#value add property definition

[comicaurora]

Hey Red, I'm trying to build a better understanding of mathematics, because to my mind math has always been a collection of arcane sigils that I had to memorize to pass tests in school. I must know how these sigils came to be and why they mean what they mean. Are there any resources you recommend I use in my pursuit of these secrets? Please and Thank You 🙏

It's good you described math as something you "build," because I think that's the best analogy possible.

Mathematics, in its purest form, involves no memorization. Math is the process of taking a very small number of established truths and defined operations that preserve truth, and using those operations on your established truths to expand your space of known truths. As long as you start from a point of truth and only use operations that preserve truth, you will derive truths. If you understand the base principles from which a branch of math is constructed, you can rederive it from first principles. Memorization is easier, but you can rederive it.

For instance, we can start with two things, the number "1" and the operation "+". 1 means "a single thing" and + means "put them together." If those two concepts exist, then we also have 2, 3, 4, and every other positive integer, because we can derive them by using + on as many 1s as we want. If we drop a rock on an empty patch of ground, and then drop a rock on that same patch of ground, that patch of ground now has two rocks on it.

If we include within the definition of "+" that there exists an identity value 0, and every value has an inverse that when added to it produces zero, we also get 0 and all the negative integers, producing the group of integers. Every integer can be expressed using nothing but the number 1, the + operation, and its inverse - if we're feeling spicy.

If we decide to add another truth-preserving operation, "*", with identity value 1 and the same kind of inverse property that "+" has, we rederive every rational number. Every number in this field of rational numbers can be described as a combination of 0s and 1s using only + and * and their inverses; truthful objects combined in truth-preserving operations. We started from the truth and we used it as our only building material to create something equally truthful.

We can memorize a multiplication table, but multiplication is just iterated addition. If we forget, we can just do the addition again.

Algebra is a simple rearrangement of a simple beginning math problem by way of other truth-preserving operations. When you're starting out, you might expect to see something like

3 + 5 = ?

Algebra starts when we replace "?" with a placeholder, "x". This is just a change of terminology. It preserves truth.

3 + 5 = x

This isn't what most algebra problems look like, though. Most basic algebra problems look more like

3x + 7 = 31

But these two formulae are the same, because we can turn one into the other through operations that preserve truth.

3x + 7 = 31 -> subtracting the same value from both sides of the equation is an operation that preserves truth. We subtract 7 from both sides, getting

3x = 24 -> dividing both sides of the equation by the same value is also an operation that preserves truth. We divide both sides by 3, getting

x = 8 -> addition is associative, so we can break 8 up however we want if we do

x = 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = (1 + 1 + 1) + (1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1) = 3 + 5

Solving an algebra problem is the process of breaking down the things that make it complicated using the truth-preserving operations that defeat them. Added values can be subtracted. Multiples can be divided. Exponents can be root'd.

We understand what it means to put a placeholder in a math problem. We realize, by the same token, we can put in more than one placeholder, if we want. This gives us problems that don't have single numerical solutions, but spaces of solutions. Consider

2*x = ?

We do what we did before, replacing that "?" with something that means the same thing. We use a different letter to avoid confusion.

2*x = y

Now we have multivariable algebra. Instead of getting hard numbers for both variables, we have pairs of numbers. If we pick an x, we get a y. If we pick a y, we get an x. The relationship between the values is clearly defined; x will always be y/2. If x is 3, y is 6. If x is -1.8, y is -3.6.

Now for the sake of convenience, we create shorthand - another change of terminology that preserves truth. We come up with a term that describes this relationship between x and y. We decide to call y a "function."

y = f(x) = 2*x

A function is what we're calling one half of an equation; what goes on the other side of the equals sign. It's just a rename, like when we turned ? into x. It preserves truth.

The trick at this stage is that every element of this seeming increasingly complexity is actually an attempt to make the process simpler as we handle more and more things. We don't technically need any numbers other than 0 and 1 if we're just dealing with rational numbers. We could write 378/5 with nothing but 1s and +, -, * and /, but by god we wouldn't want to. We could write [x^3 + 2x + 5] as ?*?*? + ? + ? + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 and it would mean the same thing. The shorthand and symbols get dizzying if you lose track of what they mean, but when you remember what they mean, you understand why you need them.

Any piece of mathematical shorthand basically means "for this thing we're talking about, this set of things is known to be true." We can rederive those things if we need to, but the shorthand is there to help us avoid doing it unnecessarily. We call the integers a group because that means it has an associative operation that is invertible and has an identity element that, when used in the operation, leaves the operated-on value unchanged. We don't want to write that out every time we use + or remember what 0 means, but we can if we have to.

Calculus is where most people think math turns into wizardry, but derivatives and integrals are just another pair of inverse functions like + and - or * and /, and the building block of this branch of math is the derivative. Any formula for a derivative can, in a pinch, be rederived by calculating the difference quotient (f[x+h]-f[x])/h as h approaches 0. If f(x)=x^2, we may memorize that its derivative f'(x)=2x, or we may calculate

[f(x+h) - f(x)]/h =

([x+h]^2 - x^2)/h =

(x^2 + 2xh + h^2 - x^2)/h =

(2xh + h^2)/h = 2x + h

And the limit of this as h->0 is 2x.

Everything in math can be broken down to first principles. Everything. Sometimes it's very hard to figure out what tool you need to break it down to its next stage of simplification, but it was built from first principles and it can be broken down the same way. If it isn't making sense, break it down with truth-preserving methods until it does - even if you have to go all the way back to zeroes and ones.

[magicaldragons]

'in the name of pain and outrage'

an analysis of the ending

I say this with utmost love, but episode 16 was a shitshow.

i walked into this show accepting it at face value – a show that would take itself lightly, with a compelling subplot marinated in humor, and a dose of sweet romance.

this show tried to include very mature, sobering themes with slapstick humor, which is definitely possible if balanced properly, but i feel this show was not able to achieve this the way do bong soon or others could.

to get some of the discrepancies out of the way:

they never told us that the women's senses were connected, geum joo should not have been able to feel namsoon's thirst – that's something they abruptly added to fuel the tension of the situation.

there is absolutely no reason nam soon would react like that to the drug, when you compare it to how every other user was affected by it.

the strength exerted by gil-joongan did not feel like enough to knock her out like that

and with how easy it would've been to leave the situation, it's very obvious that nam soon taking the drug was an ill-planned way to raise the stakes and increase suspense

the homeless couple truly had nothing of value to add to the show or it's message

none of the show's themes or messages were delivered properly towards the end, and it went against everything it preached.

the immediate tone change after ryu si-o's death did not do any justice to the effort put into his characterization

i do not understand how nam soon became a cop, all technicalities considered

why was she throwing humans out a window from the second floor, even if they're criminals??

they REALLY cheapened the whole marriage conversation by bringing money, property, and heirs into it. that was NOT romantic or wholesome. hee-sik deserves better parents, tf.

side note: i'm pretty disappointed with namsoon's character arc, but lee yoo mi worked within the purview of the script to give us honestly wonderful acting, especially in episode 15.

now, to get into the ending, i'll start with this:

what we got, felt like an empty victory. hollow and out of place.

i've always been an advocate for all parts of a show coming together to create an experience – there's usually no single keystone.

but as soon as si-o died, the rest of the episode felt like a blur, with all loose ends being succinctly wrapped up and prepared for season three. byeon woo seok, and his characterization really carried the show as a unit, and added to its cohesiveness. i did not find myself rooting for geum joo and nam soon's successes afterwards

because they had failed the ONE thing most of us had been hoping for them to do:

to save people who were victims of oppression from those with the power of money, and empower them, including to save si-o from his oppressors, and help him take down pavel.

there is no satisfaction in geum joo doing it by herself, because she has no emotional investment in destroying pavel.

losing hwaja and si-o, watching namsoon & heesik become one dimensional all of a sudden, and seeing tertiary unrelated characters having their loose ends tied, is extremely unsatisfactory – for a show that had an incredible cast and so much potential.

at the same time: i loved the portreyal of gil joongan's mission to help the elderly and her enthusiasm for her future, and the addition of binbin + looking into their past from an additional angle also really elevated the emotional context of si-o's character arc.

i loved each character, truly, and to not see the plot and writers give them the detail and care they deserve, is wholly disappointing.

the show took me on a whole journey, emotionally,,,but to know exactly what would make it better, and be aware of its discrepancies makes me grieve the potential it had to truly leave an impact on its viewers, with a solid takeaway message.

[shu-of-the-wind]

Okay so I have been asked to cast an eye over SB197 in the WV legislature, which is a new bill introduced to both add a new section to WV law as well as amend an existing section about child neglect and abuse, to see what potential issues I see.

TLDR: this is not only really dangerous from a standpoint of people being trans publicly, since one of the big editions is making being trans a display of obscene material and punishable by law, particularly within school grounds, but I am also seeing a lot of parental rights additions that make me REALLY SCARED of how trans kids are going to be treated in WV. I’m going to go thru it section by section and break down why each section frightens me, so hopefully this is educational for folks.

My creds: I worked in family law as an attorney for three years, I was affiliated with a public defenders office for that same amount of time working primarily with juvenile offenders, and I am still an attorney even if I haven’t worked in those fields for the last six months. Plus I’m trans. And I love WV and wanted to live there. So.

WEST VIRGINIA'S FUN NEW SHITSHOW HORROR HOUSE TIME.

The new section (formally titled §18-5-29, Obscene matter in public schools prohibited [I will be calling it the Obscenity section]) is about 700 words of absolute garbage. Essentially what it distills down to is the following.

Section A: prohibiting anything they label as “obscene matter” in or within 2500 feet of any public school library, classroom, building, or other facility under the supervision of the state board of education and requiring that any school officials or personnel who become aware of the material remove it from school grounds. “Obscene matter” is currently defined in §61-8A-1 of the WV code, pretty fuckin broadly (unconstitutionally so in my opinion but ~that’s me~). So basically anything an “average person applying contemporary community standards would find taken as a whole appeals to the prurient interest or is pandered to a prurient interest” (basically, anything ~unwholesome~), anything that an “average person applying community standards” would find depicts sexually explicit conduct in a “patently offensive way,” or anything that a reasonable person would find “taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, scientific or political value” which basically means E V E R Y THING.

Section B. This is the one that scares the shit out of me tbqh, cause this is folding in the amendment section I mentioned earlier to another part of the WV code specifically relating to child abuse and neglect. This section mandates that any “school officials or school personnel while engaged in a professional capacity or activity” shall be found to be a “custodian of children” under WV law. This basically makes EVERYONE a mandatory reporter, which like…most professionals already are, but at the same time this is EXPLICITLY MAKING ANYONE WHO WORKS IN THE SCHOOL IN ANY CAPACITY (see: any school officials or school personnel) mandatory reporters regarding “obscene matter.” So if an adult working at the school even SUSPECTS that a child has been exposed to “obscene material “while in any public school facility (unclear from the phrasing if the exposure happened on school property, or if the professional just learns about it there) and they decide not to report it (or they “fail to make a TIMELY report” when there’s no real definition of what timely means) then they can be prosecuted for a misdemeanor and imprisoned.

Section C. The state superintendent is going to establish a procedure to file complaints alleging violations of subsection A. If they find that a violation occurred, they will TELL THE COPS THAT IT HAPPENED.

Section D. No government funds (state or federal) can be used to develop or operate programs “designed to promote or encourage sexual activity, whether homosexual or heterosexual” or “to distribute or aid in distribution of any legally obscene materials” within 2500 feet of a school building or facility. Which, woof. We could unpack everything about that one, but it’ll be most of the review.

Section E. If an adult is found to have committed a felony under the child neglect statute related back to this one (if they’re found to have neglected kids by allowing them to view or possess “obscene material” is my understanding, this bill isn’t written that well) then they will be subject to penalties set forth in a felony, which I’m guessing (on average) is at least a year in jail and a thousand dollar fine, from what I’ve seen of WV felony statutes.

Section F. THIS IS THE OTHER REALLY SCARY ONE TO ME FROM A LEGAL STANDPOINT. “Any student or parent, guardian, or custodian on behalf of a student shall have civil cause of action against a county board, public charter school, state board” if the entity caused or was negligent in allowing a violation of the preceding sections, basically if they let anything slide PARENTS CAN SUE THE SCHOOL which like…if you’re talkin about a trans kid who is not out to their parents, they’re found to have “obscene material” (fanfiction?? Fanfiction could qualify here??? Risque art that isn’t even definitionally pornography?? A book abut transitioning that they’re hiding from their parents???) the school is mandated to not only out this kid to their parents, but the parents can then sue the school if the school DOESN’T OUT THE CHILD. Just spinning a hypothetical here but I hate this.

The rest of the bill is adding in definitions to Article 8A of the WV code, which are as follows. Anything italicized is the new language that has been proposed to be added by the bill; anything NOT italicized was already in the law:

(g) "Graphic," when used with respect to a depiction of sexually explicit conduct, means that a viewer can observe any part of the genitals or pubic area of any depicted person or animal during any part of the time that the sexually explicit conduct is being depicted.

(h) "Identifiable minor" means a person: (i) who was a minor at the time the visual depiction was created, adapted, or modified; or (ii) whose image as a minor was used in creating, adapting, or modifying the visual depiction; and (iii) who is recognizable as an actual person by the person’s face, likeness, or other distinguishing characteristic, such as a unique birthmark or other recognizable feature;  and shall not be construed to require proof of the actual identity of the identifiable minor.

(i) "Indistinguishable" used with respect to a depiction, means virtually indistinguishable, in that the depiction is such that an ordinary person viewing the depiction would conclude that the depiction is of an actual minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

(i)(l) "Matter" means any visual, audio, or physical item, article, production transmission, publication, display, exposure, exhibition, or live performance, or reproduction thereof, including any two- or three- dimensional visual or written material, stereopticon, moving picture, slide, film, picture, drawing, not exceeding $500 video, graphic, graphic novel, or computer generated or reproduced image; or any book, not exceeding $500 magazine, newspaper or other visual or written material; or any motion picture or other pictorial representation; or any statue or other figure; or any recording, transcription, or mechanical, chemical, or electrical reproduction; or any other articles, video laser disc, computer hardware and software, or computer generated images or message recording, transcription, or object, or any public or commercial live exhibition performed for consideration or before an audience of one or more.

(j)(m) "Minor" means a an person under eighteen years of age or a person representing himself or herself to be a minor. Any prosecution under this article relating to a victim who is representing himself or herself to be a minor shall be limited to investigations being conducted or overseen by law enforcement.

And the big doozy here is this one:

(k)(n) "Obscene matter" means matter that:

(1) An average person, applying contemporary adult community standards, would find, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest, is intended to appeal to the prurient interest, or is pandered to a prurient interest;

(2) An average person, applying community standards, would find depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexually explicit conduct; and

(3) A reasonable person would find, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

(4) For the purposes of any prohibition, protection, or requirement under any and all articles and sections of the Code of West Virginia protecting children from exposure to indecent displays of a sexually explicit nature, such prohibited displays shall include, but not be limited to, any transvestite and/or transgender exposure, performances or display to any minor.

(l)(o) "Parent" includes a biological or adoptive parent, legal guardian, or legal custodian. (underlining this one for the legal side note that remember that custodian language from before??? that's where this kicks in)

(m)(p) "Person" means any adult, partnership, firm, association, corporation, or other legal entity.

(n)(q) "Sexually explicit conduct" means a ultimate definitive sexual act, normal or perverted, between persons of the same or opposite sex, actual or simulated, including genital-genital, oral-genital, anal-genital, or oral-anal sexual intercourse, sodomy, oral copulation of any kind, sexual bestiality, sexual sadism and masochism, masturbation, excretory functions and lewd exhibition of the anus, genitals or pubic area of any person, or lascivious simulated sexual intercourse where the genitals, breast, or pubic area of any person is exhibited.

okay. well.

I mean. This is all just gonna be an absolute garbage hellscape if this gets passed. THE IMPORTANT THING IS IT HAS NOT BEEN PASSED. If you live in WV, you can call folks and say that you are AGAINST the passage of SB197. Call your state or county representatives! They are the people who vote on this! If your representative is on the Judiciary Committee, so much the better, that’s where the bill is being evaluated right now!!! Here is the list of delegates on the committee! Call them!! Make a point to be upset!!! Explain why you don’t want this bill to pass!!! Keep an eye on the Committee website for the dates that the public hearings will be held on this bill, because there likely will be a public hearing people can speak at!! You CAN actually do something, it’s not the end of the world.

Even if you do not live in WV and you live NEAR WV, then 100% reach out to folks you know who live there and give them a safe space to land if they need to get out of the state!!! There are things you can do. Just….a heads up to everyone that this is on the table and it’s something they’re going to be discussing.

[bimboficationblues]

as that anon message you got shows, the term "liberal" gets hurled around a lot as an insult on the left. what would you say are the necessary and sufficient conditions to be a liberal? i think having a straight answer for this would help remedy this sort of behavior

not sure what anon you're referring to. regrettably I don't think you're going to get people to stop using terms in loose or disagreeable ways no matter what, it just is the nature of political terminology (definitionally up for contestation) and language in general. part of the difficulty here is that the same term gets used to describe a political system, an ideology or hegemonic worldview, and a form of political identification

but as far as necessary/sufficient conditions go I like Charles Mills' formulation:

an axiology: committed to individual freedom to pursue the Good, governance by 'consent', the guarantee of specific political and economic rights (non-exhaustive list)

a social ontology: equal moral persons who are atomized or individualized and whose individuality, particularly their self-interested pursuit of their own Good, makes a functional society

a theory of history: endless progress, the accumulation of knowledge and the application of it to advancing human well-being (though this can be more or less Panglossian)

and would add a couple of my own:

a political methodology that gives priority to reform and positive law

an economic worldview that emphasizes the efficiency of money and markets and affirms private property as a central right (often *the* central right)

my own sort of working definition of liberalism writ large is that it's a kind of aristocratic legalism which has a key value of "security" (this is inspired by the work of Geoff Mann and Mark Neocleous), an investment in predictable, consistent outcomes that also expresses itself as a fundamental anxiety about the tenuousness of these institutions and of "civilization" as a whole (an interesting point of overlap between Keynes and Hayek). that's what I kind of see as the throughline between the combination of money, markets, law, and reform.

I would say that the elements listed above which automatically send up the yellow flag, for me, are the political methodology and the theory of history - either a sort of blinkered optimism/false realism about the ability to endlessly patch up our existing institutions or someone who has bought into a kind of linear historical narrative of constant improvement

even though I am not a market socialist and think that is probably excessively "liberal" for my own tastes, I think it is plausible to hold that position without being a liberal, if that makes any sense (it may not). inversely, the axiology of freedom, universalism, &c., often get cited as exclusive to liberalism, but I really don't think they are and remain unpersuaded by the various factions (commie, lib, postcolonialist, and so on) that have argued otherwise. not that I think ideas of freedom, equality, etc. are above conceptual critique per se, but I think I wouldn't assume somebody is a lib because they truck in that language.

[missielynne]

Honestly, I think Isaac handled things poorly but I’m not willing to give Nigel a free pass either. He is clearly the more experienced partner and has repeatedly pushed Isaac to move faster than he was comfortable with. In show, they went from first date to wedding day in less than two years, and arguably, Isaac only proposed in the first place because Nigel was guilt tripping him over not wanting to move in together. It is a shame that things didn’t work out for the two of them, but I don’t think they were good for each other.

You know, that is a very good point. From the get go, there's been a really visible difference in how both Nigel and Isaac have approached the relationship: Nigel was obviously very comfortable with his sexuality in a way that Isaac has been growing into and I think that he found it sort of...galling that Isaac wasn't at the same place as him regarding that and he was always a little impatient to get them to the same place without really listening to where Isaac was.

Nigel was definitely a pusher. I mean it's not wrong for him to want a relationship with someone who is as comfortable being gay as he is. But like...let's look at the Christmas ep for instance: Isaac does the hand on Nigel's face which is code for "Don't do this, I'm not ready" and instead of, you know, talking about it, Nigel stomps off to the shed and sleeps with Jenkins. That left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth from the time that it happened, to be honest. It would be one thing if he'd just, you know, maybe gone off to another part of the property for the night and come back when they both had clearer heads, but the fact that the first thing Nigel does when he and Isaac are estranged for even the shortest bit of time was to actually go sleep with Jenkins...that kind of tells what kind of value Isaac had.

And Jenkins KNEW that, you know? He was always there in the back being the looming problem covered up but not gotten rid of.

And even his remark about the DJ: "It's my wedding and my fiance's rich!" I know it was played off as funny but like, add that to what was already done about the prenup and I honestly think they'd be headed for trouble.

It feels like they had two different sets of needs: Isaac's were more emotional as he works on coming to terms with his sexuality and exploring what that means for him, and Nigel was more about like, the physical and STUFF and status, which is exactly the opposite, I think of what Isaac would need in the long run to be happy, and seeing him finally making a decision in the relationship that would be better for him than for Nigel, that wasn't just about pleasing Nigel cause he was like, afraid of being alone or losing guy he THOUGHT was good for him...that was good, even if the timing could have been better.

[constantlymisspelled]

Feemor

For those people on my fic who literally screamed when they saw him in the character notes, here is all you need to know about him.

[Above image is of an ambiguously blonde masculine appearing Jedi by the name Feemor, in brown and beige robes. There is a hand upon his shoulder - Qui Gon's - and he is his Master's first apprentice.]

So this is Feemor, right? As he is in the Comics.

But we don't really get much about Feemor, or what he's like, so outside of the most loose definition of what he sort of, kind of, looks like, I was allowed to run absolutely buck wild.

Possibly not a good thing.

But when I stood above my cauldron, creating the man that would be Feemor, Qui Gon Jinn's repudiated apprentice, I brought forth some essential ingredients.

1. A little bit of Steve the Babysitter

Anyone who's anyone knows Steve Harrington by now. And the distinct lack of Steve Harrington Coded Characters just upsets me. Plus, pretty much every fix-it fic in the business states that he'd find Qui Gon's mental state not a good enough reason to traumatize Baby-Wan. Alas, the reality that could have- Oh wait, I'm a fic writer!!!

Reality is what I wish it.

2. A teensy bit of Tiny Timmers

If you ever want comedic value for a Jedi Knight - one that is tired and exhausted and tortured by their own intelligence - than the Tim Drake Archetype is for you! The frequently forgotten member of the Bat Lineage, he is a perfect fit of character traits for Feemor the grudgingly helpful, but done with it all Knight that downs Caf fast enough on the regular to make Commander Fox seem perfectly adjusted.

3. Some, Uh, Hey there Demons, it's me, ya boy.

Come on, is that not the funniest idea for a Jedi you've ever heard? Looks at a haunted Sith Holocron and says; "Huh, must be a breeze." A healthy dose of paranoid sceptic who knows more about the paranormal than he ever wanted to know? Perfection.

(Oh, and he absolutely did take that Comedy Class with Nej. It... the less spoken about watching Master Windu's theatre productions the better...)

And so, I turned the pot, right, had a good taste, but something was missing. Low and behold, upon the disgraceful vaults of TikTok, there is a user called DannyPhantom.exe, whose vibes are so cryptid as to make all these concepts work as one.

And so there he is, at the very end, Feemor as he is in Lost Property Box - A headache to the Librarians, The stick in the mud of his Creche-mates, and quite possibly the only Lineage Member Komari Vosa doesn't want to punt off the Hangar walls.

[I'll add some pictures of him sometime, but I think its imperative you know who I based this particular characterisation off of. So that you can all giggle uncontrollably along beside me as I write it.]

[Additionally, I am giving him the most bogan haircut. If you're gonna be blond, may as well go full hog undercut mullet, you coward. Mando's (for some reason) love that shit. The worse the haircut, the better.]

[river-of-wine]

Totally agree with your posts. I like Alcina, but people make her out to be this wonderful person who Ethan cruelly murdered when…she’s killing / torturing / eating / maiming her maids. Whether she’s a good mom or not, her “daughters” are girls she presumably kidnapped, experimented on, killed and then kept prisoner once they mutated ( even if they’re weak to the cold and it’s to protect them.) They might have imprinted on her but they have no identity outside of Alcina ( she literally branded them with tattoos! ) and I can’t imagine she’s ever told them who they were before, as they seem to have no memory of it. Whether she genuinely loves them or not is up for debate but I think she definitely sees them as property. She is basically Miranda 2.0 and seems to want to imitate Miranda, but only one of them gets lots of hate. I think she’s fascinating and I like her, but fandom has absolutely declawed her.

Donna too, just because she’s mentally ill ( which is never specified in Miranda’s notes which could be anything, and god knows what Miranda considers mentally ill ) gets so infantilized as if she isn’t a grown woman who knows what she’s doing. The gardener’s death could be accidental, sure, but she knew what she was doing and a lot of the imagery, especially all the pier piper paintings in her house, suggests she’s been killing children ( purposely or not ) - there’s no children in the village and no one ever mentions any outside of Eva or Rose!

Villains are wonderful and interesting, and each lord is fascinating but it’s so weird to me people say they like these characters and then seem to change or ignore anything about them in canon.

I agree! I love Alcina as well, I think she’s an excellent first boss to illustrate the departure from RE7 and it’s realism, because she’s as over the top as it gets with the four lords. She’s 9”6, has daughters made of flies, lives in a huge castle and turns into a dragon when she gets stabbed by a poisoned knife. She’s fun, and part of what adds to her over the top nature as a villain is the sheer amount of violence and destruction that comes along with her.

I would say that technically it was Mother Miranda who kidnapped the girls, or at least stole their corpses, since Alcina recounts Mother Miranda bringing her the girls. Regardless of this, Alcina was still complicit in this experimentation and just kept the results of it. To me, Alcina’s value of the daughters has always seemed to be placed on the fact that Mother Miranda gave them to her. She does not treat the girls like children she cares about, she just orders them to do her dirty work for her regardless of the danger it presents for them, while Alcina - who is almost endlessly durable and much more capable of killing Ethan - just roams around the castle. You are absolutely right in saying that Alcina is close to being a second Mother Miranda. She is the only person who’s opinion Alcina really seems to value, and in terms of their actions and the amount of people they have each killed or in some other way harmed, Alcina comes the closest.

I hadn’t actually considered the imagery in Donna’s house, but that’s a very good point! The one I always remember is the painting of a pregnant woman that falls when you pass it, which is a nice addition to the theme of the house with its warped imagery and recounting of Mia’s pregnancy and Rose, so environmental design in House Beneviento is very intentional especially in that regard. Donna’s method is so interesting, and the potential of her victims being children - which would explain why there are no children in the village and why there are so many dolls hanging around her property, perhaps to lure them in - is something I really would like to see more people discuss rather than absolving her of all wrongdoing because of this supposed incapability she has to understand her very calculated actions and what she shows Ethan. I love both of these evil women! Let them be evil! They’re more interesting that way!

[some-teeth-in-a-trench-coat]

What are some of your current blender projects? Or just things you like abt the program and hobby?

Hi sorry I meant to answer this several days ago but I kept forgetting until right before bedtime and I knew this would not be short... Thank you for the ask!

Ok so I don't know what your definition of "current projects" is but there's nothing I'm actively working on right now, I'm just playing Minecraft all day, but I have many wips in various degrees of being abandoned, most recent being an alternative to https://minetrim.com/ that would run in Blender and be controlled by a geometry nodes modifier. I do hope I get around to finishing it, since the online tool as it currently exists is lacking in many aspects and can be a little buggy. It probably wouldn't be all that useful for most players since you'd need to install Blender and understand a few basics of how to use it, but it would at least help me plan my armor trims (if you don't know, Minecraft recently added a system for cosmetic customization of the player's armor combining colors and patterns, and the website and my tool are meant to simulate user-selected combinations to see what it'd look like).

And that is one of my favorite things to do in Blender, create little tools with geometry nodes, which is basically a visual simplistic programming language interacting with many of the things Blender does. I can create a customizable banana with randomized shapes and spot locations with a slider for age, length, curviness, thickness, you name it, and produce a photorealistic banana (this is one abandoned project), or I could make a regular polyhedron generator taking only a Schläfli symbol as input (another abandoned project, here's a great video that inspired me to try, I highly recommend it if you have no idea what I just said), or, as mentioned, an armor trim simulator.

But Blender can do so much and I can't talk about it without mentioning that it is Completely Free And Open Source and it's good for so much more than just 3D modeling. You can of course add materials to the model, defining exactly how the surface interacts with light, defaulting to what is physically possible but not limiting to this, allowing you to create every possible and a wide range of impossible materials. And then of course you can render that, with several rendering engines to choose from depending on the look you want and the computing power and time you're willing to invest, but I usually use the ray tracing engine (simulating rays of light for most realistic result, which you shouldn't do in video games much because games have to render in real time please don't conflate my use with the crimes of AAA games). But why stop at a still image? You can animate the model, and the material if you want, and you can animate basically any property, and of course to make animation more interesting you can rig it to a skeleton (usually how characters are animated) (includes inverse and forward kinematics of course) or do physics simulation including fluid/smoke/fire simulation, soft and rigid body simulation, and cloth simulation. They've made some changes to simulation and hair since I last looked at those aspects so I'm not totally in the loop on the details but it's good and only getting better. Ok cool you've got your little animation and you can render it to a little video, neat, but it's just in a void? Do you have to model the whole background too? Well, you can, or (I'm gonna oversimplify and gloss over a lot of differences and unique challenges of each method here) you could use an HDRI (high dynamic range image, meaning it contains A Lot more information about lighting from a much wider range of values than a normal image... you know how you point your phone camera at a light source and the image goes dark? That's because your phone camera has a lower dynamic range than human eyes, it can only see a small range of light or dark values at a time), or, hey, if you do have a video camera, you can try something really fun... camera tracking. If you film a video of real life, with the camera moving around, you can plug that video into Blender and with some help it can figure out exactly how the camera is moving through space! This means, you can make the virtual camera inside Blender move the exact same way around the animation you made, and you can then render that video and lay it over the footage you took and BAM your 3D object is now in that scene! It might still look off, of course, if it doesn't cast a shadow on the ground or if it's reflective and clearly not reflecting its surroundings, but there are solutions to all these issues and if you're like me it'll turn into a fun little puzzle.

And that's just. Just scratching the surface ok? I just. Love Blender. I love that it's free and open source. If you have a computer and time you can just. Make a movie with amazing special effects and yes yes we love practical effects but trust me digital effects are not evil they're just overused because it's not unionized so it's cheaper labor but you can't tell me it isn't cool that you could make a photorealistic video of a dragon landing on your own rooftop without paying for software or putting up with ads or risking malware with piracy it's legal it's free it's fun. I will not tell you it's not time consuming but I will tell you it's cool and free*

*I recognize not everyone has free access to a video camera, internet, a computer, and enough electricity to run it

Anyway that's my summary of why I love Blender. "That's not a summary, Maws." Trust me. This is the short version.

[growcapitalgroup]

[andmaybegayer]

I think most americans look at a house as a primary store of wealth because there isn't really anything else available to store wealth in.

If you keep your money in a bank, you are losing single digit percentages of value every year (or double digit last year depending on how you do the math). Stock market investments are dubious on the best of days if you don't already possess the vast quantities of wealth needed to mitigate risk effectively, and most americans alive today have lived through multiple major recessions now, they know exactly how bad those can get. Motor vehicles don't typically last longer than a decade and a half even with the best maintenance possible, and other big ticket items that hold onto value well like businesses or resource rich property are inaccessible to someone who isn't interested in dedicating themselves to maintaining them.

By contrast, a house is something you benefit from very directly by owning, will maintain by virtue of needing to live in it, and are offered a variety of legal protections and insurance options to mitigate much of the risk of ownership. It may not make for an ideal society, but it does make sense from the perspective of someone who would like to try and actually accumulate wealth during their lifetime.

I do get the appeal of homeownership from a flexibility and personal benefit thing, not having to wait for some asshole to tell you you can't hang pictures is great, but I think for every person who values control over their home, there's someone else who just wants a place to live for the next two years.

The faulty instinct is that the house is the valuable part, as noted by that article. Buying a house as a store of value only works if the land it's on goes up in value. Buying land in bumfuck nowhere because you want to buy a house isn't a good idea, and buying land in a valuable area is probably beyond most people who are worried about where to direct their very limited funds.

I'm not as convinced as you about the idea that a modern diversified index fund is worse than landownership (especially for the non-ultra-wealthy) for your median American living in suburbs outside of high-demand city centers. I'm also not sure land is much less resilient to financial crashes, especially if you're still paying off your mortgage on pre-crash pricing.

Any idiot can invest in your basic Vanguard mutual fund without having to save up $25+k on a downpayment, versus what, like $2000 minimum initial investment for Vanguard? I don't know what S&P500 minimums are like. And they strongly tend to beat inflation year on year without the ongoing costs of home maintenance, bubble risk, and risk of just getting a crap location that doesn't improve.

That's to say nothing of significant transaction fees, land and property taxes, and overhead if you ever need to move homes. It's also much easier to continuously siphon off a little money to put into a mutual fund than it is to add money to a house.

Of course, stock prices crash, but that tends to coincide with housing price crashes, and it's harder to weather out a housing price crash with a huge mortgage to pay off than it is to weather leaving your investments to recover, especially if you're dealing with them in the long view. There's definitely certain situations where a house is a sensible investment but I think that's rarely the best reason to buy a house.

[brotherhoodoftheblade]

I'm reading The Myth of Normal by Gabor Matè, M.D. right now and this passage that brought Percy to mind leapt out at me:

"In many cases specific traits can be traced to particular kinds of wounding. For example if we don't receive the agenda-free, unconditional attention we all require, one way to guard against that deprivation is to become concerned with physical attractiveness, or other attention-getting attributes or accomplishments. A child who does not experience himself as consistently and unconditionally lovable may well grow up to become preternaturally likable or charming, as with many a politician or media personality. Someone who is not valued for who she is early in life may develop an outsize appetite for status or wealth. If we are not made to feel important for just who we are we may seek significance by becoming compulsive helpers..."

Unsurprisingly, given Percy's tumultuous upbringing, we can recognize many of his superficial personality traits in this excerpt.

DG has pointed out that, of course, the characters of OL don't have the same understanding of psychology as the average 21st century reader. But why then is there still so much dislike and misunderstanding in the OL fandom regarding Percy Wainwright??

The inherent biases of men like Lord John Grey, Hal Grey and Jamie Fraser are understandable (if somewhat contemptible) given the cultural mores of their era (mores I might add are often the very definition of toxic masculinity), but what of the incongruous bias of the 21st century audience reading these books? Are they so unable to see beyond the confines of the other characters bigoted POVs to recognize what's really happening, and how cruelly maligned Percy is by both the narrative and the society he lives in??

Percy isn't a saint, he's imperfect and deeply troubled, as are many other characters, and yet the narrative doesn't go out of its way to repeatedly paint them in such a contemptible light. (The gender bias and homophobia here speaks volumes.) He's a kindhearted and loving man who's inherently vulnerable in a way most of the other male characters aren't, has been so all his life, and has long been very much alone in the world.

And unlike men like John, Hal, and Jamie he hasn't had wealth and position handed to him from birth --- he had to find a way to achieve those things for himself. Even Jamie was helped at every turn by family or friends. Even Fraser's Ridge was property handed to him by the British government for colonization -- yes, Jamie Fraser and the rest of his family and friends are colonizers. Yet somehow it's okay for all of them to be selfish and take what they want even though they're professed to know what they're doing is wrong. But they just don't care. Not enough to actually DO something about it, or at the very least stop compounding it by being party to it. Where are all the allegations of dishonourable conduct and unconscionable behaviour that ought to be laid at their feet? And the Grey family is no better, despite all the airs they give themselves to the contrary.

I mean, honestly, people, think for yourselves!! Whatever happened to media literacy??

Percy is no more guilty than any of them, and in many respects he's far less so. The only thing he's really looking for, that he truly needs, is unconditional love and understanding -- too bad for him it's the one thing both the characters of OL and its fandom are incapable of giving him. Oh, and his creator, too, let's not forget about her. 💀

[madladmorty]

Hey, I’m so sorry I know you don’t know me and I’m not following you, I don’t mean to pry or invade your privacy I’d just love to share something with you more like I need you, I’m Ameera 23 years old, and I’m calling out to the community 🏳️���⚧️🏳️‍🌈 to please support us so me and my girlfriend can come out, we have dreams about going for pride rallies,clubs, to be able to kiss in a park express love with no restrictions or fear of being caught, we are both from a typical religious Muslim family, we are know as best friends by our families and friends, we have made this decision to come out to everyone so many times but couldn’t because of how homophobic our parents are due to religious values and ethics. Any one from a typical religious Muslim family can attest to how important it is to follow the rules and moral that are in the holy Quran, So we have come to a conclusion to be ready and be prepared for the worst, Cause the price we may have to pay is to lose our families and maybe friends and of course their support, so we have decided to get an apartment and move in together and start a new life where we can freely be who we really are, and here is where we need your support, though we both work and have some money saved up, but we still need help, getting and setting up an apartment is a lot so we will definitely need all the love and support we can get(donation link pinned on page), Thank you for your donations so far,but we are still 37% to the goal so please add your own bit,I know everyone have one or two things we go through, and this is not me imposing on any one to help, but if you can with how ever little, it will be so much appreciated, and if you can’t, kindly reach out to encourage us cause we also need that as much,This is the biggest and hardest decision we have ever had to make and please share to whoever you feel can help. We shall draw strength from the pride to pull through this, I’M NOT A SCAM feel free to go through my page or do whatever to confirm and my DM is open if you have questions or requests to clear your doubts, I believe pride is for all

Hello Ameera!

I'm so sorry but my broke ass can't donate, I'm just a little bi disaster trans boy and art student. However, you ever need a cheerleader or an emotional demon I'm right here. I hope all goes well for you and your girlfriend, I absolutely feel you guys. I'm looking into trying to save up over time with my friends to get a property in rural-ish Wales where we can all be queer in peace. my family is forcing me into the closet against my will because I'm supposedly "too feminine to really be trans" which is crushing me every day a little bit more. unsupportive families are truly a tough thing to deal with. they brush it off as nothing because they never saw it while I'm here struggling to get out of bed because of dysphoria. I want to help in any way I can. my comments sections and ask box are always open to you, don't hesitate to message if you need a boost.

[albireogames]

Ren’Py stuff part 2: phone tutorial

In the current version of Perihelion, we had a “phone” that functioned as a status screen for our fte system. Since the fte system went through an overhaul and the status screen is no longer needed, I decided to try and make a full-on text messaging screen for character dialogue. It turned out pretty well, although there’s definitely some room for better consistency and functionality. Here’s a breakdown of how I coded it, with a link to the full implementation at the end of the post.

(This guide assumes basic understanding of Renpy screens and python.)

Basic structure

The easiest way to do this is to hijack the NVL dialogue screen and make a phone-shaped variation of it. We can reuse NVL’s built-in features (such as continuing to show past dialogue to the player) to make a messaging screen that’s easy and intuitive to use.

As of version 8.0.3, the default NVL code that comes in screens.rpy has two components: nvl and nvl_dialogue. The nvl screen takes in a list of dialogue and a list of menu items (if given), and uses nvl_dialogue to display the dialogue text itself. We’ll be using the same structure for the phone screen, with an encapsulating screen that takes in the same parameters and uses a second screen to display the dialogue. (The exact format of the default NVL screen code may change with new versions of Renpy, but the basic idea is still the same.)

To start, the inside screen is made by copying the nvl_dialogue screen and trimming it down to only include the dialogue text:

(“id d.what_id” on line 58 is the only required id property—the game will actually crash without it. This presents an interesting problem with styling that will be covered in a later section.)

Likewise, the containing screen is based on the nvl screen:

Instead of just using a regular vbox (or vpgrid), we add a viewport to allow the player to scroll up to view previous texts. Set the “mousewheel” property to True and scrollbars to “vertical” to allow scrolling (unfortunately, you can’t set “draggable” or “arrowkeys” to True without preventing the player from being able to click inside the viewport itself to advance the text). Finally, set yinitial to 1.0 (not 1, because that indicates a 1 pixel offset instead of 100%) to keep the viewport at the bottom where the most recent messages will appear.

If you aren’t planning to use regular NVL anywhere else in your game, you can probably just replace the contents of the nvl and nvl_dialogue definitions entirely instead of making new ones (I won’t cover this option in depth in this post). Otherwise, you’ll need to add a few lines to the top of your nvl screen that tells it whether to use your new phone_display screen:

Because this depends on reading the state of a variable, a dict is (probably) the easiest way to do this since it’s automatically a global variable when declared in Renpy. For convenience, I put it in a dict named phone_display_header that also keeps track of other display elements I’ll add later:

(Using a simple “default phone_mode = False” and then toggling with “$ phone_mode = True” in your game script will only change the value of the variable in the local scope of your label, so the nvl screen will never read your variable as True. You could probably get around this with environment variables or something instead, but that’s a pain.)

Just set the dict value to True (and set the value for the visual elements you want) before a line of NVL dialogue, and it should use the phone_display screen instead. I put it all in a function for ease of use:

In short, to enable the phone mode, this function clears the NVL dialogue screen, sets the global phone toggle, disables rollback, and then shows the NVL window to bring up the phone. To disable it, it does the opposite in reverse.

This is also where I set the values for displayables that can change depending on the story scenario, like the phone clock, a user icon, and the name that displays at the top of the message screen by taking them as parameters and updating the global dict (lines 6~9). The phone_display screen will be able to read this dict and place these elements accordingly. You can add, change, or remove these as you need, since they’re just for visual customization and making the phone look more phone-y and have no impact on the functionality. (The dr parameter is a “dragon” object that keeps track of each character’s icon, name, story flags, etc)

If your game contains rollback, you might want to disable it while the phone interface is active, since it a) doesn’t make sense for texts to unsend themselves and b) the player can see all previous texts anyway so there’s not really a point. Blocking rollback after the phone screen is hidden is also optional. I’d recommend having a debug toggle that allows it to stay enabled though.

Lastly, you DO need “window show” (line 14) specifically. “window show” not only shows the nvl window but keeps it from being hidden during certain transitions such as when the game brings up dialogue menus. “nvl show” is technically redundant and not necessary but I’m keeping it in just in case. “$ nvl_hide(Pause(0))” (line 18) is kind of weird and will be explained later.

At this point your phone display should theoretically run without crashing, although it probably looks nothing like a phone yet…

Styling

I won’t go over all of the styles in detail, since most of it is pretty mundane and just setting stuff like xpos/ypos and background images, but there are definitely some weirdly difficult parts.

After adding style properties, the new phone_messages screen looks like this:

The if/else branch (lines 57~61) changes the spacing between messages depending on whether it is attributed to the same sender as the previous message—for instance, two consecutive messages sent by the player character will only have a 5px separation while a message from the player character followed by a message from Lark will have a 14px separation between them.

For the text message window style, if you want the message bubbles to look different depending on who is sending the message (you probably do), you can use the “who” attribute of the current dialogue object as a prefix to determine which style to apply to the window (line 65). The d.who is the string you passed as the “name” arg for the Character objects we defined above, so make sure it’ll make the name of your style. (It took me forever to realize that the name of a style to apply doesn’t have to just be a string literal, it can be an expression as long as it evaluates to a string lol…) As a side note, I like to add a check for the value of d.who for convenience during development—if you reload/autoreload while on the phone screen, d.who will initialize to None which can’t be concatenated with a string, so the game crashes. To handle this I just set the global phone toggle to False so that it loads in the dialogue on the regular NVL screen instead of crashing, and then I rollback to when the toggle gets set to True again to bring the phone back up. If you’ve replaced the NVL screen with your phone code, uhhhhhhhh I guess you could set the style to a default value or something.

You may have noticed the text itself (line 69... nice) doesn’t have any style properties applied to it. This is because the required id property overrides any style properties you put on the displayable, so…

We have to define Character objects to specify which style we want through the what_style argument (more info here). Because of the id property on the dialogue text, the phone_messages screen will (more or less) look at the “speaking” character associated with the current dialogue object and apply that character’s what_style to the text. As always, when you modify an object while your game is running, remember to close your game completely and relaunch it, as the changes won’t be detected by autoreload.

The callback is optional—it’s just a function to play a sound every time a message is “sent” or “received” (when the player clicks to advance).

 The phone_display screen is relatively simple—here’s where I added the clock, icon, and name displayables, and added a frame around the menu choices (if they exist).

For the frame, we decided we wanted the background color to match the character’s text bubbles for some visual cohesion, so I used the same method as the text message window styles to determine which style to apply (lines 127 and 172).

For the menu buttons, I like to add a hover background image and maybe hover and activate sounds to make it feel responsive (line 176). As always, putting your background images into Frames will save you some grief.

At this point, you can run the screen code by calling the nvl_phone function to enable the phone mode and then using the newly defined NVL characters as you would for normal NVL dialogue:

Your phone should now look like a phone! However, there’s still more we can add.

Animations

We can use some simple ATL to add small animations and make the interface really pop. I have two transforms to show and hide the phone screen, and two to show and… continue to show the message bubbles.

The animations themselves are very simple—the first two transforms slide the phone on and off the screen for a clean, diegetic-ish transition to and from the usual ADV mode. The third one places the message on the left or right side of the phone screen depending on who sent it and does a quick fade-in for it to appear smoothly, while the fourth keeps the message at the appropriate location on the screen without doing a fade-in.

With the transforms applied, the phone_messages screen looks like this:

The “at” property can be put inside an if/else (lines 64~67) block to determine which transform to use. If the message is the most recent one in the list of NVL dialogue objects, as indicated by d.current, the message_appear transform that does the fade-in is applied. If not, the message is shown using the message_stay transform without a fade-in, otherwise the animation would replay on every message with each new line of dialogue that appears.

(It might be possible to move the check into a choice block within the transform and pass d.current as an arg, but I had trouble getting the choice blocks to function the way I wanted when combined with the choice blocks that determine whether to place the message on the left or right, so it’s easier to have it in two separately defined transforms.)

Additionally, the function signature has been changed to include “items”, the list of menu choices if provided to the NVL screen, and added to the check for the transform (line 64). This is because (when you don’t put a menu caption, at least) the line of dialogue before the menu will have its fade-in animation replay because its d.current is still True, so we have to check if a menu is being displayed when determining which transform to apply.

Adding the transforms to the phone_display screen is pretty similar:

The check this time is for the length of the list of dialogue objects (lines 108~109). If the length is 1, that means that the current message is the first one and will bring up the phone screen, so it should apply the phone_slide transform that gives it the slide-in animation. Otherwise, it’ll use the phone_stay transform that just keeps it on the screen without any animations, and slides it off the screen when returning to ADV mode. (Combining the two transforms into one won’t work—it’ll run the “on show” block every time and the phone will slide onscreen repeatedly, I’m assuming because the NVL screen re-shows itself every time a new line of dialogue appears on screen.)

I also added the message fade-in to the frame holding the menu choices to make it look nicer (line 129).

Now that we have animations, I can explain a certain line in my nvl_phone function that I mentioned earlier:

For some reason, “window hide” and “nvl hide” will hide the screen without running the ATL in the “on hide” block in the phone_stay transform, so the phone will just blip out of existence jarringly. However, the python equivalent, nvl_hide(), does not have the same problem and I don’t know why!!! It needs one argument, the transition to use to hide the window, and since we already have an animation defined in phone_stay, we can just pass Pause(0) so that it doesn’t do any additional transitions, and the “on hide” animation will play so that the phone will slide off the screen nicely. (Unfortunately, passing easeoutbottom as the transition doesn’t work, even though transitions such as dissolve and fade work fine…)

Another side note: if you have a function that filters your dialogue text and adds pauses after punctuation like periods and ellipses, you probably don’t want that to apply to your text messages, since the screen will re-display the message with its fade-in animation after every pause. To get around this, you can add a special character to the beginning of every text message and then catch them in your text filtering function:

You can also send images with the {image} text tag! You’ll have to make sure the image fits within the maximum size you set for the message window, otherwise it’ll clip past the edges. An alternative is to define a separate NVL character for sending images to allow them to take up the width of the phone “screen” and not have the colored text bubble as the background, but I’ll leave that as an exercise for the reader.

And that’s it! Your phone should look like the gif at the beginning.

Room for improvement

While this phone screen is totally functional and works for my purposes, there are a few small things I’d like to fix or add at some point.

It’s not super noticeable so I’ve decided to leave it for now, but when the phone slides off the screen, the last message has its message_appear animation play again because it’s still the “current” message. Not sure how to approach this one besides maybe untangling the weird spaghetti of how the NVL screen gets shown and hidden lol.

The other thing that would be nice to have is a way to preload messages before showing the screen or be able to keep previous messages without having to clear the screen between NVL phone segments (the nvl clear is required in order for the phone_display to use the phone_slide animation). This would be really useful for when one character sends a text and the other doesn’t respond until later, since having the previous messages already on the screen when the phone appears would keep the context of the conversation.

Links

Thanks for checking this out! You can find the full screen code here.

I referenced this phone screen implementation a few times while trying to figure out my own, which was really helpful, especially for how to replace the nvl screen with the phone.

Thank god for the Lemmasoft Forums, without which I would never have seen this really good thread and figured out that I should use the python function nvl_hide() and would still be tearing my hair out trying to get the animation to work. I still don’t know why it works!!

And finally, please check out our game here!

[chaussurre]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA I DID IT !!!

It took me longer than I'm willing to admit but I did it!

I can now make, in Unity, components with editable math formulas. A designer want to modify the ability's damage formula ? Now he can modify it directly from Unity without asking the dev to change the code. (I'm talking much deeper changes than just change a few constants here, like if tomorrow your designer wants a sin in the formula they can do it on their own)

The formula's parsing is done through the editor (when you click on apply) so the heavy calculation isn't done in runtime. You can still ask it to parse it a new formula during runtime but I'm not sure why you would want that ?

Anyway of course it can compute the result

Whenever you mention a variable in the formula, it will appear bellow as a parameter that you can set. You can either set it as a constant or as a field/property

Constants are just the values you set them at; easy. But Fields! Fields represent a value contained inside another behaviour. Either stored as a field or a propriety, you can access any numeric value with the RemoteReadable attribute, as long as it is directly a value of the behaviour and not one of their composite classes/struct.

So here, the field inside TestStruct is not readable. It would need to be directly on the root of the behviour. You can still do a property referencing it, however.

Once marked, they will show up in a popup in the inspector.

and now every time you evaluate the formula it will take the current value of the field.

You can add custom functions (up to 8 arguments, all doubles) through a static class.

It will detect errors on parsing (which was more complicated to implement than you may believe, the shunting yard algorithm tends to function and even give correct results even on some junk formulas)

and because I am always writing clean code, tests !

Anyway, don't look too deep in the source code, there definitely isn't some black magic in there, trust me. Trust me.

I will eventually add some more functions to it, like some min/max, floor, ceil, the classics. But you can add your own anyway.

And it's almost 2 am so I gotta sleep.

[chalkrevelations]

Chalk! Did you watch the trailers for GMMTV 2023 - 🧋

No, not yet, what happ -

...

...

...

OH MY GOD.

JIMMY.

JIMMY and SEA.

JIMMY and SEA and AOF.

Jimmy set up like rough trade (for GMMTV values of rough trade), and prickly Sea having his barriers worn down by some charming asshole he can't resist, and a soupçon of delicious misunderstanding and angst to complement the sweetness that this pairing already has shown the receipts for, and their freckles oh my god, did everyone notice the freckles on both of them in the beach scenes? The freckles are killing me already.

LAST TWILIGHT WHEN?

(Please, gods of bl, having laid this before me, do not allow it to be fucked up in the ways it's so easy to do with a disability storyline. Please. Also surely this one will not get stuck in development hell, not with Aof involved + the proven ability of Jimmy and Sea to pull advertising dollars hand over fist, right? RIGHT?)

OK, so.

:adds at least one thing to the list of things to watch next year ALREADY:

Wait.

:adds another thing to the list of things to definitely watch next year:

Because if any single one of the 15 properties that Neo Trai seems to be attached to actually makes it out next year, PLEASE gods of bl, let it be that incendiary toxic clusterfuck of a messy mess that Only Friends looks like it's going to be. I kind of want to inject this one straight into my veins. I can't tell you what joy it would bring me to watch this kind of fuckery for weeks on end, not to mention the way it's going to pull out yet another facet of Neo's acting, and getting to watch him and Force together would be jam. Killing another bird with this same stone, this would give me a chance to see ForceBook in something other than Enchanté, which I've been wanting to do, because bts footage from that show led me to believe that I actually might like Book, it was only Theo who was like nails on a chalkboard (the only good thing Theo ever did for me was make his dom, played by Jimmy, fly over from France to officially turn his brat over to Akk). And I do not think A Boss and A Babe is going to be the one that's going to do it for me. Meanwhile, I've literally never seen Khao or First in anything yet, so I have no dog in the fight on that front. But is ... is that Chang from Bad Buddy being pathetic at Neo? Mark, is that you? (Come to think if it, didn't I also see you in the background of Last Twilight?) Last but not least, Boston? What are you, kid, some kind of knockoff Theerapanyakul?

And. And!!

:adds one more thing to the list of things to definitely watch next year:

MILK PANSA, MY BELOVED. Starring in straight-up identity porn, one of my favorite tropes. If you think I'm not going to be all over 23.5, it's like you never met me. First of all, lol, OK, I will suspend my disbelief - this show's official baloneyum can be that MILK PANSA could possibly be overlooked like this. Anyway. I have no doubt that Milk and Love will continue to have fantastic chemistry, I just hope the script will do them justice. Love was fantastic as Pa in Bad Buddy proper. But please, gods of gl, on this outing, can we NOT have any kind of horrible whiny "I'm so faaaat" storylines like the one that absolutely shut me out of Magic of Zero 10 minutes into Zero Photography. Please.

Some other thoughts:

I. OK, I'm going to be honest and say that while Dangerous Romance looks like the kind of delightful hot mess of a relationship that I quite enjoy, AND it will be nice to see this guy Chimon people talk about, AND I definitely want to see Perth again, because I really did love what he did with Ae in Love By Chance, I also rolled my eyes at the school setting - I know, I know - and also, I cannot absolutely guarantee that somewhere in the back of my brain I wouldn't be halfway watching this as a couple of AU Waikorn expies. OK, that last bit might be a feature, not a bug. Altogether, anyway, I feel like this one is most likely to be the one that I intend to wait and marathon once it's completely aired but then can't actually wait for, so I end up watching week-by-week. It may depend on what kind of hype shows up on my dash and what else I'm already busy watching at the time.

I've never seen the original Our Skyy, so I have no emotional attachment to this second one, so my biggest reaction is that this looks like a premise that easily could go wrong, so fingers crossed that doesn't happen, and ALSO I'm kind of vaguely amused at the way GMMTV seems to be using this as the jingling keys to draw everyone's attention away from the fact that other than this, they appear to be completely hetereosexualizing Ohm and Nanon this year. Also are ... are they actually Pat and Pran in this? Are we sure? Because I suspect that's going to get everyone excited, but I would kind of have to laugh if they turn out to be Tess and Tun, and monkey paw gives us the Tess and Tun backstory.

I'd feel better about Hidden Agenda if they hadn't put the guitar right there in the trailer - come on guys, we know it's going to happen but there's no need to rub our faces in it - and although this looks nicely messy with bonus disaster bisexuals, I don't have enough existing investment in anyone here to automatically follow them to it. If and when this happens, it will likely be a marathon watch at some point when it's completed airing and I'm at loose ends.

I can almost but not quite figure out what Double Savage is about, and between Ohm's and Perth's acting I'd probably watch this if I had all the time in the world, but I don't even have enough time to watch all the queer content I want to watch, so I fear this one will fall by the wayside for me. Maybe a marathon once it's all aired and I have a week off? Same goes for Midnight Museum - I like the aesthetique, but again, I already have a list like my arm of things to watch, and some of it is stuff that I would need to watch before I have any emotional investment in Gun, who I've literally never seen in anything yet, other than his cameo in Vice Versa. Wednesday Club and The Jungle both seem to be going for a kind of edgy vibe that I'm not feeling right now - sorry guys, you've got include some messy toxic gays (see: Only Friends) to pull me from this angle, I think.