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strictlyfavorites · 1 month

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One state prosecutor and one civilian plaintiff have already won huge fines and damages from Donald Trump that may, with legal costs, exceed $500 million.

Trump awaits further civil and criminal liability in three other federal, state, and local indictments.

There are eerie commonalities in all these five court cases involving plaintiff E. Jean Carroll, Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, New York Attorney General Letitia James, federal special counsel Jack Smith, and Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis.

One, they are either unapologetically left-wing or associated with liberal causes. They filed their legal writs in big-city, left-wing America—Atlanta, New York, Washington—where liberal judges and jury pools predominate in a manner not characteristic of the country at large.

Two, they are overtly political. Bragg, James, and Willis have either campaigned for office or raised campaign funds by promising to get or even destroy Donald Trump.

Carroll’s suit was funded by left-wing billionaire Reid Hoffman.

Smith sued to rush his court schedule in hopes of putting Trump on trial before the November election.

Three, there would not be any of these cases had Donald Trump not run for the presidency or not been a conservative.

Carroll’s suit bypassed statute of limitation restrictions by prompting the intervention of a left-wing New York legislator. He passed a special bill, allowing a one-year window to waive the statute of limitations for sexual assault claims from decades past.

Until Trump, no New York prosecutor like James had ever filed a civil suit against a business for allegedly overvaluing real estate assets to obtain loans that bank auditors approved and were paid back in full, on time, and with sizable interest profits to the lending institutions.

Alvin Bragg bootstrapped a Trump private non-disclosure agreement into a federal campaign violation in a desperate effort to find something on Trump.

Smith is also charging Trump with insurrectionary activity. But Trump had never been so charged with insurrection, much less convicted of it.

Willis strained to find a way to criminalize Trump’s complaints about his loss of Georgia in the 2020 national election. She finally came up with a racketeering charge, usually more applicable to mafiosi and drug cartels.

Four, in all these cases, the charges could have been equally applicable to fellow left-wing public figures and officials.

Joe Biden, like Trump, was accused of sexual assault decades earlier by former staffer Tara Reade. Yet Reade was torn apart by the media and the left for inconsistencies in her memory. By contrast, the wildly inconsistent and amnesiac E. Jean Carroll won $83 million from Trump.

Jack Smith created the precedent of charging former president Trump for unlawfully removing classified files to his private residence.

But the government simultaneously did not charge Joe Biden for similar offenses. Yet Biden had removed files not for two years but for more than 30. He stored them not in one location but several.

His rickety garage was a mess, not a secure family compound like Trump’s estate. Moreover, Biden did so while a senator and vice president, without any presidential authority to declassify almost any presidential document he wished.

Biden never came forward to report the crime for over thirty years—until Trump was charged. Indeed, he was caught on tape six years ago, admitting to his ghostwriter that he possessed classified files but never reported it.

Bragg might have noticed that both Hillary Clinton (fined $113,000) and Barack Obama (fined $350,000) broke campaign financing laws. Neither was subject to federal criminal charges by local prosecutors.

An array of left-wing celebrities, politicians, 2004 House Members, former Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), and failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams have all recently challenged elections. They sought either to delay or redo ballot counting or, on the federal level, to sidetrack electors to ignore popular votes in their respective states.

These lawfare cases are part of other efforts that were highly partisan and without merit. Recall the Trump “Russian collusion” hoax and the “Russian disinformation” laptop farce.

In another first, some blue states are suing to take Trump’s name off the ballot for “insurrection,” a crime for which he has never been charged.

Total up the deaths, damage, and length of the summer 2020 Antifa/BLM riots. Then compare the tally to the one-day January 6 riot.

The former proved far more lethal, long-lasting, and destructive. Yet very few of the 14,000 arrested rioters in 2020 were ever prosecuted, much less convicted.

By contrast, the Biden administration sought to jail hundreds for crimes allegedly committed on January 6, such as “illegal parading.”

We are entering a dangerous era in America.

Ideology and party affiliations increasingly determine guilt and punishment. Opponents are first targeted, and then laws are twisted and redefined to convict them.

The left is waging lawfare with the implicit message to political opponents: either keep quiet or suffer the consequences.

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covidsafehotties · 1 month

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From 2022

Abstract

Chronological age is a risk factor for SARS-CoV-2 infection and severe COVID-19. Previous findings indicate that epigenetic age could be altered in viral infection. However, the epigenetic aging in COVID-19 has not been well studied. In this study, DNA methylation of the blood samples from 232 healthy individuals and 413 COVID-19 patients is profiled using EPIC methylation array. Epigenetic ages of each individual are determined by applying epigenetic clocks and telomere length estimator to the methylation profile of the individual. Epigenetic age acceleration is calculated and compared between groups. We observe strong correlations between the epigenetic clocks and individual’s chronological age (r > 0.8, p < 0.0001). We also find the increasing acceleration of epigenetic aging and telomere attrition in the sequential blood samples from healthy individuals and infected patients developing non-severe and severe COVID-19. In addition, the longitudinal DNA methylation profiling analysis find that the accumulation of epigenetic aging from COVID-19 syndrome could be partly reversed at late clinic phases in some patients. In conclusion, accelerated epigenetic aging is associated with the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection and developing severe COVID-19. In addition, the accumulation of epigenetic aging from COVID-19 may contribute to the post-COVID-19 syndrome among survivors.

#mask up #covid #covid 19 #covid isn't over #pandemic #covid conscious #long covid #covid is airborne #wear a mask #coronavirus

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milijanakomad · 9 months

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Product design and psychology: The Role of Grinding in Video Game Design

Keywords: Grinding, Video Gaming, Game Design, Player Engagement, Psychological Manipulation

Abstract:

This paper scrutinizes the utilization of "grinding" as a technique in video game design, particularly as a method of psychological manipulation that affects player engagement and behaviour. Case studies are explored to deliver a comprehensive understanding of the practical application of grinding and its implications, all from a product design viewpoint.

Introduction:

The design principles governing video games frequently incorporate mechanisms intended to stimulate player engagement and prolong interaction time. One such prevalent mechanism is "grinding," defined as the practice of executing repetitive tasks within the game environment to achieve specific objectives. While grinding can evoke a sense of achievement, it also carries the potential to induce exhaustion and frustration among players. This study endeavours to explore the intricacies of grinding, its role in game design, and its influence on player experience.

Explanation:

Coined from the concept of persistently "grinding away" at a task, the term "grinding" in the gaming context implies the undertaking of repetitive actions by a player to attain certain results or to advance within the game. In numerous instances, such actions may not directly correlate with the game's primary storyline or objectives but are aimed at accumulating experience points, in-game currency, or specialized items.

Grinding is an omnipresent component across a vast array of game genres, with its prominence notably manifested in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs). In these games, the player's progression and performance are often gauged based on their character's level, skills, and available equipment.

From the standpoint of game design, grinding assumes several roles. It serves to extend the game's lifespan by instituting goals that necessitate substantial time investment. Additionally, it fosters a sense of accomplishment and progression and can encourage social interaction in multiplayer environments. Despite these advantages, critics contend that grinding can lead to monotonous and ungratifying gameplay experiences. The considerable time commitment required by grinding may propel some players towards purchasing in-game enhancements using real-world money, thereby generating additional revenue for game developers.

Further, there is an ongoing discourse concerning the psychological implications of grinding. Its repetitive and rewarding nature might precipitate addictive behaviours and excessive consumption of time, mirroring the effects typically associated with gambling disorders. Through the exploration of these aspects, we aim to shed light on the complex dynamics of grinding in the context of modern video gaming.

Grinding in Gaming: Conceptualization and Design

Grinding typically refers to the act of performing repetitive actions in a game to attain a specific goal, often associated with levelling up, obtaining items, or advancing in-game skills. Although it can give players a sense of progression, it can also serve as a roadblock, encouraging players to consider alternative paths to progress, such as microtransactions.

Case Study: World of Warcraft

Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft (WoW) extensively employs grinding. Players often engage in repetitive tasks like fighting the same enemies, repeatedly battling against non-player characters (NPCs), or completing the same quests to increase their character's level, to gain experience points, in-game currency, or rare items. This grind contributes to a sense of achievement but has also been criticized for sometimes leading to a tedious gameplay experience.

youtube

Case Study: Candy Crush Saga

King's Candy Crush Saga uses grinding as a monetization strategy. As players progress and levels become harder, the option to grind through the game becomes more attractive. Alternatively, players can buy power-ups and boosters to surpass the grind, effectively translating grinding mechanics into revenue for the game developers.

Case Study: Destiny 2

This game provides an example of a 'loot grind.' Players repeatedly complete activities like strikes, raids, or public events to earn 'engrams' – randomized gear drops. The goal is often to collect more powerful gear to increase a character's power level.

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Case Study: Old School RuneScape

In this MMORPG, players might grind by repetitively performing tasks like mining, fishing, or woodcutting. These actions, though monotonous, boost the player's skill levels, enabling them to perform new tasks, quests, or create new items.

Implications for Game Design

Grinding, while a tool to extend game playtime and potentially drive monetization, must be thoughtfully implemented to avoid player fatigue or burnout. Game designers should strike a balance between meaningful progression and repetitive grind, ensuring the game remains engaging and satisfying.

Conclusion

Grinding, as a mechanism of psychological manipulation in video game design, can greatly impact player behaviour and engagement. Striking a balance between challenge, satisfaction, and repetition is vital to ensure a rewarding gameplay experience. As the video game industry advances, it will be intriguing to observe the evolution and refinement of grinding mechanisms and their psychological impact on players.

References:

Sicart, M. (2013). Grinding in Games: Understanding the Appeal. Philosophy of Computer Games Conference, 8-11.

Hamari, J., Alha, K., Järvelä, S., Kivikangas, J. M., Koivisto, J., & Paavilainen, J. (2017). Why do players buy in-game content? An empirical study on concrete purchase motivations. Computers in Human Behavior, 68, 538-546. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2016.11.045

Blizzard Entertainment. (2004). World of Warcraft [Video Game]. Blizzard Entertainment.

King. (2012). Candy Crush Saga [Video Game]. King.

Bungie. (2017). Destiny 2 [Video Game]. Activision.

Jagex. (2013). Old School RuneScape [Video Game]. Jagex.

Yee, N. (2006). Motivations of play in online games. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 9(6), 772-775. doi:10.1089/cpb.2006.9.772

Johnson, M. R., & Woodcock, J. (2019). The impacts of live streaming and Twitch.tv on the video game industry. Media, Culture & Society, 41(5), 670-688. doi:10.1177/0163443718818363

King, D., Delfabbro, P., & Griffiths, M. (2010). Video game structural characteristics: A new psychological taxonomy. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 8(1), 90-106. doi:10.1007/s11469-009-9206-4

Deterding, S., Dixon, D., Khaled, R., & Nacke, L. (2011). From game design elements to gamefulness: defining "gamification". MindTrek '11: Proceedings of the 15th International Academic MindTrek Conference: Envisioning Future Media Environments, 9-15. doi:10.1145/2181037.2181040

#Grinding #Video Gaming #Game Design #Player Engagement #Psychological Manipulation #product design #gaming #user experience #player behaviour #destiny 2 #world of warcraft #runescape #old school runescape #candy crush #Youtube

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krscblw · 4 months

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ghoul element perfume associations!

i've done a few scent association lists for individual ghouls, and i thought it would be fun to do one for elements instead! it's a little more general, which lets me include perfume that i really like but that don't fit any of the ghouls exactly. as always, i would love your feedback!!

Usual warning: This might look weird on mobile, but it should be good on desktop. Apologies, I'd fix it if I knew how.

Earth: Dense, earthy, bitter, green scents reminiscent of forests, gardens, and ruins halfway reclaimed by nature.

Notes: wood, vetiver, greenery, moss, soil, fruit, rose, stone, fungus

Rose Fantôme - LVNEA

“Rose Fantôme breathes not the fresh blooming rose but the one that has been cut, left and forgotten. Now one with its surroundings, it blends with the scents of dried grass and lichen, hay, and dirt.”

porcelain roses, immortelle, dried hay, graveyard soil, cepes, oakmoss, oakwood

Duende - Fantôme

“The smell of being lost in an enchanted forest.”

oakmoss, cedar, fir, resinous labdanum, benzoin, tree sap, wild violets, lilac

(i have this one, it's forest-y but also pretty light for a forest perfume. definitely a summery, magical forest smell)

Holy Oak - LVNEA

“Holy Oak alchemizes the aromas of deep, damp oakwood and the dry warmth of cedar to evoke the sound, sight, and smell of a well-worn cabin woodframe creaking against the weight of tempestuous rainfall as it begins to slow.”

galbanum, cedar leaf, petrichor, frankincense, cedarwood, oakwood, oakmoss

Mount Auburn - Little & Grim

“A dizzying array of all the flora that buds in Massachusetts. Fragrant, fruity blossoms and towering trees shading gentle, winding paths.”

fresh raspberry, melon, honeysuckle, blooming lilac, wisteria, spruce

Love Among the Ruins - Alkemia

“An ancient ruin of fallen stonework covered with lichen and tangles of flowering vines slowly disintegrating/returning to nature.”

stone ruins, lichen, tangles of flowering vines

Rochester - Fantôme

rich earth, crisp fallen leaves, sweet tobacco, a hint of patchouli, garden tomato, newly ripened autumn gourds

Vert Sur Le Vert - Alkemia

green grasses, new leaves, tomato seedlings, crushed sweet grasses

Air: Scents that range from cold, sharp, and sweet to thick, powdery, and dusty – reflecting the versatility of air as an element.

Notes: florals, musk, fruit, cold air, dust, sugar, honey, ozone

Lilacs Along the Winding Drive - Alkemia

fresh lilacs, a gentle breeze after a light spring rain, a dusty pebbled driveway, a slightly rusty porch swing, and a small handful of late blooming violets

Hummingbird - Zoologist

“This diaphanous scent alights upon you in a pastel bouquet of honeysuckle, mimosa, lilac and peonies, with just the lightest dusting of natural sugars found in pear, cherry and honey. A finishing dollop of velvety whipped cream melds the tantalizing notes, completing this irresistible and opulent perfume.”

apple, cherry, citrus, lilac, muguet, plum, rose, violet leaf, honey, honeysuckle, mimosa, peony, tulip, ylang, amber, coumarin, cream, moss, musks, sandalwood, white woods

Frost Flowers - LVNEA

“Icy and cold, delicate yet jagged, floral ice crystals slowly melt to reveal a heart of dark florals at the center of this musky and enveloping oil perfume.”

tuberose, jasmine, black currant, ambrette, cypress, elemi resin

Thundersnow - Fyrinnae

“On rare occasions within a system cold enough to produce ground level snow, the conditions are favorable for the right lifting and instability required to also produce lightning.”

cold air, electricity, metallic ozone, gasoline

Veil of Spidersilk - Nui Cobalt Designs

“Slender strands of cotton flower hung with trembling dewdrops… Wear to bless any new beginning and brighten the path ahead.”

cotton flower, dew, pale pink musk, tiny black vanilla beans, Margaret Merril rose, lily of the valley, neroli, honeysuckle, non-indolic jasmine

Mama Gein - Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab

crushed baby’s breath dusted with baby powder

Foxfire - Alkemia

white sugar ambers, jasmine aldehydes, night flowering nardo

Fire: Warm, heavy, lingering, spicy scents. Some fire ghouls smell like smoke and fire, but others smell like heat, metal, or spices.

Notes: smoke, incense, spices, metal, patchouli, wood

Paimon - Fantôme

“This is a warm, regal scent conjuring an endless sea of sand with the hint of an oasis of coconut and dark vanilla carried on a warm desert wind. Golden frankincense, black amber, and myrrh stir under the endless dunes of hot sand, grounding the bright, golden notes that shine under the unrelenting sun.”

hot sands, frankincense, myrrh, sun-bleached parchment, vanilla, black amber, coconut husk, gold

Eldritch - Pineward Perfume

“Lair of ancient eldritch abominations, a resinous and dark perfume for the bold and unafraid.”

leather, myrrh, patchouli, fir, oolong tea, opoponax, smoke, pine needles, oakmoss

Stel - Treading Water Perfume

motor oil, metal, desert air, frankincense, oud

Persian Tea Room - Alkemia

spiced black tea, dry desert sand, spices, musk, soft leather

Firebird - Fantôme

“This is a rich, golden scent that emulates the golden apples and warm flame of the Firebird.”

smoldering embers, burning cloves, orange, golden saffron, endless forest, soot on feathers, soft flame, apple

Dwarf - Black Phoenix Alchemy Labs

iron filings, chips of stone, hops, soot-covered leather

Tyrannosaurus Rex - Zoologist

“A sultry heat wafts across the land, lapped up greedily by the abundant flora that thrives in its midst… The Cretaceous period comes of age against a backdrop scorched by wildfire and lightning strikes.”

bergamot, black pepper, fir, laurel leaf, neroli, nutmeg, champaca, geranium, jasmine, osmanthus, rose, ylang ylang, resins, cade, cedar, civet, frankincense, leather, patchouli, sandalwood, vanilla

Water: Water ghouls tend to have smooth, cold scents. Some are sweet, some are sour, some are salty, but all of them reflect different bodies of water.

Notes: ozone, vanilla, water, citrus, seaweed, salt, sand, ice, tropical fruit

Triton - Fantôme

murky sea water, ambergris, ancient forest mosses, crushed ivy, frankincense, resins, ozone, a hint of citrus

Voice of the Sea - Alkemia

“An olfactory musing from the underside of a wooden dock.”

salty sea breezes, sun-bleached driftwood, crushed seashells, lemon peel, barnacles, sand, and sea-soaked timbers

Dragonfly - Zoologist

“Giant lotus pads part to make way for buds that pierce the surface of the jade green pond. They raise their faces to the sun, their delicate fragrance floating around them. In the shadow of the flowers, tiny dragonfly nymphs also emerge from the shallows. They spread their fragile wings and shyly take flight, ready to explore a world beyond the water.”

grapefruit, basil, angelica seed, ginger, rice, aquatic florals, geranium, jasmin sambac, mimosa, orris absolute, rose, violet leaves, rainwater, moss, patchouli, tonka, vetiver, benzoin, cashmeran

Acadia - Alkemia

“An olfactory portrait of coastal Maine.”

atlantic ocean fog, balsam fir pine needles, seaweed, bay leaves, saltwater, charred driftwood

Gelatto - Pineward Perfume

“Suntanned skin and sunny beaches.”

makrut lime, jasmine sambac, mandarin orange, gardenia, massoia bark, sandalwood, ambergris

Squid - Zoologist

“The vast ocean swells and contracts, caught in the relentless tug of the moon. Beneath the surface, a school of squid emerges. Strange, elastic forms propel from the deep in a frantic search for sustenance. They are not alone. Their predators lunge, only to be foiled by blinding jets of murky ink.”

pink pepper, solar salicylate, incense, black ink accord, salty accord, opoponax, ambergris, benzoin, musk

Seahorse - Zoologist

“Balmy sunlight trips across foamy turquoise waves, sending rippling haloes onto the coral below. On the lagoon floor, anemone and seaweed sway in unison, limbs pumping to the rhythm of the current. Hovering among the coral branches, a group of seahorses gazes shyly on.”

guatemala cardamom, fennel, ambrette absolute, clary sage, tuberose, neroli, algae absolute, vetiver, ambergris accord

Quintessence: Heavy, warm, creamy scents. Quintessence ghouls tend to smell comforting, and their scents reflect human creations much more often than other ghouls’.

Notes: amber, leather, chocolate, alcohol, linen, lavender, wood, milk, vanilla

Amber Witch - Alkemia

aged dark arabian amber, honey musk, creamy bourbon caramels, spiced rum

Moon Magic - Sorcellerie Apothecary

“Smells like your favorite cozy witch.”

lavender sugar, tonka bean, chai spices, vanilla steamed milk, cashmeran, ambroxan, crystals charged by moonlight

Sailing to Byzantium - Alkemia

papyrus, leather, ink, cardamon, orris, tonka, wet tweed, precious incense woods

Novella - Alkemia

“A cozy afternoon curled up in a favorite chair…”

spiced lavender de provence, steaming earl grey tea, old paperback books

The Old Gods Survive - PULP Fragrance

cherry pipe tobacco, golden amber, aged leather, oakmoss, old cedar chests

Solovey - Fantôme

black amber, crushed violets, black currants, dark espresso, labdanum, black agarwood, tobacco

(one of my favorites of all time. it smells like nighttime but magical, somehow. the amber, violets, and espresso are most noticeable and it's so good. if dark purple was a scent it would be this imo)

Fleurs Historiques et Cacao - Alkemia

“A historical recipe from the 1700's court of Versailles created by a mistress to delight a king. A paradox of the decadent and the divine…”

dark cacao, french lavender, piquant black cardamom pods, tea with lemon peel, grapefruit blossom, vanilla musk

thank you for reading, and i would love to hear your thoughts! (also, gentle reminder if you got this far that reblogs are very appreciated!)

#the band ghost #ghost bc #nameless ghouls #nameless ghoulettes #ghoul perfume thoughts #perfume thoughts #fire ghouls #earth ghouls #water ghouls #air ghouls #quintessence ghouls

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saltineofswing · 3 months

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Hello! I'm the person that made the rant post about my dislike on the lack of natural dichotomy of the Pyramids and Traveler since the introduction of the Veil that turned into a whole thing. You mentioned a lack of pulp in your reblog and it's stuck with me since then. I wasn't familiar with the term and did some research on it, but I still don't think I get what it is. I tried looking it up but a lot of articles and videos I could find explain the history of pulp and its influences in modern day sci-fi but not necessarily what it is, especially in a way that would give me context to better understand your reblog. If it's not too much trouble, can you explain a little more what the "pulp" is that destiny is lacking?

I’d be happy to try and give you a little more insight into what I feel are important tenets of pulp as a genre/concept! I decided this might be a good opportunity to talk a little about it generally because I am really feeling its absence generally in the past couple years, so I included some historical backing which you’re probably already familiar with – hope that’s OK.

I did a little digging personally, for some good places to familiarize oneself with the basics of pulp as a concept and/or genre. It was nice to re-affirm some info that I’ve felt secure in holding as true without a ton of evidentiary support, and I also learned some cool new stuff as well! I think a good place to start would be to link to the TV Tropes page about pulp magazines, which does a pretty good job of explaining the origins and foundational aspects of the concept in a way that is easy to digest. It also has a lot of examples available to peruse. I also found this cool article on the golden age of pulps, which is an interesting read.

This got long, so below the cut!

To reiterate, the original ‘pulp’ terminology and vibe comes from early/mid-20th century magazines, which were cheap and easy ways to access genre fiction and action/adventure stories before comics, paperback novels, and TV/movies were really on the scene. Pulp magazines spanned a very wide array of genres, but because of a lack of appreciation for the medium, a majority of pulp magazines and aspects of what I would consider to be pulp as a genre have been allowed to fall into obscurity. There are places where I feel it is particularly obvious, especially the superhero genre (don’t get me started we’ll be here all week) but also in fantasy and science fiction – a term which was, in fact, coined by Hugo Gernsback, an editor for pulp magazine Amazing Stories.

They were cheap to make, cheap to buy, and easy to serialize; they could be really schlocky, crass, and unpolished. They could also be fucking incredible! The Shadow is a good example of an early pulp property with screaming highs and frankly peat-bog lows. Lovecraft published a lot of what is considered to be his ‘best work’ in Weird Tales! Conan the Barbarian, too! They kind of came out of the gate with a somewhat negative connotation associated with ‘low-brow’ forms of literature like dime novels, but where other magazines of the time tended to incorporate non-fiction articles and photography, pulp mags tended to be fiction stories only – short stories, or longer stories split into serialized chapters. Early on, not many of them had art, though with the advent of comic books that changed (you could argue that books like Creepy and Eerie are direct offspring of early pulp mags). Similar to what Weekly Shonen Jump does with manga.

If you think of a genre as a toolbox, pulp is a box full of tools that function fine alone, but excel at assisting the function of other toolboxes. I would almost liken ‘pulp’ to the concept of ‘camp’, which are also two concepts that can and do overlap with a high degree of synergy. Pulp has its own foundational attributes that are distinct from camp – for example, camp is gay relies a lot more on its self-awareness, at being able to wink at the viewer or participant, and telling you ‘yeah, we know it, but isn’t it fun?’ Pulp, on the other hand, is the (no pun intended) straight man counterpart to this aesthetic sensibility; pulp is at its best when it is being completely earnest. The quippy lines and dramatic proclamations are meant to be taken on their face. Nowadays it’s the kind of stuff that memes are made of – ‘That Wizard Came From The Moon’, ‘I don’t have time to explain why I don’t have time to explain’, ‘Whether we wanted it or not, we’ve stepped into a war with the Cabal on Mars’. Saying shit that has no explanation with your whole chest. Trying to be cool on purpose, the ultimate cringe move.

Nowadays I think that this kind of thing has mostly died out of modern media, but the counter-motion is still prevalent in mainstream superhero movies. A good example is the ‘Would you have preferred ~YeLlOw SpAnDeX~’ line from the OG X-Men movie. Hey dickhead! The yellow spandex is cool if you, the guy making the movie, believes its cool! Crucially, while a lot of modern superhero stuff is quippy and irreverent, it often uses these tropes in a self-aware or cynical manner – afraid of being earnest, committing the aforementioned cardinal sin of trying to look cool on purpose.

(God damn it, I’m talking about superheroes again. Sorry. Before I get back on task this is why I loved the recent Moon Knight run so much; Jed MacKay is NOT afraid to have the characters say some absolutely batshit thing but it comes off as so, so cool. And yes, a little cheesy.)

And then, where modern sci-fi typically has an ultra-detailed explanation on-hand, I think a lot of early pulp stuff just… didn’t. Ask a sci-fi property for an explanation on, oh I don’t know, ‘where did these super-humanoid sapient machine warriors come from’ and it will likely have a molecule-deep explanation of how those unnamed machine people were created. Ask a fantasy property for an explanation on the same and it might say, ‘no’. It’s not that a pulp-leaning property won’t give you the answer to that question… it just might not have it. The ‘why is it/how is it’ is not as important as the ‘what is it’ and ‘how is it relevant’; a writer had a limited amount of page real estate, as multiple features were typically crammed into a single magazine. Even if a feature was serialized, much like television episodes (before the binge trend), one had to keep information digestible, and not too reliant on a prior or later edition that a reader might never see.

Explanations tended to be in service of an emotional beat, or to a theme, versus as a grounding agent to immerse a reader in the world. For the record I don’t necessarily think of either method as being better or worse, and heavy worldbuilding can still utilize pulp as a veneer or filter to engage audience expectations in different ways. Pulp stuff relies a lot on suspension of disbelief without utilizing a rigid lore-based framework to – though, you know, your story/setting still has to have its own internal logical consistency.

(I feel that it is important to note, as a partial consequence of the time period in which these magazines were being made, and when pulp fiction was most heavily consumed, xenophobia and racism are also heavily present in pulp works. I think everybody knows at this point about how much Lovecraft sucked but it’s a valuable example of how a lot of ‘fear of the unknown’ in that time was transliterated into ‘fear of the different’, in general but especially relating to genre fiction. If you decide to explore material in this genre, in this time period, be forewarned! Some of it was pretty glaring!)

So, let me tie some of this stuff to my previous statements about Destiny. I think that Destiny is an excellent example of how pulp tropes, aesthetic, and genre conventions can be used to enhance and streamline a setting… and how stripping too much pulp away can have a detrimental impact on the depth of a narrative.

The original narrative and worldbuilding of Destiny drew very heavily on pulp aesthetics to create a foundation, both in its appearance and its lore. The ‘Golden Age of Science Fiction’ was a period of time in the mid-20th century that sort of transitioned sci-fi out of pulp magazines and into its own thing, but the foundational structure of science fiction at this time was still heavily pulp-influenced. I think this is very well-represented by the portrayal of Venus as a ‘garden’ (jungle) world, very lush and with sulfurous and sometimes acidic rains. Before advancements in astronomical technology went and fucked everything up for us writers, Venus’s opaque cloud-covered atmosphere was impenetrable enough that there could be anything under there – and a popular portrayal of Venus was a muggy, humid, rain-heavy world that sometimes also included lush jungles. In Bradbury’s short story The Long Rain (WHICH ran in Planet Stories, a pulp mag, by the way!) this portrayal is a central obstacle to the narrative; it’s also used in Heinlein’s novel Space Cadet.

The color scheme that Destiny uses for Venus also matches a common color scheme for Venus in this era – see this cover for Fantastic Adventures. Visually, I think that this comparison between the postcard that went out with the D1 limited/collector’s edition and this Planet Stories cover for The Golden Amazons of Venus demonstrates the influence, at least regarding terrain and biome.

In fact, I think that you can see from this Eververse postcard – which could have been peeled off of any era-appropriate paperback novel – that the influence goes bone-deep. Destiny even refers to humanity’s halcyon age as ‘The Golden Age’.

(Below: Is this image from Destiny dev, or a science fiction paperback from the 60s? Who knows! I know. It’s Destiny.)

In the modern era of Destiny storytelling, though the visual elements of the universe remain largely rigid relative to this early framework, the pulp underpinning of the narrative has been largely left behind. The original game’s story, and the stories of subsequent DLCs, felt very pulp-inspired – this ranged from ‘sort of effective’, like in House of Wolves, to ‘game-savingly effective’, like in The Taken King. Pulp lends itself to straightforward conceptual executions, and brisk narratives, because of its roots as short-form literature. The narrative of D1 was simple and to the point; Light good, Dark bad, humanity is in the shit, think you can kill a god? The surrounding world scaffold was rich but not deep. As I like to say, sometimes a river can be wide but shallow. This is not a commentary on its quality – something can be good but not complex, and IMO, sophistication is not necessarily synonymous with complexity. Destiny managed to pull off a trick that many high-quality pulp stories employ: it made the river look deeper than it was. This is the whole reason that Lovecraft’s oeuvre has the staying power it has: other writers got to play in the space because it felt very deep, even though the stories themselves were fairly straightforward.

I also don’t mean to say or accidentally imply that ‘morally grey storytelling cannot exist within pulp stories’, because that would probably get me torn apart; that’s just not the kind of straightforward foundation that the original Destiny was built on. ‘It is what you see, but what you see could be anything’, you know? The problem that began to muddy the waters in the Destiny narrative is that they started to say, ‘You know, actually, it ISN’T what you see’.

Tentpole narrative additions to the Destiny 2 game employ varying levels of pulp. As I said in the other post, the Hive have a potent pulp influence built into their foundational coding, and so subsequent portrayals of the Hive as a main antagonist have higher degrees of pulp genre naturally present in the narrative – it’s hard to separate the two of them. Shadowkeep and The Dark Below draw strongly on the ‘sword and sorcery’ convention, a subgenre of fantasy that is a heavy (perhaps 1:1) blend of fantasy and pulp; think Conan, or Elric of Melniboné (who, hey! Showed up in a novella feature, in an issue of Science Fantasy magazine, named… THE DREAMING CITY). The Witch Queen leaned away from pure sword and sorcery and more towards noir/detective pulp – though, I think, TWQ is a good example of the pulp slippage in its narrative, resulting in some more bland moments and things that feel ham-fisted in a bad way. Part of it, I think, is the need to make these expansions ‘long’ and complicated without making the player feel like they’re slogging; in a more pulp-forward TWQ narrative, the reveal that Savathûn is actually NOT evil-aligned and is a potential ally would come much earlier in the story, and the central mystery would be MORE about ‘what the fuck is she trying to do/prevent’, leading to the Witness reveal as the centerpiece of the finale and the ‘solution’ to the central mystery.

The decision to start retroactively appending more complex connections between disparate pieces of content naturally leads to a reduction of pulp prominence, in my opinion. If you imagine Destiny as a vessel that is mainly full of three component liquids – Fantasy, Sci-Fi, and Pulp – you can say that adding more of one genre pushes out another to make room. You can always pour more of one genre in to re-balance, but in response to increasing levels of sci-fi the narrative seems reticent to reintroduce pulp back into the mix, instead favoring fantasy. But another problem is that once you take it out, Pulp is really hard to put back; once you solidify and unionize world-lore, every subsequent retcon risks diluting and destabilizing that world-lore until a) nobody cares about it anymore and b) it stops being mutable at all, and becomes sludge.

The lore behind the existence of the Exo was originally very pulp, with no real explanations given for exactly what they were and where they came from, and how they attained sapience. Early hints that Cayde and a few other Exo having once been human didn’t preclude other Exo from having other origins – for example, implications that Exo war-frames eventually achieved sapience as a result of the ‘Deep Stone Crypt’, and that they were originally simple AI-equipped warriors designed and overseen by Rasputin to minimize human casualties. This early mystique around the origins of the Exo is classically pulp: we don’t need to know how the hyper-advanced robots were made, we just need to know what they are, why they are relevant to the story. It allows You, The Player, to engage with it at whatever level you want. In a game where You, The Player, are also being asked to step into the role of You, The Protagonist, this is beneficial to engagement for people (like me!) who like to think too much about the backstory of the your-name-here protagonist on-screen. It is also beneficial to not distracting the player with conflicting information, or accidentally contradicting previously-established lore.

Enter Big-Head Bray. The Beyond Light-era explanation of why Exo were created and how they were made is a retroactive nuclear strike on the Exo lore; it strips away a lot of flexibility and thematic richness from the concept of the Exo, shoehorns them into a single narrow use case, and directly conflicts with early-game Exo lore implying their connections to Rasputin (which they then had to go back and hastily shoehorn back in later) or existence as war machines for the Collapse. If D1 lore is wide but shallow, the D2 lore is narrow but deep. Just because something has a lot of ‘depth’, I.E. many layers to traverse before you reach foundational bedrock, it doesn’t make it good.

Same thing with the Fallen. Season of Plunder felt to me like an attempt to reintroduce pulp genre back into the setting, but it fell flat because of two reasons: it didn’t really want to be pulp, and it was more concerned with its tethers to the science-fantasy exterior world than it was with creating its own cohesive narrative. Why was Mithrax doing evil pirate shit when he was young? Because he comes from a race of fucking evil space pirates! It Does Not Need To Be More Complex Than That! But the exculpation of pulp from the D2 narrative means that if Mithrax doesn’t have a good enough reason, WRT the larger narrative, it would be a glaringly obvious plot hole. By Plunder, Destiny had already undertaken the task of filling out the Eliksni lore with sympathetic science-fantasy excuses for why they were trying to exterminate humankind – the more earnest, pulp-forward explanation would just be that desperate, hurt, suffering people will do desperate things, hurt people, and may perpetuate the cycle of suffering.

Oy. There’s a lot you COULD get into. How the Destiny macro-narrative seems to be decaying the rigidity of good and evil in its original lore vs. how the micro-narrative is obsessed with trying to recapture that good/evil dichotomy in order to give players a reason to like the main characters. How the determination to connect and explain everything has resulted in a general flattening of the background lore, and the subsequent trivialization of many things the game included in earlier iterations of the narrative/lore. How the narrative has basically nothing to do with the Vex because they wrote themselves into a corner by trying to explain them too much while simultaneously not altering the foundational lore of the race, meaning there were too many things they can no longer do without retconning again.

Overall, I guess I will just end by saying that many of the things that Destiny is CURRENTLY doing, feels like the game is straining to rip the part of it out which proudly asks its audience not to think too hard about sweeping, dramatic statements that built a lot of the things people love about the game’s setting and narrative… and in doing so, is just ripping itself to pieces.

#More lore! MORE LORE!#dinklebot sitcom #northbot sitcom #destiny 2 #Pulp genre #Genre discussion #Sorry this got so long! I’m not used to writing this kind of big essay #it may not be super coherent but whaddya gonna do

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dani-luminae · 3 months

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Made up stuff playing Pirate101 versions of Jim and Lia and now deciding it's canon to my stories:

On Montressor, the gemstone best translated to the common name of "garnet" is pretty similar to garnet gemstones on earth, but due to its rarity its really only collected and fashioned into jewelry by very wealthy people - usually the people underpaying and exploiting the miners and working class of Montressor.

But! Turns out that Montressorian garnets degrade easily, and particles breathed in amount of time... are poisonous. Can definitely make a person very sick. A little chunk of garnet dropped/fallen in a drink can make it toxic in moments. For the rich people who are wearing these stones in countless arrays of jewelry, this is a problem. As a result, Montressorian garnet is very rarely worn in jewelry anymore. It's considered toxic, or more metaphorically, just straight-up bad luck. To the wealthy people at least.

For the lower-class it's not regarded so dangerously. The miners are for the most part know how to protect themselves in the garnet mines, and since it mostly hurts the exploitational rich jerks, it's actually regarded as something of a symbol of rebellion - that one of the minerals that the rich scrambled to get their hands on so much turned out to be poisonous...

It used to be that sending someone a garnet stone was an indication of hostility or hatred. Nowadays it's not practiced - mostly because garnet mines ran out a long time ago - but garnets are still associated with hostility and curses.

EDIT: if Ben gives Lia any kind of garnet jewelry (the non-toxic earth gemstone I mean), she might take it as a declaration of war.

#all this is basically to explain why pirate101 jim named his ship 'the queens garnet'#as i suppose tiny reference to the whole 'terran empire' thing that tp2 might have gone with - headed by a human queen of course #and now pirate101 lia has a ship called the 'brazen garnet'#basically 'the queens poison' and 'brazen hostility' respectively

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cymlea · 4 months

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Things To Do In Tampa: A Comprehensive Guide to Florida's Gulf Coast

Tampa offers a dynamic and lively experience for visitors, showcasing a myriad of activities on Florida's Gulf Coast.

Florida is renowned for its diverse attractions, and Tampa stands out as a city designed for both entertainment and relaxation. With a captivating blend of historic architecture and modern landmarks, a culture enriched with Cuban and Spanish influences, bustling business districts, and scenic canals, Tampa emerges as a versatile destination that caters to work, exploration, and leisure.

Discover the myriad activities that Tampa has to offer with this comprehensive guide!

Things To Do In Tampa

Despite its vintage charm, Tampa boasts a multicultural atmosphere where historic buildings are being revitalized into vibrant food halls. Immerse yourself in the complete travel experience with our guide to Tampa's diverse offerings.

Discover Marine Life at The Florida Aquarium While in Tampa, Florida, don't miss the opportunity to explore The Florida Aquarium—an expansive 250,000-square-foot facility accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. As a 501 non-profit organization situated in downtown Tampa, it stands as one of the premier aquariums in the US. Witness a captivating array of sea creatures and immerse yourself in this publicly operated institution.

Location: 701 Channelside Dr, Tampa, FL 33602

Operating Hours: Open daily from 9:30 AM to 5 PM

Admission: $34.45 per person

Uncover Tampa's Past at Henry B. Plant Museum Venture into the historical realm by visiting the Henry B. Plant Museum, housed in the south wing of Plant Hall on the University of Tampa's campus. Located at 401 West Kennedy Boulevard, this museum offers insights into the Victorian lifestyle during turn-of-the-century Florida. Considered a hidden gem, it conveniently sits near hotels and restaurants around the university campus.

Location: 401 W Kennedy Blvd, Tampa, FL 33606

Operating Hours: Tuesday - Sunday from 10 AM to 5 PM (opens at 12 on Sundays)

Experience Artistic Splendor at The Tampa Theatre For a dose of cultural entertainment, make your way to The Tampa Theatre—an exquisite performing arts space in downtown Tampa. Designed by architect John Eberson, this atmospheric theatre-style movie palace hosts a variety of independent and foreign film productions. Treat yourself to a unique cinematic experience in this beautifully preserved landmark.

Location: 711 N Franklin St, Tampa, FL 33602

Operating Hours: Varies by show/screening

Relax Amid Nature at Lettuce Lake Park Nature enthusiasts will find solace in Lettuce Lake Park, a beloved green space in Tampa. Spanning 240 acres, the park offers walking paths, biking trails, and scenic benches for relaxation. Conveniently located on Fletcher Avenue between Interstate 75 and the University of South Florida, Lettuce Lake Park is complemented by the soothing presence of the Hillsborough River, providing a refreshing escape during warm spells.

Address: 6920 E Fletcher Ave, Tampa, FL 33637

Hours: Open daily from 8 AM to 7 PM

Enjoy Live Performances at The Straz Center for the Performing Arts For aficionados of the performing arts, The Straz Center offers a captivating venue for shows, screenings, and live concerts throughout the year. Originally established in 1987 as the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center and later rebranded in 2009, this beautiful complex is situated in downtown Tampa.

Location: 1010 N Macinnes Pl, Tampa, FL 33602

Operating Hours: Varies by show/screening

Embark on a Splashy Adventure at Adventure Island For a dose of fun in Tampa, look no further than Adventure Island—a conveniently located water park northeast of Tampa, Florida, just across the street from Busch Gardens Tampa Bay. This aquatic haven covers 30 acres and offers water rides, dining options, and various attractions. Many visitors opt for a full trip, combining the thrills of Busch Gardens and Adventure Island.

Location: 10001 McKinley Dr, Tampa, FL 33612

Tickets: $29.99 per person

Experience Thrills at Busch Gardens A must-visit for adrenaline enthusiasts in Tampa, Busch Gardens Tampa Bay is the largest zoo in the region, packed with exhilarating roller coasters and over 12,000 animals. This adventure park seamlessly blends high-caliber rides, adrenaline-pumping thrills, and family-friendly recreation. For a water-themed escapade, explore Busch Gardens' Adventure Island, Tampa's exclusive water park, spanning 30 acres of tropical excitement.

Location: 10165 McKinley Dr, Tampa, FL 33612

Tickets: $84.99 per person

Unwind on the Beautiful Beaches Just a short drive away, Tampa offers access to approximately 35 miles of pristine Gulf of Mexico waters and white sand beaches on the barrier islands of St. Petersburg and Clearwater. Renowned for their exceptional sand quality and environmental preservation, standouts include Fort DeSoto Park, Caladesi Island, and Clearwater Beach. With its undeveloped coastlines, this area imparts a sense of being on a remote island.

Discover the wealth of beaches: Tampa boasts around 35 miles of white sand coastline, providing ample opportunities for relaxation and seaside enjoyment.

Discover the Glazer Children's Museum For families with kids, a visit to the Glazer Children's Museum is a must during their time in Tampa. Boasting around 20 interactive exhibits catering to children of all ages, this family-friendly museum offers an engaging experience.

Location: 110 W Gasparilla Plaza, Tampa, FL 33602

Operating Hours: Tuesday - Sunday from 9:30 AM to 5 PM

Indulge in a Beer Tasting Experience Tampa's brewing legacy dates back to 1896 when the Florida Brewing Company established itself in Ybor City's downtown. While facing challenges due to restrictions and laws, the craft beer scene experienced a resurgence with the establishment of the Tampa Bay Brewing Company a century later.

Diverse Beer Scene: Tampa boasts a thriving brewing culture, with the Florida Brewing Company being a popular choice in Ybor City.

Best Time to Explore Tampa, Florida

Tampa is at its best between September and December, offering a pleasant escape from the oppressive heat and humidity. The breezy conditions of autumn still provide warmth and sunshine, and during these months, hotels often offer enticing deals to attract visitors.

While the peak season for major attractions is from May to August, the weather can be uncomfortably humid. January through April, despite being cooler, tends to be a more expensive period for booking trips.

Optimal Transportation in Tampa

For seamless exploration of Tampa, visitors often find it beneficial to rent a car, especially if planning excursions to Clearwater and St. Pete's beachfront or the artistic enclaves of Sarasota. However, for those intending to stay within downtown or utilize the Telo Line Streetcar, walking or riding may suffice.

Given the residential and widely dispersed nature of the Bay Area, car rental costs, while subject to fluctuations based on supply and peak season factors, are generally reasonable. Commute times may be slightly extended due to the unique driving patterns in the region.

Guide to Tampa's Distinct Neighborhoods

Tampa's allure extends beyond its main attractions, inviting visitors to explore its vibrant neighborhoods that pulse with unique charm.

Hyde Park: Crafted around the time of the first Hillsborough River bridge by railroad magnate Henry B. Plant and Cuban immigrants establishing Ybor City, Hyde Park is a charming area exuding heritage and retro glamour. Nestled by the sea, with leafy tree canopies and early 20th-century brick lanes, Hyde Park features upscale Hyde Park Village, a walkable hub for dining and shopping. To the east, Bayshore Boulevard offers a waterfront promenade for biking and strolling.

Channelside District: Packed with tourist delights, the Channelside District hosts Sparkman Wharf—a riverfront entertainment venue offering microbrews, musical performances, and diverse dining options. The Florida Aquarium, home to over 8,000 species, adds to the district's allure with captivating exhibits on conservation initiatives, coral reefs, and marine life. Dolphin trips and hands-on experiences, like the No Bone Zone habitat, enhance the Channelside District's appeal.

Downtown: A blend of historical and contemporary cultural attractions defines downtown Tampa. Renowned sites such as the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts, the Tampa Museum of Art, and the Glazer Children's Museum cater to art enthusiasts and families alike. The David A. Straz, Jr. Center for the Performing Arts hosts Broadway musicals, opera-ballet performances, and musical events. Corey Hixon Waterfront Park hosts year-round outdoor events, while the Tampa Riverwalk offers a scenic stroll along the Hillsborough River, lined with diverse eateries and bars.

Dining Recommendations in Tampa

The culinary scene in Tampa Bay mirrors its diverse culture, offering indulgent beverages at beachfront bistros and taverns. Visitors can savor iconic Tampa dishes, choosing from an array of options, including haute cuisine, farm-to-table eateries, and delightful seafood and traditional Spanish meals.

Top Breakfast Spots: Samaria Cafe, Nicki's Omelette & Grill, Oxford Exchange Lunch Favorites: Oystercatchers, Ulele, Al's Finger Licking Good Bar-B-Que Dinner Hotspots: Vino E Pasta, On Swann, Wright's Gourmet House Best Bars: M. Bird, Fly Bar, The Orpheum, Bad Monkey

Where To Stay In Tampa, Florida

Tampa Bay offers a diverse range of lodging options, catering to both luxury seekers and those on business or leisure trips. Entertainment abounds, making Tampa an ideal destination for various needs.

Luxury Hotels

The Tampa Edition

Cost: Starting at $709 per night

Address: 500 Channelside Dr., Tampa, 33602

Amenities: Fitness Center, Outdoor Swimming Pool, Garden

Floridan Palace Hotel

Cost: Starting at $299 per night

Address: 905 North Florida Avenue, Tampa, FL 33602

Amenities: Fitness Center, Restaurant

Mid-Tier Hotels

Hyatt Place Downtown Tampa

Cost: Starting at $349 per night

Address: 325 N Florida Avenue, Tampa, 33602

Amenities: Fitness Center, Outdoor Swimming Pool, Restaurant

Hotel South Tampa & Suites

Cost: Starting at $199 per night

Address: 3314 South Dale Mabry, Tampa, FL 33629

Amenities: Swimming Pool, Fitness Center

Budget Hotels

Hilton Garden Inn Tampa East

Cost: Starting at $166 per night

Address: 10309 Highland Manor Drive, Tampa, FL 33610

Amenities: Restaurant, Swimming Pool

Sleep Inn & Suites Tampa South

Cost: Starting at $179 per night

Address: 6231 S Dale Mabry Highway, Tampa, 33611

Amenities: Spa and Wellness Center, Fitness Center

Visiting Tampa: Helpful Tips

Sunpass Convenience: Consider obtaining a Sunpass, a prepaid digital permit for hassle-free highway travel to various destinations.

CityPASS Savings: Opt for the Tampa Bay CityPASS, providing discounted access to the city's premier attractions. Priced at $97 for children and $107 for adults, it offers substantial savings.

Freshwater Caution: Exercise caution when encountering freshwater, especially outside designated swimming springs. Florida's waters are home to over a million alligators, emphasizing the need for vigilance.

A Day Well Spent in Tampa

For those with just 24 hours, Tampa offers a condensed yet fulfilling experience. Explore Downtown Tampa starting with the Glazer Children's and art museums. Next, embark on an adventurous journey at Busch Gardens.

As the evening unfolds, consider a visit to one of the local breweries. Hyde Park beckons with its excellent dining and shopping options, while the Channelside District provides a vibrant backdrop for live performances.

Engage in Unique Activities

Even if water sports aren't your forte, Tampa's outdoor adventures offer compelling reasons to visit. The region boasts a diverse array of outdoor activities to suit various interests.

FAQ

Q: What is Tampa known for? Tampa is renowned for attractions such as the Florida Aquarium, the exhilarating Busch Gardens, the vibrant Ybor City, and being the birthplace of the Cuban sandwich. Additionally, the city is celebrated for its lush gardens, cigar manufacturing heritage, modern museums, fine dining establishments, and picturesque sidewalks.

Q: Is Tampa better than Orlando? Tampa is preferred by beach enthusiasts due to its proximity to the coast and the surrounding Tampa Bay. Orlando, another city in Central Florida, is favored by those who are fans of Universal and Disney attractions.

Q: Is Tampa Riverwalk worth visiting? Absolutely! Tampa Riverwalk is a must-visit attraction, offering a scenic stroll along the Garrison Channel and Hillsborough River. With water-based activities, beachfront restaurants, museums, and year-round festivals, it provides an enriching and enjoyable experience.

#Tampa #Florida #urban #city #USA #United States #buildings #travel #journey #outdoors #street #architecture

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mymelody-sapphic · 2 months

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Hey boo 💚

As a black, stone femme lesbian, I can’t speak to the experience of being a butch but I can say that I don’t think your actions or references are quite as dangerous or damaging as the anon made them out to be.

It’s true that many lesbians, bisexuals, pansexual etc don’t quite know how to treat butches at times and have been very cruel to them in the past, but I do think that the anon came less from a place of correction than a place of unaddressed pain and fear.

I also think that there truly is a distinction between the us American idea of feminine masculinity vs a nonamerican version. That is neither good nor bad, it simply is. Different cultures associate different traits with femininity. To refuse to acknowledge the differences is to ignore a fascinating and vast array of gender expressions that are unique to various cultures all around the world.

With that in mind, I don’t think it wise to gatekeep the idea of femme vs masc to just being within a lesbian space since bisexuality and pansexuality have plenty of space for non-normative gender expression within them. A more butch-presenting female-identifying person could very well have attraction to both mascs and femmes, but that doesn’t make them less Bi. This gatekeeping also keeps up the tradition of Bi-erasure and unblurs the non-binary line in all of this.

I think this anon has been hurt very badly by a lot of people and deserves all the kindness and understanding in the world, but I don’t think that your words were particularly damaging in and of themselves.

Then again, I am not a butch, so please take my views with a MASSIVE grain of salt.

hi! thank you for your time really 🩷 i really appreciate it and i do agree with what you say. i actually wanted to hear the opinion of femme lesbians since the main discussion is about the term and leaving femmes out of this conversation would be so wrong.

and yes even though the concepts of feminity/masculinity withing the queer community do have similarities mainly bc colonization we have to acknowledge that terms, concepts and perceptions can also be really different in some aspects when it comes to non white/western cultures and i hope i explained myself well in that sense

still i hope none else feels that offended/hurt by my words because i just want to find a community and make everyone feel as safe and welcome as i’ve felt thanks to others.

#𐙚 𝆬 lia answers #again tysm!! 🩷

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biff-adventurer · 9 days

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today i met tiny chris

poor wean's da got et by a 'bon. now he wants 'em all dead. wiv' crossy eyes like them as drawed in the picture shows. dinnae get et and ye might be his new da.

he actually made me think about two things - the npcs/people we've helped along the way, and the writing of accents.

it's no secret i gave biff this accent - it tells you he ain't a city slicker but rather a rural boy, it tells you his folks ain't got a lotta money (at least, one would think), and it associates him with a specific cultural/ethnic profile (gaelic, i know/studied a little more about irish than scots so i lean irish)

i think we should, as a society, be wary of continuing to associate class with specific ethnic communities, but i'm not learned enough to make a post dedicated to my specific thoughts on that (yet? tbd)

mostly, i think it's important to look at the way characters speak as a vehicle of writing. when you write a character's accent, is it useful for what you're trying to establish in the scene? is the noble supposed to fail to understand the vernacular of his server? is it useful if the character is always going to say "dinnae" instead of "do not"? when dealing with non-western characters with accents, how far is it okay to go until the dialogue goes from representation to racist charicature?

writers have the power of flexibility. writing is about persuasion more than anything else, and we should remember to persuade our audiences that these are people. they aren't real, so don't bother with "realistic" - but they represent real ideas, concepts and associations in our world. it's important to be careful what you do with these, intended or not! and if you make an oopsie? acknowledge, accept and continue on your journey to being your best.

my preferences for writing accents based on my experiences, observations and education lean thus:

pick and choose what words require emphasis. if the whole sentence requires it, then so be it! but make conscious choices. words weigh differently, and they carry double the weight when they're written out to represent an accent. just really think about whether or not this is the point you want to say to, t', ta, or tae. the whole sentence doesn't need to be written out phonetically b/c avoiding doing that helps us steer clear of reiterating caricatures.

include culturally specific verbiage. "what's the craic" or "how's it hangin'" depending on who your character is. in india, lots of people greet each other with religious phrases (in english, it'd sound like saying "god is good"/"good is god" call and response) - so a thavnairian character could say anything between "sisters be with you" to "mindhurva guide your path today" (and also yours, brother/sister). but also: wain, wean, child, sweetling,

be careful which non-english words your character uses. i don't call it chai tea latte, i call it chai latte. my wife doesn't call it green tea latte, but matcha latte. i actually don't drink chai latte, i drink chai. but i call it both chai and tea interchangeably; so, when i want someone to know how to prepare my tea, i might ask for chai instead of tea. because with chai, you get half or whole base milk instead of water. you get dried ginger or an array of spices depending on the auntie. with tea, you get dried up leaves and some hot water. big difference for me.

above all, make sure it's legible most of the time. you can do this by avoiding writing a character's accent out completely phonetically. this isn't to say "conform your character to what people think they should talk like". this is about being aware that writing implies an audience. if you want your writing to connect with people, the important parts should be clearly communicated in the text. especially if you're writing in english. if i wanted my characters to speak hindi, why would i bother writing the story in english at all? you want people to see your character a specific way. write them the way you hope they'll be seen--if you've done a good enough job, it will lead to so much joy and satisfaction. if you haven't--it's back to the drawing board! but you get the chance to learn even more.

#ooc;;#screenshots;;#i've been wanting to say something forever #in reality though i want to include an ep about tiny chris in my ongoing fic #so i was looking at him and his FATES and i was then compelled to go back to other lower level areas and be like #where are the other little guys we helped? i love them #i don't really care if the time bubble keeps them in our halcyon days as a sprout #i want to learn who they are again and again and love on them #and imagine what happens to them as our stories grow side by side #i think i'll be stuck in ARR for a long time so sorry about that #but i think it will be worth it for the kind of story i want to tell anyway #ps this is probably going to be outdated advice someday so pls remember that even im doing my best LOL #i'm just tired of being quiet... i'm going to do me and not worry about fitting in...#it took me awhile to remember that my position culturally means i'll always be a disruptive presence to the status quo #so it's better for my health to stop hoping i'll fit in somewhere and just try to relax

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aronarchy · 6 months

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Anarchist Studies, Volume 14, Issue 1, pp. 84–91 2006

Research Note: Αναρχία—What did the Greeks actually say?

URI GORDON

Doctoral Candidate in Politics University of Oxford [email protected]

ABSTRACT

This article examines a range of uses to which the word “anarchy” and its derivations were put in ancient Greek sources. Perhaps not surprisingly, the majority of instances indicate that the negative application of the word as a synonym for confusion and disorder was prevalent from ancient times. However, there are also several eminently political uses, which are quite telling in their prefiguration of contemporary anarchist values—namely the Athenians’ reference to 404 BC as the “year of anarchy”; the uses of the word by Plato and Aristotle in their critiques of democracy; and the association of anarchy with the defiant actions of Antigone in the plays of Aeschylus and Sophocles.

The ancient Greek origin of the word “anarchy” is a matter of common knowledge, and it has become a predictable convention to mention it at the outset of almost any discussion of anarchism as a political movement in the modern era. At the same time, as far as I am aware, no one has ever looked at the actual functioning of the word in classical sources. Instead, anarchist and non-anarchist commentators alike have inevitably satisfied themselves with second-hand exercises in Greek etymology, removing the word from its discursive context and ignoring the complex array of meanings it had for ancient writers. What I propose here, then, is to give attention to the actual uses to which the word was put in classical Greek. As I think will become immediately clear, such an exercise is of more than a merely historical interest.

Greek political culture revolved around citizenship in the polis, the city-state form that dominated political organization in the Hellenic world form the archaic period (c.800 BC) to the strong-armed unification of Greece under Alexander the Great (356–323 BC). Due in part to the peninsula’s geographic conditions, which meant that many settlement-clusters developed in relative isolation, poleis bringing together hundreds of farming households were largely self-sufficient and enjoyed economic and political autonomy for centuries. The typical Greek polis was a complex hierarchical society, with chattel slavery in agricultural households serving as its economic base. Sharply separated from domestic life was the citizen body, in which a certain rough equality obtained among male property owners. Citizenship was not necessarily “democratic”—in Sparta, all soldiers/citizens belonged to an assembly that elected a ruling council, which had legislative authority and advised the King. But in whatever form, the ideal of citizenship in a united political community seems to have been universally accepted by all literate classes. The polis itself was a matter for collective pride and was valued beyond question as the hallmark of the superiority of Greek civilization to the lifestyles of surrounding “barbarian” tribes. (See the bibliography for some further reading on the history and character of Greek political societies.)

Given the pervasive currency of this worldview, it is perhaps not surprising that, as T. A. Sinclair notes, “there was no philosophy of anarchy in Greek political theory.”[1] There are some possible exceptions to this observation: there were Cynics such as Antisthenes (a pupil of Socrates, c.444–365 BC) and his own pupil Diogenes of Sinope (412–323 BC), who looked with disdain on conventional values, wealth and social status, and who would have seen government as opposed to a life in full accordance with nature. Unfortunately only small fragments of Cynic writings have survived, but their ideas are thought to have later influenced Zeno of Citium (333–264 BC), founder of Stoicism, “who distinctly opposed his conception of a free community without government to the state-utopia of Plato… repudiated the omnipotence of the state, its intervention and regimentation, and proclaimed the sovereignty of the moral law of the individual.”[2] However, the Cynics’ purism drove them to oppose any organised intervention in politics, making their “anarchism” philosophical at best. While the ease with which later developments in Stoicism were appropriated for the peace of mind of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (121–180 AD) shows that its anarchist resonances were neither obvious nor perennial. Finally, neither Cynics nor Stoics are known to have used the actual concept “anarchy.”

Surprisingly, the entire corpus of electronically surveyable literature in ancient Greek contains only 47 instances of the word “anarkhia” or its derivations.[3] Compared to 549 instances of “demokratia” and 422 of “oligarkhia” in the same database, the word does not seem to have occupied a significant place in the literary vocabulary of the time. Among these 47 instances, moreover, the majority of cases employ the word just as many non-anarchists might do today—as a catch-all synonym for confusion, disorder, tumult and license. Thus in the play Hecuba by Euripides (c.480–406 BC), the heroine, fearing for her daughter’s body, says that “the mob knows no restraint, and the unruliness [anarkhia] of sailors exceeds that of fire.”[4] Another playwright, Aeschylus (c.525–456 BC), has his Clytaemnestra (wife of king Agamemnon, who fought against Troy) recalling the warning that “the mob’s anarchic will [dêmothrous anarkhia] might overturn the Council.”[5] While the historian Thucydides (c.460–395 BC) attributes the military failures of the Syracusans in part to “the troops’ disorder [asyntakton anarkhian].”[6] The same type of usage is also found in the historical work of Herodotus (c.484–430 BC), as well as with later Greek-writing historians such as Diodorus Siculus (fl.50 AD) and Flavius Josephus (c.37–100 AD). We can thus see that, far from being a subsequent “corruption,” the negative and condemnatory connotations of the word anarchy have burdened it from earliest times.

Let us look, however, at other cases from ancient Greece in which the word anarchy is used in a more distinctly political sense. There is, for instance, the single occasion when a Hellenic population appears to have matter-of-factly used the word to refer to its own situation: the Athenian “year of anarchy,” 404 BC. This is something of a curiosity, since the circumstances of that year were anything but anarchic. As a matter of fact, Athens was at the time under the very strong rule of an oligarchy—The Thirty—installed by the Spartans following their victory in the second Peloponesian war of that same year. Moreover, there was literally an Archon in place, installed by the oligarchs, in the person of Pythodorus. However, according to the historian Xenophon (c.430–355 BC), the Athenians refused to apply here their custom of calling the year by that archon’s name, since he was elected during the oligarchy, and “preferred to speak of it as the year of ‘anarchy.’”[7] Despite its counter-intuitive appearance, this first popular application of the word anarchy is very telling. It resonates with a mass symbolic defiance, refusing the recognition that a ruler was supposed to receive in everyday language. It was this defiance which led to the restoration of democracy in Athens the following year.

Democracy, of course, was far from a positive ideal for the great political theorists of ancient Greece, Plato and Aristotle. And it was always in the context of discussing democracy that they made their rare uses of the word anarchy—making for the close association between the two concepts which would prevail well into the modern era.[8] The two philosophers’ famous mistrust of democracy, rooted in their contempt for popular power of any kind, was expressed in their arguments for democracy’s inherent vulnerability and its preponderance to deteriorate into tyranny. However, it should be noticed that what enabled Plato to present such arguments in the Republic was the complete detachment of his account of democracy from the realities of such systems of government, in Athens and elsewhere. Nowhere does his description reflect the constitution that sentenced his mentor Socrates to death, the structured, lawful and impeccably stratified Hellenic democracy. Instead, we find an account that comes very close to what we might intuitively call anarchy, though for Plato this is an entirely negative affair. In democracy, he says, there is no enforceable political authority or stability of the state, “no necessity… for you to govern… even if you have the capacity, or to be governed, unless you like, or to go to war when the rest go to war, or to be at peace when others are at peace, unless you are so disposed.”[9] This portrayal is what sets the ground for Plato’s account of such a state’s subsequent deterioration into tyranny. Democracy in his view makes for far too much equality. It loosens what Plato considered to be the natural hierarchy and authority obtaining between slave and master, man and woman, parent and child. His allegorical youngster’s soul, divided between an oligarchical self and a democratic self, is besieged by the corrupting and evil influence of the latter. Democracy causes the soul to “drink too deeply from the strong wine of freedom,” breeding desires whose false councils introduce “insolence and anarchy and waste and impudence hymning their praises and calling them by sweet names; insolence they term breeding, and anarchy liberty [anarkhian de eleutherian], and waste magnificence, and impudence courage.” So pervasive is the corruption that “anarchy finds a way into the private houses, and ends by getting among the animals and infecting them.”[10] In order to avoid the dangers of anarchy, Plato concludes that habits of dominance and obedience must be instilled deeply into the soul of the individual. “This task of ruling, and being ruled by, others must be practised in peace from earliest childhood; but anarchy must be utterly removed from the lives of all mankind, and of the beasts also that are subject to man.”[11]

It is important to note that, for Plato, anarchy is never a distinct class of political association. Since the concept is entirely subsumed into his discussion of democracy, it is not understood as requiring a separate theoretical category alongside oligarchy, tyranny, democracy, etc. Nevertheless, Plato’s account does supply us with an important understanding about anarchy that remains intact regardless of his crusade against it. This is that anarchy represents not merely the lack of government conceived as statelessness, but also the thorough erosion of rank in non-governmental spheres—between classes, age-groups and genders.

Aristotle’s association of anarchy with democracy is essentially identical to although his depiction thereof is never as colourful. The concept appears again as a form of democratic deterioration, but in keeping with Aristotle’s method it is appropriately situated in empirical observations rather than in metaphorical speculation. In democracies such as Thebes and Syracuse, we are told, the upper classes were motivated to stage a coup by their contempt for the prevailing “disorder and anarchy [ataxias kai anarkhias]” in the affairs of the state.[12] Also, in many cases the nobles will form factions with one another, and create them among the masses, “and so bring about a suspension of government [anarkhian].”[13] Alternately, in a tyranny Aristotle sees “democratic” features, namely “license among slaves” [anarkhia te doulôn] as well as among women and children. “A constitution of this sort,” he concludes, “will have a large number of supporters, as disorderly living [zên ataktôs] is pleasanter to the masses than sober living.”[14] Aristotle, like Plato, was not interested in delineating anarchy as a separate political form. However, unlike Plato, he is able to see anarchy as more than an abstractly corrupting influence, since its connection with democracy portrays it as desirable by the masses, and even as an implicit goal of popular insurrection.

The explicit connection of anarchy with a conscious human will appears only twice in classical Greek literature. This is perhaps the most intriguing example since, although penned by two different authors over a gap of several decades, they both refer to the same act by the same person. If we are looking for the first-ever anarchist, here she is:

Antigone: I at least will say something to the rulers of the Cadmeans: even if no one else is willing to share in burying him I will bury him alone and risk the peril of burying my own brother. Nor am I ashamed to act in defiant opposition [apiston tênd’anarkhian] to the rulers of the city. A thing to be held in awe is the common womb from which we were born, of a wretched mother and unfortunate father. Therefore, my soul, willingly share his evils, even though they are unwilling, and live in kindred spirit with the dead. No hollow-bellied wolves will tear his flesh, let no one “decree” that! Even though I am a woman, I will myself find the means to give him burial and a grave, carrying the earth in the fold of my linen robe. With my own hands I will cover him over—let no one “decree” it otherwise. Take heart, I will have the means to do it.[15]

In the person of Antigone, a long-standing inspiration to feminists, we also find a clear prefiguration of two of the most important concepts attached to anarchist practice in its contemporary idiom: disobedience and direct action. First, Antigone openly refuses to abide by the rulers’ decree to leave her brother Polyneices’ body unburied, as punishment for his participation in the attack on Thebes. She asserts that the bond of siblings born of a common womb stands above the authority of political powers, and rejects the legitimacy of any decree that transgresses this bond. While her appeal to values that stand above the law as a justification for her actions is by no means an exclusively anarchist refrain, and while on some interpretations these values are themselves grounded in a form of authority—the higher authority of the gods—it is the disobedient and insubordinate character of her action that she, in her own words, associates with anarchy. It should also be remembered that it was only in recent decades that the notion of justified, “civil” disobedience to the law acquired popular moral legitimacy. In earlier times, including those of the anarchist movement in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the distinction between contingent and wholesale (i.e. anarchist) rejection of political authority was not as clear as it is today.

Second, we find in Antigone’s speech a striking example of the concept of direct action. She has no intention of appealing to the authorities in order to convince them of the immorality or illegitimacy of their decree, but rather takes that illegitimacy as her starting point, and sets about to take matters into her own hands and create by herself the alternate reality that she desires. Aeschylus, we may also note, has his chorus openly endorse Antigone’s defiance at the close of the play. Whatever action the authorities might take against her, they say, “We, at all events, will go and bury him with her, following the funeral procession. For this grief is shared by all our race, and the city approves, as just, different things at different times.”[16]

Picking up the narrative in Antigone, Sophocles has the autocrat Creon warn his son Heimon (who is also Antigone’s lover) of the dangers of her intended action:

Creon: There is no evil worse than disobedience [anarkhias de meizon ouk estin kakon]. This destroys cities; this overturns homes; this breaks the ranks of allied spears into headlong rout. But the lives of men who prosper upright, of these obedience has saved the greatest part. Therefore we must defend those who respect order, and in no way can we let a woman defeat us.[17]

Again the translator has well chosen to reflect the disobedient core of anarchy, whereas Sophocles himself cleverly exposes here the ambiguity and half-heartedenss of all rulers’ moralistic declamations in defence of obedience and authority. Is the issue here really the potential damage to the collectivity of such an act of disobedience going unpunished? Or is it rather the danger that such an example of defiance would posit to the stability of power itself and, even more poignantly, to the principle of male supremacy?

To be sure, neither the classical Greek nor any other historical antecedents of the uses of the word anarchy should have any deciding influence on how we might understand the concept today. However, the foregoing analysis of the ancient literature does lead to two significant conclusions about the discourse surrounding the word. First, we can see that the negative connotations of anarchy with disorder and confusion have been widespread from the very beginning, as evident in the first citations I offered. This shows how deep-seated are the preconceptions which anarchists have had to deal with when re-articulating the word as a positive ideal. Second, we can see that despite these widespread connotations, some writers were capable of understanding anarchy as an eminently political concept—even if it had an entirely negative role in their writing. Moreover, these political formulations of anarchy already contain, in their most ancient form, the notions of social equality, popular resistance and disobedience to power which anarchists associate with their project to this day.

Acknowledgements: My thanks to Dimitrios Kyritsis and Juan Coderch for verifying Greek translations.

NOTES

Sinclair (1951:83).

Kropotkin (1910), Marshall (1992:68–71).

The figures here are taken from the comprehensive database of the Perseus Digital Library at Tufts University.

Euripides, Hecuba II.606–8.

Thucydides, The Peloponesian War, bk.6 ch.7 §4.

Aeschylus, Agamemnon, II.883–4.

Xenophon, Hellenica, bk.2 ch.3 §1.

Before Pierre Joseph Proudhon became the first to use the word in a positive sense in 1840, “anarchists” was a widespread pejorative for “democrats.” See Williams (1976:37–8).

Plato, Republic, bk.8.

Ibid.

Plato, Laws §942c. Note that here as in the previous citation, Plato seems to be hinting at a continuity between hierarchy among humans and the domesticated state of non-human animals, with anarchy corrupting both. One wonders whether our contemporary anarcho-primitivists would appreciate such a strange bedfellow…

Aristotle, Politics, bk.5 ch.3.

op.cit., bk.2 Ch.10.

op.cit., bk.6 ch.4.

Aeschylus, Seven Against Thebes, II.1032–1045. Dated at 467 BC, this also happens to be the earliest recorded use of the a-word.

Ibid., II.1074–1077.

Sophocles, Antigone, II.672–678.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Works cited

Aeschylus 1926. Aeschylus (trans. H. W. Smyth). Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press.

Aristotle 1932. Politics (trans. H. Rackham). Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press.

Euripides 1938. Hecuba (trans. E. P. Coleridge). New York, Random House.

Kropotkin, P. 1910. “Anarchism,” Encyclopaedia Britannica article.

Marshall, P. 1993. Demanding the Impossible: A history of anarchism. London, Fontana.

Plato 1901. Republic (trans. B. Jowett). New York, P. F. Collier.

Plato 1926. Laws (trans. R.G. Bury). New York, Putnam.

Sinclair, T. A. 1951. A History of Greek Political Thought. London, Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Sophocles 1891. Antigone (trans. R. Jebb). Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Thucydides 1910. The Peloponnesian War (trans. R. Crawley). London, Dent.

Williams, Raymond 1976. “Anarchism,” Keywords. London, Fontana.

Xenophon 1985. Hellenica (trans. C.L. Brownson). Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press.

2. Background on ancient Greek politics

Andrewes, A. 1971. Greek Society. Harmondsworth, Penguin.

Baslez, M. F. 1994. Histoire politique du monde grec antique. Paris, Nathan.

Brock, R. and S. Hodkinson (eds.) 2000. Alternatives to Athens: Varieties of political organization and community in ancient Greece. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Meier, C. 1990. The Greek discovery of politics. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press.

Nielsen, T. H. (ed.) 2004. Once again: Studies in the ancient Greek Polis. Stuttgart, Franz Steiner.

Rhodes, P. (ed.) 2004. Athenian democracy. Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press.

Sinclair, R. K. 1988. Democracy and participation in Athens. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Starr, Chester G. 1986. Individual and community: The rise of the polis. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

#repost of someone else’s content #academic #history #Ancient Greece #anarchism #anarchy #adultism #misogyny #patriarchy #youthlib #youth liberation #feminism #anarcha-feminism #speciesism #animal liberation #classism

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frogblast-the-ventcore · 7 months

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The Ciprians

The Royal Republic of Ciprine is the nationstate inhabited by the majority of the Ciprian species. While vaguely resembling avians and largely covered in a metallic carapace, Ciprians are in fact mammalian, giving live birth and nursing their young. Being descended from an arboreal flight capable predator species has given Ciprians traits such as forward-facing eyes, clawed hands, and a prominent array of teeth. They are omnivores, but their dietary needs skew towards requiring a high amount of meat. Their carapace evolved as a form of natural armor, as their primordial ancestors were not at the top of the food chain - while it offers some protection against blunt force trauma and low velocity impacts, the carapace does not protect against small arms fire, either projectile or directed energy based. Ciprians value the ecosystem of their planet, and have become leading galactic experts at preservation and maintenance of planetary climate and terra/xenoformation. Indeed, it was Ciprian technology, after first contact with humanity in 2153, that enabled the reversal of many of the worst effects of climate change on the human homeworld.

Ciprian society is strictly regimented by educational level, with citizenship tiers beginning at 0 (children who have yet to enter schooling), and ending at 27. Ciprian society retains a monarch (styled as Emperor/Empress; seat currently held by Empress Caela VII), who is largely a figurehead, but who retains a small amount of personal power in executive matters. Citizens may gain promotion to higher tiers via exams held by the government every two years. This process is automatic as part of initial public education, but becomes voluntary and semi-competitive once a citizen has exited public education.

In order to display rank and status, Ciprians wear facial markings in a variety of patterns and colors, with different components to denote different aspects of their highest attained educational level.

For a typical Ciprian, markings concentrated on the forehead denote the Ciprian's home city/town/province (thus these are the first marks ever received, even before entering schooling), while the pattern of marks on the cheeks denote the field of study; mandible markings indicate how long one has studied for, and bands on the crest denote scores achieved in each year of education. Jewelry of varying type and expensive is pierced through the mandibles to denote degrees and honors earned. The color and pattern of all but the crest markings denotes a specific educational institution, which each having a specific pattern and color scheme. Ciprians who attend educational institutions outside the boundaries of Ciprian space are not required to have such markings, but over the centuries, an official register of marking colors/patterns has been developed for such educational institutions. Ciprian language also has an extensive list of honorifics used to refer to others by educational level. These terms do not always fully translate into Astral Confederation Standard with their nuance intact, so the Ciprian government takes pains to educate those non-Ciprians whom frequently interact with their people in their proper use and pronunciation (to the degree afforded by their biological structures).

This system of publically marking education levels has led to three specific cultural anecdotes of note - the phenomenon of "bareface", the expression "goldcrest", and the depiction of the Ciprians primary deity.

While there is no legal requirement to wear educational markings past age of maturity, the practice has become so widespread and ingrained in Ciprian lifestyle that someone choosing not to wear markings into adulthood is regarded as an outlier, usually by someone who wishes to hide their educational past, or else have decided that they do not wish to be associated with it any longer. These "barefaced" Ciprians are commonly stereotyped as uneducated or ashamed of their education, nefarious or wishing to hide their education for deceptive purpose, or arrogant and willingfully ignorant of fact (a state of mind somewhat tantamount to blasphemy for most Ciprians).

The expression "goldcrest" relates to the practice of marking out an individual's attained grades on their crests, with bands composed of copper, silver, gold, or platinum colored paint based on what specific grade was achieved on the relevant exams - copper for a passing grade without distinction, silver for an above average grade, and gold for exemplary marks. The rare platinum crest marks are reserved for the single highest scoring individual taking the exam on a regional level. In this context, "Goldcrest" would, literally speaking, refer to a Ciprian with all, or nearly all, gold exam markings, this indicating a high level of knowledge and ability. Figuratively, to be called a "goldcrest" is an extremely positive complement, implying the speaker sees the addressee as someone who is wise and competent to a great degree.

The Emperor/Empress and their immediate family are traditionally the only Ciprians who wear gold face markings. These marks represent education at the Royal Academy of Darvan, which is traditionally and nearly-exclusively open solely to members of the royal family; an intensely competitive lottery process allows a handful of non-royals to attend every year, but graduating is quite difficult and time-consuming. However, no living Ciprian may be allowed to wear platinum marks (save for on the crest in very specific circumstances, as previously mentioned). Full platinum facial markings are considered the sole province of the Ciprian god of creation and knowledge, Sæar'kalan. Often depicted as being entirely covered in a platinum carapace and covered in markings across their body, Sæar'kalan represents the omnipotence of a being who has attained all the knowledge of the universe. Worshipped by the vast majority of the Ciprian people, Sæar'kalan was, according to legend, once a mortal like any other, but attained access to a mythical realm or state of being which granted them all knowledge, past, present, and future, similar to human concepts such as the Akashic records.

To the Ciprians, scientific disiplines, the arts, recordkeeping, and engineering are the most respected professions, as they enable the discovery, expression, safeguarding, and practical use of the knowledge attained by society as a whole. These professions often interweave with each other, leading Ciprians to build devices that are often just as much art pieces as they are practical items. Drawing from their species' arboreal past and use of natural materials, many Ciprian luxury starships are both built and grown, with aerospace-grade wooden hulls grown around metallic structural skeletons, inlaid with natural material accents like marble, gold, leather, and copper.

The Royal Republic became a full Confederation member in 2164, the first species to join after the original seven.

#astralverse #original sci fi #worldbuilding

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ut-poppy-fangame · 2 years

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Devlog: Putting the “Character” in Characters

Howdy folks! Welcome to another devlog, in which we’re going to go into the process of adding an NPC character for the game.

And for our example, we’ll use Paper Frisk, who is a well known part of the main cast. (Paper did not agree to this.)

The first step to adding a character into the game is, of course, getting permission from the original author to put them into the game. Of course, this is sometimes not required, due to some authors allowing people to put their AUs in any project without any permission, but we prefer to have express permission if possible.

So, for re-enactment purposes, we will pretend to ask Fms if they can let us have Paper Frisk in the game.

*walks in and out of the room*

Great! It took us 2 years of hard, hair-pulling negotiations, but we finally got the rights.

The process of writing is a process we generally want to do alongside the creators themselves, but we do a fair amount of research into the projects ourselves as well to make sure we don’t make something that’s too out of character.

This is doubled if we want to make two AU Characters interact with each other— which, we of course do.

Every NPC in the game has several possible reactions to events in the game:

- Standard dialogues, which is talking to them normally- which may not be affected by something else.

- Approaching them while wearing an outfit, which they can comment on.

- Approaching them with a follower (with which they can have a back and forth with).

Of course, if an NPC has a Quest associated with them, that quest takes priority over any dialogue trees.

But of course, that’s just on the writing side of things— afterwards, it’s a matter of drawing talksprites and overworld sprites for the characters. We generally want to give most characters the ability to look in the direction Poppy’s at.

Some of our ideas also include making characters walk around in the overworld. Not like Earthbound— which featured characters that could randomly walk wherever they pleased, mind you, but enough to make the place feel more alive.

All in all, NPCs in this game should be chockfull of dialogue for people to discover. With that in mind we also wanted to quickly discuss how characters work on a more technical and lower level side.

This game is going to have a lot of characters, and we mean A LOT. So it’s very important that our method of handling characters is not only modular, but flexible enough to allow for just about any character to work with very minimal setup. Both non-playable characters and playable characters, in this case just Poppy, all inherit behavior from a singular 'character’ class. In this class we define several properties to easily allow for different behavior to occur. We can have characters follow pre-defined paths in the plaza, as mentioned before. We can also alter the speed at which characters walk and run, we can have characters show a bubble over their head if they play a role in a certain quest, and we can even have characters play certain sounds when they walk around. But most importantly, every character has a Sprite Table...

It’s rather uhhh... non-intuitive to look at first, but let’s break it down a little bit.

We store all of the character’s (in this case Poppy. Thank you for being our guinea pig today, Poppy) main sprites in a 2-Dimensional grid, or a double nested array if you’re familiar with GML.

When we access any sprite in this structure we need to provide 2 indices. In this table, the first index points to the character’s state, so they can be Idle, Walking, or what have you. Our second index points to what direction they’re currently facing, so South, East, North, and West.

Every frame the character is on-screen, their respective table is looked in to based off of their current state and their sprite is updated accordingly. With this system we can account for idle-animations, non-symmetrical character sprites, and sprites of arbitrary sizes, all out of the box and without extra logic.

In a future devlog we will discuss in-depth on how we handle cutscenes and events and how we easily included quite literally hundreds of different dialogue branches and events into the game, and how this system allows us to flesh out our characters and easily allow for so many scenarios. We hope this has been very insightful, and we hope you look forward to our next devlog. - Yoshikins, Lead Programmer

While we’re on the topic of characters, and as a gentle reminder, we have AU submissions for the game open still! So be sure to send your project for our consideration.

- Fms, Lead Director

#undertale #undertale au #undertale fangame #core frisk #frisk #paperstory au #paper frisk #devlog

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