#I have thoughts on what's better in the original vs new ideas (for example I think that The Fall is peak and I wouldn't change a thing

[cluescorner]

SO MANY TFONE STORYBOARD OMG

[nonotnolan]

No Not Nolan's Year in Review

Once again, it's time for the traditional "year in review" post. Since I've also been collecting prior years in these posts: here's 2021, here's 2022, and here's 2023. This year has more than 12 posts, and that's because I posted a few shorter stories to celebrate the release of my eBook.

I'm not planning to abandon this account anytime soon, but I'd be lying if the thought hadn't occurred to me once or twice. Every year I'm not sure how much longer I'll be doing this, but then every year the support and feedback I receive keeps me going. So if you ever wonder if notes and reblogs help-- yes, they do motivate me to keep going. But more than that, I'd encourage you to message the authors directly. I'm not always the best at carrying a conversation, but it really does mean a lot whenever I hear from you all.

17) Side Effects - 71 notes - January 2024 Okay, well... I like this one. If you've already caused a lot of irreversible damage... why stop now?

16) Labor and Materials - 83 notes - December 2023 Sometimes I can just sort of tell the photos aren't what the average people are wanting, but I like the text too much to toss out the idea. Mass commercialization of body swapping isn't a new idea by any means, but I love exploring all of the low stakes uses and scenarios that would appear if that technology existed.

15) Shapeshifter's Night Out - 111 notes - January 2024 Honestly, this one was mostly just an excuse to pull out a few of the weirder photos I'd come across. I think it holds up well enough, though.

14) Fiverr Warlock: Holiday Magic - 183 notes - December 2023 The thing about the Fiverr Warlock series is that a lot of story ideas work better without the added baggage of the lore and narrator. This one holds up pretty well, and the photos do exactly what I need them to do, so I'm quite fond of it.

13) The Ends Justify The Means - 204 notes - February 2024 See, I thought this one was great, especially for the Valentine's Holiday. Sometimes I have no idea what the average reader wants from me, and this is a prime example of that. No regrets, though. I'm never going to apologize for striking more sentimental than erotic.

12) Jock Cock, Part 3 - 219 notes - July 2024 Speaking of which... I can't be too surprised something this sentimental didn't do better. But I still love it, and I don't feel bad about it. (It does, however, make me less inclined to write sequels to other works. My idea about how the story continues vs how people want me to continue the story are seldom in alignment.)

11) Drawing Straws - 235 notes - January 2024 I love trait swapping, and I wish I could get inspired to use it more often. I have to be satisfied with an idea before I'll set it to the page-- it needs to have some amount of characterization and plot outside of "hot guy does a hot thing and it's hot" for me to be happy with it-- so trait swaps don't happen too often for me.

10) Treat Day - 241 notes - January 2024 This is my least favorite of the 5 promo-stories, so naturally it's the one that received the most notes. Revenge swaps are hit or miss for me, but needlessly cruel swaps seldom appeal to me. I like the photos, I like the ending wordplay, but overall it's not one of my favorites.

9) Swap Broker: Social Climbing - 250 notes - October 2024 If there's any story whose low placement on the list hurts to see, it's this one-- I absolutely love this one. Photos, concept, resolution, all of it. Ahh, well. A few people asked me what happened to the original Aiden, which I don't have much interest in writing, but... his father would have given him a one time chunk of hush money, which he would have burned through in a matter of months, at which point he'd probably be forced to start doing hard work for the first time in his life. It's not a happy outcome, which is why it's not a story I'm particularly interested in telling.

8) Jock Cock, Part 2 - 285 notes - June 2024 Like I mentioned for Part 3-- I don't regret writing it, even if I don't quite understand why it wasn't as well received. I'm not sorry for mixing sincere emotions into your casual smut-- it was intentional, and it will happen again. Also I've been doing it for the past 5 years, so presumably you noticed me doing that at least once before? I'm sure it's not a photo issue. Anyway.

7) Spring Break - 313 notes - March 2024 I love it when both parties can get what they want out of a body swap. I've had quite a few stories involving out of touch rich people, now that I think about it-- but then, every idea has already been done before if you simplify it enough.

6) Bodily Betrayal - 319 notes - December 2024 I'm so thrilled to be working with photo-manip artists for future detachable limb stories. You all may not be bothered by my attempts to create suitable pictures, but I definitely am. I mean, look at these pics-- head/body swap? Headless with head in hand? I wouldn't have been able to do that without a lot of practice and training.

5) Trial Period - 351 notes - November 2024 I don't do much with ghosts, and I'm honestly not planning to change that anytime soon. Still, I love the idea of supernatural entities shopping around to choose their next host.

4) This Happens all the Time, It's Detachable - 376 notes - August 2024 This is another one that I absolutely adore, and as a bonus it's a detachable story that requires no photo-manip work whatsoever. Obviously, I had to go with the King Missile reference in the title.

3) Roommate Rehab - 407 notes - April 2024 I still think my photo-manip work is clunky, but it gets the job done, and that's what matters. The interesting thing about writing more detachable works is that I'm really not familiar with any of the tropes. I'm so used to subverting expectations when I write body swap fiction, but it's a lot harder to subvert tropes that I don't know.

2) Rush Week - 512 notes - September 2024 I'm glad this one did well, because it's definitely a lot more vulnerable than what I normally write. It's equal parts sincere and sexy, and I adore it. The thought of what stays with the body and what stays with the mind is one of my favorite concepts to explore with body swapping. On a different tangent, it was a lot harder than I thought it would be to find good photos for a twink model that pass tumblr guidelines.

1) Jock Cock, Part 1 - 732 notes - May 2024 This story came out of nowhere and completely surpassed all of my expectations. I have no idea what it is about this story that appealed to so many people-- probably obvious, given how few notes the other parts pulled. Is it the photos? The idea of using an athlete's body for sex without him knowing? Unfulfilled sex-with-teacher fantasies? I sure as hell don't know. Whatever the reason, I'm flattered.

Above 500 Notes - All Time

1) Jock Cock, Part 1 - 732 notes - May 2024 2) Soulmate Swap - 704 notes - August 2022 3) Gym Merchandise - 654 notes - September 2022 4) Overbearing - 572 notes - May 2022 5) Finals Week - 568 notes - May 2021 6) Group Project - 566 notes - November 2023 6) Revenge, Reversed - 540 notes - August 2020 7) Rookie Mistake - 530 notes - May 2023 8) Rush Week - 512 notes - September 2024 8) Information Overload - 501 notes - August 2021

Well, Jock Cock Part 1 has officially dethroned... uhh, literally everything else. Finals Week, my first piece to break the 500 notes mark, is quickly dropping out of the top 5. And some of these works received random resurgences several months (or years!) later, so that's always fun to see.

Enough time has passed that I have a sort of note rubric to determine success. Anything below 100 notes, I consider flopped. 100-300 is average, and 300-500 is a success. So to have this many stories above 500? It feels pretty good.

Here's hoping next year will see more additions to this list!

Special Mentions

Reunion - 151 notes - February 2024 Once again, @mergeman and I wrote each other stories for Valentine's Day. I do really love the idea of a support group for people affected by body swaps.

I'm always honored whenever I end up tagged in someone's recommended post, and @sanzaibian 's compliment of "someone who writes really sweet love stories ^^" is no exception.

Also, like I said earlier-- I live for compliments and discussion, both given and received. If you've dropped a line or responded to one of my outreach attempts, I appreciate you. If we've talked in the past but it's been a few months since you or I sent the last message-- I'm too ADHD for friendships that follow the constraints of linear time. If we go months between messages, know that I still appreciate you.

Is it too cheesy to end this with a "thanks for viewers like you" sentiment? Maybe, but I'm doing it anyway. I'd be having these ideas with or without an outlet for sharing them, so I really do appreciate the likes and reblogs. Here's to another year!

[blueikeproductions]

We now have a mostly proper look at the current iterations of the Thirteen Primes via a presentation at Cybertron Con.

Perhaps to no one’s surprise, none of them use the TFONE designs, but the designs do seem to be hodgepodges of their first designs mixed with other more well known versions.

Micronus is very clearly based on his RiD15 design for example, while Alchemist is a hybrid of his Cyberverse and Marvel G1 designs. Liege Maximo meanwhile is just straight up his G2 design but tweaked to make it look like he can Transform, into what I don’t know yet.

Prima is perhaps the more curious one. Instead of using the generic Marvel G1 design, they combine the random gladiator robot in G1 with Aligned Prima and claim he turns into a space truck.

(Here’s a thought though, why did Primus see fit to make these versions have cabs passengers can sit in? Did Mini-Cons get carried around in there? Did Primus predict humans and other similar lifeforms bonding with Transformers?)

Solus meanwhile seems to be her Prime Wars design.

The superior design I might add.

I’m a bit mixed on her also being a space truck also, as I would’ve expected her to be a construction vehicle tbh. At the very least I would’ve expected her to be a tow truck if she HAD to be a truck.

Onyx is also very interesting, as they seem to better establish he has a regular Robot Mode, with another piece of art showing he also has the centaur mode.

Though atm it’s not clear if this centaur mode IS his Beast Mode, or if it’s an in-between mode like Airachnid’s spider-taur mode and he just becomes an animalistic truck also.

Another thing I find funny is Onyx’s tiki mask relic is instead depicted as more of a totem pole staff. It reminds me of Garudamon X’s weapon, so maybe Onyx clubs people with his relic now.

I think I’m most disappointed by Quintus still being his Aligned design because I still have no idea what he’s supposed to turn into, and going by Solus, Micronus and Maccadam, I would’ve expected him to be his EarthSpark design with traits of his ONE and Aligned designs so get can more easily contort him into … another space truck presumably. Maybe he’s a fire truck? That involves saving lives, so that’s kinda fitting for his life theming.

I just think his Aligned design is hideous, being mostly ribbons and tentacles, making his Robot Mode extremely hard to read, vs TFONE simplifying it into more of a Hindu deity while ES opts for a monk, though what either of them officially Transform into is anyone’s guess.

Apparently a lot of fans are infuriated Nexus Prime is just his Aligned design vs what they say they want: his original Energon style combiner form he debuted in.

Now you would think it would be the one on the right, going by Liege Maximo and The Fallen being based on their original comic forms specifically but I guess not. I heard a rumor the Nexus Prime toy is more like Vehicle Voltron, in that he splits apart into vehicles only. Funny enough this does still homage the Energon roots, as the anime suggests Superion, Bruticus and Constructicon’s component parts are drone vehicles anyway. The Fun Pub comics would establish his components are individuals called Skyfall, Landquake, Breakaway, Topspin and Heatwave (no not THAT Heatwave). The initial concept saw Nexus’ components scattered to the multiverse where some would become Autobots and others Decepticons, with destiny calling them back together to reform into Nexus Prime. The same story also says Nexus was “cut apart” originally by the Star Saber, implying he wasn’t a Combiner originally. Nexus’ purpose was ultimately to do away with Hasbro’s initial idea of multiversal singularities (meaning all 13 existed at once in every universe and were the same individual), and once that was accomplished, all the Primes could be distinct again in each universe. This means in particular for Nexus that his component parts aren’t named individuals atm, so how Nexus’ new toy is handled will be interesting. Either we get the original named components, brand new components, or he’s a box set and all his limbs are drones with a central robot loosely based on his ONE design.

Amalgamous is also funny to me, as he still has the ED-209 vibe of his ONE counterpart, but he now has a proper head that resembles Whirl. In fact he kinda looks like a fat IDW Whirl, which is funny considering Cyberverse Mac’s Strong-Fat Rung design.

Star Convoy seemingly being the Thirteenth suggests a splitting of the difference. TFONE uses Zeta, which implies other cartoons and comics can probably just use whoever they want in that role, but Hasbro still seems to want Optimus as the Arisen, and Star Convoy fits the concept better, as he’s a reborn Optimus, revived by the power of the Zodiac (the ancient primordial force used by Dai Atlas in Zone). It also helps it’s a more distinct design, so it’s not just G1/Prime Optimus awkwardly tacked on to these more regal robots. As the toy is called Star Optimus Prime I wonder if other cartoons could dance around it, with the robot being called Star Prime, Galaxy Prime (Galaxy Convoy?) or something Star related to make him a unique character rather than just Optimus.

So what happens now?

I’m very worried about this toy line. I think Hasbro is trying to coast on adult fans like Digimon is, but as we’ve seen we NEED kids to get into this to keep it going. Adult fans alone aren’t enough by the abysmal failure of Cyberverse, EarthSpark and ONE, and I fear Age of the Primes will suffer by adult fans not being that interested in the Primes concept, and casuals just not caring or even knowing who the Primes are. The Fallen and Alpha Trion are who most people are vaguely aware of, alongside Vector Prime, everyone else is just kinda there with no mainstream fiction really helping get people invested in these robots. Nostalgia for Bay Fallen and GF Vector Prime is what keeps them relevant, with the anime fleshing out Vector pretty well, while as other attempts with Maccadam and Quintus have fallen very flat.

There’s likely no real story for Age, because it seems Hasbro has given up on trying to make the collector line have a narrative. Legacy was supposed to have a story, but because Netflix turned down a cartoon after the WFC show failed, Hasbro just seemed to forgo a story altogether. What possible story Age would have I have no idea, there’s a descendent thing brought up, but what story could be made here is too vague to fathom. I would assume that a typical story would see 13 direct descendants of the Primes, Optimus among them, come together to inherit their ancestors powers to defeat a great evil (be it Unicron or something else like the Quintessons). That would make sense, and you could have a better Autobots and Decepticons coming together story in this way, but I don’t see Hasbro doing this. Not even as a cheap Flash web cartoon. I don’t see Skybound invested in doing a comic about this either, so what story this is supposed to have is probably fan fiction for now.

Interestingly, in China, where the presentation was held, fans there cheered excitedly at The Fallen and Star Convoy in particular which makes me feel they have to be the main villain and hero. In particular they should have a final showdown thar mirrors Brave ExKaiser and Galaxy Force…!

A more anime style final battle between Optimus and The Fallen would be pretty awesome, but whether Optimus still rips off The Fallen’s face I dunno.

[lara635kookie]

I didn't even watch "WISH" yet because in my country it will only be available at january, but people are saying it's a bad cliche so I probably won't watch at the cinema.

The thing is, even though I am a hopeless romantic, not everything has to have romance. There are princess who are perfectly fine without a prince, like Mirabel, Elsa, Merida, Moana and Raya(I do kinda like the idea of Raya with a girl, just not Namaari). But we were so robbed of seeing Asha and the star boy(he is literally a staR so I don't doubt Disney would call him StaN or something like that, so his name is Stan from now on, I am gonna call him like that, is easier than star boy). Asha and Stan had the potential to be the next Tianaveen and Rapunzel&Eugene (I don't know their ship name). The concept arts are the cutest thing I have ever seen. Also "At All Costs" (bop) would have been a love song between the two!!! Them singing it man. The pain I will feel when I don't see them passionately sing it, very "I see the light" coded, in the actual movie. Somehow, now is not feminist for a strong female character to have a male partner by her side. Like...This doesn't make sense! You can be a strong female character and have a man at the same time! Have y'all forgotten Mulan and Shang? Anna and Kristoff? Ariel and Eric? Jasmine and Aladdin? (There are more examples and I could go on all day, but you got what I meant already) I hate Disney for throwing good ideas at the trash and playing safe just for money(like Hobie Brown/Spider-Punk said "it's a metaphor for capitalism"). And as the guy looked blonde with blue/green eyes in the arts I have seen, and Asha is a black latina, they lost the opportunity of having a biracial couple ACTUALLY DONE RIGHT (Pocahontas and John Smith don't count, he is a collonizer with the most common name in the world, she deserves so much better). Like, if the thing is show how inclusive you are by having a black latina female protagonist for little girls to see and feel represented in a good way, you could have increased that feeling by making someone fall in love for her. Little girls would feel like they are beautiful and desired/desireable in a positive way and that they worthy of being loved and love and be with whoever they want to be with, even someone who has a different skin color.

I am also mad because we could have seen Disney's first evil villain COUPLE with King Magnifico and his wife, the queen(still don't know her name, sorry). Can't you guys imagine the HITS, THE FIRST PLACE OF BILLBOARD HOT 100 WORTHY songs, they would proportionate us? Even if only one song, it would be enough for me. But someone thought having a female villain would be anti-feminist and they discarded an original and authentic idea, which is what Disney built its empire on the first place. Come on Disney minorities don't want to be portrayed as those unrealistic superior beings, they want to be portrayed as real human beings with emotions, struggles, qualities and flaws. Having an iconic female villain like you guys always had(like Maleficent, Cruella De Vil, Ursula, Mother Gothel, Lady Tremaine, etc) and set her up with an iconic male villain(like Gaston, Doctor Facilier, Shan Yu, Jafar, Hans, etc) it would have been top notch, god tier. King Magnifico and the queen could have been like the Gomez and Morticia of evil. You could address so many topics by it. Like the kingdom being ruled by evil would have been a great social critic of some politicians out there, for example. And we could have had an iconic final boss battle between Asha and Stan VS Magnifico and the queen.

Anyway, what I mean by this is that if someone has fanarts or just ANY CONTENT, of Asha and Stan, tag me, reblog this or comment, I don't care, just warn me, because they are my new obsession. I will also write a fanfic about this movie with these ideas, but only after I have watched the movie so until them, please feed my hyperfixation in Stasha (Star boy/Stan×Asha), I'm begging y'all

[oodlyenough]

I haven't bothered with posts about the anime episodes because for the most part they've been like... fine to moderately amusing and there's not really anything to say beyond that. 2x06 Sound the Turnabout Melody (what a title) was uh not like that lmao so

started off strong with that terrible Wright & Co commercial. god bless you Maya.

ever since they introduced the concept of the friendship keychains I've been wondering if Larry still has his or if Larry is a normal person and the keychains are a consequence of Phoenix and Edgeworth specifically being Like That.

I thought s1 really tried to be like "a no homo trio of besties!!!" so I assumed it was likely Larry did. instead not even 3 years later Larry is like "lmao you still have that?" and Phoenix is both embarrassed and defensive which is much better and funnier than I expected from this show lmfao god bless

Larry discovering girls while Phoenix is STILL thinking about Miles and then deciding to dedicate songs on the radio to him fahfkdhlhkhglh .... incredible. showstopping

the dedication just kept going and going, too. i thought it would end with like, 'to signal red from signal blue' but it went on and on. i know she read page one of his ten page letter. didn't even mention the illustrated annexes of red and blue holding hands 😔

edgeworth thanking phoenix aloud and meanwhile phoenix sensing a disturbance in the force and turning around to look ... lmaoooooooo?!?!?... I mean even by the high bar set by their game canon I was pretty stunned

the flipside of all the crazy but believably IC baby narumitsu stuff was I found the Von Karma stuff all kind of weird and not particularly believable/IC

I appreciate the anime making it unambiguous that Edgeworth was raised by MVK, I feel like in the games there's a bit of vagueness for no real reason despite it being the most logical explanation for everything. so that was nice. but:

as hilariously cruel as it is to imagine MVK raising this kid for three years before turfing him to an orphanage, even applying 5d chess psychological torment logic I can't really make sense of that. why would he wait that long lol. why would he have taken miles in to begin with if not part of a long-term scheme.

baby franziska was cute as hell but i think she was too nice. i totally believe she'd be obsessed with her new little brother and want his attention/approval/etc. i ...don't really believe she's emotionally equipped to go about it so sweetly, lol.

miles' prosecutor vs defense ambition arc was convoluted to me, and an example where i feel like the games already gave us reason enough for the switch (the idea that greg's murderer got away + mvk's influence) without the anime now presenting something that makes less sense. (i'm still playing AAI but i sense i'll have similar criticisms of it, as in, "you're offering me a new explanation that makes less sense than the original". a common issue for prequel media.)

the cravat-giving scene felt like it was presented very earnestly despite being objectively kind of creepy given, you know, everything.

dog person miles edgeworth REAL

why'd they name that puppy napalm 😭😭😭😭

oh most importantly THE EPISODE TAG?? LMAO? edgeworth giving them the only like on their commercial why can't i find a clip or gifset of it the people need to know NEVERMIND @camalyng has bravely answered the call with a gifset

[justanotherbirdbrain-blog]

Hello, I was reading through your posts and couldn’t help but be inspired for a fictional material by some minerals and metals having an effect on the surroundings. If it’s not a chore, could you please provide any real world examples of how some minerals have effect on the environment. Something like affecting the structural integrity of, dyeing, or any other effects on the surrounding rock. Apologies if the question is not well worded or I’ve made an incorrect assumption, I know nothing of geology myself :)

Boy, I am so ridiculously happy you asked me that! It is one of my more favorite subjects! I will break this up into three sections, first to talk about environmental effects (this will include ideas of like mountain shapes, natural disasters, contamination of water, and even how streams look), then we will talk a bit about industry (what minerals are used for what, and how do they effect the people using them), then I will talk briefly about infrastructure before directing you to a documentary series that is old but does in fact explain all of this far better than I ever could hope to. This is kind of an extension of my economic trade and mining posts, so I will try to talk about similar but not the same topics! I feel like for the best results they should all be read together!

Environment: Some minerals that occur naturally are incredibly unstable at the surface, and when they breakdown it can really harm the environment. I am originally from Pennsylvania and a big problem in that area was something called Acid Mine Drainage, which is, in the simplest words, when sulfide minerals (in PA's case, pyrite) break down and lower the pH of the soil and water. This effectively kills most things living in the environment and can even be strong enough to cause skin irritations.

A great idea in a fictional world may be an old mining district that was abandoned and rediscovered with toxic water.

Something else that is small and thought about much less probably is something that happens when you boil water. If you pull well water (or groundwater) and boil it something that you may notice is a white ring form around your pots and pans. This is because your soil or rocks have access calcium and when you boil your water it precipitates out. This is not harmful, but it is something that will vary based off locations, and could effect ones health in a positive way (calcium is a very important nutrient).

But taking a step back from human health, lets look at large scale differences that can be effected by minerals/different types of rocks

The first thing to consider is how can a landscape look? typically when you have metamorphic(excluding schists) or intrusive igneous rocks (granite and whatnot) typically you will see doming, well-rounded mountains vs. sedimentary rocks where you might see distinct layering as some layers are more soft than others.

More mountainous locations, regardless of rock type will have more braided rivers, and places that have lower elevation change will be more meandering rivers. The bottom of the riverbed also changes! in older mountain ranges you would expect to see more metamorphic rocks exposed to the surface as the top of the mountain range has already been eroded, while fresh new mountain ranges might have a larger diversity of rocks within the river. Something I distinctly remember from going to North Carolina for the first time was seeing all the glittering mica in the creek beds there because the Appalachians are a very old mountain range.

Always remember: The rocks in the river reflect what is in the mountain!

But how can this effect how does this effect people? crystalline rocks are typically safer mountains to live in than sedimentary rock mountains, because they have very little variation and are less likely to break across planes of weakness, that said they are usually poorer in resources for older time periods other than for making things like stone for building houses and harvesting silica to make glass. There are of course exceptions to this, but for the most part this is true.

Sedimentary rocks mountains on the other hand are more dangerous in causing landslides and sinkholes, however they are usually rich in resources like clay, coal, oil, and even in some causes be rich enough in metals to be mined for iron. Chert is also a sedimentary rock that is used a lot in Native American cultures to make arrowheads, spearheads, and basic cutting tools, though this is way out of my realm of knowledge.

Industry: I have already hinted at some of these but I will try to talk purely about different things in this section! First lets talk about lead, my Roman empire is the Roman empire collapsing due to lead poisoning. Galena, a lead sulfide, is a rock formed in some sedimentary rocks and in hydrothermal environments (hot water injecting into cold rocks), hydrothermal activity can be present in past volcanic environments, during metamorphism, or even on the ocean floor. These are accessible in many locations is what I am trying to say, and lead is VERY appealing until you know it poisons you. It has a very low melting point meaning it is easy to work with, it is resistant to corroding, and it even imparts a sweet flavor and was used during the Roman empire to sweeten food without the addition of sugar or honey. Later, it was used due to its white color to make one look paler than they truly were because staying inside was a status symbol, added to glass to lower the melting point and increase the time it could be 'worked with' and the added side effect was that it made glass more shiny which then made it popular in jewelry. Lead was also used in paints, and dozens of other things, but it is time to move on.

Lets talk about paint colors that were available based on rocks! Clays and sedimentary rocks typically contained red to yellow hued pigments (think rust and earthy tones), so those colors would be seen more in art in areas dominated by sediments than say, green (unless there is a plant that can produce a strong enough pigment). Metamorphic rocks/hydrothermally altered rocks are more likely to produce colors like greens and blues and vibrant reds. What creates these colors is usually copper and mercury will create vibrant reds.

Scheele's green was a popular green that was created by an arsenic-bearing mineral that killed many people during the Victorian era.

Let's also briefly talk about how rocks could effect cosmetics! glittery eyeshadows, highlighter and other things we use today often use the mineral mica, which is a metamorphic mineral. It stands to reason that having shimmery makeup trend would be more likely in places that could supply it. Chalk could also presumably be used as a cosmetic which is a sedimentary rock, so maybe they could value matted and paler looks?

Another random thing that I have been dying to mention but couldn't think about a post it would fit in but imagine asbestos clothes that was a thing! Obviously people didn't know that it was bad for you at the time, and it seemed a miracle because it would be unaffected by fire and it was FABRIC made from ROCKS. Again, this is only found in places where asbestos is found, so like low temp metamorphic mafic/ultramafic rocks (essentially take the ocean floor and heat it up a little and BAM asbestos).

anywayyyyy, I truly truly believe the results are endless in this regard. I know very little in terms of history, so I am sure there are many others that can add to this in a very significant way.

Infrastructure: This one is probably the most obvious, but in terms of strength in building, different rock choices will be chosen. There is a reason marble is used to make pillars. Though the general rule of thumb is that massive rocks are generally more resilient to breaking, this includes sandstone for sedimentary rocks, granites/diorites/gabbros for igneous rocks, and marbles and quartzites for metamorphic rocks. Foliation or layering in a rock can also be abused like using slate for shingles and chalk boards and schist also for roofing.

The documentary that talks about most of these things: Journey to the Centre of the Earth: Art and Journey to the Centre of the Earth: Architecture. It is an older documentary series but I genuinely love Ian Stewart and all of his geology documentaries. You can also find both of these for free on YouTube I strongly recommend you find a legal version of this!

Anyway sorry for replying late my work has been piling up lately! Feel free to ask anymore questions! Also I didn't proofread this so if there is any grammar issues I am sorry.

[giphit]

Review of Spider-Man 2 (PS2/GCN/Xbox)

A few months ago, I decided to play Spider-Man 2 on my VERY REAL Nintendo GameCube (Dolphin edition). Overall, I had a very fun time. Obviously the swinging is phenomenal, though it is not as approachable as the PS4 game. The combat is clunky but works most of the time. The world itself is honestly kind of barren and carried by the fact that swinging is fun. And the story is a mixed bag.

Long in-depth thoughts:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Story

There's not much but the story in this game is very weird. As you'd expect, it covers the main narrative beats of the Raimi Spider-Man 2 movie but it adds its own stuff. And, opposite of what I expected, the movie stuff is the weakest part. As an actual adaptation, it's like we're just given an abridged version of that movie. These parts of the game feel kind of lackluster compared to the other parts of the story.

An example of this is with Doc Ock. In the movie we spend a good amount of time developing his relationship with Peter and establishing him as a mentor figure, meanwhile in the game, he's given a couple cutscenes before his accident and most of his time with Peter is cut off before a fade-to-black, back to the city as Spider-Man. Spidey will then say something along the lines of "Wow dinner with Doc was great, he's so smart, love that guy" and that's it. Maybe they expected you to have seen the movie so you'd know what these gaps were supposed to be.

A retelling of the movie isn't all this game is though, and the original content it gives you alongside the movie is super fun and interesting. My personal highlight is the Mysterio story line- everyone's seen the funny health bar clip. He's introduced as Quentin Beck, who dislikes Spider-Man and challenges him publicly only to lose. Post-humiliation, he puts a fish bowl on his head and uses his mystical power of "too much money and spare time" to pretend to be an alien staging an invasion of earth. This was just a fully enjoyable and funny quest line that doesn't just pad out the game but adds to it.

There's also the entirely new character arc that Peter goes on due to his interactions with Black Cat which actually introduce added depth to the internal "Spider-Man vs Peter Parker" thing he has going on. These two and other minor game-specific beats make it feel kind of "held-back" by having to tell the movie's story. You'll have a sequence of some really fun original quests followed by a watered down version of a moment from Spider-Man 2 (the movie).

I wouldn't say this even really takes away from the fun of the game, it is just a weird discrepancy.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Swinging

It is nothing short of spectacular that this game, made in 2004, manages to have such enticing, deep and FUN traversal throughout the streets of New York. Jamie Fistrom is a genius, this idea of his was what paved the way for the evolution of Spider-Man games. But it's not perfect.

At the time, it probably was as perfect as could be but now going back to play it, there are some grievances. Mostly the problems are in the fine controls, a lot of games from this era have this "problem" of actually being TOO tight and responsive. Smash Melee is the best example (I love Melee), where it's near unapproachable for newer players due to a lack of buffer and requirement of clean execution on complicated tech.

Spider-Man 2 is not as hard to get into as Super Smash Bros. Melee but it definitely has a learning curve to it. Or I just suck. I was swinging into buildings non stop at the beginning of the game but over time you get better at it and more proficient at keeping your pace up.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Combat

The combat in this game is very similar to the Arkham games, which is funny because those games came out 9 years after this. It's fair to say the combat is unrefined but it does get the job done and the combos are fun to pull off. Where the combat fall apart for me is in boss fights.

Despite liking the vibes and progression of the Mysterio parts of this game, I did not like the Mysterio "fight" (if you can call it that) at the statue of liberty. Getting to the orbs was annoying thanks to a lack of cooperation from Spider-Man's webs paired with me probably being a little bad at the game.

Then there's the Doctor Octopus fights which were just annoying. These fights feel really inconsistent and at some point I was just spamming buttons and hoping, which worked because this game was meant for children, but it was not satisfying to bang a head against a wall for a while. I'm sure there is a way to beat him consistently but the game did not convey it very well.

The shocker fights and Rhino were much more manageable but quite simple. Overall the combat is fine but there are points where it feels like a chore.

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Gameplay

Gameplay loop is very important in video games, and in this game, it ranges from fun to "oh this again, yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay". The things to do in the city are: race, pizza, random crime and that fucking balloon.

Racing is a mixed bag. The races that are just swinging are fun because the swinging is fun. The races that ask you to wall run are annoying because the wall running in this game is not fun. Should be noted that I barely did any races during my playthrough and it's been months so maybe not the most accurate perspective coming from me here.

Pizza is fun, mostly because of the song, it is basically just another form of race but with more fun music and less stipulations. You just have to get from point A to points B through Z within an allotted time and make it back to point A. Don't do tricks or you'll ruin the pizza. Overall just fun.

Random crimes are incredibly annoying- after a while at least. When I started in the game, I was enjoying being Spider-Man, helping people out on a whim but as the game progressed, I realised that there are about 15 whole crimes/events to experience here. A couple are added to the RNG pool during the main story like Mysterio's robots and some walking tanks but that's it. Since you are forced to get hero points in every chapter, you have to keep doing these and by the end they are just monotonous tasks. It sucks that this is really all the city has to offer.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rating and Conclusion

Very fun game to play, technical achievement for its time and surprisingly well-aged. Combat is average, traversal is phenomenal, gameplay loop is pretty monotonous and the story is enjoyable in some parts and boring in others.

7/10

[rametarin]

Wasn't bad, could be better.

Yeah don't read if you don't want spoilers on Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth. Or the original from 1997.

It suffers a little from green screen overanimated syndrome, but the story was told.

No one came over and punched Barret in the face when he showed up in Corel this time around. They poured a drink over his head, which was a change, but..

nothing will beat Barret showing up and some random scrawny asshole just belting him across the face, and him doing nothing about it because he felt he deserved it. It was just so visceral and violent.

I'm otherwise pleased with the way they handled Dyne. It was the story of a man done so wrong that he just became a monster. But, he thought he lost everything. When he realized he still had something to lose, he realized he acted himself into a corner and there was no way back.

In the original, he rejects the idea of ever contacting his daughter again, whom survived ShinRA trying to cleanse his town of survivors. He chose instead to fall backwards off a cliff and end his life.

In the new interpretation he dies in a gun battle Vs. ShinRA, making it ShinRA's fault more directly.

I can get what they were going for by trying to avoid the suicide reference, but it's unfortunate how censorship and sensibilities can ruin art. Dyne being an example of a person that thought they had lost everything, only to learn they hadn't, having a "whoops.." moment and then choosing self-destruction rather than live with what he's done was a big element of before.

But I have a feeling Dyne will no more stay dead than the rest of Avalanche or Zack will.

[professorscrooge]

This AU has stuffed my brain with enough Thoughts™ to finally make a Tumblr account.

So, thoughts, specifically, re: Mando archaeologists coming in to look at the statues, particularly thinking about the timescale this idea exists on and its implications:

I agree on all your points about a New Mando archaeologist being able to identify things just fine, but think I’d go a step further of anyone contemporary would identify the symbols better than any of their predecessors across the centuries, as they would be the closest to the actual timeframe they were painted in. Ancient symbols they wouldn't be able to identify would most likely be the ones that have fallen out of favour by the time of the Clone Wars and the Clones themselves painting them (before being Terracotta’d). The ones the Clones saw/replicated are most likely the most popular ones of the current era amongst the True Mandos, regardless of age, which likely makes them the most recognisable to a current New Mandalorian (which can be both a good and a bad thing depending upon their feeling about what might earn or reflect upon those symbols).

This leads me into my second thought, that being the incongruity of the statues' age vs the symbols they have on them. Star Wars has ridiculously long timeframes for the relative stagnancy its tech/culture has across the different eras, but we can still extrapolate reasonably that there would be cultural shifts over thousands of years – languages have changed or shifted, been created and lost over much shorter timeframes in the real world, nevermind cultural symbols and dress codes etc. especially on the military front, where uniforms can change multiple times throughout a singular conflict as the participants adapt. The Mandalorians are one of the few cultures where we see some of this change in their many appearances due to popularity and distinctiveness; Crusader armour to Neo Crusader, for example (which I bet annoys historians due to the emphasis on depersonalisation likely resulting in a loss in understanding of the armour designs that came before, but I digress). All this means, they might have symbols that are ‘only’ a few centuries or decades old, which then calls into question wtf are they doing on a statue that is seemingly far, far older.

e.g. "Those are Jaig Eyes, a memorial tradition stemming from Jaig's Last Stand at the 3rd Battle of Mimban."

 "Oh, interesting, interesting" excited/bored junior Jedi on archivist duty writes down "When was that?"

"730 years ago, which makes this statue utterly impossible."

 Logically, this then stems into two options for the archaeologist: either a) the statues are a far younger fraud, or b) the statues are the origin of the symbol as they predate the believed origin (as in potentially a very, very big historical/cultural discovery that probably throws a whole load of academic discourse into a tizzy).

 (Point b) could actually be evolved into a Bootstrap Paradox where that actually did legit happen on one of them from a previous expedition – can you imagine a shocked post-revival Ahsoka seeing her facial markings not just on many of the 501st around her like the Siege of Mandalore, but also on some random Mandalorian because, oops, accidentally inspired history, and maybe a conspiracy theory or two).

 This then also leads into; what do they actually make of them? (Yes, I have way too many thoughts about this, I’m so sorry). We generally have the vibe of the Clones have inherited lots of bits and pieces of Mando-ness, but that they also don’t necessarily understand all of what they do know. So, you have frustrations of “That’s a recognisable symbol of [Insert here] but it’s supposed to be painted on a vambrace, not on the helmet!” (he just thought it looked cool), “These three are apparently married, but they didn’t adapt the symbol into a triad??” (they just thought it was a symbol of closeness as batchmates, and had no idea it had further connotations or polyamorous adaptations), “That one’s just got Sandwich written on his head!!!” (it’s his name, yes he picked it). This seeming randomness that makes it even harder to glean the purpose of the symbols that are used correctly as they make assumptions, e.g. Jaig Eyes are something we know are a relatively big deal, and Rex is the only person there with them in all likelihood, and is obviously a commander of some sort – so, did he take ownership of those, give them to himself, and ban others from using them because they wanted to be important and unique? Or maybe he did earn them rightfully, and that’s why he’s a commander? And the Archaeologist just doesn’t know and has to second-guess things more than they should need to, because they’re not following the rules everywhere, they don't know what to make of it where they are.

 They also despair over the armour itself, because it’s clearly mass-manufactured and militaristic in bent, which should narrow it down to a historical period (as more uniform styles seems to be less common across Mandalorian history than more individualistic ones, though we’re missing big periods and I’m gonna assume on some being for animation budget vs comic artist reasons), but it’s completely unknown. The advantage of mass-manufacturing is more examples are likely to survive to a modern era intact, but this is completely new, and not just the result of an artist reusing a base mould or something because every statue is unique. They can probably put together a ranking system based on some of the extra pieces Clones added to their armour (and things like Kama and Pauldrons will presumably be recognisable) but it doesn’t match any known organisation, and implies either very small delineations, or perhaps this being a small part of a very large group.

Basically, by the end of their examination, the archaeologist is absolutely tearing their hair/lekku/horns out and very much needs an offered cup of tea and someone to yell at because none of this makes any sense.

Finally, at the end of all this when they make their reports, is when Politics might get involved. Because there are various angles you can take for these statues to be Historically Significant to Mandalore. But they’re not on Mandalore, they’re in the Jedi Temple, and suddenly we’re at a British Museum situation of ownership (sorta). Neither the Jedi nor the Archaeologist want to move the statues due to the Vibes they give off, but would be very easy to write a politician/just a Mando with an axe to grind against the Republic (pick a reason, there’s loads – this is where you could insert Jaster or Jango, with added weirdness if this is post-Galidraan and this might bring the question of reparations on the table, idk, exact things I have no idea on) who finds out about them to launch a campaign of having them ‘returned’ (as we’ve seen what lengths they went to when retrieving the Darksaber, this would likely be a Thing). And the Jedi probably don’t have much control over something as big of a Political deal like that, it’s presumably up to the Senate; who I bet would first off send a dozen art valuators and insurers down there to try and value them, and then procrastinate and bureaucratise for half a century and be reluctant to give things up because it’s Mandalore, and the Republic is still kinda scared of them after the many centuries of warfare. (The valuers also get lost constantly on the way to the army because this is a Jedi Temple, and if it doesn’t want you to find your way, you won’t).

 Apologies, long post, and I have no idea if I’m butting in or necroposting or what etiquette here is really, just too many thoughts in a small brain. I have a half-written fic based on the previous posts of this AU and discovering this addition today got me thinking again.

Thought- in the terracotta warriors thing, you mentioned that the Jedi archeologists brought in a specialist in mando iconography to try and work out what’s going on with the 501sts symbols- what if that outside specialist is jaster mereel? Could be pre becoming the mand’alor, could be just his side job, but either way he spends a few years studying it all and getting used to being the only mando in a base camp full of Jedi, makes friends, has academic discussions and disagreements, steals someone’s holopad to try and use the link to the Jedi archives to read all the things on tarre visla, gets into an actual argument, reconciles with agreeing to help with a historical reenactment of a Jedi mandolorian war, gets Madame nu’s comm number, introduces his new son to his comm bff who argues historical nitpicks with him, brings jango to the next summer at the site, clones react to jango somehow and/or there’s a few tubies in there who look distractingly like jango and/or someone has their helmet off and jango has a breakdown over it looking like a family member? And so on and so on

Context: Sleeping Soldiers AU

See, I don't really subscribe to the "halfway to archaeologist!Jaster" fanon. I'm especially reticent to engage with the Jocasta ship, honestly.

But... okay, here's the thing. It does feel pretty incongruous with how I've written Jaster thus far. I can believe him having like. A 'classical' education. Not actually tutored like a noble, but that he sought out the same subjects as an adult to make sure he understood how to rule once he started having a proper political angle. He's a history nerd in the way that a particularly political/philosophical aristocrat of the 18th century would have been.

Military history, philosophical history, political and even some arts... but not actually in an archaeological sense.

(Also, it raises my hackles because it's one of those things that feels like it's heavily associated with the whole "True Mandos Were Best Mandos" crowd.)

It also really depends on the era! Tarre makes more sense than Jaster, just because of the timescale! The soldiers are millennia buried by the time Jaster is born! That said, even Tarre is a few millennia late but... makes more sense than Jaster.

Most likely, there are historians and archaeologists coming by every few centuries, as new generations encounter the issue, and older analyses are lost in the depths of the archives. Frequency tapers off after a few millennia, but... by the time Jaster is around?

It's 100% a New Mandalorian with an art history doctorate. (With a military symbolism specialty, in this case.)

It's probably not a New Mando if it's an Early On moment, but it probably is a New Mando if the Jedi start getting Weird Vibes and investigating the soldiers in the decades leading up to the Prequels.

Would the New Mandalorians know more than the traditionalists? Not necessarily. Would they know less? Actually, no.

I firmly believe that the New Mandalorians are taught about their histories in a "German kids learn about WWII atrocities, going on field trips to historic sites of said horrors, so their teachers can stress that they don't repeat the mistakes of the past" kind of way. I imagine the New Mandos would have plenty of research and records in regards to actual history, with plenty of museums and such. Part of maintaining pacifism is ensuring that the coming generations understand what led them to pacifism in the first place.

Is this thousands of years in the past, and thus difficult to research? Yes, but the traditionalists would have that same problem.

More of them, even. If the New Mandos have been around for seven hundred years, like Legends claims, then the traditionalists have probably have lost a lot of history through various battles and bombings, while the New Mandalorians, while not entirely escaping large scale destruction and such attacks, are much more likely to have protected and maintained their sites, simply by not courting war as a matter of culture. The traditionalists, meanwhile, would have had a much stronger emotional and cultural attachment to legends and themes, though I'll admit those are probably prone to revisionism, much like real-world folklore and mythology.

As @atagotiak put it:

Ehhhh. The traditionalists do care about legends and history and stuff. Often in an idealized way, sure. But you could argue that they’d have more reason than new mandos to be into these stories. Which, to be clear, isn’t like, saying that Jaster is definitely a part-time historian or anything like that. It’s just I don’t think one side would have an advantage over another. (edited)

So the New Mandos and Trad Mandos are probably on an even playing ground, insofar as skill and resources and knowledge go.

But by Jaster's time, the Jedi would have more reason to think the New Mandos would cooperate. No real downside to asking them when it comes to knowledge/skill, and an upside in terms of 'not getting shot when asking.'

As Tia said:

And even if we assume Jaster is a big history nerd and would be receptive to the Jedi (and tbh there’s even less indication of the latter) there’s no reason to think the Jedi would know that.

So yeah, when the soldiers start having Vibes And The Force Becomes Suspiciously Active on that level... New Mando archaeologist, definitely.

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

For Reference: Some Post-Outbreak Animated Opening Weekends

Heads up: This will be referring to domestic box office ONLY.

After a full year of animated movies opening, and with reports of MIGRATION looking to make less than $20m on its opening weekend, I thought I'd cobble together some post-outbreak animated movie openings to give one an idea of how movies made in this medium have been doing in a post-outbreak, post-streaming age...

I'll cap off at $20m...

$146m - THE SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE

$120m - SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE

$108m - MINIONS: THE RISE OF GRU

$50m - LIGHTYEAR

$31m - SPACE JAM: A NEW LEGACY

$30m - TROLLS BAND TOGETHER

$29m - ELEMENTAL

$27m - ENCANTO

$23m - THE BAD GUYS / DC LEAGUE OF SUPER-PETS

$22m - PAW PATROL: THE MIGHTY MOVIE / SING 2

$21m - DRAGON BALL SUPER: SUPER HERO / DEMON SLAYER - THE MOVIE: MUGEN TRAIN

Notice something?

Other than PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH *not* making more than $20m on its opening weekend?

The biggies are either sequels or entries in a beloved franchise.

Now of course, the legs mean everything... ELEMENTAL is below halfway down this list, yet it outgrossed the likes of SPACE JAM 2 and LIGHTYEAR. THE LAST WISH is not on here at all, and it outgrossed ELEMENTAL.

So, I'm not too concerned about what MIGRATION possibly opens with. Illumination originals tend to be leggy, like how the first SING was during the holiday season of 2016/17. It didn't post an incredible opening, but it stayed and stayed for months until it surpassed $200m at the domestic box office. While I don't think MIGRATION challenges the record for an animated movie multiplier like THE LAST WISH did (and beat, may I add), I still feel it'll make at least 4x its opening weekend. It would have to really not resonate with audiences, the way STRANGE WORLD and WISH didn't, in order to not do so. How hard can that be? It's a silly movie about ducks with a fun, distinct art style.

That's where we're at now. Families have to spend a *fortune* to go to the movies, the experience might absolutely suck, and the movie had better be worth it for them. Notice most of the non-sequels open with less than $30m domestically now.

At first, it seems like cause for alarm, like when ELEMENTAL and THE LAST WISH opened... But audiences *loved* those movies, and kept coming back and they told their friends, so the movies did excellently... That was not the case for STRANGE WORLD, WISH, and LIGHTYEAR.

So, I think we're gonna go through a little era where animated movies just don't open all that high anymore. A decade ago, a movie like FROZEN could open to $67m, a movie like BIG HERO 6 could take in $56m. I remember when something like $43m was considered *low* for a DreamWorks movie, circa 2010. HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON and MEGAMIND opened in that region, which was a step-down from the high 50s/low 60s KUNG FU PANDA and MONSTERS VS. ALIENS opened with.

Studios aggressively pivoting, Disney in particular with their Disney+, to streaming really did some damage I feel... But that wouldn't have happened - COVID notwithstanding - if, to repeat myself, the theatrical experience wasn't such an expensive gamble. The reason the Marvel and superhero movies were doing well up until recently was because you got what you asked for on the tin. With a more original animated effort, it's more of a gamble for audiences: Will this be worth it? Will this be worth the hassle and all the money spent? With something like SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME or - to use a DC example - THE BATMAN, you got what you asked for. A superhero fights bad guys and there's action and stuff.

So the studios need to adapt in some way or another. Spend less on the feature films but without underpaying the filmmakers, understand the release strategy and marketing better, etc. Legs sometimes come to the rescue, sometimes they don't.

We're now about 2 1/2 years into this world where movie theaters are pretty much back, and it appears that animated family films aren't in the same safe position they were some four years ago.

It'll be interesting to see how a non-sequel movie does next year, if one is finished and released... Because so far the landscape is... KUNG FU PANDA 4, GARFIELD, INSIDE OUT, TRANSFORMERS, and DESPICABLE ME...

[discyours]

And for no true Scotsman… that’s an interesting dynamic…. Because it’s like for any ideology or system of beliefs theoretically yeah… we could get to a point that 99-100% of people claiming to be X are actually probably not X. It’s possible. It’s just a fallacy if you are making the definition sooooo narrow on purpose to get out of a jam in an argument. The fallacious/cheating reasoning existing doesn’t mean we can’t make good faith and meaningful arguments that would mean the majority of self-described X not being X. Especially if we acknowledge things like, ok maybe there is a historical X and a modern X and the modern people clearly have MOVED what X means at this point. But it’s now fair to emphasize that they aren’t meaningfully meeting the previous/ historical definition of X. You see that a lot with political ideology words tbh. Like here’s a fun one — what’s a conservative? What’s a liberal? It’s contextual in time and place and even then you will get disagreeing factions and people who think each other don’t count and each have good arguments for it.

I do think it’s just really interesting to think about how words for beliefs, movements shared across groups of people both are meaningful and will never be all that stable. With a political movement there is always disagreement within as well as without and it’s like the line between variations within a species vs super closely related but separate species. Where is that line? How much disagreement = broken up into factions? How much disagreement before one or more of those factions “aren’t” the original term?

Also with all these political movement/faction terms.. so much depends on context. Once enough time has passed it can be the heir to the older idea, but it will never be the same and is probably different enough to start drawing lines and naming eras.

With radfem for example for better and worse, there is so little allegiance or even awareness to the ideology of the mid 20 c radfems that I am ready to describe that as a full split. An evolution with changes based on newer information available, experiences and reactions to events and other ideologies/factions rising, etc. Modern radfems are inspired-by but not the same as the earlier ones, with rare exceptions there are no second wavers who aren’t literally the women who were at their most active in that time period.

Again I think the evolution is a good thing — we do need to always be reevaluating, take in new information and new contexts — and a bad thing, when it’s out of ignorance of the past and not thoughtful sifting through it that’s leading to the change in what modern self-described radfem is vs the more stable definition

Overall I accept it’s changing and want to make the most of our chance to influence the shape of the new incarnation

Another thought is I call myself a feminist (no adjectives) even though i disagree in at least one way with 99% of self described feminists and strongly disagree with the majority faction on core points. I’m fighting for the space. I want my core concept of feminist to become THE core concept for the majority. And were unlikely to get what we don’t fight for. Still that’s such a delicate political question— when is it better for me to say I’m an ex feminist and define some new thing like, “women’s liberationist” and call myself that? Perhaps. Or perhaps not. There’s something to gain and lose either way. What matters I guess is which move most advances our organizing capacity.

I have nothing to add but I appreciate you sharing your thoughts.

[rg-notes]

2019 New Years Resolutions

December 2018

For my 2019 New Years Resolutions, I prefer to do them a bit different than years past. Last year I used a set of quantified goals, for example, read 10 books (accomplished), make dinner once per week (fail), leave SF (accomplished), take selfies with friends each week (failed, which was better for everyone). This year I'm simplifying; 3 things I want to do more, 1 I want to do less. Here goes:

More Focus: I recently read this post by Shane Parrish on the Farnam Street blog about working smarter, not harder. He outlines a method of identifying the things that are most important to work on and how to eliminate the rest. My new years plan is to outline those goals, not for the purpose of having more goals that disappoint me but instead to identify what I can get rid of, and focus. From his post:It’s not about working harder to get better results. You have only so much energy to apply. Pick what matters. Eliminate the rest.-Shane ParrishEven without having gone through the exercise I can guess that this will likely mean (1) quality family time (I'm lucky to already have a lot of this), (2) lots and lots of time surfing and really improve, and (3) less objectives but more successes for Saltwater. I'll follow-up with a post about the outcome here later.The exercise to get there:Do the goal elimination processReview monthly, adjust where necessaryEnjoy the freedom of less

More Originality: My default instinct in getting things done always seems to be to see how others are doing that thing. It's a fine approach to knocking out random tasks, but the issues is that I rarely spend time thinking about how I would 'ideally' want it done, or other ways something 'could' get done. This approach causes me to miss out on ideas and opportunities for learning and growth. Another post on Farnam Street earler this year got me thinking about my first thought on a topic versus spending real time to think through multiple levels fo an issue, and getting to first principles of an issue. This sums it up perfectly...It’s only by concentrating, sticking to the question, being patient, letting all the parts of my mind come into play, that I arrive at an original idea. By giving my brain a chance to make associations, draw connections, take me by surprise. And often even that idea doesn’t turn out to be very good. I need time to think about it, too, to make mistakes and recognize them, to make false starts and correct them, to outlast my impulses, to defeat my desire to declare the job done and move on to the next thing.-William DeresiewiczThis year I want to create more, come up with more of my own solutions to problems, and generate more original thinking vs just fast copying. This will be tough as it's against my natural tendency to move quick, but I'm confident it will be worth while.The exercise to get me there:Block days to think about one issue for what will feel like a rediculous about of time.Write 2x / month minPaint, draw, doodle, spray paint a surfboard, get creative and have fun

More Contentment: I see the irony of setting a goal to work on contentment but it is someting I'd like the feeling of more often. And the only way I know to get things done is to put them on paper and increase a sense of commitment to it. So here goes. First, I already know that I'm incredibly lucky to have the life I have, with an amazing wife, kids, family, passions, and business successes. But with the harsh and beautiful way I'm wired, I always seem to look for improvement and the next thing. It's going to take a framework shift to get there. Second, I already know there isn't any 'thing' that I don't have that will make me content. It's the way I think about those things, the way I think about life, and really the way I think about myself in the context of my life that will likely get me there. One of my favorite blogs is Leo Babauta's ZenHabits, and this post on the source of contentment from years back jumped back to mind as I started thinking about the topic. This guy Henri Nouwen talks about the answer to the question "Who am I", and the way you answer that question indicates the source of your lack of contentment...You realize that you’re defining yourself in terms of what you do, what others think of you, and what you have … and instead you think of yourself as “love” (for example). Suddenly, the need to prove yourself and do something as cool as that evaporates, and instead you can just be content with who you already are.-Leo BabautaI'm not going to fall into the trap of thinking this answer will come this year and then I'm good for life. This is a life long journey for sure, but understanding my world view, my self view, and digging deeper to find a true and sustained sense of contentment is a big project for me this year. The exercise to get me there:Seek to understand how I define myselfMeditate regularlyWrite 2x per month on how self view affects personal and professional lifeSpend time outside, aloneUse Selfchat regularly

Less Waste: How many things in your life are actually unnecessary? Any effort to simplify or to "NeatMethod" your life style will have so many positive impacts. One of which I'd like to pay more attention to in 2019 is the waste of materials from an environemental perspect. How many Amazon boxes do you toss each month? How many cups, or bottles? How much power do you waste? I have my go-to coffee mugs, and my quiver of Hydroflasks set. I'm gonna stick to filling them in the morning, asking restaurants and food trucks to use them instead of their plastic or paper cups. What will likely have a small positive impact on the environment will have a big impact on my simple, focused, and content lifestyle.

Other stuff: I'm gonna try a rotation of stuff where I focus for a month... starting with no social media in January. You won't find me on Insta, Twitter, or FB till Feb. Hit me on text if ya know me ;) And here are a few other ideas:January- no socialFebruary- no boozeMarch- journal dailyApril- clean something dailyMay- take a film photo everydayJune- read 4 booksJuly - 30 days of yogaStill working on the rest, send ideas. Much love and thanks for reading.

Happy New Years 2019!

Ryan Graves

[mageknight14]

With all due respect, I wasn’t very impressed by this post. I know that this was meant to be just your scattershot thoughts on NEO as a whole and I understand that but even then, I thought the whole post was surface-level as all hell. I think my whole problems with this post is how it seems to mistake novelty and shock value as being inherently more valuable than deeper dives into established concepts. I’m not against the former at all. In fact, the fact that OG TWEWY was as cohesive as it was while also being entirely its own thing still stands out as impressive to me even after all of these years. However, I also think that’s what leads to a lot of fans putting the game on a pedestal and pushing it up while also tearing down NEO in the process and frankly, I don’t very much care for that sort of thing.

For me, I think the most impressive thing about NEO is that it inverts (get it? Like Inversion?) a lot of things within the original but not with the intent to foil it just because. There are certainly a lot of deliberate callbacks to the original in NEO (An0ther basically being Rindo’s CAT, Shoka sharing traits with both Neku and Joshua and even having Sakura in her last name, having the three weeks again, a full-on team structure as opposed to just duos, the ideals of Shinjuku vs Shibuya, etc), but the game puts forth its own unique twists on these concepts to have them fit within NEO’s themes and make them feel natural. Fret shares a very similar backstory to Neku when it comes to having dead best friends that shaped their personalities but Fret chose to cope with his grief in a different way and as a result, he has his own problems to deal with in contrast to Neku. NEO uses the skeleton of the original but aims to tell a story to add on to its lessons of human communication and reflect on the struggles of teens and adults alike in the modern era, and as a sequel to something like TWEWY, I think that’s the best possible call they could’ve gone with.

The other thing about NEO is how it’s a deliberately much more subtle game than the original and how it relies a lot more on you looking between the lines in order to get the characterization. Kanon is a pretty good example since she at first seems like a femme-fetale character who turns to the side of the heroes but when you dig deeper into her character, you get to see how the never-ending game really affected her.

>get stuck in a rigged, never-ending death game

>come to form an unspoken alliance where the top 3 teams (sans Ruinbringers of course) keep their footing by sending new players and other teams to last place

>a couple of insanely OP kids come around and screw that whole plan up just by existing

>while the kids do almost bring about change by beating the Ruinbringers, it ultimately doesn’t even matter in the long-run due to how incredibly rigged the the Game is and as a result, the DRS are eliminated, getting rid of Kanon’s and Motoi’s safety net

A part of her legitimately did start to resent the Twisters for all of that but she still kept it to herself because she got to know them better and see them as kids who had no idea about everything she and the others went through so she keeps the resentment to herself because it’s not fair to them.

NEO is at its core a time travel story and like any good one, it uses this aspect to inform a large majority of its themes and character/plot writing, which is thematically appropriate in a way when you think about it: a game all about using time travel to notice the little details in a way that can have you get out of a sticky situation also rewards you with a deeper understanding of the characters when you go back to it or notice all of said aforementioned details beforehand. As such, the new cast tend to write off other people as shallow and not worth the effort at first (Nagi with Fret, Rindo with quite a wide variety of people, the Wicked Twisters with the other Player teams in general), but they become better about this as the game goes on.

I also couldn’t disagree more on Rindo. If anything, I actually found his character arc to be a lot more fluid/interesting for me compared to Neku (who I still love as a protag, don’t get me wrong). The thing about Rindo is that while people tend to boil down his arc to just being about his indecisiveness, it's a bit more nuanced than that. What makes Rindo's kind of indecisiveness problematic was his complacency and comfortableness with letting other people make decisions he'd rather not commit to. The moment someone comes around who seems capable, he's quick to obscuring himself into the background and riding on the coattails of other people's capabilities. I personally didn't need Rindo to have some dramatic internal conflict like self-deprecation, vanity, or depression. What matters when it comes to writing a character's flaw is how well the writing illustrates that flaw and I found that NEO painted Rindo's anxieties vividly whenever he was fraught with challenges. Most of the game, we see Rindo in his head, neurotically commentating on every move he or someone else does. It's shit like that that builds character; seeing Rindo feel things makes you care about him, even if his indecisiveness may grate at you sometimes, you understand why he is that way based on what's established about his character.

He’s indecisive, overthinking, in his head a lot, and untrusting as hell apart from a few select people, can be a passive-aggressive asshole as shown with how annoyed he gets with Fret and the others at times while never really voicing these gripes and just going with the flow in the hopes that things will work out without his input, waffles back and forth on his decisions even after he’s already made them (such as whether Nagi would be a useful addition to the team after she’d already joined), and lashes out when he’s pushed and pressured into making a choice before he’s ready. He’s distinct from Neku in a lot of ways and in some ways, can be an even bigger asshole as well. But he’s a good kid at his core and when push comes to shove, he can and will do his best to make up for his mistakes.

my thoughts on neo the world ends with you

long but probably not very good to read. spoilers and allat

i have to admit that i have a knee-jerk resentment towards a lot of the twewy franchise outside of the original game. every port and remake and reimagining of the original is simply worse off because something fundamental about what made the original experience so fantastic is removed. granted, this is often out of necessity for it no longer being a DS game, and from a business perspective, something like the anime adaptation only makes sense when a sequel is coming out practically immediately after the anime ends. still, in regards to these rereleases, i can easily see them as things that only add to the franchise rather than remove from them. the mobile port, despite screwing with the art style and the gameplay, added new music that is on par with the original game's score. the anime adaptation, despite its truncation, occasional mischaracterization, and format the story was not made for, looks pretty great and is still fun enough to be an effective recap, which was its precise purpose. it is much harder to say the same for final remix.

final remix is a port of a port; it maintains the streamlined and exponentially less engaging gameplay of the mobile version. granted, it comes with new pins which work well enough with this new base, but that doesn't change the problems i have with these fundamentals. to make up for that (as well as bridge the gap between it and neo), final remix comes with "a new day": a continuation of the story that is necessary to experience in order to understand neo.

to be blunt, a new day is where my previously mentioned resentment began. the story it tries to tell is so emphatic on its mystery that it foregoes any actual depth. as something that is expressly being tacked onto the original story rather than its own entity, its poor quality leads to directly detracting from that story.

the reaper's game (for og twewy at least) was meant to act as a symbolic prison for neku that colored every bit of his progress. yes, his character development is fairly blatant, but if anything, it benefits from that. the framing of the reaper's game actually makes the arc more grounded in how arduous it is, in how it was so much longer than neku could have ever expected, in how it hurt in all the ways he was scared it would.

it's all perfectly embodied by the fact neku is still wearing his headphones when the original game ends on the sublime emotional note of him taking them off. it's careless storytelling, to such an extent that it colors everything that came before it as the last canonical events we get to see, made all the worse by how it (and consequently, the game) ends with Neku dying. again. the only thing that keeps me from being completely outraged at the comical disregard of his arc is that it at least doesn't take away his emotional development.

there's also the iffy characterization overall, once again to serve a mystery the plot cannot afford to answer the larger reaching implications of. mind you, there's nothing outright OFFENSIVE about its portrayals (i actually think fake joshua is the best example of characterization in the whole thing; it's fun to show what a character is by what they aren't), but it's all just so vapid. forgive me for being smarmy enough to use an antimetabole, but when you go through a whole-ass video game that has its plot function in service to its characters, playing such a blatant sequel-bait that has its characters serving the IDEA of a plot feels like a disservice to those characters. if there's a connection to be felt, it's not indicated or made stronger by what happens here; it's all for the sake of hype.

i'm rambling, but hopefully that embodies my emotions going into neo comprehensively enough. i couldn't help but see a new day as utterly counterintuitive, and as a result, i had my typical territorial nature for my favorite things cranked up to twelve. i couldn't even fully trust the original staff with this game. for a while, i couldn't shake the feeling that the franchise of twewy outside the original game tarnished my experience with it. i did everything i could to convince myself to go full "death of the author": everything that isn't the original game simply isn't canon. but that didn't feel right to me, so i still kept this deep curiosity in me. then, about two and a half years after its release, i started up neo and spent my winter break exclusively on playing it through to the end (college made it so if i didn't finish it then, i'd have to wait till the summer).

this FINALLY leads me to my thoughts on the game this post is supposed to be about.

in a word, neo feels derivative. mind you, that's by no means the full story. for certain aspects, that description is either deeply unfair or outright untrue; for others, it's frankly generous. holistically, however, it feels like a continuation of what twewy had to offer, when it could've been an evolution. this by itself would make it worse than the original, but then there are times where it can't even accomplish that much.

on that note: the presentation.

og twewy didn't just have a fantastic style, but phenomenal direction. it was a multi-pronged refutation of the idea of "style over substance". the pause menu alone is so informative, yet so digestible because of its adherence to the game's style, what with its inspired choice of music and cute lil thumbnails for all the menus you can navigate to from there. there's also accounting for what players will most often check the menu for and an effort to make such features particularly accessible. the shining examples of this are dedicating nearly all of the top screen to the map and the fact that all the combat options aside from the pins (your level, partner behavior, game difficulty) are available on that screen, rather than hidden in another menu. hell, credit where it's due, the rereleases' version of this menu are all just as good; the attempt to depixelize the visuals makes it look a little too much like a gacha game for my liking, but absolutely nothing about it was changed in such a way that it becomes harder to navigate

in general, i think ui/ux design is way more important in games than it's given credit for, though that's undoubtedly changed in recent times. it's always been listed as a separate career from other graphic design jobs, and rightfully so, but for games especially, it can't be stressed enough how much they make or break a game's flow and "vibe". fact of the matter is, a significant chunk of a player's time is going to be spent in menus no matter what. i'm sure there's exceptions to this, but all i can think of is very primitive examples like pong which obviously don't apply to what i mean. as a result, making those menus feel fun and/or natural to use elevates the entire experience in ways even the most diligent game developers might not realize. an article from gamesradar has a translated quote from persona 5 director katsura hashino which really emboldened my feelings on the topic

"In Japan, UI design is often handled by new employees. ... Top level designers are usually in charge of characters and background graphics, with the UI being secondary. I think that’s a mistake. That’s why Atlus' UI designers are paid so well."

(side note: as great as the menus in p3r mostly are, the change for the in-battle menu from the revolver chamber is criminal. i know they still kinda have it, but i still prefer what the original did)

with all that said: neo twewy has three pause menus.

the first menu, which i will call the main menu, is where most of the options that relate to gameplay are. your current objective, social network (no jesse eisenberg in sight), equipment, map, and collectible progress. each of those five things i mentioned are their own menu within this menu, except for equipment which is actually two menus in threads and pins (to be fair, just like twewy).

the second menu, which i’ll call the pause menu, has all the shit that give off system setting vibes. saving, loading, going to the title screen, volume control, subtitles (always yes), voice track (we’ll get to that), the works. worth noting that this menu has absolutely no style to it. it is laughably barebones. sauceless, if you will.

the third menu, which i’ll call the combat menu, has all the combat options twewy had at the bottom of its main menu. this menu is also pretty lacking in sauce, though i suppose there’s only so much that could be done without it feeling obtrusive.

an insane person would argue this is a good translation of the immediate access in twewy’s ui. this division means less navigation is needed for certain option and it makes clutter a non-issue (in theory). while i’m sure this is true for some, for me, it became a consistent headache which would often undermine what i think are its design goals. the main menu’s subdivisions are a good example, but i actually didn’t have too much of a problem with it since switching between the menus was fairly snappy. the pin menu, however, was COMICALLY clunky. it becomes far too difficult to navigate your list as soon as week 2 starts. neo is a home console game, so there is zero need for a single pin to take up THAT much space on the screen, especially when that same pin at a different level of progress is listed separately, effectively doubling the amount of shit you have to sift through. the attempts at giving me shortcuts and filters ended up only confusing me. by the end, i resorted to exclusively consulting the full list every time, because even if it was tedious as all hell, at least i understood it and could eventually memorize the positions of things.

granted, it’s not all bad. you can actually access the combat menu while you’re in the main menu, so you can experiment with your level and view the drop rates in the noisepedia simultaneously. this version of the map, while it takes extra steps to access, also has features twewy’s map did not, namely the ability to see the kinds of noises that spawn in an area. you can even zoom in and out! for some reason!

these undeniable improvements are not only things twewy did not have, but in some cases (i.e. the map's new features) couldn’t have. however, it’s still missing the forest for the trees; the fundamental flow is still so disjointed that these features feel like a bandage on a tumor. i fully concede this next complaint is at least partially on me, but i cannot tell you the number of times i pressed the button for the wrong menu. because each menu has important shit that i need frequent access to, my muscle memory for the “i need menu things” neurons are always confused. if i’m not wasting time by going to the wrong menu, i’m wasting time by hesitating on pressing any button in case i’m wrong.

i’m being cruel here to an extent, and i acknowledge that. in isolation, these problems aren’t even a fraction as damning as i make them out to be, but when it’s something repeatedly experienced throughout the entire game, i cannot ignore how i dread having to interact with these menus and how they color my experience. granted, you could argue these complaints refute my thesis statement on neo being derivative. it may have failed, but is this not neo trying something new? to that, i would make the distinction that this is not a case of neo evolving, but rather, simply adapting.

allow me to branch back out to the more general subject of the game’s presentation.

i am by absolutely no means going to be calling the presentation of neo bad. that might be shocking to hear after me going so hard on the ui of all things, but i'm not an idiot. the soundtrack is a delight ("the beginning of a happy life" is genuinely, no bullshit, honest to god one of my favorite vg songs i have ever heard), the visuals are never any worse than ok (fret's design is by FAR my favorite, but i also liked shoka, rindo (mainly just his mask continuing the theme of neku's "hear no evil" with "speak no evil"), and susukichi), and when the two combine, it consistently achieves a familiar vibe throughout.

VERY familiar.

again, the presentation of neo is not bad. i would go so far as to call it good overall. but i genuinely struggle to think of any way it substantially iterates on what twewy has to offer. from where i'm standing, it feels like a complete copy-paste (with one exception that i swear i will get to soon cuz this is now like my third time alluding to it).

it's a bit of a mainstream example, but when you look at something like final fantasy, there's a clear throughline in the presentation of pretty much the entire series. even at its most vibrant and cutesy, there's this particular breed of gothic or sci-fi or—and i truly do not mean this disparagingly—edgy you can feel in the foundation of a final fantasy game. conversely, even at its darkest, final fantasy has its own brand of whimsy and bombast in chocobos or summons or the bajillion leitmotifs throughout the franchise. through it all, final fantasy has maintained a strong fundamental identity, but has managed to express it in a myriad of ways that, rather than dilute said identity, only bolster and refine its spirit.

i use final fantasy specifically because of its similarities to twewy. granted, these similarities are largely surface-level, but that's also kinda my point. final fantasy as a franchise achieves the variety it does through acknowledging what is fundamental to it and innovating off of that. by contrast, twewy (the franchise, not the game) is afraid to change its spirit and seeks purely to preserve it. because of that, the only way you could really differentiate twewy (the game, not the franchise) and neo at a glance is because of the hardware they are on. acquiescing to the merciless march of time, rather than embracing it.

that's why i still think my complaints about the ui ultimately fall back on the critiques of neo being derivative. while the problems with the ui in isolation seem like the developers trying something new, when you look at neo holistically, it is so clearly just an attempt at merely adapting, and sometimes it feels like neo fails even on that level. it isn't even innovation by necessity; every change feels like a sacrifice more than anything.

and on that note: gameplay.

i would say i generally enjoyed playing neo. the overworld exploration is very bog-standard, but i still appreciate it. remind is cute (it and telewarp's mechanics are obviously scripted but successfully "feel" cool to use) and dive fights are cool. i didn't mind the lack of fast travel, and in fact ADORED beat's soundsurf. having it add to your groove makes so much sense it hurts, and i love what it does to the music. but all of this is kinda window dressing when compared to the combat.

i'm sure my utter obsession with rpg (especially traditional rpg) gameplay aids my love of neo's combat, but i think most people can appreciate the gameplay loop. assigning party members to specific buttons is an undeniably fun concept. the hyper-customization of the combat is also something to be admired (to an extent); i'm sure i'm not particularly special for this, but i adore any opportunity to play a game "my way". the pin list is a teensy bit bloated with repeated ideas but with a higher number and/or different and somewhat arbitrary "element", but i sincerely love it overall. with how diverse the ideas are, there's a shocking few that i would consider objectively worse than the others. for example, the strength of the game's combo system "groove" means that a pin having a lower power doesn't actually make it necessarily worse, since less damage per attack allows for longer combos, which allows for more liberal and consistent use of the special moves unlocked by reaching the 100%, 200%, and 300% thresholds. inversely, as a compulsive grinder, the game's progression felt fairly natural even when i was pretty blatantly overprepared. fights are incredibly busy, and the boss fights especially are designed so that a single mistake can become a slippery slope of punishment. i died fairly frequently, particularly from getting too big for my britches and taking on a reduction chain i just couldn't handle. thus, fights never felt thoughtless the whole way through, which i was frankly REALLY impressed by.

i would accredit each of these compliments (or a stronger version of them) to twewy (to the point where i'm strongly tempted to derail this whole thing into how much i fucking love twewy's gameplay), but to its credit, neo does take different ways to get there in a lot of cases. to be doubly fair, though, as i've previously stated, these different approaches feel like they needed to happen rather than resulting from a distinct and passionate vision. to be TRIPLY fair, though, what's here has so much polish and depth that there was clearly some kind of passion present. my mind made a strong connection to kingdom hearts; i am not a big kh fan, so that is either indicative of just how similar neo and kh are (that someone like me could point it out) or how ignorant i am to action rpgs (accusing neo of being similar when it's really not). i'm open to either option.

the hyper-customization also feels like a double-edged sword, in that there is virtually no difference in how each of the six party members play. making your party members distinct from a gameplay perspective is INCREDIBLY important, because it's such an effective tool of storytelling. for better or worse, how a character performs during gameplay will directly influence how a player will view that character holistically. if, either by pure luck or bad game design, a character underperforms, a player is inclined to view that character less fondly. while neo's method of little if any distinction seemingly circumvents this slight dice roll, it closes off a unique opportunity entirely and settles for something that feels a little bland. mind you, this doesn't change anything about what i liked about the game's customization and customization as a whole. i do believe, generally, that the more customization the better, but that can't be an excuse to homogenize the party members.

none of how the game handles levelling up and stats really helps this. yes, characters will have different tastes in terms of food (leading to potential bonuses on top of the stat increases that food already does), and some clothes will have secondary benefits exclusive to certain party members, but it's not nearly enough.

i'm tempted to say that the solution to this would be to find a better balance, and that is still true on a fundamental level, but i also don't think making party members distinct and customization are mutually exclusive, or even necessarily things that mitigate the capacity for the other. if you want to go as extreme as what neo attempts, then yes, a focus on customization will undermine uniqueness, but there's also ways to let them heighten the other. in twewy's case, the dynamism of neku's gameplay vs the static "gimmicks" of his partners spoke not only to the personalities of each character individually, but also of neku's relationship with those partners and with people as a whole. more contemporary and popular examples of this would be pokemon (especially nowadays with nature mints and streamlined ev training) and persona (especially 5 royal).

the latter of the examples i bring up is an interesting one to me: taking advantage of a protagonist who is a canonical blank-slate (not to say joker or any persona protag from 3 onward has no personality, just that they are wild cards) to let them fit whatever mold the player wants. it's a big indicator of what i mean when i say that customization and uniqueness can coexist, because in this case, they're two almost completely separate spheres that manage to function without overpowering the other. when they DO interact, such as with the intended evolution of the mc's personas or the customization allowed for non-mc party members, it only enhances what it touches.

i should stress, despite these critiques, that i think neo's gameplay is good. i had fun with it. there are aspects of it, such as its pin selection, that i found memorably impressive. but i want to stress why i stick so strongly by my thesis—that neo is derivative—even for its best aspects.

and on that note: the story.

let's get the big thing i've been alluding to out of the way: i ADORE neo's localization. i really, truly, sincerely think there wasn't a single time in the entire game where i felt some piece of dialogue was awkward, and that is not only a compliment for the localizers, but for the writers as well. don't get me wrong, i could sometimes notice that things were localized, but that realization never jarred me. rather, it made me that much more confident about what that piece of dialogue could tell me about the character saying it, the situation they're in, and/or their relationship(s) to whom they're talking to.

i won't act like it's absolutely perfect, of course. however, my complaints come from failures to achieve the goal of localization, rather than with the innate nature of the practice. for example, probably my biggest hang-up on it is that it undersells a lot of the sentiment when shiki and neku finally reunite, though the voice acting is partly responsible for that (likely moreso the voice direction rather than the actors themselves, but i can't say for sure).

back on the positives, i do find the english voice acting pretty good. miranda parkin as nagi is my personal highlight; her performance reminds me a LOT of erica lindbeck's futaba sakura, and you should absolutely look into her work on her youtube channel "ParkinArt" when you get the chance, because she is superbly talented. shoutouts also go to xander mobus as kubo (i struggle to think of a sleazier voice) and pretty much every returning va.

in general, i am pretty massively defensive of localization and localizers; whole lotta people who don't know shit spouting, well, shit. to be fair, i'm not much better, but at least i'm on the side of the people who do this shit for a living. and i'm also on the side which appreciates those people for the work they do, because i can't help but feel like it's really fuckin hard. you're not just translating the literal words, but finding ways to synthesize it to maintain the SPIRIT. This short video by "Jehtt" about the opening line of Sonic Adventure is an excellent example of what I'm talking about.

as for the content getting localized itself, final remix (and specifically a new day) made it clear that whatever sequel comes out, it's going to be some kind of direct continuation of what's been established, rather than a self-contained story in the same universe or something along those lines. personally, i would've preferred the latter if a twewy sequel HAD to exist, and to its credit, my favorite things about neo twewy's story tend to be the things which THEORETICALLY make it stand on its own. obviously, your enjoyment is enhanced if you play the first game, but there's enough in neo to make it possible for someone who doesn't to still understand it.

for example, new characters are fun, even if occasionally half-baked. i'll get the riff-raff out of the way: the shinjuku reapers felt like goofy personifications of gimmicks that served their purposes well enough, coco is a bit less annoying this time, tsumugi is hilariously half-baked after being hyped up as much as she was, hazuki... exists, and i struggled to see any of the other team leaders as more than an impetus for other characters (though i am DEEPLY grateful kanon isn't as bad as she could've been). speaking of which, how about those characters?

my favorites were nagi and fret; i see their concepts as a bit tropey, but executed well all the same. the ways their arcs intertwine were surprisingly compelling; nagi's dislike of fret wasn't just a weird gag, but an inevitability of fret's compulsion to put up a front and nagi's keen perception and hatred of "fake" people. once nagi learns why fret puts up this act as he makes an effort to move past that instinct, they start bonding almost immediately as she tells him more about her inner workings and that she'll take care not to be so judgmental thanks to his influence. the reveal that she got fret on elegant strategy after the events of the game made me smile way more than the game trying to get me to like rindo and shoka as a couple ever did.

on that note, i could take or leave rindo as a protagonist, and in general, my interest in the shinjuku reapers (especially shoka) waned as they became more significant. that's not BECAUSE of their significance, mind you, simply that they ended up disappointing me in one way or the other (with the possible exception of kaie who was just kind of a silly little guy). it comes back, yet again, to my thesis on this game failing to meaningfully iterate. i understand and agree that there's a lot of value in establishing parallels between characters, even if the plots of their stories are disconnected. i would go so far as to say it's ideal to make a sequel expand on the subtext of what's been established like that, as long as it and what's new bolster each other. in the case of rindo, i struggle to appreciate things about him that aren’t some extension of neku when he was a protagonist. i found his arc about making his own decisions sudden and a bit inexplicable, especially with how blatantly it was stated. felt like a case of saying a character was having a specific arc without actually giving them that arc.

as for shoka, i do like her more than rindo. in fact, it’s her relationship with him that made me lose interest; it felt like all the things that endeared me to her, like her relationships with the other shinjuku reapers and her brand of snark, got pushed to the side in favor of said relationship. it dominated everything else about her character in a way it felt like it just didn’t with rindo. granted, this could just be because he’s the protagonist, and her “snark” is a surface level reason to like her. however, i don’t find that first concession to be an adequate excuse, and it was precisely her personality that got me interested in the character to begin with, only for it to feel discarded (albeit probably not completely, i’m sure there’s a cute lil moment or two i’m forgetting). considering shoka’s love of gatto nero and shiki’s presence in the game, i imagine the parallels between the two have to be somewhat intentional, including with their relationships to their respective mc. like with rindo, these parallels make it hard for me to appreciate the character, but unlike rindo, shoka’s parallels seem to actively oust the things unique to her, as opposed to rindo’s leaving little opportunity for appreciable distinction to begin with. again, i ultimately prefer shoka, as tis better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.

that just leaves the three elephants in the room/party: all of them are returning characters. two of them are characters you played as in twewy.

i do want to make it clear that even at my most territorial, i don't think i was ever completely against the idea of there being returning characters; if anything, my ideal twewy sequel would actually feature characters like joshua or hanekoma more prevalently than they were here. rather, much like most things, it comes down to how you implement them, and neo does so in a way that pretty blatantly relies on them. even that isn’t a necessarily a bad thing, but remember what i said about this story attempting to stand on its own?

what shocks me about their sheer prevalence is that very little of it feels necessary. i don’t get the feeling that any of the og gang were needed to make this story work on a thematic level (as happy as a lot of their scenes together made me), and in fact, as i alluded to with rindo and shoka, it actually seems to impede or dampen a lot of what the game is trying to go for. i see it as perhaps the single most blatant example of my thesis statement. neo plays with the concept of a self-contained story, but is unable to let go of what's already there, innovate enough on the franchise and original game’s core, and pull through with something standalone, because it seems generally unwilling to embrace change, and consequently, key aspects of creativity and what makes a good sequel. i understand if others don’t share this opinion, but to me, it really feels like neo only changes when it has to, and that reflects in the changes it makes as well as the ones it doesn't.

and on that note: the conclusion.

sorry this feels so disparate. i definitely wouldn't call neo a bad game, and in fact, i think given some time, i can comfortably call it good. plus, i can, after some difficulty and deliberation, say it and even final remix's existence only add to og twewy. impulsive territorialism be damned, it makes me happy to see stories and characters i love be added on to like this. the aspects i consider bad, even if they might be fundamental, are not enough for me to avoid embracing and appreciating the good. my silly little headcanons are not “threatened” by things like final remix, even if it felt like they would be in the moment. it is still possible to imagine all my favorite characters living happily ever after with each other, even that cunt with the mop for hair joshua, and if anything, certain scenes in neo only add to those delusions. i may have complained about them, and i do stand by those complaints, but i cannot deny how much i love them in isolation. i think the only thing that could've made me hate them is mischaracterization, but the only instance of that which stuck out to me (neku and shiki reuniting) seems to be a translation issue, and the real sentiment of the scene aligns far more strongly with my views of the characters.

that said, i'm still definitely disappointed by it all. neo's derivative spirit felt very pervasive to me the whole way through, and by the end, i felt a strong urge to replay twewy. that's not a necessarily bad instinct to have after playing a sequel, because it's the idea of "wanting more". it is, however, bad in this case, because it was a mix of that and the idea of "wanting better". i wanted to play something where these good ideas were new, or better yet, something where the new ideas were good. as it stands, i'm left the slightest bit hollow; just enough to be noteworthy, but i still feel like a dick for bringing it up.

i'm happy i played this game. i may very well play it again in the future. there's aspects of it i like to the point of loving. and yet, i hesitate to say i like it.

my feelings on this game continue to be jumbled, even after all this. still, writing a lot of it out definitely helped, and it was really fun to make! thank you oh so very much for reading; i hope you enjoyed it!

oh, and i would rather rip my dick off than play scramble slam again-

[yvtro]

A while ago you said that Jason should've been Batman after Bruce die and i don't remember if you mention about Robin in it. Let's say dc do it, should they make him a new character to be his robin or do you have anyone in mind?

i briefly mentioned it in a post yesterday, but originally when talking about jason becoming batman, my thought process involved bruce either retiring or getting seriously injured (in the latter case jason would take the mantle only temporarily), but now that i think about it the concept of bruce getting fridged for the sake of jason's character development is not only ironic and tragic, but also very funny. uno reverse. especially if they don't get to reconcile before; the angst of it all. the wretched parallel (bruce distorting jay's imagine in grief vs jason aiming to see the best in bruce in mourning; bruce getting considerably more violent at being batman after jay's death vs jay seeking to adjust his ways to understand bruce's ethos better; the tone of the batman comics becoming darker following jason's death vs it becoming what i would call 'aggressively hopeful' when jason takes over the mantle and tries to truly connect with the legacy). and none of it would be easy, the opposite really, a long, painful process. (also in my mind it follows from a secret disastrous storyline in which jason already loses hope in the concept of red hood as well; so his whole sand castle collapses, then bruce dies, and he's left to pick up the pieces).

all of this is different from another secret au in which bruce dies before jason even makes it as red hood and jason gets even more murderous while maybe taking the batman mantle too; identity theft seems to be his go-to coping mechanism.

sorry for such a long tangent... to your question about robin: to be fair, i have not thought about it, as i imagine jason would be rather uncomfortable with having a sidekick. some things to think about:

the *traditional* concept or batman & robin is a bit anachronistic atp. tim, for example, is still robin, but he also made robin uniquely *his* rather than adjacent to batman and bruce (this is of course not the first time this progression happened in the history of comics). damian (and that is not damian slander) doesn't really stand for what the original concept of robin was neither.

i'm not really diminishing the idea "batman needs a robin" though, but i feel like it's taken a bit too much at face value and doesn't take into account the story progression? the important part of this sentiment is that batman should not work alone, since the strict division of what batman means for the people vs what robin means for the people doesn't really apply anymore.

going back to existing robins, i believe jason would continue to work with them, but on their own terms, rather than trying to bring back the "dynamic duo" act. he would be protective, of course, but not more than he is normally; he definitely sees them more as equals, given that he used to hold the title too, and i doubt tim and damian would consider him "their" batman too.

(this is a vastly different situation than it is be with dick btw, who is the oldest and who created the robin mantle and also has more right to see it as his legacy. the subtle difference of "i shared a role and a title with these people" vs "i invented this role and title") tldr i don't think jason feels like he has a right to "have" a robin and for this to be his call.

also, as i already said, i think he would be (at least at first, and i believe for a long time) rather uncomfortable with the idea of having a sidekick. there's definitely a part of him who still appreciates and believes in what robin is a symbol of, but he has a complicated relationship with it, and probably with very idea of kids being in the field in general.

also, jason is young. i know dc keeps de-aging bruce, making him to be younger when he took in dick, but still, rn jason is supposed to be 23 at most (btw personally i don't accept like 90% of bullshit that was supposed to happen in this time, and since tim can be stuck at 17 for no good reason, why can't we also have jay to be younger so that the progession actually makes sense?? probably because it doesn't match the power fantasy middle aged men insert rh persona). i don't reckon he would be enthusiastic about being responsible for a whole child/teenager for a long time.

so i guess my answer is: no robin for jason, no sidekick even, for a long time. unless you give him some eldritch horror of a kid, maybe? that could be fun. but if you have any thoughts of why it should be different, please do share, i'm not ever deadset on my ideas.

[tenthgrove]

An MBTI System For Soft Yanderes

Having discovered the amazing Yandere MBTI by @ddarker-dreams I was inspired to create a similar system for the categorisation of soft yanderes. While it's made with more kind yanderes in mind (since the original system would sort most of them into a small number of types, leading to less variety for soft yandere writers) it could theoretically work for any kind of yandere. Please feel free to borrow this system for your own writing!

How does it work?

A quick introduction for those unfamiliar with the original MBTI- it's a personality type system consisting of four categories with two options each. To get your personality type, you pick the most appropriate option from each to get one of 16 possible four letter codes, corresponding to a personality type.

The yandere MBTI works the same way.

I've devised the following four categories:

Covert [C] vs Overt [O]

Distant [D] vs Smothering [S]

Relaxed [R] vs Wary [W]

Prepared [P] vs Impulsive [I]

Now for a more in depth look:

Covert/Overt: How frank are they about their motivations? Generally speaking, a covert yandere is one who avoids drastic measures like abduction in favour of manipulating things behind the scenes to win darling’s heart. Some covert yanderes do resort to abduction, but they lie about their motivations to seem more reasonable or compelling, or just straight up vague you about it. An overt yandere is one who is very frank about the relationship they want from darling. If they hide it early on, e.g. during the stalking phase, they gladly recount what they were doing once darling is theirs.

Distant/Smothering: How do they interact with a darling who doesn’t yet love them? Do they let them have their space and come to terms with things on their own, or do they completely smother them in attention in a desperate bid to win them over? Distant yanderes don’t necessarily have to ignore their darling, but they choose to let them take the lead in how much they interact early on. Smothering yanderes don’t have to be explicit in their intentions (this will largely depend on their Covert/Overt alignment) but they must in one manner or another pressure their darling into spending vast amounts of time with them.

Relaxed/Wary: This category encompasses several factors that will typically correlate strongly, the main ones being the extent to which they trust their darling once they come around to the relationship, how realistic their understanding of the situation is (are their any irrational beliefs spurring them on?) and how they feel about increasing darling’s freedom once things get better. Relaxed yanderes typically trust their darling’s word, see the situation realistically and will increase freedom at the drop of the hat. Wary yanderes are cautious of what their darling says, may have irrational beliefs about darling’s safety and will have to think carefully about easing things up with darling’s liberty.

Prepared/Impulsive: Perhaps the most easy to understand category, this is a balance of how thought out the yandere’s plan is, both obtaining them in the first place and winning their love. Prepared yanderes may spend months devising their scheme, making extensive changes to their home to accommodate its new inhabitant and knowing what to do if plan A at any point fails. Impulsive yanderes are just that. They do things in the spur of the moment, figuring it out as they go along. Some impulsive yanderes do have a long period of preparation, e.g. stalking their darling to learn their routine, or fantasising about how to obtain them but ultimately maintain their ‘anything goes’ attitude and have little idea of how they will achieve their endgame.

Examples with the characters I write for

I've put all the characters I've written yandere content for in the past into this table so you can see where I've placed them. I've also added a few bonus characters from other jojo parts, to fill in the types I couldn't think of anyone for.

For those who are interested, I've written a more in depth look at each individual type and how they usually operate here, in a separate post to stop this one going on forever.

[one-joe-spoopy]

Okay! So!

Juno is stalking Peter in the Cerberus Province, but it's not the standard desert this time. I've maybe mentioned before that the place is dark and snowy, but it's basically an industrial pollution hell: the snow that falls there is dirty, grey-black and very toxic, the earth is eternally frozen and only melts into very thin slush that is hell on the ankles so you have to be very careful

Juno spends a hefty chunk of time weighing the merits of killing (incapacitating? crippling? harming? can the fae even be injured? Juno doesn't know and he's a little eager to find out) Peter vs keeping him alive like a very monstrous sheep.

Juno has a brief thought about spreading Peter's blood across bread and eating it for breakfast because it reminds him of blackberry jam, thick and almost gelatinous (I would not blame him), and immediately bursts into laughter at that. It concerns Peter a lot because he's lying in the snow with a charred hole in his hip and this maniac that apparently has the balls to shoot a literal faerie is laughing over his head and he's pretty sure he's somehow out of his depth here

A lot of characters here are either half-human (like Juno and Buddy), supernatural creatures (Peter, Vespa, Rita), or human (Jet, which makes him so much scarier if you consider that he's the most imposing one of them all amongst the monsters and half-humans he knows, which I think of quite often and is a very good example of why humans generally shouldn't mess with the supernatural) (Juno's just a little too silly in the head to worry about things like that) (Buddy wasn't always half-human but she is now so yay!) (Or maybe nay, I'm not sure yet)

As I've probably mentioned before, Peter will eat anything that comes his way—usually that's humans and other creatures because animals don't taste so good in this toxic wasteland and humans are better at filtering toxins out. His favorite things to eat are hearts and livers (lots of iron and just because it's a teeny-weeny bit of symbolism that he eats hearts and also because I'm basing him off one of my parents, who is extremely partial to organs) (it's not gross, but there are some things I won't eat that they will and that creeps me out juuuuuuust a lil bit) (sorry, parent o' mine, but I draw the limit at organs, thanks very much, no matter how much I need the iron) (I feel this is getting a tad excessively specific) (oh well if you have some inspiration close to the heart then why not use it, y'know?) which Juno is not happy to provide because where on earth is he going to find organs? In this economy? No way in hell

I mentioned before that Juno only has one of his original eyes, right? And he got the new one in exchange for services rendered? He lost his original eye to Miasma, yes, as is in every version I can ever come up with, and he got his new (second) eye (he has no idea what thing it belongs to, but all he knows is that it's as good as the original (maybe even better) and has also somehow created an odd craving for raw meat, which is strange but not too strange, if you get what I mean) from Buddy (technically from Jet, since that's the kind of stuff he does) and is happy as punch with it.

Cannibalism is not as taboo on my fairytale mars since it's hard to survive and no one's going to judge you for doing what you can to claw your way through the shitty life you have, but murder very much is (unless it's for good reasons) (it's up to you to decide what counts as a good reason and if you can justify it properly you're free to act however you like)

At this point I feel like I've spoken at length about Peter and everything else, but not Juno even though he's technically the star of this whole au. Some basic details about him are as follows:

He wasn't always a hunter, but he's good at it and it brings him a sense of fulfillment his original occupation never gave him

He tends to get himself caught in a few deals that go south in spectacular ways for him (see: his missing original eye, now belonging to a witch hidden under the frozen soil of mars (creepy soup doctor Miasma); see: losing multiple years of his life to the Otherworld because after his old life fell apart around him he went followed someone who he thought was just an unusually glittery person into their home, which turned out not to be a home at all (the person is Rita and everything ended up going very well); see: losing his evil new eye (that he got from another bad deal) (which was giving him some severe mood swings and exacerbating his anger issues) to a silver-tongued... actually, Juno's still not sure what exactly Buddy is but it's neither purely human nor supernatural in exchange for breaking someone verrrrry special out of the Otherworld (The Land Down Under, Fae Territory, There Be Monsters, No Man's Land, Purgatory, etc. etc.)... The list goes on and on)

Benzaiten's still dead but since Juno now knows someone who can open up a passage to get in and out of the Otherworld (relatively) safely he can go see him every six or so months which has been a great mood booster (Juno's a little sad that he can't bring Ben back to the surface to see sunlight (in whatever pale capacity it exists in) and the sunrise but it's a small price to pay in exchange for seeing his other half again)

The other half part is very much so serious here because Ben is quite literally Juno's other half in soul and mind if not body and losing him fucked Juno up in unspeakable ways. You could even say that they were the same person torn apart in half so neither would be lonely

Juno's normal eye is a cloudy grey, kind of like the same grey you'd see on a day when it's storming somewhere in the distance and you know it's creeping closer (I have a specific color in mind stemming from some verrrrry fun childhood experiences), but his other eye, the magical one, shifts colors depending on what he's doing and the angle you're seeing it from. Head-on it's the same color as his other eye but it has that same red glow as animal eyes do in the dark and it's very eerie to see in the middle of the night and it might give him away so he covers it (and the scars from having it removed and replaced again and again) with an eyepatch. Sometimes it's amber, other times it's a bright blue—Juno wonders if it changes color to match the other eye, wherever or with whoever that eye may be

Some of his eyelashes have gone white. (This is both a personal HC and one specific to this au)

I will definitely add more as they come to me but so far here's what I have!

Hey! So, uh, I have some more stuff for the fae-hunter jupeter au, if you'd like to hear it? Regarding some more about the background and things and the other characters and also some intrusive thoughts Juno has regarding the cannibalism?

Oh fuck yeah babey lay it on me. This is the best Steel Twin Birthday Present and no other holiday or event going on irl I could've woken up to ever! And also does it mean anything if I say I have more thoughts on my monster hunter au bc I have a lot of new thoughts about it