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joonsytip · 1 year

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The Selfish Dilemma || Jeonghan - Part 1

Pairings: Jeonghan x Fem!Reader

Synopsis: It was love at first sight ever since you laid eyes on Jeonghan. To him, you are the annoying co-worker who keeps asking him out. No one is new to your courting agenda which only pisses off Jeonghan but what happens when you stop, all at once....

Word Count: 6k

Warnings (specific to this part): this part is SFW, pinning, unrequited love, lots of office jargons, profanity, tears, mention of alcohol consumption, aloof Jeonghan, reader is a love sick puppy, second lead Seokmin, wholesome co-workers Wonwoo, Soonyoung, Jihoon and Joshua, wholesome bestfriend Myeongho (lmk if I missed any)

Banner credits to my baby @hoeforhao <3

A/N: To be added to the taglist for the next part please send an ask or comment under this or the announcement post.

Please heart, comment and reblog, it would really help to keep me going <3

[Svt Main Masterlist] [Svt Flick - Fic Masterlist]

Teaser | Part 1 | Part 2 | Epilogue

The cubicles are neat, the marble floors are shining brighter than crystals even after getting padded every now then. The fruity smell of the room refresher is strong enough to go on for days but the continuous clicking of keyboards sound loud enough to give a year worth migraines.

You duly wait by the office entrance, your daily routine, holding a takeaway paper cup which contains Iced Cinnamon Cappuccino.

A familiar car passes by towards the parking and you know that the person you're waiting for is gonna grace you with his presence soon.

Just in cue, that person walks by ignoring you and passes through the security check. You line up behind him, instantly feeling better just by seeing his face.

"How do you always manage to look so gorgeous?", you ask him giddily knowing very well that you won't be getting a response from him.

The security at the check smiles when you direct your requesting gaze at her. She let's you pass by and you're doing large strides in your heels.

"Here..", you are handing him the beverage cup, "Have a great day, Hannie!", you wish him and he doesn't even bat an eyelash as he saunters over to avail the elevator.

You stand there watching him as your lips curl up because your gazes meet for the first time for the day before the elevator door closes.

When you had switched to the current company you're working for two years ago as a Senior Developer you had never thought in your wildest dreams that you'd be turning into a lovesick puppy for the technical analyst of the team you had gotten assigned to.

Yoon Jeonghan got you enchanted the moment you had your eyes on him. You could vividly remember, it was your first day after getting assigned to a project and your manager was introducing you to your teammates.

Everyone seemed nice and greeted you with enthusiasm except one. Yoon Jeonghan was stoic throughout and for you, that heart within your chest thumped vigorously, eyes glued to him while the surroundings seemed to freeze.

Love at first sight was just a funny concept until Jeonghan made you experience it.

You would admit it unabashed that working in corporate world had given you chance to meet a lot of person but no one could ever do justice to suits more then Jeonghan.

Always been a spontaneous person and upon getting a confirmation that he's single your journey of courting him kickstarted.

It's been two years since then.

Everytime you ask him out, Jeonghan rejects you even without sparing a moment of thought.

You are currently working on debugging a piece of code which every other member of your team failed to solve and it ultimately fell into your court.

"I'm gonna run by the canteen, do you need anything?"

You lift your head to see Seokmin hovering over the partition of your desk.

"One strong black coffee, thanks Min.", you quickly say before focusing on the screen again.

You don't see the empathetic smile Seokmin throws at you.

It's almost afternoon and your prying eyes are stuck on the door of the cabin, adjacent to your desk.

Soon Jeonghan comes out of his cabin which prompts you to follow him to have lunch to together.

It's same everyday, Jeonghan not intending to let you sit with him but you do it anyways.

"Did the bug get resolved?", he asks, eyes set on the plate, "I think we have been stuck on this on for long, need to get it resolved asap."

You chew on the salad filling in your mouth to quickly gulp it and answer him, "I got the chance to look at it today. Hopefully, I wouldn't be spending much time on it."

Jeonghan nods making a brief eye contact with you.

So you proceed with the most important part of your daily ritual.

"Would you like to go on a date with me tonight?", you ask.

"No", comes his recorded response.

You smile mischievously, "Why? I thought I should be rewarded for fixing the code?"

Jeonghan scoffs, "You're knocking on the wrong door. Ask your manager to reward you. If he doesn't, go to the HR department and discuss the matter."

"But they're not you, Hannie.", you slip out the nickname on purpose knowing it irks him, "You're the one I want."

Jeonghan blatantly ignores you and when he's done eating, he cleans the corner of his lips with the tissues and then walks out of the canteen grabbing a water bottle.

Even his back profile should have a seperate fandom of its own, you ponder dreamily.

"Snap out of it, you're drooling."

You crane your neck to see that the seat beside you already occupied by Seokmin.

"Another rejection?" he asks and you nod.

The two of you continue to eat silently before Seokmin brings up the topic again, "Join our team Y/N, Wonwoo is moving out."

You give him a pointed look wishing it was as easy as it sounded. When you started working in the team, you worked under Jeonghan and within this span, everyone moved out or transferred except you. To work closer to Jeonghan and out of sentimentality, you stayed.

"It'll be a lot less hectic", Seokmin assures and points at your face, "Your concealor is doing a very bad job at hiding those dark circles."

You gasp and hit his arm, "Atleast Pandas got a competition even though they're cute and I'm just..."

"Beautiful." Seokmin says in a beat, "You are beautiful Y/N and Jeonghan is blind for not appreciating a woman like you."

He says with so much sincerity that you have to cower your gaze away.

"How long until you stop pursuing him?", he asks.

So that I can start courting you, he doesn't say.

"Until he accepts or...", you sing along, "the day I run out of my patience and the rejection finally settles in my bones."

Red might be your favourite colour but currently you're seeing green.

"Who's she, Wonwoo?", you hiss, lamenting on how you have to witness such a sight.

Apparently a woman whom you've never seen before is standing too close to Jeonghan, much to your disliking and the man in the picture seems unbothered with her hogging over and he's smiling.

He's smiling at whatever nonsense she's uttering!

"She's Seonji, my replacement.", Wonwoo speaks calmly, "Since it's my last week, I'll be giving her KTs before my departure."

"You don't care about me or Seokmin, do you?", you say sadly, "How would I function at all without your inputs?"

Wonwoo is another efficient co-worker who works with Seokmin and is a very good friend of yours.

"Not everyone will be a fool to stall their growth because of sentiments Y/N.", he retorts, meaning no malice.

Your throat closes up for a moment but you somehow manage to speak, "We're not having this conversation now, Woo."

"I know this won't go anywhere but there's a limit to everything. How long until you see it's not Jeonghan but someone else who deserves you.", Wonwoo thinks it's time he rats out Seokmin's name because he himself would never.

"What do you mean by someone else?", you counter back confused.

"It's been two years Y/N, people can go through whole lot of loving in this span, don't you think he's behaviour towards you should have been different if he cared even a bit?", Wonwoo is ruthless because he knows he needs to be the one to tell you because no one else would, "Has he ever smiled at you like that?"

"Woo please stop...", your eyes are teary, voice cracking, "You think I don't know that?"

Then you are walking away, wiping your tears. When there's something on your mind you always go to the rooftop to clear your mind out, of course not alone, you always find a lot of others, some shedding tears, some smoking cigarettes or some staring at the abyss.

You don't realise how much time has passed because you don't have your phone with you. Just as you are mentally preparing yourself to indulge into work you hear the call of your name from a very familiar voice.

"Do you think this company is paying you for slacking off?", Jeonghan says nonchalantly as he stands in front of you, "I can't even reach you on your phone."

Your lips curl up instantly, tiredness disappearing from your eyes, "Did you miss me Hannie?"

Jeonghan turns back & walks towards the door. You follow.

"When you're done fixing the bug, bring it to me for review.", he continues, "The clients have scheduled a meeting with us at 7pm. Be there."

"Aye aye captain!", you say from behind, "Can I ask you a question?"

You don't wait for Jeonghan to respond and ask right away, "Do you hate me?"

"Yes.", comes another of his recorded response.

You wonder how many more yes you can take for an answer.

The meeting ends at 10 and you're quickly collecting your belongings and almost parading so that you could avail the last bus since your car is given up for servicing.

You are sure that availing the bus is far fetched so you're taking out your phone to book a cab when you hear honking.

The familiar car stops by the road where you're standing and Jeonghan rolls down the window.

"Get in, I'll drop you.", he's looking at the way ahead and you are instantly getting in the passenger's seat.

"Wanna go to a restaurant for dinner?", you ask robotically, your tone dry. Jeonghan notices and sweeps a glance at you.

You look exhausted and he hopes it's only because of work.

"No", he says, "Put your address on the system's GPS.", as if it's not already instilled in the system.

You do as asked and Jeonghan sees you putting a different address.

"Did you change places?", he asks.

"A friend's address.", you don't explain further and it doesn't resonate well with him.

You thank him when he drops you at the doorsteps and watch him drive away until the car disappears from your sight.

The product deployment is scheduled for next month meaning work's gonna get more hectic than it already is.

You are knocking on the door and upon hearing a 'come in' you enter the cabin.

Jeonghan is seated on the revolving chair, the coat is hung on the headrest meaning that his only white shirt clad body is making you salivate. His head is laid back and you want nothing more than to stroke those luscious locks with your fingers. But for now, you push away your thoughts.

"I have mailed you a scheduler for the new product release.", you inform, "I think it's best if you arrange a meeting for all the teams involved and I'll give them a walkthrough on deployment and checkout procedures."

Jeonghan immediately straightens and checks the calender before scheduling a meeting for the next day.

"Tomorrow, 5 PM.", he stretches his arms out, "Anything else?"

The sight of viens protruding through his arms almost has you choked and you think it's best for your eyes to be up, "Y-Yeah? Oh well, I'll run by the Batch Ops department, do you have anything you want me to relay to them?"

Jeonghan searches for some files and takes out one from the stack and gives it to you, "Give it to Jihoon and tell him to send me the report by EOD."

You nod and ask, "There's this movie I have been meaning to watch, do you wanna go with me?"

"No.", he responds right away and you're already turning to exit the room when Seonji enters.

"Hannie!", she's intentionally loud and emphasizing and you are almost biting your tongue when you hear the nickname you've given him, to be called by her.

Not wanting to breathe in the same room as her, you are just taking a step ahead but you freeze on hearing her next words.

"The restaurant you took me to on Tuesday after work, I recommended it to my friends and they also loved it. Let's visit again sometime!"

You head whips to look at Jeonghan, to find him already staring at you.

It hurts your pride so you walk out of the room.

You're currently in the Batch Ops department, waiting for Jihoon. The said man is always busy, running on his heels and termed as the workaholic assistant supervisor of the department.

"Hey Y/N, did Jeonghan send the file?", you nod handing him the file and remind him to send the report.

"So how's your courting agenda going on?", he always asks and is even amused by the fact that how persistent you are to get Jeonghan when he doesn't show an ounce of interest in you.

You are generally joking with him on this but today you don't throw a banter and Jihoon is quick to understand that you're having a bad day so he doesn't pry further.

And on the way back you meet Seokmin who asks you to accompany him to the designated tent bar you both often go to. You agree instantly.

That night the owners of that tent bar knew how much you hate a woman named Seonji. They already know about your love for Jeonghan, since your alcohol tolerance is terrific, you cry river worth tears for that man everytime you're wasted and they feel pity for Seokmin who has to always clean up after you.

The product release approaches and everyone is pulling late nights or all nighters. Those who working in higher posts have to almost use office as a makeshift home mainly because they are dealing directly with the foreign clients and the time zones differ.

Though you are tired tattered, you make sure a cup of coffee of his preference always awaits him when Jeonghan enters his cabin. You also arrange the files, putting sticky notes in each section so he doesn't have to waste time searching for something. You make sure the cabin smells good and the place is neat. The towels are kept warm in the bathroom attached to the cabin and his favourite fragrance is filling the air inside cabin, so even if he's spending time at office, your efforts makes him think it's home.

When the rest ask how you do this, why do you do this, your answer is simple.

Isn't this what love is, to keep giving and not expecting anything in return.

"I think it's time you move on, Y/N.", your best friend Myeongho says after he shows up at your apartment one day.

Before you could retaliate his arms are up in his defence as he continues, "You know I'm never the type to judge or disregard anything casually. But this has been going on for long and it might hurt you but it's stagnant. You both made no progress. Two years, definitely a very long time and you can appear all happy and unfazed but I know every rejection must be hurting as hell."

You don't need words, the tears those stream down your facr speak volumes. Myeongho's presence is itself soothing and maybe that's why you are not loosing yourself in pits of sorrow for the moment.

What are supposed to do, you're so in love with Jeonghan, you're so used to him, so dedicated to him.

Myeongho pats your back while he's talking to his wife on his phone. You ponder over how Myeongho met her a year ago and now they are happily married with a baby on the way.

No one's story is comparable to other, each having it's own circumstances and pace but as your best friend said yours is totally different.

Unrequited and stagnant.

The product release is a success and now the work load is a lot lesser.

And as expected you're in Jeonghan's cabin.

"Are you free today?", you ask, "Wanna go to dinner? Not as a date, some people from our & Batch Ops team would be present as well."

Jeonghan is unabashed as usual, "I'm busy today."

He isn't explaining himself, it's his way of defining things. He's implying that on other days he's rejecting your advances without a reason and today he's doing it with a reason.

This time your face falls.

"Do you hate me?", you ask.

"Yes, you're annoying."

"Would you miss me if I leave?"

"No, a good riddance."

This time your heart hurts.

You are currently in a restaurant with Seokmin, Jihoon, Chaein and Joshua both working in your team, Soonyoung of Support Team and you've managed to pull Wonwoo in this eat out.

Wonwoo is currently making a disgusted face at Seokmin, who's doing some questionable mimicking of Jihoon, the man being mimicked being totally vested in eating whatever is there on his plate.

"Isn't that Jeonghan?"

Five pair of eyes follows Soonyoung's gaze and lands on Jeonghan.

"Wait that's Yoora with--"

Seokmin is late in slapping his hand over Soonyoung mouth because you have heard the name and it rings in your ear.

Kwon Yoora, Jeonghan's ex-girlfriend. The woman accompanying him tonight.

You have heard a lot about her from your colleagues because she used to work in the company you're working in. Well you're her replacement in terms of the position when you joined in. She worked with and under Jeonghan before you did.

This is the first time you're seeing her.

"I heard they had mutual breakup, seems they're still good friends.", Joshua comments.

Your eyes are glued to the table space where Jeonghan's hand is atop Yoora's. And he's smiling as he says something to her.

He never smiles at you like that.

"You guys continue eating.", Seokmin is already up grabbing his coat, "I'll get our food packed."

When Seokmin leaves, the rest four look at you worried and you feel pity for yourself. How could you not guess, Jeonghan had never lead you on, always being indifferent, constantly rejecting all your approaches for the last two year.

He didn't like you at all, he has been saying it all along but you were to stubborn to admit and accept. But now you do.

For you, it has been always him.

For him, it would be anyone but you.

You are grabbing your belongings, "Tell Seokmin, I'll be waiting by his car."

Then you sprint out. It's only when Wonwoo calls out your name, Jeonghan notices you.

He sees you running towards the exit, only if he didn't know better, he watches as you wipe your tears while do so.

Tonight it's not only you who's suffering from heartbreak, Seokmin's heart breaks yet again seeing those tear stained cheeks, hearing those wrenching sobs. He puts you to bed and sets the food on your table so that in the middle of night when you wake up hungry, you don't have to look around for food. He runs the bath for you, sets the towels and knowing that you'd be having a terrible headache later, he keeps the glass filled with water and the medicines on the nightstand. He does more and all while wiping his own tears.

Because like you, he too knows nothing breaks like a heart.

Next day Jeonghan doesn't see you at the office entrance. You don't greet him when he walks by your desk to his cabin. It's almost afternoon and you haven't walked through the cabin door even once. At lunch you don't sit with him, you're happily chatting away with Chaein while eating.

Jeonghan thinks something is wrong with him. Everytime he hears faint sound of footsteps his eyes perks at the cabin door. He doesn't like the coffee Seonji makes him. He doesn't like it when some random guy sits in front of him at lunch and while his eyes stray at you almost every second, you don't spare him a glance.

It's around 5 in the evening when you knock on his door.

Jeonghan can't describe the sensation his feeling right now, as if he has waiting for this moment lifelong.

You place a file on his table and say, "The Scheduler team wants to know about all the applications which are planned to retire from our system before the next monthly cycle. I have made a list for same, please have a look once and let me know in case of any concerns."

"Okay.", he says and you give him a nod.

"Don't you have anything to say?", he asks and you look at him confused, "No, I think this is the priority task at the moment, I'll let you know if anything else comes up, Jeonghan."

His own name feels foreign to his ears. By the time he's about to say something again, you are already out of his cabin.

This goes on for the whole week and Jeonghan feels he can't function anymore. He makes unnecessary trips within the office premise everytime walking by your desk just in hopes of getting called by you. You never do.

He waits for you at lunch but you're always gone. He never sees you smiling at him again. You never ask him out now. The coffee doesn't help to keep his stress away, the office doesn't feel homier anymore.

Isn't this all he wanted, Jeonghan asks himself. Aren't you the annoying co-worker who was always getting on his nerves?

And he's scared to listen to the answer his heart has to echo.

It's Monday, the first working day of a very new week and Jeonghan still looks at the entrance expectantly just to see you this time. He double takes to make sure he's not hallucinating and a smile tugs on his lips.

His face regains the seriousness as he approaches you and much to his dismay you don't notice him. He clears his throat to have your attention.

"Morning, Jeonghan.", you greet him curtly.

"Morning", he asks, eyes glancing over your hands to see if they have any takeaway coffee cup in them but they are empty, "Aren't you going in?"

"I'm waiting for someone.", comes your dry response.

Ain't that someone me?

"Okay....", he has no reason to linger anymore.

You are exhausted, sleep deprived blame the late night marathons of your favourite shows you've been pulling.

Reason, to keep your mind occupied with something which is not Jeonghan but the ache in your heart never dulls. Even though you have choosen peace with the fact that he'll never be yours, it's so new and difficult for you act indifferent towards him when you have been in love with him for two whole years.

When you're phones notifies you of a text, it has you rubbing your eyes just to make you're seeing it correct. You have got a text from Jeonghan reading-

Please make me coffee, it's a request.

When the Yoon Jeonghan who never texts you, never bothers to type back a response to your greetings or queries other anything related to work sends you a text, you're shocked.

Jeonghan feels like he can finally get the productive cells of body to work when he sees you entering holding a cup of coffee.

"You don't look good.", you say placing the cup on his table, "Are you okay?"

When he doesn't respond, you continue, "If you're not feeling well, please take the day off, I'll notify you of any urgent matters from our team prospective."

Jeonghan thinks it's the only chance he'd get to clear the misunderstandings so he speaks, "Me and Yoora are still good friends, that night at the restaurant she treated me because of a promotion she got at her company."

"Great to know. Good wishes on my behalf.", you are poised when you say, "From next time please refrain from sharing anything other from work related matters. I have no interest in your personal life and I think we are not close at all to be sharing updates on same."

Either he's mishearing or you're possessed, he's sure it's either. This ain't the you he wants. This ain't the you he needs.

Your tone emits grief when you speak further, "I deeply regret for the inconvenience I've caused you for the past years. I'm really sorry. But rest assured I won't be causing any more trouble, I'll out soon."

"What do you mean by that?", he's off his seat and in front of you instantly, "Did something happen?"

"Indeed.", You nod while smiling, "I accepted that you won't go out with me. I also accepted that you hate me. So there's no more pestering you from my side."

Jeonghan never thought his words would come back to him biting in his ass which he's not capable of taking.

"You can't do this...", he's not even sure of the words he's uttering, "Are you giving up on me?"

"Yes, I'm giving you what you wanted by giving up on you."

Jeonghan realises how much that he has gotten used to you. You're like the good parasite that clogs his mind whenever you're around and even if you're not. His mornings used to start with your messages, you used to magnetize yourself on him during the office hours and the last notification he got before sleeping was also from you.

So now he doesn't like the lack of attention from you at all and he'd do anything to have it back. He'd do anything to have you back.

He tries to be in your shoes for the next days. He waits for you at the entrance holding four cups of takeaway coffee cups because he doesn't you what like. Everyone who passes throws him a questioning gaze. Everyone except you. You walk pass by him, unfazed and unbothered.

"Y/N wait!", when you don't stop, he is following you, "I bought these for you and also if you could tell me what you like so that I can buy that."

You give him an incredulous look, "What are trying to do?"

"Just trying to get you morning coffee..."

You scoff and walk away.

When you go for lunch, Jeonghan pops up out of nowhere and not only he's tailing you, he's even occupying the seat beside you. He's suddenly texting you good mornings and good nights and throughout the day something or other but there's no progress.

Roles reversed, you don't even bat an eyelash at him now.

It makes him realise how ass of a person he has been to you and how angel of a human you were to tolerate all this and still love him with your all.

"What's wrong with Jeonghan nowadays?", Joshua asks genuinely curious. You all are gathered for a coffee break, as he stands opposite to where Jeonghan is stood from accross the room, he constantly notices him throwing glances, "He keeps looking at you Y/N."

"Jeonghan is that thick brain who realises what he had and lost when it's too late.", Jihoon snorts as he takes a sip casually, "What the hell, who put sugar in my coffee?"

Joshua is suddenly walking away and you laugh which makes Jihoon aware of the culprit.

Next he's chasing Joshua.

You are still smiling, gaze lingering on those two when you notice Jeonghan approaching you from the periphery of your vision. Not wanting to waste any energy on him you think of leaving the hall when someone bumps into you.

It's Seonji.

"Heard you stopped chasing Jeonghan?", she taunts, "Good that your brain's finally working."

"I want to you know if this concerns you anyway and why?", you ask and quickly turn to check if Jeonghan is in hearing vicinity. He is.

"I thought it's obvious? That we're close and might be together soon.", she says confidently, "You've noticed how behaves towards you is completely opposite of how his behaviour is towards me."

"Congratulations", you pat on her arm and incline closer to her as you whisper in her ear , "Let's see if Jeonghan is aware of this as well?"

Seonji's freezes for a moment when she realises that Jeonghan has been present there all along and have listened to the conversation that just happened.

"Congratulations to you too Jeonghan.", you wish him, "I can see, a match made of likes."

"There's nothing going on between us Y/N", he pleads as his hands itches to grab you so that you don't slip away before he finishes but out of professionalism and respect he doesn't, "She's just a junior from my university."

'You don't have to explain, I'm not interested.", you tell him before walking out.

Jeonghan is furious and Seonji thinks his glare is enough to make her evaporate without any trace.

"Jo Seonji", his voice is dangerously low and threatening, "I was being nice to you just because we're acquaintances from before but I realised how wrong it was."

"Han--"

"It's Jeonghan for you. If I hear you uttering such nonsense one more time, I'll report you to the committee for harassing me.", he's practically glowering, "And I want the database for all the transactions that occurred between us and our oldest clients with the analysis document by EOD."

"But that's too much of data Jeonghan, how would I be able to--"

"That's for you to sort out.", he says, "If I don't get the design model, I'll report it to your manager and she'll handle it from there."

Seonji is all sweaty and faltering when she hears, "I see you anywhere near Y/N without any official need, I'll make sure you're stepping down your position."

To those who thought Jeonghan has changed, they just witnessed the infamous scary Yoon Jeonghan again today.

They also realised that Jeonghan is still the same authoritative, strict and stoic faced coordinator for all.

He has changed, just for you.

"When are you gonna tell her?", Soonyoung asks wrapping his arm around Seokmin's shoulder as they gather on the rooftop during the lunch break.

Seokmin is torn.

"She's coping up with the pent ups because of Jeonghan and I don't wanna add to her stress.", he laments.

"I hate to admit that you're correct but I'm worried because I think if you don't shot your shoot now then it'll be gone.", Soonyoung's concern is evident in his tone.

"I can't just tell Y/N that I love her all of a sudden when she's in love with someone else for a long time.", it pains him to speak it out, "Because I know how painful unrequited love can be..."

Soonyoung sighs, as he frames his next question carefully, "When will be the right time, Seokmin?

There's never a right time, he thinks.

Jeonghan doesn't avail the elevator, he's climbing down the stairs hurriedly.

When he decided to go the rooftop to cool off after the Seonji episode he again unintendedly overhears the conversation between Soonyoung and Seokmin, the two men obviously staying oblivious about his presence.

His anger from before morphs into a mix of shock and scare. Shock because it didn't occur to him ever that Seokmin could be in love with you. Scared because, well he is yet to figure out the reason.

Walking through the hoistway door leads his chance encounter with Mr. Choi, your manager.

"Jeonghan", he calls him, "I have been meaning to meet you."

"Anything urgent Mr. Choi?"

Mr. Choi smiles, "It might be, for your concern. Y/N has requested for transfer, she wants to move out the team."

Jeonghan stiffens, all the strength in his body dwindles.

Carefully studying his face, his unfocused eyes and a lack of response urges Mr. Choi to speak further, "Since you're her immediate senior and she has been working under you for these years, your say would matter because I know no one would want to loose an efficient member like her. If the team has enough effort excluding her then I'd approve her request "

"Thanks for letting me know Mr. Choi. Please put it aside for now, I'll talk to her and get to back to you.", Jeonghan requests and the older man obliges.

You are currently working on reconciliation of a piece of code with all your concentration when there's a knock on your desk. You look up to find Jeonghan who's mutters a serious 'in my cabin now' when your gazes meet before walking into the said room.

You think of everything and anything you could have done to cause any trouble but nothing comes up, so you are immediately off your seat and entering the cabin.

Jeonghan has never felt this exhausted in his entire life, never because of you. When you used to clinge to him it had became a normality, though he never admited it was the only fun and good part of the office hours. You made him feel the belongingness, when everyone was scared of him, you were brave enough to step up and court him.

And now when he sees the indifference in you towards him, learns about Seokmin's feelings for you, he's beyond frustrated.

Another mistake, he channels it in a wrong way and at a wrong time.

"Jeonghan?"

Your call of his name breaks his reverie.

He looks you dead in yours eyes and asks, "You requested a tranfer?"

You knew your manager would be informing Jeonghan and the only obstacle in that request to get approved would be him, the reason you wanted the transfer in first place.

Before you could assert an answer Jeonghan scowls, "Are you really going to bring your personal life to your workspace? Suddenly one day you decide you'll stop liking me or whatever and then you're requesting to be assigned to a different project? Is that what you call professionalism Y/N?"

You are rendered speechless. You don't let those tears pooling in your eyes fall even though you are hurt.

"I thought two years is long enough to know someone", you inhale sharply, "But you don't know me at all. I wasted two years of my life for the guy who just now disregarded my love for him by calling it liking or whatever."

Jeonghan bites his tongue hard when he traces back on the words he had uttered.

"When I had asked you that if it would matter to you if I leave, you had casually slipped out a good riddance. So I'm doing us a favour and you should be happy but you're not.", you are hot in anger and rage, as your gaze tows upon the man infront of you, "You're not happy because no one's buying you coffee, no one's keeping you company, you don't have your files organised, you don't have anyone to take shit from you without retorting. Have you been always this selfish?"

It's his turn to be speechless. He has seemingly fueled every occurance for the past years to work against him currently.

"This is professionalism Yoon Jeonghan.", you tell him, "Me not stalling my growth anymore and letting in space for productivity and skills showcasing for myself is my professionalism. I stayed because of you but I won't do that anymore."

"I'm sorry, please let me clarify things", Jeonghan is eyeing you alarmingly as he walks towards you.

You hold out your arm and his feet instantly roots to the ground.

"Thanks for assuring me that I've made the right decision. You aren't worthy of my love, you never were. I'll stop loving you one day and I'll make sure that day comes soon."

A tear falls down your cheek and then they are streaming altogether. You fail to choke the sobs and Jeonghan says nothing, knowing that the only way he can help you is by keeping his silence.

And when you sprint out of the cabin, he wants nothing but to stop you and engulf you in his embrace. Although he's physically frozen but his mind deducts several conclusions.

He senses by hurting you, he hurts himself tenfold.

He laments on the fact that office is just all work and nothing to look forward to anymore because he misses you.

He likes his personal space invaded only if it's by you.

Maybe it's late but he's sure that his heart is constricting in pain within his chest because it's broken.

This time he's choking a sob, legs giving up as he falls to the ground when he finally accepts that he got his heartbroken even before he realised that he's in love.

That he's in love with you.

→ Do not copy, re-post, translate, or share any of my works on other platforms! All stories are copyrighted, joonsytip. ©️

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seventeendeer · 5 months

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sorry to keep bitching about frustrating rain world fandom trends, but I think if you read downpour as a pure "being alive is good, actually" metaphor with a weird dissonant twist at the end (saint's campaign), that ... reveals a shockingly surface-level reading of the story that ignores every interesting question the game poses in favor of trying to force a comfortable, one-note moral that only actually works if you ignore a significant amount of canon.

like, I'm sorry, but there's no way to in good faith pry a straight answer out of this story. I know fandom tumblr is a hotspot for disillusioned former christians, and stories about how religion isn't all it's chalked up to be are comforting for many, but this simply is not that kind of story. if that's your takeaway from it - that the world the game presents is worth sticking with, that ascension isn't the right choice - that makes sense, it's a valid personal opinion to come away with. however, to argue that the void sea endings are objectively the "bad" endings, or that saint's campaign makes no sense thematically, is to overlook a massively important reason why rain world works so well as a game in the first place: it's intended to be a choice.

saint's ascension ability is in YOUR hands. the game is asking you, the player, what you got out of this, what you think is best. it is asking you to reflect on the themes it's been trying to communicate to you for the last several dozen hours

(can you cope with a life that brings you more pain than joy? if there was another way to exist, would you choose to change? what would you give up to attempt another existence? everything? what if you're being fooled and you're chasing a terrible fate? what if powerful people are preying on your misery and it's all a scam? what is left of you when stripped of all things that cause pain? is it your true self? in a world without pain, what is even left? what if it's everything that means the most to you? what if you're going home? what if you could love without the fear of pain, loss, sickness, death? is the grand more important than the small? is it better to stick with familiar pain, or to chase something frightening that may ultimately make you happy? who can you trust to guide you? who will take advantage of you on the way there? what would get in your way? your own ego? your guilt? bitterness? love for the world you know, an ability to see beauty in the midst of tragedy? is this weakness or strength? etc etc etc don't even get me started on the commentary on religious institutions, classism, structural and familial abuse, and how this is all woven together)

like, I'm sorry, rain world is not a saturday morning cartoon trying to teach you life lessons, it's a piece of interactive fiction using game mechanics as a vehicle for some extremely interesting philosophical discussions, which it politely asks you to actively engage with as you go along. I'm sorry if that's uncomfortable to people who don't relate to those topics, but declaring bad writing on a piece of fiction for not presenting you with a clear-cut moral stance at the end that already aligns with your personal lived experience is just ... a godawful way to interact with stories.

(deliberately handwaving or ignoring major and obvious pieces of symbolism for the sake of declaring it a Good Story That Agrees With You, Actually frankly isn't much better. stop making me read analysis posts where half the story has to be a drug trip for your point to make sense)

#deerchatter #rain world #rain world analysis #yeah im putting it in the tag idc i love this game and if this can make just 1 person go back to the source material and try to #appreciate it in a new way then i'm happy. it has so much to say and i wish more people would listen #im not debating this btw <3 but feel free to ask questions ofc

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asleepinawell · 1 year

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this little quest chain was one of my favorites in ew because of the perspective it gave into the ancients, a very different one from what little we get from emet and hermes. there’s pretty ample proof that their society was not in any way perfect and was actually really deeply flawed to the core, but this is a look at people, individuals, and ones outside of the main bunch we talk to

put in a read more to spare your dashes

they go to speed up the aether dispersal of some creations (animals) that were killed and they call the deaths distressing and want to find a way to pay respects to the fallen and bring peace to their souls. at the wol’s suggestion they gather flowers for the dead. and they say what amounts to a prayer over the bodies. it’s so very very different from how hermes believes everyone feels and how hythlodaeus spoke of ‘returning to the star’ being beautiful (though even hythlodaeus said a brief prayer for the first boss in ktisis hyberboreia)

and yes, they still talk about life and death in terms of ‘purpose’ and this is no way refutes the callousness towards other lives we’ve seen some of the ancients display in elpis, but my personal take is that it shows that some of them at least understood on some level that there were important things missing in their culture that they needed. even if they didn’t fully grasp why, they were searching for these missing pieces. in this case, a way to process grief and acknowledge the worth of a life, even a non-human life. and they also actively ask for the new ideas the wol presents and talk about incorporating them into their lives and duties

there’s also a ton of little side quests in elpis that involve one person asking you to find or check on another person, or to carry a message to them. there’s so many people who care about each other and are just absolutely godawful at expressing it in person and need the poor wol to act as an intermediary (this happens in present day as well but it was just every 5 seconds in elpis)

there’s one striking one where one person asks you to bring a second person a message about how that second person’s concept was approved and succeeding (I forget the exact details) in the hopes that it would dissuade them from returning to the star. it didn’t dissuade them and the first person accepted that pretty calmly, but the thought was there. there was this hope that they could keep someone they cared about around longer even if the argument they tried to use to persuade them came back to that grim ideology about ‘purpose’. they lacked the framework to think about it another way, but they still tried

it’s definitely a stark contrast from the shade amaurotines we saw in shb (assuming for the sake of argument that they were accurate depictions and not biased by emet which is a big assumption), especially the ones who turned the topic of ‘should we save the lives of others on the planet or just focus on ourselves’ into a casual debate topic as a pastime. there are really terrible ways of thinking about the world that have been ingrained into the population presumably from birth. that’s not something that can easily be changed. but it could be changed. the potential was there

at a societal level the ancient world was terrible in so many ways, and ultimately doomed if it couldn’t change, but at an individual level the people had so much potential and at least some of them were trying their best to make sense of the things their society denied them and adapt their lives

my personal takeaway from all this (which is just a headcanon aka an opinion and i’m not trying to sell as canon), was that if their society could have been changed then the ancients had the potential to have produced people who could have faced meteion. i’m leaving aside the questions of the timeframe and zodiark tempering everyone because that’s not my point. my point is that the ancients weren’t inherently unable to be who was needed to save their world. the density of their aether making them unable to interact with dynamis is highly symbolic of the flaws of their society, of course, but that shouldn’t have stopped them from talking to meteion, from showing compassion and understanding and hope in the face of despair

i’m not trying to take any jabs about any characters’ decisions in the story because the actual situation they were in was extremely complicated (like hey zodiark tempering people!) and that would also miss my point. mostly i’m just saying this makes the fate of their people even more depressing. they were an entire race of people who had all the potential that the sundered humans do despite being stuck in a shit society that happened to be shit in the exact way that made dealing with meteion and the final days a seemingly insurmountable task. their near-immortality and creation powers made it even harder for them to really understand the problem, but not impossible. they had the raw potential and lacked the tools to use it to save themselves. it’s just really damned sad

#hello i just finished up elpis in my replay and i am big sad about it #panda gives us more time with some of their world but i don't wanna go into panda spoilers in this post #ffxiv #ffxivmp #mp #i mean emet is such an obvious example of this too #though in the complicated way that he was predisposed to not quite fit in and it made him cling even harder to the fallacy #i remember thinking that a big difference between emet and herms is emet had emotional support in the form of azem and hyth #but there's that short story that showed hermes had people who tried to support him #he just isolated himself #like cranky socially awkward introvert emet still managed to find the friendship he needed #which was great until he lost it and couldn't cope and doubled down on clinging desperately to all the wrong things #i would never excuse emet for what he became but god i feel awful for the man he once was #(still want to bully him tho)#this entire post is also the thesis for my fic series lol #like what if some of the ancients (hyth in hades) were shown the flaws in their world in a way they couldn't refute #and given a chance and the time needed to change #the reason i made the assumption wrt the shade amaurotines is because i thought of them as a game device #being used to show the player about amaurot and its culture #rather than a statement about emet

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sinsisters · 1 year

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Postmortem: Launching a Kickstarter (or two) as a first-time dev

Also available to read on Itch.io

Hi everyone,

This is going to be a very informal postmortem from me (Natty, writer/programmer/game director) about the development of The Spanish Privateer from conception to the release. This read is really for anyone who wants to run a campaign or be a first-time dev and hear from someone who has met their goals but not had any outstanding success. I’m also always happy to chat one-on-one with someone who might have specific questions about the process, especially for Canadians wondering about the technicalities of running a small business & shipping.

Conception

The Spanish Privateer was a collection of five pirate characters that sat on a Google Doc until 2018, when the otome game jam rolled around and I, working a 9:30-4 (dream hours!) co-op position in Vancouver, decided to join up and turn those five characters (now four) into the main characters for my very own visual novel. As a lead, I struggled with trying to delegate and felt that I hadn’t completed enough of the script to know what artwork needed to be done. I think we managed to pull it off well, though, and I was happy to hear people’s feedback to the prologue.

Ultimately, the project fell under the radar as I continued to work on it on my own time, not wanting to ask those who had worked on the game jam for additional commitment, and not knowing whether the finished project would be commercial or not.

In the future, I’m still interested in working on game jams, but only for game jams that are meant to be short, complete games. We’ll see if it happens!

Script Writing

The bulk of the script writing for The Spanish Privateer happened while I was living in Japan on co-op, from the summer of 2019 to the late winter of 2020. I had created a detailed outline for Flint’s route, a less detailed one for Lark, and a very sketchy one for Rico. I tend not to face writer’s block, and writing dialogue especially feels like it comes easily to me, so it was more about scheduling time each day to write. I decided to participate in the NaNoWriMo of 2019 to monitor my progress, ending with 51 547 words written! My goal at this point was to just complete the scripts, and focus on everything else once I knew what CGs I would need to flesh out scenes.

The First Kickstarter

It became clear to me that I would need to fund, at the very least, the CGs in the game. But The Spanish Privateer was ‘the otome I always wanted to play’, and I wanted the game to reflect that. Oftentimes, indie VN devs will buy their background images from stock creators (such as Minikle), paying a one-time fee for licensed use of the images. In fact, a few of the backgrounds in The Spanish Privateer are from these packs. But a pirate ship is a niche category, and I knew I would need to commission original backgrounds for the game.

I was willing to put down around $1000 of my own money towards the game. Keep in mind, I was a university student, and I figured I wouldn’t make any returns on the project. I commissioned three CGs, but all the other assets were from the original game jam.

The Kickstarter of October 2020 failed, but with 128 backers, suddenly this project that no one had heard about had come to life. Something that I didn’t know about Kickstarter is that… most Kickstarter backers are Kickstarter backers. That’s to say, 82% of my backers have backed over 20 projects, and 40% have backed over 100 projects! Only 11% of my backers have backed 10 or fewer projects, and I personally knew half of those people. Here’s a little histogram showing the data specific to my Kickstarter (the second one).

Figure 1: Number of backers sorted by the number of projects they have backed on Kickstarter. Data taken from The Spanish Privateer 2021 Kickstarter on January 11th, 2023

The people who pledged the higher tiers ($60+) varied between those who backed few projects and those who backed many.

My takeaway from this revelation was that Kickstarter itself has an audience that is worth tapping into. That’s part of the reason we see visual novel developers who have had financial success off their games and who have been making games for a while, such as Hanako Games and Winterwolves, start using Kickstarter in the recent years (and likely because the market has grown considerably).

The Bane of Kickstarter: Cancelled Projects

I spent a lot of time looking at visual novels (particularly otoges) that had done well on Kickstarter. Some of them succeeded because they had people pledge those platinum $1000 tiers, some succeeded because they had >500 backers, some succeeded because they had low goals. But amongst these, an unfortunately large number of successful projects got cancelled later on. For that reason, developers who follow through with their projects, communicate with their player base, and meet or exceed expectations, such as GB Patch Games, do well with repeated projects on Kickstarter. They have a dedicated fanbase who are happy to support their work, largely because they know the developers will make good use of it. As a first-time dev, I didn’t have that background. I also had a small number of romanceable love interests (but I still think three is the perfect number for a first-time dev and would recommend that to other first-time devs), the art wasn’t the jaw-dropping highly detailed anime style we see with companies like Great Gretuski Studios or Nifty Visuals, and aside from ‘PIRATES’, it didn’t have much of a grab.

The Next Steps

I released a survey that got quite a few responses, thankfully. Then, I knew I needed to use the last of my cash reserves to commission a few more CGs, and most importantly, commission new sprites. That was the big risk for me. It was a huge art style change, and the CGs clashed with the sprites much more strongly. But it needed to be done since I hadn’t heard from the sprite artist who had collaborated with me during the otome game jam, and in addition to needing more sprites completed, I didn’t want to use the work of someone in a commercial product without their permission or without being able to repay them.

I really love the new sprites and the art style of my sprite artist. It was also a good decision for me to request separate eyebrow, eye, and mouth expressions rather than set expressions. It allowed me to have much more variety with character expressions. I learned a lot during this process, and because of that, I think the final few characters I commissioned (Catalina and Vasco) ended up being the strongest because of that (in addition to the sprite artist’s personal improvements, of course!).

But the game changer for the next Kickstarter was the new key art and logo. The key art is what draws people in, and it was truly stunning.

I have mixed feelings regarding the physical items. The survey showed some people were interested while others weren’t, so I wanted very cheap physical items (compared to charms, for example). I’m not sure if I would do physical items again (I really dislike the process of packaging and shipping), but on the other hand, I’m delighted to have stickers and an art book of characters I made!!! From a game I made!! Isn’t that cool!! (psst you can still buy the artbook and get stickers btw)

The People Who Made The Difference

I did reach out to some people to review the demo, and Blerdy Otome and Sonic Nancy Fan both came through! Additionally, when you’re running a Kickstarter, you tend to check obsessively… and check out the other visual novels that are running at the same time. Off the top of my head, Henchman Story, Silver Blue, Somnium Eleven, Perfect Gold, and Heroine for Hire were running the same time, and some of us gave shout outs to each other, which was nice (especially considering I had a following of about 40 people on Twitter). Chouette, Akua, Naja, Ayael, and Neeka, in particular liked and shared many of my posts, which makes a difference not only for reaching a new otome audience, but for me to slowly get to know other devs and the indie otoge community! I’m thankful to them for that, and for the devs I interact with now as well.

Additionally, VN Game Dev, Sweet & Spicy, and the Otome Lovers curator group all reviewed my game at various stages, which I appreciated as well. In addition, I reached out to a few other groups, some which responded agreeing to review (but with long backlogs) and others who I did not receive a reply from. The otome community is small, so if a visual novel doesn’t have some stand out quality that appeals to the non-visual novel community, such as innovative gameplay or a connection to a larger franchise, it might not be worth reaching out to people who don’t typically cover visual novels. Personally, I actively sought out those who reviewed visual novels, particularly otome games.

The Second Kickstarter

The general rule of a Kickstarter campaign is that if a project can make one third of their goal after 48 hours, they’re likely to reach their goal (with the second third happening throughout the campaign and the final third during the last three days). Because of the previous Kickstarter, I already had a number of backers who were ready to back again, which helped a lot with that big first day boost. I wouldn’t say the campaign was a raging success—the total amount transferred from Kickstarter was 5206.49 CAD (this was transferred at the end of May, 2021) across 169 backers (6 backers dropped), which is less than 4000 USD today. This is a really, really small amount of money to make a game, but it was what I needed to make the game, which is all I cared about.

Here's how it all came together:

Writing & Programming: The writing was done, although I continued to edit and revise. Ren’Py is very easy to work with and the programming is minimal. My labour is all at zero cost, and I frankly don’t expect I’ll ever make a penny from my games (but wouldn’t that be nice?)

BGs: I worked with two different artists for the backgrounds, and supplemented them with stock backgrounds I paid a flat fee for, such as the shore, church, fancy bedroom, bedroom with two beds, lagoon, and tavern with the bear skin on the wall. Sometimes I realized retroactively that I needed a night version of a background and did this myself. The result wasn’t… great, but thankfully the scenes that needed these changes were minimal, and the ones with long scenes were properly done by the artist. I also did the ocean background because I realized belatedly I needed one and couldn’t find one I liked online. All part of learning more about the planning process…

CGs: I continued working with my main artist, Tsunya (Tsuume) on the CGs. Commissioning CGs was the most challenging part of the process. I learned a lot about how to better communicate certain things I wanted in a scene, as well as which ideas I had didn’t translate as well to a CG. For example, for Flint’s kissing CGs, I struggled with the best way to get two vertical people embracing to look good on a horizontal screen. The final CG ended up being them laying horizontally across the screen. As a result, the overall image is really intimate and pleasing to the eye. I carried this on with Lark’s route, which features Carlota’s hair blowing in one kiss scene to compensate for the space, and her dress blowing in another. I also learned that a close-up of a love interest can be simple but beautiful. In the future, I would probably like to incorporate more close-ups of the love interests rather than focussing on having so many couple CGs. With Rico’s route, I wanted some more action shots, such as the horse and Rico as a kid. I particularly liked the angle of Rico’s CG as a child, and I would use more of those sharp angles in the future.

Sprites: When you have a limited budget and you’re commissioning artists, rather than paying artists a monthly salary like regular studios do, you have to be very respectful of their time. My sprite artist was in school, so of course it was difficult for her to predict when she would be available or for how long (which I could relate to as a student as well). I probably would have commissioned a few more sprites from her, such as the grandee and the governor, but we ended up being limited on time and I figured that I would probably keep on adding more and more sprites if I didn’t end somewhere. I was just incredibly in love with her designs and work. She really brought the characters of The Spanish Privateer to life. Personally, I love non-anime style art such as Made Marion, Andromeda Six, Imperial Grace, ValiDate, Cinders, The Radiants, Angela He, Arcade Spirits, and Under Pretense of Death. But anime art’s biggest advantage is how incredibly emotive it looks. When art is less realistic, expressions can be exaggerated without looking disturbing to the viewer. Going forward, I’m still not sure which style I would prefer. It will probably depend on the game I produce—for example, if I make a game where the protagonist is customizable, then the art style will likely be anime.

Chibi CGs: I had worked with an artist to do some quick chibi designs of the characters, and I decided to work with her again for the chibi CGs. By this point, I had already commissioned many CGs from my CG artist, so communication was much better for these CGs. It was a great way to show off many characters in a scene (such as in Lark’s route) or characters who don’t have sprites (such as a certain man that we see in Rico’s route).

GUI: Graphic design and user interface design is really its own thing. I trusted the GUI to someone who had lots of experience doing visual novel GUIs and told her my vague ideas of what I was looking for, and she managed to turn it into something gorgeous! The important takeaway is that the less you know about something, the more important it is that you’re hiring someone with experience in that department. Since the visual novel realm is so niche, this can be challenging at times.

Logo: Pretty much the same as above! The logo is beautiful and tells a story all on its own, which I love. The artist also provided the base file, so I was able to add and remove different elements from the design, which was incredibly helpful for me as I simplified it for smaller images or darkened areas for better contrast. I would recommend anyone getting a logo done to request the illustrator or equivalent working file.

Music: The only music I paid for was a commercial license of a few songs. The other songs are all in the creative commons. Even if I had been able to commission an original soundtrack for The Spanish Privateer, frankly, I love the songs in the game so much that I wouldn’t change them for the world. I chose peaceful piano pieces for Flint, harpsichord and whimsical tracks for Lark, and grand, adventurous orchestral music for Rico. Some people pooh-pooh the importance of music in a visual novel, but I think the tracks make a huge difference in creating the tone of a scene. My favourite part was selecting tracks for the good endings and other endings.

Kickstarter Rewards: I worked with the same artist who did the two key arts for the wallpapers, and ended up with stunning results. Carlota’s in particular is breathtaking. I commissioned high-quality chibis for the stickers, and my big takeaway is to NOT have limbs jutting out the way Flint’s arm is. The spacing is awkward and makes the pricing of the stickers more expensive than they need to be. Additionally, it won’t work well for charms if that’s something you plan on doing. But other than the rogue limb I failed to account for, the process was smooth. The big challenge is not knowing how different the colours will look once printed. Even test prints aren’t foolproof because each printing company may have different methods of printing. I used StickerApp for the stickers, but Luna Chai has some great and relevant blog posts (current blog and archived post). I used Mixam in Canada to print the art books and they get shipped as oversized lettermail. Since I don’t get anywhere CLOSE to the small business cutoffs, I don’t have to worry about collecting GST. I ordered my mailers and labels from Amazon (like the common by-product of our capitalistic world that I am), and the nice ladies at the post office just let me plunk the addressed mailers down, pay the total, and be off on my way. If you’re Canadian and sending something that doesn’t qualify as lettermail, then don’t. I mean, try really really hard not to, because it gets very expensive quickly. But I won’t get in the way of your dakimakura dreams, either (I wouldn’t say no to a Harry or Luciel Choi body pillow. Or maybe I would. How could I even begin to explain that to my family.)

Sound: Shoutout to my brother for telling me about the massive royalty-free audio bundle Sonniss offers each year for free. Their work is awesome and greatly appreciated for small devs. The rest of the sounds were sourced from various online resources. Again, related to music, sound effects are greatly underappreciated. A great visual novel should use both of your available senses, not just sight (and they can use other senses if they’re extra creative).

And All of the Other Little Things That Add Up:

Registering as a business which included going down to the bank and saying yes, this is my company called ‘SinSisters Studios’, yes, I make games about romancing men (and hopefully others), please give me a business account and card to use (I did phrase it better because I’m an adult but that is surely what we were both thinking). The business account is an online-only no-fee one which is great, and I use the debit card for all business-related expenses. You know, in case I ever get audited in the future. I also had to pay a small fee to register my business name with the government, which has to be renewed every five years, and I might buy a website domain soon for the site. SinSisters Studios is a sole proprietorship business, which is what most small Etsy businesses might be, for instance. That means I get fewer benefits and legal issues would be under my name, but it’s easy to file taxes and the fee is small. Most indie VN developers don’t have any need to incorporate. If you’re a Canadian, incorporating is really something you do for liability insurance and would be recommended if you run a Kickstarter for $100K, for example.

On the game dev side, I had to do art touch-ups such as colour correction, making sure Carlota’s mole wasn’t all over the place, and some backgrounds for CGs and chibi CGs. I wouldn’t have been able to do this all with Gimp, so I got CSP. But I can’t recommend them as strongly now that they’re changing their payment program.

Things that I found tedious and that I was not good at and would have preferred to hire someone: creating the art book and guide, doing the graphics for the Kickstarter, doing the graphics, formatting, and ten million blurbs for the websites and social media pages and presskit (actually, the presskit was kind of fun because it looks professional).

Creating and uploading the game on Itch.io using Butler is very simple. Steam was a whole ‘nother ballpark. On top of having fifty billion different asset resizing requirements, they have their own method of uploading builds that I had trouble wrapping my head around (but now, I actually prefer Steam’s build updating method to Itch.io’s. Sorry! It’s just better at merging builds and making sure you’re using the right build).

Setting up accounts, such as PayPal, a mailing newsletter, Discord, and Stripe are all in the unknowns. Just finding people to work with is a skill in its own (if you find an artist you like online, save them somewhere. I’ve found artists from Lemmasoft, Twitter, from finding images on Pinterest and then following the credit or signature ((dear artists, PLEASE make your signature something that allows us to find you!!!)), DeviantArt, even from searching foreign websites. The one thing I haven’t used is Fiverr, although I have no doubt that you can find lots of talent there as well.

But by far, the worst thing about being a game dev is…

SOCIAL MEDIA AND MARKETING

AAAAAAAAHHHHHH

The bane of most devs' existence. How I wish I could just hire someone for this role. I don’t like TikTok. I haven’t uploaded a video on there in forever, but I have this constant nagging that I need to. The only social media I like is Twitter, and that’s because that’s where all the game devs hang out. To be fair, I do think my largest audience is on Twitter as well. The company’s following has grown to over 680, which is crazy. Although a certain individual caused a mass exodus and generally Worse Time on Twitter, so who knows what the future holds. I like interacting with others on social media, but I never feel inspired to post or even comment on others’ posts. I did want to do an art book giveaway with fanart as entries, but I frankly don’t feel like I have the audience for that. Would I even get an entry? I don’t know. I would rather see people creating fanart for the game because they feel inspired to. Personally, if I could Art, I would draw several modern AUs. Maybe I will and just look at it in private, who knows. The point is, I am Bad at The Social Media and that is simply because I Do Not Try Hard Enough. It is very time consuming and mentally draining. If you’re looking for marketing tips, read Arimia’s blog, and support her games while you’re at it. She has so much awesome advice. All I have for you are tears.

I entered The Spanish Privateer in the June 2022 SteamNextFest, recorded me playing the prologue, used OBS Studio to loop it (of course, everything you do involves learning to use something new) and streamed that over SteamNextFest. The result? Not too shabby. Our wishlist balance had a spike even bigger than the release spike, so I would recommend doing it! I had no interest in talking or filming myself, so it was a low effort high reward event!

The Result (And The Numbers)

So, what was the fruition of all these efforts?

First, let’s look at Steam wishlists. If a game gets to around 8000-12000 wishlists on Steam, depending on the genre, it starts to get ‘noticed’ by Steam. That means it’ll likely appear on the upcoming list and in recommended sections. The Spanish Privateer didn’t get anywhere CLOSE to that. We were getting an average of 6 daily wishlist additions, with just under 1000 wishlists upon release. Today, we have 1553 wishlists and a conversion rate or 7.1% (meaning 7.1% of people who wishlisted it have bought the game). This is below average for games on Steam. I expected this, considering how things were going leading up to this. My goal has always been to break even. As of the day I’m writing this (Jan 11, 2023), we have sold 162 copies of The Spanish Privateer on Steam and 81 copies of the digital bundle, with 33 copies sold on Itch.io and 21 of the guide. The final amount that arrived in the bank at the end of 2022 is about 1800 CAD. It’s a low amount, but I’m not complaining, either. I’ve made back my $1000 investment!!!!!!!!!! YAY!

That’s not to say you can’t make a living making visual novels. Just that I can’t. Maybe I will one day. But my best decision throughout this process was not investing too much money, only having three love interests, not getting feature-happy, and being careful with how I spent the money. Frankly, when I play The Spanish Privateer, sometimes I think to myself, ‘This is a $6000 game??? That’s it???’ I made the game I always wanted to play growing up, and for that, I’m proud of myself.

On a Personal Note

If you’ve read up until now, you’ve read all the game dev stuff! Hopefully this gives you a little perspective from someone who successfully published a game but has not made any income from it. You’re good to go, class dismissed.

In general, in online spaces, I prefer to be fairly private, especially when managing a company account. But I feel like I have had a number of transitions as The Spanish Privateer developed worth mentioning.

I started The Spanish Privateer following my second year of university, during my first co-op term (2018). I attended the winter semester of my third year, then moved to Tokyo for my second co-op term from summer of 2019 to March 2020. I took the summer off, then did the fall semester of my third year online (first Kickstarter launched). I then worked my third co-op term from the beginning of 2021 (second Kickstarter launched) to the end of the summer. After that, I moved back to Vancouver to complete my final year of university. I graduated in the spring of 2022, launched the game in the fall, and have been job searching ever since (☹). Which brings us to…

What’s Next

I have two major projects I would like to do. One is a TTRPG style adventure featuring EA and SEA pirates (haha, SEA, get it?). I’m running it as a D&D campaign for my friends, which has helped flesh it out, but it’s going to be a massive project in the end. The other is a Canadian mystery visual novel heavily inspired by the Ace Attorney series, Disco Elysium, and puzzlers like Nancy Drew and Professor Layton. Players will get to choose between two protagonists and play three different mysteries, getting to swap between the protagonists with each episode if they want. This one is something I really love writing. It’s murdery, it’s queer, it’s full of Canadianisms and sarcasm and features a cast of mid-twenties and thirties.

But I’ve actually been writing a classic interactive fiction/visual novel in an attempt to create an RPG system that works with Ren’Py for my needs. It’s fun, it’s text-only, it’s fantasy, and hopefully I’ll get to release it as a short, free adventure in homage of the modern IF games that I love playing these days. And of course, all of the games feature romance. It’s just optional this time. I’m sure I’ll want to create a traditional otome or amare visual novel at some point (ojijam is looking mighty tempting), but for now, I want to challenge myself in other ways.

Anyway, hopefully you have some insight as to what was going through my mind these past years. I’m always happy to chat dev stuff and give insight as to any part of the process. I’m also happy to be transparent about numbers, if someone wants any particular details on that. Thanks for reading ☺

-Natty

#postmortem #devlog

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adultswim2021 · 7 months

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Moral Orel #33: “Innocence” | October 17, 2008 - 12:15AM | S03E03

Season three’s objective is to unpack the events of Nature as well as Clay’s abusive nature. This strips Orel of his Innocence. Hey, that’s the name of this episode.

Was never that big on this one, as it feels like it’s half comedy show/half math problem. A little more interested in answering the question of what the heck was going on at the end of Grounded than it is in being very funny.

Embarrassingly, this lead me to spending most of the time I allocated towards writing this write-up to me sussing out a roughly story-chronological order for the episodes of Moral Orel. As far as I can tell, nobody has really done a scene-by-scene breakdown timeline kinda thing. I didn’t do that. I just listed the episodes and shuffled the order so they’d be less scrambled. It won’t be part of this write-up, because I only like doing things that are a waste of time, and including it would make it technically not.

Okay, so this episode takes place immediately after the School Pageant, which they say was “4 weeks and 1 day ago”. The main, most useful takeaway that I realized here was that the accepted running order of the show is mostly represented on HBOMax, but I think Orel’s Movie Premiere ought to trade places with School Pageant. Apparently they were supposed to air that way but didn’t. School Pageant is the last season two episode to take place before Nature, and some of season three is set in between. Nature parts one and two weigh heaviest on this season, but School Pageant is a pretty close second.

In this one, the adults have a meeting without Orel, after Reverend Putty has the apocalyptic realization that god is mad at Moralton, in part because of the “God I Hate You Jesus” song featured in said School Pageant. There were also the many catastrophes that were brought on by Orel, perhaps acting as a tool of God’s. The parents vow to delay their smiting by not giving Orel anymore advice. Orel, champing at the bit for adultlike sageness, gets pushed from adult to adult, who offer little nuggets here and there after being browbeat by a wisdom-hungry Orel. This causes him to cobble together one of his more disgusting outings (as seen at the beginning of Grounded), which actually did air before this, but I covered it when it aired as part of the April Fools’ stealth premieres.

I get why airing Grounded, a heavier episode that dives a little further into Clay’s abusiveness, after Nature despite it taking place afterwards makes sense. This makes less sense, but it’s ultimately a playful exercise that I’m not terribly mad at. The disastrous moment in time when all of Moralton tried to stop giving Orel advice and failed to thwart a terrible misunderstanding from happening anyway is a decent idea. I just think it gets to a point where it’s just spinning it’s wheels and is just marching adequately towards its conclusion which we already saw.

There is a little bit of foreshadowing for Orel’s teacher, who is seen cutting out a news clipping about a rapist. This is touched on in the upcoming “Alone”, and was meant to pay off in an episode called “Raped”, an unproduced episode that had it’s script leaked. Also worth noting: Jay Johnston is not in this episode, but his characters are, voiced by different people. Scott Adsit voices Coach Stopframe, and David Herman voices Principal Flakey. This is maybe the biggest bummer of the season. I didn’t look that hard, so I did not find a source for this, but I was always under the impression that Jay Johnston similarly didn’t like the direction the show was going in and blew off recording for it. Perhaps he was busy planning a fateful trip to our nation’s capital. Heh, that would be cool :D

44 NIGHTS OF OREL

I'm gonna keep using this picture. It is just too nice not to. These episodes aired before tonight’s episode:

Grounded (official premiere; originally aired stealthily as part of an April Fools stunt)

Loyalty (literally just for the “omelet facemask” joke which is called back in School Pageant)

School Pageant (takes place before Innocence). Innocence (This one!)

#adult swim #adultswim2021 #moral orel

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doctoru-au · 6 months

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The Benefits of Working as a GP in Australia

So what really makes being a GP in Australia worth your while? We will walk you through all the perks of working as a GP down under – from top-dollar wages to ongoing professional growth.

Keen for an outback adventure with a twist? Read on!

Key Takeaways

Being a GP in Australia is good. You get a lot of respect and money.

Doctors can pick from locum or permanent jobs. Both give high pay and help make people healthy.

GPs in Australia work with the best healthcare system. It does not matter who you are or where you come from, everyone gets care.

Other perks of being a GP here include learning new things, meeting different folks, and helping people feel better every day!

Exploring the Benefits of Working as a GP in Australia

Being a GP in Australia is great. We earn respect and make a lot of money. As doctors, we get paid for the work we do. This means more work leads to higher pay.

Australia also offers us GPs unique chances to see new places and meet different people. We can treat patients from cities or those living in rural areas. Based on where our patients come from, every day can be a fresh experience.

The job lets us help people with their health needs too. It feels good knowing that what we do makes a difference in others' lives. Plus, as GPs here, we have the chance to keep learning and growing in our work life unlike other places.

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GP Jobs in Australia: The Ultimate Guide

Whether you're considering locum or permanent positions, Australia offers a competitive salary and access to a high-quality healthcare system that will enhance your career as a General Practitioner.

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Locum & Permanent Positions

We offer both locum and permanent positions for GPs in Australia. These choices let you pick what works best for your life. If you like to travel, a locum job might be right for you.

You can work in different parts of Australia. This gives you new experiences and helps where doctors are needed most.

On the other hand, if you want a steady job in one place, go for a permanent position. You will have time to know your patients well. Also, it provides more job security.

Both jobs give good pay and help people's health which is our main aim as GPs. So whether you choose locum or permanent posts, they both bring great rewards.

Competitive Salary

As GPs in Australia, we earn a lucrative income. Our services are in high demand, allowing us to command an attractive remuneration. This high pay makes our jobs financially rewarding and brings job satisfaction.

Our good wage is not just about money. It also means financial stability for us and our families. We can enjoy a comfortable lifestyle because of our well-paid positions.

We're proud to say that GP jobs here offer one of the highest salaries among healthcare professionals. That's why many smart doctors from around the world come to work in Australia.

They also want the benefits of generous earnings from this profitable career path!

Access to High-Quality Healthcare System

In Australia, we get to work with a top-notch healthcare system. This system is safe and offers care for everyone. It does not matter where you come from or how much money you have.

The goal is to give all Aussies the best medical care.

Working as GPs, we play a big part in this mission. We help communities stay healthy, even those who may not have easy access to care like Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups.

Our work helps make sure every Aussie gets the health benefits of good work.

General Practitioner Jobs in Australia

Experience the numerous perks of general practitioner jobs in Australia that not only promise an impressive earning potential but also ensure a balanced work-life. Delve deeper to learn more.

Benefits of Working as a GP

We earn a good wage as GPs in Australia. The pay is high and helps us live a comfortable life. We also get access to top healthcare facilities. These modern places have all the resources we need for our jobs.

Our career can grow here too. There are lots of chances to learn more and become better doctors. Plus, our work-life balance doesn't suffer in Australia like it does in some other countries.

The best part is that we make a real difference here as GPs. Our work improves people's health and well-being every day! In this country, we work together with others on the healthcare team to help patients feel their best.

Earning Potential

In Australia, GPs can live a good life and earn well. This is due to the high paying jobs in this field. But how much you earn can change. Things like where you work and what type of job you have can affect it.

GPs who own their practice or are medical experts tend to get more money. They usually have higher incomes than others. Also, your pay may change based on other things such as your skills, the place where you work, or how many doctors are needed there.

Work-Life Balance

Being a GP in Australia gives doctors more than just a job. It also offers time for life outside work. This good balance keeps us healthy and happy. Plus, it lessens worry.

We know that students often avoid general practice as they fear hard hours. Yet, here in Australia, we can enjoy our jobs without giving up personal time. We get to care for our patients while still making room for family and hobbies.

Of course, some of us feel worried about long hours or low pay sometimes. But there is hope! Groups like the National Medical Workforce are trying to make things better for all of us GPs in Australia.

Limitless Opportunities

In Australia, the scope for growth as a GP is boundless. You'll cater to a diverse patient population, enhancing your medical practice and interpersonal skills. Plus, continual professional development opportunities ensure you're always at the forefront of advancements in healthcare.

Diverse Patient Population

In Australia, we treat everyone. We see all kinds of people from different walks of life. Many parts of Australia are rural or remote. Here, GPs work with unique patient groups. This gives us a real chance to learn and grow in our practice.

It helps us know more about different health issues and needs.

Diversity plays a big part in the healthcare workforce too. Our teams need to be as varied as the patients we look after. Culture has a huge say in how healthcare is given and received here.

Different views on health come into play every day at work. And females in Australia see their GP more than males do, so gender balance is important too! Having this kind of mix keeps our work fresh and interesting each day.

Continual Professional Development

In Australia, we know that constant learning is key for all healthcare workers. It's why Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is a must-do for us. This rule helps us become better at our jobs.

It makes sure we keep growing our skills and knowledge.

Australia has given CPD a new look to help doctors learn more in less time. It focuses on making sure what we learn relates to our daily work as GPs. Yet, Optometry sets limits on how much learning one can do under CPD.

For other fields like ours, the sky's the limit!

We use tools called Professional Development Plans (PDP). These plans ensure what we're studying helps us directly in our practices. So, not only do we get smarter every day, but it also improves our service to patients! All this growth adds up over time and lets us offer top level care across Australia.

The Luxuries of Australia

As a GP working in Australia, you'll not only get to experience the gratifying field of medicine but also immerse yourself in a country blessed with stunning landscapes, an array of wildlife and a rich cultural heritage.

Enjoy weekends exploring vibrant cities, pristine beaches or vast outback wildernesses, amplifying the Australian work-life balance. Experience diverse cultures firsthand while attending various multicultural festivals celebrated throughout the year across our vibrant nation.

Beautiful Scenery

We love the stunning landscapes in Australia. They are home to our work and give us joy every day. The serene surroundings make it easy for us to relax after a long day at work. There is something special about watching a colourful sunset over an idyllic setting.

Australia's natural beauty is not just in its pristine environments, but also the diverse scenery it offers. We have farms, vineyards, and breathtaking views of the ocean - all available through Yorke and Northern Local Health Network.

Even our hospitals in rural areas provide gorgeous vistas of multicultural scenes around them! So we don't just enjoy working as GPs here, but also living among such majestic scenery.

Vibrant Culture

Australia's culture shines bright. It thrives on multiculturalism and harmony. This brings people from more than 270 ethnic groups together. Doctors come to work here not just for jobs but also because they love our vibrant culture.

The blend of cultures makes Australia rich in its heart and soul. Here, everyone shares their heritage with each other in a spirit of inclusivity. Our cities are alive with festivals, arts, foods, music and traditionsfrom all over the world.

Indigenous cultures have deep roots in Australia too. They give us ancient wisdom and ways to care for our land. We welcome doctors into this shared space where you can learn much about different ways of life! Working as a GP here lets you dive deep into these colourful life stories every day.

Conclusion

In Australia, you can be a top doctor. You get good pay. You will have the tools to do a great job. You can help many different people feel better.

FAQs

1. What is a GP in Australia?

A GP, or General Practitioner, is a doctor who looks after people's general health.

2. Why would someone want to work as a GP in Australia?

Working as a GP in Australia can offer many benefits including high pay, good life balance and the chance to help diverse communities.

3. Are GPs well paid in Australia?

Yes, GPs usually earn high salaries making it an attractive profession in Australia.

4. Do Australian GPs have regular working hours?

Yes, most Australian GPs work regular office hours but there are options for flexible hours too.

5. Can I move from another country and start working as a GP in Australia?

Yes, foreign-trained doctors can work as GPs in Australia if they meet specific requirements set by the local medical board.

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bitcofun · 2 years

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Key Takeaways Paul Tudor Jones has stated that Bitcoin and Ethereum might take advantage of increasing inflation and weak macroeconomic conditions due to their deficiency. He argued that the U.S. economy is either in or heading for an economic downturn, which markets might rally if the Federal Reserve stops treking rate of interest to fight inflation. Stanley Druckenmiller shared comparable views to Jones last month, mentioning that financial chaos might highlight crypto's worth. Paul Tudor Jones stated that he thinks the U.S. economy is either in or on the cusp of an economic crisis. Jones Thinks Recession Is Looming Despite a months-long bearishness that's dragged Bitcoin and Ethereum 70% below their highs, Paul Tudor Jones has actually made it clear that he believes the leading 2 crypto possessions might skyrocket in a post-recession world. The billionaire hedge fund supervisor went over crypto's location in the present macroeconomic landscape in a Monday interview with CNBC's Squawk Box, stating he believed the nascent possession class might see substantial development in the future. Jones shared his ideas on the existing state of the worldwide economy, keeping in mind that he thought the U.S. was headed for an economic downturn if it wasn't currently in on e. "I would believe we're most likely preparing to go through the economic downturn playbook," he stated, forecasting that the 2020 s would be specified by a "concentrate on financial obligation characteristics," financial deficits, and policy "that offers individuals self-confidence in the long run worth of a currency." Jones stated that he believed reserve banks had actually participated in "enormous experimentation" in the years because the Global Financial Crisis, arguing that reduced yields and pandemic relief plans were items of financial and financial experimentation. Reflecting on the digital properties area, Jones indicated high inflation rates as a possible driver for a crypto rise. " In a time when there's excessive cash, which is why we have inflation, and excessive financial costs, something like crypto-- particularly Bitcoin and Ethereum-- where there's a limited quantity of that, that will have worth eventually," he stated. When CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin asked whether crypto would have a "much greater" worth than today, Jones stated "I believe so, yeah," however confessed that he didn't understand when rates would increase. Jones likewise discussed the Federal Reserve's financial tightening up policy, which has actually seen the U.S. reserve bank walking rates of interest by 75 basis points on 3 events this year. The Fed has actually anticipated a peak funds rate of 4.6% in 2023, raising financial experts' expectations of more walkings prior to completion of the year. The existing funds rate is 3% to 3.25%. As others have actually forecasted, Jones stated that a pivot in the Fed's hawkish position might cause a rise throughout international markets. "When [a pivot] occurs you'll most likely have a huge rally in a range of beaten-down inflation trades, consisting of crypto," he stated. Jones likewise exposed that he still holds an allotment in Bitcoin, having actually consistently backed the property given that promoting it as a bet versus inflation in2020 Macro Legends Expect Crypto Rise Jones is not the very first macro legend to recommend that crypto might ultimately publish a healing in spite of the bleak macroeconomic background. Last month, Stanley Druckenmiller shared comparable insights to Jones, meaning a possible crypto "renaissance" if the general public begins to lose rely on reserve banks. He likewise required a "tough landing" and economic downturn for the U.S. economy in2023 It's up to the National Bureau of Economic Research to state whether the U.S. economy remains in an economic downturn or not, and while no such statement has actually yet been made, Jones and Druckenmiller's perspective is that the present tightening up environment makes an economic crisis inescapable in the next couple of months.

Jones explained in the interview that joblessness rates are presently at a reasonably low 3.6% in the U.S. For the Fed to pivot, he argued, joblessness numbers would need to be greater. If he is right, that recommends that crypto might gain from increasing joblessness because the marketplace has actually depended on the Fed's relocations throughout this year. Jones and Druckenmiller's bullish crypto thesis efficiently originates from the concept that Bitcoin can function as a hedge versus inflation. Jones particularly name-dropped Bitcoin and Ethereum as possible benefactors of fiat currency disintegration, indicating their limited homes. Bitcoin's repaired supply of 21 million is treated with practically spiritual ardor by particular corners of the crypto neighborhood, while Ethereum has actually periodically gone deflationary because it finished "the Merge" to Proof-of-Stake. While the Fed's aggressive method to combating inflation has actually damaged markets this year, things might alter if the reserve bank alters its tune. According to Jones, crypto will be poised to take the spotlight when the tides turn-- however there's a looming economic crisis to survive initially. Disclosure: At the time of composing, the author of this piece owned ETH, USDT, and a number of other cryptocurrencies. The details on or accessed through this site is gotten from independent sources our company believe to be precise and dependable, however Decentral Media, Inc. makes no representation or service warranty regarding the timeliness, efficiency, or precision of any info on or accessed through this site. Decentral Media, Inc. is not a financial investment consultant. We do not offer customized financial investment recommendations or other monetary suggestions. The details on this site goes through alter without notification. Some or all of the details on this site might end up being out-of-date, or it might be or end up being insufficient or incorrect. We may, however are not obliged to, upgrade any out-of-date, insufficient, or unreliable info. You need to never ever make a financial investment choice on an ICO, IEO, or other financial investment based upon the info on this site, and you ought to never ever translate or otherwise count on any of the details on this site as financial investment suggestions. We highly suggest that you seek advice from a certified financial investment consultant or other certified monetary expert if you are looking for financial investment suggestions on an ICO, IEO, or other financial investment. We do decline payment in any type for examining or reporting on any ICO, IEO, cryptocurrency, currency, tokenized sales, securities, or products. See complete conditions Crypto Could Enjoy "Renaissance" as Trust in Banks Fades: Druckenm ... News Sep. 28, 2022 The worldwide crypto market capitalization is practically 70% down this year, mostly thanks to the Federal Reserve's dedication to treking rates of interest. Investing legend Stanley Druckenmiller sees a silver ... Fed Hikes Rates by Another 75 Basis Points The most current rate trek from the Fed comes after the most current Consumer Price Index signed up a greater than anticipated inflation rate of 8.3% in August. Fed Announces Another Rate Hike ... Crypto Is Attracting World's "Brightest Minds": Paul Tudor J. Paul Tudor Jones has formerly stated that he owns and thinks in Bitcoin. Paul Tudor Jones Backs Crypto Talent Paul Tudor Jones states he's bullish on crypto due to the fact that of the ... Read More

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curvebagel3 · 2 years

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Forex คืออะไร Things To Know Before You Get This

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#โบรกเกอร์ forex ที่มีความมั่นคง ความน่าเชื่อถือ ความปลอดภัย 4 อันดับ ในประเทศไทย #อันดับ 3 IC Markets คะแนนด้านความปลอดภัย 8.08 #อันดับที่ 2 XM คะแนนด้านความปลอดภัย 8.27 #อันดับที่ 1 FBX คะแนนด้านความปลอดภัย 8.82

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linkinevents · 2 years

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3 Easy Techniques To Get Over Negative Thoughts & Rewire Your Brain

3 Easy Techniques To Get Over Negative Thoughts & Rewire Your Brain Our brains are hardwired for negativity. It's a survival device-- to keep us alive, our minds are continuously scanning for potential risks. Nevertheless, that negativity predisposition can influence your psychological and physical wellness gradually; and if you're currently dealing with a persistent ailment, like autoimmune condition, spiraling down a negative bunny opening can do way much more damage than great.

Take it from Eileen Laird, an autoimmune warrior and author of Recovery Frame of mind: A Guide to the Mind-Body Link for People With Autoimmune Condition. "It's really natural for fear, despair, and also anger to border that experience," she says on this episode of the mindbodygreen podcast." the unfavorable adverse effects is that it can boost the swelling a lot more." All that to say: Mindfulness is an essential tool for long-term healing-- it's not the only tool, obviously, however we can not ignore the power of the mind-body link.

If you often encounter purposeless ideas, you may want to attempt Laird's three techniques to overcome them:

1. "Iffirmations". " A strategy called 'iffirmations' can be truly effective for people who have problem with affirmations," claims Laird. See, affirmations can backfire depending upon your individuality. Some individuals feel very soothed by those "I am" statements, while others only feed their internal critic. If you're incapable to persuade your mind of those "I am" phrases, Laird suggests transforming them to "if" declarations. "Place 'what happens if' in front of it, and it breaks through your mind's resistance and also opens up possibilities," she keeps in mind. For example, if you deal with self-worth, instead of saying, "I am worthy," attempt claiming, "Suppose I am worthy?" So instead of disagreeing with you, your mind could question whether or not you are, as a matter of fact, deserving-- according to Laird, this minor tweak can trick your mind right into focusing on the positive. 2. Gratitude. " A gratefulness practice can be a really straightforward method to actually rewire your mind," Laird adds. Once more, your mind is hardwired for negative thoughts, yet rather than attempting to ignore what's bad on the planet (which usually backfires), gratitude assists you see the good things, as well. " I've had a gratefulness method for one decade," Laird shares. "It's such a straightforward thing, just considering three things every night prior to bed that declared as well as gorgeous to me." Even if she was encountering a flare that certain day, she can see what was unbelievable in her life beyond the pain. Better yet:" soothes the nerves, decreases the swelling, as well as assists calm the pain," she includes (simply have a look at the research study!). 3. Concern your ideas. Ultimately: "Questioning our thoughts is a significant part of the mind-body link," Laird claims. Basically? Do not think every little thing you believe. So when a negative idea pops up, Laird suggests asking yourself a simple question. "Let me use an autoimmune flare as an instance," she shares. "The very first time I have a flare, my mind will go, 'Ugh, this is never ever gon na end. What damages is occurring to your body right now? What did you do to create it?' It starts saying a great deal of purposeless things.". Rather than spiraling down that rabbit opening, she moves the narrative: "I'll say to my mind, 'What aided in the past for flares to pass quicker? What nurtured me via that procedure, as well as what made it worse?' I discover that my mind likes to address those concerns; we simply do not ask our minds those inquiries that frequently.". The key right here is to disrupt those unfavorable ideas and also reroute them prior to you believe them wholeheartedly." default is negative, and so it requires to be retrained to balance that with an extra favorable technique.". The takeaway. We can not disregard the power of frame of mind to really feel well. Obviously, a positive outlook isn't the magic bullet for healing, however unfavorable ideas can genuinely affect your health in a, well, adverse method. While our brains are keyed for the unfavorable, a few tweaks can assist offer those thoughts a favorable spin-- and according to Laird, that's a win for your total health. Read the full article

#NegativeThoughts

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qqueenofhades · 2 years

Note

Have you read The Bright Ages? Do you recommend it?

WELP. Anon, I'm not sure if you're aware, but this ask comes on the heels of DAYS of high drama over on Medieval Twitter about this exact book. So if you want to read about some total academia bullshit like it's the latest hot goss, this is definitely a place to do so. Plus, this situation is very important in terms of the questions that were raised and the actions that were taken, so even if you're not a medievalist and/or historian, I think that it's worth taking a look.

For the uninitiated, the book in question is The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe, by Matthew Gabriele and David M. Perry. Both of them are white male historians with primary expertise on the crusades, and I am familiar with Gabriele's work in that capacity. The book has been receiving tons of hype as an "inclusive" history of Europe that purports to rewrite all the white supremacist narratives that have been claimed for political purposes. The authors are both ostensibly liberal and progressive, and Gabriele has also published on the "misappropriation of medievalism" in the public sphere. However, what has come to light about the book's content, stylistic choices, and overall tone, and how a Black female scholar who was asked to review it was treated, is considerably disturbing.

In short: Dr. Mary Rambaran-Olm, one of the few Black medievalists (she studies early Saxon England) was asked by the Los Angeles Review of Books to review this book, which she then did. The editors then immediately accused her of not being "generous" enough to the authors, asked for major revisions, and finally dropped the review altogether. They then asked another scholar, a white woman, to write a review instead, even though this scholar had already published a glowing review of the same book in another mainstream outlet. This, to say the least, is some dirty pool, and Rambaran-Olm didn't keep quiet about it. If you want to scroll her Twitter feed, you can find out the sordid details. Fortunately, she went ahead and published her original review anyway, on her Medium page. I would go read it right away. It's in-depth, critical, points out serious flaws in the way the book was written, researched, and presented, and offers very important suggestions for anyone trying to work on premodern race, racial theory, and the total monopoly of white people in medieval studies. The authors seem like they were well-meaning, but in trying to offer a "progressive" corrective to white supremacist readings of medieval history, they only shore it up instead. As Rambaran-Olm puts it:

What Gabriele and Perry demonstrate here as white, male historians is repeated in academia on a large scale. It’s an unspoken white entitlement and authority that masquerades as progressive, in which history is only validated through the lens and voices of white men. [...] The Bright Ages repackages the greatest hits of medieval literature and history, and it does so through highlighting otherness against the backdrop of Christianity in Europe. This is not to say the book isn’t of value, but it is worth reading with a critical eye and by acknowledging that white scholars are benefiting from leveraging “diversity” while still centering and anchoring this diversity in Europe, Christianity, and white authority.

She also highlights other procedural problems: a 250-page book has no footnotes or endnotes, their sources aren't clear, they don't reference or engage with any substantial minority-authored scholarship or perspectives, they erase any real consideration of gender and sexuality, and their overall takeaway basically claims that the white, Christian, and imperialist structures ultimately built in medieval Europe were somehow good because people of color existed there too at the same time, or... something. They even, incredibly cringily, claim that the Middle Ages were the "real era of slavery," which a) would seem to argue against the whole misunderstood-progressive-utopia picture that they're painting, and b), as MRO points out, totally erases the much larger and longer-lastingly institutionalized practice of transatlantic slavery in the early modern and modern world. The "Bright Ages" title seems to rely on proving that the Middle Ages, contra the old "Dark Ages" chestnut, were actually a place of rich physical color and art -- which, while it might be true, doesn't actually engage with the deeper social and cultural issues that perpetuate this narrative, and why. Besides, it's an obvious and simplistic framework that doesn't, if you think about it, really make any sense at all. Of course the past wasn't black and white! Do more!

I understand why a lot of medievalists (myself included) get touchy about the Game of Thrones version of medievalism that gets replicated and believed uncritically. You know the one: filth, rape, violence, poverty, etc etc. What I think happened here is that the authors, in trying to refute that stereotype, went way too far in the other direction, and just using modern-progressive language and slapping a more inclusive coat of paint on these troubling artifacts of the past, rather than systematically dismantling them, isn't a substitute for actual, rigorous scholarship and critique. Medievalists aren't (or at least they shouldn't be) here to claim that "actually everything was far better back then". It's to promote the understanding of the medieval era as an actual human epoch of history and not a romanticized or excessively grimy shallow stereotype, with its good and bad parts alike, and to strongly push back against the idea that "modernity" is the only time when anything "good" has been developed or used. This morality-based view of chronology is why, when things are falling apart around our ears, we still have immense trouble getting people to believe anything except That All Happened in the Past, We're Fine Now.

The way the authors, editors, the LA Review of Books, and the replacement reviewer have reacted to this whole mess is also unfortunate. None of them have responded to Rambaran-Olm's criticisms directly (or even acknowledged them at all), and none of them have issued an apology. She also mentions that the authors reached out to her with an offer to read one particular chapter before it was published. She read it, critiqued it fairly extensively, and offered to take the time to work with them and get it right. Instead, barely a month later, they were tweeting that the book was ready for press and it appears that they hardly changed anything. In that case, they just wanted to slap a Black female medievalist's name on there and act like they actually consulted her or listened to her expertise, when they did the exact opposite. The book seems to have been created for the purpose of earning white progressive brownie points, and not to actually advance the field, lift up the voices and perspectives of marginalized scholars, seriously challenge the white supremacy it claims to critique, or really offer much of a "new" history of medieval Europe at all. It still focuses on well-known texts and (cisgender, Christian, male) figures of authority, such as priests, princes, bishops, and kings. Just pointing out that some of these people were aware of non-white texts, individuals, or historical traditions doesn't productively disrupt or change that paradigm.

Rambaran-Olm does offer two alternate suggestions for anyone interested in reading about Africans and/or other people of color in premodern Europe: African Europeans: An Untold History, by Olivette Otele, and The Black Middle Ages: Race and the Construction of the Middle Ages, by Matthew X. Vernon. Both of these are written by actual Black historians who substantively engage with existing scholarship rather than just superficially name-dropping it, and who take into account and properly cite the work that has already been done, instead of co-opting it without ANY credit or attribution. (And no, the fact that it is a "popular" history book intended for a general audience doesn't excuse that. In fact, it makes it more important for a pair of white male historians with traditional academic jobs to acknowledge the intellectual labor of marginalized scholars that they are borrowing on to profit for themselves.)

Anyway. The whole thing is a mess, and no, I will not be reading the book. I do, however, once again encourage everyone to read Dr. Rambaran-Olm's review, whether or not they're a professional historian. It's a thoughtful, incisive, and very necessary piece of scholarship in its own right, and tanking it from its originally intended publication venue because it wasn't "nice" enough to two pretentious white guys is... hmm... yeah. Bad.

#anonymous #ask #history #medieval history #black history #history of racism

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agallimaufryofoddments · 2 years

Note

Just a heads up, new Fate/strange fake is coming out in March. What do you think this means for Baccano since he promised 1935-E will be the next thing he finishes?

Hey there, anon; long time no chat, Tumblr; and long time wait, eh, Narita?

Here’s hoping that the sheer amount of links in this post don’t cause it to disappear from Tumblr’s internal search results...

For those wondering, anon is referring to two things:

The appearance of Fate/strange fake, Volume 7 on Dengeki Bunko's list of upcoming releases for March 2022.

The most recent tweets from Narita about Baccano! 1935-E, which date back to early 2021 and late 2020. I will be citing the machine translations of three tweets below; the original Japanese of each is provided under the cut w/archived links.

For Baccano!, you ask? Quite the ominous question you’ve asked.

It means effectively the same as what Fire & Blood’s 2018 release meant for A Song of Ice and Fire when George R. R. Martin supposed that Winds of Winter could theoretically be published first. It means what F&B’s upcoming TV adaptation this year means for ASoIaF when Martin promised in 2019 he wouldn’t write the TV scripts until WoW was delivered.

Ish. Ish? Ish.

In all seriousness, I don’t think this means as much for Baccano! as you might be fearing. I know I’ve made jibes now and then about 1935-E being “challenging,” but, in truth, this says far more about Narita and his health than it does 1935 and its status. Here are my main takeaways from a chronological review of (some of) Narita’s tweets and publications throughout the past few years:

Narita’s health crisis has drastically affected his work-life balance.

Where a young Narita’s schedule was dominated by work (penciling his life in-between writing sessions), his schedule is now dominated by his chronically-ill health for the foreseeable future. He has to go to the hospital every month. He has various medical appointments. He has been diagnosed with, lest we forget, a disease that is ultimately incurable.

He is, or was, I have come to think, also just...burnt out. For a time, at least. I’ll elaborate on when and what I mean a little later, but it suffices to say that gone are the days when Narita could churn out four novels in a year. Right now, he’s still figuring out if he can manage two.

That is to say, I have the feeling that Narita is, at least for the time being, not quite up or able to spend...”as many spoons” on big projects / long writing sessions as he was when young.

For the past couple of years, he has clearly been finding it easier to work in “spurts” commensurate with short fiction: manga chapters (c.f. DMDP), serial fiction (c.f. Shark Roar installments), novellas (c.f. Kurayukaba), and short stories (c.f. those two Naritaverse ones I shared last year).

I don’t think Narita necessarily even realized he was some equivalent of ‘burnt out” for a while, there. Summer 2020 does a number on hiim—maybe the pandemic picking up steam is what does it, exacerbating his problems or otherwise worsening the strain on his physical and mental health.

2021 is a different story. Actually, 2021 has a few reasons for me to be optimistic about Narita and Baccano! 1935-E, enough for the Vol. 7 release not to instill pessimism. 2021 is the first year in a while that Narita has written new Naritaverse content, putting aside whatever he wrote in honor of Durarara!! Stage.

Well, hold that thought. The chronological recap I’ve compiled below of some tweets and some publications is really worth looking over at this point, if nothing else for the sequential look at Narita’s own words on his own health and his own projects. You’ll be able to better contextualize my takeaways, whether or not you agree with them.

Keep an eye out for the April 8 (day?), 2021 tweet. I’m not really a Japanophone, so I’m not sure which of the two interpretations is closest to correct. The difference between them is major enough that it does actually undermine my ‘take’ on the F/sF Vol. 7 vs 1935-E situation.

Quick Chrono Recap

Notes: This is a non-exhaustive chronology, obviously; not all relevant tweets are quoted / mentioned, nor are various Narita works, but enough are provided for a sense of trajectory.

I’ve used machine translations for the Anglicized “quotes” of Narita’s tweets, so please check the original Japanese versions for yourselves via the archived links in the tweet’s chronological date. The dates may need to be double-checked for time zone adjustments, oops (my zone is EST); I tried to keep time zones in mind, but I keep getting muddled over which tweets I have and haven’t checked because there’s so many that I keep jumping between...

2017 April: F/sF Vol. 4 is published.

2018 Mar 20: Narita apologizes to a B! fan that Baccano!, “which was scheduled to be published last year, has been rescheduled.” He says the publication schedule isn’t up to him.

2019 Apr: F/sf Vol. 5 is published.

2019 Nov 08: Narita tweets that he is currently working on Baccano! and Durarara!! (He said he was “planning” to work on them “next” on Sep 27). The next month, he mentions again that he’s writing the last B! 1935 on Dec 18.

2020 Jan: F/sF Vol. 6 is published.

2020 Feb 8: In the first of three replies to “Fan A”, Narita echoes the aforementioned ‘19 tweets by saying he is still writing Baccano!

*ignores second reply in which Narita admits Vamp! wasn’t popular enough because it hurts*

In the last reply (poss. Feb 9 his time), Narita laments, “. . . . Baccano was just about ready to be continued when I was hospitalized for a few months and the timing was completely delayed . . . .”

2020 Apr 30/May 1: Narita tweets that he has decided to write a novella as one of the tier rewards for the Kurayukaba crowdraising campaign; he says he’ll start work on it once he finishes the Baccano! manuscript he’s working on.

2020 Dec ~24: Narita tweets...

“I've been working on Fake for a while now, but before that I have a book I need to publish for Dengeki that I'm behind on due to a number of personal and professional commitments this year, including medical treatment. I'm working on getting it out as soon as possible after that book (Baccano) comes out. ......I am very sorry for keeping you waiting.......”

He reaffirms this order of priority in a 2021 Jan 25 tweet.

See the April 8 tweet below for this translation confusion x2: is he saying he will release Fake “in one go” here and in that tweet?

2021 ~Apr 8, aka no F/sf Vol. 7: Narita replies to a Fate fan via tweet...

“I've been working on Fake, but I promised Dengeki Bunko that I'd publish the last issue of Baccano 1935 first, so I'm planning to publish it after that. I apologize for the delay. I'm very sorry for making you wait.”

Alternative TL?: Japanophones help me out here. Could this alternatively read “I’ve already written Fake [...] so I’ll be putting it out in one go after 1935″ or something along those lines? if so, the difference is pretty important.

2021 Apr 24: In a thread’s second tweet, Narita confides...

“Due to physical and mental reasons, I've been [struggling or unable to write / behind on writing] novels since last summer, but I'm finally back on track, and [Pandora Shark of Torch Island] is the first installment of my novel work. I'm sure I'll be able to update you on the progress of the Dengeki and other collections that I'm rebooting at the same time, so please bear with me!“

“Due to [physical and psychological reasons caused by illness and other factors]s? alt?

Check out this important reply to a fan (below):“...and I'm really sorry about the situation, it's just my [unpreparedness / malaise / age] that got me [confused / into trouble] after I went through surgery and a long hospital stay while writing Baccano. ......[We/I]'ve been working on this project for a long time, but [we/I]'ll be able to give you more information about Baccano soon, so please wait a little longer!”

I think the gist of his last reply is that he spent so long in the hospital that he was “out of practice” when it came to writing Baccano! after he was finally cleared to work or what have you? I knew my suspicion re: Narita needing to reacquaint himself with 1935 wasn’t entirely unfounded.

2021 May 25: Ditto the thread...

“I'm very sorry. I'm very sorry for the delay due to my long hospitalization and other circumstances after contracting a disease designated as intractable, but as soon as Baccano is finished, I plan to publish Fake in succession, so I hope you can wait a little longer.“

Observations: 1935-E’s active advocate is whom?

Call: Who...killed...thirty-five E...?

Dengeki Bunko, the phrasing of certain tweets seems to imply. Narita “needs” to publish 1935-E but “is behind.” Dengeki Bunko is thus the expectant party to Narita’s “obliging” party. Narita “promising” Dengeki Bunko out of context could be taken as Narita being 1935-E’s active advocate...if one assumes Narita volunteered such a promise without prompting.

With the context of the Dec tweet, however, I suspect it likely that Narita’s promise may have been a reactive rather than active one—reactive, perhaps, to Dengeki Bunko asking about 1935-E (yet again?). With the new retroactive context of an March 2022 F/sF release, the April 2021 tweets become that much more important to include here.

Speculative Interpretative Summary

Response: “I,” said Narita, “with my biro narrow / I...killed...thirty-five E.”

Q: To whom did Narita make his promise?

A: Not us. He made Dengeki Bunko a promise.

Q: When did he make that promise?

A: Theoretically any time in (late) 2019.

No, seriously. As early as 2019. He quipped that he was “healthy now” in the afterword of F/sF Vol. 5. He did say he was planning to work on B! in September 2019, and was allegedly working on it by November. He will reiterate that he is working on 1935-E a few times in early 2020, and, at the cusp of May, is still referring to a finished Baccano! manuscript as a certain thing in firm terms. Maybe he really did believe it was doable, at this point in the year.

However... Narita’s physical and mental health evidently take a different turn that summer, c.f. his April 2021 tweet. His illness, it goes without saying, is one factor. Naturally he doesn’t say much about the other factors, which is his right as it is his personal business; I am sure, however, that the pandemic’s grip on Japan in Summer 2020 absolutely did not help matters. (You know, Summer 2020? When Tokyo was supposed to hold the Olympics? You probably remember reading about the COVID-19 situation in Japan in the news.)

His December 2020 tweet, then... Well, honestly, it reads like progress has been more “stuck” than “made” since December. Narita is essentially saying that Fake is on hold until 1935-E is out, but 1935-E is referenced in such a way that makes it feel more like a static obstacle than something dynamic.

If we think of 1935-E and Vol. 7 as two vehicles on a single road, then Fate/strange Fake should be trailing behind 1935-E—stuck at 1935-E’s pace, with no choice but to wait until they reach an intersection and 1935-E can turn towards its finish line, allowing Fake to speed on ahead. This tweet instead has me picturing 1935-E stalling in place, with the driver of the Fake driver (DB exec) blowing his horn and checking his watch. Now, I guess, the Fake vehicle can simply not wait any longer; it is swerving around the 1935-E stall for a March release.

—At the time Narita shared the Dec 24 tweet, I was latching onto the apparent reaffirmation of 1935-E being up next and thus saw the tweet as a positive update. Of course, the tone of the tweet itself is actually almost morose; Narita doesn’t actually hint at how 1935-E is going, as if he’s spent the last several months . . . . struggling to work on it or any other large-scale project...

(Oh wow. Hell. That is me. I’m describing me. On second thought, this may just be a massive case of projection so ignore me and draw your own conclusions from his own words in the original JP.)

Then we roll into 2021, and I guess April 2021 is where Narita starts to, as he says, “rebound.”

Remember that 2021 Naritaverse content I mentioned?

Narita kicks off the year in a Naritaverse mindset via the two Baccano! 193X and Baccano! x Durarara!! 2020 short stories published in Feb 2021 as part of the Kadokawa Expo 2020 memorial book.

Then, in April, he kicks off a new serial novel (?) (Shark Roar series / Pandora Shark series), the installments of which take place in the Naritaverse c. 2034.

(I know, right? I ignored the new Shark series for so long! How did it never come to my attention that the stories were set in the Naritaverse? I found a tweet in which Narita does mention this, but unfortunately it didn’t enter my radar at the time.

( Whatever Narita’s reasons were for launching Shark Roar, I’d like to think that writing the installments has been a fun way for him to kindle his excitement for the universe itself (through, what else, vampires and sharks) without any of the pressure that, say, the finale of Baccano!’s biggest arc entails.)

Baccano! is still on Narita’s mind toward the end of 2021, since he shares the news that Fujimoto’s Baccano! manga is fully available to read on the MangaUp! app. We’re approaching the two month mark since that tweet...

...Okay, so now what?

Well, let’s all go buy the first Shark Roar volume, for one thing. (It collects the nine installments released betw. April – November 2021). Am I right, fellas? I wanna see if there’s more info on that Nebula curator that’s mentioned...

If I really dared to go all out with optimism to the point of Isaac & Miria-levels of hopeless delusion, I would latch onto the “project / story” word choice (?) in the Spring 2021 tweet and hope that maybe Narita and Dengeki Bunko are figuring out how to hype 1935-E up once it’s ready. Again, the part of me who’d be doing the latching on is the part of me who still can’t let go of the “Baccano!” 2003–2023 extravaganza” fantasy founded on the conceit wherein the last B! LN is hypotheticaly published in 2003.

(My consistency in wishing for this time and time again really might blow up in my face, because for all my “best to keep expectations lower than low” posturing I am definitely setting myself up for heartbreak if 2023 gets nothing in the way of a Baccanniversary,)

Summary, for the love of sanity?

To summarize this really lengthy position (God, I tried so hard to keep this whole response relevant, I’ve rewritten this whole thing twice in the mode of Theseus’ ship, cut out so many pointless paragraphs)...

Fake Vol. 7 beating out 1935-E seems less serious if one zooms out to consider the bigger picture.

2021 was actually more of a content win for Baccano! & the Naritaverse than it was for strange Fake!

(2020 as it turns out was really bad healthwise both physically and mentally, whodathunk!)

The cause(s) of 1935-E’s setbacks are manifold and cannot be reduced to any one factor. Narita’s rustiness with the material, Dengeki Bunko’s publication order decisions, Narita’s health, the pandemic (which likely has taken a toll on Dengeki Bunko’s available staff in addition to Narita’s own condition), these are all concomitant with each other and all relevant to 1935.

You know what I think Fate/strange fake coming out in March 2022 means? I think it probably means that Dengeki Bunko had some Terms & Conditions when it was decided that 1935-E really well and truly had to be Narita’s next release. See, March 2022 is the last month of Fiscal Year 2021 in Japan (Fiscal Years’ start & end months differ per country).

I’m guessing that Dengeki Bunko could have said, “Look, we’ll hold off on publishing F/sf Vol. 7 for as long as we can, but we really will need it out by the end of Fiscal Year 2021 no matter what.” Again, sure, maybe there’s been some big new development that’s really responsible for the publication order switch, but—this is Fake we’re talking about. If those April 2021 tweets do actually mean that Narita finished Volume 7 well in advance, that would certainly be conducive to such a scenario.

I wonder whether there’s been any rumbling on JP Twitter or 5Ch about the updated list? I expect I’ll find some rumblings sooner than Narita will confirm or deny Vol. 7 is happening right now. (Whether he says something or doesn’t in a month’s time will really seal the deal.)

...I’m pretty sure there was at last one other definitive thing I wanted to say in this last section, for it’s popped in and out of my head at least three times in the last five minutes, but at this point I probably have exhausted you and the salient thoughts to be shared anyway. I guess I can edit it back in when I work up the energy to edit all the story titles...

Addendum: “big new development”...or any number of smaller issues. Reminder to myself and others that there are numerous people involved in a novel’s development process beyond “the author” and “faceless executive who personally hates Baccano!” ha. There never is just one person who can decide the fate of a product in a Japanese company; everything has to go through tons of people for review and approval per collective decision-making. As you can imagine, it often takes a long for these bureaucratic cycles to complete, and projects can be held up accordingly whiel their members wait for someone to get back to them.

Meanwhile, Katsumi Enami is always in demand for other projects; they need him to be available to illustrate the novel. Meanwhile, who knows to what extent COVID-19 has been taking out Dengeki Bunko’s staff?

Meanwhile, by the time you finish reading all this, Fate/strange Fake will probably be out. Whew boy.

Totally Canon Dialogue between Narita and Dengeki Bunko

Insert after the paragraph that ends with “Dengeki Bunko has Narita sit at a table upon which 1935-E is the main draw.“ ←Can you tell I had to extensively rewrite this post? Because I did; this comment and, frankly, the entire ‘dialogue’ below, are vestiges of the early chaff.

Dengeki Bunko: Narita-sensei, we are very sorry that your health has been so mercurial. We are all rooting for you.

Narita: Thank you very much.

Dengeki Bunko: It has been two years since 1935-E was scheduled for release. Is there a chance that progress has been made during this time?

Narita: Yes.

Dengeki Bunko: Is there a chance that the novel can be completed by next year?

Narita: Reply hazy, try again.

Dengeki Bunko: We would like 1935-E out as soon as there is confidence it is ready.

Narita: I understand.

Dengeki Bunko: It has been two years, Narita-sensei.

Narita: I promise I am able to finish 1935-E.

Dengeki Bunko: If we push back F/sf Vol. 7 from a Spring 2021 release, maybe there will be significant progress on 1935-E? Enough so that we can finally publish it and thence Vol. 7 in succession?

Narita, in F/sf Vol. 6′s afterword: “I somehow managed to get two books out in fiscal year 2019! I hope I’ll be able to maintain this pace. . . .”

Narita: I promise I will finish 1935-E next.

Dengeki Bunko: We are holding off on Volume 7 for this, you understand, because 1935-E is so extremely overdue, but please understand that we cannot delay Volume 7 overlong. You have at minimum most of Fiscal Year 2020; we will renegotiate at the Fiscal Year’s end. Does this sound reasonable?

Narita: I promise I hope to maintain my hope that I can write at the pace I managed to maintain for the past several months, hopefully.

Dengeki Bunko: Narita-sensei, please try your best to finish.1935-E as promised. However, if it should happen that we approach the end of Fiscal Year 2021 with 1935-E still not quite ready, we will have no choice but to ensure Fate/strange fake Volume 7 is released before Fiscal Year 2022 begins. It would be shameful if the Fate fans had to wait even longer than they already have.

Narita: Yes, It would be a shame.

Dengeki Bunko: Please take care of yourself in the meantime, for it seems that COVID-19 coronavirus is proving to be quite contagious...

Non-Non-Non Canon (except for the part where the shark series is set in the Naritaverse)

Dengeki Bunko: Narita-sensei, please try your best to finish.1935-E as promised [...]

Narita: Yes, but what if I decide in 2021 to publish some serial installments from, let me see, April to November 2021? Could I do that?

Dengeki Bunko: Concentrate and ask again.

Narita: I will do that via a different Kadokawa subsidiary. By the way, they will potentially be set in the same universe as Baccano!, so can we count a collected volume of those stories “just as good” a substitute?

Dengeki Bunko: Eh? Who is allowing this to happen?

Narita: Dwango, to whose IP brand IIV I belong. If it is a comfort, the installments feature new characters and are set in c. 2034. I will be mentioning Nebula outright in the blurb for the second installment.

Dengeki Bunko: Is there a chance, Narita-sensei, that you have been writing Winds of Winter instead of 1935-E all this time?

Narita: No, but it is true that I wrote the original manuscript for the TV Drama Mushikago no Jōmae not so long ago...

I could write hypothetical dialogue between them all day. Unfunny dialogue that quickly outstays its welcome, but fun enough to write..

#Baccano!#Baccano #Ryohgo Narita #Fate/strange Fake #Dengeki Bunko #asked and answered #anonymous #ah Tumblr I can tell you've missed me #you've missed this. dreadfully long passages of text to scroll past...unfounded speculation...wasting your time. yes. this is what you want #how could you bear the peace and quiet?#gee I sure hope your themes do bullet indents otherwise you're not going to have a fun time

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mylieutenant · 3 years

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REDUX: Roy regaining his vision was the right narrative choice [META]

The idea that Roy should have stayed blind as punishment for his crimes is far too prevalent, and I believe this misses the point of Roy’s journey. Here’s why.

As a preface, I’m going to add a bit of a disclaimer that disability as a punishment is a bit of a sensitive issue, and I don’t subscribe to the mentality that disability is a valid form of punishment (or inherently a punishment altogether). This stems from prior discussion so I think it’s important to set this straight.

In the context of the series, Truth takes away something a person values (most often an ability of some sort) as toll for performing Human Transmutation and seeing past the Gate. The characters often interpret it to be their punishment for committing the ultimate taboo, and readers often interpret it as narrative punishment for hubris. I will be discussing it in that context regardless of my own moral stance. To counter that, though, the series introduced theme that every character who lost an ability gained something unexpected out of their adventures, implying that disability shouldn’t be interpreted as unequivocal punishment.

When viewers say “Roy should have stayed blind”, they are often using disability to punish him. Furthermore, they are using it to punish him for the one crime they did not commit. In fact, he categorically refused to perform Human Transmutation, against great temptation. He did the right thing there. If we take this into account, the narrative would be enacting revenge, not fair retribution, if it left Roy blind because of a misguided sense of karma. This is exactly the sort of revenge Arakawa consistently painted in a negative light. A clear message this series sends is that an eye for an eye accomplishes nothing, and that the cycle of violence must be broken. Scar is a good example of this. Winry breaking the cycle of violence drives this home. Roy refusing to kill Envy after being so close is the last straw. This series pushes the idea that revenge is fruitless, violence brings more violence, and it expects the viewer to internalize that. Using disability as retribution for an unrelated crime was never to be expected.

Now, Roy has committed acts of true evil. It is not my intention to justify, condone, approve or downplay the Ishvalan genocide (nevermind that there are rarely similar clamors for punishment regarding other war criminals like Riza and Hughes). Arakawa makes it clear Roy and Riza will face justice. That said, whether one as a bystander thinks that they can be forgiven, that is entirely personal, and not the topic of this meta. Arakawa doesn’t condemn the reader for either opinion. I’ll go as far as to say that we’re forced into the role of bystanders. I’ll go a step further in that the viewer’s say is irrelevant altogether - Roy’s actions are powerful because they are not dependent on forgiveness. It’s not something he’s after, not something he believes to be entitled to. He’s doing the right thing for its own sake. That’s all there is to it. He’s not seeking for redemption - at the end of his road, he still expects he’ll be condemned.

An argument can be made that it is perhaps unfair for a man to choose his own path to justice. However, by this point, the Military dictatorship is likely to continue if Roy doesn’t accomplish his goals. If he never makes it that far, his crimes may never be recognized as such. He’s digging his own grave, and doing so with his eyes open (pun intended). I don’t think it can be said this is an easy fate.

I will admit that I’ve seen interesting takes on how a blind Roy could have been given a fitting ending, but in all of these, Roy still finds a way to be of service for the greater good. And thus, in this angle, the permanent loss of his vision has little narrative significance that isn’t achieved by letting him regain his sight (unlike, for example, Edward never recovering his leg and keeping the one Winry made for him to stand on). We got the one moment of Riza being his eyes, which made a great point, but making it permanent would have implications for Riza that I don’t believe would be for the benefit of her journey.

Sure, there’s plenty a blind Roy could do for his country, but there’s no denying this path would make his way forward harder. This is also why I’m so Brotherhood-critical on this subject - Brotherhood glosses over the massive difficulties a blind man in the Military would have to go through to have the amount of power Roy would need for his plans.

The different endings (Manga vs. Brotherhood) give a different take on Roy before accepting the Philosopher’s Stone. I originally wrote this meta based on the manga, but it didn’t occurred to me then that Brotherhood alters these interpretations. The manga shows us a lonely, defeated Roy that doesn’t know how he’ll push forward. Meanwhile, Brotherhood has him surrounded by his trusted ones already determined to act for the betterment of Ishval (and he also asks Marcoh to restore Havoc’s mobility, but that’s mostly irrelevant to the point and meta for another time).

Brotherhood’s fate for Roy is the generally preferred version because it’s so feel-good, but I personally find that Roy being offered a new purpose makes Marcoh’s gesture, and Roy accepting it, all the more powerful. It also gives him a bit more justification in doing so too; if Roy doesn’t know what will become of him, he’ll be more willing to accept to use the Philosopher’s Stone. Either way, the point still stands that him using the Stone is part of a deal.

On that matter, ambiguous morality exists within the FMA-verse and general usage Philosopher’s Stone is the perfect example of this. Often the takeaway is that using the stone is inherently evil, but it really isn’t quite that simple. It’s been used for evil, and the Elric brothers refuse to use it to gain their bodies back, but Alphonse and Hohenheim recognize that these trapped souls have agency and allow them to act for the greater good. This sets precedence for Roy’s decision to be potentially interpreted as a morally sound alternative. Him using the Philosopher’s Stone for the benefit of the reconstruction effort is a pact. He’s vowing to be the voice of the Ishvalans trapped within it. So Roy’s trade-off might be morally ambiguous, as he still derives personal benefit from it, but it’s not devoid of integrity. He’s not being “rewarded” with his sight, but it’s a bargaining chip in a deal that will come at great personal cost.

I think the true power of this moment stems from the fact that we don’t really know what happened next. Arakawa cleverly cuts off this narrative before Roy has to deal with the opinions of those who actually matter - the Ishvalan people. Scar and Miles have their stance, but we don’t know the rest. The implication Arakawa makes with Scar and Miles is that any Ishvalan reconstruction would have to feature Ishvalan voices on the forefront, and for all many of the aspects of their portrayal are a bit questionable (meta for a different time) this is something she got right. In the end, it would be the Ishvalan people’s choice how to deal with Roy’s crimes against them. I respect her narrative choice in not taking this away from them (and by extension, from real-life minorities that have gone through a genocide) by deciding Roy’s punishment/justice should be left for the future.

So that’s where this leaves us. Roy regaining his sight is the narrative refusing to use his blindness as revenge or punishment for a crime he did not commit, instead leaving his fate to be decided by the people he oppressed, and letting him go forward with willingly marching to his own grave. I don’t forgive Roy for the part he took in the Ishvalan genocide and I don’t make excuses for him. The question is, on the grand scheme of things, is it worth for the story to take narrative revenge on him at this point? What are we, the bystanders, accomplishing by enacting punishment on a man that has so clearly changed for the better?

#fma meta #meta #roy mustang #roy mustang meta

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black-coffee-and-sugar · 3 years

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Fair warning: it's a long post. Let's examine some of the reasons that Kara has cited why she didn't tell Lena the super secret:

1. She wanted to protect her

Now, this one has some legs on it as Kara specifically mentions it in S3 during a conversation with James and Mon-El. And there's definitely some truth to it. But it's also bullshit. Lena was in constant danger and put herself at risk to save/protect Kara who didn't actually need it. In fact, the first time Lena's mentioned (not shown just mentioned) it's in regards to the venture explosion - something that happened because Lex was trying to kill her. People have been trying to kill, kidnap, manipulate, threaten Lena since minute one. Knowing Kara = SG would not have severely worsened any of that. In fact, it might've helped ease Lena's anxieties and resulted in her taking less risks with her life. In fact, I'm surprised Lena didn't think that Kara's association with her was putting Kara at risk (a far more likely thing).

The 100th episode addresses this to some degree in one of the AUs. Lena tells Kara that she wouldn't have had to risk her life dealing with Sam/Reign alone if she'd known the truth and she's absolutely right. And sure, Lena could've told SG and the DEO when she pieced Reign = Sam together but ask yourself, why would she? What assurance did she have that the DEO would not have treated her BEST FRIEND like a hostile instead of someone in need of help? The DEO is guilty of this and they have a history of locking up aliens indefinitely and on occassion straight up murder. After Reign nearly killed their biggest asset (i.e. SG) why in the hell would Lena trust them with helping Sam? She wouldn't nor should she have. She didn't know that she could go to SG because remember, Lena doesn't think of her the same way she does of Kara. SG is not her best friend. She doesn't have a personal, humanized relationship with her (at least not that she knows of). And obviously she's not going to tell Kara the human reporter with the DEO agent sister about it either. And the kryptonite? SG lost her shit over it even though she's been working with the DEO who stockpiled the stuff until SM left with it (a dumbass move that would've bit them so hard in the ass with the WK situation if it weren't for Lena's kryptonite!). Plus, Kara didn't have an issue with Oliver having a kryptonite arrow, J'onn having a sword. But Lena? How dare she!

So yea no. I get that "I kept my secret to protect you" is a popular thing in the hero world but in the case of Kara and Lena, it doesn't make sense and it did make situations unnecessarily harder.

2. She didn't trust Lena

This is mentioned by Kara to William in a deleted scene from S5 but I think it's worth exploring. I'm not sure to what extent Kara means with this but it could be referring to the moments as SG where she did display a distrust of Lena's intentions and she used Lena's personal relationships against her (i.e. asking James to break into Lena's lab). I mentioned the S3 shitshow with the kryptonite which is where a lot of this started but there's also other scenes in that same season where SG pretty much calls into question the so-called trust she has in Lena despite claiming otherwise. The switch was so abrupt the minute she learned Lena not only had but knew how to make kryptonite. Did anyone ever consider why Lena would bother learning how to make kryptonite? I'd hazard a guess that it was something she was looking into even before Sam/Reign. I think she happened to find Lex's stock and she decided to learn how it works and why it affects the Supers like it does. That would explain how Lena seems to be the ONLY ONE able to make an anti-kryptonite suit and other viable forms of the rock (i.e. Harun el). But no, SG and others immediately jump to the worst conclusions and associate the endeavour with Lena's last name, something SG KNOWS Lena is sensitive about it. And then the harun el. SG was suddenly fine with Lena making it when it was to split Sam from Reign and save Argo from extinction. But when it was used for something else that Lena didn't clue her in on (and what do you know, Alex, Brainy and James didn't either and they KNEW what Lena was doing with it) she got back on her high horse and the distrust became front and centre. You can't trust Lena as Kara and then immediately distrust her as SG and expect her to be accepting of this dichotomy. I'm surprised the woman managed to retain her sanity.

And still, this reasoning doesn't quite hit the mark in comparison to every other insistence of Kara believing in Lena (from day one she even told Clark that she believed Lena after meeting her for the first time). But the contrasting opinions and actions must have given Lena pause. I don't blame her to call into question which version of the truth was real and choosing to believe the worst. It's what SG and the SFs have been doing to her.

3. She was wary of Lena

This isn't an explicitly given reason but I do think it's how the secret keeping started in S2. Frankly, I don't even blame Kara for not showing her full deck in the beginning because she (and even us as an audience) didn't know much about Lena beyond wanting to do good and not be like her family. So no, Kara not telling Lena in the beginning actually makes sense to me (though she told Nia in a split second but that's neither here nor there). For me, I started to seriously take Lena at her word after the Medusa episode. That would've been the perfect opportunity for her to show the true "xenophobic" colours some parts of the fandom accuse her of having and she didn't do it. I don't think she even got so much as a thank you for it. People praise SM for getting Lex arrested but ultimately it was Lena's testimony that got him thrown behind bars. Same thing with Lillian! And yes, the daxamite invasion was facilitated by Lena unwittingly working with Rhea but she fixed it with the lead dispersal bomb, a device she allowed SG the privilege of using or not. So Kara and the SFs being cautious about Lena really should've evaporated halfway through S2 (and it did for Kara at least). In fact, the daxamite invasion may not have happened if Lena knew exactly who Rhea was and her relation to Mon-El because they would've warned Lena about it. Lena did want Kara's advice on Rhea and she would've waited for it if she knew what was going on (i.e. Alex being held hostage) and hell, might've been able to fix it in typical Lena ex machina fashion.

4. She didn't want to lose her

This is probably as close to the truth as we've gotten and it's actually part of her confession in 5x01 (something her outburst in 5x19 tries to undo). But the thing is, Kara KNEW this was a possibility and yet, continued walking towards the deadly cliff with her eyes wide open. The probability of losing Lena got higher and higher as time went on and it was always inevitable. There was always this spotlight placed on Kara telling Lena or Lena finding out on her own but there was always a HUGE chance that Lillian would've told her. Or Lex, which is exactly what happened. And Kara knew that they knew and yet she did nothing about it. The minute kara found out Lillian knew she should've taken action, what guarantee did she have that Lillian wouldn't have gotten bored of waiting for Lena to piece it together? How can they just leave Lillian with dangerous knowledge like that is beyond me. When Alex in particular has made such a big deal about people knowing, didn't want Kara telling Lena, only allowed Kara to tell Lucy to save J'onn and yet, letting Lillian amble about with this info is okay??? Nothing was stopping her from telling Lena or it slipping during one their chess games and definitely nothing stopping Lex from dropping that bomb.

The 100th episode AUs showed us that each time it was Kara telling the truth, no matter how hurt and upset Lena rightfully was, she was ultimately fine with it. And Kara ends up losing her to death, not because Lena walked away. How this wasn't the takeaway message for Kara after that adventure, idk. It was Kara's hesitatancy in telling Lena that allowed Lex to weaponize this secret and twist it into something it never was. And yes, Kara doesn't owe a damn soul her secret and has rarely ever been given the chance to tell anyone on her own terms (James - told by SM, Alex, J'onn, Brainy, Mon-El, the Legion - always knew, Lex & Lillian, Lord & Cat - found out somehow). She only ever got to tell Winn, Lucy and Nia and I'm sorry but none of those people have ever proven themselves trustworthy at the time of the reveal the way Lena has.

So while Kara is every right to keep her secrets, she was wrong to insert herself in Lena's life if she never had any intention of telling her and let's be honest, it really didn't seem like Kara had any timeline on that front.

5. She was selfish

Similar to the above and also mentioned during the confession but this is even deeper. Lena was something of an outlet for Kara, a way to feel completely normal, something she hasn't been able to experience with anyone, even Mon-El. Can you imagine being a cub reporter who knows powerful CEO Lena Luthor and having said CEO choose to spend time with you? Choose to let you interview her when she's wary of the press (remember her interactions with Clark in 2x01 and her family history)? Choose to treat your problems as important and valid and human? I don't blame Kara at all for being selfish with Lena, for wanting to keep Lena all to herself like that. But to not share the other aspects of herself was seriously wrong too and resulted in this imbalance in their relationship. To Lena, it looks like she was giving all of herself when Kara was not. It looks like she put all her trust and vulnerabilities out there when Kara didn't. It looks like Kara was using her (which let's be real, she kinda did a few times in S2 with the fight club and bs article to get info on Lillian and then ofc the CatCo-Edge problem she visited Lena for after ignoring her and proceeding to continue the rejection after Lena said she'd look into it).

You think post-reveal Lena didn't think back to all those moments and have those kinda thoughts? Even called into question what might've been the real reason James dated her and Kara was so insistent on befriending her? Were there perhaps times were she figured it out and can't remember and what's why she chose not to see it? Why do we think she still showed up game night in 4x22 instead of confronting Kara? Because these thoughts amongst others must've been swarming her mind and the only way to keep the upper hand is to continue playing dumb. So yes, Kara made the conscious decision to be selfish with Lena because of the unexpected connection they forged and I get it totally. But Lena has never been selfish and she's always made hard efforts to be a damn good friend (and she was idc what others might think on that) and open herself up to Kara despite how difficult and frankly foreign that is for her.

So are Kara's reasons valid? To a point, I would say yes but their validity waned over the seasons to the point where the secret keeping didn't even make sense anymore.

So was Lena's anger valid? Yes! 100% it was and honestly, I'm surprised she managed to keep it together for so long. I couldn't. But her anger doesn't justify her actions (mind control, manipulating Kara, threatening Russell, holding J'onn's bro captive, putting Hope inside Eve) and how she went out of her way to hurt Kara back. However, I get why she did it though it's worth pointing out that this is the only instances of a betrayal in her life where Lena has gone this far. Bitch straight up spiralled where previously she would cut ties and move the fuck on with life. But with Kara, that doesn't even seem to manifest itself to Lena as an option. Will the show ever address the obvious WHY for this and for Kara being so so terrified of losing Lena (like honestly I have never seen Kara look more distressed).

Maybe, maybe not but regardless I'm not buying this platonic friends nonsense because no one is that devastated over a friendship. Many of us (myself included) have experienced falling outs with very close friends and breakups. Which one do you think the Kara/Lena rift in S5 felt like? It was full on heartbreak, loving someone in complete torment and not being able to stop despite wanting to because even though it's painful, the alternative is infinitely worse.

MB and KM's acting choices aside, these idiot showrunners have brought us to this point with their own narrative and the only logical next step is to make them canon.

Lol okay I'm done.

#long ass post i know #but i had to get this all out #because i just can't look at canon events any other way #its all led to this from 'and who are you exactly?' and it hasn't slowed down #kara's ultimate underlying reason is that she's dangerously in love and i will die on that hill #supercorp #coffee speaks

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jedi-order-apologist · 4 years

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A Refutation of Telltale’s “Is the Jedi Order a Cult?”

I was directed to this video that claims that the Jedi Order is a cult during a discussion on reddit earlier, and while the person who linked it respectfully asked to end the discussion we were having, I figure the video is worth addressing on its own, separately from that discussion. So I’ve cleaned up the points I made over on reddit and stripped out the stuff relevant to that conversation, to explain just what I took issue with with this video.

To the video-maker’s credit, he does acknowledge that the Jedi are presented as correct within the narrative of the films. Having run into one too many “the point of the prequels was the flaws of the Jedi” across the Internet, I have to say it’s refreshing to see Jedi-critical arguments made without that assumption.

I still disagree with pretty much all of the points made in the video, and found it to be uncharitable, blatantly incorrect at times, and almost completely lacking in concrete examples and evidence of his claims, but he has a right to his own interpretations, especially in that he acknowledges that they’re not the intended takeaway. But I hope that my response will show that it’s not something actually reflected by the source material, and that the Jedi are not actually a cult, even setting aside creator intentions.

Disclaimer – I’m not familiar with this video-creator’s other work, but from what’s said in the video, it does seem that this isn’t his usual kind of material, and that he intended this as “lighthearted” video. With that in mind, its lack of robustness and misinformation is forgivable – this response is mostly meant as something for me (or you, if you want) to point to the next time someone brings this video up to support their position, not as a criticism of this video-creator or his work in general. If you choose to engage with the video directly, please be kind.

He begins his arguments by claiming that the Jedi erase people’s identities by having them block their emotions completely - this isn't true; what we see the Jedi say is "be mindful of your feelings" (Mace Windu, TPM), and "don't let your personal feelings get in the way" (Obi-Wan, AOTC), and "don't let your feelings cloud your judgement" (several times). All of that requires acknowledgment of one's emotions and dealing with them appropriately.

He then claims that those who leave are shunned - this is again, blatantly untrue. For instance, at the beginning of AOTC, Dooku is still spoken of highly long after he has left the Order - the Jedi are reluctant to even entertain the idea that he could be behind the attack on Padmé. The Sith are for one thing, not necessarily ex-members of the Order, and for another, they’re "shunned" because they're going around torturing and murdering people, not because of heretical views on the Force. We see in TCW that the Jedi Order co-exists peacefully with other Force traditions, even dark-sided ones like the Nightsisters.

Another claim he makes is "There aren't any checks and balances for the Jedi Council", which is again, untrue - the Jedi are accountable to the Senate, and, if anything, that arrangement is skewed in favor of the Senate, because the Senate is not truly accountable in turn. The Jedi Council is ultimately pressured into decisions against its will, especially as the war goes on – most notably, Anakin’s appointment to the Council in ROTS.

He is critical of the Jedi taking in children, but the same can be said of any adoption - simply taking in children is not, in of itself, cult behavior, or else every adoptive family is a cult. The approach the author of this video takes to this category is too broad and does not adequately establish how to distinguish cults preying on children from healthy child-rearing.

He then claims that Jedi are expected to obey unquestioningly – but I disagree that this is evidenced in the source material. The Jedi are expected to respect their elders but we don't see harsh punishment for disobedience or dissent, merely disapproval. For instance, the most trouble Qui-Gon, as a noted maverick, gets is some exasperated side-eye. Similar to the previous claim, the approach the author takes is too broad and doesn’t distinguish a cult’s expectation of obedience from a parent’s expectation of obedience.

He claims that the Jedi control clothing and hairstyle - this is misleading at best. While the padawans all are expected to wear the braid, the hairstyle isn't set beyond that (many species don’t even have hair!), and even with the Jedi sporting a traditional outfit, we see their robes and tunics come in many different shades and colors. Some forgo the traditional robes all together, such as Ahsoka Tano, Luminara Unduli, Aayla Secura, some of them even wearing the ornamentation of their homeworld cultures on top of that (again, Ahsoka, Luminara, and Barriss Offee, and Depa Billaba, and Shaak Ti...).

Sith are, again, not ex-members as the video-author implies, and again, the issue with them is the torturing and murdering and enslaving people, not simple philosophical differences. The Jedi are perfectly allowed to speak with outsiders and presumably critics of their Order; they just don’t want to let a bunch of genocidal despots have their way with the galaxy. The video also makes an unfair assumption that Jedi can't get information from outside sources; there is no evidence for this – in fact, we see in AOTC that Obi-Wan turns to an outside source when he can’t get the results he wants from the Temple droids, and even trusts that outside source over contradicting information coming from within the Temple’s information base (i.e., the existence of Kamino – he does not simply accept that Kamino doesn’t exist, he seeks further wisdom on the matter).

The video-author completely omits the fact that Palpatine is arrested not merely because of being "on the dark side", but because the man had orchestrated a war for his own sake and was attempting to turn the Republic into a dictatorship under his control. That is a very good reason to arrest someone.

Regarding the good versus evil section - first of all, the Jedi in the first six films never once refer to "the light side". Not once. I don’t recall if it came up in TCW (aside from the beings on Mortis, but they are not Jedi), either. Luke does refer to the "good side" in the OT but his teachers don't call it that. This point also goes against the visual metaphors that Lucas makes use of: “Color plays an extremely important part. The bad guys exist mostly in a black and white world; the good guys live in an organic world of browns and greens. Philosophically the bad guys live in an absolute world of black and white, where the good guys live in a more naturally nuanced world.” - George Lucas, the Making of ROTJ. The Jedi’s belief system is more nuanced than “this is good” and “this is bad”, and their rules and Code are not purely about morals.

The video goes back to the identity thing – but as I've already said, several Jedi are seen wearing the garments and ornamentation of their birth cultures. They also keep their birth names, and seem to value names highly given how they approach the clone troops under their command. Here’s a good post going into that even more.

The "Code" and swearing-in ceremonies he cites are not used in the films or TCW. I’m not sure where the swearing-in is sourced from, either, and the “Code” is a meditation mantra.

The things the Jedi say are not to stop complex thought – his example of Obi-Wan even at once point telling Anakin to “use the Force! Think!”, indicating that he would like for Anakin to think things through – he echoes this later in ROTS, trying to get Anakin to consider the Chancellor’s suspicious behavior. There’s also the fact that the way Yoda speaks is by George Lucas's own words, designed to get people thinking about what Yoda is saying.

Comparing meditation to hypnosis is...completely uncharitable.

And again with the emotions thing - at no point are any emotions labeled evil, nor do they avoid them - they are expected to be mindful (i.e. cognizant) of them, and to not let those emotions rule their actions. There is nothing to indicate that their teachings are the most uncharitable and extreme interpretation you can take from their words (as this video does) instead of a reasonable and healthy approach to self-control that is actually valuable psychologically.

His final claims repeat the earlier claim of “shunning” - again, there is no evidence for this behavior towards non-believers, especially as we see them having friends outside the Order. And at no point does anyone say that there is no happiness outside of the Order.

I hope I addressed all his points and sufficiently explained why they don’t match up with what we see in the source material. If you want further reading on how the Jedi actually function, with robust sources, I recommend checking out @gffa’s reference guide for the current continuity. There is also my “in defense of the jedi” tag, which collects my and others’ meta posts on the Jedi, their philosophies, and actions.

#in defense of the jedi #the jedi order #jedi order #the jedi #jedi #discussion #the jedi are not a cult

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bitcofun · 2 years

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Key Takeaways Voyager's insolvency attorneys have actually reacted to FTX's buyout proposition to buy the exchange's possessions and provide consumers instantaneous liquidity by explaining the deal as hazardous and extremely deceptive. Sam-Bankman Fried reacted by stating that the attorneys are just versus the liquidation proposition due to the fact that they wish to drain pipes Voyager's staying funds by charging charges. Voyager applied for Chapter 11 insolvency on July 6 after the notorious crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital tossed the exchange into an insolvency crisis by defaulting on a $665 million loan. Commenting on Voyager's reaction to the proposition, FTX creator and CEO Sam-Bankman Fried stated that just the personal bankruptcy legal representatives would take advantage of dragging out the procedures, while the consumers would "get fucked." Voyager Lawers Slam FTX's Buyout Offer Voyager Digital's legal representatives and FTX's Sam-Bankman Fried have actually gone into a public spat over Voyager's personal bankruptcy. In a Sunday court filing, the legal representatives representing the insolvent cryptocurrency exchange Voyager Digital reacted to a buyout proposition by the equity holder and competing company FTX to provide instantaneous liquidity to Voyager clients by calling it "extremely deceptive" and damaging. "The AlamedaFTX proposition is absolutely nothing more than a liquidation of cryptocurrency on a basis that benefits AlamedaFTX," Voyager's reaction checked out. "It's a low-ball quote dressed up as a white knight rescue." In a news release released July 22, FTX used Voyager an offer that would see Alameda Research purchase all of Voyager's crypto properties and loans-- omitting loans to the insolvent crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital-- and utilize them to supply instantaneous liquidity to clients impacted by the insolvency. Per the buyout proposition, Voyager clients would have the ability to open FTX accounts and withdraw their share of the staying possessions in money while keeping their rights and claims in the procedures. According to FTX, this would provide Voyager consumers an opportunity to instantly get some liquidity and pull out of an insolvency case that might drag out for many years and expose them to threats. However, in the other day's action to the proposition, Voyager's insolvency legal representatives stated that FTX's proposition was developed to produce promotion for itself instead of worth for the exchange's consumers. "By making its Proposal openly in a news release loaded with deceptive or straight-out incorrect claims, AlamedaFTX breached numerous responsibilities to the Debtors and the Bankruptcy Court," the reply read, additional detailing a list of reasons that the proposition "damages clients" while benefiting FTX. Commenting on Voyager's action to the buyout proposition on Twitter Monday, FTX creator and CEO Sam-Bankman Fried stated that the only celebration standing to gain from extending the personal bankruptcy procedures would be Voyager's attorneys-- not its clients. 3) Well, the standard procedure is that prior to clients get their properties back, they get fucked. First, there's a long, extracted procedure, throughout which funds are frozen. It can take years. Remember Mt. Gox? That procedure is still going on *.-- SBF (@SBF_FTX) July 25, 2022" Well, the standard procedure is that prior to consumers get their properties back, they get fucked," he stated. Instead of uncomplicated liquidation, a restructuring procedure might last and keep consumers' funds frozen for many years. In the meantime, he stated, different insolvency representatives would bleed the clients dry with seeking advice from charges, which might ultimately tally approximately countless dollars in expenses by the time the treatment is done. "The specialists, for example, most likely desire the personal bankruptcy procedure to drag out as long as possible, optimizing their costs. Our deal would let individuals declare possessions rapidly," he concluded.

Voyager submitted for a Chapter 11-- a kind of voluntary insolvency case that enables the business to restructure and keep running in order to ultimately settle its commitments-- on July 6, after Three Arrows Capital defaulted on a $665 million loan from the exchange. 3 Arrows' blowup developed a ripple of liquidity crises and insolvencies throughout the market, seriously harming business like Celsius, blockchain.com, and the Digital Currency Group. Disclosure: At the time of composing, the author of this piece owned ETH and numerous other cryptocurrencies. The info on or accessed through this site is gotten from independent sources our company believe to be precise and reputable, however Decentral Media, Inc. makes no representation or guarantee regarding the timeliness, efficiency, or precision of any info on or accessed through this site. Decentral Media, Inc. is not a financial investment consultant. We do not offer individualized financial investment guidance or other monetary guidance. The info on this site goes through alter without notification. Some or all of the info on this site might end up being out-of-date, or it might be or end up being insufficient or incorrect. We may, however are not bound to, upgrade any out-of-date, insufficient, or incorrect details. You ought to never ever make a financial investment choice on an ICO, IEO, or other financial investment based upon the details on this site, and you ought to never ever translate or otherwise count on any of the details on this site as financial investment recommendations. We highly advise that you speak with a certified financial investment consultant or other competent monetary expert if you are looking for financial investment guidance on an ICO, IEO, or other financial investment. We do decline settlement in any type for examining or reporting on any ICO, IEO, cryptocurrency, currency, tokenized sales, securities, or products. See complete terms Voyager Digital Provides Update on Recovery Plan News Jul. 11, 2022 Failing cryptocurrency financing business Voyager Digital revealed a healing prepare for users in a post today. Voyager Will Pay Out Asset Shares Following its earlier choice to suspend withdrawals, ... Voyager Digital Halts Withdrawals and Other Services News Jul. 1, 2022 Voyager Digital has actually revealed that it is briefly suspending withdrawals and most other monetary services. Voyager Suspends Most Services In an article, Voyager stated that it will momentarily suspend ... Voyager Digital Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Voyager Digital has actually applied for Chapter 11 personal bankruptcy and started the procedure of reorganizing the business to fulfill its responsibilities to lenders and consumers. The business released the news late ... Three Arrows Capital Defaults on Voyager Digital Three Arrows Capital has actually stopped working to repay $665 million in loans from Voyager Digital, which today released the company's very first notification of default. Voyager customers will not be affected ... Read More

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