#difference between permutation and combination

[onehopefuldreamer]

Challenging a Queen - a love letter

Look, at first this post was going to be about Look into me (my first love when it comes to this game's soundtrack and still one of the songs I adore the most).

Then I wanted to wax poetic about You and I and You and I reprise (three different versions of the reprise depending on what you do with the throne and Mary Elizabeth McGlynn's glorious voice, yes, please! Plus Persephone and Grace is my personal OTP).

After that I moved on to The Throne because I think it's both absolutely awesome and absolutely bonkers you get two themes to mix and match there instead of only one (1st theme based on your first choice and the 2nd on your answer to Orpheus' question). It's still a huge, HUGE personal favourite.

(I will still write love letters to these three songs eventually.)

But then I read Austin Wintory's commentary on the Pantheon version of the soundtrack he posted on YouTube and it caught my attention that he called Challenging a Queen the most complex song in the game. Previous to reading that I had thought it was the same as a lot of the other songs - three main themes that you just get to mix and match but aside from that nothing much changes. Oh, how wrong I was!

Reading that comment made me curious about trying different combinations to see what would happen and once I started doing that I was completely blown away. Because it turns out that this song is anything BUT simple! The choices are even more interlinked here than in most other songs and the possible combinations that lead to different outcomes are so, SO many!

Based on my experimentation (8+ hours of gameplay that's only replaying this one song)  I have discovered the following:

1. The first choice you make directly influences the second. So if you go from Green to Red for example you get a completely different outcome than if you had gone from Red to Green.

2. The first choice also influences the third/middle one. BXGXX is not the same as RXGXX or GXGXX (X stands for any colour). In the case of middle Red, I think, there's the most possibilities because there the second choice also comes into play. For example the banter between Grace and Persephone is different if you go with RBRXX (which is the same as RRRRR) or RGRXX.

3. Then the third and fourth choices also influence each other and lead to different combinations. Say, XXBRX is decidedly not the same as XXRBX.

4. Last but most certainly not least that pesky first choice continues to have an effect until the very end. The combination between it and your fifth or, sometimes, fourth and fifth choice/s is what leads to all sorts of different and unique endings you can get.

That's already a super complex song structure that I'm still not sure I have figured out completely, to be honest. I continue to experiment with different combinations and plan to try to see if I can compile a guide to all the possibilities here. I'm very much not statistically or mathematically inclined so this has been a bit of a struggle but I'm also having so much fun trying to pick apart this song that I don't really mind.

I've never experienced anything like this in any game before and honestly playing around with this song has been a revelation. The amount of screaming I have done in front of my laptop every time I come upon something new is insane. I've come to a point where I have bits and pieces of Challenging a Queen rattling around my head at all times and I LOVE it! Because, as weird as it sounds, I have not become bored with this song even after so many hours of listening to it. I happen to love all the different permutations and listening to Laura Bailey and Mary Elizabeth McGlynn try to outperform each other is far, FAR from a hardship. In fact it's an absolute joy.

I'll leave you with what's probably my most favourite discovery about this song: there are 17 different endings you can discover. 17!!! That's insane! Or at least that's as many as I have personally discovered and I am still very much in awe. If you're curious about checking them out on your own, here goes:

1-4 - RRRRR, BBBBB, GGGGG with a Charming Grace and GGBGG or GGRGG with a Clever or Kickass Grace. These are what I call the regular or classic endings. You're pretty much guaranteed to discover these.

5-8 - BXXBG, RXXBG, GXXBG with Clever or Kickass Grace and one extra XXXBG ending for Charming Grace. The first choice does not matter for Charming Grace, the ending is always the same no matter what.

9-11 - BXXGR, RXXGR and GXXGR

12-14 - BXXBR, RXXBR and GXXBR

15-17 - BXXRB, RXXRB and GXXRB

What I find impressive (aside from the huge number of endings) is that the endings from 5 and onward are all genuinely combined endings. They're not just alternative versions of the RR, GG or BB endings, they're a combination of approaches and/or musical styles and I cannot even begin to express how much I adore that.

I'm not going to lie, doing the experimentation for the GR, BR and RB endings in particular hurt my feelings a whole lot because I'm a Persephone stan and hate to see her trounced by Grace so thoroughly when I know she's actively grieving Calliope. But what really broke my heart (again as a Persephone stan) is those BG endings. Those have made me cry actual tears (the only other ending that's had this effect was GG with Clever or Kickass Grace). They're also the only endings I've been able to discover that have the camera panning down instead of sideways and come with their own backdrop. Discovering my first version of them had me squealing like mad and feeling like an archaeologist who'd discovered priceless ancient treasures. They're probably my personal favourites, all of them. Both because they're so unique and because I love how compassionate Grace is in them. As much as I do think Grace is badass when she wins, I love her being soft and understanding towards Persephone a whole lot more.

I'll stop here because this is already a wall of text for which I'd apologise but this is not even all my thoughts and feelings on this song. I just have so many! Now off to listen to it again and work on my guide.

[felikatze]

How many possible growth rate variations does Morgan have?

Hi! Do you want niche calculations? SO, in Fire Emblem Awakening, the growth rates of child units are decided by the formula of

(Father's growth rates + Mother's growth rates + child's base growth rates) / 3

This means there are a LOT of possible variations for every kid. One kid in particular has more than most: Morgan.

This is because of Morgan's fixed parent: Robin.

(God I fucking hope I got my numbers right, I got a spreadsheet and everything)

Robin's growth rates

Robin is subject to the Boon/Bane system. Upon character creation, players can select one stat Robin excells in, and one they suck in. There are 8 stats, and a boon and bane cannot be of the same stat. These boons and banes will actually alter Robin's growth rates with up to 15% on boons and -20% on banes.

The total number of Robin's possible growth sets is simple: 8*7 = 56

8 is the number of possible boons, and 7 of the banes said stat can then have. So 56.

Morgan's possible secondary parents

In addition to Robin's many growth rates, as avatar, Robin can also get married to every single playable character in the game (excluding Einherjar).

For a male Morgan, this includes 24 possible fathers.

For a female Morgan, this includes 23 possible mothers.

So the growth rates are just 56*24 or 56*23, right? Haha. No.

Second Gen Units

Robin can also marry other second generation characters. Ethics of that aside, it adds another cinch to Morgan's stat set. Because the Second Gen Units also have flexible growth rates, calculated with the same formula at the start of the post.

We are, of course, excluding Robin as a potential parent for all these kids, because they are married in this scenario.

There are 6 male 2nd Gen Units, and 6 female 2nd Gen Units.

All 2nd Gen units who can optionally be Chrom's children (Inigo, Brady, Kjelle, Cynthia) have 13 possible fathers, all others 12.

The only outlier here is Lucina, who only has 5 possible mothers for plot reasons.

For male units = 12*4 + 13*2 = 74 For female units = 12*3 + 13*2 + 5 = 67

So there are 74 possible growth rate permutations for male 2nd Gen Units, and 67 possible growth rate permutations for female 2nd Gen Units.

Total possible fathers = 74 + 14 + 4 = 92 Total possible mothers = 67 + 15 + 2 = 84

This means the total possible father variations for male Morgan are 92, and the possible mother variations for female Morgan are 84.

The actual numbers

For male Morgan:

56*92 = 5.152

For female Morgan:

56*84 = 4.704

TLDR: In total, for both Morgans combined, there are 9.856 possible growth rate sets.

That's all.

Base stat variations are actually even more insane because they consider the difference between the parents' current and base stats. Which can be literally anything from 0 to maximum. Don't even bother counting that one.

[study-with-aura]

Friday, April 12, 2024

(Posting late again) What else is there to say? Dad took me to dance because Mom had a women's retreat with the church over the weekend. She enjoyed it.

Tasks Completed:

Geometry - Learned about the difference between permutations and combinations + practice

Lit and Comp II - Vocabulary test (100%) + read analysis of Act 2, Scene 1 + read Act 2 Scene 1 of Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare + read modern translation of same scenes + wrote about the characters, describing them and what I have learned about them + worked on my literary analysis for Emma (due next Friday)

Spanish 2 - Reviewed vocabulary

Bible I - Read 1 Samuel 16-17:1-19

World History - Completed World War II Timeline Assignment

Biology with Lab - Read a scientific journal article about Typhoid Mary + played a public health "detective" game of identifying sources of disease

PE/Health I - Read a health article

Foundations - Read more on thriftiness + completed next quiz on Read Theory + answered questions about Sojourner Truth's "Ain't I a Woman?" speech

Piano - Practiced for two hours in one hour split sessions

Khan Academy - None today

CLEP - Completed Module 12.1 lecture video

Streaming - Watched Greatest Events of World War II in Color episode 6

Duolingo - Studied for 15 minutes (Spanish, French, Chinese) + completed daily quests

Reading - Read pages 1-40 of Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross

Chores - Dusted my bedroom, my bathroom, and the study + laundered my bedding

Activities of the Day:

Personal Bible Study (Proverbs 4)

Ballet

Pointe

Journal/Mindfulness

[decepti-thots]

I’m genuinely interested in what the difference between a visual novel let’s play and actually playing the game. I’m guessing it’s something about making your own choice in the moment rather than watching someone else make *their* choice, but I’d like to hear your thoughts if you’d be willing to share.

For those wondering, this is in relation to my tags on this post!

So the thing I'm discussing in the tags of that post is specifically games criticism and theory, which needs to be understood in the way you might understand "film criticism" or "literary theory", to be clear. We're discussing the kinds of analysis of games-as-texts, games-as-art, which you might see in academia and critical circles around literature or film.

So one of the things that comes up when starting to talk about games this way is: what's a video game 'text'? Think about it. Any game that allows any amount of choice, any, however small or inconsequential, is a game that you can start arguing about what its 'real text' is, if nothing else. Does a video game text constitute all possible permutations taken as a collective whole, all considered with equal weight? (If so, is any analysis of really complex games 'complete' if it does not take every possible tiny permutation into consideration? Do glitches count?) Does the text comprise one specific playthrough? If so, is every critic or analyst technically approaching different, if interrelated, 'texts'? Does it just comprise the stuff in the game program in the abstract, and if so what does the player have to do with it in that case? All sorts of weird shit comes to the forefront when you bring the whole idea of 'a text' into games, basically, because it's harder to intuitively understand the boundaries of most games compared to, say, a film.

This has been a thing folks argue about for as long as serious discussion of games has been a thing, which is to say, decades. Personally, I favour an approach put forward and codified by academic Brendan Keogh, who focuses on looking at games as primarily understood through a phenomenological framework. In his book A Play of Bodies, he describes his understanding of the video game 'text' as being located not in a single static 'place', so to speak, but the 'circuit' that is created by the interplay between the person physically playing the game and the game program itself, and how each responds to the other. The game isn't what's on the cartridge or what the player does, it's the way those two things combine to create meaning. A game's text is the way that players interact with what a game 'is', and so the text inherently includes the act of playing it.

This is true even in experiences with low or functionally no interactivity, I will add, because the experience of not 'acting' in a situation where interactivity could be present but isn't is fundamentally different to not interacting because the medium does not allow you to, even if it seems at first glance the same. You expect most games to be highly interactive, so sitting and not being able to interact with them produces a specific experience that is not necessarily present in mediums where non-interactivity is taken for granted.

Which brings us to Let's Plays; even a non-commentary uncut LP video of a completely linear game/VN is a meaningfully different text to watch someone else play as opposed to playing it yourself, because the text of a video game involves what you are doing with it as part of that imagined 'circuit', even if what you are doing is very little to nothing. A video you cannot interact much with and a video game you cannot interact much with are different experiences even where all other information is functionally identical; thus, an LP of a linear visual novel and the visual novel as played are two interconnected but distinct texts, and while the former is both interesting and a valid text in itself, they are not the same thing.

Most critics probably won't take this exact view, to be clear- as I said, arguments about what's a video game text anyway are extensive and different approaches favour different ideas! But basically all of them will have some element of this in it, that even 'low interactivity' games are fundamentally imparting some kind of artistic experience to a player by the fact that you are playing them in a medium that takes interactivity to be the default. The infamous game Mountain lets you "do" almost nothing, but that carries different meaning when playing a game than when watching a video, because you know that the reason you can't is not the medium, but the choice made by the dev(s). In this way, anyone insisting that watching a video of a game gives you the same story information as playing it and so can be used to identically analyse a game's text is... it's like saying I can do film analysis because I read a novelization. I can do an analysis of the novelization, and that's a worthwhile thing to do, probably. But it's not exactly the same as the film, because some amount of information is lost and/or changed in the transmission between mediums. Different folks may take stronger or weaker stances on how important this difference is and what a game's text is best defined as, but you won't find many who argue even very very linear games lose no information in the swap from game to video format, and the ones who do I think are. Wrong. LMAO.

[trevel]

For reasons that don't make that much sense to anyone except me, I have been trying to calculate how many different "setups" there are for the game Spirit Island.

Now for this I am explicitly *not* counting the order of shuffled decks, but rather things that players can actually choose. I'm also not counting mechanic-less changes like "what color tokens", it doesn't matter. The game with blue tokens plays exactly the same as with yellow or green. I'm also deliberately ignoring spirit/board combinations where you get to decide where to place presence; I don't think it comes up enough to make a huge difference and seems more like the first strategic choice rather than part of setup.

Okay? Okay.

So, let's start with the base game. It came with 8 possible spirits, 4 game boards, 3 potential adversaries, and 4 scenarios. For a single player game, that would _seem_ like 8*4*3*4 = 384 different games, which pleases me because the result number contains all the digits from the multiplication, but displeases me because it is incorrect. You can play without a scenario; you can play without an adversary; each adversary has 7 possible difficulty levels. ALSO each game board can be flipped over, to the "thematic" side, so that's 8 board possibilities instead of 4.

So we have 8 spirits * 8 boards * ((3*7)+1) adversaries * (3+1) scenarios. = 5632 possible single player games using the basic setup for Spirit Island.

For two player, *most* of that math stays the same; We now have 8 spirits * 7 spirits * 8 boards * 3 boards * 22 adversaries * 4 scenarios = 118 272 possible two-player games.

"But wait," you might ask, "why are you multiplying by 7 spirits for the second player but by 3 boards?" -- simple. Because the boards offer a choice between standard and thematic, we're going to assume that we're not going to MIX between standard and thematic boards. (If we would, then we'd just double our available choices -- but we don't really stand to gain much for that additional complexity, so I'm leaving it out for now.)

Actually, wait. That's still wrong. The thematic boards have specified arrangement AND you need to pick two adjacent board for it to make sense. Let's break it down; we can either play with 4*3 standard boards OR 2 possible arrangements of thematic boards, which means 4*3+2 boards = 14 possible boards. 56 spirit pairs * 14 possible board setups * 22 adversaries * 4 scenarios = 68 992 possible 2-player games.

For 3 players, we now have 8*7*6 for the spirit choices, 4*3*2 standard boards + 4 thematic choices, and still 88 adversary/scenario options = 827 904 options.

For 4 players, 8*7*6*5 for the spirit choices, 4*3*2*1 for the standard boards (because order still matters), only 1 thematic choice now, which means we only increase to 1680 * 25 * 88 = 3 696 000 different game set ups.

Total ALL of these together, and we get 4 598 528 possible different games of Spirit Island using only the base game.

Now this is assuming that a game with Ocean and River on boards A and B is different from a game with River and Ocean on boards A and B, is different from a game with Ocean and River on boards B and A, is different from a game with River and Ocean on boards B and A, and I'd say that's a fair critique. It would be absolutely fair to NOT care about minutia like that. So let's redo the math! 1 player doesn't change: 5632 2 player is now 8*7/2 * (4*3/2+2) * 88 = 28 * 8 * 88 = 19712 3 player is now 8*7*6/3/2 * (4*3*2/3/2+4) * 88 = 56 * 8 * 88 = 39424 4 player is now 8*7*6*5/4/3/2 * 2 * 88 = 12320

For a total of 77088 different games, which is a HUGE difference compared to the 4.6 million we have when we counted every permutation.

Which is correct? IDK, it all depends on what you consider a different game to look like. I'm inclined to prefer the larger number, where arranging the boards differently matters and which spirit is on which board matters, but I'm not going to complain if anyone prefers the other choice.

[cviperfan]

Bayo 3 Thoughts

-Not crazy about the Homunculi as enemies, or at least not about the human sized ones, mostly bc i feel like their windups are a lot harder to read, and don't have as clear gives as Angels/Demons did before.  But then some of the returning Angels have shorter windups/reads than before, so this is probably more representative of a general tuning of combat feel

-Trade-off from the "two weapons per set" to "one per set" is that while there's fewer combinations to play with, they are definitely more focused and interesting.  G-Pillar is such a smart second weapon to introduce bc it feels so immediately distinctive from CMW, whereas getting the Shotgun after SF in B1 really only offers minor differences all things considered.  Also, I can only speak for myself but in B1/2 it's extremely easy to decide on a couple sets, if that, to stick with for all your possible permutations (probably involving a sword(s) and whichever thing makes you skate around fast)

-Also was so used to Y (gun) just being the auto-fire attack with your quad pistol no matter what that when it did the anti-tank shot for G-Pillar I immediately went :OOOOOOO

-While I get completely the revamp of how acquiring weapons works here (acquired through story progress so you get all of them, instead of being found piecemeal throughout the world/through meeting specific requirements)-- and it makes sense, you want to make sure every player sees the entire toolkit and I can get being frustrated that some cool stuff like Pillow Talk/Sai-Fung in B1 requires pretty big asks, at the same time it makes it feel less special if you're just getting them like this?  Like i really do get it but still the routine of finding all the pieces of an LP and bringing them to Rodin to do his thing built up this sense of anticipation and encouraged exploration and really gave him a lot of personality too so it's just like... it's fine i guess

-Speaking of which, I both kind of appreciate the more openly "wide-linear" approach to level design while also feeling like the meh rewards for doing so kind of undercut it.  Like the RoT chests in B2 at least gave you vital upgrades like Witch Hearts/Pearls, so there was an incentive to take up the minigame or hunt down the really well hidden ones in B1.  Most of these chests are just like... materials???? and a lollipop?  K

So it turns out some of them *do* in fact have useful upgrades in them but I still feel this point kind of stands?  Because it's still more likely you can go through the trouble of some of these and then it's just materials and that's still annoying

-That being said these levels do feel HUGE even right off the bat.  there's at LEAST 2-3 Secret Missions per level, and it's hard to deny that the effort Platinum have made to ensure stuff is findable is hard to come back from.  Not having to do some obscure bananapants placement/timing shit to hit them is honestly a fucking godsend, the way Verse breakdowns post-fight are laid out makes it IMMEDIATELY CLEAR if you missed one so it's easier to double back, along with up-front indicators about Umbran Tears.  I swear to god I 100%ed Level 1 on my FIRST GO, a thing I never thought possible with the dense and easily-missable nature of Bayonetta levels, even if it took me just shy of an hour to do so.

-The mimic chests got me like :OOOOOO

-Honestly maybe the absolute best payoff of the new approach to level design is the Phenomenal Rifts, which open up after finding all of the Umbran Tears on a level, which are basically secret missions with guaranteed Really Good Rewards, like Accessories or even completely separate demons/weapons.  

-Not crazy about how instead of just unlocking the base pieces of your whole moveset from Rodin (stuff like the Heel Slide/Tetsuzanko in particular) now you just buy them all piecemeal per weapon.  They aren't super expensive but having it this way (while again making the whole suite of moves clearer to novices) really cuts into the ease of combat flow between weapons.  Like it feels like a retroactive justification for the upgrade trees which kind of subtly shifts the focus from gameplay mastery to XP grinding which hmm not crazy about

-It's extremely interesting how much this borrows mechanically from Astral Chain, and feels like a glimpse into how Scalebound might have played out too.  It's really clear they wanted to carry over a lot of those ideas, even if only in a more restrained and limited approach.

-Was not expecting to actually play as the Alternate Universe Bayos (BAyUs?) so that's a fun little treat.  Tokyo!Bayo reminds me of that time Platinum was like PLEASE LET US MAKE A SPIDER-GWEN GAME and it's clear they're still hoping for it somehow.  It's the fact that the Ignus Yo-yo's Gun attack is STRAIGHT UP THE FUCKING WEB-SHOOTER for me

-Not a fan of how slow some of the Ride monsters like Gommorah are, tho being in a chase that's like "avoid all these tiny objects or take damage" and the dodge command takes 4 entire years to complete does not help.  The Not-Gojira fight while extremely fucking cool suffers from a similar problem of slow-ass responses to tight counter windows as well

-THE FUCKIN LUPIN HOMAGES FOR JEANNES FUCKIN STEALTH SHIT

-The Jeanne stuff is... short, but interesting?  Definitely more mini-game than full-on concept

-Being a huge nerd?  Having a sword?  Punk haircut?  Cool jacket?  Semi-comedy relief character?  Customizable shirts?  The way we all called Viola a DMC character when the reality is she's absolutely a No More Heroes character

- OK so after playing as her for a while now I've concluded that while Viola The Character is a fun addition to the series Viola the Player Character is... kind of not?  And a big part of that is that her main defensive option, Parrying (instead of Bayo dodging to get Witch Time, Viola can only do it if she parries with Jeanne-style timing) feels-- especially in the context of Platinum's oeuvre-- really fucking bad????  Like maybe it's the fact that reading the move in the context of Bayonetta's classic gameplay/enemy types is extremely difficult or the compounding difference of enemy attack timing or the fact that you cannot move AT ALL to do it correctly or you activate your double-tap rush move (and related, the fact that it's ALSO ON THE BUTTON FOR THE DOUBLE TAP RUSH MOVE, A MOVE THAT IS NOT SAFE AGAINST ATTACKS) or it's a combination of all the above but it's extremely frustrating to have three whole games built around Bayo's dodge timing and generous window and then to play Viola and have all that working against you... feels bad man

-That being said the kind of tandem character combat (again, carrying over from Astral Chain a bit) she has with Cheshire is extremely good and it feels like she's actually a better damage dealer bare-fisted than with the sword???

-While some of them are pretty cool on the whole I'm kinda not crazy about all the Big Area Bosses being gimmick Giant fights?  Like I think Bayonetta as a series generally does a great job making Giant Boss fights feel readable and fun (a little less so in 2, but 1 is absolutely a How-To on making that work) when you're a human-sized character so largely setting that aside for the final game in the trilogy is... kinda weird ngl

-I do think it's funny as fuck we all saw the trailer where Bayo pulls her heart out to apparently summon a Giant Gommorah and everyone was like "oh shit this must be for the final battle... like a desperate last resort move at the end of her rope" and then in the game itself she's just poppin that sucker out every 3 chapters like it's no big thing lol

-One complaint I had about the first two games is that with a few exceptions the weapons aren't really unique or have distinctive characteristics (a more common quirk of the DMC games), which 3 has absolutely amended to its credit.  While there are definitely light/fast and heavy/slow weapons, there's a lot more uniqueness and interesting quirks to each of them (Dead End Express is a very light homage to the Motorbike weapon from DMC5, and requires specific timing on the charge attacks to do the most damage but will burn out if you hold it too long; the Mic can do Attack/Defense buffs; there's a FUCKING TWIN DOOR SHIELD THATS DEFINITELY NOT A SOULS REFERENCE), so they really do all feel very different and fun to play with.  Like this is absolutely an aspect of the game where designers got to let their imaginations run wild and it mostly pays off

-The entire (and i mean ENTIRE) final battle is honestly fucking hilarious bc it repeats this cycle of

Singularity: HA HA YOU CANT BEAT ME IM REALITY Bayo: gets the upper hand with some crazy trick Singularity: NOOO???? HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE????????? I CANT LOOSEEEEEE Singularity: counters it anyway Bayo: noooo im losing (return to step one)

LIKE THREE OR FOUR TIMES and it honestly kinda kills the momentum after the third one

Okay so.  I finished the game and hooooooo boy am I emotionally am kind of all over the place.

So I think I, like a lot of other people, saw That One Polygon Review for Bayonetta 3 (pointedly entitled "Bayonetta 3 Broke My Heart") and kind of took the conclusion, based on how the article dances around spoilers, that the reviewer was let down by the endgame pairing and was maybe letting that dictate their response to the game?  However turns out there are much bigger problems here and I can honestly see now why they made their feelings so bluntly clear.

I think giving it such a downer ending, when that's never been what Bayonetta has pursued or been about, is such a bizarre turn that for a hot minute during the first part of the credits I was just like "no way this is the actual ending.  They're totally gonna pull a Bayo 1 and just when things seem most dire they're gonna fake-out the end credits and give us a better finale" and then.  they just keep going.  And then we get a random last fight with Viola with zero context?  And then the credits continue over the traditional pole dance bit and quick verses and??? that's really it the end of the game????

And I think trying to position Viola as The New Bayo (no literally) is such a weird choice when... again I like the character, but her gameplay is so totally different that if they're serious and she is gonna be The New Generation carrying the series forward there's no way that shit's not getting revamped.

And some of it feels really pointed (oh, the gays like Jeanne?  Even though she is specifically my, Hideki Kamiya,'s waifu?  Here's her getting a stupid and cheap ass death that Bayonetta only gets the Arthur Clenched Fist Meme response to) but half-joking it feels like Kamiya discovered a new set of fetishes (semi-goth punk rock girls with short hair) and looked at Tall-Milf-Domme-With-Glasses Bayo and was just like "I don't wanna play with you anymore" and tossed her completely in the garbage, literally erasing every possible version of the character to utterly stamp her out

On the subject of shipping, while I've always been in the Bayojeanne corner I never really expected the series to commit to it, or at least not in an upfront way.  Like honestly the most I expected was the comfort of ambivalence and ambiguity?  And I think B2 had so little to do with Luka and them barely interacting that I think a lot of people felt comfortable that Kamiya and co had apparently 180'd on the BayoLuka thing (especially since he has literally acknowledged them as a couple, like, romantically, in the context of several of his other explicitly romantic pairs) that I think B3 pivoting so hard on a "no BayoLuka was not only always it but THEY ARE LITERALLY FATED TO ALWAYS END UP TOGETHER GO FUCK YOURSELF" feels kind of spiteful (and is Kamiya a spiteful, petty person?  Yes.  Would he?  Also yes.)  And my thing is, in B1 I'm honestly kinda like they're fine?  Like the impression i got was for sure that they fucked btwn game 1 and 2 and then 2 makes it seem like they just moved on and never really hooked up again.  And to be sure if you look at Kamiya's body of work he absolutely loves this dynamic in an M/F couple so it's like... I can see this having been the endgame for him but at the same time it's extremely poorly done.  

Sidenote I think it's fucking hilarious that the game tries to play a few bits as recurring tics of their perpetual romantic entanglement which... are completely not (Luka's "Fate brought us together, and it will never tear us apart" is NOT EVEN A LINE HE SAYS TO HER, AT ANY POINT THROUGH THE GAMES IT'S A THROWAWAY PICKUP LINE HE GIVES TO SOME RANDOM NPC IN GAME 1 AND THATS IT???? or Bayo's "only the Luka I know would be bold enough to call me 'Cerezita'" which is ALSO something he has never said to her, except technically to Baby Her in B1 again).  Like I am actually pretty open to het pairings provided that they have good chemistry and the thing in question is not Forcing its Hand about how Meant To Be they are and the B3 writing really hits every branch of that tree on the way down

And the thing about B3 going "No Actually Luka is the most Important and Super Special Awesome guy in the multiverse" is it's so disrespectful to the Bayonetta character??? After two other games of her killing God and in this one of her summoning every possible version of herself to fight a man-made god which isn't enough?  And it's not even tied to any of the established lore it's some random new Third Thing too???  

And the thing for me about all the great scores and recommendations in reviews for B3 that don't even touch on how bad this ending is is that most of them are like "lol no one cares about Bayonetta's story" and people are like "Platinum are bad writers and can't tell a story" and I'm just like.  Compared to what, exactly.  Platinum's track record isn't consistent to be sure but there are way more games than not that actually cannot tell a satisfying or interesting narrative, and while Platinum has never been one for subtlety or gravitas most of their big games have themes and ideas they're conveying mostly successfully, and for all its bombast and background lore the Bayonetta games up to now have told a pretty solid and entertaining story with a consistent internal mythology.  Like B1 and 2 actually form a pretty tight duology that answers pretty much all of its own big questions and closes its time loop and like sure, you don't *have* to care about the narrative, you *can* just engage with them mechanically and still have a good time, but I think acting like there's nothing there, no thoughts head empty is pretty shortsighted.  Like you're never gonna see a Vaatividya take but there are ABSOLUTELY people making Bayonetta lore vids just like there are people making sick combo vids.

And the thing that stands out to me the most about Bayonetta 3's writing is it really feels like the team at Platinum took that "no one cares about the story" dismissal and decided "yea fuck it I guess so"

Like despite this being the end of a trilogy and supposedly a wrapping up of the story to this point, it has almost no connection to everything that came before it (supposedly after all the debate about whether this was an AU Bayo or not the Bayo of this game supposedly is?  And then through some multiverse shenanigans it seems to imply that the Bayo we played as in 1 and 2 are ALSO not the same character and are variants themselves which????? fucking weird and stupid if so????) aside from some cameo Angel/Demon fights.  They try to recreate the time displacement character reveal thing from the other games with Viola but it really doesn't work bc 1) it's extremely obvious VERY early on what her connection to Bayo/Luka is but 2) she makes effort to very carefully tiptoe around saying it for most of the game for no reason when being upfront about it would make for better character moments??? Like this isn't a fucking Back to the Future scenario it's not going to fuck up the timeline if they know (Like it works in B1 bc Baby!Cereza is a literal fucking toddler and then it works for Balder in B2 bc it's clear Bayo understands that connection so it feels impactful when it turns out Balder understood without her saying anything).  WE LITERALLY NEVER LEARN ANYTHING ABOUT THE VILLAIN, WHAT HIS GOAL IS OR WHY.  There's no monologue, no connection he has to the lore of the series, what the Homunculi exactly are or why they exist.  Faeries are a thing now I guess!  Where are they from?  what's their purpose?  how do they fit into the Angel/Demon dichotomy? WHO FUCKING KNOWS BUT NOW LUKA IS A WEREWOLF TYPE DUDE I GUESS AND HE ALWAYS WAS SHUT UP.  I've seen some reviewers call this a Celebration of Bayonetta as both a character and a series but aside from some pointed references and the Multiverse shenanigans it feels a lot more like, again, the trappings of the series up to now getting thrown in the dumpster.

And speaking of it feels like while they're cool in parts the series honestly does not gain a lot from dipping its toe into the New Hotness of Multiverse Stuff (aside from Egyptian!Bayojeanne, who at least have both the Devoted Princess/Knight dynamic and have big Oh They *Fuckin* energy).  Like at least it's mostly there for Mari Shimazaki to fuckin flex (as one of the pillars of the foundation of what makes Bayonetta Bayonetta, her design work remains absolutely on point no matter what), but they're pretty perfunctory and while the advertising makes a big point of our Bayo teaming up with these BAyUs she really only meets them for like a minute and then they die but she gets their weapons/demons so hey lol works out for her

Honestly at the end of the day Bayonetta 3 just left me... extremely mixed on my feelings.  I'd played DMC and Ninja Gaiden before, but Bayonetta 1 really awakened my love for character action games, and from all accounts with the dark direction Platinum is taking towards the Live Service hellscape, I had the sinking feeling that Bayonetta 3 was going to be the last true Platinum game; a reasonably sized title that keeps you coming back not with the promise of Endless Content(tm) but a densely packed title with compelling gameplay and loads of reasons to revisit it.  And while gameplay-wise it definitely feels that way, its story feels like a disappointing cap-off to a great series and a company I loved as well.  I guess we'll see if this vague promise of a B4yonetta comes to fruition.

[hetafluidtexan]

How Many Ships & Trios exist within Hetalia?

Howdy everyone!

As we all know as Hetalians, shipping is a key part of fandom space, with many of the most famed writers and artists in the fandom being known for their ships!

And as we know, there are many many ships, sometimes it seems like an endless number of them! However, there are a very finite amount of characters in Hetalia, and only so many ways you can arrange any set of characters in a duo or trio.

This of course naturally raises the question, how many ships can possibly exist within the fandom? 50? 100? 250?

That there, my guys gals and enby pals is what this post hopes to answer!

The key to answering this equation without manually listing every possible ship is a little known thing called the Combination Equation. What is the Combination Equation?

It is this beauty! Now, for those of yall who aren't familiar with Combinations and Permutations, this may seem like some complex abomination. But in reality, it is a very simple equation!

To explain it, imagine you have 6 fruits - an apple, orange, pear, grapes, kiwi, and banana - in total but can only fit 2 into you lunch bag. How many Combinations of fruit can you have? Rather than manually calculating it by counting every single combination, you can just use the equation!

You have 4 fruits, so you put n = 6, as n is just how many of whatever you have, be that fruits or Hetalia Nendoroids. Next, because you only have enough room for 2 fruits, you put r = 2, as r just means the size of your combination groups, be it space for fruits or how many Nendoroid stands you have. Then you just put it in a calculator and hurrah! You have 15 possible combinations of fruit! It is also very important to note that the difference between Combinations and Permutations is if order is important; Combinations view ABC, ACB, and BCA as all the same, while Permutations view all three as seprate.

Now we understand the basic math, we can move onto the core question: How can we use this to find how many possible Hetalia ships are there?

Well to begin with, we need to figure out our n value, which in this case is just how many characters are in all of Hetalia! Well, almost. In Hetalia, if we include only canonical characters and only those that are 1pHetalia ones, we have a total of 71 Characters. However, 8 of those character, meaning we really end up with 63 characters! So our n = 63!

Now for the r value, to start, we will just say r = 2 to represent ever 1x1 ship!

But before we can put it all in, we need to add one thing: - s. Why? Well, because at the moment we have one issue, that being this equation has ALL possible ships, which also means it includes less savory ones. However, we don't want to remove one character and their dozens of ships over just a single unsavory one, so we can set s to equal however many ships we wish to disregard. In this case, I will set it to s = 6, meaning 6 will be removed from the final total.

So what number do we get from this?

DRUM ROLL PLEASEEEEEEEEEEEEE

ONE THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED AND EIGHTY FIVE!

Meaning, if we set ourselves to 1pHeta and 1x1 ships, there are 1,885 ships! That's a lot You have to admit, but l can't help feel that's a bit small, and that's largely because we put on very strict restrictions; So how about we try some more generous ones?

To start with, how about we double our n value so instead n = 62, we set it to n = 124! Afterall, Nyotalia or 2ptalia are very common in the fandom, so how about we account for them in our ships as well? Doing so, and setting s = 12 to account for the doubling, we wind up with this equation

And from this we get...

7,614! Now that's a hell of a jump I'd say! Certainly, our 1x1 shippers out there will have no shortage of ships for a long long time!

But what about our polyamorous and trio loving friends? Fear not, you have not been forgotten, as by changing r from r = 2 to r = 3, even with just the original n = 62, while leaving s = 12 just to be safe, this will undoubtably make a difference as our equation now looks like such

And how many lovely polyamorous loves and bff trios are we rewarded with?

Even more than before at 37,808 trios! It really goes to show there will never be any shortage of ships or trios for a long long time, and that if you pick any three characters at random, chances are you'll have a trio no one has ever made before, that's crazy!

Now, how about we break this?

If we multiply 62 by four, we get n = 248, accounting for every single 1pHetalia, 1pNyotalia, 2pHetalia, and 2pNyoCharacter based off canon ones that exist, a truly massive number. To show some mercy, let is return to r = 2 and double s to s = 24, which seems like a very harsh restriction and gives us the equation of

So what do we get from this equation?

...well that wasn't supposed to happen, lets see if we can figure out what went wrong

248 - 2 = 246, and since its a factorial, lets plug it into another site to see what we get from this

Ah, well them... Perhaps Scientific Notation will be able to clarify this?

Well no wonder Desmos broke, at *10^482, that's a number bigger than the amount of atoms in the universe - quite literally, as its estimated there are 10^80 atoms in the universe, not even a fifth as big as the number we got as the total number of atoms in the universe vs 246! is 16.598%, or in otherwords, if ever atom in the universe was a number from 1 to 246!, you would only get 16.598% of the way there before you ran out of atoms.

Its crazy to think our little fandom can literally create something bigger than the number of atoms in the universe! And, if you want to toy around with possibly universe breaking numbers, or something more mundane just like how many lesbian ships exist in Hetalia or how many European squads there are, I present to you: The Hetalia Fandom Ship Calculator

Entirely free for anyone to use, just follow all the attached note info, and use it as you please to learn as much as your heart desires!

But for now my lovely guys and gals and enby pals, I must go, I promise to return soon, and until then, drink some water, get some food and rest, and have a most lovely of days!

[neotrances]

Do you have a list of all the gods?

yes but it is incomplete as these r the ones you see during the story but there are more i’ll put it under the cut bc it’s long + with plot information

there are three different types of gods the first being base gods

base gods reincarnate immediately after dying and are the foundation for other gods, they are reborn as adults and always respawn on parousias mountain

the second is combi gods, combi gods (combination) are the children of two base gods, they can only exist if their base god parents have sex and birth them, when they die they need their parents to bring them back and they experience growing up, as they are not born as adults but instead as babies, making a combi god is a serious act as you are bringing a new god into existence so base gods take this very seriously and debate and consider the consequences and potential of their child’s existence, their child will govern a combination of their parents dominion so for example if the god of love (propin) and the god of hate (perodi) have a child that child would be the god of obsession, and will have a combination of both parents powers at varying levels

the last are demi gods, these are offspring between base or combi gods with mortals, demi gods are not typically considered actual gods by everyone else bc of being half mortal and unlike the other two categories they often are not born with powers or very weak ones and do not really govern “anything” unlike combi gods who are born knowing what they govern, demi gods usually don’t know and will simply say they are the offspring of xyz god to honor their parents as it’s considered taboo to group ur self with the other gods as a demi, u aren’t considered a god just the offspring of one and as such ur only title is “offspring of x” all gods have names starting with P, and they know it intrinsically at birth but this is not true for demi gods, which is another reason other gods don’t consider them anything but mortal

i should also mention that because gods reincarnate often and are reborn all the time they experience gender differently so whenever they are reborn their iterations can be different, some that go by goddess and she / her pronouns in one life may chose to be referenced as just gods and he him in other lives regardless of appearance, and their current status is just what they prefer in this lifetime

and now the incomplete list of gods that show up in the story but this is not all of them:

base gods:

pre — the god of life and death, mother of all gods, she controls reincarnation

pae — goddess of the ocean

poe — god of the land

pan — god of air

the above four are the most powerful gods in the land, pre being the strongest, and while pae poe and pan roam the land of paxion they very rarely interact with the other gods let alone reveal themselves unlike the following base gods ⬇️

propin - goddess of love

perodi - god of hate

pecus - god of animals

percy - god of war

paloma - goddess of peace and tranquility

potus - god of wine and drugs

piper - god of prophecy

paril - god of judgement (morality and law)

pecun - god of luck

puella - goddess of children and family

poppy - goddess of craft and construction

paige - god of insight (books history and archives)

prudence - goddess of money

polly - god of medicine

pupa - god of growth (aging)

combi gods:

poenas - goddess of punishment

permut - god of chances

penny - god of flight

percip - god of harvest

pike - goddess of fish

petunia - god of obsession

pascal - goddess of art

pembroke - god of trade

pierre - god of tradition

petra - goddess of disease

plato - god of famine

penelope - god of clothing

Pricilla - goddess of domestication

pip - god of tectonics

demi gods:

syr - god of passion (our main character)

arvid - goddess of astronomy

fig - god of cooking

mirabel, florence, and edith, goddesses of celebration

again these are just the ones we see in the story, there are many gods and many many demi gods as base and combi gods outsource recreational sex to mortals, these are just ones syr comes into contact with or sees during the run of the story

[cheesey-rice]

I feel like in theory time has got to be a circle.

Like if you put aside relativity to us as humans the idea of before the big bang there was always nothing forever and after the heat death of the universe there will be always nothing forever kind of seems unlikely and is partially assumed based on our own need as humans to categorize distinct boundaries/intervals in order to easily process information. It would kind of make more sense if existence occurs in alternating waves with pre-bigbang/post-heatdeath nothingness. Theoretically if these waves of existence/nonexistence occur on an alternating schedule then the various existence points could cycle through a bunch of different variables of relationships between the various types of matter that compose existence.

With the assumption of infinite time, the alternating combinations of these existences mean that theoretically the pattern of exact existences could repeat in a manner copied such that essentially time is 'repeating' itself. Unless we have like a π situation actually? But then again π could like eventually repeat and we just don't know because it isn't really relevant to us to calculate out past the trillions. It might be a cool scifi premise to figure out how many permutations it takes for pi to repeat and then extrapolate that to this 'existence is a circle' mentality in the sense that how long does it take for something with 'infinite possibilities' to repeat an exact order and then that would be how far you would have to go to reach the existence generated to be exactly like your current one monkeys with a typewriter style, lol. But idk my point being that irl I think the default assumption that existence stops/starts at some point is a bit silly and it's more likely that existence past points of 'nothingness' loses meaning to us the same way calculating out all the digits of pi loses Relevancy to telling your math teacher what the area of a circle is. In that sense you can kinda just define existence by personal relevance the same way scientists do.

[hyperannotation]

The play "Declaration of the Technical Word as Such" draws its inspiration from a combination of ideas that came together in the playwright's mind. One idea was to have characters enter the stage, recite their lines, and die, with another actor immediately taking their place to continue the dialogue. The second idea was inspired by a manifesto written by the Russian Cubo-Futurists Velimir Khlebnikov and Alexei Kruchenykh in 1913, titled "Declaration of the Word as Such." This essay proposed that a poem could be built around a single word, using etymology and word histories to create a poem.

The Russian Cubo-Futurists had a revolutionary understanding of language and sought to expand its parameters by creating new words. They aimed to create a new language and new concepts for a radically different way of living and organizing society. However, their project was suppressed under Stalin's regime, and their ideas went underground. The playwright sees their work as a tradition that was forced into dormancy rather than one that needs to be broken with.

The influence of Velimir Khlebnikov on the play is significant. Khlebnikov's approach to poetry and language involved a mathematical perspective, with an emphasis on etymology, symbolic logic, and nonlinear mathematics. He believed that a change in a single letter could not only change a word but also change the world. His vision was to create a language that would affect reality itself. The play explores the idea of language as a transformative force and questions what a "word as such" would mean in a world where words are primarily mediated by technology.

The contrast between the philosophical abstraction of the dialogue and the materiality of the production is intentional. The juxtaposition of intellectual abstraction with physicality, such as the bodybuilders striking poses while making theoretical pronouncements, is meant to create an intriguing collision of worlds. It adds a comedic and carnival-like element to the play, reminiscent of vaudeville or folk theater. This contrast highlights the playwright's perspective of seeing the world as a high-theory slapstick routine and reflects their belief that existence is a comedy.

The bodybuilders in the play serve as ringmasters who introduce the "impossible" feats that the audience will witness. They embody hyperbolic physicality and represent the mediated nature of communication in the modern world. The play explores how technology and digital code have become mediums for our communications, and how our self-representation is often focused on the surfaces rather than deeper levels of significance. The bodybuilders also serve as an analogue to the infinite permutations made possible by binary code, highlighting the differences and similarities between human beings and computer code as agents of change and mutation.

The play seeks to revive Khlebnikov's approach to poetry and language while also bringing attention to his ideas among English language readers. It explores the potential of language, both in its traditional form and in the context of digital technology, to transform and shape our reality.

AW's play explores the tension between the performativity of the dialogue and the impossibility of performing the script. The choice to write it as a play was driven by the belief that it couldn't be articulated in any other way. Despite not being a "man of the theatre," AW's familiarity with the medium and the challenge it presented made it an intriguing choice. Additionally, writing it as a play encouraged readers to engage actively with the text, using their imaginations to bring the fragmented document to life.

The play's impossible elements serve multiple purposes. Firstly, they highlight the creativity and imagination required in both reading and performing the play. They push the boundaries of what is typically deemed possible, encouraging laughter and questioning of limitations. By refusing to conform to traditional expectations, the play challenges familiar notions and opens up new potentialities.

The inclusion of the columns, which contain text, numbers, and formulas, adds another layer to the script. These columns represent the same content as the play but are expressed in the source code that underlies word processing. They draw attention to the abstract and invisible nature of word processing, contrasting it with the concrete and tangible act of writing with pen and paper. The columns serve as a reminder that the tools we use for communication have hidden complexities and that our interaction with them is often detached from the underlying processes. Their presence within a performance is open to interpretation, but their absence could raise questions about the hidden control and power structures at play.

The focus on materiality and mortality in the play stems from various sources of inspiration. The idea of bodies littering the stage originated from a concept of a Looney Tunes-esque nightmare where the audience could remove actors from a bad play but would only be replaced with more of the same. The concept of entropy, both in digital information and the body, became a central theme. The fading ink of the columns represents informational entropy, while the bodies on stage represent material entropy. By exploring the intersection of materiality and mortality, the play raises questions about decay, persistence, and the potential for change. It emphasizes that everything, including systems of control, undergoes entropy, but this entropy also opens up possibilities for new articulations and forms.

Overall, AW's play seeks to challenge conventional norms and expectations while encouraging creativity, laughter, and an embrace of potentialities. It aims to elicit a refusal to confirm the familiar and an affirmation of the alien and unexplored. By engaging with the themes of materiality, mortality, and entropy, the play invites us to contemplate change, the persistence of blossoming potencies, and the emergence of new and unimaginable futures.

[maryellencarter]

I have figured out that there are 26 possible ships and multiships among the main five Lupin III characters. (Sorry, Yata, the math was confusing me enough already.) This is without counting differently depending on who's topping or whatever -- e.g., for this math, JigLup and LupJig count as the same ship.

* Obviously, there is one OT5.

* There are five possible OT4 ships (look, yes, I know it technically means "one true [whatever]", but I'm not typing foursome, threesome, etc every damn time where there's a convenient shorthand right here that I've been using for well over a decade). More generally, I've figured out that in *any* group of N number of people who can all be shipped with each other in any combination, you'll have exactly N number of possible (N minus 1)-somes, because each one will be the whole group minus a different person.

* The possible pairings are pretty simple. I got confused by factorials for a moment, but those only apply when you care which order your permutations are in. For this, you just add together all the whole numbers between 1 and N-1 inclusive. In this case, say you ship Lupin with any one of the other four, that's 4 pairings -- obviously there are situations where you can ship Lupin with Lupin because it's this fandom, but I'm putting those over with Yata, Rebecca, etc for now, where they don't get into my math.

Where was I? Right. Having removed any extra Lupins from the equation, and keeping everybody in standard credits order for simplicity, we can move on to possible Jigen pairings within the OT5. We already counted shipping him with Lupin, so instead of 4 more possible combinations, there are only 3. Similarly, there are two possible Goemon pairings we haven't counted yet, and then FujiZeni is the final one.

* I was a little perplexed how to figure the OT3s for a while, so I left them for last, but after finicking with the numbers for a bit, I realized that in this specific case, there have to be the same number of possible OT3s as there are of possible 2-person pairings. You can see this very simply if you split the whole group between two beds. Whichever pairing winds up in one bed, there has to be a unique combination of three people in the other bed.

* Therefore: 10 pairings, 10 OT3s, 5 OT4s, and one OT5 = 26 possible Lupgang ships!

*scrawls "Being what it was required to do" at the bottom of the page and goes to bed, way too late*

[ledenvs3000w23]

7. Nature Interpretation Through Music

Although asking where is music in nature and where is nature in music may appear as straight forward questions, there is much to dissect. Nature and music heavily influence one another, they are constantly overlapping, and building off each other. For me, answering these questions involves both subjectivity and objectivity. On one hand I have a clear understanding of where I notice music in nature and nature in music. However, then there are areas where I cannot distinguish where is music in nature and where is nature in music because of how interconnected music and nature are. I believe there are areas where both music can be seen in nature and nature can be seen in music simultaneously. One example where I see the two concepts/questions co-existing is at the Red Rocks Park and Amphitheatre located in Morrison, Colorado.

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMYyj49Ft/

TikTok User: makaylasutton Performer: Zach Bryan Location: Red Rocks Park Amphitheatre, Morrison, Colorado

Venues and locations such as this one creates opportunities for music to exist in natural landscapes, while also allowing nature to be incorporated into a musical experience. Their mutual existence provides this extremely impactful and novel experience that can move people in ways that may not be achievable without either factor. For me, these kinds of interactions hugely impact the way I value concerts; I feel far more inclined to spend money on an experience that feels all-encompassing. I am the most present when I can turn my face up to the sky and take in my surroundings, whether it be a starry night, a clear blue day, or torrential downpour, while being exposed to the organic nature of live music that creates the most synergetic, synchronized experience.  

All over the world ancestral and indigenous groups have developed musical practices and ceremonies that provide varying meaning and importance to each group. Majority of indigenous and ancestral groups have a close relationship with nature, often viewing themselves and nature as part of an extended ecological family that shares ancestry and origins. There is a perceived relatedness to each other and all natural elements of an ecosystem that is honoured, respected, and celebrated (Salmón, 2000). The ceremonies and practices that take place to honour, respect and celebrate this close relationship often take place in nature, incorporate nature, and/or are heavily influenced by nature. For example, Inuit ceremonies and celebrations tell stories, mimic nature, and celebrate events such as the first successful hunt of a young boy or the birth of a child using drums made from caribou skin. In addition, another cultural practice is Inuit throat singing which replicates the sounds of nature, such as a flock of geese or the Qamuti gliding on ice (Stepping Stones, 2019). This serves as another intersection where both music can be found in nature and nature can be found in music.

There are so many ways to perceive where is music in nature and where is nature in music. Music in nature can be seen through animals and the ambient sounds of different biomes. Whales, birds, and humans have many similarities in structure in the songs they use to communicate such as rhythmic variation, pitch relationships, permutations, and combinations of notes (Gray et al. 2001). In The Music of Nature and the Nature of Music there is mention if songs can be defined as “any rhythmic repeated utterance,” if so then I consider the sounds of waves crashing on a beach or the sounds of a storm to be an example of music in nature (Gray et al. 2001). Similarly, to indigenous songs and music, nature can be seen in music through folk singers and poets in all cultures. There is expression of the relationship between man and nature, and traditional ways of co-operation with nature through this art form (Sahi, 2012). In addition, nature can be seen in both modern and traditional music through the integration of natural sounds (Sahi, 2012). For example, the intro to a song I love called, Short Change Hero truly sets a scene for the rest of the song; you can hear thunder and wind from a storm, and the rustling of dirt and gravel underneath someone’s feet as they walk. Although both music and nature are beautiful on their own and both can be seen in one another, nothing may be more impactful than the connectivity between the two and what it can do for life on earth.

The song Candy by Paolo Nutini is a song that I connect to in many ways; I think the main reason why I feel such a strong connection to this song is because of the feelings and memories it evokes. I listened to this song on my first solo trip out west to British Columbia, a place I have a deep love for due to my previous trips and family ties. This was my first time going alone; I was coming out of a time where I felt like I was facing so many tests to see if I was strong enough to be there for myself and trust that I was ready to face whatever was thrown my way. At the time it was the freest I had ever felt, I believed that nothing could stand in my way. This was the song I listened to as my plane took off from Toronto during sunset, it was the first song I played when I left my hotel for any adventure on the west coast, and it was what I listened to when I was admiring and reflecting on the beauty of British Columbia. However, the core memory I associate it with was when I was hiking the Whistler and Blackcomb Mountain range. I had never experienced anything like it; although it was not the top of the world, it felt like it. It was late August, so the air was still warm, but the mountain breeze was crisp and the freshest air I had been exposed to. I don’t know how many times I listened to this song when I was up there, but every time I hear it, I am flooded with memories and feelings from that trip to the mountains.  

This is a photo of me at the top of Blackcomb Mountain 

Gray, P. M., Krause, B., Atema, J., Payne, R., Krumhansl, C., & Baptista, L. (2001). The Music of Nature and the Nature of Music. Science’s Compass, 29, 52-54.

Sahi, V. (2012). Using folk traditional music to communicate the sacredness of nature in Finland. In Mallarach, J.-M. (Ed.), Spiritual Values of Protected Areas of Europe Workshop Proceedings (129-132). Bundesamt für Naturschutz.

Salmón, E. (2000). Kincentric Ecology: Indigenous perceptions of the human–nature relationship. Ecological Applications, 10(5), 1327–1332. https://doi.org/10.1890/1051-0761(2000)010[1327:keipot]2.0.co;2  

Stepping Stones. (2019). First Nations, Métis and Inuit Music and Dance (Chapter 10). Alberta Teachers’ Association Walking Together: Education for Reconciliation. https://legacy.teachers.ab.ca/SiteCollectionDocuments/ATA/For%20Members/ProfessionalDevelopment/Walking%20Together/PD-WT-16j-10%20Music%20and%20Dance.pdf

[isiphonevpngood]

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VPN encryption techniques

VPN encryption techniques are crucial for ensuring secure and private online communication. VPNs, or Virtual Private Networks, use various encryption methods to protect data transmitted over the internet. These encryption techniques create a secure tunnel for data to travel through, making it virtually impossible for hackers or third parties to intercept and decipher the information.

One common encryption technique used by VPNs is AES (Advanced Encryption Standard). AES is a symmetric key encryption algorithm that is highly secure and widely used for securing sensitive data. It encrypts data using a series of rounds, substituting and permuting bits to create ciphertext that is unreadable without the corresponding decryption key.

Another popular encryption technique is SSL/TLS (Secure Sockets Layer/Transport Layer Security). SSL/TLS protocols establish secure connections between a user's device and a VPN server, encrypting data in transit. This encryption method is commonly used for securing online transactions, email communications, and other sensitive data transfers.

Furthermore, VPNs may also utilize protocols like OpenVPN, IKEv2, or WireGuard, which combine encryption techniques with secure tunneling protocols to ensure data privacy and integrity.

In conclusion, VPN encryption techniques play a crucial role in safeguarding online privacy and security. By encrypting data transmissions and creating secure tunnels, VPNs help users protect their sensitive information from potential threats and maintain anonymity while browsing the internet. It is essential to choose a VPN service that implements robust encryption methods to ensure a safe and secure online experience.

IP address anonymization methods

IP address anonymization methods are crucial for safeguarding online privacy and enhancing security. An IP address is a unique identifier assigned to every device connected to the internet, making it possible to track online activities back to individuals or organizations. However, various anonymization techniques help mitigate this risk:

Proxy Servers: Proxy servers act as intermediaries between users and the internet. When a user accesses the internet through a proxy server, the server's IP address is visible to websites instead of the user's IP address, preserving anonymity.

Virtual Private Networks (VPNs): VPNs encrypt internet traffic and route it through a remote server, masking the user's IP address. This ensures that the user's online activities remain private and secure from surveillance or tracking.

Tor Network: The Tor network routes internet traffic through a series of volunteer-operated servers, encrypting it multiple times to anonymize the user's IP address. This decentralized approach makes it difficult for anyone to trace the origin of the traffic.

IP Spoofing: In this method, the sender's IP address is forged or modified to appear as though it originates from a different source. While this technique can anonymize the sender, it can also be used for malicious purposes such as launching DDoS attacks.

Public Wi-Fi: Accessing the internet through public Wi-Fi networks can obscure the user's IP address since the network's IP address is shared among multiple users. However, using public Wi-Fi networks carries its own security risks, such as potential data interception.

Implementing these IP address anonymization methods can significantly enhance online privacy and security. However, users should remain vigilant and informed about the limitations and risks associated with each method to make informed decisions about their online activities.

Network traffic obfuscation with VPNs

Network traffic obfuscation with VPNs has become an increasingly popular method for enhancing online privacy and security. By using a VPN (Virtual Private Network), users can encrypt their internet connection and mask their IP address, making it difficult for third parties to monitor their online activities.

One of the main benefits of network traffic obfuscation with VPNs is the ability to bypass censorship and geo-restrictions. By connecting to a VPN server located in a different country, users can access websites and online services that may be blocked in their region. This is particularly useful for individuals living in countries with strict internet regulations.

Furthermore, VPNs can help protect sensitive data from cyber threats such as hacking and identity theft. The encryption provided by VPNs ensures that data transmitted over the network is secure and cannot be intercepted by malicious actors.

In addition to enhancing privacy and security, network traffic obfuscation with VPNs can also improve internet speed and performance. By routing traffic through a VPN server, users can avoid congestion and reduce latency, resulting in a faster and more reliable internet connection.

Overall, network traffic obfuscation with VPNs is a valuable tool for individuals and organizations looking to enhance their online privacy and security. By encrypting internet traffic and masking IP addresses, VPNs provide a secure and anonymous browsing experience, making it difficult for third parties to track and monitor online activities.

VPN tunneling protocols

VPN tunneling protocols are the backbone of secure and private internet communication. These protocols establish the framework for encrypting data as it travels between your device and the VPN server, ensuring that your online activities remain confidential and protected from prying eyes. Here are some common VPN tunneling protocols:

OpenVPN: Known for its versatility and robust security features, OpenVPN is an open-source protocol that can run on various platforms, including Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android. It uses the OpenSSL library to encrypt data with SSL/TLS protocols, offering strong encryption and authentication.

IPSec (Internet Protocol Security): IPSec operates at the network layer of the OSI model and provides a secure framework for VPN connections. It can be used in two modes: Transport Mode, which encrypts only the data payload, and Tunnel Mode, which encrypts both the header and the payload of each packet.

L2TP/IPSec (Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol/Internet Protocol Security): This protocol combines the features of L2TP and IPSec to create a secure VPN connection. L2TP provides the tunneling mechanism, while IPSec handles encryption and authentication, offering a high level of security.

PPTP (Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol): Although not as secure as other protocols, PPTP is widely supported and easy to set up. It operates at the data link layer of the OSI model and encapsulates data packets in a PPP (Point-to-Point Protocol) wrapper for transmission over the internet.

IKEv2/IPSec (Internet Key Exchange version 2/Internet Protocol Security): Developed by Cisco and Microsoft, IKEv2/IPSec is known for its stability and fast reconnection times. It supports mobility features, making it ideal for mobile devices that frequently switch between networks.

Each VPN tunneling protocol has its strengths and weaknesses, so it's essential to choose the one that best suits your needs for security, speed, and compatibility with your devices and network environment.

Concealing real IP addresses using VPNs

Concealing Real IP Addresses Using VPNs

In the digital age, privacy and security have become paramount concerns for individuals using the internet. One of the most effective ways to protect your online identity and data is by concealing your real IP address using virtual private networks (VPNs).

When you connect to the internet without a VPN, your device is assigned a unique internet protocol (IP) address. This IP address not only identifies your device but also reveals your approximate physical location. This information can be exploited by hackers, government agencies, or advertisers to track your online activities, monitor your browsing behavior, or even restrict your access to certain content.

By using a VPN, you can mask your real IP address and encrypt your internet traffic. When you connect to a VPN server, your traffic is routed through an encrypted tunnel, making it difficult for third parties to intercept or decipher your data. Additionally, VPNs assign you a temporary IP address based on the server location you choose, thereby masking your true location and enhancing your online anonymity.

Whether you are concerned about protecting your personal information, bypassing geo-restrictions, or safeguarding your data while using public Wi-Fi, using a VPN provides an added layer of security and privacy. However, it is crucial to choose a reputable VPN service that does not log your online activities and offers strong encryption protocols.

In conclusion, concealing your real IP address using VPNs is a proactive measure to enhance your online security and privacy. By investing in a reliable VPN service, you can browse the internet anonymously, access geo-blocked content, and safeguard your sensitive information from prying eyes.

[justabunchofquotesfromallover]

"Gabriel’s autism was a contributing factor in most of the harrowing incidents he went through. Clinicians suspect that the condition increases the risk for certain kinds of trauma, such as bullying and other forms of abuse. Yet few studies have investigated that possibility or the psychological aftermath of such trauma, including PTSD.

“We know that about 70 percent of kids with autism will have a comorbid psychiatric disorder,” says Connor Kerns, assistant professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. Depression, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder are all known to be more common among autistic people than in the general population, but PTSD had largely been overlooked. Until a few years ago, only a few studies had delved into the problem, and most suggested that less than 3 percent of autistic people have PTSD, about the same rate as in typical children. If that were true, Kerns points out, PTSD would be one of the only psychiatric conditions that’s no more common in people with autism than in their typical peers.

One potential explanation, Kerns says, is that, like other psychiatric conditions, PTSD simply looks different in people with autism than it does in the general population. “It seems possible to me that it’s not that PTSD is less common but potentially that we’re not measuring it well, or that the way traumatic stress expresses itself in people on the spectrum is different,” Kerns says. “It seemed we were ignoring a huge part of the picture.”

Kerns and a few other researchers are trying to get a better understanding of the interplay between autism and PTSD, which they hope will inform and shape treatment for young people like Gabriel. The more they dig in, the more these researchers are finding that many autistic people might have some form of PTSD. “We’re all just trying to put together the pieces and recognize that it’s an important area that requires further study,” she says. “It’s been a call to arms for the field to start looking at this.”

These researchers have their work cut out for them. In the typical population, PTSD is fairly well defined. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM-5, psychiatry’s guide to diagnoses, PTSD usually develops after someone sees or experiences a terrifying or life-threatening event. After that initial episode, any reminder of it can trigger panic, extreme startle reflexes and flashbacks. Beyond that, however, there’s a wide variety in the way PTSD manifests: It can lead to hypervigilance and anger; it can cause recurring nightmares and other sleep issues; or it can lead to depression, persistent fear, aggression, irritability or difficulty concentrating and remembering things.

“If you do the math, according to the PTSD criteria in the DSM-5, you can have 636,000 different combinations of symptoms that describe PTSD,” says Danny Horesh, head of the Trauma and Stress Research Lab at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel. Given all the traits in people with autism that may overlay these permutations, “you have a lot of reason to think that their version of PTSD might be very different,” he says."

--"At the intersection of autism and trauma" by Lauren Gravitz (via spectrumnews.org)

TRIGGER WARNING FOR DESCRIPTIONS OF ABUSE IN THE LINKED ARTICLE

[jonathankatwhatever]

I’m a little, no a lot nervous this morning, 9AM 8 Mar 2024, because the work flickering through me is extremely attractive, and I feel like I’m in a pick-me situation where all of them are trying to send the same message, because they’re on or in the same ring, which means they’re all additive or multiplicative versions of something, with bits added on because they’re separate Things and the exterior of a Thing is determined by the interaction of the inner and outer across the Boundary.

And that gets me to the latest cross I’ve been building: how does one cross? A key to this project is that it represents or projects, and I guess that is obvious because dots on paper don’t actually mean cows and goats, and so when we see a cow or a goat what we see is constructed between the goat and you, each as you are so what reaches over is motivated externally, by the existence of the Observer in Triangular (which is Triangular over gs.

Wait, how come I never saw this before? Triangular over gs means gs over Triangular. A single 1-0Segment in Triangular can be drawn over a scale of how many gs? I’m seeing a flipping process, like when you rotate a photo, and that occurs in D4 over the image, meaning that if I see this as orthogonal, to keep this simple as possible and thus have a hidden structure behind the Triangular 1-0Segment, then we rotate or flip the gs around, meaning the abstraction runs, with this being a simple one, basically just a group’s symmetries. I don’t say which because this obviously generates higher dimensions. In fact, the basic process should be viewed as spinning down from the general to the specific and spinning up from the specific to the general, with that applied to D-structure, so what we see, that which we map in projective forms, is the CR of D-structure applied to that moment and to each piece within that moment.

This solves the partial differential problem I had earlier. I decided to count how many steps it takes to make a basic half coffee/half milk with a crappy machine using pods. It was about 20 separate subroutines, many of which could happen in different orders without affecting the end. Example of not that would be not getting out a cup because then you can’t pour the milk, hot or cold into the cup and can’t put the cup under the nozzle. You’d normally insert it late, right, so it’s an impossibility if it can’t be inserted. This count was bookended by my taking down and putting away the machine, meaning I could leave it out to save two steps. And I could arrange things to reduce the physical distances enough that maybe I can combine subroutines in my head. But still, there’s a certain number of steps that must be taken. Like I could list get milk and get water separately because I might make two trips, or I could combine them into one trip and call it a fault or less than efficient in time when I don’t.

But then I could also say I decided to count how many steps and actually lost count because they grouped together in my head, but loosely, and I started to see permutations. Like I did several steps called them prep and then realized I hadn’t taken out a cup, which meant I had to count to 9 and up the prep count to 6. Boring, right? I started to lose count around 12 and then again around 18. Too much room for too many thoughts and I become rooted in that moment because that’s the repetition of the SBE, that the rooting, which you may not realize occurs, leads into the room or space which absorbs attention. Happens to me all the time. These are 0-1-0 forms, which is why they cut off suddenly.

Oh wow, that explains sexual expression as well: it achieves a higher intensity because it is finite, and it is finite because it is of higher intensity, which seems weird because short-lived is faster and faster means more finite at least from certain perspectives. Like a jet flies by low over head and thus is quickly gone, meaning special relativity in the end. That says finiteness in time approaches the limit, which we define a bit differently maybe because D-structure says that mass is D3 and it requires being massless to run at the IL because any additional processing, which is now clearly gs processing when we remember to count the IL as Triangular over gs, would create a shortfall between the IL and the ideal 1Space.

This is another example of what I keep hearing, that we’re now on ground I know well because all that work, which we keep finding was true, was in fact true. Meaning we’ve done much of this. Loop? Rotation generalizes out then in. That’s a lesson of Irreducibles, that these are the solution states out of all the potential states.

I’m looking at the continuum hypothesis through this light. Everything we’ve done is correct. Is it proven? I’m not sure because the statement of the answer is so different from the usual. It’s that we have 1Space and 0Space and 0Space is inherently finite. The processes which generate 0Space are infinite and those map as 1Space to and from the 0Space constructions.

In this light, what I think Gödel was thinking about, if I trust my Kurt voice, was essentially modular infinite constructions, meaning forms of Triangular over gs that bind larger areas, and these areas scale and they are finite when counted in some ways, countably infinite when counted in other ways, and yet I don’t see the uncountable in a construction because that involves counting the anti- and other constructions, the maybes and might-bes, the alternative pathways, and that’s not a construction but the construction of the construction, and that’s what we work with. Oh I see, when we reach that level, the nature of 0Space changes.

This may be big. I’m not sure. It may be very big.

The nature of 0Space changes because the scale is such that instead of looking inside this level of Things, we are now looking inside this level of Things. That’s the hyperreals acting as a Between. So imagine there’s a step and that generalizes and you have to find your way back when that’s not just a single path but 2 paths because they need to coincide within the 0Space, which is the logical connection I need to see Irreducibles appearing at scales because those occur within 0Space. That’s a big point as well: the Irreducibles which generate gs out of Triangular are Triangular over gs. That simple clarification makes it kind of obvious that a point becomes the Bip and that this would count in Attachment by 1’s orthogonal to the real axis, which we can now see is exactly the 1-0Segment of our dreams.

That’s wasn’t very clear but the ideas are there. Looking inside a higher level of Things. Like mise en scene instead of a shot. Like a dish instead of the ingredients.

I’m now looking at 0# and Ramsey cardinals. Got lost. Really lost. Came back and found indiscernible as a decent usage: objects which can be labeled but with labels being maximally loose, meaning they’re just assignments, becomes a and b and c and relationships between them if we assume there is connection among them. Found that through Kurt a long time ago, but set it aside because I didn’t get it. Turns out the reason I didn’t get it is that it has the same construction issue, but that’s weird because I don’t see why he didn’t get the idea. I mean it’s the same basis. All we’ve done is apply a methodology to that.

Next. That means we can use D0 and thus building D-structure has the same root as set theory and that makes it explicative. Wow. To be clear, I was looking at 0# and realized he used them differently.

Example: if we take indiscernible, then we calculate the speed of higher dimensions reducing to stable through comparing of quotients and the like. Halving/Doubling is big. Modularity. And gs primes, of course because those are 1’s, along with the various group 1’s, like simple groups and prime cyclics in their various forms, etc. This speed is by permutation potential, which is a set size, which is both ordinal and cardinal. More to this specific one. To this condition.

Example would be to generate a regular pentagon out of all the potential versus fitting to the pentagonal structure. Again P does equal NP because the solution is the fit imposed by the existing answer structure, as that of course fits to the moment, to the scale, etc.

I’m really getting this material. Very abstract. Large cardinals are beginning to make sense now. Triangular over gs is deeply true. It both generates and explains those issues. Can scarce believe how amazingly well this is going. Hope I didn’t jinx it.

I really am having trouble believing, despite being just a boy from North Windsor, that the connection is through Kurt - hey, Kurt’s the man, right? - and his constructible universes. So today has brought together Irreducibles in 0Space and indiscernibles, which are in 1Space by the definition of their generality. That appears to be an I/i. Oh what a cool idea! What if we use I/I for 0Space and I/i for Irreducible to and from indiscernible, and thus I/i/I would be Triangular. You can see the I//I running. This obviously extends into sheets.

So the indiscernible makes the Irreducible which makes the Bip around which the gs forms exactly as we worked out. Wow.

I need to take a break.

Note: forgot that this invokes the reflection principle in the way we need.