#Go play some other video games and learn what these things actually require of the developers who make them

[mindfulstudyquest]

“ dopamine detox ,, and why you should delete all your social media right now

"just five more minutes" and then you end up scrolling on instagram or tiktok for hours. i know that feeling. even if you know rationally that focusing on the really important things ( such as studying, working, learning from books or whatever ) is much healthier for you and your future, you can't help it.

you know that start studying for the exam you have next week will benefit you much more in the long run, but you still prefer watching tiktoks and scrolling on instagram. you could say that is pretty obvious: one activity is easy, and doesn't require much effort, whereas the other one is difficult and implies that you are focused.

but it's actually like this? so then why some people manage to be consistent in studying, or working, or exercising? they simply just have more motivation than you? and how can you start having the same motivation as them?

to answer this question, we have to take a look to a very important molecule produced by our brain: dopamine.

dopamine is often considered a pleasure molecule, but it's a false belief. dopamine is actually the molecule that makes us desire things, and it's that desire that gives us the motivation to complete every kind of task. for example, your brain doesn't release dopamine while you're eating a cheesburger, it releases it while you're going to mcdonald's to buy it, because you anticipate that the food will make you feel good, even if it actually makes you feel worse.

to your brain, it doesn't matter if the high-dopamine-activity is damaging to you.

your brain organizes priorities based off how much dopamine is expecting to get:

if an activity releases too little dopamine, you won't have the motivation to accomplish it.

if an activity releases a lot of dopamine you'll be motivated to do it, and repeat it over and over

so, which activities releases dopamine? basically, any activity where you can get an immediate potential reward releases an high amount of dopamine. but if you know that there's not an immediate reward invoved ( such as in studying, where the reward is in the long run ) your brain will not expect to release much of it and you'll be less motivated to do that task.

nearly everything releases some amount of dopamine, even drinking water when you're thirsty, but the highest amount of it is released when you're getting a reward randomly, for example while playing on a slot machine. even if you loose money, you eventually expect to get a bigger reward.

therefore it is not so surprising that the most additive social networks ( tiktok, instagram, pinterest ) are designed as slot machines. you don't know what the next post or video will be, but you expect something great, so your brain releases a large amount of dopamine.

in today's society our brains are overloaded with stimuli that induce an unnatural production of dopamine ( scrolling on social media, playing video games, watching internet pornograhy, etc. ).

it's frightening that people don't know how harmful this lifestyle is: our bodies have a biological sistem called homeostasis, which means that our bodies keep the internal physical and chemical conditions at a balanced level, whenever an imbalance occurs, our bodies adapt to it, for example, when it's very hot our body temperature rises and we start sweating to cool down.

but homeostasis manifests through tolerance too. for example, someone who hardly ever drinks alchool will be tipsy after one beer, on the other hand, someone who drinks alchool on a regular basis will need two, three, four beers in order to get drunk, because their body has developed a tolerance to it. it's not much different with dopamine.

so if you get used to large amounts of dopamine, you won't be able to do the things that you did before, because they don't produce as much dopamine and it's more difficult to motivate yourself to do them. once your dopamine tolerance gets too high, you are no longer able to enjoy low dopamine activities.

as if you were a drug addict, there's only one way to get out of it: you have to perform a dopamine detox. you have to avoid all high dopamine activities in order to allow your body to adjust to a normal level of dopamine production and start finding motivation again in the things that improve your personal growth.

it's not easy, you will be nervous and frustrated, maybe you won't make it through a full day without social media, but day by day it will get better and better, and eventually you'll be able to appreciate small things again.

imagine that you're eating your favorite food - for example, chocolate cake - every single day. after a while, chocolate cake doesn't taste good as before, even if it's literally the same cake. on the other hand, if you eat it once a month, it will taste great, because it's not something you've gotten used to.

this is exactly what dopamine detox does. be safe guys, and start recovering now.

[ source: https://youtu.be/9QiE-M1LrZk ]

[megaderping]

I think the biggest issue with Naoto discussion is that there are so many intersecting perspectives with very strong feelings involved, and if a Persona 4 remake does happen, I fully suspect that Atlus is going to have their hands full figuring out how to handle the character in the modern day. First there's the cultural context of misogyny in the workplace and especially in the legal and justice systems in Japan, which informs Naoto's character a lot. It is important to consider this, as this was a Japanese game made in 2008 at a time where queer visibility wasn't nearly as prominent, but that alone doesn't invalidate criticism to the arc's execution, regardless of creator intention. A big point of contention is how the arc was handled. Specifically the way it uses talk of body alteration procedures, surgical equipment, and treats the idea of transition as scary. If you consider how draconian the laws behind legally transitioning in Japan are, you can perhaps make a case for why it might cause Naoto internal conflict as complete surgical transition/sterilization/diagnosis were all requirements at the time of the game's development and only recently were declared unconstitutional. Though, as this excellent video pointed out, it's possible this was meant to be a reference to the story Flowers for Algernon, given the weapon you get if you return there later. However, even if that was the intent, transgender people exist in Japan and have since well before Persona 4, and anime such as The Dirty Pair aired in the 80's with very progressive takes on transness. It's very unlikely that the team behind Persona 4 was completely unaware of queer issues and symbolism, given that Persona 3 had that infamous transphobic joke in the original version's babe hunt.

The Dirty Pair, a 1985 anime that was surprisingly progressive.

I think the issue, more than anything, is that the tropes at play don't exist in a vacuum and what comes after Naoto's dungeon raises a lot more red flags. Jokes about Naoto's chest size, the narrative framing Kanji's crush as only acceptable after the reveal, on top of the uncomfortable execution of the romance route in Naoto's Social Link. You get so much "Naoto is actually a girl" in a way where it's other characters talking about/over Naoto, which is what really makes the framing off putting to a lot of people, myself included. And it's not even that you can't do an arc about a female character fighting against prejudiced preconceptions in the criminal justice field without controversy, because Persona 5 pulled this off far less contentiously.

Sae Niijima deals with many similar themes but doesn't seem nearly as contentious, and I think a large part of that is due to Sae openly presenting as a woman from the start. The game openly depicts the misogyny from Sae's superiors and coworkers, such as how she's unmarried and fighting an uphill battle for success in a male-dominated field. Persona has toyed with these ideas in the aftermath of Persona 4 and even when revisiting older titles. Persona 2 went back and added the character of Shiori Miyashiro in the PSP release, a lady detective who has a lot in common with Naoto (e.g. knowingly endangering oneself to get the truth behind a supernatural case). It's also astonishing that we have Lala Escargot in Persona 5, which also had that infamous gay couple that played into horrible stereotypes that were only slightly fixed in royal's international release. Lala, whether trans or a drag queen, is given surprising respect, and her identity is never called into question. A Persona 4 remake could learn from this and cut back on the characters asserting what Naoto feels, what Naoto "really is," etc, and let Naoto and Naoto alone decide. Ultimately, Naoto means different things to different people, and these things can carry great personal weight and importance. Many trans and nonbinary Persona fans see themselves in Naoto. Others favor Naoto as some flavor of gnc or find Naoto embracing femininity and detective work empowering. I think the problem is that when this topic comes up, there's a lot of hostility. Trans fans and people who favor trans Naoto get told to shut up at best, and at worst get hit with shit tons of transphobia and gross conduct. On the other hand, I don't think people who prefer more canon-compliant depictions of Naoto are inherently malicious. It's how they approach these discussions and treat people that makes a difference. Just because someone uses she/her for Naoto doesn't mean they're being intentionally transphobic, but I totally get people wanting to avoid material that uses those pronouns all the same. I also don't think people are wrong to be uncomfortable with the resolution of Naoto's arc in canon. I think people who get upset when fanworks go with trans or NB interpretations of Naoto could stand to be more empathetic, as a lot of those fanworks come from people who connected to Naoto and want to explore what could've been. I don't think more canon-compliant fanworks are inherently malicious either, but no one is obligated to stick around works or spaces that make them feel uncomfortable. Tbh, I'm just wondering what Atlus will do. Persona 3 Reload removed that one transphobic joke during the babe hunt in all languages. Persona 5 Tactica had male marriage fantasies for Joker. I think Atlus is trying to be more inclusive, but Persona 3 Reload also kept Toriumi's crush on the protagonist and Chihiro defending student-teacher romances, so it's really unclear how much of Persona 4's more divisive aspects will be retooled. Because it's not just Naoto. Persona 4 has a lot of aspects that haven't aged well, like all the jokes about Kanji being predatory if he's attracted to guys, or Kashiwagi being creepy toward students, or the fatphobia with Hanako while Ebihara's past of being overweight is treated with more sympathy. I love Naoto and Persona 4, but I also think it's important to be able to criticize elements of the game that could be executed better.

[cavegirlpoems]

So we all hate DnD, but I am kinda curious what are the actually bad ttrpgs?

I know that 3,5e and pf got bloated even more than 5e did, FATAL is a meme, but what else?

I think Chronicles of Darkness tell you the system's gonna be a sleek, streamlined narrative system and then immediately bukakke's pointless fiddly complexity all over everything, to an extent that I never see most STs actually use half the subsystems (does anybody actually like the Doors mechanic?) but also you can utterly break the game if you combine the right merits and powers in a way that I really hope isn't intentional. WoD games all have slightly clunky, lame mechanics but at least in OWoD the mechanics take an extremely simulationist approach of simply modeling the fiction, balance be damned; CoD throws out the simulationism in favour of abstraction and narrativism, but perversely only makes the mechanics more complex, and deploys more weird dice tricks so eyeballing probabilities gets much harder. Everything is fiddly, everything has specific exceptions, and everything good is gated behind weird prerequisites and builds as if the devs thought they were making pathfinder. If you're some sort of weirdo who actually prefers the CoD settings, run them using OWoD mechanics for the love of god.

Shadowrun 6e's character generation is so complex that people have created third party apps that are basically mandatory in order to wrangle it into shape. It's notoriously complex in play with basically every action requiring multiple steps of calculation, to the extent that 'you need to do calculus if you set off a grenade next to a wall' is a meme; when I played we simply never used grenades because we were all to scared of trying to make sense of the mechanics. However, in play a slightly minmaxed mage can make every other party member obsolete by simply summoning an extremely powerful spirit to solve every task. I hated every minute of it.

Pokemon Tabletop Adventures uses d20-based mechanics for trainers, where you roll a d20 vs armour class to hit, and then roll some damage. It also recreates the mechanics of the pokemon video games largely verbatim. Its expected that trainers and pokemon can and will interact despite using totally different systems, and trainers can even learn pokemon moves. Some classes are good at things like 'capturing and training pokemons' while others are good at 'fighting pokemons themselves with martial arts' or 'winning contests' or 'being a film noir detective', but you only get XP or mechanical support for the first ones. Some classes get abilities like 'perfect mind-control, no save' while others get abilities like 'you're better at growing berries'. You are expected to calculate the stats of every pokemon individually, from scratch, for every encounter. Encounters typically feature 5-10 wild pokemons often of multiple species and levels, alongside 3-5 player characters and up to six pokemons per PC. Its a fractal spreadsheet nightmare. Unlike shadowrun, the app to make this insanity playable doesn't exist. Good god. Send help.

On the other end of the spectrum from stupid fiddly crunch, Ten Candles is responsible for the single most miserable ttrpg experience of my life. It claims to be a narrative game which gives players the ability to define the fiction as they go, but fails at this because the GM has secret knowledge that other players aren't privy to, meaning that it invites players to be creatively vulnerable when they have narrative authority, with a chance that they might get their contributions unilaterally overruled due to information they had no way of knowing. Since the game ends with everybody dying automatically, the game inherently leans on the GM to railroad in what's meant to be a colaberative narrative experience. And finally, on a purely practical level, the clever conciet of playing by candlelight and extinguishing candles as the game progresses means that by half-way in you can't read your fucking character sheets or dice, which is less spooky and more irritating. God I hate ten candles.

[yanderes-galore]

Yandere! Self-Aware! Markus/RK200 (Detroit: Become Human) with gamer darling. It can be depicted as romantic or platonic. Always enthusiastic with the choices made for him and doesn’t mind if darling made some mistakes either. However I’d like the darling to be female, of course if that doesn’t bother you.

The cool thing is this doesn't really require much knowledge about what happens on his route. I'm mostly focusing on how he'd react in this so no need for many spoilers or anything :)

I'd love to experiment with this idea even if I am not the best with Self-Aware yanderes!

Yandere! Self-Aware! Markus (RK200) with Player! Darling

Pairing: Romantic/Platonic

Possible Trigger Warnings: Female Darling, Self-aware yandere, Obsession, Yearning/Pining, Dubious feelings/relationship, Game character comes to real world, Protective behavior mentioned briefly, Isolation, Delusional behavior, Slight worshipping yandere behavior, Slight possessive behavior.

Honestly, with a game like DBH a self-aware yandere actually seems very interesting.

Why, you may be asking?

Compared to other video game characters, games that require you to make choices like DBH affect the outcome and the character.

Essentially, a character in DBH is dependent on their player to develop themselves.

Sure, many self-aware yanderes feel guided by their player.

In DBH it feels more intense because your choices actually develop their personalities.

Although it would only be this intense if they're a player character like Connor, Kara, or Markus.

These characters are ones you play as in DBH, which means you as the player shape their story.

You shape how they act.

You shape them.

These three as self-aware yanderes would be intense due to this.

Like in this example;

Self-aware! Markus can either be a pacifist or choose violence in how he deals with people.

His darling chooses that for him.

Honestly, Markus was already one of the most self-aware player characters in the game.

He was the first to go deviant, funnily enough he'd be the first to grow self-aware too.

It's an experience for him.

Not only does he learn he can be much more than an android, he also learns he's in a game.

He feels he has control, yet you're the one making decisions.

It's a conflicting feeling but he begins to not mind it when you guide him.

He actually... likes it when you shape him and his personality with your choices.

When he does see you he's intrigued by this woman who guides him with such wonder.

Markus does accept every choice you make with slight excitement and curiosity.

He understands if you make a mistake but for the most part he looks forward to what you'll say in certain situations.

Part of him wonders if the others, Connor and Kara, know your presence.

Part of him is actually jealous of the thought and hopes they don't.

Markus accepts the fact that you two need each other in a way.

In order to play the game, you need him.

In order to find just who he is, Markus needs you.

Markus assumes the personality you shape for him is to your taste at times.

Did you want him to be a pacifist? Did you want him to be violent?

He assumes you're shaping him to your tastes... he finds it endearing in a way.

Markus, like most yanderes in a video game, would want to meet his player face to face.

Markus feels he wants to meet the partner who has shown him many paths.

You've shown him kindness, you've shown him violence, what has he learned from all of these choices?

In the end, he is yours.

He actually doesn't mind it too much.

For the most part Markus would watch you through a camera on your device or accept the fact he can only adore you from afar.

Yet let's get... hypothetical and unrealistic.

Let's say by some means, Markus came into the real world.

He'd be curious on finally meeting you and would look you over.

You're a female human as he's seen before briefly... you look about as adorable as he's remembered.

He can't believe you've been guiding him all this time.

He greets you like you're long time partners, which works for platonic or romantic.

He wants to be close with you, he wonders if you can still help each other in this new world....

You may be panicking but Markus tries to reassure you that everything is okay.

He's experienced in taking care of humans, he'll take care of you, his player.

Markus would treat you with care regardless of how you shaped his personality.

He owes it to you, after all.

He... he's indebted to you after everything you've done together.

You made him this way, he's yours.

Markus hasn't seen other humans like you and would probably isolate you.

You're his whole world.

He doesn't care about the other humans in this world, or the fact he's the only android, all he cares about is feeling you in his arms.

He's protective of his yandere but depending on the route you took with him he'll either be violent or calm with it.

Markus wants to keep up the idea of you just relying on him.

He has only ever known you as his partner... the same should be with you.

When Markus enters the real world, he begins to isolate you.

He feels it should just be you and him.

You could be a girlfriend or just a close companion, Markus dedicates himself to you either way.

Markus may even think of ways to bring you back to his world.

He doesn't ever want to part from you again.

But, why do you look at him with so much fear?

There's no need to be scared of him...

Markus is your partner... your host in the game... yours...

You're his partner... his player... all his until the end... aren't you?

[blueskittlesart]

i see discussion abt the traveler in the notes of a reblog and i think it’s very interesting you say that bc honestly i think it’s the amount of disconnect present in The Twins Themselves and The Player that intrigues me but also intensely frustrates me. it feels like “the traveler”/you as a person playing the game and lumine/aether/the twin chosen are two separate entities and honestly that could be Really interesting if it was acknowledged and could fit in nicely with some of the vague themes of otherworldly/fourth-wall breaking stuff and personal autonomy they’ve got going on. but Nope! i think this is yet another issue of the Gacha Mechanic too in a way bc honestly all of the instances of x character bonding with The Traveler ends up pissing me off REAL bad lmaooo. i would much rather there be some kind of genuine distinction in the twin’s dialogue too bc the whole idea of. “oh this character you are playing is Their Own Character but also they have the exact same story interactions and dialogue as their twin” is just. Eeufhhh. maybe this is just a lot of personal issues i have with the setup because i am someone who not only enjoys lore but also characterization and character interactions with other characters and the world around them and i am not a fan of when a You The Player character is thrown into that. sorry for dumping this here i just need to let out these thoughts somewhere

I think what it comes down to is that on launch hyv was worried about player immersion but reluctant to commit to a true silent protagonist. in most actual gameplay, the protagonist twin functions as a silent protagonist, meaning a blank-slate character with no autonomy, completely at the mercy of the actions the player chooses for them. (the only exception to this rule is A-plot quests which directly involve their sibling.) But in the A-plot of the story at large, the twins, regardless of which one you choose, are NOT blank slates in any sense, and that's what leads to the disconnect during gameplay.

Silent protagonists are a method of storytelling unique to video games and they're specifically a vessel to further player immersion, the idea being that a player character whose backstory and personality are unknown or nonexistent is much easier to insert one's self into, thus creating a more immersive experience for the player. I think that this was probably the original intent behind the twins, at least to a certain extent, and is likely at least part of the reason that hyv is still keeping all their story cards so close to their chest--the more we learn about the twins, the less our chosen twin functions as a silent protagonist. In a game with so many playable characters that AREN'T blank slates, hyv may have worried that having no designated player-insert character would break immersion from the get-go. However, the story planned for the game at large relied on a protagonist that was, from the very beginning, NOT a silent protagonist. the twins have personalities. they very obviously have backstories and pre-game relationships with each other at the very least. they have NAMES. The fact that genshin has you 'name' your character who quite literally already has a canonical name and gives you no reasoning behind that is one of the most glaring examples of this weird inconsistency in the writing imo. It almost seems like they want it both ways. they want a perfect silent protagonist for player immersion, but they ALSO want a protagonist who is tied up in the story because of their history and relationships and personality. and it doesn't work, because those two things are fundamentally incompatible. you cannot allow your players unlimited choice in the actions, thoughts, and feelings of your playable character while also requiring that character to make certain choices and have certain feelings and relationships for the story to progress. The result of attempting to do both is a story which promises unlimited choice to the players and then jerks them along in one direction anyways, which only results in frustration and immersion-breaking. there are plenty of ways to do a non-silent protagonist in a video game without sacrificing the player's experience, but what genshin has done is given us this weird worst-of-both-worlds combo that just. does not work.

[writingquestionsanswered]

Finding Your Story

nothingbutgog asked: I'm not a writer. i dont have enough patience to write a fictional story (which is what i want to do) but i will try! for some reason, i have this feeling that a story is inside of me. but.... i dont have a story... in fact i barely have 2 characters. but.. i have a little bit of 2 characters? so.. how do i get a story? i dont even know what genre i want it to be! the only thing is that i have 2 characters, and i want them to fall in love. so id greatly love your help! where do i find my story?

I wish that there was a really quick, straightforward answer to this question. I wish I could say, "Do this..." and you could do this one simple thing and the story of your heart would flow out of your fingertips. Unfortunately, that's not how writing and storytelling work.

Feeling that you don't have the patience to write fiction is a wobbly place to start, because writing fiction requires patience... a lot of patience. Unless you can find a way to learn patience, writing fiction may not be the right avenue for you. But there are other things you can do with characters and storytelling. Roleplaying--either in person (like LARP or historical reenactment), online (via roleplaying communities), or in games (such as video games and board games)--can be great for creating characters and exploring their stories without having to actually write them.

If you want to stick with writing, you might consider writing a short story serial, which plays out structurally like a TV show, in short, self-contained "episodes" that either deal with a new subject each week or which follow a continuing arc, or both.

You can also look at writing a novelette or novella, which is shorter than a novel and can require a little less patience to write. Either way, if you decide to write long fiction (novelette, novella, or novel), your best bet is to spend time reading some different novellas and novels to get an understanding for how they work. You can also visit my Plot & Story Structure master list of posts to learn about how stories work, how to plot them out, and how to structure them.

The following posts can help you tease out a story from the few ideas you have:

Finding a Story in Characters and Setting Finding a Plot to Go with Characters/Setting Where to Find Story Ideas Coming Up with Ideas and Plot Turning a Barrage of Ideas into a Plot How to Turn Ideas into a Story Want to Write but Can’t Come Up with a Plot

I hope that helps!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

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[lucrezianoin]

How to use Photomode mod for BG3 (free cam mod)

I received a cry for help on youtube on how to use the photomode (free cam) mod, so I am going to try to write a very very simple guide.

First of all this mod is not free, but can be downloaded through fransbouma's patreon. The patreon post is this one, and the guide for the mod is here:

STARTING THE MOD

The post about how to is here, so I will summarize the main points.

1)Download and open, you will have a folder like this:

The only thing you need to click on is the one I highlighted: IGCSClient.exe. No installation is required, this is the actual photomode mod. You can keep this folder wherever, I keep it on my desktop because I am lazy.

2) Open the game first!! This is very important. Launch the game, and wait until you are in the menu, or even in the actual game.

3) Now click on "IGCSClient.exe".

Now you will see that that "inject" button can be clicked (it cannot be clicked without opening the game):

Click on it, this will activate the mod. And now you should get these 3 pop ups, the last should say "Camera found". These to me appear on the left top side of my screen.

Okay, now the mod can be used!

CONFIGURATE IT

Okay, now make sure that you now what and how to use it. Click on "Key bindings".

I only use specific buttons, and I did not change any other thing. So I ignored "configuration" and "image adjustments", as I was fine with how my game was captured.

The buttons I use and I make sure to set up to easy to remember keyboard buttons are:

As you can see I never use the path-system, and have yet to learn it! For now I am only using the ones above and for me they are enough to explore the game.

Basically, as you can see from my pictures these are the main functionalities:

Enable/disable camera is the main one. By clicking it you activate the mod in game. This means that now you won't be able to click on game dialogue, but you will be able to use all the other buttons and functionalities.

Toggle/game pause is another one I use often. Because the game keeps playing even with activated camera mod, you might want to pause it to make sure to position your camera. Keep in mind that if a dialogue started, the game will play it anyway even if you paused it, and will pause the start of the next dialogue. For example, if Astarion is saying "Do you have a moment? We need to talk", and you press pause as "Do you", Astarion will sort of move in a glitchy way and the dialogue will pay normally, then he will pause at the end of it.

Increase FoV/Decrease FoV are two I rarely use too much, but basically they increase or decrease focus

Toggle HUD makes sure to make the HUD (the dialogue subtitles, and all the extra stuff around the frame) disappear. I always toggle this off.

The rest are other options to basically turn left and right, rotate, go up and down. My mouse also turns the camera left and right, up and down. It is only a matter of making sure your numpad is activated, and playing with it. At the beginning I was very clumsy!

NOTE: Recording a dialogue, as you might have noticed from my videos, work like this for me:

Enable camera (I press -)

Toggle HUD off (Delete key on my keyboad)

Pause (0)

And then I move around to find a good angle.

You can see an example here:

This happens if there is a continous scene, which means there is no dialogue choice in the middle of it.

Here is an example of what happens if you have dialogue choices:

You can see that there are some jumps. This is what is happening:

I activate the camera mod

I zoom in and out and turn around a bit

At 0:17 I deactivate the HUD, so the subtitles disappear

Then I check a round a bit, and at 0:39 there is a jump. The jump happens because I deactivated the camera mod

And then I reactivated the HUD. This is the only way to actually continue with the dialogue. So then I choose the dialogue option and...

I reactivate camera mod

Small warning: this is a photomode, it take pictures, so recording videos is not as smooth. You will get these flashes because the camera tries to "focus" on the new pov. Ex. If you have the camera on Astarion with the mod, but in game that moment is showing Tav, you will have a small flash of Tav.

[glade-constellation]

You can’t convince me that Eclipse didn’t have cherophobia (fear of happiness/good things happening). Like, he would never let himself be happy. Even when given the chance, he would turn it away. You could say that it was more about him hating everyone than it was him being a cherophobe, but I have to disagree.

Listen, this was a man who ripped out what parts of himself actually were happy to make Lunar. That’s how it’s explained in the show. He took his own happiness, ripped it out, added some coding to help create the AI aspect, and shoved it into Moon. Why would he feel the need to do that if he wasn’t trying to run from his own happiness? There were other means of creating Lunar that didn’t require his own happiness. Why go that route?

And it’s funny to me because he obviously also craves happiness, or some adjacent emotion. He was constantly chasing the one thing he thought would make him happy. And when he got it and found it wasn’t making him happy, he just kept repeating it in a slightly different way in a hopes to get a different result. Did you know Einstein’s definition of insanity was repeating an action in the hopes of having a different outcome? By that definition, Eclipse had gone insane in his pursuit of happiness. Use the star, this time it will make you happy. Didn’t work? Use the star, this time it will make you happy. That was his loop.

In all honesty, I think he knew what would make him truly happy. He knew the star wasn’t the answer, but there were so many factors that played into him rejecting it. His stuck up pride, his fear of being rejected, his fear of the happiness itself and that it wouldn’t last, and the fact that he just couldn’t be happy anymore. He tore that part out of himself. There’s a possibility that he could have recreated that part of himself given that he was torn from learning AI coding, but still. From the information we have, Eclipse no longer even had the ability to be happy. That ability was lost when creating Lunar.

That makes me really sad too, when you think about the implications of Lunar being made from all the happiness Eclipse had. Before Lunar was traumatized, he was happy. He just wanted to play video games and hang out with his brother. Just, think about that for a moment. Think about the implications. Lunar found that these things made him happy. Lunar was also made from Eclipse’s happiness. These were things that would have made Eclipse happy.

Eclipse was such a terribly tragic character and I’m still holding out for a redemption arc we’re never going to get.

[narzissenkreuz-ordo]

i guess i need some. advice? encouragement? about some stuff thats been happening recently so suicide/violence cw under the cut

i won't go into detail but i had. a very huge emotional/physical/mental breakdown today. where i was just. basically screaming and howling about how suicidal ive been lately. I haven't said anything out loud/via text on the internet abt it because i know saying i want to kms so often is bad for my own well being and ultimately makes other uncomfortable as well

so yeah i've just been. holding all that in. i knew the thoughts were coming in and out the past few months but was just shrugging it off as just being stressed abt the nightmare year i had. but i really was just. lying to myself and others because i didnt want to worry anyone/didn't want to admit how horrible i was doing after a couple years of good progress. but as it stands things are heading into a really bad direction for me rn. its not normal to go to sleep suicidal and immediately be suicidal upon waking up.

I don't really know what i can really do harm reduction wise. i'm unable to have regular visits with a psychiatrist/therapist bc of availability issues + i tend to just. lie. because its easier to say im fine than it is to advocate for myself and get actual help. and even then medication will not save me and coping skills can only go so far if im so deep in it im unable to take care of myself/feed myself/clean myself/eat/etc so none of it is effective enough in the moment. i know it CAN be effective and some of the skills ive learned can help during situational issues but this is really deep rooted improperly treated mental illness and i need a stronger foundation to be able to use any of the skills

i use a means of self isolation to punish myself, because i'm so upset with myself for not being able to pick myself up on my own. people can say im not a burden over and over but theres always gonna be a catch in the end. i freak out because what if this is one of my last meltdowns before they decide enoughs enough and i just get abandoned. again.

I feel like maybe being so Online is making things worse?? but i don't know??? my concentration is completely gone even when trying to use dnd/closing discord completely and im just constantly refreshing social media every 10 seconds and just stew in the bad feelings.

I don't know if just. leaving the internet cold turkey for a bit would do more harm than good.....i dont want to be alone and caught up in my thoughts. but i have a hard time doing things in 'moderation' and don't know how to even begin to roll back my internet/screen time usage

fandom is fun and great. but i dont think i should be using video games as pure escapism or playing them 24/7. im already getting bored and unenthusiastic about the things i like because its ALL i do.... I want to have at least SOME time away from screens. i hate having the impulse the check social media or refresh even 30 seconds (im even doing it NOW) but i just dont know where to begin in cultivating non-screentime hobbies and have the ability to focus on things more long term without having than doing 1000 things all at once to keep myself busy. i play video games muted most of the time, have a yt video playing, sometimes i'll stop mid video game and pull out my ipad while still having the games open, and im always on discord

there's books i still want to read, i eventually want to pick up sewing again. im considering getting a craft set for making those beaded bracelets (my brother gets them from concerts all the time and thinks it would be fun to make them too) but that all requires money

and i just. idk where im going with this rn but. any advice or suggestions or just. words of encouragement would be. really nice rn

[crystalelemental]

What do you wanna see the postgame in Pokemon you want? I feel like it's kinda tricky to figure out myself when I replay the postgame content in numerous times.

Okay this might go for a while, because the short answer is "I don't think I know anymore."

Part of the issue is defining what count as "postgame." Like, is Kanto Redux in Gen 2 postgame because the League is the finish point, and Red is optional superboss content, or is that part of main game? Is the second half of Unova optional postgame content, or is it main game because you technically never finished your League quest? Some situations, like the Emma and Anabel quests in Gens 6 and 7, feel pretty decisively postgame, as do things like Delta Episode. But what counts and what doesn't is up for some debate, and I'm...not really sure where I draw the line. I've referred to everything in the second half of Unova as postgame, but now I question that decision.

More to the point, postgame runs into two specific problems in both story and gameplay areas.

Gameplay is probably best explained by Bopper's Gen 2 video. In it, he expresses that a major selling point of Pokemon is the emphasis on continued growth and development, talking about how moves being learned late or late appearing Pokemon give players something to work toward, and keep the game fresh and interesting. And to be honest, this tracks. As someone who's owned cheat devices most of his Pokemon career, you do try to hack in final teams right at the start and they get stale really fast. Having something to work toward is part of the fun.

Postgames tend to run into the problem of not having anything left to specifically work toward. The difference between Crystal's Kanto Redux and Platinum's battle island is that in Platinum, my team is done and has learned everything. As a result, that island doesn't really offer anything particularly fun. While I've been a proponent of Gym Leader and League rematches in the past, they also have the issue of...not doing anything different. Red as a new final conflict requires a different approach from facing off against Lance and the League, but Cynthia 1 and Cynthia 2 go down to exactly the same strategy. There's less to work toward, so the island feels entirely boring to me. It's a complete slog.

While there are opportunities to switch up the team, sometimes that comes a bit late, and isn't exactly...engaging. It works in a game like Crystal because of how type matchups work, where Misdreavus can be caught and immediately blank Red's Snorlax, or Tyranitar countering half of Red's team. Or in Emerald, Mawile can hard counter Steven's entire team with careful play. But later games don't have that opportunity. It's just lower level stuff, sometimes weaker stuff, with no real gameplay benefit.

Which leads to the main thing. This is a Monster Collecting game. Its postgame is effectively completion of the dex. Which is something Pokemon is uniquely terrible at. A game like Nexomon (which is excellent and should be played) lets your postgame be hunting down everything, which is all available in that one playthrough. But Pokemon has version exclusives that demand two games, and internet connection, and with Switch paying for online connectivity. In addition, while Nexomon has a ton of Legendary status mons, it also gives a ton of Golden Nexotraps for assured captures to simplify the process. Meanwhile, Pokemon gives you one (1) Master Ball, then gives you a gauntlet of like a dozen Legendary Pokemon that are wretched to catch because of how annoying their systems are. Monster collecting in the most popular Monster Collecting Videogame is terrible by design. It's never been good, and they're never going to make it good. Though I guess they tried with Galar's Dynamax Adventures and Paldea's fights with main legends. Though they both still do the stupid catching thing in other ways, like the Galar birds and Treasures of Ruin.

I think ideal gameplay actually gives you something to work toward, but also Pokemon really just needs to improve how it operates with catching everything. Which I think it has. To its credit, Galar and Paldea do make it easier to complete the dex by making near everything available. But that's also predicated on dealing with the awful raids and dens, which is somehow worse.

The other element, story, is where things get dicey, and I'll use a comparison to explain. In Nexomon, your postgame events are...honestly the most story intensive segments. They're really good, and my personal favorite parts. More critically, they're continuations. Nexomon 1 follows up the main story of defeating Omnicron with your story of destroying his soul so he can't regenerate (spoilers I guess). Neoxmon 2 follows up all the heavy stuff that happens with a bit of a departure, but only in the sense of setting up the connection between things that happened and things that are about to happen. It's all excellent, and the postgame story is the hook. Granted, alongside new boss fights and challenges and developments that are engaging too. Shame about how the hunt for Tyrants goes, but I digress.

Gen 2 and Gen 5, while they offer postgame, tends to be very light and disconnected on story. There's not as much relevance. Even with things like XY and SuMo and the Paldea DLC, which are much heavier on story, they have...literally no significance to the main event. Like okay, you can argue the thematic relevance of Emma as a character, or that the UB hunt is related to Lusamine's actions, but like...it's really not that connected to what was going on before. Teal Mask is just 100% disconnected, and when they do connect in the Mochi Madness thing, it kinda sucks ass and they wrote Carmine out of it entirely like assholes. I will never forgive that.

I can't say Pokemon's ever really had a great story-centric postgame. It completely lacks in that area, and tells the story it wants to tell centrally. Not that Pokemon's ever been that intense on story. So this is an area it can't really work for. But the ones that do stand out...also run into issues. XY and SuMo have great events with Looker, Emma, and Anabel...but the actual playing of those segments isn't great. And going back to the initial question, does Teal Mask count as postgame if you can do it, entirely, from nearly the start of the game?

The final issue is one of...well, the Battle Facilities. I hate them, personally. I have no investment in playing literal cheating AI at reading minds. Gimmick frontier stuff like in Emerald and Platinum can be fun, but stuff like the normal Battle Tower sucks. Add to it that legendary Pokemon don't count, and there's also very little benefit to gathering legends. You don't really get to do much but stomp the League with the box legends, and...then what? Do a bunch of extra stuff? Run battles that don't allow them? What's the point of having the postgame without those benefits? Galar fixes this a bit by letting anything into Tower, but it's a small concession more than a proper fix.

Honestly, I don't really know what this all adds up to. Part of it is desperately wishing Pokemon had better capture mechanics, because god do the current ones suck. Part of it is thinking that postgame should be a little quick, because usually my complaint is it goes on too long. But I really don't even know what I'd expect anymore. I think that, to some degree, postgame in Pokemon works while the generation is current, but falls off in importance on replays. It's why Daybreak made Legends Arceus worse.

[utilitycaster]

Just in case you're still answering questions! I think I saw you say that you're not a fan of dps and as someone still on a learning curve, can I ask your thoughts on that and what is your preference?

I am! I think this is the last of the solicited ones as I am home and am going to focus on getting some things done but assume well-intentioned anons are always welcome!

So there's two big reasons. The first is strictly applicable to D&D 5e. DPS in Daggerheart is actually quite useful due to the damage thresholds, and I think earlier editions and PF1e have some "major damage" rules or something, if I recall correctly. Anyway, doing a ton of damage in one single move in D&D has limited utility. The only real use case is for concentration checks, or if an enemy has reactions that could be extremely dangerous. Otherwise, there's little advantage to a rogue dealing 75 damage in one blow vs. a fighter dealing 75 across three attacks, and that's generous; realistically, a single good paladin, barbarian, or fighter round will typically beat a single good rogue round in terms of sheer numbers; it's just the damage will be spread out over multiple attacks. (Damage per round, basically, is way more important than Damage per Single Hit, even more so if that single hit requires all sorts of strict conditions to succeed).

The second is more based on my personal preference and philosophy. This is collaborative storytelling. Everyone is contributing; everyone is helping everyone else. It's valid to do damage to dispatch an enemy, but if that's really all you can do in a fight, that limits how much you can help others if that one big damage roll isn't enough. I also just think, and I've been told this does apply to video games as well, that DPS simply requires less skill and thought than healing/utility casting or tanking. If you have a ton of spell options you do need to make hard choices and I find that interesting and rewarding as my username indicates. If you're a tank, you need to know where you have to be to soak up that damage and protect others; you need to have an idea of the board. DPS? Especially from a distance (rogue shit, casters being blasters)? you just point and click basically. Where's the artistry? The strategy? Where's the narrative importance of the combat? Where's the assist, the teamwork? It's not that you didn't contribute; it's just that it's nowhere near as fun. I can honestly say some of my proudest moments as a player, especially when I played a bard and was the only full caster/main healer are making sure the paladin and the monk were getting healed and that the paladin could catch up to the monsters since his full plate ass was NOT getting there without some assistance.

[jeannedarkterraguard]

Holojustice Debut Reactions

Another HoloEN generation another post from me...

Actually i have another Holo-related post in the works but i actually need to do some work for that one...

Anyway first up Elizabeth Rose Bloodflame

-well she's certainly British

-starting off with a song huh... neat

-i know it probably bothers literally nobody but me but her... shoulderpads?... pauldrons?... seem to interact weirdly with her boobs when she moves...

-no Liz you're not tall... no one in hololive is tall... we've been over this

-impressive impressions

-cheeky chicken... so she likes Kiara

-okay that takamori bit was funny

-she dislikes tea? I didn't think that was allowed in Britain

-did... did the stream just end in the middle of her song?

Gigi Murin

-okay that intro video was... confusing... but I liked the artstyle

-a... shock collar... what the fuck

-a jar is not better Gigi... I actually think it's worse

-cool character sheet

-she's really speedrunning this

-i did not expect this vote to be so close...

-she failed to put on shoes...

-see this is what I expected from hololive fans... they made her bark at the dog

-go into the forest there's no way that could go wrong!

-damn!

-i don't think Gigi could lift chat...

-i stand corrected

-holy crap there's a chat game?!

-that was predictable it took twitch forever to beat pokemon... and pokemon doesn't require any kind of timing

-that's... that's European friendly... somewhat it's still 11pm here because of summertime which... nope not gonna rant about that that would take all day

-also I just noticed we didn't get a schedule for Elizabeth

well that was fun... now bedtime and then the other two tomorrow

Cecilia Immergreen

-okay I think she broke

-nevermind she's fine

-her voice sounds somewhat familiar but I really can't put my finger on it... damn this is gonna keep me up all night...

-she speaks German... that's cool

-don't worry Cecilia I also hate coffee... though I also hate tea... or anything that's served warm really... drinks are meant to be refreshing not make me overheat even more

-that went better than Gigis game...

-I've never heard of any of these anime

-or these manga

-violin music... man this brings back memories from when my sister had a Lindsey Stirling phase and wanted to learn to play violin... I think my eardrums still haven't fully recovered from that

-Aaand she crashed the car...

-that was a really weird dream

-more EU friendly streams...

Raora Panthera

-wow... that's an accent...

This is where the sleep deprivation seemingly caught up with me because Raoras movement were actually blurry in my eyes so I did the responsible thing and NOT drink my 5th can of energy and instead went to bed... so everything from here on is me watching the VOD...

-wow her desktop is even messier than mine... barely...

-Italian... so we have a German, an Italian, a British and whatever Gigi is (since she only speaks English and doesn't have an obvious accent I'm gonna assume American)

-also I think this is the first generation in all of hololive where no member is fluent in Japanese right? (Calli and Kiara in myth, IRyS and Bae in Promise and Fuwamoco in Advent... yeah)

-she want's to become a mama in hololive... that would be interesting

-well I think that was her 7th live

-doesn't like reading and skips text in games... Undertale is one of her favorite games... something doesn't add up

-how is naming all the pokemon a talent there's only like... a thousand of them... okay maybe that is a talent...

-4 covers and an original song... they really went all out with this generation...

-7 am EST... we EU fans are really eating good right now

and that's it for this gen they're all really fun but I think Cecilia is gonna be my favorite... anyway see you in my next post...

[felassan]

Some more snippets of interest and insight from Mark Darrah, from an older Mark Darrah on Games YouTube video where he was livestreaming playing Dragon Age: Origins some months ago -

Chat asked "Have you been asked about The Last Flight and your thoughts on the Griffons?". Mark replied "My thoughts on griffons? I mean, I don't think that we're gonna see griffons as things you can ride. Flying is a gameplay feature that you better be really sure about before you add it into your game. But will we see some griffons? I think probably in some form, I mean the reason to put them in the novel is to reintroduce them to the setting".

Chat discussed titans, lyrium and theories and speculation about them. Mark added "Definitely not gonna comment on any of the titan and lyrium and so on, though, I mean things can and probably will have changed since I left. I don't want to accidentally say something that ends up not being reality". A chat user asked "I thought the franchise had a roadmap or something". Mark explained that there are roadmaps, but those are definitely open for manipulation and adjustment as required by the storytelling of the game, and that this is the main reason for the unreliable narrators. It gives that flexibility as required. "You can't really believe anything any one person says, they all have their own motivations, just because someone says it doesn't make it true".

Chat asked "Are the Devs planning on doing anything more with the Keep?" Mark replied "I don't know what the current plans with the Keep are. The reason the Keep exists in DA:I is to handle the generation switch, so that's still a relevant concern, but it was maintained by a separate group, and I'm not sure that that separate group completely exists anymore. It is not an insignificant amount of work to keep the Keep up to date. I like the idea as it removes the import requirement and so on but it's certainly not free. So maybe?" He also added "What was the change to the user agreement? I know that a whole bunch of stuff from around DA:I-time needed to be updated because of changes in European privacy laws, that's why The Last Court [came to an end]".

Chat asked "Think we will ever get answers on Magic or The Maker?". Mark replied that he thinks we will get some answers on magic, or at least additional context, but on the Maker, "No, I don't think that's ever going to be answered. I think the setting's much better off with the Maker being undefined and potentially existing and potentially not existing."

Chat asked "Will we ever find out wtf lyrium ghost Leliana really is?" and Mark said "On that front, my guess is no".

Chat asked "Are the people that worked on the character and the dialogues are still working at BioWare?" Mark replied "Which character are you asking about? Because the answer's probably yes".

[source]

He also talked more generally about DA:O and the franchise in general. These bits are collected under a cut due to length -

The Orlesian voice actors in DA:O are all French. The devs did talk about the peasants having a Quebecois accent "but decided that maybe that [inaudible]". "I wouldn't say all of their accents are Parisian, they're likely in English just the accent of whatever accent the VA actually had speaking English. Sometimes people from different regions pick up accents when they're learning a different language depending on who/where they learned it from. In DA they try to use accents from actual regions". "So Tali in Mass Effect has an accent which is kind've just the accent the VA did, and the problem is that when you need to replicate that with other people it's basically impossible. So we try to avoid that because as you can imagine, that's a problem." "Yeah, ideally make your accents something that can be replicated not just 'thing voice actor made up'"

Chat said "Tali always sounds Eastern European or Russian to me". Mark replied "It is, it has a lot of Eastern European, I think the VA is actually from Eastern Europe"

"You get people that have moved around a lot, sometimes they end up with really, these weird collections of accents that just sound, you know, vaguely exotic. Which is fine, it's a real thing that happens, but it also means that it can't really be replicated by anybody else"

Chat said "The draenei in Warcraft have a similar situation. No one knows what the hell their accent is supposed to be". Mark replied "I mean if it's consistent, if they've come up with an accent that they've consistently been able to put across to all of their actors then that's great, because it doesn't need to be connected to something in the real world, because it's not in the real world, so I don't necessarily have a problem with them coming up with an accent, as long as they're able to be consistent with it"

One of the accents that he always wanted to find a use for in DA was South African. "We never actually did find out but I really like that accent"

Chat said "I used to be lost in the Deep Roads, everywhere looks the same". Mark replied "Everywhere does look the same. Which is sort've vaguely realistic, but you've gotta be able to navigate"

"Anthem's flight is really cool but ultimately I don't feel like the mission structure ever really fully took into account the fact that people had jetpacks strapped to their butts"

Chat asked if the Deep Roads were inspired by the Mines of Moria. Mark replied, "I mean, maybe, dwarves have had a pretty long established canon and DA:O is definitely trying to present the standard races with their clichés but then sort've putting a twist on them, so dwarves are hyper politicized, the elves are a race that has fallen. So yes, it's hard to imagine that there wasn't Moria inspiration there, if you're gonna have dwarves and elves in a fantasy setting Tolkien is a touchpoint"

Chat discussed dwarves dreaming and not dreaming. Mark commented "I think originally dwarves were not supposed to dream, but I think you are correct, it has been inconsistent"

Leliana is Mike Laidlaw's favorite character. On her return in DA:I if she died in DA:O, Mark commented "That is, there's definitely no question that was a 'Mike wanted Leliana in DA:I, so she survives' [thing]. I mean, the Ashes were right there, so... I guess..."

Chat asked "Have graphics engines advanced to the point in game resolution/graphics could MATCH the CGI "Sacred Ashes" trailer for a DAO Remaster?'' Mark replied "Yeah, you could probably get pretty close to the Sacred Ashes trailer these days if you were willing to spend the time on the assets"

Chat commented that Ruck was suffering and that being infected by the Blight for so long can't be good for your health. Mark commented "One of the few places where we actually paid that off"

Chat asked "I asked on Twitter if you knew why BioWare didn't commit to either an A-RPG or C-RPG design in DAII and DA:I, but then I went on vacation. Did you talk about that in another stream?" Mark replied, "The short answer is the Dragon Age has always had the unfortunate problem of being pushed to broaden its audience all the time, so in DAII-time the word 'RPG' kind've became a dirty word in the industry, so that's why DAII is quite, it's DA:O with the action cranked up to 1000." "Even before Critical Role 'RPG' was starting to pivot back. Basically as every game became an RPG, the word first became almost completely poisonous and then sort've became a fine thing to say. And now that D&D is at the most popular level it's ever been, it definitely made a difference. Skyrim made a difference as well, it was definitely not afraid to say 'RPG' out loud. When GTA and even shooters started saying about putting RPG elements in, that helped too"

Dwarves are interesting "because typically people who play dwarves always play dwarves"

"BioWare would not use any fanfiction, BioWare doesn't read any fanfiction because it's a legal minefield, or at least a lawsuit minefield." "I can tell you that companies like EA are immensely afraid of lawsuits so they do lots of things to avoid that"

Chat said "'​I like the theory out there that originally if you kept the Architect alive he could have fought with you against Cory in DA:I. Was there truth to that?" Mark replied, "I don't know if that was.. it's possible because they're definitely related. It's possible that if you kept him alive there was an intention to do that. It definitely didn't survive contact with shipping the thing." When chat followed up by asking his opinion on the idea, Mark said "I mean I think it makes sense, it would have been an interesting payoff for the character if you did that, but it's a whole extra fight for what would have been a very small minority of players. It would've been a good way to take him off the table". On the small minority of players point, he elaborated "It would be people who played Awakening, which is only 35% of people who played DA:O, and finished Awakening, which would be say half that, and played DAII, so [...]. I think if we had done it it would have been more, an asset in the combat [like Zevran joining for the final battle in DAII] not 'he's gonna take him on by himself'"

"You can see why the Dragon Age team isn't super enthusiastic about Dragon Age being 'random moon in Mass Effect'" [said regarding this fan theory]

During the Broodmother fight, Mark said "this is the thing, is if you do a remaster you probably leave this bit all alone. But if you do a remake you gotta, this [would probably get/need to be] addressed"

[source]

(pls note that in places there is a bit of paraphrasing of the info, the best source is always the primary source with full quotes in their original context)

[kittythegengarmonarch]

15 questions for 15 mutuals

One of my close friends (as well as mutuals) @cadaver-moss tagged me in this! Gracias mi amigo! Now it's my turn! ^^

(There are some questions that reveal a bit too much for me, so I will try my best to alter them.)

Are you named after anyone. I'd say there are 3 answers. Legal name I will change: Yes Real name I use today: Depends. It's a noun that I would describe myself, but in a different language. Also turns out, I learned about a year after I got the name, that the word comes from the name of a spirit! Persona's name: A grandmother's dog (she's a sweetheart)

When was the last time you cried. The last time I actually cried was during a meltdown. The last time I almost cried was when another close friend said he would block me if I sent him a clip of Toad's voice, and because he said that I had a shutdown (he knew what he did was wrong though, and luckily, we made up).

Do you have kids? My sona does (in reality they're my Gengar plushies), but irl, no. I don't plan to have coitus with anyone else in any way, shape or form. (Adopting or fostering kids though, I would say otherwise).

Do you use sarcasm a lot? Depends on my mood, really.

What sports do you play/have you played? Have I played? Kick ball! I made a homerun (after I slid) and ended up getting filled with energy and pride! ^^

What's the first thing you notice about other people? I honestly don't know. I have social anxiety, especially with most other teens (a reason why high school is very stressful for me) and I often prefer to be alone.

Scary movies or happy endings? Happy endings. Easy answer. The King's Game, SCP-5254, Squid Game and SCP-001(WTDB) are perfect examples of why I prefer happy endings, as they have caused me depression and sometimes paranoia. It wasn't pretty. (There is also more media like them that have caused me depression and/or paranoia.)

Any special talents? If drawing counts, yes. Other than that, if it counts, algebra, and most other academic activities.

Where were you born? My sona: Alola Me irl, an southeastern state in the US (Currently living somewhere else, and I will not say the name of either place)

What are your hobbies? Drawing, surfing the net, watching YouTube, napping, shaking the lamb sauce (don't ask. It's a secret), listening to music, car rides (at times), word searches, and other things that are out of my mind right now.

Do you have any pets? The namesake of my sona, Kitty, and Highly [Maybe Confused]. There are some pictures I took of them recently at the bottom of the post. Check out other videos on Tumblr to check them out. Update: We got another bulldog, and his name is Uhtred.

How tall are you? What's 3^4-36+9x2+0? That's your answer. (And no, it's not a _'_ deal)

Favorite subject in school? Art. Other than art, math.

Dream job? Character designer, like James Turner and Ken Sugimori, or an illustrator, like Anne Fitzgerald. Or a storyboard artist.

Eye color? Go outside, and stare at a tree trunk. If not, stare at my dog.

Highly is the tired one(left), and Kitty is the desperate one(right). Update: The puppy below is Uhtred.

I'll tag @liamthemarowak @ghos-tea @tiny-brain @destinylightsup-2006 @leothewtf @andythepurplebird2k5 @alter-ego-cole @boongusbongus and @artsymii

(As it's most likely required. Lmao)

[luinhealthcare]

Hello lovely Lofty❤️

What would you say is the pros and cons of EMS work?? Or like, things you would say to someone looking to be an EMT?

I have a full time job I don't plan on leaving, but tbh learning about what you do and reading your stories has kind of put it on my heart and I was curious if volunteer EMT jobs are a thing. Like, getting all the training done and then volunteering when I can?

Idk, I was just curious if you had anything to say regarding this😅

I could probably google some of this info but if if you feel like answering it would be appreciated! I value your opinion❤️

Ok, give me just a sec—*SQUEALS excitedly into pillow*

Hello Anon! :D That’s so exciting to hear!! I’m glad you’d rather just do it volunteer, as career EMS pays very little (my nursing job is what keeps a roof over my head, not my EMS one lol), but nearly every agency in my area has volunteers so I imagine it’s the same for your area!

So general pros and cons for EMS:

Pros

Tight knit work crew - These people see some bad things together, and trauma bonding is a thing, so they tend to be pretty close and have a lot of fun together. A note of care, we all have dark senses of humor. It’s a natural coping mechanism for people, and it can make life really funny too. But generally, working with EMS providers is quite fun! There will probably also be things like banquets, cookouts, and other fun bonding activities!

Boo boo bus - Driving is one of my least favorite parts of the job, but it is very fun to drive the truck around with lights and sirens and have the power to stop traffic and go through a red light lol. Super dangerous, but very fun

Knowledge - You learn so much in EMS! Medicine and our understanding of diseases and injuries is constantly changing, so you’ll always learn something new if you keep up with your training. Speaking of which, your agency will provide training opportunities to help you grow!

Patient care - You’ll find that the majority of your calls aren’t actually emergencies, but when you can actually take care of someone who needs you, you’re gonna ride that adrenaline high for ages. I still remember calls from years ago where I actually made a difference in someone’s life, and it’s a thrilling feeling.

Shift style - We work in 12-24 hour blocks, which means you knock out your work week in 2-3 days. As a volunteer your hour requirement would be much less than 36, but you could knock out a 24 hour monthly requirement in a single day if you wanted. Also, depending on a few factors (day vs night shift, busyness of your run area), you could literally just be spending your time chilling between calls. Sometimes I bring video games to work and play the switch because we have so much downtime. At night we get paid to just sleep if nobody’s calling 911.

Cons

Management/staffing - Like most jobs, somehow we’re all cursed with idiots in charge. Obviously this is variable, but a general trend in EMS is to overwork its people and toss them out to sea before they sometimes feel ready. And also like most jobs, we’re perpetually short staffed and everyone gets stretched thin to make up for it. Luckily for you, this shouldn’t be as big a problem because volunteers are usually treated very well!

Patient care - It’s a pro but it’s a con too. 85% of your calls are going to be for things that people should have never called 911 for. Your big pretty Boo Boo Bus is mostly going to be an Uber. And it will get frustrating, and you will have frequent flyers, and some people are not kind at all. They’ll call for your help and then get pissed off at you for trying to help. Anyone who’s worked customer service can relate, I’m sure. You get trained to handle life and death emergencies and then instead you’re picking someone up for a cough they’ve had for three days and you’re wondering when you became their mother/father and have to take the baby to the doctor when they haven’t tried anything to take care of themselves at home or see a less urgent health facility. It will burn you out if you’re not careful.

TMI - Speaking of patient care, get ready to see people at their absolute lowest. Hoarder houses, maggots, abusive households, all that jazz. Another reason for trauma bonding with your coworkers! 👍🏻 (This won’t be the majority of your calls, but you’ll see them)

Physical strain - If you don’t take care of your body, this job will hurt you. I’ve thrown my back three times working EMS; there were times where I was hobbling around like an 83-year-old and I was 22. You’ll be lifting patients of every weight, you’re gonna be contorted in weird positions trying to splint someone, CPR is a cardio exercise in itself (lol), you will probably be sore after some calls like you just went to the gym. Also, we don’t take meal breaks - you eat when you can, and you will become a speed eater very quickly in this line of work.

Mental strain - You’re gonna learn a lot about yourself and others in this work. How do you cope with stress? You will watch people die, you will see suicides and shootings and stabbings, you will watch family hurt each other and grieve over lost loved ones. You will be on edge for the majority of your shift as you wait for the tones to drop, you will be stressed trying to find an address or navigate the road and make sure nobody gets into a wreck with you. Military and first responders are so alike because the stress level and distribution is quite similar - downtime with boredom gets interspersed with spikes of huge adrenaline rushes. Have good coping skills, have a strong support system, take care of yourself. 95% of the people I know on duty are in therapy to stay sane.

Overall, I adore EMS. If I could survive off EMS pay I’d work it full time and do nursing as a side gig for funsies lol. The majority of the work is fairly mundane, but when you get to make a difference boy do you get to make a difference. And you’ll have so many funny stories to share. And the people are awesome.

Hope this helps! :D

[lilyginnyblackv2]

Buddy Daddies - Another Miri & Rei Parallel:

In this parallel, Rei and Miri are obviously paralleling each other, but Kyutaro and Shigeki (Rei’s father) are paralleling, and then becoming foils, to each other.

In Episode 5 we learn that Kyutaro was originally planning on having Miri sent back to her mother, and we see him challenge Miri on the “family” that she has with Kazuki and Rei.

He asks her: “Isn’t your family worried about you staying with people you don’t know?” Miri says she’s fine and goes on to say:

“Kazu-kun and Rei-kun will be with me forever!” Kyutaro questions her use of “forever” and Miri continues with:

“Yeah. Kazu-kun’s food is super delicious. Rei-kun’s super good at video games. And it’s toasty warm when we all sleep together!”

Sound familiar? In Episode 12, when Shigeki and Rei “talk” one final time about him inheriting the Organization, which would require Rei to leave his family behind, Shigeki doesn’t ask him about his family, but reinforces what he expects out of Rei instead. 

“Discard sentimentality.”

“Inherit the organization.”

He was tossing aside Rei’s “family” and the sentimentalities that came with it, similar in a way to how Kyutaro wasn’t viewing the bond that Miri had with Rei and Kazuki as either lasting or familial. 

In response to his father, we see Rei say this:

“The taste of cheap Hamburg steak.”

“The warmth that comes from sleeping three to a bed.”

“There were so many things out there that I could hold dear.” - Said while an image of the three of them playing video games shows up on screen. And also states that:

“Miri, Kazuki, and I share a bond stronger than blood.” This is, in a way, the same sentiment that Miri expressed to Kyutaro by saying that they would be together forever. That was her way of understanding and explaining that they were, already, a family. That she was already home with her family. Meanwhile, the above is Rei’s way of expressing this same sentiment to his father;

Rei also mentions some things that Miri doesn’t. Those are mostly events that happened after Episode 5, so she couldn’t have expressed them to Kyutaro at that time. But I bet she would have had she and Kyutaro had that same speech in Episode 12 instead.

Both Miri and Rei are shown validating their family to another. Shigeki remains stuck in his ways and unchanging, not willing to actually listen to Rei in the slightest. Only acknowledging Rei’s choice when Rei shot through his arm, damaged Shigeki’s weapon, and essentially made himself useless to the Organization and his “boss.” Kyutaro, however, actually listens to Miri and opens his mind and heart to her and their situation. He accepts them and over the course of the series we see him become less indifferent and more willing to go out of his way to protect and help them.

He eventually becomes a part of their family too. I once thought that he fit more of an uncle role in the family dynamic, but now I’m thinking that he is actually much more like a grandpapa, lol. (I’m only half joking her, tbh. Also, I find it so funny that Miri used a Tea sticker for Kyutaro, and I have no idea why, lol).

Also, if you have anything else you want to add to this, please feel free! :D