#that's it other than that they're very similar characters and i really don't know how tony is a massive improvement on hank

[tubbytarchia]

I'm baffled that people are hating on you for having an opinion on a fictional Minecraft block man aksbahf. Even as someone who does enjoy FH (mostly the fandom version of it honestly), it's bonkers to judge someone for NOT liking a ship? Or not enjoying a character's behavior? Or for interpreting on-screen interactions differently than they do??? Like jesus, the whole point of fandom is to enjoy it the way you want to. You're not hurting anyone by seeing a pairing as negative based on what you watched. Look at friggin' Desert Duo, half the fandom writes 'em as toxic and divorced, and the other says they're devoted and inseparable. Different stances and interpretations make for a mixed and flavorful fandom experience and a melting pot of awesome stories and art. Good lord, god forbid you like something different or dislike a specific part of a media that you love lol

Keep doing you friend, you're great! <3

- 🧚‍♀️

Oh god if only it were like desert duo, if only... But lmao yeah right!! I'm sorry that Scott smajor damnthatsalongusername is a guy that exists in real life I really don't care. I just want to discuss what I see from the series! And the more I see people with similar opinions to mine talk, the more evident it becomes that those opinions used to be so minimal because of this kind of fandom treatment. And so my heart goes out to anyone who dares talk about said opinions even if it gets them accused of homophobia lol. I'm with you guys...

And the fact that you like FH... but you're on my blog and share this sentiment... Is that so hard... Is it so hard to be decently sensible about different opinions and interpretations...

Also I do like FH too haha, I don't think I can say I ship it but obviously it's really compelling to me, and I've said it before and I'll keep saying it that I very much enjoy a lot of fluffy FH art and I really like them in ESMP1 for example. But no, I said they were toxic in 3L so that means I hate them!!!! It's ridiculous how much of a black and white matter this is to so many people, I don't understand... And the thing is that I WANT to understand! As you said, it's cool and intriguing! Differing discussion only adds to any one subject matter. Soft FH people probably wouldn't change my mind but I'd love to understand their points if only those points weren't something along the lines of "shut up you're wrong" (obviously not everyone!! But it is what I keep seeing in the FH tag lol)

I've seen people proclaim Jimmy as the abusive one, or proclaim ranchers as toxic etc, and I don't see it but man does it intrigue me! It's absurd to me personally, but I'm not telling you to shut up - you can't just say that and not tell me more! I wanna know what people are thinking without shutting one another down...

#blabber #thank you so much fairy anon for the kind words also <3

[artist-issues]

I know you have kind of commented on this topic in one of your posts, but what do you think of the fact that Tolkien hated Disney and thought of Walt as a "con-artist" (if I remember correctly) because of how much would be changed? Even though I very much love Disney movies, considering how Tolkien studied mythology, folklore and history from other cultures in-depth, particularly those of European background, I do understand why he was not fond Walt's work at all if we view it from his perspective. Other people seem to share a similar sentiment. I ask you because you often analyze Disney movies and their themes quite in-depth. This whole thing is interesting.

Well, I'll preface by saying I'm not much of a Tolkien apologist. I don't connect with him or his mentality as well as I might flatter myself by saying I do C.S. Lewis' mentality. C. S. Lewis had this beautiful way of blending genuine good-faith enjoyment of something and careful, intentional critical thinking. He could be a reasonable analyzer of media, and a childlike consumer of media, at the same time. Don't know if I've mastered that myself, or if I ever will, but I really admire it.

Which is besides the point, sorry! 😂

But Tolkien was different. First off, Tolkien said some things about interpreting the meaning of his own stories that I don't agree with. He keeps insisting he wasn't trying to "say" anything with Lord of the Rings, or infuse it with any particular "meaning." Truth of the matter is, though, that is not true of any good storyteller. What they believe about the world bleeds into what they create, if they're creating genuinely. So Lord of the Rings is about how small decisions matter, doing what you can with what you're given instead of trying to control everything matters—whether Tolkien likes it or not, whether he was always conscious of it or not, that's what his story says.

He also criticized weird things to criticize about Lewis' works. For someone who was Lewis' friend, I don't know how he could've looked at what Lewis was writing and been surprised, or disgruntled, at the hodgepodge of mythology in works like Narnia. I don't know what made him think a "children's story" would feel like anything other than...made for children.

But anyway. All that to say, I don't always agree with Tolkien, or feel like I understand him. His response to Disney movies is just one of those things I don't get. I can speculate, but I don't know.

Like I said, I think he was so used to thinking of fairy tales and literature in a way that is much...higher, and more layered, than how the everyday layman thought of them, that when a Kansas cartoonist started retelling fairytales without any apparent grasp of that layering, it really rubbed him the wrong way.

I guess it would be like if someone came along twenty years from now, pointed at Disney's The Little Mermaid, and said, "look! A cartoon about fish! I'm going to make an TikTok dance about fish and call it 'The Little Mermaid,' and retell it that way!"

First of all we'd be like "IT'S ABOUT SO MUCH MORE THAN FISH, it's not just an CARTOON, are you BLIND?!" And then secondly we'd probably go, "and what? A TikTok dance?! Are you kidding me? You want to take this beautiful pillar of traditional animation and living color and musical mastery and drag it down to the level of middle school girls flapping their hands around cringily??"

That's probably how Tolkien felt Disney was treating Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Because back then, the medium (TikTok dances, animation) was just associated with sort of lowbrow humor and silliness. Walt was still inventing the whole "animated film to be taken seriously" thing. And back then, Tolkien would've seen the comedy characters of the Dwarfs and their character development as very shallow in comparison to the mythos of Dwarfs in literary and oral-tradition history. He had the most background knowledge. So what he was comparing Walt's movies to was, for him, like comparing grape Gatorade to aged Italian Wine.

As far as Disney being a "con artist..." yeah, I think that's a little bit of a stretch. He was definitely selling something, but if you can look at Walt Disney's life and see dollar bill signs, instead of a guy who genuinely made what he liked because he liked it, you don't know much about Walt Disney. He didn't adapt fairy tales because he thought they could make him money. He adapted fairy tales because he adored them, just like he had a train in his backyard because he adored them. Ask his brother Roy how much Walter "Let's Invent Smell-O-Vision and Drop Flowers on the Audience of Fantasia" Disney was thinking about exploiting the public for financial gain.

Like I said, Tolkien was responding to Walt Disney because he was Tolkien, and it would've been like asking a Bird to relate to a Krill. They were way too different to ever understand each other on the level that either of them preferred being understood at.

#Tolkien #Disney #Walt Disney #j. r. r. tolkien #c. S. Lewis #Barbie #Narnia #lord of the rings #lotr #Snow White and the seven dwarfs

[doomed-era]

I Ramble About Revali and Groose

i don't actually expect people to care about minor characters or side characters in any other media franchise i'm in, but with loz i tend to get annoyed with people if they clearly only care about zelda and link, and it has to do with how the games frame side characters post-fujibayashi

so revali and groose are part of a common ongoing narrative trope in zelda games of someone who's on the good guy team but is somewhat antagonistic or "mean" to link for whatever reason. you get this with mido and (somewhat) with tetra and her crew and midna. the difference between these characters and groose/revali is in why they don't like link. mido is pretty much a bully who has never liked link because he's just different from the other kids—he is an eternal child, so this makes sense —tetra is skeptical that link can actually do anything in the forsaken fortress initially, and midna wants to use link (and to extent, the legend/narrative itself) for her own ends.

groose and revali don't like link because he's the main character, and they're right. groose clearly despises link because while he's exceptionally lazy and disinterested, everyone likes link, and the youth succeeds even when he doesn't try. later on, this turns into frustration that link is part of some grand scheme and he's...just not. he is a secondary character in-universe, and according to impa the best thing he can do is help on the sidelines. he is a big help, and a very lovable character in his own right, but he's fundamentally trapped in his own narrative.

revali is VERY similar to him in this regard, except he's aware that he's a supporting character (a champion) from the start, and hates link specifically for it. unlike groose, he never really does anything about it besides be somewhat snide, and eventually admits that link might be an okay hero when the rito champion is dead and can't do anything besides fire a big laser anyway. link has been groomed since he was a child to become a knight: his father's a knight, he pulled the master sword when he was twelve, iirc he might have joined the royal guard at an extremely young age, and everyone seems to have a great deal of respect towards him. revali is an extremely skilled archer and pushes himself to the limit, but he wasn't born into it or led down that path like link, so he has to play second fiddle.

now, I don't think characters being side characters is bad. I don't think revali or groose even being side characters is bad. but I certainly don't like how it frames their desire to be more than that as...well, bad. it really reinforces my reading of post-skyward sword games as correct; characters are expected to know their place in the narrative and not strive for more or try to break out of their little boxes, and if they do, they're villainized or it's treated like a character flaw. I don't think they were necessarily right to resent link for something that's ultimately out of his control, but what else are they gonna do?

but, according to the narrative, the only thing they can do is help those chosen by the gods, those chosen to lead, as they were chosen to bend to their will. they are cosmically unimportant, and they will never be worth paying attention to. the reason i tend to prefer people who actually look at characters that aren't link and zelda and try to examine them is because they're kind of going against the narrative itself, which really wants to push the idea that only zelda and link are important, ganon is just there to be an adversary and doesn't have any real grievances, and the only thing that matters is keeping hyrule and hylian supremacy intact.

#glider rambles #zelda meta

[jankillbride]

ginko 🤝 killy 🤝 the soldier from angel's egg 🤝 hopefully kim dokja: being outsiders/alone, even among any groups of people they join.

#i do not mean any of this in a tragic way no more than life itself can be tragic #it's a comfort to be alone. to be away from the eyes of others #all three of these characters (*idk fully about kdj so no spoilers pls for orv) exhibit these in different ways #ginko and killy have set duties (kdj has a plan and the duty others expect of him but he doesn't abide by those expectations just his own #plan) though ginko's is a mix of self chosen and bestowed by other mushishis (he's been involved in this since he was a kid and what else i #there really for him to do?) and killys purpose was coded into him by someone long forgotten but he still holds onto it tight #arguably most of nihei's protags are like this. zoichi is an outsider with a set purpose and same with denji. the difference is that they #have other people -- zoichi his sister and denji the twins. they're all alone but they're alone together #there's no one like killy and there won't ever be. there's no one like ginko. there's no one quite like kdj #(musubi also doesn't count because she went from someone heavily integrated in society to shoved out of it. ginko and killy don't remember #being with others. i think i did see a spoiler of kdj having memory issues? anyways he was ostracized at a young age so that counts more #than musubi) #and then there's the fates of these characters. killy will never rest. he doesn't know how *cue nihil strength*. ginko does rest but he #always moves again in the end. it's a cycle he's in. #idk what happens to kdj but what i really want to happen is for him to escape the story #that would be the ultimate form of rest. to die to sleep; to sleep perchance to dream. #though here it is not a literal death i wish for kdj. the death of the character he is. the death of him having to be in orv if that makes #sense. loathe to use the words but let him escape the narrative. let that be his death #the soldier is a late add on but he coutns too #he is very similar to killy first off #and i'll leave it there for now because i really gotta do work so i can rest #there are other characters i can argue (alexei karamazov is coming to mind for starters) #i really feel characters who are alone on account of the leaving.

[elucubrare]

What are your biggest turn-offs when reading/watching historical fiction or retellings of myths?

this is really complicated - i can put it in two boxes, both of which are packed very full.

disconnection from the material reality of the past

when characters display a very specifically modern mindset (about social issues especially, but other stuff too)

(I also get bothered by some kinds of modern language - I don't mind it when, idk, an author uses "sensible" with the modern connotation of "practical" and not the 18th century "emotional" or "empathetic", but "yeah" or "okay," or even, as i found out when someone used it in medieval fantasy, "holy shit" will get on my nerves.)

there are modern things where (made up example!) a character who's supposed to be a cook will talk about making caprese salad for a fancy restaurant in December, and someone snarking on the book will say "yeah, right, they should know better than to make something that depends on a fresh summer vegetable!" and even with greenhouses, that's pretty fair. and that's even more extreme in the past. it's 1650 in Verona, it's December, you cannot obtain fresh tomatoes. i don't think this means that people in the past were, necessarily, more emotionally or spiritually in tune with the cycle of the year, or the labor it took to get clothes, or furniture, or any other material item, and of course wealth can insulate people from some of that difficulty, but it does mean that the seasons had more direct impact on people's lives. It's possible to, for example, buy clothes ready-made, but for anything fancy, it's more likely that it'll be made to fit if it's new, or altered extensively and painstakingly if it's not. that means that tearing or staining a fancy dress isn't just an issue of looking bad - you can't just replace it, and you probably won't throw it out - you figure out how to reuse it. those concerns of access to material goods are just a lot closer to the surface of the world than they often are now.

my objections to modern attitudes about the world are not that people in the past 100% accepted the views of their contemporaries - there were always people who didn't, and it makes sense that a protagonist would be one of them. but people wouldn't phrase those objections in the same way that modern people would - say your main character doesn't want a woman accused of being a witch burned. "God's power is such that the Devil cannot give this woman the ability to sour milk" is most likely going to be more persuasive to the crowd than "witches aren't real." and sometimes that's rough - it's not super fun to read about a Roman with Roman attitudes about provincial wars, or slavery in the city, but I put something down because a Roman character said (in internal dialogue) that he was disgusted to see that a man had been tortured because "Romans simply didn't do that." Historical Romans did do that, routinely - a slave could not testify in a law court unless they had been tortured. Even with distasteful things like that, I'd much rather it just be glossed over than to have them say the "correct" modern thing. It just makes it feel too much like the theme park version of the culture.

Both of these are because of specific things I come to historical fiction for - I want that sense of alienation, the gulf of experience. I hate that most historical fiction (and fantasy set in semi-recognizable periods) characters don't really care about Honor, except as a joke, because I love when characters organize their lives around arcane rules and systems that cause tiny things to escalate into blood feud. I just think they're neat! I like it when people's worldviews are shaped by their lack of scientific certainty about what causes crops to fail! If I wanted to read about people who thought and acted like me, and had lives that were mostly similar to mine, only cooler, I'd just read contemporary fiction.

#my thoughts on...

[olderthannetfic]

Now I'm wondering how countries like Japan and China teach literacy.

Since kanji / hanzi don't really have that much in the way of phonetic elements, they kinda have to teach them by memorization and I don't think they have many reading comprehension problems over there.

(Although both countries do have supplementary phonetic writing systems in the form of bopomofo and pinyin for China, and the kanas for Japan)

--

FAVORITE SOAPBOX TOPIC UNLOCKED!

RELEASE THE KRAKEN!

It's a little closer to teaching vocabulary than spelling, but the same kinds of principles apply: You teach the building blocks, like the traditional radicals, which aren't so different from teaching Latin and Greek roots in an English class for English speakers.

And, as a matter of fact, lots of those radicals do predict pronunciation, just not in every single case. They can also be clues to meaning, but again, not absolutely consistently. Many characters have a sound-cueing radical on one side and a meaning-cueing radical on the other. It's just that only some are still useful in the modern day, while others are more like the English word 'plumbing' where knowledge of Roman lead pipes explains why this word comes from the one for lead, but the root probably wouldn't help a kid learn the word in the first place.

One similarity to teaching phonics would be teaching students to tell very complicated and similar characters apart: you want to help a student spot all the little building blocks of the character and then spot the ones that are different, not just glance at the whole character and get a general overall vibe. If you do a whole look-based approach, too many characters are too easy to mistake for one another.

Remembering a bajillion Chinese characters is hard if you're trying to memorize them in a year and not all of elementary school, but I think people who don't read them underestimate how many component parts there are and how approachable they can be if you start by learning fundamentals, not just memorizing a few individual characters as though they have no relation to anything else.

They're actually pretty systematic, just in the way that English spelling is with its overlapping systems and historical artifacts, not in the way that highly regular Spanish spelling is.

Having taken a lot of Japanese classes, I will say that Japanese as a foreign language textbooks often do a piss poor job of this and totally do teach kanji in a sight words-y way... But my Mandarin class started with important foundational concepts that served me well in Japanese later even if I bombed out of Chinese class at the time.

Can you tell how irritated I am by all the foreign language learners who think characters are sooooo hard when, really, it's just their crappy textbook? Haha.

They're moderately hard in the way that learning a full adult spectrum of vocabulary is hard, but people do that for foreign languages all the time. The countries that use characters do tend to make sets that are smaller for certain kinds of applications, same as we have things like simple English wikipedia, but a literate adult will always know lots more, whether it's from their career in engineering or their predilection for historical romance novels.

Uh... anyway, the answer is "Bit by bit in elementary school, just like in any other country".

[sixstepsaway]

so here's the thing

i've seen a bunch of people say on twitter and stuff how... ed's behavior is very abusive and his anger is dangerous and he isn't romantic lead material because of it

and i get where they're coming from

but to me the main issue isn't putting ed in the position of a romantic lead, but not crafting the narrative around his characterization so that it allows for a spicy romantic pirates-in-love narrative instead of...whatever this is.

i'm going to try and explain this. idk if i'll do well but i'll try

the way she show presents stede is as an innocent baby who isn't really equipped for pirate life. he goes into a fugue/disassociative state whenever there's any real violence, apparently, and needs protecting by other characters when things get too rough - for example when ed is telling ned lowe not to take the poker to stede.

that's fine! it's honestly adorable to see a masc character being so soft around the edges and being protected by other characters this way.

(i'm not going to touch on stede's... eh... not great characterization this season rn)

then there's izzy, who is shown as a bit violent, a bit rough around the edges. he's more likely to draw a sword or throw a punch or hit someone with a chair or take a punch like a champ. violence is just part of life for him and that's okay, it just Is, from small things like smacking stede on the ass to bigger things like being wall slammed, it's not all that big or bad for violence to happen around and with him, he tends to give as good as he gets (there's some nuance here but i'm talking the macro themes not the micro of what izzy does vs is done to him)

and finally there's ed

ed is presented as violent (stabbing knives at guys, telling fang to use the snail fork etc) and used to a life of violence, and then in season 2 he's presented as really violent, his anger coming out in dangerous and terrifying ways

and frankly, i'd be super into it if he and izzy were the main ship and that twisted dynamic from the first two episodes of s2 was explored and fleshed out into something deeper

friends to enemies to lovers who fight and fuck. angry pirates who lay hands on each other, who break the whole ship with each other in the heat of passion.

except instead, s2 gives us... abuse. it gives us izzy cringing and lowering his head and trying to protect the kids crew from ed's angry outbursts.

so when stede comes back and he's still soft around the edges and ed headbutts him and it's deliberate, it's... not a great look, and the vibes are a bit skewed

if stede fought back, if when ed struck out at him he struck back, if they fought rather than it being one-sided, if it was friends to enemies to lovers and not presented as healthy, but maybe they can work their way there, who knows, maybe even more like anne bonnie and mary read because hey, they were doing something very similar?

except they were both into it. they were both enjoying the fighting and the fucking and the burning down the house.

stede's not enjoying it.

i cannot describe how much i hate this sequence just because of the way stede flinches

anne and mary don't!! mary jumps at the unexpected bang but she doesnt flinch, she doesn't cover her face like she thinks the vase will be coming for her not the wall and anne? looks so into it

and the thing is that in real life, no, you don't want to date someone who throws shit around, or headbutts you

but in fiction when it's two fucked up people doing this shit together like anne and mary?

that can be fun.

but instead what we've been given is stede flinching and apologizing to ed and then all of ed's...what, semi-redemption???? is done away from the other collection of people he abused, and then he spends some time on a fishing boat wearing a dog collar and everything is fine because he's good now and won't be doing anything bad ever again

and it's just... poor writing. the vibes are rancid.

i spent a really big chunk of time between s1 and s2 defending ed. i kept saying how what he did to izzy by making him eat his toe wasn't abuse, it was a one-off and abuse isn't a one-off thing it's a pattern, and then s2 made it a pattern.

explicitly. explicitly a pattern.

not just one toe but three.

jim saying "you're in an unhealthy relationship with blackbeard"

and all ed offered izzy was a "sorry about your leg" which might've been fine if izzy survived and they could work on this more, but instead that's all the apology and closure izzy will ever get

ed threw a chair and a vase and made stede flinch in fear and stede was right to do that. what part of any of this implies this will never happen again? that stede won't press the wrong button at some point and be on the receiving end? none of it

and if we'd been presented with a s2 stede bonnet who could handle himself and stand up for himself and fight back, then maybe i could imagine that turning into a weird sexy fucked up anne/mary like thing and maybe that could be why they put that episode in, but instead it feels like that episode was going, "look, see, ed's violence is fine because these two are fine with it with each other"

but stede isn't

ed and izzy or ed and stede in an unhealthy battle of a relationship could be such a fun, interesting and downright sexy thing to watch unfold on tv, and could honestly end somewhere far more down the chill end of the spectrum, but that's not what we've been given here

i cannot argue that ed isn't an abuser anymore, and not just of izzy but of the whole crew. he terrified frenchie.

it's not good writing to try and lean into the idea that ed and the pirates are violent and live a life of violence, so it's okay that ed's been violent, while simultaneously presenting his violence as traumatic and abusive, and then less than three episodes later saying oh it's fine now, he's just a little meow meow who can do no wrong, see?

especially considering they had him murdering people at the end of the season. and sure, you can say the english are just cannon fodder and they dont 'count', but they did before. ed explicitly did not kill before, and that included the english, or the spanish, or anyone else. so either they count or they don't, but flipping him on a dime makes no sense.

ALSO

having ed be the son of an abusive man who threw plates at his mother and made her cringe and then having ed kill his father to protect his mother and then a season later having ed become the kind of man who throws chairs and vases and makes his love interest cringe is, again, not bloody optimal

i want to say again i dont CARE about tv always presenting healthy relationships or tv always giving us aspirational goals. i want messy fucked up dynamics and terrible people making terrible choices, and still, to this day, i fucking love ed teach. i would honestly love to have seen them continue with ed's darkness and bring stede into it and see where they went with that, to have stede kill ned lowe and not just bury his feelings in ed but get off on it, enjoy the violence, and see where that led, but no

and so instead all we end up with is a protagonist who is being set up for a lifetime of abuse from an intimate partner, and a romantic lead who abuses his love interests (and yes. izzy is a love interest, he is set up like one and positioned like one and treated like one), frightens his love interests with his violence, is erratic and most of all inconsistently written. he was so sorry about scaring fang as though he hadn't been deliberately terrifying the whole crew for fuck knows how long? what?!

the whole fandom has spent so long saying, "no no, i know stede bonnet irl was a slave owner, but ofmd is using the names and not any real piracy, it's more disney piracy, you know? so that kind of stuff doesnt exist!" and then they flipped around and went "blackbeard is blackbeard and so he is evil and does all these horrible things" and i dont know how to rationalize the two sides of that because it feels so out of place

i'm getting rambly, this isnt a particularly well constructed thought process, i just feel like we were robbed both of a toxic, violent relationship that could be fun to see explored on tv and a soft and sweet love story between two middle aged men exploring their first loves in one fell swoop and there's no way for s3 to bring either of those things back because they got utterly torpedoed by making ed a horrible person

ugh

#ofmd critical #i hate that i'm using this tag now :c #edward teach #ed teach #ofmd s2 #ofmd season 2 #our flag means death #ofmd spoilers #ofmd meta #i guess #izzy hands #stede bonnet

[cupcakesmoothie]

I did all three backstories for Touchstarved (I have 12 hours on this thing and it's only the demo)

Kuras and Vere don't seem to have red options, but Vere does have a secret ending and Kuras... I don't know, holds you for a bit longer?

For Mhin, it really is just picking The Alchemist backstory. You can call them short or whatever and you'll still get it.

For Leander, you have to take the flowers and keep touching him. It's okay if you hold back the first time even.

For Ais, you gotta tell him fuck you and pet the soulless, and after that red option pretty much all yours.

Differences I found between the three backstories:

It is pretty much like how they tell you, Oracle gets premonitions, Hound has experience with people and survival, and Alchemist has knowledge about magic and science, so there's different things you find out with each one.

The Alchemist:

I may be a little bit biased, but think The Alchemist is the most informative (It's also the first one I picked). There's the expected info of noticing that Vere's collar is enchanted, or knowing about how strong Leander really is when it comes to magic, but it's got the added bonus of MC's mentor having been in the Senobium in the past.

Compared to the others, The Alchemist is more familiar with Senobium, albeit through word of mouth. It's interesting how many times the MC says something similar to "I didn't know the Senobium did that." It calls into question whether MC's teacher was lying, or more interestingly (and what I think might be the case), the Senobium has changed a lot recently. It's talked about, even without the Alchemist backstory, that the Senobium used to be somewhere you could go to for help, but now most of the characters you meet do not like the Senobium, so what changed?

The Hound:

The Hound (the least popular option, apparently) was pretty fun. The Hound notices more about Ais, specifically that he's very suited to be a leader, and that the number of scars he has (one) seems suspicious for his temperament (or "how seasoned he acts", as the MC puts it).

One thing that I found very fun was doing Mhin's route as the Hound. They're somewhat able to keep up! They can (or tried to) recognize tells, and noted that Mhin was one of the few people who was able to sneak up on them. They also weren't sure how Vere managed to get their key. They were also prepared to steal to survive.

The Oracle:

While The Hound notices physical things, the Oracle notices... how do you say, otherworldly things. The Seaspring seems to be hiding a lot (of course it is), but the MC notices a heartbeat. A presence. They feel something from Ais. The name Ocudeus means something, they can feel it. They feel like they can see Ais' tattoo move.

Also, the MC feels something from Mhin and Kuras (in his clinic at least), which is interesting!

If I had to decide which love interest was better with which backstory...

Vere: The fact that the Alchemist thought that they could tell what enchantments were on his collar if only they could touch it feels promising! And both their connections (though I mean connection in the loosest term for MC here) to the Senobium makes it feel like you might very well find something.

The Hound might be one of the few who can actually survive this guy if I'm gonna be honest. (I mean you can still get killed by him but. You know.)

Ais: The Oracle's sixth sense makes going to the Seaspring a lot more interesting compared to the others, and the way they can feel something from Ais is very cool.

The Hound can tell his character better than the others, and I wonder how that will come into play later on.

Kuras: The Alchemist knows their way around spell-crafting and alchemy (When I picked this I wondered if they would be able to help Kuras around the clinic, which doesn't happen, but hey it might).

The Oracle seems to also feel something from him.

Mhin: First things first, their red option literally requires you to have the Alchemist backstory. Mhin's precision is noticed by the other MCs sure, but not to that detail.

Watching the Hound observe where they could be was so fun to watch. It feels like this MC will be able to keep up.

The Oracle feels something from Mhin, something inhuman.

Leander: The Alchemist was able to tell that the flash of magic was a barrier spell, and that most magic (or at least the ones they're familiar with) uses an incantation or spell circle. His didn't.

But either way, there will be things to find no matter the backstory you choose, and all of the character's stories are intertwined, so don't let this dissuade you from a specific backstory! There will always be things to find, you just need to look.

Extra: I found it pretty cool how each MC has a different way of knowing what a Groupmind is. Story-wise this makes sense of course, but each of their reactions to it are slightly different, from I heard this from rumours of people in cults (Hound), to I used to be told I could put people in a groupmind (Oracle), to legends suggest it was possible with a strong enough catalyst but it's never been done before (Alchemist).

Also, it's interesting to know what they each think of surroundings (specifically the Amaryllis district). They all have different opinions from I used to be told bizarre things about this place and now I kinda get it (Alchemist), to it's not that different from the place I grew up in (Hound), to it's VERY different from where I grew up in (Oracle).

And if I'm not mistaken, the reason Vere gives for your desperation is different for all of them!

You can find gameplay from me on my Youtube channel, or watch me getting all the red options and secret ending here:

I didn't read it out loud cause my mic sorta sucks and sometimes it peaks and gets a bit shrill. Also you see how my mouse moves sometimes? It means I'm screaming. I don't think I'd have been able to keep calm enough for this. Also my reading kinda sucks anyway hope you like it lol

#If you guys watch the 3 hour unedited version and find my friend going online please tell me the timestamp #I cannot find it #There are two and I found one of them #It's a fun little easter egg I guess. If you even care #Touchstarved #Touchstarved game #touchstarved spoilers #I had fun doing this #sweetmountainseeds #Oh btw #I may be wrong #Yes I replayed the game four times #But I might be wrong #There might be things you need/don't need to do #I can't really tell anymore #I mean everything here should be right but do correct me if I'm wrong

[syrena-del-mar]

Dead Friend Forever Is More Than Just A 90s Slasher Film Imitation

Oh man, I went in thinking I would just get a whole lot of gore and murder, and instead I'm getting a buttload of social class distinction, parental issues, mental health crises, organized crime, and a highly-likely revenge plot line.

The thing about Dead Friend Forever is that it starts unassuming, almost like an copy of all other teen slashers from the 90s. A group of friends, up in a cabin and suspects to a potential murder, become hunted one-by-one. A cliche slasher plot if I ever heard one. Until it’s not. This show is taking up a very big corner of my brain, so I’m going to delve deeper into it.

If you haven't watched episode 6 yet, spoilers up ahead.

Pulling inspiration from 90s slasher re-inventor, Scream

The first four episodes really set up the expectation that DFF was going to be another slasher, seemingly particularly influenced by Scream (1996). Scream was a turning point for slasher movies, signaling a shift in from the movies of the 80s to that of the 90s. It was the first of many movies to allow for the characters to be self-aware of what genre they're working in, where the characters knew of the slasher-movie tropes and attempted to do everything right to survive. Scream is also the first slasher to truly humanize the killers, and I don't mean by making them empathetic, but rather the killers were human, so they made human mistakes. Prior to Scream, the antagonists in slasher films were usually this supernatural villain that was just murder-hungry. But in Scream, the killers are all just regular people and would often make mistakes on their way to kill the protagonists, like a normal human would. It's why Scream was scary, the killer could be anyone, it wasn't this supernatural being. And even when you're making the right choices to escape, you still end up dead.

In Dead Friend Forever, we're getting so many of the same tropes that Scream had subverted. The group is working understanding exactly what they're facing; Fluke warning to not pull out the stake inside Por, Top wanting to split up in the temple while Phee, Jin and Tan veto against it expressly stating it would be like the horror movies, White not wanting to be left behind in the cabin. They all know what they shouldn't be doing while there is a killer on the loose. Also, it's why there's these funny little moments of the killer in DFF (i.e. having to steal the motorcycle to get back to the cabin). I'm not completely convinced that there isn't any paranormal activity or at least some type hallucinogen-component at play, but the way the killer acts is very human-like. Not to mention the parallel of Barcode (arguably the most popular actor in the show) getting slashed in the first minute of the show, eerily similar to how in the opening scene of Scream, Drew Barrymore (the most well-known of the cast) gets killed immediately.

The Benefits of Series Format versus Movie Format

The series format is where I think Dead Friend Forever is really shining the most. @wen-kexing-apologist made an awesome post on the directorial direction this show is taking, particularly in how since the first four episodes we have very little context as to why the killings are occurring or even the state of everyone's relationship, we're freely able to form opinions on each character. Similarly, prior to getting to know what happened to Non, I also thought Tee was the better one of the group. But here we are, two episodes later and I find him to be the most detestable of the bunch (which says something, when Por and Top are competing in this category).

We're seeing and experiencing the absolute hell that this friend group had actively made (sans Jin and Fluke that suffer from the bystander effect) Non's life out to be. In a regular slasher movie, especially ones that model themselves after Scream, we find out why the Killer is doing what he's doing to the victims in the last quarter of the movie, but the emotional value is a little skewed. The little amount of time we spend learning about what the victims did to the Killer usually still leaves you feeling at least a smidge of pity for the victims and some joy that the Final Girl made it. Here, the mass consensus is that each and every one of them should die.

And it comes back to the luxury of spending several episodes in a flashback to what lead up to the killings after the game of cat-and-mouse has begun. We're introduced to Non as an outsider, where everyone, but Jin, has already formed a bad opinion of Non. They already have a brutal nickname for him (read @forkaround's awesome analysis on the term 'Greasy'). They already established that he's an outsider in the classroom, but they make an active point of only referring to him as 'Greasy' and Non just accepts it. We see the friend group frame him, causing him to spiral twice to point of suicide, proceed to prey on him into a money laundering scheme, get him caught in a criminal investigation, all while already undergoing mental health treatment. We're given that time to know and see the pain that Non is caused, the manipulation that he is put under, and ultimately the devastation that they've caused.

Dead Friends Forever is more than just another teen slasher, because it has time. And it's using its time wisely, giving us bits and pieces of information in the beginning before delving into something more sinister than the killer on the loose, the original five. Run-of-the-mill bullying has turned into framing, assault and other criminal activity, even murder. And yet, while Non is the one that has disappeared (or died), the other five have been able to make a life for themselves without suffering any of the consequences. It's showing exactly what they have done to deserve everything that is coming to them.

Final Thoughts

Man, Be on Cloud is truly blowing it out of the water with this show. I'm actually a bit sad that it's only barely starting to get the recognition that it deserves, because in my opinion, it's just that good, BUT I also understand why it's had a sleepy start. It's in an place, a BL in one sense, but not exactly a BL in any other. I've said it before, but no matter what you think of BOC as a management company, the stories that they tell are unique and they have the artists that are competent enough to deliver. Be on Cloud has, allegedly, allowed the writers take the reign on the show, even if this means messing with the couples, so even more chaos is going to occur. This is, frankly, exciting to see and experience the story as they want it to be told.

I said this when I first saw Barcode in KinnPorsche deliver that heartbreaking cry, that boy knows how to cry. He was a newbie and his stole that scene. Now this is his third show under his belt and his acting chops only continue to improve, I truly can't wait to see what more he is able to do here in Dead Friend Forever. I love that Sammon is also enjoying what Barcode has able to bring forth in Non and that all her worries have been eased. I truly think that Barcode is going to have an incredible career ahead of him, whether in music or in acting.

Ta, on the other hand, also deserves his share of accolades. I wasn't sure of how to read to Phee in the first four episodes, but with the information that episode 6 has given us? The picture has cleared significantly and now, having rewatched his scenes, everything makes sense on why he seemed to be conniving. Episode 6 had some of the strongest performances and yet the biggest gasp I made was in the last minute. The singular tear rolling down Phee's cheek after having to perform the two-finger method, to have Non throw up the pills, and holding him in his arms? Quite literally jaw-dropping.

Sammon has a strong repertoire of shows, so I have complete faith that she knows what she's doing for Dead Friend Forever. I hope this becomes as much of a cult favorite, much like Manner of Death and Triage.

Anyways if you need me, I'll probably be stuck thinking about PheeNon for the next week until episode 7 airs.

#dead friend forever #dead friend forever the series #dead friend forever meta #dff meta #dff the series #barcode tinnasit #ta nannakun #copper phuriwat #pheenon #be on cloud #pheejin #tabarcode #boc actors #thai bl #thai bl meta #bl meta #steph rambles

[hollowtones]

first yiik impressions?

Hi. Thanks for your message. I've been thinking about this for days. I wrote paragraphs. Here you go!

Everyone talks up how the game is bad, but I've never looked into it much myself, so I went in with an expectation along the lines of "people whose opinions I often agree with think it was an awful mess, I'll likely think something similar". Expectations were low. Even then I wasn't really ready.

"YIIK" is a game of tedium. I don't think it's a game about tedium, that's something different (though it could be, if it was a different video game altogether; "what if the world was made of pudding" etc). To some degree I think the tedium is by design but I'm not really sure what it's in service of.

I don't think tedium in a video game is a bad thing. "Morrowind" and "Breath of the Wild" are two video games I like very much, and some of my favourite memories of those games are of slowly wandering through empty expanses, or having to suddenly deal with equipment degrading or supplies dwindling because I forgot to prepare. Moments like that feel thoughtful! They're interesting moments of reprieve or of tension that feel thoughtfully and intentionally designed! "YIIK" feels like trudging through chest-deep molasses so it can shout "hey did you know you're stuck in my molasses right now? that's weird, why are you stuck in my molasses right now? did you notice?" directly into your ear.

You'll notice this is a pattern.

Combat is turn-based and involves completing little minigames, timing button prompts or hitting targets or some such. It's a cute idea that wears out its welcome when you start realizing how long every single one takes to resolve, especially when you have multiple party members, and sometimes multiple enemies (I'm told this part specifically gets more egregious as the game goes on). I don't think it's awful or unsalvageable but I'm not super into it as of the point we're at.

This is a pattern.

Leveling up is a manual process that you have to unlock, and it involves going to a save point (any save point? we didn't check), to enter the Mind Dungeon, to enter the actual Mind Dungeon, to walk down a set of stairs and enter individual doors one-by-one, so that you can choose how you want to allocate stat increases, so that you can walk down a different set of stairs to commit your choices and spend your banked experience to level up. I think "you can only power up at specific points / times / locations" and the granularity of stat growth are interesting ideas, and the environment they made for it are a charming idea, and I don't think it needed to be a "Hotel Mario" level that you had to slowly walk through. It could have been a menu. They could have used the resources for a nice background or backdrop for a menu that accomplishes the same thing.

This is a pattern.

I haven't really mentioned anything about the story or writing yet. The protagonist's name is Alex and he's a very self-important nerdy misanthropic dickhead white man (a very specific kind of guy that I've definitely met at least once or twice) who is obsessed with a paranormal message board populated by people like him and desperate to find out more about the disappearance of a woman he witnessed. (The woman & her disappearance are based on the real life death of Elisa Lam & aren't handled with a whole lot of tact, IMO, but other people have put this into better words than I can right now. It sucks. It keeps coming up and it makes me bristle every time.) Alex is a bad person. I know he is. You know he is. The game knows he is. I've seen some reviews say a negative point of the game is "the main characters aren't likeable", which I don't really get, because that's the point of the characters, as far as I can tell. The issue, then, is how much time the game takes to exposit at you how bad the characters are. It's exhausting. Every time Alex has a monologue, it feels like it sums up to 10 minutes of "I am a bad person. I am a bad person. Alex is a bad person. This character is a bad person. Do you get it? He's a bad person. Alex is a bad person. Do you understand yet, player? Alex is a bad person. You should know that he's a bad person. Do you get it?"

This is a pattern.

(I don't know how interested I am in bringing up the game's lead writer right now, if at all, but there's a well-known anecdote where he talks about wanting to write a story about a bad person who is forced to grapple with himself and do better, and how the reason why his game wasn't well-received was because people who play video games didn't get it & weren't ready for a story like that. I dunno. I can understand being upset about negative reception to something you poured time and sweat into, and saying something hasty because of it. "Final Fantasy 4" is a beloved RPG classic, though, and "Disco Elysium" came out the same year to overwhelming praise. I haven't played either of these yet, though, so I'll admit maybe I'm off the mark here.)

The characters we've met so far (i.e. the ones that aren't unnamed NPCs) are… well. There's a smarmy younger kid who idolizes(?) Alex & also made the aforementioned paranormal website. So far it seems like he mostly exists to go "hey fuck you Alex, you dickhead" and immediately say something even more insensitive. There's the insensitive based-on-a-real=ass-dead-woman elevator woman, who immediately disappeared from the narrative while still being an essential part of the narrative. There was a dead(?) robot in a bedroom, who had a choir of ominous hooded people monologue about how weird and sad and strange and uncanny the scene is. What the!? There's a woman who works at the arcade and has Powers. Her design's cute. (I feel like, generally, the game's visuals are Fine. The audio, too. That all ranges from Just Fine to Surprisingly Neat. I don't really have much issue with those aspects of the game, but I don't have much to say about them either.) Alex and Kid Whose Name I Didn't Care To Remember are constantly very uncomfortable to her, because she's a woman and because she isn't white, in the 15 or so minutes we've seen her on-screen, and she gets to tell them off, but then immediately kind of goes "well whatever I can smile and put up with this and hang out with you". It feels misogynistic. I know to some degree Alex is misogynistic on purpose, because the game is bludgeoning your skull in and yelling "ALEX IS SHITTY TO WOMEN! AND PEOPLE OF COLOUR! DO YOU GET IT? HE'S SELF ABSORBED IN A SHITTY WAY! DO YOU GET IT, PLAYER? YOU UNDERSTAND THAT ALEX SUCKS ASS YET? MAYBE 10 MORE MINUTES OF THIS WILL MAKE IT CLICK?" But for a woman of colour (the only one we've seen so far who isn't Probably Just Dead) to finally tell him off for being a shithead, only to turn around and go "well it's ok, you're cool now, let's hang out now because it's narratively convenient and you're the protagonist" is pretty damn egregious!

This is a pattern.

Writing in general feels stilted and long-winded. Most of the main characters feel like they don't talk like people do. Alex gets to feel like a person but that's mostly because he gets to talk to himself so damn much. Most of his monologues feel like overly flowery prose, like someone padded it out with identical adjectives to meet a school essay word count. There's an interesting idea or premise or setpiece every now and then. There's a spark. A glint of something compelling. Every single time this has happened so far I find it immediately snuffed out by an over-blown "oh my god!!!!!!! how weird!!!!!!', or a very long plot dump, or a Joss Whedon-ass quip. There can be no small moment of joy. No story element or visual element can stand on its own legs. There can be no room for ideas to breathe. No space for the player to wonder, to dream, to play in the space. The narrative is compelled to suffocate iself on itself, to take up all space, to swallow itself whole in its making. One very minor (so far?) side character has some interesting dialogue in this one dream world, and I think "oh that's neat", and then I learn they're lines taken wholesale from a book (and I think that's fine, reference is fine, but I have a bit of a chuckle over the fact that this character is the reason why the game has a giant REFERENCES option in the main menu). The literal first minute of the game is a bird telling you "oh my god, the title of this game, right? why'd they spell it like that? so fucking dumb, am I right!" It feels insecure. It reads like the writing has no confidence in itself. It has to make a comment about how silly and video-gamey it is, roll its eyes at itself, mock itself for the thing it's doing while continuing to do it without addressing it or discussing it or doing anything with it.

This is a pattern.

There's a specific part of "YIIK", at this early point in the game (we're only around the start[?] of chapter 2), that feels emblematic of the thing as a whole up to this point. Alex is getting phone calls from a stranger. They're confusing and weird and sound a little like something you might hear in a dream. They make references to some shared past, some childhood, some understanding of Alex, or maybe of you, the player. They've come up a few times. Every single time, I'm left thinking about what it could mean, how it fits in with everything we've seen so far & what the game seems to be talking about, with regards to connecting to other people and to yourself. It's a neat little thing. It's a neat idea. I'm charmed by it. As much as my thoughts on this game are largely negative, I still try to look at it fairly, to understand it, to talk about it, to let myself be surprised by it. As soon as I find myself thinking about this, my thoughts are immediately drowned out by Alex telling me how weird the phone call is, how random and uncanny and dumb this is, and how he's rolling his proverbial eyes about it, in spite of all the other paranormal happenings around him, for another period of Just Too Long. And I am sapped of all strength and I crumble to dust.

I'm genuinely transfixed. I'm transfixed! Maybe the fact that I wrote Paragraphs about the 4-or-5 hours I've seen of the game can tell you as much, even if you skip everything I wrote in them.

I can't wait to see more.

This, too, is a pattern.

[piracytheorist]

Been thinking about Nightfall wanting to "awaken the heart buried within Twilight" and I'm like... how exactly is she planning on doing that? It doesn't look like she really understands Twilight, she only sees the idolized image of him that she's built in her mind.

Her only ambitions driving her to perfection (and, to her credit, she does actually achieve a great level of physical discipline that a spy needs to survive) are the ones of her ending up as Twilight's real wife and life partner. She doesn't seem to share any of his dreams, she doesn't even seem to appreciate a possible world where children are happy - which is Twilight's core motivation, so ingrained in him that he kept fighting for it even when he hadn't actively thought about it for a long time.

The reason Yor and Anya are the ones awakening his feelings is because they are way more connected to his ambitions and motivations. Anya reminds him of himself and how important it is to him to protect children's innocence and happiness. Yor has similar motivations, and he actually, canonically thinks of her as someone suitable to inherit the world he wants to create, and maybe I'm taking a bit of liberty here by saying he probably wishes he'd had someone like her to protect him when he was young and defenseless.

So, without even trying, just by being themselves, Yor and Anya connect with him and awaken all the emotions that have motivated him as a spy from the very start. Nightfall has literally dedicated her entire existence to becoming the perfect partner for Twilight, but in her effort to become perfect she has completely lost what actually matters to the man behind the Twilight spy persona. In fact, she may have actually ended up at the opposite side. She believes that after the war Twilight will want to reminisce over old times and tour old battlefields with her when we as the audience keep getting hints that he finds no pride or happiness in being a spy, other than having the chance to protect the world.

Nightfall is hard to relate to not only because she's mean and selfish. It's also because she has dedicated herself to a false, empty promise that was based on Twilight's fame. I'm guessing Twilight never shared his inner feelings and motivations that drove him to become a spy, so Nightfall has no idea how much of a sensitive person he really is, beneath all the masks he puts on. And she's doing all that in an effort to make him notice her, praise her, and eventually choose her as his romantic partner, but everything about it is hopeless.

In a way it's a very interesting way to present her character, as she's willingly becoming a Satellite Love Interest, and everything about her plan, from mistaking Twilight's motivations and personality, to treating Yor and Anya horribly, to reaching for a goal the audience knows is unachievable shows why you can't be like that in reality. I could even say it's a commentary and satire of Satellite Love Interests, making a brilliant example of how such characters can work if they're consciously written that way.

(Anime only fan here, don't spoil me for the manga)

#Spy x Family #sxf meta #sxf Nightfall

[waggledoogledoggle]

⚠️Spoilers for Hazbin ep 4⚠️

⚠️Also, this post will talk about Abuse and SA, it is briefly mentioned a few times throughout the rest of this… whole long thingy I wrote⚠️

⚠️Also, brief mention of the scene where someone tried to drug Angel⚠️

Ok, I am just genuinely baffled at the people who somehow find a way to hate on 'Loser, Baby'.

Like, if you don't like Huskerdust that's fine... but 'Loser, Baby' is not overshadowing/brushing off Angel's SA. It's not victim blaming. And it's not Husk telling Angel to just shut up and get over it.

Like I've seen it so much, and you know what? Fuck it. Welcome to my TedTalk on why it's not all of those things.

For starters: Husk doesn't know about Angel's SA

When Angel has his vulnerable outburst (Side note, props to Blake I mean, they said 'take 5' he heard 'change lives') he talks about how he feels like he has to act the way he does to keep Valentino happy because he stupidly sold his soul to him. That he wants to get drugged up because that’s his escape. That he wants to be broken because maybe, just maybe Val will let him go. He wants to be free, but he can't and he has no one to blame but himself.

"What's the worst part of this hell, I can only blame myself" is literally the pre chorus to his song (Poison), and that is what he shares with Husk.

Not once does he bring up his abuse or SA. If he did, do you think a song would have even happened? Look how Husk reacted when someone tried to drug Angel's drink! Now that Husk actually genuinely cares about him? Dead. Dead. Valentino would be dead.

We as the audience know more than the other characters. We were given the insight of Angel's true trauma.l that he deals with on the daily. You can't get upset at a character for not knowing something they would have no way of knowing unless it was shared with them.

Moving onto the song itself, it's a song of empathy.

Allow me to explain.

Husk pinpoints perfectly what Angel is feeling in this moment:

"So things look bad, and your back's against the wall Your whole existence seems fuckin' hopeless You're feelin' filthy as a dive bar bathroom stall Can't face the world sober and dopeless You've lost your way, you think your life is wrecked"

When Husk starts singing, you can tell that Angel is expecting Husk to pull the whole "But that's not true! It's not hopeless! You're life's not wrecked!" and is very surprised when Husk doesn't.

Instead, Husks says "Yeah. You're right." And this is when a lot of the haters get angry- but hold on a second.

When someone is feeling all of those things, saying things like "That's not true! You'll be ok!" aren't helpful at all. That's brushing it off. Even if it may be true, that doesn't help anyone when they're feeling like hopeless, lost, losers.

Because that's sympathy, not empathy. Sympathy is feeling for someone, and trying to make them feel better. Empathy, is not trying to make them feel any certain way- better or worse- empathy is simply feeling with someone. And that's what Husk does.

During the first chorus, Husk is clearly teasing Angel a bit while doing so, but not without good reason. It's keeping Angel from closing back up again, he's being a little bit silly with him and teasing him. I mean, did you see the silly lil walk he did crossing in front of Angel? And Angel is super confused because he's like "how tf is this supposed to make me feel better??"

That's the thing. It's not. That's sympathy's job, not empathy's. Empathy just want's you to feel felt with, it doesn't want to tell you how to feel. And adding that bit of silliness gives Angel's vulnerability a chance to breathe and it prevents Angel from closing in on himself.

The next verse, pre-chorus, and chorus is when the empathy though really kicks in.

The next verse, is the first part of empathy: Sharing about a similar experience you went through.

In this verse, now that Angel is listening not just hearing, Husk shares that he has been gruesomely damaged. Calling back to what he shared literally seconds before the song. That he knows what it's like to sign away your soul, and constantly look back at it with huge amounts of regret. That knowing that moment is what turned him into the mess he is today, and that he has no one to blame but himself. Just like Angel.

Then in the pre-chorus where there's the whole:

"I sold my soul to a psychopathic freak Haha! And you think that makes you unique? Get outta here, man!"

That isn't Husk telling Angel to get over himself and this isn’t him undermining what Angel’s been through. That's him saying 'I did too, you're not alone’

And then the very simple word change from "you're" to "we're" in the chorus is SO FREAKING HUGE. Because Husk is essentially saying "You feel like a total loser right now. Ok. Then if what happened to you/what you went through makes you a loser, then I'm a loser too. Let's be loser's together." Instead of trying to make Angel stop feeling like he's a hopeless loser, he decides that he is too.

He meets Angel where he is.

Aka: ✨empathy✨

Angel finally feels seen, understood, felt with. All the goals of empathy. He no longer feels alone in what he is struggling with, which is HUGE! Especially for people going through/dealing with SA and abuse.

The bridge of the song, is also extremely important, because this is where they acknowledge the differences in what they're going through. Their root problem is the same, but how it messed up their lives and created the problems they deal with now are completely different

And that's around when the song begins to shift from just Husk showing empathy and comforting Angel, to them both finding comfort in each other.

Which you can clearly see by the chorus under the umbrella, where it's not just one of them singing the chorus, but it's both of them. Because they have found a place to go to and confide in, a place of comfort, with each other.

Like, I am genuinely concerned that people find this song toxic like... have- have you never experienced empathy before? Are you ok?

So yeah, to wrap this up, if you don’t like ‘Loser, Baby’ just because you don’t like the song in general? That’s fine (odd, but fine)

But if you hate it because it “undermines Angel’s experience and what he goes through” I…

words.

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk

#Welp #ADHD stole my phone again #I’m so normal about them #the songs been out for a day how the hell have I analyzed it this much already tf #hazbin hotel angel dust #hazbin hotel husk #huskerdust #hazbin hotel #HH #HH spoilers #hazbin hotel spoilers

[nephriteknight]

okay i've talked about this in tags and stuff before but i want to really break down the dorian - ashton dynamic, because it's so interesting. there are a lot of ways in which dorian and ashton are perfectly opposed, and there are also a lot of ways that they're deeply similar, and something about it is just fascinating to me.

they're both genasi, but one is air and one is earth. one was born into wealth and privilege, while the other spent most of their childhood in an orphanage in bassuras, and yet they both have very complex feelings about their parentage and their birthright and the power that comes with it. they're both frontline fighters who started c3 with the same strength score, but ashton uses a massive hammer and chaotic, uncontrollable powers, while dorian uses bardic flourishes and precise spells. ashton was abandoned by the closest thing they had to family, while dorian was the one to leave his own family. ashton is -2 charisma covered up with brashness and projected confidence, while dorian is +3 charisma but too nervous to use it effectively half the time. they both end up being treated as a sort of leader in their parties, much to their own surprise. dorian is this inexperienced, sheltered prince seeing the world for the first time, and ashton is frequently the voice of reason in bells hells, the one who knows how the real world works ("does no one crime?", reminding them that their actions will have consequences for others, pointing out that leaving someone to die is not actually better than killing them by hand).

in exu, dorian tells lolth that he would do anything to protect his friends, even if it would hurt others, and he meant it so deeply that his alignment changed from chaotic good to chaotic neutral. he got into an argument with orym because he wanted them to keep lolth's circlet, a decision influenced by his family history with power and responsibility. and now ashton took the shard, searching for power, motivated by the longing for his parents and his birthright and it is such a juicy parallel.

it's "i would do anything for my friends" vs "we don't leave anyone behind".

the first kiss of the campaign is dorian kissing ashton's cheek after the ratanish fight as an excuse to get close enough to heal him and tell him "we need you". ashton curses quietly when he realizes dorian has to go with cyrus. "to dorian, who is leaving us for his stupid brother. what the fuck is up with that." ashton says dorian is "our bag of dicks".

they're just so interesting. they're such interesting contrasts, both symbolically and in their characters, and i really hope that when (don't say 'if' it's gotta be a 'when' i am clinging to this) dorian comes back their relationship gets explored more.

#its also really interesting that in dorian's absence ashton has become so close to fearne and orym #thats probably a coincidence but it's another fun parallel #and i do think that some of the ways dorian and ashton are alike are things that orym admires in them #in a way both dorian and ashton are kind of a bridge between fearnes chaos and oryms seriousness #dorian storm #ashton greymoore #critical role

[elumish]

Some Things To Consider When Writing Weapons Training

Your character will hurt. Even if they don't get hit, it can be exhausting training, especially if they're just starting. It can be a weird set of muscles to use, and things like their shoulders will hurt if they do what a lot of people do and tense up while holding the weapon.

They will drop the weapon. There are a lot of reasons why people drop weapons--because the weapon is awkward to hold or the person isn't used to holding them, because it gets hit out of the person's hand, because their own hand gets hit, etc--but it happens.

People get hit by accident all the time--including the person holding the weapon. When I've done jō practice, I consider it a success if I don't hit myself with it while I'm practicing. And even when doing controlled sparring or paired katas, people still end up hitting each other, especially on places like the hand.

Practice weapons still hurt. Depending on what you're doing, they're usually made of either wood or rubber rather than metal, but just because they're not metal, it doesn't mean they don't hurt. Bruises are really standard, especially if you're practicing something like knife fighting where you're doing a lot of hand-to-hand blocking.

The goal of training is not to hurt your opponent. People who (intentionally or through carelessness) hurt their sparring partners are bad at training and will probably be kicked out of it or at least get a very strong talking to. Good training will also teach them how to train without getting hurt and strongly discourage doing things in a dangerous way.

What they wear will differ widely depending on the discipline. HEMA and fencing tend to have a fair amount of protective gear (helmet, etc.), as does kendo, while disciplines like aikidō, iaidō, and jūjutsu are more likely to have people wearing a gi or hakama. This will impact how they feel about hitting opponents--it's always riskier to hit someone in a place with no protective gear.

Some weapons' training is primarily defensive, and some is primarily offensive, and some is both. Some training (knife defense, gun defense) is primarily about disarming someone with one of those weapons, where the actual use of the weapon is just as a training tool. In those cases, the specifics of the attack are usually emphasized less than the specifics of the defense. HEMA and fencing are much more offense-focused, with the goal being more about landing a hit. In forms like that (or in a similar fictional form), you'll see the mentality that the best defense is a good offense, as opposed to the mentality that the best defense is a good defense (or the best defense is running away).

Knowing one form of weapons training is (often) helpful in learning another. Even while they differ a fair amount, different weapons styles can often use similar patterns in terms of strikes, blocks, and steps. Part of this is that there are only so many useful places to hit a person and only so many ways to step. There are other things that are fairly universal as well, like awareness of your blade and your opponent's blade, awareness of your body, and awareness of relative distance.

#weapons #martial arts #training

[bulbabutt]

ok i wanna talk about tmnt 2007 and the way i think this is the best version of a leo and raph conflict, and also leo as a character

for context i've been talking about tmnt things kinda chronologically, so i'm gonna mention an unconditional understanding in 03 i bring that up in a previous post about that show and the family dynamics in it here if u want context for what i mean

i think this movie can really be appreciated for the place it has between adaptations, and the way character-wise everyone is more or less the same as they've always been but with a more interpersonal relationship as the focus. the main villain of this movie doesn't really matter, the conflict, the fights, that's not where the strength is (although, it is reflected in the conflict and ill get into that)

so tmnt 07 is one movie that kind of combines the 90s movies, 03, and mirage all in one place, and tonally is is similar to the show that will come after it, 12. if the 90s movies give us conflict between leo and raph, and 03 gives us the unconditional understanding between the two, 07 takes these two aspects and creates a story out of it. (debate in your own mind if this movie is a literal sequel to the 90s ones or not, its not that important)

the set up of this movie is we are in a post killing the shredder world. leo has been told by splinter to go get training elsewhere, there isn't much context for what happened to cause this, but i would bet its a similar cause to 03, where he had ptsd and lashed out at his father to which splinter sends him to his grandfather to get better advice than he thinks he can give him. the difference here is there is no grandfather hes sent to, he's sent on a journey of self discovery around the world to learn about it and himself.

the thing about leo as a character, and this goes for all leos, he's has a very black and white way of thinking. leo thinks he's been sent away because he's failing his family, that he's not a good enough leader. so he stays away for longer because he doesn't feel good enough. he finds a place where he can help and he does that. leo always needs a bad guy to fight, or else he's fighting his own demons. so he stays there for a long time. finding a place he can help quietly, never letting anyone see him, and becoming a legend to the locals because no one knows what's really going down.

april manages to track him down and tell him about whats going on with his brothers, how they're holding up without him and without being a team, and i think thats a good reminder for him that they miss him. he doesn't tell april but he finds a way home only after hearing about this. when he arrives and speaks to splinter, he says "i was so caught up in my own world i forgot about everyone else, i'm sorry i failed" he still doesn't feel like he's done anything of worth.

i'm gonna jump in here and say, you know how we all love rise raph? cuz hes the big brother and some traits that come from that are like being overprotective and taking on everyone else's problems and trying to handle emotions alone? well that's a trait thats usually leo's. but the difference with leo is sometimes that concept doesn't make you as likeable. sometimes it means you come off like a nagging mother hen who thinks they know best but in an arrogant way. sometimes it makes you mirror being a parent when no one asked you to be. leo's less of a passionate character than raph, hes more analytical and full of himself. he takes splinters lessons more seriously, and hes always trying to do whats best for everyone so they don't have to worry. this is something evident with 03 and 12, but its so specifically noticeable here because these traits make up the main conflict. i just want to bring that up so we start seeing leo as no different than some of our other favourite iterations.

splinter responds to his apology by saying "you owe me no apology, but perhaps you should talk to raphael, your absence has been particularly difficult for him, though he'll never admit it" but when leo greets him raph is brushing him off.

on raph's end, this is him being angry that leo left, and angry that hes back and everyone wants to pretend that he wasn't gone at all. as if the time he was gone didn't happen. hes lashing out because he too cant handle talking about these emotions. and hes lashing out by becoming a vigilante in his own right.

i see a lot of people misunderstand what raph is doing here, that "this is what the turtles always do" or "this is the same as what leo was doing how could he be mad" when that is not true. that's what casey does. its true that both leo and raph have been fighting bad guys on their own (as a way of dealing with their issues) but raphael has made himself a costume to disguise himself which means hes prepared to be seen. hes riding a motorcycle around, which is loud. this isn't stealthy, this is aggressive. his vigilante name is in the news. the turtles are ninjas, they silently help where they can and fade into the night and, very specifically, they work as a team. these turtles live in a dangerous world, what if something happened to him while no one else was around? they would never know because he never told anyone.

so raph is lashing out, and leo doesn't have a good way of dealing with it. he tries to slide back into being leader, doing what splinter says but he forgets how his brothers are, and with raph egging them on they get into fights they shouldn't. which leo specifically gets in trouble for, as the oldest brother, and as their leader. leo tries to be this better leader hes supposed to have learned to be, but it doesn't work and raph ends up back out there in his vigilante get up. leo tracks down said vigilante, and in his peak "leo knows best" moment, lectures him, not knowing its his brother. there's a scuffle, and the mask comes off. let me point out that casey knew this vigilante was raph but his own brother didn't, because leo has been gone that long.

so lets get into what this fight is really about. on the surface, its "wow you've been going out at night alone putting yourself in dangerous situations with no backup" and "so what you're just mad that i can do it without you" which leo would be right about. and this is the analytical leo, he really thinks that's all that's going on here. what hes missing is that raphael has missed him as a brother, and hes hurt that leonardo left and just came back no big deal. that he wants everything to be normal. raphael is always a character with big emotions and the only outlet he knows to express them is violence.

leo, who as we've established, went away to learn to be better for his family is angry that raph doesn't see that. he's mad raph doesn't appreciate the effort he went to, and he thinks he's just angry because he's not in charge. each brother sees the other as being arrogant.

this leads them to the big fight. no one can disagree that this is the best part of the movie (seriously watch the movie for this scene if you haven't seen it before) , but the real best part of it is that raphael wins. raph proves hes just as capable of a fighter as his brother, if not more-so. he uses those sais as they're supposed to be used, catching leo's swords and in a fit of rage he fucking breaks them, leaving leo defenceless and completely vulnerable to attack. you'd think he'd be smug that leo lost but he pauses, going through a lot of emotions in a moment, questioning what he's doing, why hes doing it. and leo finally looks his brother in the eye and sees raph going through something he didn't before, realizing raph hasn't been angry that he's back, but that he's angry that he ever left. they don't have a conversation, because raph cant handle all these emotions and he runs away, crying as he does. leo just watches him, taking it all in and realizing the error of his ways.

hearing leo scream turns raph around, but he's too late to help him, and this is where raph regrets his own actions because right then, leo is also proven right in his argument. because he gets kidnapped. if leo hadn't chased raph down, there is a very good chance that would have been raph being kidnapped. with no backup, with no one knowing what happened to him. that's why its important that the turtles are a team.

raph goes home full of guilt, and there's a good moment of showing how he cannot open up emotionally here, because he grunts, punches the wall, knocks over some weights and forces splinter to ask him what happened, because that's how raphael is. he laments to his father that he finally understands why leo is the better son, proving that to raph none of this was about their team, but about their family. conflating the two ideas in his head. splinter gives him a talk that mirrors what he said to leo when he returned earlier in the movie, encouraging him that he is a good son and brother. this shows that these brothers have very similar insecurities about their value to their family.

the rest of the movie plays out as you expect, they go save leo, they stop the bad guy, they reconcile and behave as the team they're supposed to be. but i just want to point out that the villains plot is mirrored in leo and raph's conflict. the 'villain' here is a brother who has been cursed to be immortal without his own siblings. for 3000 years he lived to regret his actions and decided to undo his curse, but he used the cursed stone versions of his siblings to do so. no communication, just thinking he knew better (which maybe he did) and lying about it. that caused them to lie to him right back, and try to overthrow him and destroy the world. this is just one family whose inner turmoil could have destroyed the world. you might say, oh that's not a very interesting turtles villain, but its not supposed to be. its not the focus.

this movie is all about the complicated relationship between a family, and i see so many people talk about it by trying to ask who's right and who's wrong. that's not how it works. life is more complicated than that, people are more complicated than that. its boring to look at this movie and just say "leo is wrong and raph is right" because that's not even how the characters see it. this movie is about leo and raph being mirrors of each other in their arrogance, in their insecurities, and in their stubborn pig-headed refusal to let the other know how they feel. splinter says as much at the start of the movie. this whole movie shows that without each other, they need to be fighting something so they don't get swept up by their own emotions, which they are both bad at processing. they are SUCH brothers. they are so similar emotionally, yet they have such a hard time understanding each other.

personally 07 leo is my favourite leo for his complexity, his flaws his strength, his growth. its sad we never got those sequel movies to get into the other brothers heads as much as we got into leo and raphs heads.

also nolan north and james arnold taylor gave the best vocal performances in this movie and they deserve all the credit for it.

#tmnt #tmnt 2007 #tmnt 07 #teenage mutant ninja turtles #07 leo #i will defend 07 leo to death does no one understand his autistic swag like i do #all leos are like this he just got to shine cuz the movie was ABOUT his and raphs issues #this has been in the drafts for a while and in the mind a LOT longer than that #sorry its long idek if thats all i have to say about him but CLEARLY its long enough #thoughts

[meraki-sunset]

Hi Meraki!

Can you draw Carapaces at different points in their lifespan? I wanna see babies, kids, and the elderly chess pieces.

Sure bro. here are some chess people and some headcanons i have

🧸👶BABIES!👶🧸

It's not confirmed if carapace can reproduce naturally or if they can only multiply using the ectobiology machines.

On sburb, the chess people are born as adults and with a specific purpose, with a barcode on their wrist to identify the, i guess, model. So there are no babies on Prospit or Derse.

The babies the players made in the post credits would be the first carapace children to exist.

I headcanon that they're born with a full set of teeth that fall eventually, like with any other child. They're a little more squishy than an adult carapace but less than a human baby

i also though it'd be cool if sometimes they got black or white spots

(Also, even if chess people remember living for years before the arrival of the players, they effectively began to exist the moment the first player enters the game, those memories being an illusion, same as how, when you buy a game and turn it on, the NPCs might tell you about their childhood, when in reality, they were never kids in the real world, they were rendered as adults for the purpose of being there in the game. The same happens with the chess people)

🎈🎀KIDS🚀🪁

Like before, there are no carapace children in sburb, but I imagine they would be the quiet type of kids. Not necessarily shy, but not very talkative. They would have a lot of energy and due to their physical endurance, they would play outside a lot, sometimes a little too rough with the human and troll kids

⚽⛱️TEENS🎮👗

I guess this is the period where they would become more vocal.

Also, I can see many of them using a lot of hats/accessories as a form of self-expression. Suction-cup accessories would be their own version of hair clips and scrunchies

👠👓ADULTS💍🎓

They're the strongest, a lot of them have more pointy features than their teenage counterparts, some may retain the round face into adulthood, but they would still be sturdier than a teen. Their hands have now fully developed claws. They aren't strong enough to open a can, but they can hurt

EarthC adult carapace specifically would be more talkative than Sburb's carapace. Also, not having a predetermined role to fulfill, they would be more similar to humans. If you dropped one of them on one of the sburb moon, they would stand out a lot.

🌙SBURB CARAPACE🌙

Just some apreciation of the canon characters.

i love them to death

👨🏻‍🦳ELDER👩🏻‍🦳

Last but not least, the elderly carapace. Sburb carapace didn't seem able to age, or at least they did so very slowly, because their purpose was to live long enough to act as sort of guides to the players after being exiled.

I suppose they can grow old eventually, specially the ones born outside the game, as babies, they most likely have a shorter lifespan that their Prospit/Derse counterparts.

Probably you can tell they're old because of the damage to their external carapace, which isn't as hard as it used to and their posture, product of time taking a tool on them.

As for wrinkles, they're only visible in their faces, which are softer for facial expression, but they don't even get that many

(also, just so you know i cried drawing the chicken grampa carapace, he knows his wife loves birds so he bought her a chicken, that's not exactly the kind of bird she expected but loves it regarthless, the chicken's name is gertrude, the grampa loves gertrude, she's a shicken orb, a chorb if you will. they're all happy, i would die for chicken-grampa)

And that's all, that's how I imagine EarthC carapace work. They're not so different from the Sburb carapace, but they get to experience growing up and deciding what to do with their lives.

i really love the species and i want to explore them more in the casu epilogue

#homestuck au #crow strider au #csau extra