#we've been discussing all sorts of games for months

[raksh-writes]

Oh my god, I just got hit with Such a hardcore urge to do a fresh reinstall of Skyrim and rebuild my mod list from the ground up that it's making it Impossible to focus on anything else and I was supposed to be writing a paper for one of my uni classes today, like why, brain??? Why NOW??? 😭😭

Feels like Im not gonna be able to get my hands on anything else until I do it and it might as well take the whole day ahhhhowpghhiulaergnilaengnalg the fuck is this, help 😭😭

[thankskenpenders]

Help me out here: Why is there so much Ian Flynn hate going around lately? I thought everyone loved that he was contributing to the games. Now suddenly they aren't. I guess that's par for the course for this series but I don't get it. He isn't perfect but I like what he's done. Am I a weirdo?

Ian Flynn has always had a lot of fans, but any creator putting their work out there is going to have detractors as well. That's just the nature of being an artist. To some extent, it's no big deal. He's not a perfect writer. Nobody is! I consider myself a fan of his work, but I've criticized plenty of individual writing decisions from him on here.

But Ian doesn't just have critics. He has his own obsessive hatedom. And the specific nature of Ian's hatedom is... interesting.

A decade ago, Ian was only the guy writing for Archie Sonic, meaning any debates over his work were quarantined within that tiny niche of the larger Sonic fandom. Only people who kept up with the comics month to month had any real reason to have an opinion on the guy, which means we're talking about merely thousands of fans as opposed to millions.

Within that group, he had some haters. You had the people who were mad about story changes made during his run, particularly things like ancillary characters getting killed off (although over the years we've learned that most of those were editorial mandates from Mike Pellerito). You had the people mad that Ian didn't push their favorite ship, with feuding SonAmy and Sonally fans claiming that he was CLEARLY biased towards one or the other. You had the people who just really, really liked one of the previous writers way more - usually Penders, as hard as that may be to believe today. That sort of thing. Pretty normal comic fandom type stuff. Again, it comes with the territory.

Unfortunately, many of those haters only got worse over time, morphing into reactionaries who constantly try to incite Comicsgate type culture war bullshit.

There are people still mad at Ian for making Sally bi and pairing her with Nicole instead of Sonic in the later Archie comics. There have been elaborate MS Paint red string conspiracy boards explaining how people like Ian and Jon Gray have apparently been destroying the franchise from the inside for years by Making Sonic Woke. (Jon gets dragged into this because people are still mad about him drawing The Slap 20 years later. Yes, really!!) There was an unhinged change.org petition trying to get Ian fired, specifically from people who were mad that the Freedom Fighters aren't in the IDW comics. There was even a very sad little fan campaign from these people trying to get Sega to move the Sonic comic license away from IDW and over to Udon, because they thought Udon would bring Sally and Bunnie back and also make them sexy again. There's a lot of this.

(Unfortunately, Penders has also exacerbated this by gossiping about Ian on Twitter and giving these fans ammo, but that's a whole 'nother discussion.)

The thing is, for years, people who only played the games or watched the cartoons had no reason to pay attention to any of this. Now, though, Ian isn't just writing for some weird spinoff comics that only the super nerds read. Now he's writing comics that are canon to the games, and ALSO some of the games themselves, and ALSO consulting on other tie-in media like Sonic Prime, and ALSO writing the official Sonic encyclopedia, and ALSO serving as part of the new Sonic Lore Team at Sega. And on top of all this, he's got an increasingly popular podcast where he fields questions about his work on all of these things, which serves as one of the fandom's main windows into creative decisions being made behind the scenes.

As a fan of Ian's work, it's been really cool to see him rise in prominence. But the dark side of this is that his obsessive haters from the Archie days now have WAY more of a potential audience of their own. Now, every Sonic fan has to have an opinion on Ian. What this frequently means is that you'll have the Comicsgate types taking things Ian writes or says out of context, attempting to get more of the general fandom to yell at the guy.

Unfortunately, there are a wide variety of Sonic fans who take the bait:

You've got hardcore fans who disliked basically any recent piece of Sonic media and are looking for someone to blame.

You've got the people who are concerned about the sanctity of Sonic's canon, who shoot the messenger any time Ian mentions a new retcon from Sonic Team on the podcast - or any time he even mentions the THOUGHT of changing anything about the canon, as we saw recently with the Sol Dimension nonsense.

You've got people who romanticize some sort of mythical artistic vision that Sega of Japan supposedly has (or had) for the franchise. To many of these fans, American contributors like Ian just don't "get" the heart of the series and are trying to turn Sonic into something different. (This "heart of the series" tends to be some mix of Japanese instruction manual lore, the cinematics from Sonic CD, the OVA, and/or the games written by Shiro Maekawa, depending on what Sonic media the fan in question grew up with.)

You've got fans of specific characters or ships who pin the blame for how their faves are depicted entirely on Ian - most vocally fans of Shadow, even though the root problem is that Sonic Team hasn't known what to do with Shadow since 2006. At best this stops at regular old criticism, but at its worst this devolves into claims that Ian has an agenda against certain characters.

You've got fans annoyed by a perceived over-emphasis on comic-original characters in the IDW comics, ignoring the obvious facts that these characters exist because the game cast is so tightly controlled by Sega, and also, you know, that people just like the IDW characters and want more stories about them.

You've got a LOT of discourse over IDW's Sonic being a hero who tries to give his enemies second chances, as if half of Sonic's closest friends aren't already former villains and rivals. Honestly this is very transparently just reheated Steven Universe discourse lmao

You'll also see people who just think they could do Ian's job better. They can't believe that THIS GUY is the American fan working on all these Sonic projects, when clearly THEY understand the characters and lore and themes SO much better than this charlatan.

All it takes is for someone in one of these categories to be unhappy about some recent piece of Sonic media, and for them to come across an out of context quote or comic panel that rubs them the wrong way, and suddenly the leftist Zoomer Sonic fans will join the latest dogpile on Ian alongside the reactionary Comicsgate types who are mad at him for Making Sonic Woke.

In general, when fandoms get upset, they tend to want a scapegoat. A person or two to point a finger at and go "THAT's who ruined the thing I love!" This tends to be based less on reality and more on which contributors are the most visible online. You'll sometimes see teenage and adult fans of children's cartoons single out a storyboarder who's particularly vocal on Twitter, blame them for every story decision they don't like, and harass them off the platform out of a sense of retribution for their favorite ship or whatever. Failing that, fans might choose to blame every nitpick, down to individual lines of dialogue and frames of animation, on a showrunner, just because that's the name they associate with the show. And unfortunately, when it comes to Sonic, Ian is now arguably the most prolific and outspoken contributor on the English speaking internet, and therefore a common scapegoat.

Some of the things I've seen Ian blamed for are truly wild. A lot of people have claimed for YEARS that he's just lying about the existence of creative guidelines and restrictions from Sega - or, as fans call them, The Mandates - even though they're just an inherent aspect of working on a licensed property. Others claim that The Mandates are real, but somehow Ian's fault. A vocal minority of fans have convinced themselves that Ian is the sole reason the Freedom Fighters don't exist in the IDW comics, even though Ian says he's been pushing to bring them back since day one.

Sometimes you'll see people say he ruined shit he didn't even work on. A few weeks ago on Twitter I saw someone claim that Ian had written a rejected script for Sonic Forces in which Tails died. I could not find a source for this for the life of me. As far as I can tell, the rumor seems to have been born from an alleged leaked script for Forces with margin notes from Aaron Webber that criticized the way Tails was written, and also an old tweet where Aaron joked that Tails would die in an upcoming episode of Sonic Mania Adventures. These merged into "Aaron Webber criticized a draft of the Forces script in which Tails died." How'd Ian get dragged into this? Who fucking knows!

It's all just a big game of telephone. All it takes is some asshole to make something up about Ian on Twitter or YouTube or a DeviantArt journal or some forum, and at least a couple people will believe it, and then it gets repeated as fact. Again, this used to be contained by the niche nature of the Archie Sonic fandom, but now there are WAY more people who are receptive to this shit.

It's just sad to me that Ian tries to be so open and honest about his work, to try to explain the rationale for certain things, to keep fans looped in on the direction the franchise is headed, and this just gives the Flynnspiracy types more quotes to take out of context and try to paint him as the devil. If it sounds like I'm being overly defensive and dismissing his critics, man... some of the things I've seen people say directly to him are just unbelievable. People will send paragraphs-long angry screeds in to his podcast that completely tear him apart, and he has to sit there and be like "Well, that's your opinion, and you're entitled to it." People literally pay for special guest interview episodes where they just rapid fire complaints about his writing at him directly to his face. I don't know how he does it. I would snap.

All of this over Sonic the fucking Hedgehog of all things.

I don't know how to wrap this up. Engaging with fandoms online is very tiring, which is why I tend not to do it. Things like this are too common. I guess, just... remember that making art collaboratively is a complicated thing. The people involved are generally trying their best given the circumstances, but they're only human. They make mistakes. But please treat them like humans. Criticism and dogpiling are not the same thing.

[felassan]

Snippets. 🐺💜

John: "one of the funnier quirks of game dev is you will never remember missions by their real names but instead by the name you called them by for several years of development it will never be 'In Your Heart Shall Burn' for me, it'll always be Setback" [source] / Blair: "there was that awkward period where half of the DA:V ones had "gods" in the title, so discussions were always some variant of: "Did you mean 'Gods Are Back' or 'Gods Are Bad'? I've heard people mention 'Egads! Gods!' but I'm not sure if that's new or a rework."" [source] / Malcolm (in reply to John): "I have one like this in DA:Ve and I can't share it yet because spoilers but I promise you it's delightful" [source]

John: "the only one i can ever remember is 'Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts' and it's because it seems to be the only DAI mission that people constantly reference by name online" [source] / Mary: "It's proper name is "Ham Ball." I put that in the file names, even." [source]

John: "idk how widely it’s been advertised but a reminder we are doing another Veilguard Q&A on Discord this Friday noon Mountain time (so 11 Pacific)" [source] / Malcolm: "Make sure you don't tell them about that one thing that happens in that place, with the guy." [source]

Trick: "BioWare released a new screenshot of Taash! I love how it captures the amazing detail work the character artists did." [source]

Image description on the Taash screenshot in Trick's post of the cap:

"A screenshot of Taash looking off to the side. The lighting is warm like either late afternoon or an interior with a fireplace, and it catches in the gold on Taash's armor and horns. Taash looks pensive or vulnerable -- not the deadpan stare or badass determination we've seen in other shots."

pensive or vulnerable.. ohh Taash. 🥺 Trick!!

User on the screenshot: "Taash looks *completely the fuck over this shit* in a totally exhausted sort of way, here. which is, mind, amazing detail work on the character artists' party!!" / Trick: "You know, it's a spectrum." [source]

Trick on DA:I - "Miss May is amazing in many ways, and especially in finding the balance of sweetness to pain for the Solas scenes. ❤️" [source] ((thankyouuu Miss May!!))

User: "it must be basically impossible to resist putting at least one extra moon around your fantasy world" / John: "if dragon age didn’t already have two you’d better believe I would’ve added another one. sitting next to a dial titled ‘number of moons’ and every so often I add another one. anyways the thing about Satina is- (a large hook drags me offstage)" [source, two, three] ((omg.. THE SECOND MOON shfuehfuehdbdh)

User: "i've been thinking about bellara's pockets and i need to know what her thoughts on cargo pants would be. would she be a fan for the utility." / John: "she wouldn't wear them all the time - she's a firm believer in a distinction between 'work clothes' and 'at home clothes' - but she is always in search of more pockets to carry more things into the field. she'd own at least three pairs" [source]

User: "The next two months are going to feel like the Fade section in DAO 😭" / Dragon Age: "Good thing we have a Veil Jumper to help you out! 💜" [source]

User: "MY SON LOOKS SO CUTE" (re: the new pic of Manfred from today) / Dragon Age: "MY BOY MANFRED 💀💚" [source]

User: "Can we change the armor/gear on our companions?" / Dragon Age: "You can!" [source]

User: "thank you for the food 🙏🙏🙏" / Dragon Age: "Enjoy your meal!" [source]

[larkingame]

hello all! been a moment since we last discussed some things, so I'm coming online to discuss the progress of Larkin's development and make a few announcements :)

over the last ten months, larkin has gone through a lot of changes, some of which I've documented here--but most of it I've kept pretty private. I realized that over the few short years I've been developing the game, I sort of grew an unhealthy dependence on my presence within the 'interactive fiction' community that I really, really needed to take a step back from and break, all in order to ensure that I could enjoy working on what originally started out as a passion project for me.

since july of last year, I've completely reshaped and rewritten how larkin exists as a project, shifted it's genre and started collaborating with a few others to ensure it can be of the highest quality it can possibly be. uptop, i'd like to mention @tapeworrmart who's taken on the immense task of putting together most of the game art for me, @khiita and @ann1a-1 who have both taken on the roles of my editors (and also sounding boards for when I am being absolutely insane) and my production manager phillip, who without his assistance, larkin would barely exist. with that, let's do a progress report. the intended demo of larkin, or what i've taken to calling 'episode one' (yes, i said, 'episode,' more on that in a minute) has stretched to just over 200k words worth of content. it stretches all the way from the earliest versions of larkin's original prologue, to the end of the original chapter two. so far, we've completed 3 out of the intended 20 character portraits, as well as some more art that's slowly been in development.

now, on to the announcements. probably the biggest, and the one I am most ashamed of is--due to the fact that I've been slammed with graduate school work and some other external factors, Larkin as it currently exists is not the best that I think it can be. I'm deeply sorry for this, but I want to ensure that you all are getting the highest quality game you could get from me--and right now, I know it's just not that. Which is why I am unfortunately, pushing the release of the demo back until Friday, June 14th, 2024. Patrons will be granted access to the most recent edit of the demo two weeks earlier on Friday, May 31st 2024. In the meantime, I will be working day and night (quite literally) to get what I'm dropping on you up to par and something that I'm happy with.

To make up for this disappointment, I'm planning on repopulating the blog with a lot of content over the coming months, rewriting new versions of old asks, posting art and short stories.

Next on the agenda and also an equally important announcement. I'm changing the rating of Larkin to Mature or 18+ As I've been writing these past few months, working through a lot of themes and figuring out the story I want to tell, I've found that I think the change in rating is entirely necessary. While I don't think I've ever had that big of a minor fanbase--I think that this is just what I am most comfortable doing. There has consistently grown a little bit more of gore, and trauma exploration, which is the main reason for this change in rating, but, this does allow for the inclusion of something that I've been toying with since the intial release of the game. There is going to be explicit sex scenes in this new version of Larkin--all of which, you the player are able to opt out of, or completely avoid if that's something you want--but I just thought a little announcement would be warranted. This does not mean however, I am comfortable with answering thoroughly explicit asks or getting unsolicited sexual messages. The goal is to keep this game blog mainly tame.

Please respect this boundary of mine.

Third thing to be announced. I've also changed the format in which Larkin will be released. Rather than around the twenty-five chapters in one of a series of 'Books'/'Games', Larkin will be released episodically over four 'seasons' with eight-ten episodes of around 200k-250k words each (though, this is just an early estimate--they could grow longer, as I'm basing this purely off the demo/Episode One)

Finally and a little bit of a fun note: there are now twelve romance options throughout larkin, five male, three female, one non-binary and three gender-selectable. With those upcoming asks, you'll hear more about each in the coming days :)

With all that being said, I wanted to lastly thank all of you for supporting me over the years and putting faith and your interest in this project. truly, the support of all of you means the world to me and I can't wait to share more of larkin with you all.

thank you 💖

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for asking my boyfriend to consider my interests more? I (16m) and my boyfriend (17m) have been in a relationship for over a year, and we've known each other over a year and a half. We met through a mutual acquaintance (14nb) who introduced us because of our similar interests and I've always gone out of my way (unasked) to participate in his interests with him. He really likes anime games (maybe classified as gacha games???) so I downloaded it to play with him and we've been having a great time, I'm super into it now. I downloaded one of the similar games when it came out because the two games were similar and I wanted to get ahead in lore. He's had no interest in it and it really confused me, because he liked the other one so much? It didn't really bother me so I just set the game aside to play the other one more. We used to be really into classifying the characters into other game races/categories but a couple months later I brought it up again because we had new characters to sort and he said he didn't want to do it with me because he wasn't interested anymore. I did it by myself anyways because I enjoy it and he wasn't upset or anything and he agreed with my opinions so that was exciting. A couple times lately, my interests have drifted away from the game due to SEVERE burnout. Which might not seem like a big deal, but one of these "burnouts" was me experiencing severe medical issues from one of my perscription medicines. I was depressed and in pain for a month and he didn't really pay attention enough to notice I was acting off even though I was snapping all the time and sleeping until 3pm. Literally one time I was up at 3am texting him about how sick I felt and he sent a picture of a video game character he liked to say how much he liked the character instead of responding to me. I've been into vampires, DnD, queer history, etc. during these periods. He's in one of my campaigns (on pause) but he never really participates in any of these. He's a good listener and I can tell he listens when I ramble, which is much better than I'm used to, but I've told him a lot that I wish he would discuss it more with me. He says he doesn't know how and I'm not sure how he should either. I know he really likes that one game but I wish he would spend more time with my interests instead of just his, y'know? And no he's not like. neglectful or mean we spend all day together (unless we're at work/school/with friends/having alone time ofc) and enjoy talking about our similar interests a lot. This is, by far, the healthiest relationship we've both ever been in. It's just one of these "It's piling up and I feel like a dick about it" things

What are these acronyms?

[belmottetower]

3.11 - Council Estates and the Right To Buy

In 3.11, we saw Jamie go home to his mum’s, and we learned that she still lives in the council house that Jamie grew up in. This has interesting implications and possibly negative ones if construed the wrong way. In the Subjectify articles, we've already discussed those implications, because it's something I've been concerned about since we first saw the trailer shot of Jamie's childhood bedroom. I knew even then that the story beat would have to be about throwing back to the Roy poster - that's why they had to keep Georgie in the house Jamie grew up in, rather than have her in a new house elsewhere. It was a choice made specifically so Roy could see the poster. 

But in making sure that could happen, it leaves us with the unfortunate framing that Jamie didn't buy his mum a house when he got rich, and "buying your mum a house" is basically the first thing a working class footballer like him would do with his money. It's a really standard baseline. I have been nervously obsessing about Ted Lasso accidentally implying that Jamie wouldn’t have done that, for months now. I had already decided, before the episode aired, that if they did not clarify either way, I would have to assume that she did not want to leave the place she lived, and that rather than a new house, Jamie had bought her their old house on the Right To Buy, a government scheme introduced in the 1980s that allows most council tenants to buy their council home at a discount. (I do have issues with this policy generally, and the impact it had on the amount of council housing available, but that’s not for now.)

There is sort of a level of visual evidence for this - the inside of his mum’s house is really well maintained and clearly full of pretty expensive furniture and items. They definitely own it, and having now met her, gotten her vibe and seen the kind of house it is, it makes a huge amount of sense to me that she stayed there. It might have felt different if we saw a different KIND of council home, but in this specific situation, it tracks. 

There’s a bit in my primer about this, but in the UK, council housing comes in a lot of different shapes and sizes. Some of them will be flats in tower blocks (like the one Roy points to from the Westway sports pitch in 2.05 - in real life that is a council housing block in Ladbroke Grove and private apartment buildings like that simply don’t exist, Roy is a council estate kid too) or the flat fronted buildings with outdoor walkways (think Kingsman, or Rose’s place in Doctor Who) but a lot of them are houses like the one you see Jamie’s mum living in - solidly built terraced houses on car-free streets, inside the boundaries of an estate. Sometimes the estate in general contains both apartment blocks and rows of houses, with some green spaces built in too. That No Ball Games sign is a staple in any and all council estates across the UK and is ignored in council estates up and down the country by children just like the ones seen in this episode and it is lovely to think about Jamie once doing the same thing. I really liked getting to see the kind of estate he grew up on.

So, TL:DR - they would own that house now, even though it’s on an estate, otherwise they would not be eligible to still be living in it. And it’s not universally horrible to live on a council estate, or in a street of ex-estate houses.

But that “Jamie didn’t buy her a house” discourse is definitely brewing - I have seen people discussing this already as “wrong,” and I agree that it is wrong in the sense of they should have taken a line or two to clarify the way that situation might have worked, specifically to not accidentally paint Jamie in a bad light. What I don’t agree with is that it’s “wrong” for her to have stayed put - that living in that area, in that type of house, on that estate is somehow inherently bad and a situation she should have been rescued from by Jamie. And at this point, insisting that she should leave or have something better is swiftly bordering on classist.

There are a lot of stereotypes that exist about working class families and council estates. That they’re all shitty places to live, that everyone who lives in them is a benefits scrounger, or a druggie, or an alcoholic, or are involved in crime or gangs. Frankly it’s an awful stereotype that just furthers the classism and class divide in the UK. There are issues in some places, but it is not ubiquitous. Georgie clearly had Jamie pretty young and would have been granted a “family home” house by the council. Living in a little cul de sac like that, it’s very likely she had a strong community of neighbors, other families with kids who all would have supported one another. She would have been looked after, as a young single mum, and Jamie would have been safe to run about and be cared for by everyone in the street if Georgie was working. It would not have been perfect, but it may have felt safe and warm in its own way.

So once Jamie got rich - given that Georgie doesn’t seem to have any other kids who might benefit from a bigger house or anything - I can honestly see Jamie trying to buy her a fancy house somewhere else and her being like “What the fuck would I do in some fancy suburb in Chesire? This is my home, I’ll stay here thanks,” and so Jamie just bought her the council house they’d grown up in and paid to get it renovated and done up nicely so Simon could have his laboratory, and Georgie a nice place to live, with her friends still close by. Except for his childhood bedroom, which she clearly refused to let him touch and him being the biggest mummy’s boy ever he didn’t argue. 

Britain used to be incredibly proud of its strides in social welfare, and council housing was once very good quality building work. (If you ever want to watch a show that depicts the origins of, and pride in, social welfare for the working class communities in the UK in a beautiful, nuanced way that will make you sob every other episode please go and watch Call the Midwife from the beginning and come scream at me about it.) These are desirable homes - in fact, Right to Buy aside, a lot of older council housing, both houses and flats, are “de-counciled” and sold off privately to new home buyers who were never in the welfare system. I actually rent an ex-council flat in London, from a landlord who bought it privately. And I have a friend of a friend who privately bought and renovated an ex-council terrace almost exactly like Georgie’s. It’s not the greatest thing when council housing gets privatized, especially when the new replacements are of such terrible quality. But the original places are built to last, so Georgie’s house definitely could be done up to a high standard once they had the right to do improvements that were not the bare minimum of the overstretched housing organization. And between Right To Buy, private sales, and people who are still in the council housing system, an estate like Georgie’s these days may have any number of privately owned homes mixed in, and different incomes and circumstances within the same street or block of flats. Some are quite gentrified and even trendy.

I’m explaining this so people know the context when they talk about a council estate like the one we saw. I think there is a tendency to want to make Jamie’s background and childhood the most traumatic it could have possibly been, even more so than is on screen, and so it’s possible people who are less familiar with the UK and how council housing works or what council estates are like, could think that Jamie’s home growing up and the estate he lived on was awful and shitty and very very rough. And that could have been the case if he had lived on one of the rougher estates or in a flat in tower block that was falling apart and hard to do up not worth salvaging (a lot of them are being torn down) but that is not the kind of place the episode chose to show us. So now, having seen it, saying “How dare Ted Lasso not show him buying his mum a big house in order to help escape his traumatic upbringing and dirty poverty life” is honestly not a great take and is a pretty classist way to look at the millions of families in the UK that live in council housing. The episode absolutely should have stated that he bought that house rather than risk letting anyone think she’s still living within the welfare system because Jamie didn’t take care of her, but there’s a difference between that and removing her from the environment entirely if she was happy and at home there.

But speaking of adding extraneous trauma, there’s another element of Jamie having been brought up on an estate that I also want to talk about. 

As someone who has been, in my fic, flying the flag for Jamie’s mum being alive and lovely and for them to have been super close for what feels like an eternity, this episode was so so so good for me. I’ll be honest, I always found the fact that some people were certain Jamie’s mum was dead quite baffling, because in the show, the way he talks about his mum right as far back as Two Aces, using present tense means it always seemed clear she was alive and I really just took the “Don’t think she would be lately” part about not being proud to mean that she didn’t know how he had been acting at Richmond, in training, with Ted and Sam, because he didn’t tell her. Not that she’d died, or had become estranged or something.

And then even aside from like, grammar, I just never thought the show depicted Jamie as someone who had suffered the loss of a parent. Especially when you compare him with Ted - who we all know did. Jamie was just not written as a character who is carrying around grief, especially recent grief, and his apology to Roy in season 2 proves it - "I aint used to being around dead people. It just, it did something to me, emotionally." This is very different to Roy’s explanation of why he acted so weirdly towards Keeley at the funeral itself - namely that memories of his grandad’s death were messing with him. It would be a very weird choice by the writers to have Jamie lie and say he hadn’t been around death if he had lost his mum.

So yeah, I always thought she was alive, and I always assumed - based on the ages kids tend to get scouted and acknowledged as good by the academies - that James hadn’t been around much until Jamie’s mid to late teens, and as such that Jamie didn’t ever live with James, just saw him occasionally. He certainly would not have ever had custody rights, if he walked out when Jamie was a baby and showed back up when he was 14.

But while I found the “Jamie’s mum is dead '' takes surprising, I almost preferred them to the theories and fics (sorry, people have the right to write what they want in fic, but I just hate it) that his mum was probably an alcoholic or a drug addict, or absent, or complicit to the James abuse, or just generally a bit shit and anything less than fantastic. Because Jamie talks about her in nothing but the nicest, softest terms, and Jamie himself - when not in his prime prick era, which legitimately only lasts for about three episodes - is the nicest, softest boy with the strongest sense of self. Even if he’d never mentioned his mum, his whole personality felt like it was the product of an upbringing with a whole lot of love and kindness and nurturing and being made to feel special. 

The swiftness with which he reverted to sweetness and openness even in season 1, as well as his natural ego, the funny version of it, felt like his natural state of being, not a new development, and I always attributed this to his mum, which we now obviously know to be true. I’ve seen lots of people this week saying “As soon as we saw Jamie with his mum, EVERYTHING about him suddenly made sense,” and I am thrilled that people see this now, because this is what I always thought. I reverse engineered what his mum must be like based on his character so far, and it turned out just as I thought but even more so. I’ve also seen ideas that even if nothing was “wrong” with her, Jamie was somewhat estranged from her due to James and also sounding wistful when talking about her, or something, but I very much disagree. The two times he’s spoken about her, he has ALSO been talking about James, which was the thing he was sad about - they weren’t moments where he was being peppy and enthusiastic about how much he loved his mum. But also, now that we’ve met her and seen them together, I can kind of imagine him talking wistfully about her after not seeing her for like, a month, just because he is always missing her, LOL.

Anyway, how people interpreted their closeness or estrangement before this week is obviously something we did not know for a fact. The thing is, what we did know is that she was a single mum and that Jamie lived on a council estate in North Manchester, and that knowledge is what made me really side-eye some of the interpretations that framed her as either an addict or a kind of deadbeat figure that meant they had a bad relationship in some way. Because in the UK, there are a lot of stereotypes and stigmas around single mums in general, but in particular working class single mums who live on council estates. It’s really really awful and often revolves around them being unemployed, benefits scroungers, being neglectful or abusive, being drug addicts or sex workers, and it’s a really pervasive part of UK society and classism, and it felt like the details we knew about Jamie’s childhood on an estate is why people leant that way about his mum in a way they wouldn’t have if the council estate thing hadn’t been specified.

Where I work, we represent people across the UK and help get their stories shared to impact politicians. In one instance we got someone we represent onto the national news to talk about the cost of living crisis. She’s a single mum. When the clip got shared on social media she faced so much abuse and harassment and stigma because of these pervasive ideas people have about single mums and ended up having to delete her social media to get away from it. It was deeply upsetting to her, myself and my coworkers.

So I honestly always found fic or meta in which a character who, based on canon, is only ever mentioned as being attentive, loving and someone Jamie has a good relationship with, was portrayed along the above lines really hard to read. It just always felt rooted in the worst kind of stereotypes and classism, even if not intentionally. Anyway, point is…I am so fucking thrilled that we finally got to meet Jamie’s mum, that Georgie is lovely and kind and cuddly and supportive, that Jamie is an even bigger mummy’s boy than I ever could have dreamed, and that he even had a bonus soft baker stepdad father figure who had been around long enough to know that Roy Kent’s poster never left Jamie’s room. And the fact that his parents live in a house they now own, on a council estate where Georgie had a long-established community, is a perfectly fine choice. It isn’t something you need to retcon, you just need to know about the Right to Buy scheme.

[somekindofsentience]

why secret anger is a better tool than secret sadness, or hiding rage under a persona of nurture.

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR: OMORI, DEMON SLAYER AND OSHI NO KO. I WILL BE SPOILING THE LATTER TWO'S MANGA SO BEAR IN MIND THAT WATCHING THE ANIME ONLY WILL NOT PREVENT YOU FROM FURTHER SPOILERS.

WARNING: DISCUSSIONS OF SUICIDE, GRIEF, LOSS AND MENTAL ILLNESS

We've all seen the character who has secretly been very sad their entire lives. Fuck, some of us are that character, and maybe have been for a while.

It's relatively easy to hide a sad backstory for a character, and it opens room to give them depth later on. And, unique to side or background characters, it allows the protagonist (and by extension, the reader) to connect further with them, giving the façade of plot and sub-plot depth. Of course, it's perfectly possible to do this well - it's possible to do every trope well - but it's also very possible to do this poorly.

And... it's so boring.

Like come on. Sad woman sad. Very sad. We're all sad, because we've been told to feel sad by the author. How sad.

I believe that there are far more fascinating tropes to explore, with much more depth - and I'd like to talk about one of my favourite forms of this. Hiding inner anger is infinitely more interesting, especially if the character can hide it well.

I've chosen three characters to discuss for this - Mari from OMORI, Ai Hoshino from Oshi No Ko, and Shinobu Kochou from Demon Slayer. I think all three of them perfectly capture the "hidden anger" trope very well, and I'll connect all of them, which allows us to understand the purpose of this character archetype overall.

Mari is an incredibly complex character, one whose complexity is actually very easy to miss. Due to Sunny's unreliable narration, we perceive Mari as perfect, since he blocks out any of her personality which mimics the truth. In Headspace, she's an incredibly default NPC, acting as a pillar for quest clues, healing and saving the game. As a player, you come to see her as some sort of comfort, a recurring symbol in irregular places. This evidently changes when Sunny discovers the truth, and we come to accept what he has done. However, Mari is never properly portrayed in the game - we only see her through the lens of the others - which means a lot of the fandom doesn't quite understand her character, let alone understand the selfish nature of perfectionism. There is nothing in the game that suggests she had external pressure causing her perfectionism (although I personally headcanon this), so we must go off it being internally driven.

Mari is not a tragically sad, or gorgeously happy character. She has been punishing herself with pent-up anger. Imagine you've been practicing something for months, over and over, only to find out your duet partner doesn't care anywhere near as much as you do. No-one cares as much as you do. All those months of practice ultimately mean nothing. Every time you pushed yourself to play the same song on repeat until it drove you insane mean nothing, because of this one moment, one stupid angry moment from your brother.

Despite all this, Mari isn't allowed to be angry, which is why the Truth segments still show her acting in an adult fashion (taking the unused Truth descriptions as canon).

In the photos of the truth, Mari looks like a disappointed mother, telling off Sunny. She says she "isn't finished talking...", like a parent. Mari was fifteen when she died. She had no outlet for this rage at all, no time to be a teenager, when she was the mother figure of the group. Her character trope as the "nurturer" trapped her in a hellish cycle of perfectionism, hiding everything until her absolute breaking point - which lead to her death.

In Oshi no Ko, Ai Hoshino is a perfect mother, perfect idol, perfect person. This seems widely agreed by literally everyone, and the manga follows her son's attempts to avenge her murder, and her daughter's attempts to follow in her footsteps. Although the goals of the children change partway through, when Ruby learns the truth of Ai's death and Aqua loses faith in his scheme... Ai remains a pillar of gold. And yet, we find out during the creation of the movie on Ai's life that people around her suspect she was hiding anger.

While I have perhaps... fallen behind... in my reading of Oshi No Ko, I'm just going to go purely off this panel and the previous chapters to analyse. Forgive me, I completely forgot which character says this, everyone's hair looks the same and I can't tell if it's Akane or the lady that adopted Aqua and Ruby. It's been a while.

Ultimately, Ai Hoshino is confused, and this makes her angry. We know she's never felt love before in her life - not until she had her children - which would be incredibly frustrating. You see everyone around you experience happiness and joy, and yet life keeps reminding you that your childhood was shitty, you work in the most insane industry of all time and you're exhausted. There's some implication that Ai's relationship with Aqua and Ruby's father was complicated, so perhaps that's the reason she's furious.

Regardless, Ai is far more complicated than every character portrays her as, which makes her interesting. As a reader, you smell a rat instantly. Something is off about the way she is glamourised, and you know you're missing a piece of this puzzle.

Shinobu outright states that she's been angry her entire life, at least since Kanae's death. She's been mimicking Kanae's sweet smile as an act of remembrance, but Shinobu is not happy, not calm, not sweet like Kanae was. Now, Shinobu isn't the most nurturing figure - at least not to Tanjirou, and not much to Kanao either - but she still acts in that calm, motherly demeanor, mimicking her older sister. In that way, Shinobu is also a perfectionist - she's just got a standard to match up to.

Shinobu is often mocked in the fandom for being "weak", but I think that's not the right way to understand her character. The fact that she doesn't fight off raw strength alone is symbolic, because it tricks the reader into thinking she's sweet and calm. No-one who is that weak can be full of such rage... right?

Mari and Ai Hoshino have further links due to the way they are portrayed after their death - as perfect. Sunny heavily misconstrues his sister, acting as an unreliable narrator for her personality, and it seems as though no-one will ever know what Ai was truly like inside. Instead, characters remark on their outward traits, which fandoms then fall into... guys. you're literally being trapped by the same trap their families and friends fell into. you're being gaslit by two dead women. please try to look past the silly little mirror they tried to reflect themselves in.

Now, what is the purpose of this archetype? They aren't main characters, and they aren't there as a fake display of depth, so what are they there for? All three of these characters die to further the plot - but more importantly, they act as a catalyst for character change in their sibling or children. Mari's death single-handedly destroys an entire friendship group, but it is also the reason they are brought back together. She alone allows Sunny to forgive himself, and within that, he must accept that she wasn't perfect, just as he isn't. Ai's death ruins Aqua and Ruby, but it gives them goals, something to work toward (symbolised with stars in their eyes). Shinobu's death allows Kanao to step forward and confront Akaza, which changes Kanao as a character, but it also ties up Kanae's subplot neatly.

To the player/reader, their deaths are far more important than their lives, but there is much more to explore in their lives than people understand. This is true complexity, and it's frustrating when it's brushed over in aus or fanfics.

Please, dig deeper. Look harder. Turn these dolls into humans, because they are corpses for a reason.

can you tell i find scary women pretty aggagagahgagsa

song i listened to while writing this: テレパス by Yorushika

The song is very good at capturing loneliness, and rage is quite an isolating emotion. Mari, Ai and Shinobu are all hiding an inner version of themselves, and they took that form to their graves.

[secretgamergirl]

Ever think about how weird it is that we've sort of collectively agreed games devalue over time?

This is one of those subjects where I just know people are going to start reading this and think I have some sort of weird vested interest in the price of some particular game or the profits of some publisher or whatever, so let me just get right out front here and say no, this really is me just waxing philosophic in a vacuum.

You like movies? You like actually owning copies of movies? Right now, taking a look around, it seems like if you want to buy a movie on bluray, that costs you about $25. Maybe more like $30 if it's some big fancy release with a lot of pack-in material, like the Criterion Collection stuff, but basically you're looking at $25. You like music, want to buy a new album? On CD, that's going to cost you $15. Or at the point we're currently at where there's this odd revival of vinyl records, you're looking at maybe double that? Little harder for me to work out the basic going rate since I think we're at a point where people are doing limited printings and stuff isn't going to stay at the sticker price long, but there's SOME pretty consistent price point everyone goes with, I'm pretty sure. Books? $20 hardcover, maybe half that for a paperback. You want to buy a video game that just came out though? Well, if it's new-new, and this is the first time it's ever been made available, that'll be about $60. If it's a rerelease though? You damn well better not ask for more than $5 for that or people are going to be furious. And that's super weird!

I've tried discussing with people just how weird this is, and it doesn't really seem to properly register with anyone. One big hangup is that (and this may be because the target audience for games skews really young and the industry has been really pushing to obliterate the concept of owning a game for like a decade or two) is that the people I'm talking to are completely conflating the concept of the work and the publication of a work. Like, yeah, if a store orders a stock of 50 copies of something, and it doesn't end up selling all that well, then yes they are eventually going to mark down the ones that don't sell or toss them into a bargain bin or whatever. That's true for everything, but that is also not at all what we are talking about here. This is specifically about the actual suggested retail price on the package when it leaves the manufacturer. When I'm saying "a movie on bluray costs $25" that's true for a movie that is only just being released on home video for the first time after premiering in theaters two months ago, but that is also true for a movie from like the 1980s that someone's only just now getting around to putting out on the format, or they just got the rights to distribute in a given country (and yeah yeah, super America-centric numbers I'm using here, I know), or it came out like 4 years ago but there's a sequel out soon so we want to make it available again. Doesn't matter how old it is. We're selling it now, we're selling it for $25. It does not work this way for video games. If I port some game from the mid-'80s to whatever hardware is current, and I try to charge the standard price of a game for it, people would be outraged. I can charge $5 or I can bundle it together with a dozen other games and MAYBE get away with that. But I better be throwing in some extras, or make it like 30 games or whatever.

The next thing I hear people say is "well no, see, because with games, budgets for graphics keep going way way up! And you know, hey, that's why the average price of a game keeps going up! Hell games on the PS5 are like, $70!" and... OK so nothing about this argument has any basis in reality, at all. Games for whatever weird reason have always been just kind of immune to inflation. Like, in the 80s a videogame would typically cost about $50, and $50 in 1980 is about $200 adjusted for inflation. That number basically has not budged. Didn't come down when actual production costs dropped to practically nothing, didn't shoot up when budgets kinda ballooned either. You do sometimes see people make "budget games" for maybe half the typical price, but that's kind of just a marketing decision when you're going to release something you know critics are immediately going to pounce on for "looking cheap" or being shallow or whatever. By and large, whether a game is churned out really quickly on the cheap or has some bloated budget in the hundreds of millions, it's getting sold for that same $60. Movies work the same way. The movie that cost $400,000,000 to shoot and the movie that cost $35,000 to shoot both cost you $25 to pick up a copy of at a store... and they also cost a bit under half of a what a game typically costs despite the fact that that they cost roughly twice as much to make (the math is kinda fuzzy, but that seems roughly true for the record-setters and the median, at least for big budget major studio stuff). Capitalism is weird like that, basically no connection between cost and price.

Those are honestly the two main points I see people toss out, at least out loud and in public. The next logical thing to assume though is that there have been profound qualitative gains in the field of video games across the board over the years. That they just keep getting better and better and better. And like, hell no to that. I will grant you that early on in the history of the medium, like, late 1970s to mid-80s, where we went from kinda basic arcade games where you've got maybe 2 minutes worth of game play and then you loop it at a higher speed, then this flurry of new technology and priorities and emerging concepts, and if you want to make a lesser value case against the former there, there's a case you could maybe argue. But you can't look me in the eye and sincerely tell me you'd rather play the worst game released this year than the best game from 30 years ago... actually holy crap there's a bunch of absolute gems turning 30 this year, look at this random wad of search results you know I didn't cherry pick because Earthworm Jim's in here:

Point is, yeah, video games are relatively young as an art form but not so much so that we don't have some immaculate classics older than half the people reading this. And again, hey, movies that predate any modern understanding of direction or editing, shot on cameras too old to record sound or color, and where all existing copies are pretty heavily degraded still get reissued at the same sticker price as anything else. Classic albums that were terribly mastered still sell for the same as stuff recorded on bleeding edge gear.

Oh and just to cover all my bases on this, I was tempted to bring up paintings and how with those the oldest works, especially anything where the artist is no longer with us, shoot way up in value, but that's not really fair to bring up since there we're talking about unique original one-off works, not mass-media. There was never a time when we could all go to the mall and pick up van Gogh's The Starry Night. Unless you just want a nice reproduction print. In which case that'll be like $20 (which when you think about it is an outrageous markup for a single frame of video).

Finally though, we have that argument I alluded to that I'm pretty sure IS a lot of people's logic on this which they probably aren't saying out loud, or maybe even consciously thinking to themselves- The older a game is, the easier it is to emulate. If I'm really jonesing to play the original Castlevania right this minute, it's gonna take me like 10 seconds to type a search query, grab a zip file that's all of 65k, unpack it, maybe spend another 10 or 20 seconds double checking what emulator people recommend these days, and I'm good. Maybe even less, I'm sure there's some site I could find quicker than that just emulating it with HTML4 or something right in my browser. But if I want to play like, Wild ARMs 3, I'm grabbing a bigger file, I don't know if there's any good PC emulation of the PS2 these days, I might need to get into the MiSTer scene, or work out how to make my actual PS2 read a burned DVD (in this weird hypothetical scenario where I don't have the actual game on a shelf in my eye-line and I don't have to dust off a computer old enough to still have a DVD-burner standard issue) anyway). And if I want to play, uh... what's current and doesn't have a PC release? And isn't on the Switch which has weirdly good emulation for a current system. That new Ratchet & Clank game? I assume I'd need to do some serious research, have a much fancier computer, seems like a huge game.

But you know, if even on a subconscious level, that means you inherently consider those earlier games to be less valuable (and hell, now that I think about it, I think I actually HAVE seen people openly make the argument that cartridge-based games have literally no intrinsic value because it's so easy to just emulate them), then... you're kind of a total piece of garbage and invalidating any sort of morally defensible stance you might have on piracy and emulation? Like you want to talk to me about preservation or ease of access or outright refusing to financially support whatever company would profit off a particular purchase, those are all pretty defensible positions, but you try and tell me art only has value when there is no easy way for you to personally enjoy it that doesn't involve cutting a check to someone, I think I might actually hate you and everything you represent? Or at the very least I'd like for you to really take a moment to reflect on your principles and reevaluate some things.

And again, that final little thought on this subject in particular strikes me as something people can take in a particularly inflammatory way, so let me just again reassure you I have no issue with anyone's habits regarding piracy or emulation or whatever. I'm coming at this whole subject purely as a sort of philosophical question/exploration of the commodification of art and artists/anticapitalist sort of thing.

And yeah, to just articulate that last point a bit more, while I totally think it's the weirdest thing that the public consensus is that games inherently plummet in value over time, I feel like we got here thanks to a series of very conscious decisions from scumbags in boardrooms. People want you to give them all your money and ideally avoid giving you anything in return. Their whole deal works best when they can convince you that whatever it is they have to sell you right this minute is the most valuable thing in the world and you need to have it right now, and whatever they sold you yesterday is actually total garbage with no value and you know you should really just toss it in a dumpster and make sure you have the room for today's new thing.

Hell, this is getting a bit out of scope, but marketing people are actually really working hard these days to build up an association between how much space a game takes up on your hard drive being a direct reflection of the game's value, and people are shipping games with intentional bloat like ultra-high-resolution assets and needlessly uncompressed files, because if you can only fit like 3 games on your drive, hey, buying this new game means tossing a ton of stuff out. Less stuff for you to play and be content with, less options for what game you're just going to log into every day and have people sell you DLC, and by the time they have a new game to sell, you're going to have to throw this one out to make room for that. No deep libraries, just the current thing.

So, yeah, on the one hand we have companies asking you to buy the same games now you already bought a while ago, and screw them for that, but they're also trying to convince you that nothing you own has value or deserves preserving to always keep you hungering for something new, and WOW screw that so much. Art has value, it retains that value, it's good to build up libraries and share them and keep stuff in circulation for new audiences to discover and people to revisit and re-examine. So quit letting anyone try to convince you old games (or old art of any other kind) has no value. And if you can be bothered, hey, do your best to support artists as much as you can and creeps trying to commodify art as disposable product as little as you can.

[psychomoxxie]

The Lame Brain Manipulation Game

I recently got a message from a new woman friend -- who's a long-time mutual friend of someone I've known since I was in my 20's -- regarding that last post I made about my recent debacle with the Cracker (i.e. the very odd person I was very briefly almost romantically entangled with -- or perhaps "ensnared" is the more appropriate term).

She pointed out that people like him are very masterful at being manipulative, and that I shouldn't feel responsible or bad about myself for being taken in, however briefly, by his wiles. Which of course is true. Except here's the thing; I thought I was too smart for that sort of thing. And I wasn't. Yes, yes -- the man was a literal genius, it is true. But, I'm no slouch myself, intellectually. A MASSIVE underachiever, yes, but in the ol' brain meats department, I'm certainly not lacking. Which is how we connected in the first place.

That's what I get for thinking I'm so goddamned smart...

So the question becomes, how and why did I get sucked in? Was it loneliness? AM I lonely for a relationship? I've always been quite content to be alone, and am almost always restless, discontented, and unsatisfied in romantic relationships (largely because of the sort of people I tend to attract, which as we've discussed tend to be variations on a theme, the theme being untreated mentally ill, deeply disturbed personality disordered abuser types like my mother); so I'm not really certain if that's the answer. I am leaning more towards boredom, and yes, a need for connection, as well...which blinded me from some of the red flags that came up. And they did indeed come up.

Fortunately, I am not emotionally hurt by this debacle, which tells me my so called "emotional connection" I was so convinced I had was just as much of a confection as he was. Which is interesting. I didn't shed a single tear, or feel even a twinge of loss, which rather surprised me. What I DID feel was mortified, embarrassed, and disgusted with myself.

When will I learn?

Why did I even bother? You'd think that after 8 years of being happily single, with the exception of a nice, fun poly situation that was undemanding and pleasant until things fizzled out without explanation (THAT actually smarted a bit), and a sexual encounter that was predictably unsatisfying, then an assault, which was my last experience before this whole debacle, that I would understand certain things about myself -- or rather ONE very basic thing;

I do not do well in traditional relationships. My radar, when it comes to men in particular, is completely and irrevocably broken.

Ok, that's two things.

I really, really need to stop myself when I am attracted to a guy, for ANY reason. My former housemate Clara yesterday told me, that when it comes to me, I need to do the exact opposite of what my instincts tell me to do. I'm not sure this is accurate, but I get what she's saying. I think I need to do the opposite of what my ATTRACTIONS lead me towards. Because my INSTINCTS, once I met this guy in person, told me to run, after about the first twenty minutes. But I ignored them, because it just didn't make sense, after the months of amazing conversations we'd had.

But, my instincts turned out to be right.

And, if I look back, there were flags even early on in the conversations I overlooked, because let's face it, I'm far from perfect myself, and we all need to make compromises, right?

The problem with people like me, who were raised by seriously fucked up mothers with serious unmedicated, untreated mental illness like bipolar and schizoaffective disorder, and personality disorders like NPD, ASPD, BPD, etc, we learn to NOT trust our gut feelings, because we are gaslit constantly, in the actual, true sense of the word, all the time. The upside is that when the Cracker tried to pull that with me, I was able to spot it, and I called him on it, which made him lose his cool (always a sure sign that you've got them). It's impossible to gaslight me, because I can see it from a mile off.

But as for the other stuff, the learning to trust my gut instincts...well, clearly I still have a long, long way to go with that. Although, to be fair, this time it took me a lot less time, a lot less investment than the last go-round. The last time, I moved in with the guy and lost 3 years of my life and ended up in the hospital.

So, I guess you can call this progress.

I also just really think I need to accept that I cannot do relationships. And this, I will admit, makes me a bit sad, on some level. Because I would like to think that even someone like me could find someone that makes sense. Who would treat me well, and not use the things I've opened up about like a weapon against me, or try to manipulate me, or to gaslight me, or all the rest of it. But, with my shitty health being what it is, I simply can't risk it anymore. It's literally too bloody dangerous for me to take that chance, now.

Choose the wrong person, and it could actually harm me. I learned that the hard way in my last serious relationship. And I just can't take that chance, I can't allow myself to be put in that situation, anymore. Because I just don't seem to have the proper tools to be able to navigate a healthy relationship. Which is kind of seriously fucked up. But, it's not entirely on me. I was raised by a wildly sick, abusive, fucked up mother. I've been fighting against the damage she did to me my entire life, and really, I've made a lot of progress.

But ultimately, I simply don't know how to choose a good mate. And I don't think I'll live long enough to get where I'm at the point to ever learn how to do so. Realistically, at my age, it just doesn't seem feasible at this stage. And I have to be OK with that.

I think I am OK with that. I've always been autonomous, independent, and even a bit of a loner, and maybe that is partially what's informing my choices, too. Maybe, deep down, I don't WANT to be in a traditional relationship...?

Wherever the true answer lies, I need to start to learn to trust my gut, really truly trust it, even when it's inconvenient, even when I don't want to, even when the rest of me is screaming against it. Because it is never wrong. It's the desires that are wrong, the intellectualizing and the need for connection that leads me to wrong choices, not my deep down gut instincts.

And THAT'S the truth.

[orreanintrepidness]

It was quiet in Realgam, for once, in the previous weeks, nothing but the constant rushing of feet could be heard, thanks to the state Orre was in. Peaceful certainly wasn't the atmosphere, however, as a pair of heavy boots disturbed that quiet, slowly pacing towards somewhere. Then the sound of an automated door...

And then finally, silence, once again, for a moment.

In truth, those boots belonged to Alistair, and he'd just entered what had been dubbed, quite hastily, as the 'war room'. In truth, it was just a guest room, with a table in the centre lacking any seats whatsoever

He was followed shortly thereafter by another set of boots, a little heavier than his own, and another redhead stepped in. Alistair's right hand, one of Orre's elite four, Matthew Byrne, he stood a fair bit taller than the champion he followed, and before long, they stood at opposing ends of that table, silence still unbroken, for a few moments more.

"So, it looks like we finally might have this in the bag?"

Matthew was the one to break the silence, which visibly displeased Alistair, a look of great irritation forming upon his face as the other spoke.

"We had this in the bag before it even began."

Matthew was equally displeased with the response he got, but it was one he was used to, it was similar enough to the ones Alistair always gave him back when they were both Snagem admins, though, it was arguable that they still were in a way.

"I don't call having to demolish half a city and then having Pyrite change hands six times having it in the bag. But, what can I expect, our boys went from being street thugs to Orre's military overnight."

The scowl on Alistair's face grew, that implied things he so vehemently denied this entire time. To suggest his league staff were a continuation of Snagem always was a rather sour subject for him.

"We aren't a fucking gang, you need to stop actin' like this is still the same game we ran five years ago. But yes, they did become that overnight. We've gone from scrap trucks to restorin' all the old equipment from the last war the other regions dumped in our fuckin' desert. And all this equipment, we aren't a fuckin' milita anymore, no. We're clearly the legitimate force here now, the legitimate government even."

Alistair paused for a moment, brushing hair from the right side of his face. Even with the eye gone, instinct still had him avoid covering where the eye once was.

"We've come a long way in a short time. Weeks ago, we were fuckin' roamin' this dustbowl with heaps of scrap, now its all top 'o the range shit. Sure, maybe a little out of date in comparison to the other regions, but compared to where we were? Orre just jumped forward at least a decade, at least in regards to hardware of that sort. Not to mention the success of the dusk project. In time, we'll have enough energy to power every region in the world, all to our fuckin' selves. Not even Devon, or macro cosmos, or fucking AETHER has managed to create a source of infinite energy successfully. Yet here we are..."

Another pause. This time matthew spoke up.

"A bunch of idiots in the desert with something that does exactly that..."

Those words were met with a nod. Before Alistair added on.

"Something that does exactly that and so, so much more. That dusk engine I prepared for the airship is ready, yes?"

Matthew gave a much, much more hesitant nod. As though he knew the intense gravity of what that meant.

"Yeah... yeah, it's ready. Fitted to one of the jets yesterday morning. On that note though... You've spent a fair bit of time in that simulator we found a few months back. What's with that?"

The response was swift, and blunt.

"I intend to make the delivery myself."

Alistair was growing irritable again. A constant, aggravated banging on the table becoming more and more noticeable.

"If anyone, ANYONE, is putting an end to this... it's me. And that's not for discussion, this mess... it needs to end now. We can't keep this up, and we need to get Orre back towards moving forwards, we've got all the shit from those rich fuckheads we drove outta Phenac after all... we can build roads, hell, new cities. Everything is proceeding as planned... perfectly."

Those were the last words Alistair spoke. The pair just remained for a moment. As if there was a specific subject being avoided, but to no avail. Before long. Alistair drifted from the table, sluggishly taking his leave from the room, heading to wherever it was he often skulked off to.

[doamarierose-honoka]

Super Monkey Ball is one of those franchises that randomly has a huge fan base you rarely ever hear from. One such fan is my wife, who doesn't seem to like any video games at all but absolutely loves Super Monkey Ball games. She played the first Super Monkey Ball game on the Gamecube obsessively and talks about it every time we have any sort of discussion about gaming. So naturally, as soon as I found out Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble was on sale, I immediately picked it up.

Truthfully, I too am a fan of these games and am very much looking forward to playing it as well. While I coudn't get myself to pay full price for any Switch game, the price of $34.99 feels just right.

Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble Deal - 30% Off

While I haven't yet had the pleasure of playing Banana Rumble myself, I have read the IGN review of the game and it convinced me that it is absolutely worth playing. With an impressive set of 200 courses across 20 worlds, we've concluded that this is the best Monkey Ball has been since the GameCube era. Our own Nintendo expert Logan Plant had the chance to go hands on with the game and here's a quick snippet of what he thought in our review:

What We Said in Our Review

"Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble is a brilliant return to form. Monkey Ball has finally found its way home again with a set of 200 fantastic courses that range from delightfully charming to devilishly challenging, backed up by tight mechanics and predictable physics that put me in total control of my monkey’s fate. This isn’t just a cover album of Monkey Ball’s greatest hits, though, as the new spin dash ability is a genius evolution of the franchise’s core ideas, and smartly-implemented online play adds fresh layers of cooperation and strategy. The underwhelming and forgettable battle mode is Banana Rumble’s biggest disappointment, but the sheer amount of optional objectives and replayability found in its adventure mode make it easy to ignore. It doesn’t quite reach the heights of the amazing GameCube originals, but Banana Rumble is easily the best Super Monkey Ball game in over 20 years." - Logan Plant

Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble was release just last month on June 25 and this is the first and biggest discount we've seen on this game. It's especially surprising after a rather lackluster showing of Prime Day Switch deals earlier this week. If you've been hoping to pick up this game at a discount, now is the time to do so.

[shadowbrightshine]

You know, my brother and I both are into horror things and blood and stuff, but he never got into creepypasta. My mom is worried about him and his chithulu thing, or how he learns about irl shock content so often. He doesn't watch it, he's disgusted by it, but he has a bad habit of sharing it with us.

I'm arguably into worse stuff, but I'm able to keep it out of conversations outside discussing my writing, and I stop when my mom says it's too much.

She's worried about him, and has asked me to not share anymore of my horror things with him. I haven't in awhile, he's finding it himself. But I kinda agree, he's been absorbing it and then saying this stuff to everyone. Audiences matter. And my brother isn't an edgy shock sort of teenage boy. He's honestly growing up to be a rather outstanding upstanding man. I'm really proud of him. He's had plenty of problems, but none of them are misogyny, racism, or ableism.

So it sort of gives the wrong idea when he's telling someone he barely met the interacisies of saw traps with the excitement of talking about our pet cat. See we also are very into separate sectors. He's much more into horror movies, whereas I'm more into the reading, artwork, and short film types.

Which isn't bad, but it also means that he's able to show us clips. My family doesn't watch horror movies, and I wasn't allowed to play bloody games growing up. That along with being, I think legitimately slightly traumatized by Cupcakes put me off gore. Or excessive gore especially. When I write it, I try ro give it a purpose and I tone it down.

I can't handle seeing guts onscreen if it's too realistic.

My brother plays such games all the time, and he's much better at shooters than me. So we've drifted apart alot in what we consume. None of this is bad.

It just means I can't warn him to not say some of the stuff. Same with some of the more offensive humor he likes. He doesn't repeat it. But there was an incident with a tomska video where it ended in a Jewish violence joke. I expressed to him and so did my mom my distaste at it, especially with the war going on. He hadn't even heard that part correctly, and he apologized, but my mom told him no more tomska for awhile.

I've specifically requested he not talk about Brandon Roger's comedy around the rest of the family. See, I like it too, it's funny sometimes. But it's very inappropriate around my 10 year old sister who heard "actually it's 5:30. SOMEBODY KILL ME!" and then repeated that for months until we found something else to occupy her. It's taken weeks for him to finally stop bringing it up around the parents and our sister.

Idk. I'm just thinking about it. I wish he had friends to really talk about this with other than me. I'm tired, and I'm fatigued of all the shooting and head ripping. I'm more of a body horror and psych horror woman.

I love him, I hope he grows out of the needing to tell everyone everything stage like I did.

[demonicsaintess]

♡ Monday ♡ April 24th, 2023 ♡

12 pm

have work today at 3pm. I work up around... hmmm... 10:30? At least, I completely got out of bed at 10:30. I was technically up at like, 8am puking my guts out. I think it was because I gorged myself with half a bag of goldfish before I passed out.

I wouldn't say I'm excited for work? More, I like actually making money and being able to save and do what I want with it. I feel like I've become more fiscally responsible.

My trip to C was honestly super fun. M was super anxious, and going through boy problems. I honestly felt like I got blind-sided. But I love that idiot so I just can let it go. I felt some type of what when I heard they got their first matching tattoo with someone, and it wasn't me, but to be fair, we've had plenty of times to get them. And I know I'm the best out of all the friends. So I decided to let it go because it's not really something to give any attention to. I decided that bridge can just be moved past.

I want to start making small changes to my routines so I can be more helpful to the community. I think this weekend I'm going to plant my garden. I need to borrow mom's gardening things. I'm kind of excited because I saw on the tv, the story of this lady who uses her garden to feed the community. I would love to grow vegetables and other foods, and be able to donate it! And if I grew flowers, I could give them to nursing homes to help brighten up the place! I feel like maybe if I can get a hobby that requires me to focus on a positive aspect, I can maybe train myself to sort of slow down.

I had a __s and honestly it was lame. It just hurt. It's definitely not my thing. I felt like nothing changed. So I'm not gonna do that anymore.

I really hate that it's still affecting me so much. The breakup. Like, I get it, it's only been like, a month or so. But I just still feel like I have a huge hole that's dripping blood. I know it's super cliched to be like, "oh I'm never gonna date again," but like truly, after this emotional scarring I was inflicted with, it feels like it goes past my apathy, and beyond me being just jaded. After this, I really don't find the idea of a relationship, or anyone physically touching me for that matter, appealing. Like, I genuinely don't want to date anyone else. She was everything to me and I just feel like if I can't have her, I'm not sure if I really want anyone else lmfao. She was literally my whole heart, who I thought I was gonna spend my life with.

It really sucks tbh. I feel like my whole life was just uprooted. I'm not sure exactly what to do. I have all these small goals/ things I want to do, but I feel like I'm on shaky ground, and I'm not 100 sure where to take my next step. I know this is something to discuss with my therapist, but I want to be able to make these decisions myself eventually.

I feel like I'm stuck halfway between old bad habits, and growing up massively. It's like, I can hold myself back from impulsivity, but I feel like I'm restless. A friend told me that maybe I'm not used to being in control, so I don't know how to be okay. And that honestly hits a little bit because I really don't know how to slow down. I am constantly in fight or flight mode, so I don't think I feel comfortable with "being okay." Which of course, just seems like something that I need to practice. I'm thinking about maybe secluding myself and working on myself as a person, without outside interference. Like, I want to become informed, and helpful. Good habits. I want to get back into practicing magick more. I was in such a good place when I was practicing and learning all the time. I hate that I feel like I'm wasting time if I study. I need to learn to balance reading, watching anime, and playing video games, with more healthy habits. Maybe I'll make a chart.

Well this is all I have time to write before I have to go to work. I'll probably write again tonight after work.

[openly-journaling]

Wrath: Monday 12/26/22 (this is a very long post so please brace yourselves.)

I guess I'll start adding to the day counter thing because why not, I front most of the time now anyway.

The year is coming to it's end and the last few months have been wild. Between blocking several several porn bots in a couple of weeks on Tumblr and the -50°F windchill that we've been having that has put us out of work much too often lately, it's been wild.

A couple weeks ago we went out to eat with a friend. A Christian but one of the easier to deal with ones. She convinced us to come back to church so we could enjoy the good memories, food and community. We are 24 years old.

There is an 11 year old there that we connected with via playing idv. We don't know many people irl who play it. We were having a wonderful conversation and our fiancé was VERY vaguely mentioned (we're a same sex couple, the church knows this). We also mentioned about blocking another porn bot on Tumblr.

Her mother was there the entire conversation even interacting and helping to grow the conversation. This 11 year old is extremely mature and we had a discussion about online safety. A talk on points we agreed upon, NOT AN EDUCATION. I wasn't teaching her about it. (Not that there's anything wrong with that either but I'll explain how it's relevant to this ordeal. A little later though.)

One of the church elders was overhearing this conversation and decided to twist everything about that conversation to the pastor and tell him I was grooming the 11 year old, talking about the LGBTQ community, and talking about pornographic websites. None of which were true.

The pastor berated our friend and twisted all of her words against her and then punished the mother for "not protecting her child." They even went so far as to accuse me of using this 11 year old as my "toy therapist" and I couldn't be MORE DISGUSTED.

I later talked with our other church friend about it on the subject we were "talking about internet safety" to put it lightly-

[because all in all I was talking about a couple of minors that blocked me for literally no other reason than me being an adult when I was just playing idv. And we grew the conversation from idv and minors interactions with adults. About how there's nothing wrong with adults playing games with minors unless it gets.. well you know. Bad. I wasn't asking these minors questions about their lives, or what they do in school or anything of the sort, didn't even ask their age. They asked us about school and when we mentioned we weren't in school they asked how old we were, we told them our age and we were getting married, not interested in whatever they were thinking and they spat at us saying they were minors and blocked us. Kudos to their caution but our rsd really hurt us that time]

- As I had no intention of going into depth about the entire conversation. She said we shouldn't be teaching her about internet safety, she's only 11 and not mature enough for that and her mom should be teaching her. We tried to explain further and kept getting cut off and just told not to promise to talk about it ever again.

I hate the church because they automatically assume us being LGBTQ and athiest means we're child groomers somehow. It's true we get along with the elderly and the young far better than people our age. Our traumatized side loves more adult conversations that don't involve things my generation speaks about and the child deprived side still likes to feel young and childish when we can.

-

(we get every weekend off too so you can include those in days not worked)

Prior to all this we were out of work for a week due to covid, then out of work another two days the next week due to Thanksgiving and Native American Day, then we were out of work another three days due to the blizzard, and another two for the windchill being too much as well as today off. It's too much time not to be working but due to seasonal depression we also don't want to work.

We're getting out of this shitty godforsaken town asap. Hopefully as soon as February rolls around depending on weather.

-

Just tonight we went to restart our new phone and we couldn't turn it back on for awhile.

(which we had to get because our other one was glitching out. We were forced upon the same model, make and year. Motorola Edge. Which is also glitchy)

This genuinely wouldn't be as big of an issue if we didn't actually need it but nope, phones are just very important in today's world. If we were with our fiance at the very least we could be a little more careless about it. But we're not there yet.

-

We have all these people we know down here and not one invited us to Thanksgiving or Christmas for community and food because everyone assumed our foster mother would, and she didn't go figure. she hates our guts and causes us loads of stress anyway.

-

Our heater had to break at least five times and we had to keep freezing for awhile this last weekend because of it which sucked.

-

There was one other thing and I'm going to be honest I don't really remember what it was (damn adhd) but it's not extremely important anyway because we got the biggest issue off our chest which was being accused of child grooming. there's not even evidence to back that up. >:( They just assume whatever they want to assume. Fuck those assholes.

[lcandothisallday]

Idk if you’re taking requests (I tried to send this once and my app closed so I’m hoping you’re not getting it twice!) But you asking Jack if you can incorporate Urban’s name in your baby’s name (Maybe his first name Wyatt or his middle name is Urban or something of the sort) and he thinks it’s so sweet you took his best friend into consideration and then Urban’s reaction to you and Jack naming your baby boy after him and he’s just being all gushy over it if that makes any sense at all! 💕

hehe this is super cute🥺 i've seen other creators also use wyatt as the first name for jack's son and i truly think its the cutest thing ever

You were about seven-close to eight months pregnant with your baby boy and for some reason, you and Jack never actually sat down and discussed names.

However, you did have a name in mind that you wanted to get Jack's opinion on. Currently the two of you were sitting on the couch, Jack scrolling on his phone while rubbing your belly.

"How about Wyatt for a name?" you suggest, turning to look to Jack. He looked away from his phone and grinned. "Wyatt? You wanna incorporate Urb's name?"

You nod, "yeah. I think Wyatt Harlow sounds super cute...and Urban means so much to me-he's like a brother to the both of us and he's been here throughout your entire journey and throughout the pregnancy and...I don't know. I also just think it flows nicely too," you shrug.

Jack grins, "I like it...I think we've decided on a name."

A few days goes by and Jack is chilling with Urban while he played with his xbox. "Yknow," Jack started. "She wants to name him after you."

Urban paused the game and looked at Jack in confusion. "What do you mean?"

Jack smirked. "Y/N wants to name bub Wyatt in honour of you."

Urban's eyes lit up and the grin plastered on his face was one that displayed pure excitement. "Yo actually? You being foreal?"

Jack nods, "yeah. I'm like 99 percent sure that's the name we're picking. We appreciate you man."

"Y'all are actually gonna make me cry," Urban laughed, pulling his best friend into a hug. "This means a lot.”

Jack shrugs with a smile. “Yeah well you mean a lot to us... but don’t make it known to Y/N that you know...she wanted to be the one to tell you but over my dead body. You were my best friend first.”

[theminecraftbee]

Ok if you want more prompts; Botem road trip? I’ve been loving your Botem road trip stuff.

"Is it just me, or are the cows getting closer? Also, I'm at 327."

"I'm at 388 then," Grian responds instinctively.

"No you aren't," Mumbo says. "You're at 234."

"How do you even know that?" Grian says, annoyed.

"Well, it's just numbers," Mumbo says. Scar watches Grian mouth 'it's just numbers' before clearly deciding not to say anything, which is sort of a shame, because Scar could have totally gotten them to get in a funny discussion had Grian decided to continue discussing it.

"Anyway," Pearl says, "is it just me, or are the cows getting closer?"

Scar turns to look with the rest of them. The things that Pearl had decided were cows are, in fact, getting closer. Scar should probably be a bit more worried about that than he is. The 'cows' are, after all, not really cows. They are, in fact, typically horrors! Terrifying beings! Terrifying somethings, at least - it's a good question if they're actually beings, thinking about it!

Scar should be more worried, but honestly, with everything else going on, sure, the horrors from beyond are getting closer!

"They'll be much easier to count now," Impulse says.

"You know, normally there are graveyards in this game," Pearl says.

"Graveyards," Scar says, his voice a little high.

"To kill the cows with."

"I see?" Scar says.

They are getting closer. They are getting familiar.

"You know, if the cows are getting closer, does that mean that we're going to need to come up with a new game?" Mumbo asks, and something is coiling in Scar. He should be frightened.

"Why?"

"Well, you are winning."

"Neither I nor Pancake -"

"Pancake?"

"The dragon," Pearl explains.

"Why is the dragon yours to name?" complains Grian. "It was my egg!"

"She likes me best," Pearl says. She strokes her fingers along the dragon. "As I was saying, neither I nor Pancake should be punished just because I'm winning."

Scar shrugs. "You know, I could use a new game. We've been playing this one for quite some time now! We can say Pearl won and start over and oh dear they are getting very close aren't they," he says.

They're all quiet for a bit. The dragon makes an annoyed roar.

"You know, that works," Pearl says. "I don't really want to look at the cows any longer anyway. Not until we start seeing graveyards."

"Pearl if we start seeing graveyards I will cry," Mumbo says.

"That would be funny," Impulse says, in the tone of voice of someone not quite aware they're speaking out loud. Scar pouts. He was gonna say that.

"I know!" says Scar. "We can play Uno!"

"NO!" says Grian. Everyone stares.

"...what?" says Pearl, bemused.

"I'M NOT PLAYING UNO," Grian says, with horror in his voice. "I'M NOT. ANY OTHER GAME. PLEASE."

Scar looks between the other four. There's a kinship in them, then, in that moment. He turns back to Grian. He smiles.

"That's too bad. It's the only card game I have!" he lies to Grian's face.

"WHAT?" Grian says.

"I really want to play cards," Pearl says.

"Oh, agreed," Mumbo says. "Really would help with the boredom."

"I'm down!" Impulse says.

"NO," Grian says. "NO, NOT WHEN I CAN'T ESCAPE, NO -"

A smile curls onto Scar's face.

"No," says Grian, quiet and despairing.

"Yes," says Scar, and honestly, he thinks, the journey Grian's face goes on? The best entertainment he's gotten in months.