#I have read like two whole wiki entries

[cece693]

Hi, it's the anonymous who made the first request posted about Ethan. I'm so glad you did; it was great to read and I hope you don't mind me asking for more. I'm thirsty for this character. Anyway, the request is about Ethan and the male reader in a toxic relationship where the reader is controlling and seemingly abusive, which worries his friends, but in reality this behavior is encouraged by Ethan himself, who simply loves his boyfriend's possessiveness, both of them bringing out the worst in each other. PS: watch the last two Scary Movie films when you can. They're really fun!

My Boy (Ethan Landry x M! Reader)

Thanks for the request :) I will definitely try to watch the new Scream movies when I have a chance. All I know about Ethan (with a Google search and reading his Wiki entry) is that he's a dorky and geeky guy so I used that to base this. Also, I mainly focused on how you're toxic, not including Ethan since I don't know him well. Hope you enjoy it!

Ethan’s friends had been worried for months. They’d noticed the changes—the way Ethan slowly isolated himself, the constant presence of his boyfriend, M/N, who always seemed to hover a bit too closely, and the way Ethan would flash a nervous smile whenever M/N’s arm tightened possessively around his waist. To an outsider, it looked like a classic case of an abusive relationship, the kind where one person held all the power, and the other was too scared to leave. His friends whispered behind his back, exchanged concerned glances when they saw the way Ethan always sought permission with his eyes before speaking or the way M/N’s words always seemed to silence him in public.

But what they didn’t know, what they couldn’t possibly understand, was that this was exactly what Ethan wanted. The boy leaned into it, into the rough words, the tight grip on his arm when M/N pulled him away from anyone who dared get too close. His friends thought those marks on his wrist and neck were signs of something dark, something to be feared. But to Ethan, they were marks of love.

M/N’s fierce jealousy, his need to control every little thing—who Ethan spoke to, where he went, what he wore—was intoxicating. Ethan didn’t want soft love or gentle touches. He wanted to feel owned and consumed. Wanted to feel like he couldn't live without M/N because he was the very air needed to breathe. And M/N gave him that in spades.

The possessiveness wasn’t some accident; it was nurtured between them, a game they played. Ethan loved pushing M/N to his limits, seeing the anger flash in his eyes when someone dared talk to him, only for M/N to later drag him into a heated argument, the tension sizzling between them. Their fights were never just fights; they were foreplay, a dance of anger and passion that neither of them could resist.

Behind closed doors, their dynamic took on a whole different life. Ethan didn’t cower when M/N snapped at him; he smiled, relishing every possessive word. When M/N told him to stop talking to certain people, Ethan’s heart raced, not out of fear but out of exhilaration. He loved how it felt to be controlled, to be told what to do, to be pulled back into M/N’s orbit over and over again.

The world saw a victim in Ethan, but in reality, he was the one fanning the flames, drawing out every possessive instinct in M/N. He loved the danger of it, how far they could push before it burned them both alive. And M/N? He was more than happy to oblige, loving how Ethan craved his jealousy, how he’d provoke M/N just to see that flash of rage, knowing it would end with them entangled in each other, lost in the toxicity of their need.

Ethan’s friends just didn’t get it, and it was exhausting. If only they could mind their own business, Ethan would be a lot happier. As he spotted Tara and Sam heading his way, he groaned internally, already anticipating yet another "concerned" conversation. He briefly considered making a run for it, but they were too quick, closing in and cornering him before he could escape.

“Ethan,” Tara’s voice was firm, low, and filled with that frustratingly familiar sense of urgency. “We need to talk. It's about M/N.”

Ethan immediately tensed, his jaw tightening. Of course, it was about M/N. It was always about M/N. He narrowed his eyes at Tara, shifting his weight like a boxer getting ready for a fight. “There’s nothing to talk about, Tara,” he replied sharply, his voice cold. “I’m fine. We’re fine.”

“No, you’re not,” Sam cut in, stepping closer, her expression a mix of frustration and concern. “We’ve been watching this for months, Ethan. He’s controlling you. You don’t hang out with us anymore, you barely text—hell, you hardly even smile these days. It’s like he’s cut you off from everyone who actually cares about you.”

Ethan’s heart raced with growing anger, his fists clenching at his sides. “I’m not cut off from anyone!” His voice came out sharper than he intended, his body rigid with tension. “I’m just busy. You guys wouldn’t understand.”

“Busy?” Tara’s disbelief was evident, her eyes wide as she stepped closer, not letting him wiggle out of the conversation. “Ethan, we’ve seen the way he treats you! You flinch when he’s around. You’re constantly looking over your shoulder, like you’re waiting for him to snap. That’s not normal. That’s not healthy.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he shot back, his voice edged with frustration. “You don’t know him. He’s not what you think.”

Sam stepped forward, her tone soft but firm, like she was speaking to a child. “Ethan, listen to me. He’s not good for you. There are other guys—better guys—who’d treat you right. You don’t have to put up with this.”

“I don’t need your help!” Ethan snapped, cutting her off. His voice rose with every word, anger flashing in his eyes. He stepped back, trying to create distance, his frustration boiling over. “You want me to leave him, but I love him. Why can't anyone seem to get that?!”

Tara’s eyes softened as if she could somehow break through his anger. “Ethan, we care about you. We’re only trying to help. I’ve even got someone in mind—he’s sweet, kind, nothing like M/N. You don’t have to settle just because M/N is your first boyfriend. There are people out there who would actually treat you well.”

Ethan’s eyes widened, a flash of offense crossing his face. His lips curled into a bitter, humorless smile as he shook his head in disbelief. “Wow,” he muttered, looking down briefly before fixing Tara with a sharp glare. “I can’t believe you just managed to insult me and overstep every boundary I’ve got in one sentence.”

“That’s not what I—”

“No, I get it,” Ethan cut her off, his voice icy. “You think I’m some pathetic loser who can’t handle his own relationship, that I’m just clinging to M/N because I’m desperate. But you’re wrong. You don’t understand us at all. He’s not controlling me—I want this. I want him. You think he’s bad for me? You don’t know him like I do.”

“Ethan, you’re not seeing clearly,” Sam tried to interject, her voice pleading now. “He’s manipulating you, making you think this is love—.”

“Stop!” Ethan screamed, his fists trembling as he glared at them both. “You have no right to interfere in my life like this. M/N isn’t the problem, you are. You can’t stand that I’m not the same person I was before, that I’m happy in a way you’ll never understand. I don’t need saving—I’m exactly where I want to be.”

Tara’s face fell, her shoulders sagging as the hope of reaching him began to fade. “Ethan…”

“No,” Ethan growled. “I don’t want to hear it. Not again. Stay out of my relationship. If you can’t respect that, maybe we’re not meant to be friends.”

Without another word, Ethan turned on his heel and stormed off, leaving Tara and Sam standing in stunned silence, their concern now tinged with a deep, helpless sadness. To them, Ethan’s anger and defensiveness were just more proof of how deeply M/N had his claws in him, manipulating him into believing that this toxic love was all he deserved. But to Ethan, it wasn’t manipulation at all. It was passion, fierce and raw, the kind of love that consumed you whole—and he wouldn’t trade it for anything. He swore he'll fucking kill anyone who tried to step in between you and him.

[szynkaaa]

Black Myth: Wukong Journal Entries Part 2

Part 1 talks about what happened to the monkeys from Mount Huaguo after SWK died

Part 2 will be about the bosses you fight in chapter 6 to get the Golden Suozi armor parts, I will be linking back to the fandom wiki for the full journal entries and some videos. I highly recommend reading the articles in full because it also talks about what kind of person Sun Wukong is/was.

Sun Wukong's armor were scattered around Mt. Huaguo and turned into creatures after he died.

Disclaimer: I am not an expert in JTTW, a lot of things are drawn up from my own conclusion.

Long text so everything is under cut!

Gold Armored Rhino

SWK has a heart of gold, lungs of silver, head of copper and iron body from being in the Furnace for 40 days

Can still feep pain when injured though

was fed iron pellet and moletn copper by mountain deities and keepers when he was buried under Five-Element Mountain for 500 years

his monkeys didn't visit him :(

also headband curse so tight his head would resmeble a gourd ouch

Golden Armored Rhino mirrors the Great Sage's indomitable spirit, never yielding to defeat

"[...] Even if its horn was shattered, it never lost the resolve to charge into battle, standing resolute and read to fight anew.

In the game, you have to shatter his horn with heavy attacks in order to be able to do a lot of damage, but the horn grows back after few seconds, so it's rise and repeat. Also the location of the armor is littered with dead soldier bodies. After the fight ZBJ says that the bosses were killing the soldiers because the soldiers were trying to get the armor pieces. Dialogue starts at 4:22

Cloudtreading Deer

Sommersault Cloud made Wukong's body invulnerable and movement agile, but his lack of patience would lead to trouble

this whole paragraph: "Immortals often say that Sun Wukong was at his most mischievous and ruthless when he was the Monkey King. Yet, during that time, aside from his battles with the Celestial Court, he rarely harmed other beings. It was only after he became a disciple, following his master and gaining direction, that he developed many thunderous methods. Stealing, robbing, kidnapping, killing, arson, and destroying mountains and caves—all became second nature to him."

Cloudtreading Deer is transformed from his Lotus Silk Cloudtreaders (the things protecting his legs)

represents both sides of his nature: free-spirited and agile nature and his inherent ferocity

Cloudtreading Deer battle has two phases, the first one where it casts stupid tornados and also moves around very fast and through the sky. I fucking hated that phase LMFAO. Second phase was easier, but also spooky the boss turns into some blood deer and it's giving me massive bloodborne vibes. Transformation starts at 8:10 in the video. Basically, phase 1 is the free spirited and agile nature of wukong, and phase 2 is his ruthleness and ferocity

Feng-Tail General

Learned human manners and speech during his travels and when he studied Dao at Mt. Lingtai

"When he left in a huff at Yingchou Stream, the Old Loong King reasoned with him, and he returned to admit his mistakes. He abandoned arbitrary actions and always heeded sound advice." -> Before they met the White Dragon horse at the Yingchou stream, Tripitaka and SWK were ambushed by bandits, and SWK killed them all, to which Tripitaka was not happy about. They fought, SWK left. He then chats with the Old Loong King of the stream, who also told SWK that there was a White Dragon and his master might be in danger, so SWK goes back to Tripitaka. Also in his absence that's when Guanyin gave Tripitaka the headband to be put onto SWK

"He forged brotherly bonds with yaoguais, engaged in jest with immortals, and exchanged banter with Bodhisattvas. His amiable nature endeared him to all, who were ever willing to offer their assistance. He had a sense of decorum and propriety." -> not much for me to add there, he becomes sworn brothers with few yaoguai, like the Bull King or Erlang Shen

"He had the ability to summon wind and rain and could seek out loongs. He could transform into guais for scouting or borrow vessels when needed. In times of trouble, he sought the aid of higher beings, seldom relying on brute force."

-> truth lol, like the amount of times he had to get help from other deities to beat up an enemy and save his master

"This Feng-Tail General, with multiple eyes on his head, had a keen understanding of both himself and his enemies. He was adept at leaping and dodging, avoiding powerful foes whenever possible, and displayed a touch of the monkey's cleverness. It's no wonder that the crown on the monkey's head grasped his nimble thoughts so well."

This is the only boss you didn't have to fight, I saw it more as a stamina / health test to test your built lol. Basically what you have to do in the game is jump onto it's head and hold onto the antenna while the grasshopper is jumping three times, and then pull the antennas out while not getting burned. And yeah in the map he is just leaping and jumping around. Honestly not even sure if you can try to fight it, I didn't bother to find out.

Emeral-Armed Mantis

"Tang Monk often advocated for kindness, while Sun Wukong was known for his punishment of evil."

"At Kui-Mu Wolf's abode, upon learning of the princess's suffering and her reluctance to leave due to her feelings for the yaoguai and children bore for him, Sun Wukong ordered Bajie to throw the yaoguai's children from the height, reducing them to two lumps of flesh." -> Referencing the arc in ch. 38-31 in JTTW, the Yellow Robe Demon, also known as Kuimulang (will abbreviate as KML). KML is one of the 28 constellations, and he had a lover. in JTTW she was reincarnated as a princess, gets kidnapped by KML, married for 13 years and they have two kids. It's those two kids where SWK orders ZBJ to throw them off.

"At Old Yang's house, after learning of the unfilial deeds of the old couple's son and seeing how they indulged him for the sake of incense offerings, he proceeded to behead the son despite Old Yang's pleas." -> Ch. 52 in JTTW, screenshot taken from here

"Sun Wukong's nature was to show no mercy to villains and evildoers; he delighted in eradicating evils and yaoguais. The numerous blood debts on the journey to the West, though each had its reasons, were mostly attributed to the monkey.

The world knew of the other three pieces of armor, but they were unaware that the mantis was actually transformed from the Great Sage's gauntlet. It seems the gauntlet inherited the Great Sage's ruthlessness, for it played tricks on Zhu Bajie with the same cunning."

The last bit refers to when ZBJ was trying to catch the mantis but it jumped into his mouth down his throat into his stomach instead and the DO had to go inside his mouth to fight the mantis.

The first half of the battle is super easy imo but then after you cut down certain % of his HP, the mantis gets a lot more aggressive. While the mantis was inside ZBJ stomach, it is cutting on its wall, hence ZBJ is doubling over in pain. So I guess this refers to how ruthless SWK can be

[dirtydragonthoughts]

I'm finally getting around to reading Transformers: Exiles and

omg. It is so bad. Like, bad on multiple levels.

I read Transformers: Exodus a few years ago. It was... OK. Definitely not a great work of literature, and there were some "huh" moments in it, but it was fine. But now I'm starting on the next book. I didn't look at the TFWiki entry for Exiles until last night, but just the Errors section is absolutely sending me. (The idea that the book was panic rewritten by Hasbro just before publication would explain a LOT of the issues I'm seeing.)

As someone who loves the franchise, it physically hurts that this guy was paid to write this. It is completely phoned in. Now, I'm sure he was writing on spec, and was probably handed an outline or specific plot points/characters that needed to be included, but even with that limitation it could have been a LOT better.

Anyway I'm going to jot down some of my impressions in this thread because I want to make sure I remember why I didn't like this book, years down the road when I see the book still sitting on my bookshelf. (If I even keep it, that is up for debate.) I'll even keep away from the things mentioned in the Error section of the wiki entry, since that's low-hanging fruit.

(If you enjoyed this book I'm glad for you, but I am down to just hate-reading it now. Sorry about that.)

Impressions will be behind cuts in case you don't want to spoil yourself for this masterpiece. XD

I've finished Part 1 and some of the things that stuck with me have been:

There's a thing in fiction writing that's often bandied about, how you should show and don't tell. It's hard to explain to new authors what this means, and why it's a bad thing. Well, this book has about a million examples. Instead of showing how a character is feeling, it just tells us. Optimus was stressed. Optimus was worried. Prowl was irritated.

Related to the showing/telling thing, this book loves just giving a laundry list of things that happen, regardless of how important it is. For example, we got a whole paragraph on what happened after a race on Velocitron. None of these details mattered to the story in any way, but we still got a whole half page of detail about it:

We got a multi-page scene of Prowl cultivating an informant. He gets named (Armco). A few chapters later Prowl brings him in saying "Here's someone who can keep his mouth shut" and then IMMEDIATELY someone tries to blow up the Ark, and Armco falls out of the plot, never to be seen again. RIP Armco, we never knew ya.

Weird character note: The Autobots show up on Velocitron and discover there's a schism in the leadership there, with factions forming on both sides. While the Autobots are preparing to leave the planet, the "bad" leader says something relatively innocuous to Optimus, who then punches the Velocitronian in the face. This sets off a giant battle between the two factions, whereupon the Autobots dip and go through the space bridge. Brilliant.

More when I finish part 2.

[atamascolily]

Okay, I am dying here, can someone please explain to me how Mabayu's film shears work without the second blade--the whole point of scissors is that you can make a shearing cut where the two blades meet even if they're not particularly sharp. So how on earth is this thing supposed to work?? Is she using it like a stiletto or something? Even if that one edge is razor-sharp, that seems awfully inefficient, to say nothing of what the little ridges at the top are suppose to do.

Yes, I know, the answer is probably "it's magic, it doesn't have to make sense", but also she's literally missing half the weapon here (you can see the point where the second blade would attach; it's the diamond-shaped thing in the center). So my question is, is there another blade in the first place, and if so, what happened to it?

The Puella Magi Wiki entry for her points out the blade is the same shape as her hairpin, which resembles a pair of clock hands, in which case, I repeat my question: clock hands come in pairs, so where's the second blade on the shears? Does this mean there's another Mabayu out there with the other half?? Is the key visual for Scene 0 a metaphor or meant to be taken literally?

Speculation: since we see cuts of Mabayu in what looks like a hospital gown in the OP, this makes me suspect the "real" Mabayu (or at least her physical body) is in the hospital, maybe in a coma, and is astrally projecting/magicking herself into Homura's story as a result of her wish. Her being in the hospital would also explain how she and Homura met and how their stories became entwined. It would also explain why she might erase herself from the story once she learns the truth.

Anyway, I'm not sure exactly what's going on here, or if I'm reading too much into scissors (technically, scissor, since it really is singular here), but I hope there is a reason for Mabayu's unusual weapon beyond "creators thought it looked cool" or I will be very annoyed.

(Also, I see you little circles on the handle, I SEE YOU and your symbolic meaning.)

[chordsykat]

Joy of joys! It's the Where Can I Read the Dethkomic?! Master Post!

Hello and welcome to all the new and returning Metalocalypse fans here on Tumblr. Been quite a pile of excitement in the MTL fandom, lately, and I understand some of you have interest in reading my as-of-now 2 volume, ongoing, action/adventure/drama Metalocalypse fancomic. In order to make it easy on you all (and me, who has been providing links like crazy on an individual basis for more than a hot minute, hehe) I have compiled the following for ease-of reading!

What is Dethkomic? As it (kinda) says on @dethkomic's very own Tumblr page, this is a fancomic, written and drawn by yours truly, unassociated with anything official. As of this writing, there are two "Volumes", each consisting of 4 issues a piece. The story follows Dethklok and their all-girl-lady-centric counterparts, Baen-Shee, as they discover the magic of friendship... as they go on an epic quest to restore the kingdom of... as they deal with the highs and lows of superstardom, relationships, loss, bears, assassins, world domination, literal and emotional transformation, and the prophecy that ties them all together. I made it as a way to pass the time back when the movie was first announced and it continues to keep me entertained as we wait for the Army of the Doomstar's premiere (EDIT: We are no longer waiting and it was brutal!) Hope it does the same for you! Here's where you can read it:

Volume 1 (issues 1-4, complete):

On Tumblr: https://dethkomic.tumblr.com/komic

On AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2479018

Volume 2 (issues 5-8, complete):

On Tumblr: https://dethkomic.tumblr.com/komic2

On AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/series/3355594

And there's also a groovy entry on the whole thing over on the MTL Wiki, if you're interested. That said, hope you like it! Will there be a third Volume? Depending on how the movie goes, and whether or not interest tanks (happy to say I don't see that happening anytime soon - thank you, readers!) there just might be. :) (EDIT: There definitely WILL be a Dethkomic 3 - and here's the trailer: https://dethkomic.com/post/752759703412654080/a-wild-dethkomic-3-trailer-appears)

Happy reading! And remember: Dethkomic loves you!

[saffronapplemanga]

Recent Read Manga Recommendation Round Up (plus anime!) - Part 3

Manga/anime I’ve been enjoying recently! Links to part 1 and part 2.

Twitter link to this post here.

~Links to my other manga posts~ My personal favs/ones I super enjoyed will have a ✨ on them :)

PLEASE LOOK UP ANY TRIGGER WARNINGS!

CRIME, ACTION, DRAMA

✨GANGSTA. by Kohske

(8 volumes + chapters released past vol.8, hiatus)

Available in English

Please check out my dedicated post I linked for this series. I worked super hard on it!

If you take one recommendation from this list, let it be GANGSTA. I’m begging… This series is going in my all-time favs. I have a whole “Why You Should Check GANGSTA. Out” section in my dedicated post, so definitely take a look at that! But in short: Do you enjoy great character writing? A diverse, adult cast featuring different races and disability rep (deaf MC)? A gritty setting? A FOUND FAMILY OF DORKS?

I'm obsessed and I'm making it my mission to take as many of you down with me as possible...

TIME TRAVEL, SUPERNATURAL

Link Click directed by Li Haoling

(24 Episodes - Season 2 Coming Soon)

Link Click is a donghua from Studio LAN and streamed on Bilibili — the Chinese streaming service that I do some subs for, if you're unfamiliar with them — as well as Funimation. I enjoyed the art, animation, and atmosphere. The premise is that two guys working at a print shop time travel through photos to help their clients. And who doesn't love a trio of kids with a big-hearted jokester, the quiet, mature one, and a feisty girl who reins them in? I think this is my first donghua and I enjoyed it!

Plus, the opening and ending themes are pretty slick ->

Season 1 Opening Theme - Adding it to the playlist.

MECH, POLITICAL, SCHOOL

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury by Yatate Hajime

(12 Episodes + Prologue - Season 2 currently airing)

Let me tell you about me and Gundam.

I used to work at a translation company in Tokyo where I translated some Gundam figure commercials/interviews (which are currently privated on Youtube, unfortunately) amongst other things. I'm telling you guys, every time I walked into the office and saw an email from Bandai/TAMASHII NATIONS with a new Gundam translation request in my inbox, I would cry a lot little inside. I had never watched anything Gundam and didn't know what the heck was going on in the stuff I had to translate. There was this one interview with a figure designer where I was like, "Oh, you have to be a Gundam fan to understand what the heck he's talking about..." I remember me, another translator, and our editor staring at our screens exasperated. We managed, though. Big shoutout to the Gundam Wiki — not that I understood anything from it LOL.

If you told me back then that I would enjoy a Gundam thing, I would've laughed — but here I am, enjoying a Gundam thing. I'm not into mechs, even though I think robots/robot-adjacent stuff + space are cool. Still, I could never get into mechs for some reason. So if you're like me, try The Witch from Mercury. Our MCs are these two girls who end up engaged to each other in a rather hilarious way imo, with a colorful cast of supporting characters. The political themes I hear Gundam is known for really hooked me, and I LOVE how the kids handle a situation they end up in. I won't say more so as not to spoil it, but I think this is a great entry point for Gundam newbies!

Season 1 Opening Theme - Am I turning into a Gundam fan? Wild. Who would've thought the day would come? What if I start getting into Gunpla? A slippery slope, really.

SLICE OF LIFE, SCHOOL

✨Skip and Loafer by Takamatsu Misaki

(10 volumes, ongoing) + Season 1 Anime

Available in English

I remember seeing volume one of this series at the bookstore I frequented in Ikebukuro Station when it had just come out. Sooooo many times, I almost picked it up over the years. But I always passed because I was swamped with work, school, and current reads.

Now, I have a little more time on my hands, and the new anime adaptation has so much love put into it! A great coming-of-age story following young Mitsumi as she moves to the big city for school. This series is so wholesome, it's cavity-inducing.

This opening is the most delightful thing~

SLICE OF LIFE

Hotel Metsäpeuraan e Youkoso by Fukuta Seira

(5 volumes, ongoing)

JP only

In the mountains of Finland is a hotel run by two men. One day they see a young man outside in a snowstorm, and bring him inside. The men can tell that teenager Jun seems to have a heavy past and offer him a job and place to stay at the hotel.

Super cute, wholesome, and has great found family vibes!

SLICE OF LIFE, FOOD

Samenai Machi no Kisaten by Hasha

(2 volumes, complete)

JP only

A chill read with a touch of melancholy. At the end of each chapter is a recipe! The art is very cute and pleasing.

DYSTOPIAN, SCI-FI

✨Fool Night by Yasuda Kasumi

(8 volumes, ongoing)

JP only

In the future, the sky is blacked out, not allowing any sun through. To survive, technology has been developed to turn people into plants. The real horror is late stage capitalism though. I'm in love with the art and atmosphere of this series. I can't wait to read more!

ROMANCE

Gakusou by Tsurimaki Nodoka

(oneshot)

JP only

This is a super short one-chapter oneshot. Cute little read with lovely art! By the same author as 聖血の海獣/Seiketsu no Kemono, a 3-volume manga I've been meaning to read.

LGBTQ, DRAMA, COMEDY

To Strip The Flesh by Tooda Oto

(oneshot/anthology)

Available in English

An anthology that has some funny stories, and some that made me feel too seen...

DYSTOPIAN, SCI-FI, CRIME, ACTION, POLITICAL

✨PSYCHO-PASS by Urobuchi Gen

Check anilist for all content because the seasons, movies, manga, light novels, and watch order are a little all over the place.

The Psycho-Pass: Inspector Shinya Kogami manga is available in English from publisher Dark Horse.

Set in the future, Japan has implemented a surveillance state that measures people's psyche and flags anyone with the potential to do crime, even if they have not done anything or will never have done anything.

I watched season one back when it first came out in 2012. Since then, I would see ads for new content at the train stations in Japan and thought I’d catch up. There’s a new movie, PSYCHO-PASS PROVIDENCE, releasing May 12, 2023.

I've been having a lot of dumb, edgy fun with this series and its on-the-nose political themes. It's kinda camp-y? I do wish it spent more time on character moments, though.

I love me a trio (which seems to be a theme in this round-up lol) and this series has a good trio! Akane is such a great character, and Shinya and MY BOY GINOZA NOBUCHIKA!!! have been thoroughly entertaining me.

I love him. I wanna bully him and stuff him into a locker...

[ideas-on-paper]

Rannoch researches - Part 1: Astrophysics, formation of the Tikkun system and origin of life on Rannoch

[Potential spoilers for the Mass Effect trilogy]

Alright, I finally, finally made it to the Rannoch arc of ME3 - and while it absolutely freaking destroyed me on an emotional level, I was nevertheless very excited to see the Quarian homeworld in person. I mean, it's one thing to just read the entries on the wiki, but virtually being there and flying around in the star system is something entirely else.

As you might know, I'm very interested in any lore about the Quarians and Geth, specifically everything that's related to Rannoch's culture previous to the Morning War, and being able to set foot on the site is like a dream come true for me. (Having an idea of the place you're researching just immensely helps with visualization. xD)

However, being my nerdy self, I decided to try and explore Rannoch's history a little further, beyond the Morning War and even the advent of Quarian civilization - that is to say, the history of Rannoch's star system. I'm aware that this topic might be a little dry to some people, since it has nothing to do with ME's story as a whole and basically just covers the scientific background. However, after researching about it, I must say that I find it to be quite fascinating, and I certainly learned a lot of things about astrophysics, the origin of life, and the universe as a whole along the way.

Disclaimer: I should mention that I'm neither an astrophysicist nor a chemist, and all my knowledge about the topic stems from self-study. Therefore, it's possible that some of my conclusions and projections might be scientifically inaccurate; if someone has more expertise in these fields than me, feel free to point any error out to me. For the sake of understandability, I will try to explain all facts as simply as possible.

The age of the Tikkun system

Before actually being able to travel to the system in Mass Effect 3, Legion already gives us a little trivia about Rannoch and its star in ME2. When Shepard inquires what the Quarian homeworld is like, they respond with:

"It is more arid than Earth. The star is older and more orange than Sol."

In combination with the information that Rannoch's star Tikkun has about 90% of the Sun's mass and half of its luminosity (which we learn from the planet's description), we can conclude two things:

Tikkun is older than 4.6 billion years (the approximate age of our Sun).

Tikkun is a K-type main-sequence star, sometimes also called orange dwarfs due to their emitted light being in the orange spectrum.

From an astrophysical perspective, these two pieces of information complement each other nicely: Since K-type stars are generally more stable than stars of the G-class like our Sun, they also have longer lifespans (about 17 - 70 billion years, in contrast to the estimated 10 billion of the Sun), which means that a K-type star that formed long before our Sun could still exist without issue.

Also, despite being colder and less luminous than G-type stars, K-type stars are considered to be of particular interest in the search for extraterrestrial life, if only for the reason that their extended lifespan gives organic life more time to develop. Furthermore, K-stars emit less total UV light and ionizing radiation than G-type stars, which are known to be damaging to DNA and thus would hinder the development of extraterrestrial life.

However, it's still debated how beneficial these presumed advantages actually are: Due to their lower heat emission, planets would have to orbit closer to K-type stars to have habitable temperatures, which might offset any benefit from a lower UV output. Also, while the total UV radiation is lower, K-type stars emit higher levels of X-rays and far ultraviolet light (F-UV) during their early lifespan, which may act sterilizing and destroy any atmosphere, thus preventing the emergence of organic life (or at least significantly delaying it).

Still, there is a factor that might have made it possible for life to develop on Rannoch after all: metallicity. Metallicity denotes the abundance of heavy elements in a star, although the term "metals" is a bit misleading - it's not about metals in the actual sense, but rather every element that is heavier than hydrogen and helium. Hydrogen and helium are the two lightest elements and the first to exist immediately after the Big Bang (in addition to small quantities of lithium), and all other elements were created by nuclear fusion in stars and then ejected into interstellar space by supernovae. Consequentially, that means the older a star is, the less heavy elements it contains (there are exceptions to this rule, however).

Now, the interesting part about this is that very recently, scientists have found out that planets orbiting metal-poor stars might actually be more habitable to organic life: Although metal-poor stars emit more total UV radiation compared to metal-rich stars, the spectrum of the emitted UV light strongly differs. Metal-poor stars emit more short-wave UV-C light, while metal-rich stars predominantly emit the longer-waved UV-B light. The difference is that while UV-B light acts destructive to any ozonosphere, UV-C light actually supports the formation of an ozone layer. It may seem like a bit of a paradox that a certain spectrum of UV light benefits the formation of an atmosphere protecting the planet from cytotoxic UV radiation, but what we can surmise is that metal-poor stars are generally more life-friendly.

However, Rannoch's star system potentially being very old by galactic standards introduces yet another problem: At first, scientists suspected that metal-rich stars are overall more likely to possess planetary systems, particularly such that include terrestrial planets. This was probably due to the assumption that since heavy elements were not that abundant in the beginning of the universe, terrestrial planets were also not very common back then, although further observation has shown that smaller exoplanets exist around stars with a range of metallicities. Evidence suggests, however, that large gas giants are more likely to form around planets with high metallicity - perhaps because cores containing a large amount of heavy elements exert a stronger gravitational force on light gases.

Still, the issue remains that the cores of planets which formed during the early phase of the universe most likely contain next to no heavy elements. This is important because the iron and nickel core of Earth is one of the main reasons life was able to develop on our planet in the first case: The heavy elements in the core are responsible for Earth's magnetic field, which stabilizes the atmosphere and protects it from being blown away by solar winds. So, presuming that Rannoch's core is composed of a larger portion of light elements, it would have a weaker magnetic field than Earth, which in turn would make it harder for the planet to develop a life-essential atmosphere.

Either way, we can surmise that the question whether a planet is actually habitable depends on various different factors, and it once again proves what a delicate balance has to be met for organic life to develop. In case of Rannoch, it's worth mentioning that Rannoch's atmosphere is stated to be slightly thinner than Earth's (0.93 atm). So, if Tikkun is indeed an old, metal-poor star, perhaps the influence of the increased UV-C radiation is just enough to offset all other atmosphere-depleting factors, like F-UV radiation, x-ray radiation, and solar winds. Also, it's noted that Haza, the only gas giant of the Tikkun system, is comparatively small; thinking back to the observations that large gas giants predominantly form around stars with high metallicity, this might suggest that the percentage of heavy elements in Haza's core is pretty low, which in turn could hint at the system's high age.

Life based on dextro amino acids - proof of Rannoch's age?

However, there might be another, even more convincing indicator that Tikkun is pretty ancient by astronomical standards: As we know, life on Rannoch is based on dextro amino acids, including the Quarians who are the only dextro species in the galaxy aside from the Turians, with all others being levo amino-based. For a long time, scientists have been speculating why lifeforms on Earth consist pretty much exclusively of L-acids (levo), and why there are sugars (e.g. glucose) consisting of D-molecules (dextro), but no proteinogenic (protein-creating) acids. Theoretically, the chemical construction of D- and L-acids is exactly the same - the only thing that's different is the way the molecules reflect light, which is clockwise for D-acids and counterclockwise for L-acids (a property known as "chirality"). This may not sound like much, but it has major consequences: As a result, D- and L-acids are entirely incompatible with each other, acting like image and mirror image. (Just as a side note because I keep hearing that Quarians consist of "completely different" molecules than humans and thus are completely different lifeforms: Broken down to their chemical components, D- and L-acids don't differ from each other at all - it's basically the same, just the other way around.)

Meanwhile, the American chemist Ronald Breslow has proposed that the reason why L-amino acids are dominant on Earth has something to do with electromagnetic radiation: Going by the panspermia hypothesis, the molecules of life spread through the universe by means of meteoroids, asteroids, comets, and other matter. However, on their way through space, these molecules are subjected to the radiation of neutron stars and pulsars, and it's been observed that dextro amino acids get destroyed more easily by neutron star radiation than their levo counterparts. Thus, the meteoroids that fell down on Earth contained more L-acids than D-acids. Since amino acids of the same kind paired up with one another and became crystallized, the only ones that remained were those that couldn't find any partner: the excess L-acids, which were dissolved in the water and eventually became the components of organic life.

Now, one thing to keep in mind is that neutron stars and pulsars are objects that form after a dying star turns into a supernova. Logically, this would mean that the older the universe gets, the more neutron stars are created, and consequentially, their number must have been lower during the early stages. If this is true, the radiation hazard must have been lower as well, and presuming that the quantity of D-amino acids contained in a meteorite exceeded those of L-acids, it could've led to life developing along an alternate path on a different planet - even Breslow himself considered it a possibility that life based on D-acids and L-sugars might exist elsewhere in the universe.

This would lead to the conclusion that the Quarians as a species are way older than humans - and potentially, the majority of the other races in the galaxy. What makes this even better is that it actually lines up very nicely with the comment from Erinya's bondmate (the Asari you meet on Illium during the sidequest "Medical Scans" in ME2) that Quarians have "old souls". (I'm not entirely sure how Asari are able to determine how old someone's soul is, but then again, I never quite understood their esoteric mindset. xD) Going from this, it might mean that the Turians are another "old" species of the galaxy, since they developed based on dextro acids as well - either way, I quite like this theory, since it not only fits in with the lore but would also make sense from a scientific point of view.

Rannoch's position in the Milky Way

However, as with pretty much all good theories, there is just one problem: Rannoch's position in the Milky Way. In 2016, scientists created the first global age map of the galaxy based on observations of 100,000 red giants, coming to the conclusion that the oldest, most metal-poor stars are located in the galaxy's center and in the halo (the roughly spherical space surrounding our galaxy, acting as a kind of "border zone"). Furthermore, they observed that with increasing distance from the galactic center, the stars of the disk (the "flat" level that the spiral arms are on) get younger the farther away they are - and with the Tikkun system being located at the disk's very edge, this puts my theory in a somewhat precarious place.

However, at the same time, the stars' age increases the greater the vertical distance from the galactic disk is (to put it simply, the oldest stars are found above and below the disk). At first, this led me to the suspicion that the Tikkun system might actually be located in the halo, since the galaxy map of Mass Effect is only in 2D and doesn't account for the 3D aspect. However, I was stopped short by the realization that the halo contains no interstellar medium - that is to say, clouds of gas and dust which are essential for the formation of solar systems. With nebulae (like the Perseus Veil) also being part of the interstellar medium, this makes a localization of Tikkun in the halo extremely unlikely. Still, one thing I did find out that Tikkun is probably located "above" most of the rest of the Milky Way: Due to the dented shape of the disk (which is suspected to be caused by the rotating movement of the galaxy's center), the regions at the outer edge of our galaxy are significantly bent upwards and downwards. I actually managed to find a three-dimensional map depicting the position of our solar system, making it possible to deduce the position of the Tikkun system in relation to it, which would most likely be located near the "raised" partition of the disk (see image below).

This 3D map of the Milky Way galaxy shows the position of our Solar system, and if compared to this Mass Effect galaxy map, we can conclude that the Tikkun system would be somewhere on the right, where the "ridge" is (Edited image; original picture source)

Still, that doesn't mean my speculations are completely off the table: In a more recent study from 2023, a team of scientists did a metallicity profile of the Milky Way's stars, starting from the galactic center all the way to the outer rim. During their survey, they not only observed a spike of metal-rich stars around 23,000 light years from the center (with 26,000 light years distance from the center, our solar system lies quite close to it), but also an unusually high quantity of metal-poor stars about 50,000 light years from the galactic center.

Granted, there is a correlation between the age of a star and metallicity, but as I already pointed out above, this doesn't always have to be the case. In fact, each of the three star populations - young, intermediate, and old - displays the trait of a higher metallicity near the center and a lower metallicity at the outskirts. Then again, the oldest, most metal-poor stars of the galaxy are also found in the center, and the research group has acknowledged that one reason for the steep decrease of metallicity near the outer edge might be that our estimates of the extent of the Milky Way's disk are off. Either way, a diagram from the study shows that old stars still exist up to a radius of 12 kpc (approx. 40,000 light years), with their luminosity decreasing the farther away from the center they're located. In the study, "old stars" were classified as those with an age of 8-12 GYR/8-12 billion years, so this would be my rough estimate for the age of the Tikkun system as well.

Another explanation for the rapid decrease of metallicity near the outer rim that has been proposed is the collision with a former, metal-poor dwarf galaxy. This galaxy would have been engulfed and later absorbed by the Milky Way, with its metal-poor gas being used as the building material for new stars. If this was true, perhaps the Perseus Veil might even be a remnant of this collision, consisting of gas formerly belonging to this dwarf galaxy. Going by the description from the Codex, the Perseus Veil is an opaque nebula in the colors of "purple and gold", suggesting that it might consist of a combination of emission nebulae (those that emit light in the visible spectrum, hence the striking colors) and dark nebulae. Dark nebulae absorb the wavelengths of light visible to the human eye, effectively concealing any stellar objects behind them (still, objects obscured by them can be observed with radio or infrared telescopes, which is a little curious considering that the Codex entry says "the Veil's total opacity prevents Council intelligence from surveying Geth activity"; however, it's possible that the Geth are using technology to disrupt those frequencies, not wanting organic races to spy on what they're doing). Dark nebulae in particular are also known to be the birthplace of many stars and planets, which makes them a likely candidate for the origin of the Tikkun system.

However, there is also the possibility that the Tikkun system might not be located in, but rather behind the nebula. The form of dark nebulae tends to be very irregular, with no clearly defined boundaries and far-ranging, serpentine shapes. In the night sky, they appear as dark patches, which is a phenomenon we know from the Great Rift, clouds of interstellar gas and dust obscuring much of our view from the Milky Way (for avid star gazers, this is indeed the dark band that stretches across the "bright band" of the Milky Way). This is due to the Rift being located between the inner edge of the Orion arm (which is the spiral arm where our Solar System is located), and the Sagittarius Arm, the next arm inward; thus, the Great Rift effectively blocks our view of the Galactic center. So, perhaps something similar might be the case for the Perseus Veil, with the Veil being located in-between the closest spiral arm and Quarian/Geth space. (This would also make sense considering that the Quarians/Geth occupied more clusters than just Tikkun, for example the Far Rim; the fact that multiple clusters are obscured by the Perseus Veil would support the theory of it being a more extensive interstellar cloud instead of a nebula that only contains the Tikkun system, despite Tikkun's cluster being labeled "Perseus Veil").

Also, keeping the 3D-perspective in mind, the elevated position of Tikkun (and probably the other systems as well) would mean that observers from other star clusters have to look "up" at them, which might indicate that the Perseus Veil is located slightly below the Tikkun system. (As an allegory, imagine spanning a dark piece of fabric between you and a lamp at your ceiling.) This allows for some interesting speculation what our galaxy might look like from Rannoch's night sky, as our position on one of the spiral arms also affects what we can see of the Milky Way. In that sense, Rannoch might even be in a more "ideal" location to observe the galaxy as a whole, its elevated position granting something like a top-down view of the Milky Way. From the northern hemisphere, you would have a good view at the stars of the halo and other galaxies, while on the southern hemisphere, you would look directly at the dark "rift" of the Perseus Veil. One might wonder what kind of influence this had on Quarian mythology - considering the huge significance stars held in human culture, we can assume that the same is true for the Quarians, if not more.

Organic life: a temporary phenomenon?

Anyway, regardless whether my theories are true or not, I certainly found it very interesting to think about how life could've developed on a planet like Rannoch, and I think the possibility of there being an extraterrestrial civilization which is much older than ours is extremely fascinating. Still, one thing my researches taught me is that on a galactic level, creation and destruction often lie very close together: When a star dies and goes supernova, all life on the planets around it is naturally extinguished. However, the gas and matter from the dying star go on to become the building material for a new generation of stars, thus creating a new chance for life to emerge on other planets. The interesting question is though whether this cycle will continue indefinitely, or if there is some kind of natural limit to it. (As a fair warning, this is about to get a little existential.)

What stirred this thought in me is the observation that with growing age, the universe will become increasingly hostile to life, as each new generation of stars will contain more heavy elements. As explained above, this will lead to the stars emitting more hazardous radiation, which at some point could reach an amount that prevents the development of life altogether. So: Does that mean that organic life is really just a temporary phenomenon, and is our existence nothing more than a tiny episode in the grand history of the universe?

Regarding Mass Effect specifically, I wonder whether the Reapers are actually aware of this - I mean, a universe without life might mean that they'd be potentially jobless at some point. xD On the other hand, perhaps this is precisely the motivation behind their harvests: If organic life is truly just "an accident", as Sovereign says, maybe this is why the Reapers were talking about the "ascent" of humanity when turning all of them into a giant bio-machine in ME2. Maybe they actually intend to bypass the pre-destined extinction of organic races by lifting them onto a higher evolutionary plane.

Before you ask, yes, I've played the Leviathan DLC, and yes, I'm aware what the Reapers' purpose is in canon - however, I couldn't help but feel that the explanation of "AI and organics are destined to fight" is a tad bit lame, and on top of that, it leaves open so many plot holes and loose ends that never get addressed. So, I guess I would've preferred if they went with a more philosophical approach like this. (Especially since it not only seems to be implied, but also fits the overall setting quite well.)

Anyway, that's enough talk for today - I hope you enjoyed this deep dive into Rannoch's astrophysical background, as well as my conjectures how it all may fit in with real-life science. I'm definitely planning to make this into a longer series, but I need to figure out how day and year cycles work on Rannoch first. In fact, if anyone of you has sufficient mathematical knowledge, I would be very grateful for any assistance in calculating how fast time passes on Rannoch - we do know that it has a slightly lower gravitation than Earth (0.89 g), and since theory of relativity exists, that means time passes faster on Rannoch than on our planet.

It might take me a while before I'll be able to continue this series (if simply for the reason that posts like these take a lot of time and effort to make), but still, thank you for your attention!

[shoko-komi]

The Komi Report - Communication 440

This week in Komi Can't Communicate:

Moe Ashitano puts on her socks....

...and two mangaka reach an understanding

Read It: Mangareader Mangakakalot Viz Media (North America Exclusive) Mangadex (English updates are dead, but there’s the backlog; and Spanish language updates)

weh.... no continuation of the group discussion this week. Once again we are going on an unrelated tangent; but one must school oneself in patience. Let's appreciate this chapter on it's own terms together 💪

It shouldn't surprise me any more when a character unexpectedly returns, but I'd wager that many people had completely forgotten about this girl - she doesn't even have an entry on the Komi fandom wiki.

Here she is appearing for the first time in Ch. 258 - Contact Info as a late addition to Komi's second year class. Until this week she had one, maaaaaybe two other appearances. Every dog has her day, and today is Ashitano's.

Girl I think you have some sort of disability or perhaps a chronic illness. You should talk to a doctor.

Fun fact - her name is derived from the title of a 1968-1973 boxing manga called Ashita no Joe. And the way she burns out is a visual reference:

(Ashita no Joe, Volume 20)

Her father appears to be another visual reference to the titular Joe Yabuki. Oda loves doing references like this (I enjoy it also). With that background information established I will render my opinion - she's alright. Her appearance in this chapter is amusing, if not particularly interesting.

What I love about this chapter is the other section....

My girl!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I thought at first that the Viz Media folks had misspelled 'catharsis', but now I know that 'catharses' is the plural form; meaning multiple instances of catharsis. I am learning so much from this chapter aklksjdnlasndlaknsdlkasd

It's really sweet to see the positive effect Komi has on the people around her - simply by reaching out to people and forming a connection, she inspires further connections and bonds within her community. It's so emoi (❁´◡`❁) and it's exactly how Tadano helped Komi in the beginning; by making that first move and reaching out.

We learned in Emoyama's arc that she didn't have any friends... now she's bring her manga club together (TwT) and soon enough she'll be gay with Sukida (wishful thinking)

Himejoshi 🤝Fujoshi solidarity. I had to put that whole moment here because it's so beautiful to me. Putting aside the questionable habit those two have of writing romance manga about real people, I love this wholesome manga club action. I want a dozen side chapters about these three. I want a spin off.

Emoyama is the salve that has healed the division between a hardcore Girls Love enjoyer and a hardcore Boys Love enjoyer....

Also, of course Sukida witnessed Komorebi and Susumi in the park askdnlaksdnlasd. She has a spidey-sense for yuri.....

Well! That's all there is to say about Ch. 440!! The manga club is the clear standout and I love it very much. Ashitano sent me down a fun little pathway looking into Ashita no Joe so I liked that, too. Hopefully next week we'll get to continue the group discussion.

Until then, stay safe!!

[greatwargospel]

My thoughts on the commonwealth BOS

I think the brotherhood of steel is really interesting and is kind of ignored in a lot of ways past the gung-ho militancy, so im posting abou it :). inspired by recently doing blind betrayal and my sister having an oc of a brotherhood member who gets maxson court martialed by the other elders. A lot of this is my interpretation and what ive read on the wiki. Essentially, the brotherhood as it stands in the commonwealth is bad, not only by normal means but by brotherhood means in some regards.

Outsider Recruits & The Codex

The codex, much to my disappointment, is not completely written out rulebook for the player to read in any of the fallout games, so we must take what is given to us. There are two or so different instances where the codex is quoted to reaffirm the isolationist polices of the brotherhood, in both FNV and FO3.

"We do not help them, or let them in. We keep knowledge they must never have" - Elder McNamara (FNV)

Despite it being ruled that outsiders are only allowed to join under very specfic circumstances, the Maxson allows for multiple unimpressive wastelanders to join the faction, following the precedent set forth by Elder Lyons in DC (Despite their iteration looking down on Lyons' leadership as a whole). The reason Lyons had to recruit wastelanders was due to Lyons not recieving as much support from Lost Hills council and other western chapters.

The Chain That Binds

I am really surprised that no one brings up the chain that binds in discussion about the commonwealth brotherhood, especially in reference to blind betrayal.

"Orders are to observe the flow and not skip ranks. A superior may only give orders to his direct subordinates, and not to those beneath them..." - Hidden Valley Terminal Entries (FNV)

As a knight, you are sent to answer to Maxson about Paladin Danse's synthhood, after convincing him you were none the wiser, Maxson gives you a direct order as elder to execute danse. This order skips roughly 12 different ranks that couldve given the order. The issue is that danse is your sponsor and direct commanding officer. The immediate and emergency gap in chain of command causes an issue but i do feel like there were either senior/head knights or paladins that you could be placed in their charge to give you the execution order.

[EDIT: Danse only gives you one mission during the entire BOS questline. Maxson mightve broken the chain the moment he asks you to Fort Strong. The other quests given by the Proctors and Lancer-Captain Kells are more iffy due to them not being your commanding officer but being roughly above rank but in different fields]

Requisitions

Upon meeting Proctor Teagan for the first time in the Prydwen he informs you that you will have to purchase your own...everything from him, rather than it being assigned to you like a regular military. This in itself is not a big issue like breaking a codex rule but more on the difference the commonwealth order between western branches as members traditionally do not have to pay for the services within the brotherhood unless you are an outsider recruit.

"I'm sorry, but you are an outsider. After you're in the Brotherhood for ten years or so I'll be able to do the operation for free." - Dr. Lorri (Fallout)

This can be bypassed once again by extenuating circumstances and the outsider member being a higher ranking member, but due to the BOS allowing more outsiders to join up.

So What?

I am a fan of fallout and the writing and worldbuilding of the brotherhood, so i want to take ceratain aspects and not change them but enhance them, allow maxsons chapter to be fucked. There are certain things that the BOS participates in like harrasing/threatening settlements into giving over crops and looking down upon Lyons attempts at altruism that could be really interestingly handeled, thats just kind swept under the rug. This is just a list of like codex and brotherhood rules that the commonwealth chapter doesnt really abideby though.

[player-1]

If anyone wants some move references for the Abyssals (cause I'm going to use them in the future for my fic and it's not like the wiki or Nexopedia is going to include it anytime soon), here you go! I put the lists in dark mode so they're easier to read, but I want to also put in my two cents on their potential battle style below (and any moves present in the main story or excluded from main moveset is marked with a +):

Venefelis: While being the "ringleader" in this whole mess, Venefelis sure knows how to throw down some pain in a pretty reckless manner; obviously after going through a crisis about why the Abyssals even exist if all they're meant to do is kick the bucket however they want to (and with Kroma failing...again). And yes, even if she kept using Psy Ray every chance she gets in the gauntlet battle, it made a bit of sense why she used the Ghost ultimate too (though Phantom Abyss is moreso speculative since every single time before she can use all four moves, she gets knocked out :'). Besides, she lived in super-undead limbo for a millennia so she must've tapped into that spooky power one way or another...Also fits the Schrodinger's Cat allegory all the way for me (fic-wise I mean, but that's going to come eventually 🙃).

Rotramus: A good chunk of his moves inflict status effects that could easily slow down anyone chasing after him (ie. The Guild); and even if he doesn't use it battle-wise, I like that his only healing move is Natural Heal that connects to his dex entry with just sleeping deep in the woods whenever he wants. Still, I'll try some other time on how similar his moves are to Nara if he's all about vibing with everything but betraying his mission/the other Abyssals.

Pluvean: First off, for someone so desperate to be killed, why in the world was he so tanky!? Nevermind being the first Abyssal you typically fight, those scales must've been a pain to get through before...-Anyway! Besides being really trigger happy with Tsunami in his battle, his moveset does connect to his desire not to fight and instead inflict status effects and/or absorbing or reflecting anything that comes his way (still ironic if his whole mission was to die). Other than that, I like the little touch of him also using Solar Charge despite being in a ice cave since it possibly connects to Palmaya (or even using Sonic Scream to get someone's attention and receive the axe too).

Inominox: So many Wind moves, so many...Which is an given since he's a petty vulture, and a good amount of his moves connect to slowing his enemy down w. ailments, ignoring defense and speed to make them more easier pickings while also making himself more agile and evasive against any stronger foes; also having a good chunk of Freeze status wind attacks since I hc that he made the Frozen Tundra his previous hunting grounds. The one thing I was confused about was him using Double Slash, but I guess it was a tiny filler move (or just to imply his wings are sharp enough to cut through earth/stone too).

Helevolk: He is angy all the time and it shows on both ends, which is fair for a giant blind lizard that does nothing but dig wherever he wants. But one thing I noticed while going through the roster was Helevolk knowing Conflagration (the Nexomon equivalent of Explosion/Self Destruct) which gives me the very interesting thought on if he used it when he was finally cornered by the Guild or Laterian hunters...If Nexomon 3 has the chance to finally explain his backstory or when he was killed, I'm all for it.

Caelesa: Ah yes, Caelesa "everything but the kitchen sink" Nexomon. For being a mystical deer that was literally born to run away from danger, I find it extra funny that your first (and only) battle with her has her throwing out purely offensive attacks at you that aren't even in her main moveset; especially when Rocknite Blast replaces Rock Wall and Thunder Blast replaces Dark Flow (increases enemy stamina use). Still, isn't it strange that the Normal-type Abyssal that knows nothing of her creator has almost all the hallmarks of using multiple elements like Metta? Other than that, I headcanon that she uses the crystals around her rings for her elemental moves, so I'm all for her creating a bullet hell or just making that giant patch of land in the game into a rodeo ring :).

Volcel: Volcel has a similar move scheme as Rotramus with status moves and Inominox's accuracy and evasion, but I was interested to see that all his main Electric moves that mostly use Puzzled instead of Paralysis for obvious reasons (especially when his story moveset uses Thunder Blast for paralysis and Blooming Spores for poison...Maybe his scales are poisonous in some way?). Besides also avoiding conflict and a Guild member mentioning offhand that Volcel actually vanishes from their radar for months at a time before they caught him (most likely exploring/resting on Precursor Mountain), his aversion to humans as a whole does make sense in not understanding their culture as a whole (since he sees a giant pot of soup/Tyrant bait as poison).

Braccus: It's already a given that Braccus is a walking bulldozer move-wise, though I was also surprised that he uses two ultimate moves like Venefelis (Solar Flare and Meteor Shower respectively), though the former could relate to his location in the depths of a molten-hot cave system (though the reason why that wasn't where Helevolk was or just switched the gimmick to that other cave is beyond me). Still, he also has a good amount of physical moves (which he has clear jock vibes to me) and even using Pummel in his story moves, though I doubt he's that fast since he's the slowest of the Abyssals in Speed but pure size and strength will do the talking for him.

Kroma: And finally, here's to the youngest Abyssal and the necromancer supreme of Immortal Citadel, with her moveset being pretty keen on the ghastly vibes of her powers to control ghosts and possible mind-control techniques (Haunting, Arcane Curse, Snake Eyes, Sleep Song, and such). With her story moves, I was honestly surprised that she doesn't naturally know Dark Mist (since she possibly uses it to kidnap Eliza to finally finish her goal); though EMP and Psy Field also fit the psychic/ghost theme too for obvious reasons. And even if it sucks that we don't get any additional info on Kroma's impact of the Citadel, I was pretty interesting on why she has Constrict in her main moveset (since it's a chance kill if the target is 15 levels lower)...Does she just use her ghost powers for it or what?

[finely-aged-dragon]

Ghilan'nain

So I was thinking back to Dragon Age Origins and having read something about a statue of the mother of halla. Turns out I was a bit wrong but not entirely. > A small stone statue of a woman with antlers like a halla, with the moon under her right foot, and two hares beside her. The base of the statue is covered in strange writing. I spent several hours looking for the exact thing that gets handed to a Dalish warden in the first dialogue in the game and unfortunately, there's no dev comments in the DAO game files on it. They set this whole thing up from the start. Linking the wiki entry for later reference below.

https://dragonage.fandom.com/wiki/Elven_Artifact

[standardquip]

4 years of running BentoVid & RICE (an extremely long & meandering retrospective about survey data) This is an entry that's part history about the fanvid server I run that hosts a [now] feedback event [then contest] called RICE, and part data analysis from 4 years of pre-RICE survey data and one post-RICE survey from a particularly "problematic" year of the event. Read the entry as it was intended on dreamwidth by clicking the link above, or expand the cut tag and hope the html I pasted into tumblr displays correctly. [edit: it doesn't, but it's readable if you don't care about line breaks.]

Preface

Or, the time I accidentally influenced an entire industry through a survey question (click to read more) In 2015, I created a website called fursuitreview.com (FSR). Fursuits (one of a kind whole body animal costumes) are expensive and it was hard to keep track of makers that didn't have huge followings. I didn't want to run a review page, but only two existed prior to mine. One had died completely several years before, and the other one updated so infrequently it was almost useless (it, too, eventually died after FSR took off). The other two pages were a victim of putting too much work on themselves. The first had several questions reviewers had to answer and assign points. The moderators would average all the points for each review and give the overall review a score out of ten. This ensured consistency in the scores across all reviews. It was an amazing system but it would simply take too long to do myself (plus I'm terrible at math). Both sites were not actually sites - they were user accounts on furaffinity.net (and sometimes tumblr or livejournal) - which required write-ins to copy a big block of text and hope they got the format right (they rarely did, which meant moderators would have to correct it). FSR started out on furaffinity, but very quickly moved to a wordpress website. I thought very carefully on how I would keep manhours and costs down. I decided to not have any user accounts at all, nor would I bother with a numbered rating system (I instead went with a "positive / neutral / negative" system because that's really what everything boils down to anyway). I devised the least amount of questions I could in order to pry the information I wanted out of fursuit buyers when they wrote in. This resulted in two sections: wear satisfaction, and visual satisfaction. Each section had several sample questions to help guide the writer. "Wear satisfaction" was like, do you like how it fits you? how is the ventilation? how is the vision? Visual satisfaction was questions about looks.

Example screenshot of the FSR "wear Satisfaction" questions from 2020+

When people submitted a review, I would read over them all and make sure everything was copacetic before publishing it. Back then (before 2020), I was a one-man operation so I read literally every single review coming in. I noticed that some writers would mention lining in some of the fursuit parts. Most parts are unlined - it's just faux fur and the backing of that will be up against a wearer's skin. Lining is unnecessary and can ultimately make the costume much hotter - but it does make everything look really nice and marginally more comfortable to wear. After a few of these, I added "Does the item have lining?" to the list of sample questions.

Does the item have lining?

Surely nothing bad could happen from such an innocuous question!! (upside down smiley face goes here)

I must take a break here to mention that I had no experience doing literally anything that FSR required to run. I had bought 3-4 fursuits and thought it would be nice to keep track of my opinions of them. Everything else, from coding a website to writing survey questions, I had taught myself. I had some very very basic wordpress experience from a personal roleplaying character wiki wordpress site for myself, but that was it. FSR was a learn by doing experience. And boy, was it an experience. Writing, reading, reviewing, editing, customer service... FSR had me dealing with it all, and I'm surprised it gained as much traction as it did throughout that process.

So, needless to say, I had no idea what "survey bias" was.

Weeks, possibly months, later, I was browsing twitter keeping up with FSR social stuff, when I came across a tweet from a rather well-known maker (I believe it was either beetlecat or beastcub) asking other fursuit makers why customers were suddenly asking for their fursuits to be lined. I wish I had a link to this tweet, but I no longer have a twitter account. (If you happen to find it, do link it in the comments!) It didn't hit me at first. I watched the thread and the responses roll in. As other makers replied, the sense of dread was very slowly overtaking me. Could FSR really have that much influence? Could just a single little sentence really cause so much strife? Yes, it did, and yes... It did. Once I connected the dots, I edited the sample questions. No longer is it simply "Does the item have lining?" Now it is: "If it is lined, what material was used? Does it absorb sweat appropriately? Does it make cleaning easier?" But I went through a few iterations before I got to that wording. I believe my first edit was something like "(Note: most fursuits aren't lined)", but that didn't properly imply that you shouldn't be asking your maker for lining. After this lining snafu, I had to go through all of my questions and determine what I was accidentally influencing, how that could change what customers ask of their makers, and if I really needed that information in the review to begin with. I also, finally, learned about survey bias, and took some time to read up a little more on how to craft survey questions. And, of course, I had to come to grips with the fact that, yes, FSR was big. And it had influence. My little side project was a staple of the community and people counted on it to make very expensive purchases. Maker reputations and business operations began to live or die by the reviews we pulled in. FSR got to be too big and too much stress for me, so I ended up giving full ownership of the site to someone else in 2022 or 2023 (it was a long transition and I'm not sure when the public announcement was made). However, as of today (31 March 2024), fursuitreview.com is still fundamentally unchanged from how I was running it - including the review form. Nowadays, I have nothing to do with the site. I couldn't deal with the stress and responsibility once it grew to be a community cornerstone. Unfortunately, history may be repeating itself with the project I replaced FSR with...

A brief history of BentoVid (and RICE)

I have been editing anime music videos (AMVs) since 2001. I took a hiatus from the community from 2009ish to 2018. Despite that, I still managed to make at least one video every year. In 2018, I tried to get back into the community and realized it had almost completely changed. Discord was a thing now, and it seemed most of the activity was on there. I joined a few servers, but long story short they all weren't great. In a fit of frustration and annoyance, I did the classic move of going "Screw this, I'll do it myself!"

Bender (from Futurama): Fine! I'll start my own chatroom with blackjack and hookers! I glossed over it, but this is exactly how FursuitReview.com also started.

BentoVid (called AMV Sashimi back then) was created in September 2020. Back then, I did have high hopes. I did "plan" (finger quotes) on becoming a large community, but it was like how anyone plans on winning the lottery, you know? You don't actually expect it to happen. I thought that realistically I'd get maybe 30 members and it'd be just a chill hangout spot. But in 2021, we reached the fabled 100 members. Then 200. We broke 400 this year. And outside the very first year, I didn't actively promote. BentoVid has grown purely from word of mouth since 2021. On the other side of Discord was an annual AMV contest related to a particular anime convention. I first joined it in 2019. It was... okay... But not great. 2020 went even worse. The contest was going through a transition period and had a coordinator that, to put it mildly, was not well-liked. The concept behind the contest (which had been running for several years - I think 2005? Possibly even earlier) was great though. It was a contest focused on peer review. All the editors that submitted to the contest were the judges and voted on the winner. It was a blind contest, so nobody knew who made what, but only people who submitted to the contest could view and vote on the videos. The feedback was cruel. People did not hold back. Still, it was helpful, and I excelled my skills a lot by participating. The contest's discord server, however, went unmoderated and the coordinator made some very bizarre decisions. Another "Screw it, I'll do it myself" event occurred. RICE - Rewards imagined by a community of editors - was born by taking that other contest and implementing all the feedback participants had been complaining about for years. February 2021 was the first RICE. I had never run a contest before. Just like FSR (from the preface story), this was a trial by fire. I made at least one huge mistake every year the contest ran. But ultimately people liked RICE, and word of mouth about it (and the server) grew ever faster because of it. I had taken efforts to specifically NOT advertise RICE outside the BentoVid discord server, but that didn't stop it from growing.

4 years of RICE survey data

Partly due to my inexperience and partly due to my history with FSR, I put out RICE feedback surveys at every opportunity. I am actually not that into data. I don't analyze this stuff and I have no particular interest in collecting data at every turn for random things. I just find feedback surveys somewhat convenient and useful for my purposes. Sorry to people who are into that! XD

Pre-RICE survey data from 2021 - 2024

I have a small survey when people submit videos to RICE. It has (mostly) the same questions every year. Vivafringe helped me go through the data, and here are the results. (links to a google sheet) 2021 - 2023, the optional survey was on the same page as video submission questions. In 2024, I finally realized google form sections existed and I put it on a totally different page. I went from a 100% response rate to 58%. What a huge difference! But still inspiring to see so many people went out of their way to answer regardless. Here's my personal takeaways: US vs Non-US I personally thought there were more international editors participating, but it seems to hover around 20%. Do people keep their videos a secret? It looks like most of the survey respondents actually do attempt to keep their videos secret from everyone. However, almost as many people admit at least one person they know who will also be in RICE knows what their video is. I honestly thought it'd be the other way around, with more people sharing betas before RICE, so this is actually pretty cool to see. Thoughts on blind judging This question was multiple choice with only one answer allowed, so they had to choose which meant most to them. Most people seem to appreciate blind judging, but don't go out of their way to keep themselves blind during the event. (~70% combined) A large minority of people admit that guessing who made what during the event is part of the fun for them. (~25%) One possible answer was that blind judging is never truly blind - interesting to note only one person ever selected this and it was in 2023. Main reason for entering RICE? Another multiple choice answer where they had to select the "main" reason. Most people join RICE because they like the BentoVid community. However, almost as many people join because they like peer review. I'm flattered! lol But, in all seriousness, I really expected those results would be flipped, with peer review outranking BentoVid. Categories A multiple checkbox question for which categories your submitted vid belongs to, according to the editor. I mostly only care about theme, coordinator's choice, and live-action. Theme has submissions starting at 18% in 2021 and gradually going up to 29% in 2024. 2023 is an outlier with 39%. Coordinator's choice is very low. 1 - 3 videos. This is mixed news for me. On one hand, I think it's great people don't feel the need to pander to me (or maybe they don't know how). On the other hand... Please pander to me! XD Live-action is something I would like to see more of... The discord server started out as an AMV server and its audience is still mostly AMV editors. But I really want BentoVid (and RICE, by extension) to be about all fanvids and vidding (Hence the name change from AMV Sashimi to BentoVid). Long story short, live-action vids are obviously a very small minority that get submitted (5 - 9 videos each year), but they fluctuate between years. If you like live-action fanvids and want to join an active discord server... Please join us! lol How did you learn about RICE? This question was a small text field people could write whatever they wanted in. No surprise people learned about it from inside BentoVid. Next highest was word of mouth-related answers like "discord," "another discord server" or "friends". A little interesting was when AWA or POE were specifically mentioned (two popular AMV contests), but this was only twice for each.

Post-RICE survey data

2021 and 2022 had a feedback survey, but it was just one text block that asked for comments. Very few people ever filled this out and it was not very actionable feedback. 2023 was the first post-RICE feedback survey with actual guided questions, and it's because 2023 was... quite the year.

Understatement.

What happened during 2023 RICE?

Remember the contest I mentioned that RICE was based on? While RICE was thriving, that contest was floundering. The other contest, which for the rest of this blog I will call "HOST," happens in September - October, while RICE happens in February - March. 2022 HOST was another transition year for them. The old coordinator ("Elder") took over the contest after so many complaints about the coordinator that succeeded them ("Junior"). As far as I know, everyone was happy with Junior's leaving, but unfortunately it wasn't pretty. We weren't kind to Junior. Bridges were burned. Elder had some great ideas on how to bring HOST back up to its former glory days. But, procrastination got the better of them, so the contest started out very poorly. Then, during the contest, they had an extremely public and embarrassing meltdown. A number of people withdrew from the contest because of it. A totally different person ("Kidd") had to take over mid-event. The discord server went through an emergency restructure so Elder didn't have any special permissions anymore. Kidd was an absolute gem and managed to run the rest of the contest on their own very smoothly (Kidd continued through 2024 and deserves accolades). But the already negative reputation of HOST definitely turned into a dumpster fire after that. It was no surprise that RICE got touted as a good alternative. I was expecting more RICE entries than the previous year but. Boy. I was just not prepared. 2023 RICE saw 56 editors and 76 videos. The prior year was only 32 editors and 45 videos. RICE does not scale well. Moreover, I was experiencing horrible health issues at the time and really should have delayed or cancelled RICE due to them. Consequently, some people did not have a good experience with RICE. I thought the entire year was ruined. I made a pretty involved post-RICE survey due to it. This survey was mostly questions with text boxes where people wrote exactly what they were feeling. This made the answers a lot more personal and detailed. I will not be sharing the raw 2023 survey data. The complaints were about:

Too many videos for too short a time period

Some people were rude in the discord when discussing categories

Some people attacked one of the people giving critique in a voice call

I tried to enforce [very badly worded] content restrictions very late into the submission window. This had editors unnecessarily scrambling to re-edit things and ultimately ended up with multiple versions of videos in the contest [which should not have happened and that is entirely on me]

To me, the responses of the 2023 survey looked pretty dire. I immediately made changes to RICE following them. While RICE had started out as an improved version of HOST, I also had wanted the goal to be rewards for BentoVid server regulars. That's why I really didn't want to advertise it outside the server. I also never pinged \@Everyone or made a special role to get updates about it. The intent was if you were around the server, you'd know it was coming, and that was that. I wanted the good peer review and critique so we could all improve. I also wanted to see amazing videos. But what I DIDN'T want - and was (surprisingly!) NEVER concerned with - was lots of randos who didn't care about BentoVid. I explicitly never posted about RICE on a-m-v.org (despite people asking me to), and I never mentioned RICE outside my own server until after 2022 HOST. And even then it was really only in DM or if someone else had brought it up first. I still try to not advertise RICE, but I'm not as tight-lipped as I used to be. Still, it's primarily in DM. But anyway, I'm rambling now - the point is that RICE grew outside of the BentoVid bubble. People were joining RICE who did not care about BentoVid as a whole and I had to figure out how to handle that. My previous RICE messaging of "feedback event but also contest!" was fine for BentoVid regulars. We mostly knew what we liked and understood eachother because we hung out all the time. But for people new to RICE and/or the server, they had no idea and came in with false expectations. My two main takeaways from the 2023 Post-RICE survey were: 1. Because of my health issues and the mass increase of participants, the Discord server went (essentially) completely unmoderated during RICE. Because RICE (and BentoVid) is usually closely moderated, many conversations/debates went on a lot longer than they should have (because no moderators stepped in), which caused a lot of stress for participants. 2. The messaging of RICE was conflicting and led people to false expectations. People were essentially expecting HOST but "run better." "HOST but run better" is an over-generalization of how RICE works. It's actually quite different from HOST, but without the context of being a BentoVid regular, one wouldn't have that information. The first would be solved simply by me being present. Myself and most my staff could not be present during 2023 (honestly I'm surprised RICE ran as well as it did without us. Speaks a lot to our community!). To deal with the second point, I decided to focus on clearing up and changing RICE's messaging. Clearing the messaging had a few purposes:

More clearly differentiate RICE from HOST

Discourage non-regulars from joining without being super exclusionary about it

Discourage overtly competitive people from joining RICE

Encourage feedback-orientated participants

Focus more on accessibility (as RICE already applied VPR to all entries, it made sense to extend accessibility in other ways)

I took the survey responses very seriously, and as such, rushed to make announcements of what the changes would be. I ended up announcing them the same month RICE ended - March. Proof here (that is a discord link). You can read the initial announcement there in the BentoVid server, but I ended up changing things even more, so here's the summary of what the changes ended up being:

Very strict content restrictions (slightly relaxed later)

Focus on feedback event FIRST (took out all mentions of "contest" and "best" on the website, replacing them with "event" and "most-liked" )

No cash prizes at all (previously it was a $175 pool)

More emphasis on what exactly the server culture is like and what you can expect (basically: RICE is stressful, it's full of server regulars, prepare yourself if you're new)

Permanent categories got permanent names (previously everything was able to be voted on and changed)

All winners only get one award (previously there were multiple designs and names made for each award)

We added CWs as well as VPRs into the RICE expectations

Everything possible was outlined on the website. I literally wrote out the schedule and everything that you could expect to happen, how it all worked, etc.

The fallout from 2023 RICE continued throughout the entire year. It seemed negative feelings regarding it rolled out into other issues BentoVid was having (behind the scenes, especially in the staff channels) and overall I was really not feeling great about RICE. I was seriously considering 2024 RICE being the last one I ever ran.

2023 Post-RICE survey analysis

During 2024 RICE prep (which started in October 2023), I went through the 2023 feedback again. I asked some vague questions to random people about how they felt about 2023 RICE, and their answers (most of which were not negative at all) really had me questioning my perception of the entire thing. I gave the 2023 post-RICE survey data to a friend of mine who used to analyze that kind of thing for a living (Vivafringe). I went through the answers and redacted personal information, summarizing answers if necessary, before giving it to him. As part of the analysis, I asked him a bunch of questions and he looked over all the data to answer those questions. Again, I will not share the actual data here (even anonymized), but I will share the analysis he provided. Full disclosure: Viva did participate in 2023 RICE.

Analysis of Negative Experiences

Did more people have a negative or positive time in 2023?

to answer this I didn't do any fancy analysis. I read the responses and just did a vibe check of "negative" (pretty clearly had a bad time), "neutral" (had some things they didn't like, but gave other positive feedback or just in general didn't seem like they gave a shit one way or the other), "positive" ("vars you're the best" type comments) I think "neutral" people, if you actually asked them, would say they had a positive time, but it's hard to say for sure anyway I rated 7/25 negative, 7/25 neutral, 11/25 positive notably a lot of people didn't respond to this survey and the non respondants were likely positive/neutral. So I don't think you should read those numbers and assume 28% of people had a negative experience the overwhelming complaint from basically everyone was too many videos for the time they had - 5/6 people with "negative" feedback were returnees - 2/6 of the people who wanted "competitive" contest had negative opinions. No real signal there I think

I said the complaints about the VCs were really bad though?

I count 4 people that complained about the vcs my takeaway from reading this is basically: - moderate the vcs from now on, advertise them as critique/nice/whatever (you already are doing this but just saying I agree) - if you get 76 vids again, give more time to watch stuff I don't know how you solve chat getting tense, that was another common complaint

Category drama? Context: some people were very vocal about RICE needing fixed categories like typical AMV contests

I read the category stuff and broadly classified them as wanting "fixed" cats, "unfixed" cats, or "neutral" as you might expect most people didn't give a strong opinion on it, 10/25 were neutral 5 people wanted fixed, 6 people explicitly wanted to keep things as it was now (unfixed) if you read "neutral" as support for the status quo, which I do, I think the way you're doing it is fine. especially because a lot of the fixed cat people (3/6) had negative experiences and won't be here this year

I expected a smaller turnout for 2024 RICE. All I was really hoping for were more editors than in 2022 (which only had 32). Editors in 2023: 56 Editors in 2024: 43 (+3 more if we count DQs) A 17 - 23% loss, depending on how you count this. My thoughts: 1. That's not that bad, to be honest 2. If we treat 2023 as an outlier, 2024 is an acceptable and expected amount of growth from 2022. 3. One of the main complaints in 2023 was that there were too many videos, so 2024 numbers are more desirable in this context.

Other data collected from 2023 RICE

While I was mostly concerned about the negative experiences, I thankfully had the foresight to ask some other questions about RICE that gave us some valuable data.

Kollab vs frame.io = kollab wins by landslide

Direction for rice: contest vs feedback = 15/22 say feedback

Will you make an account on a website to do rice stuff? 12/25 say no

basically everyone answered the "what does rice do differently" question with "the feedback is a lot better". So a way to make rice better is to streamline process for providing feedback.

How long people spend on RICE vids:

10/21 (of the people that responded) started working on their rice vid 1 month or longer in advance

the competitive people ("A contest where the best of the best wins") seem kind of in the middle, time wise. 3/6 spent less than 1 month, 2/6 spent 2 months exactly, 1 didn't respond.

there were 8 newcomers, but basically same conclusion. 4/8 started more than a month in advance. 3/8 took a few weeks

Google docs & PSVs RICE offers a google doc with video information instead of trying to put it all in a filename. We also offered detailed VPRs and CWs, and, in some cases, alternate versions of videos that are more friendly for photosensitive users (called PSVs).

3/25 people said they used the VPRs.

18/25 people used the infosheet

4/25 used the CWs

3/25 used PSVs

What about 2024 Post-RICE survey data?

I collected that. This blog entry is already the size of a novel so I'll put it in another entry, I guess. Stay tuned! (Don't hold your breath though) I will exit this entry with the following results from that survey: If you participated in 2023 RICE, what would you say your overall experience was? 15/18 answered overall positive 2/18 said they did not participate in 2023 1/18 said neutral 0/18 said overall negative If you participated last year (2023), would you say your experience THIS year (2024) was: 9/17 answered overall better than last year 7/17 said about the same as last year 1/17 said did not participate last year 0/17 said overall worse than last year Your overall 2024 RICE experience was: 17/18 answered positive 1/18 said neutral 0/18 said negative 0/18 said boring 2024 RICE had 43 editors and 62 videos.

[myrdiary]

02/10/24 | entry #01

general thoughts and feelings:

today i went to disney on ice! vv fun. def reccommend. but not what im here to talk about rn. i absolutely cannot stop thinking about Bobs Burgers. its my MAJORRR hyperfix rn and im all about it.

i started planning a fanfic?? its rlly good but idk if ill write it tbh, im not that great w following through w my ideas. after this post im gonna obsessively read the wiki and make notes. then im gonna draw.

"draw what?" you ask? literally anything related to bobs burgers. i made a morning kisses drawing yesterday, today i might just draw them and their restaurant (like the intro) as a whole. thatd be so mega fun actually

also yk when you watch a show for so long that you pick up on their speech patterns? thats literally me rn like actually. my speech pattern is closest to tina or bob with the excessive amount of "uhm"'s and pauses in ym sentences. and this digital diary is kinda like tinas journal that everyone reads

sometimes i wish my family was like hers but other times i appreciate what i have. they have such a perfect and supportive family dynamic that i cant help but be jealous sometimes. most of my thoughts are comparing the two, but i know that reality will usually win. well i think thatss all until i add a "p.s" at the end

overall emotions for the day:

pretty good! im very sickso i woke up a few times in the night so i was a bit upset about that but itll be okay once i get over my sickness

academic items:

mr conrad gave us this major lab to do to prepare for our simple invertebrates practical. it has like. over 40 items on it! me and arianna are working together. it was supposed to be me and lexie and arianna, but since sierra o left for disney, ashley joined our group. me and arianna dont like her mainly bc she doesnt do any work when shes supposed to.

religious thoughts:

started an online bible course a few days ago! hoping to continue it when im not so hyperfixed

writing goals:

plotted that fanfic i was talking about! its called "veiled lament, chromatic whispers between twilight" and it only has 10 plotted chapters but i wanna turn it into a big thing.

i keep seeing this fic called "Baby Steps" for zekina and im sure its great but the author posts so much smut with the fic and i am so. against that. mainly because theyre minors

language goals:

started latin a few days ago. havent done anything else with it besides organize resources

self care goals:

got my new mary kay skincare set! trying to use it every night

shadow work:

havent touched anything witchy in 2 months

other:

attempting to shift tonight!!! i wanna be at hogwarts so bad

[fatesdeepdive]

Entry 121: The Same Chapter Again Except Less Horny

You know what I realized I haven’t talked about? The Difficulty Modes in this game. Fates has two types of difficulty, with three options each. The first type determines enemy strength and is split into: Normal, which is painfully easy; Hard, which is a decent challenge; and Lunatic, which exists to tell you to go fuck yourself. There are also three death types: Classic, where units die; Casual, where units come back after battle; and Phoenix, where units come back every turn.

I think that Normal/Hard/Lunatic all have their merits. They are good for learning the game, playing the game normally, and pushing yourself respectively. There are a lot of really cool Ludonarative things accomplished by Classic mode, in addition to it being a good challenge, but Casual is a fine easier mode that I’m okay with existing. I admittedly played Casual when writing this blog.

The oddball is Phoenix. It exists so you can see the story without playing the game, except, you still have to play the game, just without any choices mattering. Also, this game isn’t written good enough to skip the game and just read the story. It would be cool to try out Phoenix/Lunatic mode as a weird challenge run, but unfortunately, Phoenix locks you into Normal mode for some reason.

I’m going to do a bunch of DLC chapters in one fel swoop now.

Xenologue 2: Beach Brawl

Corrin is given a ticket for a vacation to a tropical island, but insists that one of their siblings take it. The boy royals argue about which one of them has to go on a vacation and pass it around like a hot potato. Their retainers show up and demand they go on a vacation, leading to an eight-way brawl over who gets the ticket. In this chapter, the player chooses one royal and their retainers and has to take on the other seven teams. The chapter uses premade units instead of the royals you actually have, for balance reasons. There is a Dragon Vein that lowers the stats of other teams. I don’t have much to say about the gameplay, because I haven’t actually played this one and am just going off the script on the wiki.

Each team gets their own little bit of dialogue before battle. Kagero and Saizo vow to lay down their lives to ensure Ryoma gets a vacation. Hinoka tries to forfeit, but Setsuna and Azama force her to fight so she can bring back gifts for them. Takumi orders Oboro and Hinata to surrender, but they refuse because they know he secretly wants the vacation. Sakura and Hana are worried that the vacation is a trap, but Subaki confirms it's safe after patrolling the beach; he also tells Sakura about all the sweets and begins making her an itinerary.

Xander orders Peri and Laslow to not slack off; his retainers request seashells and drawings of women in bikinis respectively as gifts. Camilla is sad that Corrin isn't going, but Beruka and Selena refuse to let Camilla go. Leo thinks that the whole thing is a waste of time, but Odin gives a big flowery speech about how great the beach is; Niles and Odin offer to slather Leo in tanning lotion so he returns bronze gold. Elise doesn't want to go without Arthur and Effie, but they tell her that fighting for her is all the vacation they need.

If you win, it cuts to a few days later, when Anna delivers a letter and a photo of the winning lord in a swimsuit to their retainers. I assume this is designed to be fanservice, which makes Elise and Sakura's inclusion a bit sketchy. Ryoma goes swimming and trains by fighting fish. His retainers also decide to train. Azama says he misses Hinoka's criticism. Hinoka trains by fighting coconuts and says she won't send presents, disappointing Setsuna. Takumi looks happy. Oboro gets jealous because she thinks he's dating Anna now because she took the photo. Sakura eats a bunch of fruit. Subaki and Hana argue about her swimsuit.

Xander clutches a Lilith floaty because he can't swim. He also sends back extensive notes on seashells and babes. Beruka assumes Anna is a spy and tries to murder her. Selena is jealous that Camilla is having fun, while Beruka worries about assassins. Beruka hopes Camilla brings back poison as a gift. Leo wears his cape to the beach and stays inside all day. He tells his retainers it was a waste of time. Arthur somehow rips his own underwear out while retrieving a letter from his pocket. Elise makes leis for her retainers. The retainers explain they would have been miserable at the beach and decide to spar.

Xenologue 3: Boo Camp

Boom Camp exists so you can grind EXP by endlessly fighting faceless. Felicia or Jakob tells Corrin that the army is weak, so they should train on a haunted mountain and overcome their fear. The plot is bare bones, but every unit gets a unique line when they fight the faceless. I'm going to only mention the interesting ones.

Azura admits that people used to think the castle was haunted because of her singing. Jakob threatens to level a mountain if Corrin is injured. Kaze says he was haunted by a woman's ghost once and does not elaborate. Mozu says that she doesn't believe in ghosts and that the faceless are just monsters, then worries that she's started seeing ghosts. Shura vows to do right by the restless spirits of Kohga, if they exist. Fuga says he’ll push his limits, even though he’s old.

Takumi screams for the monsters to get away. Azama complains about them trampling over the mountain, then realizes he's also trampling and decides to purify himself. Setsuna says the faceless aren't as scary as the decapitated corpse she ended up trapped in a pit with. Hinata is reminded of a woman in a white who hovered in a graveyard when he was a kid and comes to the conclusion, not that she's a ghost, but that she had a crush on him. Oboro says people are more scared of her than ghouls. Hayato is scared because he is a child. Kaden asks the monsters to scare him because he thinks fear is fun. Yukimura mentions that there are rumors of ghosts haunting Castle Shirasagi and says that he hopes there are, so he can see Sumeragi or Mikoto again. Scarlet assumes it's an exercise to get them to pair off as couples, for some reason.

Xander says that the thing he always feared was his father late at night. Camilla says that the Woods of the Forlorn and the games she played as a kid are scarier than the monsters. Leo says the dead envy him and that so do most of the living. Effie asks the faceless to come back to her gym for daily training. Peri screams because she's scared of mummies, then realizes it's just faceless and kills them. Selena calls the whole chapter stupid and says that she's seen way worse things, for example Camilla when she's upset, which is apparently scarier than the zombie apocalypse she was raised in. Benny complains that everyone mistakes him for a monster then screams because he sees monsters. Keaton likes the mud and bones. Gunter says it's dumb to waste EXP on him because he has bad growths.

Shigure decides to paint the mountain and the faceless. Midori is scared, but plans to make medicine out of monsters. Asugi pretends the monsters are pinatas. Hisame brings up Hinata's ghost crush, who apparently was seen behind him. Rhajat thinks the dreary mountain is dope. Siegbert thinks he is unfit to be king because he's scared. Soleil hears girls screaming and is into it.

At the end of the chapter, Corrin decides to come back later for more training, scaring their retainers.

Xenologue 4: Ghostly Gold

This chapter is like Boo Camp but for gold instead. The chapter begins with Lloyd and Lleewelyn informing Corrin that people keep looting the ruined temple they look after. Corrin offers to help. Because the looters attack at dawn, everyone has to stay up late. Also the looters are ghosts. Once again, everyone gets a single line, this time complaining about staying up late. Jakob dreams of fighting in his underwear, something you can make him do in Castle Battles. Silas gets tricked into licking a toad to stay awake. Kaze can't sleep without his favorite pillow.

Ryoma grumpily says he doesn't need sleep or breakfast or coffee. Hinoka falls asleep mid-sentence. Takumi points out that taking turns sleeping was an option. Sakura spills coffee on herself and others. Saizo says he can stay up for five days straight. Azama says he knows how to sleep in the middle of a conversation without people knowing. Setsuna says that she went to bed early instead of keeping watch because she knew the others would wake her. Kaden says he sleeps while curled up into a ball. Orochi says it was adorable how the others slapped each other to stay awake. Rinkah says she slapped people to keep them awake. Yukimura praises the tactical plan of striking when everyone was asleep, then points out he has caffeine. Scarlet says that this is the first time she's ever seen a sunrise because she normally sleeps in.

Camilla says she is in a MOOD because she and Corrin couldn't sleep. Leo says he will make the next person who calls him grouchy suffer. Odin says his eyelids are being pulled down by ghost magic. Niles says he always sleeps with one eye open, but then again he normally does things with only one eye open. Laslow says he stays up for pillow talk. Peri cries and says she's emotional when she doesn't get enough sleep, meaning she probably hasn't slept all game. Beruka says she took part in a three-week stakeout once. Benny says he was too scared to fall asleep because people told ghost stories. Keaton is mad everyone knows he snores. Gunter falls asleep boasting.

Shigure sings a lullaby to keep himself awake and accidentally puts everyone else to sleep. Dwyer complains about having to make all the coffee when he's tired. Sophie, half asleep, thinks the ghosts are cotton candy. Midori makes worm juice energy drinks. Mitama can't write a good poem because it's four in the morning. Caeldori says she should have brought a romance novel to keep her awake. Forrest complains about having to sleep on the ground, which is bad for his skin and hair. Velouria is nocturnal. Percy says he annoys Arthur in the morning. Soleil says she almost showed up naked.

Corrin decides to give back all the gold the bandits dropped. The twins give them the gold as a reward. After Corrin leaves, Lloyd and Llewelyn mention the gold is cursed and gives bad breath.

Xenologue 5: Museum Melee

Team Corrin goes to an interrealm museum featuring rare weapons. The curator explains there's a battle to the death over the weapons Corrin can compete in. Okay. Also the museum is on an airship for some reason. This one allows you to get rare weapons and items. You can also get capturable bosses here, because bosses are also items. Corrin points out that they shouldn't be fighting with real weapons. Felicia wants a tea set she can't break. Shura points out that he's still robbing people, even after renouncing his bandit life. Izana requests to be given the entire airship.

Ryoma worries about Ranjito being stolen. Saizo calls the whole situation absurd, but does what is demanded. Setsuna says wheeee because she's on an airship. Oboro compares it to a holiday sale. Yukimura is disappointed that it isn't a real museum.

Xander points out that only he can wield Siegfried, because he is a bad father and forgot his son exists. Elise says she wants a divine weapon like her brothers. Arthur is confused by being forced to act like a mugger. Peri begs Corrin to let her kill people. Selena goes to the gift shop.

Dwyer wants coffee from alternate universes. Midori tries to trade drugs for weapons, because she is secretly Ronald Reagan. Shiro wants a weapon that can beat his father's. Selkie does not grasp that a fight is going on. Hisame wants pickle-eating utensils. Ignatius gets airsickness. Nina follows hot guys around.

After the battle, the curator explains that the weapons were donated by realms no longer at war. He explains that the people we just beat up were also from war-torn realms and Corrin feels sad. I don't. Soldiers are not always good, Corrin. Corrin says they'll donate the weapons after they've won the war, so others can achieve peace.

Xenologue 6: Royal Royale

This one takes place after Revelation. A version of the Rainbow Sage from the Outrealms informs the princesses that Corrin is in danger. Specifically, an alternate universe version of Corrin who hasn't beat the game yet is in danger. He tells the princesses to spar to see who is the strongest, which will allow him to make stat boosting items for Corrin. Somehow. The girls don't to fight each other, but agree once they find out the princes already agreed.

Wait a minute. This is just Beach Brawl again, except less horny this time! What a rip-off!

Winning nets you a Dread Scroll for the Hoshidans and an Ebon Wing for the Nohrians, plus a character specific stat booster (Secret Book for Takumi, Energy Drop for Ryoma, Seraph Robe for Hinoka, Dracoshield for Xander, Spirit Dust for Leo, Godess Icon for Elise, and Talisman for Camilla).

There are people who paid money for these chapters.

[qwertyzorovague]

Orochi (The King of Fighters) vs. Yukari Yakumo (Touhou Project): imo, underrated match-up that isnt talked about enough

this will be a RAMBLE-heavy post, meaning it's long as hell. If you don't have some time on your hands, you might be better off bookmarking this post for later or skim-reading a bit, I don't mind either!

So there's one thing that's been on my mind when it comes to match-ups. Yes, Death Battle is a MU-focused show, but in general… MUs are basically who would win in a fight, how would they win, why, and etcetera. Death Battle itself has had rules ever since the latest season, and there is a list of series Ben Singer and the others would never cover.

One in particular has to be Touhou Project. If you were to ask him about it being in death battle, I’m pretty sure the answer would be…

well come on, it’s got amazing characters but the near-majority of the batshit crazy feats come from literal hearsay from the characters and their interactions (AS FAR AS I KNOW-). As for the other franchise I’ll talk about, its feats are more calculable and manageable than the other. The King of Fighters, yes also has its own manga, is an amazing fighting game series I’d genuinely recommend you to check out. Why? Mostly because I love it to death, and also because its gameplay is convoluted and extremely fun. Back on topic, the feats of the characters in KOF are more digestible than hearsay. The two characters I’ll be rambling about may not be covered very well in terms of feats, but you can get a good idea of their power from what you see from them in their respective games and material alone. God knows I used to fear a literal eldritch-horror-vibe-having anime woman for like a whole year.

“What’s the matchup you’re referring to and has anybody already talked about it?” I’ll get into the details later, but for context… Two Touhou characters infamously got pitted against two undertale characters. These being Chara v. Sakuya and Marisa v. Asriel Dremurr. One less infamous but still somewhat known, again as far as I know, I could be very wrong, would be Yukari vs. Sans. Due to being reality-bending (or knowing?) characters, these two were bound to be matched up against each other. But just like the last two, the Touhou characters end up stomping. With Yukari vs. Sans, it’s a matter of someone who knows their shit and how to do it going up against someone who has a vague idea of it. And even then it’s implied that Sans is just fucking with the player, so that’s probably a more evident idea of how bad this stomp is. This used to be my favorite matchup until I got into the King of Fighters. Speaking of which…

Orochi matchups are few and far between on vsbattles.com and I haven’t read through most of them. The one I chose to read through was Gill from Street Fighter 3 vs. Orochi. And as far as I could tell it’s quite inconclusive, as both can break out of what would be their end, so… Onto character introductions… Orochi. The big bad that still pervades current entries of this series, even if its not present. Yes its official gender is literally an object, check the wiki, I’m not kidding or trying to pull a prank. Orochi as we’ve seen it has only possessed human bodies, such as was with the case of Chris in the Orochi Saga. But as a being, well… its powers involve “nothingness” which could clash with its MU. Orochi was implied to be this ultra powerful god that if revived, would be nigh-unstoppable. 

Despite that, the boss of it in ‘97 was… easier than Goenitz and Rugal (again). Probably because of the fact that before Orochi was revived through Chris’s body, Kyo, Iori, and Chizuru fought the New Faces Team and kicked their asses. Chris was weakened. It’s likely that because of this, orochi was weaker than it should’ve been. Most of all, Chris’s body may not have been able to handle the power of Orochi. Which should say a lot since his body was the host for it, and yet someone like Rugal basically got vaporized because he couldn’t use Orochi’s powers. Then again, Rugal wasn’t even part of the Hakkeshu (which are basically the equivalent of if  Orochi had followers on twitch.tv), so uhhhh- to be honest, I haven’t done much research and kind of just wanted to go on a ramble about how much I love the mu I’m about to ramble about, so-

Next up, Yukari Yakumo. The character that could be the main villain, the main hero, or even the protagonist, or perhaps the driving force behind the hero’s actions (and sometimes is). But usually she’s a minor inconvenience pulling pranks, incidents, and several other hijinks that the main protagonists of Touhou Project will have to clean up. I love this character but also am afraid of her to this day. Why? I don’t know, I really don’t-the amount of power Yukari has is unknown but it’s said to be really high which isn’t too surprising. Most youkai in touhou lore have some sort of weakness or flaw, but I shit you not that in canon, Yukari has no weakness, or anything that could stop her. If there’s something she’s wanting to do, you can bet that she’s going to do it. The only reason she loses fights is mostly because of her own undoing, and the fact that she likes toying with every single one of her opponents. Every. Single. One.

Her powers involve the usual powers someone in the touhou universe would have, that being Danmaku. In short, Danmaku is basically any form of bullet, projectile or energy used by inhabitants of Gensokyo to give everyone a fighting chance. There are rules to using them, which include “No Impossible spell cards (which are basically a character’s own unique super art), No danmaku that is lethal or can kill”. Danmaku battles usually end in the opponent being knocked out. Then again, characters including Yukari herself have broken the rules a few times, so… fuck it?

Has this matchup ever been discussed onli-FOR SOME REASON NO…???? I looked all over the internet (I’m not going to count discord servers since I don’t want to join more than I already have to) and the only relevant results I could FIND were M.U.G.E.N. videos with two edits of the two duking it out, so… I guess I might be the first to really post about it on the internet, let alone this hellsi-I mean tumblr. So why am I rambling about it so much? Why am I even talking about it? Why should it be a thing? There’s a lot of vsbattle forums and servers out there, one user might know something and it also might just be straight to the point; Another stomp, right? I’m not even fully aware of how far the power of Orochi and Yukari can go, but lore implications say either they’re really similar, or Yukari and others are bluffing their asses off with a bit of proof. Yes, Yukari was implied to be the one who made the Barrier to Gensokyo, which stretches across quite a few miles.  She excels in the art of Onmyoudou (look that up in touhou wiki because I don’t know how to properly explain that), while Orochi has its own thing that outclasses the mass majority of the cast of KOF. Who would win?

I have no clue. I don’t know if I’m willing to go through with the research on this MU in particular because 1; I’m not that smart, 2; I’m currently in college and have not much motivation to work on something like this let alone research for it. And 3; about every year touhou project gets a new game or bit of lore while KOF takes its sweet time. Or not? I wouldn’t know since I’m still new-ish to the crazy shit characters can pull in these franchises. If I can’t research anything about this, I can’t really say anything about a win condition. Orochi’s a god, making it immortal, but Yukari knows quite a bit about Gensokyo and the gods that inhabit the place, so she might know how to take down a god. I’m not going to go into the why of… well why would the two fight, since in theory they’d probably just tolerate each other or even agree (as Orochi’s whole thing involves the fact that humans pollute the earth, while Yukari’s whole philosophy… is still mysterious ngl) .

There are so many things that I still need to find out about these two… They’re so cool… yet so scary… oh and about me not wanting ot make win conditions? That was kind of a lie-

A win condition for Orochi: SOMEHOW Kill Yukari or incapacitate her into a state where she won’t regain consciousness or be able to affect Orochi. The conditions for Orochi winning are quite complicated, as there’s no lore bits or any material showing Yukari struggling to defeat anybody or almost dying yet, so… The win condition for Yukari: Seal Orochi, or exterminate it. As you can tell, a lot more simple than Orochi’s. Then again, she doesn’t have any canonical weaknesses other than her own tendency to toy with every opponent (though if she ever finds real threats she usually stays back until finds out how to take care of said threats) Prep time? If none, it’s likely that it’s a very close match. But if we were to give any amount, Yukari would probably figure out how to seal or exterminate Orochi and take the win. At the same time, Orochi isn’t dumb either. It’s usually very merciless with humans, but a being that is nowhere near being a human? I dunno. Probably will test the waters, maybe? Without headcannoning any prior interactions or connections, it’s hard to say what either would do with or without prep time. I’m going off of what I currently know about the two and it’s safe to say: probably a close match?

I’ve rambled long enough, so i hope this was a good read. This was a freetype in google docs and it proved to me that; hey typing in many pages isn’t that bad, just gotta type when you want to and you’ll be okay! I think; I don't know. All I know is that this fun little ramble took up 5 pages, double spaced, new times roman font with a font size of 12. so uh. idk

[kirbydots]

Understandable, now that you explain it! I suppose it’s because I’ve grown up with the characters, and most of the franchises I’ve been interested in have been very expansive ones with ridiculous continuities (notably Star Trek, which needs two entire wikis to keep up with the canon and the extended universe) so it sort of primed me for navigating continuity nonsense.

That, and I’ve always been the type to start with whatever entry I can most easily get my hands on and extrapolate from there— I regularly start with the second or third film, game, etc. and supplement with Wikipedia or context clues.

I’ve always even characters having an extensive history as being much easier, because no matter what genre or writing style I’m in the mood for, there’s probably a story out there with them that’ll fit that exactly. If I don’t like them currently, I can go read some of their older stories and see what they have to offer, maybe I’ll like them there!

I personally love comics bullshit and seek out nonsense— I love the whole multiple Earths setup that pre-Crisis had, and I love it when there’s billions of alternate universes that cross over. That, and what keeps me here is the history of the medium. I like to look at characters and see how they’ve evolved to fit with the times, characters’ moralities shifting because of changing cultural perceptions, among other things. This is why my favorite team is the JSA, because of just how much their existence has influenced comic storytelling.

I see how not knowing where to start is probably a big barrier, given that there’s just so much and most franchises have a convenient episode one or book one. That, and comic fans tend to be a bit gatekeep-ey when it comes to people not knowing everything right off the bat.

Thanks for your response!

I might be coming at this from the wrong direction (part of why I’m interested in comics is the extensive history of the medium and just how long these individual characters have been in print) but I never get why a character having a ton of material is seen as a barrier to entry.