#i have 0 interest in arguments resulting from this post

[darlinguistics]

'its just IMPOSSIBLE to not be addicted to your phone nowadays its UNREALISTIC-'

heres some advice to being less chronically online. for gen z (and younger??) who dont even know how to start thinking about it and have only heard shitty advice from older adults who just genuinely do not get it, from a fellow gen z and my experiences so far.

*these are personal and may not all 100% resonate but its still good prompting to start thinking about things! PLEASE feel free to add your own stories/advice in the notes! support your fellow humans, dont gatekeep what youve learned, lets have these conversations! and no negativity/pessimism please <3

first thing is to make it a less scary thought, a more concrete idea and not a hypothetical. it doesnt have to be all-or-nothing, cold turkey, a huge announcement and a fundamental shift in your personality. the internet will be in your life for the rest of your life, this is an ongoing relationship you are trying to make healthier thats all! and it takes one step at a time and some self-compassion, but a true effort nonetheless. 'dont you think thats a bit too serious-' if youre my age you quite literally grew up and developed online, it is literally part of your psyche the way your childhood is, it IS serious, you deserve to treat it seriously.

dont save your login info/dont stay logged in for social media accounts, having to manually log in when you want to go on like youre on some elementary school chrome book is a really healthy and clear boundary to have between being logged off and logged on.

-> bigger challenge - uninstall it on your phone in general, only log on on your laptop/pc if applicable for you!

if youre motivated to, try to work on your posture too. i only say that because most of our bad posture is at least partially related to being on our phones a lot, and when i started wanting to fix my posture, completely separately and unrelated from trying to break my phone addiction, it made it easier to lose interest in my phone since i didnt want to ruin my progress with my posture. it made me start to have a mindset like 'well if you cant do this on your phone with good posture then dont do it' and 'if youre on your phone so long your posture starts to cave in, youve probably spent too long on your phone anyway'

listen to music more. its easier for me to kinda write off my phone and do other things if i just open music or a podcast or long youtube video on it. i know we all love long video essays, but i recommend music more specifically for me at least because im less inclined to pause music or scroll while listening to it for some reason? whereas using a show or video or podcast for white noise, im way more likely to also be scrolling on my phone and that is my activity lol. music for some reason i dont want to interrupt and instead of being on my phone i can clean or do something productive on my computer etc

this one is sooo hard but try to fall asleep with some distance between you and your phone, even just a couple feet. mine stays on the desk next to my bed which isnt that far but its better than on bed like it used to be. when you wake up you probably wont feel like reaching for it right away if its far and even better if you have to get up for it because then at least you stand and move your body first thing instead of looking at your phone first thing. and try to get more and more of your morning routine done before touching your phone over time.

-> for me, i started by just trying to at least wake up a bit in bed before touching it, then stand up before touching it, then stand and stretch, then going to the bathroom first, making coffee first, feeding the cat first, etc. its surprisingly helpful to have a specific chore/task in mind that is The requirement so that everytime you do it you get a lil dopamine rush for unlocking your phone from yourself lmao. when the weather was nice i used to make my Requirement being outside first before going on it and i LOVED that. esp as it got easier and i started doing more and more before going on it and finally walking outside with coffee and my phone felt like such a pleasant little reward.

find a hobby that uses your hands. example: i really need to get back into knitting because when i did it regularly so much time that wouldve been on my phone was spent knitting with music/podcasts/shows/(even online lectures! when i felt productive lol) playing. its the same amount of physical relaxing - barely moving lol - but uses a longer attention span and a much better dopamine hit than scrolling, i literally MADE things.

-> you might be thinking, 'but mindless knitting isnt better than mindless scrolling is it?' but that mindless feeling on your phone is just that, mindless. the mindless feeling you get when doing something like knitting is actually closer to a flow state, which is actually incredibly good for you, like a fulfilling nutritious meal as opposed to 'empty calories' or whatever

get a widget for your homescreen that shows your screen time. i have one and of course it doesnt always stop me but seeing that time go up all day the more i use it and the pride of keeping it low is really helpful

practice grounding. in general.

spend more time on anonymous activities and have more privacy and less attachment with your 'persona' - what i mean by that is, i consider things like scrolling through tumblr (for me personally!) to be relatively harmless because i dont try to like,, brand myself here. if youre a tumblr regular you know the jokes - 0 follows, 0 notes, screaming to the void, moots you dont talk to, blorbo pfp and urls, fake names everywhere, and we're having fun! basically targeting the 'everyone is famous now' thing with this one - embrace being a nobody with no personal stakes here

-> personally ive never kept up with having social media accounts that are actually just, me irl - like a facebook or main instagram, like a locals account yknow? but i think it goes for that too - stop spending so much time trying to further personalize your online presence in the hopes of it representing you perfectly - because it never will, and it shouldnt, and you shouldnt aspire for that. your social media presence is lighthearted and incredibly surface-level, treat it like that! thats not me bashing social media either, having that mindset will make it more enjoyable bc youll be using it as it should be used!

do following/followers or camera roll/files or app purges. this is also a soft launch type of way to practice easing into a better mindset. aside from just literally getting rid of junk, the process of trying to judge whether or not you need something is good practice in mindfulness! even if you dont delete everything you feel like you maybe should, thats fine, youll do other purges in the future too. eventually youll get better at parting with things and realizing when things that feel good in a moment are actually bad for you. and it forces you to regularly check in on your more long-lasting parasocial relationships online and how theyre serving you or not

speaking of parasocial - for actual friends, if theyre irl, think about how much you interact with them online vs in person and why you think that is and how it affects you. maybe youll wanna see them more irl if possible (i promise its better for your friendship), maybe youll realize you dont need to keep tabs on them anymore (old high school acquaintances lookin at you). for celebrities and fandom things - try to think about the bare minimum content from them you could do with. you dont have to unstan all your faves and stop enjoying things - but do you need their notifications on? do you need to have a stan account? do you need them on all the platforms? do you need to have all that saved content of them? are there aspects of this that you love that could be found elsewhere?

if youre of the genre of online where you just cant help yourself from getting involved in big discussions or discourse and arguments - i recommend journaling when you get upset by something online, articulating your feelings without the idea of someone ever reading it and without the goal of 'winning' or being the most correct and logical or even the most sympathetic and morally good. take away every audience aspect of it. what is this really about for you, and why would strangers online deserve to hear your personal well-thought out opinions? why would your thoughts deserve to be simplified and misconstrued and underappreciated the way they would be in this discussion? is there even an outcome to this where you feel truly satisfied? are their people who are more worthy of hearing your thoughts who arent part of this audience? is this a conversation that is best held online where so much communicative nuance is inevitably sacrificed?

in the end these are all just practices in remembering how in control you are. and that goes for if any of these are scary or too difficult sounding too! these all become less scary if you remember that as soon as anything becomes too uncomfortable or painful, you have all the power to stop doing it, make a change, and try again later. so much of advice for quitting bad habits can be intimidating because the pressure and the shame that would come from failing scares you out of the possible benefits of trying - just go ahead and kill that shame from the jump. of course youre going to fail! you are going to have setbacks! thats part of it! you have agency in this, always. the internet is not inherently or completely evil nor good. build trust in yourself to make the calls on when it is serving you and when it isnt on a case-by-case basis, and then give yourself permission to learn through trial and error.

and remember you are worth all of this effort. i believe in us <3

#phone addiction #screen time #gen z #chronically online #i have no clue if any of these are even real tags tbh #mental health #parasocial relationships #<- very risky tag i better not get dragged into some discourse somehow #i have 0 interest in arguments resulting from this post #i am peace and love rn <3 good vibes only lol #this is also in honor of like literally all my friends saying 'less screen time' as a new years resolution lol #🌟.txt #adhd studyblr #new years #new years resolutions

[devsgames]

My Philosophy on Commissioning Art as a Game Dev (or how to avoid exploiting people when/because you have no budget)

(This post cross-posted from My Patreon, where I share development insights, prototype builds, and devlogs from my games as I work. Please consider supporting!)

The other day I was speaking to an indie developer who was complaining how prohibitively expensive it was to pay an artist to make art for their video game project; they essentially complained at length about how difficult it was to find artists who would work at affordable prices for devs, especially in contexts of working as a solo dev and being self-funded.

I won't mention their name but it was certainly a complaint that I empathized with greatly as someone who works regularly on a shoestring budget and loves collaborating with artists on my games. However, I think it's terrible (and interesting) how much awful rhetoric and exploitative thinking surrounding paying people for work has propagated through our industry even at the lowest level, and how indie devs can easily normalize the exploitative capitalist practices carried out by larger studios at a small scale.

I want to hit on some of the topics in that conversation thoughts I have on them as they relate to development, as both someone who has both been an artist taking commissions and a self-funded solo developer who has sought artists to commission for working on my game, and provide my perspective on them.

Some of the common arguments I've seen for undercutting artists:

1) "If an artist charges too much, I'll find someone else who will do it for cheaper."

Seeking out artists who charge less is the kind of behaviour that drives artists to devalue their work; other artists see someone charging less who is getting more work than they are and say "well maybe I should be charging less" and then begins the race to the bottom which results in no one getting their fair wages. Sure there's often opportunity to compromise with an artist - maybe strike a deal with them, or work out a payment plan that suits your needs - bit if you're seeking the highest quality and lowest cost then you're directly enacting patterns used by capitalist exploitation, and you as a creative need to challenge your relationship to labour and how you treat someone who is offering theirs.

There's also an underlying assumption to these statements that some artists are overcharging for their work - but understand is an exception and not a norm. The reality is that artists are exceptionally underpaid for the work they do, and finding ways to underpay them further only exacerbates the cultural issue of devaluing art and the labour artists do to create.

2) "Some artists want commercial use fees when I own the IP to the game, and it makes it too expensive. My game isn't even big/expensive enough to warrant paying commercial fees!"

Consider this from the perspective of an artist: they don't know the extent to which you're using their work, how much you're profiting from it, or how successful your game will be, or how that success will reflect on them. Many developers and commissioners, at a baseline legal level, can't be trusted to be honest or impartial about what value your project has, and any artist is within their right for charging you what they anticipate the risk or gain will be to them. Especially these days when projects can go from 0 to trending overnight, how is there any way of guaranteeing an artist is being compensated fairly for the exposure (or lack thereof) your project might provide?

The reality is that even if you think your game will be a flop or a passion project, an artist kept at arms length doesn't know that and can't risk missing compensation based on 'vibes' or your gut feeling on your game's success. Developers don't even know for sure how successful their game will be, why should an artist be expected to charge you fees appropriately in response?

On top of this, Commercial use fees aren't a one-way street and they can protect developers too; it often means you're given permission to use their works for promotional materials, logos, marketing copy, presskits and the like with their advanced permission, and can give you legal protection in the event they try to rescind that arbitrarily. It's a two-way street that empowers you to promote your work by using theirs and is well worth paying the money to them, and it can protect both parties in the event of a falling out. It isn't a random restriction in place to charge more money arbitrarily, it's there for a reason.

If commercial use fees are a problem to you, you might be inclined to seek out artists who don't charge them: once again, this is enacting the practices outlined in #1. In fact, this is even worse as now you're actively seeking artists who don't have protections for themselves in place or might not be aware of commercial fees as a concept.

In my opinion, as a developer, if you find an artist who doesn't mention commercial fees in commission prices you are morally obligated to explicitly ask them about if they charge commercial fees. It could be likely they simply aren't aware of them, and this makes them a vulnerable target to exploitation by others who approach them in the future. If they don't know about commercial use standards and you choose to commission them for a commercial work then you're taking advantage of someone's naivety which is incredibly exploitative.

3) "If my game is a breakout hit there will be more work for them later, or I can come back and pay them what they're owed after it makes money."

Even if your heart is in the perfect place, the reality is: you probably won't. I've seen well-meaning people fail to pay others for a whole host of reasons, from clerical errors, sudden bankruptcy, or even just being too dang busy and forgetting to send an email. Even if you have the money it doesn't take much to forget to connect it with someone even if you're well-meaning and you have a healthy working relationship. I've definitely been on the receiving end of this before!

Whether your project makes money or no, everyone touching it needs to be paid for the work they do on it without chasing you down. Any artist is well within their right to assume they should be paid in full, up front, for all costs and risks associated with taking on your project. Moreover as a dev who should be paying someone you simply don't know their financial reality - maybe your payment is their grocery bill this month, or maybe they're jusy needing to make rent of this relationship. It's irresponsible to try and wiggle some of that payment away from them.

As for the idea of paying an artist what they're worth later down the line: How many studios have you heard of who pays an artist for work and then comes back later to pay them royalties, without being badgered or taken to court over it? Why should an artist you're approaching assume you're the exception to this pattern? Why should someone only get paid on the condition you make enough money to pay them, as opposed to simply paying them up front for all the work you're asking them to do?

On that note...

4) "Should I consider revenue sharing?"

Most developers I know of who entertain the thought of revenue sharing have never shipped a video game before, and they assume that once the game comes out there'll be plenty of money to go around. Unfortunately not only is that not true in almost every case (especially in cases where it's a game by people haven't shipped a game before). It's also a testament to how unreliable revshare models are - how many people who plan a model around revshare survive long enough to ship a game and properly enact that model afterwards?

Per #3, it's incredibly risky as a creator to simply trust someone will pay you everything you're owed after something launches, and there's risk your stinginess is imparting on the artist. Revshare doesn't protect artists if a project flops, or outright falls apart, or you run off with their work, or your computer catches fire, and so on. You're asking them to take on unnecessary risk with revshare that would be avoided if you pay them directly, up front.

Not to mention most people don't need promises of 'payments of unknown amounts delivered 3-4 years from now', most people need 'known quantities of money given ASAP'. There's no contest in equitably here.

---

"Devon you don't understand, my game probably won't make any money! How am I supposed to find or attract artists to work on it if I can't compensate them for it?!"

So here's the harsh thesis I guess: I firmly believe if you as a game developer can't afford to commission people to make things that would fulfil the vision you have for your game then I believe you should not be creating a game that requires this art to be made in the first place. Or minimally, you need to be more willing to compromise your vision and ideas than you are willing to exploit a creative in order to maybe be able to execute that vision.

Cutting things, changing ideas and re-thinking your process is all part of the act of making games, and it's always better to do that than it is to take advantage of someone in order to get what you want. If I can't afford someone to work on my game, my process is ask myself "Okay, well then what can I do instead?" and find a way around it that doesn't involve that specific skillset, or I take time to learn that skillset myself. If I can't find a way to plan my project around this weakness it means I've done a poor job of planning something that is achievable to make by myself, and I need to rethink my plan and execute it in a way that takes into account my abilities and resources at hand - both financial and labour-wise.

At the end of the day your vision or idea is simply not worth taking advantage of anyone else's labour, or else you will easily fall into practices that exploit the labour of others.

Having to confront the reality that you can't ethically make the thing you want to make is a bummer, but don't get me wrong, not all hope is lost: Not only has there never been more free, open-source and pro-bono resources for making games available online, but there's never been more opportunities than ever learn a new skill.

If you can't find an asset or resource for free that you can twist into working for you, you might as well try learning that skill that you're trying to get someone else to do. There's tons of tutorials and free resources that will teach you all about game development and its many facets, and you might be pleasantly surprised at what you're capable of if you apply yourself towards it. If you have time to make a game you likely have time to learn a skill.

The fact of the matter is that seeking means to create what you want without compromise at the lowest possible cost is the exact behaviour pattern that is conductive to abhorrent exploitation under capitalism - it's why AAA studios seek the cheapest outsourcing studios in the global south to make assets for them who can maximize labour and minimize profit, or why so many creatives in game development in general are underpaid for their skills relative to other industries.

If you want to avoid contributing to a cycle of exploitation then you need to be aware of what that cycle is, who it takes advantage of most, and how it works. Then challenge yourself to consciously act in a way that disrupts it, or else you will risk falling into it yourself.

Thanks for reading!

#gamedev #game development #indie games #indie game #game dev #gamedevelopment #indiegames #game art #game industry #artist on tumblr #art #artists on tumblr #blog #commission #philosophy #advice

[bornetoblood]

Okay fuck it, Gehrman, Maria and the Doll Post.

Buckle in bucko cus I have lots of thoughts. This isn’t really evidenced or a lore post, it’s just a compelation of assorted Rat (tm) opinions on these three’s relationship and how it intersects with some of those delicious themes in my brain.

Gehrman, Maria and the Doll are, basically, about legacy to me- particularly Gehrman’s failure to secure the continuation of his hunters through Maria.

We know Maria as Gehrman’s apprentice, possibly one of a few but that is left vague, that he had a “curious mania” in regards to her that she was unaware of. This “mania” to me is Gehrman’s desire to keep his legacy going, his methods of hunting and the workshop (kinda like a parental figure trying to make their child a little them). This is reflected in Maria’s desire to gain strength through practice and her dexterity, not innate abilities.

They have a pretty wholesome dynamic of ‘mentor you trust enough to kinda consider your dad’ thing going if you ignore all the murder. Maria being separated from her Cainhurst family as she deliberately distances herself from them and Gehrman (who is very very family oriented to me) likes looking after people.

Maria’s acceptance of the First Hunter 2.0 role, however, runs up to the Fishing Hamlet Massacre, and then crashes.

The Hamlet and the events there forced Maria to realise the violence such a role entails. Additionally, I can see her putting two and two together about what exactly the beasts are here also. Unlike Gehrman, she doesn’t see the murder of these people as an act of mercy, and forgos her status as a hunter, throwing away the Rakuyo. This creates a divide between them and they aren’t as close ever again.

When the Healing Church gets going, they both participate. Gehrman does his whole ‘hunting from the shadows’ deal while Maria works in the research hall. They get into arguments sometimes about their different views of the hunt and its validity, and Maria’s depression progressively worsens as the Research Hall gets more violent and her crush gets slugs put in her brain. She is complicit in the Research Hall out of a desire to ease the pain of the patients and this compounds the guilt she’s still feeling from the Hamlet. This guilt, eventually, leads to her death.

Gehrman doesn’t take this very well. As a result, he gives up hunting and isolates himself; having failed in his mission to create a lineage of hunters, help Maria with what she was going through, and simply be an alright dad to her. He misconstrues Maria’s more masc presentation, her headstrong and dynamic personality, as an extension of the hunt and thus strips those qualities of her in his attempt to memorialise her.

Gehrman, foolishly, thinks that he alone is to blame for Maria’s disillusionment. He thinks that Maria would’ve been the most comfortable as a traditional feminine figure (he.... doesn’t know many women, only what he’s read in books). So this is what the Doll is- Gehrman’s attempt to atone for making Maria’s life miserable.

This is complicated when Flora brings the Doll to life to accompany Gehrman in the Dream; the Doll is nothing like Maria because they have been stripped of everything that made Maria who she was. Gehrman just avoids them as a result, effectively abandoning his wooden child without them having a clue why.

The Doll is not Maria. Although it’s implied they share some memories (or the feelings those memories evoke) and the Doll is put at ease when Maria is put to rest in the Nightmare, I see this more as Great One shenanigans than them being the same person. Flora animating the Doll with Gehrman’s memory of Maria is the most interesting take to me- he’s forgotten a lot about her and what’s left is someone unrecognisable with the same voice. 

And that’s where it stays. The Doll is an animated product of grief who unintentionally freaks Gehrman out and makes him feel sick and they have 0 idea what they’re doing wrong.

#TALK TO YOUR WOODEN DAUGHTER ASSHOLE #its just like frankenstein fr but like #really really really sad #okay #tw depression #tw suicide #the rat speaks #gehrman the first hunter #lady maria of the astral clocktower #the plain doll #moon presence #bloodborne #gehrman to me is emotionally neglectful dad who (at least with maria) was trying his.... best? #yeah we'll go best #the thematic link is the #almost destructive desire for parenthood and well #death + the cycle of abuse #gehrman makes the same mistake with the doll he did with maria and it upsets the doll #anwyay anway

[toa-ahkmou]

OOC: I think we're actually done this time.

Hello, everyone. I am @toaarcan, the writer behind both this blog, and @ghost-of-destiny. If you were a reader of either of these blogs, then you've probably noticed that everything has been very quiet for a while now.

I know some people are still enjoying what we did, because every day I get likes on some of the threads we did. And, unfortunately, I doubt there will be any more.

There's been a general decline in interest from all parties, in fact, I was one of the last ones consistently posting, as most other people just weren't around anymore. For some, Life Stuff just became too much of an obstacle. For others, the overall story was shifting in a different direction to what they'd been interested in. For some, it was just the sheer difficulty of being caught up on a story spread across a dozen blogs on a website that's actively hostile to searches.

That last one's pretty ironic considering that we were writing fanfic for a series that died because its story got too convoluted and hard to follow.

There's also another thing.

There was a D&D game. It went badly.

Actually, that's an oversimplification, but what happened was that a bunch of the most active and plot-critical players in what we referred to as "Tumblrverse" banded together to play D&D. We mostly used D&D-ified versions of our Bionicle characters and played by post on Discord. I will not be naming any names here besides my own, because I don't want this to feel like I'm airing other people's dirty laundry... but given that I have to make this disclaimer, you can probably tell that things went sideways.

At first, it worked really well! But we made one mistake right from the off: The chat was always running. It was always online. 24/7 D&D. If the DM wasn't around to make the bad guys do things, we were still active in there, chatting, shooting the breeze, and arguing. And for most of us, it took pretty much all of our creative juices.

The game, Ruins and Rahi, ran for about two years, of constant play, and things fell apart majorly toward the end, and a lot of those cracks first formed early on.

Fitting for a D&D game played by Tumblr people, there was a very "Yes, and" approach to things, and that translated to "Any player can introduce lore and suggest plot twists for their character, and everyone else just has to roll with it." We also made the critical mistake of not having a Session 0, and not establishing safety tools, so if one of these elements was an issue for someone else in the group... well, I'm sure you can figure out the rest.

Very early on, I basically introduced voluntary PvP into the game, as one of my characters had a freak-out and turned into a villain. I wanted to redeem this character, and I wanted it to be a slow, painful thing where she had to come to turns with her own morality and maybe backslide a few times. This did not work out. It mainly didn't work out because... well, I did kill another player character.

Now, this death was something the player chose to do, and was approved by the DM, and only then was it actually pitched to me. In terms of the chain of responsibility for that one, I was a solid third place of three people. Buuuut that didn't mean that it didn't become basically My Fault for the rest of the game.

This resulted in a lot of arguments, that ran for hours on end, and that's a problem in D&D because of character bleed.

In any D&D game, the player's personality and morality will bleed into their character. You've got to be real damn good to avoid it. This is why almost none of my evil characters stay evil. I just can't do it for long periods of time. And this means that, if you start having arguments in-character about the actions those characters took, eventually... you're just yelling at your friends. Often for things that either weren't entirely their fault, or weren't their fault at all.

By the time the game staggered to a close, everyone was kinda mad at each other, and there was no way to save it. The bad choices we'd all made without really talking to each other about it in advance finally became too heavy to ignore. Three of us dipped in quick succession and it collapsed in on itself.

And when you've spent several months wallowing in bitterness and half-sniping at each other, another collaborative writing project is somewhat hard to jump back into. Especially when you then make the collective decision to partake in a dedicated Discord channel for... oversharing and it immediately devolves into more sniping, this time without any veneer of roleplaying as someone else.

This is, in part, an open apology for the things I said and did during those few months, because I don't like the version of myself I became during that time. We were having fun with it until suddenly we weren't and it went too far. And it's left a bunch of us with irreconcilable differences and a few scars that mean that some of us just can't or won't talk to each other anymore. Like there are those among our number that literally can't be in the same space as each other anymore, and I've had to talk about R&R with my therapist, because as much as I'm still attached to some of the characters and some of the narrative, the way things fell apart is something that I dread a repeat of, both on my end, and on others'.

We made a few more attempts to get things rolling again on here after that. In fact, the False Flag megathread was entirely post-R&R, if I'm remembering right. But the life had gone out of it. False Flag was basically the only thread happening, and it slowed and slowed and slowed until it wasn't updating anymore either. I suggested maybe retooling the ending to turn it into more of a conclusion, but nothing more was done.

The Discord channel we used to use to plan stuff has been dead since May. We weren't talking about new threads, but about why the whole thing fell apart and what we could do to replace it. No suggestions for the latter stuck.

I think we're done. Not just me, but everyone else too.

ToaArcan, player of Ahkmou and Matoro, signing off.

#Bionicle RP #Tumblrverse #Bionicle Tumblrverse #Bionicle #Bonkles

[a-student-out-of-time]

dont know if you been asked this but i am curious

would you genuinely consider sdra2 a bad fangan/story?like what rating would you exactly give it if you can,what are the major positives and negatives in your eyes?

//I don't think SDRA2's a bad fangan, it's just a deeply flawed one. I know I complain about it a lot, and that's because LINUJ is capable of great writing. He just has this weird habit of undercutting his work for inexplicable reasons ^^;

//As for the big pros and cons of SDRA2 in my opinion?

+ Overall, the cast, at least for the first two chapters, is pretty solid and I like their dynamics. They're all pretty well-written and nobody feels flat + I like how this game utilizes the Neo World Program as more than just a setting, but integrates its mechanics into the plot as well + The decision to reveal Mikado as the mastermind from the very beginning was a good one, allowing us to get to know him as this theatrical villain through the whole game + Having essentially four traitors in the group was also an interesting idea and changed up the dynamic + The character drama concerning Sora and Yuki, especially in Chapter 5, is really well done, especially with how it connects back to the first game + I really enjoyed Hibiki's character growth in the first half of the game + Sora and Yoruko's relationship is fantastic + Having the characters from Chapter 6.5 of DRA really feels like it has a nice bit of continuity to things

-Even if it had some different elements, I personally would've enjoyed it better if the Another games didn't keep following up the canon ones with the exact same setting ideas, going from Hope's Peak to an island -The game doesn't have a solid theme. It's supposed to be about Progress vs. Result, but this is only apparent through dialogue, rather than made clear through the actual narrative and events of the story. Actually trying to follow the story's events to find a cohesive theme will just leave you floundering. -Most of the cast unfortunately feels superfluous, as the story is mostly centered on the Voids and Utsuro. Hibiki sadly gets the worst of it there, where her story feels less like a tragedy and more like a meaningless death for the sake of having a shocking twist -Chapters 3, 4, and 6 are very weak compared to the rest of the game. One is almost completely irrelevant to the actual story, one was rewritten to avoid being too similar to another fangan and one is stuffed to the gills with exposition and infodumps because of the latter two. - Kanade. She's overrated, poorly-written shock bait, and the more you go back and re-experience the story of SDRA2, the more you can see how pointless she really is as a character. She either shouldn't be there at all or Chapter 3 should've been rewritten to actually have her expose one of the Voids. That might actually convince me that she's supposed to be smart -While I understand why it happens, a lot of the characters get far too mean, bitter, argumentative or villainous for me to get invested. Iroha is basically useless, does nothing but cry and whine and depend on others, and yet survives to the end without a drop of character development. Kokoro honestly gets the worst of it in Chapter 0, to the point that it feels borderline ableist to me. -The Sixth Trial feels like it veers off too much into "Yes, but" territory, where we constantly cycle between problem and solution, and it gets really repetitive. Having Sora win thanks to having Divine Luck at least doesn't feel like too much of a cop out, given that it's literally the focal point of the story, but it still felt like things were drawn out too long and there was too little foreshadowing on a lot of elements for them not to feel like they came out of left field. -LINUJ's weird insistence with undercutting the emotional core of many of the characters' arcs, which you can see especially in the character profiles and blog posts. It feels like a bad cast of telling and not showing, where he tells us that we shouldn't feel sympathy for people like the Voids, that people like Syobai never change and that Kanade's entire personality revolves around her sister. All of it undermines the actual story if you read them. -Sora keeps sisterzoning Yoruko and I have no idea why

#mod talks #a student out of time #sdra2 #super danganronpa another 2

[1merfairy]

I posted 38,819 times in 2022

19 posts created (0%)

38,800 posts reblogged (100%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@lizluvscupcakes

@galahadwilder

@megamindsupremacy

@yharnamsnewslug

@theriverstyxx

I tagged 1,977 of my posts in 2022

#partial nudity - 225 posts

#mushed rooms my beloved <3 &lt;3 <3 - 200 posts

#toh spoilers - 137 posts

#bugs - 120 posts

#insects - 118 posts

#unreality - 118 posts

#religion - 79 posts

#religion mention - 57 posts

#body horror - 56 posts

#sims 4 cc - 49 posts

Longest Tag: 137 characters

#he tried so hard to be the guy with the gadgets that swoops in and helps villains but he got beat up by batgirl and never lived that down

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

🦀 time for crab 🦀

today i summoned 170 crabs! look at them!

🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀

7 notes - Posted April 1, 2022

#4

Me in the morning: Uuuuuhgggggg I'm so borrrrred!!! Nothing is interesting smh

Me at 2:00 am: LOOK AT BLORBO FROM MY SHOWS!!! MY BRAIN IS LIKE SODA IN A PAINT SHAKER THINKING ABOUT MY BLORBOS!!!!!

7 notes - Posted March 21, 2022

#3

Fandom Writing Prompt

You know what would be an interesting crossover au? Wifeswap but with your favorite blorbos. Doesn’t necessarily have to be a housewife-type character, but it would probably make the concept more translatable into a prompt. Maybe it would work best with some kind of mentor/authority figure?

Same general rules as the show. The first week the character that crosses over has to follow the ‘rules’ of the media they’ve been transplanted into. Then, once that week is over, the person that crosses over changes the ‘rules’ and does activities they’d normally do in their source material with the other characters

Bonus points if the physics/other laws of how the world function changes with the rule change. Like jumping off a bridge results in a broken arm, and not a character comically turning into a puddle

Feel free to tag various fandoms in the tags

10 notes - Posted April 28, 2022

#2

17 notes - Posted April 1, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Anti-Shipper’s way of arguing has a lot of similarities to the alt-right’s “Never Play Defense” style of argument

I was re-watching this video again for the sake of refreshing my memory, and noticed quite a few patterns in the ways I’ve seen antis interact with proshippers.

For one thing, antis have a tendency to place proshippers in the same box as pedophiles and MAPs. You can see this in how they often put these groups in the same bullet points in their DNIs, and use the words interchangeably in their callout posts.

These create mental shortcuts for deciding whether or not to listen to someone. And antis feel justified in making these kinds of shortcuts, because nobody wants to listen to a pedophile, lest they be drawn in by their arguments become some kind of apologist.

Very few left leaning people (at least, in my experience) want to betray survivors by listening to the enemy, and those who have experienced abuse themselves don’t want to become their abusers either.

There is this underlying fear of becoming what they hate most that drives antis to do the things they do. They will do every thing they can to fight against this fear, no matter the cost.

Some of the most passionate and vitriolic antis I’ve seen are survivors of abuse themselves. That doesn’t excuse all the suicide baiting, harassment, and doxxing, of course. Though, it does explain why they are like this.

I know a lot of proshippers on here like to characterize antis as people who can’t tell fiction from reality, and when you get to the more extreme ends of radicalization, that can be true to a certain extent.

At the very end of radicalization, it’s not that they feel like they’re saving the character from whatever ‘problematic’ piece of fiction that was made of that character.

It’s that they believe that the venn diagram between people who enjoy problematic fiction and irl abusers is a circle. Anyone who claims that they’re not irl abusers are either apologists, future abusers, or abusers that haven’t been caught yet.

It doesn’t matter whether they have proof or not. The fact that they like problematic things in fiction is a big enough red flag to (in their minds) justify any kind of harassment, suicide baiting, reports to the police, and doxxing.

This whole mindset plays into the “Never Play Defense” style of argument because antis don’t care how well thought out your argument is. It doesn’t matter how you’ve never hurt anyone irl, becuase in their eyes, you’re already guilty.

They already decided that they’re not going to listen, because they already have this idea in their heads that you’re just trying to manipulate them into falling into a slippery slope that ends with them thinking abuse is okay.

Their harassment has two purposes.

One is catharsis. That feeling of actually doing something to fight against the ‘evil’ in this world, and making the world a safer place for survivors. Of course, that’s not actually what they’re doing, but that’s what it feels like to them.

The other is to indicate to anyone who see the argument that they should put the person being accused into a box as well. They should not take anything the accused says as fact, because they are a pedophile/abuser/other bad thing, and if you give them the benefit of the doubt, then you are an apologist.

When accusations come out, antis take questions about the evidence and any attempts to get the other side of the story as an attack, and in response launch one of their own.

While some may see their screaming and ranting as a sign that they are being suspicious, others may think that the person asking the question was actually asking in bad faith in order to upset the accuser. 

I’m not saying bad faith questions don’t exist, of course. I’m saying that you cannot decide who is right and who is wrong based on emotions alone. To do that, you need a much deeper understanding of logical fallacies than buzzwords you’ve seen floating around on the internet, but that is an essay for another day.

20 notes - Posted February 18, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #pro ship discourse #proship discourse #Youtube

[pazodetrasalba]

Male Desire -its Political Economy

Dear Caroline:

There are two layers in this post which I would like to reflect upon separately. One is the discourse(s) about what attracts us males, and the other has to do with the subjective self-assessment of past You.

The first layer is pretty straightforward, even if the topic itself is not. We would need to start clarifying what exactly we are talking about: sexual attraction/lust, relationships, love? Then, even beyond that, we would have to ask ourselves if any generalization on such a large and diverse set as 'men' could produce any meaningful common thread.

So, for example, the following could be a modest proposal about the minimum ground state of male desire which pretty much agrees with the PUA narrative and assumes the alternative to be an example of wishful thinking. It could be postulated that men's inner gears are primed to react to a certain level of physical attractiveness, which roughly classify all the women they encounter into three equivalence classes: [0], which includes women they find completely unappealing, [1], which includes women they don't find attractive but with whom, under certain circumstances, they would have casual sex with, and [2] women they lust for, in whatever degree. The classes aren't completely discrete though, and there can be some mobility. Being placed in [0] basically means that no matter what that person's other attributes may be, to whatever extent, they just wouldn't be considered an option for an intimate or romantic liaison.

(As an afterthought, the criteria for deciding female attractiveness, whether a result of nature or nurture, tend to be depressingly homogeneous, which means that any group of men I have ever encountered tend to have a very similar classification for all the women we know. There is some scope for variance, of course -maybe even as high as 20%, say? But as in literary canons, there would be little to no discussion about the highest ranked).

Now, if we move from mere lust to dating and long-term relationships, I'd say the model does change considerably; We would start in class [2], which is itself incredibly diverse, and aspects like intelligence, agreeableness, common interests and goals or accessibility would then come into play, and even outperform beauty. Here, intelligence can be seen as an attractive attribute (it is, in fact, one of the most important for me), modulo it being one of the characteristics of the man himself, and probably an effect of human narcissism and like-calling-to-like. And yet it can still cause some issues. If the woman is perceived as much more intelligent than the man, I think this would be a handicap for him because of cultural and social expectations that, even if deeply unliked, still play an important role. As in a Jane Austen novel, women still expect to 'marry above their station', and tend to look for a similar but outperforming partner. You've written about this yourself in another of your blog posts.

Now these are what I'd call my updated priors, and being of a deontological inclination, I would disagree with your willingness, 'on the margin', to accept an argument I feel to be wrong whatever its positive consequences might be. What is more, you could make a purely utilitarian rejection of it: men presumably are not going to stop following their inclinations however much you try to indoctrinate them.

As for the second layer, you have me completely perplexed. If you are not being tongue-in-cheek, and I don't think you are (otherwise, your receptiveness to red-pill discourse would make little sense), your old self-perceptions seem a bit mixed up. Like in what universe would you not be considered smart, unless we are playing with words (in fact, English has a lot of synonyms with subtle nuances in meaning: intelligent, clever, smart, wise, bright...)? The only possible explanation I could have for this is that you didn't consider yourself smart enough -it always depends on whom we are comparing ourselves to-. As for the 'I'm pretty hot' bit, well... for me you are physically attractive, but I suspect this is not necessarily a commonly shared view, and I can't believe your teenage peers would have been in possession of a different mindset from that of the masses.

Anyway, I think you pretty much solved this Gordian knot by moving on to a very specific and niche community which optimizes for all your best traits, and exploiting your competitive advantages also goes to show what a really clever girl you are.

Quote:

Now, I'm not going to deny that I was aware of your beauty. But the point is, this has nothing to do with your beauty. As I got to know you, I began to realise that beauty was the least of your qualities. I became fascinated by your goodness.

Choderlos de Laclos

#caroline ellison #desire #intelligence

[offender42085]

Post 0097

Cameron Coyle Herrin; Florida Inmate U60981, born 1999, incarceration intake in June 2021 at age 21, scheduled release July 2044

Homicide, Negligent Manslaughter with a Vehicle, 

Recklessly speed racing, at age 18 in May 2018, on a popular public street in Tampa Florida resulted in vehicular homicide and the killing of a visiting tourist mother aged 24, and her only daughter aged 21 months; leaving her husband widowed and alone.

Days away from his graduation from a private school, his parents awarded him with a brand-new Mustang.  It was this car that caused the accident.  At the time of sentencing it was disclosed that data downloaded from the so-called ‘black box’ of his new car indicated several occasions of driving in excess of 150 mph on area freeways in the days before the event.  He was speed racing with fellow classmate, John Barrineau; Florida inmate G60981.  (Interesting quirk, their individual DOC identification numbers are the same excepting for the first prefixing letter.)

The matter proceeded for 2 and ½ years.  In the days before Barrineau was preparing for trial scheduled in the first week of January 2021, Barrineau and his attorney appeared to have struck a deal with the state for a reduced sentence in exchange for cooperation.  Terms of the plea agreement required him to provide testimony in the criminal proceedings against Herrin.  Barrineau, as the other racer, did not strike and kill the victims.  Barrineau was sentenced to 6 years imprisonment, to be followed by 15 years of probation.  

At a proceeding a few months after Barrineau surrendered to custody, Herrin was sentenced to 24 years, 9 years for the adult and 15 years for the young child.  It is clear from Herrin’s physical reaction at the sentencing hearing that he was expecting a much shorter sentence than what he received. Notice in the 6th photo above for his reaction to a tougher sentence. 

Herrin’s sentence was appealed with the primary argument that the other defendant in the event got a much lighter and disproportionate sentence.   In his arguments before the appellate court, Herrin’s lawyer closed his remarks by saying this is the case that keeps him up nights. The appellate court affirmed the sentence in a 3-0 vote of the judges, without any written legal opinion.  In Florida it is common for the appellate court not to write opinions that affirm the actions of the trial court.  

Press accounts indicate that Herrin’s family sold their home and downsized to a smaller home worth $300k less, presumptively to pay for legal fees and settle civil claims. Herrin appears to have lived a rather comfortable if not charmed life, with access to private education and affluent surroundings.  It is even remarkable that his date of birth, 09-09-99 seems ominous. 

The Final Opportunity 

In November 2022, In what was described as the "final opportunity" to reduce Cameron Herrin's sentence, a Hillsborough County judge declined to approve a motion for reconsideration.  Hillsborough Circuit Judge Christopher Nash formally rejected the request, according to court records. The motion was filed August 2022, in which Herrin's attorney, John Fitzgibbons, used suspended State Attorney Andrew Warren's voicemail as an argument to reduce the sentence.

Soon after Herrin was sentenced to 24 years in prison in 2021, Warren left a voicemail for Fitzgibbons, criticizing the sentence.  

In this voice mail, he said:  "Hey, John. It's Andrew Warren. It's about 4:30 on Friday. I just wanted to reach out and follow up after yesterday. Um, I, yes, call me at your convenience. Nothing urgent. Just wanted to share my thoughts on what happened yesterday. I tell ya, I was, uh surprised and even disappointed by the sentence. I thought it was excessively harsh. Um, but just wanted to follow up with you when you get a chance. This is my cell phone [redacted]. Uh, call me at your convenience."

In the motion, Fitzgibbons also noted this is Herrin's "final opportunity" for a modified sentence. In Judge Nash's response, he acknowledged that Warren "criticized the very sentence his office had requested just one day earlier." Ultimately, the judge chose to deny the bid for a lesser sentence.

After the judge rejected the motion, a spokesperson for Warren provided the following statement: "As I’ve said, it’s no secret that I was surprised by the judge’s sentence because he went above the statutory guidelines. But our job was to hold the defendants accountable and deliver justice for Jessica and Lillia, and that’s exactly what we did."

State guidelines suggested Herrin could get 18 years of prison time, though his lawyer argued for less.

In August 2022, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis removed Warren from office under accusations of being soft on crime and having violated his oath of office. In a press conference following his suspension, Warren was asked about Herrin's appeal and the assertion that he supported a lower sentence.

Beyond calling Warren's statements irrelevant to the appeal, the state also pointed out in its response that Warren, at no time, raised official objections to Herrin's sentence.

"Mr. Warren never spoke on the record nor made an appearance in Court on behalf of the State of Florida during Defendant Herrin’s case. Neither the State of Florida nor Mr. Warren objected to the sentence the Court imposed. Despite invitations to do so, neither the State of Florida nor Mr. Warren joined in any post-sentencing motions or petitions Defendant Herrin sought regarding his sentence," the state attorney's office wrote.

In the last paragraph of his order, the Judge who sentenced Herrin and reviewed the petition to reconsider the imposed sentence wrote:  Mr. Herrin is not entitled to an appeal of this Order.    

Seems the matter is done.

1z

[stalkfilm]

𝗪𝗛𝗢  𝗪𝗔𝗦  𝗥𝗘𝗦𝗣𝗢𝗡𝗦𝗜𝗕𝗟𝗘  𝗙𝗢𝗥  𝗪𝗛𝗔𝗧?      —      𝘈  𝘚𝘊𝘙𝘌𝘈𝘔  𝟤  𝘎𝘜𝘐𝘋𝘌.

exactly  what  it  says  on  the  tin    (  or  the  title  )      —      in  this  post  i’m  going  to  be  breaking  down  the  events  of  scream  2  and  delving  into  mickey’s  role  in  each  crime.  i  made  a  similar  post  on  my  archive  and  the  general  consensus  was  that  people,  especially  those  not  as  well-versed  in  mickey’s  canon,  found  the  insight  it  provided  to  be  helpful  so  that’s  why  i’m  here  again  for  take  two.  

   with  the  exception  of  scream  3,  the  scream  movies  all  follow  the  pattern  of  two  killers  conspiring  together      —      in  the  case  of  scream  2,  it’s  debbie  loomis  and  mickey  altieri  who  team  up  to  don  the  infamous  ghostface  costume.  naturally,  two  killers  per  movie  tends  to  raise  the  question  amongst  fans:  who  was  responsible  for  each  kill?      —      unsurprisingly,  it’s  mickey  doing  a  lot  of  the  grunt  work  in  scream  2,  but  i’m  getting  ahead  of  myself;  let’s  look  at  this  one  scene  at  a  time.

   𝘮𝘢𝘶𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘯  𝘦𝘷𝘢𝘯𝘴  &  𝘱𝘩𝘪𝘭  𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘴.  our  first  two  unlucky  victims;  these  two  sweethearts  meet  their  grisly  end  at  an  advance  screening  of  stab.  maureen  doesn’t  particularly  want  to  be  there  but  phil  reminds  her  that  hey,  at  least  their  tickets  were  free.  there’s  no  official  confirmation  but  it  can  be  reasonably  assumed  that  a  certain  film  student  was  the  one  who  hooked  phil  up  with  two  freebie  tickets;  especially  when  you  consider  the  fact  that  mickey  had  selected  maureen  and  phil  as  victims  well  in  advance  and  needed  to  ensure  they  would  be  in  the  exact  location  he  wanted  them  to  be  that  night.  it  can  also  be  assumed  that  both  mickey  and  deb  were  in  attendance  at  the  theatre  that  night,  as  the  footage  that  the  killer  took  of  maureen  and  phil  we  see  later  in  the  movie  was  shot  from  the  passenger  window  of  a  car.  the  most  logical  explanation?  mickey  was  recording  and  debbie  was  in  the  driver’s  seat,  likely  ready  to  act  as  a  getaway  driver.  

   now  for  the  actual  murders.  the  scoreboard  is  currently  reading  mickey  2  -  debbie  0  as  mickey  is  responsible  for  both  deaths  here.  phil  is  the  first  to  die,  the  method  of  murder    (  driving  a  knife  through  a  bathroom  stall  divider  and  into  phil’s  ear  )    pretty  much  being  enough  to  confirm  that  this  was  mickey,  simply  due  to  the  sheer  amount  of  physical  strength  the  killer  would  need.    moreover,  since  mickey  also  changes  into  phil’s  clothes  to  sneak  into  the  movie  screening,  it  just  makes  a  lot  more  sense  that  he  would  be  the  one  to  kill  him.  

   as  for  maureen,  we  know  for  a  fact  that  this  one  was  all  on  mickey.  we  see  ghostface  deceive  her  by  wearing  her  boyfriend’s  clothes,  fooling  her  into  thinking  it’s  phil  for  just  long  enough  to  be  able  to  attack.  as  an  aside,  it’s  interesting  to  note  that  this  is  one  of  the  riskiest  kills  of  the  franchise,  taking  place  in  an  extremely  crowded  cinema.  the  audience  doesn’t  know  it  yet  but  this  is  a  nice  allusion  to  mickey  being  the  culprit  as  he  is  the  only  ghostface  who  actively  wants  to  be  caught  and  go  to  trial  for  his  crimes.

   𝘤𝘪𝘤𝘪  𝘤𝘰𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘳.  some  people  try  to  attribute  this  murder  to  debbie  but  as  far  as  i’m  concerned,  it’s  pretty  concrete  that  debbie  was  the  one  on  the  phone  and  mickey  was  the  one  who  attacked  and  killed  cici.  why  am  i  so  sure?  four  major  reasons.      —      a)  we  know  there  have  to  be  two  killers  involved  as  at  the  exact  moment  we  see  one  ghostface  sneak  into  the  sorority  house,  another  is  talking  on  the  phone  to  cici.  logically  it  just  makes  more  sense  that  if  both  debbie  and  mickey  were  present  at  the  sorority  house  and  hiding  in  the  bushes,  debbie  would  be  the  one  to  make  the  call  while  mickey,  who  is  physically  stronger  and  is  more  likely  to  know  the  layout  of  the  house,  goes  inside.  b)  the  way  in  which  cici  was  lifted  into  the  air  and  thrown  off  of  the  balcony  would  requite  a  level  of  physical  strength  that  i  just  can’t  see  debbie  as  having.  c)  ghostface  is  significantly  taller  than  cici  -  far  more  in  line  with  the  height  of  mickey  than  debbie.  c)  we  hear  the  killer  grunt  several  times  during  the  attack  and  if  you  listen,  those  grunts  are  100%  male.  

   similarly,  i  believe  the  same  method  was  adopted  for  the  subsequent  attack  on  sidney;  debbie  likely  made  the  phone  call  while  mickey  was  the  one  to  physically  attack.  while  we  see  mickey  leave  the  house  with  everyone  else  shortly  before  the  call,  i  think  the  odds  of  him  retrieving  his  costume  from  a  hidden  location  and  doubling  back  are  far  more  likely  than  debbie  making  the  call  from  the  front  porch.  af  course,  mickey  could  be  the  one  of  the  phone  in  this  instance  but  i  think  youtuber  zack  cherry  made  a  compelling  argument  for  debbie  being  responsible  for  every  phone  call  as  the  one  in  control.

   𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘺  𝘮𝘦𝘦𝘬𝘴.  this  is  the  only  death  that  mickey  played  no  part  in.    it’s  confirmed  in  canon  that  mrs  loomis  killed  randy  in  a  fit  of  rage  after  he  began  badmouthing  billy.    she  was  responsible  for  both  the  call  and  the  kill,  with  mickey  not  being  present.

   𝘵𝘩𝘦  𝘥𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴  𝘳𝘦𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘴𝘢𝘭  &  𝘭𝘪𝘣𝘳𝘢𝘳𝘺  𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴.  don’t  think  that  just  because  mickey  wasn’t  involved  in  randy’s  murder  he  wasn’t  keeping  busy.  There’s  a  lot  of  uncertainty  amongst  viewers  regarding  the  dress  rehearsal  attack  and  whether  it  really  happened  or  if  it  was  simply  a  hallucination  sidney  was  having.  personally,  i  consider  the  fact  we  actually  see  ghostface  leaving  the  stage  to  be  a  decent  indicator  that  it  did  really  happen,  especially  as  soon  after  we  learn  that  mickey  was  supposed  to  be  on  duty  next  to  watch  sidney  but  had  switched  shifts  with  derek  because  he  ‘had  to  edit’.  once  again,  this  brazen  display  of  recklessness  (  attacking  sidney  on  stage  )  serves  as  a  hint  that  the  killer  isn’t  worried  about  the  prospect  of  being  caught.  after  this  attack  it’s  still  not  time  for  a  break,  mickey  makes  his  way  over  to  the  library  where  he  later  sends  sidney  threatening  messages  over  the  computer.  

   𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘦𝘳  𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘦𝘸𝘴  &  𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘦𝘳  𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘴.  we  know  from  canon  that  debbie  was  the  ghostface  terrorising  gale  and  dewey  on  campus  while  mickey  was  the  one  who  went  in  pursuit  of  sidney.  he  attacked  both  officers,  slashing  the  throat  of  officer  andrews  and  hitting  officer  richards  with  the  police  car.      ultimately  it  was  a  metal  pipe  being  driven  through  his  skull  that  killed  richards,  but  this  was  as  a  direct  result  of  mickey’s  driving  .

𝘩𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘦  𝘮𝘤𝘥𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘦𝘭.  this  death  follows  immediately  on  from  the  last  two,  with  mickey  breaking  out  some  sick  stealth  moves  to  catch  hallie  off  guard  and  stab  her  four  times.    this  is  the  final  murder  before  the  big  reveal  .

𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘬  𝘧𝘦𝘭𝘥𝘮𝘢𝘯.  considering  this  one  takes  place  after  mickey’s  identity  is  revealed,  there’s  really    no  need  for  discussion  on  who  was  responsible  here.    but  shooting  his  best  friend  in  the  chest?  brutal.

as  you  can  see,  despite  technically  being  debbie’s  accomplice,  mickey  did  the  majority  of  the  dirty  work.  ah  well,  at  least  he  gets  to  take  a  dirt  nap  now.

#THIS GOT SO LONG WTF #does it even make sense? who knows #long post // #´ 🔪 ﹠ headcanon. ━━━ 𝘪 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘮𝘺 𝘸𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘧𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘦 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘶𝘵. ❞ #˚・` 🔪 ﹠ study. ━━━ mickey is a sick fuck who wants to get caught. ❞

[oraclememehacker]

I’m going to shill a little bit and gauge reaction here! Cause I can of course. Here are my OC’s that I’ve created over the past years and a little explanation about them.

Adelina Fincher: Age 34, My Ace Attorney OC

She’s a prosecutor for the district of Los Angeles but didn’t originally live there. Her parents are Katherine and Victoria Fincher, highly regarded actors and noted perfectionists. As a kid she was emotionally neglected and abused by her parents who never found anything that she did good enough. This lead her to be more closed off and barely made any friends because she was too busy trying to please her unpleasable parents.

She wanted to be a prosecutor growing up because of law shows but her parents insisted she become an actor like they were and she learned a lot about playing a role because of them. However, she eventually convinced them that she would go to college and get her law degree, and that they would help pay for it. On one condition. She’d get a 4.0 GPA. And she did! At the expense of her social life again aside from 1 friend. But when she graduated she was saddled with a ton of debt because her parents were broke and were going after her for money.

She is straight forward, honest and doesn’t hold anything back. She is also sharp witted and is able to figure out things about people when they are holding back from her. She also has a crippling addiction to pepsi and drinks a 12 pack during court. It takes her a while to warm up to people because of trust issues (her parents betrayed her, she’s had others betray her and so on). But if you break her shell she is very friendly and cracks all sorts of puns and jokes.

Elly Lane: Age 25, a trans female OC

Growing up in San Diego California well before she came out as trans, Elly lived a relatively normal life, though her parents were highly religious. One time as a joke she was forced to wear a dress as a humiliation tactic and she found that she actually found it quite comfortable and that was the start to her becoming trans, though it would be a long time before she realized what it meant. As she grew up, she wore dresses more and more, having to hide them from the prying eyes of her parents who were convinced that she was mentally ill and needed to be subjected to some form of conversion therapy.

Elly took refuge behind a computer screen and is a massive fan of anime and manga. Her favorite Anime/manga of all time is a made up for her anime series called Princess Rikako, a series about a Princess with the ability to shape shift into whatever she wanted, albeit with more realistic limitations to it in terms of being able to change back. It was also a big part of what made her come out as trans. In person she is soft spoken and quick to emotional outbursts, usually tears because getting overwhelmed emotionally is very easy to happen to her.

Online though she is argumentative and defensive of her favorite shows. Japan and it’s culture are her favorite things and she has spent years learning to speak and write and read Japanese on her own, and while she’s not perfect, she was able to go to Japan on vacation and that’s when she eventually came out as trans. In the rp universe I have with her on discord she met up with Ren/Akira and Futaba in Akihibara and eventually became friends with the phantom thieves, and was able to get a job at Leblanc Cafe and stay in Japan whilst working towards her naturalized citizenship. And is currently in the midst of transitioning.

Valerie Mable, Age 33. My buff girl OC

Growing up in Minneapolis Minnesota Valerie grew up to a relatively poor family who didn’t have much to their name and as a result she valued food because it was scarce. However there come a point where her family ran across a large sum of money and her life turned around instantly. No longer was food and essentials something that had to be treasured but instead it was something that she could just have whenever. That resulted in her eating a lot and gaining a lot of weight. Even though she is 6′0 she was seen as very fat, being over 350 lbs at one point in her life.

She wanted to be a lawyer, a defense attorney and ended up going to the same college that Adelina did and she considered Adelina her only friend there, and was defended against when her weight was used for bullying. Despite being roomates with Adelina the two didn’t talk as much as expected and when Valerie graduated she didn’t even get to say goodbye to her friend. She went on a mission to lose weight and ended up developing anorexia as a result and nearly dying having lost a ton of weight in such a short period of time.

Afterwards she got her life back together and devoted herself to fitness where she became the buff fitness guru that she is today. She is a defense attorney in the district of Minneapolis and holds herself in high esteem, and will put your ass to work if she feels that you need a good workout. She is open about her jealousy towards other women and seeing buff women was the reason why she became so fit in the first place.

Leiko Enomoto, Age 23, my crazy destruction filled OC

Currently going to the same college that Makoto Nijima is, she is currently working on her degree to become an architectural designer. Her goal is to create the tallest structure in the world and she already has a mockup in blender to show this design. Plus she has worked on designs for buildings like big bang burger. As a kid she was rambunctious and a hard time for her parents but she was still loved regardless. Part of this was because of her then undiagnosed ADHD.

When she was little she played around in her father’s workshop and had a hot piece of iron fall on her face and that created a permanent crescent moon shaped scar on her face. She is reckless and often gets herself injured for various reasons. Her parents were killed in a burglary gone wrong and she was sent to live with her grandparents who did their best to take care of her despite her ways. Eventually she was diagnosed with ADHD but by then she was just seen as a nuisance by a lot of people. And she played into that, cursing and swearing a lot, dying her hair multiple colors, the picture has her with rainbow colors but she also does warm and cool colors depending on her mood.

She is a tinkerer by nature, working on such things as a custom battery for a power wheels jeep, a custom vibrator (she is really open about her sexualness and is a proud bisexual, she’ll talk about using her toys out in the open) a potato cannon and a flamethrower. Her tinkering keeps her mind occupied along with the work she does in blender for buildings. She loves explosions and watches action flicks just for the destruction.

These are my OC’s that I’ve made since 2017 and I want to know if anyone is interested in me doing a blog with them! I’ve been rping with them with my SO for a long time now (Leiko is my newest) and been a really enjoyable time. If I need to I will put this in a readmore because this post is rather long. Thanks for reading if you had the attention span to do so! And please ask if you have any questions.

#text #Shameless Plug (Self Promo) #Looking Into the Source Code (OOC) #My OCs #Long Post

[wtfockenglish]

Flemish article

This article about wtFock was posted on a Flemish blog. It’s very interesting and definitely worth a read. I’ve highlighted the part about season 3 and other interesting parts.

https://www.charliemag.be/zin-in/wtfock/#0

English version

Why wtFock is the youth series that we’ve needed since forever.

Bingewatcher extraordinaire Charlotte knows Netflix by heart, speaks fluent internet and thinks in memes. In her section 'Bingewatch Bitch' she discusses valuable, useless, hilarious and very serious things that pass by on her screen. This time: a hymn to the youth series wtFOCK.

You have undoubtedly read about it in recent weeks: wtFOCK is conquering the screens of young people all over Flanders. With more than 2.5 million online views in the first two weeks of its current season, the program leaves other youth series far behind. This is due to the interesting storylines and the brilliant online strategy of the series. And in addition to a well thought out and implemented concept, it is also socially relevant. More than enough reasons for me to follow the series closely for three seasons.  

WtFOCK is the Flemish remake of the Norwegian SKAM, the brainchild of director Julie Andem, who traveled through Norway for six months to talk to young people about their dreams and fears. This resulted in four seasons with stories that adolescents could really empathize with. With its way of broadcasting, the series did not care at all about the unwritten television laws: the different scenes were put online in 'real-time' - if the main character experienced something at 2.05 am, the fragment came out at 2.05 am. At the end of the week, the videos were bundled together in an episode.  The series had an unprecedented success in Norway and became a worldwide phenomenon with remakes in Spain, the United States and Germany, among others.

Those remakes remain true to the real-time concept and the main plot points of the story, but often also give their own interpretation. For example, the German version Druck introduced a transgender character (played by a trans actor!).  And the Spanish SKAM got a storyline about two girls who fall in love, where in the other versions it is two boys. wtFock also plays with the scenario, to let it fit more into it’s Antwerp setting.  Just like the original version, it is very close to the world of young people. And that is nót a copy-paste situation.

The scenarios of the Flemish remake are presented to a group of young people, who filter out the unrealistic elements. Do they find a reaction from a character exaggerated? Then it is rewritten. And the actors may adjust their texts if certain formulations sound crazy or forced to them. In this way, the series literally keeps the voice of the youth in its episodes - something that you hardly find in Flanders.

Just like in the original, every season of wtFOCK follows a different character and the problems and feelings that go with it. In season 1 we see everything through the perspective of Jana Ackermans (Femke Van der Steen), who is arguing with her boyfriend and has difficulties making friends at her new school.  It's about loneliness, friendship and finding yourself.

Season 2 is about Zoë Loockx (Veerle Dejaeger) and her relationship with bad boy Senne. Zoë is a feminist and is happy to put others in their place if she finds it necessary. In its season, wtFOCK touched on some heavy themes, such as eating disorders and sexual violence. But the makers did this incredibly well. Not only were the subjects in the series tackled and discussed among the characters without any taboo, at the end of each excerpt they refer watwat.be. The site answers questions that the series could evoke among viewers - without beating around the bush or disguising the truth. Watwat talks at the level of young people (the site even asks how old you are to match the information to your age) and refers to organizations where readers can go for a chat or guidance. This way the step to seek help is a lot smaller. 

The collaboration with Watwat will continue during the current season. Robbe IJzermans (Willem Herbots) is troubled by his feelings for Sander Driesen (Willem De Schryver) and has a hard time accepting himself. wtFOCK discusses internalized homophobia and portrays it much more explicitly than the original. But it also portrays the relationship between the two boys very nicely. And the fans are completely on it as well - Twitter just about exploded when Robbe and Sander kissed for the first time, and also after yesterday's clip, where the boys settled an argument and Robbe dared to admit his feelings for Sander. The story isn’t finished yet but is already one of the best coming out stories I have ever seen on Flemish television. Or no, make it by far the best coming out story.

In addition to the differences in the scenarios, wtFOCK also distinguishes itself from the other remakes by its superior social media strategy. SKAM and its international counterparts extend the stories into the world of fans by giving the various characters an Instagram account. And the Flemish remake does that like no other. The characters not only post photos, but their Instagram stories are also adapted to the content of the episodes. Zoë said something about a concert during an episode - and in her story that evening were live images of that concert. International fans agree that wtFOCK goes many steps further than the other remakes.  

WtFOCK works. Because it is based on a great series, but also because the makers understand their audience enough and consult them to make the right adjustments. To seamlessly fit the story into the Antwerp setting, the prevailing youth language and the themes that the public are into today.  It works because the makers dare to go a step further when discussing some difficult themes, and at the same time also refer them to organizations that can help viewers if they experienced something similar. I cannot express how this series could have helped me ten years ago. But don't assume that it is a series for fourteen-year-olds. Because I and many of my peers are glued to the screen with every update.

#wtfock #skam belgium

[big-girl-toaster]

Emily Sonnett - player analysis

A compilation of Sonnett‘s strengths, weaknesses (cause everyone has them) and general observations from Portland and USWNT games (mostly from 2018 and 2019) ft. my irrelevant opinion.

Enjoy!

Before I’ll start a few notes:

I’m obviously not a professional soccer analyst person or whatever, so please don’t come for my ass. These are just patterns or reoccurring things in Sonnett’s game I observed while rewatching tons of PTFC and USWNT games. 

I will focus on a few key points, that doesn’t mean that she has deficiencies in other aspects, sometimes it’s just hard to show them and I tried to avoid stating arguments without giving visual evidence. (All the links and credits are below the gifs)

I would love it if you gave additions, feedback or criticism to this post but all in all I just hope that you enjoy reading a bit about Sonnett’s more professional side and soccer tactics in general.

Please let me know if the format is weird, I’m still figuring out how to make big posts.

I sincerely apologize for the low quality of gifs, as I said, I’m figuring things out and I wasn’t able to upload proper clips.

And lastly, Sonnett is a precious little bean and I enjoyed making this more than I should have. Also, did I use this as an excuse to spend days on end rewatching old games? Yes I did.

I will start with three main strengths I think she brings to the pitch:

Communication / Leading the back line                                               (this is in regards to her position with the Thorns, I will talk about the differences between PTFC/USWNT later on)

As a center back you naturally have a more responsible role in terms of shifting players that are in front of you and communicating things to them they can’t necessarily see. Sonnett embraces that role completely and at 25 years old she is at the level of world class CBs in that regard. A lot of players take on that role much later in their career. Her college coach Steve Swanson for the University of Virginia said about her:

"There is a standard of focus and intensity that Emily demands of the players that play around her. She’s not afraid to hold her teammates accountable in that regard. That was one of the unique aspects of our team dynamic this year, is that Emily's style of leadership is different than the team was used to. I think the team has recognized that the qualities Emily has, we need.“

http://www.espn.com/espnw/news-commentary/article/14100802/virginia-emily-sonnett

This clip I wanted to show you is from a situation that is very common for a defensive line but overlooked bc we as viewers naturally tend to look at the movement of the ball. It’s the intentional shifting of the back line in the exact right moment to let an opposing attacker run into offside. In the original video you can hear Sonnett shout “DROP THE LINE“ and Menges and Kling follow her movement which results in Alex being successfully caught offside at the side line. 

((Tumblr won’t let me upload video clips, so here’s a crappy gif (look at Sonny and Menges), click the link to get to youtube, it’s at 21:30))

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JGM6Nju0b4

A simple moment but a very crucial part of back line coordination.

      2.    Box positioning

A.k.a. one of the most important parts of good defending. Sonnett covers runs from attackers almost always with textbook precision. She anticipates passes and is able intercept balls which makes her a proactive rather than a reactive player. When she does have to go for a tackle she brings a feistiness that she probably learnt from a certain Kelley O’Hara I can imagine. She usually opts for slide tackles and that decision could be debatable if you’re the coach but it’s just so good to look at tbh

(credit to @geekmythologys for the last gif)

But anyway, her box positioning. Having watched a lot of games with my eyes glued to number 16, I can of course safely say that Sonnett knows what she’s doing. But I’ve been thinking more and more that she often has a sort of intuitive approach when it comes to box positioning in particular. For this next clip I’m gonna need your opinion. Normally I wouldn’t tell Sonnett to abandon her player in that moment, especially bc it creates a 3v2 situation on the attackers left side and also considering the angle in which Dunn is facing the goal. However, she steps in and is able to block the ball.

to see it properly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ev3SFCmbqQ  at 15:40

What do you think?

Oh and this is just excellent clearance work. AD was certainly hyped about it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvcOuadyFu4

    3.   Offensive effort

Sonnett is one of the highest scoring CBs of the league but her offensive efforts aren’t measurable in just goals. For corner kicks she likes to do the near-post run Julie Ertz style and has been successful in the past, most notably the 2-0 in the semifinal 2017 against Orlando (which resulted in this gem of a gif):

She likes to stay up top for a bit when her position is covered by someone else and tbh I’m living for these moments.

Here she encourages quick playing and would have gotten through with it if the nwsl had good refs. She didn’t even touch her. (get it? haha) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOIDLJ4ZL1A

Here she drives the ball after winning it, even if her teammates are pushing up late and then she stays up front to participate in the counter attack. Unfortunately nothing evolves out of this situation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ev3SFCmbqQ

Right. Those were the strengths, in terms of weaknesses, I don’t wanna pick apart the smallest things but this is what I found:

Misjudged midfield positioning

We’ve talked about her excellent positioning in the box, however, a huge part of modern soccer is having the Center Backs pushed up to the half-line (as well as inverted outside backs but that’s another point). And what I’ve noticed is that sometimes during turnovers Sonnett goes in to put pressure on the player and with that an even wider space opens up behind her that the opposing team could exploit. Like in this picture.

Blue is the ball movement, red (Sonnett) goes in when in my opinion green (Lindsey) should have been the one putting pressure on the ball bc now Daly can run into that open space. 

Luckily Sonnett’s speed prevents Houston from getting anything out of it but Daly tried it several times during the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOIDLJ4ZL1A

My second example is that iconic tactical foul against ARod that we all remember.

Her positioning isn’t optimal, Klings pass isn’t the best, ARod gets her off of the wrong foot, she can’t turn around fast enough and has to stop her with a professional foul which is (I’ll say it again) demanded by coaches in situations like that. But anyway, tumblr has talked enough about this game rip

      2. Determining the biggest threat

This is a minor one, because Sonnett is usually really good at reading the game and making the right decisions. However in this game against Australia, she tries to cover the space behind Dahl which is technically reasonable but considering how wide open the Australian is, she should have closed her in earlier. That little hop inside the center of the field made the difference and the opposing player was able to score. 

I think it’s safe to say that stuff like this comes with age and experience. And again, Sonnett is only 25!

(The whole game against Australia is awesome for spotting strengths and weaknesses, plus we get tons of Sonny close-ups thus I can recommend rewatching it) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBNvE3owllY

Two more things I wanted to include are two risks that could be relevant in the future.

From time to time she doesn’t control her arm movement in the box.

This is obviously the natural thing you do when you make a move like that but with the new rules by Fifa, defenders are more and more limited and this would have been a penalty if it had hit her arm. Idk it could bite her in the ass at some point.

      2. Intuitive positioning 

We’ve talked about this and people might have different opinions on it. I personally think though that this might make the difference between a great and a world class defender. So I say go for it Sonny.

Phew, I’m almost done guys, congrats for getting this far, I hope it’s interesting at all.

The last thing I wanna mention is this: The difference between Portland Sonnett and National Team Sonnett, a.k.a. CB Sonnett and RB Sonnett.

Even though as a right back your role is more offensive, I feel like Sonnett has to be pushed to go for it. She rarely does those runs in behind the winger and towards the end line. When she does it it’s great but compared to Kelley she simply isn’t there yet. It also seems to me like for Portland she takes more liberties in pushing forward which maybe is a confidence thing as well. She is a given for the Thorns but had to fight to regain that roster spot for the NT in 2017 after not being called up for several months. Maybe the fear of making mistakes bc of being out of position hinders her a bit? (I’m saying this while being aware that I of course don’t know what the coaches want her to do and what the different game plans require of her.) Anyway, I love her 1v1 defending as RB. I think she is underrated and absolutely deserves a spot on the Olympic roster next year. 

One last low quality gif because we gotta stay on brand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBNvE3owllY

Well that’s it, I hope you enjoyed it. Again, I’d be grateful for additions, opinions, feedback, whatever. 

Thanks for reading :)

#uswnt #woso #Emily Sonnett #player analysis #soccer #god this took a long time #did I do this instead of doing things I actually have to do? #yes I did #but im quite happy with it #not a shitpost but don't you worry #they will return #im not trying to be a know it all #but I've played for 9 years and I think I have an alright sense about football #BUT I WASNT A DEFENDER #but I read about center backs #I did research ok #sorry for any grammar mistakes #English is not my first language #anyway peace out #nwsl #portland thorns

[theexistentiallyqueer]

I really hate waking up to see that there was good meta that was circulating during the night and I have so many things I want to say but I have to go to work like a responsible adult in this capitalist hellscape. I’m specifically referencing this, this, this, and this, and I just got home from work and it was balls to the walls fucking crazy today, so excuse me if I seem incoherent and disjointed.

All of this made me think of a few very specific theories I have, which I’ve already mentioned in passing, but now I feel the urge to lay them out all together in one post, which are:

Loki is Goro’s original persona, and Yaldabaoth hand-picked him for a reason

Yaldabaoth, disguised as Igor, served the function of psychopomp cognitive guide to Goro that Morgana serves to Akira, Teddie serves to Souji, and Mitsuru serves to Makoto

Goro used Loki’s berserker power on himself so he could kill Wakaba

Robin Hood is the persona born from Goro’s bond with Akira and represents the justice he wishes he believed in

Goro is not a true wildcard and never was one

Plus some other ones reading today’s meta made me think about

So, without further ado.

Loki as Goro’s original persona aligns most strongly with two things: 1. actual dialogue during his boss fight, and 2. the larger framework of the game Yaldabaoth was playing.

For his boss fight I’m referencing specifically the JP-ENG comparison of that scene. One of the things the anon who did the comparison repeatedly references is that “psychotic breakdowns” is an incredibly erroneous translation of what Call of Chaos actually does:

!! 暴走させる means “to make [something] run wild/rampage/act reckless,” not to drive the psychotic. While it can be used to refer to someone wildly lashing out at others, it can also be used for a runaway car, losing control, acting without regard or just being reckless in a potentially dangerous way. In the Persona series, this term has also been used in reference to losing control of one’s Persona, and to a Shadow going berserk (for those who’ve played Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, the JP name for Shadow Frenzy, シャドウ暴走, also uses the term).

Goro’s ability makes people act recklessly without regard for others; it doesn’t make them outright psychotic. (Strangely enough, the first scene at Leblanc in the game translates the incidents related to this ability as “rampage incidents,” which is closer to what it should be, yet they consistently screw it up in later scenes.)

And the original dialogue follows up on that:

Makoto (JP): あんな、人を操ったり狂わせたりする力を、自分自身の心から生み出してたなんて…(“To think that the power to manipulate and drive mad others was born from his own heart…”)

And more subtly:

Futaba (JP): なのに人生ソロプレイだったから、目覚めた力は、自前の『嘘』と『恨み』の、たった２個だけ… (“Even so, ‘cause you went through life in single player, the powers you awakened were just your "lies” and “resentment”…“)

I feel like the original text upholds this argument, especially considering Goro consistently refers to Loki as his “true” power, and he is way OP with Loki in a way he’s not with Robin Hood–almost as if he’s had more time to level-grind with Loki than he has with Robin.

As for Yaldabaoth, I think the context of what Yaldabaoth actually wants is very clear: Yaldabaoth wanted Goro to win. He created a blatantly unfair “game” modeled after the normal “game” played between Philemon and Nyarlathotep, and the first thing he did was give a persona to one player two years earlier than the other. Yaldabaoth wants to destroy and remake the world, and he would have cherry-picked the angriest kid in the barrel to make that happen. Goro didn’t have some psychopomp cognitive guide in the form of a talking cat to explain the metaverse to him, and I think it stands to reason that Yaldabaoth groomed Goro as much as Shido did: Yaldabaoth was Goro’s psychopomp cognitive guide. Goro’s not-dumb enough to be immediately suspicious when a random app installs itself on his phone; it stands to reason that he only paid it any attention because some half-bald fucker with a nose longer than Goro’s Robin Hood mask planted the idea in his head of what it could be used for. Akira tries to delete the app twice, and it’s only after Ryuji accidentally triggers the Nav that he stops trying to get rid of it.

(I’ve seen the Goro was a subject in Wakaba’s research theories too as an explanation for how he could know so much of the metaverse without Morgana around to catsplain it to him. I’m not a fan of them, mostly because I think subtle writing is a concept Atlus is very much not at all engaged with, and if he really was a research subject that would have been dumped on us with all the subtlety of trying to assassinate someone by dropping roof tiles onto them, and I like my HCs and theories to be as in line as what can be explained most comprehensibly with canon until I decide to throw the entire baby out with the bathwater and say MY PLAYGROUND NOW. It’s a cool theory, it’s just not one that I’m into. The people who play with this theory are smarter and more valid than Atlus will ever be. And who knows, maybe Royal will prove me wrong. I am open to being proven wrong and Krist is already starting to feed me food from Royal that has me second-guessing, but I’m going to wait until the international release in March to have takes on this.)

As for Goro himself–I’ve always, from the first time I played P5 when I thought Goro as interesting enough in concept but wasn’t really ready to be a Goroboy, thought that Goro represented the Justice Arcana in reverse, which is interesting in that this Persona game you can’t reverse confidants’ cards. Goro is reversed Justice in and of himself within the main context of the narrative.

I don’t really jive with the idea that Goro started out with Robin Hood as representative of his ideals before he was manipulated and twisted by Shido, because it contradicts the context in which he had his awakening and it removes whatever degree of culpability or autonomy Goro did have in what he ultimately became. Goro is full of rage, and Goro acted on that rage. Goro got the slightest taste of power and went from 0 to acting on a desire from revenge in about thirty seconds flat. He definitely didn’t realize he was signing on for murder and Shido definitely groomed him into being his psychopomp hitman, Goro is the one who took the initiative to approach Shido in the first place because Goro wanted to destroy the man who destroyed his life and who did, in some sense, kill his mom. Not that I think it’s disingenuous to say that Goro did originally believe in a justice that was, well, more just, but there’s a vast chasm between the boy who used to pretend to be a hero of justice and a boy who decided what he wanted most was to humiliate his fascist of a father. Goro’s sense of justice was already hugely warped by the time he awakened to his persona. Justice is exposing Shido publicly and holding him accountable; justice for Goro was making Shido’s life a living very personal hell.

Loki’s power isn’t even necessarily to make someone go berserk. Goro actually explains how Loki’s power works at the start of his boss fight, and it’s carried through pretty well in the English translation.

Goro (JP): ちっぽけな存在でも、心の枷が外れると、桁違いの力を得る事がある。 ("Even a tiny being, once you remove the bonds on its heart, can gain unimaginable power.”) Goro (EN) Even the feeblest existence can gain tremendous power once the chains on its heart are broken. !! 枷 has a double meaning of both literal restraints (shackles/chains/etc) and more metaphorical ways to bind someone (such as relations to others, or societal restrictions on what you’re allowed to do). While “chains on its heart” is a valid translation, it fails to maintain that wordplay in English, and given how the power he’s talking about works, it’s almost certainly on purpose.

Loki’s power works by shattering the restraints on a person’s heart that stop them from acting recklessly in ways that hurt other people. I think a case could very much be made that the reason this seems to always result in violence on the part of those of Goro’s targets (and Goro himself) is because when you’re in that state, you stop feeling sympathy or empathy, and the dark impulses you bury deep inside (which everyone has) can reign unchecked.

When I first started to choochoo along the “Goro went berserk to kill Wakaba” train, one of the first things I started to speculate was that he was the first person he used Call of Chaos on. I started to reevaluate that today when I read all of that delicious food and found myself rethinking how Goro would have approached Shido, and I found myself drawn the conclusion that Goro brought Shido two things–the ability to gather secret knowledge and the ability to drive people berserk–but Shido would have wanted proof. And Goro’s an idiot, but he’s not dumb; he would have had that proof ready in advance. Goro would have been causing some psychotic breakdowns on a smaller scale before he approached Shido, just enough to make the news and catch Wakaba’s attention in her research, but not enough to cause widespread chaos on the scale that’s referenced in game, before he stepped foot through Shido’s door.

I find it very hard to believe that Goro didn’t know the basics of Wakaba before he killed her: single mom, no father in the picture, daughter roughly his age. Goro is the type to hoard information because it makes him feel in control, so he’d be given this name from Shido and want to know everything he can uncover about his target first–also he’s the one with the metaverse nav app and he’d need to know as much about her as possible to figure out what her distortion is.

(This is assuming Wakaba had a palace as opposed to residing in Mementos. I have no grounds to base this theory on, but I think she did. I won’t go into it in too much detail, but I HC that Wakaba’s palace was modeled after the Library of Alexandria, and Wakaba’s shadow was Hypatia. I’ll save the thematic whys of that for another post because they’re neither here nor there.)

I have a hard time buying that a teenager would just go from zero to being okay with murder without having some pretty critical hangups in the process, especially a teenager who kind of thinks of himself as a hero who has to get his hands dirty. You can’t really justify murdering an innocent woman who did nothing wrong when you measure her against people like Okumura. Especially when so much of that single mom’s life story should probably logically resonate with you.

(This is another reason I get upset that nothing in canon ever has Goro actively acknowledge his murder of Wakaba, because if it did it would have to grapple the between Goro and Futaba and the fact that Goro did to Futaba was exactly what was done to him, but way more directly. Atlus is not subtle and is also not capable of nuance or depth.)

So the logical line of thought is that Goro used Call of Chaos on himself to break the chains on his own heart (the feelings that would make him sympathize with Wakaba and see his own mother in her) so that he could kill her. I’d also argue that layered on top of of all of this is that Goro didn’t know killing her shadow would kill her, because Shido guarded her research closely and Yaldabaoth wanted a boy who would be willing to smash things. They were both grooming him to be their perfect little murderer.

By the point we meet him in the game Goro is heavily tied up in Shido’s conspiracy and all that that entails. His already jaded sense of justice will by this point have been warped beyond repair–until he meets Akira. Akira is probably the first person Goro has ever bonded with in his entire life, and a wildcard’s power is rooted in the ability to form bonds. Positive bonds specifically, because it’s only through those that their power can grow. I think we can all look at Goro’s life and agree that his relationship with Akira is the only positive one he’s had since he was like…….never years old.

And I specifically think that it’s through his relationship with Akira that Goro starts to reawaken to his true sense of justice. It’s textually canonical that Goro is jealous of the fact that the Phantom Thieves found a way to achieve their goals without collateral damage. I think that bonding with Akira–in a way Goro has literally never bonded with anyone else before–is what caused Goro’s second awakening and his tentative re-embrasure of the belief that justice is about helping, not hurting. Except he’s in two such different places at this point. I’m very on board with the BPD!Goro hc that’s become a thing lately, thanks to Krist and the goroboys discord server, but I’m not going to go into specifics because I’m not BPD. I just think that from what I’ve read of BPD it sounds valid, and if a person who is BPD says they get that mood from him, that’s extra valid

But Goro’s sense of self is clearly very split between Loki and Robin Hood and what they thematically represent. He wants to be a hero, but he still dresses like a tokusatsu villain half the time. He wants to be a hero, but he’s also a murderer. He can’t reconcile these aspects of himself.

Goro isn’t a true wildcard because he lacks the ability of connection. While the wildcard ability is granted by a cosmic entity (Philemon/Igor/Yaldabaoth/etc.), the degree of its manifestation is dependent upon the wildcard’s ability to connect with other people. The case could be made that Adachi and Namatame are wildcards because they’re both selected as game pieces by Izanami, but only Souji manifests the wildcard ability because only he is able to connect with others. The implication to be taken from that is that a cosmic force can grant an individual a persona and the corresponding wildcard ability, but that ability can’t manifest itself unless the individual is capable of wielding it–which Goro is not.

And very much unlike a wildcard, if you take the necessary steps Goro’s two personas do fuse into an ultimate whole. If you complete the development of Goro’s character to the extent the game requires, then Loki and Robin Hood fuse to become Hereward. I have some thoughts about this in relation to the fact that I can’t find any evidence that Hereward is tied to the Robin Hood myth, but all that aside: Goro’s warped sense of justice and his true sense of justice fused together in a way that’s, uh——-

Robin Hood is very bara and Loki is very twink. Hereward looks extremely similar to Robin Hood, but has a dark grey, an almost black, color design. Hereward literally represents Goro embracing that justice is grey, and that it’s okay for Goro to both want to be the hero and to want to see people struggle with the hard questions of how the hurts they’ve inflicted, intentionally or not, have impacted the people affected by them.

Goro was never a true wildcard to begin with. Yaldabaoth chose him because he was isolated. That he found his other half in Akira was dumb luck of the draw.

#persona #persona 5 #p5r spoilers #goro akechi

[escapeinpapers]

Book Review: WICKED FOX by Kat Cho

Hello everyone! It has been a while since I made a book review and posted it here on my tumblr. I was thinking of stopping this blog because my writing juices faded and it felt like I can’t write anything decent to post here but I can’t just sit back and not gush about this book because I think this deserves more recognition and hype.  So here’s my review on Wicked fox by Kat Cho.

“Not all predators are monsters. But if you beat them enough, they’ll bite.”

Plot: Inspired by Korean folklore, this book tells the story of Gu Miyoung, a teenage gumiho or a nine-tailed fox who consumes energy of men as her means of survival. She is different from other gumihos for she is half human and with the help of a young shaman, she only feeds on bad men who did terrible things. Then, she crosses paths with a highschool kid named Ahn Jihoon on a very dangerous circumstance resulting to her fox bead being separated from her body. When they met again, their connection and blossoming relationship made it hard for Miyoung to hide what she really is. A generations-old feud made it more complicated leading to very difficult decisions that could completely change both of their lives.

Thoughts: One of my favorite K-Drama of all time is My Girlfriend is a Gumiho. So, when I knew about this book, I was immediately interested. I told myself that I need to have a copy of this one ASAP! That’s how excited I am for this book. But, when I started reading this, my excitement went from 100 to 0 real quick. Despite of that, for the love of Korean culture (also I don’t want my money to go to waste lol), I continued reading and it was worth it because my excitement went from 0 to 100 again.

What I love:

1.  Atmospheric writing. The author knows how to put well a setting. And the foods? Perfect. It will make you crave for Korean food! I think watching a lot of K-Drama and TV shows made it easier for me to visualize the scenes vividly. It is also spooky and sometimes the darkness of the story will come to you. I just really love it when folklores and myths have modern twists.

2. Junu. He is a goblin. A very handsome goblin who earns money by running errands of other creatures and he ended up being Miyoung’s babysitter. He is my favorite among all the characters. It was surprising because he is not one of the main protagonists yet he caught my attention. He just exudes this bright energy and I thought he is funny. I just love his personality and he reminds me sometimes of Magnus Bane, the warlock in The Shadowhunter Chronicles.

3. The yearning between Miyoung and Jihoon. Here’s the thing, this is one of those books that I never thought I would shed even a single tear. But the joke’s on me! After the first half (which pretty much bored me), I was starting to get emotional then on the last few chapters, I started crying. I wasn’t really into their relationship at first because I can’t feel any sparks but the yearning between them as you go on with the story was a game changer for me. I was rooting for them and want them just to be together so badly.

What I don’t love:

1. The plot. Could’ve been done better. Sometimes it was just all over the place and felt like the story has no direction. There were just many repetitive arguments that it felt like it was just going round and round in circles. Also, it gets predictable and the first half wasn’t very impressive so my excitement crashed. (But don;t worry about it, it gets good towards the end!)

2.  The High school drama. I personally don’t like high school settings sometimes because they get very predictable, boring and annoying. In this book, it was used as a filler and wasn’t effective. Like it was just put there to stir up a drama that I think was done poorly.

 Recommending to:

1. K-Drama fans!

2. People who are into folklores, myths and urban legends.

3. YA readers.

 Rating: 3.5/5

#wicked fox #kat cho #korean author #korean folklore #gumiho #goblins #k-drama #mythology #book review #book tumblr

[piezein]

Math and Myself

Not to sound like the stereotypical autistic white cis male, but math is my current special interest.

I think the reason as to why the autistic community views this stereotype as harmful (and it is harmful), is because allistics don’t really grasp the idea of what a special interest is? A special interest isn’t something you’re necessarily good at but it gives that delightful burst of joy and happiness in our lives. It is not an obsession but an escape, a things that is ours personally. So at the risk of sounding like a stereotype, I’m going to reflect on my special interest in math and my tumultuous relationship with it.

Like every other “gifted” child, I was put into a special math program from second until fourth grade. I did have the basic skills, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, but due to the special math program, I never developed a good foundation in geometry, fractions, decimals and the like. After a while I got lazier and lazier, I understood nothing and our teachers expected us to know everything, like some omnipotent deity. Fifth grade served me no better when our class was given a particularly moody math teacher who would sometimes mock our efforts and take some (I’m not sure if these things are even offensive to neurotypicals, but I was once taken aside because I had written “my dad helped me” on one of my homeworks).

Come high school, I had grown to hate math with such a passion. Our new teacher was sort of on a weird power trip most of the time, but I have to admit I came to have some of the small rush of happiness with the introduction of algebra. Eighth grade came and I went back to treating math indifferently. It was simply another subject to get over with. In fairness to math, I was focused on another recurring special interest, biology.

9th grade was the worst. Our teacher never made math easy to understand, he was difficult to speak to, and constantly did some pretty horrible stuff like gaslighting and group punishment. He convinced me that I was simply not trying hard enough, or d*mb. If I didn’t hate math in my elementary years, I hated it in 9th grade. I not only hated math but I grew scared of it and would just fail my exams. I will not continue writing about my 9th grade experiences in this post. I still get upset when I think about it.

I regained some of that respect for math back in tenth grade, but I was still deeply scarred emotionally. My teacher, who I am very fond of, cultivated some confidence back in me and I came to enjoy math a bit. However, I still viewed it as merely a tool and something to get over with.

I didn’t really take math in senior high school, but I had one general math class which I actually liked, even though our teacher was often absent. I understood the concepts and I had some of that rush sometimes. After that class though, math was nothing to me. In my entrance exams, I would guess the math portion and not even bother reading the questions. 

Now comes college. I originally was in biology for premed, but switched to physics after I suddenly lost almost all interest in biology. I made a logical argument with myself. If I did well in my math and physics classes in my first term, I would shift to an actual physics program, if not, I would go back to biology. If I merely survived, i would remain in premed physics.

I didn’t expect to love math. Our professor was a rumored terror of the math department, so I began studying in advance. I recited in class, did the problem sets, and when the first test came, I got a measly 78%. (78% is quite low by Philippine standards. It is a passing grade, but not that good.)  I was really disappointed as I was used to inputting a certain amount of effort and getting the expected results for that amount. 

So I studied harder, I tried understanding the logic behind trigonometry, inequalities, and functions, and over time, I did. I really really adore my math professor, she was able to teach this kid (me) with almost 0 foundation in mathematics. I started acing tests and I got a rush anytime I did math, (just realising now I sound like I’m on meth hahahha) and I looked forward to my math classes everyday. Damn, I even started stimming so wildly in math class, jumping and hopping and flapping, because I really felt like a bird! In FIlipino, we have a word that describes the fluttery feeling when you see your crush called “kilig” but I get this feeling when i do math. And I love it.

I’m now on my third term of taking college level math, and although the online classes have dampened my happiness with it, I still love it, and I don’t see myself losing interest in the near future. I escape into math lessons when I feel stressed, and although math is difficult, and I do have difficulty with it sometimes, it rewards my efforts and helps me get back into shape. This is also probably why I dislike people interrupting me in the middle of my math homework/lesson. 

Here are some things I learned from my journey with math:

1. Special interests don’t mean someone knows everything about it, but that they are so willing to learn about that certain special interest, simply because it is exciting and brings happiness to their life. It gives them something to be assured of, to process at their own time.

2. I have a braincrush type. Slightly sarcastic but understandable in the context because they express their thoughts quite clearly. Also, very passionate about their field of study and love teaching others about it. Ok I’m going to stop.

3. We should not mistake passion for intelligence. The only reason I came to be “good” in math (in the formal, academic sense) is because I learned to love it and so wanted to understand it, and not because I could understand it. 

4. Anyone can do math. 

(insert Ratatouille reference here)

I am totally against the stereotype of autists automatically being math geniuses, but I am also an advocate for more women in STEM fields. I understand that allistics still exist and they would not have the same experience of autists with special interests in math, but it is good to share knowledge, passion, and love. 

In most classes, math teachers are biased against women, or people presenting as female, so these groups are easily discouraged in math. I think teachers should make math more understandable and intuitive instead of using vague and complicated terms on new lessons. Math is wonderful, and not a burden, but a language to be understood and loved. 

I’m going to study sequences and series now, but I feel good after writing that down. i’ll write more on this because one post isn’t enough to explain my complex relationship with math.

 Please comment your thoughts on math and how it relates to autism!

#autism in stem #stem #math #autism #special interest #my pieze #august 2020 #education