#and more analytical i think i'd say

[abyssembraced]

((Quick heads up that my portrayal of Ghost might seem a little inconsistent for a little bit. There are a couple things I'm not super satisfied with right now))

[indierpgnewsletter]

The 1980 Dallas RPG was a Soap Opera Wargame?

In 1980, SPI, a company known for its wargames did a strange thing and published an RPG based on the Dallas tv show. If you don't know anything about the tv show, don't worry, I will protect you. It's too late for me though. You go on ahead. Basically, it was a hit TV show of big money family feuding. Imagine Succession but it was written in the 1980s and instead of TV news, it was an oil company. Unlike the show, the RPG wasn't a hit. The art director of the game famously wrote that they printed 80,000 copies and that was 79,999 more than people wanted. That one person seemed to be this person's grandma who bought it for him to save his soul from D&D/Satan.

What is this game though? Well, James F Dunnigan, founder of SPI and designer of legendary wargame, Panzerblitz, seems to have applied his analytical mind to the internecine squabbles of Dallas and decided that, if you think about it, petty family drama isn't so different from CIA covert ops. And he was right.

As you'd expect from a wargame, the rules are dry and clinical to a fault. You start by picking one of the 9 characters from the show - JR, Jock, Sue Ellen, Pam, etc. They all have stats like Persuasion, Coercion, Seduction. And these stats have attack/defend values. For example, JR has a Coercion of 24 because he's a real jerk. Sue Ellen has a Seduction resist of 18, but it's 20 against JR, because again, he seems to have been a real jerk. This game genuinely went out of its way to make sure you know JR's wife really really doesn't want to go near him.

Each character starts the session ("episode") with a secret story-based objective. Jock wants to run an angry former employee out of town, JR wants to cheat an Arab oil magnate out of 100 million dollars, Sue Ellen wants to do a favour for an old boyfriend. Yeah, what can I say? Some of these objectives feel more important than others. Regardless, you achieve these objectives by controlling 4 or more specific minor characters and organisations by the end of the game. For example, to enact his 100 million dollar plan, JR has to control the Ewing Oil Company, Mustafa Quattara, Professor Bayard, the reporter Mary Cleef, and so on. But characters' objective overlap so Pam also wants Mustafa Quattara and Jock also wants Professor Bayard. These conflicting goals means players need to scheme, negotiate and attack each other so they can win.

The sessions play out in five rounds. Each round, the GM sets the scene. Then, the players can negotiate and make deals. Then, we enter the conflict phase where each player makes three moves - either trying to gain control of uncontrolled NPCs, or attacking another player to steal an NPC from under them, or protecting their own NPCs. And the game throws in little curveballs every round: Oops, some of JR's drinking buddies are in town and he can't say no to them, so his character is out of this round. Hopefully the player has some NPCs that they can use to act instead. Oops, Mustafa Quattara is being chased by assassins. Whoever controls his card has to give it up as he disappears for a bit and comes back uncontrolled. The end result is somewhere in between Vampire the Masquerade (or rather, Undying) and Blood on the Clocktower.

Sure, the math is dense (you roll 2d6 under the difference between the attack value and the defense value, plus or minus any currency spent). Sure, it takes 9 players to really sing. Sure, multiple people can complete their objective so you need to track victory points separately to decide the real winner. Sure, you have to take the homophobia out of the Seduction rules. Sure, roleplaying is completely optional. Sure, sure, sure. The game is a mess. But it's a very playable mess. I'd go so far as to say it's an electric mess. It's shockingly (sorry) fun to play. I think the secret lies in a very clear agenda for the players, a tight boardgame-like action economy, a premise that supports hilarious degrees of pettiness, and an inter-personal experience that demands everyone pay attention to what their friends are doing.

So. Am I planning a full 9 person play-by-post game of this? Yes. Am I thinking of changing the setting and the math? Yes. Is that basically designing a new game? Yes. Should this game be labelled "Powered by Dallas" or, as one of my players suggested, "Hornswoggled by Dallas"? YES.

(This was first published in the Indie RPG Newsletter.)

[lucabyte]

thinking about the very specific reading of isat i had during act 3 for the most part

anyway yeah ill ramble here about this. since it actually explains my headcanons for what the disappearing island wish was

disclaimer: taken as a whole this is way too allegorical for what i'd consider a holistic reading of isat, but it was part of my running theories at the time.

anyway my guess for the real-world equivalent of the island ended up being French Polynesia by the end of the game. I had initially thrown a dart at siffrin being greek wrt europe, sisyphus allusion, enjoyment of plays and seafairing-- but the moment that little guy started getting real weird about stars and specified they were from an island i switched my guess to him being polynesian. And then that reading only really strengthened from there (and i was pretty close, tbf!)

but yeah during act 3, especially the king plotline, i started thinking about the themes of cultural erasure + lack of identity that the game has and how that plays wrt vaugarde's extremely welcoming and diverse nature.

reading far too much into it but it made me wonder if they are the results of a fallen empire of some kind. somewhere that gathered people from across the globe (as empires are known to do) before dissolving into what seems to be a localised theocracy of some kind?

like. vaugarde is basically the Good End for an empire. Fully demilitarised (they barely have use for police to the point where the defenders are surprised by burglaries, and almost CERTAINLY have zero army), extremely diverse, not caring where one comes from.

(either that or they've been a socialist utopia like, forever? and thus just aquired migrants perpetually... but ka bue is characterised as harsher by odile in a lot of respects so one can assume its not that the whole planet is Niceys All The Time.)

this lines up pretty well with the um. Whole France Thing. Boy do they own a lot of islands still that they maybe shouldn't. Also lines up with bonnie's word-of-god french creole dialect. So Vaugarde as the welcoming, ideal form of former-colonialiser-nation is like. one i vibe with if we're gonna read too hard into the worldbuilding as presented.

Anyway all this to say I did for a time wonder if the Northern Island wish was 'For The Island To Be Safe'. Assuming this world to have any level of inter-country conflict-- Wish craft is powerful stuff, and a singular island might not be able to defend itself against those seeking to take it by force. Hiding the island from the world would protect it.

... though that felt like an unusually cruel read. The implication that cloistering away like that is a 'valid' strategy for a culture to be safe (albeit with the splash damage of hurting any diaspora).

Plus, wish craft is superbly powerful, with evidently its use on the island only becoming more widespread after it was discovered how to make it work Consistently.

(i work here under the assumption that Siffrin's growing cloak is imbued with wish craft, assumedly the same as the king's armour? Since there's no way that was created at that scale...)

So it almost makes more sense, to me, for the wish to be to 'Protect The World (universe) From Us' or to 'Keep The Universe Safe'.

Wish craft being so second nature to the Islanders (See: Siffrin, favour tree), that a wish that breaks the universe is almost inevitable were the knowledge to become widespread and ingrained.

This too is an oddly cruel read, that a culture's rituals can be dangerous to that degree, but ... ? Dunno. Like I said, reading it as hard allegory makes it fall apart somewhat. Symbols can mean many different things at once until you flatten them for direct analysis like this. I don't think it's quite so 1-to-1, and it's honestly slightly too 'no story only lore' for my tastes, so I did push a lot of this stuff out of my analytical mind once I started getting to the back and of act 3 and into act 4.

Anyway. Not the most coherent explanation in the world, but still some thoughts I had mid-game that i figure i should put somewhere at least, even if I don't think they are really what the game is going for.

As a bonus, the discussions on what the island wish were in this context also lead my friend @samhainian to speculation on the colour wish that i really enjoy. Which is....

The wish that removed colour from humans perception of the world being something along the lines of:

"I wish the world was simpler"

ergo, removing colour as an invocation of Nuiance VS Black and White Morality. The world is simpler, easier to understand.

I think it's a fun headcanon! I like it.

Well anyway. A work is more than the sum of its parts and dissecting something so sloppily as this often does it a disservice. So don't take my theorising as anything more than a general rundown of where my head was at mid-game before i had all the pieces. The emotional core of the story is far more where it's at for ISAT sooooo. [Shrugs and scampers away]

[sp-by-april]

Yandere MBTI x Main Four

This is more of a breakdown I'm gonna use for reference when writing. I think this yandere fic is gonna go hard, so I'm gonna dig in.

The categories are cruel/reverent, aware/delusional, manipulative/honest and strict/lenient. Got this MBTI idea from @ddarker-dreams 💘

Cruel vs. Reverent

🤬 Eric Cartman: Cruel This is the most straightforward in this category. Eric will break you down and mold you in his own image. He's a sadist who will eagerly degrade you and then make it even worse if you don't put up enough of a fight.

🙌🏻 Kenny McCormick: Reverent Kenny worships the ground you walk on. He will drink your bathwater and ask for more. He thinks you're a fucking goddess and at his best, he will treat you like one.

🙌🏻 Stan Marsh: Reverent Stan's cruelty is all pointed inward for the most part. Stan is the guy who will write songs about you even though neither you or anyone else will ever hear them. Whereas Kenny's reverence for you is open and bold, Stan's is quiet. So much insecurity and self-doubt.

🃏 Kyle Broflovski: Wildcard, leans Reverent Kyle wants you and by his own account, you're worth having. He really does think the world of you. That temper though? He's prone to outbursts and will punch a hole in the wall if he's pissed enough. Cruelty for cruelty's sake? Never. But if you push him? His words will cut like a knife and leave quite the emotional scar.

Aware vs. Delusional

🃏 Eric Cartman: Wildcard, leans Aware Eric is a lot of things, delusional is occasionally one of them. Cupid me? Check. "You guys really think I'm cool"? Check. That said, I'd argue that Eric's scariest and most dangerous moments are when he is 100% lucid and clear-headed. When he first fixates on you, he knows you don't feel the same way, but that's immaterial to him. He'll get you regardless. Besides, he wouldn't be interested if you didn't present a challenge.

🤖 Kenny McCormick: Aware Kenny's a smart guy and for all his faults, he's still a clear-headed. He's nothing if not fucking aware of his lot in life and the states of his relationships. When you do come around to having feelings for him, he won't always feel worthy of your affection. He'll take it none the less, though.

🤡 Stan Marsh: Delusional Stan isn't delusional in the sense that he believes you love him when you don't, if anything, it's the opposite. He doesn't think he deserves you and he thinks you know it too. He'll reread your texts looking for any sign that you're upset with him.

🤡 Kyle Broflovski: Delusional Kyle can twist every glance from you into proof that you like him. Every coincidence shared between you is proof you were meant to be. He can get analytical to a fault, but he's also the most likely (other than Eric) to make emotion-based decisions. When those emotions trigger an analytical state? Watch out. He can convince himself of anything. You too, probably.

Manipulative vs. Honest

🤞🏻 Eric Cartman: Manipulative Do I really need to say more? Manipulative behavior is already a cornerstone of Cartman's personality, and here it's turned up to an even scarier level. Eric favors situational manipulation over emotional but he can and will use whichever seems more likely to get him what he wants.

😇 Kenny McCormick: Honest Kenny has no interest in manipulation for the most part. It's a waste of time and effort. He's not one to play games because he definitely doesn't appreciate it when people play games with him.

🤞🏻 Stan Marsh: Manipulative Stan favors emotional manipulation and unlike Eric or Kyle, he's not subtle about it in the least. He's an emotional guy, so appealing to your emotions is his go-to move. Definitely the type of guy to drop hints that he might hurt himself when things don't go his way. He is a master guilt-tripper.

🤞🏻 Kyle Broflovski: Manipulative Kyle doesn't just want you, he needs you. You can't be mad at a guy who'd do anything to fulfill his needs, right? So what's a little manipulation in the grand scheme of things? It's for the greater good. The ends always justify the means.

Strict vs. Lenient

🚫 Eric Cartman: Strict Eric has rules and you're gonna follow them come hell or high water. Trust me, you're gonna hate what happens if you don't.

🃏 Kenny McCormick: Wildcard, leans Strict He can be such a cool, laid back guy... Except when it comes to you. Kenny might not follow you around town to make sure you're where you said you'll be, but Mysterion sure will. He will be prone to making decisions on your behalf, but it's okay because it's really what's best for you.

🙈 Stan Marsh: Lenient Stan's only rule is that you pay attention to him. He just wants you so bad that he'd let you get away with anything as long as it meant you were still together.

🚫 Kyle Broflovski: Strict Kyle is a possessive guy, this means he wants to keep you under lock and key. Got any friends who are guys? Not for long, if Kyle gets his way. You belong to him and he'll stake his claim on you in any way that he deems necessary.

Final Scores

Eric Cartman: Cruel, Aware, Manipulative, Strict.

Kenny McCormick: Reverent, Aware, Honest, Strict.

Stan Marsh: Reverent, Delusional. Manipulative, Lenient.

Kyle Broflovski: Reverent, Delusional, Manipulative, Strict.

[w1tchybusiness]

possible spoilers for Warframe: Jade Shadows ahead

i wish people would stop, take a breath, and actually think about jade shadows from an analytical place before they leave their reviews rather than just going "i think it's icky" because like. obviously it isn't perfect, i don't think anyone's arguing that, but it isn't gross or wrong- it's art, it's evocative, and it's going to resonate differently with everyone. i want to pick apart some common criticisms i've seen here from the perspective of someone who's played a lot of warframe and thought about some of the heavier themes present in the quest quite a lot.

It's weird that Jade is pregnant because I'm afraid of it/it's gross/it's fetishistic

Personal feelings of revulsion are not a reason to judge something on an objective level. It's perfectly valid to come out of Jade Shadows feeling weird about it- I do think that's kind of the point. The quest has a content warning before you begin it, because the subject matter is something that is really uncomfortable for a lot of people- that doesn't mean that the game shouldn't be allowed to explore it. Also, even if it was wrong to include something like this as fetish content, this argument would imply the game has already gone to weirder places. Looking at you, Grendel.

It's weird that they make the operator give birth via transference

This argument has a little more ground, but also kind of misunderstands how transference works. Yes, it is a hand-wavy "linking of the minds," but we do see clearly in quests like The Sacrifice that when linking with the more sentient frames like Umbra for the first time, the Operator is not fully controlling the frame. I think Umbra is the most appropriate comparison- when linking with Umbra properly for the first time, you don't immediately control Umbra- it's a more spiritual "linking souls helping him find peace" thing. I'd also say that even in the case the Operator was fully in control, I don't think what happened was remotely equatable to literally giving birth. Like. She breathed for 20 seconds and then dissolved into light and died, then there was a baby there. I don't know if you've ever seen a birth, but that isn't how it works. I feel like after all the shit our Operator has been through, "giving birth" through transference is kind of a drop in the bucket.

It's misogynistic to have Jade die in childbirth

????????

Ok. So let's pick apart the possible reasons that this would be misogynistic. Maybe fridging the woman? But. Not really, because she isn't really gone- the game even acknowledges that she will live on through you and through the motes in Hunhow's message. You can literally craft her and then boom, she's back. She may not have a gigantic speaking role, but no warframe does- hell, even the Stalker barely grunts out single words.

Another one I see a lot is the argument that her sole role in the quest is the whole "her whole personality is motherhood" situation- and that is fair, her role IS that- but that is the point of the quest. They hid this in the teasers because they wanted the reveal to be significant, not to intentionally obfuscate their misogynistic writing- while I certainly do agree that it is all too common for female characters to be pushed aside and relegated purely to motherhood, particularly in fandom spaces but that's an entirely different discussion. I think Warframe handled the motherhood issue well- a person used as a tool of unjust death for years (remember the Jade Light?) giving her own life to finally bring life into the world rather than taking it away- it clearly had purpose and thought behind it, and Warframe has already spent years providing female characters that don't revolve entirely around motherhood- though they aren't pushed into your face and provided immediately without any exploration, so it makes sense that some people on Tumblr would miss them. Warframes don't generally have fully fleshed-out personality- the more sentient frames like Dante and Umbra are an exception. Jade was on the verge of death, it's not shocking that we didn't see much of her personality. I don't doubt that we'll get some codex entries explaining more of her actual personality and story- the quest was just not the place and time.

At the end of the day, Warframe is a game about love, family, and sacrifice. Jade Shadows ticks all 3 of those boxes, probably in the most on-the-nose way we've seen yet. I'd love to make a post soon lauding the things I liked about it, the real narrative depth it presented, the meaning behind and the significance of the discomfort rooted in its themes, and its connections to Warframe's broader themes, but I've seen more negativity than positivity thus far which is... genuinely shocking. When I played it I had nothing but praise. Warframe's writing is usually a bit clunky, so I hadn't noticed anything particularly out of the ordinary, but a lot of people seem genuinely convinced that this expansion was somehow the worst we've ever seen when that is far from being the case. Operation Belly of the Beast has been a ton of fun, and the seeming finite nature of what's left adds a real gravitas to farming for Jade. I'm not shocked the quest itself felt a bit half-baked, I'm surprised they released this at all with 1999 coming up- I'm just happy to get some new content and a new frame whose concept I really enjoy.

[curio-queries]

ARE YOU SURE?!

Episode 4 production Notes

Again, I genuinely didn't think I'd have anything to say at this point about this episode. I had such a good time the first time I watched it, just smiling the whole way through. There is one thing that did stick in my brain a little bit though so here I am again with another post.

Episode Break Points

We honestly can't be making any final conclusions at this point but there is starting to emerge a picture of how the production team approached the development of this show as an episodic release. The question that was rattling around my brain after watching episode 4 was how they are choosing their cut points between episodes. We really only have three data points right now which is not enough to definitively identify their intent but it does start to paint the picture a little bit. Sometimes, the break point is beyond obvious, like cutting ep.2 at the end of the USA trip. But when there's not a definitive line, a choice has to be made when to bring one episode to a close and start another.

Some shows use the changing of the day as a break point but that's not necessarily always the best choice to make for the narrative of the show. For example, the break between eps 1 and 2 is in the morning after JK has his coffee and makes the stone tower. This better served the momentum of the episode and wrapped up the story beat of JM's rough night. Ep 2 then starts on a high note with JK's motorbike ride. In my opinion, this was an excellent choice as we close ep.1 feeling all cozy and ep.2 begins with a little bit of excitement.

A Look Back

So why am I bringing this up now? It's because I was so confused as the choice of when to break these two episodes. I don't know if I've decided if it was good/bad/somewhere-in-between but I absolutely was not expecting Episode 4 to start the way it did. Ep 3 ends at the Go Karts and feels like a complete story beat. While ep 4 starts with the drive to the Omakase.

To me, it feels like we're picking up on the last remains of the previous episode and not starting a new section. Which is honestly, kind of counterintuitive. Why would it feel like that? They're literally on their way to the next activity. I suspect it has more to do with the tonal momentum. The guys are still coming down from all of the energy they expended from Rock Climbing and racing and are having a well-deserved relaxing drive. Even the brief moments we see of JK on the motorbike are quite chill. (mostly because there's not really a great way to get action footage on a bike in the dark lol).

So...to see if I could support my suspicion, or if I was just bringing something else into my viewing experience, I decided to rewatch the whole series so far and rank every story beat on a scale for how energetic/intense I felt the narrative was supporting.

A couple of notes before you judge my rankings:

This data is the very definition of subjective. if I redid this same exercise even the next day, I'm sure I would disagree with myself on certain rankings so you certainly don't have to agree with my rankings.

If a storybeat had a noticeable tonal shift, I entered it twice and included both rankings. If it just varied a bit, I entered a ranking more representative of the scene as a whole.

This won't be reflective of the time occupied by each story beat. Some sections are longer than others but with sustained energy so it doesn't translate in this visual representation how much of an impact on the overall tone of the episode any one of these are.

I also added a star at the end of each episode of my median scores. I feel that this was a better representation of the overall tone of each episode rather than an average but that's just my personal view on this teeny dataset. Please don't come for me analytics folks! This is just a post for funzies, not proper analysis!

So What?

The point was curious about is in the gap between eps 3 & 4. Everywhere else there's a pretty clear shift in the start and end of the energy but that gap looks like it was just a step that was missed in what could have been a continual episode.

Here are the runtimes of each episode so far:

USA: 56 min

USA: 72 Min

Jeju: 56 min

Jeju: 70 min

I don't have any conclusions about why it was done this way other than they felt the tonal break was the sacrifice for keeping the Omakase story line in tact. Which honestly, I agree. There would have been time to include the drive in the previous episode but it would have left us on an unfinished storybeat. This is one of the reasons that we never get footage of the members return trip from their travel shows. Bon Voyage ends every episode with the members remarking on the trip overall. Even though we know they have to return home, we don't see it because that would start to build energy for whatever they're doing next and not the story of their trip.

Even in ITS1 when the members do return home in the middle, we see them packing up and getting in the cars but the episode ends before they really start traveling. (Actually it ends before they even let Jin in the car so they're definitely not on their way yet!)

Commercials?

I have a question for anyone that's watching this with ads. I don't really watch streaming content so I'm curious, do the ad breaks just randomly occur? Or does it seem like they're intentionally scheduled? Building story breaks for commercials was a huge focus of legacy tv and I'd be interested to learn more about how streaming services are incorporating it (not enough to not have commercials though, I get insta-rage when the content I'm consuming is interrupted lol). I vaguely remember getting frustrated when I was attempting to watch something at my parent's over the holidays but I don't recall if it seemed structured or not.

That's it. That's all I've got to say right now. We're definitely getting a lot more to the story of this show and I'm absolutely loving it. I'm going to be away for a bit next week and I honestly don't know when I'll fit in watching episode 5 but I'm very much looking forward to it!

If you've seen this post and are interested in some more of my thoughts on Are You Sure, here's a link to my AYS MasterList. Still can't believe I've rambled so much about this show but it's been fun! Thanks to everyone that's been rambling with me!

[janmisali]

What makes you think that YouTube overestimates the number of male subscribers though? The poll in the community tab, while it provides a smaller percentage than the YT stats, still shows a clear male overrepresentation in your audience. Maybe there is something to it?

youtube doesn't know the gender of most of its users. youtube only knows your gender if your youtube account is connected to a google account that has gender specified (assuming that's accurate and up-to-date).

for literally everyone else, youtube guesses your gender based on what videos you watch. it's unclear exactly how much of the gender data youtube analytics gives is imaginary, but it's definitely more fake than real. (if "0.7% user-specified" means the thing it appears to mean, all the gender data is imaginary, but I'd rather assume that youtube is just explaining the concept of "people who specified a gender other than female or male on their google accounts" badly)

unfortunately, this is (somehow) even worse than it sounds. a somewhat reasonable thing to do would be to guess people's genders probabilistically, like a weighted average of the known-gender distributions of all the videos you watch. say, "this user is 60% likely to be male, 30% likely to be female, and 10% likely to be User Specified" or whatever. still a wild thing to do, but at least it would mean the Imagined Data would still be like kinda meaningful.

youtube does not do this. it just, assigns you a gender. (it does this, of course, so it can know which gender-targeted ads to show you.) in the above example, this hypothetical user would be Assigned Male at Google, just taking whichever of the strict boxes al-Gorithm deems the most likely.

what this means is that if you're, for example, a youtuber who makes videos that appeal to an audience that's around 60% male, everyone whose gender youtube doesn't know who watches your videos (and other videos that appeal to that 60% male demographic) is Assigned Male at Google.

so, I have Very Good Reasons to suspect that youtube's claim that my audience is 82% male is Somewhat Exaggerated.

[entertxinmyfaith]

In all of the amazing character analyses and studies that I have seen done for Akutagawa's character in BSD, something I really wish people talked about more is how deeply, deeply, lonely he is. I think his antisocial tendencies are often played off for laughs but re-reading the Beast spin-off recently made me realize exactly how much personal loss Akutagawa has had and how tragically it has wounded his concept of friendship. There is no shortage of examples of him treating people poorly and pushing them away and yet, despite this, we are given canonical evidence that he actually values friendship very highly and is angry and frustrated about his own lack of friends.

Most people interpret his little rant in the elevator to Atsushi from the end of season 2 to be primarily about Dazai but the line specifically about how Atsushi was blessed with friends has always stuck out to me primarily because of how angry Akutagawa is when he says it. He's furious when he's listing what he perceives as the gifts that Atsushi was given but does not fully appreciate. This used to strike me as odd since Akutagawa is generally seen keeping others at arm's length and never letting anyone get too close to him but re-reading Beast gave me a better perspective on this particular behavior in a way that broke my heart.

And while Beast is an AU of the original series, the backstory given for Akutagawa is remarkably similar to the one given in the Heartless Curr short story. What this shows us is that Akutagawa cared very deeply about the kids he was protecting and hints that the infamous massacre which eventually led him to Dazai was not his first experience losing the people close to him. Loss is something he is all too familiar with and what happens with the mercenaries can be thought of as an inevitable ending from Akutagawa's point of view but can also be seen by him as a personal failing.

To Akutagawa, friends are people he lets down and then die. Again and again and again. His resistance to letting people in is his own way of coping with the pain of loss he has experienced time and time again whenever he has let himself get close enough to call someone else his friend. So, yeah, he's angry at Atsushi who he sees as taking his own friends for granted and still wallowing in misery because, deep down, he wants what Atsushi has in many more ways than just Dazai's acknowledgment. Akutagawa can see that Atsushi is still unhappy even though he has friends by his side and misinterprets this as carelessness. In getting this mad, he is saying that, if he had Atsushi's friends, it would be enough to make him happy in a way that it is not doing for Atsushi.

It's no tremendous analytical feat to state that Akutagawa's hatred of Atsushi is actually just misdirected hatred of himself. Still, this interaction is certainly just one more example of this for the books.

Akutagawa pushes people away to keep himself and others safe but, in the end, this hasn't protected anyone, it has just made him lonely which only serves to make him even angrier than he has the words to admit.

All of this long and probably incoherent babble to say, Akutagawa is desperate for someone who won't just up and die on him to finally stay by his side and take the pain away. If I wasn't already sure that he'd already met this person, I'd wish that he soon would.

[thewertsearch]

Ask Comp 11/06

@ben-guy asked: […] Imagine the Greek god level drama that would have unfolded with those 12 drama machines if they all went God tier. Even if they all entered the human universe without the two teams fighting over who gets to rule it, there would be no ending the divides that would form for any and all reasons, from quadrants to rulership over Kanaya's new trolls. Kinda curious about your takes on all this, even if it will take a while for you to see this :]

That's exactly it. Vriska's assuming that having a more powerful team would be strictly beneficial - which is hilarious, coming from her.

Like - Vriska. What have you done with your God Tier powers, lately?

Did it benefit the team?

Anonymous asked: its really interesting how the first time vriska kills not out of necessity or due to any extenuating circumstances, she almost immediately regrets it

Yup.

I think it's beginning to dawn on Vriska that she has nothing to hide behind this time. She's stopped being forced to kill, and has graduated to choosing it. It's little wonder she's falling apart.

Anonymous asked: for what it's worth, i've always taken vriska's interpretation of sburb at face value. it's a setting, or a stage, moreso than a character or an organism

Sburb certainly feels like a narrative, which is closely tied to its coming-of-age themes. John isn't John in the game, he's a character called the Heir of Breath from Consort mythology, and it's predestined that he'll fulfil this narrative role - or else.

Sburb is a play. And if you mess up your lines, the stage will collapse underneath you.

@manorinthewoods asked: You know, during your original analysis of the Creation Myth reveal, you made a lot of notes about how the Denizen grist caches must have been comically large, or multiplicative, to allow the alchemisation of universes. Clearly there is no need for that, given the Genesis Frog, so… what is it for, do you think? ~LOSS (7/6/24)

This grist is confirmed to be for the Ultimate Alchemy, which I've been assuming is synonymous with the creation of the Genesis Frog. I guess Jade's currently creating the Frog without any Denizen Grist to speak of, but I assume it'll come into play later on.

My best guess? The frog has to literally eat the Denizen Hoards to grow into a full-sized universe.

Anonymous asked: I wanted to stop by and say your liveblogs are super interesting!! Back when I first read homestuck I didn’t really bother with analysis, just kinda screamed inchoherentoy at my friends, so actually seeing the narrative and char arcs broken down like this into understandable chunks of why might it be written this way, what is the char thinking, why are they thinking that, how does that play into what might happen - it’s super cool thank you for all this !! Anonymous asked: finally catched up with your liveblog, i have been a homestuck for like a semester and i am rlly happy to see someone go this in depth on a liveblog about it! Anyways! Whats the character you relate the most to, so far? - bralsra

Thank you very much!

It's funny. I've talked before about how I was never great at writing analytical essays in English class - but I'm essentially doing the same thing here, and I'm having a great time. I guess it's just more fun when it's a science fantasy webcomic and not, like, Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Who do I relate to the most, I wonder? To be honest, it's probably Kanaya, which probably isn't too surprising if you're a regular reader.

I've said things that are 90% similar to the shit she comes out with. She's so great.

@manorinthewoods asked: I'd like to hear your thoughts on each individual blood caste[…]. ~LOSS (7/6/24)

It's hard to generalize the blood castes, since we've only seen one example of each blood color thus far. Broadly speaking, we're aware that:

Lower bloods have more psychic power.

Higher bloods have more psychic resistance.

Highbloods appear to be physically stronger.

Kanaya's blood color is extremely rare, which implies that, contrary to my expectations, higher blood isn't always rarer than lower blood.

Beyond that, I can't say much more. Based on Karkat's position in the Trollian friend list, he was probably 'supposed' to have green blood, but I don't know if mutating out of the spectrum has actually changed his biology in any way.

He's not psychic, so we can at least assume he doesn't 'count' as being on the bottom of the hemospectrum.

@john-egbert-rose-lalonde asked: the searcherrrrrrrr

"why so discarded" - the drawer

Anonymous asked: Hey, since you like to experiment with stuff, what dl you think would happen if a Tier 2 Sprite prototyped itself into a Tier 1 Sprite?

Great question. I went in-depth into it during a previous ask - although I can imagine it's quite a rare occurrence. How often are two unprototyped Sprites on the same Land?

Anonymous asked: While I think a discord server is a good idea, I think it might be best for everyone if it's one where only you and those helping you with the blog can post anything. That might ruin the community aspect a little, but I feel like it'd be worth it to not get spoiled if you do ever make one. Feel free to completely ignore this- not exactly riveting things I'm sending here.

Right! Quick update on the Discord situation.

Initially, I was going to have Cat help me set it up, but she's been incredibly busy with her thesis lately. Plus, she hasn't really used the platform either, so we had no idea what we were doing. Might need to shelve the Discord server idea until later, or until it becomes necessary.

@krixwell asked: John Egbert when he's told the Earth is done for: John Egbert when his friend is his sister and his dad is his half-brother: John Egbert when he dies ignoble deaths at the hands of manipulators: John Egbert when Fruit Gushers are a Betty Crocker product: MENTAL BREAKDOWN

Dude's got his priorities straight.

@mhafanlol2000 asked: I’m taking an IT course next year, and I want a head start during this summer. Would you know any free beginner’s courses to any languages that would help in that department?

I'll always champion W3Schools as a great first port of call for tech self-learning. All the resources I've found there are well-put together, and let you test your code out in-browser.

As I mentioned to a previous asker, I'd recommend starting with the C language if you're genuinely interested in programming. It's a little harder to use than other, more high-level languages, but it'll teach you more about programming than they will. I'd liken it to learning to drive in manual, rather than automatic. You lose nothing, and acquire skills you wouldn't otherwise know about.

@caliquill submitted:

i'd like to briefly point out this tidbit of the first conversation eridan has with kanaya @krixwell asked: Gamzee to Equius, page 2221: "iF i CoUlD mAkE yOu SmIlE iT'd Be ThE bEsT fUcKiN mIrAcLe I eVeR dId PaRt Of." @dopplesgryndthloggle asked: I'm just gonna put this here: pg 2221 TC: WhAt CaN i Do To MaKe A bRoThEr FuCkIn ShApE hIs ShIt Up? TC: iF i CoUlD mAkE yOu SmIlE iT'd Be ThE bEsT fUcKiN mIrAcLe I eVeR dId PaRt Of. TC: hOnK hOnK hOnK! :o)

...this comic is going to go absolutely wild on a reread, isn't it?

Anonymous asked: oh god no, the clown got you :(

Thanks for the migraine, Gamzee!!

@5am-nztime asked: Insert the one millionth "The Heir of Void, Devoid of Air" joke you've probably gotten. I love dramatic irony

You're actually the only person who sent this one in - and I'm glad you did. It's kind of killing me.

Anonymous asked: a common interpretation is that equius smiles because he knows nepeta might find his body and he doesn't want her to think he died in pain :((

Shit, that's kind of devastating. That said, he had no reason to think Gamzee would leave his body where it was - but that said, he clearly wasn't thinking straight at the time.

Anonymous asked: fun little detail: the ==> leading to equius taking an arrow to the knee is replaced with an arrow, -->

He used to be a Sgrub Player like us :(

Anonymous asked: The idea that he somehow has the freakin' WARHAMMER OF ZILLYHOO in his jokerkind specibus but he STILL only brings out a low-tier pair of juggling clubs is somehow even more intimidating

Where did he even get the thing? When did he get it? Is this from before or after the Pen-Pal got their hands on it?

...if Gamzee is the Pen-Pal, I'm quitting the comic.

@morganwick asked: Well, as long as you don't know for sure whether Nepeta died, you could say… she's both alive and dead until she's observed? @ipunchvampires asked: By cutting away from Nepeta's fate, it's technically ambiguous right now whether she's alive or dead, since we cannot observe her. So you could say that she… heh heh, that she's Sch… she's Schröding…

....oh, god damn it.

Anonymous asked: I feel like there should be an intermission style counter. 4/12 Alien Children Murdered.

If you include Aradia and Vriska, the tally's up to seven. Murderstuck started a long time ago, it seems.

Anonymous asked: i would like to think equius says b100 like how boris johnson says blue in that one interview where he mentions the us brand new BLUE passports or whatever

I also think his voice suits Equius's character fairly well...

Anonymous asked: To be fair on the “overwhelmingly violent purplebloods” angle, Gamzee was stoned out of his mind basically 24/7 until they got to the meteor, so they probably would’ve thought it was a nonissue. […]

I suppose. But if everyone knows purplebloods are habitual murderers, I don't know why you'd ever let one into your friend group. There's always a possibility that one day, his slime delivery will be late, and he'll snap your neck for fun.

@wickedsick asked: You know, this would be the perfect spot for a paradox space intermission. You can read the fluffy comics to wash the taste of blood out of your mouth!

I thought about it - but in the end, I decided to liveblog the Paradox Space comics at the point in the comic where they were released.

Otherwise, Cat'd have to spoiler-check each comic with a fine-toothed comb, and I'd have to delay many of them anyway. Better to get them all out at once.

Anonymous asked: considering that eridan was on feeding duty for gl'bgolyb and had to kill lusii year round under apocaliptic threat im not surprised his response under pressure is to kill something

It really says a lot about the difference between him and Vriska, doesn't it? Vriska's reaction to killing Tavros was a full on existential crisis, but Eridan's first reaction to killing Feferi was to immediately kill again.

@witchoflight asked: hey sally i just wanna remind you of the conversation that dave and gamzee have, specifically about the line: "TC: My mInD'S NoT ThAt sHaRp nOw tHoUgH, iT'S BeEn aGeS SiNcE I HaD A GoOd pIe" gamzee hasn't had access to sopor for WEEKS, not since they entered the game. […]

Was he sober, though? He's still acting stoned, and using his original quirk, so if he did sober up, he must have immediately decided to pretend he didn't, and then arbitrarily reveal himself as sober later on.

To me, it feels like it just took a while for the slime's effects to fully fade. It might genuinely have taken a month for it all to leave his system.

@mimescantscream asked: Now that Gamzee has swiftly become the most important character, any thoughts on his transformation?

It's weirdly drastic, isn't it?

Like, if he was hiding this personality under sedatives this entire time, surely we should have seen some hint of it, in all the time we've known him. We've even been in his head, and he seemed like exactly who he appeared to be.

Was Gamzee unaware of this latent personality? Do we have a Jekyll and Hyde situation on our hands? He does say he's 'both' of his messiahs...

@elkian asked: You've now reached the point where I can (probably) say that the common fandom Exile match for Kanaya is Problem Sleuth, as he has the Vampire schema mode. (Plus a jade-green ultimate attack.)

Oh, I love that for her. We better be seeing Team Sleuth in some form before the end, even if it's just a cameo.

@krixwell asked: I think you're blaming the wrong chat program. Trollian is an advanced alien chat program powered by futuristic sci-fan shenanigans, with features specifically designed to allow the user to choose the timeframe at which they try to contact someone. Pesterchum, not so much. Pesterchum if anything is retro, with only the most barebones of 1-on-1 chat features, a status setting that barely changes anything unless you're rancorous, and a block feature that seemingly fails to recognize incoming Trollian connections from the same user at different times (possibly Trollian's fault). Even setting aside the frogskin barrier, it's a wonder the two programs can communicate at all. So when someone uses Pesterchum to contact a Trollian user whose timeline is entirely separate from their own, with no interface to pick a timeframe on, how exactly is either program supposed to know when to contact them?

I guess most of our nonlinear conversations have been Trollian-to-Pesterchum.

Karkat has tied himself into knots over memos, but that is admittedly a slightly different use case.

And can I just say, I love the concept of a 'frogskin barrier'. These two parties have been beaming messages from frog-to-frog this entire time, and the walls between their dimensions are literally made of skin.

@captorations asked: consider: this means that the sbahj joke that following kanaya's death was actually foreshadowing given the comic it's from

I can't fucking believe this.

Anonymous asked: tbh i'll never get over how the presumable FIRST THING kanaya did upon coming back to life was just. to wade through the horn pile to drink blood from a corpse.

Vriska's getting a little competition for Troll Of All Time!

@morganwick asked: I mean, technically Jade was already in the Fruity Rumpus Asshole Factory, it was just with two Karkats and Dave only made a brief appearance.

16-player fruity rumpus argument or we riot

Anonymous asked: do you think you'll liveblog tsg if you read it?

I wasn't planning on it, but if there's a lot of demand, I'll definitely think about it. If I was to liveblog any fanfic, it'd probably be that one, since it's a proper 'event fanfiction' from the author of TLT.

Anonymous asked: re: the ultimate riddle: karkat actually already explained it on page 1903. basically its just some more timeloop/alpha timeline predestination stuff

The sense I got was that there was a section of the conversation that we missed.

On Skaia, John begins a conversation with an early version of Karkat about the Ultimate Riddle, but the camera moves away before they really get into it. Then, on the Veil, an early Karkat shows up to continue a point he was making about the Riddle, implying that there's a section of this conversation that was deliberately obfuscated.

I initially thought that the Riddle was the mystery of Sburb itself - ie, what the point of the game is. I still think that's probably pretty close, but I do wish we got this full conversation, just in case.

Anonymous asked: “Scratch positioned [Vriska] as someone who will perpetuate a monumental, large-scale mistake, and I don't think there's anything she could do on the Veil that fits the bill.” When John was about to prototype jades sprite with a broken doll, Vriska made him fall asleep, and Becquerel jumped in the sprite instead, leading to Jack Noir becoming an unbeatable boss and destroying the trolls session. I think that could be the perpetuation of a large scale mistake.

Possibly. But as violent as Jack is, I don't think he's a huge threat to the rest of the multiverse.

He takes hours to rampage through a session, but there are presumably trillions of sessions out there in the multiverse. From a top-level perspective, he's not doing meaningful damage, and it's certainly within Vriska's comprehension.

I actually think Vriska's going to do something much worse than make Jack. If she contributes to the creation of Lord English, for example, she might be breaking something that can't be repaired.

Anonymous asked: Honestly its a little sad though right? That the troll kids are snapping and dying? Like yeah they were raised on a violent murder planet but also, they're all still 13 years old and have been without their means of Sleeping Naturally for a while (the sopor slime is how trolls usually get sleep) not being an apologist or anything but the murders could've been prevented with healthy moraillegences and good nights sleep.

Oh, it's horrific, that should go without saying. If the trolls had got some decent shuteye, it'd have kept them stable for at least slightly longer.

[weirdmarioenemies]

The Critic's Arrival

It appears we've been visited by some sort of critic. We didn't order any critic! Are you a film critic? Food critic?

"The name's THE Critic- get it right! I ridicule, just out of spite! And now you've got me at your door, You've no idea what you're in for! For I'm The Critic, that's no ruse! I'm here to criticize all youse!"

Oh? You're here to criticize us...? I don't think I like whatever it is you're imply- oh, he's already invited himself in. Okay! So, Mr. The Critic, can I... get you something to drink, I guess? We certainly have a lot of water.

"That's all you offer? You're the worst! Good thing I've not much of a thirst! This living room... it's oh so drab. And are you serious? A CRAB? Your home decor is just no good. I'd burn this poster if I could! You must have all been in the dark, For not a soul likes Wonder Park!"

Come on... Boomer the Ride Tester is funny... right? Is there anything else we can do to make your stay more comfortable? And maybe make you more polite?

"I hope my message makes you cry: This home of yours is much too dry!"

Is that so? At least here in Wet-Dry World, that's easy to fix! I'll just activate this Crystal Tap and raise the water...

"This isn’t any better yet. The whole affair’s now far too wet!"

Oh... how about a more neutral level?

"The moisture level’s at its middle, But I’m afraid, too late too little! You just can't seem to be a winner! Now, with that done, let's have some dinner!"

Okay, I've been trying to be polite, but you can't just be mean to us and expect to receive a free meal for it! Spikey's only made enough potatoes au gratin for us mods!

"Oh, THAT'S the stench? It's just some gratin? I could have sworn something was rotten! I see you're near fed up with me, And knowing that fills me with glee!"

Why are you doing this, The Critic? Why us? What did we do to you?

"Well, here's what's written in my log: You lot all run a Tumblr blog! Where posts are foolish, simply silly, Goofy creatures willy-nilly! You don't need to be analytic To know you're talking to The Critic. It's how I live, it's what I do. I've come here to criticize YOU!"

Hey. Words really hurt, you know that, The Critic? But no matter what you say, you can't break our spirits! We'll post what we want no matter what you say!

"Now comes the part I love the most... rescinding your license to post!"

OUR POSTING LICENSE?! The only thing that legally allows us to post about funny pretend creatures online... you're a monster! Unhand that license this instant!

"Ha ha! Hee hee! It's too much fun! And with that, I'll be on the run! Your permit's all I need to rob. I hope you've got a backup job!"

He's gone. That utter fiend... without our posting license, we're nothing. He's right. We'll need a new job. After all this time, we'll need to return to where it all began, where all of us met for the first time, and where we all worked before starting this blog, but it was never relevant so we never mentioned it...

...the TROUT HATCHERY! See you there...

[i-heart-hxh]

Did Gon say “it’s none of your business” or “it doesn’t matter to you” to Killua? I’m trying to figure out the nuance of this line and what Gon meant. Killua takes it as a rejection because he’s going through inner turmoil about his place at Gon’s side. But we as the audience know Gon was not rejecting Killua’s friendship here. Was it more a rejection of help? Or just simply lashing out? Or was it him basically saying since it wasn’t Killua’s fault that Kite got hurt Killua didn’t have to deal with the same burden?

@hunterxhell wrote this fantastic meta post on the topic, and also a follow-up post giving more context that I highly recommend. I wholeheartedly agree with both of these posts. (And apologies if I do any repeating of what was said in those posts but less eloquently--I'm trying to share my own thoughts here, but those posts are a basis for the way I see the scene so some repetition is inevitable!) I think "It's none of your business," or "This doesn't concern you," are translations that capture essentially what Gon was saying here, though his previous comment about Killua being able to stay calm/cool-headed does add that, "You don't care about this situation like I do," bite to it regardless.

Here's what Gon says in Japanese, just for reference:

キルアは......いいよね

冷静でいられて

関係ないからっ

What Gon was doing was essentially pushing Killua away--saying that this is his business, his situation, and Killua should stay out of it. His reaction was partly out of anger that Killua was trying to meddle and express his concerns about Gon's behavior and the situation, as Gon was not able to put the brakes on and think about this situation in a more objective way at all (putting it mildly). But it's also partly Gon seeing what happened to Kite as his fault, and Kite as primarily his connection, and in his fog of extreme emotion, it was impossible for him to deal with Killua's (seeming) calmness and analytical way of seeing the situation.

I definitely think this scene connects to Gon's earlier statement in Yorknew about it being okay for him to talk about dying, but not okay for Killua to say the same thing, however:

But, this is just one contributing factor to the situation, as, in that scene we're talking about, Gon is clearly, certainly not acting purely out of a selfless desire for Killua to leave the situation. But, it's telling about his overall attitude--that if something is wrong, he's willing to suffer the consequences and shoulder the burden and even die to rectify it if the situation calls for it, but his feelings about Killua are different.

I don't think Gon sees Killua as having any responsibility for what happened to Kite (even though I do think Killua believes otherwise), and so Gon sees this situation as something he needs to deal with solely, to assuage his overwhelming guilt, and he'll deal with it by any means necessary without letting anyone else get in his way. Killua, on the other hand, is not someone Gon sees as needing to pay this penance, because it's not his business and Kite is not someone who has the same meaning to Killua. It's something Gon wants to deal with alone, in his own way, at his own costs, to make up for how he thinks he failed Kite.

Of course, this all goes completely against how Killua expresses his love for Gon--by helping and supporting him, and wanting to be there with him to the bitter end and beyond if that's what it comes down to.

So, I'd say it's ultimately a combination of him lashing out at Killua due to being unable to cope with the emotional state he was in, and him pushing Killua away because, in Gon's view, Killua didn't have the same level of emotional investment OR blame in the situation. It's hard to summarize--it's emotionally complex, and the way their characters are written throughout the whole series leads up to this point--so you can't consider it in a vacuum, without looking at all their prior tendencies and the ways they see themselves.

I hope this is helpful!

[kitty-av]

Hello! I got a new sketchbook and I decided to try it by drawing a Danny with my markers. I might try doing something with gouache too, because I honestly really enjoy the process and the look of painting with it.

I also have some things to ramble about under the line, which isn't strictly dp related, more so me comparing how I work with different mediums and being a little analytical about it, you know, as a treat to my brain because it needs it. •^•

So, to start with the Danny above, it's nothing overly ambitious, I was just vibing, but I think it looks nice. Here's the thing though, it looks weird to me, and the reason, probably, is that the process I use with the previously mentioned gouache doesn't translate well to markers.

Here's the process in question btw, a smol sketch to illustrate the way I work with paint but with markers:

See, that's a process that's clearly a bit more suited to painting imo. So it looks good but a little off with markers. And it's not just to markers. Here's what I mean:

This is digital. With the same process.

It's even weirder than the markers imo, but you can still tell that there's a process going on that's shared.

And the gouache version of this process looks like this: this is my most recent painting ( literally yesterday )

This was done in flat brush, and I think you can clearly see that the process I used across all these paintings started with my gouache work. Which also might be why Danny looks a bit different than them because I had to adjust my process. Rather than starting with colouring my canvas and starting the face with a contrasting colour, both Danny, and as far as I can remember the digital dude, started blank and I had to do the glow effect thing a lot less naturally - especially with the lack of brush strokes. The scratchiness of them is aesthetic. Like, brush stroke and direction is important guys, it adds a lot.

I think if I try to draw this Danny in gouache and explain my process better this would all make sense, but I haven't had the time to get back into art because of uni, and I rather like to. I especially want to try doing digital art again, but I've been doing it so rarely that I haven't really got a process anymore, so I'm a bit intimidated to do anything but portraits.

In any case, if anybody has good Sai brushes that could help me get that painterly vibe there, I'd be very grateful •^•

I want to start drawing and creating things for the Phandom again, but all I have currently are sketches, which I know aren't traditionally the easiest things to interact with visually, especially without colour. Still, I'm just going to share things I make and vibe, I suppose.

I have some interesting designs I'd like to try to make digitally, like that mermaid lady ghost from a while back, and her sister who I decided was Pariah Dark's fabulous ex. Still not sure on Queen's design, but I just want to draw a regal lady.

Yes, I am dumping previous designs here so I can share them again, partly to remind myself of them without scrolling back my Tumblr for a thousand years.

Also my Bois, the clones, who I still want to write into a story and don't know how, but like - I love them and want to show them to more people.

Well, that's all for now. Hope you all have a good day. •^•>💚💜💚

[o-sachi]

Blue Lock Top 5s because I'm bored

Top 5 I like based on narrative/writing

Top 5 I'd date

Kinda wildly different, idk u judge

All under the cut

Top 5 Based on the Story

1 | Michael Kaiser

Where do I even begin...

For starters, he has a really strong presence in the story and his introduction was hella good.

I have a thing for cocky characters who can walk the talk (we ignore the goals he missed because c'mon, HE IS STILL PART OF THE NEW GEN 11 !!! THAT SPEAKS FOR ITSELF)

But me liking him mostly has to do with his backstory. I resonate with him a lot—not that I experienced the same abusive childhood, but the feeling of wanting to be enough/to be loved really hits hard.

I am also a sucker for great characters who have to shed their skin or the ones who experience a fall from grace only to rise again. It's really inspiring and different in a way. I love to see them get humbled yk?

Also, I like that he had to work hard to be where he is today. The reason why I like him and Lorenzo is because they essentially stand out among the other blue lockers who came from better families/environments.

I just love him. He holds a special place in my heart. He needs to be protected at all times.

I know manipulation is wrong but it's kinda funny how this mf studied psychology for the most whack ass reason possible. Jeez.

2 | Isagi Yoichi

I have to say that I rarely end up liking the MC of most animanga that I read or watch. It's because they're usually so... plain. Like the squarely fall into one archetype and it gets boring. But not Isagi.

I LOVE how he's gentle and kind when off the field, but an absolute menace when he's actually playing football. It's interesting to see.

I like that he's somewhat an underdog. I say somewhat because he didn't start off as someone who knows nothing at all about football. Neither was he hindered by anything serious. Just a plain ol' underdog who happens to go against players that are naturally better than him.

Underdog stories in sports anime are my shit after all.

Redditors say that Isagi's puzzle shit analysis is cringy, but I actually like his analytical nature. It's one of the things I like the most about bllk tbh.

All the blue lockers love him and so do I. Simple as that.

3 | Reo Mikage

It took me a while to really really appreciate Reo.

I just find his character endearing because he truly works hard.

He's from a rich family who could give him anything he wants without him having to lift a finger, yet he tries so hard to prove himself and achieve something solely by himself.

It's just really admirable.

He has his moments, but I think Reo's overall a sweet and genuine person. I felt bad for him when Nagi set him aside.

Of course, Reo initially befriended Nagi for the purpose of playing football together and dominating the sport, BUT he put actual trust into their friendship.

4 | Bachira Meguru

MY OG

I think it's exclusive to sports animanga, but I really like the characters who are lowkey crazy. The moment he fucking kicked Igaguri in the face—I knew.

Super fun to watch.

I like how his backstory is a completely different atmosphere compared to what kind of person he is on the surface. Of course, he probably still has some scars from the past, but that's what I think makes him a good character.

Like Reo, I think he's a genuine person. Sure, he's ready to throw hands anytime, but I can see that he really values certain people in bllk, whether as a friend or someone who pushes him to do better.

GIVE US MORE BACHIRA PLS

5 | Shidou Ryusei

Crazy motherfucker. I DIG THAT.

He's a bit weird, perverted, all over the place—but I like it. A refreshing sight.

Like I know the "crazy" character isn't new, especially to sports anime. But unlike those before him, I think he genuinely enjoys football more so than dominating others.

Sure, he loves to win. But there's a difference between engaging in a sport to make others submit to you and to defeat others fair and square.

Kind of mysterious and I like that. He could climb up the ranks depending on what backstory Kaneshiro san cooks up.

Top 5 That I'd Date

1 | Karasu Tabito

There's something about guys from the countryside that HIT DIFFERENT. Personally, I'm not from a city either, so I guess I'm not that into city boys or the really posh kind of guys.

THE ACCENT

I like guys who are more simple and down to earth, but still have personality. He's so cute and playful, but he's still a simple lil guy.

I like guys who enjoys playful banter w you and would tease u a bit 😗

He's tall, has dark hair, a cocky smirk. NEED I SAY MORE?

We're both scared of water so when we go to the beach or the pool we could just chill together instead.

I find it really endearing about his character that he refuses to tell people about the last time he cried. 'Cuz obviously, a lot of men are probably embarrassed about admitting that which should be changed. I JUST WANT TO GIVE HIM A BIG HUG.

We have the same mole under the eye and our birthdays are 5 days apart. And I'm fucking delusional 😚

I just fw his personality a lot.

He could match my freak.

2 | Barou Shoei

I like mature guys. Periodt.

I love me a domestic guy. He likes cleaning, cooking, taking care of his siblings. Like??? WHAT ELSE COULD YOU ASK FOR?

I feel like I would get scolded a lot... joke's on him I'm into that.

I was kidding btw.

Idk, dude. Responsible men just turn me the fuck on 😓

I admire his work ethic and how seriously he takes his passion.

He's tall, beefy, always looks mad... and I dig that a lot.

What the fuck is that new hairstyle though.

3 | Yukimiya Kenyu

This is extra delusional because I would never get this green of a flag yk?

HE SEEMS SO SWEET AND KIND.

He also seems like the type who would be kind and understanding in the relationship, but would still take the lead.

Idk, tbh, I just chose him because he would be a good partner. Would we make a good pair? Not really.

4 | Noel Noa

I have daddy issues.

That's it.

No, but have you seen the recent art of him in a suit? GOOD LORD.

But actually he is my 4th choice. Don't come for me 😓

5 | I lied about the top 5 thing. There aren't enough characters of age to choose from (I wouldn't date Mihya or Sae. They're hot, I get that. Buttttttt I don't think I can actually handle them. I think I'd be too sensitive about how they treat me sob. And Aiku is a headache.)

[yellowocaballero]

hi! i've been reading some of your older fics and was wondering if there's any merit in watching buffy for the first time in the year 2024

This may not be obvious, but this is actually an extremely complicated and highly subjective question. I'll try to go on for too long.

As background: my mother loved Buffy and its spin-off Angel growing up. It was our Bible (besides the actual Bible). Not kidding, she was on the forums and fan groups and wrote fanfiction for it and everything (These days, she's really into kdramas and Asian dramas, and calls me about how the Thai seem like big fans of gay people). So I'm quite biased.

BTVS is both a product of its times and ahead of its times. It was a show about feminism and the struggle of living in this world as a woman, when very few shows were doing that. It was the first show to have a long-lasting lesbian couple, and the first show to depict a kiss between them. For better or for worse, it was one of the codifiers of broody vampire boyfriend. It was pretty unafraid to be experimental in a lot of what it did. It had incredibly complex and nuanced character work and growth that I still aspire to. Spike's arc is still matched in quality only by Avatar's Zuko. Angel's long term arc, from Buffy to his spin-off series, still makes him one of the most complex characters on TV. It had the most complex depiction of depression on TV at the time and I still think it's one of the best. I think the show had very high highs.

It also had very low lows. Some of the feminism is problematic in retrospect. The sapphic couple has a rather famous element that was severely problematic. There are, overall, some deeply atrocious arcs that I can appreciate objectively but not in practice. Xander: a whole-ass character aged awfully. On a meta level, the workplace conditions were bad (thanks, Whedon.) There are no people of color. The spoiler's sake I won't go into detail on this, but in general the good stuff was so influential and the bad stuff was just awful.

I think these days people tend to brush off the entire thing because it's Whedon. That is more than fair. But I'd also say that Whedon & Buffy is extremely similar to Brian Michael Bendis & Ultimate Spider-Man. Bendis was fantastic at writing sassy, bouncy, permanently stressed-out teens - issue was, he wrote entirely different serious adult characters the way he wrote these sassy teens. Same with Whedon: the annoyingly constant quips are perfect for Buffy, because that's who the characters are. They're awful in Marvel, because Steve Rogers is not Xander. Kinda similarly, Buffy was genuinely feminist for 90s TV - issue is, Whedon has not grown or developed his views, and now his works feel so sexist (oh my fucking god why did you treat Natasha like that). After a certain point it's egotistical: you're writing like that because you're Joss Whedon and it's how you write, not because it's what's best for the characters and story. But it was really important to me to get the character voices right, and it's freaking difficult to endlessly write dialogue that distinct, full of voice, witty, and clever.

I think BTVS & Angel TV's greatest influence on my writing is how intensely character-driven both of those shows were, and how intricate the characters were. What every character did was something they would do, if that made sense. Even the stuff I hated to watch, that made me uncomfortable, was the culmination of so much (usually). I think I also picked up the constant wit and humor lol. On a personal level, the conversations I would have with my mother where she broke down the character motivations and composition of the story was my first exposure to looking at storytelling from an analytical perspective and a framework of critical analysis, which was an approach I carried into the rest of the media I consumed and that was the primary reason I was able to become a decent writer. Thanks, Mom. Have fun with your kdramas.

TL:DR: There is merit, especially if you care about good character work. There are things about it that may make you want to drop it, which is extremely valid. Season 1 is rough but interesting, Season 2 and 5 are the best, Season 3 is pretty good, Season 4 and 7 skippable, and Season 6 is........epic highs, epic lows......

[north-heats-stronghold]

Space Rider's AU Voice Claim Headcanons Part 1

Still riding the au train of @onyxonline's Space Rider's au, cause it's just that great. So for the past couple of day's, I've been brainstorming on possible voice claims for this au's critters. Though, these voices could work for other au's if anyone so wishes.

Before getting started, all the voices in this post are gonna be from Genshin Impact. The reason being it's very easy to listen to voice samples of each character thanks to a section in their profiles. I also avoided the more child like characters for the voice's, since the Critters in Onyx's au seem more on the young adult range.

With that out of the way, let's get started with everyone's favorite sunny dog!

Dogday

Dog boy for the dog boy. A soft voice with the ability to go serious and commanding at a moments notice, perfect for a leader of a team such as Dogday.

For if you looking for something a bit more on the calmer and gentler side, then Thoma could be a good choice for Dogday. I feel like this voice fits better for the Dogday's in au's that resemble more to the canon story. The caretaker Dogday, if you will.

Catnap

Catnap was a bit difficult, as he more often than not doesn't talk or whispers. But I think I found one that can work. There were some voices that were more sleepy, but they were female so it can't work for Catnap.

Calming, if a bit monotone. Originally I was having Albedo be one of Bubba's because of all the research talk, but I think Catnap fits better.

Kickin

Need a voice that's confident, bombastic, and possibly in over their head? Then look no further than Itto. The minute I heard this voice, I knew it would be Kickin.

More toned down compared to Itto, but I'd say it still fits. Especially with the voice sounding very gen z, which I'm confident Kickin would 100% be.

Hoppy

Energetic, optimistic, possibly ADHD? This does sound like Hoppy. Though it might be too high pitched for some.

This one was actually my first choice for Hoppy. Confident, serious when needed, but not too serious so she can sound like she's having fun.

Bubba

Analytical, with a good amount of snark? That what Space Rider's Bubba gives me, and that why I found Alhaitham to be a good choice.

I also feel like Bubba would have a more deeper voice. Being one of the tallest of the Space Rider's, so Zhongli feels like a good choice.

There was third choice for Bubba, that being Tighnari's old voice. But...I believe it wouldn't be a good choice after what the old voice actor had done once he started getting popular as Tighnari's voice. Which is a shame, as it would've been another perfect choice along with Alhaitham.

I'm nearing the video link limit for a post. So I'll be splitting this into two parts. The second part will be for Crafty, Bobby, and Picky.

And a reminder that this is all my opinion and is subject to possibly change overtime. And to check @onyxonline's Space Rider's au, and that's what inspired this and the subsequent post, as well as read there Saved au as well.

[communistkenobi]

im an undergrad student who was thinking about specializing in studying fascist movements in North America for my masters and ive really enjoyed reading your book commentary - you connect things that I'm not always aware of in ways that are really comprehensive and appreciate

Do you know of any researchers who are moving things on the topic right now (most of the books ive read are around 20+ years old, unfortunately)?

(sorry if any of this is unclear/grammatically incorrect/weirdly worded - I'm super sick rn)

thank you! I'm really glad to hear that :)

For contemporary writing, I'm currently working through some of Alberto Toscano's work - he has a really interesting article from 2021 on fascism from a Black radical/Marxist perspective where he summarizes various historical analyses of fascism from Black (particularly US) thinkers and activists. One thing I especially appreciate is that he complicates Aime Cesaire's formulation of fascism (i.e., "european colonialism come home") as incomplete when applied to settler colonial contexts, especially the United States - one of Cesaire's articulations of fascism is that (to paraphrase) "one fine day, the prisons begin to fill up, the Gestapo gets busy" and so on, and Toscano, working through Angela Davis and George Jackson, responds with (again I'm paraphrasing) "the prisons are already full! The Gestapo is already here!" etc. Toscano also has a new book that just came out in 2023 called Late Fascism, which explicitly addresses the current moment. I only have a physical copy of that so I can't share a pdf unfortunately, and I still need to get around to reading it lol.

These are also a couple random articles I found insightful:

Carnut (2022). Marxist Critical Systematic Review on Neo-Fascism and International Capital: Diffuse Networks, Capitalist Decadence and Culture War - does what it says on the tin

Daggett (2018). Petro-masculinity: Fossil Fuels and Authoritarian Desire - talks about car culture as a site of modern reactionary political movements, links climate denialism with (proto-)fascist movements

Parmigiani (2021). Magic and politics: Conspirituality and COVID-19 - this one does not mention fascism explicitly, but imo the intersection between new age spirituality, anti-vaccine sentiment, and qanon/q-adjacent conspiracies are pretty important to understanding contemporary fascist social movements, so I'd still recommend reading this

Finally, this isn't an article but I found this recorded lecture about the history of Qanon pretty interesting. I don't think the author gives particularly insightful answers on how to solve the problem of far right conspiracies in the Q&A portion but I found it to be a helpful summary

Otherwise I've been focusing a lot on decolonial scholarship more so than fascist scholarship - this is again guided by Cesaire's argument that Europe/The West broadly is inherently fascist. These works aren't contemporary, but you can look at this post for some of the readings I linked on decolonial scholarship if you want to go that route. Those are serving me more for theoretical frameworks to guide contemporary analysis, not analysis of contemporary events directly

also idk if I need to put this disclaimer, but just in case this leaves my blog: this isn't a full throated defense of/apology for everything in these articles, I'm not claiming they're sufficient to understanding the present moment, these are just some of the things I've been reading recently and have found helpful in some way or another. a lot of contemporary work I have read (much of which isn't linked here because I don't think its very good/do not have it on hand) focuses on populism and authoritarianism as central analytical terminology, which i think does a lot of work to exceptionalize and mystify fascism as a historical and political process/project originating from European colonialism & Western imperialism, but these terms are endemic to the field so you have to contend with them no matter what

good luck with your studies!