#you're making me have a sort of paradigm shift

[tonycries]

drunk reader sucking on getos adams apple while he's asleep🥴🥴🥴

[aesethewitch]

I'm sorry for bothering you..again

Since you can't make the spell maybe you can Astral project to Toyoko Mew Mew's HQ and ask the person who turned people into magical girls?

Idk if you don't wanna do it can you just tell me how to make spells that actually work?

Hi again!

I don't really do astral projection in general. I can, but it's not my strong suit. It's certainly not something I would do on someone else's behalf. Projecting to a "real version" of a fictional universe is impossible. You could perhaps build a version of a fictional universe within your astral realm, or visit someone else's construction of a fictional universe, but it wouldn't be The Real Thing.

You're extremely unlikely to become an "actual" magical girl. Witchcraft can't make something that's physically, materially impossible come to pass. It can have incredible results, of course (why else would we practice it, right?), but those magical transformations and sparkles aren't real. It isn't possible, unfortunately -- it'd be so fucking cool if it was. I'd be all over that.

Working in a pop culture magic context is a valid way to do magic, though! If you have a passion for magical girls, I really would strongly recommend doing a search here on Tumblr for magical girl pop culture witchcraft, magic, and paganism. It's an incredibly interesting way to do magic! (You might find instructions for altering your Astral Self to be more like your ideal of a magical girl -- which would be the closest you'd get to the Real Deal. Just be wary of "shifting" type blogs.)

As for making spells that actually work, my advice would be to find a system that works for you. In the kindest way possible, I cannot do your research and learning for you. Magic and witchcraft are learned skills that you've got to develop for yourself. My paradigm (the framework through which I view the metaphysical world and perform magic workings) won't necessarily work for you.

First step is to figure out your best source for magic. For some folks, magic comes from within themselves. For others, it's a gift from their deities or spirits. For others, it comes from nature. For still others, it comes from the astral plane. The key is to figure out what's best and easiest for you to "hold on" to make the changes you're wanting to make. Give it a good, solid think. Try some stuff, see what works best.

For me personally, I find the best results in directly manipulating the metaphysical, energetic ties that exist between all things. These "strings" tie Thing One to Thing Two. After years of practice, I'm able to reliably tug on these strings to create change.

Try things out. Borrow spells from blogs and websites and books. Dabble. Test different ingredients. If a jar spell didn't work, what if you burned the ingredients instead? Or what if you dressed a candle? Or made a meal with the same/similar ingredients? So on and so forth. I have a post I wrote awhile ago about making substitutions and changes in spells that illustrates the point more thoroughly (which you can read here, if you like).

As I said, I can't do your learning for you. There are witchcraft 101 posts, books, podcasts, and other sources all over the place. Browse the beginner witchcraft tag, for example -- you'll find all sorts of basic guides from all sorts of viewpoints. Check out the astral projection tag or search for beginner astral projection tips.

If you like podcasts, @/breelandwalker's podcast Hex Positive is really solid for beginners. On YouTube, the Witch of Wonderlust, HearthWitch, the Green Witch, and the Norse Witch are also pretty solid creators whose work I've enjoyed. Books... I cannot recommend, since I honestly don't read a lot of witchcraft books (alas!).

It's up to you to find the things that are going to work for you. I'm happy to give tips, answer questions, and offer my perspective, but it isn't a substitute for doing the actual work for yourself. I do wish you luck!

[illogarithmil]

I'm presently writing* a short Mage: the Ascension adventure for the TTRPG JAMuary jam on Itch, so MtAs is very in my brain at the moment. And it's remarkably how much stuff just in the world feels like it comes straight from Mage:

Walking the dog around a nearby posh private estate absolutely gives an impression of what moving through a different Reality Zone should feel like. Even though it's not really a gated community and none of the people are unfriendly per se, you get a sense of full-body unwelcomeness that just seems to permeate the environment. You can feel that really basic things like interacting with neighbours and moving between estate and non-estate spaces Work Differently Here. I get this with the distinction between the university town and normal town bits of my uni city, too.

There's presently an elaborately set-up stack of three books and a pen which hold my laptop charger in the one specific position where it will keep my laptop alive. There is no obvious reason why it only works in that position. The position changes every 2-6 hours and I have to readjust the books. This is a capital-T Technology which interacts with not-obviously-related objects to produce an effect largely confusing to everyone around me; most obviously, it feels like an Etherite thing, but you could extrapolate out to say that this is sort of what all mages do. It makes sense from their very specific perspective and appears like random, useless chaos and clutter to basically everybody else. (Oh look, the position needs changing again.)

Starting drinking coffee has really adjusted my perspective on how adjusting your perspective (with mind-altering substances or anything else) could be a magickal practice. It doesn't have to be as obvious and direct as 'trip on shrooms until you hallucinate a dragon; now there's a dragon!'** Rather, different perception of the world, greater clarity or somethingity of thought (depending on method), allow you to interact with it from wholly different angles. In a subtle fashion, they shift the entire pattern of life over a course of days so that new things become possible, new avenues that you literally couldn't see or imagine before. Make that magickal: now you can find the alleyways-between-alleyways because your Awakened LSD is (from your perspective) letting you look at angles sideways for the first time... if you see what I mean, there aren't really good words in the English language for this. And then if you want to go super vulgar, apply that more directly - it's not that you're just hallucinating a dragon into existence, it's that you're giving yourself the spike of vision, of possibility, needed to see and talk to the dragon that was always there in a space which is much more accessible than it normally seems and convince it to give you a hand.

I love finding the magic(k)al in the mundane.

*Attempting to write, I'm mainly working on it in the breaks between dissertation work so whether it'll get done... ** Nowt wrong with perception=reality as an element of paradigm of course, but it does tend to prove the point of the MtAw fans who insist that all MtAs mages are basically just solipsists. I've definitely played that character, but it's always good to underline that there can be others within the vaguely Ecstatic-y mind-alteration space

[idiosyncreant]

The Conditions of Creating

When I was finishing my degree a few years ago with my mother's 3rd-stage cancer weighing me down, and an unidentified but crippling burnout, I had some incredible conversations with my capstone advising professor who is an active visual artist as well as fantastic gender studies scholar (https://www.instagram.com/sarahstefanasmith/) on both productivity and rest in creation.

One thing she said that stuck with me and that I repeat the most to others (which probably drew on someone else's work, I wish I remembered more clearly)

was: you have to set up the conditions of creating.

Part of the practice of art is the mundane things to make it possible. If you spend your designated writing time clearing your desk so you can write later, that is still part of the writing practice.

It also goes for the more internal parts.

After losing both my parents last year, there were times I wondered if I was going to not be a writer anymore. This was both a preposterous idea to entertain, and a gage of how unmoored I felt from my life. The work that I did to set up the conditions of creating again from there were more patchy, intuitive.

Getting back into reading, even if that was mostly romance novels that felt like candy. Relistening to Murderbot Diaries books forty times. Logging into the writers forum I'd been absent from for years, even if it felt like I was disconnected from that community.

I learned that the burnout was autistic in flavor, and learned from other late-identified folks about masking and self-regulating and went to meet-ups for ND people at my bookselling industry events. It didn't always feel like this was leading to something reparative but...

A little over a year after finishing my last manuscript, I've started the next one. It's flowing. It's exciting. And:

It has NOT been a good year for me to get stuff done, if we're just talking about externals. We had a house fire and had to move, and had no furniture for two months. Instead, I went when I had the free time to the library to write for a bit. Lately, that's been between loads of laundry at the laundromat a block away.

I've had a health issue that's made it more important for me to take rest seriously.

But one of the key things I've taken away from this is actually about that setting-up part, and releasing the guilt of not being at the creating part YET.

It's OK for my writing time to be more scattershot. And it's OK if some days instead of writing, I have to just rest.

That's still making the conditions of creating, within my context now. This is a paradigm shift, allowing the restrictions I'm dealing with be something I take into account as part of my process.

I felt prompted to talk about this for a few reasons, some prompted by posts on my dash, some more global. But mainly because I want to note out loud that I've made some serious progress in terms of learning how to live as an artist, in the last few years, in my late 30s.

I thought I knew how I worked as a creator, but then things changed. And I had some good input at a crucial time about how to think about creating and setting myself up to be able to do that work.

If you're stuck as an artist, can you identify one thing that feels like the obstacle, to start? And brainstorm how to get around it without being unrealistically harsh with yourself?

It might be you need to let yourself "goof off" in some way first, or it might be sorting your art materials, or it might be something you can only stumble on after a weird fugue-state task that feels unrelated. And also, sometimes the conditions of creating involve time to heal and rest.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

always hold in my heart the one hero in some post Comment who was like yeah i've had orgasms but i don't like or enjoy them, makes me feel worse than if i hadn't had one. like paradigm shifting icon when that is the Onlyyyy info i've seen where, you know, spoilers for Everything about "so getting one off / orgasms doesn't go Normal for you already?" is like well okay so sounds like you'd want a Guide To Success (Achieve Normal) right, & it's uhh well just try many different things & go with what seems to be working. but Don't Stress It you're probably ruining it with all your stressing it. & then uhh never give up. try again. & then you'll know it when you have an orgasm about it, beautiful times. like yeah sure but again there's this hero that is like yeah for me i "succeed" already by Reaching Orgasm as that goal proffered every time & they're shit to me actually. & like again only this One time i've seen such a testimonial which feels just like how i've only ever found One article about "how's sex go as an Autistic Experience" that's, yknow, people talking about how sex goes for them as an autistic experience & not any posts or papers pathologizing autistic people & their inevitably Non Normative sexuality. or how like random online user to online user / second or third hand Yeah I've Seen/Heard Tell testimonials can have like any of even vague basic info about like trans experiences & stats....the lively sex ed type info too that's like oh i've only heard of this via like a pdf or online zine from resources that are being more Descriptive than Prescriptive like well this would be the ideal / norm, while yknow of course encompassing Variation & info abt what Varies along w/them

which also, thinking about the informal sort of idea of the phenomenon of like ah the asexually authored porn, hell yeah....which yknow well yeah like with other forms of queerness like a Non Normative perspective on / relationship w/sexuality? why wouldn't that contribute to material abt sex being fresh & vivacious for its Unexpectedness in this difference from The Norm. & being less contained, like, well outside the Normative you will find only: absolutely everything ever, so that's helpful. like certainly for me if i'm Making Material sex doesn't really have to do with romance much less hinge on it, & neither does anything else, & while that doesn't at all preclude like oh is this about A Dynamic (like it Becomes about one if it's people having sex, certainly. & yes, usually) does it involve Affection or any Emotional Intimacy. meanwhile also like yeah at any given point it's like & this isn't necessarily about "how does this fit into / relate to The Road To Orgasm" versus the Immediate experience in & of itself regardless of if it's like but if ppl might not nut from this isn't it a waste of time, now back to speedrunning? for one thing even if it was, not a disaster, whoa since when can there be errors in the trials....meanwhile i doubt any which ways i'm like "& this is some moment of emotional intimacy / affection yeah" involves like external or even internal cues that they "should," nobody's about to be like Eye Contact Neow, don't know that i've ever said like someone Felt Love, maybe fondness if we're going wild. meanwhile writing someone getting themself off, that too is a sex scene. meanwhile was even a shakeup in a recent wip like well have this person's reaction to their own arousal be physically expressed with the Nads, i sure do deliberately go with the sense of overstimulation & resultant stimming that isn't just the "normal" kinds during sex, while also like, see above, letting people operate Outside [this is Normal kinds of good overstimulation to me] like, dialing it back, enjoying something that is of a Sexual Interaction that may not seem like the key to, or having any expectation at all of this or anything leading to, orgasm

honorable mention about the wins of being Non Normative with it, always been an endorsement really when seeing the odd post about So Reading Erotica, Right, & like one on twitter back in the day like "how about the word 'cock'" & someone's qrt like eww noo Cock is so reminiscent of Your Trashy Déclassé Porn vs My Genteel Tasteful Erotica. or "so how about 'cum' or do you 'come'" & someone like eww noo Cum is so reminiscent of Your Trashy Déclassé Sex vs My Genteel Tasteful Passionate Entwining or whatever like fascinating indicators there about how you describe the Beneath You sexual situations in which people cum rather than come. i.e. taking out my notepad like gotcha writing "COCK ✓" and "CUM ✓" like good to know, not even difficult like it is with a bunch of other Terms where it's like ehh the problem isn't this isn't Too Sexual to be Genteel it's that it's like not sexual enough lol like you're caught between more casual terms that are kind of unserious B/c there's any association with sex like the secret body parts, or else like yeah kind of talking around something or using some more generic terms (which, see: perspex of transness sometimes) is there for you but coordinating on more delicate(tm) terms can be like, eh. like, a difference in not using hypothetical existent Specific Terms & being more descriptive & specific in that way instead, vs using a different Specific Term that's supposed to be euphemistic. although as a fun bonus the reason i find some available terms gross isn't b/c like oh this conjures an unromantic lustful hookups rather than emotionally Earned beautiful dignified intercourse, but b/c i don't like the word Phonetically. like it is Unprosodous. grating to hear & i don't wanna even write it thus mentally hear it. some that are kinda in a middle zone & i might tolerate if need be / on special occasions but casual colloquialisms & a knack for like hey that sounds horrible. like look it's better than e.g. "infodump" not b/c of the phonetics but b/c yknow nobody needs the pathologization but it pains me to see [yap] anything but Rarely. yak is just fine. asmr ads are painful, faux asmr evocation for jokes is just fine. me being pained b/c [misophonia] is then not set off by people trying to double down on it by exaggerating what they think bothers me b/c it then doesn't sound the same. anyway

speaking of tangents, i did just punt this into the drafts but then i read a Love Poem(tm) that was like alright but i was like eugh & then remembered the No Love but perhaps cock cum cunt posting like well we could always use some more of that. & it's also humorous to me like no surprise the audhd nature of My Mind applies to cranking it & my body just not doing orgasms & the thing is i do not care b/c like why would i. The Horrors like you get one doubloon But you have no sex drive, do you take the deal? like well it wouldn't matter to you then if perhaps you didn't want to have sex b/c, you see, you wouldn't want to have sex....but it's also classic like so if/when i'm bothering to get off in a fashion like well it inevitably gets to the "well anyway back to speedrunning" within like one or perhaps a dedicated five minutes or smthing & probably just via fizzling out b/c my body also just doesn't like build up or retain Stimulation really at all but also the way i can absolutely on a dime be like "oh wait hey i'm on a mental tangent all at once" & whatever there was is dropped like a rock like from whatever probably low levels to immediate zero lol, of course like the parallels to mentally dropping prior threads that aren't particularly linked w/Physical Sensations like what was i Just thinking about 5 sec ago / in the process of following up on before i had this "hey wait, another thought" tangent? who knows, unless you can backtrack. & i'm probably not gonna bother backtracking for Eh [So So hand gesture] jorking it such as it were, b/c like well that's what it generally is & even in unusually "successful" instances it's like, that was like kicking it up a notch for < half a minute or something, & it won't have been b/c of like ah the idea of normative sex/uality Saves The Day. & nothing needs saving b/c it's like yeah that's fine. "at best" like unusual relative mental flow about things it's still simply kicked up that notch or two for a minute or two if even & that is fine. like with the other sort of mental patterns i do not know if uppers would be like whoa more "normal" focus & flow? but i don't need to know like Not Relevant & that it is what it already is is fine. just like with the "yeah i get orgasms & i don't like to" icon, the paradigm is not "oh nooo how to get more Normative or bust (CUM)" so c'est la se quoi....& now back to speedrunning

[thesiat]

I'm sort of the opposite, though it really depends. I love fairy tale style magic, that is very much operating on known Rules but follows its own separate logic and is still treated by the narrative as inscrutible and mystic.

I also love magic that fully answers 'well if people can do magic why wouldn't they use it for [mundane thing]?' too. For example when presented with the idea that people can use magic to transform themselves, my first question as a trans person is 'well then what's it like to be trans in this world? what's the body mod and plastic surgery community like? what are beauty and gender standards then?' etc. Very sort of Terry Pratchett, Take-it-to-its-logical-conclusion type stuff. While I don't like the magic being fully explained like its physics or science, I do like when the connotations of the magic existing are fully thought through, particularly in the case of things that could and should be used to make queer and disabled lives easier, or that would cause a huge paradigm shift in how these lives are valued or seen or not seen or whatever. It's not about 'people use it to do dishes and it's never explored what this MEANS' it's about exploring what it means for dishes to be that much easier! That's a labour-saving device! That would revolutionise everyone's whole goddamn life!

For me, there's no point in a setting being fantastical if there's no magic--for example game of thrones, or lord of the rings, have limited interest for me, since magic isn't really done there, and particularly in lotr it's more like biblical miracles than magic magic.

D&D is fun because of all the details to dig into--I really like to know how the presence of monsters or magic would butterfly effect out into wild differences between the fantasy world and this one. This is a thing urban fantasy/horror really struggles with, especially when it comes to how the fantastical or magical would affect marginalised lives in ways that might be interesting to explore in fiction. Again there's that 'well this exists but we're not going to explore all the things its existence would change, or what that would mean to multiple viewpoints of person' making it boring.

I think that, overall, I prefer my magic to be more of a fairytale tone--something like magic is in 10th Kingdom, where magic certainly exists in the everyday, and has absolutely mundane consequences (a great deal of the plot in 10th kingdom is spent chasing after a magic mirror that keeps getting sold, traded, given away as the valuable-but-mundane antique that it is; there are also various interactions with wishes and curses that explore practical absurdities of living alongside these wondrous effects), but is not explained. People know how it "works" in a purely practical sense, not in a mechanical sense. The golden fish that gives you the midas touch will give you the midas touch, which everyone knows the rules of--but it's never explained why the fish exists, what it was doing on that boat, why it has this power, how the power works, etc. You're left sort of wondering/laughing about it, and focussing on not why it's there or how it works but how it affects people--which is the more interesting question!

It's annoying when people treat magic like physics, trying to explain how the magic in their setting works on molecules or is actually recreating some real scientific effect, etc. I hate that. Boring!! How does the magic affect people and history and culture by existing at all?

If you explain magic too much it's just Science Babble with the labels switched out; but no explanation is just as boring sometimes--this is why I don't like the creepypasta/urban legend style of horror. There's either not enough explanation; or, the explanation is always the same level of unbelievable one-note 'well because it was EVIL' like with SCPs or FNAF. After a certain point it just feels like this:

...which is almost comedically boring.

TL;DR it's not about the magic being explained/unexplained, it's about the narrative focus being not on how the magic works, but on how the magic affects people and changes normalcy.

Welcome to Night Vale and The Magnus Archives made me realize just how much I want magic to stay sporadic and mysterious. I really liked the early days of both podcasts but once everything turns weird and becomes the norm I lose interest. They didn’t turn bad, they just turned out to be a type of story I personally isn’t into.

I think that’s why I like Lord of The Rings but could never get into Harry Potter. Yes, LoTR is a fantasy world but actual magic is still rare and awe inspiring. In Harry Potter people use magic to wash the dishes.

The best example I can think of from the top of my head is The X Files. They managed to raise the stakes and give us a little more info but the weirdness never turned mundane. It stayed sporadic and mysterious the whole way through.

This is of course just a personal preference but my friend who doesn’t share it and still loves both podcasts got it when they said “When the weird becomes mundane it just turns into a drama using different words” I love how it took someone who doesn’t feel the same way I do about magic in fiction to put my thoughts perfectly into words.

I���d actually really like to hear how you feel about magic and weirdness in fiction. What level does it take to grab your attention and does it ever get too much and become boring or are all levels of magic/weirdness good in your book?

[the-firebird69]

There are a lot of people buying campers it's a good idea and people say what do we do so you have people buy them and it's true if you're higher up you have them by enough for your it is and I have a bunch of land and you buy a bunch of PVC and you buy a bunch of CIP and other things and you're trying to get a gravity drain going.

-just one more thing we have about enough patience for about 2 seconds of stuff and everybody knows it and they get nothing it's really bizarre but you know they're under a delusion that they do and Max taught him that stuff over the years and it goes on and on and it does not look good it really doesn't but the genre splits up and it's very helpful what we're doing and Thor and Freya and we're getting assistance from Olympus and others it is very helpful there's some people that are pivotal and getting this done and from the start and a long time ago I wasn't Bill and it was also Stark and Mr Stark and his wife his actual wife and his mistress. And yeah you guys do that a lot ridiculous Tommy F too he has a big mouth. Really we'll make up a little list but we're going to do this contest and I have like a winner on Saturday times square for clans and come up with their theme song for their feet age clan has a fleet they run each clan is like a region or a general and they each have their own song and unfortunately like BG has awesome songs he's got a teeny clan everyone ends up playing the music it's kind of lame yeah.

-there's other things happening it's like an arms race the foreigners are up in another 20 million and the empire is coming to 50 million more than what they had if it's going to be neck and neck but that's a crap load and they're taking up tons of space they're not near our bases but it's a good thing we have them so you can watch them do that

He's going to mosey on to the next venue

Hera

Zues really I'm having a lot of issues they're poking and potting and sending bugs to bite me and itchy and you know I have asking you to Justin all sorts of things constantly but this is making me a little bit happy this change and it is a large change and it's a shift in the paradigm meaning that it is such a large amount of hardware built in such a short time that it's going to have a large impact on the economy I believe it will spurn it on and it will begin I think a better attitude and demeanor in general and it's much needed this is a boost that's really really needed

Zues Hera

And I do appreciate the mention and it is definitely necessary things are going well and they hear from Matthew and he was telling me that it is boosting the economy people are buying things people are feeling better they're buying entertainment items and snack packages and all sorts of things that are online and huge amounts of things from grocery stores and beer and it's going fast and your Brewers will probably do well but there are a lot of necessities being bought and people want to buy cars and more and they have energy for it and optimism I'm looking at it like they've done a great job and in this genre there is the emperor of all mankind and others of the clans what appears to be them it might be a solution as to what's been going on and it looks like they're in some manner of the bunker and our friend says it probably is an imitation brand but he doesn't know it looks like someone takes the existing skull and sets it into an hi system and I thought about that and thought they put it there and took a picture of it and said he's already gone and been doing so it is motivation and I looked at it that way cuz that's what you kind of intimated to some people if you say you are confirming so you going to publish it's very important and we would love getting involved with a lot of fun

Sherry

Yeah I said it looks like Grandma cuz it did looks a lot like her exactly like her and there's a reason for that it might be a problem and there's still some kind of War there we're having a good time there is a lot of things happening that are positive and they are affecting everybody people are very negative here and their farts but they have a plan and they're not being negative and farts because of that it's just that they are losing everything and now they have hope and they're busy and thank God I never hit it eventually that was hell so he's got to go get something for dinner and other things but really what a great job and we do have to get something and it'll be some kind of joint effort but we have to approve it and it's been rack this brain but he doesn't know what the results of things would be social security doesn't seem to be our problem although it looks like it started to fight he's just kind of been on ice with it and they've been missing chicks checks and so forth threatening to be the directory that's going to stop so going to put an effort in and he's taking us but what this could be fun it's a lot funnier than what's going on good God. There's several cosplay events coming up and those are different than comic Con they're all over Miami and there's a couple in Tampa coming up this week and this weekend it is about 50 of them in total but only two in Tampa and our friend here or my grand nephew was saying you should have one of the fisherman's village and at night of course it's way too hot during the day and inside restaurant that you can cool possibly and at the end of Harris you can cool off and have AC and it would be a great place to do that and he can show up at sometime but it's a great place to start off and we'll see how behaviors but boy it's going to happen this week and this weekend starting Thursday day after tomorrow comic cons are not up and running for this but they shall be there's two or three of them and they are going to be going on very soon but he says it's time to start doing things proactively and if there's one out there and it's in Port Charlotte kind of punta Gorda and it's within at the bus distance the bus can take them there believe it or not they take people to events and people it's not nose here and this girl but it would be good to go out there good to start something and it will begin probably on next weekend or something but he says we could arrange it and you can rent it anybody can rent it and bja might he says and of course it would be deserve kind of prevalent here still and that's the place to do it any place for people to check all sorts of stuff out and I was wondering if BG wanted to go and people want his autograph they want BG to autograph things and they want a friend here to autograph things and he's thinking of going there and if your autograph stuff things are starting motion unless people vulnerable all the time would have to do things be very helpful he liked to do that and he sort of has to find the character but he has to do the voice on it but the copied his voice

Mac

I have evidence that says it's his voice and he's saying all the lines so you might want to do that but and I can verify it when we're there but it's kind of funny cuz he might sign it and put Jim underneath and people would like that cuz it's actually his voice

Bg

You're fed up with this you people are a bunch of cows stampeding by him to get home or the grocery store it's kind of ridiculous but this is a good idea so I'm going to try and set it up and it has to be on the weekend or nothing nobody will show up and next weekend is way too early but boy by next weekend it's going to be taken off and huge foreigners will be here and everything you always do the Asian version light armor fast swords cuz candy crystals struggle to get there

Mac

[todayimgonnaplay]

Today I'm gonna play Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII

Recently finished FF13-2 which had some nice improvements, but I think I'm in the minority for not liking the sequel hook tragedy ending it has. I don't mind sad endings, as FF has had more than one, but I had mixed feelings about the payoff for going through two entire games. I've sort of come to terms with it as I'm starting to see this trilogy has a pattern of fate going on. And now I'm onto the finale.

Immediately into the game I'm thrust into something I felt like I should've known but didn't even see at all. I'm not sure how effective that kind of storytelling is, but fortunately Lightning and Hope explain events of this game's premise quite extensively. I do like the option of being able to proceed through dialogue during cutscenes as I tend to read quick. I'm also seeing a revamp to Lightning's characterization that reminds me quite a bit of FF 7 Rebirth with Cloud, both characters having a sense of humour and exchanging banter despite being very stoic. It's a surprising but welcome change.

Another unexpected thing I encountered was its battle system. Revamped and unlike the previous two games, or even the series itself, I can see why people are divisive over it. I immediately wanted to hate it and just quit the game, but one of the reasons I started this blog is to give systems I don't like another chance and really get a feel for them. My assumption for this is that this was Square's first real decision to move onto the action genre and away from turn-based combat. I do appreciate their constant experimentation for the genre though. In terms of combat, the idea of eliminating numerous menus for navigation that (J)RPGs are known for, with quick inputs to do what you want to do. And to still keep that turn-based aspect, the ATB gauge still remains a thing for this title so that you can't spam your attacks or go full action mode. It gives you some time to think, but it's still not enough. I noticed throughout this trilogy that I often don't feel like I can rest and actually think how to fight off my enemies effectively. One method I can think of is to give enemies ATB gauges too and display them. It retains that turn-based aspect but also gives you time to heal and strategize. It's good that Libra and signs of weakness by building the Stagger is shown as a sign of what's working and what isn't, but having a pulse motion feels quite hard to decipher with all the action happening as well as the health info hovering above the enemies. FF 13's stagger bar has shown the best way to display this type of info. It was large and clear, and it was still effective in FF13-2 if it was thought that it was intrusively large. One thing to note is that this title has removed the Paradigm shift system, and now uses Schemata, which is like playing dress up on crack. I consider this to be my favourite part of the game, simply because I think dress up and customizing abilities and equipment is fun and freeing. You're not limited to specific pieces and you can mix and match, but I haven't mastered this system enough to see if that's effective or not.

I'm not a fan of the limited items you can carry. I've been in a few situations where I needed potions but ran out, or because I've been used to being able to consume as many as I want in the first two games, I forget to stock and therefore cannot take any. It doesn't help that there's a penalty for escaping from battle which is taking away EP which is used for other useful features, but fortunately I'm playing on easy mode, as the lack of penalties are closer to what the previous two games were like.

In terms of the overworld, I have seen a larger improvement in traversing around areas. The platforming is decent in most areas, and I like that I can finally jump off places to get off faster, which I couldn't do in FF 13-2. Areas are more populated, making it more lifelike and immersive. My biggest gripe is about the game's main feature (and, which is a time limit that's connected to the game's lore about the world ending in 13 days. You are able to traverse around until 6 AM in-game time, until you're automatically transported back to a hub. The only usable reason the hub exists is to confirm completion of an area and move to the next (and also giving some kind of life force to a tree for lore reasons), otherwise moving back automatically has not served its purpose for me, other than interrupt me. It also feels a bit tense to constantly have a clock ticking down, and I'm not really a fan of timit limit games at all, in fact I tend to avoid them. But again, I decided to give it another chance. Turns out it's good at helping me keep more focused to my tasks and making more careful decisions rather than me being reckless. There's also a way to slow down time by using Chronostasis, which replenishes by defeating enemies. You can technically spam that and play all you want.

Music this time is a surprising negative for me, the new tracks haven't impressed me so far, and I hear reuses of the previous titles, which has saved me from thinking more negatively about this, even though the same team has composed for this title too.

Character designs are quite interesting this time around when it comes to Lightning due to the dress up feature. I do like Snow's new look compared to 13-2 and it fits the current personality given to him. But like FF13-2, the rest of the old cast are not given new makeovers which is a huge letdown.

I'm still not sure if I'll continue playing this to the end, but I'll try to power through as much as I can.

Terms used exclusively in the game:

ATB (Active Time Battle) - A consumable gauge with divisions that allow you to do actions in battle

Stagger - A gauge that fills up based on effectiveness which allows you to deal more damage

Libra - A feature that checks enemy weaknesses

Paradigm Shift - A system in FF 13 and 13-2 that used roles with specific abilities

Schemata - A customizable system that allows Lightning to be a unique role based on equipment and abilities

EP (Energy Points) - A limited rechargable currency spent on special features, or items

Chronostasis - An ability that allows you to briefly stop time

[pikahlua]

The Todoroki family subplot is so heartbreaking honestly. My heart aches for every one of them. Touya just wanted to be loved 😞

Also… I hope Iida will walk again eventually because that looked incredibly brutal on his legs.

Lately I've had trouble holding my tongue on how I interpret what's going on with the Todoroki family. For me, there's a lot about the Todoroki family story that hits way too close to home. But it just comes across as even funnier when people talk about how unrealistic it is when compared with abuse in real life--because they're usually referring to Endeavor's change. Endeavor's part is actually the best written (or more true to life) if you ask me. The part that rings hollow based on my experiences is the idea that the entire family all at once comes to the same realization about their faults and needing to be better. Very rarely do other people see themselves as part of the problem (the dysfunctional family, if you will), so they pin all the blame on one person.

Anyways, that's neither here nor there in the end. Any extrapolation to the real world we as readers make about the Todoroki family is just that--an extrapolation. We can try to find the morals or reflections of reality in these stories, but ultimately those are things we put into the story, not the artist himself. Even when the artist tries really really hard to make us make those extrapolations, they're still our own extrapolations.

What we really have, literally speaking, is a story about characters in their own world. It has a narrative arc and setting and character development all neatly contained within their society. The story is about a major societal paradigm shift, something that rarely happens in the real world. It was always going to be some sort of wish fulfillment story. Touya's actions from start to finish betray his emotions with respect to his family. I called it "love" in previous posts, but to be clear I don't mean the happy ending saccharine kind of love that diminishes the word. I mean that Touya cares. He can't divorce himself from his feelings about his family. He can't ignore his own investment in the family's trajectory. He's a hurt little boy who grew up and never healed the hurt. You're right: he just wanted to be loved. And now, his family has come to save him (unlike, for contrast, the majority of Tenko's family).

MHA is first and foremost a story about heroes, and true heroes save people--no matter who those people are. No matter what those people have done in the past. If someone needs saving, then a hero must save them. That's the story we've always been reading.

And I'm sure Iida will be fine. He's done way worse to his engines before lol.

[gulyas069]

ok so the reason I read Society Must Be Defended was because that's the one where he supposedly develops his version of the imperial boomerang (which is why he was credited on wikipedia as its creator) (he also doesn't really do that in the book)

the main subject of this collection of his lectures is his trademark discourse analysis, in this case the transition from a "sovereignty discourse" to a "race discourse" (race being meant very loosely) that sees society as a constant state of war between groups. these two discourses were supposedly the mode of usage of history in politics, the former being universalist and always going back to Rome and timeless rights vs the latter seeing history as a constant war, meaning the use of history in this discourse is always perspective-based (as opposed to universalist). the war's factions are the "races" in question, though race doesn't mean race in the way we would use it, at least not always. most of the book is analysis of the usage of these discourses in historical sources and their historical development (from sovereignty to race).

at the end then he does this weird turn towards biopower that he doesn't fully develop yet (the biopower lectures were the next year), biopower being a mode of state power where the state doesn't have the right to kill anyone (as with a radical sovereignty discourse) but instead has to cultivate humanity as a biomass, and it is essentially naturally born out of the fact that the populations grew massively. biopower isn't fully developed yet here but can be summed up as that under the old sovereignty paradigm the sovereign has the power over life and death by making death happen and letting life happen while under biopower the sovereign (now not a person anymore) has the power over life and death by letting death happen and making life happen.

when the state has to cultivate life it can't just kill like in the old sovereignty discourse, so a biopower regime in the mode of race discourse has to employ some sort of racism to be allowed to kill. this is how colonialism naturally requires racism, because otherwise the state that cultivates life would break that mode of power usage by killing. this is also why supposedly many socialist movements that want to physically liquidate their class enemies instead of transform the economy need this "social racism" to do so.

first of all, the historiography of the discourses would need to be checked, I can't imagine it holds up to scrutiny, but whatever. the second point is though that he jumps through all of these weird hoops: first you have to see history as struggle between groups, then you have to have a biopower mode of state power, and then you have to be racist to kill because otherwise you're not cultivating life anymore. this entirely line of argument seems useless: you can just get from A to Z immediately: to subjugate and/or kill you need to dehumanize the other - that's it. the only "imperial boomerang" that I can find here is that the nazis where just doing what everyone else was doing (or maybe doing it the most extreme way) but there's no real talk of how tactics or modes of thought or power went from the colonies to the core.

at the end all that's left seems to me to be a questionable historiography of the history of history as a science (the discourse paradigm shift) and the second discourse that dominates modern politics identifying that social groups exist. this would also fit the timeline well: he identifies a quantitative and qualitative increase in race discourse in the 16.-18. century - which just happened to be a timeframe where information technology was developed that connected people for the first time.

so it seems that all we have is that subjugation needs dehumanization and that information technology allows the social fiction of in- and out-groups to form - both which are just tautologies. right?

it's honestly kind of funny how much of Foucault's thought is just trying to get at what Adorno and Horkheimer got as the dialect of enlightenment

[like-rain-or-confetti]

(Hey so I'm definitely not new here but I changed my name so I just wanted to let u know lmao)

Hey dork squad my favorite trio (*´∇`)ﾉ

How's your week been?

My week has been hectic, I swear. Since Monday was presidents Day in America we didn't have school, when we went back the next day we had a school shooting .... At my high school and I was present. Thankfully it was a hoax but so many kids/teachers have had theories about it, the one thing that stuck with me was the panic I felt but I was proud of my self that I was able to stay calm and sorta take action and help comfort my friends. On Wednesday we had a snow day bc my state is bipolar af, school was normal today but it snowed as I was walking home it was annoying it kept wetting my glasses :/. Idk what's going to happen tomorrow but I'm ready for it!

Anyways here's a cute little cat meme!

Jonathan would know all about that.

I beg your pardon?

You pulled a gun out on your students.

Yes...and?

Did you pull the trigger, Mr Crane? ♠️

Why would you ask him a thing like that!?

I don't know! It seemed the next thing to ask!♠️

What would you know of fluidity and order- even in social norms!?

The one on the left is looking at me rather peculiarly...♠️

...Exactly my point. Now what are you blabbering on about?

The cat me...me? Me me? It isn't me- is it? Or is it me? Am I the Cheshire cat? What a funny little trick! ♠️

That's not what the conclusion is, Jervis and it is a meme. They're mindsucking, brain bleeding mirages of humour for the young and dumb.

In a world of constant change, pain and sorrow. All that remains is finding comfort in relating to one another. Finding comfort in the pain we had no idea everyone else feels. A world full of expectations, we forget the age old lesson that we never are truly alone. So much so, its argued strongly that for every thought a human has ever had atleast another ten people in the world has had the same thought. Oh, sorry Mr Nygma, I know that must threaten a paradigm shift of sorts.

Crane, I'm going to say this is delicately as I can. Fuck off. Stop smirking at me too.

Language! ♠️

Yes, Edward. Language.

You're antagonising.♠️

Yes, I am. Do you intend to stop me, Jervis?

...Mr Crane, I have no intention of diverting your path for I value my days. ♠️

That's what I thought.

Before I lose any more brain cells to you two- can we get back to the matter at hand?

Ah yes, now is the time to offer a socially acceptable response to show that we are capable of empathy. Therefore...we are so glad to know that you are alright. Such a vile thing to joke of. For the record, I did nothing for humour and I brought it for educational purposes. A prop for class.

But...it is horrible! What kind of joke is that!? ♠️

Ask the Joker.

I'd rather not. ♠️

I see you mentioned controlling your fear...perhaps you'd like to discuss this further?

Don't make me sit through this.

I think the one of the left is trying to tell me something...♠️

DISCLAIMER: I know my rules say that my content doesn't represent my true feelings but had to put this out there to make sure it was clear. I'm so glad this was a hoax. I hope you know that whilst the characters are insensitive- I am horrified you had to experience such a terrible thing and hope you're okay!

[takamakisu]

『♥🖤Akira X Ann: Why I Support It.🖤♥』

In honor of the upcoming ShuAnn week, I have decided to contribute by writing a long post about why I love these dorks so much. I haven't seen a meta for them yet, so I figured I'd try my hand at it. (Which will be updated and expanded as I find more content) Without further ado, let us begin! Tagging the wonderful @shuann-week for this one.

1. The first encounter.

In media, the first interaction that two characters have with one another, regardless of relationship; lays the groundwork for said relationship and therefore is absolutely vital. When Akira first meets Ann, he's casually texting away on his phone and not really paying attention to much, but when she walks by he looks up. Already his curiosity is piqued, as is the player's; and then when she removes her hood, even then we don't get to see her face. But we DO see Akira's reaction, and he seems absolutely dumbstruck.

This is when things get interesting. Ann takes a few moments and sort of surveys her surroundings, and then she senses Akira's eyes and turns to him. And he doesn't look away, or get flustered; Akira keeps looking at her with that flabbergasted expression. He doesn't even blink. He is so taken aback by her he can't even greet her, and Ann just smiles at him and looks away- but even then, he doesn't break his gaze, and he never does until she actually leaves: Ann leaves him absolutely spellbound. And the music that plays during this encounter is exclusive to this encounter and this encounter alone. It never plays before this scene, nor does it ever play again after. There are heavy romantic undertones in this encounter, from the body language to the background music, and only Ann receives this treatment. It screams "attraction at first sight", and now with the groundwork laid, the relationship can begin to blossom.

 This is very important. Even before we get to see Ann's face, we already know from Akira's viewpoint that she must be pretty, at least in his eyes. And when we finally do get to see her face, she is indeed beautiful.

2. Her closeness to him.

First off, she's with you from essentially the beginning of the game, so you get a lot of time to get to know her and become closer to her. Ann is the third member to join your party and the first female member and therefore the first available romance option as well! (That's pretty big.) She's also your classmate, so you get to see her literally every day and there's a sense of familiarity that is built on from the beginning. 

Ann was the first to see Akira for who he truly was, and she looked past the rumors of him and got to know him for herself. Because she understands being an outsider and being mistreated, there's a level of understanding Ann has with you that the other girls simply do not. That's not to say they're bad, but Ann just connects better with the protagonist on that level. Let it also be remembered that before she met Akira, and by association the rest of the Phantom Thieves; Ann didn't have any friends, besides Shiho. Due to being a foreigner (and a very pretty one, at that) and the rumors surrounding her with Kamoshida, no one talks to her. While having a two-parent household, they are rarely home; and so Ann's lonely as well as bullied. Akira saving her from Kamoshida and then giving his genuine friendship then allows her to open up and be vulnerable to other people and that's very healthy. 

Another interesting interaction is during the Kamoshida arc, Makoto will ask you in essence what's the relationship between you and Ann, if there's something between you. If you say "there's nothing", her reply is "Didn't seem that way yesterday" and if you tell her you're classmates she'll say "But do friends get that close?"

3. How she falls for him.

For these reasons, I support these two. Lemme know in the comments what won you over to this pairing and any other moments that get your heart warm and fuzzy! 

In addition, Ann gets an on-screen kiss with the protagonist; a luxury only two other Persona girls have received (from 3-5, Maki kisses Naoya in P1): Margaret and Marie from Persona 4. The fact that Ann gets an explicit kiss (and possibly an implicit one as well because in Rank 9 her reaction to Joker hugging her hints he MIGHT have kissed her too) screams that while she's not 'canon' (nobody is) it sure does seem Atlus is sneakily pushing her towards Joker. They even match costumes in the dancing games! Oh yes, and Ann doesn't go home on Valentine's Day + Sojiro literally just "ayyyy" when she walks in- XD

Her Confidant has the protagonist and Ann getting closer as friends and also helping Shiho recover and you get to be a part of a few of Ann's interpersonal relationships. Shiho, as stated before, was Ann's closest and only friend before she met the player; and so earning her trust and helping her heal is significant. Suzui also hints to the player Ann seems to be attracted to them, talking about how her best friend talks highly of you and then the blonde gets flustered.

Her confession shot me through the heart. With Ann you don't have to increase your Knowledge or your Guts; just Kindness. To her, it doesn't matter if you get the best grades in the class or how brave you are, she just wants a friend who'll be there for her when she needs them, and that's what Ann falls for in the protagonist: his genuineness and his willingness to stick by her side. She falls in love with you for who you are and it feels the most natural and realistic. Something that's also very interesting about Ann's rank 9 event in Japanese is instead of saying “I guess we’re more than friends now...” she actually says, “I just realized it,” referring to her feelings for him (when she said “I love you”) in the original dialogue. And this is so so important. This hints at a love that developed slowly over a friendship and Ann wasn't even really aware it was there at first, until the only friend she'd had moved away and she felt alone and abandoned again. Akira being her pillar in that moment was the paradigm shift from platonic feelings to romantic ones and that is absolutely beautiful. But she ALREADY loved him, did you catch it? She just realized and became aware of it in that situation. Ann's been in love with the protagonist for who knows how long before she even confesses. And at the end of her confidant she calls you her light.. that just speaks volumes to me. The protagonist basically saved her, and because of that she wants to become stronger and encourage other people as well. It's beautiful. 

5. Other characters reactions to them.

There's a specific scene where the protagonist is in the bathhouse with Ryuji and Yusuke, and Ryuji will ask you what you think of Ann. If you admit you think she's pretty, he gets extremely excited ("Ooh, you straight up said it!")

Another very interesting thing that's different in the original language is when Akira gets home from interrogation. In English, Ann just chirps "Hey there!" No big deal, right? But in Japanese, she says, “okaeri”, which means “welcome home”. This greeting is said amongst family or couples in Japan, hinting a deeper level of closeness than the translation. 

(It's also something of note that when Ann got locked out of her room in Hawaii she went to Akira's room first. )

Additionally, after the school festival; Ann will talk to you about how she thinks about your future together! And if you tell her in another instance that you'd like to get married, she gets extremely excited whereas some of the other romance options become all flustered and blushy; a cute and interesting contrast.

A Mementos conversation also has Ann absentmindedly talking about how coffee goes well with sweets, to which Ryuji immediately replies 'Joker always smells like coffee, doesn't he?'

Now, I may be looking too deeply into this, but this could possibly be Ryuji "hint hint-ing" he thinks Akira and Ann are a good pair for each other. Ryuji also flat out refuses to date Ann during a scene in the gym when she offers to let him take her out. I don't know about you, but if I had a crush on somebody and they offered to let me go out with them, I don't think I'd turn it down as quickly and explicitly as Ryuji did (He tells her 'hell no, quit acting like you're some sexy anime character'). Personally I think Ryuji supports Ann with Akira and so he tries to gently nudge her over like "Okay, this guy? He's a good fit for you." Sakamoto's a great friend for Ann but I personally believe he's better as just that: a friend. 

4.  Their personalities blend well.

Ann's bubbly personality contrasts wonderfully with the protagonist's more introverted, reserved side. They're sort of like Robin and Starfire, just to less extremes. Ann is very pleasant and tender and she's got a big heart and it shows; consistently. She's a great friend to Ryuji and Shiho and big sister to Futaba, while at the same time tolerating nonsense from absolutely no one, regardless of status. I now want to cast attention to Meyer-Brigg's personality types. These are headcanons, but after analyzing Akira and Ann's characters Joker seems to be an ISTJ, while Panther is an ENFP. These are abbreviations for Introversion, Sensing, Thinking, Judging (ISTJ) and Extroversion, Intuition, Feeling, Percieving (ENFP) respectfully. Ann, at her core; is the heart of the Phantom Thieves honestly. She is very sensitive to others' emotions and feelings, and very emotionally intelligent. Being an extrovert, Ann also needs interaction and validation from other people: it energizes her and fufills her. And, in return she's a caregiver; Ann wants to support others and help them become stronger. She's a wonderful sister figure and just a comforter in general, and very amiable and chirpy. Contrast that with Akira, who makes decisions based on facts and logic rather than feelings and intuition (although in the Metaverse he seems to throw caution to the wind, quite frankly) and analyzes situations from a logical rather than emotional angle; (and there are exceptions to this like helping the woman Shido was assaulting and chasing Ann down to talk to her) and they seem on completely opposite ends of the spectrum. However, their differing personalities balance one another. While Akira keeps Ann grounded logically, she keeps him grounded emotionally and the bounce off is extremely healthy. 

In Yusuke's Confidant, saying Ann is the definition of beauty nets the most points. 

Atlus seems to like putting these two together as well, from giving them matching songs and outfits in the dancing games to putting them together in advertisements. It's pretty cute and though it's subtle, it's a nice little nod. 

[shallowseeker]

Dean's appeal

The shotgun isn't enough. After Dean protects Jack, Vance turns on him and advances. Dean inserted himself in Jack's story, and now the story's turning on him.

Dean makes his appeal:

DEAN: Hey, okay look, I'm sure you were in love, okay. But this isn't love. Not anymore. VANCE: I love her. DEAN: Yes, sure, sure but now its like some sort of a sick game you know? I mean, you have to eat people to stay together? I mean is that romantic? Huh? You enjoy that? Okay, alright. Let's just think about this for a second. Vance grabs Dean and pushes him against the wall.

At first, it seems a dark shadow, and indictment of The Winchesters and hunting as an enterprise. But it's more appropriately an indictment of the true monster at the end of the book. No, not Chuck. The audience.

Books.

It's the audience that fills up its emptiness by churning through stories and pages and characters like meat.

Dean and Jack are killing the monsters that we create, trying to protect the "designated side characters" and their families inside their own little worlds.

And of course, despite his lip service to the idea of standing down in the face of a loved one's death, Jack's own incoming death looms over Dean's words:

You have to let it go.

It calls to mind Jack's later despair in 15x18, too:

DEAN: What do we do? What do we do?! ... JACK: You have to let me go. Just... Just get outside. I'll try to get as far away as I can.

///

But going wider, it's all an indictment of life itself...

...in that:

As exquisite as the natural world is, there exists a violent underbelly that mostly goes unnoticed. In point of fact, the survival of any species depends entirely on how successfully it's able to willfully kill - and usually eat - its neighboring species. And of course, the same is true for human beings. Life continues - even for us - only because we kill. Even human vegans and vegetarians survive only by the demise of plants and fungi hat they consume. Moreover, if you're wearing clothes as you read this, you're probably wearing death. Cotton is harvested for jeans, shirts, socks, and so forth. Flax fibers for linen. It's just plain murder all the way down, no matter who's doing the killing and who or what is the prey. - Randall S. Scott, from Entanglement is Not Spooky

///

For her part, Harper is desperate. She even looks a little conflicted as her dead loved one moves in to kill Jack's real-and-breathing loved one:

A change of heart?

HARPER: Vance...? Baby, kill him!

Nope. LMAO at Dean's face at that:

Harper's again a bit like Chuck here. She doesn't get her hands dirty. She watches.

///

But then! Jack sneaks in with the BIG SAVE, handcuffing the zombie.

Tag team coming through!

Together, Jack and Dean are killing the idealized narrative idea here. Jack isn't his sketched stereotype—he's not the evil child of Lucifer. And Dean isn't his stereotype either. He's not the performing macho-macho idea of a man.

First thing Jack asks Dean:

JACK: "Are you okay?"

DEAN: Yeah, let's grab the...girl...?

Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnd she's vanished. You can practically seen the cartoon, Harper-shaped cloud of smoke in her wake.

"SORRY CLOSED" sways from the recent motion of the door. The light illuminates her empty chair.

*cue screaming*

///

And so, Vance is defeated, not by a love interest, but by a love interest with the combined strength of his hunting family. It's Jack's family that makes him uniquely powerful. (Family makes you strong/weak/vulnerable/resilient/etc at the same time.)

And Vance? Well. Harper's leaving him behind. He's a disappointment?

Vance left her behind, now she's leaving him behind. (But oof. She killed him and prevented him from living his life. I'd be big mad, too.)

She didn't even truly love him, just the idea of him; she was just afraid of life in general. And now, in a warped fashion, there's finally a man strong enough to beat her.

As the world is changing and our paradigms are shifting, women need to show up in the world with confidence, integrity, strength, compassion and creative vision.

And Harper's out now. She's awakened. She's In The World.

///

In the next scene, we return to retro "Charming Acres" motif. It's our beloved 50's theme that we found dotted throughout Harper's apartment. It's even called Cafe 50s. This place is just dripping with malt-shop rock:

It's got an old, conservative sedan parked outside, with a traffic light GREEN for GO. For growth. There's a boy-and-girl-milkshake-ice-cream mural thingies on the side. They're holding hands:

Cute.

We have the domestic breakfast motif. (Cas and Dean get this motif a lot, in fact, right down to their association with coffee and waffles.)

There's a conspicuous clock on the building, too. It's almost supper time.

But boom. The light flickers and the breakfast sign goes out.

(Harper hasn't completely let go of the idea of Perfection, y'see.)

BUT she's a little more forward-looking that she was. Unlike the locked-up, SORRY CLOSED library sign, this little shop is blazing with an OPEN sign.

Harper, oh Harper. She's grown a little. She's also clothed in GREEN now, but she's still partially surrounded by red motifs. She hasn't completely changed her ways.

But she has grown. She's wearing a conspicuous watch, a mate to the conspicuous clock on the front of the cafe. The blinds are open! There's lots of light!

///

FUN NOTE: I didn't talk much about the awkward motif of big rooster, little rooster that characterized Dean's discomfort with Jack's young adulthood and "giving Jack the talk."

But it's in the beginning of the ep when they first start their investigation. It's all about the dicks, and how Dean is humorously very much not ready for this chapter of parenthood:

(I love so much how Dean wasn't ready for Jack to grow up, uneasily turning the cock sideways when Jack seemed ready to jump in and talk frankly about sex. The rooster is THE symbol of Jack's romance-and-sexual-coded awakening. Maybe Harper's, too, depending on how serious we take her super-romance construction.)

But uh, the cocks are here again, in Harper's cafe, peeking in through the goddamned windows!

There's even "big rooster, little rooster again," 'cause Harper has her sights set on the little rooster with the pretty sunflowers (Jack, in the corner). The big rooster with green feathers (near her shoulder, "Dean") will ofc not be happy about that, lol!

Big rooster, little rooster:

Big rooster, little rooster:

Or rather, it's gotten even more specific, with the big (green) rooster and the little (sunflower) rooster both appearing in the shot.

Oh man is this episode cute in such weird ways!!!!

///

But yeah, Harper hasn't let go of her Perfect Idea of Romance yet. The setup of the scene proves it. It's all about the empty spaces.

In the next scene, the big green rooster is obscured, leaving only baby sunflower rooster in-frame. In the domestic "date space" across from her, we see a Coffee Cup of Domesticity and a set of two books, a stand-in for Jack clearly as much as the rooster is.

And what's she writing about?

Well. It's a bit of a doozy.

"Jack, I'm already writing. Isn't that crazy? I'm not crazy. But our love is so vivid. I can't wait to find you. You are the first man to ever get me to leave McCook. Now I'm in the world. I'm sorry I have to kill you for what you did to Vance but then I can bring you back so that we can be together again. It's gonna be perfect. See you soon. Love, Harper" She folds letter and puts it in envelope addressed to Jack care of Lebanon, KS post office.

Perfect.

Optimism freeform meta

Jack, Harper, and the folly of pursuing of immature, illusory Perfection as the antidote to life's many disappointments.

///

Okay, here it comes. It's our rambling, group Optimism meta from discord that I promised once upon a time I'd post here. Apologies ahead of time if I get your Tumblr names wrong.

Harper's flat is decorated in ooey-gooey symbols of love.

Green for growth (though Harper's growth pattern is certainly arrested), and red for passion. We have the green-Italian amore in the symbolic kitchen of life, and a bright red heart near the entrance.

BEWARE: You're entering Harper's heart. It's black and bloody.

We also see that her home is full to the brim with books and stories. She clings to them, hoping they'll bring her life meaning. The blood-red-pink-purple color theme continues in the form of her array of romance novels.

Harper herself is clothed in red, in a Sayles-coded corduroy, perhaps a mate to the hunter's anorak jacket. Her little scarf is certainly Scooby-Doo-Daphne-esque, but it's also a RED BANDANA calling to mind that she's an OUTLAW, like Dave Matthews in the Tombstone episode.

///

But her bedroom is more serene, stuffed with zen colors, serene green, and a bedful of childish stuff animals. It's dominated by strong protector-types like lions and elephants.

via @honeyedwhiskey: okay so I got intrigued by the fact that she has these particular stuffed animals. the lion, symbolizing stalking her prey, elephants for their memory and their brutality (maybe a nod to wanting community) and the tiger for her actual isolation. the puppy seems to be an older addition, maybe from childhood, and the smallest and most vulnerable one is being protected by the dog which seems to be a bear cub? reference to maybe a mama bear that protected her? the three at the top are what interest me the most though because harper is represented by the heart and the color red so the mouse is her, and the two pigs seem to be her parents, with one being a combination of colors and patchwork looking. so it seems to me that one of her parents was zombie-fied, maybe from a young age.

I like the symbolic nature Whiskey acribed to the stuffed animals above a lot!

I too think her reaction to abandonment and Vance speaks to something really fucked up in her necromancy family, like maybe a necromancy-coming-of-age-trial that went REALLY REALLY badly and wound up with her being totally alone.

Maybe it's like how Sam jokingly told Charlie: "You're not really a hunter till you've come back form the dead." Or like Cas told Jack of his own death, "It's something of a rite of passage around here."

Maybe you're not really a necromancer until you've killed and brought your family back and ofc Harper failing that test would fuck her up forever.

//

I noticed the teddy bear, too! There's a tee-tiny nod to the teddy-bear lovers' symbol above her bed, same as Marvelous Marvin has a red heart on his chest in season 15's Gimme Shelter. (And Dean's I Wuv Hugs from a million years ago.)

[The stuffed bear is] a simultaneous motif...of sexual intimacy and The Lover, it's also representative of The Beloved Child resulting from their contact.

(Jack is Marvin.)

///

Here's love in the corner, illuminated by two lamps. Harper is getting Jack a book, a book about her little beloved hometown, McCook.

Deep down, Harper is lonely, and unlike her disdain for her other suitors, she's a little different with Jack here: she wants to be understood.

She wants him to understand her and her hometown. Just a little. She's prodding at the niggling, unusual, UNFAMILIAR feeling. So, she sits down and invites him to sit, to learn more about her.

By this point, it's possible she's figured out he's a hunter, which opens up the possibility of revealing her true self, for better or for worse. It's an intoxicating thought for Harper.

Jack hesitates, clearly interested but also a little bit "!!!!"

He's framed by the heart on the wall. Indeed Jack, like Dean and Mary, is a "heart" character. He's even clothed in one of Mary's key colors: dusky orangey pink. (Aside// You'll notice Connor also wears this color in Gimme Shelter.)

///

Unlike in Tombstone, where Jack wasn't (via script) all that interested in Athena and Dave's relationship, now Jack's clearly grown. He's even interested in physicality.

Even though his emotional core can be kinda prickly, like Dean and Mary, he's at root a very affectionate character, interested in experience affection/connection with others:

So, he sits. Perseveres through he awkwardness. And lo and behold, Harper is as weird as he is.

They talk about having a positive outlook, even though they've had and terrible pasts, have done terrible things. And hey, look--she's getting the lamp treatment! How lovely.

They sit on the blue couch, as Harper tells him more about her past, subconsciously seeking his acceptance. The blue of the couch mirrors the blue color of her past, of her prom dress. We see her little prom queen crown, and we wonder...Harper is so awkward...

...does she really seem like the Prom Queen type?

I suspect it was fake. That she manufactured her own popularity with bit of magic. To meet the perfectionistic obsession with her romance tales. She is at core a fearful character, fearful of messing up, or being imperfect, of not living up to The Dream (TM).

///

Jack makes a quick getaway. In this shot, he's effectively the trope of the divine masculine, fleeing from love, "amore."

It's interesting that the kitchen, a bit like the bedroom, is earthier in tone, filled with more "valley" colors: of browns, greens. The kitchen is about the imperfect strivings of every day life, divorced from the high-dollar reds of Harper's romance-novel decor.

In the bathroom, Jack is clearly interested in exploring "love."

To Dean, he says, "Just in case (she is in love with me)...tell me everything you know about sex. Go!"

Jack is a curious-and-courageous character, too. He's prone to experimentation, which is also why he so often gets the drug ("I like cocaine!" and The Who) motifs. Like Cas, he's maybe a little scared, but he's going to go-for-it no matter how silly and awkward he might look.

That courage is probably something Harper senses in him. It's attractive to her, like the symbolic stuffed-animal lion-and-tiger protectors she has in her bedroom. She wonders:

"Is he strong enough to love the real me?"

In THIS sense, the thing with Vance isn't completely "a naughty nurse game." Deep down, at her root psychological base, Harper is testing the potential lovers' strength. Very classically mythical, really. And she's disgusted by her suitors because they keep failing and failing.

No one is like Vance. Not even Vance is like Vance. Her idea of Vance was never real, and she was never prom queen. But admitting that to herself is so painful, she constructs this horrible pattern of death and destruction.

///

"Her apartment has a lot of wallpaper/furniture from the 50’s! Or with that general aesthetic!" -Cal (Cal, what IS your handle these days)

It's so interesting, because this 50s retro theme is something that Jack, Dean, and Cas carry a lot, especially in terms of their "old-school" button-up pajamas and dressing downs. (Cas himself, with his overcoat, could be plopped in the middle of Mad Men tv series and fit into the surroundings, haha. And although we rarely see Sam carry the motif, but he dips into it in Peace of Mind as well.)

At the end of this episode, we'll see Harper seated in her own retro cafe with the same 50s vibe as well, a Charming Acres-sort of feeling. To me this symbolizes a backwards-looking illusion of perfection, that everything used to be simpler and better, and with enough effort, it can be simpler and better again.

Also there are dragonflies in her bathroom, a bit of a parallel to the lonesome fly plot that Sam and Charlie are on (in this same episode).

This too is the backwards-looking motif, of holding onto the illusory idea of Happiness (TM) so tightly that it becomes tragic and destructive.

///

Since even her idea of Vance isn't real, it's become like Amara's illusory idea of love. It can never let her down. "It can never hurt her."

[themostrandomfandom]

hello! I don't know if you're still on the blog or will be in some time, but I still have to at least try. I just had my rewatch of glee for the first time in 4 years, and it woke some buried feelings up again lmao. One of the things i most strongly feel for is Britt's class president run. I know she would've done more things during it, yknow? Like she prepared for the position and had a solid plan for it. I really feel like they wasted her potential in s3. Do you think you would rewrite it?

Hey, @randomizepersonality!

Sorry it’s taken me so long to reply to you. Limited internet these days.

I, too, am one who is completely disappointed by Brittany’s S3 storyline and how the writers absolutely dropped the ball when it came to her class presidency. 

Negativity about Glee writing under the cut.

______

In episode 3x02, the writers clearly establish that Brittany’s interest in the class presidency isn’t a lark or something she is doing just for the hell of it. The platform she pushes for Kurt is anti-bullying, pro-inclusion—and she has a dog in the fight, because she wants herself, Santana, Kurt, and all the other LGBTQ kids at the school(plus anyone else who qualifies as “different”) to feel safe being themselves. 

Baby Girl has a clear, focused goal, and she feels it is important for her to achieve that goal. As she tells Kurt, “What’s wrong with [being gay]? Look: Ninety-nine percent of the kids at this school are either freaks or closet freaks. The captain of the football squad? He gets the job, but he doesn’t represent the people. That’s why we need a unicorn.” She isn’t just talking out of her ass or viewing the presidency as a way to boost Kurt’s (or her own) popularity. She actually wants to accomplish something.

That’s why when Kurt declines to run on her “Project Unicorn” platform, she picks up the banner herself, proudly declaring, “I’m also a unicorn.” The values she’s supporting are ones that are near and dear to her heart, as she knows from personal experience (particularly in regards to her relationship with Santana and Santana’s fears about coming out) how vital it is for kids to feel comfortable in their own skin and how damaging it is when they don’t.

Honestly, what she’s talking about is an extension of the things she both learned for herself and taught to Santana during the Back Six of S2. She’s talking about “embracing all the awesomeness” that one is, promoting acceptance, and spreading love because love makes everything possible. It’s all big time stuff, and even though she’s couching it in unicorn metaphors and glitter, she is serious about what she wants to do.

—which is why it’s so fucking unbelievable that she would completely slack off from that position the second she won the election.

I mean, seriously, the Glee writers, you’re telling me that at the exact time when she and her girlfriend are facing the reprecussions of a vicious public outing, being bullied in the hallways for showing any sort of affection to each other, having to deal with pressure not only coming from their fellow students but even from members of the faculty and administration—I’m looking at you, Will and Figgins—facing up to the Finn Hudsons and Josh Colemans of the world, Brittany would just fuck right off and fail to enact any of the policies or programs she had clearly thought about before? You’re saying that she wouldn’t try to use her power and popularity to try to improve the situation?

Bullshit.

—and especially “bullshit” to then try to make a joke out of her failure, as they do later in the season, when she tells Figgins, “Okay. I now realize I wasted an entire year belaboring the nuances of my fluid teen sexuality, and getting caught up in Lord Tubbington’s Ponzi schemes, and then for a while, I stopped talking, but I don’t want my presidency to be the last one at McKinley! I don’t want that to be my legacy.”

There’s no excuse for them wasting this storyline.

Ideally, they should have allowed her to succeed in what she was trying to do. She could have hosted an anti-bullying rally and brought in Holly Holliday to sing to the student body about how it’s okay to be gay. She could have used her own coolness to shift paradigms, because, after all, she is both the senior class president and most popular girl in school AND a fabulous, bisexual unicorn. She could have organized a “kiss-in” in protest against Figgins’s homophobic PDA policies. 

I mean, really, with her creativity and zany genius, the writers could have absolutely gone wild and had her do any number of things to make her world a better place.

Even if they were dead set on having her fail, then they at least could have actually showed her failing—giving her a storyline where balancing academics, extracurriculars, and dealing with the fallout of being outed becomes too much for her to handle, and her ambitions for the class presidency fall by the wayside; letting Kurt confront her about wasting the opportunity she won over him; having her break down and admit that maybe the problem she took on was too big for her to tackle herself and that the world is a worse place than she initially thought; allowing her to display the same kind of depth and humanity that she was afforded in S2.

But instead they muted her for half a season and pushed her into the background at a time when she should have been getting foreground attention, and then they tried to pass off their act of forgetting about Brittany as Brittany forgetting to do anything herself.

That Brittany wasn’t allowed to speak throughout Santana’s outing arc was an indefensible narrative choice. That the writers waited until the very end of the season to come out of nowhere and say, “Guess what? Brittany failed at everything, and y’all should just laugh about it!” was meanspirited and unfunny. Her whole S3 storyline was an exercise in bad writing. TPTB laid narrative threads for her at the beginning of the season but then didn’t weave them into anything. They wasted all of her potential. 

So, yeah, all of this going-on is to say that I would absolutely rewrite Brittany’s S3 storyline if given the chance. 

I mean, in the Mouseverse, S3 is where I diverge from canon, and there’s a reason for that.

Anyway, thanks for the question! I’m right there with you.

[commentcestchaud-blog]

J'ai jamais apprécier Kanye West, il y a bien son morceau Stronger que j'aime beaucoup mais le personnage m'a jamais vraiment attiré. Un bon gros molosse du capitalisme américain à mes yeux.

Mais franchement le type depuis qu'il pète les plombs (si t'écoutes les médias hein) il est tellement mais tellement remonter dans mon estime. Bon voilà ça vaut ce que ça vaut hein. Mais je trouve ça formidable qu'un artiste aussi influent balance de ces pavés dans une mare beaucoup trop lisse depuis trop longtemps.

Le meilleur pour moi c'est son passage chez TMZ où le gars te sort dans le plus grand des calmes "l'esclavage des noirs pendant 400 ans, 400 ans ? Ça ressemble à un choix"

Et les teubés bien-pensants américains se sont directement insurgés en liant directement ses propos à la traite des noirs. Seulement la traite des noirs en Amérique dont le début est daté à 1619 s'est arrêté officiellement en 1865 ce qui fait 246 ans. Mais si tu ajoute 400 ans à 1619 tu tombes sur 2019.

Même si les propos de Kanye dans cet interview ne sont pas très très clair, ce qu'il essaie de mettre en évidence c'est un esclavagisme mental encore présent aujourd'hui. Il le dit lui même "nous choisissons d'être esclave".

Si tu comprends l'anglais oral et que t'as un peu de temps voici l'interview de Kanye de chez TMZ

Les propos qu'il tient dans cet interview, bien qu'un peu confus, sont remplis de vérités à mes yeux et pas seulement au mien apparemment.

T'as aussi ce concert, après lequel il a fini en psychiatrie, LA CHANCE, où il tient un discours bien enragé et extrêmement intéressant. Voici le lien

Enfin bref, Kanye West gagne tout mon respect en fesant ça c'est admirable de voir quelqu'un avec autant de notoriété tenir un tel discours.

Pour conclure sur une note musicale :

My wife said, I can't say no to nobody

And at this rate we gon' both die broke

Got friends that ask me for money knowin' I'm in debt

And like my wife said, I still didn't say no

People tryna say I'm goin' crazy on Twitter

My friends' best advice was to stay low

I guess it's hard to decipher all of the bills

Especially when you got family members on payroll

The media said it was outlandish spendin'

The media said he's way out of control

I just feel like I'm the only one not pretendin'

I'm not out of control, I'm just not in they control

I know I'm the most influential

That TIME cover was just confirmation

This generation's closest thing to Einstein

So don't worry about me, I'm fine

I can see a thousand years from now in real life

Skate on the paradigm and shift it when I feel like

Troll conventional thought, don't need to question

I know it's antiquated so sometimes I get aggressive

Thank God For Jay Electra, he down with the mission

Did it with with no permission, on our own conditions

Most Blacks with money have been beaten to submission

Yeezy with the big house, did it way different

Never listen to Hollywood producers

Don't stare at money too long, it's Medusa

The ultimate Gemini has survived

I wasn't supposed to make it past 25

And you're lookin' at the church in the night sky

Wonderin' whether God's gonna say hi

Oh, you're lookin' at the church in the night sky

And you wonder where is God in your nightlife

Yeah, you're lookin' at the church in the night sky

(Father, father, father...)

Wonderin' whether God's gonna say hi

The night sky, yeah, I feel like I'm home, yeah

I've been wakin' the spirits of millions more to come

A million illegally downloaded my truth over the drums

I believe in the children, listen to the kids, bro

If the phone ringin', go and get your kids ho

Brother Don Muhammad told the minister about the presentation

He sat back and smiled

Black on black lies is worse than black on black crime

The Jews share their truth on how to make a dime

Most black men couldn't balance a checkbook

But buy a new car, talkin' 'bout "how my neck look?"

Well... it all looks great

Four hundred years later, we buyin' our own chains

The light is before us brothers, so the devil workin' hard

Real family stick together and see through the mirage

The smokescreens, perceptions of false reality

Who the real owner if your boss gets a salary?

I am one with the people

I am one with the people (real)

I've been woken from enlightened man's dream

Checkin' Instagram comments to crowdsource my self esteem

Let me not say too much or do too much

Cause if I'm up way too much, I'm out of touch

I'm prayin' a out-of-body experience will happen

So the people can see my light, now it's not just rappin'

God, I have humbled myself before the court

Drop my ego and confidence was my last resort

I know, I know he got a plan, I know I'm on your beams

One set of footsteps, you was carryin' me

When I turned on the news and they was buryin' me

One set of footsteps, you was carryin' me

When I was negotiatin' with Apple, it was Larry and me

Told Tim Cook to call me, I was scary to see

I would've took a hundred million and gave 20 to Hov

I heard it's the way they did it when we only had a stove

But it's better that I stayed at home with my folks

Cause if Jay a billionaire then I'ma never go broke

Only thing I ask is next time I'm on stage we all go

We all go

Not just by myself, lookin' for niggas like where's Waldo

She got the same shoes as my wife but she copped 'em at Aldo

Modern day MJ with a off the wall flow

My life, walk all over me

Walk all over me

I'm deliverin' everything I've ever sent to you, bring

Fly, fly, fly overseas

Fly overseas

Oh, anywhere, everything but in between

Yeah, you're lookin' at the church in the night sky

Wonderin' whether God's gonna say hi

Oh, you're lookin' at the church in the night sky

And you wonder where is God in your nightlife

Yeah, you're lookin' at the church in the night sky

Wonderin' whether God's gonna say hi

Oh, you're lookin' at the church in the night sky

And you wonder where is God in your nightlife

Please face me when I speak

Please say to me somethin' before you leave

You've been treatin' me like I'm invisible

Not visible to you

Oh the invisible truths they sold

I can't quite understand the games you play

Understand, understand

Understand I'm standin' under oath

And I promised I, I wouldn't fall anymore

But I'm cryin' at the bar

I'm wishin' that you saw my scars

I'm wishin' that you came down here

And stood by me

Like you knew me

But I feel so alone

Like I don't know anyone but the night sky

Yeah, you're lookin' at the church in the night sky

Wonderin' whether God's gonna say hi

Oh, you're lookin' at the church in the night sky

And you wonder where is God in your nightlife

Yeah, you're lookin' at the church in the night sky

(Father, father, father...)

Wonderin' whether God's gonna say hi

Oh, you're lookin' at the church in the night sky

And you wonder where is God in your nightlife

(Father, father, father...)

[teddybere]

I'm just gonna write it here because I never let myself actually complain about this. Being chronically ill is just SO unbelievably shit.

If you're like me, you grow up with a few issues, things are a bit tricky, but you're able to dream. You think about what sort of amazing job you'll have. You dream about maybe starting a band, or playing social football in the weekends. You dream about starting a family and taking them camping because you loved that as a kid.

Then, suddenly things change and your chronic illness takes more and more of your energy and you get so confused. 'I really do want to join in on sports day, why do I not have the energy? I don't think I'm lazy, but everyone is saying it so it must be true.' You let more and more hobbies drop to conserve your energy, and suddenly, everything that makes you happy has to come at the expense of your health. And then when you inevitably have your bad days, the toxic positivity culture makes you question if any of it is actually worth it. Of course, it is when you have good friends and other support figures, people to make you smile, but there's always stuff you're gonna miss out on. The whole paradigm of what you expected life to be shifts into a mess of unknowns.

So, you play animal crossing all day, read fanfiction and find joy any way you can. And life continues. You make new, attainable dreams, and things are okay. But sometimes reality hits, and you can't help but mourn the life you expected to at least have the chance to work towards.