#it may be necessary for survival but it isn't what's really important..

[sioltach]

Imagine romanticizing the grind when you live in a universe that has a large expanse of grasslands and colorful endemic birds

[machinedramon]

some personal, opinionated tips for ppl coming to wilds that I've thought of while playing the beta.

the important universal one:

set both of your seikret control options to the non-default options.

the first one is the autopilot disengage option, which by default makes it so you can only break off pathing at max speed. the other choice allows you to end the pathing at any time by pressing the cancel key regardless of speed.

the second option changes how you control your seikret, making it much closer to how you control your hunter. how far you've pressed the joystick in a direction determines the speed, and it controls much easier.

more general tips and opinions under the cut:

radial menu option 2 is more foolproof than the default

if you're like me and often either accidentally hit the radial menu button or can't seem to get the release timing right on the menu to use items properly, option 2 has been my automatic adjustment since they introduced it in world. pressing the joystick in to use an item makes so much more sense to me

put your most used items on a radial menu wheel and learn the shortcut

the default wheels are alright but not the best. having a wheel where your rations, buffs, and other items you find yourself using a lot, or even crafting combos you often need (such as mega potions), is incredibly helpful and prevents a lot of panic scrolling through your inventory. it's a bit of work to remember it, but doing so will help your monster hunting career in the long run.

don't be afraid to be a bit aggro

it can be really scary running at a monster that is enraged or flailing around, but you don't learn attack patterns, telegraphs, and hit boxes without getting hit. also, many monsters have a safe zone right under their noses for most of their attacks. I have avoided attacks i had no right to survive many, many times simply because I was too close to the monster's body to get hit.

know your place

each weapon has a specific core damage type from slashing, bludgeoning, and shot. slashing damage is needed to sever tails and tends to break things like wings easily, bludgeoning builds up KO status when hitting the head and tends to be necessary to break horns and shells, and shot is specific to ranged weapons.

knowing what kind of damage you're dealing helps you figure out what part of the monster you should be focusing on, especially when the monster is flailing on the ground. it's not so bad now that they've reduced the stagger from other players' weapons considerably, but some veteran players may get irate if you're a longsword trying to hit the head of a downed monster and there's a hammer or horn present. you can check which parts of a monster you've seen are susceptible to your damage type in your hunter notes.

elements matter

as tempting as it will be in the full release to pick one weapon and not build any others, weapon elements and statuses are incredibly important. building multiple kinds of your weapon of choice will help you out in the long run by helping you set up a diverse elemental spread to choose from. you can check what the elemental and status weaknesses and resistances of monsters you've encountered are in the hunter's notes.

the above also goes for armor. if you're having difficulty surviving to a specific monster, it may be time to think about making a set that is a little more resistant to that element. the elemental resistances and weaknesses of the armor set almost always match those of the source monster, so it's pretty easy to figure out who you need to go bully to get a set of specific resistances.

try out multiple weapons

you may not choose your ideal weapon right off the bat. you may like the aesthetic of something and then realize the reality isn't fun for you. you might realize once you start hitting more monsters that are The Floor Is Lava champions that maybe you need something more mobile or with more reach. learning and trying out multiple weapons is the best way to find something you enjoy, and the weapons themselves can be deceiving in how you think they play versus how they actually play.

there is no one single best weapon

each weapon plays very differently from each other and excel at different things. you also may find that it is difficult for you to play some of the "better" weapons, like charge blade. don't feel bad about not being able to wrap your head around different playstyles and just play what works for you. every weapon in the game is 100% viable. don't let people tell you you're playing the game wrong for your weapon choice.

(disclaimer: I know there will be specific weapons that wind up breaking the game. these are usually very build and skill dependent, so arent what im talking abt here. im specifically thinking of "gs/cb/hbg is best dps why would u use sns" type ppl)

as long as you're having fun, you're playing the game right

don't worry about meta builds or optimal gameplay. if you are having fun, you're doing it right. you may run across people who try to shit talk you for a poor build in a Max DPS Meta sense, but if it works for you and how you play the game, that's all that matters.

happy hunting!

[bluemooniegif]

Let's talk about Coats in Bungou Stray Dogs, and what they mean

[i.e. a repost of perhaps my most famous BSD analysis ever]

Mild spoilers for Beast, Dark Era, and Dazai, Chuuya, 15 ahead! (I'm thinking of posting an explanation of how the Beast Universe works soon anyway... lmk if that's something you'd like!)

If you've come across this theory before (uve most likely seen me talk about it on tiktok or youtube), you've probably heard already that the coat or outerwear a character is wearing (especially if it's different from the rest of their outfit) is indicative of the persona that they're trying to project.

You may have noticed, for example, that the colour and the way that Dazai wears his coat changes depending on the organisation and universe he's in. Let's start by taking a look at his Port Mafia outfit from the Canon universe:

As you look, remember that Dazai joined the Port Mafia against his will. He only joins because Mori promises that if he's useful to him, he'll provide Dazai with a quick and painless way to die:

And now I want to get into why Dazai doesn't actually want to die, but that's a whole other post for a later time.

So, Dazai joins the Mafia, rather begrudgingly, and dons the relevant 'uniform' as he does. This is necessary to show Mori and he other members of the PM that he is committing to the role; it is necessary for survival.

The important thing to note here, however, is that he wears his coat off-the-shoulder. Of course, this could just be chalked up to the questionable fashion standards of teenage boys, but when we consider that the coat is like a representation of the Mafia's values... it becomes an indication that Dazai is putting on a persona; one that he's ready to throw away at the drop of a hat. The are three reasons I know this is how he feels for sure:

we saw the exact moment Mori recruited him, and how reluctant he was to join;

he actually did throw it all away the second he had the chance;

Beast. let me explain.

Have a look at Dazai's outfit in Beast, where he takes on the role of Mafia Boss:

There are several notable differences here, but for a moment I just want to focus on the fact that he's wearing his coat properly. That was the one thing that really struck me as significant the first time I read BEAST: in the world where Dazai has to fully commit to the role if he wants his plans to work out, he pushes himself to play the part, regardless of how he feels.

The next huge difference lies in the bandages: here, his left eye is covered, whereas in the Canon manga his right eye is covered. There are several theories we could derive from this: a popular one is that each eye represents light and dark, respectively. In the Canon universe, Dazai covered the eye that saw the light, so he could more easily resign himself to living in darkness. Then, Oda pulled the bandages away, and he found himself running towards the light. I could talk about this for hours, but for the sake of brevity... ouchies.

Moving on. Another thing to note is that, duh, there's a bigass scarf around his neck here. Why? How? It looks an awful lot like Mori's... which could mean nothing. Just like how his ADA coat looking like Oda's could mean nothing. Haha so normal guys don't even worry about it!!

ANYWAY. Coats. Isn't it interesting that Akutagawa also properly wears his coat (a hand-me-down from Dazai, nonetheless) and spends a vast majority of his time trying to prove that he is worthy of being in such a high position within the PM? Isn't it interesting that his ability, the entire reason he became the Mafia's guard dog, relies on that very coat? His entire personality and reason for living becomes so entrapped within Rashoumon that the two are practically inseparable.

In Beast, when he's given a coat that echoes that of Oda's, he still uses it (via Rashoumon) like a shield, and like a weapon... but he tries to learn how to be more gentle. The beginnings and intentions are almost the same, but the outcomes are totally different. Which is very telling. I'll let you connect the remaining dots on that one.

Now, there is one more Mafioso character who wears his coat off-the-shoulder in Canon. But for some reason, in BEAST, he doesn't wear a coat at all... Strange, right?

I am, of course, talking about Chuuya. And the thing about Chuuya is that defining the representative idea of his coat is much more difficult than it was with Dazai, purely because there was so much going on at the time he joined the Mafia. He was betrayed by his closest family, while simultaneously feeling like he betrayed them. He had no choice but to accept Dazai's offer, which was actually Mori's offer. He'd been backed into this corner by Dazai, but also by the Sheep, and he'd lost everything, but was being offered all the things he used to pine after: answers, protection, relative safety. Maybe even family, something he could devote himself to- but all this lay in the hands of the organisation he'd promised to eradicate. He was going through it, as the poets say.

Personally, if I were to assign his coat with a specific ideal/persona, it would be this: acceptance of the Mafia, and hatred towards Dazai. Just like Dazai, wearing his coat off-the-shoulder indicates that he doesn't fully prescribe to their ideals... but in this instance, it also means that he doesn't truly hate Dazai like he claims.

I know, fork in the kitchen. But I also want to point out something that helps drive this perspective home for me: whenever they fight together, as Soukoku, Chuuya takes his coat off. He has a lot of fighting quirks, actually- he always keeps his hands in his pockets (something that is echoed by Dazai ohmygod I cry whenever I think about it), takes his hat off for Corruption (this is discussed in-depth in Storm Bringer), takes off his gloves when he wants to ramp up Tainted Sorrow. But, just like the coat, this only happens whenever Dazai is around. Chuuya literally and figuratively bares himself to Dazai, which can be read as something necessary for him to be saved by No Longer Human, yes, but it would be remis of anyone to ignore the fact of their trust in one another.

There's one more reason that I think these two ideals are so intertwined: it is, you guessed it, Beast!

The interesting thing is that here, where you'd almost expect him to wear something similar, Chuuya simply doesn't have a coat at all. Why is that?

If we follow the same logic that we did for Dazai, we can assume immediately that Chuuya doesn't want to hide behind a facade here. He has no facade to consider hiding behind. He's honest about his work with the PM, and open about his complex feelings towards Dazai- mostly his hatred, though that manifests purely because he's frustrated; a part of him knows Dazai can be doing better, or working differently, but he can't understand why. Or maybe he does understand why, and this frustrates him even more.

It's extremely complicated, and I feel like the way I've said things makes no sense, but I hope it's at least got you thinking. What does this truly mean for Chuuya? What does it mean for Atsushi, who doesn't wear a coat in canon, but does in Beast?

(I already have a post delving into Atsushi's character design, which I think is genuinely one of the coolest things ever!! I don't discuss Beast in it, but it's a great starting point if you're interested <3)

I feel like I've rambled on too much, but I'm fighting brain fog rn so this is as coherent as it gets. I hope this has helped you learn something, or made you interested in delving deeper into costume design in BSD as a whole. I kiss you mwah!!!

[trainsinanime]

I sometimes reblog posts about US Americans being weird here, but honestly I don't love how angry or smug most of these posts are. It's just that angry and smug posts tend to get more traction, and so they get reblogged more, and so I tend to see them and reblog them myself. Hm, maybe there's a lesson for all of social media and for me in particular here.

Anyway, what I want out of these posts is not for any US Americans here to feel bad; it's just "funny" and perhaps, perhaps a tiny bit of consideration for how being US American means you experience the internet on easy mode.

This is not your personal fault. Nor is it ethically wrong. It's just a thing that exists, and it may be worth thinking about it.

Examples of that easy mode include:

It's your language. The vast majority of people on the internet need to know a second language to at least participate passively, let alone actively post. It's not just the internet; for e.g. my job, all documentation for all the tools is only in English, and I was required to listen to English lectures and write both my bachelor's and master's thesis in English, my second language, to pass. That's why e.g. posts about bilingualism tend to cause a bit of a discussion, because knowing a second language isn't a special skill but a necessary survival tool.

It is your world-wide culture. The list of most popular video games, TV shows, movies and songs tend to be fairly similar across the world (in particular the part of it we call it the western world, another discussion that I'll get into below), and they're dominated by the output of US media. There is no equivalent to e.g. Disney anywhere outside of the US.

It's your debates and discussions. Because of the huge importance the US has economically and culturally (not to mention militarily), we tend to discuss US topics a lot, and we tend to discuss them from an American point of view.

This introduces American oddities into a lot of the world. For example, I'm a STEM guy, I have a STEM education, a STEM job and my primary hobbies are also STEM based, so what I notice are imperial measurements like feet and inches. Those are not "one of two equally valid choices", they're the unique hobby of the English-speaking countries, and within them, increasingly only the US. But we still tend to see them here as if they were a normal usual thing, and often europeans (including me) feel compelled to provide translations into these units.

But it's not limited to that, court room dramas are another example where courts in the English-speaking world tend to work very differently from those in the rest of the world. E.g. there's no pleading guilty or innocent in most of the world. There are boundless more examples of that, and these things can be grating every once in a while.

As I said before, I don't think there's any moral value here either way. You're not wrong for being an American (but you're also not better because of it). As I hinted at before, I'm still in a very privileged position myself, being from a wealthy European country, and my culture even without Disney is still far closer to that of the US than it is to most of the rest of the world. I'm sitting in the very same glass house, just maybe a different corner (TODO fix this metaphor before posting).

For example, I'm talking about court rooms and inches versus meters, but if we're thinking about history and ethics, there's deep issues in both of them. When it comes to measurements, it's ultimately the question of whether you use the measurements of London or those of Paris. For most of the world it's a colonial imposition either way. You can make arguments for why one is better for technology than the other (and as you can probably guess, I have strong opinions here), but in the grand scheme of things, neither of them is more "ethical" or more "universal", not really anyway. Same with the way legal systems work, where again, countries either adopted (and more often than not were forced to adopt) either the English system or the French system (with quite a few countries choosing to adopt the German version of the French system as well).

I know that's a boring digression but it's something that's usually missing from these posts, especially ones written by europeans, including some I've written myself. I don't really have a conclusion to any of this either, except perhaps that this is something that's worth being aware of.

[butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway]

I think people believe that those who likely won't vote for Biden despite opposing Trump in November are just doing so out of political purity demands are failing to internalize something really important.

People only have so many resources to spare beyond survival. And they will make reasonable assessments based on what an action demands of them versus what it will do to benefit them/improve overall quality of life whether or not to do a thing. Anything.

I've noticed this thing where people are like "voting is the LEAST you can do, it's just one thing, and it barely takes up any valued resources (e.g. time, money, energy, skill, learning/adjustment periods, etc), how can you NOT do it?"

And. Well. Maybe because that equation isn't the same for everyone?

Let me go ahead and lay out for you the process that would all have to take place BEFORE I was able to "just go vote" if that was an action I felt would be valuable.

1) identify/confirm my state's voter identification policies for the coming election to confirm that I fully understand them and that they haven't been altered since my last complete understanding of it

2) save the money (in cash) for the fees involved in attending an id appt at a state office to get the necessary documents which I may or may not have (I have moved about every other year for a long time now, and have not been able to consistently maintain useable paperwork across my residential transitions because many were across state lines)

3) schedule the state office appt for id paperwork. Keep cash fees and necessary evidentiary paperwork on hand (or add an additional set of steps to obtain/reobtain them such as when the move damaged my court paperwork for my name change). Then wait for the appt to arrive, and hope I have enough time in my day and gas in my car to keep it.

4) once I have my appropriate id, register as a regional voter and identify my nearest polling station (by the way, the ONLY available polling stations in my literal entire county are Baptist or Methodist churches. If those spaces are - for some reason, maybe I don't know being actively mid-medical transition of gender, visibly queer, and fucking Jewish - are not accessible to me well then I guess I'm shit out of luck)

5) obtain time off on election day to go vote. You might think this is easy. And maybe for you it is. But the vast majority of election voting lines I have waited in since going with my mom as a kid to waiting to place my own vote as an adult, have been at minimum of 4 hours waiting in line outside the building let alone getting thru identity confirmation with the polling station volunteers once inside. I work on Tuesdays. So taking unpaid time off for a 4+ hour errand is a big deal. And yeah, my supervisor does actively encourage us to and support us in doing it, but given how we are paid (by the completed appt hour) there is a huge financial barrier to taking a day off to vote. The owner of my practice does her best to help, including offering us our paid documentation hours if it helps, but like. That's not going to be enough for a lot of people's checkbooks, and there are not outside resources she can call on to support her in supporting us. We may make the choice to do it when we feel financially able to, but we may not always be in that position.

6) actually vote. Hey remember those 4hr lines? I'm physically disabled and mobility limited. So if I need to anticipate more than a maximum of 15min of standing or walking, I may need to consider going in my wheelchair. How many of those churches serving as polling stations in my poor, 60% black county are able to be wheelchair accessible? My state voter polling station map supposedly offers a listing of accessible polling stations! But when I click it, it actually just takes me to a webpage describing my legal right to accommodation. Did you know that the only caregiver I could have help accommodate me is my wife or a professional one? I can't (for example) have a friend take me while my wife is working or otherwise unavailable. Or, you know, if a polling station volunteer decides to get up in arms about my marriage for being queer/interracial (this has happened, yes I know it's illegal what the actual fuck do you think that means for the reality of enforcing that though???? Something being a crime doesn't stop it from happening, and being able to "hold someone accountable" won't necessarily mean getting my fucking vote back.)

7) monitor my vote for rejection and supply any necessary corrective measures to confirm my vote (I realize this may be something lots of people go a lifetime never running into, but it has and does and will happen)

8) monitor my voter registration to ensure I stay on the roles up through the next merry go round through these steps (i once had to re-register 3 times in one year without having changed addresses or documentation in any way. Just getting flat out bumped from the roles. When I did voter canvassing in 2020 I took a peek at my own name in the registry and I had a HALF DOZEN different registrations that had been done in the 4 years I'd been living in my house at the time.)

It is REALLY highly likely that none of these things, or AT MOST 1-2 of them are also your (general) concerns/priorities/needs around voting. Mine are like this through a combination of circumstances, location, chaotic lifestyle, and a general inability to stay organized. But that is nonetheless the reality of my effort ro vote every election.

Increasingly, this has simply not been worth my time and money. My vote's presence or absence simply is not impactful enough in the systems and levers of power to justify putting myself through that process and it's impact on my quality of life. My energy is more effectively used in ways that can A) not cost me financial resources I simply do not have, B) do not require me to prove who I am in order to interact with it, thus removing the burden and expense of maintaining paperwork for that purpose beyond what I already posess (passport card without any documentation of residence but with documentation of citizenship), and C) can be performed using only or mostly physical actions that are not inherently medically dangerous for me.

So that's what I've started redirecting my energy towards. There are truly so many options, and I keep myself busy with many different little pieces of that puzzle.

I could not do those things if I also tried to maintain consistent access to voting. I simply couldn't. But those things are so much more immediately impactful, not just on my quality of life, but on the QoL of the rest of my community. I value the ability to spend my resources there more than I value my ability to brute force my way through in interaction with a system that throws up increasingly harmful barriers at every step.

If that math ever changes for me, I probably will try to vote more. It's not like I think voting is bad. But I simply do not see it as more valuable for me and my community given my combination of needs, resources, and capacities.

I really need people to understand that yelling at someone and trivializing their reasons for making the choice that they are making will not increase your voter turnout. Because it means you are inherently rejecting their valid concerns as worth addressing. And yeah! A lot of people are right now specifically talking about this as if their decision is at least in part because of the concern that the Trump years and Biden years have not been different enough or have been different in ways that are harmful to them, because a lot of us made a point of saying in 2020 "damn the consequences, we'll just do it"

But then there wasn't enough change to justify how much we harmed ourselves or invited harm into our lives by doing so. Or at least there is little enough that we are asking ourselves the question of its worth. So now we must also ask "can we make that sacrific again, knowing what we know now?"

For some of us, unless interventions to lower the barrier to entry of voting or to raise the motivation to trust Biden will improve our qualities of life are employed, it is very likely that the answer may be (or may be becoming) no. We can't make the sacrifice again. It took too much and returned too little and we may LITERALLY not have enough to give this time around.

We'll see I guess.

It doesn't escape me that I'm not hearing anything about voter accessability this year. It can sometimes start to feel a little like hedging yalls bets to me, as someone on whom those barriers are deeply impactful and restrictive.

Because if you (general) can point to how we (the vote-alienated) were blocked from the polls after, you can combine that with complaints of "leftists" abstaining for "political purity/perfectionism" to justify to yourselves (general) why Biden lost without reconciling just how much of a void his campaign has in terms of what it's offering people. If they were at least returning to their roots and using the Democratic party base to establish voter support resources and access alternatives, that would probably increase turnout by an order of 10 or so entirely on its own.

But that's being left to communities themselves, despite the gamechanger that would be facilitating such programs with the resources of a multi-billion dollar national political party. Overnight, millions might suddenly see voting as a real possibility, and it's not like the party is spending that money elsewhere in the campaign either. I'm not seeing his ads very often on tv/radio, i haven't seen hardly any online, no one is calling or canvassing, and only Bernie Sanders' team still texts or emails me anything other than requests for money even tho I've been signed up to party and candidate mailing list sets for decades at this point.

I don't know how to help you understand that I was actively EMPLOYED as campaign staff for a democratic presidential primary candidate in 2020 running volunteer events, canvassing shifts, GOTV events, etc. I personally canvassed half of the district I lived in and spoke to so many voters.

Do you want to take a wild guess how many candidates reached out to my community (besides the one I was on staff with) during primary season? One. Out of that entire stage of candidates, only 2 even had campaign staff on the ground in my district. And we were a battleground district in our state. We had the power to swing the entire state. But only like 15% of the candidates gave a fuck.

That hasn't gotten better, it's gotten worse, because now the only one of those two left with any access to an on-site campaign crew is Bernie Sanders, and while he is valiently trying to wrangle it into a GOTV program, he simply cannot do that by himself, especially as alienated as he is from the rest of the dominant wing of the party.

I need people to understand that the work on the ground looks so much different than online political ontological discussion and debate. It MATTERS how you interact with these systems and community needs. We're all doing what we can. What makes sense for us to do. It is REALLY easy to sink into the feeling of "everyone is just too stupid/uninformed to see things my way, or they're voting against they're best interests for some malicious reason" but I promise you that is simply not the reality of how politics happens in communities. Yes, even when someone is 100% objectively being a bigot. People have reasons for what they do, and those reasons mattered to act on to them, even if you don't understand why. If you want to get someone's buy in to change their behavior/beliefs on something, you need to first treat their reasons as a consistent internal logic, even if that means looking past what specific words someone is using towards the underlying values or needs they reflect.

[dropintomanga]

Neighborhood Story - A Special Chapter on Living Life with Color

As a fan of Ai Yazawa's Paradise Kiss, I couldn't help but pick up its prequel, Neighborhood Story. I've enjoyed reading about Mikako Koda and her feelings for her childhood friend, Tsutomu Yamaguchi. I'm glad it won the award for Best New Edition of a Classic Manga at the 2024 American Manga Awards. Neighborhood Story is a work where you really see what Yazawa was all about before NANA.

There's one particular side story in the volume 3 omnibus that I really enjoyed because it went into how hard it is to be accepted when you're bit too cool for the crowd and why trying to fit in isn't always the best idea.

Before the current story, Mikako attended a junior high school where she repeatedly violated the dress code. Her dreams of being a full-on fashion designer were in full swing during her 2nd year. She catches the attention of the class president, Sanae Seto. Seto admires Mikako, but lives a life where she just follows the crowd. She hesitates to speak up as needed and responds to people in ways that suit them.

Seto has a dream of being a shojo novelist and writes in her spare time. However, she's afraid of showing off her work in fear that she'll be made fun of. This is in contrast to Mikako, who shows off her style of fashion with full confidence much to the distress of the school faculty. Mikako gets bullied for her rebellious behavior while Seto doesn't.

Seto doesn't understand how Mikako doesn't seem to mentally break from all the bullying and someone tells her.

"She's already found the most important thing in the world to her, and her conviction in it is unshakeable."

Bullying is still a major problem in schools today and adults continue to fail children on how to face it. So what if there really isn't any help? What can kids do? One can do what Mikako does and that's to live your life. Don't bully back and don't retaliate. Practice confidence and stay connected to people who genuinely care about you. Mikako does all of these things. When Mikako gets bullied after coming back from a suspension, Seto tries to stand up for her. Seto's classmates try to tell her that it's none of her business to stand up for Mikako. Mikako responds with conviction by pouring water from a vase onto one of her bullies for picking on Seto (I did say don't retaliate, but only if you're the main target. You do have to stand up for your friends instead of being a bystander).

However, those solutions aren't enough. After Seto comes over to Mikako's house and sees how lively she is compared to at school, the two stopped connecting during their third year. It turns out Mikako wasn't going to school at the start because her behavior really disturbed the school culture. Mikako felt that she was too restricted in how she wanted to express herself in school.

Seto realized that it's not easy to care about what people think about you or be free for that matter. She admits that she was jealous of Mikako because compared to her, her life seemed dull. Seto also says something when going through a life change that made her move away to another school,

"Still, I had a new mold to fill. So I changed my color and shape to fit in perfectly there. That's how most of us live our lives. It makes things easier."

To be fair, sometimes, this is necessary. But being just a singular color is limiting. You're surviving, but not exactly thriving. And the connections you make by trying to fit into a cog aren't necessarily the best. Do they value the same things you do? That may not be true. When there's an overwhelming majority that's you're totally not align with and only enjoying being a part of it due to the benefits you get, you start to have some cognitive dissonance when you run into someone who makes you question what you're doing.

Seto finally realizes this after Mikako sends her off with a parting gift in the form of cute eyeglasses and a letter thanking her for being a friend during a tumultuous time in junior high. Mikako expresses her desire to get through junior high despite the bullying because of Seto. Seto then decides to chase her dream of being a shojo novelist. At the end of the chapter, a now award-winning future novelist Seto (who's in high school) decides to write about her experiences with Mikako as her potential debut novel.

When you're all by yourself and not feeling connected to what's really important to you, you can fall into black or white thinking. You're falling into a one-color scheme. I sometimes see this happening with youth who struggle to deal with uncertainty in their lives. That's why it's important to show them the varieties of people they can meet and experiences they can find that can change their perspective for the better. School is important, but it is black and white as hell and its lessons don't apply to what actually matters in real life. Seto was a victim of this until Mikako entered the picture.

Seto says a very profound thing in the end as she begins to write her story.

"As my fingers struck the keys, the emotions that poured from my heart were so colorful."

I feel that this side story chapter in Neighborhood Story was also about embracing the diversity of emotions and how important they are to make us connected to those we value in our lives. This applies to both Seto and Mikako. After all, there's a reason why life is more than just black and white. It's colorful, good and bad. Dreams and communities that are truly welcoming are full of color. Embrace the rainbow because colors are the smiles of nature.

[yanderehsr]

Hello! I hope im not late for he event ahaha, please forgive my bad english, its not my first language and congratulations on 1k! :D

My oc is called Atalai,Male, 23

Looks: He is a 7'2 male, with tan skin, long dark brown hair tied in a low pony tail and black eyes. He is muscular, has bull horns and tail and has a a scar running down his cheek and abother crossing his nose bridge.

Personality: He's outgoing and very kind, he is mostly friendly but he isn't naive. He is mostly calm and collected but sometimes he is quick to anger and isn't afraid of starting a fight, he likes to help people and doens't like to be fooled or tricked.

Backstory: He grew up as an orphan in Snezhnaya, and would take any job to survive, thanks to this he was able to travel other nations since young until two kind ladies took him in so he became some sort of famer assistant. he started to see them as his big sisters and he loves them a lot, being the two most important people in his life. As he grew older he started to be some type of traveler, doing any work in any nation to pay back his "Big Sisters" since he wants to give them a easier life. He learned how to fight thanks to the multiple robs he had to face at night, he uses a type of claymore that he can divide in two to turn it into dual swords, he does like the thrill of fight and hunt but he doesn't fight or hunt unless necessary.

For the yandere could i have either Zhongli, Lumine, ningguang, or Diluc please? Any of these four is fine :D

Thank you a lot and feel free to ignore if i broke any rules!

Sure, thanks for the request, Hope you'll enjoy😁

Trigger Warning: Yandere, Obsessive behaviour, Possessive behaviour, Kidnapping

Diluc: At first he is suspicious of Atalai, just like he is with anyone from Snezhnaya, it will take Diluc some time to trust him, let alone fall for him but when he falls, oh boy he falls hard, Snezhnaya doesn't deserve Atalai, his sisters doesn't deserve him, hell not even Diluc sees himself as worthy, but he sees himself as the only one that can protect him.

Diluc doesn't care how strong Atalai is, in the end he is mortal, and like any mortal he can die, so he needs to be shielded. Diluc isn't afraid of fighting him either if it's to kidnap him, sure Atalai may become a bit... burnt but Diluc doesn't mind.

"Stop being so stubborn, you are safer here then you ever was in Snezhnaya, so stop fighting it and accept that your place is by MY side"

Ningguang: She herself is from humble origins so she fells a bit connected with Atalai concerning that, but what she really falls for is his kindness as cheezy as that sounds, the fact that he can stay kind yet not naive is something she admires and she falls for, she wants him and what she wants, she gets.

Ningguang has an idea how to get him to come willingly with her, she wants to be the one in control of this relationship, at first Ningguang will try to buy him off, she can support his sisters financially, if he really wants whats best for them then he'll accept, if for some reason he refuses, well she isn't above threatening them, she has hired assassins and the second she gives the word they will die, she does all this so she can own Atalai, he is hers, he has no option in this.

"The clock is ticking, tell me your choice before I lose my patience, be mine and I'll make sure no harm comes to them"

[transmascutena]

Hey hey, I forget if you've ever posted about this, but one thing that fascinates me about Utena is the food side of everything. How Akio bakes, how Anthy basically only successfully makes shaved ice, and how Utena talks about the food going bad from lack of refrigeration. How it's not the job of the Rose Bride to cook. How Wakaba being able to prepare food makes her a good wife. I have thoughts about this, but I'll avoid saying too much because I wanna hear what you have to say too

i have gotten an ask about anthy's cooking before, where i talked about the ability to make food as a symbol for agency/freedom/independence, and how anthy can cook certain things like festival food, shaved ice, rosehip jam, the cantarella cookies, but not really anything that counts as a substantial meal (the curry is a bit of an outlier here. i guess it shows that her agency is mainly expressed through messing with nanami?) anthy says she wants to get better at cooking, and i'm inclined to believe her. i think she has the potential to be good at it too, but that akio has.... discouraged her from trying, as a way to make her more reliant on him. although, i actually can't recall if akio ever does anything in the kitchen other than (allegedly) bake that cake to impress utena, so maybe i'm way off. or maybe that's another piece of symbolism i haven't quite figured out.

you bring up a good point about gender roles here in regards to wakaba too. cooking is traditionally a woman's role in a lot of cultures, which makes it interesting that anthy, who as the rose bride is supposedly meant to be the ideal bride/wife not only cannot cook very well, but, according to touga, should not cook at all? i guess that ties back to the agency thing, though. but does wakaba have a lot of agency? she has a certain degree of freedom, at least, that comes with not being tied up in the main narrative most of the time. i'm not sure. i think food and cooking is one of the (many) things within this show that does not have one specific meaning that can be used to interpret everything related to it. i suppose my conclusion is that cooking can be both a limiting role if it's forced on you (in the sense of "you need to cook well to make for a good wife which is of course something you should want to be"), and something liberating if you do it for yourself. it's also just kind of a necessary survival skill, which is why it's so telling that anthy doesn't have it.

surprisingly enough i've never really posted about utena's food talk in episode 33 or how it may or may not play into this symbolism, so i guess i'll take this as an opportunity to do that. first, during the othello game, she talks about messing up measurements when cooking, and about the flavor coming out wrong. "you can't undo it once it's done." this shows her worries about what is happening/what will happen, and is already hinting at her regret afterward. it's a metaphor, but it also kind of ties into the agency symbolism. it tells us that utena is not very good at cooking either, and hints at the similarities between her and anthy. later she talks about what to make for lunch the next day. she's rambling, trying to distract herself, dissociating, and i don't tend to read a lot into what specifically she's saying. that's not really what's important. however, i do think it's signicant that she's bringing up anthy, for one, but mostly that she's talking about something urgent she needs to do that isn't here. she's making excuses to go home, to stop. if you buy the cooking as agency thing, utena's worry about the food going bad could once again reflect her worries and doubts about the whole thing. is there symbolism to the fact that she specifically brings up salmon and eggs and asparagus and sandwiches? maybe. but i think it's too easy to get caught up in all the little details and miss or ignore the bigger picture of what actually matters (very vaguely referring to an analysis of this scene that i hate. if you know you know.)

[promptling]

STAR TREK ( 2009 ) change pronouns as needed.

we have visual.

are you seeing this?

there is no help for us out here.

get off this ship.

do you know the location of ________?

where are you from?

do exactly as i say.

just keep breathing, you'll be fine.

i can't do this without you.

hey, are you out of your mind?

is there a problem, officer?

i presume you've prepared new insults for today.

they called you a traitor.

logic offers a serenity humans seldom experience.

come here, let me see you.

there's no need to be anxious.

fine has various applications, fine is unacceptable.

you have surpassed the expectations of your instructors.

it was logical to cultivate multiple options.

it's truly remarkable that you have achieved so much despite your disadvantage.

that's a lot of drinks for one woman.

don't you at least want to know my name before you completely reject one?

this townie isn't bothering you, right?

relax, cupcake.

it was a joke.

you all right?

you can whistle really loud.

i don't need a doctor, damn it, i am a doctor!

i may throw up on you.

one tiny crack in the hull and our blood will boil in 13 seconds.

i got nowhere else to go.

you've been requested on the bridge.

why are you so happy?

i think i love you.

that is so weird.

i'm doing you a favor.

i couldn't just leave you there looking all pathetic.

a little suffering's good for the soul.

i wish i didn't know you.

don't be such an infant.

may i have your attention, please?

how do you feel?

we're flying into a trap!

i think you've had enough attention for today.

i do not believe that you and i are acquainted.

your survival is unlikely.

the complexities of human pranks escape me.

i guess you have to come and get me.

how long do they have?

are you nuts?

we must evacuate.

what do you need?

tell me.

i need everyone to continue performing admirably.

you must have a lot of questions for me.

we have nothing left to discuss.

are you actually suggesting they're from the future?

the logical thing is to be unpredictable.

don't do that.

you gotta be kidding me.

how did you find me?

how do you know my name?

you hate me.

you are not the captain?

it will be easier.

so you do feel.

you could at least act like it was a hard decision.

you realize how unacceptable this is?

you don't eat anything!

how do you think i wound up here?

i do feel guilty about that.

do they still have sandwiches there?

you're coming with us, right?

under no circumstances can he be made aware of my existence.

i am emotionally compromised.

let's get this over with.

a trick i learned from an old friend.

i'm not telling.

i'd rather not take sides.

i will not allow you to lecture me about the merits of emotion.

you feel nothing!

you never loved her.

i am no longer fit for duty.

i like this ship!

thanks for the support.

i sure hope you know what you're doing.

either we're going down, or they are.

what is necessary is never unwise.

i am as conflicted as i once was as a child.

i would cite regulation, but i know you will simply ignore it.

i'll be monitoring your frequency.

i have no comment on the matter.

i'lll cover you.

do you know where it is?

wow, that's weird.

it appears that you have been keeping important information from me.

i knew i should have killed you when i had the chance.

your species is even weaker than i expected.

you can't even speak.

i got your gun.

what are you doing here?

just following orders.

i would rather die in agony than accept assistance from you.

we cannot afford to ignore each other.

do yourself a favor.

put aside logic, do what feels right.

it is my honor to award you with this commendation.

your father would be proud.

i can provide character references.

[crownedinmarigolds]

OC EDGY ASK! 3, 6, 23 for Khloe! 17, 20 for Parvati! 4, 14 for Kahanni! Don't mind me, just showing up late for the party

So many questions you brute! <3 Hee hee thank you! Okay so:

Khloe: 3 - What is your OC's fatal flaw? Are they aware of this flaw? Khloe's fatal flaw is her being easily swept up in the moment, especially if the moment includes intense camaraderie and connection. She joined the Thinblood cause at nearly the drop of a hat after all. I think she logics herself quickly into it - she has nowhere else to go as a young vampire so she needs to find safety in her group and she's willing to do what it takes to be worth being there. "Surviving" her car accident awoke the YOLO in her, and at this point she thinks "what's the worst that can happen?" She wants to be impulsive - though she wants to be smart about it. I think she's aware of this but she logics herself very quickly into how it's right for her. 6 - How easily could your OC be convinced to do something that goes against their moral compass? It's VERY easy - especially if it's for the good of the coterie. Khloe has already killed two people by her own use of telekinesis, and not to mention she once again logic'ed herself into blowing up a hunter cell with their own claymores in fear of them reporting their findings back to their leadership. She knows killing is wrong, stealing is wrong, etc, but she's got a group she's looking out for now. If you can explain to her in the long run how it will help her and hers, she will probably go for it. 23 - What emotion is the hardest for your OC to process? How about express? This is a toughie, but... possibly hysteria? Extreme fear or extreme grief? Extreme pain? Khloe is more of a shut-down thinker, and when something extreme is happening she seems to have trouble expressing the full scope of her pain. Despite her emotional impulsive self, she still tries to reason herself into things. It's tough out there! She just might break soon!

Parvati: 17 - What is the worst thing you have put your OC through, story-wise? Aside from the inevitable dark ending a lot of Elders like her and her husband will face, Parvati's worst moment may be when her grand-sire Zapathasura awoke and cursed his bloodline into temporary madness. It was the first time in centuries that she came so close to Final Death - traumatizing her Setite husband and setting into motion a mindset that would no doubt be part of their ending. The temple's weaker Kindred were nearly completely slaughtered by her during the madness, and she had to be brought down by her Husband's God form - but thankfully he realized he could never kill her even if he wanted to. 20 - Does your OC have a tendency to get jealous? If so, how does that manifest? Parvati is too old at this point, but there have been flickers of jealousy throughout her long life. Thankfully the old girl has Auspex so she can easily read the intentions of her lover if she ever felt a little insecure. However, being VERY old and very consistently desired, she hasn't really felt such a mortal emotion for a while... though she WILL remind Harrakhty who owns him and who stays in his bedchambers if she thinks it necessary.

Kahanni: 4 - When scared, does your OC fight, flee, freeze, or fawn? Kahn is a fighter, but that's because Kahn hasn't really met something that scares her yet. She's very young and very powerful and is still in her "I'm invincible!!" phase. She definitely 100% isn't the most powerful possible God reborn child out there, but as far as she knows she hasn't met something she couldn't crush yet. I think true fear may cause her to flee simply due to years of being told how important she is to the Followers of Set and how much they need her to live... but until then she's throwing hands. 14 - How does your OC want to be seen by other characters? Depends on the mood and the person, but Kahn probably just wants to be seen like a normal early-twenties something who just wants to party and have fun. She lived for a while in temples back in Egypt being revered and now that she's walking amongst the "normies" she just wants to have fun and not really be seen outside as a "God." For now. Eventually the mortals will bend the knee but for now it's just more fun to be treated like a friend you can hit up rather than something you have to constantly grovel to. Booooring!

Hee hee thank you my love!! @thesixthplaneteer SO FUN.

[dovesandmagpies]

Thoughts rereading the Lord of the Rings for the first time in 10 years, (in no particular order and with no claim to literary expertise beyond reading a lot of books)

When I was younger I would always skip the old forest, Tom Bombadil and the barrow wites, because I didn't think they were necessary to the story, it still makes sense if they're not there and the barrow wites (is that how you spell it?) creeped me out.

Listening to it now, yes they're not essential, but they make the world feel more real. There are evil things that don't have anything to do with Sauron, old man willow is never explained, he's just there, hating people, with no giant evil plan for world domination or anything.

Tom Bombadil makes much sense when you think that the world of middle earth was sung into being, a guy who sings all the time is (a little) less strange in that context.

And the barrow wites are still the creepyist things in the whole story but I appreciate the creepyness more as an adult.

Merry is still my favourite character, I always feel sad when I remember how reduced his character was in the movies

I find the songs more interesting, I only read the Silmarilion once, and that was over 10 years ago (I am currently rereading it, I am not even half way through though) But the fact that it exists, that the history that is referenced or hinted at in the Lord of the rings is actually there all written down some where so you can read it if you want to know more, it is what makes the Lord of the rings one of my favourite books.

It also makes it a very sad story, yes they win, the villain is destroyed, but the time of the elves is finished, all that history that happens in the Silmarillion has come to an end. There is a deep feeling that something important has been lost and no matter what happens it can't be the same as it was.

The kingdoms of Gondor and Anor remind me very much of the Roman empire in the middle ages, (I feel like I may be pointing out the obvious here, but I never noticed this before) All the lands used to be part of one great kingdom/empire, the kingdom broke in to two halves one of the which fell and the other survived but was not as great as it had been. There are ruins and old buildings all over the place that no one at the time of the story could build. Even though Arnor has been gone for hundreds of years people still refer to it as something to be admired. Most people speak the same or similar languages because of it. Numenor conccered most of middle earth and made it this huge kingdom, which then collapsed and split apart in smaller kingdoms none quite as great as the original. There are probably parallels to other things but this is what stood out to me.

I understand why they didn't put the scouring of the Shire in the movie, but I think it is an important part of story. It shows how evil isn't all huge and far away, sometimes it's small, pathetic, sneaky and done or helped by people you know, and that is much scarier.

I forgot about how many side characters they didn't include in the movie, particularly in the Return of the King.

When Gandalf and Pippin get to Gondor is the point I really remembered that Tolkien lived through WWI and 2, there are little things before that (the dead marshes for instance), but in Gondor they're sending all the women and children to the countryside so they won't be caught in the fighting. There's rationing of the food, all the lights must be dimmed or put out so the flying creatures can't see anything. It's something only someone who lived after WWI would write because before that it just wouldn't enter your head that war could be like that.

Going back to the Silmarillion for a moment, theoretically, if the sons of Feanor had broken their oath, would they have turned into ghosts like the ones in the Paths of the Dead? Or are they ghosts because Isildur cursed them?

I occasionally see people criticising Tolkien for making Eowen marry Faramir and give up war, this is generally portrayed as Tolkien being sexist for letting a female character fight and then immediately taking it away and marrying her off to some random guy.

I disagree with this perspective and I don't understand how you could think that after reading Eowen's part of the story.

By the time Eowen faced the Witch King she had no hope, she thought the only thing she had to live for was the hope of a glorious death in battle, she wanted to die. When she survived what she needed was hope that there was more to life than death in battle, that's why her marrying Faramir is a happy ending for her. He is able to help Eowen see that there is more to live for than she believed and she is able to hope for the future instead of wishing to die from despair.

Is it canon that Feanor made the Palatri or was that just an educated guess on Gandalf's part?

Is that giant "as big as an elm tree and walking" the hobbits talk about in the pub in one of the first chapters an entwife? I always assumed it was but I've never seen anyone else mention it.

Is Goldberry a maia? If not what is she?

Gollum is a lot funnier than I remember, he's just such a drama queen. He can't eat lembas? "oh poor Smegol, he must starve! "

The orcs come across as a lot smarter and more like real people than I remember, yes they're evil but they're just doing their jobs, trying to get promoted and not lose their heads. Also they have wages. I don't know why but this was one of the biggest surprises in the whole book, how "civilised" the orcs were. They, and Mordor in general, are really an industrial power fighting a medieval one. Which shouldn't be a surprise considering what Tolkien clearly thought about industry, but I was caught off guard by it.

That's all the thoughts I have, for now at any rate, hopefully it wasn't too confusing.

[archivalofsins]

It's important to look into the struggles around being diagnosed later in life more. Especially when talking about mental health and coping mechanisms. A lot of people who were diagnosed with mental health issues young may be unable to fully understand the struggles of those who were not or even recognize the stunning amount of privilege at play when it comes to getting diagnosed early.

Everyone has their own struggles, but individuals diagnosed later in life aren't given any accommodations or assistance to help them. Hell, they don't even have access to therapy at times or an interest in going to it because they never have before, so why start now. They get fired a lot for not being able to keep up with their workload or not being sociable enough.

I'm speaking from personal experience here. However, firing people for poor communication skills, i.e., not being a team player, is very common all over, not just a US thing. This is, in my opinion, why the series has Mikoto say this to Futa,

20/06/15

Mikoto: Hey, it’s kinda a bother having you be so angry and tense all the time. You should stop trying get everyone to pay attention to you.

You’re a uni student, right? You can’t act like that once you start working properly.

Futa: Huh!? Shut up. Not like I care what you say. Even though we’re in this shitty situation, you’re just chatting away, it’s stupid. Aren’t you the one who’s acting out of place here? ……also the fact you give everyone nicknames is just gross.

Mikoto: *sigh* It’s more stupid to be taking this all so seriously. I mean, it’s definitely just a reality TV program. There’s no way a real prison exists that’s this lax. Also, I don’t give nicknames to everyone. I don’t give them to young kids like Amane, or to the hard-to-approach types like Shidou-san. I mean, I’m not giving you one, right?

Futa: ……oi, which group are you trying to say I am?

Because he's like genuinely concerned and trying to make sure Haruka and Futa don't go through what he has. This is again why, in my opinion, the series implies it was him that encouraged and guided Haruka on how to work on his communication skills,

20/06/05

Haruka: Ah…… ah, u-um, Mikoto-san. The c-communication……? thing, that you were saying was important. I-I thought, I’d give it my best…… Um, so, Mikoto-san, what’s your favourite food……?

Mikoto: Ooh? Nice going, Haru-kun~ Yeah, we still have no idea how long this lifestyle will go on for, so it’s best if we all get along together here. My favourite food…… I like pasta and horse-meat sashimi. Also bubble tea, and recently I’ve been big on custard puddings. What about you?

Haruka: ……ah, I, I wonder…… H-hamburg steak, and omurice, a-and also…… what else? Ah. Cotton candy……

Mikoto: C-cotton candy!? That’s the first time I’ve met someone who has that in their top three favourites!? ……man, Haru-kun, you really are hilarious.

Along with why, and I have to stress this again in my opinion, the minigrams consistently highlight his communication skills through him talking people through miscommunications or trying to teach them about the work environment.

However, going into the workforce, undiagnosed increases the chances of having those sorts of experiences. Because no one is aware of the issues one may have and are less likely to accommodate them. Yes, even if the person working over/in charge of them has a diagnoses of their own. Even the person themselves isn't aware this is an issue, so why would other people, whether they have been diagnosed or not, assume they had an issue. No one can just tell, regardless of how well they think they know the signs.

Being treated this way actively encourages or enforces the idea that people pleasing or being more palatable is necessary for one's basic survival. Because it's either suck it up and be nice or have no income, then wind up homeless. It's not as easy as saying they seem like they're forcing it, just be yourself, set boundaries. Because literally people who go undiagnosed may have been hearing things like this for years,

Be nicer, that wasn't the proper way to respond to that even if they did/said x, you should know better, don't stoop to their level, have some self-restraint, read the room, how about self-reflecting on what you could have done better in that instance, I'm ashamed of how you responded to that and you should be too that's not how I raised you to be,

Q.10 Do you ever get angry at other people?

Mikoto: I don’t really. Don’t you think it’s kinda shameful, getting mad.

I've experienced it first hand with this very fandom a senseless amount of times. People who project tone on words when there is none then feel the need to make that a me problem. Tell me how I could have written it in a more palatable way. Instead of asking why they read it that way- They jump to tone policing.

Something people who weren't diagnosed early have to deal with all their lives even after they receive a diagnosis at times. People picking apart how they can be better constantly becomes their normal, and then they end up doing the same thing to others. Sometimes simply because that's how they were taught to show concern for those around them.

Than the kicker- Others who actually know them will say things like,

You're kind of a pushover, you responded to that way too nicely, you need to stick up for yourself more, you shouldn't let people treat you like that. It is a fun (fun used here sarcastically) bag of mixed signals that no one would know how to interpret after it happens enough.

So, now-

"It’s the same anywhere I go. It’s like what’s wrong isn’t wrong."

It doesn't matter where they are or who they're talking to. The issue is always them,

"I’m already the fake one."

Yes, being disgnosed comes with it's own plethora of issues, and this plays into whether one pursues disgnosis, if they tell others they're diagnosed, or pursue things like accommodations at all once they receive a diagnoses. However, not having a diagnosis at all completely removes the option of even pursuing help when needed, telling people what the problem is, and puts complete responsibility for one's errors on the person themselves regardless of if they have a disability.

I don't think it's fair for people to judge that experience when they are unwilling to interrogate these simple environmental factors. Because I'm well aware of how people in this evironment take things I'm going to make this very clear this isn't a call out, I'm not speaking vaguely about any specific individual, I'm talking about a topic that impacts me on a deeply personal level for the benefit of myself.

I'm not responsible for the tone others put on me in their head. No one is responsible for how others wilfully choose to misread them. Plus, strangers on the internet aren't owed any personal details about my life so they can deliberate on whether they respect my opinion or not.

I am not willing to go into further detail on this, and that's my boundary.

[broodwoof]

this isn't so much my theory abt DA4 as it is my delicate little hope for DA4 but

I'm p confident Solas will manage to tear down the veil, and I'm p confident that the voice at the end of the new trailer was Elgar'nan

I'm also p confident that Mythal is still alive - she's in Solas to some degree, and may or may not be exerting a level of control. idk if he genuinely thinks he killed her or if he knows that he took her in instead, but possibly the latter with her implication that this kind of transference can't be done without consent

I think there's a good but not absolute chance that Solas will end up back on the protag's side partway thru the game - my hope here is that we're not actually allowed to kill him bc he's a necessary character, but we shall see!

now for the less certain stuff, with some headcanons to contextualize it:

1. I think Mythal and Solas were very close in Arlathan and very possibly were lovers - the description of the lyrium idol and their interaction at the end of the base game both imply a certain intimacy

2. I believe that Mythal was a good person in Arlathan, that Solas' description of her being the best of them was based in reality

3. It feels likely that Mythal was a victim of domestic abuse from Elgar'nan, given descriptions of his character and her being said to be the only one who could calm his fury

4. Very possibly Flemeth's story parallels Mythal's story, in that both had a meaningful lover outside of their marriage and both were condemned for it - this similarity may be what drew Mythal to Flemeth

5. Considering that the Evanuris, the strongest mages in the world, tried and failed to kill her - then the HOF couldn't kill her - then Solas either didn't or couldn't kill her... she may not be indestructible but the Evanuris are damn near impossible to kill. She may be uniquely survivable, and her having aspects stored in other people and possibly the lyrium idol may be part of that, but either way, I don't think she's any kind of dead. She might have been weakened by the attempted murder, but that's all, weakened

6. See also: Solas was implied to be one of the Evanuris (and one of the Forgotten Ones), which also implies that his strength in Arlathan was comparable enough to be considered among their number - and he couldn't kill them. The best he could do at the time was imprison them. Given this, I don't see Mythal dying in DA4 being inevitable or appropriate.

so with all that said: my aforementioned delicate hope is that Mythal ends up joining the protag, maybe directly, maybe indirectly, idk, but I want to see her in her own skin as a standalone entity. and I want her to be a big part of how Elgar'nan is defeated. and then I want her to live - I really don't want her destroying herself to save the world or anything, bc even tho that'd be powerful in its way, I don't want to see someone who's written as a very plausible domestic abuse victim having to die to stop her abuser. no matter how carefully and well done it is, I'd find that cheap and belittling

I think she and Solas need to work some shit out, and I think both of them should be part of the final battle, and I think both of them should live afterwards. I want Solas going off with a romanced Lavellan if that's imported and keeping in touch with the friends he's made - Mythal could either go off mysteriously as is her way, or possibly lead the released Evanuris towards a different kind of society and culture, one that's more in line with how she was trying to shape them back in Arlathan

I just really don't want either of them to die

[inkwell-intrigues]

I think you had already said it but I got lost. Why did you rewrite the whole story for Chalice? He became like your favorite character and that's why the change of prominence? Will it stop being a story focused on brothers? I say because from writer to writer it is really difficult to keep several protagonists at the same time with the same importance, but if there are 3, one ends up overshadowing the rest no matter how hard you try, there are cases where there may be a little exception but for very little. My real question is... Was it a completely necessary change to rewrite everything? Maybe add parts of the importance of Chalice later or intertwine them with a detail that you wrote in previous chapters...

I am sorry for any inconvenience of grammatical type or coherence and cohesion. English is not my main language, much less one that I master.

No worries! So- I'm not rewriting the whole story for specifically Chalice, while she is a protagonist, she will get less "screen time" than the brothers, who are and will remain the main focus.

My reason for a rewrite is simply that I feel that the current version of TSTS is not 100% the story I meant to tell.

I got a little lost along the way, going, I believe, far too in depth into the backstory of Ginette (Don't worry- Gin isn't going away, but I focused on her too much, I think), the plot's pacing began to slow down after chapter 13 and onward, and I just lost track of the story I wanted to tell.

As for Chalice: For me, TSTS is about a family that has been torn apart and how families can survive terrible things, and grow to include more people! Chalice is a vital part of that family, and in the current draft I kind of overlooked Chalice. Now, I don't technically need to have her play a bigger role, but I want to. I want Chalice to play a bigger part because I believe she has an important story to tell - one that I strongly resonate with. (But here's a fun fact- she isn't actually my favorite character at all! That honor goes to Mugman! xD But, I advocate for Chalice because I believe so strongly in the story that I want her to tell.)

Additionally, Chalice has a HUGE role to play in the finale, but I didn't develop her well enough in the initial draft for her role in the finale to feel satisfying. (But you are right- 3 protagonists is EXHAUSTING, but I made a few changes that I think will balance it well!)

Now to clarify, I'm not going to rewrite everything. Chapters 7-12 are what I'm calling my "golden standard", so those and some others (Chp. 15, 20, etc.) will not undergo massive changes. What I want is to reshape TSTS's current writing into something that better matches the dream story that has haunted my brain for the past 5 years or so. Of course the dream has changed and been shaped by the DLC, by the Cuphead Show, and by you guys- all my wonderful readers! - but I still hold onto parts of that original story. Parts I almost lost in trying to finish a story while very burnt out. I want to be able to honor those nearly lost parts of the story.

Was it a completely necessary change to rewrite everything?

Depends on who you ask. And once again, I'm not rewriting everything!

But, was the rewrite necessary? For me it was.

This story means a lot to me and has a lot of roots in my own childhood and experiences. It's my baby in some ways, one that will have its 6 year anniversary this summer. I want it to be as perfect as I can get it, not just for me, but for all the people it represents and all of the readers that my words have somehow managed to touch.

Thank you for your question, and I hope my word vomit of an answer makes sense! Also, don't worry - your English is very easy for me to read!

Thank you so much for your support and I hope you have an amazing day!

- Ink

[eamonorus-blog]

Why TLOU2 fails as a morality tale.

Ok, it may feel like it's not necessary in order to talk about tlou2, but I want to talk about the first game first. Specifically, the ways in which it fails to be realistic, but why that isn't important in the same way the failure of the sequel to be realistic is.

Obviously, stories in any medium feature impossible scenarios, contrivances and fantastical elements all the time, and they don't have to ruin the story. They can either have a minor negative effect, or in fact be part of the appeal.

So, I feel like I have to explain why the way that tlou2 is unrealistic is a problem first, and a great case study of the opposite is the first game.

tlou follows in the footsteps of many tropes from the post-apoc genre. Most notably for my discussion, in the way the world is populated by hordes of kill crazed bandits.

To a degree, this is the inevitable nature of the medium. tlou is a third-person shooter, so it needs a lot of hostiles, and hordes of vicious killers with a bad sense of self-preservation are a great way to add that.

But I think there is more to it than that. Cormac Mcarthy's The Road has the same set up. As does the Fallout series. So, I think this is more a matter of genre convention than medium convention. Plenty of games are just about killing zombies, so there is no reason that the killing of human enemies couldn't be very limited or non-existent.

And why is this a problem? This is a problem because its not how people would really behave.

Of course, I don't know that for certain, but I think I have a good argument to make. The world of tlou is a pre-industrial society basically, and we know what those would be like. We can look at all of human history. And what we see is conflict, sure, but not just hordes of angry bandits without women and children that they look after.

Its human nature to fight, but its also human nature to cooperate and breed. The all male groups of criminals who focus on material possessions are not the natural outgrowth of a collapse of civilisation, but instead its continuation.

We ascribe the presence of sadistic Mad Max style raider gangs to the post-apocalypse because that is the kind of social ill that actually plagues us in the here and now, in our modern world. In the presence of urban gangs, motorbike gangs, etc…

Even if you look at African modern civil wars with child soldiers, those conflicts are still based around racial and tribal loyalties which distinguish them from the multi-racial rootless gang which tends to predominate in post apocalyptic fiction.

In the first game the biggest culprit here is the Pittsburgh group, with their lack of women and children, and hence any wider society that they are fighting for, and their total lack of regard for their own lives in chasing after Joel no matter how many of them die.

In the modern overpopulated world, life is cheap. Whether we are talking about gang warfare or full scale conflict. But in a post-apocalyptic setting people would be risk averse, respectful, and would only resort to violence as a final choice.

Steppe pastoralists like the Mongols, Scythians, Turks, etc… who had a low population and lived in vast nearly uninhabited wildernesses tended to adopt fighting styles that minimised casualties as much as possible.

And people living in a wasteland caused by some apocalyptic event would act in the same way. They wouldn't attack a stranger for no reason, if only to avoid entangling themselves in conflict, with another tribe who would seek revenge. Ofc course, like I said, conflict would still exist over territory, resources, women, etc…

But it wouldn't be the way it is shown to be in tlou.

But why is this not that much of a problem in my opinion? For starters, one of the central themes of tlou in regard to violence is that we all just do what we have to to survive. That that is what drives conflict. And that is what David uses to justify his actions, and what Joel does to.

So the game is diagnosing the way conflict works correctly, even if the gameplay is doing a bit of a sloppy job of getting that across.

But the main reason why it works is because the game ends with Joel choosing to sacrifice hope for a cure to save Ellie. By doing this the game would have us believe he is dooming humanity as a whole to more suffering, but what has the game shown us humanity consists of?

Certainly not the tough and brutal but nonetheless sympathetic and rational people who would really exist in such a world.

Instead it would be to save a bunch of trigger happy fascist police, a whole city of murderous bandits, random bandits who attack people trying to rebuild society, and a bunch of cannibals lead by a pedophile.

Yeah, no thanks.

Sure we meet some good people, and we like Jackson, but if we got a broader sense that humanity as a whole consisted of decent people who would really benefit from the cure, we might feel a bit differently about Joels decision. As it is, we have Tess, Sam and Henry die as a consequence of being bitten, and that's sad, but still, thats already happened and cant be changed.

Having the world of tlou be more realistic would make how we feel about Joels choice more complicated, and I dont think it would make the game worse, but as it is the games failing in this way just makes us sympathise with his decision even more.

So the game is actually leading us into being ok with the ending.

If we never met any hostile humans, just helpful kind people who are desperate to avoid being infected and need whatever help they can get, who are traumatized by losing loved ones to infection, we would feel quite differently about Joels final decision. In that hypothetical situation, making the world unrealistically OPTIMISTIC about how humans would behave in the post apocalypse, as opposed to PESSIMISTIC, would hurt the story, since it would lead Joel to seem more villainous and unjustified.

So, with that extended preamble out of the way, let me explain why lack of realism hurting the story is exactly what happens with tlou2

First off, tlou2 fixes the problem I mentioned in tlou. In the sense that the rabid, mad max style, casualty careless, all male bandit groups of the first game are gone.

Instead we have group conflict happening between rational, capable societies that fight each other over land, resources, normal stuff, stuff that makes sense.

This is a good thing as far as it goes, but unfortunately this increased realism is countermanded at every turn.

Lets start with the opening, with Abby leading the Salt Lake crew to Jackson to kill Joel. Right away we have serious issues.

As I just laid out, in the real world people fight each other over resources, land, women, stuff that really matters. And they fight on behalf of a broader group/society.

Even the modern criminal groups I mentioned beforehand do this for the most part. Sure, lone vengeance killing unrelated to a wider societal enemy or resources do happen, like with the few famous cases of parents who have killed someone who raped or killed their child before they could be sentenced.

But even that is very rare. FAR more common is revenge killings in the context of a gang war over territory. Which mimics the historical pattern of conflicts over history I have mentioned before. When people seek vengeance over a murdered parent, historically that is within the context of their parents' killer being a part of a group their tribe/society is at war with. If the killing is within their own society in most cases, there are social mechanisms to get justice.

By which I mean that the vengeace, while a very real motivator, is actually given the ooomph to be carried out because it serves the wider purpose of fighting your societies enemies.

We see this in tlou2 with the way Isaac talks about the back-and-forth conflict with the Seraphites. That is an example of a realistic conflict leading to realistic revenge being sought by both parties. The fight is actually over ideology, territory, etc… The vengeance is just a factor that comes out as the conflict escalates.

Let me reiterate, human beings are risk averse, and are only usually willing to resort to violence to defend their people, and/or for a big material benefit.

And Abbys quest for revenge has none of these factors. Joel was a lone individual. He isn't a member of a group the Fireflies have a vested interest in fighting, or who will continue to be a threat to them. Ideologically it would make sense for them to go after him to get Ellie, but the game dismisses that with the claim that Jerry was the only person who could make the cure, so that's a non-factor.

All of this has a cascading effect that makes going after Joel a terrible idea. Finding him will involve taking a bunch of people the WLF can't afford to lose, across country on a massive trek where they are liable to get hurt or killed, in order to kill one man who is no threat to them, and who they have nothing material to gain from killing, and in doing so risk aggravating any community that he has become a part of in the meantime.

The game itself, to its credit is well aware of all these problems. We are told that Isaac green lit this operation off screen with the claim that he "cares about justice"

Well, it looks to me like Isaac, as a person engaged in an actually plausible example of group conflict, cares more about winning and fighting for the survival and wellbeing of his people against outsiders. It looks to me like that is his value, not justice.

But he does agree to this for some reason.

But then we have all the reasons why people in the real world don't act like Abby does begin to raise their heads.

When they get to Jackson, Owen discovers that the place is big and thriving. There is no way their small team that Isaac for some reason granted permission to leave is going to be able to attack this place. And he rightly says that the others are going to want to leave after this. But Abby ignores him, goes off on her own, and miraculously finds Joel and Tommy, miraculously in the middle of a zombie horde so they can bond fighting them off and it makes sense for them to trust her.

It's also necessary so that she can plausibly convince them to come with her to their hideout, where, as many people have pointed out, Joel and Tommy seem shockingly unconcerned about why a large armed group would have come all this way to Jackson and not have introduced themselves.

The contrivances, character assassinations and almost plot holes here annoy people. But they annoy them especially because even if they can't articulate it like I can, they know that this kind of thing doesn't make sense for people to do in this world, and it doesn't make sense that they would succeed at it.

The blizzard, the infected, Joel giving out his name, they are all needed to happen because logic needs to be bent out of shape for this to happen in the first place.

Ellie choosing to go after Abby is just as stupid. Some people felt that way too, but others didn't, because yes, we are more invested in Joel than Abby, and the human instinct for revenge does kick in, which is of course the feeling Neil wants us to feel.

Abby has gone out of her way to be unreasonable and stupid, so we feel that Ellie is justified in doing the same back.

But that doesn't make it any less foolish. Maybe if we had seen Ellie grow and get attached to Jackson, as she probably would have, we would realise more how stupid she is being by risking all that going after Abby. But just like the masses of decent people that we would have needed to see in tlou to get us to really question Joels decision to save Ellie, we don't see that here.

tlou2 wants to be a commentary on the nature of violence, and why the cycle of violence is bad, but it doesn't actually critique the kind of cycles of violence that actually occur in the real world. Neil is fighting shadows, wagging his finger at a kind of human being who doesn't really exist, shaming us for doing something people don't actually do.

In terms of the games actually believable conflict, that between the Seraphites and the WLF, the game tries to a degree to be nuanced and "both sides" but it falls short because the Seraphites are so over the top evil, in a different way than the Pittsburgh gang maybe, but in a way that makes them just as unlikable and clearly coded as evil.

The only Scar characters that we are meant to empathise with are defectors, we clearly aren't meant to actually understand or sympathise with their perspective like we are with Abby.

The game is about different perspectives, but only for someone who is engaging in a self-destructive, stupid, act of vengeance, not for a religiously minded oppressed people fighting for their beliefs and their way of life against a superior enemy.

And this is why the game doesnt work as a tragedy.

The idea of a tragedy is that the protagonist has a fatal flaw, one they are given opportunity, time and time again, to correct and overcome, but the flaw is a part of their nature, and they fail to overcome it and perish.

But Ellie does overcome, she lets go of the pointless hatred she and Abby have engaged in. And she still loses everything. If she had killed her, and lost everything, just like Abby did after killing Joel, that would have been something, but no.

Either a story is a hero's journey, where the protagonist learns the lesson and triumphs, or a tragedy, where they do not, and fail.

But Ellie learns her lesson and still fails.

tlou2 chastises humanity for a sin it doesn't commit. That is its great failing.

[paragonrobits]

today's thought experiment; applying some of the principles to creating charismatic over the top classic villains can be applied to creating protagonists by just taking the basic idea and applying it a viewpoint character or someone the author intends to be a hero.

In particular, let's look at the concept of the BACKSTORY.

So, backstories are a surprisingly finnicky thing. A lot of store is presently put by the backstory, to the point that they're considered character defining; as an example of how this can be done well, Magneto was originally not characterized as having a particularly notable backstory, and it certainly didn't inform his character as a standard villain with mutant supremacism at the core of his character; it was not until he was written by Chris Claremont that he was imagined as having survived the Holocaust as a child, which has an obvious wealth of resulting implications on his viewpoint, fears and overall motives, both in terms of defining his antagonistic perspectives ('My people will never suffer again, no matter what I must do to ensure it') AND his heroic depictions ('NO ONE shall suffer as I did').

But at the same time, enough backstory can lock a character down and make them feel more limited, or at least prevent you from characterizing them as freely as you could if they didn't definitely HAVE that back story; if you establish Character A as having been from a wealthy family fallen on hard times and you establish a very specific character history and the precise details of how they fell and the structure of that family, its excellent material but it also prevents you from bringing up any ideas that would contradict it. And if you think later on that Character A works better as having always lived a poor and struggling life, obviously that's not an option without retcons or really wacky plot twists that are functionally ALSO retcons.

So, here is my radical point; unless the backstory DIRECTLY feeds into the character's core motivations and direct impact on a specific plot, a backstory isn't strictly necessary.

Among other things, I've found that what's important for a character is what they do in the HERE AND NOW; in the present events of the story they're in. A backstory doesn't have to really exist for them, and I've found it helps just as much to keep it minimalist to inform their character without having too much to limit potential concepts in the future.

Now, this feeds back into the villain archetype mentioned before; they rarely have any real backstory, and this allows them to enact a kind of unfettered charisma that isn't held back by bagagge. Of note, just about EVERY SINGLE classic Disney villain beloved for being fun antagonists has been given a backstory of some kind to justify their attitudes in remakes, and almost without exception EVERY SINGLE one of them fell flat.

People didn't like these reimaginings. The backstories, meant to recontextualize their actions, made those villains lose the over the top charisma that made them so compelling to begin with.

So, therein lies my proposal; flip the script and apply that same premise to your heroes! Do very little with their backstory and make it vague, or even just a few sentences worth, JUST enough to contextualize their general perspective.

You may also consider going the full mile and having your characters initially start out as villains, but who at some point changed their ways. (An example of how this might work, I would suggest looking at Steven Universe's Peridot, the more heroic depictions of Magneto, and the versions of Harley Quinn present in the Injustice setting; these are characters defined by being protagonists, but initially started out as villains whose characterizations wound up inverting.) On that note, I would also suggest inverting this former villain's characterization to give an impression of having them go full circle; as Peridot started out as a cold and callous person with a very subdued characterization, she wound up becoming a high energy and very empathetic person who is by FAR one of the most hammy and dramatic character in a show where people generally show deep feeling by bursting into song. Magneto also surprisingly is an example, despite his original characterization generally not being considered canonical for the most part; old school Magneto of the Lee/Kirby era was a very hammy and dramatic villain in the style of Doctor Doom; ranting on how his MIGHTY POWER will defeat the puny humans and those foolish X-MEN.

Whereas now, Magneto is still very dramatic, but completely inverted; his drama is cold and filled with gravitas, barely speaking above a level tone, and even this threats are calm, even with a faint hint of joviality; when he tortures a woman who has been having the homeless population abducted and converted into killer cyborgs to kill mutants in premeptive defense of human kind, Magneto indicates his intentions by simply giving a gentle smile and saying "Ah, but I CAN make you talk, with this," and reveals a small floating paperclip.

(This final thought might also lean into people liking villains; instead of bending your favorite villains out of shape to justify their actions and attitudes as secretly being the true heroes all along, why not go the extra mile and write your heroes with the same kind of energy you'd give for villains, but legitimately being good? And of course, writing your heroes as former villains who came full circle!)