#I feel like that's very contradictory

[verrescent]

super duper random but I think the reason I'm not really head over heels for Sirius or super big on wolfstar like everyone else is because I kinda see him as aromatic. I don't think he's aroace, just aro. Or maybe at least on the arospec. His family was the first thing he knew, the first thing he loved, and he's traumatised from the shit he saw, had done to him, and was forced to do. I feel like that just really messed up his perception of love.

ABSOLUTELY NO HATE ON WOLFSTAR. They still hold my heart in their silly little clawed hands. But like. Idk.

I think another thing that kinda peeves me is the way that Sirius is portrayed as kind of.. emotionally dull. Like he's either too sexualised, or just really emotionally hurtful (I feel like abusive is too strong of a word) towards Remus and the people around him. He's about the only character we have a set personality on. He's used to the floodgate of emotions he feels, he's probably more emotionally aware than Lily even. He's childish, and quick to anger in the books, but after years of having your worst and lowest moments replayed over and over again while your teeth ache and rot, I think he's got a right to be. In school, he was better. Though still bad from the ongoing abuse from his parents.

I don't think he was unfixable, I think he just took a lot of time to heal from everything. He's able to form platonic relationships, of course, but he doesn't really have any desire for anything romantic. He used to think something was wrong with him and tried to force himself to do what everyone else was doing, dating and stuff, but he just never clicked with it. He can love, he isn't like incapable of it, but it's just not romantic. I think he's his own person who doesn't need a relationship to make his world round once more, I think he'd much rather have plenty of people around with whom he's formed bonds with that'll last long past his death. That's because he doesn't like doing one thing for too long, and because he feels like the idea of having to love someone is too specific for it to be for him.

I think even after Azkaban he feels this way, maybe even more so, but he's more appreciative of the people around him. Just a little ramble

[peachdoxie]

Your resume should include any relevant work experience and skills you have and it's good to include your volunteer work and internships (ideally four of them) as well as your multiple graduate degrees and the certifications you've earned during the process, and also your resume can only be one page in a font that's easy to read. This field is hard to break into because we have a lot of applicants for not a lot of openings and we'll keep them open for years until we find the perfect candidate. A great way to distinguish yourself is by taking any adjacent job you can find even if it means you have to work two or three part time jobs to make ends meet until a new opening is made. It's also good to tailor your resume to the companies and jobs you're applying for so that they know you researched the role and didn't send out mass applications, and oh, I highly, highly recommend that you keep your resume updated and a digital copy on hand so that you can email it to people at a moment's notice because it's good to keep an eye out for opportunities as they come up. Everyone around you has a master's degree and it's basically the new bachelor's and a PhD is the new master's and we really like seeing several years of work experience because there's a lot of stuff you can't learn in a classroom setting. It's a great field and I love working in it and you should pursue it if you're passionate about it!

[grayintogreen]

Respectfully, but a character can be and SHOULD BE allowed to be more than one thing without it being considered "contradictory", "retconning," or "negative character development."

[good-beanswrites]

My thoughts on how the Milgram mv machine works based on the evidence we have:

(I know there’s been discussion about where exactly the interrogations take place, but wherever they are,) the prisoners are made to sit in a specific chair near the wall that houses the machine.

It’s ordinarily hidden, but the wall panels shift aside to reveal it when the mechanical sounds play in the dramas. As well as the walls moving, the chair transforms to restrain the prisoner and attach whatever it takes to access their brain. The fact that none of the more frightened prisoners try to run or break it makes it seem like they physically cannot. This is why Fuuta sounds so panicked, and why Amane is suddenly helpless in front of Es in their T1 vds.

(My mind conjures very classic sci-fi mad scientist machines with wires, pipes, lights, nodes, needles, etc, but I’d love to hear how other people visualize it.)

In some vds (maybe all? I’d need to check,) you can hear Es take some steps right before their iconic line -- it would make sense that for safety reasons, the power mechanism is placed across the room. Once again it could be anything, but the sound effect makes me think of one of those giant wall-mounted levers you have to pull down.

The voice dramas don’t really provide the type of crime details that an actual interrogation would reveal, and it’s odd that they’re placed before the extraction rather than after Es gets to see the new details. This leads me to believe the machine functions with priming. All Es needs to do is get them talking about their murder, so it’s on their mind.

The video produced is much like a (non-lucid) dream. Even if the prisoners figure out that this is how it works, they can’t control it just by thinking really hard about something else. The murders produce the strongest emotional affect, and that’s what it picks up on. If someone else used the machine, it would default to whatever gave them the strongest emotional reaction in the ~15 minutes beforehand, hence why Es’ video focuses on their daunting task ahead. (The Undercover theory is still a bit loose, though, given the private shots that Es wouldn't have known about). It’s why the videos are usually closely linked to the vd topics/beats. I also like to think that the reason their prisoner colors appear so much is because they’re looking at those colors on their uniform 24/7.

The bell rings to inform Es that it’s the optimal time to use the machine -- the prisoner has been thinking about things for long enough that the video will be about their crime, and if the conversation lasts much longer they’ll start thinking of other things. It’s at a different time for each prisoner because it’s based on the specific conversation. I guess Jackalope is listening in to the interrogation, timing it perfectly. (The only one that kind of messes with this theory is Yonah, because they just keep talking afterwards lol, but it could just show that the interrogation is still in Es’ control.)

Their “Sing your sins” is the final priming nudge to get them to think of their actions as a sin, revealing their guilt.

Once activated, the prisoner enters a sort of trance/sleeping state. It’s very much like REM sleep, with the machine forcibly activating neurons and recording the output. The prisoners have asked Es what they saw, meaning they don’t remember the mvs. I like to think the prisoners do experience the mv in real time, acting as the major version of themself that appears, but can’t remember it afterwards. It’s when you experience a dream, but as soon as you wake up you’re just left with fleeting emotions and memories right on the tip of your tongue.

The video plays immediately upon extraction -- whether on a huge projection or little screen depends on which room it’s in. It simultaneously saves the memory so that Es can rewatch it later (on those old TVs in the jailbreak mix). The machine downloads the song and video together, but requires special parts to retrieve them. The technology is pretty new and fragile, so if one is broken, there might be a delay between when Es can hear the extracted song and see it with the video. (That’s my justification for Kotoko’s delays -- after 9 prisoners the parts wear out, or maybe Mikoto himself overheats it with his complex situation.)

Based on the lack of conversation we get afterwards, I picture Es leaving before the prisoner wakes from the trance. The machine adjusts their brain back to normal before they awaken, restraints freed and able to return to the rest of the prison.

It’s very much like a dream, so it’s not harmful despite the amnesia/head injuries the prisoners have. It does, however, exhaust them. Brain activity alone takes a lot of energy, so forced brain activity with added emotional strain would cause them to feel pretty drained the rest of the day.

[shalom-iamcominghome]

If you're going to criticize jews but your entire criticism hinges on jews not only being all white but also being treated as white all the time, your criticisms are unbaked and your cornerstone of politics relies on antisemitism, considering how quickly and easily you fall for it

[marley-manson]

Well I succumbed and watched the Pilot and first ep of Due South last night.

Really struck me how central the theme of Fraser's estrangement from his father is in the Pilot. Fraser mentioning that the last time they spoke was Christmas, essentially saying that the only times they speak are presumably brief calls at holidays. Gerard responding with a platitude - "I guess the more you know someone, the less needs to be said" - but it becomes quite clear that Fraser feels he doesn't know Bob at all, and has to learn about him through his journals.

And yet they're cut from the same cloth: "I always thought your father was the last of a kind. I was wrong - you are." And this is tied to the mountie stereotype lol.

Bob and Fraser both repeat the lines, "You're going to shoot a mountie? They'll hunt you to the ends of the earth," and they're both wrong. No one wants to pursue Bob Fraser's death except Fraser, and no one's happy with Fraser for solving the case because it uncovered corruption. He gets exiled for it. Bob and Fraser are the only mounties who "always get their man," lol, and it's because of Bob's neglect in the course of duty that Fraser follows in his footsteps and becomes so similar to Bob. He idealizes his father and wanted to grow up to be just like him - we can see that admiration in the drawing of him he finds in Bob's things that he made when he was a child eg, or in the song Superman that plays while Fraser reads his journal in the diner. But he doesn't know him. And he pursues duty above all else because he has nothing else of his father.

And then you have Ray, who seems to exist as the opposite of Bob. If there's one thing Ray is, it's there. He is there for Fraser to hunt down suspects, to invite him to a loud family dinner, to save him from an explosion, he tracks him down to apologize for being dismissive, to invite him to dinner, and he flies to the Yukon when he can't reach him by phone. In the diner scene in particular he's directly positioned as a contrast to Bob's absence both in life and death. Fraser is alone trying to understand his father through his journals (looking for something "he missed" ie his dad), and Ray joins him, ending the thematically significant song montage, and eases his solitude. Fraser says he doesn't have family, and Ray shares his own with him.

And after the pilot case, there's nothing drawing them together except friendship. They're not a mismatched pair of cops assigned together who have to learn to get along, they work together unofficially because they can't help but spend every waking moment together.

Bob represents absence and Ray represents presence, distant admiration vs actually knowing someone.

And I'll probably have more to say on that as like, poles Fraser is caught between, if/as I rewatch more of the show. Ray's position is a little muddy especially because pre VS he buys into Fraser's image to an extent, as pointedly examined in Heaven and Earth. But again, more on that another time.

[bluerosesburnblue]

@oveliagirlhaditright I'm putting my Missing Link thoughts in another post because it would be too long, and honestly I have SO MANY thoughts about why the basic premise of KHML was a bad idea (completely separate from my own distaste for the "Ephemer is Xehanort's ancestor" stuff that might be in it)

Because you're right to mention Pokemon Go and it really, REALLY feels to me like it's just trying to ride the hype from the mobile ARG boom that started with Pokemon Go a whole eight years ago. Because KHML as a concept doesn't even seem to be utilizing any of the unique features of an ARG that make them appealing

There's two real franchise-based mobile ARGs that I ever remember hearing about: Pokemon Go and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite*. These two projects do make sense to me, as opposed to KHML because of the way that both franchises make use of the central concept of the augmented reality feature. They're additions to reality, which both series already played around with. HP takes place in our reality, but with a "what if magic was real and just hidden" premise, so it's insanely easy to make an ARG that's just "yeah, you're one of the people in on the secret magical society that always existed in the real world." Pokemon takes place in an alternate version of our world; every location in Pokemon is based on a real-world location. So that's also a natural progression for it, and it's easy to pretend that the "reality" you see in the ARG is just the Pokemon world. Other than location names and the presence of Pokemon, the Pokemon world is practically identical to reality

That is literally the central concept of an ARG. To make the game part of reality. And that just doesn't work with KH, a game about flying through space to reach Disney worlds. Sure, some of us might have wanted to pretend to be Keyblade wielders as kids, but did we want to be wielders in our small backyards? Not even imagining that they were another location, but the yards as they were? No! We wanted to be in the Disney worlds! Or Traverse Town! The central facet of ARG gameplay doesn't mesh with the functionality of a story-based canonical title. And so what do they do to force it to work? Complicate the lore with the Astral Planes, which completely take the "reality" out of Augmented Reality aside from... a map? Like, it might have worked with Quadratum depending on how much of "our reality" that ends up being, but that's not at all what they're doing

Additionally, ARGs are not conducive to story-heavy games! You're supposed to play them while walking around town, maybe stopping for a few minutes to take a break. Or you play them on work/school breaks. You need to be able to pick them up, play a bit for 10 minutes, and put them down. The typical gameplay cycle for most ARG players does not include 20 minutes just to watch cutscenes to get the Exclusive Lore before being able to do anything, and the people who like KH for the story aren't going to want to wait all the time for their mobile game energy to recharge before they can get their cutscenes (a thing that even KHUx did away with for story chapters after some time!)

The entire decision to make KHML an ARG, to me, feels like corporate checking off a box of "style of game that got popular in recent memory" and trying to copy it rather than thinking of the gameplay as a medium in and of itself to tell a story. Nothing about the ARG concept works with what KH is at its core, and I honestly feel like they unintentionally admitted that when it was announced that you'd be able to play it without leaving home. What is the point of making it an ARG at all if you're going to remove literally the only benefit that it has as a medium, as opposed to something that could benefit the story you're trying to tell? We are a long way from the days of TWEWY making revolutionary use of the DS technology to have its gameplay tell a significant part of its story

In an ideal world, I think that KHML should have been an MMO like we thought KHx was going to be back when it was announced. They wouldn't have to mess with the lore to make it work, other players running around would help to "populate" Scala ad Caelum in a natural way, people could form "families" with their friends to further the bloodlines narrative, and MMOs can function on the drip-fed narrative style that they wanted. It doesn't even have to be a big-budget MMO like FF14, because I actually do like KH3's artstyle and KHML's simpler usage of it (it manages to be distinctive and colorful, working in hallmarks of Nomura's hand-drawn style while still being more detailed than the PS2-era). It could just be... basically what it is now, but they add in new Disney worlds every couple of months to keep the story going

And now here we are, with a game that was supposed to be out by the end of 2023 still missing (lol) and only having had two betas by the near-midpoint of 2024 because they're having developmental issues that I would personally guess have to do with the game's self-defeating nature. I find it very frustrating

*Adding in, Wizards Unite literally ran for less than three years (June 2019 - Jan 2022) before shutting down so even being tied to a big-name franchise couldn't save it. I have a strong hunch that the Covid-19 lockdowns played a huge part in killing the ARG boom so it's doubly insane to me why Square Enix thought trying to bring it back was a good idea

[piningpercussionist]

I saw from a post about how many asks you have and I was wondering why not just answer one ask then use that as your daily post? (I'm pretty sure you post daily from my memory)

I'm not a writer so apologies if I sound a bit rude or oblivious. But I think you don't do that because it might get tiring to write an in-character response each day.

I'm actually an Insane Person and ideally would be posting hourly/bi-hourly, if only I ever found enough content to queue up in such a manner,,

But, basically the delays can be summed up in three parts: tired or busy (lumping these together as one problem), no idea how to respond just yet (or respond in a way that satisfies me,) or I have ideas but they're art based and take more time.

I do have some wips for some art answers saved I think, but I've got, like, a single commission remaining on my docket and I refuse to let myself do other art until it's finished (barring one sketch I did for the sake of my sanity.... I cannot stress enough how much of a fight it is to get myself to do full shading and backgrounds 💀 mistakes were made.)

Now, admittedly, it's been a minute since I took a crack at writing out some more thoughtful or lengthy responses for some of the asks I've gotten- so far as I recall, at least- but the dissatisfaction problem is Extremely Real. No joke, I've had an ask sitting in my queue for several months now because I was like "yeah this is good enough," queued it, and then just before it could post I was overcome with an Intense distaste for it. I really liked the question and thought I could do better. (And still clearly have not done better....) Writing Kim honestly comes really naturally to me, and I could never really get tired of it, but sometimes an ask throws a curveball at me in a way that I just really cannot quite wrap my head around responding to. Other times, I get asks that I just can't let myself answer in a subpar manner- either the ask itself or the implications of the answer I concoct end up mattering too much to me, so I get super in my head about finalizing the reply.

And then me being tired is just a skill issue. (I'm joking; this only applies to like the last month or so, but I actually started taking some new medications recently that have been messing with me just a little in this respect. Sometimes I get tired, and when they DO give me the pep to do things, I've admittedly been trying to direct that energy into getting my life together lol)

[katyspersonal]

People that headcanon Maria as butch lesbian and/or Eileen as black woman and still are kind and respectful to different takes are good and beautiful and lovely and Great Ones can't even help them to ascend any further because they are already perfect and they get so many bitches.

People that headcanon Maria as butch lesbian and/or Eileen as black woman and trash on different takes while accusing people of bigotries are terrible and dumb and absolutely repulsive and do not take homophobia/racism seriously if they think having different headcanons on fictional characters is any of these bigotries, they should stop using the pretense of caring about real world issues to get away with shunning, passive aggression, bullying and cruelty in the fandom for the "awful sin" of being different and Rom would never want to be friends with them

People that started to dislike these headcanons just because of bad experiences with toxic fans should temporarily stop keeping track on fandom updates so they can heal and rediscover them, contradictory spirit doesn't make you free from bad people but makes you another side of the bad people coin and true freedom lays in raging individualism, don't let them claim headcanons as their weapons because butch lesbian Maria and black Eileen did nothing wrong to you and exist to make people happy, it is their enforcers who are bad.

[pochapal]

a good question to consider is if "solve the epitaph or die" was ever explicitly a challenge issued by anybody here.

[pocketramblr]

I love reading the old Nintendo's players guides, both because of the lovely art but also because you get fun lore things like "For the first two games, Hyleans are effectively filling the same role as the Zonai for the rest of the Hyruleans", and "Nevermind we know we said in Adventure of Link that that Zelda was a different princess than the one in the first game, but they're the same person now! Unlike this other Zelda, or this other other Zelda, who are still different."

[daz4i]

what degree of "he would not fucking say that" can you handle in fics you read? both in a sense of like amount of oocness and the length/genre/format of the fic etc.

[moths-in-a-coat]

.

[trainingdummyrabbit]

sorry for the semi serious ask, but what are your thoughts on the latest drama w project moon?

hiiii goodmorning! i kinda hesitate t call it Drama, but it sure is something that is Happening. imnot really one to have any sorta big conclusions to pull of anything like this but honestly it mostly just boils down that well. it sucks and i hate that its happening!

i cant comment on much because i only know what people Say, and what floats by me on my day to day, but it really does feel Incredibly stupid and like something that couldve been avoided Really Easily if th companyrunners Thought About It Just A Little. again, i dont have much prior knowledge or context re: running a company and all that business terminology and/or necessities, but like. every bit more i hear about it just kinda. :/ dude. come on. its bordering on comical at this point.

im wishing all the artists the best and more; i dont know What Specifically happened to them (because everyone says something different with different implications) but god. man.

i really wish pm was better; it sucks that things are happening like this; i wish they werent; and its honestly super frustrating. but like, mostly, i just kinda passively watch from a distance bc i have nothing of importance to add to anything, and its not worth causing a ruckus over something i dont understand. you understand. thats all.

[jazzellow]

current review of season 3 as of now

[fu-si-un]

i think that christianity (as presented in the text of the gospels, anyway) and i have irreconcilable differences after all. there are pieces that still resonate with me and maybe always will. but there are also pieces that are jarringly wrong to me. & i have no logical way of separating out the bad pieces from who jesus may have been and what he represents within christianity, when the gospels represent many of those pieces as things that he said.