#blogpost category: thoughts

[glistering-melon]

What if when Zoeya returns to the Twilight, amidst everythig else, she finds a certain sort of passion in learning about her culture again? She forgot a ton, which might hurt a lot, but she has the resources now to learn so much, and its one of those few places she finds belonging in in The Twilight while finding her footing.

[zedecksiew]

THE BLOGGIES 2023: NOMINATIONS OPEN

If tabletop roleplaying games were a hydra, blogs would definitely be one of its heads.

Probably the smartest, zaniest one? The one with the unexpected ideas; the silliest quips; the most devious schemes; the most profound observations.

The OSR / post-OSR style of play arose on blogs. I was inspired to make roleplaying games because of a blog post (this one, by Patrick Stuart, specifically).

Beyond the actual playing of games with friends, blogs are the most important part of TTRPGs, to me.

+

Last year, Prismatic Wasteland hosted the inaugural Bloggies.

64 excellent posts from across the TTRPG blogosphere were considered. A celebration of our community, our psychic brain-trust---the many heads of this, our TTRPG beast.

All the nominees are worth perusing. Winners list here.

My post, "D&D's Obsession With Taxonomy", won Best Blog Post of 2022. (Thank you, everybody who voted!)

Because I won, it falls to me to host this year's Bloggies.

+

Nominations are now open for the BLOGGIES 2023!

Is there a blogpost about TTRPGs from the past year (December 2022 to December 2023) that you think deserves attention and recognition?

Tell me about it! Drop a link to it, tell me why you like it, tell me which category it falls under:

Theory---broad criticism, observation, and analysis about TTRPGs (its cultures, its aesthetics and texts, its politics, etc);

Gameable---cool stuff (monsters, subsystems, bits of design, etc) you could grab and add to your own games;

Advice---ideas, tricks, and procedures for making your games better / easier / more fun, basically adding to the play-culture;

Review---specific criticism of specific books / games / systems / adventures / products.

Drop your nominations in the comments below, or in this Xwitter thread, or wherever else you can get in touch with me on the Internet. Do this before the end of 31 December 2023.

+

How BLOGGIES 2023 Will Work

Here's how I am thinking of running things:

25 Dec 2023 - 31 Dec 2023: Nominations open!

1 Jan 2024: Nominees shortlist announced!

First week Jan 2024: Public voting for Best Theory Post!

Second week Jan 2024: Public voting for Best Gameable Post!

Third week Jan 2024: Public voting for Best Advice Post!

Fourth week Jan 2024: Public voting for Best Review Post!

First week Feb 2024: Final round of voting for Best Blog Post Of 2023!

"Imperfection is a feature, not a bug, of blogging," as Warren said about the Bloggies, last year. I am but a single person. I will be copying much of his methodology.

I will be whittling down the nominations I receive to a shortlist of 64 posts (16 per category bracket), via personal judgment. No blog will be represented more than once per category---except for reviews (3 posts per blog).

Public voting for each category will happen in four rounds (16 / 8 / 4 / finals). Winners in each category will face off in a four-way vote for Best Blog Post.

Voting will most likely happen on Twitter, same as last year. (I am loathe to do this, but Twitter is still the social-media network most TTRPG people are on, sadly. But am also considering Google Forms. Thoughts?)

Month-long voting gives us the space to celebrate / argue over all the work our community has turned out this year---and gives me time to create prizes. (Am thinking of making linocut prints, inspired by the winning posts.)

Finals being announced in February just before the Lunar New Year justifies the header art above---as the Year of the Rabbit gives way to the Year of the Dragon.

+++

Here we go here we go here we go!

[coimbrabertone]

A Self-Indulgent Blogpost About My Motorsports Fiction

So, this weekend, MotoGP had a good sprint while the main race was a snoozer, and NASCAR ended with a twenty-eight-car pileup followed by a plate merchant winning the race.

Which makes me not really want to talk about either of them.

I could talk a bit more on Andretti - Michael revealed today that stepping back was a personal decision after forty years of being involved in Indycar, half as a driver, half as a team owner - but I don't really have a ton more to say on that either.

So, what do I want to talk about?

Well, I kinda want to talk about my writing.

I've kinda wanted to do that for a bit now, but I always thought that one: it was a bit self-indulgent to promote my fanfic on here too much, and two: I wasn't sure if people would particularly care. Well, I talked to some friends about it, and they encouraged it, so I figured...why not?

Thus, today I'll be talking about my motorsports fiction, my racing fanfics that I primarily post on AO3. I've completed one story Life at the Speed of Formula One, I wrote a 1950s Grand Prix one-shot called A Beautiful Race, and I'm currently writing two stories: An 1980s CART Indycar story called The Fastest of the Prancing Horses, and a 2000s NASCAR story called Racing in the Golden Age.

For this blogpost, I will mainly be talking about LatSoF1 because it is finished and because as my first real motorsports story, it more or less set the mold for the rest.

The link:

So...where to begin but the tags?

I have this story labeled under two fandoms, Original Work and Formula 1 RPF, why is that?

Well, it boils down to the fact that I don't quite think it fits firmly into either category. It is an original work about Formula One, but it's not really RPF either.

RPF, for those unaware of fanfic terms, means Real People Fiction.

In my stories, however, I've decided to fictionalize living people, particularly those central to the plot. There's a few reasons for this, one is that I felt odd having my OC (original character) interacting with real drivers - and admittedly a part of that is that I didn't really want this to read like a self-insert fic, where my Mary Sue gets to race with Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel and all that - especially when I'm going to tackle things like tabloid rumors and opinions on homosexuality and driver feuds in these things.

The long and short of it is that I feel more comfortable having fictionalized driver Felipe Alvarez as an antagonistic figure rather than Fernando Alonso himself.

Does that matter to people reading it who are just going to connect the dots and see Alvarez as Alonso anyway? Maybe, maybe not.

Anyway, I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. Let's get back to establishing the context.

The story begins in 2007, with Kazakhstan-born ethnic-Russian driver Tamara Shchegolyayeva signed to Williams banked by Kazakhstani oil and gas companies.

Let's unpack that a bit.

Why 2007?

The initial idea of the story, before it branched off into something larger, was to cover the tight and dramatic 2007 championship battle from the perspective of someone in Formula One but outside of the proper title battle. Almost like a third-person view on the title challenge from a first-person perspective.

Tamara Shchego-what's it?

Okay, so admittedly Kazakhstani driver with a really long name probably isn't the most believable package for a late-2000s Formula One driver, but I think that's part of what made this idea interesting to me.

I'm a geography and history nerd, so I'm drawn to off-the-wall places where so many different cultures and histories intertwine. Kazakhstan has the Silk Road, the Mongol Empire, Russian Imperialism, and Soviet Communism all in its history. Its people are like a microcosm of all of Asia with East Asian, Turco-Persian, and Indo-European phenotypes all present, with people ranging from literal nomads to Kazakh Muslims to ethnic Russians.

Thus, I decided that it would be interesting to write a protagonist from there.

However, Formula One is also...Formula One. So how does a person from there get to the cynical, cutthroat world of big money global motorsport?

Well, I made her the daughter of a petty oligarch and sponsored by oil money.

This also allowed me to explore a number of things. The legacy of Russian Imperialism, the question of where she belongs - I placed her ancestry right on the tripoint border of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, had her born in Kazakhstan, and had her grow up and live in Monaco - the morality of oil money, the morality of sponsorships in general, and, eventually, of being a gay woman in a male-dominated, conservative, globe-spanning sport.

I won't pretend I covered these areas perfectly - and at least in some cases, I wrote Tamara as having complicated, potentially problematic feelings on things - but I think it was at least interesting.

Fictionalized Drivers.

My general rule with people in the story is that the more involved in the plot they were, the more I'd differentiate them from the drivers they were based off of.

Thus, German Nico Rosberg became Finn Tommy Koskinen. The background was generally the same - Finnish father, German mother, raised in Monaco - but by distinguishing him from the driver he was based off of in these ways, I felt more comfortable having him interact with Tamara, to show his opinions, to have a teammate dynamic with her.

This extended to Anthony Harrison, probably the most fictionalized of the drivers. Based loosely off of Lewis Hamilton, Anthony is the son of a black American army mechanic and a white Englishwoman, growing up in that background to become a top Formula One prospect with McLaren.

He enters the plot as a fellow rookie to Tamara, and eventually, the two of them bonding leads to tabloid rumors that they're a couple. A bit of drama that Tamara wants no part in, but foreshadows a later storyline that turns her career upside.

Kazakhstan and Russia.

I mentioned before that Tamara struggles a bit with representing Kazakhstan as an ethnic Russian, but as part of her caught between two worlds storylines, I also had her struggle with her Russian identity as well. She's got it in her blood, but she wasn't born there, didn't grow up there, and has no love for the regime there.

This got more complicated because, in real life, Russia escalated the war in Ukraine a month after I started this story.

One of the cited reasons was Russian-speaking minorities in Ukraine.

That made writing about a Russian from another post-Soviet country awkward, and I wanted to find a way to address it within the context of this story.

Thus, during the 2008 season in LatSoF1, I talked a lot about the Russian invasion of Abkhazia and South Ossetia within Georgia, where Putin and Medvedev tried more or less the same tricks. Using Russian minorities in those countries to justify naked landgrabs.

This allowed me to solidify Tamara's position as someone who was born in Kazakhstan and is of Russian descent, and loves the people of both countries, but does not love either regime.

And come 2009 and 2010, the final two seasons featured in the story, and she gets away from depending on either country for sponsorship.

So, that's a whole lot of background out of the way, now...let's talk about how I wrote the story itself.

Writing Races.

LatSoF1 was my first real racing focused work and therefore in the early days, there were some adjustments to how I wrote things.

I decided on two races a chapter being the norm, thinking it would be an efficient way to get through the season without getting bogged down too much in yapping about a fictionalized version of a real race.

And to a degree, it did its job.

However, I did also end up more or less skipping the Malaysian Grand Prix that first year as I jumped to the race results. I don't think I'd do that now. I'd write about how the race was going overall and what Tamara was doing and then end on the results.

How did I get the results? Well, to keep things grounded in reality, I based Tamara's 2007 results on what Alexander Wurz achieved in that 2007 Williams irl. I can get the results real quick on Wikipedia, maybe go to Racing Reference for an obscure race or if I need more detail, and another thing that helped a lot for LatSoF1 specifically is the old F1 season review videos. I watched the reviews for 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010 in the making of LatSoF1.

For CART stuff more recently, it's been a bit harder to find some specific information for like qualifying sessions from 1989. Some of that stuff is preserved on VHS rips on youtube and I've used those before, but what I've found to be helpful is actually some skills I picked up as a history major in college: old newspapers.

The LA Times and Chicago Tribute have tended to be my personal favorites because they have a significant digitized backlog, and don't require signing up to read through it like the New York times.

Hell, earlier this very day I was looking for some information on the Galles-Kraco merger ahead of the 1989 season - I wanted to know if Kraco stayed in the Compton garage or if they moved in with the Galles team in Albuquerque - and finally found the information in a brief mention at the bottom of an LA Times article.

This one, to be exact:

Thank you very much LA Times for making random stories from June 1989 accessible.

So yeah, sometimes it's easy and I can just get what I need off of Wikipedia and work from there, other times I need to go digging deeper, but the point remains: I find the real results and use them a s a baseline.

All that being said, it would be a bit boring to just slap my OC's name on a real driver's results and call it a day, so once I find what I need, I tend to change things around a bit.

First thing that comes to mind from LatSoF1 is the 2007 European Grand Prix, where Mark Webber finished third, just barely holding off Wurz.

In LatSoF1, Tamara got him in the last corner and took a podium finish.

That being said, I made sure not to get too carried away either.

At the end of 2007, Tamara finished on 18 points with two third places (Canada and Nürburgring) being the highlights of her season. In comparison, Nico Rosberg - and indeed Tommy Koskinen - finished 2007 on 20 points, whilst Wurz irl finished on 13.

Five points gained on real life is hardly Mary Sue behavior imo, so i don't consider that too obscene.

Who did I take those points off of? Well, I tried to keep that pretty even-handed as well, switching Mark Webber's third for Martin Weaver's fourth place in Europe.

Tamara also took Ralf Schumacher's eighth place in Australia from Roland Ziegler. Another eighth in Turkey off of Robert Kubica/Piotr Kaminski, a third eighth place in Italy off of Jenson Button/James Buxton, and a fourth eighth place in Brazil off of Jarno Trulli/Ivan Tripoli.

Pretty even-handed overall. No one driver was bullied for his results, and I didn't cause any massive swings in the championships.

Speaking of all those drivers I just named...

Fictionalized Names.

How did I come up with driver names? It varies.

Some names, particularly for people who didn't feature too much in the story, were just playing around with their real name. I'd put Martin Weaver for Mark Webber and James Buxton in that category.

Other names are little inside jokes I have with myself. I can't think of any from LatSoF1 off the top of my head, but in my CART story, real life driver Rich Vogler is renamed after Saints Row 2 antagonist Dane Vogel.

Why? Because I love Saints Row 2 and that popped into my head when I saw Vogler. Vogler-Vogel, it makes sense.

A good amount of names are ripped from players I had in Football Manager saves. Piotr Kaminski (Robert Kubica) I had at Cracovia in a save on FM21, and later on that same manager moved to Napoli, where I had a Japanese winger named Yoshikazu Higashiyama. I loved that player so much I used his name for Kamui Kobayashi once I included him in the story.

And other names are in reference to other drivers. In the late 2000s, Red Bull had a fetish for drivers named Seb: Sebastien Bourdais, Sebastien Buemi, Sebastien Loeb, Sebastien Ogier, and of course Sebastian Vettel.

In LatSoF1, that's replaced with a fetish for drivers named Max, in reference to their current boytoy Verstappen: thus, it's Maximilien Lecroix for Bourdais, Maximilien Longpre for Buemi, and Maximilian Renner for Seb Vettel.

Oh, and I made Longpre a Luxembourger in place of Buemi who is Swiss. Why? Because I like throwing in a comparatively underrepresented country every once in awhile.

Fringe Benefits.

On a lighter note, this is something I enjoyed about LatSoF1 a lot: it was a Formula One story, but being set in the near past, there was so much little stuff I could touch on. Tamara would have thoughts on geopolitics, video games, TV shows, other racing series, other sports, she'd get to tour a nuclear reactor at one point, she's get to rock some cool outfits, and she'd build up a bit of a car collection.

It was cool!

Most of the stuff I wrote before LatSoF1 was like historical fiction or Star Wars stuff, so it was nice to just be able to write about a person who, outside of an extraordinary job, is more or less just a regular person.

When I was getting into MotoGP for the first time, I could write a scene about her discussing MotoGP with some Italian engineers.

When I was watching Chernobyl, I got to have her tour a Soviet nuclear reactor in Saint Petersburg.

When I wasn't loving Formula One as much as I used to, I had her dabble in sports cars and Indycar during a bit of a sabbatical I had her in.

Speaking of, that brings me to...

What I'd Do Differently Now:

I started LatSoF1 in January 2022 and finished it in June 2023. I still consider it to be one of my best works and I'm proud of it, however, part of writing - and this is for everyone, not just me - is that you're always learning more. I'd say my writing back then was good, but I think it's gotten better now - certainly not perfect, but better - so...what would I do if I was doing it now?

The first two things are more technical:

One: I think I'm better at breaking up big blocks of text now, alternating between paragraphs and short lines, which I think makes for a more readable experience.

Two: I was getting better at this as I was writing LatSoF1, but I still think I could've been better about dialogue. I think dialogue is a bit of a weakness in my writing, one I'm working on, but a weakness nonetheless.

I probably could've done a better job with dialogue in LatSoF1.

Beyond that...I struggle at having my protagonists do things that are out of my character. Part of that is inevitable - write somebody long enough, particularly in first person, and parts of you will bleed into that character whether you like it or not - but it also led to me dropping one and a half plotlines.

One and a half? Let me explain.

There is a part of LatSoF1 after the 2008 season where Tamara loses her sponsorship in F1 and goes on a bit of a downward spiral. I initially had the idea that she'd develop a drinking problem during this point and eventually recover for it, to the point where she wouldn't drink podium champagne and would always just spray it before handing it off to the team.

I chickened out on this because I didn't feel comfortable writing about someone struggling with alcoholism given that I don't drink.

Then we move onto the half.

I initially wanted Tamara to be a bit more promiscuous once she comes out, and she'd have a few different girlfriends and maybe a few one-night stands throughout the storyline. It the end, I chopped this storyline way down.

Roksana is her first girlfriend, she has a one-night stand with Daniella, and then she's with Ysabella for the rest of the story.

Alexis was supposed to be another girlfriend, but in the end she's just the Ferrari PR that follows Tamara around for that little half a season she did there.

Again, my only romantic experience has been monogamous, so I chickened out of writing something I didn't know.

Now, who knows if writing out of my comfort zone would be any good, but I do wish I tried.

As I move on from LatSoF1 and onto new projects, I'm trying to be better about writing outside of my comfort zone. Right now with the CART story I have Vincenza Taghzouti becoming more assertive and combative in the media, arguably taking a bit of a villain role as she battles the American "boys club" of established drivers.

Meanwhile in the NASCAR story, Lilith Zilinskas has been more promiscuous and had a bit of a self-destructive streak for awhile, and now is dealing with her ex-girlfriend reentering her life...with a daughter, no less. This lets me explore some of the themes I chickened out of doing with Tamara, and also adds in a bit of a parenting aspect in the current day that I've never touched on before.

I'm excited to see how these attempts play out, and I hope that by the end of them, I'll have sufficiently differentiated my three protagonists.

Anyway, this has been a long and self-indulgent blogpost, but I very much enjoyed writing it. Please feel free to ask questions below, because I could go on much, much longer about my writing if given the chance.

[adobealmanac]

Hello! I am working through reading through the information on your blog. The search function on this app is notoriously horrible though. Might try to use my laptop. I would like to know if you have any thoughts on the term cryptid

Personally I believe, through experience, that beings that get put into the cryptid category or spirits or gods who would have been revered in antiquity by indigenous people, and still are, and I still do them

But that because of the lack of offerings or resources or praise or worship that they have become accustomed to, thanks to colonization, they are now in a reduced state with limited influence

Uhh. All of the beings who are Gods to me are put in this category. Wampus is a cat goddess. The other one doesn't like me to share his name as much I think but he is devil like. A psycho pomp, guardian of crossroads, teacher of witchcraft, Lord of the outcasts, etc. I would also like to know, genuinely. What you think about this. I want to pray to El chupacabra. Have the Jersey devil and the mothman. Lol. I don't need validation as such but I guess more specifically, what do you think of the term cryptid, and can El chupacabra potentially be honored or worked with, without the destructive aspect? I believe so, personally. Have a good one 🤍

Cryptids - Cultural appreciation or appropriation?

You stated this issue very well. Many creatures that are considered to be cryptids are often removed from their cultural contexts therefore limiting the extent of what their power is -- their origins and folk traditions are effectively lost due to this. One common one I consistently see being forced into the "cryptids" category is La Llorona. She is not a cryptid, but is a vengeful spirit from the Southwestern USA and Mexico. People often use the term cryptid with her.. which just sort of lumps her into a category in which she does not belong. You can't hunt her, for she is already dead. Nor can you spot her, since seeing her is essentially a death sentence.

Due to this "cryptidification" there have been numerous pieces of media that have been published by people outside of her culture that represent her inaccurately. I personally dislike many of the movies where she is the villain, as.. to me she is more-so a vengeful spirit that is easily avoided. She doesn't seek out people, but if they stumble into her territory, well, that's on them. Also, in the movie she is defeated. That is just inaccurate in my opinion, as she isn't exactly defeatable. She is avoidable, but you couldn't kill her even if you tried. I do not like these portrayals, as they misrepresent her and provide incorrect information according to her true story.

In essence, cryptid hunters or cryptozoologists should focus more on the cultural aspects of the beings they intend to hunt or research, as that is a key component to who these creatures are and what they represent. Instead of simply reading other crpto-fanatics own views on the beings. Stripping the cultural background from any entity is in essence only looking at them through a two dimensional lens. You simply cannot fully understand a "cryptid" without looking into the folkloric traditions and tales told by the people who grew up with said being. Essentially, they should try their best to learn from the culture rather than appropriate from it.

Onto this idea of worshipping more "harmful" or "evil" entities, such as El Chupacabra. I've touched on this idea for La Llorona in a blogpost before, however I do not believe all entities can be talked about in the same way. I urge people not to worship, invoke, or attempt to seek out La Llorona as she is intrinsically dangerous. However, I do believe you can work with aspects as her, or a more archetypal version of her, as it is not exactly sentient in the same way that she is. I think El Chupacabra could be worked with if you really wanted to, although I'd strongly urge you to protect any pets you live with prior to working with him... heh. As El Chupacabra does not harm humans, I think its plausible to work with him, so long as you are respectful and protected of course. To be frank, I could see him being immensely useful to work with for farmers, as they could potentially offer him things to keep him away from their farm. But, to each their own.

All in all cryptids are quite the interesting subject when it comes to anthropology and.. "cryptozoology". They provide an interesting accessibility to otherwise little-known folkloric beings, however that is not always good. I do believe that working with certain beings that are categorized as "cryptids" could be worthwhile.. however do stay away from La Llorona.. lol. I hope this provided some sort of insight for you, please do let me know if you have any further questions or comments! Thanks for asking this question, as I found writing this to be quite interesting.

[sshbpodcast]

Good, bad, or somehow both? The [simultaneously] best and worst of S6 Voyager

by Ames

We’re nearing the Alpha Quadrant in our watchthrough of Star Trek: Voyager and the episodes are leveling off to come in for a landing. Most of season 6 of the show is middle-of-the-road, with thought-provoking elements AND missed opportunities abounding simultaneously, often in the same episodes. This was a tricky season for your hosts at A Star to Steer Her By to pick top and bottom episodes for, and our individual tastes really colored our selections more than usual.

So much so, in fact, that for the first time since our coverage of The Animated Series there are multiple episodes featured on both the tops and bottoms lists! There’re also a good number of episodes we just found solidly good or solidly bad, so see where they’ve fallen in our picks below and listen to this week’s podcast coverage (season wrap starts at 1:00:03) which features extra picks from guest star Liz!

[images © CBS/Paramount]

Top Three Episodes

While we weren’t as wowed as we were for previous seasons, the episodes of season six tended to be more character-driven, personal, and driven by the hope that drives the Voyager closer on its journey home. There’s some good stuff in these quieter, more overlooked episodes that we want to shout out to.

“Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy”: Jake Every so often, Star Trek gets comedy right, and surprising no one, it’s usually when the Emergency Medical Hologram is involved. Robert Picardo just brings so much to even his smaller moments that it’s commendable, and good to see his turn as the Emergency Command Hologram to showcase a bunch of good jokes. Too many jokes perhaps? You be the judge since we’ll hear more about this episode shortly…

“Spirit Folk”: Chris Another episode we see multiple sides of is the sequel to the earlier episode “Fair Haven” (more on that in a moment). Again, it’s one of those comedy episodes that you find yourself either laughing or groaning at, but this one had some really fun moments. From the townspeople turning from NPCs to protagonists, to the Kathryn-Michael relationship feeling more right, to the zany witchcraft, there’s something to giggle about.

“Life Line”: Caitlin What’s better than one Bob Picardo being a diva? Two Bob Picardos being divas, of course! The relationship between the EMH and his creator Lewis Zimmerman is so fraught that it’s almost too familiar (you’ve seen our Parents in Star Trek blogpost, right?) and yet so nice to watch them grow together and come to understand each other, even if it’s just a little bit.

“One Small Step”: Ames Much of this episode is hauled up by some really lovely scenes from frequent Trek face Phil Morris as Commander John Kelly. We get to see this doomed astronaut’s final logs after he was lost in a space ravioli, and they’re so touching that they warm the cold heart of a former Borg drone. Seven gets to see firsthand why we honor historical milestones and the amazing people behind them.

“Child’s Play”: Jake We also talked in our Parents blogpost about Icheb’s monstrous mother and father who are very firmly in the worst category of parents, but this episode itself is also a bit of a fascinating story. The Brunali are a people constantly attacked by the Borg and they are willing to create and sacrifice their own children to take them down. What we get is a great ethical dilemma for Seven to solve when she herself becomes a protective parental figure and it’s lovely to see.

“Pathfinder”: Chris Finally, a moment of hope for the Voyager crew after their attempts to get home keep getting dashed over the course of the previous seasons. It’s a lovely victory for Barclay, and we also get to rejoice in watching him concoct a plan to get in touch with his latest obsession, with the help of a holographic recreation of its crew and also Troi, who is useful for a change! Sure, Reg’s holo-addiction is still a problem, but he’s using it to his advantage.

“Memorial”: Ames, Caitlin This episode is bound to elicit a response because of how much (and how well!) it depicts how people react to trauma. The PTSD that the whole crew ends up suffering from is something that’s so important to see as a focus, and it’s so very human (or Talaxian a little). On top of that, we get a unique perspective on how people spread their histories, and the way they go about it is about as messed up as histories themselves tend to be. No species will ever learn.

“Blink of an Eye”: Caitlin, Jake Speaking of histories, “Blink of an Eye” tells the story of a whole society’s development over eons in a single sitting. It’s one of those episodes that is told in such a fascinating manner that it captures your attention and your imagination. Each little vignette from the hyperfast aliens is a perfect little bite from their society, exactly the right size to entice. And ending the whole thing with a moving performance from Daniel Dae Kim? Delicious.

“Riddles”: Ames, Chris Wrapping up our list is a true dark horse candidate, the surprisingly moving and delicately handled episode of rehabilitation and recovery, told in a way that is supportive but strong – just like the Neelix-Tuvok relationship. These two may be most frequently paired together as the comedic odd couple, but when Tuvok is impaired and Neelix is there for him, it reminds you how sweetly their characters fit together. I love their weird love.

—

Bottom Three Episodes

Not a ton of truly bad stuff this season, which is where disagreements in our lists tend to come from. When there’s not a lot to choose from, we get nitpicky. And when we get nitpicky, we get pedantic. The real missteps that were made this season… well, you’ll see those too.

“Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy”: Ames While this episode made one tops list, there’s also some squicky characterizations that drag it to the bottom as well. The Doctor is shown to be conceited, lewd, and downright gross in many of his fantasies, making us all cringe through scenes of him painting Seven in the nude, fondling Janeway’s bottom, and combating every female crewman’s insatiable thirst. And the alien antagonist Phlox, whom we’re supposed to unwittingly forgive for his earlier scenes, is just a power-hungry fascist. There, I said it.

“Spirit Folk”: Caitlin One more substantial disagreement is that other comedy episode that we mentioned above since so much of the funny gags and jokes are just downright stupid. Everything is way too convenient, we miss all the opportunities to explore the rights of these holopeople, and, frankly, “Who Watches the Watchers?” did the premise better. But that was another episode that we disagreed on back in the day, so who even knows anymore? And we’ll never hear from this holoprogram again anyway! Ack!

“Fair Haven”: Ames, Jake But we’re not done shitting on Tom’s little Irish village just yet! Why literally everyone on the crew was SO into a simple open sandbox Ireland world in the holodeck was beyond us, for one thing, but the romance between Janeway and Sullivan was just as perplexing. We were stumped where the conflict in this episode was even coming from because the only way for it to work was to turn the captain into a lovelorn, giggling schoolgirl and that doesn’t make sense. Delete the episode.

“Good Shepherd”: Chris, Jake We loved the TNG episode “Lower Decks,” and this cobbled-together mess is no “Lower Decks.” The three minor characters are boring at best and utterly obnoxious at worst. When Janeway decides to take them under her wing, anyone watching can’t help but wish she just left them in the bowels of the ship where they belong. And making matters even worse, any chance any of them has to grow as a character is negated when Janeway practically single-handedly saves the day anyway!

“Barge of the Dead”: Ames, Caitlin, Chris Like with “Sacred Ground” which we disliked so much several seasons ago, any exploration of religious faith just doesn’t work on this show. So Gre’thor is just a real place you can consistently visit by having a near-death experience? That’s a thing that this show has now established, and I’m personally peeved off by it. And Torres, who doesn’t even believe in this stuff in the first place, is completely out of character all episode long! Today was NOT a good day to die.

“Fury”: Caitlin, Chris, Jake Another of our good friends who’s entirely out of character is Kes, who returns from a perfectly good farewell and shits all over “The Gift” for no good reason. It’s like the writers forgot what kind of person Kes was in order to make this episode work. We don’t get to know why she became so embittered and scornful, but someone just decided it was so and dragged poor Jennifer Lien in to act in “Gaslighting: The Episode.” Things were great for you, Jennifer, because we say so.

—

So who’s right and who’s wrong and how is it simultaneously everybody? That’s how middle of the road this season was. We’ll be back home on Earth in no time at all, so make sure you’re keeping up with us here and on the podcast over on SoundCloud or your favorite podcast app, hail us on Facebook and Twitter, and stay out of Fair Haven. It never ends well.

[glistering-melon]

(Permission gained to post!)

I can't wait for the update to come out so! Headcanons;

-Specimen 5 looks very close to a Warden

-Lalna originally started studying sculk through its capability to store experience / energy after discovering it while mining for materials to use in machinery.

-Nano (and eventually Lalna) are sensitive to sound, Nano more so, and Nano has degrading eyesight (as wardens function entirely off of hearing). Specimen 5 is very sensitive to sound, more so than Nano, and her and Lalnable tend to use sign language whenever sound is too much.

-Are the 3 infected more violent, or possibly - what if Lalna and Nano eventually start trying to keep away from any killing to stop the spread (as experience causes sculk growth)?

-What is Mother? Is she, perhaps, what created the Wardens and destroyed the underground civilization?

When Minecon live was going on I said the new sculk blocks reminded me of how flux spreads in Thaumcraft… now that the snapshot is out, here’s an AU! Sculk Buddies, I guess? Slash Flux Buddies in modern minecraft AU. Nano’s sapphire is an amethyst shard, plus her flowers becomes a spore blossom. and although you can’t really tell here, Lalna’s goggles are meant to be the colors of spyglasses.

[diana-fortyseven]

Hitman Freelancer - From CTT to Launch

Link to IOI's new Freelancer blogpost.

Read my thoughts and opinions on the changes under the cut.

This should be interesting, since I was one of the lucky people who got to participate in the Closed Technical Test. 😀

MERCES ECONOMY To improve the immersion around the economy, we changed the Merces amounts to seem more valuable by adding two zeroes to all values (Example 5M is now 500M).

YES! I appreciate that a lot. Seems like a minor thing, but it really felt cheap to kill someone for the low low price of 5M.

PRESTIGE OBJECTIVE COMMUNICATION AND QUALITY OF LIFE Freelancer has a help section called Field Manuals in the Intel menu page. Here, you can find a description of the available Prestige Objectives and the specific rules for completing them. This information is quite hidden, so we have dedicated a wall setpiece to show that information up front, so that the players can plan ahead. We also added an option to reselect the chosen Prestige Objective, so that it’s possible to change your mind when considering the choices between objectives, locations and gear in the planning phase in the safehouse.

I appreciate both of these changes! Some Prestige Objectives weren't really self-explanatory, and I have to admit that I didn't know about their description in the Field Manual section. 😂

Super happy about the chance to reselect Prestige Objectives now!

PERSISTENT ITEM VERSIONS OF SELECT FREELANCER TOOLS We have chosen to stick to our design around the rules for losing Freelancer Tools. To alleviate the frustration that some players feel around losing their favorite gear in the Freelancer Tool category, we have made new versions of these tools that are known as ‘Collectors Editions’ that can be purchased and stored persistently on gear walls. To phrase this in a different way, a player can choose to buy a rare lockpick that will not be lost on Campaign fail, for instance. We also added some UI-tags on the Freelancer Tool items so that a player can always see if an item will be lost on a mission or is bound to a campaign.

Okay, this is amazing! There were items I never took on missions with me for fear of losing them, so I greatly appreciate this change. Thank you for listening to our whining, IOI. We love you.

BASE PAYOUT We have added a ‘base payout’ that the player will earn for completing the mission. This means that players can earn money even without doing the optional payout objectives or prestige objectives. This makes earning money a little bit easier, helping less experienced players slightly. The base amount is higher for Showdown missions, which addresses an issue we saw in the metrics from the CTT, where players would earn less money in average on Showdown missions.

This is a good change! It felt a bit odd to give the client a freebie when we couldn't complete any of the optional objectives for a mission.

For anyone who doesn't know what I mean: Some objectives are tied to using specific weapons that you may not own (and may not able to afford yet), and some objectives were impossible to complete because they were contradicting other objectives.

COMPLETING CAMPAIGNS We added a large Merces payout for players that manage to complete a campaign, to celebrate this effort more. We also made the Reward Crate item drops follow the difficulty in a more reliable way, so that the gear that is earned matches the accomplishment in a better way.

This is appreciated! It won't matter later in the game mode, when we have enough money to buy whatever we want, but I think it'll make a big difference in earlier stages.

I also really like that Reward Crates drop items that match our achievement.

(When I completed my first full campaign in the CTT, Diana gave me a circumcision knife as a reward lol)

PAYOUT AND PRESTIGE OBJECTIVE BALANCING We found that some objectives were a bit skewed regarding reward and difficulty, so we balanced payout values based on success and popularity metrics.

Another good change! The Prestige Objectives pay really well, but the payout was always roughly the same, which felt odd. Some Prestige Objectives are easy, others are fucking impossible lol.

UNDERGROUND LOOKOUTS In the CTT, we saw a lot of frustration from players failing showdown missions (and thereby Campaigns) by being spotted by Underground Lookouts in ways that felt unfair. To improve this, we introduced a grace-period so that a suspicious lookout can be dealt with before the suspect network is alerted to escape. We also made lookouts telegraph this with animation, to make it more visible which NPC is a Lookout, when suspicious. Lookouts are still a pretty hardcore addition to be respected. Also, lookouts can still be alerted from distance (for example using a well-placed bullet impact distraction or deliberately positioned body) to support that the player can trigger an escape-scenario deliberately for a sniper strategy or similar.

Oh god yes! Thank you!! These instant evacuations were a pain lol!

I generally really like the idea of having lookouts to be wary of, though. They really added a nice complication to the game, and I'm happy to see they were tweaked to be more forgiving and less unfair.

SUSPECT EXPLOIT The Closed Technical Test helped uncover some exploits around suspects in Showdown missions. Now it is no longer possible to use body containers to verify if a suspect is the target. We also added a Merces punishment for eliminating a suspect that isn’t the target to disincentivize the strategy of killing all suspects indiscriminately, thereby bypassing the investigation gameplay of the Showdown missions.

Aw fuck, there goes my strategy lol.

Damn. Understandable, but... Some of the suspects "tells" weren't really telling, and it was at times impossible to identify the target by observing them.

COLLATERAL We added a small Merces punishment for killing innocent civilian NPCs. A big fun factor in Freelancer is that it loosens up the stances on preferred gameplay styles that the main game has cultivated and lets players try more aggressive play styles, for example, without punishing or pointing fingers at alternative approaches. We didn’t want to change this, but still wanted to have the game mechanics encourage killing targets over civilians.

I'm happy with this.

NUMBER OF SUSPECTS The number of suspects were found to be too overwhelming on higher difficulties, so these have been scaled down a bit.

Another good change! The later Showdowns were incredibly tedious due to the sheer number of suspects to observe! (One of the reasons why I started using the body container exploit.)

INCREASED VALUE FOR ON-MISSION STASHES The stashes that are found on location have been tweaked so that they contain more valuable gear. To balance this out, there are now fewer stashes but our hope is that they’re worth exploring for.

Thank you! God, it was frustrating sometimes to make your way to a stash, just to find a rusty nail, a fish, and a fire extinguisher... for the millionth time. 😂

GEAR PROPERTIES We balanced some prices and gear capacities for specific items based on metrics and player feedback.

Oh! I was hoping they'd do that... But I also hope this doesn't mean they increased the gear capacity for the lockpick, which was a thing people brought up a lot for whatever reason. (The reason was that a lockpick is more valuable on a mission than a crowbar, and therefore should come with a higher gear capacity to balance that out.)

CHALLENGE BALANCING We got feedback that some of our values for the challenges were ridiculously high and would frustrate completionists too much, so we lowered these to feel more reasonable (while still providing aspirational goals to shoot for).

THANK YOU!

TWEAKS ON TEXTS We received feedback on some of the in-game text that wasn’t formulated as clearly as it could be, especially around objectives. We’ve made some revisions to address that.

Oh right, some were really confusing. Glad to see they took that feedback.

ALT+F4 EXPLOITS The test revealed a number of ALT+F4 exploits similar to what we know from Elusive Targets. We investigated removing these but they can’t be separated from when the game is exited during a power-outage or crash. With the roguelite consequences in Freelancer we decided to favor players that are unlucky enough to experience this.

As someone whose game crashed during her first showdown, I'm happy to see that they won't punish players for experiencing this.

I'm sure it won't happen when I'm playing on my PS5, because I very rarely experience crashes during normal gameplay, buuut... it's good to know that I have a way out if I got unfairly spotted through a wall or something. Hehe.

And that's all, folks!

What are your thoughts?

[doorbloggr]

Friday 11/6/21 - Media (maybe) Recommendations #6

Contents this week:

Anime: Goblin Slayer

Anime: Keijo!!!!!!!!

It's Friday and I didn't post much this past week. Time is a blur, and I haven't had a chance to watch any new anime for a couple weeks now. Sometimes it's hard to get into a new series, may it be finding the time, or finding something that you'd like. With this train of thought in mind, for this week's Friday Media Recommendations, I'm gonna discuss 2 anime that I enjoyed, but are hard to recommend.

I am prefacing these recommendations with the notion that these two series are EXPLICITY not for everyone.

Anime: Goblin Slayer

The High Fantasy genre of fiction has wide appeal in every medium. For anime fans specifically, High Fantasy is a category welcome to fans of all types. There is Slice of Life Fantasy, Romance Fantasy, Shonen Fantasy etc. But while I would usually recommend every Fantasy Anime I've watched, Goblin Slayer is not for everyone.

Here's my pitch. Goblin Slayer is set in a high fantasy world with a very simple magic system and a clear schism between "player races" and "enemy races". The world operates very similarly to how a Dungeons and Dragon Anime would work, and during the opening, it even hints that all members of the main cast have their fates decided by the roll of a dice. The titular main character has a dark backstory that has meant he has sworn to dedicating himself to specifically hunting Goblins.

Many adventurers look down on the Goblin Slayer for being an expert at such a low rank enemy, others recognise his talents, but think they are wasted on only hunting Goblins. In a light hearted fantasy story, the Goblin Slayer would be a quirky fun character, but this anime is deep and very dark.

It's hard to explain how without spoilers... Characters die in this anime. Characters we get to know first, and then we see them ripped to shreds, imprisoned, abused, and if they are saved, they are never the same again. Goblin Slayer does not shy away from depicting the most gruesome, heinous acts happening in real time to fleshed-out, named characters, in very vivid detail. If this anime was actually a D&D game, then the DM is actually trying to break his players, and punishes every wrong decision with a potential party wipe. And this cruel DM tells them the second by second details of how their characters are tortured to death.

Now this anime has its light hearted moments. It has its wholesome moments where characters smile and care for each other. There's even hints of fanservice here and there. It is a High Fantasy like any other, where the adventurers go on quests, protect the towns, and recieve gold and level up. But it's also potentially traumatising.

I enjoyed Goblin Slayer. It is a fun fantasy series where the characters are interesting and the world is engaging. And in an earlier blogpost, I said watching the first four episodes will help make your mind up.

With Goblin Slayer, this is not the case. Episode 1 is the most gruesome and heart wrenching episode in the series. So if you are squeamish at all and cannot handle detailed violence, do not watch Goblin Slayer, do not watch even the first episode. But if you watch Episode 1, are a bit shaken up, but keen to see where it goes, the series only gets better from there.

Anime: Keijo!!!!!!!!

I am a relatively cultured nerd, I like depth and substance in my media, but I am also a bisexual, single young man who has never been in a relationship, so I appreciate senseless fanservice.

Fanservice is a very divisive topic within anime fans. Blatant lewd themes can be very out of place in some series and may ruin an otherwise serious mood. Many anime enjoyers may think that explicit fanservice in general has no place is an otherwise diverse, accessible genre of media. What if the genre devolves toward no story or meaning, with series of just boobs and butts? Well I have bad news for you.

Keijo!!!!!!!! (yes the official title does have 8 exclamation marks) is a sports/shonen anime about an academy of girls fighting in the competitive sport of butt-powered watersports. The series follows a group of girls who have specialised movesets that could set them to be champions in a sport where the rules are: use your butt (and only your butt) to knock your opponents off a floating platform into the surrounding swimming pool. Keijo is the ultimate brain-off degeneracy anime, where it does not even try to hide the fact that the series' selling point is the celebration of the female form in a swimsuit.

Like Food Wars, an otherwise simple concept is given depth by presenting each athlete's attacks as superpowers with shonen-style special effects and weight. Every fight has you on the edge of your seat as the girl's behinds become lethal weapons of (m)ass destruction. There is a set goal to the story, as Nozomi, the MC, has aspirations to take her academy to the top and become a world renowned sponsored superstar, the best of the best of hip whip combat.

I am not gonna excuse the series as having hidden depth beyond its fanservice, the fanservice is 100% the main attraction. And if you are not a fan of fanservice just for the sake of it, and I fully understand people who dont, then probably give Keijo a miss. But if you are willing to give a chance to a show about pretty girls weilding their butts as watersports weapons, Keijo is a very fun anime that is not afraid to celebrate boobs, thighs, tummys, and butts.

[glistering-melon]

(Puts my hands on your shoulders) Cheery, I made no mistake asking you and am VERY EXCITED to hear it all.

(Response / thoughts below the cut; 5+ paragraphs long)

Rythian as the Dawn King being a role he dislikes but grows into by request from the people could be neat!!! Perhaps he also eventually takes the role out of worry with "I want to see this place thrive now; I don't want the Dawn to ever revert to hostility and I want to foster its connection to the Brightlands and Twilight. And who else do I trust to do this that isn't already running their own kingdom? Nobody."

Just don't call him King; for a while he probably won't like it unless you're a close friend.

ON TO ZOEYA.

I adore reincarnation for Zoeya here. Imagine the mythology surrounding her! This built-up mythical image the Twilight has of their queen, that when her time comes to rest, a new blossom will sprout, and it will be the job of the people to raise their new queen knowing her heart will be good and strong.

Does she remember any of her past, or is it told to her in stories? How is it chosen who raises her next reincarnation (does her previous decide? is it a matter of debate?)? How great must the pressure be, to not only live up to her own ideal of what a good Queen is, but to live up to her self as the people once knew her?

Was it not a bit calmer, or was it terrifying, to wake one day with none of that on her mind and be able to just be herself?

WAIT GOD. The one positive of nuke-induced amnesia; she had a short period of her life without responsibility, where she could grow up away from the constant pressure and learn what it's like to be her.

(from @/glistering-melon) What are your thoughts on the End/Twilight wars :0?

>:D Cosmi I am so glad you asked

OKAY SO

I've actually spent all day on my WorldAnvil Twilight Forest project which is a total wip BUT I have so many thoughts on this. Presumably the End/Twilight war is just that--a war between the End and the Twilight. Self explanatory, right? NO! In Blackrock canon, the End used to be the Realm of Dawn, just as the Twilight Forest is the Realm of Twilight. It was peaceful, prosperous, and NON-HOSTILE! Why would they have any reason to go to war with the Twilight Forest?

So, presumably, the war started after the Incident (when the ritual went wrong and the life got slorped out of the land). So, the Dragon must have declared war. Or, the Twilight declared war. But I don't think so. In all of Rythian's Word of God posts, the End always seems to be the aggressor, complete with Rythian (the character, obvs) being groomed to be a warlord. The implication of the End trying to invade the Brightlands is that they also tried to invade the Twilight Forest. But why?

In The Princess short story, the Dragon's motivation was ensuring immortality for herself and her people (initially her mother). But the ritual went horribly wrong. Perhaps the invasions of the other dimensions were efforts into finding a cure for the transformation?

In my mind, the timeline goes:

The Princess short story > the invasions start > Zoey is born (or reborn--I have Reincarnation Thoughts) > Rythian is born > Rythian is kidnapped > Rythian grows up and escapes the End > Zoey leaves the Twilight > the Old World + Blackrock Chronicles > Zoey reclaims her throne, the gang slays the dragon, and Rythian restores life to the End by working with the Twilight and Brightlands, not against > Zoey is queen of the Twilight and Rythian is the king of the Dawn and they get married and live happily ever after

And time does pass differently in the Twilight Forest. Combined with the ruined and deteriorated state of the Forest in the mod (and the wiki descriptions, which I've copy-pasted into my WorldAnvil document), I think that Zoeya's departure started the deterioration of the Forest. The civilization is dying without her. The mushroom castle is deserted, the houses are crumbling, the most powerful beings are hostile. The realm is no longer united, but a hodge-podge of fiefdoms (see KirinDave enlisting Strife to kill a Lich, which they can't do themself because of "politics"). In the Overworld, the mushrooms speak a different language and are fighting each other. Presumably, Jeff and his faction are rebelling against the Twilight Forest, which is unable to reassert control due to Zoeya's absence.

I definitely think that both the End and the Twilight Forest--specifically, the mushrooms of the Twilight Forest--are imperialistic. Zoeya's got enough of a screwy moral compass that it tracks, y'know?

Also I have SO many thoughts on Zoey's mere existence

[wool-f]

Money and motivation

In the wise words of Wu Tang Clan - Cash Rules Everything Around Me (CREAM). 

In a perfect world, this wouldn’t be the case, however, in the capitalist society that we are currently existing within, money is essential to survival. 

As much as I dislike this fact, I also am an active enthusiast in buying things, enjoying things and feeling luxurious in all experiences I have. Maybe it’s the Taurus in me, maybe it’s capitalism brainwashing me, either way, I like what I like, and money is a key element to enjoying some of those specific things.

One of my favourite enjoyment experiences, and one of the most expensive hobbies ever, is travelling. In my original blogpost on this blog I talked about how I was lucky enough to be able to travel around Europe for three months at the end of my degree in 2019. 

Unlike some people, I didn’t have the luxury of parent’s lending me money or being gifted the trip, I had to work two minimum wage jobs while also living out of home, paying normal bills and studying full time to be able to afford to go away for that period of time. I had to be disciplined and actively saving money the entire time, while also living a life where I wasn’t starving or missing bills. 

In this blogpost, I’ll go through the methods I used to be able to save, and the habits that I got into in order to strategically save money while also being able to continue having fun. Before I begin, I thought I should put out a little disclaimer, that I realise that not everyone is going to have to same privilege I did and do in some areas, so take this with a grain of salt, especially in regards to minimum wage. I live in Australia, so our minimum wage is quite good, and I have always had a stable financial environment, purely due to luck and the minimal financial literacy education that my parents were able to impart on me. With that being said, I by no means grew up surrounded by money - from a young age I knew what it meant to work hard and smart in order to maximise the return of my efforts, being energy and time expenditure into things is a significant factor in effectively doing anything in life. I have a strong work ethic and often overwork myself in order to meet (sometimes) unreasonable goals that I set for myself, and I’ve learnt the hard way that making realistic goals is the key to achieving anything in life. And so begins the guide on how I saved money whilst on minimum wage.

Step One: Setting Achievable Goals

The most important step is to actually assess how much money you are bringing in, putting aside the amount you need to have for bills and food, and then accurately attribute the leftover funds to enjoyment and to saving. 

If you haven’t saved before, this is probably the most important step, especially to not get overwhelmed or make it too difficult to achieve. 

When I was saving to travel, I was making around $900 Australian dollars a week between both the jobs I was working. So I used the following equation to save. 

Incoming: $900/week 

Rent: $250/week  Other Bills: $200/week Travel: $250 Deposit: $150 Fun: $50

On the weeks that I would earn more than $900, I would simply put the overflow straight into my travel account. 

Once you’ve figured out how you want to separate your pay into your chosen categories, you’re ready for step two!

Step Two: Bank Accounts

This step will differ depending on your bank and the way they organise their app. I am with ANZ, and have seven categorically named accounts. If you can do that with your bank account, I genuinely think it’s the easiest way to actively save money.

Every week I would be so disciplined and transfer those exact amounts to their selected accounts, and tick off the milestone goals I had made for myself in saving. 

I didn’t come up with this method myself. I’ve listened to my fair share of money podcasts, and I found this method the most effective for saving. The multiple account method I have described above came from the podcast My Millenial Money. The method has helped me so much that I tell anyone that will listen and I’m typing it out here now! 

Step Three: Breaking Down Achievable Goals

This might be my favourite step. If you’re anything like me, you get off on ticking off check list items. 

To satisfy this urge, I break down the big goal into smaller, quicker little goals. 

Once I achieve the saved amount in the smaller goals, I almost get more joy ticking off the amount from my list than from the money actually being in the account. 

I think this step also helps to keep the end goal in perspective without it being an overwhelming pressure to get there. It’s like any planned goal - breaking it down into small sections changes your focus from the long run, to the shorter and closer landmarks. 

Step Four: Consistency 

This is the last and probably the most important step. You have to consistently being saving your money to actually reach your goal. This is also something I can’t teach or give advice on, other than to say, just do it. Make it more attractive to your mind to save money than to spend it. Set your habit, stick to it. That goes for anything that you want to stick to in life. Be consistent. 

With that, this brings my guide to saving money to a close! If you use this method, please let me know via my asks box or comment on the post down below! Let me know what you’re saving for and when you achieve the goal using the method! 

Until the next blog post, feel free to follow me on my instagram, youtube or twitter. 

Have a great week :)

[glistering-melon]

I do miss him occasionally

[nissakii]

Manga or Anime, which one is better?

How many of you did ask themselves or maybe discussed with others which one was better: the anime or manga?

And often there is a distinctive winner and at other times you just simply cannot decide.

Why is that?

Why can we sometimes not decide what is the better option?

While everyone has their preferences there are a section of three people: the ones who only watch the anime and therefore reject reading the manga (whatever the reason is), the ones reading the manga and prefer it over all costs, and last but not least the good middle who may prefer one side but also favor the other at times.

In this blogpost we will discuss the big question: Which one is better, Anime or Manga? as we delve into the topic of what makes both amazing in their own ways but also their shortcomings, seeing which one is better in the end, also considering the three types of people.

Anime

Probably most of you started their journey into the world of Anime and Manga through the former rather than the latter.

Usually it’s even the case that some people watch only anime while others who may have liked the anime so much would consider reading the Manga afterwards.

Yet what makes anime so distinctive and wonderful?

What aspects catch our eyes and would let you choose it over manga?

There are many things that you can only enjoy when you watch the visualization of a series you enjoy, whether you have been a Manga reader who waited for an animation of the so-desired series or a newcomer who never had something to do with the series yet get caught up in it.

In comparison to the Manga who may have visual aspects as well when speaking about panels, Anime gives us the ease of not having to put up together movements such as fights, escapes or other scenes by ourselves but we get to see them right in front of use without using much of our brain.

While in Manga one attack can stretch over several panels and even pages, we get to see that in one smooth movement on the screen and not only that is an aspect that stands out on top of that the same scene we can read silently is now connected to auditory feedback as well.

Characters having a voice, sound effects being represented with actual sound rather than writing a word to make the readers imagine the sound themselves and even background music known as OSTs do give the scene a whole atmosphere for itself.

Despite watching something absent-minded or subconsciously our brain intakes all the information we get on the screen and proceeds with voices especially the character becomes more real as he/she becomes more distinctive through voice and movement that most of the people use to distinguish between others next to facial features and appearance.

But there are always the negative aspects that come along, especially if you fall into the category of being a Manga reader that waited for the anime’s airing, usually our brain automatically fills in holes of information which means voices that didn’t exist for a reader may have been chosen differently than expected, which distorts the image of the character that was built up through reading and filling the hole.

In some cases the anime even derives from the original plot and doesn’t go along with the manga storyline anymore, for the better and in sadly most series for the worse. Also since the episode count is already determined many scenes get left out due to the lack of time that the episode has in store or some of the most relative scenes get shortened to an extent that if not for the Manga some watchers would be utterly confused about what is happening on the screen context-wise. One good example would be the latter seasons of Tokyo Ghoul.

But what if you are not necessarily someone who doesn’t know a thing about the manga and the series is completely new to you?

There are stories which take a while to unfold their full potential and become therefore much more interesting towards the middle, yet if you don’t know what motivates you to watch until that point?

If it wouldn’t be for recommendation or people who are a bit familiar with the plotline some might even drop some anime due to the frustration of a slow plot development which might be worth the wait, yet could stay unknown therefore being a Manga reader or at least knowing people who did could give you that safety net of not wasting your time on a bad plot under the condition the Anime sticks to the manga for the better.

Manga

Next to games, light novels and webtoons usually Mangas get adapted a lot, therefore they are valuable source which make it possible to derive amazing anime from it as we see that anime with no adaption source usually don’t get as much recognition or don’t have a thought-through plotline (or at least it seems like that).

Usually the Manga covers much more scenarios than the anime and is in some cases even completed while the anime is still airing or almost finished airing. Other ones are still on-going because they are much more extensive than the anime.

Now what are the perks of reading the manga?

Since the series from a reader’s perspective

starts much earlier prior the anime release it feels like you are bonding with the manga much more before the release comes out, it gives you the feeling of being early and already much familiar with the series.

Do you know the feeling of reading a manga for years and then suddenly seeing the anime adapting that very gem you are reading? The excitement and anxiety of how the studio will implement all of the details or what they might leave out?

It creates a kind of longing but also the feeling of nostalgia as you remember “ah yes that very scene, I have read it in the manga it was so good.”

With some manga even updating weekly or others with more pages but monthly, as a manga reader you have much more content you can look forward to over a certain period of time, not only that but you get a lot of details along with it.

Scenes which usually take a lot of time to understand and rewinding it many times on the screen can seem much more comprehensive in the manga when seeing the things step by step, usually we also get insight of other people’s thoughts through thought bubbles which were left out in the anime or even little details far in the background of the panel that are something like an easter egg provided by the author.

On top of that you get to see little extra comics of some of your favourite characters or a little talk from the author who might from time to time drop some old concepts or original plot ideas that were discarded for the later chapter releases.

Since the manga basically is only visuals with no voices or sounds, for people who might lack a bit of imagination it might be quite tiresome to fill the holes of not having that provided or is bland, yet for other people it gives them the advantage of imagining the characters having the voices how they want them to sound.

Unlike the anime the manga also needs a bit more attention and therefore usually we tend to be a bit more aware or focussed on other things in the manga then in the anime, of course only generally speaking since there are other anime where you are supposed to constantly think along such as Danganronpa or Steins Gate.

There also characters which are manga-only meaning that the character is either not introduced at all as if they never existed or they come in so late that many people won’t even know about them who only watched the anime, in Ouran Highschool Host Club for example we have another Love interest for one of the host boys who was never introduced in the anime but plays a role in the manga, since we are also talking about Ouran, the ending of the anime heavily derives from the manga plot as there was no such scene which means a major change occurred to get a got final episode.

On top of that many backstories and secrets let’s take the former example, we have Tamaki’s, Kyoya’s and even the twins’ story revealed. Yes, you might say, wait, the Hitachin story was revealed in the anime? but many details and a lot of scenes that are relevant as to why they have become what they are, are left out.

Usually story-wise the plot gets deeper and much more complicated, to a point that the reader just cannot stop reading but sadly the anime only covers the inception of a much bigger problem that awaits the characters, but watchers only would never know about that another two examples would be Toiletbound Hanako and Gakuen Alice.

As Gakuen Alice might even come off as a children series if you start watching the anime the manga surely refutes that impression, the anime with 25 Episodes is something like a character introduction compared to the manga where the major events happen and you later on might ask yourself if not for the title and characters: is this the same series I watched on screen? That’s crazy.

So which one is better?

Now the question we have been waiting for after establishing pros and cons on both sides: Okay, I got it but which one is better?

Plottwist:

There is no universal answer to it.

You might take it as a joke or not, but it’s a preference thing yet I encountered many people who actually favoured the Manga due to the reasons stated.

Usually when the anime ends many fans, regular readers or first timers, tend to read the manga at some point because when does the sequel come?

Or will there be a sequel?

Maybe there was a scene that seemed lacking and you heard the manga outdid it.

Whatever the reason is most people tend to have at least a look or two into the manga.

Fans of Attack on Titan, Haikyuu or Jujutsu Kaisen for example just simply couldn’t wait for a sequel and went straight to the manga even though they hate reading in general, since the tension built up just wouldn’t fade away and sometimes that results in people suddenly liking manga more and becoming a regular reader.

Yet there are people who would rather wait for the next episodes and refuse to read from the adapted source, even in the case where the anime obviously is badly adapted or even altered to a point where the story is becoming confusing due to the plot holes that come from the many changes.

It all depends which type of person you are: Watch anime only, Manga over everything or the good mix of both?

Because in the end if you hate reading then the manga surely wouldn’t give you the same experience when you are also a fanatic of amazing soundtracks, animations and so on.

Which one is your preferable source: Manga or Anime?

Which type of people did you already meet?

Meanwhile as I await your comments let me see what the tea brings.

-Makii

[amandajaugustine]

blogpost #3 Amanda Joy Augustine

In Portable Objects in Three Global Cities: The Personalization of Urban Places, Ito Okabe gives insight to how people use portable objects and media such as information communication technologies (ICTs) to inhabit, navigate and interface with urban environments. This gives us greater insight in understanding how these devices contribute to an individual’s identity and interpersonal relationships with people and physical spaces. The researchers had done fieldwork shadowing participants from 3 major cities, Tokyo, London and Los Angeles where they concluded that their behaviours are all relatively similar and could be summarised into 3  categories - cocooning, camping and footprinting. Cocooning refers to individuals creating an invisible bubble of private space in a public area, a commonly cited example would be individuals being engrossed in their phones on public transport. Camping is a practise of scheduling and planning to go to a public space to do personal work involving the use of “bulkier” portable media like laptops. This is usually done at libraries and cafes and oftentimes, it coexists with cocooning, where one removes them self from the possibility of physical and social interactions with their media objects like headphones. Finally, the last category is footprinting which follows the customer transactions and their loyalty to certain places through the use of member reward cards and access cards which traces their movements through different establishments.

It is apparent how cocooning, camping and footprinting is prevalent every day in the Singapore. In a technologically advanced society, majority would own personal mobile devices like handphones, which are especially important for contact tracing during this covid-19 pandemic in Singapore. Unboxing my personal media kit, I realised that most of the time, I leave the house with only my handphone as it has everything I need, such as my bank cards and membership card applications, to go about my day. I thought it was interesting how Ito Okabe treated the phone as daily necessity to people in urban society instead of something in isolation, emphasising how the use of phones have become so intertwined with our lives, it’s hard to live without it, which is something I see in Singapore, where oftentimes everyone is glued to their personal devices. Despite the rather comprehensive study, I found the study to be lacking in its definition of footprinting, which mostly revolved around commercial establishments and the use of loyalty membership cards. Beyond just that, there are many other ways to footprint such as geotagging on social media and devices. Instagram and Snapchat are known for including geotagging on their platforms. Instagram allows users to store or tag their content based on the specific location, down to the latitude and longtitude while Snapchat introduced geofilters which allows users to create and use fun overlays to dress up a snap which are only available at certain locations. Beyond that, there are also inbuilt applications in smartphones such as the photos and calendar app which automatically geotags the locations where each photo was taken while the calendar allows you to geotag the location where you scheduled your meetings. These examples thus illustrates how footprinting has permeated more boundaries over the years.

[arcticdementor]

On bullet-biting and logical reasoning

Something I’ve noticed about myself these days is that there’s a particular class of argument I see to which I am most strongly tempted to respond, sometimes even to the level of playing devil’s advocate, and it basically comes down to being unwilling to countenance, either for oneself or for the party one is arguing against, “biting the bullet” — embracing an uncomfortable or unpopular conclusion of the logical implications of some set of premises.

Most commonly, this takes the form of someone thinking they’ve provided a reductio ad absurdum argument when they’ve really just given an appeal to consequences. Both are based on arguing that A implies B, then, on the basis of B, saying this means A is false. The key difference, is that a valid reductio argument requires that B be false (indeed, in more formal logical domains like math, it’s often that B is a contradiction), not merely that B be bad or unpleasant, which puts it in the second (fallacious) category. It’s the failure to consider that a supporter of A might see the “A implies B” argument and, instead of changing their mind, will instead “bite the bullet” and accept B.

For example, I vaguely remember a case from the now-lost pre-Disqus comments at Dreher’s blog at The American Conservative, on the issue of abortion. One of the lefties made an argument that was basically ‘all you anti-abortion people need to just give up already, because women “entering the workforce” (as it were) in the mid-20th century has made widespread legal abortion a societal necessity.’ My favorite commenter (now gone) responded by first pointing out that the logic (such as it was) of this argument was a bit weak. He then continued by pointing out that even if one did accept this argument, it wasn’t the knockdown case the first person thought it was, because what would prevent a dedicated pro-lifer from accepting your argument… and then deciding that if the price of having women in the workforce is millions of dead babies, then it’s not worth it and it’s time to start sending them “back into the kitchen”? (AFAIR, the reply to that was mostly angry denunciation of anyone willing to “bite the bullet” in that manner as even more deserving of utter suppression than the rest of the right.)

Or the fellow over at Reddit recently who complained that certain premises held by fellow right-wingers about the Boog imply that it would be legitimate for the right to engage in pre-emptive “first strike” resort to violence against the left. I point out that I know a couple of places where (secular) far-right folks have been making just these sorts of “do unto others before they do unto you” argument, some for years now, and at least one in a much more extreme form, so why can’t one, rather than accepting your argument as a reductio, “bite the bullet” and accept that conclusion? (To which the reply was pretty much ‘that’s evil, God forbids it, better to die a martyr than win an earthly victory in that manner and be eternally damned, and that’s all I’ll say — and if you don’t accept that argument as reason enough, despite being an atheist, then you’re a monster.)

(It’s also one of the reasons I also like to occasionally haul out that archived blogpost by one “Solomon Wong,” arguing that fellow “anti-racists” need to “bite the bullet” like he does and admit that “anti-racism” is anti-white and does call for white genocide, and join him in arguing that that’s just fine, because whites deserve to be genocided. I can respect that sort of dedication to pursuing the logic of one’s premises to their full conclusion.)

In short, we’re talking about the kind of argument for which that “Nordic Gamer” “Yes” meme was made.

[bookrecollection]

Do I have a Diverse Bookshelf? PT 1: Geography

I recently decided to part with over 10 bags of books because I finally admitted how I needed space, wasn’t going to read something I bought X years ago, or really didn’t need a book I read once and would never pick up again even if I loved it A LOT that one time.

As such, while admiring my newly organized shelves, I began to wonder about the diversity of what I decided to keep.

Whether we like to admit it or not, what we decide to display in our bookshelves is much like an online social profile. It lets people know who we are, what we value, what we know, and what we might be interested in. 

Outside of the shallow reasons, it’s important to be a curious reader who isn’t afraid to traverse all the different types of books out there. When you do, you get exposed to different cultures, ideas, perspectives, lifestyles, historical periods, contemporary subjects, etc. You also learn about different forms of expression and creativity across mediums, genres, languages via translation or the native tongue. You expand your awareness of well EVERYTHING. And it’s just fun!

So to help me out, I’ll be referring to the categories in this blogpost. I thought I’d tackle each to see how my newly slimmed-down  book collection does by listing 5 books that apply to each.

First up is ...

GEOGRAPHY

According to our reference, reading books about different geographic locations is a must. It helps you become more aware about the world and the many communities (i.e. urban, rural, ethnic) and class systems (racial, minority, income-based) that existed and/or still exist.

Here are 5 titles that jumped out to me about that:

Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli I first read this title in elementary school when I didn’t necessarily understand that Maniac is white while the Beales are black. I did understand that he was an orphan who ran away from a dysfunctional household to find care in a community that needs to cross some world differences to understand each other. I’m also pretty sure I understood there were disparities in wealth and lifestyle. I’ve since reread it several times as an adult; it’s lovely!

Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Soup: A Sweet and Sour Memoir of Eating in China by Fuchsia Dunlop I randomly picked this book up in a travel section at a local bookstore because I wanted to read more travel writing. I still think about it! Dunlop writes about 1990s China when foreign students are just allowed to study there. She really breaks down how much we culturally define and confine ourselves to our gastronomic identities. It’s fun and eye-opening. It’s made me a braver traveler at the dinner table.

A Personal Matter by Oe Kenzaburo This is when I learned the post WW2 literature of Japan is BLEAK. I also vividly remember finishing this book and thinking: If an American wrote this, it would have had one more chapter describing the protagonist’s self-determination to accept his duty and live well. I haven’t read it since that first time, but I remember this as a dark, unsettling and intensive study of a man who must determine whether he wants the responsibility of fatherhood at all.

Love, Anger, Madness: A Haitian Triptych by Marie Vieux-Chauvet Gifted to me by a relative who knows I’m an adventurous reader, this was another BLEAK collection of novellas. At one point, I had to stop reading because I was so horrified by the abuse meted out by characters upon each other. The reason it remains on my bookshelf is because the stories really made me consider how it’s important to read and acknowledge the trauma imposed upon generations by a violent dictatorship. Overall, I think what the author was trying to show is that the trauma runs too deep. What triumph can truly heal that?

Campfire Stories: Tales From America’s National Parks Edited by Ilyssa and Dave Kyu I rarely love an entire anthology, and here is one of them! The editors traveled across six national parks to collect short stories, personal anecdotes, poems, songs and etc. It’s a wonderful collage of the history, cultures and people who first visited and those who did and continue to define these destinations. It’s made me want to see visit more parks. 

So let’s end on that uplifting note!

Next up? Holidays and Festivals.

[govindsrivastava-blog]

Learn To WHAT IS BLOGGING

Friends are going to talk today, what is blogging, what are the types of blogging, How to start blogging, select which platform to start blogging, Why you should start blogging, how to make a career and money from blogging So let's start.

 What Is Blogging?

We are telling you in very easy words what is blogging, you are an expert in one field. And if you want to reach more people than that and if you want to increase your knowledge more then in this way you can tell by writing, this is called blogging. In blogging, you should have good knowledge in one field.

Just like I have very good knowledge of digital marketing similarly you can also have knowledge of any field, such as you can share anything online by writing anything like YouTube, travel, photography, videography.

What Are The Types Of Blogging?

Friends, before starting blogging, you must keep in mind that what type of blogging is, how many ways you can do blogging, which field experts you are, you should first understand, then after this. You should start blogging.

Before starting blogging, it should be kept in mind that you will always choose the same category, choose the same type of blog, then you will work on the same category daily only then you can succeed in blogging.

There are basically 9 types of blogging, from which you can start blogging.

1. Personal Blogging

In Personal Blogging, whoever wants to share information about you with people, how is your lifestyle, what do you do during the day, what is your daily routine that you can share in Personal Blogging, and you can do Personal Blogging can do.

2. Business Blogging

In Business Blogging, whatever your business is or related to any business you want to share information with people, you can do it in Business Blogging. And you can share information with people

 3. Professional blogging

Professional blogging tells him that when a blogger's main source of income is through blogging, it means that he is into professional Blogging.

 4. Niche Blogging

In niche blogging, such as lifestyle, digital marketing, travel, food, if you choose a category, it is called Niche Blogging.

 5. Micro Niche Blogging

Micro Niche Blogging, you must have understood, or is related to Niche Blogging, yes you understand that in Micro Niche Blogging we have a category from inside Niche, such as digital marketing or a Niche is a very different category, SEO, SMO, SEM, PPC, all these Micro Niches that we work on, it is called Micro Niche Blogging.

 6. Liveblogging

Currently, whatever is happening or something that people want to know about, like the Coronavirus and the trend of YouTuber vs tiktoker was going on some time ago, in LiveBlogging we cover it.

7. Reverse Blogging

Reverse Blogging, you can create a blog in which any guest can post or you have an expert team that you can post. That is, there are a lot of people in Reverse Blogging and they all work together on a blog, it is called Reverse Blogging.

 8. Affiliate Blogging

In Affiliate Blogging, you can review Affiliate Marketing Products and you can place Affiliates link. With which you can do Affiliate Marketing Blogging.

 9. Media blogging

In Media Blog, you can post a video blog, you can post Instagram blog, you can post an image blog, you can do Media Blogging related to it.

How To Start Blogging?

Friends, if you have selected which kind of blog or type of blog you will write. So now you can start a blog.

To start a blog, basically, you have to complete 5 steps. So after that, you can do a complete blog.

First, you have to select a domain

You can use HostGator for the Domain Name "I have purchased HostGator for my blog." You have to see the domain name of which category blog you are choosing, you can select the domain according to the same. 

In the domain name, you will always keep in mind that the domain name should be a good name, (it should be the meaning), that domain name you have to take.

The second one that is most important is to buy hosting.

For hosting you can use Siteground, Bluehost or Hostgator. You can get good hosting from these three companies. And you can host your blog there. In starting, if you have a small blog, then you can use the basic plan, in which you have to pay 2 or 3 dollars every month. 

By taking a basic plan, you can host your blog from there.

The third is the most important blog design

In blog design, you have to see that you are writing which category or which type blog. If you have your blog with educations, then you will keep the design of the education type, if you are a technical blog, then you will have to keep the design of your blog accordingly. 

 You have to see what type of blog you are writing (on which category you are writing a blog). According to that, you will have to keep the design of your blog.

The fourth most important blog writes.

If you have completed all the three steps, took your domain, took hosting and thought of desiring to keep this type, then now you have to start writing blogs. Blogposts you can write to them, you can save them in your dashboard.

The fifth most important promotion your blog

When you started posting your blog, started publishing, it has your fifth steps, to do your blog, you can share your blog post on social media to promote blog, you can create backlinks,  You can guest posting.

There are many other ways by which you can promote your blog and get your blog ranked and bring traffic to your blog.

Select A Blogging Platform?

Friends, complete both the above-mentioned processes. You have selected that on which topic you want to write a blog, after what your blog type is going to be, take your domain name, your hosting, design of your blog and start writing posts for your blog.

So now you To see what you have to keep blogging platform, which platform you have to work, in this, you can see two options, first you can use free and second you can use paid.

For free, you have wix.com, blogger.com, wordpress.com and so many other platforms where you create your blog and post it. You can start from here.

 Secondly, you can use these same paid versions too. If you want to go pro, do good blogging, keep everything your own, then you should use their paid versions.

If you want to know that which is the best platform for blogging, then let me tell you that WordPress.com is the best platform for blogging, you can completely customize it in WordPress.com, you can do whatever you want. 

Customize WordPress.com is a platform that is SEO friendly and Mobile Friendly and is a very good platform for beginner.

Where you can start blogging with ease. And from here you can also take a lot of traffic for your blog. There are many such plugins in it, it will help you, to start blogging and to rank you, all such plugins are also found in WordPress.com.

Why Should Start Blogging?

Friends, if you want to start blogging, the first question that should come to your mind is that you want to start blogging queue, what is the reason that you want to start blogging behind it. 

So if you want to start blogging, there is some reason behind it. With which you want to start blogging. There are a lot of advantages of starting blogging, the biggest advantage of blogging is that you can make a lot of money by making money online from blogging. 

If you start writing SEO Friendly blog with little effort, in the beginning, you keep a little time, after a few months you can earn a lot of money from blogging.

The other advantage is that you get a Get More Experience, if you are an expert in a field or an expert in one category, then you can get more good information in that field so that you can get even more experience in that field. 

Will continue to increase if you are telling people by writing, then you will get more from doing blogging somewhere which is your experience.

The third advantage is that you help people, if you are blogging, then you are helping a lot of people somewhere, all the people who want to know about a field, to know about a category. If you post blogs, you help a lot of people somewhere.

The fourth advantage is that you are promoting self, you are writing a blog about yourself, you are writing about your lifestyle, then somewhere you are doing your own promotions by blogging, tell people about yourself. Can, if you like to tell your people, you can still start blogging.

 Blogging Career And Make Money?

Friends, if you select one type, you start blogging. So many questions come to your mind, is blogging also a career, can I make my career through blogging, then friends, you are thinking right. If you are blogging by selecting one category. So you can make blogging a good career too. 

In blogging, if your blog has a lot of traffic, it has a good ranking, then you can earn a lot of money from it, here you can earn from 1 dollar to 1000 dollars, this is not the case in blogging that your 10 dollars If you earn the next month you will not get money, the money that starts in blogging starts to increase gradually, and one day you start earning so much money, which you cannot earn by doing any company job, then blogging There is also a career in money.

Friends, if you have liked this article even a little bit or you have got some information in this article, then do not forget to share it with your friends, because it will give information to them as well, and most importantly, you should tell us how you liked this article.

So that I can keep writing articles for this type so that I can help you.

If you want to know about me and want some personal help from me, you can follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.

 Source- https://www.jetblogging.com/2020/07/what-is-blogging.html