#deep learning simplified

[clumsypuppy]

i feel like. theres designing a character with certain themes and motifs in mind, and then theres making a gijinka for the water bottle on my nightstand

[tuxedo-rabbit]

I have decided that writing your own DM campaign may actually suck.

As soon as my players escape the circle, I'm gonna see about modifying pre-made adventures to fit into DA lore.

[lildoodlenoodle]

You know I do mind my business when it comes to the majority of forms of queer discourse FOR A VARIETY OF REASONS, but mostly because it is always So Dumb. Never has any nuance, never helps anyone, makes the lives better of absolutely zero people, and can actually have negative effects on the internal queer community as well as the external view of it. ‘Infighting is at best redundant, at worst harmful’ type of thing.

But every now and then a little something something will get me. Which is usually the absolute pride that someone has in being a bigot or an exclusionist, while also being apart of the queer community. Almost always going hand in hand with the blatant distrust of people in your own community to be genuine and know how they themselves identify. The almost competition to not seem like ‘one of those gays’ that fall outside of what is considered a societally acceptable way to be queer, as well as what that person specifically considers to be an acceptable way to be queer according to their own personal understanding of gender and sexuality.

The pungent audacity just turns on such a primal level of disgust and vitriol in me that throws all my anger management practice out the window.

You’re boring and unoriginal by contributing in the exact same stifling of queer voices and identity that cishet people have been doing for hundreds of years and calling it a hot take with pride.

[plaguedocboi]

Ok y’all brace yourselves cuz I just learned about a new animal

Yes, that is an animal. Yes, scientists refer to it as the purple sock worm. No, that’s not it’s real name, silly, it’s real name is Xenoturbella!

When these deep-sea socks were first discovered, no one knew what the fuck they were looking at (and, really, can you blame them?). They have no eyes, brains, or digestive tracts. They are literally just a bag of wet slop. DNA analysis initially seemed to indicate that they were related to mollusks, until the scientists realized that DNA sample was from the clams they had recently eaten (yes, they can eat with no organs. We don’t know how.)

Scientists then analyzed the data again and tentatively placed them in the group that includes acorn worms, saying that their ancestors probably had eyes, brains, and organs, but simplified as a response to their deep sea ecosystems.

Later DNA testing has since shown that they are their own thing! Xenoturbella, along with another simple and problematic to place creature called acoelomorphs, belong to their own phylum called Xenacelomorpha! This places them as the sister group to all bilateral animals. So, they just never evolved brains, eyes, or organs. They are a glimpse at a very primitive form of animal that never bothered to change, because apparently what they do works. Rock on, purple sock worm.

[michanvalentine]

Sorry, but this whole thing about the dice roll to convince Astarion not to ascend—let’s break it down.

The dice roll exists because Astarion is intoxicated—by blood, by fear, by power. Power is the only thing he thinks can set him free, but only because his perspective is painfully limited. The Insight check isn’t there by accident; it’s meant to give the player context. Astarion isn’t thinking clearly—not enough to truly reason.

Do you know what real fear does? It shuts down higher cognitive processes. The sympathetic nervous system takes over, triggering fight, flight, freeze, or fawn responses. Blood rushes to the muscles, the heart, the lungs, preparing the body to react quickly in case of danger. But at the same time, other functions that aren’t immediately useful—like digestion, excretory system, sexual function, and, yes, logical reasoning—get suppressed. It’s a matter of priorities—survival over everything else.

For example, studies show that reprimanding a child too harshly—scaring them—actually inhibits learning, making it completely counterproductive.

And in that moment, Astarion is like someone standing on the edge of a rooftop, ready to jump—not because he wants to die, but because he sees no other way out of his pain. And Tav/Durge is the damn firefighter or cop trying to talk him down before he hits the pavement.

And honestly—who here hasn’t had a conversation with a parent, a friend, or a teacher, only to later think, Shit, they were right, I was about to do something really stupid?

It’s not coercion, people. It’s just pointing things out. And the dice roll is there to break through all the things clouding Astarion’s mind—blood, fear, and everything in between. Not to convince him.

At this point in the adventure, Astarion is perfectly capable of making his own choices, and if he's deprived of that choice, he gets so furious that he attacks the player. In fact, if you categorically decide for him—either by refusing to help him or by interrupting the ritual—things end badly. He is the one who has to decide what to do, not the player.

It's no coincidence that Astarion gives his approval at the moment he realizes what it truly means to ascend and abandons the ritual. There's no lie there; we don't forget that approval. Just as it's no accident that, in the cemetery scene, Astarion says he feels seen by the player. Because yes—beyond the illusory veil of a sexy, evil vampire, we've seen through it and witnessed something else. We've seen the goodness within him.

Please, let's stop saying that Astarion wants to ascend at all costs and that he's forced not to do it. Otherwise, the reading of the game's and the character's subtext is completely lost. And note that this doesn't mean he doesn't also have the potential for evil.

It's exactly these internal contradictions—this constant oscillation between good and evil—that make him such a deep, well-rounded, and wonderful character. Please, let's not simplify him; that would be a crime.

[bsotted]

"The subtext that undergirds this new anti-racist discourse—that Black-white relationships are inherently fraught and must be navigated with the help of professionals and technical experts—testifies to the impoverishment of our interracial imagination, not to its enrichment. More gravely, anti-color-blind etiquette treats Black Americans as exotic others, permanent strangers whose racial difference is so chasmic that it must be continually managed, whose mode of humanness is so foreign that it requires white people to adopt a special set of manners and 'race conscious' ritualistic practices to even have a simple conversation."*

*(emphasis mine)

By: Tyler Austin Harper

Published: Aug 14, 2023

The hotel was soulless, like all conference hotels. I had arrived a few hours before check-in, hoping to drop off my bags before I met a friend for lunch. The employees were clearly frazzled, overwhelmed by the sudden influx of several hundred impatient academics. When I asked where I could put my luggage, the guy at the front desk simply pointed to a nearby hallway. “Wait over there with her; he’s coming back.”

Who “he” was remained unclear, but I saw the woman he was referring to. She was white and about my age. She had a conference badge and a large suitcase that she was rolling back and forth in obvious exasperation. “Been waiting long?” I asked, taking up a position on the other side of the narrow hallway. “Very,” she replied. For a while, we stood in silence, minding our phones. Eventually, we began chatting.

The conversation was wide-ranging: the papers we were presenting, the bad A/V at the hotel, our favorite things to do in the city. At some point, we began talking about our jobs. She told me that—like so many academics—she was juggling a temporary teaching gig while also looking for a tenure-track position.

“It’s hard,” she said, “too many classes, too many students, too many papers to grade. No time for your own work. Barely any time to apply to real jobs.”

When I nodded sympathetically, she asked about my job and whether it was tenure-track. I admitted, a little sheepishly, that it was.

“I’d love to teach at a small college like that,” she said. “I feel like none of my students wants to learn. It’s exhausting.”

Then, out of nowhere, she said something that caught me completely off guard: “But I shouldn’t be complaining to you about this. I know how hard BIPOC faculty have it. You’re the last person I should be whining to.”

I was taken aback, but I shouldn’t have been. It was the kind of awkward comment I’ve grown used to over the past few years, as “anti-racism” has become the reigning ideology of progressive political culture. Until recently, calling attention to a stranger’s race in such a way would have been considered a social faux pas. That she made the remark without thinking twice—a remark, it should be noted, that assumes being a Black tenure-track professor is worse than being a marginally employed white one—shows how profoundly interracial social etiquette has changed since 2020’s “summer of racial reckoning.” That’s when anti-racism—focused on combating “color-blindness” in both policy and personal conduct—grabbed ahold of the liberal mainstream.

Though this “reckoning” brought increased public attention to the deep embeddedness of racism in supposedly color-blind American institutions, it also made instant celebrities of a number of race experts and “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) consultants who believe that being anti-racist means undergoing a “journey” of radical personal transformation. In their righteous crusade against the bad color-blindness of policies such as race-neutral college admissions, these contemporary anti-racists have also jettisoned the kind of good color-blindness that holds that we are more than our race, and that we should conduct our social life according to that idealized principle. Rather than balance a critique of color-blind law and policy with a continuing embrace of interpersonal color-blindness as a social etiquette, contemporary anti-racists throw the baby out with the bathwater. In place of the old color-blind ideal, they have foisted upon well-meaning white liberals a successor social etiquette predicated on the necessity of foregrounding racial difference rather than minimizing it.

As a Black guy who grew up in a politically purple area—where being a good person meant adhering to the kind of civil-rights-era color-blindness that is now passé—I find this emergent anti-racist culture jarring. Many of my liberal friends and acquaintances now seem to believe that being a good person means constantly reminding Black people that you are aware of their Blackness. Difference, no longer to be politely ignored, is insisted upon at all times under the guise of acknowledging “positionality.” Though I am rarely made to feel excessively aware of my race when hanging out with more conservative friends or visiting my hometown, in the more liberal social circles in which I typically travel, my race is constantly invoked—“acknowledged” and “centered”—by well-intentioned anti-racist “allies.”

This “acknowledgement” tends to take one of two forms. The first is the song and dance in which white people not-so-subtly let you know that they know that race and racism exist. This includes finding ways to interject discussion of some (bad) news item about race or racism into casual conversation, apologizing for having problems while white (“You’re the last person I should be whining to”), or inversely, offering “support” by attributing any normal human problem you have to racism.

The second way good white liberals often “center” racial difference in everyday interactions with minorities is by trying, always clumsily, to ensure that their “marginalized” friends and familiars are “culturally” comfortable. My favorite personal experiences of this include an acquaintance who invariably steers dinner or lunch meetups to Black-owned restaurants, and the time that a friend of a friend invited me over to go swimming in their pool before apologizing for assuming that I know how to swim (“I know that’s a culturally specific thing”). It is a peculiar quirk of the 2020s’ racial discourse that this kind of “acknowledgement” and “centering” is viewed as progress.

My point is not that conservatives have better racial politics—they do not—but rather that something about current progressive racial discourse has become warped and distorted. The anti-racist culture that is ascendant seems to me to have little to do with combatting structural racism or cultivating better relationships between white and Black Americans. And its rejection of color-blindness as a social ethos is not a new frontier of radical political action.

No, at the core of today’s anti-racism is little more than a vibe shift—a soft matrix of conciliatory gestures and hip phraseology that give adherents the feeling that there has been a cultural change, when in fact we have merely put carpet over the rotting floorboards. Although this push to center rather than sidestep racial difference in our interpersonal relationships comes from a good place, it tends to rest on a troubling, even racist subtext: that white and Black Americans are so radically different that interracial relationships require careful management, constant eggshell-walking, and even expert guidance from professional anti-racists. Rather than producing racial harmony, this new ethos frequently has the opposite effect, making white-Black interactions stressful, unpleasant, or, perhaps most often, simply weird.

Since the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, progressive anti-racism has centered on two concepts that helped Americans make sense of his senseless death: “structural racism” and “implicit bias.” The first of these is a sociopolitical concept that highlights how certain institutions—maternity wards, police barracks, lending companies, housing authorities, etc.—produce and replicate racial inequalities, such as the disproportionate killing of Black men by the cops. The second is a psychologicalconcept that describes the way that all individuals—from bleeding-heart liberals to murderers such as Derek Chauvin—harbor varying degrees of subconscious racial prejudice.

Though “structural racism” and “implicit bias” target different scales of the social order—institutions on the one hand, individuals on the other—underlying both of these ideas is a critique of so-called color-blind ideology, or what the sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva calls “color-blind racism”: the idea that policies, interactions, and rhetoric can be explicitly race-neutral but implicitly racist. As concepts, both “structural racism” and “implicit bias” rest on the presupposition that racism is an enduring feature of institutional and social life, and that so-called race neutrality is a covertly racist myth that perpetuates inequality. Some anti-racist scholars such as Uma Mazyck Jayakumar and Ibram X. Kendi have put this even more bluntly: “‘Race neutral’ is the new “separate but equal.’” Yet, although anti-racist academics and activists are right to argue that race-neutral policies can’t solve racial inequities—that supposedly color-blind laws and policies are often anything but—over the past few years, this line of criticism has also been bizarrely extended to color-blindness as a personal ethos governing behavior at the individual level.

The most famous proponent of dismantling color-blindness in everyday interactions is Robin DiAngelo, who has made an entire (very condescending) career out of asserting that if white people are not uncomfortable, anti-racism is not happening. “White comfort maintains the racial status quo, so discomfort is necessary and important,” the corporate anti-racist guru advises. Over the past three years, this kind of anti-color-blind, pro-discomfort rhetoric has become the norm in anti-racist discourse. On the final day of the 28-day challenge in Layla Saad’s viral Me and White Supremacy, budding anti-racists are tasked with taking “out-of-your-comfort-zone actions,” such as apologizing to people of color in their life and having “uncomfortable conversations.” Frederick Joseph’s best-selling book The Black Friend takes a similar tack. The problem with color-blindness, Joseph counsels, is it allows “white people to continue to be comfortable.” The NFL analyst Emmanuel Acho wrote an entire book, simply called Uncomfortable Conversations With a Black Man, that admonishes readers to “stop celebrating color-blindness.” And, of course, there are endless how-to guides for having these “uncomfortable conversations” with your Black friends.

Once the dominant progressive ideology, professing “I don’t see color” is now viewed as a kind of dog whistle that papers over implicit bias. Instead, current anti-racist wisdom holds that we must acknowledge racial difference in our interactions with others, rather than assume that race needn’t be at the center of every interracial conversation or encounter. Coming to grips with the transition we have undergone over the past decade—color-blind etiquette’s swing from de rigueur to racist—requires a longer view of an American cultural transition. Civil-rights-era color-blindness was replaced with an individualistic, corporatized anti-racism, one focused on the purification of white psyches through racial discomfort, guilt, and “doing the work” as a road to self-improvement.

Writing in 1959, the social critic Philip Rieff argued that postwar America was transforming from a religious and economic culture—one oriented around common institutions such as the church and the market—to a psychological culture, one oriented around the self and its emotional fulfillment. By the 1960s, Rieff had given this shift a name: “the triumph of the therapeutic,” which he defined as an emergent worldview according to which the “self, improved, is the ultimate concern of modern culture.” Yet, even as he diagnosed our culture with self-obsession, Rieff also noticed something peculiar and even paradoxical. Therapeutic culture demanded that we reflect our self-actualization outward. Sharing our innermost selves with the world—good, bad, and ugly—became a new social mandate under the guise that authenticity and open self-expression are necessary for social cohesion.

Recent anti-racist mantras like “White silence is violence” reflect this same sentiment: exhibitionist displays of “racist” guilt are viewed as a necessary precursor to racial healing and community building. In this way, today’s attacks on interpersonal color-blindness—and progressives’ growing fixation on implicit bias, public confession, and race-conscious social etiquette—are only the most recent manifestations of the cultural shift Rieff described. Indeed, the seeds of the current backlash against color-blindness began decades ago, with the application of a New Age, therapeutic outlook to race relations: so-called racial-sensitivity training, the forefather of today’s equally spurious DEI programming.

In her 2001 book, Race Experts, the historian Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn painstakingly details how racial-sensitivity training emerged from the 1960s’ human-potential movement and its infamous “encounter groups.” As she explains, what began as a more or less countercultural phenomenon was later corporatized in the form of the anemic, pointless workshops controversially lampooned on The Office. Not surprisingly, this shift reflected the ebb and flow of corporate interests: Whereas early workplace training emphasized compliance with the newly minted Civil Rights Act of 1964, later incarnations would focus on improving employee relations and, later still, leveraging diversity to secure better business outcomes.

If there is something distinctive about the anti-color-blind racial etiquette that has emerged since George Floyd’s death, it is that these sites of encounter have shifted from official institutional spaces to more intimate ones where white people and minorities interact as friends, neighbors, colleagues, and acquaintances. Racial-awareness raising is a dynamic no longer quarantined to formalized, compulsory settings like the boardroom or freshman orientation. Instead, every interracial interaction is a potential scene of (one-way) racial edification and supplication, encounters in which good white liberals are expected to be transparent about their “positionality,” confront their “whiteness,” and—if the situation calls for it—confess their “implicit bias.”

In a vacuum, many of the prescriptions advocated by the anti-color-blind crowd are reasonable: We should all think more about our privileges and our place in the world. An uncomfortable conversation or an honest look in the mirror can be precursors to personal growth. We all carry around harmful, implicit biases and we do need to examine the subconscious assumptions and prejudices that underlie the actions we take and the things we say. My objection is not to these ideas themselves, which are sensible enough. No, my objection is that anti-racism offers little more than a Marie Kondo–ism for the white soul, promising to declutter racial baggage and clear a way to white fulfillment without doing anything meaningful to combat structural racism. As Lasch-Quinn correctly foresaw, “Casting interracial problems as issues of etiquette [puts] a premium on superficial symbols of good intentions and good motivations as well as on style and appearance rather than on the substance of change.”

Yet the problem with the therapeutics of contemporary anti-racism is not just that they are politically sterile. When anti-color-blindness and its ideology of insistent “race consciousness” are translated into the sphere of private life—to the domain of friendships, block parties, and backyard barbecues—they assault the very idea of a multiracial society, producing new forms of racism in the process. The fact that our media environment is inundated with an endless stream of books, articles, and social-media tutorials that promise to teach white people how to simply interact with the Black people in their life is not a sign of anti-racist progress, but of profound regression.

The subtext that undergirds this new anti-racist discourse—that Black-white relationships are inherently fraught and must be navigated with the help of professionals and technical experts—testifies to the impoverishment of our interracial imagination, not to its enrichment. More gravely, anti-color-blind etiquette treats Black Americans as exotic others, permanent strangers whose racial difference is so chasmic that it must be continually managed, whose mode of humanness is so foreign that it requires white people to adopt a special set of manners and “race conscious” ritualistic practices to even have a simple conversation.

If we are going to find a way out of the racial discord that has defined American life post-Trump and post-Charlottesville and post-Floyd, we have to begin with a more sophisticated understanding of color-blindness, one that rejects the bad color-blindness on offer from the Republican Party and its partisans, as well as the anti-color-blindness of the anti-racist consultants. Instead, we should embrace the good color-blindness of not too long ago. At the heart of that color-blindness was a radical claim, one imperfectly realized but perfect as an ideal: that despite the weight of a racist past that isn’t even past, we can imagine a world, or at least an interaction between two people, where racial difference doesn’t make a difference.

[ Via: https://archive.today/8zfvc ]

[rivereverie]

Astarion and Vanity

Spoilers for all of Astarion’s story through all acts of BG3. As always, this is just my interpretation and thoughts on the character from what I know, so feel free to disagree.

I feel that Astarion’s expression of vanity is a part of him that gets misread a lot. It’s something that is pointed to as one of his negative traits as though this vanity of his is sincere. Personally, I think his outward obsession with his own looks and charm is anything but shallow, and is yet another example of how his life experience and trauma has shaped him. 

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder (ha), and for the sake of this mild analysis, I’m going to be defining beauty as conventional physical attractiveness. The main point is that Astarion in-game is treated as being very attractive, so that’s how I will treat him in this conversation. Beauty can be a form of power; one Astarion was very clearly blessed with. While all the main companions in the game are designed to be rather attractive, for Astarion, this goes beyond simply wanting to appeal to the player and is not incidental. In my opinion, Astarion’s looks are crucial to his character. 

To briefly summarize what we all know about Astarion, he was thoroughly and systematically stripped of his autonomy and identity by Cazador. He was forced to adopt an incredibly narrow worldview of essentially: power = freedom = safety (simplified, of course). Throughout the game, he makes choices that slowly shape and are shaped by the man he’s becoming. By the end of the spawn route, he’s still only just beginning to really discover himself. This all is crucial to the heart of his character and influences all his actions. 

Given his hollow sense of identity, Astarion clings to certain traits which he parades around, making sure everyone knows these things about him. The most prominent of those traits being hedonism, sadism, selfishness, and vanity. In this post, I’m going to be focusing on the last item, though I do have a post on learned cruelty that delves into the trait of sadism in the context of his identity. The pattern here is that these traits are masks that serve to make him feel in-control of both himself and those around him. 

While Astarion may seem terribly vain, his appearance to others is actually a very deep-seated, sensitive issue that genuinely affects him. The infamous mirror scene may come across to some as him being shallow, at first, but really he’s right in what he said; his reflection is just one more thing that was taken from him, and it’s completely fair that he is angry and grieves. But this is also significant to him beyond the fact of its injustice, or the symbolism of reflection as identity. Let’s dive a little into his psyche, and guess at how he sees himself and the world: He’s spent the past 200 years being valued exclusively for his ability to bring back prey for Cazador and perform sexually. This equates to his charm and his body. After two centuries of being degraded and stripped of everything, and only ever getting any kind of positive reinforcement, praise, or acknowledgement for your looks and seductiveness, of course he’d begin unconsciously tying his sense of self-worth to his appearance. By Cazador, he was turned into a tool and a toy. By his targets, he was objectified. Dehumanized from both sides in different ways, and again, only valued for his body and whatever sweet words he could spin. This leaves him with his self-worth very profoundly tied to his appearance to others, as I said.

I imagine he had two main types of targets when under Cazador’s thrall: starry-eyed, naive folks who were swept off their feet, and more predatory characters who took advantage of an easy offer. The former were probably the only source of genuine positive attention he ever got for those 200 years, even if it was shallow. Since he cannot find self-affirmation by looking into a mirror, he finds new mirrors in the eyes of those who look upon him. His beauty is reflected in their hunger, their lust, their admiration, their bashfulness, their envy. Is it any wonder that now he flaunts himself, always making comments about how good he looks? If he doesn’t get an affirmative response, then at least it's his way of reassuring himself. Telling himself that he’s still valuable in the only way he knows how to assess his value. “I don’t need a reflection to know this looks fabulous”, he tells himself. This is why he makes so many seemingly vain comments. Why he’s so concerned with being done-up and looking good. Why he has spent so much time mending his clothes so he looks every bit the part of the dashing elven rogue. 

Speaking of his clothes, this is another way he’s clinging to his autonomy and identity even through all his years of torment. His clothes were probably one of the only things he was ever allowed to have. When you have so little, of course you’ll care for it, hence why the flavor text  for both his shirt and armor mention how his clothes are worn, but have been repaired many times by a careful hand. During those years under Cazador, it probably brought him a small sense of control to be able to mend and embroider his own clothes; the only things which he felt belonged to him, more so than his own body. Something familiar that gave him a sense of security and self. (This is why I adore the idea of him becoming a tailor after the story, because it's giving him a healthy outlet of personal expression and creating something that's entirely his own. Hobbies can be crucial to cultivating one's identity and self-esteem, and we all want that for him). Not to mention that Cazador probably would not have taken kindly to his spawn not looking their best, and that's probably a "rule" Astarion carried with him even into freedom.

I think the mirror scene is a lot more than him just seeking validation and showing us a glimpse into this part of his mind, though. It’s also about him genuinely trying to evaluate how the player character sees him, and shows how he’s trying to figure out his new identity in freedom, but that’s its own discussion for another time. I just think that it’s unfair for people to call him vain or shallow for caring about his reflection and appearance so much, when that’s all he was ever taught to value in himself.

 The only other significant way we see Astarion valuing himself is through his skills as a rogue, with his constant cocky comments about how easy it is for him. While this too is a form of external validation born of valuing himself for what he can do rather than what he is, it’s still a positive thing for him. The game doesn’t really address all this, but in my mind, him getting to make use of his skills and be valued as a part of a group that needs him is probably really good for his self-esteem at this point in his life. 

All of this to say, I don’t think it’s fair to cast judgement on him for being “vain”, given everything we know about him. There is a big difference between him and someone who genuinely sees the world through a shallow and judgmental lens. For him, his mask of vanity is a symptom of his pain and twisted worldview rather than something rotten born of privilege and a superiority complex. His self-aggrandizement is a necessary part of the narrative he’s building for himself: the vampire spawn who would ascend. Again, desperate to convince himself and those around him that he both wants and deserves this, even as his crooked worldview is being chipped away by genuine kindness and connection. This understanding of his mind shows why it’s so important to him that we see and love him for who he actually is, not just his charm and beauty. His heart is beautiful in an entirely different way that outshines his physical features, even if he himself doesn't see it. The hope is that, with his friends and perhaps partner at his side, he’ll learn to value himself for his own heart and soul; for the person he’s becoming as he gathers up the pieces of his identity. To see the light he holds within him that endured those centuries of darkness. Until the mirrors stop mattering.

[redsugarx]

Hanfu in Components: General Garment Terms (pt1)

navigation: hanfu in components 1 2 3.1 3.2 4 5 6 ...

Attempting to sort of reboot the hanfu in components thing I wrote for Newhanfu a while back in a better organized way, so I guess this is a series? Purpose is to provide a more systematic way for people to learn about hanfu terminology, which is extremely complicated and constantly changing, but has mostly settled into some agreed upon definitions among the hanfu community.

Note: This is probably going to make the most sense for people who have already been interested in hanfu for a little while but don't know the technical terms for what they're seeing in the pretty pictures. If you're just starting out this might be a little overwhelming, especially since hanfu vernacular has variations based on what time period you're talking about and stuff like that! But of course feel free to look at it anyway :>

Here are terms that you'll see a lot when referring to a general type of garment. These are the equivalents to 'shirt,' 'skirt,' 'pants' etc. in English, where it's telling you broadly what kind of a garment it is, but not really any details about its style or what it might look like. I will structure my definition headers as (traditional character)/(simplified character)/(pinyin)(tone) going forward. Also using images from Cloud9 as much as I can bc I don't wanna deal with citing image sources lol, shoutout to our models

WORDS ACTUALLY JUST MEANING "CLOTHING"

衣/衣/yi1 - General term for clothing. More often than not refers to a top/shirt or a robe, but can refer to clothing in general as well, especially in modern usage. The yi radical looks like this: "衤" Basically if a character has that symbol on the left, it’s probably related to clothing in some way.

服/服/fu2 - Also a general term for clothing. Slightly more formal/technical in tone imo. Usually combined with 衣 for 衣服 (more casual everyday way of saying clothing) or with 裝 for 服裝 (more formal way of saying clothing). Think the difference in tone between ‘clothes’ vs. ‘attire.’

TOPS (the clothing kind) & ROBES

衫/衫/shan1 - Shirt, unlined. Refers to a shirt/blouse in modern usage. Within hanfu, refers to a top (usually short, but sometimes long) that is unlined.

襖/袄/ao3 - Jacket/lined top. Refers to a parka-style jacket in modern usage (棉襖）. Within hanfu, refers to a top that is lined, typically on the thicker side. Can be long or short. More often than not it is worn as an outer layer.

袍/袍/pao2 - Robe. Refers to a top whose length extends past the knee. Usually robes are lined, but that’s not a requirement to be considered a robe. There is overlap with 衫/襖; aka a garment can be both a 袍 and a 衫 (long unlined robe) or a 袍 and an 襖 (lined robe), but not an 襖 and a 衫 (somehow lined and unlined at the same time, disobeys the laws of physics and logic, possibly quantum entity). 

深衣/深衣/shen1 yi1 - Literally ’deep clothing,’ also can be translated as robe, but more specific in that shenyi will typically be made up of a ‘top part’ and a ‘skirt part’ that are sewn together at the waist, rather than just being a really long top.

褙子/褙子/bei4 zi0 - Outer layer. Harder to define because it can refer to very different things depending on what dynasty you’re looking at. General rule though, it’s almost always an outer layer on a woman’s outfit.

BOTTOMS (the clothing kind)

裙/裙/qun2 - Skirt. Generally any garment that wraps around a person’s torso and covers the legs. 

褲/裤/ku4 - Pants/trousers. Similar to skirt except there are dedicated channels for each leg, aka there’s some separation happening at the crotch. Can be open or closed crotch, almost always worn under a skirt or robe.

Obviously there's a lot of other terms too but I'll get to them with time! Still a full time student, still learning about hanfu, blah blah blah. But yeah especially the more specific terms I will probably cover in a later post. Hope this is interesting enough for now :>

navigation: hanfu in components 1 2 3.1 3.2 4 5 6 ...

[certifiedsexed]

Hello friend, ive got a fun fact for you! Since your always the one educating people i thought you might enjoy this! Sorry if you already knew it tho.

Anyways, ya know how serotonin and dopamine play a role in the sexual arousal cycle with dopamine facaliatining sexual arrousal and elevating before and during sex while serationin inhibits and elevates after organism in most cases? (Simplified explanation lol)

Well migranes have been tied to seratoninin levels in the brain! I talked to my nurologist about it and he said that the connection between lowered sertationin levels during a migrane might be why orgasums can sometimes provide relief from pain during episodes. It's also why some people report increased libido during migraine attacks! The body recognizes a lower levle of serationin and increases libido so you can facilitate the creation of more (although more resurch needs to be done on this, I'm not an expert lol)

Anyways I hope you enjoyed my fun fact! I thought it was super cool!

Oh my god, this' so fun and so sweet of you!!! I LOVE fun facts and I did not know this, thank you so much! <33

I'm a chronic migraine sufferer (😭 legit read this and immediately, the spider-man meme appeared in my head because I was like 'you!! you are like me perhaps!!!) and this is sooo fascinating to me. It also makes SO much sense.

I've gotta do a deep dive into the science related to this. It will not make sense to me but it seems like this'd be dope AF to learn more about if there's any info available.

Thank you again for sharing, I definitely enjoyed this! ❤❤

[artist-issues]

Sounds like Moana 2 felt like the rushed tv movie it was supposed to be.

THIS IS THE MOANA 2 CRITIQUE POST

I'm tired of excusing things with the word "rushed." If you have less time to produce, you should simplify what you're trying to say. That way, all your small amount of time can be spent on carefully building the best way to say it. Moana 2 felt very unfocused. It felt like it was trying to say:

"You Can’t Survive in Isolation" (but like why not? why do they need their neighboring islands? Don’t make up a reason—tell me the reason the movie showed you.)

"There's Always Another Way” (what? As opposed to what? One way? What One Way was Moana demonstrably sticking to before the not-really-villainess sang her song? Wasn’t finding that One Way ((“learning where to go by remembering who you are/where you’ve been”)) the whole point of the first movie? Now we’re throwing that out the window?)

"Together But a Little Different" ("Different" as in 'In-New-Circumstances' not "Different" as in 'We’re-Different-So-It’s-Hard-to-Relate-to-One-Another,’ which would've been the better, more cohesive sense of ‘Different’.)

“Something-Something Stories Are Important” (literally they just substitute the phrase “we’ll die” with “our story will end.” No mention of why that’s bad, or what makes a story a story, no reason why stories are important, or what for, just throwing the word “story” around vaguely.)

And none of those "themes" I listed just now had a lot of work put into them. That’s it, in a nutshell. But I can flesh-out my argument for those, and present what I think they could’ve easily done differently, if they’d just picked one and worked hard to make it simply good. SPOILERS BELOW.

“You Can’t Survive in Isolation”

We're told in a quick vision that Moana's people will die if they stay in isolation—but there's no showing us that.

In fact, what we've been shown is that they're thriving, they're fine by themselves. They were in the first movie. They are at the beginning of the second.

So we're not convinced that they need what the whole adventure is supposedly about. Compare that to the first movie! Totally doesn't measure up to the storytelling quality!

In the first movie, the whole first act sets up the idea of darkness reaching through the ocean from Tefiti's missing heart, killing everything. That’s especially bad for Moana’s people. We know that because we’re shown how Moana's people are so deeply connected to the ecosystem of their island, and how every part of it is needed for their way of life to continue—then were also shown that Moana has a deep, personal longing to leave the island. There’s a real connection to home and an urgent need to leave it, and that creates really good emotional tension.

So by the time we're shown (not told in one scene, or through snatches of overdone dialogue, but shown) how the darkness will destroy everything if she doesn't go, we really believe it. We have lots of reasons to empathize with and believe in Moana’s reason for going on this mission. We also feel for her having to make the big decision; we’ve been shown that she’s trying to live up to her responsibilities, and leaving the island would seem like a dismissal of those responsibilities, but we can also see how doing nothing and staying actually would be a dismissal. We feel that tension because they showed us several believable reasons to feel it.

But when Moana is singing “Beyond,” which is supposedly about her conflicting feelings about leaving, and the need to go? I’m just bored. Not emotionally invested. I just saw her going back-and-forth, leaving and coming back, leaving and coming back, one song ago, in “We’re Back.” And everything was fine during that song. Leaving-And-Coming-Back is the dream she’s been living as a voyager. So why is she suddenly convinced it’s a hard decision to…leave-and-plan-to-come-back?

“Because the last voyager died doing this mission she’s about to go on! She might die too!” Okay but all you did was tell me that. You didn’t show me Moana nearly-dying (like she did the first time she tried to cross the reef, or the first time she tried to tackle Te Ka on her own) and then realizing, “gee, oh no, I could die this time,” and then having to make a renewed decision to go anyway. You didn’t put work in, so I don’t believe it.

But the emotion Moana is feeling about leaving is also undercut, like I said, because there doesn’t seem to be a need for her to leave. All they did was tell me that Motunui is in trouble if it stays isolated. But no proof. They were fine isolated from other islands in Moana 1. They have been fine up until now in Moana 2. One random vision of an empty pavilion for three seconds isn’t going to make me forget that and believe that continued isolation will do anything negative to them.

And another thing, what does “uniting with other islands” even mean?” Why would it be such a good thing?

Nobody mentions trade. Nobody mentions learning from one another, or demonstrates learning from one another. Honestly, having Kele teach Moana or Moni or the Kakamora, an actual other-islander, about farming would’ve been a great demonstration of “why we need to meet new people and get out more.”

Having Kele LEARN TO SWIM would have been a SLOW ONE DOWN THE MIDDLE.

But nooo. They just half-bake suggest the idea that the old man doesn’t like leaving his comfort zone, but then never let one of the others have a real conversation with him about why he needs to learn new things from new people. NEVER. It’s just “bouncy vague song, almost-jump-in-the-water-under-coercion BUT NEVER ACTUALLY DO IT, banter and one liners” for the rest of the movie! (And don’t tell me Kele “learning to speak Kakamora” was an example of him “getting out of his comfort zone.” No. Kele never demonstrated a lack of desire to meet and learn new things from strangers. He demonstrated a hatred of fun and the ocean. All the others could also understand the Kakamora literally whenever they needed to, so that wasn’t a special-character-arc for Kele.)

Even though, my point is, they could’ve easily had a character arc for Kele. And that would’ve had something to do with “learn new things from new people, or die stagnant and stuck in your ways,” look, see, a mini-object-lesson in one character’s journey about the theme of the movie. But noooo

They could’ve done the same type of “learn-something-new-or-die” with Moni. Have him be convinced that doing things the “traditional Motunui Wayfinding Way” on this, his first adventure, is the ONLY way to do things. But he’s not good at it, no matter how much head-knowledge he has. And then the Kakamora (or literally any non-Motunui-character) could’ve shown him a newly-developed style for him to learn and grow.

They could’ve done the same type of “learn-something-new-or-die” with Loto. But nope. She just has a really poorly-done, poorly-written, poorly-performed snippet of a song where she mentions how… “perfection is a myth, the journey is just failing, learning, then death, no destination, ever.” But that ridiculous, absolutely absurd worldview is not portrayed as something she’s wrong about or needs to grow out of. It’s portrayed as a good, quirky, revolutionary thing.

But that’s not the same thing as portraying the value I’m describing. Loto just sings about it and invents-and-reinvents canoes. She does not learn how to make canoes from outsiders. She doesn’t learn anything from anybody. She is portrayed as a solitary genius with her own ideas who’s never once shown to be wrong about anything in the whole movie, and everything she tries works. She never messes up or makes a mistake, for all her singing about it. So she never actually “falls on her face, then gets up and learns.” Even though learning from others would be the literal only way for her character to portray the idea of this vague theme they throw out there, “You Can’t Survive in Isolation.”

The point is: there is no reason, in-movie, SHOWN, for the audience to believe that Moana should “re-unite the islands.” There’s no believable demonstration of why that would be a good thing, and no believable demonstration of why not doing it would be a bad thing.

So then why do we care if she risks her life and Maui’s life to re-unite the islands? For a bunch of nameless nobody background characters to show up for a five-second afterparty on Motunui at the end? Ridiculous.

Moving on.

“There’s Always Another Way”

So BUMP ALL THAT, I GUESS.

Matangi, everybody’s Cherished Hope for a New Villain, sings a song and it’s about “get lost, there is no one way, there’s always a different way.”

Fine. Cool. Whatever. The whole point of the first movie was that there’s this symbolic, ancient, WAY of sailing and living your life bravely. And Moana doesn’t know what that One WAY is because her tribe had forgotten it, so she has to learn it. It’s cool, because you navigate by looking at where you’ve been, to see where you’re going. It’s the whole “remember who you are in order to face life’s challenges, not hide from them.” That’s “the Way.” But whatever. Dump that down the toilet, new movie. You know why? Because everybody’s obsessed with “There’s No One Truth,” and “There Is No Right and Wrong,” and “Let’s Experience Things Just to Experience Them, the Journey is the Destination Because We’re not Going Anywhere!” Blah blah blah ridiculous inane sewage slop.

BUT whatever, fine, IF you mean it in a “There’s Lot’s of Ways to Solve Most Problems, Try Try Again,” sense, that’s okay. That’s true for most problems (not all, but most, certainly there are more than one ways to sail.) Sure. that message, if that’s what they mean, is fine. That’s the sense in which Moana takes it, at least, when she dives down to touch the Core Island and break the curse instead of it rising.

But you know what? Yeah. They don’t flesh it out. They don’t take time to show that that’s what’s happening. Moana doesn’t try to teach her new crew how to sail, and they suck at it, but if she lets them do it their own way or whatever, then they work—and she learns there’s “more than one way.” That doesn’t happen.

The Kakamora that joins their team doesn’t solve all his problems with blow darts, or violence, or whatever—and then Moana, or the kindhearted Moni, or the peaceful Kele, tells him, “no, there’s another way, you don’t always have to do things your violent way.” That doesn’t happen.

Loto has one moment where she applies the way she was already living according-to, from the moment we meet her, not a NEW way, to the canoe so that the gang can out-sail magical waterspouts. And it works for like twenty seconds, is played like a great triumph, before they all get smashed into the ocean anyway.

Kele, again, would’ve been a great example of “learn to do things in a different way, or problem-solve by try-trying again.” Because he’s old and they set him up as hating life for no reason and not wanting to do new things. But they didn’t do anything with him.

And guess what else—at the end—when Moana has her own demigod powers, and her own magical-arm-tattoo ripped off from Tears of the Kingdom—guess what her magic power is?

To stick her oar in the water, and light up one current or “path” for the boat to take to a new destination.

A Path. ONE SINGULAR SOLITARY WAY.

Not “a new way.” Not “all possible ways.” Not “multiple ways.” Not even two ways. One. Even though the big lesson she sacrificed her life for, even though the one and only song Matangi got to sing, was about how “there’s always another way.”

WHILE they’re singing a reprise of, “We Know THE Way.”

It’s like being in a conversation with someone who starts a sentence and then forgets what they were saying halfway through, and winds up saying worse than nothing.

“Together, But a Little Different”

Like I said, if you told me that the Main Point of the movie (not one of many vague ideas, but the Main Point) was “Together, But a Little Different,” I immediately would’ve said:

“Oh, so it’s about having to adjust to long-distance relationships. Maybe even death.” Or, maybe, because I saw the trailers, I’d go, “Oh, so it’s about keeping what makes us unique, but uniting when we need to, in spite of our differences. ‘Together, But a Little Different.’”

No. It’s not about any of that. It’s just a phrase the Grandma’s Ghost says whenever she hugs Moana to remind her that she’s still “with her.” She’s still with her; she just glows and can shapeshift into a manta ray now! That has tons of application for real life. 🙄

It’s supposed to be her words of comfort to pass on to Moana, who can then pass it on to the people in her island, so they know that she won’t “ever really leave them.” But like. Then why should I care that she’s leaving them? Why should that be sad? If there’s no sacrifice in being apart, in leaving for the adventure, then the adventure keeps feeling low-stakes and boring and kind of pointless.

If you tilt your head and squint, it’s also maybe-applying to Moana’s pointless ugly annoying Little Sister character, Simea. Simea is in the movie so that someone can be immature for three seconds about how Moana’s always gone from home. And I do mean exactly three seconds, that’s all the emotional drama we get, and it’s not built up to either. She says, “Never come back? -sniff sniffle- I don’t want you to gooo!” And then runs away and then Moana takes a break from singing the next day to briefly explain to Simea about how she can pass messages through the ocean. Then she’s fine.

But the way this theme is thrown around, you think it would mean, “Moana Has to Go Away Sometimes, But if You Remember Her She Never Leaves You.”

But seriously. Again I say to you, who cares? We know Moana is coming back. We know that. Nobody in the audience seriously believes she’s never coming back when she leaves for this adventure. If we did, maybe we’d care that Simea cares. But we don’t.

Even when Moana “dies,” and it’s the perfect time to be like, “seeee, what we feeeared has happened, she’s dead, she can never go home to Simea!” THERE IS NO FOLLOW-THROUGH. There’s not even a cut to Simea back on Motonui, feeling through the ocean or the Force or whatever movie mumbo-jumbo that her sister is gone. And there is not even a deadline, in the movie, for Moana to accomplish this mission, so it’s not like she could be running late and we could get some scenes of Moana’s family mourning. Simea having to do something, take some big step, that show’s she’s willing to go on even if she can’t be with Moana anymore because she believed Moana about how she’s always with her—something like that.

My point is, Simea has no real point, so she doesn’t add to this “Together, But Different.” idea at all. And we already know that it doesn’t mean, “overcome our differences” from what I said in the first Theme.

But what they could have done? They COULD have gone whole-hog and MADE MOANA A BELIEVABLE DEMIGOD. Instead of a vague joke about tattoos that leaves the question open-ended, a pointless and theme-breaking display of shiny superpowers, and no other change to the status quo—

—they could’ve shown that there are consequences to that action—maybe she’s a Demigod of Navigation, or something like that, and the condition is, she can sail around connecting islands, but she can never stay on one too long. So she’ll never be able to live with Simea and her parents again on Motunui, but it’s the price she has to pay to connect the islands. Then she’d have to show Simea how they can still be “Together, Just a Little Different.”

Or someone could’ve gotten hurt or disabled, giving off the idea that even though everything is “different,” they can still be “together.”

Maui could’ve died and passed his fishhook powers, AND MINI MAUI, on to Moni or Moana. “Together, but different.”

Nothing, nothing at all like that happens. It’s just a pretty phrase that could’ve meant something, but any meaning it actually has hamstrings the whole emotional weight of the story instead of fueling it.

“Something-Something Stories Are Important”

The thing here is. I already said it. You can’t just say words and expect them to be impactful, in a story. You’re supposed to show what they mean and why they’re true, and THAT’S what creates an impact.

So when you’re talking about “stories” in a story, you definitely should not have nothing to say.

And I can feel it. I’ve seen none of the promotional material, I don’t watch the interviews, I haven’t checked BuzzFeed or ScreenRant or the Disney Youtube page in a while, but I can feel it.

I can feel them trying to say, “Something Something, ‘Storytelling’ is a big part of Pacific Islander Culture!” I can imagine the headlines. “[Actor or Disney Exec Name Here] Invites You to Celebrate Your Story with Pacific Islander Heritage Month!” They’re so into “culture as a marketing tool” these days.

But they say it so lazily. Just repeating the word “story” over and over in the movie doesn’t pay tribute to how important “stories” are to Pacific Islanders. Or to anybody.

You know what makes stories impactful? They point at truth, when the darkness and misunderstandings and evil of the world threaten to distract you or hide the truth. That’s what makes stories impactful. I’m sure Pacific Islanders use stories in that way—to pass on what they believe to be true, in a way that can be retold and remembered.

So MAKE THAT THE THEME OF YOUR MOVIE. Instead of just having Moana replace “Nalo wants to kill us” with “Nalo wants to end our story” for Empty Effect—instead of having Grandma say something about “your e

Okay okay.

Nalo is a silly, lazy villain. He is clearly a Thanos rip-off in design and introduction in a literal post-credits scene, and his most-present form, in the movie, is just a big ocean thunderstorm. But the laziest thing about him is that he’s the Conflict that everyone is trying to rise up and overcome, and the whole reason he sunk the Island was “He gets power from humans being divided.”

That’s never explained. It’s never shown at all why he gets power from the vague “humans are divided” thing. He has no scenes. He has no interactions with other characters (till the end-credits scene.) A range of his power, like “here’s what it looks like when the humans are divided—oh, now here’s how much less-powerful he is when they’re together!” is never shown. So. No consequences if the heroes fail, no change to the status-quo, villain-wise, when they win.

If Nalo wanted to end their stories, though, that would be another thing.

Stories are meant to be told. They’re for the benefit of others. So what they should’ve done is made the secret key of Nalo’s power hidden. Unknown. Nobody knows how to beat him. And he’s not sinking some unfindable island in another dimension. He’s just devouring the resources of the weather with his ever-more-powerful storms, (kind of like the darkness leaking through the ocean from the first movie) and nobody can stop him.

But that’s because each island, around Oceania, has clues to how to beat him. Clues in their stories. But they can only sail so far from what they know before his storms kill them. So he’s literally making them weaker by using his power to keep them apart, and making himself stronger by defending his weakness. Now they can’t Wayfind to each other, and learn one another’s cultural advancements or stories or beauties, because Nalo is powerful enough to make storms that rip their boats apart. But if they could learn from one another’s stories about the things their ancestors used against him, they could get rid of him.

That’s what they should’ve done. Shown why Nalo was a threat and how the Main Theme was the key to overcoming that threat.

They did not do that.

They made stories just a hot button word to be thrown around with no impact. In a story.

The point of this post is that Moana 2 had a lot of potentially-good points, and it made none of them, so it was totally unsatisfying. If it had just focused on one, the other little benefits they were trying to fit in could’ve been mentioned more naturally.

The way that Beauty & the Beast is all about ONE theme: “True Love is Self-Sacrificial.” But because of the tools it uses to tell that story—a beast that it would take a lot of self-sacrifice to be stuck with forever—you get little side-themes thrown in, supporting and draping decoratively over the ONE theme: “Beauty is Found Within, So Don’t Be Deceived By Appearances,” etc.

Moana 2 should’ve just picked the Story One, and it could’ve had that theme, and it’s cultural-nod cake, and it’s unifying-effect cake, and EATEN IT TOO.

And we could’ve eaten it. And WE could’ve enjoyed it! But no. Money money money lazy lazy lazy.

[starlit1daydream]

Knights & Pages: Deficiency and Exploitation

Well, then... here we are.

A day in delay, I'm aware; but I'm afraid I can't always be accounting for extraneous real-life factors. My apologies.

The Knight:Page class dichotomy embodies deficiency, exploitation and arguably compensation as well. They imbue their Aspect into their fighting prowess, utilise it both as a weapon and a tool, and often use it to constitute a shield as well. (Literally and metaphorically).

The presence of either (or both) of these classes also functions as a signal; as by their very nature, they exist to compensate for a deficiency in their Aspect within their session proper.

Canonical Knight players are Dave Strider (Knight of Time), Karkat Vantas (Knight of Blood) and Latula Pyrope (Knight of Mind).

Canonical Page players are Jake English (Page of Hope), Tavros Nitram (Page of Breath) and Horuss Zahhak (Page of Void).

So, Point A. The narrative function of the Knight.

Narratively speaking, the Knight is one who defends their Aspect; and uses it as a defense in turn. They are defined by maintaining a rigid facade, born of their Aspect and used to hide a perceived deficiency in it. Their Aspect is their sword and their shield, and this oft manifests as a deep-seated insecurity.

Dave's insecurity is with his masculinity, mortality and conception of 'heroism'. Karkat's insecurity is with the colour of his blood, his fear of ostracisation and social exile. Latula's insecurity is less clear-cut, but the most prevalent theory is that the injury that rendered her anosmic also left her with brain damage.

Thus, we see here that their fear comes from lacking in their Aspect. Dave lacks confidence in his ability to face closure & his projections of masculinity (something he misconstrues with heroism). Dave doesn't want a great destiny; he wants to be a normal guy who lives a normal life and dies a normal death. He's essentially a tutorial NPC thrust into plot bullshit after plot bullshit.

Karkat lacks confidence in his sense of self caused by his mutant blood and his persistent fear of social ostracisation and subsequent death should his status be exposed. One could also argue it is a disillusionment with the Alternian social order that he does not fit into by design, but feels he must follow anyways (hence his ass-kissing dreams of threschecutioner greatness).

(Here's where the conjecture comes in...)

Latula lacks confidence in her capacity for rational thought and ability to use logic for her own (and others') defense. If we're going with the TBI narrative for her, she feels as if she lacks intelligence as a result. Tying into Latula's commentary on the misogyny in online gaming circles and we get a girl who is deeply, deeply terrified of rising above her station and displaying an intellect.

So, Dave pretends to be a self-assured, chauvinistic 'cool kid'.

Karkat pretends to be a bossy, self-righteous 'perfect leader'.

Latula pretends to be an air-headed, radical 'gamer chick'.

All of them deny themselves depth and identity for the explicit purpose of denying people the right to know them on a deeper level.

Let's simplify this - Knights feel they lack their Aspect and compensate for it. End of.

Here's where the dramatic irony comes in; Knights are the only people in their session who are proficient with their Aspect at all. Dave is the only Beta Kid concerned with Time management, Karkat is the only Beta Troll concerned with maintaining social order and collaboration, Latula is the only Alpha Troll concerned with logical thought and logical argument.

Because the Beta Kids lack Time on their side, the Beta Trolls lack Blood to bind them together, and the Alpha Trolls lack Mind to... well, to be totally blunt, to use their fucking brains.

(The Beta Kids' lack of Time being tied moreso to the nature of their Game as opposed to the nature of themselves is absolutely a matter of Lunar Sway, by the way).

That's what they need to learn, and subsequently use their Aspect to defend. Dave defending his co-players from certain death and entropy, Karkat defending his co-players from turning on eachother and descending into conflict, Latula defending Mituna from disbelief and abuse through logical counterargument.

Here, we're dovetailing directly into Point B - practical function.

We're all caught up in flowery metaphors and abstract conceptions, but how does this translate to a literal function within SBURB?

Simple. The Knight imbues, exploits and weaponises their Aspect. They don't generate it or control it in any way - that's the caveat of their function. Knights must exploit an already existing well of their Aspect and use that minimal supply to the best of their abilities.

It's the literal manifestation of their abilities for compensation! They have to merely 'make do' with what's available. After all - if there was an influx of their Aspect to work with, there wouldn't be a deficiency to combat.

This journey ties into their narrative function as learning to use it and defend through it also comes with dropping the mask and putting down your sword every once in a while. We don't ever get to see this fully with Latula, unfortunately, but we see Dave and Karkat (through means of eachother, actually) learn to relax in eachothers' presence and drop some of their unhealthy preconceptions.

Now, let's go on to the Pages!

Point C - narrative function.

Pages function in much the same way as Knights on a base level - existing to cover for an existing deficit in their session by virtue of compensation. The difference, obviously, comes in their passivity - and their different manifestation of their Aspect which more directly feels to be a shield as opposed to a sword.

Pages turn the Knights' overcompensation on its' head. Like Knights, they too believe their lack their Aspect, and thus project an image of possessing an influx of it. The difference is that Pages... actually do have that deficiency.

Jake lacks Hope. He lacks faith in himself, lacks the belief in his own capacity to bring a better future and finds it difficult to hold onto his convictions when the going gets tough.

Tavros lacks Breath. He lacks a direction or an objective to follow, lacks freedom by virtue of his disability and Vriska's control of his life. He prefers to avoid things and run away from problems.

Horuss lacks Void. He lacks the ability to cope with imperfection and the fact he doesn't know things. He can't deal with being absent or bereft of purpose.

And, likewise, their sessions lack their Aspect as well in equal measure!

The Alpha Kids lack Hope in the same manner - they don't have the motivation to keep going and find themselves falling into depression and passivity. Dirk even lampshades this!

The Beta Trolls lack Breath - none of them have freedom to choose their own destinies due to oppressive Alternian society and thus fall into the trappings of the roles laid out before them.

The Alpha Trolls lack Void - the teenage echo chamber of drama and gossip denies anybody the right to secrecy or privacy, and their presence in the dreambubbles forces them into proximity and furthers this absence.

Now, it's a common conception that this absence means a Page is weak by default, or outright useless. I absolutely abhor this notion. A Page is not the 'weakling' class - they merely rely upon guidance.

For Jake, it's his fantasies. His masks. His projections of heroism and adventure - and Brain Ghost Dirk is the literal manifestation.

For Tavros, it's his false confidence. It's his assurance that he can stand up for himself and fly to safety should the going get tough - and Rufio is the literal manifestation.

For Horuss, it's his 'renaissance man' projection. It's his showcase of absolute perfection and ideal highblooded taste - and his alters and therian identity are the literal manifestation. (However poorly executed it was, and oh boy was it poorly executed and oh boy was it ableist.)

For this, they're prone to subsequently use their Aspect as a defense mechanism in a more passive manner than the acerbic Knights who prefer to fight with it.

Jake hides behind his fantasies, Tavros runs away from everything he can't face and Horuss pretends he can't hear the sound of Rufioh breaking up with him.

And, of course, as everyone will tell you - this comes with a vast well of potential. Pages are not uniquely powerful or the 'strongest class' like some people would have you believe, but it is true that upon undergoing development, they become incredibly confident in that Aspect. It just happens to be a long journey that no Page fully completes on-screen.

It is learning to accept their own lack of proficiency with their Aspect, drop the mask and begin forging a more genuine relationship with it. Knights must learn to relax, Pages must learn to stop relaxing. It's almost like a little inversion of their active:passive roles, if you want to see it like that!

Point D. Practical function.

Pages... yeah, this is really fucking obvious. Look at Jake. Look at that thing he does. You know? The gigantic shield of pure Hope energy he generates when his full potential is tapped into.

That's what a Page does. They tap into the well of their Aspect to use it as a great shield, making their defense of themselves through their Aspect literal. And, yeah, that's pretty goddamn powerful!

It's like they're meant to embody the little 'sidekick' role in shonen. Koichi Hirose. Koichi Hirose is a Page.

So, there we have it. The classes of compensation. I'll be putting out individual analyses of all of these class combinations soon-ish once the main seven posts are out, so be looking forward to that! I'll be back with you soon wiht the second part of this: Mages and Seers.

And that should be fun, 'cause I am one.

Take care.

[tesseractrave]

Any tips/tricks for people who are starting to draw Egon or any of the ghostbusters?

The key to capturing the likeness of an individual character in your art is identifying features and proportions. Just like how general stylization or exaggeration of art can't be achieved without knowing the basic fundamentals of it (the "you've got to know the rules to break them" deal), you can also study the fundamentals in specific character's appearances to capture likeness and differentiate between them!

It really just comes down to studying them and their individual features and figuring out how to translate them into your style. I'll use Egon as an example in a little tutorial/rundown on that below the cut:

I've made this mostly unstylized study of his (Harold Ramis's) real proportions and features so we can learn the rules before we break them.

(If you guys want me to make a study like this for the other three, I can! :])

First, I identify the character's foundational shape to assist in stylization. Egon has very rectangular shapes in his appearance.

(For the other Ghostbusters, I'd say Winston is diamonds, Ray is circles, and Peter is squares.)

Then, we spot the most defining facial traits to help us out. For Egon:

Tall face

High-angled jaw

Squared forehead

Long, hooked nose with high nostrils

Flat, thin lips

Small, dark, deep-set and downturned eyes

High-arched eyebrows with low ends

Things like moles, freckles, dimples, and wrinkles can also help a lot as either just features or to convey age. Egon, for instance, has dimples when he smiles! :)

You can add whatever other creases and scrunches you deem necessary. I personally also enjoy the undereye crease for that "mature" flare.

Things like hair and accessories can be included as "identifying features," but they're two of the very few things we can easily change about our face, so unless it's essential for identifying the character (like it is for a lot of anime styles) or you're planning on never drawing them in situations where they don't have them, try not to use them as a crutch!

(I say this because I tend to draw Egon with his hair messed up or without his glasses, and I like him to still be recognizable.)

My style tends to simplify curves and angles to create a more interesting silhouette, and I emphasize and exaggerate features and apply a lot of shape language, but I do my best not to lose the identifying traits that make the character look like themselves.

It's sort of a balancing act, and it's never perfect (people's faces are squishy and can look slightly different from angle to angle and depending on what facial muscles are being used) but I hope this at least helped a little bit!

[callmemonster68]

sweet obedience | harua

Harua discovering that not everything can be learned in books.

paring: virgin!harua x fem!reader 18+ | masterlist

wc: 4,033

warnings: nsfw, first time, unprotected sex, praise kink, gentle sex, slight innocence kink

The doorbell rang and Y/N took a deep breath. It was the first time she would meet the Japanese boy she had been hired to tutor. She was a little nervous, not because of him, but because she usually taught teenagers, and Harua seemed so... different.

Harua's mother opened the door with a welcoming smile.

Harua's Mom: Thanks for coming, Y/N. Harua is in the room, waiting for you. He's a little shy, but I'm sure you two will get along well.

Y/N nodded, grabbed her stuff, and went upstairs. Reaching the door, she knocked softly.

Harua: Come in (came the low voice, almost whispered)

Upon opening it, Y/N saw Harua standing in the doorway, eyes wide, as if he had seen a ghost. He was young, with an almost innocent expression, as if the world was still a mystery to him.

Harua: H-hi (he said, his voice trembling)

Y/N smiled, feeling protective somehow.

Y/N: Hi, Harua. I'm Y/N, your teacher. You can call me that. Shall we begin?

He nodded, still a little lost, and closed the door behind her.

Days later

Classes continued, always alone in his room. Harua was dedicated, hard-working, but still too naive for anything other than studying.

Y/N saw him as a baby, a little boy who needed to learn more than just math and Korean. She was wild, full of experiences and a confident woman, but she hid it behind a motherly look when she was with him.

Y/N: Harua, did you understand this part? (he asked, pointing to the formula in the notebook)

Harua: I understand a little, but it's still difficult. (he replied, scratching his head)

She smiled, sitting next to him on the mattress.

Y/N: Don't worry, I'll help you improve your grades. And you can ask anything, okay?

He looked at her, eyes shining, half lost between embarrassment and admiration.

—

It was another silent afternoon, the sun came in through Harua's bedroom window, illuminating the notebooks scattered around.

Y/N explained a complicated concept, while Harua tried to follow carefully.

Y/N: So when you apply this formula here, you'll notice that the equation becomes more... simple. (she said, looking at him with an encouraging smile)

Harua frowned, trying to understand, and then spoke, half shyly, half not realizing the double meaning:

Harua: I... like it when things are simple like this. It makes it much easier for me to... understand better. (he said, with a slight blush on his cheeks)

Y/N arched an eyebrow, trying not to laugh at the way he said it, with that almost disarming innocence.

Y/N: Yes, sometimes simplifying everything helps a lot. (she replied, trying to keep her voice steady, but her look was amused)

Harua looked at her, not understanding why she was looking like that.

Harua: Do you think I'm... complicated? (he asked, his voice low)

Y/N gave a mischievous but sweet, almost maternal smile.

Y/N: You? Nothing like that, Harua. You're just a baby trying to learn how to walk. You don't need to worry about complicated things right now.

He blinked, confused.

Harua: Baby? Me? But I'm already seventeen...

She chuckled softly, stepping a little closer.

Y/N: You may have, but to me, you're still a baby that I need to protect.

For a moment, the silence between them was heavy. Harua looked away, and Y/N felt her heart race, even though she tried to maintain her posture as a teacher and friend.

Y/N finished explaining another exercise, closing the notebook with a light sigh. It was hot in that small room, and she pulled her hair to the side, exposing her neck. Harua swallowed without realizing it, trying not to look distracted.

She looked at him, smiling.

Y/N: You know, Harua… I'm only a year older than you, but honestly, look at me… and look at you. We're still a long way apart. (she laughed softly, jokingly, almost as if he were just a silly little brother)

Harua, blushing, blurted out without thinking:

Harua: Who said I can't catch up to you? Or... even be better than those guys you hang out with?

As soon as the words came out, he froze.

Y/N widened her eyes a little in surprise before letting out a low laugh, the corner of her mouth curling into a teasing smile.

Y/N: Oh… really, Harua? (she leaned a little towards him, resting her elbow on her knee, her face now very close to his) Do you want to tell me how exactly you plan on doing this?

Harua turned completely red, looking away, realizing too late what he had said.

Harua: I-I just meant that… that I can improve! I don’t want to always fall behind… (he stumbled over his words, trying to explain himself)

Y/N laughed even harder, but this time there was a different glow in her eyes. A glow he couldn't identify, and that was starting to make the room seem too small, the air too dense.

Y/N: You're adorable, Harua. (she whispered, playing with a strand of her own hair) Let's see how far you can go, then.

He bit his lower lip, unsure of where to put his hands, his heart beating fast in his chest. For the first time, he felt that there was something more between them. And for the first time, Y/N began to wonder how far this innocent game could go.

—

Late in the afternoon, Y/N arrived at Harua's house, backpack on her shoulder and ready for another class. She rang the doorbell, but this time it was his mother who opened the door, with an awkward smile.

Harua's Mom: Oh, Y/N, thanks for coming! Hey, could you please take your class somewhere else today? We have some people fixing the windows upstairs, Harua's room is full of dust. (she fixed her hair, worried) I know it's a bother, but could you take him home, just for today?

Y/N smiled, no problem at all.

Y/N: Sure! No problem, I can take him with me.

Harua appeared in the hallway, a little surprised.

Harua? Your house? (he asked, quietly)

Y/N: That's right, come with me (she said winking at him) Let's have a change of scenery today.

Arriving there, Y/N opened the door, threw the keys on the table in the entrance and put the backpack on the sofa. Harua entered slowly, looking at everything curiously, it was the first time he was in her space, in her “territory”. His heart was already beating a little fast, without even knowing why.

Y/N: So, do you want to study here in the living room or… in my room?

Harua blinked a few times, her cheeks turning slightly red. Without thinking much, she blurted out:

Harua: No four.

Y/N raised her eyebrows in surprise.

Y/N: In the room? (repeated, crossing his arms, a smile playing on his lips) You're brave, huh, Harua.

He shifted uncomfortably, only realizing later what he had chosen.

Harua: I-I just thought… it would be quieter there. No… it's not because of anything else.

She let out a low chuckle, picking up her backpack again.

Y/N: Okay, okay, come on. I'll show you.

Y/N's room had a large, soft bed, a desk full of notebooks and colorful pens, and a window that let the golden light of the late afternoon in. Harua entered a little shyly, looking around as if he was invading something very intimate.

Y/N: So, Harua… (she said, stretching slightly) I don't have a table here in the room for us to study. I think we'll have to study in bed, okay?

His eyes widened, his face instantly turning red.

Harua: N-in bed? (he stuttered, tugging on his backpack strap nervously) Ah… y-yeah, it’s okay…

Y/N chuckled softly, finding it adorable how completely disarmed he was.

Y/N: Relax, Harua, I don't bite.

Y/N started to tidy up, throwing some things aside. Harua stood at the door, not knowing where to put his hands, until she called him:

Y/N: Come on, silly. Sit here with me. (she patted the mattress) Or are you going to just stand there like a statue?

He swallowed hard, walking slowly to the edge of the bed, sitting down carefully, as if he was in a sacred place.

As she opened the notebooks and began to explain the content, Harua tried to focus, but everything seemed closer, tighter, more… intimate. He could feel the warmth of her body next to him, the soft perfume she wore, the low laughter when he got an answer wrong.

Until, by accident, their hands touched as they picked up a pen at the same time. He froze instantly.

Y/N looked at him, with a mischievous smile.

Y/N: Nervous, Harua? You're even shaking... (she joked, holding the pen between her fingers) Do you want to change places, or can you stand studying like this, right next to me?

Harua opened her mouth to respond, but no sound came out. He only felt his face burn, completely lost between shame and… something else he still didn't know how to deal with.

Y/N crossed her legs on the bed, picking up a book. Harua was next to her, trying to focus on her exercises, but she was clearly already fighting her own thoughts.

Suddenly, Y/N stretched, letting out a soft sigh.

Y/N: Harua, do you mind if I put on some more comfortable clothes? (she asked, casually) I like to be comfortable here at home, you know?

He looked up quickly, surprised.

Harua: A-ah! N-no! It's okay! (he stuttered, already blushing just thinking about it)

She smiled, grabbed some clothes from the wardrobe, and went to the bathroom, leaving the door ajar. Harua took a deep breath, trying to focus.

A few minutes later, she came back. She was wearing a short blouse, no bra, and a pair of short, comfortable shorts that showed off her legs. The detail he hadn't expected: when she bent down a little to pick up the notebook, he caught a glimpse of her nipple piercings under her thin blouse.

His heart raced. He tried to look away, to look at the wall, at his notebook, at anything—but his eyes kept coming back, quick, peering.

Y/N noticed. Of course she noticed. A mischievous smile appeared on the corner of her mouth as she pretended to read the book. She let time pass, watching his gaze from the corner of her eye. Until, out of nowhere, he said:

Harua: I-I… can I ask something?

She raised her eyebrows, smiling.

Y/N: Okay, Harua.

He took a deep breath.

Harua: How many piercings… do you have? (he asked quickly, quietly, as if he was committing a crime)

Y/N bit her lower lip, holding back a giggle.

Y/N: Hmm... well, I have these in my ear, (she said, showing the piercings in her ears) I have this one in my belly button... (she pulled her shirt slightly, showing the shiny piercing in her belly button, and saw his eyes widen) And well... these are the two you can't stop looking at.

Harua turned completely red, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly.

Harua: I-I… I… I wasn't… (he tried to explain, desperately)

Y/N chuckled softly, leaning her body a little towards him, her eyes shining with mischief.

Y/N: Relax, Harua… I know you’re curious. (she winked at him)

Harua swallowed hard, looking away, but feeling his face burn and his body heat up in a way he couldn't explain. And Y/N, on the other side, was starting to enjoy herself more than she should have.

She gently took his hand, which was resting on the notebook. He felt a chill run up his arm.

Y/N: Do you want to… feel? (she asked, her voice low, almost a whisper)

Harua's eyes widened, confused, lost, not knowing how to react. He opened his mouth to say something, but no sound came out. Then, in a nervous reflex, he closed his eyes, his heart hammering in his chest.

Y/N chuckled softly, finding it adorable. She gently pulled his hand and led it under her shirt, guiding it to her bare breast, his fingers lightly brushing against the cold piercing.

Y/N: There, see? It doesn't bite... (she joked, with a mischievous smile)

Harua was left breathless. He trembled slightly, feeling her warm skin, the soft texture, the contrast with the cold metal of the piercing. He didn't know if he should open his eyes, say something, pull his hand back, everything in him seemed stuck, frozen between shame and desire.

Y/N, on the other hand, just enjoyed every second, watching his innocent expression, like a game she completely controlled.

Y/N: It's okay, Harua… (she whispered close to his ear) You can touch it. I'll let you.

He let out a small sigh, his mind spinning as his body reacted in ways he didn't quite understand. And for the first time, he realized that maybe… he wasn't just a "baby" in her eyes anymore.

Harua kept his eyes tightly closed, feeling the warm, soft touch on his palm. His heart was beating so hard he thought Y/N could hear it. His hand trembled slightly as his fingers moved slowly, timidly, exploring the soft contour of her breast, feeling the delicious contrast of the cold metal of the piercing against her warm skin.

He didn't dare open his eyes, it seemed that if he did, he would be crossing a line from which there was no turning back. But even so, his body was already on alert, his breathing rapid, his face burning.

Y/N, watching his every reaction with a small smile on the corner of her lips, tilted her head slightly.

Y/N: Harua… (she murmured, her voice soft) Want to… see?

He froze for a second. Eyes still closed, he hesitated. But then, in an almost imperceptible gesture, he nodded.

Harua: Y-yes… (he answered softly, almost without a voice)

Y/N bit her lower lip lightly, enjoying the mix of innocence and desire in him. Slowly, she pulled his hand away, bringing it back to her lap, and stood up, standing right in front of him.

Y/N: So… look. (she said softly)

With slow movements, she held the hem of her short blouse and lifted it, revealing first her flat stomach, the shiny piercing in her belly button... and then, slowly, she lifted the blouse completely, revealing her bare breasts, with the small, delicate piercings shining under the soft light of the room.

Harua's eyes widened, finally opening them, and he was completely breathless. He didn't know where to look, how to react, he seemed caught between embarrassment and pure fascination, almost hypnotized. His face turned completely red, but his eyes couldn't look away, he was completely absorbed.

Y/N smiled slightly, lowering her body a little, getting to his height again, very close.

Y/N: Nice, huh? (she teased softly, with a mischievous look) Do you want to play again… or do something else?

Harua swallowed hard, his entire body tense, but his eyes shone with curiosity and desire. He seemed ready to cross that line, even though he had no idea how.

Harua breathed quickly, his eyes fixed on her, on her body, on the soft curves, on the piercings shining on her bare chest. He didn't know where to put his hands, he didn't know if he could touch, he didn't know if he should do something, but his body had already decided before his head even understood.

Y/N, still smiling, leaned in, getting very close to him, feeling the heat radiating from the boy.

Y/N: Harua… (she whispered, almost brushing her lips against his ear) Do you want it?

He looked up, eyes wide, face red, but this time he didn't stutter. He just nodded, taking a deep breath.

Y/N climbed onto his lap slowly, kneeling on the bed, with her legs on either side. Her hands went to his face, holding it lightly, while she brushed her bare breasts right in front of him, letting the piercings lightly touch his skin.

Y/N: You can touch, Harua… (she murmured, her eyes half closed, her voice low, hoarse with desire) You can kiss… you can do whatever you want…

His hands, hesitantly, went to her waist, slowly rising until he reached her breasts, feeling the warm skin, the cold piercings against his palms. He didn't know exactly how to do it, but his clumsy way only made Y/N more excited, more amused.

She guided his head gently, bringing his lips to her lap.

Y/N: Try it… (she whispered, and he obeyed, kissing slowly, first shyly, then a little more confidently, feeling the taste of her skin, hearing the little sighs she let out)

Y/N bit her lower lip lightly, tilting her head back, her hands holding onto his shoulders.

Y/N: That's it, Harua... (she whispered, with a teasing smile) You're so good, so obedient...

He moaned softly, his entire body on fire, his heart racing, his hands sliding clumsily over her body, while the kisses became hotter, bolder, more needy.

Y/N felt his breath hitch, his hands tighten around her waist, and she knew: he had crossed the line. He was no longer just the shy student, the innocent little boy. He wanted more.

And she? She was more than ready to give.

Y/N: Do you want to continue, Harua? (she asked softly, leaning her forehead against his, her eyes shining with desire) Do you want to learn more… with me?

He could only manage a muffled “yes” before pulling her into a clumsy but eager kiss, finally taking the initiative.

His kiss was hot, still clumsy, but full of hunger. Y/N felt Harua's hands trembling as he held her waist, while his lips moved against hers with an irresistible mix of nervousness and desire.

When she tugged lightly on his hair, he moaned softly, a sound so sweet that Y/N bit her lower lip, smiling.

Y/N: Awn… so greedy, baby… (she teased, brushing her lips against his ear) Want to learn everything? You'll have to put up with me, then…

She pulled away just enough to pull her blouse off completely, throwing it on the floor, leaving her completely naked from the waist up. Harua watched, fascinated, breathing quickly, his face flushed, his hands hesitating in the air.

Y/N: Come here… (she whispered, taking his hand and guiding it to her own body) I'll teach you properly.

She gently pushed him until he was lying on the bed, climbing on top of him, grinding slightly on his lap as she pulled his shirt up, exposing his chest and abdomen. He moaned softly, his eyes a little teary, nervous, too excited, his body trembling.

Y/N: Shh… calm down, baby… (she murmured, lightly scratching his chest, teasing) I'll take care of you, I'll give you everything… but you have to obey me properly, understand?

He shook his head, biting his lip.

Harua: Y-yes… (he gasped) Please… teach me… everything…

Y/N smiled widely, leaning down to kiss his lips as her hands moved down, unbuttoning his pants, feeling the pulsing arousal there. He groaned loudly when she slid her hand down, and his body arched slightly.

Y/N: So sensitive… (she whispered, giggling softly) Will you cry for me today, baby? Will you moan my name while I teach you everything?

He squeezed his eyes shut, stuttering between moans:

Harua: Y-yes… I… I want… please… don’t stop…

Y/N slowly lowered her own panties, letting him see everything, and guided his body, positioning him. He was shaking, his eyes wide, but full of desire. She held his face with both hands, looking into his eyes:

Y/N: Listen, Harua… go slowly, breathe… feel my body… listen to me, okay? I will guide you, baby… you just need to obey…

He let out a soft whimper, his hands gripping her waist tightly as she slowly lowered herself, taking him in for the first time. He moaned loudly, almost sobbing, his entire body shaking.

Y/N: So tight… so hot… (she whispered, grinding slowly) Do you feel it, baby? This is all yours now… but only if you make me moan, understand?

Harua was panting, whimpering softly, trying to hold on, trying to keep up with the pace, but clearly already on the edge. Y/N was laughing softly, mischievously, leaning in to lick his ear as she sped up her hips.

Y/N: That's it, moan for me... (she murmured, while grinding slowly, then quickly, her hips slamming against him, teasing him more and more) I want to hear you... cry for me, go on...

He groaned loudly, almost a sob, his hands gripping tightly, his body arching to meet her movements, completely surrendered, completely dominated.

Y/N felt his body vibrate, his breathing falter, and she knew: he was learning fast… and he would want more and more.

Harua no longer knew where he was. He only knew the heat, the tightness, Y/N's low, hoarse voice whispering in his ear, ordering, guiding, teasing.

He was panting loudly, his eyes were a little teary, his moans coming out in sobs, without any shame.

Harua: Y-Y/N… p-please… I… I can't take it… (he whimpered, holding onto her hips, trying to keep up, but completely overcome by the rhythm, the heat, the overwhelming pleasure)

Y/N laughed softly, mischievously, leaning in to lightly bite his neck, her breath hot against his skin.

Y/N: Hold on, baby... you'll hold on because I'm in charge... understand? (she whispered with a wicked smile) You want to make me cum, don't you? You want to hear me moan for you, don't you? Then don't cum yet, hold on... obey.

Harua cried softly, her eyes squeezed shut, her whole body shaking, moaning loudly every time she sped up or bucked harder. He murmured her name between sobs, lost in pleasure, completely surrendered.

When Y/N finally moaned loudly, the muscles of her body clenching around him, the sound was his undoing. He cried out, her name escaping in a desperate moan, and came hard, clinging to her, crying, groaning against her neck.

They stood panting for a few minutes, their bodies pressed together, sweaty, their hearts racing.

Y/N smiled contentedly, running her fingers through his wet hair. She slowly stood up, getting off of him, her eyes shining with mischief.

Y/N: Do you think it's over, baby? (she asked with a dangerous tone) We still have one thing to do.

Harua slowly opened her eyes, her face red, her lips parted, panting. He didn't quite understand... until she slowly climbed onto his chest, crawling until she sat right on top of his face.

She grabbed his hair with one hand, leaning in to look into his eyes.

Y/N: You've been a good boy... now, clean me properly. (she ordered, her voice low, almost a purr) Use your tongue. Without complaining, without stopping, until I tell you to.

Harua moaned softly, completely surrendered, and obeyed. He closed his eyes, starting slowly, his tongue hesitant at first, then firmer, tasting her, hearing the satisfied moans she let out above him.

Y/N pulled his hair lightly, shaking slowly, teasing, laughing softly.

Y/N: That's it, baby... clean it all up... that's right... ahh... you're perfect like this, under me, you know? (she whispered, her voice full of desire) So obedient, so delicious...

Harua whimpered softly, moaning against her, lost in the pleasure of serving her, in the heat, the sound, the smell, the taste, completely submissive, completely in love.

Y/N tilted her head back, moaning louder, feeling the pleasure rise again, knowing that Harua had crossed into a place of no return, now he was hers, completely.

And she was going to enjoy every second of it.

✿If you don’t reblog and comment, you can be sure I’ll be showing up in your dreams tonight… and I won’t be as sweet as in the story✿

[sam-keeper]

Hey Look At This Comic: The Property of Hate

I don't know if any form of comics is as love with wild digital experimentation as webcomics. while even indie print comics often feel like they're opting for a more traditional and coherent look, webcomics feel like the place to be if you want people furiously twiddling the knobs and dials to see how far the machine can be pushed aesthetically. a lot of the boldest and most beautiful hypercomic experiments along these lines--stuff like NAWLZ and A Lesson Is Learned But The Damage Is Irreversible--probably aren't anything like household names anymore, but it feels like that spirit is alive and well in contemporary webcomics.

like just take a gander at the above pages from The Property of Hate. what an incredible, juicy abundance of style! this is a comic that's not afraid to get messy with layers of effects, even to the point of sometimes being kind of hard to visually parse. this is a digital comic writ large. actually, it feels like it's doing stuff that other comics these days eschew, stuff that was more a staple of--and probably is somewhat negatively associated with--early, rough, photoshop heavy webcomics. (the fact that the Property of Hate started, I guess, in 2012 probably has something to do with both this stylistic tendency, and its love of guys in suits with objects for heads.) like, look at that layering of semitransparent text elements in the first page above. look how hard it's going on the different layer styles all mashed over one another. it's full on reveling in this look, and the effect is a lot of fun, really conveying the idea of "this little sock puppet creature, Assok, just bellowed out a wall of prerecorded sounds".

of course, it helps that the actual cartooning and paneling here is a delight:

I love the touch of having RGB, the tv object head tumblr sexyman there, extend slightly out of frame in that first panel. it does a great job of establishing the "camera" and its exaggerated perspective for the sequence of three panels, setting up the gag of having the Hero fall on RGB in the background while in the foreground Assok's head pops up (and what a great expression lol). this sequence in turn acts as the setup to the big structural break that is the bottom of the page and its wall of noise, Assok comically small at the bottom. good stuff!

that second page, a sequence in which the Hero and RGB navigate the darkness under trees under sea by... sound essence I guess? is more painterly but also has some gorgeous digital art touches. I love the way RGB's body is a grey staticky cutout that looks like a uniform texture painted onto the canvas. the whole page is so lush, especially for something so defined by a very simplified set of brush strokes sitting on deep areas of black.

and then there's this third page, crowded with neon-outlined object head guys. this style does a great job of capturing the concept of a whole city of characters who haven't reached completeness and departed for their individual works of fiction or art--outlines waiting to be filled. the color palette of this location is delightful cause it feels like a black light poster or gel pen drawn on a black backpack. and it's got that mark, again, of digital production: scope out how those outlines have clearly been drawn first then covered in glowing gradients. this is the kind of technique that breaks with the vogue for digital inking and painting emulating physical media.

that's nothing compared to the incredible rushing storm on that last page and its bedlam of filters and blending styles. fitting for a storm that threatens to erase the main characters, the page is almost unintelligibly dense with effects and textures. it's almost a bit... too much? the comic can sometimes be a bit obscurationist in both style and narrative. after reading through it all recently, I wound up skimming back through in search of pages to talk about here and found that things were clicking a LOT better for me after getting some very necessary lore dumps later in the story. nevertheless, I can't help but look at a page like this and feel kinda thrilled! it really feels like Sarah Jolley is constantly looking ways to swing for the fences with the aesthetic of the story.

the cool thing about webcomics is, you can just do that and no one can tell you not to layer on as many filters as you want!

pages from:

this post originally ran on Cohost on June 3, 2024. you can read more reviews in the Hey Look At This Comic tag and support me on Patreon.

[briebysabs]

I’ve been deliberating for a couple days now and have decided to discuss in-depth about Kim Dokja and the tendencies of putting his life on the line. For most of the novel, I was split on whether I should view KDJ as a self-sacrificial bastard or a suicidal character. And by the end, I’ve reached the conclusion that he is both.

Before I elaborate further, it should be noted that while we all meme about KDJ’s dying count, he actually isn’t that careless with his life. What I mean is he sacrifices himself usually as a last resort, plans A to F didn’t work and it’s the only option left to hope for kimcom’s safety-ditch effort. Usually. We’ll circle back to that when we bring up OD. But his sacrifices are always done as granting his companions salvation, utterly blind to how they feel about it. But to understand his constant need to do this you have to first start with where he learned how to love. Lee Sookyoung’s love was sacrificial, she’d take the brunt of her husband’s rage to shield KDJ, she’d take on blame for his death and be incarcerated for years so Kim Dokja won’t discover the truth. All of this, in my opinion, unbeknownst to KDJ, imprinted onto him this interpretation of love. As nobody else until the scenarios began had loved him (Yes HSY technically but he doesn’t know that). Which gives the irony that multiple characters KDJ resent in the story such as Kim Namwoon, his mother, the constellations are ultimately revealed to be reflections of himself.

Another component to his self-sacrificing is “Kim Dokja the reader”. I’m not going to dive deep into how orv interweaves dissociation and escapism into its narrative, I’ll do that some other day. But KDJ views himself as the reader, an outsider, the sole member in the audience watching the story unfold before him. Yes he grants commentary, the players notice and acknowledge his existence, but he isn’t part of the play. So if he decides to step out of the auditorium for a while, if he decides to leave a bookmark where he left off and close the book, nothing should change. The story will continue in his absence, the characters cannot possibly miss him because Kim Dokja was not a character. He was not part of their world so even if he’s gone, the ending will still happen. And that is something I want to stress here.

KDJ says “he wants to see a certain story’s epilogue”. Specific choice of words, “see”. He doesn’t say he’ll be part of it,that he’ll be with them, or any close variation of those phrases.

This is where I want to diverge to talk about KDJ's suicidality. You can say “Ok then, KDJ has a clear goal in mind to reach the ending he desires. Yes he may feel the need to step out of the story every now and then, but he does so reluctantly. So obviously, he doesn’t want to die.” And you wouldn’t be wrong really but that simplifies it to an overwhelming degree. That’s how I initially thought of it until I realized how complicated it actually is. Because most people who deal with suicidal thoughts aren’t searching for death but rather feel there’s no other choice. It often isn’t as clear cut as 1863 YJH who, anyone that read this arc will say with certainty that he was suicidal. Yes KDJ isn’t chanting in his mind over and over that he wants to die but why does he want to live? To see the proper ending of a web novel that stopped him from attempting again to begin with. Over the course of orv he finds people he loves and who love him back deeply. People he longs to live for but despite that because of the disconnect between them, his self-loathing, accompanied with what I said before, believing he has no other way out of these threatening situations. Yeah it’s to save his companions but in the end Kim Dokja still feels the need to die. Even if you do not see KDJ as a suicidal character, it is undeniable that so much revolving him, the impact it has on those who care for him, and the visceral descriptions used to convey their thoughts, is a direct metaphor for that.

Or in a few cases, straight up what’s going on and now we arrive at what I think was the final straw for Kim Dokja. Meeting the Oldest Dream. For me, this is THE scene of orv. The biggest twist and what finally irreparably broke KDJ. Prior to this, Kim Dokja had become the “Enemy of the story” but it was unlike his previous dances with death. This time he truly had no intention of dying, he wants to be a part of the ending with his companions, he understands now that his sacrifices do hurt them. That according to him “I, someone of no redeeming quality, could be loved by the others.” That he is a character and that just maybe, he does deserve to live happily ever after with them. And then Kim Dokja meets a 15-year old boy with the same face as his, doodling in a notebook his ideas for Ways of Survival and a notification tells him to ‘Please end the Oldest Dream’. All of that progress is shattered in an instant.

KDJ tries to excuse himself by recalling his promise to SP to kill OD but we all know if that was any other kid, he would not have tried to kill them. He would’ve hesitated much more, he’d look for a loophole, he would’ve tried talking which is his biggest strength for every corner he gets into. Killing them would not be the first option but now it is. Because this isn’t an instance of sacrifice anymore, KDJ is sick of himself. OD is a presence that confirms KDJ’s worst fears. That he’s meant to be weak and pitiful and alone, that he was always an outsider, that he unintentionally causes pain and misfortune to people he loves, that everyone would be perfectly fine and better even without him. And Kim Dokja is the physical manifestation of them: a monster. And there’s only one way to get rid of this monster.

The chain of events from him swinging his sword at OD, trying to stab himself with the blade only for YJH to stop it desperately with his hand, everyone restraining and begging him to stop, KDJ crying and screaming for SP + the other Outer Gods to kill OD. Everyone else is forgiving him and KDJ is only thinking of getting a blade.

This is Kim Dokja’s relapse. It’s real, it’s harrowing, and he never recovers from it. He reaches the conclusion that he has to be alone, it’s his atonement, it's what he deserves. So he splits himself 49-51. I interpreted this when I first read it as presenting 49% of what you believe people want to see. More real than a facade but it’s not the true you. The true, fucked up version of who you are is trapped in a prison of your making, trapped in a darkness you feel you don’t deserve to escape. Which is why it’s so powerful that KimCom went after that 51%. They didn’t want just their version of KDJ, they wanted everything KDJ is including the larger side of him that he wishes didn’t exist. But the plan fails, they managed to turn that full stop into a comma but they couldn’t save KDJ. Because you can’t drag someone out of that train, out of that mentality, you can’t force someone to love themself. All you can do is reach out to any corner, every worldline you can and let them know you’ll always love them. That you’ll always love every aspect of their story and hope that perhaps one day, they’ll accept your hand and believe it.

[ID: Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint art by Blackbox: first of Kim DOkja smiling, seen through a space in a bookshelf, and second of astronaut Yoo Joonghyuk floating upside down as letters float around him. End ID]

[feminist-space]

Excerpts:

"The convenience of instant answers that LLMs provide can encourage passive consumption of information, which may lead to superficial engagement, weakened critical thinking skills, less deep understanding of the materials, and less long-term memory formation [8]. The reduced level of cognitive engagement could also contribute to a decrease in decision-making skills and in turn, foster habits of procrastination and "laziness" in both students and educators [13].

Additionally, due to the instant availability of the response to almost any question, LLMs can possibly make a learning process feel effortless, and prevent users from attempting any independent problem solving. By simplifying the process of obtaining answers, LLMs could decrease student motivation to perform independent research and generate solutions [15]. Lack of mental stimulation could lead to a decrease in cognitive development and negatively impact memory [15]. The use of LLMs can lead to fewer opportunities for direct human-to-human interaction or social learning, which plays a pivotal role in learning and memory formation [16].

Collaborative learning as well as discussions with other peers, colleagues, teachers are critical for the comprehension and retention of learning materials. With the use of LLMs for learning also come privacy and security issues, as well as plagiarism concerns (7]. Yang et al. [17] conducted a study with high school students in a programming course. The experimental group used ChatGPT to assist with learning programming, while the control group was only exposed to traditional teaching methods. The results showed that the experimental group had lower flow experience, self-efficacy, and learning performance compared to the control group.

Academic self-efficacy, a student's belief in their "ability to effectively plan, organize, and execute academic tasks"

', also contributes to how LLMs are used for learning [18]. Students with

low self-efficacy are more inclined to rely on Al, especially when influenced by academic stress

[18]. This leads students to prioritize immediate Al solutions over the development of cognitive and creative skills. Similarly, students with lower confidence in their writing skills, lower

"self-efficacy for writing" (SEWS), tended to use ChatGPT more extensively, while higher-efficacy students were more selective in Al reliance [19]. We refer the reader to the meta-analysis [20] on the effect of ChatGPT on students' learning performance, learning perception, and higher-order thinking."

"Recent empirical studies reveal concerning patterns in how LLM-powered conversational search systems exacerbate selective exposure compared to conventional search methods. Participants engaged in more biased information querying with LLM-powered conversational search, and an opinionated LLM reinforcing their views exacerbated this bias [63]. This occurs because LLMS are in essence "next token predictors" that optimize for most probable outputs, and thus can potentially be more inclined to provide consonant information than traditional information system algorithms [63]. The conversational nature of LLM interactions compounds this effect, as users can engage in multi-turn conversations that progressively narrow their information exposure. In LLM systems, the synthesis of information from multiple sources may appear to provide diverse perspectives but can actually reinforce existing biases through algorithmic selection and presentation mechanisms.

The implications for educational environments are particularly significant, as echo chambers can fundamentally compromise the development of critical thinking skills that form the foundation of quality academic discourse. When students rely on search systems or language models that systematically filter information to align with their existing viewpoints, they might miss opportunities to engage with challenging perspectives that would strengthen their analytical capabilities and broaden their intellectual horizons. Furthermore, the sophisticated nature of these algorithmic biases means that a lot of users often remain unaware of the information gaps in their research, leading to overconfident conclusions based on incomplete evidence. This creates a cascade effect where poorly informed arguments become normalized in academic and other settings, ultimately degrading the standards of scholarly debate and undermining the educational mission of fostering independent, evidence-based reasoning."

"In summary, the Brain-only group's connectivity suggests a state of increased internal coordination, engaging memory and creative thinking (manifested as theta and delta coherence across cortical regions). The Engine group, while still cognitively active, showed a tendency toward more focal connectivity associated with handling external information (e.g. beta band links to visual-parietal areas) and comparatively less activation of the brain's long-range memory circuits. These findings are in line with literature: tasks requiring internal memory amplify low-frequency brain synchrony in frontoparietal networks [77], whereas outsourcing information (via internet search) can reduce the load on these networks and alter attentional dynamics. Notably, prior studies have found that practicing internet search can reduce activation in memory-related brain areas [831, which dovetails with our observation of weaker connectivity in those regions for Search Engine group. Conversely, the richer connectivity of Brain-only group may reflect a cognitive state akin to that of high performers in creative or memory tasks, for instance, high creativity has been associated with increased fronto-occipital theta connectivity and intra-hemispheric synchronization in frontal-temporal circuits [81], patterns we see echoed in the Brain-only condition."

"This correlation between neural connectivity and behavioral quoting failure in LLM group's participants offers evidence that:

1. Early Al reliance may result in shallow encoding.

LLM group's poor recall and incorrect quoting is a possible indicator that their earlier essays were not internally integrated, likely due to outsourced cognitive processing to the LLM.

2. Withholding LLM tools during early stages might support memory formation.

Brain-only group's stronger behavioral recall, supported by more robust EEG connectivity, suggests that initial unaided effort promoted durable memory traces, enabling more effective reactivation even when LLM tools were introduced later.

Metacognitive engagement is higher in the Brain-to-LLM group.

Brain-only group might have mentally compared their past unaided efforts with tool-generated suggestions (as supported by their comments during the interviews), engaging in self-reflection and elaborative rehearsal, a process linked to executive control and semantic integration, as seen in their EEG profile.

The significant gap in quoting accuracy between reassigned LLM and Brain-only groups was not merely a behavioral artifact; it is mirrored in the structure and strength of their neural connectivity. The LLM-to-Brain group's early dependence on LLM tools appeared to have impaired long-term semantic retention and contextual memory, limiting their ability to reconstruct content without assistance. In contrast, Brain-to-LLM participants could leverage tools more strategically, resulting in stronger performance and more cohesive neural signatures."