#i'd sell my first born for a code

[bisluthq]

I saw the post but can't find it but someone said how when tayvis posed with prince William, American swifties were hyping it and using it to dunk on Joe but Joe probably isn't into it anyway - as your Australian anon who is mad at the monarchy (love my moniker 🤣) I agree Joe likely doesn't care about the monarchy and not just because I hate it lol.

When you grow up with it, they're like the Kardashians 15 years ago - a famous family that you don't know why they're famous because they don't seem to do anything and have a lavish lifestyle and a lot of gossip about them. You know things about them and don't know how it even entered your brain. They cut a ribbon 10 minutes down the road and some people think it's fun to go but you don't want to go outside just to be smiled and waved at.

They are the worst of nepotism because they wear designer clothes and go to Wimbledon and call it "work". But they don't even wear good designs or anything interesting because they have a dress code and 20 year olds wear the same things mother's of the bride's wear. They do influence fashion at times and stuff they wear sells out, but eh.

They're like the town mayor who gets the big city/ state to pay for fixing up the town and having street sweepers and planting gardens, but they are the ones who cut the ribbon when the garden opens. And when they die, their first born inherits the role of mayor along with billions of dollars/ pounds.

They have to marry someone "right for the job" because their future wife will be queen (obviously not every descendant, but there's a reason they have "the heir and the spare" so they all have to take it into consideration unless you're far down the line of succession). If William fell for a woman who had a career in politics, he wouldn't have been allowed to marry her - the royals aren't allowed to speak on politics and it's questioned if they can even vote - not for legal reasons, but for IMAGE. So if will fell for a politician, well she couldn't be the future queen. If he married a school teacher, doctor, scientist, anything - she'd have to retire and commit to the role of wife and royal and ribbon cutter. Same thing if William and Harry were women and married men, their husbands would have to quit and maybe become a helicopter pilot or something military/ emergency service adjacent but not where they put themselves in actual danger (I'm aware Harry and Andrew went to war zones).

It's not romantic and whimsical. It's ridiculous, dated, absurd and affects their personal lives in really sad ways tbh. I would like their wealth (I'd share it for starters 🙄 and would give myself a very comfortable life and could afford better psychiatric care lol) but I wouldn't want to be them or have their life even though they just wear expensive clothes, cut ribbons and have front row seats to the BAFTAs. And speaking of their wealth - they are better off than most people, but Charles and William are responsible for giving the rest of the royals money, housing and staff - they cut off Harry and had Diana not left him an inheritance and he not be married to a woman with her own money - he would've been screwed! They can do that! And it's not like these people can get a retail or other entry level job! They go to university but don't use their degrees, so the high ranking ones aren't allowed to work for money but have to hope their family is willing to keep them and the lifestyle they're used to, because the monarch has final say over who uses the homes so they can kick you out and move you to a different district for fun and you have to put up with, or leave the institution. Queen Elizabeth gave Harry and Meg a certain house in their portfolio and Charles evicted them (they'd already moved but hadn't officially left the institution yet)! William and Kate have at least 5 properties, one is their main residence.

I'm sorry for the essay rant, I just want people to know how toxic and not romantic or whimsical these people are! And they aren't having Disney romances and the princesses aren't going on quests and adventures, they're locked in the towers. It's sad and nothing to aspire to even financially unless you get the crown because you're powerless.

So yeah, Joe is fine but will eventually have to bow and shake hands at the BAFTAs or maybe his play I'm sure lol

yea they do suck. Re Joe I mean I don’t think it keeps him up at night that they’re like existing and costing money and I also agree like if he’d have to do the meet and greet, then he would. Might’ve done one because not all have photo ops attached. Don’t think it changed/would change his life lol.

[the-hittite]

Not that anyone asked, but I figured I'd add some extra context and details.

The main plot of Fallout 3 starts with your character venturing out into the irradiated wastes to find your missing father. That's important here because the water purifier the game ends at is his life's work, and The Deadly Radiation Chamber is filled with deadly radiation because he sacrificed himself trying to keep it out of the hands of a fascist paramilitary organization. So your story starts with following your father out of the Vault and ends with following him into the grave.

Now with some good writers and in the right type of game, you could make something like that work. As the sudden twist ending at the end of a sprawling sandbox RPG specifically made by Bethesda, not so much. And especially not when half of your potential companions are much better suited to the job.

Calling Sarah Lyons "the girl who came with you" is selling her very short, but not any worse than the writers do. She's literally a knight in shining armor who's sworn to lay down her life to protect the innocent, and also technically your superior officer since you got drafted into the Brotherhood of Steel. She's the only one who'll actually go in for you in the original ending, but she'll also scornfully state "so much for chivalry" before she does it. To reiterate, the high ranking knight gave you the choice and then gets upset when the scared teenager doesn't want to die in her place. A lot of her character and personality is told instead of shown because Bethesda, but even then it's a major break in character compared to her first appearance where she lead a small detachment against overwhelming odds to protect a single civilian.

Fawkes has already been covered in detail but on top of already having done something very similar for you, he's also usually one of the kindest and most philosophical characters in the game so having him say it's your destiny to die here is another huge character break.

Charon is a ghoul which means he's not only immune to radiation but actively healed by it, and if you hold his contract his unique code of honor compels him to do whatever you tell him no matter what his personal wishes. He'll tell you to get bent if you ask him to do this one task too, but to be fair it's actually more consistent with him. He very clearly resents his contract and enjoys taking every opportunity to rules lawyer any degree of freedom from it. IIRC there's another point where he tells you he's a bodyguard not a delivery boy.

Sergeant RL-3 is a robot and has no such excuse.

But in my view the absolute worst is Paladin Cross, another literal knight in shining armor who is even more committed to protecting the innocent. But she also has even more history with your father than you do. She helped him build the purifier in the first place, has been protecting him and even you since before you were born, and if you talk to her about his death she'll say that it was for a worthy cause and hopes that she can give her life equally as well. But when given the choice to do exactly that, she balks.

you have to be fucking kidding me

[viktorhargreeves07]

DOES ANYONE HAVE A SHUFFLES CODE PLEASE IM BEGGING

[olomaya]

15 questions for 15 mutuals

I was tagged by @sim-songs @nectar-cellar @simsdeogloria @tragicpixel and I've had fun reading other people's so here it goes!

Are you named after anyone? I think my mom because it's her middle name but my name is super common in my region so I could have been named after the lady selling oranges on the street when my mom was having a craving, who knows?

 When was the last time you cried? Maybe this morning. Too often to track. Show me a video of a child finally getting adopted or a family member surprising someone they haven't seen in ages and I'm a mess.

Do you have kids?  No, I like being the fun aunt.

Do you use sarcasm a lot? Yeeesss! And it's a problem. Trust issues/emotional deflection, etc.

What sports do you play/have you played? Boxing is a sport, right? It's in the Olympics so yes. I love boxing! I feel so strong and powerful when I do it. Mind you, if were ever in a real fight, I'd probably throw a suckerpunch and run for my life.

What’s the first thing you notice about other people? I think their teeth or their hair? I'll have to check next time

Scary movies or happy endings? Happy endings? I don't have the stomach for horror.

 Any special talents? Sadly, no

 Where were you born? New York, baby! I was an anchor baby and we peaced out the second after I was born so I don't claim New Yorker status.

What are your hobbies? Reading, writing fiction, gaming, swimming, hiking, coding, playing around with AI generated images as of late. I had to update because I can't believe I forgot to mention cooking! I spend A LOT of time just looking up recipes and planning out meals.

 Do you have any pets? atm, no but there has been talk of a kitty...

 How tall are you?  174 cm (5'7")

 Fave subject in school? I was a nerd so basically all of them but especially history, english literature, and biology

Dream job? To not have one. Capitalism sucks.

 Eye color? Dark brown

Tagging @echoweaver @zoeoe-sims @twinsimming @desiree-uk @lucky-palms @tragicpixel @tsims (sorry in advance if you did/got this already)

[lintsins]

"@indygotcha I don't think that at all! I'm happy you vented" - Me

I love hearing people's thoughts on SAO, as I also have a lot of complicated thoughts on it! I also appreciate you didn't go full "SAO 2012 fanboy" on me, as they were VICIOUS back in the day. In fact, I'll give you my own rant on SAO, and hopefully I'll assuage some of your fears on SAO fading into obscurity.

For context, I'd say I'm a weird fan of SAO. I grew up with it, and thus my thoughts change on it as I got older. At first, I was a genuine fan, then THAT scene with Asuna and Oberon happened and it felt like a betrayal, and I became a hater esp bc I learned more abt writing analysis, then as I grew older, I came to appreciate it for what it was, and I feel that its cultural impact is not appreciated.

I'm not a stan, so I enjoy poking fun at the anime and some of the events in the novel (so SAO Abridged is indeed great XD), but I'm not a hater either. I feel more like a movie critic, like you don't expect a movie critic to be all that invested in the movie beyond their analysis.

I think my stance on it is best summed up in Mother's Basement's last video on the topic, where he praised SAO's Mother's Rosario arc and noted that SAO, while it has some struggles with aspects like character work and storytelling and women, it had a masterful grasp on tone/aesthetics.

It really managed to sell the mundane beauty of living in a fantastical world, [much like Dungeon Meshi does], in a way that many of its isekai descendants/precedents fail to do or are not interested in doing.

a beautiful interaction/connection between kirito and a middle aged man, who used to be an IT department head and became a simple fisherman within the game's world

I think that's a beautiful thing to explore because it's a wonderful metaphor for what it's like for people to grow up with video games. Video Games, while to most people are just games, to others it's where they made their best friendships, events, and favorite achievements. It is its own world, but also intimately tied to their real life.

this is a visual version of the metaphor. the code is shaped into beautiful rolling hills, like real life grassy plains. the code touch grass lol

Thus, Kawahara's choice in having an MC gamer, traumatized shut-in like Kirito trapped in a video game world is genius, and the show/book really do a lot to sell the everyday mundanity of what that would be like. (The cooking date episode and murder mystery episode are a lot of fun for that reason, even if they're not "plot.")

As for its cultural impact and WHY it blew up, I'll say this:

Kawahara was born at the right time to make SAO. He grew up with video games, and technology/trends made it feasible to think of VR worlds. It's like how the bullied niche of comic nerds grew up to direct Marvel movies -- his childhood interests were luckily something that became trendy as he grew older, making it prime for him get in ahead of everybody else.

On top of that, Kawahara’s amateur writing was kind of a plus. Amateur anime writers tend to lean more into tropes that they like, as he did with his admiration for Berserk, as well as bald wish fulfillment, which is perfect for mainstream anime. Don't fix what ain't broke, even if you might not win mainstream writing awards or something. Plus, Death Games were HYUGE at the time, like Hunger Games, Danganrompa, Future Diary, and Fortnite, which drew people in (even if that's not really a huge part of SAO's legacy in this analysis).

Culturally, we were finally at a place where the internet was ubiquitous with young people AND Kawahara's longtime experience with gaming meant that he could accurately capture an experience that the new mainstream would finally be knowledgeable enough to appreciate-- the digital world.

As I've said before, Kawahara was amazing at blending/connecting the real world with digital ones. "IF YOU DIE IN THE GAME YOU DIE IN REAL LIFE," Asuna and Kirito's "real name vs username" conversation mirroring conversations many people have with friends they've made from online spaces, Kirito stumbling across his cousin in the digital world without realizing, Kirito trying to bring his digital daughter into the real world with robotics, Yuuki being a girl who can only really live inside VR because her body is too weak to go out into the real world.

In the past, this wouldn't have been a trend because too many people touched grass for that to be a popular topic. After all, the idea of people 'living' on the internet didn't make sense until relatively recently. But because the Internet had become so entrenched in Gen Z's lives, Kawahara's interest in connecting the real with the digital resonated with a lot of people.

Previous 'isekai' like log horizon I feel still came too early to hit that ipad baby generation lol and also didn't really do the transition/explanation of isekai very well. Log Horizon made it into a mystery off-screen, which means it kinda throws you in the deep end, whereas SAO made it a plot point, so we experience the transition from ep 1. This connection of the real world to the virtual world is important, as gaming and the internet are not disconnected from our reality but instead are intimately tied to it.

So, while others have said that Kawahara's idea of "trapped in a new world" was nothing groundbreaking for fantasy (It's called portal fantasy, and Narnia lol is the easiest example to point to), I'd say that misses the point -- portal fantasy is nothing new, but the connection to the Internet/video game/modern aesthetics to the new world IS new. That's SAO's impact and genius.

Isekai meaning "trapped in a new world" is a bit of a misnomer, because what's important isn't just the new world, but also the online/gaming aesthetics. It's not just getting trapped in a new world, but also having a smartphone with you. It's not just having magical powers but having a respawn mechanic like a video game. It's not just European fantasy, but also DND/RPG fantasy, with lingo like "bosses" or "area of effect" or "leveling up."

protagonist of "in another world with my smartphone" with Kirito's face and swords pasted on top. he doesn't look different.

So, while a lot of people discredit SAO's influence in popularizing "isekai" as a legit genre (either bc it doesn't quite fit the way the genre has grown or bc portal fantasy has always existed or bc they hate isekai), that's actually a cultural impact I wish more people would talk about. I can't prove this, but I'd say SAO carved out a new space that would go onto usher in shows like Dungeon Meshi AND SCUM VILLAIN MY BELOVED (which uses a plot device that looks like video game UI called "The System" to drive its plot).

from my Scum Villain animatic

Well, I'd argue Dungeon Meshi is easier to prove, as the show, while not an Isekai, similarly utilizes DND/RPG aesthetics like with the Dungeons/Dungeon Masters/Respawn mechanics (Danmachi was one of those SAO inspired shows and shares these aspects with Dunmeshi, so I feel safe in arguing this.) There's a direct timeline of SAO to "In Another World With My Smartphone" to "Campfire Cooking/Dungeon Meshi" (in terms of anime, at least. in terms of novels, it's a bit more concurrent, but the point stands, as SAO came before them all).

Scum Villain and the "transmigration"/"system" genre is much harder to prove. China, Korea, and Japan often influence each other.

Think the Hallyu Wave or the "Cool Japan" initiative, or the way period C-dramas have created shows like "Ya Boy Kongming" or Apothecary Diaries, or the way the Chinese myth/novel like Journey To the West influenced shonen anime with Dragon Ball) or the way Kpop idol culture influences China, or donghua looking like anime, etc.

I'm not read up enough on the origins of modern trends like isekai and Transmigration / System stories to be able to trace influences the way I wish I could, as that would require things like Korean/Chinese/Japanese fluency and Chinese/Korean/Japanese phone numbers to access their social media sites and such. As such, similarities could be the case of parallel thinking, as I've said that the culture was moving this way regardless of Kawahara.

All I know is that Solo Leveling and Scum Villain were released after SAO's "video game aesthetic" impact on anime, which is an industry that has been influential on Chinese/Korean netizens/culture/art (and vice versa).

So yeah! SAO may not have executed the Blackened Swordsman trope as well as Guts, and he may have inspired a bunch of bland black-haired OP isekai protagonists that Bingge went on to satirize, but it also DID manage to spawn a new genre with its wonderful weaving of video games with reality (including Binghe's story lol).

It may not fit the label of isekai as we've come to know it, but it's like those early genre influential works that transition us from the old to the new, and it should get its flowers for that instead of languishing away into obscurity.

Especially because I feel like we could reframe its flaws into the awkwardness of being a cultural transition, where Kawahara has to shoe-horn a death game to draw people in bc the draw of slice of life isekai hadn't yet been pioneered. I mostly remember slice of life being associated with moe blob high school anime like Lucky Star or K-On! at the time.

For instance, OP fighting abilities is one of SAO's chief criticisms and said criticism is only really a problem in stories where fighting is the appeal because it messes with stakes. Slice of life can often have OP MCs because the point isn't really about the fighting like that, like Frieren's OP elf main character.

With how much Kawahara shined in the mundane aspects of the show, I wonder if slice-of-life fantasy had been a thing at the time, would he have approached SAO differently? (SAO's cooking date episode -> Campfire Cooking's cooking show). Same thing with the slice of life aspects of SAO being called filler bc it doesn't contribute to getting out of the death game. (SAO "why aren't we watching the frontlines?" -> Dungeon Meshi's "why aren't they rushing to save Falin?")

Much like how Akira Toriyama hadn't known how to handle power creep in the Dragon Ball franchise because there weren't any prior shonen to learn from. Such is the trouble of being a pioneer, and I think a cultural retrospective on SAO along these lines would be wonderful in that regard.

just gonna leave this here.

If you’re wondering who the other two are, read this

(semi-related to my Bingqiu Jinlan City Reunion Weeb AU fic)