#and that one experience being the most popular at the moment doesn't mean it's Bad Representation

[privateolives]

When media only represented lgbt people as sassy and promiscuous, everyone cried for more wholesome stories. Now that the norm is wholesome falling in love stories, people are demanding kinks again.

Girl, your enemy isn't one or the other. Your enemy is The Single Narrative and pretending that either representation is Bad is a fool's game.

Just because something is more prevalent at the moment doesn't make it inherently bad. It's perfectly good to represent that parts of the experience. We just need to recognise that we need to start diversifying our stories when one particular narrative starts becoming too prevalent, instead of declaring one thing Bad Representation and going into the exact opposite camp to show how Not That we are. If that's the only attitude we have, then we risk making this new Opposite the only new narrative.

Prevalent depictions tend to come in waves of reactions to things happening in society but also very much in relation to previous depictions. You see this not just inside LGBT narratives but also in media representation of racial stereotypes, focus on masculine and feminen tendencies in fashion history, etc.

Lately though, I've been seeing posts getting more and more hostile towards the Previous Representation as if it's that experience's fault for existing - such as lgbt people who "pass straight" vs "incredibly queercoded", narratives of people who want to heal troubled family relations and a general tendency for creative work (especially in writing prompts) to just take one trope and inverting it, then calling that the peak of creativity, even when there's not necesarrily any bottomline thought to what this new story is trying to say beyond "being the opposite".

That's not to say any one person who wants to try turning tropes on their heads are inherently Problematic or anything of the sort, but it's worth examining if one representation makes that representation inherently problematic, or just in need of more diversity.

More diversity than just pointing at the opposite camp and making that the new norm until we're all sick to death of that one. Lest we just repeat the same cycle without creating actual diverse representation; Or even worse, start creating the idea that the beautiful, multi-faceted experience that is the LGBT community as a whole just falls into new binaries of experiences than just sex and preference.

[jasmineoolongtea]

Hiiii how ya doing? I'd like to req a Megumi X Reader plsss. Smth where the reader is super shy and antisocial (could be due to trauma or their own experience whatever works for you) so they're mostly by themselves because they choose to and avoid people unless it's training and even so they're just alone (or with a mentor IDK). Still, everyone tries to get close to them and Megumi seems like he doesn't care but he does little gestures to make sure reader is comfortable and reader appreciates that a lot. IDRK how to describe this anymore but this is the big picture for me. The rest is up to you. I'M SRY IF THIS LOOKS CONFUSING BUT THXXXXX

a/n: hii anon, i'm doing alright !!! (just kinda busy this week ;-; so sorry for the delay in responding to this) hope you're doing well too !! don't worry i totally get what you mean so i hope that this lives up to your vision 🫡🫡🫡

if most people had to describe you, the word 'loner' or a more polite 'shy' would probably be thrown around a lot with other vague descriptors that only scratched the surface of who you were as a person, but to you, that was the least of your worries.

it was better this way. honestly, was it so wrong to want to keep people at arm's length? contrary to popular belief, there's merit to be found in being alone and you just wish that others had the same understanding that you did.

a 'how are you doing' here and 'wow, the weather's pretty cloudy today' there and you can already feel your energy being sucked away like there was some sort of energy vampire following you around. getting invited to places as a part of a large group was even worse as you were forced to spit out a pathetic excuse that you were sure would leave them wincing from just how bad and thinly veiled it was.

in a better-case scenario, they would pass on an apologetic smile your way before clumsily making their escape away from you and that would be the last you'd hear of them for a while. in worse cases, and unfortunately the more common one from your own personal experiences, their previously friendly faces would quickly morph into a snarl with all of their old pleasantries going out the window as they scurry away from you, though not before throwing some... colourful words and jabs in your direction before they disappear out of your earshot.

you once heard a phrase that sums up conversations like this perfectly; 'water cooler conversations', conversations that are only born out of the belief that silence between people is bad and that superficial, surface-level talk is the better alternative which is a notion you strongly disagree with.

albeit, you know deep down it would be wrong to fault them as after all, they only had nothing but good intentions. however, good intentions can only carry you so far when the recipient isn't necessarily the most willing participant.

at times, some people would just try to strong-arm you into a friendship with them, whether it be figuratively or literally, and those were almost always the most intense and ironically, short-lived ones. there were some who would just flail the moment you stopped responding to them. sure it was awkward, but at least you had the benefit of silence. with others, it felt like looking into the sun and the longer you stared at them, the more likely you're going to end up with a sunburn and the more you missed the comfort of the darkness that you've become so accustomed to.

but with megumi, it was different, in a good way.

with megumi, things felt... easy, for lack of a better word. you didn't feel like you had to force on a polite grin or shallow laugh for appearance's sake. every word, expression and reaction with megumi was raw, genuine and natural and suffice to say, you craved this more than you were willing to admit.

exchanges with megumi were largely wordless most of the time with more being said in between the silence that the two of you frequently shared with one another. it was like you two had your own secret language which was spoken through brief touches and lingering glances and that if you blinked, you would have missed it.

after a particularly rough training session (no thanks to the boiling heat of the midday sun), you find yourself more exhausted than usual to the point where you simply collapse on the nearby bench in a boneless pile.

when you look up, you're met with the sight of an outstretched hand holding a drink, your favourite drink no less, in your direction. the sun's shining right in your eyes so you have to squint slightly to get a better look at the good samaritan that has managed to stumble on you in this state and are surprised to find out that it's someone you're more than well acquainted with.

turns out, it's megumi who's offering you salvation in the form of a bottled drink and you eagerly accept his offer (albeit a bit more eager, which almost veers on the side of desperation, than you were hoping to come off as). for a brief moment, your fingers brush against his as you reach forward to grab it and maybe it's a trick of the light, but you swear you catch a glimpse of the tips of his ears turning bashfully red.

you take a sip of your drink and a grateful sigh escapes your lips. he's not looking in your direction, seemingly more interested in something far off in the distance, however, his shoulders visibly relax and his whole posture loses its once-tensed-up stance once the sigh leaves your lips. his hand hangs awkwardly by his side and for some reason, you're met with the sudden urge to grab it and you wonder what it would be like to hold it - would it be calloused and rough from years of training or would it be surprisingly soft and relatively scar-free despite your lifestyles - but you quickly shake those thoughts away in an attempt to fight the butterflies that flap around in your stomach.

instead, you settle for a tap on his arm which gets him to turn towards you, a curious expression painted on his face as you pat the spot beside you. a silent invitation for him to join you there. he pauses for a moment, as if weighing the decision in his mind before relenting and taking you up on your offer. you don't say it but this is your silent thank you to him and you know he understands you because that's just who he is.

once seated, you're suddenly met with the burning heat of the sun again and you realise that megumi was purposefully standing in the way of the sun for you and was using himself as your own personal source of shade. another little gesture from him to you.

there he goes again, you think to yourself. you're not sure how he does it but it's like he has an uncanny ability to anticipate your needs, sometimes even before you realise it yourself. furthermore, megumi never asks anything from you, not even a verbal thank you, seemingly just content with being able to be near you.

it's a bit confusing if you're going to be honest. to someone who's so used to being perceived as either a social pariah or as someone who can be used for the benefit of others, you're not sure why he keeps on doing all these things for you and why you find yourself being so drawn to him despite everything but you choose not to push it.

deep down, you know that you're scared that if you question it, then it'll just be nothing more than a nice dream that the universe has allowed you to indulge in for a bit but that's a topic for another day.

seeing that the sun is deciding to be very stubborn today and is not easing up on the strength of its rays, you search around the largely abandoned training field by now for a more shaded place and spot a small clearing underneath a tree on the opposite side. you stand up, startling megumi slightly as he jolts upright, and open your hand towards him. he looks at your hand and at you, his gaze drifting up and down before gingerly reaching out and taking your hand in his.

you're right, his hand is softer than you were somewhat expecting though it's a pleasant surprise nonetheless, and make your way towards the shaded area as he trails behind you with your hands connecting you two together like paper dolls. now under the cool canopy of the leaves above you, the heat is much more bearable and you take a seat with your back against the tree trunk.

you let go of his hand as you do this and he quickly follows suit, though this time, instead of allowing there to be a small space between you, he sits right next to you to the point where if you allow yourself to lean right ever so slightly, your shoulders are going to brush against his. even more shockingly, you feel a warm presence on top of your hand and when you look down, you see that it's megumi's hand resting on top of yours. you both don't look at each other, perhaps in an attempt to hide the pale dusting of pink that surely adorns your cheeks.

maybe one day, you'll get the courage to break the silence you've grown so comfortable with but for now, this is all you could ask for and more.

[mischiefprincess]

Loki's not stuck in pain and suffering while sitting on his throne

This may be controversial but I have some opinions on Loki's sacrifice and the way most people reacted to it

Like, I get people being sad bc he's techically alone but at the same time I think there was a bit of a overreaction in general about his situation, I think this has to do with the fact that I don't see Loki as a regular person anymore but as a omniscient powerfull ancient being who is beyond our understanding and who experiences time in a very diferrent way than the rest of the mortals of the timelines

People say that he's trapped there forever alone and I'm like... no he isn't...

The finale made us think that that was a very final and definitive moment but imo there's no way in hell he's not coming back to us, especially with marvel struggling with their new stories in this saga, he's not only one of the most popular characters ever but his show is literally one of the - if not the most - marvel show, they know he's popular as fuck and that people would lose their minds seeing him in the movies again and I'm so sure he's coming back, and to whomever doubts it bc in the finale he was shown holding everything together so he can leave that tree:

Literally everything is possible in fictional stories lol, it's so easy for them to create an escape, a loophole, a way to free him without threatening the safety of the multiverse, that's not a worry for me, not in the slightest

Coming back to what this post was originally supposed to be:

Don't feel so bad for Loki and his loneliness bc he literally has the whole multiverse on his hands, Tom already talked about how he's watching and taking care of the ones he loves so I think he just doesn't project himself and talks to them bc he simply doesn't want to

He doesn't want to interfere with the lives of the people living in the multiverse bc his purpose is to give them their freedom and that's what he's doing, he choses to stay isolated and he has no problem with it bc he's on another level spiritually and mentally, Isaac Bauman said it himself:

Loki's not longer a regular being, he's an ancient force giving life to everything in existence and he's not crying or getting desperate or anything, ofc I think he's sad bc he just wanted to be with his friends in the first place, but he understands that this is for the better, honestly I think he just keeps wacth, seeing millions of lives unfolding in front of him, seeing all the paths his variants take across the multiverse, epic stories, epic adventures and literally everything in existence, when he leaves the tree eventually (I'm convinced this will happen) he'll have so many stories to share, so many wisdom to offer (Eric Martin said he's basically the wisest being in existence now and I love that so much), everything will be so exciting for us and for him

But ofc there's people that are desperate bc they know that their ship is likely not coming back (And I say this about both ships), I can see Mobius returning but that doesn't mean they'll be canon, even if Loki ends up this saga with his found family like I want him to (the same applies for sylvie)

Anyway, I just think there's no need for hysteria, Loki is not going insane bc of his loneliness (HWR spent god knows how long isolated in the citadel and he seemed fine when we saw him for the first time and yes ik Loki's mobility is way more reduced than his but I still think he's fine, he's a god, not some ordinary desperate human, he's fine)

He's taking care of his loved ones and when he comes back to us it will be so fucking exciting!!!

[nicoleanell]

By POPULAR DEMAND (a couple of people said "hey Nicole I care about your Renfield 2023 meta")

Ever since I made this gif set of something that's grown to be one of my favorite moments in the movie, I was a little wary of responses to it? Not just whether the source or my highlighting of it would be interpreted as victim-blamey, but that some might actually use it as a jumping-off point to say something more insensitive and victim-blamey themselves in the comments/tags. (Which thankfully hasn't happened! But the first thing is a take I've seen from a couple of people.)

Now, I feel pretty strongly like "victim-blaming" or being anything but 100% on the side of the abused is the LAST thing Renfield (2023) is trying to do, considering [GESTURES AT THE ENTIRE MOVIE]. But I do think it needs to be unpacked a little bit.

This idea of having partially gotten yourself into a situation and that means you can get out and get better… that's not going to relate to EVERYONE'S experience. (Certainly not, for example, a person whose abuse started in childhood.) It's not a universal truth and I don't think it's meant to be. See that tumblr post going around about how fiction that's harmful (or just lightly off-putting) for some people can be healing for others, and vice versa.

But for this character it IS really important that he's not a perfect innocent victim but not an irredeemably bad person either. And it's also important that any Redemption he's capable of is not through shame and punishment, something he's had quite enough of already, but being alive and happy as the person he wants to be.

They have him acknowledge before the end of the movie - in a way that is framed as correct and honest - that he bears responsibility for where he ended up, on a very literal in-canon level. Although Dracula is manipulative and he's implied to have some degree of hypnotic power to influence/charm people, what did not happen (contrary to some versions of the story) was Renfield having his sanity and/or free will magicked away entirely. He made CHOICES. He continued making them!

But… there's something about the fact that he gets to own that without hating himself. He has to own it without hating himself. A not insignificant thing for him is to be able to say that he made mistakes and bad choices, and he takes responsibility for that, but that doesn't mean he deserves to suffer for those choices forever. He's allowed to move forward and be happy.

It's such a huge and weirdly nuanced take for this movie's version of Renfield to be fully accountable for his actions AND extremely sympathetic AND go basically unpunished.

Relatedly, I love the fact they acknowledge shame as a motivating influence on him, which is so fucking dark and sad and complicated coming from this movie?!?!?! A lot of people took that line to be specifically a queerness/attraction thing, and I think that's there and valid. But I also just took it to be like over time the primary way Drac manipulated him was through his shame over what he'd done & become.

Which is such a heartbreaking thing to throw in there, because everything else on that list (dreams etc) is a positive reinforcement -- the devil on your shoulder appealing to the things you want -- but then it crashes into this understanding that he didn't want to want some of those things, and that was also a button to push. There is something equally powerful to Dracula knowing what shames him and the exact ways he hates himself, maybe to take it away, maybe to just keep pressing it until he agrees he's worthless and deserves to suffer. That is MOST of the dynamic we actually see between them in the timeline of the movie, regardless of what their earlier relationship was like.

So the answer to that is not to say he's totally good and has done nothing shame-worthy, but it's also not to say he should be more ashamed actually, it's just… knowing all this and still believing he deserves to be alive and free.

IRL it's not uncommon for there to be a self-blaming factor within abusive relationships and some guilt and shame that goes along with that. It's not always incorrect to realize like: some of this was in my control, I gave a lot of power to this person willingly. I emotionally relied on them, I let my identity get wrapped up in them, I should've known better or stood up for myself or put up stronger boundaries earlier, and the fact I didn't just reinforced how hopeless I felt. It hits the same way for anybody struggling with addictive or self-destructive behavior. The flip side of all that can be understanding and forgiving that version of yourself and reclaiming that power rather than feeling ashamed and trapped by it.

And again! That's not necessarily the story or mindset that resonates with everyone, and it could be perceived badly if one feels it's speaking for all survivors. But if it resonates, it really does.

Last note: The movie also says very firmly that it is NOT as easy for everyone as simply "loving yourself, standing up for yourself, accepting responsibility etc." Like, I actualy think they made a pretty loud point that when your abuser is violent and vengeful and threatning to hurt you and others, you actually fucking CAN'T get out so easily and the self-help affirmations are kinda bullshit. HE NEEDED ALLIES AND SUPPORT IN A VERY REAL AND TANGIBLE WAY. Without Rebecca and also Tumblr he would've been fucked several times over. :) But the bullshit affirmations were still something that mattered to him emotionally, and something he drew strength from, to even get the belief it could get better into his own head.

[pathesisa]

the marketing strategy for wayv members is so wrong and i will try to explain: (this is not hating towards any members i love all of them)

1 - the first member is xiaojun, sm pushing xiaojun into korean market after that man left was a wrong move, he is not the most marketable member for korean people. he is mcing for 1 year and he is the wayv member who gets korean promo only (bare minimum compare to other units) but it doesn't work, never saw him in the brand reputation list; ten and winwin are the only members who made it to the list. anyways xiaojun is a vocalist who should be sent in singing programs korea already has kibum, bambam kind of male idols who have the same career strategy and are obsessed with gg groups yes short viral moments are good but being labeled as this would be bad for his future career because no one gaf about kibums albums in korea they only interesting his entertainer side, xiaojun is most versatile nct vocalist he needs to market himself as a singer more, if he wants korean fame he should sing in korean but even korean singers won't charting there so i think the best market for xiaojun is mainland, my boy is more talented than any chinese mainstream artist rn. he is just talented and needs to focus on his talents more than his entertainer side because it's shadowing his talents. i really want xiaojun release covers every week, i need his angelic voice. [someone asked about his visual, yes his visual is good and my top 3 in the whole nct but he is short and has a big head (idk why this is a beauty standard) which doesn't fit in korea and chinese beauty standards]

2- second one is winwin and probably most complicated member and i'm scared yunqis will attack me, please he and xiaojun are my biases don't attack me. winwin didn't set his foot in korea for months but being on the reputation list proves he is the most marketable member for korea, if i'm not wrong he fits kbs %90 or something, but he never makes friends there, never saw him with any korean idol outside nct members, he makes himself stuck in nct circle in korea, korean people loves handsome boyfriendable cute k-idols and winwin is perfect example for this but unfortunately ww never gaf about korean market all obsessed is chinese market. i went to nct nation at japan he got the most cheers, he was the only member trended on japan twitter, he went viral 3 times he went to japan which is even no wayv and any wayv member trended here because winwin become so popular after he made into japanese national news about his and satomi ishihara similarity, not even have to mention nct life osaka.he is the most popular member in indonesia but only went here 1 time. second most popular member in thailand. ph has his biggest fanbase he never went there. this dude has a terrible career plan, all he wants become popular in mainland china, he need to open his eyes. his manager probably hates him because it's not hard to make an overseas schedule for him.

3- hendery. he is the least interesting wayv member if we have to be honest. he doesn't know how to be a private. after that man left the company he had the most potential to shine but xiaojun handled the post-lucas era better than him. i don't like his and winwin's rap parts in wayv songs, even yangyang's these raps ruining wayv's songs for being pop perfection for me. i dont see a singer or rapper future for him, wukong was a terrible experience. but you know what he has big potential among all wayv members to become popular, he is so an entertainer. he should be sent with winwin into those variety shows instead of that man, he would be x2 big in the mainland rn. i mean with 0 promotions he is the 3rd most popular member in china, having bigger fanbases than xiaojun, kun, and yangyang who have more gigs in their bags. he is so popular in indonesia, i remember he went viral there every day after a hendery fic adapted to an indo-drama. he should consider acting in movies, wong kar wai needs to open his eyes.

4- yangyang.. a big wasted potential. he would be more popular than any chinese idol in korea if he debuted in a korean group.. he is so baby. he is so marketable there, hip-hop alt culture is so popular nowadays he could probably be friends with everyone. but the company made him mark 2.0, with no originality not saying he is the less talented because yangyang is the most talented member in wayv (yes more talented than ten) but the marketing strategy killed his all hype there. this man outrapping the top 2 nct rapper (ijbol) with his 3rd language with ease, but if marketing is wrong you will start 1-0 behind. the other marketing fault is making him ten's sidekick in variety shows, this is why his fanbase never grows. all yangyang stans also love ten they have very common fandoms he needs to promote with different people, 10velys will never let yangyang shine in a show there ten is also there. yall he needs to hang out with some korean dudes outside the nct members and do some collabs, trust me is would benefit him more than those tenyang contents. everyone thinks yangyang is benefiting ten in tenyang collabs but all yangyang get is overshadowed by ten because ten has a huge fanbase. being a duo with ten was the worst thing in his career now all he gets from these, annoying shippers and a hateful fanbase who hates him because they think he is using ten's opportunities. send him in a show as mentor than watched him. my talanted boy!

5- maybe he is not the most popular in any country but he has the biggest potential for his future after wayv because he is friends with every composer, and producer, improving himself, and growing his friend circle. he is the best with these. the friends that winwin, xiaojun, or yangyang made into the industry will never benefit them in the future but having producer friends means you have secured your position. instead of being hyped for 4-5 years and then being forgotten after new idols debuted, i will always prefer people like kun who have stable careers because he will still have the same fanbase even after 10 years. this is why i think he has the best strategy in wayv and dont want quick viral moments like didi line of wayv (hendery, xiaojun, yangyang), all people know him as the member who can do 20 things.

6- ten lee.. ace of the aces. being compared to with the ten lee would be biggest achivement for those nct members yall trying to believe us they are more taleted than him lol. wayv was the biggest miastake for his career. this dude want int fame, being 2000s popstar. relasing a fully english song without thai or chinese version just proving my point. he really dgaf about these markets. he should be debuted as a soloist at the first day now we probably would compare him with the taemin but now people only calling him taemin 2.0 and it's so sad. i think he and winwin really loves wayv because both of them have better chances outside the group but they are still with them. his album is doing so good and break some records and surpassed big soloist like taeyeon, seulgi etc. in spotify numbers. the company need to already start to organize his 2nd album even before wayv album sorry not sorry.

[falciesystemessays]

As a game designer, I will say something you probably don't expect from me:

Online personality quizzes are video games.

They are interactive digital media for the purpose of entertainment. There is no reason not to consider them in conversations about game design unless you think of them as simply a lesser medium. I'm going to be talking about them here through the lens of game design, because it's honestly fascinated me for a long time. If you want to check out my track record, check out this quiz I made in high school as a supplemental for a tabletop game, and this quiz that essentially functions as a Gender Dysphoria Diagnosis. Now then!

What is the core appeal of a personality quiz? Well, it's pretty straightforward, to discover something about yourself. It's kind of an inverse of the character creator, instead of self-expression the aim is to find something that you can't express. But even so, answering the questions themselves are a form of self-expression. I feel like expression and self-discovery are often left out of conversations about design, because they're a lot more personal and difficult to quantify than something like challenge. But they are often vital to making a play experience work. It's really important when you play that you feel like your style of play is your own.

To get philosophical for a second, the nature of a personality quiz will necessitate two core assumptions: 1) that there are distinct types of people that can be neatly categorized, and 2) that answering questions in an online quiz is an adequate way to determine someone's type. This is not uncommon, it is the basis for psychological diagnoses after all, but inevitably it leaves gaps in capturing the full human experience. In quizzes this usually manifests in two ways: Either the answer doesn't capture your experience, or the questions don't.

This is a really noticeable thing on uQuiz, and anybody who's been on that site knows the common pitfalls: Asking you to pick song lyrics from an artist you don't listen to, asking you to pick aesthetics when none of them really resonate, or lacking the appropriate nuance when talking about complex issues. At that moment, the game breaks down. It stops being about expressing the self, and becomes about what kinds of people the quiz's creator can imagine.

There is a certain narrative component to all this. A quiz tells a story, even if a small one. It can tell you something about yourself, but it will also inevitably say something about the person who created it. And that doesn't have to be a bad thing. If you ask the right questions, and ask them the right way, you can guide your audience towards realizing things just by how they how they answer. You can, with effort and care, make a solid piece of art out of an online quiz. But not everybody is looking to do that.

Look, I've skirted around it for a long enough time. We all know uQuiz is mostly populated by people in high school or younger than that, and most of them will never read this post. This is functionally a site for amateur game developers to make something quick and easy, but they're not using the same gamic language as itch.io or Newgrounds or Scratch. And that's fine, like i'm not saying it's bad that young girls and queers have a space to be creative and have fun. But it does mean that, as someone who is Not a teenager and who works in engines like SRPG Studio, i am not exactly built to thrive in this climate.

The quizzes that get the most popular tend to be the most immediately clickable, stuff about fandom or relationships or whatever meme phrase is popular that day. Anybody who makes art for the internet knows the importance of clickability, of being immediately eye-catching with a promising pitch. And what a lot of these titles end up emphasizing is the quiz creator themself. There is an undeniable social component to making or taking a quiz. Because the quiz maker can see all of your responses, there is an extent to which both the creator and the taker are getting to know each other. This is, honestly, the secret sauce that I only realized as I was writing this. There is a real community and sense of fellowship with modern online quizzes.

So what do we make of all of this? Well, using the MDA framework, we can see that some of the core play aesthetics for an online quiz are Expression, Discovery, Narrative, and Fellowship. If I were to give some advice for people making quizzes, it would be to lean into these more. Give players more options for expression, ask more meaningful questions, give more insightful results, and make it your own in a way that's hopefully endearing and not irritating. Other avenues for quiz-making might be ones that lean more into fiction, asking players to roleplay as a character, rather than answering as themselves. It might be using the format to give specific goals, like asking players to find the way to a specific result. It might involve playing with agency, giving players intentionally few or too many options to comment on the nature of the question. But honestly? Just have fun! I take it on myself to think too hard about this stuff, because it helps me grow as a designer. I think it's really fascinating to see how game design crops up in places that aren't normally considered "games." But honestly, if this post caused the vibe of uQuiz or Quotev or whatever site to change, I'd be horrified. Honestly just, game design is really cool. That's the takeaway.

[prototypelq]

This is by no means hate, but putting that one post in the BG3 tag was an interesting choice. The tag is predominantly occupied by fans of the game and kinda comes off as a bit needlessly antagonistic? I just don't want people to be hurt and I also don't want you to end up receiving hate. Again sorry if my tone doesn't come through very well in this, this is just meant as a friendly heads up type thing. Hope you have a good day!

Hi, thanks for the message. No worries, your post doesn't come off as anything but a cautious message for me. And it's warranted.

Eh, I don't care about upsetting some toxic fans, they will be upset no matter what you do, and I think this is an issue worth highlighting. Obviously, a big fandom attracts...I can't phrase this any better - a bad crowd. And, well, while I am outside the fandom I can kind of not care about them most of the time, but the one comment about BG3 deserving the Best Narrative over Alan Wake 2 had me a bit foaming myself xD

I value arguemented opinions of all kinds, but fans like those are usually just rabid. Mostly for Astarion. Which, yeah, from what I've seen he had the most of the writer's an animators attention, so it's valid he is a fan-fave, however it does come at an expense of Almost Every Other Companion and you can't really remove or ignore that context now, can you. Thing is, again, not really my problem at the moment.

What is my problem is when the hype goes so out of hand it starts spreading out of it's fandom containment. If I see a person claiming 'BG3 is the best game ever', or 'RDR2 is the best game ever' or 'Witcher 3 is the best game ever' or any other popular title, I can and will confidently say in your face - No. It might be the best game TO YOU, and that's great! Everyone should have a favourite title!

But no game is perfect, so having a favourite doesn't mean you can barge everywhere screaming 'my game is so superior why didn't it get every single award i'll write death threats on twitter about it'. And those kinds of rabid fans usually are the type to do just that.

I would gladly listen to anyone discuss/write an essay about their favourite game, and it can absolutely be any of the titles I mentioned above, they are popular for a Reason, after all. At least, in these cases they are popular for a reason, that's not applicable to everything in my experience. But, when it comes to critics awards things are different, that should be a time for a more critical view. Which, to be fair, is extremely freaking hard to do, as being objective about anything is impossible, and being 'objective' about thing you're Emotional about is impossible by definition. That's why the end of the year awards are such a conflicting time and topic to discuss. Valuable critics opinion is also absolutely NOT to be expected from TGA as it's a hype train for the hype train and ads sake, but it's also a cool fun show, and we can enjoy what we get there.

tldr Alan Wake 2 absolutely deserved that Best Narrative Award, BG3 fans I am open to discussion about this. oh, and all rabid fangirls get immediately blocked, of course, I don't need you here or anywhere on the internet at all.

Anon, again, thanks for the warning, but I'll be fine) I also hope my reply doesn't come off as antagonistic to you in return. Have a great day yourself!

[whitelilynh]

I don’t personally ship NejiHina, but I can see the appeal and I understand why it was the preferred pairing in Japan. I was wondering what you think of NejiTen? I personally hate it and don’t know why it’s so popular. People act like they were supposed to be canon, but I just don’t see it.

Hi!

I first want to start this answer by saying I respect every ship and everyone's right to ship whatever they like regardless of my personal taste. Nevertheless, I have my own opinion and if it's not positive towards some specific ship, please do understand that's MY view and opinion, and no one is forced to think or see the things the way I do.

Having say that, I personally dislike NejiTen. I would say I'm indifferent towards it, and I am most of the time, I mean, it doesn't upset me if I find occasionally some NejiTen art by accident while watching something else, and I don't find it a hideous ship. Furthermore, I personally have never had bad experiences with NejiTen shippers either, though I've known and/or seen some of them harassing my friends from NejiHina and other ships, and there is exactly where the "dislike" part starts. Because, indeed, the persons that I've seen doing such comments act as if NejiTen was canon, when it isn't, furthermore, there is, at least at my eyes, no evidence of any kind that even hints Neji's romantic interest on Tenten and viceversa.

Going to the content, Neji is only seen worrying and caring profoundly for Hinata (when it comes to women), no one else. If we add RLSD, his crush on her is totally accepted and obvious on that, but it's just a Spin-off.

When about Tenten, I'd say we see almost equal care and worry from her to both Neji and Lee, except, maybe for Lee's energetic (and problematic) nature, she tends to spend more time closer to him. And maybe because of Lee's life story, she also seems to be more observant of Lee's feelings than Neji's. Even when Neji died, her reaction was to console Lee, her thoughts went to Lee, she was worried because of Lee. I'm not saying she didn't care for Neji or that she wasn't hurt, but her feelings for Lee on that moment (worry, sad, caring) were bigger than her mourning for Neji.

I think it is so popular because the fact that Neji and Hinata are cousins is taboo in many places around the world, although actually it is perfectly legal in more countries than those were it isn't, it was common practice amongst noble families both on West and East until not that long ago, still are many cousin marriages and the genetic/biological risk for the possible future children of such a couple isn't as big as we might believe. Is about double than non-related couples, but that equals 3-4%. That's about the same risk an "older" (35+) woman's baby would have. Anyway, the thing is since Hinata is by this Taboo "forbidden" for Neji, most people would try to pair him with the other woman he interacts with: Tenten. That is, the way I see it, the only reason to pair them. I don't even think they'd had an interesting dynamic and on the few content of them I've paid attention to, usually Neji's or Tenten's or both's personalities are changed so they fit and the ship becomes more interesting.

I think it takes from both of them to pair them together, it is nice to see Tenten as an independent woman who's life, for once, doesn't revolve around her crush on a boy.

And Neji seems a traditional tranquil man, if he wasn't so focused on and devoted to Hinata I don't think he would care about marrying or being on a couple. That's why I can't see him with anyone else but Hinata.

Sorry for the long answer, in the end as I say, everyone is free to ship what they like 🩷

[ryansjane]

Why do you think cooking crush kinda flopped? OG are still pretty popular no? Or is it that the show is kinda basic, like something we’ve seen before? I also don’t remember seeing too much promotion but maybe I just missed it.

Also did u see off and gun saying they want to be doing what they’re doing now 10 years from now? I think that’s a good indicator that a “break up” isn’t on the way :)

I'm actually thinking of making a video on the topic on my channel lol, but to summarize I think there's so many elements:

1) cooking crush is a more basic show, and those tend to gather success only if they have a new ship attached to them that gathered attention (ex: 2gether, msp, etc.) also I think the trailers & promos did a bad job hooking people onto it.

2) the bl genre is now saturated. if cooking crush was released in 2019 or 2020 it would've been huge simply for having offgun's name attached to it. but now there's 100+ bl shows released every year, and statistically only like 5-10% will be a huge success.

3) offgun were never a "viral" ship. off mentioned it himself in an interview, and it's definitely what has kept them together for 8+ years, but it also means they've never had the kind of hype attached to them brightwin, fourthgemini or even kristsingto have had.

4) offgun are the oldest thai bl ship still together, so in this highly saturated bl market where there's a new ship popping up quite literally every week, they're likely seen as old & has-been by many. bc of their age they're also unlikely to touch new younger audiences of bl, which are the most outspoken & passionate types of fans. 14 years old are more likely to stan the 18/19 years old at gmmtv instead of the 30+ grown ass men for sure. also, even if that seems sad & mean to say, in this current bl economy, I feel like fans get tired of seeing the same faces for so long, which is why now the lasting of ships is shorter & shorter and just used to launch a solo career.

5) the marketing. imo the biggest issue is the show in itself that doesn't meet the demands of the bl fandom at the moment (either innovative or at least hypersexual shows, apart for the new ships having basic shows exception that I talked about (and that works only at gmmtv too)), but the marketing could've definitely helped. imo they should've added a lot more fanservice in the trailer to hook the fetishizing fans in if they wanted more viewers. the social media marketing was also quite poor but not the actual worst.

however, even though cooking crush "flopped" in terms of being a gmmtv show & an offgun show, imo it was successful in its own way. it still trended number 1 on X every week if that still means anything, and it was also a very good show. like... not every show can be life-changing, in fact romcoms very rarely are. the show did what it set out to do & was well executed until the end, which for me is a success in itself. so flop? maybe not. success? maybe not either lol.

and yes, off has been talking about babiis sticking with him for 30 more years back in 2019, so we still have a good few decades ahead :) what I do really want to see from offgun is a new innovative show from them bc atp this is the only thing that will be a success (and their age & experience will still likely be a baggage in our hyperconsumerist bl market). I'm even less confident that the trainee will even get as much attention as cooking crush did, so what I want to see is a show where offgun are dads navigating being queer parents, or as I said before a dark psychological thriller. not only could they pull it off, but they would absolutely BODY a more heavy show with more innovative aspects. bc atm cooking crush & the trainee are only catering to their fanbase, gmmtv's & the rare ones who enjoy more basic romcoms. they need something so uncommon & original it will rally the bl fandom behind them, bc sadly atp their name alone will not do it. however, I'm not confident in gmmtv at all, especially since they have 15 other ships they gotta give shows to. the dad show, though? if it ever happens, it NEEDS to be offgun 100000%!!!

xxx

[sevenkittensinatrenchcoat]

The Moments of Happiness and the Meaning of Rhyming

Yeah, weird title, I know.

Also, I know I don't post much here anymore. I have other hyperfixations. But, I still occasionally have Cats-related things to say.

I have some things to say about The Moments of Happiness, the number that opens the second act of the show. Since it's not a dance number and not very catchy, it's often ignored. Some people find it boring. Strangely, I think the fact that it's slow, not catchy, and hard to follow is kind of the point.

What's happening in the story here is that, after the Jellicle Ball at the end of act one, Grizabella shows up and gets rejected by the tribe again. Everyone runs away and hides for a bit, except for Old Deuteronomy, who sits on his throne in the back while Grizabella sings the first part of Memory. Being the Big Good of the show, Old D already likes Griz and wants the tribe to be nice to her. As the leader, you'd think he could just tell the others to behave, but he wants them to understand why they should except Grizabella. A lot of the respect the tribe has for him probably comes from the fact that he doesn't just tell them what to do.

So, after intermission, all the cats come out of hiding and gather around Old Deuteronomy and he tries to explain the themes of Grizabella's role in the story. You experience moments of happiness throughout your life, but your memories of them are something else, and that something has value and...it actually doesn't really matter if the human audience gets it or not. The lecture isn't for us.

But, nobody's getting it. Well, it kind of depends on the production and interpretation here. In replica productions, the way the story usually goes, nobody's getting it. Old D knows that he needs to simplify the message somehow, but it's not really what he does. Honestly, he's just been thinking out loud this whole time and has no idea what he's doing. He basically simplifies the message by sending it through a simpler brain. Coricopat and Tantomile, the most telepathic of cats, help him out here. They sort of connect his mind to Jemima's mind. Jemima is the youngest cat in the tribe. Her mind is not complicated and very open, so it's easy to speak through her. She falls into a trance and delivers Old D's message in her own words, simple words that everyone can understand.

I'm writing this mainly to talk about a detail of the number that sort of allows the audience to feel what the tribe is feeling throughout this, though this isn't exactly universal.

Basically, though not all English language poetry rhymes, it usually does. This is especially true with songs lyrics. Songs in English that were originally written in English almost always rhyme. This is also the case for most European languages. I say that it's not universal because Cats is very popular in Japan and Japanese songs usually don't rhyme. It's just not a priority there. If you listen to Japanese dubs or translations of English songs, you'll notice that the rhyme scheme isn't followed. It's not something Japanese listeners would probably notice. Meanwhile, when Japanese songs are translated into English, you might actually notice that it doesn't rhyme. Listening to the song in Japanese, it sounds normal. But it sounds weird in English. The best English translations of Japanese songs tend to add a rhyme scheme into it to sound more natural in English.

Yeah, I'm getting a little side-tracked here but it's a cool thing I noticed.

So, in English, and a lot of other languages, songs usually rhyme. Why's that important? If you primarily listen to music in a language where songs rhyme, you begin to intuitively expect it. The lack of rhyming starts to mean something. It doesn't mean that the song is bad. There are situations where English song lyrics not rhyming works. The example I usually think of for this is Strawberry Fields Forever. Try to find Beatles songs when explaining music and lyrics. Everyone's listened to the Beatles. Anyway, though the chorus sort of rhymes (fields/real), the verses don't. If you look at the lyrics of the song, this actually makes sense. When you have lyrics like:

I think, I know, I mean...a yes, but it's all wrong

That isn't a coherent sentence. It sounds like someone's thoughts unfiltered. It works as an expression of emotion, but it's not carefully composed. It's raw. It's stream of consciousness. And you're thoughts, raw, unfiltered, don't rhyme. When you're writing rhyming lyrics, you have to think carefully about the words. A lack of rhyme conveys "I'm talking without really thinking through what I'm going to say. This is all off the top of my head."

Old Deuteronomy's part of The Moments of Happiness doesn't rhyme. Every other song in the show rhymes at least a little. Old Deuteronomy is just thinking out loud here. He's still figuring things out as he goes. That's why it's so hard to follow. It's harder to follow the lyrics, so the audience tends to get lost here, which is exactly what's happening to the characters listening.

Then you have Jemima's "Moonlight" bit. We go back to rhyming. There's clarity there that there isn't in the rest of the number. The words have been rephrased in a way that's easier to understand and follow. When you're used to songs rhyming, your brain sort of maps itself onto the rhyme scheme. You follow the lyrics by picking up on and anticipating the rhyme. So we go from something that's hard to follow to something that's easy to follow. Even if you don't get the actual message of what's being said here, the feeling of confusion and clarity is still there.

So, that's pretty cool, I guess.

[enbysiriusblack]

“severus fights james and his friends because he wants to control/be with lily and he thinks james is in the way of that, even though lily just doesn't like him in that way. and james fights severus because severus is picking a fight with him/severus is bigoted. “

Hey so I was scrolling through the tl ans saw you responding to an ask. I totally agree with you that Lily is more of an important character on most of ur points. But i saw this and was genuinely wondering how you got that from the books? This is genuinely not to attack you or be rude. But I saw the canon completely differently than how you have interpreted it, and I do wonder where you get that point from? Specifically that Severus is the one starting things while James is only fighting back? And that Severus wants to control Lily?

Once again this is not me trying to be rude, and I also do not hate James. But Jkr said that James went after Severus mostly because of his connection to Lily. And in the only scene we really see, its James and Sirius going after Severus first while he was sitting under a tree by himself. I wouldn’t call two vs one a rivalry. And I wouldn’t call that Severus going after James.

Once again genuinely curious bc it seems to be a popular notion and I truly dont know where ppl are getting it from.

the moment we see james and sirius going after severus is what i meant with james pocking on severus for sirius (i mentioned that in the post)

Sirius stared around at the students milling over the grass, looking rather haughty and bored...

...'This'll liven you up, Padfoot,' Said James quietly, 'Look who it is'

James is very happily playing with his snitch, he only approaches Severus because Sirius is bored and wants something fun to do (Sirius finds fights fun- i mean he's a british teenager with family issues. it'd be surprising if he didn't find fights fun, and everyone found fights fun at school)

i didn't mean this specific scene. but, for instance, severus invented the sectumsempra curse. which is like,, very dark and torture-y. i can imagine him using it on james or his friends (without knowing how bad the spell is, like harry does with draco). i do think he wouldn't have used it knowing how bad it was, but based on being a kid/teenager with people i hate and have ongoing drama with and having drawn their gravestones and dead bodies (i also have a neighbour kid that recently did that exact thing so i'm assuming imagining the classmates you hate dying as a kid/teen is a fairly common experience), i can very much imagine severus would have made the curse with james in mind. and i think he does use a version of it in this scene, where he gashes james' face so deeply his robes splatter with blood.

also, as i said in that post, i don't think when we see people's memories, it is a completely true viewing of the past. i think it's like how memories are- biased and wavering over time. and since this is severus' memory, i wouldn't take it wholly to heart (but that is more my hc, and i don't think jkr wrote legilimency to be how actual memories work)

continuing on this actual scene (i'm reading it rn and i'm trying to focus on answering your ask but i can't help giggling at the amount of times sirius is called handsome, every line is like "sirius handsomely turned to snape", "sirius head turned, handsomely" /j) i sorts get what you mean with james picking a fight with severus because of lily, but it seems to be more for sirius' entertainment in this scene. lily asks him what severus has done to him, and james just says it's the dact he exists- which does show james doesn't really have a reason for this particular interaction, and it was purely for sirius. but he does say he'll stop if lily goes out with him- making it seem as if he is fighting with severus for lily. but i honestly think that line was more james just trying to wind her up- he knows she'll say no. james acts, during this scene, like a standup comedy act. every sentence seems to intentionally said to receive a specific reaction from his audience (his classmates). the line gives me the same vibe as a heckler at a comedy act, and the comedian interacting back with them.

one of the spells james uses against severus (where he dangles him upside down) is in severus' book of spells that he invented. so for james to know that, it means severus must have used it in the past (not sure if it was canon or not about that spell being a trend at this time or not), but severus would have used it on james or his friends previously for james to know the spell.

then what i said about severus picking a fight with james for lily, and james picking a fight with severus because of severus being bigoted/already picking a fight with him. this comes from when harry goes to remus and sirius after seeing severus' memory.

"I think James was everything Snape wanted to be... And Snape was just this little oddball who was up to the eyes in the dark arts, and James- whatever else he may have appeared to you, Harry- always hated the dark arts."

"Snape was a special case. I mean, he never lost an opportunity to curse James, so you couldn't really expect him to take that lying down, could you?"

sirius says severus picked a fight with james because james got what severus wanted (lily, but also academic validation, with james being naturally talented, which i should have mentioned in the previous post, but i was focusing on lily, not james and severus). sirius then says james picked a fight with severus because of severus' interest in dark magic (and we do see james getting furious when severus calls lily a 'mudblood', james was about to stop before severus said that). and then remus says james, in later years, only went after severus because severus was still going after him.

i didn't mean severus was starting things- more that severus was continuing things. i know they argued when they first met about houses, and i think lily then being put in gryffindor after that argument infuriated severus and caused him to see james as a threat, whilst james found it humorous and would likely mock severus for losing his best friend to gryffindor, which then their rivalry escalated from there and continued because severus was into lily and because james didn't like how severus was into dark arts/severus was already going after him and his friends.

about severus controlling lily. most of what we see of their friendship is very much severus trying to control lily. he tells her she better be in slytherin, he tells her not to listen to petunia because she's just a muggle (this could just be trying to comfort a friend, of course, but the insinuation that lily shouldn't listen to her because she's a muggle, not because she's just jealous and bitter is very weird), lily tries to get severus to stop hanging out with bigoted people that hurt her friends and severus just complains about james and remus, turning the subject to what 'she's doing wrong' instead of actually listening to her, he threatens to sleep outside gryffindor tower unless lily comes to see him, he asks for only lily's life to be spared (not caring if james or even harry, a 1 yr old, die). seems pretty controlling to me.

[linagram]

[meet the guard!] guard 003: kuroki hinode

(this was supposed to be posted yesterday but.. i forgor...)

HE'S FINALLY HERE!!! THE THIRD GUARD!!! AND ALSO RIKU'S BIG BROTHER!! LET'S GO!!!

he gets not one but two drawings bc he's a very special little boy (and also bc i feel bad for him since he got introduced late for obvious story purposes but like.. i really need to make more content for him..)

(also fun fact: the first drawing actually was done in july and the second one just a few days ago.. i can actually see some differences in my art style hehe..)

another note is that when i started to work on hinode's character, my first thought was that i kinda wanted to create another physically disabled guard character (since i think eiji can count as the first one because kei's treatment of him had not the best impact on his body), it just sounded like a neat concept! but i also didn't want to make him.. how do i explain.. too sympathetic, maybe? too squishy? what really annoys me as someone who is physically disabled is that characters like that are often used to make people feel bad for them and don't really have any personality OR they turn out to be the bad guys who only pretended to be disabled for pity points. so instead i've tried to make hinode's problems realistic and a lot of it comes from my own experiences, but i still wanted to make him morally gray and kinda.. you know.. kinda suspicious. (you're more than allowed to joke about punching him or putting him in a blender and all that)

General info.

Name: Kuroki Hinode (黒木日出) (his last name means "black" and "tree" and his first name means "sun, day" and "exit, leave". yes, hinode's name has kanji for "day" and riku's name has kanji for "evening".. the parallels <3...)

Age: 22 y/o

Gender: Male

Status: Guard 003

Birthday: January 28 (Aquarius)

Blood type: AB

Height: 179 cm

Occupation: Unemployed

Personality: Hinode isn't as outgoing as his brother, but he still enjoys talking to others, learning more about them and just spending time with other people. However, he's used to being alone, so he won't complain if it's not possible for him to talk to anyone at the moment. It actually might be better for him, since he gets tired quite easily because of his poor health and can't be active for too long. He feels sleepy most of the time, so please don't judge him for suddenly dozing off in the middle of the conversation, even if it's very important. He's not as passionate about justice as the other guards and mostly just wants to do his own thing, not caring about morals too much, but still having enough common sense to punish those who deserve it (in his opinion). He dislikes the physical kind of punishments because he believes that they're too "basic", since pain can easily scare anyone and there's nothing special about it. It's also possible that he doesn't like them because of his own experience with chronic pain, but to be honest, Hinode is lying when he says that he doesn't like to see people in pain. Yes, he believes that pain is the worst thing that could happen to anyone, even worse than death. But also, as someone who has no choice but to spend most of his days in pain.. Maybe he does want to see the prisoners feel the same way as he does. Maybe just a little bit. He still prefers the psychological punishments, finding them more "effective" and "suitable".. mostly because he's too weak to punish anyone physically.

MV info.

His Milgram cover: Him and T1 Naomi are twinning and he'd cover Weakness! The lyrics remind me a lot of him and I think with an instrumental like that it'd be appropriate for Riku's brother to cover it.

His DECO*27 cover: Harinezumi. The lyrics remind me a lot of him in general, him trying to keep up with everyone even though his condition doesn't allow him and him feeling like a burden to others, especially his family, but also being jealous of Riku for being so popular, talented and living his best life (at least it seems so on the outside) ("I can still keep going! Jealousy, what a trifling thing", "Don't you sometimes feel a little dizzy? I'm sighing because I'm tired of my heart pounding", "People know their true forms after being broken and crushed") and also the song describes his dysfunctional relationship with Riku really well as two brothers who are both jealous of each other and who both want something the other has (Riku has friends, popularity, the time and energy to make music, meanwhile Hinode has the family's attention, others helping him and people not judging him for spending the whole day in bed) but who also still love each other and genuinely wish their life could go differently ("I'll embrace you, we won't be parted", "Don't be prickly with me, each time we touch, I throb. If I prick you, you might hate me, well, there's no way that will happen!.. At least, I think", "I'm an attention seeker! I want to be spoiled! I want to melt even more for you!") And also considering that one of them is extremely suicidal and the other one is afraid that his life won't be that long.. ("In the blink of an eye, which of us will die?")

His Non-DECO*27 cover: Waltz by Nashimoto-P. I imagine Hinode having this very soft and quiet voice that almost sounds like a whisper and I feel like it would fit the way Miku is tuned very well! Also the lyrics sound so much like him trying to cope with his condition, his relationship with Riku, other problems and slowly going insane in the process. ("Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, I ask what day is it today, regrettably thinking today will be a good time", "I don't know what's fun, but as I run out of things to do, I will accompany you", "My EKG is a straight line, I wonder how many decades ago") Some lyrics, especially the chorus remind me of the way he acts as a guard too. ("Stop trying to give up, the world is connected. Dance, smile, while you're being controlled. In the beginning, in the end, the details are non-existent. Don't resist, accept it, everything is connected") Also, Riku's T3 song is supposed to be by Nashimoto-P too, so :} They're matching!

His T3 Voice Trailer Voicelines:

"Ah, greetings, prisoners. Um, I apologize for such a late introduction, haha.. My name is Kuroki Hinode and I am the third guard of this prison. Nice to meet you. Starting from today, I'll be replacing Sanada Eiji-san as he's recovering. I hope we all get along. I'm really not the best person for this job, so I apologize if I end up falling asleep in the middle of the interrogation, haha.."

".. What was I supposed to do? I can't even get out of bed right now. If he wants to be saved, then I'm not the one who he should ask for help."

Trivia:

His eyes may not look like it because of the lighting on the first picture, but his eye color is supposed to be gray, meanwhile Riku's eye color is more of a mix of light green and gray.

Hinode's natural hair color is light brown, but a few days before Riku committed his crime, Riku suggested that he dyes Hinode's hair, hoping to make him feel at least a little better. They went with the brightest colors Riku had just for fun and it really did make Hinode smile and he was happy to spend time with his brother like that. In season 2, Riku dyed his hair the same way and noticed the colors only when it was too late, so it's possible that he missed his brother and did that subconsciously. It should be noted, however, that Riku's T2 hair is light green on the left and red on the right, meanwhile Hinode's hair is light green on the right and his hair is more pink rather than red on the left. Hinode also has a double ahoge just like his little brother and same goes for their little sisters. It's something they all share :)

He started putting his hair in a bun since he arrived because he found working with his hair down uncomfortable. Miki helps him with it now.

Hinode's illnesses aren't deadly, but a lot of them are chronic and dealing with them made Hinode a little bit paranoid and he has a lot of health-related anxiety. His condition is supposed to be mostly up to interpretation, but I can say for sure that he has anemia, narcolepsy and fibromyalgia.

He's the tallest out of all the guards (and that also makes Eiji the shortest). He's also the oldest one.

It's hard for him to walk because of how tired he feels most of the time, so he asked Miki if it's okay to hold her hand when they walk together. After a lot of internal screaming because of Hinode being so cute, Miki agreed. 

His room has everything he needs and he can see the whole prison on multiple screens, watch the interrogation recordings, adjust the brightness of the screens and the room temperature and whoever kidnapped him also somehow learned about all the medications he has to take. He was creeped out by first, but then went "Oh, it's kinda nice actually :)"

Speaking of him arriving to Milgram, he was kidnapped while he was asleep. So before Jackalope brought him his guard uniform, Hinode spent all his time wearing pajamas. He still thinks they're more comfortable than his uniform. (another fun fact is that the first "concept art" of him had him in his pajamas sjskkssl)

He's probably the best character to ask for medical help at the moment, since he does know a lot about things like that, but whether he's able to actually help someone depends on how he's feeling at the moment and what his relationship with that person is like. 

Hinode actually used to play the guitar before his health started to get worse and after he realized he doesn't have the energy to play anymore, he gave it to Riku. Riku still uses his brother's guitar and not counting the ones he got in Milgram, he refuses to get a new one. It also has a bunch of silly drawings on it made by Riku himself, Hinode and their little sisters. 

[penultimate-step]

prior expectations for media can be weird. A recent discord conversation has me thinking about the ways being told different things ahead of time can influence what we think of works as we read them.

The most common of these, the discussion that got me thinking about it in the first place, is simple quality: knowing there is a common consensus that something is good or bad can set up expectations. A work universally praised can set the expectation of being unreasonably good, and make new readers feel disappointed when it doesn't live up to those impossible standards. On the contrary, going in with low expectations, after being told a work is trash, can have people be surprised by the good aspects in it and greatly enjoy it. I've definitely had both of these happen to me, though that could just be me being a contrarian, nitpicking flaws in series friends told me were excellent, and scraping out meaning in series those around me disdained.

But then again, I've also done the opposite, and seen others do it too. In some cases, being told something is bad primes people to see it that way, honing in on the negative aspects they were subconsciously trying to find, or giving extra chances and a deeper look to something that was promised to be good. So it isn't clear that the relationship between expected quality and perceived quality is simple enough to classify that easily.

And that's just quality. For popular series, especially on social media sites like tumblr, it's not uncommon for people to get a sense of what a series is about through seeing the posts of others. But often, that impression is completely wrong. I wonder what the influence on a reader's enjoyment is if they start reading expecting a romance series, only to find an adventure story, or hear all about the unique worldbuilding, only to find a character-focused drama? Some will simply be taken off guard and readjust their expectations, but many will still read it with the initial frame of reference, putting outsized expectations on the scenes and moments that match the story they were expecting to read rather than the one in front of them.

having pre-existing assumptions about a series can completely change the way someone reads it. It's strange to think that a bit of information at the wrong time could completely change the reading experience.

[rjmhereunderprotest]

The Polly/Oz Shipping Post for Personal Mental Well-Being

It's been one of those past couple days, and frankly I'm in need of a break from... well a lot of thoughts. I've not been absorbing some stuff well. I'd normally slip into Gwenpool stuff, but at the moment that's kinda being a mental drain. So, I need to focus on something positive and happy and anything that makes me smile and- oh look Polly and Oz of Monster Prom!

For something that is not technically canon in any respect, because Monster Prom's canon is whatever the hell you want it to be relationship wise, Polly and Oz have always spoke to me as the S-Tier Romance of the game. Sure, many people ship Oz with Damien and Polly is... well I'm not sure who is preferred. I've noticed at least one person goes REALLY hard for Polly and Vicky. Regardless both and all Monster Prom ships, regardless of popularity are equally valid. This isn't a definitive statement about canon because right now canon isn't always the answer for me. Even though a lot of Monster Prom's promotional material likes to show Polly teasing Oz in an overtly flirty manner, that isn't a definitive statement about the creator's preferences. They've had Oz decide to date Zoe in a Monster Road Trip trailer, it means nothing. (Although Zoe is fricking awesome and is my second romance choice behind Polly) What matters most in Monster Prom, at least to me, is emotional connection and compatibility. I think it's the same for, well, frankly a lot of ships.

So this is a bit of Fandom Mentality self-care where I talk about why I've written in my mind that Polly and Oz make the most sense for romantic partners. Because I love them a lot and I find them cute and I think it just makes sense. So... let's start.

So, Oz... why do I main Oz so much is probably the real question I should be asking myself? Maybe because they fit the most with me and my high school experience. Oz is an extreme introverted, nervous social outcast. Everything about his dialogue and actions we can see him doing in the game suggests he is a mega nerd, a good student and, quite frankly, at the bottom of the Spooky High totem pole. Like I was.

I'm not a Vicky who was bold and outgoing, I'm not a Brian who was aloof and tried to coast, I'm certainly not Amira, the fiery bad girl. No, I was Oz, perpetually afraid of high school even as I took the work seriously but constantly wanted to get out of there because it was a fucking pressure cooker!

The difference between me and Oz is obvious, THEY are some kind of amorphous shadow creature who, apparently, is the embodiment of fear. He's probably older than even Liam. He's quite possibly super powerful. And his little imaginary friends who he uses to try to cope are real, they're those little phobias who pop up around him and do cute things. And yet, they choose to be THIS, they choose to be this scared high schooler who is insular, lonely looking and desperate for love/affection. At the very least he seems to WANT acceptance. Like most of the super thirsty monsters among the main characters of the game. I identified with that a lot. He doesn't want to hurt anyone, he's clearly lonely and probably not always in the best place mentally as he tries to navigate a high school that he probably doesn't need to be in. Honestly, none of the monsters need to be there though, I mean... they don't exactly LEARN anything there as far as I can tell. I'm not even sure if they have a full staff of teachers or if most of them are just jokes.

So I've always just seen Oz as my closest facsimile to my High School experience, at least in terms of how it felt, terrified of everything and wondering if I even belonged there. So while I like the other characters, Vicky and Brian especially, I always felt more connected to Oz as a result. I know this sounds like "He/They are Literally Me FR", but it's more... I just can more easily place myself into Oz's headspace and emotionally connect with him to a degree. I don't think I'd make all the choices he does, but I can certainly understand him the most out of all the characters in the cast.

When the eventual Monster Prom Reverse is released, I fully expect Oz's character will be better fleshed out. If he hasn't been already in those Monster Road Trip sequences where he can be a hitchhike passenger. This is mostly just my interpretation based on what I've seen. This is the unique thing about Monster Prom shipping when it involves anything with the MCs. A lot of it is speculation and, a little if not a lot, of self-insertion. So it's best to always keep that in mind. This is a dating sim after all, fantasy wish fulfillment is inevitable, it's something even the game criticizes about itself a lot. That a lot of this is very silly and stupid and unrealistic in terms of actually setting up a real relationship with someone, especially a romantic one. It's why it usually doesn't take itself too seriously. Which is epitomized by, who else...

Polly Geist, the ghost party girl who I'd call the face of Monster Prom if I didn't think Damian could arguably be just as much at this point, at least Tumblr wise. Polly is still super popular though and its easy to see why. She funny, fun, cool, extremely sex positive, her outlook is very progressive, lighthearted and she is herself... sexy as hell. She's just a really fun character and it's hard not to enjoy any of her scenes on their own.

Whether she's pulling pranks with Scott, (Well, mostly leading Scott into pulling pranks because the dude is too stupid and nice to know how to do them) starting food fights by flashing people, causing general mayhem in the pursuit of advancing the science of partying or scamming you into performing a nonsensical sex act, Polly is highlight of Monster Prom. Even when she's too drunk to know what's going on, or high, or drunk and high, Polly is the afterlife of the party... which goes on forever from her perspective because she's dead. And yet despite that she is the love interest in Monster Prom who loves life the most and refuses to not spend it to its fullest. You have to admire that level of extroverted joy.

But Polly is not a superficial party girl, she might be dead and therefore removed from all consequences of her lifestyle, but she isn't a shallow sex obsessed ghost. She has actual depth, probably the most out of the other main love interests, barring maybe Vera, but that's mostly because of her sisterhood with Valerie gives her some much needed motivation beyond just being an evil criminal mastermind/capitalist. (Although I imagine a few people would say there's little difference between the two professions) Polly's depth is ALL hers. Because this is the thing... Polly's Forever 22, Stupid and Partying attitude? It's a front.

Oh she doesn't actually HATE partying, sex or drugs. She loves and is ALL about that. That's as much who she is as anything, but she plays up the idea that she's an idiot... when she's far from anything. Polly is actually an accomplished MASTER Chess player, a highly advanced gaming skill level that requires a lot of forward thinking and strategizing. She really good at Chemistry, mostly because it enables to make her own drugs, but Chemistry is a highly analytical field involving math, problem solving and attention to detail. Her favorite field of study though is literature, Classic Russian Literature in the vein of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. This is reflected in one of the Pre-Game Skill Boost choices, where the FUN option (Which is Polly personified) involves making a movie that has several of the most famous Russian Novelists going off on a Hangover-style adventure.

The point is, Polly isn't an idiot. She's actually highly intelligent... so why does she act like a fool? Because... she wants to. She wants to spend her afterlife how she most desires. That doesn't preclude her other interests of course, she still loves chess, chemistry and "War & Peace", but she's capable of more than just those nerdy pursuits. She pushes herself to remain highly socially, outgoing, never allowing her love of life to dim even in death. And she just doesn't want to advertise, I think, her more intellectual pursuits. Likely because she doesn't want to appear above all of that, as better than the people she cares about, because she does care about people.

Scott is probably her best friend, as a Fellow Prank Masterz (With a Z). And Scott IS an idiot, like a complete idiot. Look up the word Himbo in the dictionary and you find his face. He might be a lovable genuinely nice werewolf jock... but he is very clearly a dumbass. But Polly will spend time with him, why? Because she's enjoys his company, she enjoys being with him and pulling pranks. She never considers being more intelligent than him as something to lord over Scott. She might easily lead him into some situations, but she never wants to make him feel inferior to her.

And that attitude extends to other people, like Kale. You might know him as the plant guy, as well as the Asexual/Aromantic character of the game. He has no interest in sex or romance... but Polly hangs out with him and smokes weed with him anyway. When your character tries to seduce Kale (albeit you do not know he is an ace at the time) Polly is irate with you for making shit weird. It's very clear Polly understands and respects personal boundaries. She'll tease people, try to make them come out of their shells, open up, live a little... but if she knows that someone is not interested she won't push things. Kale is a friend and despite being a flirty party girl, she does not do anything to jeopardize that with him.

There's a lot I could on with about Polly honestly, her friends with benefits relationship with Faith of the Coven, her sunny friendship with the cold Vera, her seemingly really good organizational skills for setting up an Orgy... but at some point I'd just be arguing that Polly is best girl and that's not why we're here. I'd just wanted to lay this all out so we better understood who Polly is.

So why with Oz? I'd be lying if there wasn't some sort of wish fulfillment element to it. Like I said, a lot of dating sims fall into this category and Monster Prom doesn't pretend its any better, it's just trying to acknowledge it and offer a different take on it. So the idea of a popular party girl falling for a neurotic nerd who's afraid of everything is no doubt appealing to me on a personal level, but I like to think there's more to it. If only so my enjoyment of this pairing isn't completely concieted sounding.

Here's the deal, Polly's obvious flirting with Oz, pushing his buttons, taking an interest in him, is clearly an effort to get him to come out of his bubble and enjoy things. To not be so scared to live life. I don't think any of it is pushy though, it's mostly knowing looks, brushing her hands along sensitive spots, she's gentle about it. She never seems to be forcibly pushing Oz to leave his safe space, but urging him to try.

The idea that Oz would be willing to try, because this crazy hot ghost girl takes an interest in him is... well frankly cute in both respects. Him because he's willing to take a risk for personal self-growth. Her because she seems to be doing this without any concept of a reward. She's not overtly trying to get in his pants and I don't think she's maliciously messing with him, playfully yes, but she clearly doesn't have sinister designs to make a fool of him. She's just decided Oz could use the chance to escape his box and she'd like to be the lockpick... and knowing her she'd probably make that into innuendo, but that's just Basic Polly at that point.

But why would Polly be interested in Oz romantically? We can already discern why Oz would be. Polly is a sexy fun party girl, she seems to take an interest in him despite having the pick of the litter. Finding out her hidden depths would like only make Oz like her more, although I suspect he'd be concerned that he thought less of her for a bit. Ultimately Polly is designed, like all the love interests, to illicit this response with ANY of the main characters you can play as. The thing that makes it different, special with Oz is that his personality as the shy nerd boy makes their match with the outgoing party girl appealing aesthetically. But why would Polly be into Oz?

Well those hidden depths I mentioned are part of it to a degree. Polly's intellectual pursuits never held her back. She probably doesn't want the same for Oz. Although I feel their more calm, collected and less extroverted nature would give Polly an anchor that she probably sometimes needs. While she is good at knowing when to stop, what her limits are and should be, let's not kid ourselves, like everyone at Spooky High, Polly has a tendency to go overboard to an extreme degree. Like, one of her endings involves the literal apocalypse so... yeah. Polly could use a tether and she probably wants that to some extent. Both for reasons I'll explain soon and reasons I've already stated. Polly likes to know when she is crossing a line because she isn't outwardly malicious, she doesn't want to hurt people in her pursuit of fun. Polly only ever gets mad if you're ruining her fun by being boring or just by being a jerk to people she thinks don't deserve it. And Oz likely knows better at times what lines she doesn't want to cross herself.

Another part of it is who Oz is himself, besides seeing some things in him that are like her, Oz doesn't come across as the kind of person who would consider Polly as just another sexy girl they can bag. Oz very clearly respects Polly, that's what a lot of the point of the events that can lead to dating of the love interests in the game are about, respect. Respect for yourself and respect for the person you want to be with, understanding who they are and appealing to those aspects, showing you're willing to meet them at their level. In my mind, if anyone would respect Polly as a person rather than just a shallow sex kitten a lot of people sometimes see her as, it would be Oz.

And this is because... well Oz himself, or themself, isn't all they appear to be. They are, after all, the embodiment of fear. As I alluded to, Oz does not seem to fit in Spooky High in any sense. He's probably more of an Eldritch than even Zoe. At least Zoe has a recognizable form as basically an adorable version of some sort of Lovecraft Mythos Tentacle Beast. Oz is some sort of shadow creature. Some people have assumed he's like Slender Man or something to that effect. An SCP that's gone rogue and decided to attend high school. He should not be intimidated by anything here. Although I imagine, if anything could make a shadowy creature that is the living concept of fear itself quake in terror, it would be high school. Oz doesn't strike me as someone who sees people as what they are on the outside. Oh imagine he would be shocked to see how different Polly is on the inside, but he's not going to let that completely deter him. If nothing else I think Oz is a very determined shadow creature. Why would he keep up this appearance of a pathetic frightened geek? Maybe because he is genuinely frightened, maybe he has other motives, maybe he's just doesn't want to be defined by what the world says he has to be. But I am certain that, at the very least, he chooses to be what he is now as much Polly chooses to be what she is now. In a strange way, they're both seemingly living an afterlife... or different life.

As a sort of aside, there is something to be said on a mythic level too of a ghost, a spirit typically meant to evoke fear in people of the inevitability and permanence of death, and a creature that is the literal personification of fear itself, falling in love. A spirit that was once mortal and a being that has just always been since time immemorial. It's kinda like something out of Neil Gaiman's "The Sandman" when you look at it in that respect. And I do like me some Sandman.

But if that's not enough to convince you of at least some substantive reason for why I like Polly and Oz together... well here we go. The one time Polly ever got serious feels most appropriate when it is connected to Oz rather than any other character, to me. Let's talk about the Locket.

The Locket is an Event Item you can unlock in Valerie's Store, like most of the added Event Items that were added in around the Holiday Season, it's meant to flesh out the love interests some. While they're not exactly lighthearted, Scott's deals with being abandoned as a pup, they're not exactly bereft of comedy either. But The Locket comes close. It starts out with the mysterious haunted inhabitant of the locket trying to share his sad story of lost love... and then Polly shows up and decides to hijack that whole plot as she do! Because she's gonna smoke it! Yeah, she's gonna literally smoke a locket and she wants you to join her. This leads to a few choices about responsible drug use, probably useful. Honestly if I ever did drugs I'd at least want to be safe about it.

However the good times of you enabling Polly's addictions is somewhat ruined by the untimely arrival of the Coven, Spooky High's pre-eminent supernatural hero squad in the vein of Charmed/Buffy, except not objectively terrible (Charmed) or written by an asshole. (Buffy) They're quick to do the usual "Just Say No" deal at Polly, wishing she wouldn't supplement her partying with constant drug use. Polly, dropping her usual fun façade, gets serious and lectures back. Insisting she is not being irresponsible... she's dead. And therefore nothing she does can hurt her and even regardless she practices safety first with her drug use. She is not any worse than someone who really enjoys a lot of chocolate and she is in control of her drug use unlike such people. "Drug Use, Not Abuse" she explains.

It almost works, the Coven actually respectfully admit that they're probably sticking their noses in a place they don't belong. Polly isn't stupid, she is responsible and more importantly she is already dead so it's not like she can really harm herself anyway. Then Polly lets it slip that the locket she's smoking contains the soul of a dead guy and they take issue with that. Smoking haunted artifacts is fine, but a clear line in their eyes is basically smoking a soul for your own benefit and possibly destroying said soul's afterlife. Polly is fed up playing nice and tells them to fuck off, because it's HER afterlife and she'll spend it how she wants. Making reference that she knows plenty about drugs because drug use was how she died. Joy, the Coven's leader, then makes a mistake. Thinking this is another bit of the ongoing gag of Polly making up how she died, she has a lot of them and this feels no different, but seemingly more insensitive by making drug abuse a joke. She tells Polly that maybe she wouldn't be so flippant about her drug use if SHE had been harmed by someone's use of drugs.

And this is when Polly loses her shit. The insensitivity of the comment sends Polly over the edge declaring the Coven, and by extension us who have mostly been silent during this whole exchange, have no idea what her life was like and what she's been through and declared that if this is how they're going to speak to her about how she lives her afterlife, fine! Fuck everyone! She's going to party... but not fun party.

Polly's in-game sprite art takes on a horrifying visage. Her eyes glow, her smile turns to a painful scowl, her rage seems to basically circle her head like something out of Poltergeist or the Exorcist. And she can only speak in all-caps rage about how she wants to keep partying forever. Her anger affects the school all around her, as the halls apparently fill with ghastly wails and flying objects. You can't even talk to her at the lunch break, she will beam Liam in the head with a chair just for "Um Actuallying" her. Liam kinda deserves it, so it's funny, but the rest of this is not.

The Coven, mostly Joy, realizing their mistake, enlist you to help them fix this. You can do this by either contacting Polly's mom or a creepy yet friendly psychic kid ala the Sixth Sense. Either way, a successful meeting ends the same way, this reaction really is related to how Polly actually died but if you want to know what happened you need to talk to Polly herself.

You find Polly huffing gas in the school basement, completely forgetting her "Drug Use, not Abuse" statement in favor of just outright indulgence. Joy and the Coven apologize best they can and say they want to understand, but Polly is indignant. Revealing that her death was caused by her father. He was the drug abuser in the family and he made life difficult for everyone. He didn't cause Polly's death deliberately, it was a car accident while he was under the influence, killing Polly, her mom, her little sister... but leaving her father alive. She had been using drugs herself at that age, but she tried to be responsible with them. Possibly as an attempt to connect to her dad, it's not outright said, but it's implied. And despite her being careful she still ended up dying anyway.

Polly at that point demands to know what crazy idiotic choice between two options are you going to pick to suddenly make all this shit better. And even the game admits that this isn't really the time to be funny and offers two options that are sincere, supportive and apologetic. If successful, it breaks through Polly's emotional episode and allows her to finally put herself at ease and come to terms with her feelings.

You might be wondering why the player has to do any of this. It wasn't YOU who stepped on Polly's incorporeal toes and shamed her. You didn't awaken any long buried trauma with insensitive speech. Well, no, but you were kinda enabling Polly's worst habits. Not the drug use, but not considering the harm she could cause to others through it, like smoking another person's soul. So, really you're sorta responsible for not checking Polly's worse tendencies, just letting her ride the haunted locket smoke train without trying to dissuade her because it's just Polly being Polly. So being honest and trying to reach her by admitting that you just want to hear her out or even just be there for her right now, no judgment or anything else, that's an important step here.

Polly of course fakes crossing over as a prank to show that she's back to her old self again and promises to be more mindful of her drug use from now on. But it's not all good. After picking Polly to go to Prom, she admits to the player that she still feels hurt and sad. That in her pursuit of living her afterlife to the fullest, she got caught up in the same mistakes her father made and she's not proud of it. Most importantly though, she admits that despite everything she doesn't hate her dad for what he did, she still loves and misses him. That a lot of her drug use was more about just trying to forget rather than confront these feelings, ignoring the pain rather than dealing with it. Being happy is great and all, but not at the expense of acknowledging when you're hurting.

In all honesty, I feel this ending works best with Oz. Because I can more readily see Oz empathizing the most with Polly in this moment. If anyone knows about hurt, it's a creature that embodies fear. And Polly has admitted to hers, feeling hurt. Oz being there for Polly, trying to show that this is okay, that being not okay is ok, makes the most sense for me. Polly doesn't want to hurt anyone because she knows what it's like to hurt the people you love. And Oz I feel knows a lot about hurt being what they are. And maybe through sharing that kind of pain, in confronting things like Polly encouraged Oz to do with his own fears, they can both be stronger people.

This isn't to say these scenes can't work with other characters, they're not built to only work with one of the MCs. But for me, a lot of Polly's stories and events, this one especially, ring the most true when it involves Oz.

I think the relationship between the two can and could be very endearing. Allowing both to actually confront their fears, center themselves and be better people in the end. Monster Prom's tagline is "Be Your Worst Self", a sort of play on words, but a lot of its romances are actually a play on that concept. The phrase is really about being true to who YOU are more than anything, that includes the worst parts of you. If Monster Prom is about anything it's about finding happiness with who you are before you can truly find happiness with another. And I feel something like PollyxOz stands the best chance of achieving that goal.

I don't want to pretend it's the only solution, of course it isn't, none of this as said before is meant to invalidate your love for Oz getting with Damian or Zoe or Miranda or Polly with Vicky or Brian or even Amira. (Although I feel like no one is beating AmiraxVera on that one) This is about what works for me and my rationalization, you are free to think differently of course. I would hope this at least better explained my preferences and perhaps even helped you a little with your own anxieties as it has mine today.

Well I suppose I should try and lead you to some more Polly/Oz content if you're interested. While I do have ideas for fanfics and there's plenty of art you can look up, I'd rather just send you over to Vanilla Chinchilla, who is probably more prolific and better artistically concerning this than I ever could be. Again, this stuff is all just me working through some junk. Plus their artwork, such as the comic panels right above this paragraph, is really cute and fun and I enjoy it a lot.

That's really all from me, if you've honestly stuck it out this long with me rambling about the romance of two monsters from a silly video game... well I applaud you I honestly don't know if this is really all that compelling. This was an exercise for my own sake, but like I said, I hope you got something out of it. At the very least, I've put something positive into this place rather than just ragging on it for crass reasons. Thank you for your time guys.

[spiders-hth-is-an-outlier]

It always baffles me when people are legitimately mad that the underlying worldview of a commercially available piece of media is congruent with broad, mainstream values of its culture, rather than a radical rejection of those values. Like, first off, did nobody ever take 1 anthropology class, ever? There's a reason that a society's beloved story traditions are understood to serve primarily as a transmission of that society's commonly held values and sense of identity, rather than existing in ferocious opposition to those things. If a piece of popular art seems normie to you, of course it does? We literally study a culture's art to get a sense of what they understood themselves to be?

The idea that it would be okay if you were rich and powerful as long as you were a good person and that the problem with the world is that the rich and powerful are shitty people may not be your moral worldview, but I don't know how it could possibly be any more obvious that it is the moral worldview of most people living in the industrial First World, and that stories where the rich and powerful encounter moral tests and pass them, or stories where objectively good people ascend to the riches and power they are perceived to deserve, keep being made and keep being popular because people find stories that validate their worldview comforting.

I think there's an interesting open question about whether changes in art create or reflect changes in a society's worldview. I think I tend to favor the latter, because I've known enough artists to find the mythology of the artist as Thought Leader and Wayfinder somewhat uncompelling -- artists are just people, and like people, some are radically imaginative and boldly countercultural, but more often they are not particularly, or they are those things, but in a more idiosyncratic way than is easily reducible to an expression of political ideology.

What I have observed is that, in practice, there's almost no daylight between "the right art can change people's beliefs" and "the job of art is to prove that good beliefs are better than bad ones." The first one is -- I don't know for sure, but I think true conditionally, I think anecdotally people can remember "X piece of art changed me fundamentally," though not all people have that experience and certainly we don't know how to universalize it, there's no trick anyone's ever mastered to creating The Art That Changes People. It's contextual, it's subjective, it's the alchemy of the medium and the message and the audience and the moment it's encountered. It can happen, but most of the time it doesn't. So buying into the second part -- the idea that your work might create change, therefore it should strive to create change -- is hanging a whole lot of weight on a whole lot of maybes, most of them entirely out of your control as an artist. Ultimately it means going all in on propaganda -- on using the form of art to generate buy-in for certain beliefs that you hold -- with no guarantee that such a thing is even really possible. Real propaganda, when it does work, functions in a closed system along with other forms of material power and social control -- again, the art is expressing a world that already recognizably exists, so people feel that art as truthful and comforting. If you devote yourself to producing propaganda, can you summon the world it expresses into being? I don't know.

I do know that it makes perfect sense that most art isn't designed to do that. You take the pool of artists in a society, then you subtract the large numbers who are generally "normal" members of their society with mainstream values and a mainstream perspective, then you also subtract the significant number like me who don't really believe that art is particularly good at social engineering and are not interested in that project, artistically speaking -- already you have only a slice of the art being made that even could be considered "revolutionary" in the political sense. Oh, and some of those people are going to be "revolutionary" in ways you don't like or agree with, so the slice is smaller now. And now the competition for eyeballs begins -- will anyone even see this revolutionary art? Can they access it? Do they want to? Do they like it, once they see it? You have to assume the answer is going to be no in many cases.

It's a lot! It's complicated! There are so many choke points between the idea of "what we need is more art that challenges imperialism and capitalism!" and that actually happening -- artists that don't hold those values, artists who don't see that as a viable project for their art, the distribution of resources needed to get art out there (especially, though not exclusively, if you're moving through a profit-motivated system), the audience's choice to spend their Engagement Bucks on this instead of that, the quality of the art (whatever you think"quality" means, you've probably read or watched something that made you think, this is so earnest and well-meaning, god I wish I were enjoying it even slightly), the ability of the audience to extract the creator's meaning from the text, the willingness of the audience to do that, and then -- whatever that thing is, that unpredictable collision of forces that catalyzes a lasting effect.

You can see why it doesn't happen a lot. You can see why it's not a conspiracy that most art that makes it through that whole gauntlet is -- the ordinary kind of art, the kind that some alien anthropology teacher could hold up and say "Let's watch Red White and Royal Blue to learn how Anglo-American humans in the Late Imperial Era were thinking about statistical deviations in mating behavior and what they would have called sexual orientation."

[theonlinebrat]

W-A-S-D

Dear reader,

It's been a while since I last posted anything, hasn't it? My bad.

I have been juggling between Don't Starve Together (now that we have the Scrappy Scavengers expansion), Stardew Valley (now that the 1.6 update is finally out) and Game Dev Tycoon, - all financed by my boyfriend.

I'm starting to understand why my mom doesn't want my baby brother to play video games at a young age considering my… uh, outstanding dedication to them.

Like I said before in my now 404-ed Blogger page, this isn't even close to being my first time gaming around, so I’m well acquainted with the myths that can surround this infamous hobby.

I'm no Sam Brenner (Adam Sandler’s character in the 2015 movie Pixels), but according to a few online dictionaries I found, I am a gamer, a.k.a. a person who enjoys video games. As a hobby, not as a profession.

If you never cared to Google it like me, you might ask yourself, what’s a video game? Where do they even come from?

Did aliens bring them to Earth, maybe?

Well, not quite.

I hope not to disappoint the world's most beloved gamer, Henry Cavill, with my poor research skills...

But yeah, taking Wikipedia as my source, video games can be defined as a form of entertainment that involves interacting with an input device, such as your keyboard if you're a PC gamer, to generate visual feedback on a display device, e.g. a monitor. It's similar to how Newton's Third Law of Motion states that for every action, there is an opposite and equal reaction.

During their earlier history, video games were mostly related to research projects at universities and large corporations as academic and promotional devices, rather than to the general public's entertainment.

One of the first examples of a modern video game that we know of was patented in January 1947 by Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann, and it's a thing called a "cathode-ray tube amusement device”.

It basically consisted of an analog device that lets you move a dot on the screen to simulate a missile being parabolically fired at paper drawings fixed to the screen, inspired by radar display technology. And, yes, the first video game ever was essentially an Angry Birds prototype.

Over the following years, other game patents were created with different means of display and whatever, but none of them were able to achieve the commercial success of Atari's inaugural arcade game, Pong, in 1972.

The release of this timeless ping-pong video game played a pivotal role in establishing the industry as we know it today, not to mention that one of the first consoles ever was also released a couple months before in that same year; I'm talking about Magnavox' Odyssey home console.

Speaking of the Xbox’s great great great grandmother, it's well-known that video games tend to be classified by platform because of the differences there can be when comparing one piece of hardware to the other, so we have:

Arcade games

You can play these in the coin-operated machines of the same name, like in the beginning of the Pixels movie. The classic single-game cabinet only allows you to play the one game it was designed for, and it was really popular in the US since the 1970s, until it began dying down by the late 1990s when people started to bring the arcade experience home with consoles’ growing popularity and ever-developing technology.

Console games

These can be enjoyed in specialized electronic devices that consist of a main unit - the “console” - that has the hardware that you're supposed to connect with your display device of choice and a game controller like this one: 🎮.

Let's take a moment to reminisce here because, back in my days, you needed to buy a game's cartridge to be able to play it, which meant offline and immediate access at the cost of lower storage capacity and physical bulkiness. But, even before the world wide web, Control Video Corporation (CVC) was an early pioneer in downloadable games and cloud saving for consoles... before it went bankrupt during the 1983 video game crash and was merged with AOL.

CVC introduced the GameLine, a dial-up game distribution system designed for the Atari 2600 console and introduced in 1986. Despite its innovative concept, it was ahead of its time, lacked licensing from most video game companies, and ultimately failed in the quest to fix the physical bulkiness issue.

Had they waited for the modern Internet and the Cloud to be created, they could have seen the same success as Xbox Live and PlayStation Network years later!

Due to coding and/or hardware incompatibilities, you can only play games in a console if they are designed for it, meaning you can't directly transfer a PlayStation 2 game into a PlayStation 4 despite them being brand models developed by the same company. Sony not sorry.

PC games

You can always download them to your desktop computer or laptop from their official website, if there's any, or from a trusty storefront like Steam… as long as the software requirements match. Since computers are not gaming-exclusive devices, there may and most likely will be differences when running the same game on another computer!

Mobile games

You can download these from a trustworthy website as an APK file to be installed on your smartphone or tablet, or just go ahead and use a digital distribution service like Google's Play Store or Apple's App Store, like the smartphone's system might recommend. Though, much like PC games, these tend to have specifications that your phone must meet for them to run properly.

Smartphones and tablets are probably the only case of being both the input and the display device simultaneously without having traditional buttons as an input option, unlike the Nintendo Switch or the PlayStation Vita, and that must be exactly why so many people dislike mobile gaming.

Admittedly, some games can become more challenging with the whole “inaccurate touchscreen controls” part, notably in PUBG Mobile and Don't Starve Pocket Edition. Except the latter has even shittier controls, per its Google Play reviews.

I haven’t played arcade games in a LONG time because my favorite arcade got super expensive in its last few years before closing down, leaving me with nothing but fond long-term memories of digital eggs falling into my basket, Coldplay's Yellow in a plastic guitar, and table-hockey-ing.

However, I have been consistently trying out PC and mobile games across my lifespan. Especially the free-to-play ones, since my family didn't allow me to spend a single penny on video games when I was younger.

And, oh boy, isn't the list of games I've tried criminally long! But blaming my unending passion for video games on my predisposition is only fair.

I mean, I remember my mom was able to defeat Mario Bros.’ Bowser in a single day when I was a child, and hearing similar stories about her older sister's gaming prowess.

Come to think of it, we must've had a NES console back when all that happened, considering my faint memories of being thrilled to play Duck Hunt. That couldn't have happened irl otherwise.

Also, my cousins had a living room computer BRIMMING with, uh, ✨ free copies ✨ of various popular games that we often played together when we were in elementary school.

I did have a couple of consoles of my own, including some sort of green, translucent knock-off GameBoy I was gifted at a school event and what I think was a PlayStation, but quickly lost both.

My cousins were gifted a PlayStation 2 of their own later on, when it was a thing, until it got damaged because they were using pirate cartridges. Or so we were told back in the day; it could’ve been a dirty reading laser in reality, but, you know, my cousins lived in a very small town, so it was a rarity that they had that console in the first place.

I didn't get to bond with console games much because I found the controllers too difficult to use with my poor hand coordination, and couldn't practice for free either way, so I was stuck with mobile Tetris and Bounce Tales, both of which I found in my grandpa's phones.

It wasn't until some time after my middle cousin passed me down her old Facebook account that I found what would be my main source of entertainment for the next year or so: social network games.

They were THE SHIT when I was middle school aged and Facebook was on the rise across all corners of Spanish-speaking countries.

Ever heard of FarmVille or Dragon City? These ancient Facebook games, and other titles, are a type of online game that is played through social media. They tend to have multiplayer gameplay mechanics and use real-time analytics to sort of motivate you to spend real money on in-game resources and/or consistently log in for rewards.

As mobile gaming took off, many of the games you could find on Facebook desktop were re-released for mobile as well!

But Facebook is not the only company who ventured into browser games. This category includes anything you can play using a web browser, like good ol' Ecosia. They're mostly free-to-play and can be single-player or multiplayer, and are also grouped by their software platform, for example, Flash games.

A few famous examples of browser games include Club Penguin and the McDonald's Video Game, but personally I was more into Moshi Monsters and whatever “girly” games you could find on the in-browser hubs JuegosJuegos.com, friv.com and DressUpGames.com, in particular.

Even TV channels like Disney and Discovery Kids had TONS of themed Flash games available on their official websites back then, and it was a wonderful time to be an Internet kid.

Then, tragedy struck: Adobe Flash stopped being supported between December 2020 and January 2021, mainly due to security concerns, dealing a debilitating blow to browser gaming.

Many underrated games that weren't coded into another multimedia display software got lost in memory lane and Facebook's neverending evolution, which sort of forced me to dive a lot more into what the Google Play Store and Steam had to offer.

Still, I would learn coding just to bring Facebook's City Girl Life and Suburbia back.

While I’m pretty flexible in terms of the platforms I’ve tried, I remain selective when it comes to the genres. Although, that doesn't exactly mean I dislike any, just that I may prefer to watch old gameplay videos on YouTube most of the time.

For instance, I'm a big fan of the first 5 Five Nights at Freddy's (survival horror) installments and everything that came out after Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (action-adventure), yet I have no intent of playing any of them myself. I'll stick with simulation and strategy games, which I excel at and relax with.

About video game genres, they're not really related to the setting or story of the game as literary genres are, but to the way the player interacts with the game.

I’m not diving into specifics here because games often incorporate key features from all genres all the time or blend them into hybrids, making it useless to try to differentiate them. Plus, there are countless sub-genres to consider. Even the Dark Souls saga is considered to have its own sub-genre!

To top it all off, it's no secret that females and minority groups tend to get harassed in shooter and MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) games communities, so that can obviously make me, a minority female, feel hesitant about joining those spaces as myself.

Highly competitive environments tend to amplify the toxicity of the yappiest players, especially in multiplayer games, and that can lead to this possible misconception that, for instance, all League of Legends (a MOBA) players are disgusting, when in reality it might only be a small percentage of ill-mannered people that are deterring potential new players.

Then again, it is League of Legends that we're talking about…

Going back to the so-called obscure spirits, much like what SORRYLAG narrates in this video about Dark Souls being so difficult to beat that it's often considered THE game that makes you a gamer in other gamers' opinion, I'd add that there's this weird pressure in the video game world about who can beat the games with the most challenging gameplays with no health penalties (such as Dark Souls), or who can speedrun the fastest, or who discovers the most convoluted easter egg.

The one thing stopping me from chasing after any of the three is my day job and my lack of talent in ✨ strategizing ✨ outside of my day job.

It's hypocritical to bash or segregate people for enjoying something just because they have less practice or different preferences.

I would refuse to think I'm less of a gamer just because I like mobile gaming, don't want to beat Sekiro, and won't even pick up Duty's Call, thus I'm not bothered by other people with similar casual gaming tendencies.

So, setting aside the standard fandom issues around them, I wouldn't say video games are a problem on their own. It's not Donkey Kong's fault that we've created so many stereotypes around a lifeless entertainment format.

Do they cause violence? No. Some of them can definitely contribute, but not cause it, nor have long-term consequences on their own. It has a lot more to do with our modern overstimulating environments plus the way our brains are wired for anger to obtain food equaling disaster, according to a few studies.

Are they addictive? Look, those sneaky strategies to make us play more frequently like real-time statistics don't help and I'm borderline addicted myself, but the truth is anything that makes you produce dopamine and other happy hormones will become addictive if you struggle with discipline and self-control in general. Even food. We're just too scared of taking accountability as humans.

Do they cause loneliness or social isolation? It can be the case for some, but that doesn't mean all gamers are lonely. I mean, my boyfriend and I found each other, didn't we? Not to mention you'll fail at most multiplayer games with no teamwork or proper communication, and there are tons of online communities out there that welcome anonymous users, so how do you even get lonely if it's not by perspective?

Are they made for kids, teens, or men only? We're in 2024, come on. There are plenty of options for everybody.

Such a shame that a few people will never get to experience the joys of playing video games because they're too stubborn to believe anything other than what one news article of dubious origin said.

We can't really force a person who dislikes video games for any reason to love them, of course, but it's always nice to see them understand that respecting others' likes and choices will not cause the end of the world, isn't it?

Personally, I tend to choose to play whatever video game I'm trying to (slowly) complete at the moment over asking people to hang out whenever I'm free because going out is more expensive anyway.

This isn't affecting my quality of life any more than pollution does because I still do my chores and work despite the suffocating heat of a tropical summer, so there's that.

In conclusion, as long as video games don't get in the way of your self-care, daily habits, finances, and overall health, you should feel free to play them as much as you can, and want.

Unlike the mistaken belief that video games will ruin your brain or contribute to obesity per se, you can get benefits from most of them, actually.

As of today, we have the VR goggles + omnidirectional treadmill + exploring Skyrim by foot combo for fitness purposes; puzzle games for cognitive skills development; strategy games for planning and problem-solving; action games for reaction time improvement; and so on.

But, once again, gaming shouldn't negatively impact your life. I couldn't believe my eyes when I read about that one Yu-Gi-Oh! tournament where a female participant had to step out due to the odor. Even sports athletes shower before competing, so my hobby is not their excuse for being dirty!

What do you think about video games, though? Yay, or nay?

Until next time!

- N