#excluding them - from a LIFE SIMULATION game no less - almost entirely IS

[aorticsims]

inzoi is starting to leave a bitter taste in my mouth because of the whole gay marriage exclusion thing, and as much as i like the idea of the sims having competitors, i don't think i want to support a game where queer relationships seem like an afterthought rather than a core part of the game.

[internetbynight]

𝙊𝙣 𝙏𝙧𝙪𝙩𝙝 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙇𝙞𝙚 𝙞𝙣 𝙖𝙣 𝙀𝙭𝙩𝙧𝙖-𝙈𝙤𝙧𝙖𝙡 𝙎𝙚𝙣𝙨𝙚

In some remote corner of the universe, poured out and glittering in innumerable solar systems, there once was a star on which clever animals invented knowledge. That was the highest and most mendacious minute of "world history"—yet only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths the star grew cold, and the clever animals had to die.

One might invent such a fable and still not have illustrated sufficiently how wretched, how shadowy and flighty, how aimless and arbitrary, the human intellect appears in nature. There have been eternities when it did not exist; and when it is done for again, nothing will have happened. For this intellect has no further mission that would lead beyond human life. It is human, rather, and only its owner and producer gives it such importance, as if the world pivoted around it. But if we could communicate with the mosquito, then we would learn that he floats through the air with the same self-importance, feeling within itself the flying center of the world. There is nothing in nature so despicable or insignificant that it cannot immediately be blown up like a bag by a slight breath of this power of knowledge; and just as every porter wants an admirer, the proudest human being, the philosopher, thinks that he sees on the eyes of the universe telescopically focused from all sides on his actions and thoughts.

It is strange that this should be the effect of the intellect, for after all it was given only as an aid to the most unfortunate, most delicate, most evanescent beings in order to hold them for a minute in existence, from which otherwise, without this gift, they would have every reason to flee as quickly as Lessing's son. [In a famous letter to Johann Joachim Eschenburg (December 31, 1778), Lessing relates the death of his infant son, who "understood the world so well that he left it at the first opportunity."] That haughtiness which goes with knowledge and feeling, which shrouds the eyes and senses of man in a blinding fog, therefore deceives him about the value of existence by carrying in itself the most flattering evaluation of knowledge itself. Its most universal effect is deception; but even its most particular effects have something of the same character.

The intellect, as a means for the preservation of the individual, unfolds its chief powers in simulation; for this is the means by which the weaker, less robust individuals preserve themselves, since they are denied the chance of waging the struggle for existence with horns or the fangs of beasts of prey. In man this art of simulation reaches its peak: here deception, flattering, lying and cheating, talking behind the back, posing, living in borrowed splendor, being masked, the disguise of convention, acting a role before others and before oneself—in short, the constant fluttering around the single flame of vanity is so much the rule and the law that almost nothing is more incomprehensible than how an honest and pure urge for truth could make its appearance among men. They are deeply immersed in illusions and dream images; their eye glides only over the surface of things and sees "forms"; their feeling nowhere lead into truth, but contents itself with the reception of stimuli, playing, as it were, a game of blindman's buff on the backs of things. Moreover, man permits himself to be lied to at night, his life long, when he dreams, and his moral sense never even tries to prevent this—although men have been said to have overcome snoring by sheer will power.

What, indeed, does man know of himself! Can he even once perceive himself completely, laid out as if in an illuminated glass case? Does not nature keep much the most from him, even about his body, to spellbind and confine him in a proud, deceptive consciousness, far from the coils of the intestines, the quick current of the blood stream, and the involved tremors of the fibers? She threw away the key; and woe to the calamitous curiosity which might peer just once through a crack in the chamber of consciousness and look down, and sense that man rests upon the merciless, the greedy, the insatiable, the murderous, in the indifference of his ignorance—hanging in dreams, as it were, upon the back of a tiger. In view of this, whence in all the world comes the urge for truth?

Insofar as the individual wants to preserve himself against other individuals, in a natural state of affairs he employs the intellect mostly for simulation alone. But because man, out of need and boredom, wants to exist socially, herd-fashion, he requires a peace pact and he endeavors to banish at least the very crudest bellum omni contra omnes [war of all against all] from his world. This peace pact brings with it something that looks like the first step toward the attainment of this enigmatic urge for truth. For now that is fixed which henceforth shall be "truth"; that is, a regularly valid and obligatory designation of things is invented, and this linguistic legislation also furnishes the first laws of truth: for it is here that the contrast between truth and lie first originates. The liar uses the valid designations, the words, to make the unreal appear as real; he says, for example, "I am rich," when the word "poor" would be the correct designation of his situation. He abuses the fixed conventions by arbitrary changes or even by reversals of the names. When he does this in a self-serving way damaging to others, then society will no longer trust him but exclude him. Thereby men do not flee from being deceived as much as from being damaged by deception: what they hate at this stage is basically not the deception but the bad, hostile consequences of certain kinds of deceptions. In a similarly limited way man wants the truth: he desires the agreeable life-preserving consequences of truth, but he is indifferent to pure knowledge, which has no consequences; he is even hostile to possibly damaging and destructive truths. And, moreover, what about these conventions of language? Are they really the products of knowledge, of the sense of truth? Do the designations and the things coincide? Is language the adequate expression of all realities?

Only through forgetfulness can man ever achieve the illusion of possessing a "truth" in the sense just designated. If he does not wish to be satisfied with truth in the form of a tautology—that is, with empty shells—then he will forever buy illusions for truths. What is a word? The image of a nerve stimulus in sounds. But to infer from the nerve stimulus, a cause outside us, that is already the result of a false and unjustified application of the principle of reason. If truth alone had been the deciding factor in the genesis of language, and if the standpoint of certainty had been decisive for designations, then how could we still dare to say "the stone is hard," as if "hard" were something otherwise familiar to us, and not merely a totally subjective stimulation! We separate things according to gender, designating the tree as masculine and the plant as feminine. What arbitrary assignments! How far this oversteps the canons of certainty! We speak of a "snake": this designation touches only upon its ability to twist itself and could therefore also fit a worm. What arbitrary differentiations! What one-sided preferences, first for this, then for that property of a thing! The different languages, set side by side, show that what matters with words is never the truth, never an adequate expression; else there would not be so many languages. The "thing in itself" (for that is what pure truth, without consequences, would be) is quite incomprehensible to the creators of language and not at all worth aiming for. One designates only the relations of things to man, and to express them one calls on the boldest metaphors. A nerve stimulus, first transposed into an image—first metaphor. The image, in turn, imitated by a sound—second metaphor. And each time there is a complete overleaping of one sphere, right into the middle of an entirely new and different one. One can imagine a man who is totally deaf and has never had a sensation of sound and music. Perhaps such a person will gaze with astonishment at Chladni's sound figures; perhaps he will discover their causes in the vibrations of the string and will now swear that he must know what men mean by "sound." It is this way with all of us concerning language; we believe that we know something about the things themselves when we speak of trees, colors, snow, and flowers; and yet we possess nothing but metaphors for things—metaphors which correspond in no way to the original entities. In the same way that the sound appears as a sand figure, so the mysterious X of the thing in itself first appears as a nerve stimulus, then as an image, and finally as a sound. Thus the genesis of language does not proceed logically in any case, and all the material within and with which the man of truth, the scientist, and the philosopher later work and build, if not derived from never-never land, is a least not derived from the essence of things.

Let us still give special consideration to the formation of concepts. Every word immediately becomes a concept, inasmuch as it is not intended to serve as a reminder of the unique and wholly individualized original experience to which it owes its birth, but must at the same time fit innumerable, more or less similar cases—which means, strictly speaking, never equal—in other words, a lot of unequal cases. Every concept originates through our equating what is unequal. No leaf ever wholly equals another, and the concept "leaf" is formed through an arbitrary abstraction from these individual differences, through forgetting the distinctions; and now it gives rise to the idea that in nature there might be something besides the leaves which would be "leaf"—some kind of original form after which all leaves have been woven, marked, copied, colored, curled, and painted, but by unskilled hands, so that no copy turned out to be a correct, reliable, and faithful image of the original form. We call a person "honest." Why did he act so honestly today? we ask. Our answer usually sounds like this: because of his honesty. Honesty! That is to say again: the leaf is the cause of the leaves. After all, we know nothing of an essence-like quality named "honesty"; we know only numerous individualized, and thus unequal actions, which we equate by omitting the unequal and by then calling them honest actions. In the end, we distill from them a qualitas occulta [hidden quality] with the name of "honesty." We obtain the concept, as we do the form, by overlooking what is individual and actual; whereas nature is acquainted with no forms and no concepts, and likewise with no species, but only with an X which remains inaccessible and undefinable for us. For even our contrast between individual and species is something anthropomorphic and does not originate in the essence of things; although we should not presume to claim that this contrast does not correspond o the essence of things: that would of course be a dogmatic assertion and, as such, would be just as indemonstrable as its opposite.

What, then, is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms—in short, a sum of human relations which have been enhanced, transposed, and embellished poetically and rhetorically, and which after long use seem firm, canonical, and obligatory to a people: truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that this is what they are; metaphors which are worn out and without sensuous power; coins which have lost their pictures and now matter only as metal, no longer as coins.

We still do not know where the urge for truth comes from; for as yet we have heard only of the obligation imposed by society that it should exist: to be truthful means using the customary metaphors—in moral terms: the obligation to lie according to a fixed convention, to lie herd-like in a style obligatory for all. Now man of course forgets that this is the way things stand for him. Thus he lies in the manner indicated, unconsciously and in accordance with habits which are centuries' old; and precisely by means of this unconsciousness and forgetfulness he arrives at his sense of truth. From the sense that one is obliged to designate one thing as red, another as cold, and a third as mute, there arises a moral impulse in regard to truth. The venerability, reliability, and utility of truth is something which a person demonstrates for himself from the contrast with the liar, whom no one trusts and everyone excludes. As a rational being, he now places his behavior under the control of abstractions. He will no longer tolerate being carried away by sudden impressions, by intuitions. First he universalizes all these impressions into less colorful, cooler concepts, so that he can entrust the guidance of his life and conduct to them. Everything which distinguishes man from the animals depends upon this ability to volatilize perceptual metaphors in a schema, and thus to dissolve an image into a concept. For something is possible in the realm of these schemata which could never be achieved with the vivid first impressions: the construction of a pyramidal order according to castes and degrees, the creation of a new world of laws, privileges, subordinations, and clearly marked boundaries—a new world, one which now confronts that other vivid world of first impressions as more solid, more universal, better known, and more human than the immediately perceived world, and thus as the regulative and imperative world. Whereas each perceptual metaphor is individual and without equals and is therefore able to elude all classification, the great edifice of concepts displays the rigid regularity of a Roman columbarium and exhales in logic that strength and coolness which is characteristic of mathematics. Anyone who has felt this cool breath [of logic] will hardly believe that even the concept—which is as bony, foursquare, and transposable as a die—is nevertheless merely the residue of a metaphor, and that the illusion which is involved in the artistic transference of a nerve stimulus into images is, if not the mother, then the grandmother of every single concept. But in this conceptual crap game "truth" means using every die in the designated manner, counting its spots accurately, fashioning the right categories, and never violating the order of caste and class rank. Just as the Romans and Etruscans cut up the heavens with rigid mathematical lines and confined a god within each of the spaces thereby delimited, as within a templum, so every people has a similarly mathematically divided conceptual heaven above themselves and henceforth thinks that truth demands that each conceptual god be sought only within his own sphere. Here one may certainly admire man as a mighty genius of construction, who succeeds in piling an infinitely complicated dome of concepts upon an unstable foundation, and, as it were, on running water. Of course, in order to be supported by such a foundation, his construction must be like one constructed of spiders' webs: delicate enough to be carried along by the waves, strong enough not to be blown apart by every wind. As a genius of construction man raises himself far above the bee in the following way: whereas the bee builds with wax that he gathers from nature, man builds with the far more delicate conceptual material which he first has to manufacture from himself. In this he is greatly to be admired, but not on account of his drive for truth or for pure knowledge of things. When someone hides something behind a bush and looks for it again in the same place and finds it there as well, there is not much to praise in such seeking and finding. Yet this is how matters stand regarding seeking and finding "truth" within the realm of reason. If I make up the definition of a mammal, and then, after inspecting a camel, declare "look, a mammal" I have indeed brought a truth to light in this way, but it is a truth of limited value. That is to say, it is a thoroughly anthropomorphic truth which contains not a single point which would be "true in itself" or really and universally valid apart from man. At bottom, what the investigator of such truths is seeking is only the metamorphosis of the world into man. He strives to understand the world as something analogous to man, and at best he achieves by his struggles the feeling of assimilation. Similar to the way in which astrologers considered the stars to be in man 's service and connected with his happiness and sorrow, such an investigator considers the entire universe in connection with man: the entire universe as the infinitely fractured echo of one original sound-man; the entire universe as the infinitely multiplied copy of one original picture-man. His method is to treat man as the measure of all things, but in doing so he again proceeds from the error of believing that he has these things [which he intends to measure] immediately before him as mere objects. He forgets that the original perceptual metaphors are metaphors and takes them to be the things themselves.

Only by forgetting this primitive world of metaphor can one live with any repose, security, and consistency: only by means of the petrification and coagulation of a mass of images which originally streamed from the primal faculty of human imagination like a fiery liquid, only in the invincible faith that this sun, this window, this table is a truth in itself, in short, only by forgetting that he himself is an artistically creating subject, does man live with any repose, security, and consistency. If but for an instant he could escape from the prison walls of this faith, his "self consciousness" would be immediately destroyed. It is even a difficult thing for him to admit to himself that the insect or the bird perceives an entirely different world from the one that man does, and that the question of which of these perceptions of the world is the more correct one is quite meaningless, for this would have to have been decided previously in accordance with the criterion of the correct perception, which means, in accordance with a criterion which is not available. But in any case it seems to me that the correct perception—which would mean the adequate expression of an object in the subject—is a contradictory impossibility. For between two absolutely different spheres, as between subject and object, there is no causality, no correctness, and no expression; there is, at most, an aesthetic relation: I mean, a suggestive transference, a stammering translation into a completely foreign tongue—for which I there is required, in any case, a freely inventive intermediate sphere and mediating force. "Appearance" is a word that contains many temptations, which is why I avoid it as much as possible. For it is not true that the essence of things "appears" in the empirical world. A painter without hands who wished to express in song the picture before his mind would, by means of this substitution of spheres, still reveal more about the essence of things than does the empirical world. Even the relationship of a nerve stimulus to the generated image is not a necessary one. But when the same image has been generated millions of times and has been handed down for many generations and finally appears on the same occasion every time for all mankind, then it acquires at last the same meaning for men it would have if it were the sole necessary image and if the relationship of the original nerve stimulus to the generated image were a strictly causal one. In the same manner, an eternally repeated dream would certainly be felt and judged to be reality. But the hardening and congealing of a metaphor guarantees absolutely nothing concerning its necessity and exclusive justification.

Every person who is familiar with such considerations has no doubt felt a deep mistrust of all idealism of this sort: just as often as he has quite early convinced himself of the eternal consistency, omnipresence, and fallibility of the laws of nature. He has concluded that so far as we can penetrate here—from the telescopic heights to the microscopic depths—everything is secure, complete, infinite, regular, and without any gaps. Science will be able to dig successfully in this shaft forever, and the things that are discovered will harmonize with and not contradict each other. How little does this resemble a product of the imagination, for if it were such, there should be some place where the illusion and reality can be divined. Against this, the following must be said: if each us had a different kind of sense perception—if we could only perceive things now as a bird, now as a worm, now as a plant, or if one of us saw a stimulus as red, another as blue, while a third even heard the same stimulus as a sound—then no one would speak of such a regularity of nature, rather, nature would be grasped only as a creation which is subjective in the highest degree. After all, what is a law of nature as such for us? We are not acquainted with it in itself, but only with its effects, which means in its relation to other laws of nature—which, in turn, are known to us only as sums of relations. Therefore all these relations always refer again to others and are thoroughly incomprehensible to us in their essence. All that we actually know about these laws of nature is what we ourselves bring to them—time and space, and therefore relationships of succession and number. But everything marvelous about the laws of nature, everything that quite astonishes us therein and seems to demand explanation, everything that might lead us to distrust idealism: all this is completely and solely contained within the mathematical strictness and inviolability of our representations of time and space. But we produce these representations in and from ourselves with the same necessity with which the spider spins. If we are forced to comprehend all things only under these forms, then it ceases to be amazing that in all things we actually comprehend nothing but these forms. For they must all bear within themselves the laws of number, and it is precisely number which is most astonishing in things. All that conformity to law, which impresses us so much in the movement of the stars and in chemical processes, coincides at bottom with those properties which we bring to things. Thus it is we who impress ourselves in this way. In conjunction with this, it of course follows that the artistic process of metaphor formation with which every sensation begins in us already presupposes these forms and thus occurs within them. The only way in which the possibility of subsequently constructing a new conceptual edifice from metaphors themselves can be explained is by the firm persistence of these original forms That is to say, this conceptual edifice is an imitation of temporal, spatial, and numerical relationships in the domain of metaphor.

We have seen how it is originally language which works on the construction of concepts, a labor taken over in later ages by science. Just as the bee simultaneously constructs cells and fills them with honey, so science works unceasingly on this great columbarium of concepts, the graveyard of perceptions. It is always building new, higher stories and shoring up, cleaning, and renovating the old cells; above all, it takes pains to fill up this monstrously towering framework and to arrange therein the entire empirical world, which is to say, the anthropomorphic world. Whereas the man of action binds his life to reason and its concepts so that he will not be swept away and lost, the scientific investigator builds his hut right next to the tower of science so that he will be able to work on it and to find shelter for himself beneath those bulwarks which presently exist. And he requires shelter, for there are frightful powers which continuously break in upon him, powers which oppose scientific truth with completely different kinds of "truths" which bear on their shields the most varied sorts of emblems.

The drive toward the formation of metaphors is the fundamental human drive, which one cannot for a single instant dispense with in thought, for one would thereby dispense with man himself. This drive is not truly vanquished and scarcely subdued by the fact that a regular and rigid new world is constructed as its prison from its own ephemeral products, the concepts. It seeks a new realm and another channel for its activity, and it finds this in myth and in art generally. This drive continually confuses the conceptual categories and cells by bringing forward new transferences, metaphors, and metonymies. It continually manifests an ardent desire to refashion the world which presents itself to waking man, so that it will be as colorful, irregular, lacking in results and coherence, charming, and eternally new as the world of dreams. Indeed, it is only by means of the rigid and regular web of concepts that the waking man clearly sees that he is awake; and it is precisely because of this that he sometimes thinks that he must be dreaming when this web of concepts is torn by art. Pascal is right in maintaining that if the same dream came to us every night we would be just as occupied with it as we are with the things that we see every day. "If a workman were sure to dream for twelve straight hours every night that he was king," said Pascal, "I believe that he would be just as happy as a king who dreamt for twelve hours every night that he was a workman." In fact, because of the way that myth takes it for granted that miracles are always happening, the waking life of a mythically inspired people—the ancient Greeks, for instance—more closely resembles a dream than it does the waking world of a scientifically disenchanted thinker. When every tree can suddenly speak as a nymph, when a god in the shape of a bull can drag away maidens, when even the goddess Athena herself is suddenly seen in the company of Peisastratus driving through the market place of Athens with a beautiful team of horses—and this is what the honest Athenian believed—then, as in a dream, anything is possible at each moment, and all of nature swarms around man as if it were nothing but a masquerade of the gods, who were merely amusing themselves by deceiving men in all these shapes.

But man has an invincible inclination to allow himself to be deceived and is, as it were, enchanted with happiness when the rhapsodist tells him epic fables as if they were true, or when the actor in the theater acts more royally than any real king. So long as it is able to deceive without injuring, that master of deception, the intellect, is free; it is released from its former slavery and celebrates its Saturnalia. It is never more luxuriant, richer, prouder, more clever and more daring. With creative pleasure it throws metaphors into confusion and displaces the boundary stones of abstractions, so that, for example, it designates the stream as "the moving path which carries man where he would otherwise walk." The intellect has now thrown the token of bondage from itself. At other times it endeavors, with gloomy officiousness, to show the way and to demonstrate the tools to a poor individual who covets existence; it is like a servant who goes in search of booty and prey for his master. But now it has become the master and it dares to wipe from its face the expression of indigence. In comparison with its previous conduct, everything that it now does bears the mark of dissimulation, just as that previous conduct did of distortion. The free intellect copies human life, but it considers this life to be something good and seems to be quite satisfied with it. That immense framework and planking of concepts to which the needy man clings his whole life long in order to preserve himself is nothing but a scaffolding and toy for the most audacious feats of the liberated intellect. And when it smashes this framework to pieces, throws it into confusion, and puts it back together in an ironic fashion, pairing the most alien things and separating the closest, it is demonstrating that it has no need of these makeshifts of indigence and that it will now be guided by intuitions rather than by concepts. There is no regular path which leads from these intuitions into the land of ghostly schemata, the land of abstractions. There exists no word for these intuitions; when man sees them he grows dumb, or else he speaks only in forbidden metaphors and in unheard-of combinations of concepts. He does this so that by shattering and mocking the old conceptual barriers he may at least correspond creatively to the impression of the powerful present intuition.

There are ages in which the rational man and the intuitive man stand side by side, the one in fear of intuition, the other with scorn for abstraction. The latter is just as irrational as the former is inartistic. They both desire to rule over life: the former, by knowing how to meet his principle needs by means of foresight, prudence, and regularity; the latter, by disregarding these needs and, as an "overjoyed hero," counting as real only that life which has been disguised as illusion and beauty. Whenever, as was perhaps the case in ancient Greece, the intuitive man handles his weapons more authoritatively and victoriously than his opponent, then, under favorable circumstances, a culture can take shape and art's mastery over life can be established. All the manifestations of such a life will be accompanied by this dissimulation, this disavowal of indigence, this glitter of metaphorical intuitions, and, in general, this immediacy of deception: neither the house, nor the gait, nor the clothes, nor the clay jugs give evidence of having been invented because of a pressing need. It seems as if they were all intended to express an exalted happiness, an Olympian cloudlessness, and, as it were, a playing with seriousness. The man who is guided by concepts and abstractions only succeeds by such means in warding off misfortune, without ever gaining any happiness for himself from these abstractions. And while he aims for the greatest possible freedom from pain, the intuitive man, standing in the midst of a culture, already reaps from his intuition a harvest of continually inflowing illumination, cheer, and redemption—in addition to obtaining a defense against misfortune. To be sure, he suffers more intensely, when he suffers; he even suffers more frequently, since he does not understand how to learn from experience and keeps falling over and over again into the same ditch. He is then just as irrational in sorrow as he is in happiness: he cries aloud and will not be consoled. How differently the stoical man who learns from experience and governs himself by concepts is affected by the same misfortunes! This man, who at other times seeks nothing but sincerity, truth, freedom from deception, and protection against ensnaring surprise attacks, now executes a masterpiece of deception: he executes his masterpiece of deception in misfortune, as the other type of man executes his in times of happiness. He wears no quivering and changeable human face, but, as it were, a mask with dignified, symmetrical features. He does not cry; he does not even alter his voice. When a real storm cloud thunders above him, he wraps himself in his cloak, and with slow steps he walks from beneath it.

Frederich Nietzsche

[angstytieflingbard]

What do you think Link would be like in the BNHA world? Because while he was a hero in Hyrule, I don't think he'd be able to get away with half the crap he does on a regular basis in the BNHA world.

Hm, this is a really interesting question! I think it depends mainly on whether or not he can remember his past incarnations. 

This is a bit of a long one, fair warning, so the theory and stuff is under the cut!

In the games, generally Link shows little to no awareness of his past incarnations (partially as a favor to the player, particularly new players who wouldn’t be able to just jump in knowing what was happening like veteran players, or like Link himself might be able to) so if we go by the assumption that that trend continues, he’d absolutely join U.A and become a hero. 

Link is, while a chaotic goblin child, also generally very eager to please and help people in authority figures (Impa, King Rhoam, Sahasralas, King Dorephan, etc.) mostly because in almost every iteration he’s either born into a military role or joins voluntarily. In Skyward Sword, he was the top of his class in the knight academy on Skyloft, in Hyrule Warriors he starts the game as a recruit in the army and within a few battles is leading an entire third of the Hyrule military by himself, just because Impa told him to, and of course in BOTW he’s a knight of Hyrule (the fact that Link, androgynous klepto goblin extraordinaire, has definitely been referred to as Ser Link of Hyrule is wild, I should also mention). These positions are difficult to achieve, and you absolutely have to have a deep respect for authority to get there. 

So, if Link doesn’t remember his past reincarnations, then he’d take to U.A and hero society like a fish to water, guided only by intuition and his profound desire to help and please people. However, I do think some of his more... chaotic tendencies, for lack of a better term, would get in trouble. I had like an entire paragraph of how he would fare in 1-A, but it was really convoluted and weird so instead I’m gonna bullet point some of the highlights of this before I move onto the other theory: 

He’s reckless, even more so than Midoriya or Bakugo sometimes, with a complete lack of regard for his own well being, something which absolutely grinds Aizawa’s gears. 

He gets along surprisingly well with Iida! Both of them have that deep respect for authority that I mentioned earlier.

However, Link’s tendency for sticky fingers and complete obliviousness to the concept of privacy and appropriateness cranks his anxiety up to an eleven sometimes. 

The boys in 1-A (excluding Iida who I’ve already mentioned) are terrified of him, both for his power in androgyny (he may go by he/him, but don’t be fooled, he’s never met gender in his life, and he loves how swishy the girls’ skirts are) and for how much of an absolute powerhouse he is in combat. 

Link is supposedly untrained in combat, but his ability to pick up any weapon that has ever existed and use it with the comfort and skill of someone who’s trained with it their whole lives is objectively terrifiying. 

The girls adore him. He’s down to earth and honestly really fun, if strange as all hell. It also helps that during the combat simulations on the second day of school he punted Mineta into a brick wall so hard it cracked. (Kaminari immediately vows to give up on his playboy ways the moment Link turns away from where he’d punted the grape and raises an eyebrow at him, as though challenging him to make a similar comment.) 

Momo and Tsu in particular take to him, liking his quiet, deceptively observant demeanor. Momo learns more about medieval/feudal weaponry for him and eventually helps him make something he insists on calling a paraglider, and the three of them end up becoming a team on their own, each using their abilities as well as the creations they designed together (with the help of Mei, of course, who is fascinated by Link and his wack equipment ideas) to unleash devastating attacks on their opponents in team battles.

On a completely separate note, I think he’d actually have a couple different hero costumes, to the surprise and delight of Mei, who made a point to be the one working with him on his equipment. Similar to BOTW, and even OOT to an extent, he has outfits for different purposes, though they stick to a similar color/theme across them, a mix of sky blue and forest green with the tri-force design incorporated somewhere (though he has no explanation for why he’s drawn to that symbol, he makes sure it’s always included).

As a final couple of points, I would like to return to his complete lack of awareness when it comes to most social faux pas. He is chaos incarnate, and he has absolutely no time to deal with whether something is considered appropriate. 

It’s even worse when they get to the dorms. The day they move in he ends up showing up a bit late, carrying an extra suitcase of random junk he absolutely could not bear to leave at home (there’s no way he’s not still a packrat), and the group sitting in the living room all watch as he catches sight of a potted plant in the corner, drops his suitcase, and lunges for it.

They remove the other potted plants from the common areas after that incident. 

Now, the other possibility. If Link does remember his incarnations, I don’t think he’d be able to bring himself to become a hero, at least not in the typical sense. He’d see the corruption in the hero system, particularly how heroes like endeavor treat not only their fans, but their families (I refuse to believe there’s not some circles of people somewhere on the internet who haven’t realized something is wrong with the man and investigated him in some way. And if they do exist, Link’s seen them, the evidence of corruption all the way to the highest levels of hero society only cementing his distaste for them). 

I think he becomes a vigilante, doing his best to track down Ganon and Zelda in whatever forms and roles they’ve taken in this new cycle, while still helping people wherever he can. He almost becomes spider-man like in his reputation, the media and hero society calling him a glorified villain, while civilians hail him as one of the few true heroes left in the world. Link refuses to hide his face or identity, showing the world exactly who he is at the expense of his own safety. As a vigilante, I think his costume would be something like the sheikah/stealth set, though with the Hyrulian royal crest instead of the sheikah’s crest, and eventually the symbol starts popping up around the city, hidden in plain site in the decor, or in the shadier parts of town outright painted on doors and windows of shops and homes, signals to show both support for the masked hero, and the offer of a safe place to rest during the day. 

It’s difficult for Link, forced to cloak himself in the shadow, ignoring every part of him that wants to trust those who’re supposed to help in the fight against evil. But every time he looks at endeavor he remembers a life when he was called the hero of time, and the shadowy king with fiery hair who poisoned his people and flooded Hyrule with monsters and malice, and it steels his resolve to continue. Well, that and the knowledge that the law would be less than forgiving of his more... odd habits. 

Anyway, this is all just sort of rambled off the top of my head, but I think I explained what I thought decently well. Thank you so much for the ask, this was a really fun concept! I’d love to do more on it if anyone would be interested in that. And I’m sorry it was so ridiculously long, I really got into this one lol. Have a good day anon! 

[violetosprey]

BTD My thoughts on Strade

I covered my thoughts long ago on all of the “Till Death Do Us Part” game characters, but I never really took the time to talk about my thoughts about the main series “Boyfriend to Death” characters.  I have actually talked about many of these characters through various different posts.  But otherwise, there haven’t been that many posts dedicated specifically to certain BTD characters.

These posts will mostly be about my own opinions and views (a rough analysis more than anything).  I may end up focusing on multiple aspects of the character, or just one particular one if I think it defines them best (we’ll see).  For those that have read some of my other posts, there likely WILL be some thoughts I’ve stated before that I’ll simply be re-iterating here.  But there may also be some new stuff in here if it happens to come to mind, or because I’ve simply not had the time before to go over such a topic.

It will take a while to get through all 8, so please have some patience and just check back later if it looks like I don’t have a post up yet for a character you’re really interested in.  I will also be talking through these under the assumption that you’ve played/read all the routes (so I might mention but not go into explicit detail on a scene).

*major spoilers below for BOTH BTD and BTD2*

 Fun Fact:  Strade was the first character I’d ever seen related to the BTD series.  A picture of him online is actually what got me interested in the games.  That’s how I learned about them.  Also, I still think Strade’s scar near his mouth makes him look like he has a toothpick in his mouth (until he makes certain expressions).

If you asked me who I thought was the most popular character in the original BTD game, my guess would be Strade.  I don’t know exactly why, but I feel like Strade is the most common “face” of BTD (though maybe that’s just because he’s how I found the game myself).  Strade I think does embody that sense of horror these dating simulator parodies bring.  He’s one of the main reasons I consider the original BTD game that focuses on a character’s ability to be straight up evil (while the BTD2 characters had more depth). His pure sadistic nature might also be why he’s so popular.

First off, it’s perfectly fine if you want to head canon Strade with a slightly…nicer disposition. I know a lot of people enjoy doing this (especially with his relationship between either OC’s or Ren). They’re fictional characters, and people should be able to have a little fun with expanding on other possibilities (for stories, or just for kicks).  However, people who’ve read my other posts may have noticed that I prefer to stick as closely to the game canon (and what the creators confirm themselves) as possible.  And the canon truth about Strade is…he’s an absolute MONSTER.  Despite being one of the few human characters in the BTD series (excluding TDDUP), he has proved to be one of most evil and remorseless characters.  What’s more, we aren’t really given a back story as to why Strade is the way he is.  From what Gato’s implied though…it’s almost as if he’s just always been this way.  He has no deep rooted anger or anxiety issues from past trauma that we know of (and he appears way too confident).  He’s not doing it out of hatred (on the contrary, he likes people).  He’s just doing it for fun because he enjoys it.  Hell, he’s made it his CAREER through the snuff films.

People have asked Gato various things about how nice Strade can be.  In the game he DOES have a rather friendly demeanor to him.  And he’ll offer you food, call you “buddy.”  But I think the creator makes it pretty clear that while Strade holds no actual ill-will towards his victims, he IMMENSELY enjoys torturing them.  I think Gato has even once said something along the lines of “nothing Strade does is consensual.”  Meaning, he goes out of his way to make sure that no matter what, his victims are in distress.  Even if they manage to get comfortable around him, he’ll find a way to make them fear again. I talked about once how each of the BTD and TDDUP characters respond to “initiative,” and both the game and the creator make it clear that Strade has a preference for people that are more shy or introverted.  People that are less likely to open up or be assertive with him.  It also means it’s more likely that the person will be submissive and afraid of him I’m guess.  I think Gato had said that Strade decided to keep Ren because Ren was very submissive and willing to do whatever Strade said.

Speaking of Ren, I don’t think I’ve taken the time to really talk too much about the kind of “affection and love” Strade can show.  I think Gato once described the relationship between Strade and Ren was most similar to…roommates?  And Strade (when not tormenting Ren) would buy him games he wanted (so a weird snuff film rich sugar daddy?).  We do see that Ren’s not in the best shape though when he comes down into the basement. I have no clue how frequently Strade tortures Ren, but it’s definitely enough to keep Ren in a very nervous state. When you attack Ren, Strade gets furious.  But he doesn’t call Ren by his name, instead saying “You touched my fox,” I believe.  So Strade probably never considered Ren a lover or friend of any kind.  More like a pet.  Why Strade would be nice to his “pet” could be a psychological play here where offering even the smallest bits of kindness between his sadistic activities causes Ren to become more obedient and closer to Strade (a carrot stick method if you will).  

When a person is going through a horrible experience (like being kidnapped by a serial killer), the mind has the ability to do whatever it takes to help relieve stress from the victim and keep the will to live.  What probably happened here is Ren started to cherish the “kinder” moments of Strade so much that eventually he saw them as having some kind of “bond.”  It’s highly likely that Ren developed a form of stockholm syndrome.  We actually see the proof of this in BTD2.  Ren talks about how he KNOWS Strade was a horrible person, and we was afraid of him.  But at the same time, Ren thought they had something special.  In fact depending, on the level of affection and choices, I think Ren can even get really ticked off at you if you call him out saying that what he and Strade had wasn’t real.  If people were confused as to why Ren wanted you and him to kill Lawrence together, this is probably because Ren had developed this warped idea in his head that sadistic activities (and even murder) were part of a more intimate experience.  A quicker and more efficient way to form a stronger “bond” between the two of you.

Doesn’t that sound familiar? I’m pretty sure…Strade says something very similar to the MC in his basement back in BTD.  That the moment you’re sharing together is very exciting and very “intimate.”  This is probably the same kind of stuff he told Ren that caused Ren’s mind to slowly become warped.  It could just be Strade messing with people’s heads on purpose to get them to do what he wants.  However, I did occur to me that it’s entirely possible…that Strade fully believes that the act of causing harm to others, and hearing their screams, is an extreme form of intimacy.  Like it’s not just a tactic for him to torment people with, he actually gets off on the things he does because it’s his form of “love.” Before anyone who reads the other stuff on my blog calls me out, no I don’t think Strade is a yandere.  He’s far more yangire (I can’t quite be sure either if he’s really “loving the person or just the experience).  

Now this is just a theory, but it might also help to explain the bleeding heart ending.  Strade gets SO excited, that he forces himself on you and proceeds to strangle you to death while he’s doing so.  I’m sure several people thought this was a little strange.  Since I’m not a serial killer or murderer of any kind, of course this stumped me for a while as to how Strade ends up “loving you to death.”  I think now it’s possible that he ends up liking the MC (or interaction) so much, you could even say “loving” I guess, that he ends up holding nothing back and in a state of ecstasy, ends up snuffing out your life with his bare hands.  In the one survival ending, you need a full red (regular) heart to get your own shock collar.  This puts you at the same status as Ren (a “pet”).  But if you REALLY want Strade to “love” you…it ends up with your death.  I think this says a lot about just how deranged and sadistic Strade is.  It’s no wonder Gato has never painted him in a sympathetic light.

The last little bit I wanted to say about Strade, which I think it another reason people like about him, is the expressions he makes.  Hats off to Gato, Strade’s expressions in the series I personally think are some of the best.  If you don’t believe me, here’s a fun little video showcasing many (not sure if it’s all) of his expressions.  The music makes me laugh, but it makes the video more entertaining I think :P  You get to see him be cheery, sadistic, and angry, and it’s just a blast.

I really do like how simplistically evil Strade is.  He’s never truly meant to be a lover, which is good because the point of these games was to be ironic.  They’re not dating simulators where you win the heart of the bad boy (usually).  They’re survival horror games where you work hard to just get out alive.  But even when you do find that survival ending (and both Strade and Rire only have one each), you may realize to your horror that you don’t truly get to escape the nightmare.  And that’s CERTAINLY a twist to be admired.

[igeekphonedotcom]

Vivo officially released the new Vivo NEX 3S 5G flagship phone in Shanghai. This is the second commercial 5G mobile phone following the release of iQOO Pro 5G last year. It is also the first smartphone on the market with a waterfall screen design.

If the waterfall screen is simply understood, it is a curved screen with a larger curvature. With the effect of almost vertical 90 °, the left and right borders are visually eliminated, and the screen ratio is greatly improved.

After a lapse of six months, vivo has brought the second waterfall-screen smartphone, the vivo NEX 3S. From the name point of view, vivo NEX 3S is a regular upgrade version of vivo NEX 3, in fact, vivo NEX 3S is more internal changes, such as the upgrade of the new Snapdragon 865 processor, the upgrade of the new Funtouch OS 10 system and many more.

Vivo NEX 3S Appearance

In terms of appearance design, the vivo NEX 3S and vivo NEX 3 basically have no changes. The front is still an iconic waterfall screen. The 3.5mm headphone jack is reserved on the top. The virtual pressure-sensitive buttons are used on the right side, which simulates the real through a linear motor Physical pressing feel.

The vivo NEX 3S has a screen size of 6.89 inches and a resolution of 1080 * 2256. The display effect is the same as that of the vivo NEX 3. The highest maximum excitation brightness is up to 800nit. The display content of the screen can also be clearly seen under strong light. At the same time, The minimum brightness of the block screen can reach 1.9nit, which makes users’ eyes more comfortable when reading. Vivo NEX 3S screen also uses E3 material screen (Super AMOLED), the official said that it can effectively reduce harmful blue light radiation by 42%. Other aspects include support for HDR10, standard display P3 color gamut display, and DC dimming.

NEX 3S has a complete full screen, the screen does not have any openings and bangs, and the display effect is more complete. When you slide the screen left and right, the screen on both sides of the curved surface will flow like water, called a waterfall screen It really lives up to its name. Especially when you light up the screen, the visual effect is very amazing, as if only holding a screen in your hand, it feels like “touching the future”.

As for the anti-false touch, you don’t need to worry too much. Whether it is watching movies or daily browsing news and playing games, you have almost never encountered a false touch problem. It seems that vivo bent the screen on both sides. Touch is locked?

Sides

Of course, because of the curved-screen itself, the display content on the left and right sides is a bit off-color, but this effect is not significant. However, when holding the fuselage, the fingers will more or less obstruct the content on both sides of the screen. The solution of “screen surface display” is given in the NEX 3S system. You can manually select whether the application avoids the screen surface area display.

Of course, the waterfall screen of the vivo NEX 3S is the highlight, but there are some regrets and deficiencies. For example, the lack of high refresh rate is not a big problem if it was placed last year, but looking at this year, when the 90Hz or even 120Hz screen becomes the mainstream of the flagship machine, the lack of high refresh rate will make the vivo NEX 3S seems to be inadequate, especially After getting used to the 90Hz high refresh rate screen, it is difficult to return to the 60Hz screen.

Similarly, NEX 3S does not support dual speakers, but fortunately, the built-in HiFi chip (AK4377A high-quality audio DAC) can make up for this regret.

The color of the NEX 3 mobile phone released last year is a highlight, especially the “liquid Tianhe” color matching. The metallic silver-like bright silver will have a flowing effect like a liquid, which is deeply in my heart. On the NEX 3S mobile phone, vivo has added a new amber alcohol color scheme,

The overall color of amber alcohol shows a brownish-red bright effect, just like the Pu-er tea is diluted, and the center position of the fuselage starts to darken on both sides and extends to the position of the metal frame. Red is more neutral and stable, suitable for women, but also suitable for men.

Design

The back of the NEX 3S is still the iconic Oreo three-shot design. The camera module slightly protrudes from the fuselage, but it is not serious. From the author’s personal aesthetic point of view, the design of the back of the NEX 3S is better than that of the vertical camera on the market. The round design language in this square is very in line with the oriental aesthetics. Very pleasing, with the most primitive symmetrical aesthetics, without aesthetic fatigue.

Next to the microphone opening on the top, you can see an oval button. In fact, this is another power button of the NEX 3S. When the pressure-sensitive button is not available, it can play a role of forcibly restarting and shutting down.

At the bottom is the familiar Type-C charging interface and the microphone, speaker, and SIM card slot openings.

Vivo NEX 3S Hardware

The biggest change of the NEX 3S is the upgrade of the Snapdragon 865 processor, which also means that the vivo NEX 3S is a smartphone supporting dual-mode 5G.

vivo NEX 3S also supports 5G bands such as n41 / n77 / n78 / n79 / n1. In terms of WiFi, vivo NEX 3S also supports the latest WiFi6 technology, supports dual SLA smart network acceleration technology, and achieves 5G + WiFi dual-channel acceleration.

First, we carried out a 5G speed measurement of vivo NEX 3S.

When we tested the vivo NEX 3 mobile phone on the campus where the located last year, because of the 5G network construction, although the mobile phone had a 5G network, it did not actually reach the ideal 5G speed. It near Shanghai Oriental Pearl TV Station and got the fastest download speed of 408Mbps, which was half a year ago.

At the end of the company corridor, there is a very abundant 5G network signal. The vivo NEX 3S has measured the current speed of 950Mbps and the upload speed is 53Mbps.

At this speed, downloading a 1080P high-definition movie takes only a few seconds, and installing large mobile games such as “Peace Elite” and “Glory of the King” can be completed within ten seconds.

In terms of performance, vivo NEX 3S not only upgraded the Snapdragon 865 processor but also brought the industry’s fastest LPDDR5 memory + UFS 3.1 high-speed flash memory, fully releasing 5G performance.

First, we tested the running score of vivo NEX 3S.

In AnTuTu (v8.2.7) running score, vivo NEX 3S achieved a score of 589,000. For comparison, the vivo NEX 3 AnTuTu (v8.0.9) with Snapdragon 855 Plus runs at 487,000. In the Geekbench4 running score, the vivo NEX 3S achieved single-core 4286 and multi-core 13391. For comparison, the vivo NEX 3 equipped with Snapdragon 855 Plus has a single score of 3596 and a multi-core of 11180. In 3DMark, the results of the vivo NEX 3S benchmark tests were 7216 and 6700, respectively. For comparison, the results of the vivo NEX 3 equipped with Snapdragon 855 Plus are 6111 and 5436.

In the storage test, the sequential read speed of the vivo NEX 3S reached 1737MB / s, the sequential write speed reached 728MB / s, the random read speed reached 282MB / s, and the random write speed would reach 238MB / s. For comparison, the results of vivo NEX 3 using UFS 3.0 are 1459MB / s, 526MB / s, 269MB / s, and 240MB / s.

In terms of games, we tested “Asphalt” and “Peace Elite”. All three games had the highest picture quality and the highest number of frames. The actual game frame rate is valid, we only tested the Frame rates, such as the game entry interface and game settlement screen, which are not in the record range. “Peace Elite” game, the highest HDR can be turned on, and the frame rate mode is ultra-high (40FPS at full frame).

Game Test

In the ten-minute “Peace Elite” test, the vivo NEX 3S is basically stable at 40FPS throughout the entire frame. The overall frame rate fluctuation is very stable. In the frame rate fluctuation chart, there are only two large fluctuations visible to the naked eye. Around 0:38 seconds, the author just entered the game screen settings, and the second place was near 4:26 seconds (in the red frame). At that time, I took a screenshot operation. Excluding these two points, vivo NEX 3S basically runs the game at full frame.

It is worth mentioning that in the game, thanks to the design of the waterfall screen, vivo NEX 3S can also realize the curved screen touch function.

In simple words, when the game is on a horizontal screen, the curved part of the screen simulates the AB key of the handle (the blue part in the figure below) to achieve the game button effect of the handle. In the game, you can draw out the game magic box, and then find the “curve touch” function, but the AB key on the corresponding operation icon in the game, you can achieve the corresponding operation through mapping.

After turning on this function, through the vibration of the linear motor, each click can quickly feedback to the palm, realizing the simulated physical pressing effect, and finally liberating your hands, so that you will always be one step ahead on the battlefield. In the “Asphalt 9” game, I also chose the highest quality (60FPS) for testing.

Within two minutes of the game (one round), the frame rate fluctuation of the vivo NEX 3S basically remained between 57FPS and 61FPS, and most of them were stable at 60FPS. The final average frame rate was 59.2FPS, which was basically full.

CPU Core

It can also be seen from the CPU core map that when running Asphalt 9, the 8 cores are basically running in a very relaxed state, and the large core occasionally tops out, but not many times.

The vivo NEX 3S has a built-in 4500mAh battery. And vivo FlashCharge 44W ultra-fast flash charging technology, which is consistent with the previous generation vivo NEX 3. In terms of battery life, the performance of the vivo NEX 3S is slightly better than that of the vivo NEX 3. Of course, the latter’s battery life is already excellent enough.

I slightly regret that the vivo NEX 3S has not been upgraded to the 55W super flash charge of iQOO 3. Although 44W is not slow. It always feels a little less. In the charging test. The vivo NEX 3S can be charged to nearly 70% in the first 30 minutes. And takes 56 minutes to charge 100%.

There is no doubt that as a flagship phone, the performance of the vivo NEX 3S need not be worried. After all, dual-mode 5G + Snapdragon 865 + LPDDR5 memory + UFS 3.1. Represents the highest performance level of the current Android camp.

Vivo NEX 3S Cameras

The camera part of the vivo NEX 3S uses a 64M main camera + 13M wide-angle. Macro + 13M portrait (telephoto) triple camera, which is basically the same as the vivo NEX 3.

The main camera of the vivo NEX 3S uses a 64-megapixel large-size sensor (1 / 1.7), followed by a 120 ° ultra-wide-angle camera. This also supports 2.5cm super macro; the portrait lens supports 2x optical zoom and 20x digital zoom telephoto camera.

In terms of function, vivo NEX 3S adds the human eye tracking function, supports Vivo’s proud Hyper-HDR technology. And the overall dynamic range can reach above 12.3EV. In addition, NEX 3S is equipped with Super EIS video stabilization on both the main camera and the ultra-wide-angle camera.

The default output of the vivo NEX 3S is 16 Megapixels. The overall look and feel of the proofs are basically the same as that of the vivo NEX 3. The color style is still familiar to vivo. Light and dark details, even if the 64-megapixel mode is not turned on, the proofs can still be enlarged.

At the wide-angle end, the quality of this 13MP  ultra-wide-angle lens of the vivo NEX 3S is also good. To my surprise, the color performance of the wide-angle end. And the 1x and 2x telephoto proofs are basically the same, and there is no cause. The phenomenon of inconsistent color output caused by switching cameras (as shown below).

The performance of night shooting is also excellent. After turning on the Super Night Scene mode, the details in the dark part are significantly more, and the noise control is better.

Local magnification:

Because of the support of Hyper-HDR technology, in some bright and dark scenes. NEX 3S will also show a relatively good dynamic range performance. After HDR is turned on, the details of the branches and building parts outside the proof wall are significantly more. And the dark parts The overall brightness of the electric car has also been improved. And it still has good details after being enlarged.

In general, the camera performance of the vivo NEX 3S still belongs to the flagship echelon. Whether it is backlighting, night shooting, portrait, ultra-wide-angle can give you a satisfactory performance.

0.6X

1X

2X

10X

However, here I still want to say a few more words. The NEX 3S itself is very good in camera quality and everything is balanced. However, if compared with the flagships of friends and merchants, especially with those fierce stacking materials. And the first launch of a certain technology Compared with the flagships of friends and merchants. The camera of NEX 3S seems to lack such core competitiveness.

NEX 3S

In other words, vivo NEX 3S has not yet achieved “people without me, people with me are superior. If you can move the telephoto lens on the X30 Pro, the vivo NEX 3S will be perfect. After all, in the current smartphone market, bucket photography is not required for mobile phone photography. Consumers are even more looking forward to the fact that the mobile phone of their choice has some core technologies or unique technologies.

Of course, considering that the Vivo NEX 3S is just a regular performance upgrade of the Vivo NEX 3. It is all within the scope of understanding.

On the APEX 2020 concept machine that vivo just released in February this year. Vivo has already proven its strength with only two lenses, so we are looking forward to it. And let vivo shine on the next generation of NEX cameras!

Verdict

If six months ago Vivo NEX 3 Flagship Phone assume vivo 5G vanguard role, then vivo NEX 3S flagship phone is more like a bucket on a 5G experience, more, NEX 3S is an upgrade in terms of performance and experience 5G, Xiao The blessing of Dragon 865, the support of WiFi6, NSA / SA and multi-band 5G network will undoubtedly make the performance of vivo NEX 3S better.

As a 5G flagship, vivo NEX 3S has highlights such as high-value design. And waterfall screen but also has the disadvantages of high refresh rate and lack of dual speakers. If you consider the selling price (from 4998 yuan), compared to the previous generation NEX 3. Obviously the NEX 3S is more sincere. For those who are pursuing the ultimate full-screen experience. And prefer the cool waterfall screen design, NEX 3S is currently the most suitable choice.

With the advent of the 5G era, competition among mobile phone manufacturers is accelerating. The current vivo urgently needs a Snapdragon 865 flagship model to support its high-end market. A NEX 3S is not enough. Will come up with better and more extreme products.

Read Also: Xiaomi Mi 10 Pro Review: Everything That You Need To Know

Vivo NEX 3S Review: Great Cameras, 5G Ultra Speed Vivo officially released the new Vivo NEX 3S 5G flagship phone in Shanghai. This is the second commercial 5G mobile phone following the release of iQOO Pro 5G last year.

[howtomakeagingersnap-blog]

Ready Player One, p.2

I’ve written an essay to expand on my previous blog in order to discuss some of the points that I was unable to in my initial post. I hope you enjoy!  I’ll be including a link to the PDF of the full essay, including a MLA8 bibliography, in my next post, but to prevent any accessibility issues, I’ve posted it below as well. 

Ready Player One was published by Ernest Cline in 2011 amidst the emergence of virtual reality as a new gaming platform. The book was adapted into a movie, with mass commercial success, in later years, and has become a cult favorite amongst gamers and fans of pop culture. Despite it’s success, the book reflects many of the problems inherent in gaming culture and has an extremely problematic protagonist. The book was drastically different from the movie, primarily in it’s depiction of the protagonist, Wade Watts, also known by his online username, Parzival. Ready Player One is set in a dystopian future where climate change, a lack of natural resources, worldwide war, and various other disasters have driven humanity to primarily dwell in an online, virtual reality space known fittingly as the OASIS (Cline, 2).

Created by game developer James Halliday, the OASIS is the heart of this new modern society. Commerce, employment, education, and entertainment are all based in this virtual world (Cline, 21). Users utilize haptic clothing that’s able to translate physical sensation to their real body in order to fully immerse themselves in this VR universe (Cline, 38). Upon Halliday’s death, the release of his will revealed an Easter Egg challenge (Cline, 2), wherein users must discover hidden gems within the OASIS and solve complicated riddles. The first to solve all the riddles and claim the final Easter Egg would claim ownership over the entire OASIS, essentially controlling the economy, education, and entertainment of all of humanity as well as claiming 240 billion dollars that Halliday left behind (Cline, 8).

Naturally, a frenzy to claim this fortune ensued, with millions of self described “gunters” (egg-hunters) searching for the elusive Easter Egg. One corporation, IOI, dedicated an entire department to the Hunt, with the goal of claiming the OASIS and creating an ultra-capitalistic online society. “They would charge a monthly fee for access to the simulation. They would plaster advertisements on every visible surface. User anonymity and free speech would become things of the past. […] the OASIS would cease to be the open-source virtual utopia [Wade had] grown up in. It would become a corporate-run dystopia, an overpriced theme park for wealthy elites” (Cline, 50). Employees of IOI become known as Sixers, due to the fact that each of their avatar names begins with a 6 (Cline, 51). Wade holds a particular disdain towards these individuals, believing that the corporation they work for is corrupt, even going so far as to describe “joining the sixers […] a lot like joining the military” (Cline, 51).

Wade’s quest to save the OASIS from the clutches of IOI is one of epic proportion, which is reflected in his choice of username- Parzival. Parzival stems from the Arthurian legend of the Holy Grail, wherein one of King Arthur’s round table knights, Percival, is the only knight pure of heart enough to claim the Grail for Arthur. This speaks volumes about Wade’s perception of himself. In reality, Wade is far from noble or pure of heart, and is the last individual one might consider to be chivalrous. In the real world, Wade is “a painfully shy, awkward kid, with low self-esteem and almost no social skills” (Cline 45). Face to face interaction makes him an anxious mess, and he has no confidence in his ability to hold a conversation with another person in reality.

His appearance, he believes, is a primary source of the problem. He is overweight, partially due to his working class origin and “bankrupt diet of government subsidized sugar-and-starch-laden food” (Cline 46), but primarily due to the fact that he is a self-described OASIS addict, “so the only exercise [he] usually got […] was from running away from bullies” (Cline 46). Once Wade enrolled in OASIS based schooling, even that bit of exercise was taken from him, and the only physical activity he is able to get is from going to and from the hideout where he keeps his VR equipment. Wade believes that his financial position contributes to his social ostracization as well, with his “limited wardrobe consisted entirely of ill-fitting clothes from thrift stores and donation bins- the social equivalent of having a bulls-eye painted on [his] forehead” (Cline 46).

In all actuality, the majority of Wade’s social issues stem from a need to overcompensate for his insecurities, which is evident by his constant need to one-up his peers with his 80’s knowledge and gaming skills. That knowledge and skill set are Wade’s sole redeeming attributes, but he tends to shove them in the faces of his peers, which ultimately just further contributes to his ostracization. In his interactions with his friend Aech and bully I-r0k, he repeatedly feels the need to show off and call others who choose to spend their time following other, non-Hunt related pursuits posers (Cline, 67). He invalidates anyone he feels threatened by, and even seems to flip the script on his bullies by taking things too far and humiliating them publicly in front of their friends and peers, even questioning their intelligence and posing questions that he knows full well that only he knows the answer to (Cline, 68).

When Wade defeats I-r0k in their informal trivia competition, the “crowd burst into applause”- a common trope in falsified stories told by individuals on social media seeking praise from their peers. It seems inevitable that an individual with these behavioral patterns would be excluded by their peers, considering that Wade’s hubris and holier-than-thou attitude are generally considered to be character flaws by the majority of people. His self-perception is simultaneously that of an inflated ego and insecure child, which can be seen in how he designs his avatar.

Despite stating that he designed his “avatar’s face and body to look, more or less, like [his] own,” (Cline 41) Wade also states that his avatar “had a slightly smaller nose than [him], and he was taller. And thinner. And more muscular. And he didn’t have any teenage acne. But aside from those minor details, [they] looked more or less identical” (Cline 41). The changes Wade describes, if made in reality, would require extensive plastic surgery, weight loss programs, an extensive and consistent workout plan, and either medication or laser treatment. Those are not minor details. Those are the sort of modifications that drastically change one’s appearance- a full make-over, more extensive even than most movie makeovers. Wade’s perception of himself is so distorted that he considers these modifications to be inconsequential, while in reality, they would likely make him unrecognizable to any of his peers that he may run into in reality.

Wade is a problematic protagonist. Examining Ready Player One as a reflection of the under-addressed culture of sexism, ego, and toxic competitivity in gaming and nerd culture as a whole reveals disturbing conclusions about that world. Wade’s relationship with Art3mis, for example, is genuinely terrifying to female readers, as it reflects many of their own toxic experiences with male gamers in a glorified, normalized and romanticized light. Wade has a longstanding history of putting women up on pedestals and assigning almost mythic qualities to them in a way that’s dehumanizing and invalidating as well as toxically unrealistic.

In real life, he doesn’t even consider himself worthy of speaking to a woman. To him, “they were like some exotic alien species, both beautiful and terrifying. Whenever [he] got near one of them, [he] invariably broke out in a cold sweat and lost the ability to speak in complete sentences” (Cline 46). This is an extremely toxic and dangerous way of thinking, and is unfortunately common in modern society. Women are constantly held to unrealistic standards, portrayed almost as a form of deity right up until the moment that they no longer fit the description assigned to them, at which point the illusion shatters and they’re often rejected. In his interactions with Art3mis, this toxic ideal is reflected constantly in his descriptions of her appearance, personality, and their dialogue.

Before meeting Art3mis, Wade had stalked her blog for over three years, rabidly consuming every bit of content that she had posted. He became the worst kind of fanboy, even going so far as to obsessively save every single screenshot she posted of her avatar to his hard drive, most likely for masturbatory purposes (Cline 53). This behavior alone is a major red flag. He describes her avatar’s appearance in a manner that indicates a distinct disconnect from reality, idolizing Art3mis’s attractiveness because it “had the distinctive look of a real person’s, as if her true features had been scanned in and mapped onto her avatar” (Cline 53). She was beautiful, but she wasn’t perfect in the unnatural manner that many other OASIS avatars are, which means that she’s less threatening to Wade.

Wade is clearly intimidated by beauty, most likely due to his own insecurities, and Art3mis’s realistic (by Wade’s standards, and it’s important to remember here that his interactions with women in reality are limited) look is able to allow him to feel attracted to her without feeling like she’s better than him, which satisfies his inferiority complex. Wade describes her body as atypical as well, noting that the majority of female avatars choose from one of two body shapes- “the absurdly thin yet wildly popular supermodel frame, or the top-heavy, wasp wasted porn starlet physique” (Cline 54). The fact that he relates both of these body types to industries where women are exploited for and reduced to their physical appearance is telling to Wade’s view of women.

His description of Art3mis, however, still describes an unrealistic beauty standard. “Big hazel eyes, rounded cheekbones, a pointy chin, and a perpetual smirk. […] Art3mis’s frame was short and Ruben-esque. All curves” (Cline 53-54). When describing her armor, he uses sexual imagery to evoke a sensual mental picture of her, describing the pistols as “slung low on her hips” (Cline 137), and her melee weapon as a “long, curved elvish sword” (Cline 137-138), even reducing her entire image to “in a word: hot” (Cline 138). Later, when considering facing her in combat, he merely describes this as he would any male gamer’s armor- “Body armor. Body pistols. And that elvish sword she was carrying might be vorpal” (Cline 140), in distinct contrast to his initial description, which confirms that he was viewing her as a woman first and a gamer second, which invalidates her entire character.

Art3mis as a character exists solely to reinforce Wade’s ego and to be the secondary “prize” to winning the Hunt, as the protagonist inevitably gets the girl of his dreams after successfully claiming the final Egg. Wade repeatedly describes her writing style as self-deprecating, rambling, and assumes that her posts are full of misinformation, despite never mentioning any evidence to support that (Cline 53). It’s necessary for Art3mis to be self-deprecating, because this ensures that she lacks the confidence to be any real threat to Wade’s success. Her rambling, mentioned repeatedly in almost every description and interaction with her, is a reflection of the stereotype that women talk too much and makes her socially awkward enough to be Wade’s peer. It allows her to maintain her celebrity status while still being accessible to someone as socially incompetent as Wade, which is vital to their romance. Wade needs a Player Two, not a Player One, and Art3mis’s personality is a convenient way to ensure her role as his secondary once their relationship develops. This is a deliberate authorial choice, intentionally made to allow for the protagonist to “get the girl” at the end, despite him stalking her online for three years before they even met.

Known today as “stan culture”, stan is a shortened abbreviation of the term “stalker-fan”. It originated in 2000 when the rapper Eminem released a song entitled “Stan”, about a fan who becomes alarmingly obsessed with the rapper and eventually comes unhinged and violent when his fan letters went unanswered, according to Lauren Miller in her article about the psychology of stan culture (Miller, 2018). Kaitlyn Williams, a graduate of Stanford University, in an award-winning essay detailing videogame harassment towards female gamers, details some of the horrific experiences some female gamers commonly have. In the world of gaming, female gamers are frequently stalked online and harassed, even receiving multitudes of messages threatening murder, rape, and violence, among other threats and abusive comments (Williams, 72).

Wade’s obsession would most likely be alarming, in Art3mis’ eyes, even frightening. Her behavior is unrealistic and indulgent to the author’s own fantasies, and her lack of reaction to the multitude of red-flag behaviors Wade displays in her presence is telling to the Cline’s own lack of understanding of women and female gamers in particular. In addition, the invalidating nature of the author’s description of her skills speaks volumes to both Wade’s and his own inferiority complexes. In the Tomb of Horrors, where the first challenge of the Hunt takes place, Art3mis is unable to defeat the enemy after five weeks of grinding, yet Wade manages to succeed on his first try. In everything Art3mis does, she’s the best of the best, but always seems to come second to Wade, despite his own apparent lack of skills (Cline 149). This is because of her function as Wade’s Player Two. She has to be the best, so that his skills look that much more impressive when compared to hers.

Ready Player One is a cultural classic, one which predicts the advancement of virtual reality technology and the downfall of human civilization with startling clarity, but it is also reflective of many of the problems currently facing the industry. Rampant sexism, egos reinforced by valueless skills, and unrealistic views of others are all issues that the gaming industry is currently experiencing. The author, Ernest Cline, is far from exempt from these issues, and the evidence is clear in his depictions of his characters and online romance. Cline himself is a victim of that disconnect from reality that Wade experiences, and much of the book seems like a self-indulgent fantasy meant to fulfill a savior complex. The sense of entitlement that Wade feels for Halliday’s fortune likely reflects Cline’s own sense of entitlement to recognition and fame. Wade’s relationship with Art3mis is unbalanced, toxic, and dangerous, yet he still manages to win her over in the end, because she’s his Player Two. As virtual reality continues to develop and gaming becomes increasingly popular, many of these issues are coming to light in the media, with massive controversy as to how they should be handled. Moving forward, it is important to consider these implications while developing new games and platforms.

[the-quitter]

Notes - 3

I’ve been inconsistent with my notes titles.

Don’t worry, I fixed it.

Just had a brainstorm. The reason I haven’t tagged this NSFW is because this is an aspect of nature. And I’m not making a joke out of it, or making it an explicit thing, I’m discussing it the same way one would if they were talking about flowers, or animals.

I mean I personally don’t think the discussion of genitals and sex should be censored. It should be treated like a biologic discussion, because it is a part of biology, and a natural cycle of life. And even as a kid, you’d see animals, and bugs, and even plants reproducing. Nature is this way. So don’t lynch me for talking about it? 

Instead I invite you to think and share about your ideas on this as well.

Now since the day I learned about aliens, and watched alien movies, I’ve of course also read fan-fictions and seen fanart. And listen, I’m not going to lie, but those works were definitely nsfw. I looked at fantasy and made-up creatures as well, and was a bit disappointed at the variety. Now problem is, even when I think about it now, most sexual intercourse requires a sword and a hilt. In rare cases there are spores, but that’s about the extent of my knowledge. My point is that there’s no real diversity when it comes to genitalia. I have only looked at the flea, when it comes to insect genitals, but otherwise, it seems sex organs are relatively... boring. It just involves an inserting apparatus and a hole.

It feels so weird to call the reproductive organs boring, is it just me?

Sex, or the act of sex, is quite different. Now when I say sex, I mean interaction between two (or more!) sexes in order to produce offspring. So I’m ruling out self-replicators because, well. That’s not really sex? I mean you just split in half. And most of the time large complex organisms can’t preform such a feat! In fact, I can’t think of a single intellectual specie to do it.

I suppose one could argue that earthworms are... intellectual. But to which I will look deep into your eyes, stare for a good solid minute, and say, ‘are they really tho?’

Now of course if there’s a specie that does do this and is a bit closer to the snake than the earthworm, please let me know. I like learning, but not researching (only slightly joking).

Now I generally dislike the penis gifted female, because I’ve only seen it in pornography, and feel... Just not good. For some reason it feels like they’re being demeaned, but perhaps I’m the real villain for saying that I don’t like looking at such materials. There’s a whole issue in there I’d love to expand on, but let’s steer back to sex.

Now the reason I brought up the girl-boy, is because I’m thinking about how fertile or virile the associated parts would be. And if I were to make-up a specie where this is one gender, the other being essentially sex-less, would it be possible for ‘same’ sex partners to reproduce? And I suppose both yes and no answers would make sense.

However I want to make it so that the other sex is important as well. I mean if one can reproduce without the other then there’s probably going to be a massive imbalance.

Actually, let me think this through...

The way I see it is this, sex is a pleasurable experience, and if the specie is as intelligent as the human, it would rather enjoy lustful activities without the risk of pregnancy. This means that if same sex partners have intercourse, and it feels good, AND their organs don’t flower, then homosexuality would be extremely common with almost no complaints. Now what this means for the opposite sex is well... actually I don’t know... They’d most likely be homeless or left alone, I mean they’d be treated like an entirely different species.

However. IF same sex reproduction is possible... then I suppose they’d at least be more included... Or more like there’s no real reason to exclude them.

Hmm..

While I was typing it out, I was thinking a lot more about the species, and I think it should be a poly-amorous thing. With the homosexual intercourse being pleasure-less and sterile, but the poly sex (which includes two, or more, from the same sex and one, or more, form the opposite) being fertile and extremely pleasurable. Having a litter is more common, and the girl-boy gender is more common than the gender-less counterpart.

I made a character long time ago, she was supposed to be a popular singer with an entourage of backup singers, who also doubled as her servants and of course rumored to also be her lovers. She can be the gender-less (I shall dub it g- to make it easier), and her servants can be the g+ (you’re a smart child, figure it out).

oh wow, I can already imagine the society that emerges from this arrangement.

The g+ will be treated like rats and stereotyped to be sex-crazed animals, controlled by their urges, while the g- are the high class, society approved cool cats. Their apparel will be mostly decorative, but sparse. They probably value jewels more, including piercings and perhaps body art as well. Not tatoos, but something similar to henna, but more temporary, and more comfortable than paint. 

In fact, lets do this, the g+ have very durable bodies, and the g- will be armed to the nines. Teeth claws and heightened senses.

Abuse towards g+ is common and forgettable, the reverse is a crime punishable by only death. The earliest societies operated like a lion’s pride, with the g- leading a group of (often pregnant) g+.

The g- have actually been evolved down because of years of laziness and lack of threats and more comforts. Unlike the human species, they have been around much longer on their own planet. They did evolve intellectually, but have done so at an odd pace.

The g+ used to be the original inventors and creators, spending so much time trying to stay alive through litter-birth. But as the years went on the g- have been improving on these basic structures and ideas. Like using bricks to build a castle.

As years went on the g- began to warm up to the idea of merging prides, and having more than one g- as the ‘highness’. As opposed to before, when g- fought to the death to claim another highness’s entire pride.

I should clear up a small detail, while the (I’ll call it this for simplicity) g species were mainly herbivores, g- hunted solo for bigger game to feed themselves and almost never needed sleep. There are instances of cannibalism, but it’s treated like a rude gesture than a full on crime. G+ are known to be especially delicious when it’s simulated to it’s limit at the time of it’s death.

the g- have a specific gland that helps ‘activate’ the g+ genitalia, including heightening it’s sensory touch and gives the g+ a sense of high.

It is during the human equivalent of the middle ages, the g species changed the way their society worked. The ruling class and the working class was separated. And the g- were taken from all the litters. During this time the population of the g species took a huge hit, because of the separation of the g- and g+, but no one cared because their numbers were quite large.

Perhaps a century of this falling and separation before one ‘pride’ or more accurately a kingdom, took up traveling, and spread history and knowledge, attempting to seal the gap between g- and g+. But the highness was killed along with their strongest g- supporters.

This led to a new dark age, where killing and cannibalism (g- be >:c   ---> the g+) was done freely for a little under a year, before peace was finally achieved when the g+ gave up on their rights, and settled with procreating instead. It was from here that the stereotype emerged, and the population went up again. The g species slowly recovered and got a boost in innovation. How complex their technology is compared to our own... is well... a little above (not by much). But the population is booming like crazy.

Crime is prevalent, mostly between g+, while g- are quickly pushed up social ladders whenever they’re noticed.

Gangs and syndicates run everything.

Actually plan on making her chubbier. Maybe redesigning the breasts... it’s easier if things are airborne. Now whether it comes out of the breasts or out of her skin, like sweat... hm... the real question is if g+ gives birth, why would a g- need breasts? In other renditions that I made of her, Velei (We-lie) has no breasts, and is in fact flat chested. But I like the chest, so perhaps instead of breasts she just has a large swell in the chest, and a bit of a stomach sticking out. Along with thunder thighs and small amounts of flab on her arms.

She’ll still be attractive looking I bet. She’s got wings and a fluffy fat tail after all.

She is made fun of because she cannot fly, and compared to her race, she is quite heavy. Really heavy.

[thelatenightsession]

There’s been a few covers for Sid Meier’s Pirates! – this one from the C64 version. (Source: mobygames.com)

With games such as Sea of Thieves and Skull and Bones making pirates new and interesting again while not relying on Jack Sparrow to save them, it’s easy to forget that there’s a long history of great pirate games over the years. The Monkey Island series were stand out examples and there’s another which made living the pirate life something of an addictive experience.

Sid Meier’s Pirates! was first released by Microprose on the Commodore 64 in 1987 and tasked players with seeking fame and fortune in the Caribbean as a pirate or privateer during the 16th to 18th centuries. These options would tailor parts of the game in relation to the politics of the region and the ships you’d encounter. That the game was willing to cover such an extended period of history was a good early sign that the experience ahead of you was not going to cut any corners.

Pirates! presents the player with an open world to explore any way they see fit. Starting with a small ship you can travel the ocean, stopping at ports, chase down other pirates and of course search for buried treasure. For a game involving pirates and ocean battles and all sorts of skullduggery it’s a surprisingly chilled out experience in action as there’s little pressure involved in how you play. Time passes as you go and through successes and failures you’ll eventually retire and be graded for your adventures.

Avoiding capture and jail will help you a lot in stretching out your pirating career but initially it’ll be a familiar ending to you. I think a few of my early attempts resulted in me spending more time imprisoned than running a ship but the game always went out of its way to get you back on the ocean quickly so it was entirely my own fault and lack of skill that put me in that situation. The way the game handles failure contributes nicely towards keeping you in the game and not immediately restarting as capture and jail doesn’t necessarily mean game over, just a few less years until retirement.

The game would go to multiple platforms including the PC, Atari ST, Amiga and NES and would later receive a PC re-release (Pirates! Gold) in 1993 which was full of visual enhancements. It was another tens years before the game returned in 2004 with a reboot for PC, Xbox, Wii and later mobile where it went fully polygonal with an art style that I think perfectly fit the jovial and chilled style of the game.

My first exposure to Pirates! was through the Commodore 64 version – not at release but later when emulators first began to gain popularity in the early 90’s. Finally being able to play games that myself or my friends had heard of but never seen for real was compelling and helped start me down the track of being a retro gaming fan. Apart from Impossible Mission, I spent most of my early C64 emulation time playing Pirates!. When I finally became a PC owner I soon picked up Pirates! Gold but my addiction really hit its peak with the 2004 version (now developed by Meier and his new team at Firaxis) which could run on just about anything and only needed the keyboard to play.

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Much like Sid Meier’s Civilization, the game banked heavily on the name of developer/creator Sid Meier and was actually the first of his games to do so. It made a lot of sense at the time as Meier had already a massively successful back catalogue of titles in the simulation genre that earned him a lot of fans – I know I had my fair share of entertainment from playing games like Solo Flight, Silent Service and later F19 Stealth Fighter. Pirates! was nothing like past Microprose games but if Sid Meier was behind it, it had to be something special. It’s worth checking out the below video from IGN to get some additional insight on the game from the man himself.

It’s been more than a decade since we’ve last had a new version of Sid Meier’s Pirates! (excluding mobile ports of thea2004 game) and I think that is almost a wasted opportunity. The concepts behind it are now thirty years old but it’s still a fresh and addictive experience that could show newer titles a thing or two about making games fun. 🙂

Greatest Games is a feature where we highlight our favourite games from the past and try to explain what we think makes them great and worth searching out to play again. If you’ve got your own thoughts on the subject, please feel free to share them in the comments below.

Greatest Games: Sid Meier’s Pirates! With games such as Sea of Thieves and Skull and Bones making pirates new and interesting again while not relying on Jack Sparrow to save them, it's easy to forget that there's a long history of great pirate games over the years.