#but we've had this shit for like 100 years and it still sucks

[novi-nonsense]

They should invent a razor that actually works on facial hair

[schnees-and-schnugs]

I just want to say. I voted for Yang "protecting" Blake from Ruby. Out of character for me? Yeah. But consider:

Weiss sticking her weapon in Whitley's face, despite all the outrage, was a just a gag. And we all know crwby are just shit at writing comedy post v3. Their brains got infested with terminal unfunny brainworms that sucked out the ability to make a good joke from their system. They couldn't make edgy jokes anymore because they realized they had to pretend to be a progressive company, but that inclination to be meanspirited as fuck is still actually there inside their souls it just shows itself in a different way. And honestly listening to Kerry Shawcross trying to squirm his way through an explanation for it was much funnier than the joke itself so I'll give them that. Yeah sticking a gun sword in the face of a 14 year old is totally character development material I definitely can tell you went to a very professional and important school for writing Kerry (and he did which is also much funnier than the original gag also). Did it mess up Weiss' character? Not really she's always been a bit of a self centered trigger happy bitch. Slay ig!

Yang protecting Blake from Ruby? One moment that destroyed like... 2 characters. Blake for being the pussiest ass bitch and Yang for being herself post v4. "But you just don't understand abuse victims!!!" Yeah maybe but Blake was introduced to us as someone who could 100% hold her own. She didn't need to be reduced down to someone who needed to be protected from scawwy angwy Ruby. Imagine v1-v3 Blake in your head and imagine Ruby yelling at her, could you imagine she would have reacted the same way? I don't even need to explain Yang like truly what kind of behavior is she exhibiting where she implicitly choses protecting Blake from literally nothing over her little sister. Um !

Now look... It's common to reduce a ship down to the "soft uwu baby who needs to be protected" guy and the "I will protect you" guy in fanon. We've all done it. In our heads. We've all blurred canon so hard for a ship we enjoyed. Ever read one of those middle aged woman eroticas or just any fic on ao3? It's normal. But when canon starts doing that that's when you know youre fucked, son. MKEK are so bad at writing romance all they did was take the common woobification of a couple that fandoms do everyday and made it canon. They literally just made fanon canon.

Also the abuse victims excuse is dumb as hell they wanted us to laugh at Weiss threatening her abuse victims brother with physical violence (when we know canonically Jacques was not above threatening his children and hitting them if he was pushed to that point <3) but now I've got to sit here and act like crwby gives a fuck about portraying victims just because of a ship. Booo.

They didnt do this with Weiss' character btw. We see her get uncomfortable around conflict but never to the extent of what they did with Blake. The difference? Weiss isn't a part of a popular fandoms ship.

[helly-watermelonsmellinfellon]

I'm nervous about Friday because we don't have any plans and the van is still broken down. The order for the new part thing apparently never went through(or was never even placed but the guy will never admit that). So we have no way to get out of here and no way of paying either.

The other place supposedly claimed that we can finally go back there since it's past July and all relevant holidays are over, BUT we'd have to go back to paying full price which is like $130 a night instead of the $60 Dave was getting. We got the discount after we paid for an entire month ahead of time back in November 2022, and they'd let us come back with the discount a few times. But now it's a new year and literally almost a year since then, and they can't keep losing money I suppose.

Dave makes between $70-$80 a day if his boos isn't extra dickish, and there just isn't money for the full price of the room we were in before. Paying for a week versus 7 days individually is cheaper, and of course paying for an entire month ahead of time is much cheaper than day by day, but we don't have it.

So, I'm just panicking over Friday.

And the problem is that room we were is has remained on the site the entire time. No one has reserved it in the entire time we've been gone. We did not have to leave. We could have simply stayed the entire time and wouldn't be dealing with any of this right now.

We don't have the money to reserve this room where we're all cramped and I'm on the floor(the other place had a sofa I slept on). Dave's boss doesn't want to pay for the whole week ahead of time and then just have Dave come into work each day. He's got a terrible attitude and constantly screams at Dave and blames him for everything going wrong when it's literally the other guy fucking everything. This dude is 81 and his 60-year-old son has even taken Dave's side and said he's been doing good work and his father is overreacting and should fire the other guy who is also homeless(he's an alcoholic with anger issues and apparently beat his elderly father so terribly he was hospitalized. Dude got arrested and was in jail for a bit, and now his dad's whoever has power of attorney won't let him back on the property, so he has nowhere to live now and has been camping in their boss' back yard) for being a shitty worker and lazy, abusive asshole.

I just wish things could stay consistent. We'd had a good thing going with the discount and Dave managing to put away some money left over each day just in case. And now we're stuck like this again and it sucks.

I spent my birthday panicking about being trapped in a 100-degree van that can't actually go anywhere. And it's no better now. We're literally just hanging around and waiting for shit to drop.

[hoochieblues]

paddock adventures, part ?/?: Chance's Big Day Out

Finally! Chance got to go for another paddock trip!

Unfortunately for him, this meant going on a lead, going in a crate, and going in the car. Will the torments never cease?

"What is this nameless evil? Woe is upon me."

To recap, Chance has been in foster/rehab with me for two years now. He was rescued by accident from a notoriously bad Romanian kill shelter (we did not book him for release, but he was on the van in place of a dog we had booked and went back for later. if it hadn't been for that case of mistaken identity, he'd have been killed, probably either with weedkiller or a blunt object, or left to starve in a pen. The only two possible options for naming him were Chance or Lucky, lbr.)

He is one of the most traumatized cases our small rescue has dealt with, and he is more scar tissue than dog, as well as being petrified of people. It took me six months to touch him, and he's still horrified by the leash due to very severe catchpole trauma. He'd never been in a house before, and had likely - based on his scarring, burn marks, and behavior - been a street or community dog with very few positive experiences of humans.

He's been a surprisingly easy rehab in most respects.

Today, he loves his sofa, playing with his foster sister, tummy rubs, the occasional rope toy, and snacks. He is a phenomenally sweet, soft dog, a friend to cats, small animals, and birds, and he likes to snooze in the sun and listen to music (no, really. Chopin gets tail wags.).

But, his socialisation still sucks, he's still shit on the lead, and he needs training and exercise work, which was the object of today.

So lucky to have access to this. <3 Attached to the kennels we've sometimes boarded dogs at. For some reason they won't let me put up a tent and live here. For shame.

All in all, it went well. Chance crated fantastically on the way out, travelled well both ways, and had a lovely time at the paddock - most of which he spent yelling at an excavator doing landscaping about half a mile away. He could see it, therefore it must be barked at and he must pee in its general direction. The rules are tough but fair.

He was a lot better about tolerating my colleague's presence, did a lot less posturing and defensiveness than usual, and even did a tiny bit of lead work, even though he really didn't want to.

Getting to play offlead in a bigger space with Peppy made it worthwhile, I think, and ofc she had a great time because she loves the paddock, going on Adventures(TM), and basically anywhere she can achieve Mach 3.

Amazingly, she's still not had any further adoption applications. I don't know why.

Side note: yes, his leg is really weird and the whole back end is questionable. It's under observation. Not 100% sure if it's congenital or - more likely - an old injury (probably RTA or human inflicted) that's just healed weird. It doesn't hold him up and doesn't seem to cause him pain, so holding off on x-rays until a) he can handle stressful vet care better and b) we've fundraised for the stupid amount of money it's going to cost.

In the meantime, he gets light physical therapy and a glucosamine/chondroitin regimen that seems to help, so I'm at least mostly confident the cartilage is in okay shape. He's just miscombobulated (affectionate).

Crating him on the way back was... less effective, and he was Very Not Into walking back into the house on lead, but the judicious application of sausages to front end and gently encouraging foot to rear end (very gently) meant we didn't have to spend five hours under the fuchsia bush outside my front door again, with Chance lying down and refusing to move at all. Which is where we were with leadwork this time last year, so I'm calling it a win for now.

By the time one of is eighty, I think we'll have it sorted.

Next goals: introducing the three point harness prototype I'm sewing for him that doesn't include buckles, jangly things, or anything that clicks, but is somehow secure. It's going to be made of unicorn giggles and mermaid hair, too.

Aaaand now, resting time. Oof. It's been a very hard week, but today was a nice break.

Things we're still working on aside, today was the happiest and most engaged I've ever seen Chance outside of the home. He was confident, playful, and - eventually - moderately relaxed, with tail wags and happy ears. And he kept visually checking in with me, entirely of own volition, which nearly made me do a small cry, ngl.

Bonus: behold, Mostly-Black Shuck.

[mantisgodsdomain]

For the choose violence ask game: 5, 24, and... 16.

(Choosing Violence)

5. worst discord server and why

Listen we have a VERY SOLID answer for this one specifically for BF but we have been in some Very Bad Discord servers over the years. Fandomless, it would have to be [server we were in that gradually devolved into something that counted as a cult by BITE model] or [pokemon server we were in once where a guy called us a faggot for saying that he was getting way too worked up over random NPCs blocking the path]. For current-fandom servers... we're like 70% sure that it we name it it'll get back to the One Specific Guy that made it so very miserable to Be There but uhh

We were once in a BF server which was actively hostile to human life in a way that slowly crept fingers into your skin until it hampered your capacity to communicate with other people and it may have had lasting impact in making us significantly more reactive to people having certain takes on The Hive because we got used to not being able to bring it up in any even remotely negative context without One Specific Guy appearing to tell us not to slander the hive like that.

We are still working on undoing that particular damage but The Hive is one of those places where we find it VERY hard to be even remotely charitable about them because they Suck Very Hard in a way we're personally familiar with so it's likely that the best we're going to get there is, like, "comfortable enough to write a very long essay on how the structures seen present in the hive would harm its inhabitants".

24. topic that brings up the most rancid discourse

...we're pretty sure that having any opinion at all in the Rain World fandom opens you up to being shot on sight? Like, we're not affiliated with the fandom as a whole anymore, but we're WAY too familiar with their Attitude towards takes. Part of the reason we don't participate anymore, actually.

In all seriousness, this is one we've posted about Recently, actually! Every time someone brings up Vi's age and how it's handled in-game, it tends to kick up the WORST discourse. Like, every time, it tends to devolve into a lot of, like... people who have Strong Opinions on What A Child Should Be and a lot of arguing about, like. "if you think she's Not A Kid then it's because you're a creep" and whatever.

We're well aware we've contributed to this, as we have strong feelings on the matter, but we may not be The Best at cohering them into speech - we don't really have the proper tools vocabulary-wise to fully cohere how we feel on the matter, so we tend to just stay away, even if it sucks to see people being Wrong On The Internet.

For our opinion... we've said this before, but we don't really think that a Discord post from 2019 should be taken as gospel for this, and we REALLY don't think that being 17 should mean she should be, like, treated the same as a twelve-year-old or something similar.. A lot of people, to be quite honest, act REALLY WEIRD about this, and we have VERY little patience for the infantilization that crops up constantly in these conversations for reasons we've mostly already stated in aforementioned Recent Post.

It's the sort of thing where, were it any other situation, referring to Vi as A Child would just vaguely annoy us with the modern internet's complete and total lack of any categories between "cute innocent child" and "totally 100% responsible adult" and make us mark someone as a sort of guy we're Very Much not interested in engaging with, as she's Very Obviously aged out of the bracket where she SHOULD be being called a kid, but with the situation as is it makes us lose our mind because Holy Shit, Have You Not Seen The Same Scenes As Us, There Is Baggage Attached To That Word You Have Clearly Not Thought Through.

We wish that this territory of fandom sucked Less. Unfortunately, we occasionally click on works that make us feel like we've just reached into a Get Attacked By Monkeys Box. That is a young adult who commits tax evasion. Please don't treat a woman who worked at a factory for years and was a known patron of an underground bar like she's an eight-year-old who doesn't know what sex is. We've been through this with Papyrus and we really don't want to do it again.

16. you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

WHAT is the appeal of Modern Without Magic??? Why the fuck would we ever want a Human AU of anything??? Why is this a genre??? Why are normal human high school AUs a thing why is it so appealing to reduce characters that used to be something Interesting down to Human High School Guy #627482 we don't understand

[torchickentacos]

In 2022, I really didn't do much besides online courses and medical stuff (lots of starting meds, them making me sicker, and stopping them) BUT tumblr was the highlight for me. WHich I KNOWWWW sounds like a lame thing to say, but I'm on year 3 almost of being locked down very intensely, see medical stuff above. And this has been my social outlet. I've had tumblr before but this is the first time I've CONNECTED with a community and made genuine friends. And not some like parasocial online whatever thing, like. genuine friends. Most, if not all of whom are seeing this post probably. I'm an extrovert cursed to her house 24/7, and this has been such a wonderful thing for me. For the first time this year since 2020, I've felt like a regular human being again with friends and a social life, even if it has to be different from most people. The point of this post is not to harp on how lonely/ill i've felt but rather to revel in it being uplifted from me in a lot of ways, to appreciate you all and this year for making me feel... normal, I guess.

So what did I do in 2022, other than feel sick and have friends, yay /genuine? This is the year I got fully back into the Hoenn Coordinator land brainrot (affectionate, positive). It's the year I cut my hair from ass length to shoulders, first cut since 2017, and I'm going even shorter in the new year. I got a cane and started using it. I started making art that looks pretty okayish I think. I finished like three oneshot fics which is, for me, actually not bad at all, one of which I accidentally tagged as underage and had a mini OH SHIT OH FUCK crisis over a week later when I noticed. I STARTED at least 100 fics, not kidding one little bit, fully serious. My computer broke and is still fucky but I make it work. I had a really good GPA until my math class happened, but even still it's nothing to look down on and they still send me the 'join the honor roll cult for 90 bucks' emails that I ignore. I had 4/5 posts go around, some i'm op, some reblog chains. Shuckle, villains who suck ass /positive, and fuck terfs comes to mind. Which is maybe not much in 365 days, but it works for me.

BUt mostly I just had fun, shitposted a lot, and felt like a social being for the first time in actual years, if only two of them. Love you guys. EVen the ones who are going to like this post and we've never spoken and you don't care about my personal life in which case why are you even reading this far but I love you anyways.

I wish you all a happy "2022 is over, HAPPY 2023"

[theomnicode]

What is a serious threat in OPM?

"Like seriously, Cosmic Garou's introduction was the edgiest shit ever, and they even buffed him to Saitama level for a while to make you believe he's a serious threat."

Meanwhile, Garou almost broke his limiter, something that is said to have finally made Saitama break into his godhood status, he monsterized and was running rampant on the topside and he was already blatantly stronger than any other S-rank heroes when he monsterized, sans Blast and he was still growing at an insane explosive rate.

Just because Saitama exists, doesn't make Garou a non-threat. Garou was anything but a non-threat, even before OPM God jumped in. What part about cleaving Sage centipede in half makes him a non-threat?

This crazy guy literally speedran Saitama's "do or die" training in few days. Something that took Saitama 3 years of plain hard work because he was so inefficient.

What makes people think he could not have eventually reached Saitama's power level if Saitama hadn't stopped him before he had quite reached it and then OPM God jumped in to boost? He'd have done that in few more hours, give or take, just sparring against Sai. The only thing stopping him was Saitama being so resilient broke his willpower to get any further. Not really Saitama punching him. When he lost that willpower, he got punted and broke to pieces easily. Like his entire ideology that he does not 100% submit under of not wanting to become a true monster, was his downfall.

Just like mosquito girl mosquitoes, individual mosquitoes are pathetically weak and unnoticeable but unstopped she'd have just sucked up all the blood and kept going and suddenly unnoticed by anyone, become God level threat and sucked all life on Earth from the cumulative effect alone. Death by thousand stings is still eventual death. Underestimating threats just because it seems small at first is costly mistake, one has to evaluate threat levels from more logical perspective than that, with potential to grow as well.

(A fact this guy learned the hard way)

Saitama's presence really seems to skew the reality of what is an actual threat in OPM. The entire world relies on Saitama and his whims and him being a nice enough guy, to handle all the threats others cannot, to not blowing up the world on accident or intentionally, essentially.

A true balance breaker in perspective.

Harsh lesson to learn too late.

Relying on one person to save the world and the universe, that is and pretending Saitama's existence makes things non-threat. Saitama will "eventually" arrive and take care of everything, naturally. He can time travel, there is nothing he cannot do now right? And erase causality like nothing happened if the consequences are too severe. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

That's what we've been led to believe in the story.

Nothing bad can have permanent consequences as long as Saitama exists in the story because Saitama solves everything.

It's only natural we'll have to subvert this expectation. ONE style. How classy.

(Genos sees the tree but not the woods, the small details, and Saitama sees the woods but not the trees, the bigger picture perspective wise.)

[magicalara]

So...2022 huh

It's time for Em's yearly letter to the blog where I talk about it since the new year's coming in about an hour and a half in my timezone. Prefacing this with a tw for talks of depression, anxiety, horrible friends, and no proof reading. Here is my word vomit and if you don't get to the end, happy new year everyone.

So 2022 was one of, if not the, worst year in my 19 years of living. It started off with the pressure of a class which if I didn't pass, would essentially mean I couldn't go to college, and is ending with me having to walk on eggshells around people and feeling just...so anxious and depressed. Before I get into that, however, in order to save the people I want to specifically call out from having to hear about my depressing word vomit, I'm gonna mention them first.

So I can't make a new year's post without tagging my girl @pinktea99 who has been around for what feels like ever. I think it'll actually be two years of our friendship early next year I don't remember for sure, it might be three...time is fake it doesn't matter anyways. Between the amazing fanfictions you used to make that I still go back to every now and then and now just tagging me in posts you think I'd like, Mo you've been the biggest supporter I've had since I practically started posting real shit on this hellsite and I could not be more grateful. You're on of my biggest inspirations and I love and adore you so much. Let's go into 2023 with just as much happiness as you've given me in 2022 and even more. I love you so much, my dear 💜💚

Next up (and honestly the only other person I have to tag oops 💀) @docmartensanddietcoke my beloved. We've only been friends for a few months now but hot damn do I feel like we've known each other for years. We clicked so quickly and it kinda scared me at first but in such a good way??? Idk but you're amazing and so sweet and passionate and I just love talking to you so much. You've made me so excited about writing again after so long of being stuck in an endless loop of writer's block and just general insecurity that led to me not posting. I'm so happy I met you and I can't wait to see what 2023 brings us. Much love to you and thank you for showing me the pleasures (nudge nudge wink wink) of the pairing that is William T Spears and Mey-Rin 💜♥️💜

Okay so now the other stuff lol. So if you're one of the 20-30 some-odd people who started following me from seeing all the black butler bullshit I post, you wouldn't know but I used to be a kpop blog. I'm like 99% certain that I privated/deleted all of those posts though so yk hopefully y'all don't see that. I still reblog my nct loves because they are my ult group and I love them very much but I used to like only post about kpop. I had to switch because I just wasn't happy with it anymore. I had always envisioned myself as having a blog full of things I loved but after coming back from a break where I saw the fandoms I loved to interact with having gone to shit, I couldn't do it anymore. So I got rid of it all and rebranded 😃 It was honestly a really good decision though and I'm glad I did it because it reminded me of the reasons I started a tumblr account in the first place: to be happy.

For as creepy as certain sides of the black butler fandom may be, I've never felt so supported. Y'all are amazing and I still can't believe any of my posts got passed 50 notes let alone my top three all being just shy of or completely pass 100. All of the interaction is so appreciated and I can't wait to interact with you all more in the new year <33

With the good, though, comes the bad. So much of the last half of my senior year was full on unnecessary bullshit and drama and breakdowns. From the feeling of being stabbed in the back by people I thought I could trust, to being almost taken advantage of in my first wlw relationship, it just was not a great time. This really sucked, though, because my greatest hope was for my senior year in high school to be something worth remembering as I wasn't able to do anything the previous two years since covid put a downer on all of that. But whatever, I graduated and kept the people I wanted to and dropped those I didn't. It's still a work in progress in dropping some of those people, but in getting there lol

I got my first job, which I still have now, and I love working there. There are better days and worse days (I work in public service so there are always those karen's who will come in) but I love the people I work with and am glad that I decided to take the offer to work there when I did. I have some good memories there that definitely are core memories

I can't do this without mentioning the passing of Technoblade. If you didn't know who he was, Technoblade was a minecraft youtuber and streamer who helped so many people with his amazing and funny videos and his stories that he created on the Dream SMP. He unfortunately passed in June this year due to cancer. When I watched the video his dad made announcing it, the world went silent. I spent that whole night and much of the day after crying my eyes out. I couldn't imagine someone who had brought me so much comfort being gone. Hell I'm still not over it, and I don't think I ever will be. Techno was a huge influence, inspiration, and comfort for me and always will be. Fuck cancer.

I had many family problems throughout the year that I won't get into because that's a little more personal than I'd like to get to on such a public place lol. Just know that to all of you who are celebrating alone this year, I feel you, and my heart goes out to you. We aren't alone if we're all together

The one huge positive that I do have to mention is my starting to watch anime. I decided to take the plunge and watch ouran highschool host club because of a cosplay I saw of hikaru and kaoru on tiktok that made me go "oh what the fuck I'll give". I went in not expecting to finish even episode one and came out with new comfort characters and a world I couldn't leave behind. After ouran, I found kuroshitsuji and we'll...here we are lol

On top of the comfort I found in ouran, I found a series that was so much darker but had such good characters that I started to connect with and love. Grelle has been such a huge comfort for me and I can't imagine myself leaving her (or the series) behind at any point for next long while. Seeing such an empowering transgender woman really did it for me and I'm so happy I decided to watch this show and subsequently binge read the manga. I can't wait to see all the kuro content this next year brings

I've lost people this year, I've gained people this year. I've cried so many tears of sadness and absolutely no tears of joy. I've spent way more money than I should on genshin impact and food. Most importantly, I've found a place where I think I can start to build myself up again. Good fucking bye 2022, I'm gonna do my best to make 2023 my bitch and I think that y'all should join me. Thank you all for being here, and I wish you all a happy, healthy new year

If you've made it this far, new chapter of forever forgiveness comes out in two weeks ;)

[blackbird-brewster]

Hey Kit, hope you'll get better soon. Covid sucks. I love criminal minds is back. I love that they finally made a queer coded person act out her queerness, especially with Nicole pacent. I love her. And the height difference! Hope they'll get a lot of good Screentime. But they've introduced her, so I think she'll be abducted or something. What do you think Rebecca's role will be? Would love to hear your theories (and see who came closest to predicting it right it wrong)

Thank you for the kind wishes. Covid is kicking my ass rn and yeah, it sucks!!! It's still wild to me that CM is *back* when a) they only ended 2 years ago b) I have been here so long and every year leading up to the series being cancelled I begged the universe to let me finally BE FREE. Oh well, guess I'm here forever now. TARA LEWIS IS QUEER!!!! It still feels SURREAL to get to say that. My fave character is QUEER. We have a 50 year old QUEER BLACK WOMAN and I am sooooo emotional about it. I probably remind my partner that Tara is queer at least once an hour. I'm familiar with Nicole Pacent but literally when that one article dropped a few days before the show that said she was joining the cast, I said ['Is this going to be Tara's girlfriend!?']. I'm so glad I was right bc she's absolutely stunning! Even though we've seen approximately 2 minutes of Rebecca so far, I LOVE HER and I am ready to fight anyone who comes after her. I 100% agree that they're going to hurt her though. Bc CM loves hurting MCs love interests (Hayley, Strauss, Krystall, Maeve....) I feel like she's going to get abducted or something and I STG if they kill her!?!?!? If they introduce our FIRST queer character in SEVENTEEN FUCKING YEARS just to kill her girlfriend???? I will absolutely bow out of this show. I think Rebecca will be pretty pivotal though, bc clearly she has the inside info on that littler twerp who's being a pain in the ass to Prentiss (I don't know his name bc I do not care about white men). My MAIN concern is this: I think they gave us a queer relationship (LOVE IT) but we're going to get an EXTRMELY sanitised version of their relationship. I would NOT be surprised if we don't even get a Tebecca kiss on-screen. Me and @gaelic-symphony were talking about this and basically we theorise that we'll get the 'CBS primetime' version of Tara/Rebecca while getting the 'Streaming and raunchy' version of het relationships like Will/JJ Which I fucking hate, of course. But I truly think that's what's going to happen. Like we had to suffer through that nasty Will/JJ scene where they got handsy in the kitchen (*GAG* I had to fast forward through all Will scenes tbrh) and then the quip by Emily about 'everyone getting laid'. Gross. I just want to see Tara being soft and in love and HAPPY. TARA LEWIS DESERVES HAPPINESS!!!! I DO love that they not only gave her an on-screen gf BUT they also clarified that she's dated women before!!! I think that's really rare to see when canon confirms an MC as queer. Usually it's like 'Oh yeah, I'm dating a woman. But it's weird, I've never done this before' which is a show's way of saying 'They're dating a woman but they're not necessarily queer......' (Does that make sense??) So it's EXTREMELY important to me that Tara was like 'I've always been interested in women' so so so refreshing and incredible. I 100% believe the ONLY reason we have queer Tara Lewis is because AISHA would have been the one to push for it. I truly think SHE was probably the driving force of saying 'We're streaming. I want Tara to have a gf and be canonically confirmed as queer' [Which is one of the reasons I believe Emily wasn't the one to be queer confirmed. Bc I don't really see Paget pushing for something like that. I have so many reasons and theories why it WASN'T Emily, but I digress....] It was also obvious Emily already knew Rebecca, so I wanna know the background there! And Emily's 'You know we're going to give you shit about this' (I hate that for many reasons) but I wanna see Luke teasing Tara about being in love (not teasing bc she's in love with a WOMAN, just bc she's in love and he thinks it's cute when Tara lets her guard down) All in all, I don't even care about the plots introduced so far. But I WILL continue watching simply because Tara and Rebecca are cute af and I want to see more of them

[axemetaphor]

my dad got his hands on a copy of Sonic 06 for the xbox and asked me to be his play-tester after having a lot of trouble with that speed level right at the beginning (catching up to Eggman's ship on the beach) and i got as far as the Silver battle before giving up, so here's my notes

DISCLAIMER this isnt an invitation to dunk on the game in the notes of this post alright we've seen enough of that. i dont hate the game. no, really, i dont. i respect everything it tried to be and feel bad for literally everyone working on it because, from what i gather, they were green and facing extreme crunch time. sucks for everyone involved. anyway:

the load times on xbox were VASTLY better, which makes a lot of sense, given from what i know the ps3 has a ... strange way of storing/retrieving/loading data, but they were still pretty long and a little too frequent for my liking. still, probably not anyone's fault, tbqh. i'll have to see if the emulator my dad's working on getting on his PC (finally, he's been trying to do that for years now lmao,) has the same issue to figure out if it's a programming problem or hardware. personally im pretty sure it's just hardware.

it's much easier to steer sonic if you use the camera and his movement, but the camera will still fuck you over. this isnt 06 specific though game cameras are Always hard to wrangle lmao

the animations for this game are so strange... i dont say this as a negative whatsoever. it looks like they were mocapped, which is fascinating to me, translating human proportions onto sonic--it doesnt always work, and i personally wouldn't've made the choice to do that, but it makes me want to study it lmao

the voice acting as well is strange, at least in english; im not knocking anyone's work, whatsoever. i still really love the performances. but i think back to this one tweet i made about silver's intro dialogue where i mentioned that i loved the performance, but the poor guy sounded like he'd done a hundred takes of the audio and was losing grasp of Words themselves (As happens to everybody) and Silver's english VA not only liked the tweet but started following me because of it. this was during the trend of not actually giving VAs context for their dialogue, and not really.. respecting them at all, and it makes me sad to think that maybe they did stick everyone in a box, hand them lists of lines, and make them say them over and over until the director got whatever they wanted--or, on the opposite end, were only given enough time for a single take out of the inherent disrespect for VAs that's present in Many fields

the environments are fucking gorgeous and i was genuinely surprised by how many things i could interact with in the levels. granted, i did get stuck on them sometimes, but i doubt the poor devs got any chance to fix that shit. i liked especially ramming Eggman's Cerberus into a statue instead of the wall and watching the statue completely shatter, that's genuinely pretty cool, they couldve just had it be like the walls, static and unreacting. i also liked how the Cerberus decimated those pillars, but thats mostly because the camera kept getting stuck on them

there's very little active direction in the game, save for the floating (?)s, which can sometimes be wordy enough that ive already fucked up and died before theyre done talking. that's probably on my dumbass though.

collision physics in this game ... sure is. i cant remember if all games from the 2000s were like this given i have more experience with older games (pre-00's) + brand fucken new ones so someone else weigh in on this s'il vous plait.

the pre-rendered cutscenes are still fucking gorgeous. delightful.

so much of this game is such a lovely awkward development-stage kind of thing, like awkward teen years. the homing-attack mechanics make me grateful for the auto-targeting of later games. the way he goes from 0 to 100 is in character but hard to play (unwieldy) and makes me glad for the more measured sliding scale of other games. the sprint parts of the game, where youre just steering him, are so fucking cool but i am so fucking bad at them and im glad that in future games the sensitivity of the controls was turned down. it took me some lives to get into a proper rhythm with it, get a sense of just how much of a hair trigger the directional changes were. tails' attacks in this game definitely felt like they could've been much better (throwing the bombs is So difficult to aim, thanks to the camera and how long the animation for it is) and i'm glad they're different in other games--the bombs is a cool idea, just needed to be implemented differently imo

if you knwo more about the development n shit of this game id love to hear it, all i know is they had serious crunch time to release the game alongside the ps3 as its flagship game and had to cut a lot of steps from the process/cut a lot of corners. i attribute a lot of its flaws (and "flaws") to that tbqh. sonic 06 is not a bad game, it's a game that was failed by its circumstances. i dont know fully, im just an animator, i have never in my life made a proper video game.

also this may just be me but i have a theory that this game was meant to be like the Shadow the Hedgehog game, and not rated E for Everyone after all. the darker storybeats (sonic's murder, elise's death, silver's future etc) all feel like they'd have been better-executed at a level closer to that. it feels To Me like they were developing the beginnings of this game (script, designs) in tandem with the endtail development of ShTH, and when it received pushback for the guns, swearing, and violence, they panicked and had to neuter the story. i have a lot of respect for what the game COULD have been.

[ovaryacted]

hi nic! this was about the recent post u made!

forgive me if im wrong but, isn’t it possible to maybe make a complaint about your upstairs neighbor being too loud?😭 anyway i hope you’ll be able to resolve it soon bc i know way too well how obnoxious and tiring it is to live w a neighbor being too loud😵‍💫😵‍💫

i hope u had a good time outside tho, and have a good day/night!🥹

Hi Hi! Omg I've been meaning to answer, I'm so sorry my life's just been busy currently with everything going on. I did have a good time outside, and I hope you're doing good too!

But you're not wrong! Technically if I really wanted to, and trust me I have thought about it, I could have made a formal complaint to the department of housing in my city and they would essentially come into the apartment complex I live in to investigate the issue. I'm pretty sure the people in the apartment above me would either be fined for the constant noise pollution or get a written legal citation, but I haven't done that because the situation isn't as easy as I wished it was. (Little rant & housing explanations lol).

I live in a very expensive city where like most people in the country, everyone is living paycheck to paycheck trying to find a way to get housing that won't put a dent in the rest of their expenses. To curb that, people rent out the bedrooms in their apartment to other people with one person's name on the lease, so it looks like they're the one paying the rent. It seems smart but this is actually illegal in a lot of buildings and apartment complexes (cause of landlords and shit), including mine, and that's the situation going on upstairs.

Me and my family have lived in this apartment building basically since before I was born, so a little over 20 years give or take and it's a rent controlled building hence why people want to stay here. My parents know everyone here, including the neighbor upstairs that have lived in this building for a very long time. She recently rented out one of the bedrooms in her apartment (3 total because my apartment has 3) to a woman with two kids back in late 2023 and literally ever since then, I've had issues with hearing footsteps, jumping, slamming, everything in the book on the floor above me and only in my bedroom. The rest of my family don't deal with this so it's literally just me, and we've never had to deal with noisy neighbors until now.

At first I really didn't want to get involved because these are new people so I just hoped it would go away, but the noise was literally nonstop. Me and my parents have been going back and forth with that woman and her kids since February of this year to get the kids to calm down or at least just have more awareness of the noise they do make. I mean, I was hearing them from the moment I woke up at 7 am for work, to the moment I got home and went to bed around 12 am. That's insane.

If I were to report the woman upstairs for having her kids making too much noise to the point where it causes me actual distress and I can't be in my own bedroom, the city will come to investigate and realize that my neighbor is renting out the bedrooms in her apartment, and they can all get into legal trouble or worse like eviction. The world is already stressful beyond belief and housing is such a serious crisis in the United States that the last thing I need to do is to be the reason why someone becomes unhoused.

I also am 100% sure that kids are just going to be kids, and they have a lot of energy, they need space to run around and don't always understand why what they do can affect someone else. But at the same time, it's honestly ridiculous that after almost 6 months of telling them upstairs to cut down on the noise, I still hear it from time to time. It's definitely calmed down significantly since then, and I'm thankful for that, but it still irks me when I do hear anything upstairs because I've heard so much of it that anything puts me on edge and that sucks.

I still live with my parents because I'm lucky enough to have my own bedroom and own space, and though I want to move out, it's just not realistic with how expensive everything is and how insane the housing market is becoming. So I kind of just have to suffer for the meantime and hope the noise really stops completely or that little family moves out and I don't have to deal with it again.

[harmcityherald]

I was 100% correct about the dispensary. patients will still need to pay 200$ to get their medical card while jimmy joe bob in front of me gets scott free AND there's no days for patients only. just think they say you (patients) get all these great deals we run instead. recreational dont get that measly 20% off. the great deals that ain't so great and you are out of stock now anyway. you people fucking suck. give me my weed you fucking pirate. I have to tell you the loyalty I had to this place is now dead. I need to find a patients only dispensary. dont exist. why? capitalistic greed. lies from the state oh we will set aside the highest strains for patients. the ones that cost the most, mind you. boy what a fucking favor. im so beside myself. if it were fucking true. stock is fucking gone. I had to choose what I didn't want and pay extra for it. I made no bones about it. cash out all my points Im not coming back here anymore. you shit on your patients who are supposed to be your priority. so Im on the lookout for a better experience as a real patient with my fake ass medical card that I have to continue to pay for according to some shitstain in a suit up in Annapolis state hall who has never even smelled weed but he sure is taking my 200 a year for the weed license which in the state of MD you get cannabis card you can not get a concealed carry license. so Im gonna bet the recreational shitheads have no such restrictions only us patients who followed the rules and paid our dues diligently. we bare the brunt of the taxation laws. we gotta pay for the license, we can no longer carry concealed protection but the fucking crips ahead of me in line have no problem whatsoever. fuckong state of Maryland. what a fucking joke. we pay higher taxes than the rest of the country to live in a crumbling city infested with rats and 9 times out of ten has been honored as the murder capital of the entire united fucking states. they tax you coming and going and even once tried to tax us for fucking rain. rain!! they tax us dry like wringing out a rag for every last drop of blood they can suck from you. and in Baltimore we see none of those taxes go towards anything usefull. our roads are like endless crumbling pot holes destroying our cars and defacing our neighborhoods. my neighbors and I all have 4 wheel drive suvs and its even tearing them up because these fucking side streets are like mountain ranges. its fucking unacceptable. those taxes we pay in the fucking billions goes nowhere in the city or county except into the deep pockets of all the corrupt politicians in baltimore. and don't even try to tell me that the Baltimore city in Baltimore County police forces are in fucking cahoots with the area gangs. They stand back take their cuts and only see what they want to see. Unless of course, which we've had quite a few of them in Baltimore, are the cops that are totally on the take and are out there making their own money on drugs and prostitution and whatever else they can get their hands on. I know I've been guilty at times of saying all cops are bastards but I'm actually too intelligent to actually fall for that because there are some good cops out there and they sure are drowning and swamped in a sea of the fucking corruption. And don't even try to tell me that the politicians and the police in Baltimore are in the pockets of the gangs. There's so much money to be made and they sure are making it off the backs of the citizens of Baltimore. So as far as I'm concerned from the top down from the politician and the police Chiefs down to the officers working the street and into my dispensary where these fucking clowns are pretty much doing the same corrupt things that All State agencies do. The best thing to remember is that your dispensary is not a state run agency it is a for-profit business and they do not really give a fuck whether you are patient or a drug dealer or a teenager hookin school if you got the money baby they got the stash. Fuck them patients. We going to get paid.

I hate America. And somehow I'm supposed to feel a privilege through all this as if I'm privileged in some way. Every fucking thing under the sun is a crock of shit. Learn it early and you won't be disappointed by the amount and tonnage of shit that you will find in your life. Thank you very much ciao now and have a good day I'm going to go be miserable somewhere else.

[hardlicorex]

new blog, new start - from all dat bs

Good morning USA!

So yeah, I got my UCF admission update - I have not been admitted this time around. Also I keep trying to type on this damn keyboard and it's got sticky keys or some shit where it just gets stuck and stays that way repetitively. Anyway, it's 4:42 am - I'm officially not sleeping more than about 5 hours - probably less - -_ so there's that. But Yes, I finally after patiently waiting - got a rejection notice last night for UCF. I shouldn't really be surprised. I haven't done shit in the last several years as well as not going to community college or really working consistently-aside from the past 7 months. I guess I have been working for a year now if you include Panera - so I did start working full time in 2021. I think that was the end of October 2021 so yeah. I guess I shouldn't be too hard on myself - I had to jump in with helping more with finances and yeah - I really have ZERO idea how D took care of everything aside from the food when we first moved here. Like ??? The fuck! Seriously - I have no idea because ALL my money goes to just basic shit. We do NOT have extra pretty much ever. I really don't know what to do. I can't just live paycheck to paycheck without doing anything personally for myself still. We moved her for D's schooling and so his future was better and I 100 percent support that and have supported that - but I have not made my future better or done things to improve my own self - and that is why I am not as relaxed as him - time is slipping away from me - and I have yet to accomplish anything. I do NOT make enough money someway - I still do not understand how I'm making what I make now - 2k a month almost and all of it goes to us surviving- It's really confusing to me. We've been blaming inflation but like I don't know. How did we survive on a 1/4 of that money a year and a half ago? Something isn't adding up. Honestly, I do think the groceries really sucked our first year here but we didn't notice that much and I also smoked cigarettes then so food didn't matter as much (no taste buds lol and it was ONLY a pack a week or so) SO it wasn't really that much at all - we had hot chocolate and D was the only one who ate meat and had breakfast so That makes sense. We had less but somehow managed. I think we also weren't as healthy - there was a lot more mac and cheese xxx :p Anyway - I need my income increase basically 2x as much as it is now to really be able to see a difference in life. I want a car. I want to be able to go shopping and have my own hobbies - I want to fix my credit situation. I do want to go back to school - so I just need to evaluate the situation and get it together. I'm starting to think community college isn't such a bad idea. I just don't know how to pay for it but I guess if I take one of my paychecks a month and that's for car/school and the other is food/work - then bam. I still need to up my income but yeah I need to figure this shit out. Also I have to lose weight still. LOL

[harristops]

your an actual joke to call yourself a fan and speak the way you did about Ash tonight is disgusting it’s one thing to give constructive criticism but it’s another thing to bash her like you did! Also your a hypocrite to call anyone an embarrassment when your talk about too grown woman’s sex life whilst calling them daddy and then giving Ali a paragraph saying how much she’s overcome for them to do that to her on the 150th when she’s been praised and loved her whole career! There’s no one going to be more disappointed in herself than Ash and you just happened to join the toxic crew so I hope you keep that same energy with everybody else but we know you won’t and she did play shit but unlike you I won’t jump on the Ash hate train, I actually liked some of the takes you have on things but tonight was a step too far.

Bro, I am the first person on this hellsite to jump to Ash's defense when she deserves defending. She had a shitty game last night that could have been prevented and her behaviour was unprofessional. It happens. I love her to death and she is one of my fav players but she had an awful game. It happens. Ash isn't perfect and I'm sure she'll bounce back but I didn't bash her, I called it for what it was. Yeah it was harsh, but she is much better than she showed herself to be last night, not only skill wise, but professionalism wise too. I'm not gonna blow smoke up her ass and defend her if she's acting like a child. If she conceded 5 goals yesterday and did it without taking her frustrations off on her backline, was 100% fully healthy, or at least attempted to save even 3/5 of the shots (which is generous), then I probably wouldn't have given her much flack. She didn't do any of that. Gotham as a whole sucked yesterday. Scott is mostly to blame for everything that happened bc his job is player management and he should have seen Ash was off her game after goal #3 but he kept her in and she got progressively worse. If she was injured or too fatigued to play that sucks but she shouldn't have been playing then! We've seen Ash give 100% even when she's standing on her head and still conceding goals. We have seen her fight and be gritty and motivated and she looked exhausted yesterday. Her mindset wasn't in it and she didn't seem there for almost 80 minutes. She had a bad game and it's only one game. The hope is she bounces back next time she plays and hopefully watches the film and can pick out where she could improve next time. She's still a good goalkeeper but I think she's lost some of the special sauce that made her iconic. She might be getting too old or maybe her love for the game has changed, or maybe it's still growing pains from the move and no longer playing for her home team. She's also a parent to a child she's very attached to and wasn't able to see for a long few days while on the road. I wouldn't be surprised if Ash has separation anxiety from being away from Sloane either. We joke about it but it's not easy being away from your family and this job demands that a lot.

Overall, Ash isn't a bad person and no one here said that. But she did do some bad things last game that I could to be inexcusable. Part of being a fan of your fav player is to hold them accountable. It's not hating on Ash or thinking she's a terrible person, it's recognizing she is better than what she demonstrated yesterday and how she acted and did not act was out of character and wasn't respectful of her team. You can agree to disagree and no one's stopping you, but we aren't hating on her.

As for your comment about AK, that's bitter af, dude. AK has had a quietly underrated season this year. Hadn't been praised much at all publically aside from the game she one player of the match for. She's been key in almost every Gotham game and has demonstrated strong leadership and commitment to the team day in and day out.

I feel super bad saying what I did about Ash, but it's also how I honestly feel. I was disappointed in her yesterday, more than I've ever been in my life tbh. She did not handle herself with the same maturity we usually know her to have. She just wasn't all that there and she shouldn't have started or kept playing for her own health, because it did look like she was quite off body-wise. She couldn't even take her own goal kicks or make a pass. If you can't do that, you shouldn't be playing. That's how it works. This is a professional sport and a team sport. Her role is too integral to be selfish about it. She should have recognized she wasn't 100% and Scott should have too and subbed.

[icy-blue-rose]

Okay I just HAVE TO get this off my chest right now.

I was watching the new episode of 2.43 seiin koukou danshi volley-bu, and well, I decided to check out the comment section because hey! I want to hear what other fans of the series have to say, liked, and so on.

Instead however-

I was met by the most horrid comment section it reminded me why I usually dont actually interact with the anime community (and usually just talk to myself or make posts like this one that nobody will read aha)

But shit, I like, felt so uncomfortable.

Now before I rant a bit, if anyone skimming this may get offended let me make something clear.

If you just arent into the series, or don't like the show/series, then that's fair.

I have literally no problem if you dont like the show, or are simply expressing that you just dont like it and list your own reasons, I completely respect people's opinions and right to openly criticize series, even if I dont agree with it.

However, the following, while I wont actually attack people for it, just made me so uncomfortable for liking the show that I had to talk about it.

So here we go.

2.43 seiin koukou danshi volley-bu is not a sports shonen and so you shouldnt expect it to be written and animated like one.

People are free to say they dont like the animation, artstyle, or way the series is written, we all have our personal tastes.

But, like, it felt like non of the people commenting had a single brain cell.

No I am not exaggerating.

This series is written is a very particular way, one that I'm ABSOLUTELY loving.

I'm not fond of most writing styles and usually have a hard time reading novels but this one I particularly enjoy.

However, it felt like everyone was bashing it for how it's being written, not understanding what the author is doing or setting up, not even understanding the basic structure or style the author has used for their series.

It honestly made alot of the people complaining sound really dumb, no offence, but you all sound stupid.

Then there were our typical HUGE swarm of "ewww gaaaay, omg he blushed, omg so cringe, ewwww"

Which I mean, every sports anime has so I'm used to the endless flood of these types of comments but I find them really annoying because dont get me wrong.

I'm Queer.

I like LGBT anime/manga but I also really enjoy Yaoi and Yuri in it's pure ridiculous form at times (not I'm not saying all BL or GL is the same, I dont think I need to get into this rn)

And of course I enjoy shamelessly shipping and headcanoning characters as well, whatever I want because it's fun and I am aloud to HEADCANON all I want.

So or course I like to jokingly ship sports anime characters for fun, even if I dont genuinly ship it , or sometimes do.

Because I like certain relationship dynamics they can have that are never explored in anime/manga.

However, being serious for a second, I dont genuinly go around saying characters are "Gay for sure 100% yeeee"

People blush at their friends. People and characters can have deep bonds and relationships that arent romantic whatsoever and can STILL feel more like a romance than a real romance, despite it not being intended in that way at all.

It's so stupid to bash a character for "ewww gaaaay shit" when they blush at, someone they genuinly care about and have a non romantic relationship with?

Idk it just makes them seem dumb, internet trolls suck and I usually ignore them, I just feel like complaining today.

In the end I must say, the most annoying group of people in the comments were, as any 2.43 seiin koukou danshi volley-bu fan has seen, the fucking haikyuu fandom.

I feel like I should note that I love haikyuu, I do, it's great, for a sports shonen I do enjoy it alot.

After all I do love me some sports shonens.

But haikyuu fans need to buy some brain cells or critical thinking abilities.

Listen, to all the normal haikyuu fans like myself, I salute you and this is in no way direct towards any of you.

It's for the....other ones.

Haikyuu and 2.43 seiin koukou danshi volley-bu have a couple things in common.

Volleyball

Their source material started getting serialized around the same times

Some character designs look similar.

And I'd say that's about it.

Neither one "copied" a premise from the other.

Okay? Haikyuu fans? For fuck sake? Can you stop "omg they really are running out of ideas huh"

"Omg this is a haikyuu rip off"

"Omg this is a watered down shitty haikyuu knockoff"

I'm going to shoot myself I swear to god shut up.

No.

No.

And fucking no.

It isnt. They started coming out in the same few years, and start completely different, a knock off? How?

I dont even see it one bit.

Now on the topic of some similar character designs.

To put it in a way haikyuu fans would understand, I've seen over 12 Kageyama "lookalikes" in anime, ones from LONG BEFORE haikyuu, and long after.

It's literally a common thing in any media platform, but we've all seen the same character design used before in diffrent shows.

It's not new, character designs were not stolen, please get a fucking brain cell.

Also he looks more like Saiki.K in most of the anime shots in my opinion.

Now, if you like haikyuu and you're looking for another sports shonen to

Live up to the hype, have the same premise kinda or just that awesome animation and typical sports shonen storyline you love to fill the void until another haikyuu season comes out.

Just feel like watching another sports shonen in general.

It isnt the show for you.

Now if you want to check out a volleyball show, check it out and form your own opinion on it and for the love of god dont compare it to haikyuu.

It's a sports drama.

If you like shes like Stars Align, Battery, or even Ahiru no Sora (which I feel has a nice balance of sports and drama, rather then focusing on either category, it balances both really well) then this is a show for you to check out.

I've watched I think 4 diffrent baseball anime? Maybe 5?

I never once compared them to each other while watching.

While comparisons are fun to do! I love reading about parallels, series that inspired other series and examples of how it was done and all that awesome jazz!

It's not the same as actively comparing a show to another one while you watch it.

Especially when they arent even in the same genre category.

Anyways this probably seems like a pointless rant but the comment section actually crushed my week long built up excitement for the new episode, cause I had the misfortune of opening it first to see who else was hyped and enjoyed the episode, only to find well, all of this crap.

And fans like me who tried to politely digress and explain how the writing style is different than the average sports series, or explain why it's written how it is, alot of them got met with SWARMS of more ignorant and just plain ride comments.

Also all my "you're fucking stupid" comments in this rant, are directed towards those people in particular.

Now if you are simply genuinly confused about why there are time skips, why it's written how it is, or any other things, this is not directed at you.

Not at all.

Not understanding a writing/directing style is a completely innocent thing and there are many fans who would be happy to explain it.

The hate is directly towards the arrogant, annoying, internet trolls and haikyuu fandom who has been getting annoying lately? Especially about this show.

[asleepinawell]

Been having a lot of Thoughts about the nier series recently and the larger themes of both games and wanted to jot them down and toss them into the void of the internet.

Massive spoilers for nier automata follow, including for ending e. Do not read this if you ever intend to play nier automata. There are spoilers for nier replicant as well, though not for ending e.

One of the biggest themes both nier games tackle is the tragedy of an uncaring universe. Bad things happen to good people, people who think they're good and doing the right thing find out they were actually committing atrocities, the very idea that there's 'good' and 'bad' people is dissected and rejected. At the end of the day, the universe doesn't give a shit about any of us and none of it matters. Enjoy your existential despair!

In nier replicant, the main character starts off as an optimistic young boy who wants to save, not only his sister, but the entire world. After the time skip, nier is a young man whose optimism has (partially) been tarnished and whose goal has narrowed down to just saving his sister. As you move through each route you understand more and more how tragic the world is and how, despite your best intentions, you are only adding to the tragedy of the world. The original 4 endings of nier replicant are all tragic in some way. Ending D has a glimmer of hope in it in the form of nier being able to save kainé at the cost of his own existence, but it's a bittersweet ending and the world is ultimately doomed anyway.

Which brings us to nier automata. Even more so than replicant, automata hammers home the meaningless of everything, the uncaring universe, tragedy both avoidable and unavoidable. The main characters are locked in an endless loop of violence and despair. The worst that could happen, does, again and again. It thrives off the type of tragedy porn I usually hate.

Except....

Except it doesn't. If endings a and b are the opening statement, endings c and d are the facts and body of the essay, but then there's ending e, the concluding paragraph which takes everything we've been told and gives you the chance to draw your own conclusion from it.

Route e starts after you've gotten both ending c and d and is no longer about the characters in the game at all. Route e is about you, the player, and what you believe. It says "we've given you a story of complete despair, we've shown you the universe is unfair and doesn't give a fuck about you, we've shown you things that end in tragedy. despite all of this, do you still believe it's worth fighting for the hope of something better?"

And then it asks you to prove it.

Route e is the ending every fan has asked for when they've said "I'll fight the creators to give my favs a happy ending." Today is your lucky day!

Route e is the ending credits of the game, except that the ending credits have turned into a bullet hell mini game. In fighting the actual credits themselves, you are fighting the game devs. You are saying fuck you I don't believe that everything is pointless. Fighting for better is always worth it. The meaning that we imbue in life is important to us and that matters.

The bullet hell of the end credits starts out fairly simple and gets harder and harder as you go, lasting something like 15 minutes total, which is a brutally long time to be playing something that requires split second timing and 100% of your focus. It's meant to feel insurmountable, just like the challenges the characters in the game faced (the larger plot challenges, not the combat). You will likely die a lot and check points are few and far between.

But there's more to it than that. The first time you die, a prompt comes up:

And then when you die again:

Except now, there’s a message on the screen. A message that appears to be from another player, somewhere in the world.

And again:

(this one really fucked me up, but that’s for a different post).

And then finally:

(thank you user MR-YE-1996)

When you accept the rescue offer, you go back to the bullet hell again, but now you have a wall of other players around your weak little avatar, shielding you from harm. The music, which has been a single vocal track up until now, gains an entire chorus of voices to represent the army of actual players who’ve shown up to save you (and there’s a lot I could say about the use of the (exquisitely good) music in the nier games, and especially about the difference in lyrical themes between ashes of dreams and weight of the world). Every time a bullet hits one of the players surrounding you, there’s a message saying that user’s data has been lost. Users from all over the world are sacrificing themselves to help you. It’s a very nice, heart-warming moment that you still don’t understand the full impact of quite yet.

After you beat the credits, you’re rewarded by a final cutscene. The android protagonists have been reconstructed and will receive a second chance at life. The narration at this point talks about how life exists within the spiral of life and death we are all trapped in. One of the two pods talking points out that even though the androids are being given a second chance at life, there’s a possibility that things will go just as poorly once again. And the other pod agrees, but adds: “However, the possibility of a different future also exists.”

And then the scene ends with this quote: “A future is not given to you. It is something you must take for yourself.”

And this is really the final conclusion of the game. There is no inherent meaning in the universe, so the meaning we give our lives is the most meaningful thing. (And the ‘you’ here isn’t necessarily an individual either. It can be, or it can be humanity as a whole, or even one group). And you, the player, thought that it was worth fighting to give these characters a second chance, and other players out there in the world thought it was worth helping you to do so.

It’s such a wonderfully beautiful piece of meta interpretation posing as a game ending, and also a departure from the final conclusion of previous Yoko Taro games. It feels like a much more mature and nuanced interpretation of the world than the ending of replicant was (I won’t comment on the new ending e of replicant just yet since it didn’t come out that long ago). (Also, for the record, I love nier replicant and the characters in it with my entire heart. This post is not bashing it).

But the game has one more surprise in store for you. After the cutscene ends, you’re given one last choice. The game asks if you have any interest in helping other players the way you were helped. And if you say yes, you’re told that the only way you can do this is to sacrifice all your save data.

I think that sacrifice hits differently for different people. Some people genuinely won’t mind that at all. As someone who probably still has save data from games I played 20 years ago, it felt like a gut punch. To me, save data represents all the time and emotion and energy I’ve put into a game. Games are so deeply important to me in so many ways and have been since my childhood when they were one of the few ways I could escape from a lot of terrible shit going on in my life. (There’s a reason my blog title is what it is). I could talk a lot more about that point, but I’ll leave it by saying that when I saw what the game was asking of me it felt like someone had knocked my legs out from under me.

For more practical players, it also is locking you out of chapter select, the best way to go back and get all the things you missed and grab the achievements/trophies you still need.

The game will point out that you’ll get nothing in return for this (not a lie, there’s no secret reward), that you will likely never know if or who you helped, that you won’t be thanked, that the person you help could be someone you intensely dislike, etc. And with all of this comes the realization that all those people who came to help you in the credits had already done this. Those people whose data was sacrificed to help you get to the final cutscene had already sacrificed their save data to help you.

We’ve now gone from a world where everything is meaningless, to a world where other real actual human beings out there have sacrificed something that represented hours of their time and a varying amount of emotional investment without any hope of reward to help a stranger see a message of hope.

When I was younger, I was more drawn to dark, hopeless stories. Stories about how dark and meaningless the world was. The world was a terrible place then too. 9/11 happened when I was in highschool (an incident that influenced yoko taro’s creation of nier replicant and had a huge impact on me at the time), the pointless wars that happened after and the recession and a million other things seemed to infuse everything with hopelessness. In that world, stories about everything being meaningless and hopeless felt correct. They felt validating. Yes, everything really does suck that much!

That sort of story lost its appeal for me later on. Pointless and horrible things continued to happen, and still continue to happen. The world events of the last few years have been an unnerving reliving of those earlier years, except even worse. The cycles of tragedy are still there with no end in sight. I’m exhausted from all of it. It really does feel hopeless a lot.

But stories that stop at that point no longer appeal to me. Stories like nier automata--stories that say yes, things are terrible, but there’s always hope, you can create your own meaning, it is always worth it to fight for better even if you fail, your life is worthwhile simply for existing--those stories are the ones I think we all need more than anything.