#i did actually approach this with a degree of standards

[butchladymaria]

HEALING CHURCH CRIMES BINGO!!!

fun fact: you can count enough crimes done by Healing Church & Co. ™️ to fill at least three bingo cards! (this is a joke, don't take this too seriously lol)

[astroismypassion]

Astrology observations 🌷🌷🌷

Credit goes to @astroismypassion

🌷 I noticed there is often a correlation or that aspects are revealing so to say. An opposition or a square between planets might indicate that you didn’t do something. Conjunction indicates you came very close to almost doing it, but then it not happening. And sextile/trine revealing that you in fact did that. For example: someone who has Sun conjunct Mercury could came very close to dating (Sun) someone in elementary, high school (Mercury), but it actually never fully came to fruition since it’s a conjunction. Another example would be: Venus square Jupiter, you likely weren’t in a committed partnership (Venus) during your college/university years (Jupiter), because it’s a square. However, you might have been if you have a sextile or a trine.

🌷 Taurus Jupiter and Venus Jupiter aspect natives often have their own little philosophy, rules and outlook on partnerships and they are willing to make very few compromises. They behave much like an Aquarius Venus or Aquarius Jupiter honestly. They have their own set view on how the their partnership should be.

🌷 With Mercury in the 8th house Synastry, the Mercury person can label you (the 8th house person) with something you don’t agree with or even you don’t agree about the label of the connection itself. For example, Mercury person wants 8th house person to be their best friend, but 8th house doesn’t want that, because they already have a best friend. Or Mercury person might suggest friend with benefits, but 8th house want a committed partnership. Usually the view on the nature of the connection is different.

🌷 I noticed Leo Lilith, Lilith at a Leo degree (5, 17, 29) attract such distant, detached, aloof people. Those that are very Uranian/Saturnian with them. These people rarely receive the level of attention they would desire in a romantic partnership from their partner. They also often go for Aquarius/Capricorn Sun or those with Sun Saturn or Sun Uranus, Moon Saturn, Moon Uranus aspects.

🌷 Venus square Jupiter native is often too stereotypically described as promiscuous, lacking standards, lacking self-worth, self-esteem when discussing their approach towards partnerships. They feel “out of luck” of finding a suitable partner to commit to. So someone of them hold onto their partner out of fear. They think it’s hard for them to come across a partner. So if they break up, they could stay single for 6, 7 years or even more.

🌷 I noticed Aries Moon men are really thirsted after, mainly due to great sex appeal. One great example would be French actor Alain Delon, who both women and men found him attractive.

🌷 Taurus Suns, especially those who have Taurus Venus as well, often feel disappointed and let down by the todays, modern dating. They feel not only there is a lack of growing stability within a connection, but also lack of responsibility. Really this word is more connected with Taurus than Capricorn, especially when it comes to partnerships. Taurus Sun always teaches their partner the importance of responsibility and stability, so this is how they teach their partner to mature more in life.

🌷In 8th house Synastry there is always friendly competition, like “oh you’re trying to outperform me?😁”, because you want the other person to prove themselves to you and make an effort. But there is also this element of joking involved. You could often say something truthful, but then follow it by “I’m just kidding”, but there is stil an air of “unless you want to👀”.

🌷Venus square Jupiter native has a lot of friends in their friend circle that are single or unwilling to commit to a long-term partnership.

🌷 I noticed if you have for example Aries over the 5th house, probably the person you often end up having a crush on is a Fire sign! If you have Venus in the 5th it’s often an Earth sign. If you have Mercury could be an Air sign or an Earth sign.

🌷A lot of Aries, Scorpio Moon women consciously decide with time and age to only have female friends. Due to some “fake male friends” in the past, they do it as a form of protecting themselves from disappointment. Otherwise, these women have quite a few male acquaintances, even likely having more male than female friends.

🌷I feel like some Libra Juno or Juno in the 7th house people end up having this mentality of “don’t let your boyfriend stop you from finding your husband”. Because it’s kind of true for them more so than others. They could actually meet their future spouse and being friends with them when being in a partnership with someone else.

🌷 Libra Juno is hating on the same people with your spouse.

🌷 Leo Juno cannot be in a partnership where there is lack of affection, physical touch.

🌷 You might think that Mars in the 7th house in Synastry is all so romantic, great chemistry and romantic affection. Yet, I noticed it more in charts of really good friends even. Another thing to be said here is that both people have their own set view on what is “fair” in the connection and how balance looks like. So it’s actually not that easy to get along, because both have different definition and view on how they should go about fairness, balance in the connection, so often times it results in unbalanced situations. In Composite charts Mars in the 7th house often manifests similarly.

🌷 Aries Moon women and men care in the younger years less about love, being in a partnership and more about money and financial stability. They want enough money to support themselves more than they want love. However, when they achieve that financial stability they start thinking more about family, partnerships etc. later on.

🌷 Composite charts are literally so telling! If you have Composite Scorpio over the 10th house, you and your person could really respect and admire Scorpio Suns. You could both find Leo Suns attractive if you have Composite Leo over the 7th house. If you have Composite Capricorn over the 12th house, when together you both love to listen to Capricorn Sun musicians.

🌷 No one talks how Virgo Venus, Venus in the 6th house doesn’t get taken seriously enough in relation to partnership. People could love spending time with the native, hanging out, but often get friendzoned or that the other person want things more casual. It’s like people think Virgo Venus/Venus in the 6th house don’t have “serious feelings” for someone.

🌷I noticed usually people with Lilith in the 10th, 11th house or Aquarius/Capricorn Lilith, even Saturn Lilith aspects often come from a family where there was an age gap in partnerships throughout many family generations. Like there is at least 5, 6, 7 years difference between their father and mother, grandfather and grandmother etc.

🌷Virgo Mars people have the fanciest hands. They put on jewellery, always hand cream, well kept nails, always perfect manicure, some really see their hands and fingers as a canvas, hence hand tattoos. They just scream “rich hands”. One example would be Hailey Bieber, who is more and more known for fancy hand gestures and perfect hands. Even men here with this placement could have well kept hands, fingers and nails.

🌷Gemini Sun and Mercury in the 5th house love pampering themselves before a trip or they get their nails, hair done, they love looking good on trips.

Credit @astroismypassion

[tannieastrology]

Capricorn Venus-Learning To Love, Love🤎🧸

☕️ How I imagine a love for Capricorn Venuses one day- Something REAL. Something that warms your heart. Someone to just come home to.

Kinda a personal story<3

☕️🧸First off people who have Capricorn Venus or Venus aspecting Saturn how did yall meet yalls partner and how would you describe your experience in dating? Let me know your experiences down in the comments!

☕️🧸Some common themes- unrequited love, being unable to catch feelings, work/school focused, unsatisfying relationships, liking people for years, low self worth, having to go through many obstacles, strong souls, gracefully age.

☕️🧸My Venus is in Capricorn in the 3rd house conjunct Jupiter, Pluto, and POF and trines my Virgo Saturn in the 11th. All of my friends are older and I actually met my friendgroup because of my older sister and find it difficult to make friends regularly. I also mostly hangout with older people but when it comes down to dating I am very inexperienced even though I know im only 16.

☕️🧸Like ive never talked to anyone and when I like someone ive had a pattern of liking them for like 2-3 years( my venus being in the 8th degree of scorpio). I also dont get approached alot and while I do have guys approaching me here and there theyre never my type.

☕️🧸Like I LOVE classy men but guys my age just arent like that it kinda bums me out. Watching people easily get into relationships ever since I was a kid and being able to attract anything they want in love matters made me really think I was ugly for the longest time.

☕️🧸For one I literally was a ugly duckling from elementary to middle school and I didnt really go to a school where indian features were appreciated(a majority of my school is hispanic and black). I always kept quiet about my crushes because I always thought no way they could like me?

☕️🧸It wasnt really until this year(my sophmore year) where I realized I have grown sooo much as a person. Beauty wise and personality wise. The way my Venus has impacted me the most was friends because of the relationship of my 3rd and 11th house. I lost friends, was lied to, and backstabbed and eventually made me realize that I wasnt the problem. The people around me are just vain. This made me go into depression for a while but also made me reflect on my relationships.

☕️🧸Eventually I thought why do I deserve any less? And yall dont understand this was such a turning point for me because it made me cut off so many unnecessary people in my life along with raising my standards within my relationships which is EXACTLY what Capricorn Venus should learn to do if they feel theyre relationships arent satisfying. Not just friends but in romantic interests too. Like I actually have boundries for myself but I will say that I lost alot of my innocence when it comes to love. The biggest thing for me personally is that I grew into myself but it took a longer time for that to happen for me compared to my peers but man sometimes people be hyping me up and I just dont know how to deal with it because I grew up ugly LMFAO.

☕️🧸Saturn here will force you to be patient and learn alot of valuable lessons for not only romantic love, but also friendships and familial relationships. Because one thing ive noticed is that these people are very sweet, soft hearted, and always wanted to fall in love, but as they got older they had unsatisfactory in those experiences and come to take the stereotype of being “cold” when in reality you just come to realize that people are disappointing. With time ive noticed we age well and we meet more serious people as we get older but you just have to deal with immaturity for a little while until that happens. All in all Capricorn Venuses will get what they deserve and I PROMISE you will be fine asf when u get old so hang in there.😘

If I were to give you a love based on a movie itd be this one<3

I really hope yall enjoyed this I wanted to give my insight on it so here I came🥰

[olderthannetfic]

One of the worst YA books that is bad "ownvoices" that I've personally read was Cemetery Boys, and it's a great example of how silly ownvoices as a term has become because the author is of some degree of Latine descent and nonbinary, but it was really clear they didn't speak Spanish at all because they were absolutely obsessed with doing the "Latinx" thing with every gendered Spanish word, to the degree that because it was about magic users, I had to read the word "brujx" multiple times per page in some chapters....

Like, you know, maybe a label such as "ownvoices" should be based on something a little more than just belonging to the same broad demographic groups as your characters. I'm not saying that writing should only be autobiography, but I was honestly shocked a gringo (gringx?) hadn't written it and I'm not sure that their representation was any more "authentic" (I'm sure it involved some research, but it wasn't their personal cultural experiences) than one written by a non-Latine person. That doesn't make it a bad book; plenty of great books are written by people from different cultural backgrounds as their characters. But I'm not sure it's really "ownvoices" is what I'm saying, and it makes me think about how I feel like that label is becoming more about representing a specific kind of POC/LGBTQ+/etc. "experience" that (predominantly white and straight) publishers want to see, than actually reflecting its authors' ACTUAL life experiences as the term would imply?

It reminded me of a point a lesbian mutual made about how if she were to write a book about a lesbian teen going through conversion therapy, that would require just as much research for her as it would for a straight author because she never went through conversion therapy and had a largely accepting family and social environment from an early age. But if she were to write a book about that, not only would it be praised as "ownvoices" but a lot of people would ASSUME it was based on her own experiences unless (or even if) she said otherwise, whereas a straight cis woman writing an identical book would be raked over the coals in the current discourse environment....

--

Brujx? BRUJX?!?!

And yes, I've seen plenty of people complaining about how they only get approached for ~ownvoices~ stuff and how they're expected to write about plantains and colonialism, not whatever actually moves them.

What was supposed to be a chance for people to at least get a foot in the door past the slush pile has turned into another straitjacket and double standard for people not seen as the default.

Not that we should stop asking who the author is and if they did their research/knew what they were talking about in the first place, but the hashtaggy version has gone awry as these things frequently do.

As usual, we focus more on things like book content than on employment equality behind the scenes. The really significant thing is to diversify who has power. They can make their own damn decisions what to do with it.

[contemplatingoutlander]

Interesting proposal by Nate Loewentheil in a guest column in The New York Times. Not only was his proposal thought provoking, but two of the comments regarding it by readers were also worth contemplating. Below are some excerpts from the column, followed by the two comments.

Here is a proposal for the environmental movement: Pool philanthropic funds for a day, buy a small plot of land in Washington, D.C., and put up a tall marble wall to serve as a climate memorial. Carve on this memorial the names of public figures actively denying the existence of climate change. Carve the names so deep and large, our grandchildren and great-grandchildren need not search the archives. This is not a metaphor. The problem with climate change is the disconnect between action and impact. If politicians vote against construction standards and a school collapses, the next election will be their last. But with climate change, cause and effect are at a vast distance. We are already seeing the consequences of our past and present greenhouse gas emissions. In coming decades, those emissions will wreak their full havoc on the climate, and it will take hundreds, possibly thousands, of years for those pollutants to fully dissipate. But in the short term, the most immediate burdens are borne mostly by the poor in America and distant people in distant lands. Misaligned incentives are at the heart of why some political and business leaders deny and delay. [...] I would first nominate those who have sown confusion over climate science, like Myron Ebell, who recently retired as director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Center for Energy and Environment, where he sought to block climate change efforts in Congress, and served as the head of Donald Trump’s transition team for the Environmental Protection Agency. Mr. Ebell has argued that the idea that climate change is “an existential threat or even crisis is preposterous.” Then there are lawmakers who have consistently stood in the way of federal action, like the recently retired senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, the author of the book “The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future.” [color emphasis added]

Below is the first thought provoking comment to this article:

There is, in Iceland, a memorial to a dead glacier - the Ok Glacier. It reads: "Ok is the first Icelandic glacier to lose its status as a glacier. In the next 200 years all our glaciers are expected to follow the same path. This monument is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it." [color emphasis added] --Chris D., Colorado

Photo of the plaque at the at the Okjökull (OK Glacier) memorial.

Here is the second thought provoking comment to this article:

For reference this graph https://i.redd.it/ljifc828iui31.jpg is from the Exxon internal scientific report on climate change, 1982, produced by scientists working for that fossil fuel corporation. Look at what their graph predicted for 2020. Approaching 420 ppm CO2 and a rise of 1.2 C degrees above pre-industrial temperature - very close to what we actually got in 2020. Then look at what the graph shows for later this century, based on not reducing emissions. Very serious temperature rises, that could make agriculture very difficult in many countries. Yes, and then Exxon, having seen this, got involved in PR campaigns to "cast doubt" on climate science, to protect their assets. [color emphasis added] --Erik Frederiksen, Ashville, NC

1982 Exxon graph depicting average global temperature increases over time correlating with increases in atmospheric CO2. NOTE: Graph color was modified for greater clarity.

Fossil fuel companies like Exxon, and fossil fuel oligarchs like the Koch brothers should be included in any "Climate Wall of Shame."

[ravensvirginity]

I think Titans #10 actually exemplifies a lot of what has weakened about Raven's character over the years. Take this panel:

This would be shocking if NTT Raven said it! Her pacifism is so well established that this would be an immediate glaring red flag that something is wrong with her! It is meant to be out of character for her here, as this is her demon side speaking, but it loses a lot of impact because there has been no attention paid to Raven's pacifism. We don't even know if she's even meant to be from Azarath in this current run.

Because they've distanced themselves so much from Raven's original backstory and vital parts of her characterization, this moment falls flat. While what she did (cutting her brother's arm off) is more brutal than her usual attack style, there's been nothing in this run to suggest she shies away from offensive attacks. It's not even particularly egregious by superhero standards: he's a demon, and we can assume his arm will grow back or otherwise be magically healed, and he was threatening a lot of people when she attacked him. It's even less dramatic than NTT's ongoing conflict of Kory thinking the Titans should kill their enemies and everyone else having a more merciful approach.

Then there's the distancing of actual Raven (I refuse to call her Rachel) from anything her demon side does. She's literally imprisoned in a gem. It isn't even her body committing these evil acts. A lot of the impact in the original Terror of Trigon arc is that it really is Raven doing all this; Raven, who's been worn down for years both in universe and out of it, finally snapping and becoming a villain.

This, in contrast, has about as much impact as if Trilogy was the main villain of this story. I do like the angle this comic is going of having demon Raven pretending to still be her normal self among the Titans, but having normal Raven be a physical separate person who's in magic prison really weakens it. It's not as far as I can tell that it's meant to be a trapped aspect of her soul, it seems like she's just an entirely separate person from her evil self. Demon Raven even calls normal Raven her sister.

It's meant to be more figurative (at least I sure hope it is) but it just drives in how severe the degree of separation between normal Raven and demon Raven has gotten. Nothing about this story would change if demon Raven was Raven's shapeshifting half-sister. Contrasted to something like Terror of Trigon, where Raven being the same person, just corrupted into something unrecognizable, is so central to the entire plot and theme, it feels a lot cheaper and less impactful.

I just think this arc could be so much better without the weird complete division of Raven and demon Raven as separate people. Instead of having both Raven and demon Raven be physically separate people, they could've still gone with the gem thing as a sort of projection in Raven's mind, with her good side locked up in it. They still share the same body, it's just different aspects of her soul fighting each other.

I don't hate this story, but it's frustrating because it feels like it could be so much better if just more care was put into it. I wish there was more time to show the Titans' friendship, so the betrayal of Raven siding with her father could be more devastating. I wish they'd paid more attention to Raven's pacifism earlier, so this issue would actually be jarring. I'm interested in Trilogy, but they haven't shown us enough of him to really get any feel for his personality and motivations other than a vague jealousy over Raven being Trigon's favorite. Hopefully more will be revealed in the future, but with the way this comic has been going so far I'm not too hopeful.

[clara-maybe-ontheroad]

Little musings on Gap (Drake), Only Friends ep 1 & 7

It's probably been said by someone already, but I'm appreciating the fact that the superposition between Boston sleeping with Gap in the first episode and Nick jerking off to his phone was such an announcement of what was to come.

-> The voyeurism of Nick going through Boston's phone for his sexual pleasure while (we now know) Boston was being filmed against his consent for Gap's sexual pleasure.

-> The revelation that this isn't just a one off and that Gap actually has a career with filming guys he has sex with and putting it on the Internet as porn.

Which begs the question though : was any of that first interaction between Boston and Gap real ? In episode 1, Gap says he has a boyfriend but that boyfriend lets him play with strangers sometimes. It's entirely possible that it's true, but in episode 7 we also learn that Gap has put so many sex tapes online that he isn't surprised that someone like Mew might recognize him from "his work".

(as an aside, I've talked in previous posts about how much "work" and "services" seem to almost exclusively refer to sex in this show, the trend continues)

Anyway, I wouldn't be surprised if Gap lied to Boston in that first encounter, because everybody in this show and in real life lies, and also because he probably saw what would make him more exciting to Boston : being taken, unavailable, technically belonging to someone else yet wanting him. We all know that's Boston's type, and maybe Gap could tell. Gap was putting the ground work to see if Boston was daring enough and would make a good subject for his videos.

Edit : turns out I was misremembering and potential threesome guy wasn't Gap, so no lying on Gap's part there. Still though, the rest of the lying stands since Boston didn't know about the camera ; and maybe Gap justifies it to himself thinking that since he has a presence online, if people approach him it's their responsibility to know ? Or not his problem

Does Gap know who is going to put on the Internet and who he's going to keep for himself ? I don't know, but it seems like he didn't actually release the video with Boston, he tried to use the fact that he had it to get more sex out of him.

The show treats it as a bit of a bleep in Mew's revenge scheme, but we do see how many folders Gap has on his computer of sex tapes. A lot.

Btw love how P'Jojo has to insert himself into everything haha, after the Twitter account now the sex tape folder

How many of these people knew they were being filmed ? How many didn't ? How many that didn't had their faces hidden in the shadow ? The example of Boston Vs Mew seems to suggest that when they do know, Gap's partners often prefer to have their face hidden in the shadows, while someone like Boston who is in the dark (ah) about what's happening will show their face on camera unknowingly.

Would that make those videos more valuable to Gap ? Collecting faces of men who didn't consent ?

The show does treat what Gap did as something had, but it's mostly there so Mew can have its revenge moment of threatening to Boston but keeping the moral high ground, showing he's better than everyone.

But the show is telling us everyone's moral standards are in the gutter. No one is truly shocked at Gap's behaviours, and it doesn't seem like there's going to be any consequences to that. It's just going to be a bump on the road, because there are shitty people everywhere like that.

And as said in other posts, the low level to high key shittiness of absolutely everyone in this show is what's making it gold.

(this is not high degree meta so I don't know if it's worthy of the ephemerality squad but I'd love to hear more thoughts on the Gap situation or to be pointed to more posts already written about him so tagging @waitmyturtles @lurkingshan @ranchthoughts @twig-tea @slayerkitty @distant-screaming @neuroticbookworm @chickenstrangers @thatgirl4815 @wen-kexing-apologist )

[djuvlipen]

i've been thinking a lot about anorexia prevention and how much it revolves around body image. when i was in middle school and high school the most common attitude i witnessed regarding anorexia was "don't starve, you'll die" followed by "you don't need to starve to be pretty. girls who are too skinny are ugly anyway, you don't want to look like that". it came from both adults (including my relatives) and other students. and i think that's a bad approach for many reasons. first, it associates anorexia to looks and body image when a lot of girls with anorexia don't starve to be pretty. as Naomi Wolf said in The Beauty Myth, anorexia is less about conforming to beauty standards and more about feeling in control of your body, a feeling that a lot of girls experience when navigating a misogynist world -- especially girls who survived sexual assault. sure, beauty standards play a big part in the onset of anorexia and social contagion but it's only the tip of the iceberg.

second, painting anorexic girls as shallow and calling them ugly is just discouraging bonding between girls and women. when i was in middle and high school girls who were suspected of having anorexia were bullied and called ugly for it. they were ostracized and i'm pretty sure being bullied at school is not of great help when dealing with an eating disorder. on the contrary, we should encourage solidarity and friendship between women and girls. anorexia is very competitive and trains you to look at your own body and at other women's bodies in a negative, critical light. i feel most strongly that the way we think about our own bodies, as women, is reflected in the way we think about other women's bodies. i do think that hating your female body will lead to your hating the body of other women. if we want to cultivate a healthy relationship with our own body, we also have to get rid of any competition we may have with other women, and we have to cultivate female friendship and solidarity

third, the consequences of anorexia don't boil down to looking too thin and ugly. it ruins your social life and your physical health to a degree many people aren't aware of. it's particularly harmful because when i started starving i thought the worst thing that could happen to me was death, and beside that the only other bad thing would be not looking very attractive. but i didn't care about my looks and i didn't care about dying either. however i did care about my friends, i did care about my academic performance, i used to enjoy little things like going for a walk or reading a book. now all my friends have more or less dropped me because i'm not fun to be around when i keep fainting everytime we go out, i'm constantly zoning out and i have no memory and no energy and i can't perform simple tasks or focus on anything, when i take a walk the only thing i think about are the calories i'm burning and some days my bones and my joints hurt too much and i can't even walk for too long. talking about anorexia purely in terms of looks is creating a misrepresentation of what it actually is and i do think it's failing many girls and women who may have not developed anorexia if the way we talk about it had been different

[open-hearth-rpg]

Engagement & Flashbacks: Great RPG Mechanics #RPGMechanics: Week Three

I have sat through hundreds of in-game planning sessions. There’s an objective, maybe specific, maybe general, maybe- god forbid- we’re discussing which objective we want to approach. These can be wonderful and interesting moments to explore character and role play to show what your PC values. They can be. But those are exceptions rather than the rule. I look back at the hours sunk into those which ended up in painful, circular, player-tension exacerbating, and time-consuming bad meetings.

My particular pet peeve from this is the player who listens and waits until someone has proposed a line of action and then says they don’t like it. They point out corner-case problems and wild possibilities which *could* make things collapse. But when pressed for fix suggestions or alternatives, they shrug their shoulders. I loathe them. I’ve seen many of them. Playing them at the ttrpg table made me that much more ready to flip out when people did this in actual work meetings in the real world.

Don’t get me wrong– I love it when a plan comes together. There’s few things more satisfying as a GM than to watch the players consider a problem, develop a solution, and reveal how their individual talents can save the day. But setting a planning session into motion is like lighting a stick of dynamite. Sometimes the players come together and manage to extinguish that fuse. More times the dynamite goes off and blows a hole in the session.

So that has long been an established problem that GMs have worked through, usually by degrees of heavy-handed riding the whip.

Blades in the Dark provided another solution and one, honestly, which completely changed my approach to this at every table I run. You have a job, a score, an objective. You can keep choosing that tight by filing down the number of options. Once you know generally what you want to do, you define the kind task and what’s your key element. Then we go to the engagement roll.

That roll is based on the challenge of the situation, the resources and information you have, and preparation (but only in the loosest sense). Good stuff gives you more dice, bad stuff takes away dice. You roll a pool of d6s and check the result. If the highest die is a six, we start the scene on the job with your characters in control. They’ve gotten past the easy layers and are in the more challenging part, but in a good spot. On a 4-5 it's more a mixed bag– you start out with some things at risk. You have to overcome a standard challenge right away. On a 1-3 we drop you in the shit. You’re in but things have gone wrong and the situation’s desperate.

But it's the other half of the system which completes this and makes things brilliant. Players can flashback to preparations they’ve made. They can improvise these on the fly. They can cost stress and require a test, but that’s dependent on how wild or impactful that prep is. Combining that with the flexible loadout system makes the players feel OK about rolling into a situation without having spent an hour working out all the possibilities.

And at least at my tables, the secret is that flashbacks don’t get done that often. Sometimes PCs will get jammed in a corner or a player will have a particularly clever concept. But Flashbacks IMHO provide a mental cushion for risk-adverse players. It’s the GM saying, “let’s get to playing, I’m not going to screw you over, and you’ll have the chance to pull cool stuff out.” And it works– and I promise you I use it in just about every game I run. We still do meetings and planning discussions, but I know I can wrap it up and move it to the play if that begins to look like it is going to blow up.

Side-note: Blades isn’t the first game to lean on flashbacks as a key element. I think that would be Leverage, which is an amazing ground-breaking game by a dynamite team of designers. It uses that to model the reveals of the TV shows it's based on. There may be others, but that’s the one I remember.

[anyataylorjoys]

Hi! I'm wondering if it's too much to ask by wondering if you could explain how to do gifs like this: /post/665885361316233216. Or if you know of some other tutorial or just things to think about while making it? Thank you!

Not at all, I’m happy to know someone appreciated my template! I'm sure there are other tutorials out there on how to create layouts like this but I haven’t seen any lately to link you to so I'll go ahead and show you my approach to getting this type of layout. This will be very detailed and image heavy to make it easy for those who might have never worked with putting gifs into templates before to follow.

This tutorial assumes you have:

just about any version of photoshop (I use CC23)

basic knowledge of giffing with this program

some experience with layer masks

If you want to actually learn how to make a template like this from scratch, keep reading. Otherwise you can just download the template I created here and skip to step 3, or download this anyway for a visual and follow along.

(STEP 1): HOW DO I GET STARTED?

Create a new blank document with the dimensions of the entire size of the canvas (file > new) and change the highlighted settings to match these (with your own choice of dimensions of course):

Before you do anything else, make sure your timeline is visible (window > timeline) and select “create video timeline” from the drop down.

(STEP 2): MAPPING IT OUT AND CREATING THE TEMPLATE

With your blank canvas is where you have to use a little imagination to create your layout to fill in the space and where you start is up to you.

I started at the top of the canvas in the left corner and decided my first gif was gonna be 268 x 340. Why these dimensions? 268 is tumblr’s standard width for (2) side-by-side gifs and I want the gutter alignment at the top of this canvas to be centered. The height of the block just felt right. As you drag the tool, photoshop will tell you what the dimensions are.

Now I have this:

Our second shape will also have a width of 268px to ensure the transparent space between them is perfectly centered. My second block ended up being 268 x 260.

Make sure there is a gutter of 4px between all of the squares you create. This is important because tumblr’s standard gutter size between gifs is 4px, and this means you need to subtract 4px from your squares on all sides that face each other.

The easiest method to make and align the squares without spending too much time on it is to click off the canvas in the corner and drag the shape inward. Then click on the shape you’ve just created and align it with its designated 90 degree corner of the canvas first. [Edit > free transform] the sides until they align correctly by holding shift + control while dragging. Zoom in to a microscopic level to make sure the gutter is right if you have to 📐🔬🔎👀

If you’re not using weird shapes in your template, do the same thing with all the blocks until you get your desired outcome.

Otherwise, you’ll have to deal with this:

(STEP 2.1): THE ANGLE

In order to create a template like this, you will need to delete the corner of your shape. Create your rectangle like normal as you did with the others, but this one is going to overlay the layer on the top left.

To make sure everything will be even, I used the rectangle tool again to measure and with a new square (in yellow for visibility), I determined that this corner overlay is 75x75, so I fixed the alignment of the red rectangle to make it even.

(STEP 2.2): DELETING THE CORNER OUT OF THE SHAPE

Using the yellow square as your new guide, extend its edges to cover the gutter on the two sides while maintaining its 1x1 proportion.

Keyboard command + click on your yellow square layer and once the “ants” dance around the square, hide the layer so it’s invisible on the canvas.

Right click on the red rectangle layer and select “rasterize” from the drop down menu, then you can hit “delete” or “backspace” on your keyboard which will remove the selected portion only to reveal the gutter. command + D will make the 🐜s go away. Then the yellow square layer can be deleted.

Once this is complete, you can finish up your template by adding your small rectangle in the left bottom corner in the space that remains and VOILA! You have a template!

3. REPLACING THE SHAPES WITH GIFS USING LAYER MASKS ETC

When you make your gifs, remember that they will need to be in timeline form in order to drag them onto the template. You can resize them to match the dimensions of the shapes, or you could just drag your gif—whatever be the size—directly onto the canvas, and “free transform” them to fit inside each space.

Create a group for each shape and create a layer mask for each group, containing it’s designated shape. I’ve colorized this visual to make it make sense.

Now you can finally drag your gifs onto the template. The coloring can be added before or after, it doesn’t matter as long as you place your gifs and the colorings inside the groups with the layer masks to contain the effects of the color adjustments.

And the best thing about putting gifs in a template in timeline is you can move the groups containing the gifs from left to right to get your desired part of the clip.

Once you’re finished with this, hide the original shape layers, as they were just guides and we no longer need them, but also if you don’t do this, you may be able to see them on the sides rather than transparency once you upload to tumblr. And AT LAST you can convert everything into frames as you normally would and save.

It seems like a lot, but these are very satisfying to make. Feel free to drop me another ask if you have any questions regarding some detail I might have left out.

[mejomonster]

(The tldr is this is about gender and then versus now) I was listening to the podcast Enterprise Incidents on youtube. The Mudd's Women episode. The podcasters are 2 fans since the original airing, and I like them generally because they're really well informed in screenwriting and directing choices and so to some degree their analysis touches points I find a chunk of star trek type commentaries tend to miss: that optimisitc vision of the future, that star trek's goal was to be progressive but it also at times had flaws of its time (something Im painfully familiar with regarding Rick Berman and DS9 and TNG, so its nice hearing older watchers aware of those flaws from ToS). Now. Its not perfect. In my ideal podcast Id like to find some day (lol) a guy podcaster is capable of acknowledging the influence the spirk premise/fan perception had in some ways (from The Motion Picture thyla, that "i imagine love of men in that time" quote from Rodenberry, the Asimov suggestion to make them a team to help Kirk be accepted more by audience and Spocks individual popularity tying to Kirk was partly a bid to link their popularity). And I dont know that for all the great ideas they have, that they have any idea of the spirk fandom perception (like that quote in academia about slash fiction being the end of the Wrath of Khan if the glass were removed) or how the canon goal of making a duo unit at least created the dynamic that led to that fandom interpretation. But they do touch on many a good thing some less layer-looking people miss. They notice Kirk's actual personality (should be easy but often failed due to cultural perception versus The Show itself), Nimoys acting choices and spocks development into the character he became, the show itself deciding its identity over time and its ventures in various angles until then, what worked and what didnt regarding the progressive future versus the biases of the time it was made. They miss some nuance but theyre doing really in depth so its a treasure trove overall.

Now in Mudds Women, they miss some nuance of a story about beauty and worth that I think... i dont know. I think yeah the writers failed to hit the goal story meant to be told, but i also think outside a women perspective it can often be a miss in such storytelling (yoko taro doing the Singer in Nier Automata is the first time a guy telling a raw story about beauty and its impossible standards, invasive toxic expectations, and self destructive pressures, managed to feel totally on point and realistically managed). So i sort of yeah expect mudds women to need to be viewed Generously to grasp the message, and i sort of yeah expected guy podcasters to at best recognize where the story failed (which they did) but unfortunately not realize all the story was aiming to do (because it does Approach many topics i feel women and beauty standards and ppl who grew up in certain enviornments would recognize as Trying to be a reference to a real problem - the episode does say a fair bit if ur used to looking for those points, but not Super well done so i can see why an audience less used to relating to such points would notice them much less).

But the podcast said something this episode i found so refreshing. They mention how mudd explains how the venus drug works: it makes you "more of what you are" makes men more strong and aggressive, women more soft and feminine. Basically its a line about idealized traditional gender roles when ToS was made. And the podcaster mentions yes as a teen first watching (when we probably most feel a pressure to fit in, still most likely to believe society expects us to meet it and rewards that standard) it sounded like the drug made u better. But that in the life he lived, with the family he had, he had never been raised to think he had to be strong or women had to cook or any of that strict expectations. Then they talk about how the discussion of gender has grown so much in these years, and trans people of course can live more openly, and they say the question in society is like what does it mean to be a certain gender anyway.

And the guy says. Well i always thought and strongly think, when i say im a man, it means nothing. Because a man can be anything. Anyone can be any way, like any things, do any things, look any way. Being a certain gender means nothing beyond "im that gender."

And god how refreshing that was.

Growing up, in the 90s, yeah i felt to some degree those gender roles and expectations somewhat pushed as a teen: when girls start being pressured to wear makeup (by ads, movies, peers, trying to please crushes, avoid insults etc) and boys start being pressured to be strong (bullied for not being, attacked for being perceived as less strong by any number of reasons they get singled out by peers, movies and ads telling them their lack of strength is their reason for any failures etc). But like. There was ALSO a big push growing up, that i saw, of girls can do anything. Girls can cook or do construction, can wear dresses or play sports, can wear makeup or none at all, can have long hair or chop it off, can go into STEM or childcare, can marry or never marry, can be the career head of home or a stay at home parent, basically: anything, all of that or none of it or anyrhing in between. That was the direction of progress anyway. Guys were a bit behind (and oh of course bullying with their own peers limited their options of what wasnt ostracized) but we were seeing more acceptance of intelligence as equally desireable and acceptable to strength (at least for adult men), more media glorifying the nerds, more examples of a bigger variety of men with more niches that could still be considered ideals. And the result of that in some ways was good, i saw more guys my generation more accepting of their love of painting, cooking, wearing makeup, more guys who didnt body shame themselves as much, who didnt feel belittle themselves if they were stay at home dads or made less income, more who talked about their emotions than my parents generation ever did, more genuine friendships than we ever saw during toxic-teenage-pit when the strict standards weighed heaviest. The ideas were moving toward what is a man? Anything he wants. What is a woman? Anything she wants. What is a person? Anything they want to be. What is your gender? Whatever you feel it is. And it doesnt need to match up to Any preconcieved notions or box to be "justified" because no gender has specific strict traits it must include. Yes we still knew society had "ideals" for genders that it pushed, and that traditional and conservative thinking people held themselves to. But for people in general? What is your gender? What I feel I am. What must you do to Be that gender? Nothing. Anyone can be anything as any gender.

And god it was so refreshing hearing someone say that again. What does being a man mean? Nothing. Because a man can be anything. Anyone can be anything. Theres no box a person fits into, no box of traits any gender must conform to in order to be valid. A person can be anything and do anything and have any traits interests looks, and be whatever gender they are.

I dont know if its the way the worlds medias been shifting (so opinions we get stuck hearing more of), or cause i see trans people so often expected by society to conform to those stricter gender ideals with this weight of threat and isolation if someone in the majority finds reasons to attack (but in the end they always might, the whole thing is theyre fucked for attacking to begin with). But its like. God i miss when gender meant in my head only: what am i? What do i feel good calling myself? What feels like home. Cause im me, and me is not changing to appease some strangers. (Though i am to some degree, we all do even cis people do, because those stupid old ideals are widespread enough all ppl face some punishment or threat if they deviate from the strict boxes, despite no one fully fitting them). But like. If im me and i can do anything, what feels like home? Thats all it is to me. I miss seeing it that way. I miss when i didnt see quite so much of the looming strict standard pushing so hard on everyone to conform more. To try and force all people to cut themselves down and confine themselves to roles that serve what anyway besides littling all of us, oppressing all of us in limitation. (I mean. I know why it spreads. Maybe conservative voices are louder now about their ideal gender roles then when i grew up, or maybe its louder cause im an adult now. It doesnt mean they have any point.)

You are a person. You can be anything. Your gender is whatever you feel it is. Your gender does not inherently define your life and what you can do and be. Whatever forces we feel, remember whatever brings you joy is okay to be. Its okay to be you.

Like. Yes a person of a specific gender can define it very specifically in what that gender means TO them. How They define it for themselves. But that definition isnt universal and there is no limit to the definition of what a specific gender's people can be. A woman can look any way have any life any interest any traits any values. You can't define a woman as specific things and not others, a woman is as broadly defined as there are so many unique women in this world with so many varied unique experiences selves lives. Any gender is not universally always a confined list of traits, because theres all kinds of people with all kinds of traits of specific genders. What is a man, anything. What is a woman, anything. What is a nonbinary person, anything. A genderqueer person, anything. Any specific (or unspecific or undefined) gender person, anything. People are so varied they have too many unique traits to be always these X Y Z things and never these A B C things. Youre the gender you are cause its what feels right to you. But your definition of your own gender For u isnt universal to all people of your gender, cause people define their gender all kinds of different ways and people of your gender can have any traits in this whole spectrum of being alive.

This is the podcast btw:

And if you do know of a podcast that is aware of spirks influence on/from tos please send it my way.

[anhed-nia]

I have way too much shit to do over the next few days starting tonight, so yesterday I decided to stay on the couch and have cramps and vegetate and watch all the lady movies I've been sleeping on.

EILEEN is pretty much what I expected, it's good but not great and a little pretentious, but the character study with Thomasin McKenzie is really cool. Or maybe I just thought that because she reminded me so much of a close friend of mine that I just decided the movie was about my friend and it was more fun that way.

THE ASSISTANT was also about what I expected, good but not great and sort of predictable--although I like how it plays like a thriller even though what's happening is sadly mundane and unsurprising. That approach works pretty well for this movie.

THE SOUVENIR is not a masterpiece but very strong, and disturbing. One critic called it a type of horror film. Years ago I was in a version of the awful relationship at the heart of this movie, and although that guy didn't have the excuse of [SPOILER REDACTED], all of his behavior and its effects on me were basically the same. It could have literally been him on the screen. My viewing experience was pretty tainted by unpleasant, shameful flashbacks and although I'm confident in saying it's a good movie, it's hard for me to imagine what it's like to watch it if you don't connect it directly to your own biography. I'll just never know what it's like as a pure work of art.

The funny thing about THE SOUVENIR is that it has this weird Rotten Tomatoes ratio were the audience score is really low, I wonder what that's about. Maybe it's just one of those things where general audiences are more resistant to being Very Bummed Out than film critics and aficionados. Or maybe it's that dumb thing where audiences find the choices of the victimized protagonist too hard to relate to because of the media they've been trained on. I often notice this in discussions about horror movies where the characters are motivated by fear, hysteria, dissociation, incomprehension, and other totally normal responses to extreme experience, and shallow unimaginative viewers go "UGH why did she do THAT, THAT'S not what I WOULD DO," and not only is it exactly what they would do in an incomprehensible situation, but their basis of comparison is not even "rational behavior"; their basis of comparison is the behavior you see in THE BOURNE IDENTITY or something where the hero does everything perfectly all the time and because certain viewers are strongly pursuaded by inhuman perfection, they think that's the standard everyone should be meeting, that's what they think is "realistic". It's stupid and ignorant and egotistical, and it's actually part of my secret criteria for who I can and cannot be friends with.

But anyway that's kind of what THE SOUVENIR PART II is about, which has high ratings for both critics and audience. It is a better movie, to some degree, but it was extra fascinating to me because as the protagonist uses her senior film school project to do a post mortem on her awful relationship, she is confronted with the fact that nobody quite gets what the story is about because none of her cast or crew have been in her shoes and they find the whole thing unconvincing. They don't get why the heroine subjects herself to abuse, or how to humanize the guy who seems like a total monster. You know, why is she so weak, he's "obviously" bad, what is the logic of this situation? All this black and white, judgmental thinking from people who are lucky enough not to have had to live through such a thing. The truth is that the abusive relationships are sort of absurdist in nature, they don't play by the normal rules, even the laws of time and space bend around this black hole you're being sucked into, which the heroine finds out as she's trying to put scenes in order. Strong stuff.

THE SOUVENIR PART II reminded me of this great rant Joe Bob Briggs has about "strong female protagonists" that basically amounts to the idea that characters should be whoever they need to be to serve the story. They're not exemplars of some ideal state of existence for us all to emulate--I mean unless they are, but that's under fairly specific conditions. His example is always Laurie Strode, who is typically upheld as a Strong Female Protagonist even though she doesn't become that thing until years down the road; in the meantime, she is a completely normal person with anxieties and phobias and insecurities and perfectly rational responses to Michael Myers. And that's what makes her so relatable, not her perfection, but her humanity.

[EDIT: Pardon me if the tone of this is a little alien to this blog. I don't even know if it definitely is, or if anyone cares, but I couldn't figure out where to put this post because I don't post much autobiographical material here anymore and I try to make the content of this blog reasonably appropriate for colleagues to see in both tone and content (like this feels both too intimate and too casual to me). But, I also try to keep all my movie information over here, so this is what I picked. I'm sure this doesn't bother anyone but me, but I have to justify my own rule-breaking to myself in order to feel better, so there.]

[buffyspeak]

this is a thought that stems more from having rewatched season one than where i am right now but: maryse and robert keeping their involvement in the circle from their children becomes even more brutal when you realize how much it affected alec and izzy as people.

i think it’s fairly standard to headcanon that alec and izzy were pretty isolated growing up. not to the degree jace was in the first ten years of his life but in the entire show, we only learn of ONE real friend they’ve had that’s part of the shadowhunter community and not in their family. and alec notes that “it’s been years” since they’ve seen aline when the audience meets her in season two.

it’s not hard to imagine that other shadowhunter children were warned away from getting to know the lightwood children, that even if their parents didn’t explain to them why they were bad news (which some probably did), they made sure to impress that they were.

this is more conjecture than anything but i personally headcanon that alec and izzy spent their entire childhoods in new york—meaning they didn’t go to the academy in idris. they likely thought their parents had made this request so that they could build their own lessons for their children’s tutelage under hodge. but in reality, it’s punishment for the lightwood line.

and all of this might seem like it’s really reading into things and maybe it is—but it’s not hard to see how it might have affected them in the show itself if true? like.

izzy’s clearly an outlying shadowhunter when it comes to willingly and regularly socializing with downworlders. it’s so easy for me to imagine her being very lonely and very angry and very defiant as a young teen and deciding, ‘fine, then, you don’t want me? i can make friends elsewhere’ and never really looking back.

whereas alec is so obviously Not Interested in making friends at all at the start of the show and only really seems to hang with his siblings. i really do think he almost took an opposite approach to izzy, he folded in on himself, drew back, and said ‘friends who? i don’t need friends, i’ve got my family, that’s all i need’

which leads to my other long-standing headcanon that the lightwood siblings are actually considered pretty Weird for being so close. shadowhunters are supposed to care about family loyalty and honor and tradition, but they’re not supposed to be Friends; and they’re always supposed to choose the mission and the clave before each other.

[quidfree]

It's mentioned in one of the extras in bnha (by Horikoshi himself) that Bakugou isolates himself on the path to greatness as a defence mechanism since he's actually a sensitive soul...

You've written the 🌟best🌟 true to character Bakugou in all the fanfics I've ever read, so I wanted to ask how you balance Bakugou's brashness with his sensitivity, and his harshness with his specific brand of kindness. He has strong moral code/values that he staunchly follows but that's still different from the occasional bouts of care he shows to people.

Thank you 😊

hmm you know i don't know if i think that's the best 'in' to bakugou's character because while he is sensitive to a degree (dramatic crier, big emotions, not a bad people reader if he cares) i really feel like that quote is sort of overplaying that angle. bakugou's definitely got his depths but i'm leery of leaning too far into the idea he's some kind of scintillating empath that no one gets.

in terms of characterisation i'm glad you feel that way! i've written breakdowns of my characterisation before so those would be a good starting point on my analysis. but to your specific points, and focusing on teen canon bakugou:

so his base attitude is like….. constant intense commitment to his goals (🤝bakudeku) mixed with pretty solid awareness of self (will elaborate). which means at repose he’s just super serious & then you layer in the brash persona (not feigned, just exaggerated and sometimes blustering, lot of it comes from (unjustly lol) holding everything to his standard). that’s base level bakugou i think. he gets half the personality from his mom & the other is all his.

by self aware i don’t mean he’s like psychologically healthy. but he has a good grasp of his own abilities and skills. early days his blind spot are his limitations but that’s mostly bc up to that point he’s never been confronted with the fact he has any. that’s why he’s allowed so much arrogance / confidence, even when facing down sports fest or the league. he knows what he can do. rmr even early on he got worried when seeing todoroki’s abilities; he’s pissed at him at sports fest bc he’s well aware that would have been a fair fight. by now in canon that’s obviously reached a more mature self-awareness.

ig that’s kind of tied to the sensitivity point. i think bakugou isn’t bad with people; he does have a good read on them & has established leadership skills (amplified once he stops being so domineering; he and izuku have long been coded as 1A coleaders). that said younger bakugou certainly did not give a shit abt other people’s interiority so hes not exactly a bleeding heart lol. i think he’s more perceptive than empathetic (can understand but does not relate), which colors his nicer moments- and i say that with love, bc i think that’s more interesting.

bakugou is just a harsh / brash guy- very direct, abrupt and in your face with it. that’s his fighting style, his personal style, his communication style, even his choice of hobbies; he doesn’t tolerate wishy washy bullshit and isn’t one for niceties. that said he can keep in line / watch his approach around authority figures, bc he’s a pretty pragmatic guy. that also comes thru in his fighting. he will mouth off within reason.

the interpersonal struggle for him is that in UA he was forced out of his top dog role real quick and it made him extra aggro/tsundere bc he spent way too long only interacting w peers from a superior position or as extras, so having to connect on a genuine level w people he would once have seen as below him feels weird and overly exposing. it obviously starts going better for him as development marches on, especially when there’s like a concrete common goal involved. i think he’s consciously trying to find a happy medium by later in canon- see the ‘casual’ way he hangs around cracking jokes abt dabi when they’re trying to support todoroki, snarky but present. from what i gather his current default is to veer overly serious but that’s also bc canon is very Dark and Serious rn.

the moral code thing is funny bc OG flavor bakugou has less of that and more of an understanding of the rules he’s playing by to win. the league disgusts him bc theyre baddies yes but also bc they’re losers. bc bakugou at that point is an asshole teen bully who told his childhood bestie he was less than nothing as a daily hobby, and i don’t doubt that he could have gone down the endeavor route had he not had common sense knock him around a few significant times. that said he does certainly always have sort of a personal code of, idk, self-discipline and aiming to exceed all expectation, but that ties back to what i’ve already addressed. anyways by present day he’s obviously recalibrated his moral compass massively but it’s always most interesting to me in the minor personal detail- for example, his kneejerk “my mom used to knock me around and i’m fine!” reaction to justify beating kids up but then begrudgingly letting todoroki lead their approach because he recognises his input on the subject. it’s consistent writing because it’s not that he’s a perfect saint now, but he is growing.

this is very long and very late, but tldr those are my takes on your questions!

to me bakugou is one of the best written parts of bnha, but he is a complicated character to get right if you don’t have a good handle on why he works so well- i don’t know if i’ve made that more or less confusing for you but i’m hoping the latter.

[strawhatsoraya]

Hello! I could request headcanons for Ace, Law and Zoro being full aware for the first time they're are very attractive? Maybe later they try to use it for first time to flirt with their crush. I know it's a weird ask but i always found really funny that three look like ignorance of his own appeal to women (and probably men too ;) )

Hey Anon! I know it's been a hot minute (or several hundred hot minutes) but I got your little headcanons right here. I hope you stuck around long enough to see this. I'm sorry for the delay. I've been very busy this past month which makes my writing even slower than usual. I think these characters would know they're attractive to some degree lol BUT let's say they didn't!! So this is a little "what if..." scenario.

ONE PIECE BOYS REALIZING THEY'RE ATTRACTIVE

Portgas D. Ace

He doesn't know when it happened. In fact, he never realized it before—how much his self image had taken a toll.

He heard so many unpleasant comments growing up that left him feeling unwanted, unneeded.

So when he grows up, he doesn't think too much about his looks.

He finds confidence instead in his strength, and in his adventures. Every accomplishment making him feel greater and bigger than before.

His fashion sense leaves a lot to be desired. He wears what is comfortable, or sentimental without further thought into it.

So when a random person at the island they were stopped in complimented his looks Ace was taken aback.

They said he had 'a face you could never forget' and at first he thought it was an insult.

So he challenged them to explain, when they—panicked—insisted it was a compliment, and it meant that he had good looks and charm, Ace was mind-blown.

It took him several minutes to get the cogs back in his brain going but once they did there was a full body blush taking over him. All this time he had no idea and all this time he had been hesitant to approach you.

With his newfound confidence in his appearance and not his physical strength, Ace takes the initiative. It was now or never.

His attempt at flirting is laughable. You do your best not to do it outright however, partially because you don't want to hurt his feelings and partially because you're actually left feeling bashful.

It was a clumsy attempt but seeing the blush on your cheeks was enough to satisfy him. Maybe he wasn't too late after all.

Trafalgar D. Law

There was never time to think about his appearance, much less compare it to others.

The last time he even worried over such a thing was when he was a child and sick with Amber Lead Syndrome and for very different reasons.

His life had led him down many roads, and he used people as he saw fit; a means to an ends.

In the back of his mind, he was aware of his charisma and maybe—his looks somehow contributed. He was never too sure.

It isn't until you compliment the tattoo on his chest, and place a warm hand against it that he considers, for a very brief moment, that you find him attractive.

You look up at him through your lashes, lips slightly parted—and he uses your moment of distraction to test his theory almost immediately.

He reaches out to place a hand over yours, keeping it against his chest, and swoops in towards your face.

“You like my tattoo,” he asks you as a crooked grin stretches his lips. His breath fanning your cheeks. “Or what's underneath it?”

You flush furiously and he can't help but chuckle. He couldn't believe he hadn't noticed—or rather—forgotten that by many standards he was considered attractive. He made a mental note to take advantage of it in the future, multiple times, especially when it came to you.

Roronoa Zoro

Zoro lives his life straight like an arrow—shooting forward, and never looking back. He is focused, and determined.

His lifestyle leaves no room to wonder about shallow things such as appearances. He barely pays attention to the appearance of others. It simply just doesn't captivate him.

But something about you does—maybe it's your stubbornness, or the way you're always so loud. How else was he supposed to ignore you?

All he knows is that he heard you compliment the stupid ero-cook on his equally stupid attire. He heard you call him handsome, and stylish.

What exactly was handsome about him? And not Zoro? What exactly made him stylish? The stupid tie? Zoro could wear a tie too if he wanted to.

Except he didn't own any ties, or any shirts that would go with a tie. He barely owned shirts as it was.

He considers asking Nami for a loan, so he can maybe buy a damn tie but she would ask him what the money was for and Zoro simply didn't have enough shamelessness to survive her teasing.

He spends days chewing over this, grinding his teeth at night so hard he would wake up with a sore jaw.

One day Robin inadvertently gives him a glimmer of hope by telling him blue looked good on him, as he wore the one navy blue shirt he owned. It was sleeveless and apparently, per Robin, made his arms look attractive.

She hadn't called him stylish or handsome but he'd take it. Feeling high off the adrenaline, and stupidly bold, he smiles crookedly at you as you join the table. He flexes a bicep before he addresses you next: “What do you think? Attractive or not?”

You laugh, taken aback by the sudden inquiry, but seeing the crestfallen look on his face you quickly amend: “Very attractive, Big Muscle Man. I like your shirt.”

[informationsorter]

Definition of Polyfragmented (in DID)

Dictionary definition: Poly = A prefix meaning “many, Fragmented = adjective. reduced to fragments. existing or functioning as though broken into separate parts; disorganized; disunified

Polyfragmentation is unusual in that there is no actual definition for the term. There are many definitions out there, but no definition is agreed upon by a majority either within academic realms or socially.

We see this sometimes with other DID/OSDD terms such as "integration" being used to mean two (almost opposite) things.

With polyfragmentation there are many different definitions, with some focusing on number of parts, some on internal system structure, etc. But even those who insist that the definition revolves around numerical value (the number of alters/parts), there is no accepted and agreed upon number. And so, we will look at the possible definitions, socially vs scientifically/medically.

Scientific/Medical definition of Polyfragmented:

The term "polyfragmented" was first used in papers on MPD (Multiple Personality Disorder, now called DID or Dissociative Identity Disorder) by Bennett G. Braun in the late 1980s. Although polyfragmentation is barely mentioned in Braun's "The BASK Model of Dissociation", from this paper we can infer that Braun's definition of polyfragmentation is:

A person with DID who has multiple fragments/fragmented parts. He does not put a number on this, simply saying "at least two personalities and many fragments", but seems to require multiple shards/fragments in order for a person to be considered polyfragmented. - The BASK Model of Dissociation - 1988 - Bennett G. Braun, M.D.

After Braun’s definition, I have not found any records of anyone else using this definition or suggesting an alternate definition.

"Currently, there is no empirical measure of integration versus fragmentation in a person with DID." -  Measuring fragmentation in dissociative identity disorder: the integration measure and relationship to switching and time in therapy. (Please note: this relates to integrated vs un-integrated systems, not specifically to polyfragmentation.)

"The number of parts in a DID system usually ranges in the teens. In some cases, it is only a few, and there are also polyfragmented multiples who have many, many parts—perhaps close to a hundred or more parts. Many people with DID have parts with names, but this is not always the case. For some, the parts do not have names but perform functions or hold emotions. And, some people may have different parts with names and other parts who do not have names." -Understanding and Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder A Relational Approach - Elizabeth F. Howell. (published 2011)

Social definition of Polyfragmented:

Systems with a significantly large number of parts. There is no social agreement on the number of parts required; some say over 100 parts, and some say dozens. Others say that polyfragmented only applies to systems who have subsystems (that is, systems within the system).

There is also a divide in social interpretation of whether polyfragmentation can occur within OSDD, or whether only polyfragmented DID is possible. I have written a post about that here.

"This large number typically include many personality fragments. Several different parts may use the same name, or have no name. Alters or parts may be arranged in many different ways internally, e.g., hidden behind other parts, or within a hierarchy of parts arranged in layers or levels. A large number of alters and fragments results in less obvious physical signs of switching." - Trauma Dissociation.com  

"The difference between standard DID and polyfragmented DID is a matter of degree. Rather than splitting into three or four alter parts, someone with polyfragmented DID might fragment into 100 or even 1,000 alter parts. Many of these alter parts might be personality fragments, which means that they are more one-dimensional than three-dimensional." - Blooming Lotus - What is Polyfragmented Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)?

"DID (or the similar form of DDNOS) sometimes involves a very large number of alternate identities (also known as alters, alternate personalities, personalities, dissociated personality states or parts, dissociated self-states or multiple personalities, [5]:118). Some professionals state this involves over one hundred alters, while others refer to “dozens” of alters. [1]:4, [4]. The alters may include fragments. Such large numbers of alters are likely to be caused by cult abuse, ritual abuse, or another form of extreme, sadistic abuse which extends over long periods of time and often involves multiple abusers. [1]:4, [3]:133" - Trauma Dissociation.com

*Please note that there is no evidence that polyfragmentation can ONLY be caused by ritual abuse, but that it is commonly considered to be a likely cause.*

"Polyfragmented systems are most commonly defined as systems that have over 100 system members. Sometimes they are also defined as systems with dozens of members, or systems that have lots of subsystems."

"In Dissociative Identity Disorder and Other Specified Dissociative Disorder:

 100+ system members  Lots of fragments that may be similar to each other  Detailed & immersive inner world  Complex internal organization (ie; subsystems & system members with their - own system members)  Complex splitting patterns (ie; forming new members frequently & forming multiple members at once)  Experienced severe trauma in childhood"

- Multiplicity and Plurality Wiki

"Polyfragmented DID - Refers to dissociative identity disorder systems that contain over 100 alters, many of which are likely to be fragments. Also sometimes indicates a system in which some alters have split from other alters" - Dissociative Identity Disorder Research.