#vaguely coherent rambling

[strixcattus]

I want to make a list of everything that needs to agree with something in the time travel conlang, just to get my thoughts organized.

The guiding principle here is: Everything that might have cause to agree with something, does so. A Watsonian explanation for this would probably be something like, "there are a lot of ways time distortion could drop information or cause someone to miss it, and they would really like to know whether they're talking about their friend or an evil future version of their friend." The Doylist explanation is absolutely that I think it would be funny and fun and also I've never done any sort of agreement in a conlang before and have a lot to make up for.

The numbers this conlang inflects for are: —Singular (needs no explanation) —Monogender plural (a given group of one gender) —Multigender plural (a given group of multiple genders) —General plural (used for blanket statements that may or may not have exceptions, such as "stars give off heat" or "cats have fur")

The grammatical genders of this conlang are: —Null (always and exclusively used for 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th person) —Former (past variant of myself, you, or a familiar 3rd person entity) —Future (future variant as above) —Alternate (alternate-timeline variant with a branch point in the past) —Split (alternate-timeline version of a future variant, with a branch point in the future) —Dopple (they're not a past or future version, our lives are identical, but somehow we exist separately at the same time and I need to gender them somehow)

(The distinction between 3rd and 3.5th person can get complicated. If I'm friends with someone named, say, Alice, and her future self travels back in time to now, then regardless of whom I'm speaking to, Alice is referred to in 3rd person and future-alice as Future 3.5th. If, however... let's say Nikola Tesla. If Tesla were to time-travel to 2023, and I met him, I would refer to him in 3rd person, because he would be the only Tesla I am familiar with and the only Tesla in this time frame.

On the other hand, if my grandfather were to travel through time as a young adult, and we met in the present, I would refer to him in 3.5th person, because I already know my grandfather as someone else. However, if I did the time-travelling, and met my grandfather in the past, I'd refer to him in 3rd person, and the version of him who is my grandfather in 3.5th... unless I happened to bring my present grandfather with me, in which case my present grandfather would be referred to in 3rd person and the past version in 3.5th.

Get it? By default, the native version of a person in the current time frame is referred to in 3rd person and all interlopers in 3.5th... unless they do not exist in that time frame, in which case the one with the greatest familiarity to the speaker is referred to in 3rd and all others in 3.5th, or if the speaker is travelling with the native version of that person to their time frame (or another person native to the same time frame who also knows the person), in which their native version is referred to in 3rd and all others in 3.5th.

As a sidenote: If my young grandfather (3.5th) time-travelled to a point after his death, but within my life, I would be well within my rights to refer to him in 3.5th person, even if he is the only version of himself in the current time. Those who did not know my grandfather at his current age, but met my time-travelling grandfather, would be well within their rights to refer to him in 3rd person and my present-day grandfather in 3.5th (future gender—or alternate, if my present-day grandfather didn't do any time travel in his own life).

(I don't know what you would do if Nikola Tesla showed up in 2023 in his time machine, then took you back in time to meet his self from a few years later in that self's native time. Leave it as exercise for the reader, I guess.)

—Adjectives agree with gender of the nouns they modify, by way of suffixes. If they need to agree with multiple genders, the suffixes are stacked in a set order. They're also inflected for number and for person, because you can expect to have an adjective attached to a 1.5th, 2.5th, 3rd, 3.5th, or 4th person noun/pronoun (e.g. in 1.5th person, "the evil me").

—Adverbs agree with the verbs they modify in terms of objective tense, again by way of a suffix.

—All persons of noun and pronoun that have multiple genders inflect for gender and number.

—Verbs are conjugated first for tense in objective time, then affixes are attached (these can be prefixes or suffixes) which encode person, gender (if applicable), and subjective tense for the subject and object. The positioning of these affixes is fluid, but they each point towards the nouns they're agreeing with.

—"No tense" is a valid objective tense for a verb whose objective tense is unknown, but whose subjective tense is known. For instance, if I know I'm going to mail you a letter, but I'm not sure when in time I'll be when I do so, I can refuse to inflect the verb for tense.

—A particle (which may act as an adjective or an adverb) can be constructed to indicate objective and/or subjective time for something not normally indicated. For instance, it might be attached to the noun "his texts" to indicate that the texts have not been written yet, or that whoever "he" is hasn't written them yet, but the texts themselves exist already, or to a verb to indicate that some third party (with which it agrees in number, gender, and person) has already experienced an event which is in the future for all other players in the sentence.

Verb objective tense conjugations tend to indicate the subject's person in some way. Some objective tenses lump 1st person with 1.5th person and so on, and others distinguish between them. I haven't decided yet, but this may be dependent on the base form of the verb. Like French! But worse.

[laziarteest]

Re-watching the Sly Cooper cutscenes since I finished re-watching all the cutscenes for the Ratchet and Clank games I’ve actually played And like, spoilers for a game series that hasn’t had a new entry in 10 years, I guess

I mentioned briefly on Twitter a couple minutes ago, but I miss these characters so much. I know that Sucker Punch is on record as saying they wanted to move away from the exaggerated cartoony style and try out more realistic games and darker themes, but like... These games are surprisingly dark for a series with colorful anthropomorphic animals meant to be stylistically reminiscent of old Saturday morning cartoons. Like, ha ha raccoon steals things But also the three main characters are all orphans??? Not to mention the fact that Sly himself watched his parents get murdered right in front of him. There’s literally a villain that was filled with so much hate for Sly’s family line that he invented a way to become immortal so he could murder the family’s descendants forever if that’s what it took to get rid of them once and for all. Then the end of the second game where Bentley and Murray are just thoroughly traumatized both physically and mentally. I guess good news for fans of competent characters in wheelchairs? Cause Bentley is just permanently wheelchair-bound after that, but continues to work with the team. And like I’m still hoping we eventually get more from the series Cause that cliffhanger at the end of Thieves in Time is just evil. At this point, I’ll even just take a remake/re-imagining of the first game? Introduce these games to a new generation, it’s so sad that there’s been basically nothing new aside from the occasional obligatory merch just because other PS2 era characters get something

[inumbrapugnabimus-maybe]

Making decisions after 2 am is a great idea *posts all of my oc art with no context*

[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.)

[sp1resong]

yknow what. re: this ol' post--

[gnosisandtheosis]

This piece will come as no surprise to any remotely progressive or leftist Christians. Of course this brand of hyper-individualist, hyper-capitalist, and hyper-nationalist evangelicalism would find its followers rebuking Christ and His message.

One quote from Russell Moore here really stood out for me: "When we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we're in a crisis"

Now I haven't read the full interview yet to read this quote in context but it astounds me. The whole point is that Jesus message is *supposed* to be subversive. Both individually and in society we are supposed to challenge the status quo.

For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

When we look at the world that we have created and compare that to the one we are called to co-create with the Divine, everything will need to be subverted for us to get from here to there.

I came to bring fire to the Earth, and how I wish it were already kindled

[devotedlystrangewizard]

the school arc to me is so good because it drags ciel out of his position as a powerful figure and literally places him in the shoes of the person he could have been. the circus arc ALSO drags him out of his position as big bad queens watch dog/head of the phantomhive estate but the school arc feels like a mockery of a future that never was. this is what he could have been had his parents not died. and even then its NOT because he will never be that kid.

he never was.

[abstractlesbian]

Find someone slightly annoying but in really small harmless ways so I decide none of the behaviours are worth bringing up with them → realizing: hey, Im also annoying! solidarity! → realizing we have a lot in common and starting to bond → finding out other people find this person annoying and are vocal about it behind their back → finding out this person has ADHD like me that's (at least one reason) why we have all these traits in common → fear.

[mothbeasts]

ok since you're the fabby expert riddle me this bc i've been thinking abt this all day for some reason. what do u think like. her childhood/young adulthood was like. i rotate her in my head all the time but it is SO difficult to think abt her outside of the state she's currently in now. i know she didn't spawn upon this earth like that. but that's the only way i can picture it so i need insider intel on this subject

SO glad you asked because i think about this extensively. disclaimer that this probably does not line up with Actual Canon it's just my fun little version of events that happens in my brain.

With that out of the way. What was younger fabby like?

For starters. she was 100% a theater kid and finds it embarrassing as an adult. But you cannot stop being a theater kid. Ever.

Honestly. I feel like she was fairly normal as a kid. Maybe a bit TOO interested in morbid things like poison and murder but honestly. That feels Normal. She would've been the kind of kid who like enacted the strangest scenarios and drama with dolls I think.

Things get interesting at around her young adult era. See, in my mind, a lot of her issues started at around that time. Her general constant stress and poor sleep schedule were Definitely worse when she started university. But she powered through (mostly on spite) to get her engineering degree anyways. And then got a job with Zoraxis. Which in no way helped anything ever. In my mind she also got a minor in an art field - not entirely sure what but that's just how I imagine it going. Probably something fashion related, if we wanna take that watch poster into account.

Another thing in my mind is that she was far more reserved in. i wanna say the late teens-early 20s range. Quiet, not really drawing attention. Very absorbed in her studies. Her turn towards evil science was kind of simultaneous with her becoming more like the Fabricator we see in the games; by the time she's gotten a cozy spot near the top of Zoraxis, she's got her act perfected. But the perfect evil science persona DOES take time to craft and that wasn't really the direction she had intended to go at first. She started off just wanting to go into normal engineering or something. Even into her early days with Zoraxis, she was a bit eccentric perhaps but not quite at evil science level for some time.

I think her interest in poisons and such started to take a turn for the worse when she got access to university level chemistry labs. And then her engineering education obviously went towards murder.

The summary is she was honestly Pretty Normal in my mind up until she started working for Zoraxis. After that she realized she actually thinks the whole evil thing is fun and she wants in on it.

HONORARY OTHER HEADCANON MENTION: I tend to draw her with a prosthetic arm. Why, you ask? Lab Incident. She accidentally blew herself up really bad. This happened shortly after the start of her career at Zoraxis.

[hikayunas]

🫀

[adelle-ein]

part of me wants to watch good omens, just from the perspective of a practhett fan/gaiman mixed-feelingser who read the book eighty billion years ago (age 13) and then reread it when the show was first out bc she didn't remember aziraphale/crowley being much of a thing (and she was right it wasn't)

like i'm curious for a number of reasons, not least of which is that good omens the book suffers terribly from being written by two fundamentally different writers. superficially practhett and gaiman's main bodies of work are very similar -- putting spins on myths and legends and lore, general cynical/jokey tone -- but like. their actual worldviews and styles of writing are SO different on just a fundamental level, they have such different priorities when writing. pratchett romance and gaiman romance could be opposite ends of a writing scale lbr. pratchett fucking hates sex scenes and gaiman can't stop (badly) writing them in. pratchett firmly refuses to make any of his characters conventionally attractive, neil gaiman is very much a "all my characters are pretty." pratchett's writing is generally more optimistic and gentle then gaiman's (if a child dies in a pratchett book it's a Big Fucking Deal, for gaiman it's a tuesday.) pratchett likes a smaller scale and more character-focused narrative in general, et cetera. there's a reason everyone has always struggled to adapt pratchett works to the screen, because he was not a big screen writer by any stretch of the imagination. none of this means that gaiman's writing is BAD it's just very, very different

good omens just reeks of several different manuscripts mushed together, the end result being that no character or theme is very well fleshed out and the enjoyable bits are over very quickly as we jump from author to author and pov to pov. also show of hands, who thinks that gaiman put a full on sex scene in there originally instead of fading to black and pratchett just ctrl-shift-backspaced the whole thing lmao. so i'm not surprised the tv show has gone a wildly different direction from the book, because the book simply isn't very good. plus several parts of the book i suspect had nothing to do with gaiman at all and would be difficult for him to retell (either bc he doesn't have the information to do so or just because he's rewriting a late friend's story and that can't be fun, this isn't a judgement of gaiman.) also gaiman's writing and character have changed a LOT since the 90s, GO the original book was laced with homophobia and i know some of of his old graphic novels have bad transphobia issues (haven't read those.) i don't have any issues with the show taking a different direction basically. i think that's a good call for many reasons. but i'm also just like how??? can you adapt this book to screen??? well rewrite the whole dang thing and pick some side characters (aziraphale and crowley) to actually become main characters and lead the narrative so there actually IS a central narrative instead of a general "here's what eleven billion different characters did during the apocalypse." it's a smart call. it also means the show is predominantly about two white men, AND you can actually do something with all those nasty gay jokes and make them a real couple instead which....ratings! attention! media sensation! blah blah. though this season doesn't seem to be catching on like the last one

but anyway the rest of me...doesn't really like watching tv shows very much and doesn't actually want to watch a show by an author i don't particularly like, about a premise i'm not super interested in, with a target audience i am Less Than Fond Of (superwholocks) lmao

[moesartblog]

.

[crowsgrudge]

hopped on the malpod bingo trend for next ep ..... call this the highly delusional bingo card

[fiixer]

[ I had an ask thing for a headcanon about Jordi growing up, but I saved it to my drafts and it fkn disappeared into the void, so ??? Not sure what happened there. In any case, I rambled off my headcanon here, so if you were the one who sent that ask, I'm sorry, I don't know what Tumblr did, but here's the thing! ]

Born in Beijing, he grew up in what was, by all accounts, a loving family.  They didn't have much, just enough to get them by - sometimes just barely that - but they were exceptionally close.  Both of his parents busted their collective behinds for every single thing the family had, and still they made time for their kids whenever possible, as often as possible. Along with his parents were two siblings, an older brother and sister, the latter being one of Jordi's best friends through much of his childhood and into his teen years.  

After she'd finished schooling, with the ultimate goal of becoming a nurse, his sister had gotten involved with a rougher crowd, thanks to the man she'd been seeing at the time.  He and his "friends" began using her and her skills to patch their wounds, save their allies in a pinch, procure medicines for their group (and sometimes to sell for a little extra cash), and the like - things that, on the whole, weren't necessarily harmful, but she didn't want any part of that world.  She didn't want to be part of the criminal realm, but upon expressing that to her then-boyfriend, and expressing her wishes to leave him if he continued doing what he was, he started making threats to keep her where he needed her.  Had she not confided her fears in her brother, no one would have known, and he might never have had a chance to intervene before it was too late.

It was then he got his first taste of what would later become his career.  Jordi went with his sister to gather some of her things from her beau's chosen hideout.  Someone on his side had seen them entering and made an appearance in an attempt to scare the shit out of her - and him, by extension.  They hadn't expected him to be prepared for it.  After a scuffle, as he would countless times after he brought that man to his knees, and with the snap of a neck, ensured he wouldn't be bothering anyone ever again.  The two of them quickly gathered her stuff and hightailed out of there, vowing to never speak of it again.  They assumed the worst was over. Alas, fortune was not on their side.  These guys were determined to keep their free, discreet medical care and supplier. Add that to the fact that she knew their names, their hideout locations, their faces, and whatnot and she may as well have had a massive target painted on her back.  Soon after the first, another was sent on her tail, and another fell to Jordi, this time without his sister present to witness it.  The man's lack of stealth worked in Jordi's favor, and he caught the guy well before he'd reached a dangerous point.  The same fate befell the next they sent, and the one after that.  It became a game, of sorts, one he was more than happy to play.  

And win.

Fortunately, Jordi had picked a few tricks up in his time, so he managed to avoid retribution.  That part was easy.  The problem was, the same people after him also knew about his family; who they were, where they were, the whole nine yards, and they were not hesitant to use that information against him.  He realized that one night while visiting his sister's place.  When the heat of the first round of chaos died down, she'd managed to get herself a little apartment in the city, to which he'd been a frequent visitor.  Late one night, the splintering crack of a door giving way woke them both.  The intruder knew she'd be there, of course, but he hadn't accounted for Jordi.  Once again, he was brought back to the days of old, protecting his sister from the scumbags of the city's underground.  

Word travels through the grapevine pretty quickly.  The next who approached was not after his sister, but him.  Instead of aggression, the man offered him a paying gig.  While Jordi was young, he clearly had a knack for this sort of work.  Plus, charging someone outside the cell with the hit meant it was less likely to be traced back to said cell, and if things went south, none of their men were lost.  If it worked, everyone got paid.  It was a win-win.  So, Jordi took it, and the pay it offered when he provided proof of the bullet he'd lodged in the target's heart.  From there, his career officially began.  The Fixer offered him a place within their organization.  At the time, the terms were a mere fraction of the usual pay for gigs, and in return, he'd help keep random mooks away from Jordi's sister.  Again, a win-win as far as he was concerned, so he agreed.   And for a while, all was well.  No one knew what he'd stepped into, and he preferred to keep it that way.  As far as the family was concerned, he'd taken a job after school, and as far as his sister knew, her problem had disappeared thanks to him. 

Things were great! He had found his niche, it seemed, and for a few years, everything was pretty streamlined.  He had his job, which brought in a nice chunk of cash to help the family out; his family - his sister in particular - was left in peace, and they lived their lives. His brother got married, his sister started seeing someone new, his parents no longer had to work their fingers to the bone and could take more time for themselves; at the time, he couldn't ask for more.

Shortly after he'd turned eighteen, though, everything took a drastic turn.  A job went south, his mark escaped and spilled the beans on the fixers who'd been on his tail.  Naturally, people were pissed.  Not only was the group forced into the legal spotlight, but a huge amount of cash just up and fled the country because somebody missed their shot.  That somebody was going to pay for it – and every single finger was pointed at Jordi.  

That was also the night he got the back scar mentioned here.

And  it didn't stop there.  Voicemails, notes, emails - they mentioned his family by name, along with varying threats and warnings…it wouldn't stop.  As long as he remained, it wouldn't stop.  He couldn't be everywhere at once, so how was he supposed to keep them safe? How could he let them suffer for his fuck-up? He couldn't, in either case, as much as he hated to admit it. However, one thing he did know was, if his family didn't know where he was, they were of no use to anyone.  If they couldn't reach out to him, no one could use them to hurt him, or use him to hurt them.  It wasn't a guarantee, of course, but it seemed like the best option at the time. They might receieve some harassment for a while, but sooner or later, it would go away, right? It had to...So, he left. 

Sometimes he catches himself thinking about home, how things used to be, but he's usually pretty quick to cut those thoughts off. It helps no one, changes nothing, and it's safer for everyone if things are the way things are.

No fanfare, no painful goodbyes, no rissking seeing his mother's face while she pleaded for him not to go. - he just boarded a plane under an alias, and came to the US.  Illegally, mind you; he wasn't going to register with the damned government, are you kidding.  And that was that.  No one knew where he went, exactly when he went, nothing. He's hoping his family assumes he died somewhere along the line. Somehow it feels like that would be less painful for them than knowing he just bailed. Or why he did so.

He hasn't been home, hasn't contacted his family.  The only thing he has done as far as the family goes is, have a contact poke around and see if they were still alive, which…depending where you the timeline we're talking, they are.  In Jordi's later years, his parents have passed, but that's…y'know.  Later later years. By my default timeline (around WD2-ish), his parents are alive and well and enjoying their golden years. His sister married one of the doctors at the hospital where she worked - that actually hurt, because while he was happy for her, he'd also always hoped to be there for her when she got married. His brother had gotten married shortly before Jordi left, and with the secret check in, Jordi found out he's an uncle to his brother's two boys. It was one at the time when he'd checked in, with the second on the way. It's been a few years since he'd looked into them, though, and it's better that way. All it did, aside from ease some worried curiosity and confirm his suspicion that leaving was the right choice, was hurt to see everything he'd missed out on.

So, that's the way they're going to stay.

[aen-lliash]

I feel like I'm ready to talk at greater length about my experiences with STO and how I've reached this point of burnout/alienation with it after all these years.

The biggest reason? It's not the same game I became obsessed with in 2014. That's actually normal and to be expected of most MMOs and people (you should check out this video about the phenomenon!), but let me explain what that means for me here. Quick disclaimer, you are allowed to disagree with me on this -- I'm discussing my subjective point of view, not any objective fact.

Putting this under a readmore because it's long - please click "keep reading" below :)

What captured my heart was STO's storytelling and how it was formatted to be super duper friendly to making OCs. I could make an OC that got inserted into the STO (and overall Trek) universe with pretty minimal effort on my part! It had enough callbacks to canon to be satisfying to me as a Trekkie, but it also had enough new stuff that it was exciting and fresh. My first two years in college were spent imagining up my OC's takes on different mission arcs more often than uh.. college. Long-time friends and followers will recall my obsession with the Dyson Sphere and the Iconian War.

But that's when things started to change, right after the Iconian War. The war itself felt like the great culmination of all the past mission arcs, like we built up to the conflict and it exploded into this terrible intergalactic event. Since then, no new missions have felt the same to me.

STO seemed to evolve further into a super segmented Star Trek theme park after that. We already had Voyager Land (the Delta Quadrant) before the war, and it played a relatively satisfying role in the war; however, it became especially clear with the Gamma Quadrant arc that we were getting a new expansion into Deep Space 9 Land after the short burst of original stuff like the Lukari and the Tzenkethi (I know that the Tzenkethi existed in canon before, but STO took them and ran with them).

It has become increasingly clear in recent years that the priority has shifted towards incorporating as many cameos as possible to run the stories, not the other way around. I LOVE Tilly and Mary Wiseman, don't get me wrong, but the way they finagled a way to get Tilly to still be alive in the STO era (having her literal fascist Mirror Universe counterpart travel into the future) felt ingenuine as hell to me. The way I see it, it's less about the story and more about capitalizing on the #SillyForTilly craze to draw new players in. Same goes for all the other canon characters, but Tilly's has felt the most egregious to me personally.

Yes, it IS cool as hell that STO has these actors willing to come in to record cameo voiceovers. It IS cool as hell that we recently got to fight alongside both Tilly and Janeway at the SAME TIME! But it's important to remember that they're not "our" Tilly and Janeway; they're their Mirror counterparts, and one of them is only there as a result of temporal shenanigans. Temporal shenanigans totally happen in canon Trek and are part of the charm, but in the case of STO, they feel excessive to me.

The way I see it, STO is putting the cameos themselves over the characters over the stories. The cameos drive engagement, which drives the ruthless monetization that has also been strangling the life out of the game. It's Star Ship Online and hey omg look over there it's Tilly and Janeway and Wesley omg wow look aaaaaaaah!!!!1!!! I understand that capitalism is gonna capitalism, the game will do what it feels it must do to survive, but it has lost all charm to me.

I came for the sense that I was being included in the universe (via my OCs, because let's face it, OCs are always self-inserts to varying degrees), now I feel like I'm watching an extremely, painfully slow interactive new Trek series that also feels like an advertisement for merch targeted at a super specific audience.

When it comes to the screenshot thing I got myself so entrenched in... I felt like I was an unpaid advertiser for the "new" game, especially when it came to lockbox and promo box ships that people will spend hundreds of dollars to obtain. 99% of the time my art of those ships came from the tribble test server or sniping screenshots of somebody else's ship, all because of the pressure to continually Create Content™. I felt emboldened to continue Creating Content™ when it became "ship art" and not just "rurinn's silly little pictures," and that's when I became Known On The Internet -- a goal of mine for a long time that turned out to be more thorns than rose petals.

We also have to acknowledge the behavior of the community at large when it comes to that monetization and how creators such as myself get caught in the crossfire. The hate I got over this recreation of a cutscene from A Measure of Morality -- not-so-subtly advertising a 300 USD ship bundle -- was unbelievable, and it still wasn't nearly as bad as the utterly soulless behavior that my partner faces to this day for his videos.

I could go on. For days, probably. Subjects such as the extreme monetization + the rampant unmoderated hate in chat that seeps into the adjacent social media communities come to mind. I felt like my soul had been siphoned away for a time because of it all -- the pain of outgrowing something I loved dearly, watching it change into something unrecognizable, and being berated and harassed by other players and community members drowning in their own toxicity and hate.

I am grateful for STO. I met so many friends because of it. It helped me through some unimaginably difficult times in my life. I met my partner through it and even collaborated with him to create some stunning art. I have been hurting over this for a long time, but I think I'm finally at a stage where I can accept what happened, move on, and heal.

[waterfall-ambience]

simon petrikov :(