#I'm just tired man

[derangedfujoshi]

Stalking is a crime, yes that includes your yandere boyfriend

Assault is a crime, yes that includes your whumper/whumpee scenarios

Being part of a mob is a crime, yes that includes your sexy son of a mafia boss

Killing is a crime, yes that includes your blorbo

Zoophilia is a crime, yes that includes you liking Nick Wilde

All your "exceptions" from what is and isn't condemnable in fiction are, in real life, a crime as well. Every dark trope falls in the "it would be a crime to commit this irl" category, it's not just the big age gaps with adult/minor ships and the incest, it's ALL of them. All of them are crimes in the real world, by law. The sentence may vary but you'd still be sent to prison. "But I only like it in fiction!"

So do we.

So do we, so can you get off your high horse and just admit that liking dark themes in fiction, ANY dark theme, does not reflect your moral compass in real life and for the love of everything STOP pretending fake murder is better than fake incest? You sound preposterous.

[loversandantiheroes]

Honestly what I wish more people understood with regards to Astarion's story is there's no such thing as a universal trauma experience. You could line up 10 different SA survivors and while they're all going to have a lot of shared experiences, they're going to have been affected in different ways. They're going to have different feelings about sex and different relationships with their sexuality, from hypersexual to sex averse and everything in between.

That does not mean that any of them are wrong.

I have seen a lot of people in this fandom projecting a lot of incredibly strong feelings onto this character and his story, and then act as though their experiences make their interpretation the "correct" one, and that's just not how it works.

The game gives many possible threads to show how Astarion might feel, depending on the choices made. People who read him as aspec based on those choices aren't wrong. Nor are the ones that see him eagerly voice his interest in using his new found freedom to explore sex on his own terms and find that resonates with them more. There are lots of different outcomes here, but the most important part is that he's the one that gets to dictate his choices.

So, yeah, idk, tl;dr: your experiences are not universal, you don't have a say in how other people heal, don't be dicks,

[thefrogdalorian]

Some days being autistic feels like you're playing a video game on the hardest possible difficulty settings, with no instructions and your health down to 1%, while everyone else gets to play in easy mode with directions (so they always know what to do next) and unlimited health cheats.

Sure, being late-diagnosed means you're aware that you're playing on hard mode. Now you know you will struggle and you can give yourself grace and accommodations.

But some days it all feels so unfair...

Why do I have to constantly struggle at things that seem to come so naturally to others?

[velnica]

I've been seeing increasing sentiment that gen AI is bad but using ChatGPT is not... Well here's your timely reminder that WRITING IS ART! It doesn't matter if it's published or not, fiction or not, hobby or job. It's the art of expressing yourself through words instead of visual medium. It's part of human creativity, so please celebrate writers—including the amateurs—as the artists that they are 💖

For some reason writers are always at the bottom of the fandom totem pole for and it's exhausting to try and defend that what we do is also art, honestly. IT ABSOLUTELY IS, and the quality of your writing does not dictate whether it is 'art' or not.

Do you write to evoke some kind of emotions from the reader? Do you write to express your emotion about something? And conversely, do people read to feel emotions? To be informed? To experience a story that just hits your buttons right? Then you're describing an art form.

Write good piece and bad pieces and exploratory ones. Write the most in depth investigation or the most unhinged dead dove. Write the same trope a million times. They're all ART because they're expression of your creativity, of your humanity. Don't let people bring you down because you chose to write instead of draw.

More specifically in fandom, I'd love to know why visual arts is held on such high regard but not writing art. Why is the fanfic space full of entitled readers and open season for criticism? You don't usually comment "your drawing sucks", you'd just keep scrolling. Yet for some reason people will correct your grammar all the time even unprompted... In a hobby space.

Is it because enjoying something visually is easier/requires less effort and it's easier to scroll away? Is it because writing is seen as essential skills and therefore 'anyone can write'? (for example I'm sure everyone who went to school have had to write many essays before)

Whatever it is, I'd like people to stop thinking that writing is not worthy to be called art. After all what are poems if not, at the core of it, someone's writing?

[vixvaporub]

August 19th to August 25th Manga I Read:

Currently Reading:

The King’s Beast - chapters 40-53

One piece - chapters 36-44

Wild Strawberry - chapters 1-12

Updates:

The Summer Hikaru Died - Chapter 28

Spy x Family - Chapters 88-103

Chainsaw Man - Chapter 175

#DRCL midnight children - Chapters 25 - 35

Hirayasumi - chapter 69

FANGS- Chapters 14-16

The apothecary diaries - chapters 65-74

Shadows house - chapters 179 - 200

Yona of the dawn - chapters 247-257

Heavenly Delusion - chapter 66

Completed/Caught Up:

Steel of the Celestial Shadows (caught up) - Chapters 1-26

I read the first like 8 chapters a long time ago and enjoyed it. It came out on Viz media with more chapters and it was just as good as I remembered it 

Become you (completed) - chapters 1 -5

Cute coming of age story about music and going after your passions

[morningstar-chronicles]

every day i think "i have done it. i have gotten as desperate to shift as possible." and every day i am proven wrong

[rimeiii]

I'm just gonna go ahead and say it despite my fear of getring backlash:

I am not a fan with how WHB handles the usage of Solomon's Tears.

(Rant post, feel free to skip over, rest under the cut. I just needed to get this out of my chest.)

Thank god they've made a statement about the availability of Tears, but in my opinion, their way of handling this is the equivalent of slapping a bandaid on a gaping wound - it fails to address the root of the issue that's making Tears such a necessary material in the first place, it being several aspects of the game design.

There have been several design choices that confuse me when it comes to WHB, which I would chalk up to WHB being PB's very first game that purely isn't otome. But these design choices often involve game balancing issues, which for me personally directly impacts my enjoyment of the game. And it is these design choices that immediately impact the need for Tears, and why the initial update changing the availability of these Tears sparked so much controversy.

But before that, I have some menial complaints that can be chalked up to me being spoiled by other games. First of all, the large amounts of filler stages, while normal for a gacha, still doesn't make it a fun experience to play through - especially when there are barely any changes to the stage layouts. The only reason why Plants vs Zombies were able to do this is because of the way their stages are set up:

Stages 1, 3, 6, and 8 introduce a new mechanic/zombie

Stages 2, 4, 7, and 9 are harder stages that test what you knew from the previous stage

Stage 5 is a minigame stage

Stage 10 is a conveyor belt boss stage

Every stage gives you a new plant, oftentimes one that is relevant to the new mechanic/zombie at play/about to be introduced (for example, Puff Shrooms upon ending 1-10, a 0 Sun plant with shorter range that helps in earlygame because the next world is nighttime, which means no Sun from the sky)

As for the other TD games in the market? Arknights has different maps for each story stage. So does Path to Nowhere, from what I recall. If there are filler stages, they're very few and far in between. It's why Granblue Fantasy changed their story chapters to no longer have a solo battle at each segment - it hinders the storytelling.

One of the most baffling things in my opinion is the fact that the game has the same upgrade requirements for all units regardless of rarity. This is such a weird design choice for me because in most games, lower rarities are cheaper when it comes to upgrade costs.

For comparison's sake, some screenshots I took for promoting S and A+ ranks.

Belial, an S-rank Marksman, requires 22k Gold, 22k Books, 10 Tears, and 22 Fire Jellybeans.

It's the same for the A+ Healer Morax, save for the elemental jelly beans which is changed to his element, Light. And this is the same amount needed for upgrading L characters as well.

This design choice isn't particularly good, in my opinion. It bottlenecks players and puts them in a mindset position of "upgrading anything apart from Ls and some choice S/A+ ranks is a resource sink". It makes people think that building anything except the strongest of units isn't worth it, which in turn renders the existence of lower rarity/weaker units moot, especially considering the scarcity of the Tears in the first place. Because why would you raise them if you're going to gain more of an advantage from building these high-rarity units? You're going to get a more immediate and significant power boost by upgrading Ls in the first place.

This is even more pronounced in WHB specifically because in most gachas, lower rarity units tend to require less to upgrade. Take a look at the E2 requirements of three Tactician Vanguards in Arknights, in which Elite upgrades are the closest approximation to promotion in WHB.

Beanstalk is the lowest rarity of the archetype at 4*, and her E2 material requirements consist of two types of tier 3 materials (Coagulating Gel and Manganese Ore, both with blue borders), Vanguard Chip Packs, and LMD.

Then you have the 5* Blacknight, whose material requirements now include a tier 4 material (Incandescent Alloy Block, with a pink border) in addition to a tier 3 material (Loxic Kohl), Vanguard Dualchips (crafted from Vanguard Chip Packs and Chip Catalysts, both of which are farmable regardless), and more LMD.

And finally, the 6* Vigil, whose material requirements are now a tier 5 material (Crystalline Electronic Unit, with a yellow border) and a tier 4 material (Optimized Device), more Vanguard Dualchips (4 to Blacknight's 3), and even more LMD.

Yet in other games, I don't mind raising lower rarity units - for several reasons, depending on the game. In Granblue Fantasy (despite my complaints about how quickly the meta evolves and how lim-centric it is), SR units serve as the stopgap for party comps until you can fill out your roster with SSR characters, and some of these SR characters still see use like Lyria. In other games like Fire Emblem Heroes, Memento Mori, and Princess Connect: ReDive, all units gain the potential to hit the highest rarity - I have a Yukari (originally a 1* unit) ready to hit 6* in PriConne, while I have a +9 merged 5* Fallen Takumi (farmable unit at 3*/4* base) in FEH. Arknights' case is more nuanced, where it's partly the same case as GBF, but also the fact that lower rarity units can fit into niches that high rarity units don't fill.

With these other games, I never feel like raising a lower rarity unit is a waste of resources. The costs of uncapping characters in general is negligible in GBF, except for the Eternals and the Evokers - those of which are reasonably time-gated because of their sheer meta impact and how strong they are compared to all other characters. Except for particularly egregious cases like Tsukinogi, every single Arknights Operator has their uses, and they often see use in Integrated Strategies.

And let's not get into the debacle that are skill levels, because of course you need more materials for that. I don't mind having high costs for optimizing skills - Masteries in Arknights works like that, after all. Pictured below is the cost of M3-ing Bagpipe's third skill.

That's right - a tier 5 (Bipolar Nanoflake) and tier 4 (Oriron Block) material. And luckily, you can farm for all of these skill upgrade materials outside of events, crafting the higher tiers as necessary. There is less opportunity cost for me to E2 my 4* and 5* units because I can just farm the materials again anyways - and even then I some Masteries on these units are amazing. S1M3 Myrtle (4*) is probably the best DP generator in the game, while S2M3 Lappland (5*) also helps with her skill uptime.

Then you go back to WHB's skill upgrades, which mind you is also the same cost between rarities, and guess what else you need?

Yep. Tears. A ludicrous amount of it, considering its availability. And let's not even get into the Tears required for the Unholy Board, if that matters to you (and it does, because it also gives buffs for your L units).

This skews the game balance towards the L units even more. Ideally you'd be raising skill levels once your units reach high levels, because everything is percentage based and the lower your base stats, the lower effect these skill levels have on your skills. But that just means you'll still need Tears because, well, you still need to promote. And remember the opportunity cost again, because all rarities have the same skill upgrade cost, further incentivizing you building Ls and ignoring everything else.

It's ridiculous.

And the added nail in the coffin: the reduced rewards that basically halved the amount of Tears you get.

I seriously, genuinely hope they take the availability of Solomon's Tears as well as game balancing into consideration when performing the next balance patch. Because otherwise, I can't see this game being an enjoyable experience for me moving forward.

Unless, this was the intended way the game was designed, in which I just...I have no more words to say.

[drbatsponge]

So far Gotham War has done at least 4 things for the Bat-Family women outside of Selina and only one of them is good, that being Stephanie getting a new costume.

The rest is just awful.

Cass getting absolutely jobbed.

Stephanie getting called Spoiler again when she's Batgirl.

Barbara apparently ACTIVELY helping Bruce imprison Jason from what I know, though I could be wrong on that.

It's just not a good event for them, they deserve a whole ass event after this.

EDIT: Apparently I mistook Barbara for another character, but tbh she still has had jackshit to do in this event so idc, event still did absolutely nothing of value for her.

[crazykuroneko]

idk why some people are still fighting with tooth and nail over "theories" when season 1 isn't even half of the "whole truth" of the past.

Thee Whole Truth = (louis' account + claudia's account via diaries + lestat's account) - (untold lestat's account**** + editorializing of claudia's diaries + louis' perspective bias because he's not informed enough in the past* + whatever the heck is happening with louis' memories** that allows him to even put words into someone else's mouth***)

(*) mostly thanks to lestat's witholding information about the nature of vampires and their seemingly lack of communication

(**) might be affected by all kinds of influences, from guilt, repressed memories due to trauma, armand being armand, or maybe just maybe louis really wants to provoke "someone" there. tl;dr louis can be wrong and not lying at the same time

(**) see: episode 7 when claudia refusing to burn lestat. we don't have any idea how many times it happened during the retelling

(****) ofc when lestat telling his own account, there will be more negatives added to the equation there. he def has perspective bias since he came from a very different background than the other two. and we still don't know the purpose of him telling his story in the show yet

i mean, this show is made to theorize about. the writers are aware fans paying attention to the littlest details (confirmed by their answer to @immortal_daily). but theorizing, writing metas should be a fun activity. and on top of that, as i said above, in this point of the story in the show, we can not make an informed conclusion about a lot of things. which is why i keep saying season 2 is very important, not only to reveal what's true/false from s1, but it will also tell us how the series will go in the future: what are the vampire lores they'll use, how much they will take from the books, basically the overall tone of the whole series. so idk, keep an open mind maybe? and not attacking people just because they have different theories? and don't depend on other people's theories to make your own conclusion? 🤷‍♀️

[samaeldire]

I've been struggling a lot with a weird kind of burn out lately. I have the drive to draw, I have so many ideas that I desperately want to put on paper, but I just don't have it in me to draw.

For some reason it's taking so much out of me that even thinking about picking up a pen to doodle sounds so draining that I struggle to make any attempt at it at all. Experiencing executive dysfunction with art is rough.

I don't really know what to do to get out of this rut other than just waiting and hoping it goes away on its own 😭

[disgruntleddemon]

Me when ny autism isn't just a quirky fun scooby doo hyperfixation and i actually have a hard time reading people, understanding social cues, and interacting with others

[drakkonyan]

I miss when hearing "problematic" just meant my mom was talking ableistic shit bout me and not a dice throw between "beengus87 ships zloorpus and eebydeepy and that's bad because they have a 3 year gap! 1!1!1!1!!1!1!1!1111!!!!2" and "X beloved creator groomed 6 children and supports burning puppies"

[eddiediaaz]

@/anon i got your ask. not gonna lie, i don't really wanna publish it because it was really unprompted...but i'm aware yes, and i hate it. both things. i'm not aware of every single detail, but from what i've seen, what went down today goes beyond fandom discourse at this point in my opinion. i hope everyone takes this hiatus to go touch some grass and educate themselves because so many people need it. you are right, we don't want our comfort show tainted.

also while we're at it, don't forget your daily click for palestine

[strawberriemars]

I'm okay but like

2 friends getting married this year.

Another had a baby.

My ex had a baby.

I can't even get my partner to give me a straight answer on whether or not he's happy being with me. Where the fuck are we even going.

I've once again fallen for the trick where a guy says we should be friends only for them to immediately start flirting with me when I add them on fb.

Aaaaand my brother is on the verge of killing himself.

On top of it all I caught a shit cough and my throat hurts like a bitch so whhheeeeeeeee.

[silvexus]

I'm putting 'lesser evil' on the shelf, not because people are using it wrong, but because bad faith interpreters are using it to justify apathy because their brains shut off when they see the word 'evil.'

It's 'imperfect good' from now on, and I don't care if you don't like it. I don't care if you don't think it's appropriate or you don't think someone is trying hard enough to earn it. Sometimes good is hampered by old habits and thoughts or bureaucracy or fear or just plain ignorance. That doesn't make it evil, it just makes it waylaid.

You post memes about how we were made to help each other. Now start acting like you believe in it.

[starryshinyskies]

me: i think i'm gonna look at my tumblr for you tab, nothing can go wrong there-

also me: *immediately sees untagged smut and takes 1d12 psychic damage*