if they did include stuff like the sex scene, it’d probably have to happen in the same episode as when Kaneki starts living at the cafe, or the episode directly after it, which would probably feel a bit rushed.

Though even then, it would be possible for them to just imply that they hook up after the anime ends, or for them to just have them have sex off-screen and basically leave it at that until the epilogue. So it seems particularly interesting to me that it seems like the anime might be outright moving away from the idea of them hooking up at all, rather than just having it be that the anime doesn’t show as much of their relationship.

To be blunt, I feel like the only real reason why they’d actively shut down the idea of them getting together at all, rather than just reducing the time spent on their relationship, would be if the anime plans to have Kaneki end up dating a different person instead, in which case it’d obviously make sense for the anime to cut the romantic ties between him and Touka as neatly as possible. At the very least, I think we can all agree that they’re not just gonna have Kaneki be single in the anime forever. That’d just piss off everyone for no good reason, lol.

Basically what I’m saying is that the anime might have Kaneki end up dating Hide instead of Touka. At the very least, he’s Kaneki’s only other real romance option at that point in the story, so it’s either him, Touka, or nobody. But I think it’d make a lot of sense for Kaneki to end up dating Hide. We know for a fact in the manga that Hide is in love with him, and going by stuff like the whole Hide hallucination scene in the Cochlea arc, or him talking to Touka about how his desire to be with Hide again is paralyzing, it’s not exactly hard to believe that Kaneki could have feelings for him as well. It’d barely require any real changes or additions to the story to make it work. Just have Hide directly confess his feelings to Kaneki rather than having him awkwardly tell Amon about them. And unlike with Kaneki and Touka, there’d be no real expectation for them to include a whole sex scene or marriage scene or pregnancy plot-line with Kaneki and Hide, so they could easily get by with just leaving their relationship off at a mutual confession/kiss scene, until we see them together in the epilogue. And given that Hide already narrated the whole epilogue chapter of the manga, it’d be pretty natural and easy to have it end in the anime with him going out on a date with Kaneki or something.

I don’t want to get too, like, conspiracy theorist-y about this, but part of me still wonders if one of the reasons why it felt like Ishida handled Hide so poorly in the manga’s final arcs was because he might have originally planned to have Kaneki end up dating Hide. It’d certainly be a good explanation for why things got so out of whack with him, and Hide ended up feeling so out of place and unnecessary in the manga. It’d also explain why we conveniently only learn about Hide’s feelings for Kaneki when he talks about it to Amon, and why the intensity of Kaneki’s feelings toward Hide seemingly got thrown out the window when they actually got to reunite.

Either way, I don’t mean any of this in a ship-hate sort of way. I have very . . . complicated feelings about how Ishida handled Kaneki’s relationship with Touka in the manga, but these are just the observations I have about how the anime seems to be handling it, and what it might be setting up for season 2.

Anyway, that went on for way too long, lol. To sum it all up, I thought that season 1 was surprisingly good, in spite of it’s flaws. I honestly had very low hopes for it before it aired, since it seemed impossible to adapt properly, but I ended up being very surprised by how it went, and I’m very excited to see how season 2 wraps it all up. I was apprehensive about season 2 when it was first announced, but the more I thought about it, the more clear it became that with some strict and careful editing, it could easily adapt the meaningful parts of the rest of the story into 12 more episodes. Either way, if it goes well in the end, I might even end up buying both seasons on BD when Funimation eventually releases them.

#murasaki rambles #tokyo ghoul #tokyo ghoul :re #I have a Lot of thoughts about this one lol #I get why a lot of people disliked it but it was basically crafted exactly to my tastes #and I do genuinely think that season 2 will probably be an immense improvement upon the manga

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dreamharvestgames · 7 years

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Dev Blog - April 2017

Justin - Creative Director

It’s been bloody mental here at Dream Harvest this month and the rush hasn't even let down one bit!

I had the clever idea of wanting to demo Failure at three events this month while trying to move to a new house half way across the country. What could go wrong?

I type this update currently surrounded by boxes and acoustic foam as we had to fly out to Croatia the day all of my studio equipment was delivered by the removal firm and since getting back on Wednesday morning it's been full steam ahead while we prepare to move into our new office, did I say new Office?

Yep, so we're finally going to have a place to call home, next month, as the funding from certain sources come in later this month, yay!

We'll be sharing more about our new Studio setup, including lots of photos and videos as we move into the new space. I'm super excited to finally be working with a large portion of the team in the same building rather than online and this will allow us to pick up the pace on development immensely as several members of the team move into full-time work with Dream Harvest.

Anyway, for now, I wanted to share some of the feedback we received from the three events we went to over the past month:

First up was the monthly WeGeek event. This is always a fun little event held at a number of the WeWork offices around London. Unfortunately, this one wasn't really the right crowd for us this time around and I made the big mistake of only bringing a single laptop with me so demoing the core focus of our game, multiplayer, was almost impossible.

The small number of people that sat down and played Failure: NeuroSlicers seemed to really enjoy it, but I very quickly realised that there were some usability and readability issues; things that we actually already knew about, but in the process of fixing for the next two events we were due to attended this month, Intel Buzz and Reboot Develop.

The Intel Buzz event was a completely different story.

We had quite a few people coming to play the game. I even had to pitch the game with our new teaser trailer in front of a big audience of people in the main hall.

The demo we were showing off still lacked the tutorial we were building for Reboot Develop and there was still some issues with player's struggling with new game-play concepts that we'd introduced.

Although Failure: NeuroSlicers is a Real Time Strategy (RTS) at heart there are quite a number of new mechanics and systems which are new to this genre and without a tutorial, the learning curve is a bit steeper than we'd like.

What we've found though is that once players understand these new concepts they really enjoyed the fresh experience we're giving them with the game. We're even finding players who aren't normally competitive gamers really getting into the matches.

Last up and by far the coolest experience of last month was Reboot Develop in Dubrovnik Croatia. What a mind-blowingly, beautiful place to have a game conference.

We met some amazingly cool people creating some really amazing games; the quality level from some of the teams in Eastern Europe is amazing.

Milcho and I spent three days at the conference and was happily joined by Amelie and her boyfriend Charlie (who's developing a super cool Portal like first person puzzle / space game) in a great spot which allowed us to really observe people playing through our work in progress tutorial and then play a couple of multiplayer matches, either between Milcho or I or even other attendees.

We had several people come back again and again over the three days to play more matches with some even telling us that "they could play the game all day!" - it was a really lovely thing to hear.

My one regret was not putting us forward for the Reboot Indie Game Awards as several people came up to us after saying that we would have had a good chance of possibly winning some of the categories or at least being nominated. Well, there's always next year!

Anyway, if you want to check out some of the photos from the event check out the Reboot Develop section of this month’s newsletter where you can see some nice shots of both the Conference and magical city of Dubrovnik.

Until next month - Keep Gaming!

Sven - CTO / Lead Programmer

So what happened in the last month? I got a year older, had some non Failure related changes in my life so I was a bit busy outside of working on Failure.non Failure related changes in my life so I was a bit busy outside of working on Failure.

As we had Reboot coming up I was mostly working on smaller improvements and bugfixes as I didn’t want to mess up the build we did for Reboot. Not much else to say about that, nothing really new, just less bugs, minor graphical improvements etc.

While it didn’t make it into the build for reboot I was also investigating some graphical effects for level loading. A good example for the stuff I did is this little test

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Also, we upgraded the project to Unity 5.6, so I’m currently looking into existing code/shaders etc. to see if we can make use of some of the improvements that came with 5.6.

The most useful feature so far has been the additions to the frame debugger as they helped me to detect a few possible performance issues as some stuff isn’t exactly working as it’s supposed to. I'm also looking forward to seeing what Kelvin can do with the new particle system stuff when he’s back working on effects.

Milcho - Lead Designer / Programmer

Justin had the astonishing idea to sign us up for three events in one month while having an incomplete game. Yeah… you can imagine how that went for the poor soul that had to prepare a build for all of them. Oh, you thought that poor soul was someone else? Of course not.

Apart from my suffering, the rest of the team did a great job of fixing issues and polishing different aspects of the game – UI/UX, VFX, Environment etc. The main feature of the builds was a newly designed tutorial which eased people into our core systems and gave them a good chance to compete in a multiplayer match.

Plenty of people were able to enjoy the game because of it, which fills me with confidence that we’re making something that not only we enjoy playing, but also and there’s market for it. All-in-all it went smoother than I would’ve ever expected – the only downsides being a lack of sleep and exhaustion. The only thing we need to do next works restlessly until and after final release – it’s all good.

Now that all the excitement is beginning to settle down, we’re planning lots of changes based on the feedback and observations from those events – from small UX tweaks to big system changes. We’re in full production force here, so expect lots of content in the near future. I’ll leave you with the rest of the team now, because (as we all know) people love talking about themselves.

Loic - Art Director / Designer

This month the art focus has been on cards for our user interface and polishing our main level to show the game at Reboot Develop.

so I sculpted on-board fixed blockers to replace the placeholders we had before, with real-time lights that gives much more volume to the center of the board.

I then created more environment assets to have a wider diversity in the city-scape to create a symmetrical layout instead of the chaotic one we had before.

Lastly, I created the Access Node, which is your base building, from modeling to animation so we can emulate the feeling of the player jacking into the level and being ejected or destroyed when the Access Node loses all its Hit Points (HP).

Kelvin - VFX Artist

Hello all, for me this month it’s been a lot of UI work with some FX fixes sprinkled in. Reboot was around the corner and there was a lot we wanted to get done so that the players could give us feedback on it. Along with some fixes to the Transmission tower FX, I've been doing a ton of UI iterations.

We built a look for the script cards (both small and large versions), resource visuals, and general in-game UI. The most challenging task, besides reformatting my brain to think of UI again, was creating the script cards. We really had to find the balance between visually appealing cards and the amount of information given to the player.

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I lean more towards giving the player a little bit less information and making the UI more appealing. This way, new players will have an easier time trying to adjust to the UI. You can't give them every piece of information and expect them to look through the UI thoroughly. So by putting less information, the players will be able to adapt to the game easier in the beginning and then look for more detailed information later down the line.

Also, by putting less information, this will keep the UI looking clean in the long run. Once players become veterans of the game, they need less information on the screen anyway. Although the current UI is still a WIP, I think the route we're going is heading in a good direction.

Amelie – UX Designer & Writer

Hey, everyone! So this month we focused a lot on the UI and the UX in order to show the best possible version of the game at Reboot Develop. The dynamic of the team was great and everybody was really motivated to iterate on the UX.

Our main interrogations were mostly about how to fit all that info on the cards that describe the scripts but still keep them easy to read, we need to prioritize information between the mini version of the card that remains visible at the bottom of the deck and the larger version of the card that you can access by hovering over it.

Other aspects we've worked on and are still investigating are how to make the link between data and territory more obvious and how to make your tech resource really intuitive to read when you're purchasing new scripts.

What we've got is much better than our previous version, I think, but there are still some tweaks we need to test. Apart from that, we worked on a first version of the tutorial. It was really valuable at Reboot to have this because we can now analyse the data we collected in our observations and interviews with the players and see where we need to focus more or how the steps and pace of the tutorial flow.

I wrote a questionnaire that our players filled in after playing which also allows us to set our next priorities regarding the improvement of the UX.

Last but not least I started to work on the narrative, this is probably the most exciting part for me. I just love the cyberpunk atmosphere that the team is bringing with this game and the really deep and contemporary questions that we want to broach on in Failure.

I believe that the narrative is going to be a central part of the game identity and so everybody's expectations are quite high with this, it's very challenging but when we'll get to the nitty gritty part it's going to be very rewarding as well. Maybe the title of the game even will take an even deeper meaning then...

Anyway, I have loads of ideas. I'm reading Snow Crash at the moment and it's the perfect inspiration, the characters are in my opinion very compelling and the themes are tackled in a subtle way, I'm also a big fan of Ghost In the Shell, the original anime and the comics. Using those masterpieces and others help me organize my thoughts and think about how we want to approach this question of the link between our access to unlimited information and the definition of our humanity.

When Ghost in the shell came out in 1995, it was a completely different context, the internet was a very new thing, and it's within this context that they questioned the definition of our humanity, through the dilemma of the body and the mind.

Today we're glued to our phones, we are connected almost constantly even if it's not yet through implants but I believe this relation to information and our ability to verify what is true or false instantly without relying on each other so much creates a whole new environment to look at this same old question.

We already started to work on an intro and we're going to iterate on that probably ten times before we get it right! I'm reusing the timeline that Anthony wrote for us when he could work on the project and of course, the work done on the factions from David but my focus now is to develop our main character.

What is his or her motivation at the start, what brings him into this slicers universe and how will this evolve as we progress in our investigation and understand what brought humanity to this state? Work on the antagonist force as well, our conflict, our controlling idea, the values and the emotions we want to manipulate, oh dear.... there is so much to do I should probably get back to it!

Ciao ciao

Daniel - Composer

This month we say a warm welcome to our latest member of the Dream Harvest Team, Daniel Elms. We’ll let his impressive bio speak for itself because it helps solidify his thoughts on the world of Failure: NeuroSlicers.

Composer of humanist, post-minimal music. Daniel crafts emotive soundscapes from intricate orchestral textures that are bursting with geometric rhythms and patterns; this rich orchestral language is interwoven with the electroacoustic instruments and urban sounds synonymous with his hometown, Hull, which together create a unique voice in the world of contemporary composition. He uses his music to make intimate commentaries on the plight of the individual, and to address the social and economic inequalities of his home, taking inspiration from the ideologies and philosophies of anarcho-syndicalist and progressive literature.

As well as creating music for both expansive and intimate performance venues, Daniel has a large and varied repertoire of collaborative works across feature film and theatre, including: the BAFTA- nominated ‘Ralph’, the Academy-Award-nominated ‘Library of Burned Books’, ‘Plaques and Tangles’ at Royal Court Theatre, and additional music for ‘Taboo’ by Ridley Scott and Tom Hardy, for which he worked closely with fellow composer Max Richter. In 2016, Daniel was commissioned by the British Film Institute to create a new work to celebrate his hometown as part of Hull City of Culture 2017 and was awarded Performing Right Society Foundation’s New Music Biennial Award as part of the commission; he was the recipient of the Musicians’ Benevolent Fund Emerging Excellence Award in 2013.

In 2017, Daniel will record and release his debut album of concert material, ‘Islandia’: an album of new music written for chamber orchestra and electronics in which expansive sonic landscapes are interspersed with driving rhythms and expressive textures. His BFI/PRS Foundation commission ‘Bethia’ will premiere as part of Hull City of Culture 2017 and will be performed in Hull and at the Royal Festival Hall, London, with a recorded broadcast by BBC Radio 3. Daniel will also be working on a soundtrack for the computer game ‘Failure: NeuroSlicers’ by game developer Dream Harvest Games, create the score for Abner Pastoll’s second feature film ‘A Good Woman is Hard to Find’, and record and produce various musical artists from his hometown, Hull, as part of City of Culture 2017.

ON FAILURE: NEUROSLICERS

Beneath the awesome visual styling and game mechanics of Failure, there are a lot of pertinent questions being asked by the story that can — and should — be applied to our own lives in the face of recent political, social, and technological upheavals. What this means for me as a composer is that there is a vast amount of content within the game that has the potential to bring relatable questions and commentary to the fore for those playing it and that there is the opportunity to blur the lines of distinction between our world and the world of Failure.

#gamedev #video games #devblog #failure #cyberpunk #indiedev

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sarcasticlykaeon-blog · 6 years

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Caught Between Worlds

Stuck. Thats how it felt, every hour of every day, for as long as I could remember. Like i was some sort of freak, on the outside looking in. I can remember when i was small, barely old enough to really walk and talk, two and a half, three...and i hated dresses. I hated pink. I hated lace and frills. If i could choose or make my will known it was pants. Tshirts and sweatshirts. Childrens overalls. I hated games in preschool. The girls always wanted to play house, with husbands and babies in some sort of elaborate roleplay. The boys wouldnt let me play with them. "No girls," theyd say. "You wont know how," or "girls arent any good at this. Go play with dolls." somehow...just because i didnt have the same lower regions i wasnt good enough. So i played alone, with blocks or toys, making up elaborate adventures or stories in the process. My mother, my aunts, my grandmother...they all wanted me to be a girl. They tried to take me underwing in baking, playing with makeup, dressup, dolls...they tried to teach me about playing with hair. Me? I just wanted to test out the new computer, watch ninja turtles, and kick butt like she-ra. My one concession to female marketed programs was Jem...but honestly? I loved the story and drama, not the glamour, glitter, fashion, or fame. I was the oldest...five years between me and my brother meant i was dads son substitute until i was almost 11. I learned things like changing the oil in a car, ms-dos programming and how to kick ass in Doom, how to tackle and fight back if grabbed by a bigger opponent. Of course...the instant my middle brother was old enough to do son things....fwip! I was ignored. About the only thing i could get the old man to do was D&D. My grandfather insisted it was a phase i would grow out of, that id become a seeker of a strong man and an actual woman eventually. My mother tried to force me to conform to gender standards. My aunt was disappointed. My father only started caring about gender normativity when i hit puberty. I never told them things like "i want to grow up to be a boy" because even at three, i knew it didnt work that way, on some instinctual level. But i dod wail and growl about the unfairness. Why is x okay for boys but not girls? Why are girls expected to be like this but boys arent? And the answer...oh the answer just upset me and angered me. "Because youre expected to be a young lady." By puberty, the words "young lady" were guarenteed to trigger a huge emotional fit of rage...but i couldnt explain why. Just like the fact that i had to fight for my place amidst whatever boys lived in the neighborhood. I had to work twice as hard to prove i was worthy of being allowed to hang out...and still they sought to ditch me at every opportunity. School was even worse. I was overly tall, strong, and hyper intelligent. I was part of the "Gifted Program" (which in most school systems is naught but busy work or a careful way to set up classes in high school to fix the averages of a class.) I was, in every concievable way the outcast. And then puberty found me. Early. The first time i bled in sixth grade, i cried myself to sleep, hiding blood ruined underwear in the back of my closet until i could throw it away. I didnt tell my mother until i was sixteen--hiding this horrid, agonizingly painful thing that happened to me once a month. When i grew breasts i hated them. I hated bras. And of course, i have breasts that grew huge. I survive with super tight sports bras and tshirts because nothing else fits my fucked up frame: ive got broad shoulders, long legs, and huge feet (size 12 womens, which is impossible to find), and im like 5'8". Id be taller but my arms and torso are short, and ive got wide hips and huge breasts and butt. I hated my body and i still do. I feel like i was a crapshoot built out of the mismatched leftovers of several people. And the shit my parents tried to enforce for gender conformity to this "new identity of a young lady." first was acne management. I wasnt a pizza face, but i did and still do have a bit of an issue with blackheads (Glasses have that effect.) But my parents tried to force me to pop my zits...and when i refused because it hurt, they basically held me down and popped them for me. Then was "shaving my legs". Okay. Underarms i get because pits stink. I shave those because it feels less stanky when i do. But their issue? My legs. I refused to do it. "Boys dont, why do i? Thats not fair!" i fought. Hard. But...like the zits...theyd hold me down and buzz my legs for me from knee to foot while i thrashed and begged...all to force on me a title i never wanted, a mold i didnt fit. And i didnt understand WHY. Why was my behavior, my life and interests and hobbies and clothing all supposed to be dictated by something so unimportant? And then...when i was sixteen, i met a person i hit it off with. A sweet and funny youth my age with hair as long as mine and a goofy smile on his face. In a few months we were dating long distance and i suspect my family sighed in relief that i wasnt a lesbian. Our fathers got to be friends(which was useful, since 200miles between us put a crimp in relations.) But this had another side effect. You see, that next year i learned something id never heard before. Something id never considered until that day in 2002. His father...felt he was a woman trapped in a mans body. I was floored. This could happen? What? So i researched what i could to understand (there wasnt much, back then.) And...i began to wonder....because all I could find was for males becoming females. Even joked with my boyfriend that the universe "got us backwards" (he agreed, seeing as how he was girlier than me) And then it all crashed to a halt one night at dinner. His father, him, me, another mtf person and two other adults were at a restaurant, and the kne guy at the table with no knowledge on trans folks was asking questions. I listened, enraptured as the emotions and disconnects id always felt were described from the other side. Emboldened, 17, and perhaps seeking some form of connection or...validation for my feelings, i piped up, expressing how i felt the universe had gotten me backwards. That was the worst thing to say, as his father unloaded on me verbally for being mocking and insensitive and jumping on a bandwagon i had no business on. Treated me like i was being scum--damn near drove me to tears and made me feel small and useless. And i thought "if this is what trans ppl are like...i dont want to be like them ever." it crushed my desire to understand my gender identity and sexuality for years. It didnt help that as time went by ot seemed every trans person i encountered was one of two things: a dramawhore with the emotional stability of a 14year old girl, or someone like my bf's father who decided that i couldnt belong to his elitest club in a fashion that echoed years of "no girls allowed" from boys everywhere. The internets vast collection of professionally offended "keyboard warriors" who spew bigotry and hate and small minded idiocy while calling it "truth" or "just what X group deserves" is a steaming cesspit of shit I dont want to be part of on any level, and unfortunately many of them claim to be whatever "alternate" gender identity or sexuality is the fad this month. Its not winning me over at all, and made me shy further away from actual people i might be able to relate to...maybe who can help me. I finally did own up to something when i was 23--I was more sexually attracted to women than men. In fact...beyond a few emotion driven crushes as a teen, the only male i have ever found attractive was that same goofy, funny, smiling boy with the long hair...except these days hes my supportive, goofy, smiling mate with the softest heart of gold ive ever known inside a powerful and intimidatingly sized viking-esque exterior. But again...because on the outside, our relationship seems very "normal" im not welcomed much by the vocal minority and so im super wary of all parts of the lgbt crowd. I dont advertise or tell my relatives--my parents and their respective siblings are between 50 and 70 years old. They barely believe this stuff exists. I still dont want to be a girl. I dont want the societal expectations of it. I hate having breasts that risk knocking my teeth loose if i move too fast. And dont get me started on the fucking shit show that is my sex life. Its a complicated shit show that starts with the disconnect of parts and ends with kinks i can never actually engage in because, guess what? Im a GIRL. But at the same time, i stare at the only transmen examples and stories i can find, which seem to be rare and hidden somewhere, at places like fb and tumblr and twitter...at pride rallies and news stories...at stuff recounted by friends...and i dont want to be associated with people whose actions turn them into examples of literal human garbage. And so here i sit, caught between two worlds, never part of either one and feeling like im slowly drowning. It seems like one doesnt want me and the other i dont want... Im so tired of being stuck.

#Gender dysphoria #gender identity #emotional stress #confusion #feeling like a freak

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kawaiifunhologram-blog · 6 years

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Can i cancel my car insurance after my claim?

"Can i cancel my car insurance after my claim?

hi all, i have a car insurance policy with churchill and have recently written of my car.. the claim is being processed and i need to know some stuff. i am 19 and pay 1200 a year for my car insurance from sept2009-sept2010. I made the claim this week. i am planning to go to america in may for summer camp america and also due to there being a 900 excess ( god tell me about it) i wont be buying a new car and wont need a new car.. my car is only worth 1000 but i am claiming to recover the costs of recovery as i tipped it upside down. so therefore i need to know if i can cancel my insurance policy and if i can do that now or if i have to wait unil the claim has been processed. some people have said tat i might not beable to cancel???

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