#(but 50% is a good straightforward concept)

[cesium-sheep]

I've always bounced back so quickly as soon as I get even the slightest bit of breathing room. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that it seems to be happening again.

I was talking to matt earlier and like. I'd be happy at 50%, that's an entirely acceptable long-term quality of life for me. (I've been below 5% all year.) but I suppose I don't have to limit myself to only 50% if I'm responding so well that it seems I might get further without significant additional cost (personal or financial).

[mariacallous]

FLINT, Michigan ― The story of a wildly successful antipoverty program is also one of the most disheartening tales of Joe Biden’s presidency.

In 2021, Biden and congressional Democrats expanded a tax credit for children, transforming it from a targeted, sliding-scale subsidy to a simpler, more straightforward form of financial assistance. It was a version of an idea that’s become the hottest concept in antipoverty policy ― just giving people money, without restrictions on its use or complex eligibility procedures. By nearly all accounts, it worked magnificently. That year, the U.S. poverty rate hit a record low. The expansion was one of the COVID-19 relief measures in the American Rescue Plan, which passed on party lines. Biden and his allies had hoped to extend the program, making it permanent. But to do that, they needed every single vote from their 50-seat Democratic majority in the Senate. And they couldn’t get Joe Manchin, the conservative Democrat from West Virginia, to go along. The program expired at the end of the year.

Now, with the tax credit back to its more complicated, restrictive version, poverty is back up. And although a year’s worth of helping low-income families with kids surely did a lot of good, neither Biden nor the Democrats have gotten much credit for that. Few Americans are even aware of the program, or of Biden’s role in it. And among those familiar with the program’s history, the prevailing sentiment seems to be disappointment at the failure to make it permanent.

But there’s a coda to this story involving a new initiative in Flint, Michigan, that’s already helping hundreds of families. And it’s got political relevance, given that it probably wouldn’t have happened without the help of Biden and other Democrats.

If the program lives up to its billing, it could inspire copycat efforts around the country, fueling calls to resurrect a federal version of the program. But the prospects for those efforts depend on keeping sympathetic leaders in office, which in turn depends on what happens in the next election.

[olderthannetfic]

As someone who's been wondering why there've been so many senseless, needless arguments online about a hypothetical derth of purity in fiction and how it affects people negatively (it doesn't), now learning from several friends who are teachers (with the oldest being a uni professor) that Gen Z (27-11 yo) and Gen Alpha can't read, have poor media literacy, and soley seek fiction to reaffirm their own worldviews without curiosity and with judgement (and a lot of it). I say this as someone who is Gen Z. I'm only 26 years old, but I'm also a TA right now while I'm in grad school. it's not just the middle school and high school students. College students who should be able to do simple literary analysis cannot. Sure these issues (puritanical thinking, absent/poor parenting, lackluster curriculum, etc) have always existed, but with this in mind, it absolutely makes sense why there's so much dumb discourse over things in media that anyone with sense could separate from reality. Even simple things that you learn in elementary school at 6 years old, like "just because the story is focalized through a specific character, doesn't mean they're correct/the protagonist≠morally righteous/you're not always supposed to agree with the POV character or main characters." Maybe it really is the case that, sure some people are being deliberately obtuse, but there are also others who probably don't know.

I've seen it explained to people in fandom and on tumblr with popular series people have read or seen. No, you're not supposed to think Light Yagami is a good guy or a hero. "L is the straightforward hero in Death Note the whole time" isn't clever. It's the main text. No, you're not supposed to agree with Eren Jaeger or military fascists. "SNK is pro military and pro genocide" is just inaccurate. All the characters exhibiting those traits are killed to signal the flaws in their rhetoric. It's actually really unambiguous in that regard, not at all subtle. No, x shoujo/YA fantasy/Ya romance isn't advocating for middle school or high school girls to date men in their mid-20s. Teen girls have always fantasized about adults they find attractive, and these stories (made for and marketed to teen girls) fulfills that desire while protecting them from the possibility of that reality (an adult returning their feelings). No, it's not weird that mythological gods (but I see people mostly complaining about Greek and Egyptian ones) are related. It's purposeful. They're all related concepts and personifications of nature, which is all connected. Get over yourselves. No, it's not weird that gothic stories have incest in them. It was a common practice among aristocracy and nobility all around them world (so, not just a "white people thing"), and it typically symbolizes the decay as social norms. If you feel discomfort, then the story was successful.

On the one hand, sure. It's purity culture, ignorance, misogyny, etc. On the other hand, do the people who harp on about these actually know how to interpret stories? I'm often told "They can't read" as an explanation by others. I'm starting to think it's true, and I don't know how to combat that as someone who may be an educator down the road myself while also being involved in fandom.

--

I'd say it's about 50/50 the usual The Kids These Days scaremongering and a genuine shift.

Reading comprehension can be taught. I was taught to analyze passages in school. Students have to be open to learning, but it's not like some critical language thing you need to absorb before the age of two: a college student who's actually interested in getting better can perfectly well do so, possibly with some help or possibly just with experience.

Plenty of it is anxiety about being wrong and immoral and hurting people too. It's fundie thinking where listening and engaging means capitulating. Lots of people do slowly get over this. Many will calm down about it if they ever get the anxiety meds they so desperately need. Some would probably benefit from ceasing to self harm via social media doomscrolling or exclusively consuming attention span-destroying, FOMO-inducing garbage.

...I say as I answer tumblr asks instead of getting out of bed to start my New Year's resolutions.

[invinciblerodent]

I have been thinking fucking incessantly about this one Todd May quote ever since that scene meeting Mystra:

"Why, for the Immortals, are all undertakings in vain? Given an infinite amount of time for existence, everything will happen of its own accord. There is nothing an immortal being cannot eventually do; and, in fact, nothing he or she will not eventually do."

This is from his book "Death", from the chapter "Death and immortality", about... well, immortality, and the morals of it, as contrasted with its mortal conceptions.

Essentially, in the most straightforward way I can phrase it, May describes how for mortals, life is fraught with urgency. We are always at least tangentially aware of our existence being temporary: which is in part what makes our actions meaningful. We are aware that there is a finite amount of things that we are able to accomplish in our lifetimes, and we are at least kind of aware of our existence being singular in time (even considering religious beliefs of things like reincarnation or an eternal afterlife, the here and now when I am both this and present is still unique), so the end, or the idea of it, in its way, generates the meaning of the limited number of events within this particular chunk of time.

An immortal, like a goddess, would likely be more of a disinterested spectator of life than an active participant in it. Without the urgency of a time limit to drive them forward, and the precariousness of living to make the future uncertain, a goddess has no real interest in things that happen in the world of mortals. With good turning to bad, and bad turning to good over the centuries, it's easy enough to kind of stop caring about what is currently going on, because, well, it'll eventually be different, and then the same again.

Of fucking course she doesn't care for Gale the way he cares for her: it's impossible for her, which is what he, with his limited, human perspective, is (imo) initially incapable of understanding. In his very short, limited life, there is room for one, maybe two such great loves, but in hers? There is an endless, constant stream of near-faceless people, flowing through and not making a permanent mark, because permanence for an immortal is a word largely devoid of meaning. Bad or good, the guilt/pleasure will always fade, the people will all die and get replaced by a brand new crop of similarly expendable people, and the goddess will still have an infinity of time to go.

Even considering that she was once Mystryl, and that technically this incarnation of her was once mortal, and keeping her brush with a kind of death in mind, the future for Mystra, as she can conceive of it, is an empty, vast expanse of nothing but the certainty that she will live, and she will be present in some way. Even if slain (if I recall correctly how this works in DnD), her essence just kinda returns to the cosmic soup, and eventually, she'll... reform, or be resurrected, or changed as she has been already, or she'll remain as an immaterial fragment, or something. Point is, she is unending, and he is no more than a blip on her radar.

That's why she's so callous about asking him to die, and in turn essentially dooming Faerun: she doesn't care. She can't care. He was going to die anyway in what feels to her like the blink of an eye (whether it's 5 days, 50 years, or 500, it's not important), and what does she care if the Grand Design comes to fruition? Whether there are people or mind flayers inhabiting the world, it's of no real concern to her. Eventually, either people will strike back, or go extinct, or the mind flayers will cease to exist and something different will come from it, all without truly affecting her. In a year, a hundred years, or a million years, she will be here, and there will be another bright mageling to amuse her.

Fun as it is to joke about it, I don't think that the toxicity of their relationship is her fault, strictly speaking. It's not the ocean's fault when a tsunami destroys a village and kills hundreds. It's not the storm's fault when lightning strikes and kills a tree. Her very nature is this nebulous, capricious existence, only truly occupied with having the power to indulge her whimsies, and filling an infinite amount of time with things to do- unconcerned about how that affects others, because their whole lives barely affect her for a short segment of her eternal soup of undefined presence.

It can be argued that any relationship that may exist between mortal and immortal is necessarily tragic, toxic, desperately unequal, and grossly unhealthy for the mortal. By its very nature, such a relationship pushes the needs and feelings of the mortal party into essential inconsequence to their partner. There can be no regret to feel when the mortal is hurt or gone, because there have been others like them, and there will be others to come still, and everything will happen, or has happened, and will happen again.

Gale was always doomed to be her devoted plaything, only to be discarded once he stops being fun. That could have been once his appearance stopped pleasing her, or once his wit stopped entertaining her, or for any reason whatsoever, and him recognizing that this relationship was never anything more than entertainment to her, while it was devastating and singularly defining to him, is such an important thing for his future happiness.

(This is mainly why his throwaway "Let me make myself indispensable" line is so important to me, tbh. He yearns to matter, and that is only possible if he either finds contentment entirely within the mortal realm, or becomes a god himself, which in turn just dooms him to essentially become Mystra and continue this vicious cycle.)

(Fucking tragic-ass low-wis wizard man, making me fkin... re-read my philosophy books. Honestly the gall, Larian.)

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Doctor Who, but Chronologically: 47

Fortunately there is no time jump, so we return to World Enough and Time's final part, The Doctor Falls. This is good for answers, because sometimes two-parters jump around - we're still waiting to find out how Matt Smith got out of that cube and whether River blew up. But not this time! Here we are on a Cyberman infested ship again.

Also, here is something I genuinely enjoy about Steven Moffat's writing: he does very good and fun and engaging pre-credit cliffhanger resolutions to his two-parters, and this one is no exception. We are treated to an idyllic farm house with adorable innocent children and salt-of-the-earth rustic folk in a green countryside a few floors up in the ship, with Cybermen crucified as scarecrows all around them; a child feels an earthquake, and suddenly a space shuttle bursts up through the floor and crashes. And out of the wreckage walks Cyber-Bill, carrying the Doctor in her arms.

VERY FUN (the Doctor gets Cyber-shot like eight times in this episode, he does need carrying)

Anyway, this is a fairly straightforward episode plot-wise. After Missy and Master attack the Doctor, he changes the parameters the Cybermen are following to identify humans - now they will target 1 or 2 hearts, so suddenly the Gallifreyans are also at risk (I will admit this is one of those "Seems clever but is actually dumb as hell" twists that Moffat is so good at. "I only had time to make one small change!" says the Doctor. "I added a 2! Now they will also chase people with two hearts!" Okay but that is not how coding works. Either you change the number 1 to a 2 - in which case they would now EXCLUSIVELY track Gallifreyans and leave humans alone, problem solved - or you added an operator like AND or OR or what have you, in which case you used up extra precious seconds to deliberately ensure that these Cybermen would still track humans.)

(And actually, they don't track the blue man. And the Doctor takes pains in this episode to point out that the Cybermen still have easily fooled monkey brains. So like. At any point, everyone could have painted themselves blue and been fine. Hmm.)

ANYWAY

The change means Missy and the Master escape upwards with the Doctor, Nardole and Cyber-Bill, so we exchange Cardiff University and Bute Street the grime of the Cyber conversion level for the pastoral wilds of Abergavenny floor 507, a solar farm that therefore has a holographic sky and simulated weather. And then it's basically a village under siege story - the Cybermen are coming, and are upgrading as they go, a process that is happening in what appears to be days to our hero but is in fact years at the bottom of the ship. This also means they can't all go up in the lifts to escape more than a few floors now - the Cybermen will upgrade to stop them too fast.

(Except. There's about 50 things wrong with that as a concept. I can think of one previously noted plot point that proves that wrong and about five possible workarounds right off the top of my head - as I say, "seems clever but is actually dumb as hell." But this is an era finale and so the focus is not on the plot - a mere skeleton to prop up the actual star of the show - but the story. What matters here is the characters, and what they think and feel and say, and what choices they make.)

Ultimately, it turns out that Missy genuinely does want to change, and become a good person. This is genuinely poignant, because the Master therefore kills her to stop her. I'm not wild about that as a twist, actually - long franchises with recurring villains never like to allow true growth, but I think "villain trying to atone" is actually a super valuable narrative, and I always feel sad for characters who aren't allowed to do it. But I will admit that it's played relatively nicely, as a tragedy.

Fortunately, it's juxtaposed with one of the best monologues any character in anything has ever given; namely, Peter Motherfucking Capaldi turning his Acting skills up to over 9000 to explain why we should choose to do the right thing. It's beautiful and moving and timeless and true and I love it, wholeheartedly and unironically. I mean it's also bullshit from this particular Doctor, given that we have in the past watched Clara have to force him to even try to save people if they don't do what he likes (Christ she deserved a better Doctor T_T), but regardless, it's a fantastic speech delivered by one of the greatest actors of his generation.

So what does happen?

Well! Bill is Cyber-Bill now, and the process is written off as permanent. She retains her memories through force of will, but will slowly succumb. "I can feel the programming," she sobs at one point, and fuck me Pearl Mackie is also a phenomenal actor. "It's like a hurricane in my head, and I'm hanging on, but I can only hang on for so long."

This episode literally started with the Doctor altering the programming of the Cybermen.

"Alas," he tells her. "There's nothing I can do to fix this."

Well then.

The Doctor and Bill ultimately decide to stay and fight Cybermen off while Nardole is given the task of leading the humans up five floors to the next solar farm in the lifts; the Doctor then blows up the floor they're on with the Cybermen on it, and go out in a blaze of glory. This is... certainly a choice, isn't it? Every story with Nardole so far has shown him to be the plucky comic relief, and I include in that THIS EXACT STORY WHERE MISSY CALLED HIM COMIC RELIEF TO HIS FACE. We even got more Weird Nrdole Stuff this episode - apparently he's some sort of reformed con-man and a computer whizz. And yet!!! And yet he gets the Proper Companion Ending!!! This is such a tonally strange choice. The Doctor even convinces him to do it by telling him he's stronger than the Doctor, a claim for which we have seen zero evidence, and is actually the sort of thing that gets said to Proper Companions after they have been through two series' worth of character development. By rights, this should surely have been Bill's job? Lead the survivors in a post-apocalyptic world?

Instead, Bill dies as a Cyberman, and then suddenly, from our perspective, THINGS GET REAL WEIRD, because an unnamed water faerie with a star in her eye who apparently once cried on Bill turns up and goes "You're like me now," and they magic the Doctor back into the TARDIS that two minutes ago he said he couldn't reach, abandon Nardole in a Cyber-infested ship, and then fuck off to explore the cosmos together and have hot lesbian sex, I assume.

What the fuck.

And then to round off, the Doctor wakes up, cries that he doesn't want to regenerate, and staggers out of the TARDIS into snow and also the arms of David Bradley's First Doctor. Which brings us nicely to that story we've already seen! We've seen Capaldi's regeneration. That was a good one.

So! Let's update the board.

“She” (an unknown person) is returning (Suspects: River, Missy, Me, Clara)

There is something on Donna’s back

An entire planet, Pyrovilia, just… disappeared, somehow. (Maybe because the TARDIS is exploding??? Saturnine was also lost, and that WAS because of the TARDIS exploding. The lion man’s planet was also lost but he was a bit of a knob about it if I’m honest. The Thijarian planet was destroyed by some sort of impact). Is this the Flux?

Amy is maybe dead (she’s not)

The Doctor has been cubed (he’s out, but how?)

River is possibly blown up  (Nope: she is definitely not blown up)

The TARDIS has blown up  (It’s fine now. Except it’s sort of melting now because it’s corrupted, but it’s fine again. NOPE, back to not working.)

The universe appears to have ended  (the universe is back again)

The Doctor has employed(?) Nardole

(And Nardole was “reassembled???” Nardole had glass nipples and invisible hair?? He used to be blue, and could apparently go back to it??? NEW INFO: he's some sort of helplessly criminal con-artist??? WHAT THE FUCK IS HE)

There’s an immortal Viking girl now. Her name is Me and she’s now looking after the people the Doctor abandons

Why was Rory entirely unconcerned by the entire world suddenly going silent when that is Not Normal and should have been, at the very least, extremely disconcerting?

What did the Doctor do to Queen Lizzie One?

Why is Amy seeing a one-eyed woman in a vanishing window? (She’s with the Silents, but we don’t know why Amy saw her)

Why is Amy’s pregnancy inconclusive? (Maybe because the baby had Time Lord DNA?) She’s deffo pregnant and the baby becomes River, but why inconclusive?

Who is Sarah-Jane Smith?

How is the Doctor Bill’s teacher and why/where does he have an office?

What is going on with the Cyber War and the Cyberium???

What happened with the Other Cyber War?

What happened with the Third War that deleted the void?

Why does Rose seem particularly important?

What order do these Doctors go in? (Eccleston, Tennant, uncertain, Smith, Capaldi, Whittaker)

Which companion just… forgot the Doctor, and how?

Yaz and Vinder are about to die as Mori/Mwri/Muuri (Not anymore, somehow)

There is a Lupari shield around Earth.

What’s a Time War?

What’s the Rift?

What’s Bad Wolf?

In which war did the Doctor become a war criminal, and how?

Why has Amy forgotten Rory? How did she forget a Dalek invasion?

Is Rory plastic or not? Yeah, must be, he couldn’t possibly remember being plastic otherwise

Why is the Doctor sulking on a cloud?

How exactly does the Doctor have a cloud?

What exactly happened with Strax to, uh, tame him?

Which friend killed Strax?

Which friend brought Strax back?

Where did this lesbian lizard and human couple come from?

What happened with Clara as Souffle Girl and the Daleks?

How does Clara actually join?

Why so many Claras? A psychic midwife says she’s just normal human

Why is Missy apparently in robo-heaven? NEW INFO: Is this because she's now dead?

Why is probably!Missy pushing Clara and the Doctor together?

What is Trensilor and what happened there?

Who is Handles?

The Doctor is about to be dissolved by a beautiful geode man

The universe is being crushed by the Flux

Will the Doctor open the fobwatch?

Sontarans are invading Earth again

Who is Kate?

Who is Osgood? Another name of Clara’s again?

The fuck is the deal with the Grand Serpent

Does Martha get to go to an ice cream planet with 12-fingered massage aliens?

How did the Doctor forget Clara?

Who is Bill’s puddle girlfriend Heather? NEW INFO: This is presumably the star-eyed water faerie

How did Nardole die?

When does the Doctor shrink and enter a Dalek called Rusty?

Whittaker is falling to her death rn

Was that ring relevant?

Does anyone know the Doctor’s name? NEW INFO:  Missy says it's "Who"

When did Yaz talk to Dan about fancying the Doctor?

When did Dan talk to the Doctor about fancying Yaz?

What’s happening with the bees?

What happened with Donna’s ex and a giant spider?

What war wiped out the Daleks, and is it one of the ones already mentioned?

What did the Doctor mean when he said “The (Daleks) always live, while I lose everything?”

If Dalek Caan is the last Dalek left why are there more now?

How did the rest of the Time Lords die?

How and why did Amy melt?

What’s the question that will make silence fall?

Why do the Silents… want silence to fall?

How and why are Silents at war with the Doctor when he… hasn’t even heard of them?

How does Hitler get out of the cupboard?

What’s the significance of fish fingers and custard?

Why does the Doctor feel guilt about Rose, Martha and Donna?

What happened with the space whale?

When does Rory defend Amy for 2000 years? Since Roman times, it seems

How does the Doctor survive River? He doesn’t, apparently

How does he erase himself from history

Did Captain Jack lose his memories to the same people as the Doctor? What did he lose?

When did the Doctor send the Daleks into a void to save the universe?

What’s with the weird crack in the wall and is it affecting memories?

Why do Amy and Rory think the Doctor is dead? Is it because of River as an astronaut?

Is Matt Smith’s Doctor a tree racist?

Why is the beautiful geode woman stealing people into a Passenger form?

River says she’ll die one day when the Doctor doesn’t remember her, let’s hope she doesn’t mean it

Why doesn’t the TARDIS like Clara?

When was the Master Prime Minister?

When will the Doctor go and rescue Nardole and the colonists?

[shuttershocky]

Hey Shutters, what do you think they'll end up going for regarding a 6* arts defender + that subclass' modules? And also what would *you* do?

I think that a 6* Arts Defender has the potential to be the next Horn. I think Hypergryph know it too, which is why this very old archetype has hung around all this time getting 5 stars but never a 6 star when even the damn Sentinels got their 6 star in Jessica (and Sentinels weren't even a real archetype for ages, they used to be classed as regular Protectors).

In fact, I know HG are timid about touching Arts Defenders because Viviana was our first Arts Guard in 2 years since Surtr, and they made her play like a Defender instead with her shield generation and damage reduction against elites and bosses, trying to play as a DPS tank.

Being a Defender means your stats are good. Being an Arts Protector means you have access to Arts damage on skills. Being a 6 Star means people expect you to be much, much stronger than the rest in your class, when Shalem does 2,262 single target arts DPS and has a 25% RES reduction talent and Asbestos has AOE with a range extension and Czerny has a +100% Max HP skill.

Right now, Arts Defenders are mostly relegated to niche clears and for people who simply like their characters. Their skills tend to be weird (Shalem kills himself, Czerny needs to get hit a lot, etc) to balance out how powerful the concept of combining Defenders with damage is (which goes for the others too: Juggernauts can't be healed, Duelists only block 1, etc). A 6 star Arts protector either won't be shackled by these same constraints, or will have numbers high enough to be worth the janky mechanics.

If I were to make my own 6* Arts Protector, I think mixing some of the funnest ideas from Czerny, Shalem, and Asbestos could make for a really fun operator. And because this is HG and they cannot hide from me that they take inspiration from Dota 2 skill designs, I'm also going to partially base it on a certain Dota hero, Abbadon.

I'm thinking something like:

Talent 1: +5 RES. This unit takes 5/10/15% of damage taken by allies in the 8 surrounding tiles into itself instead.

Talent 2: Every time this unit loses 10% of Max HP, attacks an enemy within range for 100% of ATK + 10% of Max HP as Arts damage.

Skill 1: SP/s recovery. When this skill is activated, +100 ASPD +50% Max HP +100% RES. This unit loses 5% max HP every attack.

Skill 2: ATK recovery. When skill is activated, range expands, all allies attacking the enemy this unit is attacking receives + ASPD. Enemies hit by this unit take -ASPD and are silenced. Each enemy killed when this skill effect is on them increases this unit's ATK by 4%.

Skill 3. Defensive Recovery. When this skill is activated, +250% ATK, +350% Max HP, +100% DEF. Healing effectiveness + 80%. Attacks change to AOE, but stops attacking (can only attack via Talent 2). Talent 1 effect x3 (+15 RES and takes 45% of ally damage into itself instead) and range expands. Talent 2 range expands to Global.

____

It sounds a bit silly but can you really tell me I'm going overboard when HG crammed everything into Hoederer's S3 to make him viable? I for one think the niche of a unit that takes damage for other units is still unexplored beyond Skadi the Corrupting Heart's S1, but I also think it will be extremely funny and unique if we have a Defender that just stops attacking and instead takes damage for all of its allies, but retaliates by shooting AOE arts blasts all around the map every time it takes 10% of HP as damage, sort of like Czerny's S2 combined with Asbestos' S2.

You'll obviously need a healsquad for this guy but I think it sounds funny and usable in niches without being a too straightforward Arts DPS unit.

___

[pacebone]

oh my goodness your art is just. sublime. i can't even express how beautiful your rendering is. please pray tell your painting/colour picking process!

tysm for the kind words!! i'm glad you took the time to send this message!

i don't think i do anything too special, but there are some rules/teachings i try to keep in mind while i work. i love talking about art and color so i'm happy to get into them in what'll probably end up as an unnecessary amount of detail!!! let's go!!

first off, relativity is The Main Rule of coloring, and you'll probably see it referenced in, like, all of the following tips, because it's my main way of thinking about art. color relativity is less of a school of thought and more of a scientific truth: human vision is incapable of processing color on its own, we can only process what we see as it appears relative to its neighbors. my bro josef albers did a lot of important work on this subject.

it always comes back to bauhaus.

you don't see blue, you see bluer-than-everything-else. if your surroundings are orange (blue's opposite on the color wheel, or, in relativity-speak, the-least-possible-blue), the bluer-than-everything-else object may as well look gray in a blue setting. though i gave a simple example, this isn't a simple spectrum, because saturation and value also affect each other, making for a three-dimensional matrix of trouble.

boy, if everyone understood this concept, that white-gold/blue-black dress argument sure would've been short.

anyway, going from there:

1) i usually start with a 50% neutral gray background. relativity is a negotiation, and starting in the color equivalent of switzerland sure makes negotiations easier. starting with white will make everything look darker and more intense than it really is. (this tip works for irl painting too, i always tint my gesso!)

2) #ffffff and #000000 are treats only for special occasions. they are the fried ice creams of values. use them sparingly and in very important areas (or not at all--i tend to avoid true black altogether in lineless work, usually opting for a deep tone of the work's main color instead). i save these until i'm very close to finishing up, because if you add them too early, you'll throw off the balance of the relativity.

3) finally getting to actual color! when choosing highlights and shadows, i always adjust the color in addition to the value according to a general rule: lighter areas appear warmer, and darker areas appear cooler. this is a pretty common tip, but it's parroted for a reason: it works! for flesh tones, that means highlights are yellower and shadows are redder or bluer. doing this also adds liveliness and helps prevent the doll-like appearance that rendered flesh can get (but don't get carried away with this or you'll end up lisa franking it. not that lisa franking doesn't have its own important application).

4) relativity isn't just something you have to negotiate with. once you get the hang of it, it's a very useful tool! as renowned art theorist francis bacon famously said: color relativity is an excellent servant, but a terrible master to circle all the way back: - if you want something to look very blue, surround it with orange, - if you want something to look very light, surround it with darkness, - if you want something to look very saturated, surround it with dull colors, and vice versa. this can be a useful compositional tool, not just a rendering one--make the focus of your drawing light/dark and saturated, and keep the unimportant areas in duller mid-tones.

a straightforward application of relativity is in the whites of the eyes, because you have an area on the face that's neutral by nature, and neutral = your playing field. like our homestuck kids with their fun eye colors... to make rose's purple eyes look super purple, i tinted the whites of her eyes just a little bit yellow-y (i ended up leaning into soft orange bc otherwise you'll just get jaundice).

and this isn't a just one-way relationship: in the john piece, i DIDN'T want his eyes to be a super distinguished blue, because that was a work about him feeling too absorbed/swallowed in his surroundings (retcon power moping), so i made the whites of his eyes very blueish, lessening the impact of his eye color.

slightly off the vein of relativity: i also usually like making the whites of the eyes around the same value and saturation as the skintone for a sense of cohesiveness, but that's more of an personal preference. white-whites kinda scare me (but, to emphasize, scary eyes have their own application--see, conveniently, kanaya and her brighter-than-her-skintone eyes for that slightly uncanny alien vamp effect!).

i mentioned that i always start with a 50% gray background, but if you're particularly discerning, you may be thinking: hey, wait, your rosemary piece has a darkish blue-gray background! cheater!

and my response to that is yes. so true. i was cheating. color relativity may be a negotiation for the artist, but it's a straight-up scam for the viewer. that's why they call it a trompe l'oeil, a deception of the eye, and not something nicer. i wanted to make rose appear very warm and a little yellowish because she's Sun Light Girl and a cooler background will fool people into seeing that. i wanted to make kanaya appear glowy without painting her white, because, as mentioned, that's fried ice cream, so a darker background will fool people into seeing that.

here's what it would've looked like on a neutral background vs. the final one:

haha ignore the lazy leg i hid in the shadow

this is why i think it's so important to start pretty neutral. if you go full saturation/light/dark from the start, then you'll have no room to play! this doesn't mean painting in shades of gray, but it does mean having a bit of restraint with the extremes of color and value. this can involve a little more planning and negotiating, but the results tend to be worth it. and, luckily, those of us in the digital realm can easily tweak these relationships through adjustment layers and overlays.

fuck that's a lot of text. anyway. hope something or other in there helps.

if something's unclear please know i am a little too eager to clarify!!

[fioras-resolve]

I wanna talk a bit about Pokemon Rumble and randomness, because I feel like its design is useful reference for a lot of genres, from looter shooters to roguelikes to gacha games. Not because I think it's the best system for all purposes, but because its design is straightforward enough to be easy to analyze.

The core of it is this: Since there is no leveling system, you instead have to power up by finding stronger Pokemon. And the way you do that is by KO'ing them in the wild and seeing if they randomly drop for pickup. Pokemon you pick up will be at varying power levels and may or may not have moves you like, but because you can't finely control your moveset, the best way to find one that DOES work for you is to just keep getting new Pokemon.

Let's first call attention to that drop system. Because new Pokemon drop off at random every time you beat one, you can't know exactly how long it will take to get one you want or need. This can be frustrating, but it also works in the game's favor. It makes it all the more tantalizing

See, there's a concept in psychology called operative conditioning, which is a kind of conditioning that influences independent volition. Compare this to classical conditioning, stuff like Pavlov's dogs, where the conditioning influences a response to a stimulus. Operant conditioning is best encapsuled by what we now call the Skinner Box Experiment. You might have heard of it before.

Basically, it involved putting birds into boxes, each of which contained a button to push, which would occasionally reward them with food. There were two types of boxes. One gave a fixed ratio, meaning the rate of food relative to pushes was constant. The other gave an intermettent variable ratio, meaning that the number of pushes needed to spill out food was semi-randomized. And it turned out that the latter was more effective at getting the birds to keep pushing. This kind of conditioning is omnipresent in video games, from lootboxes to random drops to, yes, randomized Pokemon.

It brings up an interesting question of like, do we actually want a game to be more fair and honest to us? Would a drop system be more compelling to us if, instead of having a 2% chance to drop, you had to kill exactly 50 enemies for it? Or would that clarity actually put light to the tedium of it? We've been talking on occasion in this server about mobile games that "removed the gacha," and the various ways devs have both failed and succeeded to make that compelling. In a sense, randomness plays a trick on us, and sometmes we like that trick. But this does raise another question of "Is the best game the one that keeps people playing the longest? Or is there value in knowing when to let go?" Maybe, just because a game is good at keeping us hooked, doesn't mean it's the best experience or something we really want out of games.

Back to Rumble, though, this game is very good at keeping me engaged. A thing I wanna note is, even though the game gives about 250 different creatures to play as, I don't find myself getting attached to individual Pokemon in the same way I do in the main series, or that people do to characters in Genshin or FE Heroes. These Pokemon are broadly disposable, because what you really need is high power and good moves.

And I just wanna say, the amount of move diversity is really cool. Even duplicates of the same Pokemon will feel extremely different to play because they have different moves. A Pokemon with a fast attack and a ranged attack will feel different from one with a self-buff and an area-of-effect. Additionally, there's a small chance for a Pokemon you recruit to have an ability, something like a type resistance, high movement speed, health regen, etc. It does a really good job of not flattening all the Pokemon you get, but it does also mean that the usability level varies dramatically.

This brings me to the next component. What if a Pokemon has the stats you want, but not the moves. This brings me to the Move Tutor, which is an incredibly odd facility. Basically, you pay some in-game currency, then the game randomly picks one move from the Pokemon's entire learnset, and asks if you want to replace one of your two moves with it. A lot of these will be duds just by the nature of the game. It might have a bad power level, it might have a hitbox you don't like, or it might be a status move that you hate to use. I mentioned that I get more attached to moves than Pokemon in this game? Well, this is the game exploiting that fact by tying it to a gacha. And while sometimes it lets me customize a favorite Pokemon as I like, especially useful with an ability, I feel like I have better luck pulling an entirely new Pokemon with the Recruit Point. It costs way more, but at least there's a new possibility.

So, this next bit is something that comes up for me every once in a while. You know, if you play a game with random drops like this, you're gonna get a lot of shit you don't use. So most games of this variety let you burn your trash, as in, remove the stuff you don't use in exchange for something you can use. Every gacha has some system for handling duplicates, "Get In The Car, Loser!" has you burn items to upgrade your weapons, and Pokemon Rumble has a Release Point, where you can let go of obtained Pokemon for a cash reward.

This means that even the pickups you don't care about can be spent on something you do, either rolling for a new move or for a new Pokemon all together. Additionally, it has a very clever feature where if you release five of the same unevolved Pokemon, you get its evolved form, which comes with better stats all around. It's a cool feature that rewards collection, but I wish it was better implemented? You can only hold one Recruit Ticket at a time, and only one pops out from a bulk release. Meaning if you want the best outcome, you have to release each group one-by-one. But it's a big payout either way, and you can afford a lot more by releasing your excess. There's also a cool system where you get a legendary Pokemon if you release a specific combination, but that's a whole other thing.

I think it's really important to keep in mind how rewards play into your game's core loop, pacing, and economy. It can be hard to manage, but it's worth looking at case studies like this to deconstruct what the system is doing. Maybe keep this stuff in mind when you play a game with random rewards, and especially consider it when you're making one. I lay this all out not to seem superior for analyzing, but to give you a framework by which you can analyze and understand the games you play every day.

[itwas50yearsagotoday]

11/3/23: It was 50 years ago today, November 3rd, 1973, The Who would release their sixth studio album, and second Rock Opera double album, Quadrophenia. So I have very mixed feelings regarding this record… on one hand it has five or six excellent songs, including one of my all-time favorites, '5:15'. On the other hand this record is quite bloated and (dammit) boring in parts. I listened to it today all the way through for perhaps only the third or fourth time. I understand that this is a concept album about a dude named Jimmy who heard the Who when he was younger and then wants to re-live those glory days but no longer can… fine. But the problem is that every song either contains a snippet of another song's melody, or, is itself a snippet--the result is an album that is very repetitive in its melodies and overall sound. I just can't get over that. Like I said there are very good songs here: '5:15' has some of the most complex drumming I've heard on a straightforward (i.e. non-Prog) Rock song… great horns, great singing by Roger… it opens side three. The opener for side one (after the 'I Am the Sea' overture) is probably the second best song on the record-- 'The Real Me'… anthemic and bombastic, great combo here. I also have a soft spot for 'Bell Boy' which features some vocals (and cockney talk) from Keith Moon… kind of a recent discovery that I really enjoy. Speaking of this song, each band member has kind of a 'theme' song across this record, with 'Bell Boy' being Moon's, and the finale 'Love Reign O'er Me' being Townsend's… I think that particular tune is a little overrated, and kind of ends the album for me on a thump. Some other decent tunes include 'Sea and Sand', 'I'm One', and 'I've Had Enough'. I mean this is an album that you should listen to at least a couple times to see if you like it (if you're so inclined), but it just pales in comparison to the band's past three juggernauts (Tommy, Live at Leeds, and Who's Next). Two last things to say about this ambitious if flawed album: 1) The wistfulness and nostalgia is starting to become a sickness in Rock, and this album is no exception 2) My hypothesis about Boomer Rock hitting a plateau in '72 and '73 is further enforced by this record, as the band would never again have such an impact.

[stuffnonsenseandotherthings]

Cupid's Last Wish Episode 4 - Watch It Or Drop It Challenge

This episode was mainly about periods and, you know? Good.

So the whole dancing-to-tilly-birds scene in the last episode wasn't just a hallucination? They actually got out of the car and had a little dance number? LMAO 😂

Tian? What are you doing here? No wait sorry, it's still Win.

Phupha Korn to the rescue!

I know that the "putting hot stones in your shoe to heat up" is a real survival tip and I appreciate its inclusion.

WinLin has started their period and Korn has to buy sanitary products while feeling very very awkward about doing so. I love how awkward Korn is while trying to get hold of the products and how absolutely unbothered the shop clerk is by the whole ordeal. A great way to combine comedy while subtly pointing out that periods are/were/will be a normal part of +50% of the worlds population and that there's absolutely nothing embarrassing about it. It was nice to see the clerk being so straightforward with her questions and offering to help when she saw Korn had no idea what he was doing.

For once Korn is perceiving WinLin as "Lin" rather than "Win" and it's all because of the period. Up until this point, no matter how often Korn reminds Win about looking after Lin's body and the differences between them, whenever they are together WinLin appears on screen as Win, implying that Korn perceives Win as himself (and therefore as male) despite his outwards physical appearance. In this sequence, however, as WinLin experiences their menstrual cycle (a concept society has tide so tightly to its concept of womanhood many people would have you believe they are inseparable) they appear as Lin even when they are completely alone with Korn. The period tied WinLin to their female body in a way nothing else has been able to do and it's deeply jarring.

There's so much going on here in terms of Win's perception of himself and his relationship to Lin's body in this moment as well.

Love love love the portrayal of mood swings, they happen, they are deeply frustrating in their irrationality half the time, but they're not stupid in the way society likes to paint them to be.

THAT HUG 😍

What an episode! (Cis) men's frequent, lack of knowledge and embarrassment around the topic of periods, the strength of the societal perception (misconception) that menstruation is something all and only women experience, and a physical manifestion of Win's gender dysphoria in Lin's body... Nothing much happened but a whole lot was said and I definitely want to come back and revisit certain themes later.

Watch!

Watch It Or Drop It Masterpost.

[groovesnjams]

10 / 50

"Ditto" by NewJeans

DV:

While it's not the consensus pick ("Super Shy", because the critics love Erika de Casier) or the cool kids' pick ("OMG", per cool kid Crystal Leww), "Ditto" was my absolute favorite NewJeans song this year, not to mention the one that kicked off their ongoing imperial phase. "Ditto" showcases the group's earnestness and emotional vulnerability, intense feelings delivered via straightforward hooks. It also proved irresistible to DJs and remixers - the first time I heard "Ditto" it was as an edit on Soundcloud, and in the past year I've heard this hook over everything from pinkpantheress-style garage (obvious, irresistible) to Jersey club (massive banger, would lose my shit if I was in a club) to amapiano (you know, it's a fun concept, good try.) "Ditto" is indelible and yet flexible enough to remain itself in any of these settings, but ultimately it's the original version that I return to the most. It's easy to see what the DJs love about "Ditto", and easy to fall in love with it for the same reasons: the synth washes add a subtle layer of melody, but this is a song for vocals and percussion - at a distance, you might forget you're hearing anything but snare and clapping and singing, and "Ditto" is so tightly composed that it can work at that level alone. It's a tapestry of hooks, stitched together by a series of nonsense words that carry emotional heft - from "ra ta ta ta" to the bookending "Hoo hoo"s to "ditto" itself. It can be sliced and stretched and still maintain its identity, still be recognizably itself even when it's moved to an entirely unexpected context. NewJeans deliver "Ditto" so sweetly that it's easy to miss how singularly unmistakable it is.

MG:

NewJeans, I learned from DV on the night of our SOTY summit, are a “little sister” group in the k-pop pantheon. I don’t keep up with k-pop; I fell into the “critics” bracket, preferring “Super Shy” because it was interesting to see Erika de Casier’s airy, petal-light R’n’B embraced by an entertainment and media machine. (I like her but she can be a bit Grimes-y where it’s like, lol, you’re not gonna get picked for the next Rihanna record, stop trying.) I’m not a little sister, either, but I appreciate their uphill battle for recognition. From Bianca’s scheming in 10 Things I Hate About You to Beth’s untimely death in Little Women to Solange Knowles and Ashlee Simpson, little sisters have to work twice as hard to get half the credit. NewJeans might be more “little sister” as a marketing class, aiming for tweens and under as a target audience, but “Ditto” really speaks to their experience, beginning with the title – a faint copy of an original – and developing further with lyrics about “stay[ing] in the middle,” the Promethean resting place of all younger siblings. I don’t know that this was the year of the little lister, I don’t know that any year ever will be, but it’s fun to shine a brief spotlight on all the babies out there.

[marley-manson]

okay I watched Wild Blue Yonder last night

I was spoiled for this lol but still, gay doctor gay doctor gay doctor!!!

There is that little tinge that's like 'did you have to phrase it like that' wrt the vague implication that Ten was bi but repressed lol? "Oh, is that who I am now?" "It was always under the surface."

BUT I don't really give a fuck. It's a way for RTD to retroactively canonize bi Ten, and it's very easy to take the Doctor's line as less 'oh I'm bi now?' and more 'oh I'm the kind of person who gossips about how hot people are with his friends?' especially on top of all his similarly lampshaded I love yous last episode.

Also I wasn't actually expecting RTD's gay agenda to appear wrt the Doctor's sexuality until Fifteen, and I even gave that 50/50 odds at best, so like... hell fucking yeah let's goooooooo

Oh also the episode itself was good, fun mix of genuine creepiness (the cut to the Doctor in his room after Donna's been talking to "him" was v effective eg) and goofy effects, RTD's human touch shining through even in an episode with no other people (the dead captain <3), the two of them talking about their feelings about things <3333 And a cool, simple but effective concept. Malicious aliens board a ship, the mysterious things we've seen on the ship are a slow countdown to self destruct to stop them put in place by the now dead captain. It's straightforward, nothing needs to be overcomplicated or convoluted here, and it's creepy and sad. Love this shit, A+

Kinda lowkey disappointed that they brought up all the backstory bullshit I hate, god I hope RTD doesn't expand on that because it sucks, but unlike some people RTD seems to be too professionally respectful to retcon the big storytelling decisions of previous writers so whatever. I'll live I guess.

Also I fucking love Donna, she was fantastic in this, it's so great to see her in full companion mode again <3 The scene where she talked about what her family would do if she never came back 😭

And I loved Donna catching the shapeshifter out while the Doctor kept getting fooled too, not because he pays less attention to Donna than vice versa or because he doesn't know her as well, but because he's taken in by displays of emotion.

but yeah mostly Doctor Who Gay 👍

[ladymariayuri]

From your time playing ffxiv, how would you say WoW compares? I’ve not tried WoW but I am intrigued.

I cannot compare the endgame sadly which I think is the most important part to discuss since I didn't reach max level but I'll give it a shot. I also only played dps in FFXIV so I can't really speak for the other roles as well as that's pretty much all I play in both games

The most glaring difference between both is that WoW's GCD is MUCH MUCH lower than FFXIV. 1.5 at the VERY worst, with 0 haste (ill get more into haste in a sec). FFXIV had a lot of off cool down abilities to compensate but those early levels were an absolute nightmare to get through.

I played Samurai in FF so I didn't even have a wealth of OGCD abilities but I genuinely enjoyed Samurai regardless. I started out as Bard until 50 and that was quite possibly one of the most miserable experiences I've had in gaming. It was boring to tears, but that's personal preference.

Anyway, WoW combat at its very slowest is usually going to be way faster than FF. You have a secondary stat that can appear on gear called haste which is usually the de facto best for a lot of classes just by nature of how it works. It reduces GCD, reduces cool downs of abilities with less than some threshold of time, I wanna say 30 seconds, increases resource regeneration, and attack speed. It's a VERY loaded stat which is why it's so good.

There are some blisteringly fast specializations in WoW. (I know FFXIV doesn't have specializations as you only get one playstyle per class; you get 3 different playstyles for class in WoW, one has 4 and two have 2.) My class/spec, havoc demon hunter, is probably the fastest in the game. It's APM can get into the 100s on a very slow day, and is notorious for its carpal tunnel button mashing, and it's a very simple class. You get haste for casting your most powerful ability, Eye Beam (if talented into this haste increase, which is another thing FFXIV sorely lacks; character damage customization). You get a fucking mind blowing 25% haste increase for using your best cool down which lasts 25 seconds and can have a 2-4 minute cooldown depending on talents. Most classes increase their haste with their cool downs in some way, which aids my case of it being extremely fast paced when you breach endgame. Whether this is good or bad is up to personal preference; personally I couldn't stand the GCD in FFXIV, even with all the OGCDs.

That's probably the longest segment I'll get out of the way since I'm autistic about it.

FFXIV also has the unique concept of positionals for melee (which I play) which ended up being frustrating as hell to play with imo. WoW has none of these (it used to have a few frontal/back requirements in the early days), except for Backstab, a Subtlety Rogue ability, getting a 20% damage increase when casted from behind. FF is overloaded with positionals in comparison.

FF community expecting healers to actually do damage and not just heal bot was surprisingly refreshing and something I did not expect, as in WoW that's not the case at all until you reach considerably high endgame levels. People were expecting this in leveling dungeons which seems elitist at first but it was fucking crazy and awesome to me to see. WoW healers are mostly straightforward when it comes to the damage department, like having 2 whole spells, except for Mistweaver Monk (thematically badass as hell with healing by punching people, but its optional) and Discipline Priest (HAS to do damage to heal; very unique and difficult spec.)

Limit Breaks are very daunting in FF. I don't use them because I'm new LOL. They are really cool in concept though. The closest comparison to this that I can think of is the Bloodlust/Heroism/Time Warp ability in WoW. It increases the entire party/raids haste by 30% for 30 seconds then cannot be cast again for 10 minutes. These abilities are unique to 4 classes so having one of those is a must, and it becomes a little bit like Limit Break when you have multiple in a raid and it's just praying somebody knows when to press it at the right time.

I think in FF healers can resurrect people while in combat which is not true in WoW, they can only be cast outside of combat except for a few classes which gain a unique resurrect usually referred to as a battle rez / brez. The brez classes make them highly desirable in endgame but they are on a 10 minute "timer" in most endgame content (but stack; if you do a dungeon and nobody dies for 30 minutes, you can brez 4 times in a row if people die 4 times on the last boss, which is not the case for Bloodlust)

Thats most of what I have to say about combat which is pretty important to me so some other stuff

Leveling: WoW is much more lenient and lax on what you do to reach max level which is not the case at all in FF. FF is very rigid on completing the MSQ at all costs on your first character which is a detriment imo. I hated FF leveling so fucking much; it was boring and a slog to get through because I don't care about the story, which is a big part of WHY I don't enjoy it. Many people do enjoy it thoroughly because they're normal and read quest stuff LOL. WOW isn't like that at all; sure, for whatever expansion is current you have to play through the campaign but it doesn't take a hundred hours, which was MY gripe with FF.

Good time to mention that wow doesn't have the class/job system for one character like FF does; you can freely swap specializations but you can only be one class per character. If you want to try a new class you have to make a new character. Frankly FF wins here, no contest.

Subsequent leveling of characters in wow is similar to leveling of secondary jobs in FF. You don't get bonus xp but you get to have a lot more freedom in how you level in 60-70 (max level) content. 1-60 is ALWAYS free and open, even on your first playthrough (was not the case last expansion, it is now though) you can go literally anywhere in this 20 year old game that you like at any point in any zone.

Story idk. I didn't pay attention in FF I'm sorry 😭

FF clears in terms of transmog by a landslide. WOW has a lot of great looking badass armor but FF just has more variety on every level. You can't be a cat girl in WoW which is heart breaking on every level; the closest you can get is a cute panda girl that does the caramelldansen.

FF has a lot more unique and interesting music compared to wow. Wow music is always ambience, and can honestly get boring at times. FF has fucking J pop and screamo and rock and classical music and that's before I even got to the end of the game. Wow has... literally nothing interesting sadly lol.

Ummm that's pretty much everything I can think of to cover I hope you liked the wall of text

[thealterscrolls]

Hey! 'Tis me. I'm here with some numbers for the fic ask; there were so many to pick from and they were all really interesting questions so I couldn't narrow it down to just one. Hope that's okay. Anyway, any of you can answer these, and you can answer as many or as little as you want.

13 (music)

34 (personal life…no pressure to answer this one by the way)

45 (genre/trope)

50 (writing style)

57 (foreshadowing) Good luck with all your writing! :D

helo charlie friend, tysm for the ask! you picked out some banger questions and jakob and i were happy to answer them! without further ado, all of our long winded answers will be below the cut. apologies in advance for the walls of text lol

13. Do you listen to music while you write?  If yes, what have you been listening to recently?

cas: i personally have a hard time writing if the music has words but writing in silence is hard too, so my go to writing music for YEARS has always been anything by Peter Gundry. i used to just listen to his dark magic music compilations on youtube, but now i'll go through his albums on spotify. i'll write to music with words on rare occasion but only if it's a character/fic playlist of songs that remind me of the character or story in some way. i generally don't make those playlists public, but i have found that i put Lord of the Lost in as many playlists as possible to the point that a lot of them are half LOTL songs lol. here's a casual link to my recs playlist for that band lmao.

34. How much of your personal life/experience do you include in your fics?

jakob: id say we tend to incorporate a lot, which is funny if i answer on a more personal level because i dont consider myself to have lived that much life at all to be incorporating anything valuable of it. i've only been around in this system a couple months. but regardless of which of us is doing the writing, we all will pull from everyone's experiences. some things just read more viscerally when you have a memory of experience to take notes from. always have to change up details of course. it's like that homework copying meme except the copied stuff looks better than the original thing.

45. What genre/trope do you tend to write the most?

jakob: it's either comedy or it's super angsty drama/romance. rarely inbetween. i think i stick more to the dramatic, angsty stuff though. i havent written anything very humorous. im way too conscious of how much of an endless barrage of sadness my current wip is. i almost feel bad and want to lighten it up a bit lol. meanwhile cas loves writing both emotional shit and extremely stupid cursed goofy shit. they're also that asexual person who has an unnecessary amount of never-to-be-published smutty wips because exploring that kind of stuff is fun to them, but i am the asexual who could not be less interested in being near that kind of thing, much respect to those who are. i dont know enough about tropes to know which ones we write the most.

50. How would you describe your writing style?

jakob: i think i have a fairly literal writing style. they go here. they do that. being "flowery" with descriptions is a conscious effort and unless i get a specific visceral concept or wording in my head, it will just be a pretty straightforward description of events. i imagine the jump from "x does y thing" to "eloquent description of an abstract emotion" might be fairly noticeable. and to be fair, i think it's this way with everyone in the system. i dont think there's any significant difference between our writing styles, including handwriting.

57. How conscious are you about including symbolism or foreshadowing in your fics?

cas: very conscious! it's one of my favorite things about writing fics and often is the basis for a fic concept. i love when writing has little motifs and is self referential AND THE PARALLELS! GOD THE PARALLELS MY BELOVEDS!!! if i cant include a billion parallels in my shit am i even writing? this is honestly a system wide preference too because jakob's writing is like that lol. this is one of the reasons we prefer to write fics completely before posting them so we can sufficiently make sure the parallels work out and things are tied up neatly. but its also the biggest reason we dont really have much posted either </3

[happypeaceaman]

The Psychology of Pricing: Understanding Flight Ticket Costs

Flying is a marvel of modern convenience, allowing us to traverse vast distances in mere hours. Yet, behind the seemingly straightforward process of booking a flight lies a complex web of pricing strategies and psychological tactics. Have you ever wondered why the cost of a flight seems to fluctuate wildly, seemingly without rhyme or reason? The truth is, there's a method to the madness, and it's rooted in the principles of psychology.

For more features please visit https://trailtravelz.com/

The Power of Perception

One of the key factors that airlines take into account when pricing their tickets is the concept of perceived value. Perceived value refers to the worth that a consumer assigns to a product or service based on their subjective perceptions. In the context of flight tickets, this means that airlines carefully craft their pricing strategies to create the perception of value for their customers.

For example, airlines often use dynamic pricing algorithms that take into account factors such as demand, time until departure, and competitor pricing to adjust ticket prices in real-time. By constantly changing prices, airlines create a sense of urgency and scarcity, encouraging customers to book quickly for fear of missing out on a good deal.

Additionally, airlines utilize a technique known as price anchoring to influence customer perceptions. Price anchoring involves presenting customers with a higher-priced option first, followed by a lower-priced option, making the lower price seem like a better deal in comparison. For instance, by displaying a business class ticket priced at $2000 before showing an economy class ticket priced at $500, airlines make the economy ticket appear more affordable and enticing.

The Psychology of Discounts

Discounts are another powerful tool in the airline industry's pricing arsenal. Research has shown that consumers are highly responsive to discounts, even when the actual savings are relatively small. Airlines exploit this tendency by offering limited-time promotions, flash sales, and last-minute deals to attract budget-conscious travelers.

Moreover, the way discounts are framed can significantly impact their perceived value. For instance, offering a discount of $50 off a $500 ticket may seem more appealing than offering the same discount on a $100 ticket, even though the actual percentage savings is the same. This is because consumers tend to focus more on the absolute amount saved rather than the percentage discount.

Furthermore, airlines often use tiered pricing structures to encourage upselling and maximize revenue. By offering multiple fare classes with varying levels of flexibility and amenities, airlines can cater to different segments of the market and capture additional revenue from customers willing to pay more for added convenience or comfort.

Behavioral Economics in Action

The field of behavioral economics provides valuable insights into how consumers make decisions and respond to pricing stimuli. One of the central principles of behavioral economics is loss aversion, which refers to the tendency for people to prefer avoiding losses over acquiring equivalent gains.

Airlines leverage loss aversion by employing tactics such as non-refundable fares and cancellation fees to incentivize customers to commit to their purchase and discourage last-minute changes or cancellations. By framing these policies as protecting customers from potential losses, airlines can reduce the perceived risk associated with booking a flight in advance.

Additionally, the concept of mental accounting plays a role in how consumers perceive the value of flight tickets. Mental accounting refers to the tendency for individuals to categorize their spending into different mental buckets based on factors such as timing, source of funds, or intended use. For example, a consumer may be more willing to splurge on a flight upgrade if they perceive it as a special treat or reward for themselves.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the pricing of flight tickets is a nuanced and multifaceted process that draws heavily on principles from psychology and behavioral economics. By understanding the factors that influence pricing decisions and consumer behavior, airlines can effectively shape customer perceptions and maximize revenue. From dynamic pricing algorithms to clever discounting strategies, every aspect of the pricing process is designed to appeal to our innate psychological tendencies.

Next time you book a flight, take a moment to consider the psychology behind the price you're paying. Chances are, there's more to it than meets the eye.

[kinetic-elaboration]

March 9: Thoughts on Random WIP List Ideas

Today my accomplishments were writing another scene of the old Jonty fic (leaving me with only one left! I re-read parts of today's scene and I don't know that it's the best thing I've ever written but it's passable... I can edit it into something decent) and doing some minor edits to my WIP List.

The edits, uh, did make it longer. Which is... some kind of masochistic impulse. If I were really honest with myself, there are quite a few ideas on here I could get rid of, totally not viable stuff. But it's not really a to-do list. It's like an ideas list, a possibilities list. Maybe I like having it long because then when I want to plan something, I have lots of possibilities. Or I'm just obsessed with the number '50' lol, because that's what I keep going back to.

Anyway, in honor of me looking at the list and because I haven't talked about old projects for a while, here are my current thoughts on some random ones:

#37: The Poly Fic: So this is still one of my favorites to outline and write up thoughts on, though it's still pretty far from me actually writing it. I have no idea if I ever will. It would be such an undertaking, like honestly, such an epic. But I know that writing out extensive notes on it is fun for me and I'm going to keep doing that as long as it remains fun. If I get to the point where I think the early parts are ready to write, maybe I'll give it a try, but that seems like such a faint possibility right now. I'm currently writing notes on senior year, so it's not THAT out there, but out there enough.

#29: Kiss the Ring: I love the idea of this fic, the ~vibes~ of it, but my one attempt at seriously outlining it hit kind of a plot-based snag and then I never really returned to it. Plus I'm way less interested in canon-based AUs than I used to be, let's be real. It's a certified one-shot though, one of the very few non-horror one-shots I have on the list that actually seems plausible, so I might return to it sometime... soonish? It's an AU that plays with some of my favorite headcanons and Bellamy characterization so I think if I find the place where I feel confident in the plot and interested in playing around with this particular atmosphere, this could be a fun one to write.

#39: Reality Bites AU: I will never write this. Lol. Nope. But it stays on the list because I still love the idea of it. I still think about Reality Bites the film and think 'this would make such a good Bellarke AU.' I think my previous attempts at planning got way too mired in the actual move and just felt like a re-write of it? It was very awkward. To make this plausible, I'd need to find some hook or new idea to make it unique and specific to itself. This isn't totally impossible but is it at all a priority for me? Oh hell no.

#14: Chopped Maya and Octavia: You can tell how old this is by the working title still using Chopped lmao. I can't remember the round number, but it was the one I actually wrote Last Living Tree for. That was a way better idea and I don't regret going in that direction, but I had this concept too, of a Maya-lives AU that focuses on her interacting with Octavia, and also on the consequences of a victory over MW that left survivors, in general. Again, canon-based AUs are not my thing anymore, but I keep this around partially because I feel like there's something there and partly because I think the way to do it is as something pretty short and straightforward so it doesn't feel like committing to much to keep it on the list.

And I think that's enough for today. I am tired. It's good that I'm tired at this hour, hope to get to sleep soon.