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cherrycocaineee · 9 days ago

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43. From Not Knowing How To Kill To Making It Hurt - Joker

*Synopsis: Once again Mr. J has been arrested and sent to Arkham. Having never been separated from the Joker since he killed her abusive dad and she moved in, Athena is going insane. She needs to get him out, she needs to bring him home at whatever cost. Even if that meant throwing away her very last shred of humanity. *

*Warning: death, mental health (?), blood, voices in mc's head, prison break, romanticizing mental illness because the Joker is a wack job, smut.*

*Athena's p.o.v*

Someone should have told me that going insane meant pacing around the room mindlessly ignoring everyone around you except for the voices inside your head. Had I known that, I would have never thought I was crazy beforehand. The ball of my feet ached from constantly turning on my heel and I was pretty sure I had given myself carpet burn. Yet I couldn't be bothered with any of that at the moment; all that consumed my thoughts were the Joker not being here. I'm sleeping in our bed alone, eating my meals alone, doing everything alone. With Mr. J gone, I was alone and I was eerily aware of how much I fucking hated it.

The wooden door creaked open and Frost popped his head in but I didn't stop my mindless pacing. Frost enters mine and Mr. J's shared bedroom; why did it feel wrong to have him in here when Mr. J was in Arkham?

Because it isn't Mr. J walking through that door.

Oh great. That voice again. I hadn't heard that voice in my head since the day I met the Joker in person for the first time. The first time I heard it was the day I bashed one of my former classmate's head with a chair after he choked me and went after my friend. Former friend--once he learned that I faked my death and joined the Joker, Freddie wanted nothing to do with me. It didn't hurt as much as I thought it would.

Because Freddie is a fucking loser.

Great.

"What is it, Frost?” I inquire, not stopping to even look at him.

"Boss asked me to give you this letter.” He says, causing me to stop.

Pain radiates from my heels and up my calves, making it impossible to hold myself up so I fall. Frost walks in completely and hands me the letter before sitting on the edge of the Queen size bed.

He doesn't make any attempt to help or soothe me which I appreciate. I quickly opened the letter Frost gave me and pulled the sheet of paper out. The Joker's handwriting came into view and it felt like I could breathe just a little better--like the weight was lifted off my chest.

'Little Dove. Frost tells me you aren't doing well. I'll be okay. We're already working on a way to get me out. xo.’

Not fucking fast enough.

I blink, pushing the voice away before turning my attention to Frost.

"How long will it take to get him out with y'all's plan?” I inquired.

"A year.” He says bluntly; no matter what, Frost never wavers or flinches.

My eye twitches. A year.

There was no possible way I was going to survive a whole year without Mr. J. It had already been just a few days and I was going insane.

My fingers curl around the paper in my hands causing the page to crinkle beneath my grip. My eyes aren't even froused on Frost as I stare at him, they're actually staring through him. Frost snaps his fingers in front of my face and I blink a couple of times before focusing my gaze on him. I give him a glare that does nothing to scare him; at this point I don't even think Frost is scared of the Joker, it's just loyalty. I wonder if he's ever been afraid of Mr. J.

"What are you thinking?” Frost inquires, resting his elbows on his knees now.

I huff, blowing a strand of my blonde hair out of my face. What was I thinking? Definitely trying to figure out a way to get the Joker out…a faster way because there was no way I was waiting a year. But how? I didn't know the first thing about killing anyone, or breaking into a literal psychotic prison. How did Harley Quinn do it when she was alive? How does the Joker do it now?

The vat of chemicals. Gotta jump in that vat of chemicals!

I practically shake that crazy voice away. I look at Frost.

"I need time to think.” I say, standing up.

Frost watches me leave the room though he makes zero effort to go after me which I appreciate. Being alone is good. I mean I'm not very sure about this voice that returned but either way.

Gotham air feels unusually thick this evening but maybe it was because my brain was foggy. I walked the streets of Gotham in the dead of the night, my feet dragging me towards some unknown place. I don't even think I was paying attention. After what felt like forever, I find myself standing on the edge of the black, rusty platform that dropped into the same vat of chemicals that Mister J and Harley Quinn jumped into when she was alive. How the fuck did they survive that? I didn't have anyone to pull me up, so if I jumped and didn't go to the top I would drown and die. I sit down on the ledge and state down at the bubbling liquid. Would it burn? Would I get chemical burns? Why did the Joker never ask me to jump in like he did with Harley Quinn? There's so many different thoughts running through my head. Now I've moved on to doubting my relationship with the Joker.

Jump.

Do it!

JUMP!

Without even thinking, I lunge forward and plummet towards the vat of chemicals. My eyes squeeze shut and I hold my breath just as I splash into the surprisingly thick chemical. It stung. There wasn't really a burn; it was hot but not scolding hot. I could feel myself sinking towards the bottom, it was getting harder to hold my breath. Shit! This may have been a bad idea.

Swim.

There's that voice again. My voice. The same voice that told me to jump. At least I didn't want myself to die.

Swim! Now!

I feel my butt touch the bottom of the vat and my lungs burn.

DAMN IT! SWIM!

I managed to move my legs under me and pushed myself up causing my body to propel to the surface. A loud splash echoed through the abandoned building as my body came to the surface gasping for air. I throw my body over the side of the vat and wipe my face as I continue to gasp. There was another splash behind me and I turned around to see one of those life floats that ships throw to someone who's overboard. I crane my head up and see Frost before grabbing the life float.

Eventually, I'm out of the chemical vat and Frost is beside me with a towel.

"Boss isn't gonna be happy you did this," he says smoothly.

"Why? Because only his precious Harley Quinn can jump into this vat of chemicals?” I inquire, dabbing the towel against my skin.

Frost eyes me for a moment before walking towards the exit; I watch him.

"No, because now you aren't the same person he fell for.” Frost says.

"I'm still the same person,” I responded, following him out.

"Really? Because the original Athena never would have questioned the Joker's feelings for her.”

I roll my eyes. "I didn't--”

"Yes you did.”

I huff. "Regardless of that, I had to do this. I don't know the first thing about killing anyone or how to break into a psycho prison.”

"Why would you need to know either of those things?”

"So we can go break out Mister J.”

"He told you we -”

Now it was my turn to interrupt him. "I'm not waiting a year, Frost. That's too long.”

Inside the vehicle he brought, I pull the sun visor down and reveal the mirror. I look at my skin. It's even more white than it originally was. Even my hair almost seemed white, like the color was stripped from it completely. I find my eyes in the reflection and of course they're still blue but they seem so bright against my pale skin and hair. Maybe this was a bad idea. I don't even look like me. But I don't have time to worry about it. I have one week to learn how to shoot a gun before I force Mister J's men to storm Arkham and bust him out.

One week.

Learning how to shoot a gun is not fucking easy. It's much harder than these people make it look and during the first week I definitely shot one of the Joker's men in the knee. However, with the help from Frost, I learned how to hold a gun and shoot one properly. And on the last day of the week, l explained to the henchmen what the plan was. Even if this is the last time I see the Joker--because I can't seem to get that fucking thought out of my--I want him free.

You aren't the same anymore, Athena. He's gonna leave you. You just destroyed the only relationship you had left. He killed your dad, your mom's psycho, James Gordon hates you, your siblings are dead, and Freddie gave up on you. Freddie. That clingy little prick abandoned you just like the Joker will. Then you'll be alone, all al-

"Athena.”

My eyes snap open and I realize that I'm in a black van being driven by one of Mister J's henchmen. My eyes find Frost just a few inches away; he's holding up a police riot helmet. I swallowed thickly but took the helmet anyway. I put it over my head and Frost clips it to me with practiced ease. I can see Arkham just through the windshield of the black van and I can feel my heart rapidly thumping. Not with fear and anxiety, I haven't felt those since jumping in the chemicals, but with excitement.

The Henchmen were preparing a way into the prison using explosives. Frost was explaining to the men which side the Joker was on.

The black van came to a complete stop on the side of Arkham that I knew wasn't well guarded. It didn't mean that the guards inside wouldn't come rushing out because they would, it just meant there would be a grace period. Everyone filed out of the black van and within minutes the wall was blasted causing the wall to crumble. Clouds of dust erupted in the air, a deafening ring filled my ears. If this riot helmet wasn't on my head, I'm sure I would be inhaling a shit ton of cement dust particles.

Frost grabbed me and pulled me behind him most likely because he knows if something were to happen to me, Mister J would kill him. I grip my gun tightly but follow closely behind him. Guards start piling into the room and a shoot out starts. I duck my head as another round of guns go off.

The FUCK are you doing? Don't hide! Shoot!

That pesky voice in my head.

I aim my gun towards the approaching guards and start shooting; each bullet piercing whatever visible part of them it could. Each time a body dropped, the easier it became to pull the trigger. It felt like my heart thumped with each pull. I don't know if I'm being delusional, but ever since I jumped into the chemicals my senses felt sharper. The thought sounded crazy and yet I believed it. Especially when I feel the presence of a guard behind me throughout the shoot out. I swirled around and dove to the floor as he tried to grab me. My fingers touch something made out of a thick wood. I don't even glance at it, I just curl my fingers around the object before swinging it. It collided with the guard's knee and I swear I heard the bone break. He crumbles to the ground and I scurry up. I grip the wooden thing tightly and for the first time ever I let my anger consume me. I started bashing the guard's head in until it was nothing but unrecognizable. I dropped the wood and ran to Frost and the others as they blew the caged door down. Mister J grins and comes out slowly.

"Frost…this wasn't part of the plan.”

"It wasn't part of our plan but it was hers." Frost steps to the side.

I take a deep breath.

He's going to hate you.

He'll kill you.

He won't touch you either.

Shut up. Shut up. SHUT UP.

I unclip the riot helmet and pull it off of my head revealing my almost snow white hair and skin. My icy blue eyes meeting the Joker's own icy blue gaze. There was a lump in my throat. A scowl appears on the Joker's face and he grabs my chin roughly. I yelp.

"You didn't.” It wasn't a question, and it wasn't even a real statement either because he knew I did. "Frost. How could you let this happen?” He doesn't even look away as he speaks.

"Wouldn't have done any good, boss," Frost says, "I told you she wasn't thinking straight.”

The Joker wasn't able to get another word out as another set of guards approached. I lift my gun ready to shoot when the Joker snatches it from me and drags me out while his men take care of the guards. He pulls me into the black van; his men get in and drive off. The entire ride is silent and I fidget with the strap of my riot helmet. I can feel the tension like a hot skillet searing against my flesh. The Joker can't even look at me. I swallow away the sudden anxiety that ripples through me.

Once we reach the mansion, I'm the first to get out. My footsteps quick as I go up to the bedroom that the Joker and I shared. I opened the closet and pulled the suitcase that I brought in the beginning out. I start throwing the clothes I originally had before all these fancier outfits into the suitcase. The Joker storms in and slam the door shut.

"What the hell were you thinking, Athena?” He growled.

"Clearly I wasn't,” I muttered.

I stood up and removed the necklace around my neck he gave me; it had the letter "J” on it. The Joker looks at me before grabbing me and pushing me against the door, surprisingly not hard to hurt me. I swallow.

"Put it back on.” It's a demand. "You're mine, Athena. Now and forever. You agreed to it.”

"Why? You clearly can't stand me anymore. It's evident in how angry you are,” I retaliated.

"You're damn right I'm angry. You stripped away your purity…”

I screamed in frustration. "News flash, Joker! My purity was gone the minute I chose to be with you!”

I don't even give him the chance to speak.

"You were going to be gone for a year! A year! There was no way I'd be able to live in this mansion, sleep in our bed, knowing you wouldn't be home! I was going crazy! I couldn't sleep or eat. All I did was fucking pace back and forth as that stupid voice bothered me again. So yes! I made a choice and maybe it was the wrong one but I couldn't think straight! But now it doesn't matter because you don't want me anymore.”

Several tears slip down my cheek as soft sobs leave my lips. The Joker watched me before pulling me into his arms. I relaxed against his chest, my tears on his naked upper body.

"Who said I wouldn't want you?" He grumbled.

"The voice in my head,” I sniffled."it won't go away.”

The Joker chuckled and ran his fingers through my now snow white hair. I closed my eyes.

"My little psycho," he hummed.

"You aren't mad anymore?” I whispered.

"Oh no. I'm furious. But I'll take my anger out on someone else.”

I giggle quietly and nod - head. He picks me up and sets me down on my vanity desk. He gives me a once over, taking in my appearance. I blink a bit. Then he grins at me, that evilly wicked grin that makes my heart race.

"Still my same needy girl.” He purrs; he sees the same person inside my eyes. "The same needy girl who loves when I touch her.”

I give him a sweet smile. Even though this voice kept coming back, this time louder, I was hellbent on never changing. Not even a little bit.

"I'm still the same girl.” I whisper to him as the peppers aggressive kisses against my jawline and neck. I tilted my head up so he had better access.

"I know," he growls out before sinking his teeth into my neck. I gasp.

A low, deep chuckle escapes his red painted lips sending a wave of vibrations up my neck and through my body. I let out a relieved sigh of pleasure. Mr. J grabbed the rem of my shirt and pulled it over my head roughly; my black bra soon followed behind as he snapped the fabric between the lacy cups and shoved the straps off my shoulders. My soft, slightly plump breasts bounce from the sudden removal of my bra. Mr. J tangles his tattooed fingers into my surprisingly still soft hair before crushing his lips to mine. I moan against him, my fingers curling around the fabric of his shirt as I tug him closer to me. He deepens the kiss roughly, plunging his tongue into my mouth. He removes his hands from my hair and pulls his shirt off in a singular swift movement. His naked torso and chest pressed against my own. He unbuttoned my pants, lifting my hips to yank them off along with my panties. He's rough, which isn't unusual, but still gentle enough to not leave unwanted bruises. He knew what part of me he liked marked and what parts he didn't like marked.

Mister J pulled away from the kiss, the two of us panting as we tried to catch our breaths which felt nearly impossible after that kiss. He grabbed me by my waist and lifted me off the vanity surface then tossed me onto our bed. My body bounces and a giggle leaves my lips as a growl leaves his. His tattooed hands finding his belt and expertly removing it like it was second nature to him. I slowly bite my lip.

"Turn around. Hands behind your back, sweet cheeks,” Mr. J ordered.

I didn't argue with him, quickly moving so I was faced away from him. My naked back side is in full display for him. Mr. J watches as I put my hands behind my back, a deep hum of satisfaction comes from him. He takes my hands and uses his belt to bind my wrist together behind my back. He uses his knee to spread my legs further apart before pinning my body against the mattress so he could tighten the belt. I can feel the leather digging into my porcelain skin; by the end of the night, I knew my wrist would be red and rubbed now but I didn't mind.

Mr. J pushed his hard body into mine more.

"Gonna make a lot of noise for me, aren't ya, Athena?”

"Yes, Mist-”

A squeak leaves my lips as he smacks my already soaking cunt; the rings he wore on his fingers making contact with my clit. My thighs tremble.

"Is that my name when I've got you pinned beneath me like this?” He growls into my ears.

I shake my head still shaking.

"Then say it.”

"Yes daddy.”

A growl vibrates my back for a second before he sits up. My body feels incomplete without his weight on top. From the position I'm in, I'm unable to see what Mr. J is doing but I can hear the sound of him removing his pants. Within moments, his pants are removed and he's back on top of me. He groans lowly as he rubs the tip of his cock against my folds. I whimper, listening to the slick noise coming from us.

"Ya miss me, doll?” He hums, teasing my clenching hole.

"Y-yes, daddy,” I mewled out, "missed you a bunch.”

He chuckled against the shell of my ear as he slowly pushed his thick cock into my waiting heat. My eyes rolled back, my mouth falling open with a small dribble of saliva running down my chin. My glistening pussy stretched to accommodate the size of his dick; there was a lewd squelching sound from all the wetness dripping from me. A moan left my throat, my lungs already burning as a needy scream threatened to leave my lips but I kept it shoved down. There would be plenty of opportunities to scream tonight and I didn't want one wasted on him simply entering me. Mr. J had other plans. He wasn't even half way in before he pulled all the way out before slamming back into me with one swift motion. The scream I've been holding back ripped from my lungs, burning my throat on the way out.

A satisfied growl rings through my ears as his chest vibrates against my back. I feel my velvety walls clench around his cock that was throbbing.

"That's it, dove. Scream for me.” His voice is husky and deep, dripping with unadulterated need.

Once again he lifts his hips, sliding almost out of me before slamming back down. A choked scream leaves me once more as his movements become erratic. My fingers curl around the bedding beneath us that is now saturated in sweat and the dripping juices that run down my trembling thighs. Our skin kept smacking against each other, the sound wet and sticky. Mr. J pinned me down with a single hand in the middle of my back, between my shoulder blades, as he keeps a harsh and steady pace.

With each rough thrust, another lewd moan left my lips and was muffled by the blankets. My cunt squelched deliciously each time he sunk himself impossibly deeper.

“Still my girl,” Mr. J growls hoarsely, his own breathing turning into pants as he exerts himself, “that won’t change. Not now. Not ever, Athena. Understand, you filthy little bitch.”

His words sounded cruel but I knew they weren't. At least not to me. I moaned again, my head spinning with pleasure. Even the sturdy bed frame was powerless when it came to Mr. J's rough thrust. Mr. J tangles another hand into my hair, forcing my head up so that I was staring at the wall in front of us through teary eyes. Barely even started and my face was a mess of tears. saliva, and makeup. I spread my legs wider, allowing him to go deeper. I can feel the tip of his cock bouncing against my cervix causing me to see white.

"Scream for me,” he hisses, slamming into my cervix with more force.

"Daddy!” I screamed out in a choked sob.

The pleasure in my body feels like hot fire.

A shock of blissful pain cracks through me as he delivers a hard smack to my ass before returning his hand to my hair.

"Fuck!" I cry out again, clenching around his cock.

Suddenly, Mr. I pulled out of me. My eyes widen and I turn to look at him. He grins, that attractive, psychotic grin that I was desperately in love with. Even now when I knew what was conking. I pout.

"Oh don't pout, doll," he says in a sing-song voice that's almost cruel, "you know the rules, love. You're still my girl but you disobeyed me.”

"This isn't fair,” I part out, sexual frustration prickling my skin, "I did it to get you out.”

Mr. J runs both his hands through my long hair, that grin still fully on his face. The red on his lips remind me of blood and my hands twitch. He notices. I catch the flicker of his blue eyes darting to my hands. This wasn't just a punishment, he was seeing how far he could push me before I snapped. I swallowed thickly.

Be good.

Kill him.

Just jump on him.

BE GOOD!

I swallow once again and sit on my knees, my hands in my lap. My naked body still on full display. He grins.

"My good …” he leans in, his lips hovering over my own, "psychotic, little girl.”

Tags: @graveyardmold

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avelera · 2 years ago

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I feel like one unexpected side-effect in the (slight) uptick of queer ships becoming canon (seriously guys it's so slight if you look at the actual numbers) is learning how often slash fandom doesn't actually want the baggage that comes with their ship becoming canon.

I mean, of course they want it. The fandom wants the confirmation that they're not delusional, that they're not mocked, that the sparks they sensed between two possibly-queer characters is real.

But the side-effect of a ship becoming canon with anything more than a kiss to mark the end of the story is that it might become canon not in the way you wanted.

So long as the characters are in the will-they-won't-they, you can imagine what their first time would be like. You can imagine how they act in a relationship together. You can imagine the tone of the relationship.

You can imagine it in ways that are incredibly personal and meaningful to you.

But the minute a ship becomes canon at a point where the story still needs to progress, you're going to get divergence from the way you imagined it going.

They're going to bicker about things you never imagined would be a point of contention between them in the story, that it might have even been meaningful for you that they had never fought over previously, possibly because the story just didn't have the time for them to fight over that beforehand. Or perhaps this writer leans more into interpersonal conflict as a plot point, where you preferred the couple facing an external threat. There's as many ways to imagine the tone of a relatinship as there are people in the world.

They're going to have a different first-something than you imagined. First kiss, first date, first time sleeping together. For it to be canonical it has to be committed to the page which means it has to be set. Maybe you thought it would be awkward where it was smooth, or smooth where it should be awkward. Maybe you though the kiss would be a bigger deal to them than the sex or vice versa. Maybe canonically they flub the romance of that first time for the sake of comedy. Now that's canon too. You can ignore it with fic, obviously that's what fandom is about, but now it's AU, not "what-if?".

There might be interruptions to the love story, breakups, fights, separations, that aren't the end of the relationship but do mark an action beat that is necessary to keep the story moving and interesting. Unless the last canonical beat is them riding into the sunset together, it's inevitable and usually marks the end of a story because domestic fluff where nothing happens isn't actually a genre that can be sustained in original fiction without a plot.

Look, as queer ships become canon, this is going to be inevitable. OFMD S2 was the most egregious example I've seen recently of everyone who had engaged with the fandom having a different version of how they wanted Stede and Ed to behave once they were together. I couldn't help but laugh when I saw that the fandom fervency shifted from the canonical established queer ship (after it had the audacity to move beyond the establishing kiss and then the will-they-won't-they phase of reuniting), to the potential of a character who was never even canonically established as queer (Izzy) because everything about his story still lived in the potential land that fandom thrives in. And I don't entirely mean that as a criticism, just as a bitter irony!

Fandoms don't necessarily want a ship confirmed, they think they do, but that potential which was so enshrined and infuriatingly drawn out with regards to queer ships for so long and that's only just barely breaking just a little from when it was outright forbidden to show queer characters getting together (and it still is in most of the world if you go by population, and heavily discouraged by the mainstream powers that be in most places even where it's not banned, the limitations on international markets you get from having canonical queer characters even as side characters still makes it prohibitive for big budget flicks, since it means cutting themselves off from those markets in terms of recouping costs.)....

ANYWAY the point I'm making is that a few queer ships becoming canon has led to a perhaps predictable but depressing amount of outrage when 1) a popular queer ship doesn't become canon, but that's been building for a while now, but also 2) when the popular ship becoming canon doesn't become canon in the way the fandom wanted. Which was also inevitable but goddamn as a veteran of fandom for over two decades now, I can remember not that long ago when your queer ship becoming canon just not in the way you hoped would have been a damn nice problem to have!

#maggie rambles #fandom #ofmd meta

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guster-animations · 1 month ago

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Kamen Rider Gavv Episode 35 Production Blog

half of this one is dedicated to the horse guys which is actually amazing

TOKU TRANSLATION MASTERPOST

translated from this page

Looking at the Next Episode

Mister Lango… Just as you’d expect of the Stomach family’s eldest son… It’s a completely different scale… Lage9 attacked a courthouse and a university, but that’s not close at all to doing an airplane and a whole boat.

Usually, the “production” part of the staff searches for potential places to film an episode’s contents in after its script has been completed. This episode’s script was made while thinking about “places we could film at”. In the style of, for example, “There should definitely be a filming studio or something for the interior of an airplane…”. Narita Airport also collaborated with us. Thank you very much!

The places where the Stomach Company aims to get Human Presses in are all closed spaces filled with people. Rittsun is looking forward to a concert. I have a bad feeling about that.

And then there’s a second showdown with Lango! Furthermore, a new form will appear. Then, there will be big scenes with Lango and Shoma. With the strict and passionate guidance of Director Sugihara, who has watched over Chinen since the pilot episode, he will show the greatest climax of the series. And also action, naturally. Together with the summer movie, “Gavv” keeps picking up momentum this summer! We look forward to your support.

(Written by Naomi Takebe)

The Episode in Short

Thank you for watching episode 35. Lango is so strong…! He rushes into a battle that’s on a completely different scale than before, but please witness Shoma’s determination!

The U.M.A. Invasion

After the commercials ended, a mysterious masked band, U.M.A., suddenly appeared!! For those of you that wondered if you were on the wrong channel… I’m sorry for worrying you (Laugh).

There have always been many times where a Gochizo walks around at this moment and a subtitle saying a noise is shown, but if we did that in the music video, it would have been extremely confusing (?!), so we employed special methods that show on the monitor like captions.

Now, let’s introduce U.M.A.’s horse-like members!

Vocalist! Chestnut Cooley! Drums! Dapple-grey Shige!

Guitar! White Ohgee! Bass! Black Karasu!

[TN: i know these guys have official spellings that i’m 100% misspelling. i forgot them. i’ll get back to you]

Everyone is looking right at you (They’re looking sideways)

Cooley is Jun Aoki, Shige is Hayato Sahara, Ohgee is Takehiro Mizoguchi, and Karasu is Tomonori Sakuma.

Well, the music video from U.M.A. that’s taking the world by storm (I think?) is just a little difficult to explain…

We were able to use the tune “Dubbed Version” from the real-life band Crab Kani Club, and the aforementioned actors who we gathered for these episodes are performing in horse masks in time with the song in the video.

We didn’t need to record the vocals, but of course they had to move to match the lyrics, chords, and rhythm! So, it seems like the actors, who are all usually active in separate bands, practiced in the studio beforehand. Moreover, the day of recording was their first time performing while wearing the horse masks, so it was a fairly high-level filming session. They excited the staff members with their awesome performance, and they were very dazzling when they rode off in their station wagon loaded with the instruments (Laugh).

By the way, it was pure coincidence that Crab Kani Club is a masked band as well. We decided to do a masked band before we picked the song to use. Director Sugihara constructed the image of a band with costumes that are tight and stylish back in the script meeting phase. We’re also grateful to the mask maker Aiko for gladly responding to the sudden email with such a mysterious inquiry to “use it in Kamen Rider”.

U.M.A.’s video was made with the perserverance of everyone on the set, and the great taste of Sato from the editing department. Surprisingly, it’s currently available on TTFC, so please look forward to it!

…This episode somehow turned into a U.M.A. feature, but it’s because of Sachika’s friend who appeared a long time ago, Rittsun! The many different faces of her actor, Riko Tanaka (who is also called Rittsun), were also distinct in this episode (Laugh).

Rittsun says her excellent lines so rapidly. Even after Tanaka’s arrangements (rehearsing through scenes) had finished, she practiced her lines over and over again until it was time to perform, and when she stood in front of the camera, she filled it with incredible explosive power. She’s so cool!

She also reunited with Director Sugihara after episode 2! Even though she doesn’t appear in many episodes, she still has the power to sweep up the energy of the Happy Parade.

Let’s all support U.M.A!

The Riders’ Urgent Dispatch

It’s unclear how many Human Presses you’d even need for ten million Dark Snacks, but with the suspicious machines that Nyelv made, Lango finally sets out on a grand plan to hunt them down. Rakia listens to the news of mass disappearances with a sour look on his face, but the thing that he’s staring at is…

Kanji practice~~~!! He’s studying sixth-grade kanji. (It’s a random page related to entrails)

Nearby are also reading and writing comprehension, vocabulary, and grammar practice books. Rakia isn’t just sleeping in all his free time right now!

Rakia is worried about his past as a Stomach Company part-timer. Hanto turns back around, without rejecting him or taking it too lightly…!

He’s helping Rakia in the scene, but on the set, when Chinen had to redo the shot where he smiled at Rakia many times, Hino threw him a reassuring smile without saying anything. I was deeply moved by their teamwork that they’ve built up over time.

After their meeting at Suga’s laboratory, the Kamen Riders and Gochizos each go to deal with different things. And then we found this!

Director Sugihara discovered a Ganba Legends arcade cabinet while on location!

And Dente was still fine. Thank goodness! He gulps down the pudding with his usual appetite. It feels like he’s bribing Rakia for them (Laugh), but it’s good that he’s still going…!

Subsequently, Shoma, who follows a report from a Gochizo, is actually being filmed at a real airport that was loaned to us.

There is also the informative presence of Granutes disguised as cabin attendants and eating Dark Snacks on the observation deck.

The tension rises when you just look at the airplanes!

The scene in an airplane was filmed in a studio set that looks like a passenger section. TTFC members participated as the extras!

This is a show where we turn our fans into Human Presses (Laugh). Sorry about that! Thank you for always supporting us…!!! Please keep watching Gavv to see if everyone can return!!

Lango Makes His Move!

Lango was on the plane. (If he were actually riding it, would he take business class?)

He knocks Gavv down with this overwhelming sense of intimidation, and it turns into a showdown at the airport with the three Riders.

I’m going to have a little break here and put in photos of some duos.

Lango (played by Takashi Tsukamoto) swinging that big sword around is… Wow, I like that…

(I should practice vocabulary)

He doesn’t even flinch from the Kamen Riders’ attacks. He deals critical damage with one solid attack… He’s showing battle senses and courage of a completely different caliber compared to his part-timers.

The siblings’ unique abilities were mainly thought of by Director Sugihara and Action Director Fujita, and the ability that was decided on for Lango was “automatic shielding”. Even though he doesn’t take especially defensive stances, any attacks that aren’t strong enough won’t even reach him.

The eldest son’s power is “protection”…? Hmm, is that so. Something just hit me (Laugh). The words “The Impenetrable Lango” could come to mind.

It’s also been a while since Chinen and Tsukamoto’s last one-on-one fight scene.

(Director Sugihara is wearing so little compared to the other staff members)

Off-camera, Tsukamoto kindly looks after Chinen. He’s taking the lead so they can make a good scene together.

In the memories he recalls, it paints a portrait of a shocked family council.

You can understand the way everyone says “HUUUUH?” even in this still image.

Lango often denies Shoma’s presence, listing all of their differences. The reason he feels so strongly towards outsiders might be because he has a strong desire to protect the family.

Maybe his shield can finally be broken with the power of Shoma’s awakened Over Mode…

Somehow he just turned into his Granute form.

Lango’s face is small and his body is massive. This outfit screams, “This is someone strong!”.

Whoa, he can stretch into that pose?! Thank you for the meal!!

His suit actor is the legendary Kazutoshi Yokoyama. He’s so strooong! When it became apparent that he can’t beat Lango together wih Hanto and Rakia, Shoma was forced to momentarily escape, but can he stop Lango’s grand plan?!

Don’t miss it next week!

(Written by Minami Takishima)

#thank you for letting us know that you are heterosexual ms minami takishima #kamen rider gavv #lango stomach #shoma stomach #rakia amarga #hanto karakida #op #takashi tsukamoto #hidekazu chinen #teruaki sugihara #kohei shoji #yusuke hino

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moran-with-a-g · 4 months ago

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How is it being a Conservative/Mesorati Jew in Israel? I'm an American Conservative Jew who's been thinking about making Aliyah in the next few years.

That's a great question! Which I sadly can't really answer as I'm a very bad example of a conservative Jew!

Lmao sorry, but fr - I'm very new to observing beliefs. I went to a conservative shul for a bit and it was really nice, a very warm and welcoming and queer friendly community, mostly made of olim or children of olim, but I couldn't find the time to keep going and I still struggle with participating in the prayers due to bad past experiences.

I can try telling a bit of what I know anyways:

If you say Mesorati in Israel, the assumption won't be that you're conservative, it'll be that you're an orthodox Mesorati. In Israel, Mesorati refers to your lifestyle and not the way you understand and follow religious law. A Mesorati would "pick and choose" what to follow, kinda? A lot will keep kosher to some degree, keep Shabbat to some degree, it's a lifestyle between being secular and religious(dati/frum). A lot of them follow the traditions as cultural practice and not a religious practice.

For me, I'm both. Both conservative and Mesorati, and both out of tradition and religion. But I BARELY know about the conservative movement outside of "the shul doesn't separate rooma between genders" and that there's more equality between practices women and men do. So I really can't be an authority on explaining how good the conservative movement in Israel is and how similar it is to the same movement in other countries. They have a website tho. The link is specifically to the page of there their shuls are located but they have more information on their website.

When it comes to the Mesorati lifestyle, about 30% of the adult Jewish population in Israel identify as Mesorati. It's very common especially for Mizrahi people to be Mesorati.

When it comes to other people, there's no judgement around being Mesorati, and I think you'll encounter more confusion about what being conservative even is than anything else, because that movement is not that well known here.

So at the end if shul is important to you, you should probably plan where to live around where there are conservative communities, and if you're coming here to visit before your move I highly recommend coming to the shuls beforehand to get to know the community more. All the people I met were extremely nice and welcoming, very lovely people who really cared about their community. I wish I could let myself feel more comfortable in shul and I wish I even had time to go.

#jumblr #ישראבלר #conservative judaism #mesorati

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pure-ablution · 4 months ago

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Best way to get through Greek/Latin texts?

I had a whole little system I set up that worked for me. It only really works if you have a good grasp of the language—I wouldn’t recommend it for beginners—but it’s a very effective way of getting through, understanding, and remembering your texts.

Go onto The Bridge and download a frequency vocab list for the text. I found it best to add in an ‘exclude’ function for a general frequency list like Diederich or the OCR AS defined list, so that the resulting vocab list was more precise. Once you’ve downloaded your list, make sure that you know the vocabulary on it well before you move onto the next step. Anki or Quizlet, or paper flashcards, are best for this.

Find a good and relatively literal English translation of the text online—I like A. S. Kline’s Poetry in Translation website for any verse, and Wikisource is quite good for both prose and verse. (Of course, if you have to translate your texts into a different language, then find a translation in that language and not in English!) Take this text and put it into a plain Word document or PDF. Make sure that your phone/computer has some kind of text-to-speech software—almost all do, just look up text-to-speech in the settings.

Find an interlinear version of your text, if you can. This step is optional, but definitely advisable especially for poetry and more syntactically complex works like those of Cicero. Versions of the text where the word order is rearranged to make more sense in English (e.g. J. Coderch’s Vergil’s Aeneid Rephrased in Prose) also work perfectly well for this. If you can’t find an interlinear/rearranged version, you can skip this step.

Print out/photocopy your interlinear text, in a font/size/colour combination that’s easy for you to read, and have the paper and a pen in front of you.

Now, you’re going to read the text by eye, in the original language, whilst simultaneously listening to the text-to-speech software reading it in slow English. This works especially well with interlinear texts because you don’t need to chase about the page looking for the verb and end up distracted. Don’t stop the audio until it’s time for a break, and try not to read the interlinear translation beneath—simply underline any word that is unfamiliar to you, and move on.

Any underlined words can now go into a separate vocabulary list/flashcard set as words that you found personally difficult, and revised frequently according to the Leitner System.

Once you have read through the whole of your text using this listening method—it shouldn’t take all that long if you’re diligent and read a good amount each day—then you can take your prescribed edition of the text (not the interlinear version) and begin preparing it in the usual way: translating line by line, paying attention to the syntax and vocabulary. Again, if any words are still unfamiliar to you, then add them to your list. Preparing your texts should now be much quicker than it would have been had you not read everything according to the listening method beforehand, and you should be able to get the gist of the content and context much more easily.

When you have a proper translation of your text, then you can go through with multiple commentaries and annotate it like I described in this post.

If you’re going to be examined on translation, I recommend putting your own translation info flashcards, one verse/section per card. Test yourself frequently by giving yourself random passages to translate, closed-book. Listening to the text being read in the original language (if you can find an audio version with good and clear pronunciation) is also a really good way of testing yourself on comprehension, especially if you don’t have the words in front of you and simply have to understand by ear.

#ask-beauty #study tips

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zyafics · 4 days ago

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hey. same anon. thanks for allowing me to discuss this with you without trying to fight me.

i came onto your blog because the tone of your post did come off like you were trying to shame or shut down certain types of dark fics that didn't have a warning sign. i think some do, and if not they usually have it clear that its a dark fic within the first two paragraphs.

dark content, dead dove, morally grey, violent, uncomfortable, you name it... has been around forever. it's a huge part of fic culture. it's not new.

obvi fiction isn't free from consequences. but a lot of readers of canon rafe already know what they're getting into, and true it can have a harmful effect on people but pretty sure this applies to everything. violence in video games, the news, a 30 second clip... can inspire malice, usually not by most people though.

peopl like dark fics bc its very intricate and you can explore people's takes on a character thru many different perspectives. do you want everyone to write flowery fanon rafe when dark rafe has been getting 1000s of likes since 2020? interest in morally wrong stuff is a valid reason to write and read something. and it doesn't mean the writer failed in nuance. sometimes the lack of overt framing is the narrative choice.

what rubbed me wrong with you, zya, was seeing you imply that any canon rafe fic that doesn't highlight his misogyny as "wrong" is automatically a creative failure. that's my issue. ofc, we know its wrong. do u see all the people liking dark rafe rushing to drool over andrew tate? no. we KNOW ITS BAD. what im getting is ur saying there's only one way to write him "correctly." and that feels super odd.

yes, you're in your own space, and yes, you didn't tag anyone. i came here to express my discomfort in your passive aggressiveness against a whole sub culture within the rafe fandom. and... you did post your make rafe great again to the general rafe tag for me to see. so, ur opening the door to responses. and again, im not attackin' ya. just discourse. same as you're allowed to critique content, others are allowed to push back on what feels like a blanket judgment.

in all, i'm not trying to defend romanticizing misogyny or rafe being the ulimate piece of doo doo cuz i think its not fair to shut down the rsn why so many people read n write fics to begin with

is calling out an issue, shaming? i'm asking as a general consensus because i don't know how best to get us on the same page without referring back to the dictionary. shaming is to make someone feel humiliated for their actions. i think what best describes what i done was condemning writers who write those topics (infantization, misogynistic!rafe, etc)—to express strong disapproval of those behaviors/fics. i never shamed anyone. to shame someone means that i called them out directly. if you feel shamed by my post, that means you felt guilt beforehand about it.

dark content, dead dove, morally grey, violent, uncomfortable, you name it... has been around forever. it's a huge part of fic culture. it's not new.

i agree.

obvi fiction isn't free from consequences. but a lot of readers of canon rafe already know what they're getting into,

do they?

and true it can have a harmful effect on people but pretty sure this applies to everything. violence in video games, the news, a 30 second clip... can inspire malice, usually not by most people though.

exactly. so you're going back on your word that art and fiction should be separated from real life?

i never said that. i have said before that i have read dark fics before too. i still do. i just expressed my opinions about it and i asked for writers to properly disclose and/or frame their writing in a accountable way.

interest in morally wrong stuff is a valid reason to write and read something. and it doesn't mean the writer failed in nuance. sometimes the lack of overt framing is the narrative choice.

i agree, "interest in morally wrong stuff is a valid reason to write and read something." i never said it wasn't. whether that writer successfully written a nuanced take is up to interpretation, and for you, it may have been successful. for me, it wasn't. is either of us right or wrong?

i'm not saying this to be vague, i'm asking you in response because if my take/opinion on a direction writers/sub-genre of the rafe fandom is wrong, then does that make your take correct? what validates you?

what rubbed me wrong with you, zya, was seeing you imply that any canon rafe fic that doesn't highlight his misogyny as "wrong" is automatically a creative failure. that's my issue.

i'm sitting with this specific section for a while because i am trying to think of an objective answer for it. you're right, a fic that doesn't highlight his misogyny is not inherently a failure, but where do we then set the standards? do we accept every piece of writing, whether it perpetuates harmful behaviors? do we always ignore it? are you implying that just because someone writes a taboo/dark fic, therefore they are completely absolves of the commentaries/opinions that may arise from that fic? that we shouldn't address it?

i'm starting to build an opinion that just because you write in a fandom space does not mean you aren't accountable for a social consequence that follows. i think we're too detached from our own actions. i think people are too afraid to carry the consequences of their actions, no matter how big or small, or how intentionally or unintentionally it may be. people who write misogynistic takes without addressing it, without doing your due diligence to have informed the audience that their take is harmful, are you willing to accept that there may be social repercussions from this and you are accountable for it? if you are, the conversation has ended. then, okay, fine. do whatever you want. if you aren't? sit with that.

ofc, we know its wrong. do u see all the people liking dark rafe rushing to drool over andrew tate? no. we KNOW ITS BAD.

do you know it's wrong? do you genuinely know it's wrong? in college, i wrote a whole paper and presentation about the positive feedback loop in the manosphere, and how the language and jargons used online affect and propel young boys to fall deeper into the manosphere. what i mean is: consistent and popular activities of internet users who screams "fuck all men," and "kill men"—while intended to be a joke inside sacred circles—the fact that it's on the internet, the fact that it can be stumbled upon by young boys, they don't read it as a joke. it makes them feel ostracized from the female communities. and who's there to pick them up? red pillers, incels, the andrew tates of the world who pick up these vulnerable boys and pushed them deeper into their agenda. the reason why i mention that is—without the proper disclosure, can you 100% say with guarantee that the people who stumble upon those fics know it's bad? know it's harmful? especially with the rise of teens apparently entering into the rafe cameron fandom, can you be certain those impressionable teens know?

what im getting is ur saying there's only one way to write him "correctly." and that feels super odd.

i didn't say there's only one way to write them; that's how i would approach writing taboo topics. i just want the proper disclosure. i want the warnings. i want there to be accountability from the writers to emphasize that they know these are not meant to be romanticized.

i came here to express my discomfort in your passive aggressiveness against a whole sub culture within the rafe fandom.

passive aggressiveness means i'm not addressing it. i am addressing my issues with the fandom.

and... you did post your make rafe great again to the general rafe tag for me to see. so, ur opening the door to responses. and again, im not attackin' ya. just discourse. same as you're allowed to critique content, others are allowed to push back on what feels like a blanket judgment.

i agree. but the difference between me and you was that your first post said that if you don't like, avoid them, while i've never make a blanket statement in that manner. therefore i have a right to have a response. yours feels like a defense.

i think its not fair to shut down the rsn why so many people read n write fics to begin with

i just think i'm allowed to have negative opinions about it and actually make a public statement about it. never said anything about people should shut it down.

#asks

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crimsonstonetranslations · 1 year ago

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Translation updates - Mar 2024

Hi everyone,

It's been a while since the last update, and I hope everyone is having a good year so far.

File 3 of Another Files - The Dead's Wish is now up. This is the last file in the volume and admittedly the one that left me the most emotional. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did. The epilogue and afterword should be up in the near future as well.

Moving on, I've decided to self-edit my translation in hopes to pick up the pace a little bit as I foresee having to juggle even more real life commitments alongside the translation. I hope it's not going to sacrifice too much of the translation quality.

Next up, about the translation backlog. In case you missed it, Kaminaga-sensei and staff made a major announcement late last year that 1) a sequel to the Shinrei Tantei Yakumo series is in the works and 2) they are making a 'complete' version of the previous volumes. As the series was Kaminaga-sensei's debut work that started back in 2004, my understanding is that they're updating the setting to keep up with the times while keeping the outlines intact to make something that both old and new fans can enjoy. Both are scheduled to start publication this spring. Currently, like most materials that are only available in Japanese, I'm not certain if I'll ever be able to pick these up ever (or anytime soon), so I'll just keep an eye on the official updates for the time being.

Hence, as scheduled, I will be translating Shinrei Tantei Yakumo Another Files - Lamenting Doll next. Like The Dead's Wish, this volume also consisted of 3 files that are self contained cases and an epilogue. As a preview for now, here is the blurb:

Yakumo’s uncle, Isshin, brought him a case of a painting of a man with red eyes. Alongside Haruka and Gotou, they then travelled to a sake factory at Yamanashi, where the painting was located. However, after their arrival, terrifying incidents fell one by one upon Haruka! The case of the painting of a man with red eyes led them to another case with the ghost of a child and a talking doll. Yakumo had to deal with spiritual phenomena one after another amidst heavy downpour!

However! While you guys wait for the file 01 of Another Files - Lamenting Doll to be completed, I'm planning to release another short translation beforehand: if you've been looking at my schedule page, I have a separate backlog of shorter-length materials only available in Japanese that I wish to slowly commission a JP-EN translation out of.

I'm excited to announce that the first item on the list is currently being worked on: Shinrei Tantei Yakumo 6.5 - Unexpressed Feelings. It's a not for sale booklet from a limited-run campaign in 2011 containing 2 short stories with illustrations by Oda Suzuka (instead of Suzuki Yasushi that usually did the paperback illustrations). The first story took place after the end of file 3 in the manga/novel volume 3, in case you'd like to refresh your memory of that particular case before reading. I'm hoping to have it published sometime in April.

This post's getting long, that's everything I have for now. Thank you for reading and do look forward to the upcoming updates!

#shinrei tantei yakumo translation #psychic detective yakumo translation

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cinderbuck · 28 days ago

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Death Save Bargain Bin, Page 16

I messed up on the previous page where they were supposed to be standing. Just pretend Greetings was on the other side of Galdrus in page 15.

Characters in this page:

(Left to right) Galdrus, Michaela, Philliam, Greetings.

I've diverged a bit from my originally planned pages, so this is another page that didn't have a rough layout planned beforehand. I'm also wondering if I should post the sketches and layouts separately so one doesn't have to scroll through a giant wall of text to navigate through the pages.

Originally, I planned 20 pages, but looking at my rough layouts, we're between OG page 13 and 14, and I think the next one will also be between 13 and 14. I think there will be a total of 25-ish pages, assuming I don't diverge too much more from the original plans again.

The page is, like, three, almost four months late. Long story short - cat got really sick, but she's still alive.

Long story long - my cat had an operation two years ago because of her kidneys failing, and two years is usually how long they're expected to make it after that. She got ill again a few months ago. Stopped eating, dehydrated, all that fun stuff. Turns out she's at the point where if she was human, she'd need a kidney transplant, but they don't do that for cats. She has gotten better now, she's been very good at eating and drinking (though still dehydrated because her kidneys don't work). If she get sick again or starts losing weight, she'll have to be put down, but as of right now she's happy and as healthy as can be expected. Though I still have to wake up at odd hours in the night to feed her. And by "have to" I mean "choose to". If she says she's hungry at three in the morning, then I'm happy to feed her at three in the morning.

Previous page (Page 15):

Next page (Page 17):

#d&d #descent into avernus #comics #d&d 5e #d&d art #dnd art #dungeons and dragons #artists on tumblr #death save bargain bin #tiefling #dwarf

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inseparabiles · 22 days ago

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I've had a McFucking week. All I want to do is lie down in a fucking tomb, cross my arms over my chest and decay.

At this point I can't even remember when the hell started. For a couple weeks now we've had an increasing amount of heart flutters and palpitations to the point of like... three a day which is not great, and was acutely starting to bother us. Add in our mum having a tumour removed, our neighbour fucking dying, and Reddit throwing three separate surprise! it's heart failure/cancer! threads on our timeline that we read without knowing beforehand it was going to be one of those threads - this triggered us back to that place where feeling or hearing our heartbeat and having absolutely anything weird or off happening whatsoever is suddenly a sign of Impending Death.

So, our Latin course has been moderately stressful. Not because of the Latin course, but because of people. We joined it to get passive exposure and "try out" the course and see how it goes - basically casual participation with no particular goals beyond "get better at Latin". No "speak Latin like a born Roman" or any shit like that, just "get exposure, complete course". Sounds fine, right? And it WOULD be fine, if not for the fucking group exercises. We did NOT account for group exercises. Enter these people who are not fucking having it with our skill level (on an entry level course marked for all skill levels and interest groups).

Have a woman who's completed the course several times (?????) demanding on our SECOND lesson that we should know what syllables to emphasise in pronunciation because "if you don't now it'll cause problems later" and "you should really be focusing on this" ma'am? we've been on this course for LITERALLY 24 hours. What the FUCK are you on about

Group readings and translations having also the idiot aspect of, we have a or several learning disabilities, which means we don't fuck with grammar theory. In. The. Fucking. Slightest. Grammar theory is NOT what we're on this course for because frankly learning a language to understand some meta level theory surrounding the actual language that I'm trying to learn is not at all within my interests, because we don't learn that way. Literally do not learn through grammar rules (WE CAN'T EVEN FUCKING LEARN CATEGORIES IN GRAMMAR MUCH LESS SOME ABSTRACT RULESETS, WE LEARN THROUGH PRACTICAL EXPOSURE + READING + PRODUCING) so it's not a focus for us and I'm sorry but I am not wasting a year of my life trying to teach our stupid brain that doesn't handle theoretical information normally some weird abstract concepts just so I can participate in a course that I can complete learning the thing that I actually want to be learning in the way that I am capable of learning it. However! These people! Start going off about how the key to everything is understanding that liibalaaba and blabverbs this and Christ's best buddy hologramjugation that, like okay! Fantastic! I don't know what any of that shit means! Can we just translate the fucking text!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Unfortunately! Now we are so fucking panicked that no, we cannot just translate the fucking text. Hyperventilating and trying not to cry the whole page is just swimming and words that we absolutely know what they mean are instantly labeled as words we don't know because the stress is so high we've entered straight in the zone of "everything is gibberish I can't understand Finnish, English, OR Latin and I might as well give up trying (subconscious, NOT conscious decision, I can't force my brain to think it can understand when it's under such high pressure that it's locked up on us). And the people in the group are so fucking passive-aggressive about it, sighing and huffing and whatever to show that I'm such a drag on their group. Like I'm fucking sorry, what, I should have a master's degree at this reading after 48 hours of study?

The worst is, I kind of do? We've translated these chapters before the course and we understand them just fine. But NOT under these circumstances. NOT with sky-high stress levels and holding back tears and trying not to disconnect at random from the session.

So whey. Yey. Yay <3

Third lesson was fine but that's another thing. Fourth would have been today but unfortunately,

backtracking: so this stress in combination with the mum had a tumour removed and neighbour fucking died and we have inexplicable nonstop fucking heart vibrations from hell put us in a point where we're just in the highest state of alarm and stress all the time, it's NONSTOP fight/flight/freeze for days in row on an increasing scale. The group exercises was the last drop - we have a heart flutter/vibration middle of doing our homework, our entire left side of chest and shoulder and upper arm starts aching (probably because we're tensing it and priming the nervous system for pain signals :)), have a panic attack about it, take a sedative, call the urgent care evaluation line, evaluation line robot tells us to call the emergency number, call the emergency number, have a nice chat with a nice man for 10 minutes who determines we're not dying and tells us to call the urgent care eval instead, do that, spend 20 minutes with a cardiologist talking about the same, cardiologist determines we don't need urgent care but we need a TON of painkillers, redirects us to call fast-track number for regular GP.

Have no painkillers at home so we take a hike with partners and buy some. Don't die, so it's not a heart attack.

Next, find a Weird Fucking Lump on our jaw. Because why the fuck not. It's on the bone, hard to touch, unmovable. There's always been a bone Notch on there but it's definitely bigger now. Surprise, it also starts Fucking Hurting after being examined with fingers. It does not stop Fucking Hurting, instead it starts swelling. So do our lymph nodes.

I fucking hate this.

Decide to ignore it, decide to ALSO ignore the massive fucking rolling panic attack and just start doping up on meds (1 sedative + 2 ibuprofen + 2 panadol a day can cure most deadly ailments for the day), go on a cruise with partners, experience crushing fatigue like I've not slept in centuries despite getting a fucking 9 hour sleep every fucking night nowadays, whatever. Fall asleep on bus, fall asleep on partner on the couch, also never happened before, whatever, who cares.

Spend a decent day after three days on med course, central nervous system is starting to get the clue about the panic issue and pain is... fine. Latin course on third day is also Fine, I panic about the first group exercise, leave the room and translate the whole fucking chapter by myself, come back, and then have an okay time with the second group exercise because I already did the work and now nobody can treat me like a problem. A few minor erros mostly regarding plural/singular, I literally started this course this week so who the fuck cares.

Whatever is going on with our jaw has not chilled, however. It does not give a SHIT about the painkillers. Start feeling like flu-trash, achy, sore, dizzy, fatigued again, fall asleep on partner again, take a two hour nap, everything is so fucking swollen and hurts but okay whatever. I decide if it's time to die it's time to die I do NOT have any fucks left to give about this matter.

Sleep on it with my lymph nodes so big they ache ache ache fucking ACHE and the jaw one has a weird tingly sensation to it. Wake up for Latin class, evaluate that EVERYTHING FUCKING HURTS from the throat up, and decide to call the GP after all, figuring they won't get back to us until like. Next year. They do in 10 minutes and send us off to speedtracked doctor's app next town over.

I wish to be dead at this point but not enough to actually die so off I go. On a fucking bus. Feeling like a ton of dirt. Dragging my feet and feeling like I'd rather be asleep and it'd probably be better for everybody but nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Have two people prodding their fingers into my lymphs and bumps and stick stuff in my throat and ear.

Okay. Are you even fucking ready for this.

I'm diagnosed with the common cold and sent home and told to come back in about a month or so to get the weird bump (possibly a hardened lymph node) ultrasounded.

I wish to eat gravel at this point, and utterly bankrupt myself while waiting for the bus replacing my FUCKING SHOES which have GRAVEL AND DRY FUCKING GRASS BLADES coming through the fucking soles. Also buy rubber boots because we've needed them for years and apparently they'll never be cheaper than expensive so whatever at least I won't have to carry them far this time.

Waiting for bus after,

the fucking GP calls me back,

tells me I need to go get a heart film and fasting bloodwork done next week,

and I'm like. Sure. Whatever you say. WhateveR YOU SAY literally I'm so. Done. I don't care. Whatever. WHATEVER I just want to REST

and now I have FUCKING THERAPY in an hour and a half and I haven't even had my morning coffee and my everything still hurts and owie and ouch and fml and the UK announced all citizens need to prepare for missile strikes and that's basically the only news headline I've read today and I haven't stopped wondering like. How the fuck do you even prepare for that. Like, daily forecast, fucking missiles, put up an umbrella?

Why is life like this. What the fuck is even going on. I just want to read my histories and write my weird fucked up brostories and draw pictures and maybe, MAYBE pet a cat every now and then, and watch flowers grow. Everything has gone fucking insane and my lymph nodes are killing me and I just want to SLEEP

#personal #medical tw #world news tw

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lyss-overcomplicates-everything · 3 months ago

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SO, my long-ass day is over, and I am *desperate* to hear more about Ember and Tsuki. How did they meet? What are they like separately and together? What's their Deal in general? I saw your art this morning and now I am so curious about them.

tumblr is stupid so I'll put the whole thing in a different post and the intro/ summary section in this

vibrating with excitement* I had a whole rabling spiel but it was reloaded and deleted so here's an organized one! Notes beforehand: Sorry this is so late life got in the way ToT. This gets pretty long and rambly so I have summaries and direct answers to your questions all the way at the bottom. This world is Pretty New so it’ll probably change. I also have more art of them which I can send if you aren’t put off by the several page infodump lol (also when I get home). It should also be said that two characters (Sunny and Dez) were made for a different universe, retconned because they didn’t make sense for the universe story, put into this universe, and changed. If I send art of them (unless specifically requested) It will only be of their art and concept art for THIS universe and story. Also thank you so much for being interested. I like NEVER get to infodump about my lil guys. Feel free to send feedback and ideas! (be blunt PLEASE I will not get offended) ok happy reading :] (ugh ending me note my hands are tired I’ll write about Sunny and Dez later)

SUMMARY SECTION:Specific answers to your questions: How did Ember and Tsuki meet? Ember and Tsuki (in their civilian personas) met when they were assigned to the same dorm room in college. In their Hero/ vigilante personas (Ember as a Hero called Flame and Tsuki as a Vigilante named Nyx) met when they worked together to escape from a mob of people VERY angry at them for existing. (about 6 months earlier)What are they like separately and together?Ember on her own is loud, stubborn and boisterous, afraid of being forgotten. She collects friends and is pretty agreeable and over-the-top in a way some people find too much but she doesn't really care. Ember with Tsuki is more herself, less loud, though still boisterous and fun. She’s quite defensive of Tsuki and very much appreciates their company and straightforwardness. She allows herself to be less happy in Tsuki’s presence. Tsuki by themself is pretty quiet. They have sensory issues and often have headphones in. They ignore everyone, seeming aloof, though they try not to be rude. They are blunt and organized and prepared for everything. Tsuki with Ember talks more, and is less afraid of other people. They also have little to no filter around Ember and try very hard to be ‘gentalmany’ (Ember finds it endearing). They are also less afraid to be themselves.They often ramble to each other and neither are sure how to express their affection so it ends up in awkward acts of service and gift giving.Flame (ember’s hero persona) by themself is quite firm, but kind and relatively open. They have a very strict moral code and are afraid of their own power. They trust the police enough to drop them off criminals and evidence. They sometimes help in cases.Flame with Nyx (Tsuki’s vigilante persona) is more on edge and guard mentally, but does respect and even likes Nyx.Nyx by itself is efficient and while not cruel or kills unnecessarily, it does kill people. It serves itself and the people it cares about, and is ‘mysteriously quiet’ (aka it panics and just doesn’t say anything). It does not trust the police force at all, so it just ‘teaches a lesson’ to the people it doesn’t kill. It likes to do detective work.Nyx with Flame is more on guard mentally, as Flame trusts cops at all, and Nyx does not. However, Nyx massively respects them and their work. It does like to hang out around them. They both are less physically on guard, as their powers negate each other and they don’t have to be careful not to hurt each other. They also trust each other with their lives, and superpowered struggles, but nothing else. They don’t know of each other’s civilian personas. When with each other, their moral codes also end up balancing each other. They both separately gush about their partner to criminals (and occasionally each other). I DO plan for at some point for Nyx and Flame to fall in love, resulting in a scene where Tsuki and Ember both out their super identities and try to break up/ awkwardly suggest a polycule. What’s their Deal in general? SUMMARIES: Ember: She/ her but doesn’t really care. Pan, demi romantic. ADHD, PTSD. Partially deaf. Excited, happy, extra. Major changes constantly, normally have something to do with computers and engineering, minoring in ASL. Afraid of being forgotten. Bright colors, mainly red-orange-yellow. Flame: They/ them but doesn’t really care. Still partially deaf. Straightforward, strict moral code, fire/ plasma/ sun powers. Tsuki: They/ them, but is fine with anything but he/ him. Lesbian, demi sexual. Autism, anxiety, PTSD. Incredibly sensitive eyes, hence the shaded glasses. Quiet, reserved, seems aloof. Major in Super History, minor in Creative writing. Afraid of being known. Dark/ neutral colors, blues and purples. Nyx: It/ its but doesn't really pay attention. Still highly sensitive vision. Doesn't talk, very flexible moral code. shadow/ night/ moon powers.

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dustyisforever · 10 months ago

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A Shadow of the Colossus Review

by DustyIsForever This is a review. It's about a video game, which is a kind of movie you watch with your hands.

In 2012, Shadow of the Colossus became the first thing I ever saved money to buy. After watching the “Nerd³ Plays” video where he calls it a “perfect game,” I began to daydream about it obsessively. I stuck the facetious label “Ye Olde Jar o Talents” on a mason jar and brought it to school so I could beg my classmates for funds. This worked, however incredulous it was, but I didn’t buy the game. I didn’t buy the game for years, and even after that I didn’t play it for at least a few months. It was like an old Russian novel to me: something that always existed in the future for which I could never consider myself prepared. And then I did play it and it was great.

You can either read it here or on a published Docs page. But be careful. It's pretty long.

This is a review of Shadow of the Colossus. It will contain spoilers. I first played the game a long time ago, but I went back to it a few times over the years. Recently I watched a close friend play it. We had some conversations about it. Soon, I’d like to see my wife play it as well. She can’t read this review yet because she is, incredibly, going to be playing totally blind. You can imagine how rare it is to play something like Shadow of the Colossus without knowing anything about it beforehand.

As I promised not long ago, I'm going to start writing essay-reviews of many games I enjoy. But first, I'd like to elaborate on my method. I have a particular framework for expressing my opinions of these games that I've developed as an alternative to a 10/10, 5/5, 40/40, 100/100, or other numerical art goodness judgment system. The aim is to provide the foolish satisfaction of a number score while cutting back on its pitfalls and biases. Number scores are unhelpful. In a 10/10 system, one finds that a 10 means that the reviewer idolizes the work, a 9, 8, or even a 7 can mean that they enjoyed it, and anything below that might mean that they disliked it, hated it, thought it was tedious, or simply misunderstood it. Opinions don’t fit neatly on a graduated, linear scale. Our value judgments are relative, as in: I liked this more than that; never absolute in the way numbers would suggest. We know this but pretend otherwise. How fun to bestow a cherished piece of art the honor of your perfect number! We're all pleased to think that our opinion is intelligent. My goal is to indulge that, but with restraint.

The first principle of my system is that I only bother rating games that I already know I love. Though there is surely as much to be learned from "bad" art as "good" art, I want to avoid negativity. Also, I find it’s easier to assign a score with restraint and thoughtfulness when a bad score isn't in consideration at all. It also means that I, as a critic, produce fewer reviews overall, which should make each review more characteristic and the overall corpus more consistent.

My second principle is that the highest number I'll use is three. Mr. Ebert was onto something when he made the alluring choice of knocking the tail off of the five-star format. It made all of his ratings look smarter. Five stars was for the common people; real intellectuals expressed their taste in the glamorous new fashion of four. Now it's my turn. I've one-upped the fallen old man, who once failed to appreciate John Carpenter's The Thing (1982). I dare to fly with merely three. And no halfsies, either. No point to it if I’m going to decide to give a game a one-and-a-half because that would be a six-point system in disguise, wouldn’t it?

My final principle is borrowed in part from Famitsu's thing where they divide scores into parts that can be treated either separately or summed. They do that with four reviewers. In my case, I cannot judge the work from the perspective of multiple people (I am only one person). Instead, I split my score into two numbers representing two priorities. That’s two numbers ranging zero to three, written X-Y. For instance, Shadow of the Colossus is a 1-2 game.

The first number, on a scale of zero to three, represents the aesthetic merits of the game. This can include everything experienced by the player. It may consider the art direction, the sound and music, and the narrative design. It also may refer to the dynamics of the design and the "choreography" of interaction, in a very formalist sense borrowed in part from Graeme Kirkpatrick's Aesthetic Theory and the Video Game. Interactive design is just as much a part of the media content of a game as the audiovisual presentation.

To be less academic—I like to summarize the first number as the question: "does it make me cry?" because it captures that it's often a sentimental thing. High-scoring games on the first number tend to be tearjerkers.

Why should Shadow of the Colossus get a one out of three in this category? Well, a one isn't really a low score in the conventional sense. My system is built to specify why a game is great. A zero would mean "this game is great, but it has nothing to do with the aesthetics." I consider Shadow of the Colossus to be aesthetically great, just not as aesthetically great as a few other games.

I like to call the other score “does it blow my mind?” to highlight that it pertains to games that impress me. Expect more elaboration when I get to the second half of the review.

When I first made up this system years ago, I tried to list a bunch of old favorites as examples. At that time, I stamped a 2-1 on Shadow of the Colossus. Mark the difference! It means that now I appreciate its technical achievement more but have tempered my feelings about its content. This change of opinion came to me when I recently watched a close friend play through the game for the first time, hanging out over her shoulder. The banter we shared dampened the emotion of the experience—for example, she already knew Agro was going to fall off a cliff sooner or later and by the time she did, it affected her more like the punchline to a drawn-out joke. I was a little offended. Her more detached play experience exposed some of the game’s weaknesses to me.

My original rating of two reflected the beautiful score and the sublime desolation of the game, which inhabited me then as it does now. When I take a walk in the woods, I am visited once more by the mystery of “To the Ancient Land.” It’s a good season in my life to return to the game. I’m in a forest often.

But unrelated to my time in forests, I’ve spent the last year thinking a lot about fantasy. I fell out with it some years ago and only recently began rehabilitating my affection for it. Shadow of the Colossus belongs to that estranged clade of fantasy, the fairy tale, which has become my favorite.

Fairy tales are mysterious but well-patterned, made from a pool of common morphologies, which folklorist Vladimir Propp called “functions” with perhaps excessive precision. A glancing comparison will hopefully show how much like a fairy tale Shadow of the Colossus really is. Propp’s functions came originally from his syntax of Russian folk stories. Shadow of the Colossus is neither Russian nor folk, through it deploys several such functions in an identifiable and properly consecutive fashion:

Absentation, interdiction, and violation all before the prologue is over

Trickery as Dormin tells Wander what must be done to revive Mono

Departure, as Wander begins the quest to slay the colossi, and various functions of the Donor, who is also Dormin

Quite a bit of struggle and branding as Wander does his colossus-slaying and dishevels himself gradually with dark magic

Pursuit (by Lord Emon)

And then the punishment and reward are cleverly reversed, because of course in this special video game that people who don’t call all video games art sometimes deign to call art, Wander was in error all along.

I think that to leave the analysis at that would be a failure to appreciate the particular flavor of this story. There are many video game stories where the player character ends up ethically compromised for some narrative effect, but the aesthetic appeal of Shadow of the Colossus is grossly different from, say, Spec Ops: the Line. Wander is more like Hamlet; he retains his hero-ness the whole way through, yet still the fate of his quest is doomed by circumstance.

What he must do is awful and painful to him, but he’s stuck on this path. The closing of the door to the bridge out of the Forbidden Lands is a literalization of this. The inciting events of his journey—the superstitious sacrifice of an innocent girl—make his goals noble from the start, and because he does not have the information to understand the cost of his deeds until it is too late, we cannot say that he is ever malicious. The player is clued in that something is wrong through visual suggestions that Wander does not necessarily see or understand, including the doves and ominous shadow-people which gather at the Shrine of Worship. These devices are not employed in any way that comments specifically on the medium of video games; nothing about them is procedural. They are very conventional vectors of good old-fashioned dramatic irony.

Furthermore, we don’t textually know at all that Dormin is evil. The antagonist Lord Emon who opposes Dormin and Wander is possibly responsible for Mono’s death. He reminds us, if we have played ICO, of the people who unjustly imprison that game’s hero on account of his “cursed” horns. Once we abandon the idea that the Lord Emon narrator/antagonist character is a trustworthy authority, we lose the only voice telling us that Dormin is dangerous. And at the end of the tale Dormin, surprisingly, keeps all of his promises to Wander: Mono is revived and Wander’s body is returned to him. He even gets his horsey back! Very sweet. And the final scenes, which play out leisurely beside the scrolling credits column, show a bright and sun-dappled garden. Mono, robed in her white gown, comforts baby Wander while surrounded by wildlife and green trees. A fawn appears. The imagery is positively lousy with symbols of innocence and spring.

And, if we’re going to permit ourselves to get biblical, isn’t it a little like a reverse Genesis? Wander follows the instructions of a higher power despite a warning from Lord Emon, who has special knowledge. As a result, a woman is saved from her “cursed fate” and the only way out is permanently closed, trapping the woman and the revived hero in the garden of paradise.

Shadow of the Colossus tells a tragic and subversive story, but it does it entirely within the syntax of its folktalesy story genre. It doesn’t have the flavor of subversiveness which comments on other works or the conventions of its own medium. To understand Undertale’s project, you need to be familiar with other JRPGs. Shadow of the Colossus would preserve its message in any medium.

This point isn’t really doing anything to bump my score up or down, but it’s a line of thinking I’ve revisited many times while writing about this game. I think that what really took Shadow of the Colossus from a two down to a one was the inconsistency between encounter designs.

My friend caught on quickly to the first several colossi, even prevailing where I remember having stumbled (my younger self was completely stymied by the sixth, called “Barba” by fans). But as the latter half of the game wore on, she spent more and more time running in circles. Numbers nine, eleven, and twelve all exasperated her. Each of them involves a special trick that must be discovered before they can be made vulnerable. Colossus number eleven, for example, is covered in armor that can only be broken by using a torch to chase it off of a cliff. But no other encounter shows you that there’s anything you can hold in your hands besides the sword and bow you start with. To even get the torch, you need to stand on a plinth holding up a brazier such that the colossus charges at you and knocks the torch loose. But my friend did not even realize that the plinths were climbable; they can only be grabbed from the sides, which is difficult to see and execute when you’re constantly charged at by an enemy that stuns you on the ground for a few whole seconds whenever it hits you. The tedium was too much, and the game lost its magic and atmosphere. The battle against the last colossus was pretty disheartening. No sense of an emotional climax came through. Instead, as I watched my friend fall over and over from its hands and shoulders and whatnot with all the tenacity of a lint-covered novelty sticky hand, I could only hope desperately that she wouldn’t put the game down right then and there.

In some moments, it’s plain to see that Shadow of the Colossus is testing the player’s patience with purpose and meaning. Each encounter culminates with Wander clutching to fur, often on the head of the colossus, holding on just long enough to get a good stab. The colossi shake and Wander dangles on, unable to get a steady hit. It’s frustrating to have to wait for a tiny window of opportunity to land a blow, but this is clearly by design. If the fight could be ended as soon as the player got into stabbing position, the anticipation would resolve too quickly. Giving the player sweaty palms, making them really clench the trigger button, serves to procedurally convey the ordeal Wander faces on-screen. You hold on (to the controller) to hold on (for dear life) in a very successful bit of hand-to-screen parallelism.

But at other times, the game slips away into pointless futility. In many fights, the trick that makes the colossus vulnerable is only effective for a short time, so the player must hurry to seize the opportunity. Often, the time window just isn’t long enough, and the player is compelled to retry, but the novelty of discovering the trick has already disappeared. The ninth colossus’s arena is huge, and when you knock it onto its side, you have to maneuver over to the far side of its body every time. It’s fiddly and protracted, and it’s a case where the game inadequately reacts to the player executing on what should feel like the turning point of the battle. It took my friend about four tries to ascend this colossus successfully. And it’s a turtle, so it isn’t even that tall. Really lame.

My own remembered experience, rooted in some British guy’s twelve-year-old YouTube video, is very different from the one shared with that friend of mine. I saw a game denuded of its majesty by our ongoing joke that Agro would be the final boss; a joke between pals on the proverbial gamer couch. A couch that, if it were not replaced in our case by the deep phenomenological chasm of several US states of distance and a Discord RTC, would be evocative of the one shared by Misters Cheadle and Sandler in the film Reign Over Me.

It’s a largely forgotten film, but consensus says it’s surprisingly well-regarded: Metacritic awards it an impressive 8.5 user score, which it labels “universal acclaim.” Adam Sandler plays a traumatized man who, after losing his family in 9/11, quits his dental career and whittles his days scootering around, playing the drums, and remodeling his kitchen over and over. Don Cheadle is his former college roommate, a successful dentist with a family, who runs into him late one night. The two rekindle their friendship and are both healed for it. This involves a lot of Shadow of the Colossus.

When Don Cheadle first sees Sandler, he can’t get him to stop and talk. Their second encounter happens when Cheadle drops off his daughter at a friend’s house. He intends to go back home to his wife to spend quality time solving a puzzle with her. Suddenly, Sandler flies by on his scooter. So instead, Cheadle gets him to stop and talk. He asks if Sandler is “practicing,” by which he means “practicing dentistry.”

“I’m practicing all the time, up in the valley. Took down twelve of the colossus so far” “The valley? What is that, is that a medical complex or something?” “It’s more… like another dimension. You take a journey, you discover yourself.” (Reign Over Me, 13:50)

He gets Sandler to sit down for Starbucks, where Sandler violates assorted social norms as per a 2007 movie’s notion of a traumatized person. Sandler acts as if he doesn’t remember Cheadle but they make conversation regardless and before you know it, Cheadle is at this guy’s apartment.

Cheadle needs to use the bathroom. Sad music begins to play. Cheadle briefly glimpses a room with furniture covered in sheets—evidence that this man once had a family. Then there’s a mournful-looking shot where the camera stares straight down Sandler’s darkened hall and distantly we see his TV. He’s climbing the first Colossus. That’s a funny thing to do if you’ve finished three quarters of the game. I guess he has more than one save file. So that he can practice more, of course.

As the movie goes on, the two intertwine into each other’s life in a conventionally dramatic way. Sandler is a broken man who throws tantrums and lacks responsibility and ropes Cheadle into a Mel Brooks marathon showing on the night Cheadle’s father dies, and in turn, Cheadle suffers various embarrassments to his career and family because he has compassion for his friend. And sometimes we get to see more Shadow of the Colossus, which Sandler often calls “Shadows” of the Colossus.

In its second appearance, Sandler is fighting the fifth Colossus—my favorite—and Cheadle takes the controller. We get a montage. He can’t put it down. Sandler teases Cheadle, he says he’s addicted (to Shadow of the Colossus). Cheadle jumps to his feet, paces around the couch in frustration: he demands one more try. He refuses Sandler’s suggestion to stop and “let it soak in,” he’s determined to get it this time. Number fifteen falls and Cheadle pumps his fist, shouting “co-lo-ssussss!” in a funny voice. The montage ends, and with it goes our brief window into an otherworld where playing Shadow of the Colossus actually looks like that.

Or, hey, that’s not so fair. Maybe, for Mr. Adam Sandler, playing Shadow of the Colossus is about practicing each fight over and over and pumping your fist triumphantly when you finally win. Maybe he got a New Game Plus save file when he picked it up on eBay that let him fight the colossi out of order. For his character—who, as I’ve neglected to mention, is named Charlie Fineman—the game is supposed to be a metaphor for 9/11, of course.

Back in ‘07, Kotaku managed to get in touch with Jeremy Roush, who worked as an editor for Reign Over Me. Apparently, the role of Shadow of the Colossus in the film was inspired by Roush’s father.

The Vietnam War left his father 100 percent mentally disabled with post-traumatic stress disorder... Unable to work, he spent the days and evenings watching sci-fi thriller Aliens over and over again until he actually had to buy a new VHS tape. "Aliens is a thinly veiled kind of Vietnam veteran kind of story," Roush explains, "and watching it is a way of thinking about it without telling yourself you are thinking about it." The movie was visceral therapy for his father… Refusing to accept the death of loved ones. Seeking out an escape from that truth. Giants falling in slow motion. "You could see where someone who was dealing with 9/11 would be engrossed by a giant that keeps collapsing over and over again," he says. Charlie's therapy was Shadow of the Colossus. (Ashcraft p.2)

Roush, who was responsible for the idea to include the game in the movie, had thought seriously about the thematics. In Reign Over Me, Charlie Fineman’s fixation on Shadow of the Colossus is a deliberate symbol of his grief, boxed into a safe and distant replica of tragedy which he can watch himself overcome again and again on the plasma TV.

Later on in the film, Cheadle manages to drag Sandler to weekly therapist sessions, but they go nowhere. Sandler refuses to speak about his family and leaves each session after just a few minutes. But he does say “I like to play Colossus!” (Reign, 1:13:29). In this movie’s understanding of mentally ill people, or at least in Roush’s, PTSD sufferers seek out proxy-triggers to act out the procedure of grieving with none of the pain. I think that I preferred the movie before I learned this. It just doesn’t make as much sense to say that the colossi are all supposed to be, like, the twin towers. Isn’t that bizarre? I mean, I had just assumed that the game was more broadly supposed to be a parallel to the ordeal of overcoming grief, and that the colossi were the grief. Grief is like a colossus, or like colossi, because it can feel so much bigger than the griever, so invincible and enduring. That’s why it was so strange to me that he never makes it further through the game over the course of the movie. In the very last scene, when he’s in his new and well-lit apartment, do you know what he’s doing? He’s playing it again, but he’s back to number thirteen. I really expected him to finish the game by the end, which would parallelize his grief struggle with a struggle to take down the colossi. It would represent something. However, the truth is that the colossus encounters are supposed to be 9/11, and he’s mentally recreating a facsimile of 9/11 every time he plays the game. Infinite, furry World Trade Centers getting stabbed by Adam Sandler over and over.

Sorry, that might have been a digression in poor taste. You didn’t expect to read a review of Reign Over Me within this review of Shadow of the Colossus and it was a little deceptive of me to jam it in there. But I thought about it so much, you have to understand! It’s fascinating to me how I could arrive at such a different interpretation of the movie than was apparently intended. The same difference goes for the game itself: Mr. Roush definitely got the gist of Shadow of the Colossus, but he applied the game to the movie in such a different way than I would have.

Let’s talk about the technical side of things instead for a short while. A nice palate-cleanser. It might seem unbalanced to devote one half of the score system to technology that is seldom appreciated by the audience—this score is more than that. Perhaps you were left confused when I didn’t explain it in much detail earlier, back when I was still laying out the way the system works. The slogan “does it blow my mind?” suggests that this category seeks to appreciate the craft of game development. A good example of something non-technological that “blows my mind” would be the dialogue system in Hades; the incredible effort of writing such a massive script and then organizing it so cleverly certainly does blow my mind, speaking as a game developer and a very slow writer.

Shadow of the Colossus is an exceptionally technically impressive game that deserves more than the 1 I assigned it on the spot so long ago. Through optimization, fakery, and creativity, it packs in the most sophisticated graphics the PlayStation 2 can handle, including HDR lighting, self-shading, long-distance level-of-detail mesh transitions, real-time fur rendering, volumetric particles, and anisotropic light scattering. Most of these practices were considered next-gen at the time of the game’s release. Some of them still feel shiny and new in 2024.

Team ICO accomplished this through ingenuity and strict scoping. Out of any of my sources, I learned the most about it here. Of particular interest to me is the usage of procedural animation and inverse kinematics, of which I’m a big fan. If you are one of the few beautiful souls in this loving universe who have read my blog(s) before, you know that I’ve been working on and off for a long time on a project that relies heavily on inverse kinematics called Flower Pot. The inexpensive algorithm I use in my own work, called FABRIK, was not published until 2011. Furthermore, Shadow of the Colossus has very complex character models and needs to clearly telegraph the movements of the player character and the colossi. For this reason it also dynamically combines animation data keyframed by an animator with the movements computed by the inverse kinematics algorithms. They did this on a CPU that clocked at about 294 megahertz (see Diefendorff).

I won’t reproduce diagrams here because they’re already available in the translated article on Léna Piquet’s website, which I linked above and which may also be found in my sources. To be honest, there is less for me to write in this section of the review because there is not much new to say. The achievements and process of Team ICO have been extensively documented and explained, much more than almost any other game. What is especially unique about Shadow of the Colossus is that much of this dissection and documentation has been done by outsiders: fans who never had access to the team or their materials.

Of particular note is Nomad Colossus. I found a Fandom wiki article about this guy. It says, “Nomad Colossus is a well-known figure in The Shadow of The Colossus community. He's most well-known for his insane dedication to the game and downright jaw-dropping data-mining” (Team Ico Wiki). Passionate! But the article has no comments. Yet on the other hand, a skim of the community message log page shows that at least a dozen users have worked on this wiki within the last several months. A tantalizing window into a community, or one of a million lost corners of the internet? I cannot rightfully say.

Nomad Colossus uploaded their first Shadow of the Colossus-related YouTube video in April of 2010, four and a half years post-release. It’s been much longer than that since Breath of the Wild came out and I’m still surprised whenever I see someone running it in an emulator. The video is titled “Shadow of the Colossus - Through the entrance,” and it shows Wander on horseback in an area normally inaccessible except in cutscenes: the north bridge into the central shrine. He rides Agro through the narrow gate passage on the other end of the bridge. The path continues into a void for a long ways, but the horse stops as if running into a wall.

Since then, Nomad Colossus has published 346 videos (if I’m counting correctly) pertaining to Shadow of the Colossus, prying at it with camera hacks, model viewers, and data manipulation. He reveals mountains and plains and islands and ruins all inaccessible in normal play. Their work, comprising so many short, uncommentated videos, can be engaged with as a companion book to the game; Nomad gradually turns the elusive horizons of the Forbidden Lands back into data, into geometry stored in a file system. Numbers on computers permit no mysteries. A number is autological; before being applied to another end it represents only itself. A number is atomic, it has no secret compartments. Through the efforts of explorers like Nomad Colossus and their emulators, no pit has been left unaccounted for on the DVD-ROM. Nomad renders Shadow of the Colossus into a wholly unmysterious object. This is not a criticism of their work.

At the same time, the game continues to support an incredible abundance of perceived mystery. After all, this was why Nomad Colossus’s work began. The so-called Secret Seekers and their famous thread on the PSN forums were dedicated to unearthing what they imagined to be the mother-of-all easter eggs. They began with intense clue-hunting and then moved on to the less speculative arts of boundary breaking and data mining, albeit after dozens of pages of effusive discussion. The intentions behind the game’s design were a favorite topic. Their style of discourse was dense with wild, associative connections; the possibility of subtextual hints by means of biblical allusion was on the table before even the end of the first post (Quest for the Last Big Secret). “Fumito Ueda is infamous for his attention to the most minute, intricate detail,” this post says. But to say he is infamous for this—does that not suggest the consensus of many people? I suspect that the Ueda these individuals imagined was not an accurate model of the real one. There was no secret last colossus, after all.

These are only a few of many voices on the internet professing all kinds of opinions about the game, its content, its intentions and meanings and forms. A quick survey will show substantial diversity of interpretation: I found a passionate review on the “patientgamers” subreddit decrying Shadow of the Colossus as “one of the worst games I’ve ever played” for its “non-existent story” and “Genuinely awful clunky movement and controls” (AstraFuckingGooGoo). In “Shadow of the Colossus: a Retrospective View,” NoobFeed user BrunoBRS calls the game “a love story, of what limits can a man go for his loved one, but it is, most importantly, the tale of David and Goliath” in a passage of lavish praise for “what he truly believes is the greatest game of all time” (BrunoBRS). The similarly-titled “Shadow of the Colossus: A Retrospective,” an article on The Boss Key, calls it “a game all about and only about killing the boss monsters as a means to an end” (Koop). “Shadow of the Colossus Retrospective– A Tragically Beautiful Love Story,” brought to us by Taylor Lyles on DualShockers, says it’s “so much more than just a boss rush game; it is the story of a boy who cared so much for someone he loved that unleashed all sorts of hellish things to save her” (Lyles). Shadow of the Colossus retrospectives are, as they say, like assholes: everybody has one. I am included. Shades of consensus and contradiction are to be found in abundance in each discussion of the game.

And what of my own opinions? They depend on a perceived counter-opinion in many ways. My revised scoring suggests how I remember my past self. In my discussion of the aesthetic content of the game, I call for a new perspective that de-emphasizes the notion that Shadow of the Colossus deliberately works to subvert a convention of the medium of video games. But couldn’t I be accused of failing to establish that this notion existed in the first place? Let me provide an example of that notion, at least. Here’s another retrospective. It has the word “retrospective” in its title. It’s called “START/SELECT: Consuming Loneliness: A ‘Shadow of the Colossus’ Retrospective,” and it was written by Mac Riga for the Georgetown University student newspaper. Here’s Riga’s take:

Team Ico sought to make a game that laid bare the contradiction of video games. It held up this beautiful medium, the pinnacle of self-isolation and escapism yet one that fosters empathy and self-reflection more than any other, and begged the player to wrestle with that irony — to come to their own conclusions about what it means to be alone, what it means to consume video games and what it means to do both simultaneously. (Riga)

This is surprising. Riga isn’t talking about the moral irony of monster-slaying in video games, which is more or less the topic of the counter-opinion I imagined myself to be opposing. But he is saying that Shadow of the Colossus is trying to engage in conversation with a convention of the medium of games, and to me that was the important part. For Riga, it’s a game about “self-isolation” and “empathy.”

Maybe it would be helpful to check what Fumito Ueda has to say. Even if you’re the type to faithfully invoke The Death of the Author, you might still agree, I hope, that discovering the designer’s intent will provide a reference against which to compare other views.

“I’ve never thought that “cruelty” is something forbidden in video games. Video games seem to require cruelty as a means of expression, and that being the case, I wanted to try and present my own take on cruelty. That was really the seed idea of Shadow of the Colossus.” (Ueda)

Here in a 2005 interview with CONTINUE magazine, Ueda casts Shadow of the Colossus as a game about cruelty inspired by the cruelty he sees as required in games. My analysis is thrown into doubt even further! It was intended as a deconstruction all along. But wait—Fumito Ueda from 2019 might be here to save me.

Was the overall aim of SOTC to question why it is that most games are about killing and how we have grown so comfortable doing so in a virtual existence? Fumito Ueda: I play games where violence is a factor myself, so I do not dismiss such games. However, through the production of Shadow of the Colossus, I started having doubts about simply “feeling good by beating monsters” and “getting a sense of accomplishment”. I tried thinking if there were any other choices for different kinds of expression, then ended up with such settings and rules as a result. Rather than try to deliberately create some sort of antithesis, I focused more on the consistency of the design as a product and differentiation (from other products). (Taylor)

Apologies for another long block quote; I really think the context is worth leaving in here because it helps to illustrate that, while Ueda is not exactly contradicting himself, different circumstances have prompted two answers with very different implications. The interviewer in the latter source seems to be aligned with the popular view that the game narrative is chiefly an exploration of morality. Which I do not disagree with, either: I should reiterate that my disagreement is with the view that the game narrative is specifically an exploration of morality in the medium of video games. The interviewer suggests that by saying that “most games are about killing.” Ueda seems to dismiss the idea by going on to say that the game was not crafted as “some sort of antithesis,” but that those themes emerged simply by trying to make a unique story. But in the former interview, Ueda asserts that he was “inspired” by the prevalence of “cruelty” in games. We are deprived of an authorial view where we might find stability; such a thing would have protected us, maybe, from the wild menagerie of contrasting views we face instead.

And could it be possible, if you would excuse the sudden break, that Reign Over Me (2007) starring Adam Sandler and Don Cheadle might not have always been actively trying to frame Shadow of the Colossus as a pseudo-Freudian stand-in for 9/11? More importantly, do we have any meaningful way to be sure? No, I think it’s more likely that suggestive forces have moved in with us permanently and that their furniture is too numerous and heavy for us to kick them out. It is impossible to speak on the aesthetics of a work, especially one so widely critiqued as Shadow of the Colossus, without necessarily speaking on what was spoken before. It is impossible to even play the game without encountering these extratextual conversations.

When I watched my friend play Shadow of the Colossus for the first time, I must have already been faintly aware of this phenomenon. The process of finding an appropriate emulator and an appropriate ROM led her through websites already saturated with extratextual content that suggested certain ideas of the game content. She had heard me speak of the game before. She had already listened to much of its music, accompanied on YouTube by comments. Being someone interested in games herself, she had certainly already encountered discussions of the game content like this one. She knew damn well that Agro would fall off that bridge. From all of this it is clear to me that the “extratext” was always inescapable. If she were to encounter the game truly without prior knowledge it would still not have “saved” her because she would just discover the extratext afterwards.

And what of my wife? My poor sweet wife? Just as no dry beach is spared from the tide, she too will be inundated by extratext that will indelibly shape how she receives and interprets the game content. She will not be a source of a “pure” opinion, but only another source of interpretation. She will never play Shadow of the Colossus as it was when it came out in 2005.

The space in consideration is a “consensus blob.” It has no hard boundaries, but it has gradients. Within the blob there are many shades of interpretation, but few overt contradictions except when comparing extremes. The blob is uncentered because there is no single “correct” or most stable interpretation. Areas of the blob give the appearance of a “consensus,” a shared notion or common interpretation, but really the gradient is everywhere and always-changing, like an amoeba. Even the creator of the art object can sway from point to point in the blob, forgetting wherever it was they started. The consensus is heraclitean. The extratext is absolutely inseparable from the text.

Really, we shouldn’t be miffed about it. Shadow of the Colossus can be about a lot of things, it’s not like we need a single definitive analysis. It will be a joy to watch my wife play, and I will be delighted to see what she thinks. I’m sure it will be new and exciting.

Overall, I give Reign Over Me a strong 6/10.

Sources

AstraFuckingGooGoo. “Shadow of the Colossus (PS4)- one of the worst games I’ve ever played.” r/patientgamers. https://www.reddit.com/r/patientgamers/comments/ujnx5q/shadow_of_the_colossus_ps4_one_of_the_worst_games/. Accessed 8 Aug. 2024.

Binder, Mike, dir. 2007. Reign over Me. Screenplay by Mike Binder. Columbia Pictures.

BrunoBRS. “Shadow of the Colossus: a Retrospective View”. Noobfeed. 27 Sep. 2011. https://www.noobfeed.com/features/160/shadow-of-the-colossus-a-retrospective-view

Diefendorff, Keith. “Sony’s Emotionally Charged Chip.” Microprocessor Report, vol. 13, no. 5.

Koop, Brandon. “Shadow of the Colossus: A Retrospective.” The Boss Key, 10 Apr. 2014, https://bradenkoop.wordpress.com/2014/04/10/shadow-of-the-colossus-a-retrospective/.

Lyles, Taylor. “Shadow of the Colossus Retrospective -- A Tragically Beautiful Love Story.” DualShockers, 26 Jan. 2018, https://www.dualshockers.com/shadow-of-the-colossus-retrospective/.

Metacritic. Reign over Me. https://www.metacritic.com/movie/reign-over-me/. Accessed 15 Aug. 2024.

“Nomad Colossus.” Team Ico Wiki, https://teamico.fandom.com/wiki/Nomad_Colossus. Accessed 8 Aug. 2024.

Peeren, Esther. “Compelling Memory: 9/11 and the Work of Mourning in Mike Binder’s Reign Over Me.” Cultural Critique, vol. 92, no. 1, Dec. 2016, pp. 57–83. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1353/cul.2016.a617380.

Piquet, Léna, translator. “The Making of ‘Shadow of the Colossus.’” Froyok, Dec. 2007, https://pure.uva.nl/ws/files/2772150/175939_PUBLISHED_Peeren_617380.pdf.

Quest for the Last Big Secret / Mysteries of SotC. PlayStation Community Forums, archived May 2013. http://web.archive.org/web/20130505104658/http://community.us.playstation.com/t5/Shadow-of-the-Colossus-PS2/Quest-for-the-Last-Big-Secret-Mysteries-of-SotC/td-p/20178777

Riga, Mac. “START/SELECT: Consuming Loneliness: A ‘Shadow of the Colossus’ Retrospective.” The Hoya, https://thehoya.com/guide/start-select-consuming-loneliness-a-shadow-of-the-colossus-retrospective/. Accessed 12 Aug. 2024.

Taylor, Jay. “Interview Extra: Fumito Ueda (Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, The Last Guardian).” Cane and Rinse, 27 Aug. 2019, https://caneandrinse.com/fumito-ueda-interview/.

Ueda, Fumito. Interview for CONTINUE Magazine, vol. 25., 2005. Translated by shmuplations, https://shmuplations.com/ueda/. Accessed 13 Aug. 2024.

#essay #game criticism #game critique #game review #video games #gaming #shadow of the colossus #team ico #review #dustyisforever review

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blaperile · 9 months ago

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Homestuck: Beyond Canon (reactions page 666 - “Davepeta feather” path)

Ok, finally got around to writing a reaction to this update

I was very surprised to see Vriska was not in this update!

It's funny, because beforehand when looking at all the images for the different chapters, this was the one that seemed the most obvious, showing Davepeta's feather and implying another conversation between Vriska and Davepeta.

After the previous update, I was convinced it would be about Davepeta trying to help Vriska move on from the traumatic Doc Scratch conversation.

Instead, we get a surprise Jasprose appearance!

Again, I'm very happy about all the new talksprites we got in this update :D

And FINALLY we get an update addressing the bonus stories the old creative team made! I'm actually surprised it's in this way though, I thought that perhaps they would first integrate all the old bonus panels into the main comic, but apparently not.

On the other hand, the things Jasprose said here only briefly touched upon the events of the Catnappped bonus story, so perhaps when it properly focuses on them again there will first be the old panels (maybe a URL link, kind of like the old Homestuck days with some panels about the Exiles being on a separate page linked from a normal panel?).

Anyway, only after a while I realized something quite sad: this is only the first time in the entirety of Homestuck^2 that we see (a version of) Dave and Rose interacting. Because with the events of the Epilogues, both the Meat and Candy versions of Dave and Rose got entirely separated from each other.

And even now, Davepeta and Jasprose are in totally separate realities, only managing to talk to each other via sprite magic.

If you start thinking even harder about it, Jasprose is technically from the Meat timeline while Davepeta originates from neither seeing as they weren't on Earth when the timeline split happened.

Though I guess you could wonder, IS there a Candy Jasprose? What if she was also outside of the normal reality when the timeline split and there really is only one version of her as well? Then the same thing could be true about Gcatavrosprite, Erisolsprite (wherever the hell he suddenly came from) and Nannasprite (ok not entirely, there's 2 versions of her but that's already from before the Meat-Candy split, haha).

That's something to think about.

Anyway, let's talk more about the actual content of this update, haha.

I like how the music utilizes the Sunsetter leitmotif, referencing the Davesprite song that was already used for Dave's walkaround music in Openbound.

So, all chapters now retroactively got names, with this one being Chapter X. Makes sense to not be a number, when all the other numbered chapters follow Vriska and seem to indicate in what year they're taking place.

Does it mean the next update, the 8-ball path, will be "Chapter 8" and take place in year 8? It would make sense thematically, as well as be an excellent transition with how this conversation between Davepeta and Jasprose ended.

It's also good to know that in the outside world only an hour or so should have passed. I mean, obviously they wouldn't have let years pass by, but it also means that Vriska isn't INSTANTLY back from the perspective of John, Roxy, Calliope and Sollux. What will have happened there in the meantime? Will Vriska be returning at a very climatic moment?

It's interesting that Jasprose claims she's only been in Midnight City for a night. But on the other hand, it's basically always night there! So she might as well have spent a pretty long time there, who knows!

I like that they addressed this Rose's alcohol problem. Good to hear she's not fallen off the wagon!

#Homestuck #Homestuck: Beyond Canon #update #upd8 #update reaction #Davepetasprite^2 #Jasprosesprite^2

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thecrankiestofgremlins · 1 year ago

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Aight imma go on a rant about employment law because that's what I'm studying and planning to put my career into. I should note this is UK law, however *some* of this shit is pretty universal. Also, obvious disclaimer, this isn't legal advice.

1. EMPLOYMENT LAW IS WRITTEN IN FAVOUR OF EMPLOYERS. THIS CAN MAKE THEM ARROGANT. UK employment law gives them a huge amount of leeway and is largely written in their favour, and they STILL regularly manage to go over the line to the point of absolute absurdity, to the point of accidentally creating beautifully complete evidence trails for employees to use in tribunal. Why do they do this? Because UK employment law is entirely enforced by individual employees and between the costs of a lawyer and the implied threat that if you take your employer to tribunal you'll never work in your field again (not universally true BTW), they assume they will never be taken to task for it. Employees are generally reluctant to take their employers to tribunal because of the above. What this means though, is if an employee *does* take them to tribunal, the evidence trail is usually extensive AS LONG AS the employee has taken steps to preserve it.

2. SAVE YOUR EMAILS. Any email sent to you by an employer regarding your employment in any way belongs to you. Send that shit to your personal email address, whether or not you think it's sketchy. For every employer. Keep your paper trail. You don't know when you might need it. This goes extra for things like performance reviews/flexible working/reasonable adjustment requests/etc.

3. NOT EVERYTHING IN YOUR CONTRACT IS ENFORCEABLE BY THE EMPLOYER. Employers *love* to stick exclusion clauses in or try to say that handbooks don't form part of your employment contract. They also like to do things like try to classify you as a self employed contractor when really, if you apply the relevant law, you are an employee and have the rights of an employee. Just because your contract says a thing doesn't mean it is the be all and end all. Think of it this way: if you only did what your employer required in writing in the contract, would they be pissed? If so, your contract is probably shit.

4. READ THE DAMN CONTRACT. Make sure you know the ins and outs of your job description, what's expected of you, your pay, overtime policy, where you're expected to work, etc. Just because you might not be able to negotiate it doesn't mean you shouldn't know what it says. This also goes for any employment handbooks. Know what the limits are, know what your hours are, know what your benefits are. Chances are good the employer will ask you to go above and beyond them, or try to pretend you don't have a contractual right to something when you absolutely do. Also, you *can* negotiate on more than you think. For example: employers are not allowed to make deductions from your pay beyond PAYE and National Insurance, UNLESS they have been contractually agreed beforehand. Check to see if they're trying to add a bunch of extra permitted deductions and *challenge* that shit if you feel able to. (My favourite is requiring supposed independent contractors to pay for a uniform. Highly unlikely that you're actually an independent contractor at that point plus fuck you if you want to control what I wear pay for it your damn self).

5. DO NOT OPT OUT OF NATIONAL WORKING TIME REGULATIONS. This is a pretty standard extra inclusion in most people's employment contracts in the UK. It shows up as an extra page of the contract with a separate signing line because they're not allowed to include that requirement as a contractual obligation (in most cases: the big exception is emergency workers) National Working Time Regs limit the amount of hours an employer can require from an adult (over 18) employee to 48 hrs on average, that average being taken over a period of 17 weeks. However, employees can opt out of this, hence the extra piece of paper. The employer cannot dock your salary/terminate your employment/treat you in any negative way if you do not sign this piece of paper. They include it with the contract so that people *assume* they have to sign it. If you're employed and have already signed it, you can opt back in by notifying your employer in writing. Generally this will mean a 3 month period before the regs apply to you again. But *do it*.

6. IF YOUR HOURS ARE VARIABLE, KEEP TRACK OF THEM INDEPENDENTLY. If you don't have a 9-5 contract, this applies to you. This is to make sure that if there's a dispute, you have a record that *you* made of those hours. Ya know, in case the employer decides to conveniently forget about them. I watched OXFORD UNIVERSITY try this shit in a tribunal and they got absolutely wasted because a) it was so obvious (they'd deleted hours spent on marking) and b) the employees had kept an independent record.

7. IF YOUR EMPLOYER DOES SOMETHING SHITTY, YOU HAVE 3 MONTHS FROM THE DATE OF THAT SHITTY THING TO SUE THEM FOR IT. It's one of the shortest time limits in UK law (remember when I said the law is written in employers' favour?), and that time is *only* paused when you involve ACAS (I'll explain ACAS in a sec) and the timer starts again once ACAS issues their certificate. It does NOT stop if you're trying to resolve the issue through internal grievance processes, and attempting to resolve the issue internally is not an acceptable argument if you're trying to extend that time (which you can, under specific circumstances, but try not to rely on that bc it's iffy at best) (yes you can also argue that there have been continuing acts but at that point you need to talk to a lawyer because there are specific rules around that too). There are. So many cases. That I've come across personally. That would be an absolute slam dunk EXCEPT they're out of time.

8. IF YOU WANT TO SUE YOUR EMPLOYER YOU HAVE TO GO THROUGH ACAS FIRST. Employment law is the only area of law where you are legally required to try to do mediation first. How much you engage with the mediation is up to you, however the more you do, the better it looks. Mediation does not mean you have to agree with the employer! It just means you get to ask them the questions you want to ask them in official channels. That said, if they roll over and give you what you want during these negotiations, you kind of have to take it: English law says that civil courts can only give you money as a remedy. As much as you might want to have your day in court, civil courts are legally only for getting money out of people, not primarily for the public administration of justice. Yes I hate this too. If you don't take it, the court won't like it and there is a potential that the court *could* award your employer their costs. ACAS can also give you help explaining how the process works etc. Make sure you contact them and start the process ASAP as soon as you decide the thing is worth suing over.

9. READ THE EQUALITY ACT 2010. There are 9 protected characteristics under UK law: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage/civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation. Broadly speaking, your employer cannot treat you negatively because of any of these characteristics. There are qualifications and limits to how far this goes, obviously, but broadly speaking, this is the case. I'll do another post later going into some of this in more detail because the topic is huge but taking a look at the sections that may apply to you is a good start.

10. NOT BEING ABLE TO AFFORD A LAWYER OUTRIGHT DOESN'T NECESSARILY MEAN YOURE OUT OF OPTIONS. First, you *can* represent yourself. It's not an option I'd suggest before you've exhausted all your other options but it is possible. The issue is that you probably don't speak legalese or have access to legal databases, but there is still research you can do on Google. Don't trust everything you read though. Law firm websites are a good place to start, as they tend to write decent articles on the basics of a given issue and they can point you towards some case law. You can also call Citizens Advice for a jumping off point. If you're representing yourself though, the only things you can really reference in court are a) legislation, b) case law, and c) practitioners texts. Remember, case law explains how legislation actually works: it doesn't apply to every situation you might think is covered by it.

Second, most solicitors firms offer free 15-30 minute consultations, where you go in, give them the basics of the situation, and they give you some advice and can signpost you to somewhere you can get more information. This can be really, really helpful and I'd suggest it even if you're planning on repping yourself.

Third, a lot of firms also offer something called a no-win-no-fee agreement, which is about what it says on the tin: if you don't win, you don't pay. Each firm will have different stipulations regarding these, so you should ask what these are. The problem though, is if the firm doesn't think you have a winnable case, they are unlikely take it on that basis (because that means they don't get paid and that's a lot of work not to get paid for). If you do win, they generally take a piece of your winnings as payment (so sometimes they won't do it because you're not claiming enough). It's not a guarantee, but IMHO it's a good option if you have a good case.

Last, there are the pro bono organisations. A lot of places will have a regional pro bono law clinic. These may or may not be able to take your case all the way to tribunal, but if not they should be able to refer you to an org that can. London and its immediate surrounding area has the Free Representation Unit, for example (your case has to be referred to them by another org, usually one of the clinics) but if they can take up your case, they can take it all the way to tribunal and even appeals. Since Legal Aid isn't a thing in employment law (except for discrimination), a lot of these organisations have an absolutely fucking massive caseload though, so there isn't a guarantee that they'll be able to take your case.

I'm sure I'll think of more to add to this later, but this is just the bare bones basic shit that *everyone* should know. A lot of cases don't get brought because people don't know that they a) have rights, b) they don't hold onto documents, c) they don't start the claim in time, or d) all of the above. Given that employment law is only enforceable by the individual, the only way to get employers to play by the rules more often is if people start enforcing it. It's a shit way to do it, but it's what we've got at the moment.

If people find this useful and would like this to be a regular thing, lmk.

#employment law #fuck work #uk #quiet quitting #know your worth #know your rights #always reblog #unfair dismissal #discrimination #corporate bullshit #anti work #worker's rights #anti capitalism

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