#I’m a type 1 FWIW

[whatbigotspost]

If you hate stuff like Enneagram just skip this post please BUT if you, like me, love this, I have to share my list of hand crafted “hard shit each Enneagram type needs to hear and internalize.” It’s like the heart of each types’ biggest social BS where they need to hear “let go and back off” of something or a challenging thing each type needs to learn to embrace.

I’m sharing it here instead of with people I know irl as they’ll each think it’s about them personally, since I know their types and am always talking about this stuff 😂 but it’s not at all about any 1 human. It’s my personal data tracking at play. After 10 years of being a geek about Enneagram, using it at work and in social spaces, and knowing countless types of my friends and coworkers, my brain can’t help but notice and index some trends. My super power of pattern recognition shows up like this sometimes.

anyway, here’s the hard truths I’ve got to share today!

Type 1: your way isn’t the “right way.” In fact, your way may be dead wrong for others. Your experience isn’t universal and trying to impose it will drive others away. Let go and embrace imperfection and total ambiguity.

Type 2: offers to help are not always welcome or experienced as a gift. Sometimes it’s actually hurtful when you bring a “fixing” mentality. Plus, feeling resentment when your offers are declined is counterproductive to your goals. Let go and embrace a lack of control or “doing.”

Type 3: sometimes you WILL fail and look bad. We all are human. When you let your self perception dip due to the perspectives of others at your humanity, you seem so much smaller and less than you really are. Get comfy being a mess sometimes and stop looking so desperate to save face. Let go and embrace failure.

Type 4: you simply aren’t the center of other folks’ worlds, but that’s actually good news. Most of the time, what others say or do has nothing to do with you and thinking it does, results in more emotional suffering. Let go and embrace the gifts of insignificance and it being not about you.

Type 5: you simply can never know it all and you must accept this. Information brings comfort, but you have to accept that some things have absolutely no “answer” and they can’t be reasoned with or explained by logic. Let go and embrace the potential and beauty within ambiguity.

Type 6: you have everything you need within you to be safe and secure. Continuously turning towards others to find, build, and seek security is risky, like outsourcing your moral compass. You’ve got all you need. Let go and embrace self-assuredness.

Type 7: just feel the goddamn shitty feelings with us for a while. Fun is great but it’s not always possible. Sometimes life genuinely sucks and we need you to sit in that fact and stop trying to see a bright side. Your optimism is needed but not 100% of the time. Let go and embrace reading the room when others need you.

Type 8: take a deep breath, roll your shoulders back, and just chill for a second. Your independence is a super power but you don’t have to fight so hard all of the time and you CAN rest and lean on others. Let go and embrace softness.

Type 9: suck it up, steel your spine, gird your loins, and say the hard thing. Peacekeeping is noble but only when everyone’s needs are actually known. Extreme passivity is as toxic to relationships as aggression when it results in resentments. Let go and embrace self advocacy.

[indelicateink]

(eta: went ahead and made this request with a vampires-are-known universe hays-code-esque porn violations)

okay so Anne Rice’s son Christopher had responded to a tweet at some point in which it was jokingly concluded that lestat would’ve been in porn and lol, that Armand would’ve reported the filming for code violations

which is fucking hilarious, and I, of course, desperately needed to beg for a crack 5+1 of this on the iwtv kink meme, and went over to type that up, but—

BUT GOOGLE WILL NOT TELL ME WHAT CODE VIOLATIONS ON AN ADULT FILM SET ARE. and I get CR was making a joke, but gdi I’d love to read this! we need this for science

the big ones on a film set of that nature are (1) you have to be of age (o b v i o u s l y; doesn’t even need to be in the fic); and (2) at least in Cali as far as I can tell, you have to glove up. (and then state by state, city by city, at least in the US, there are codes about where you can locate your sexually oriented business, what it’s allowed to be, etc). (edit: getting tested is also important, but not the kind of thing that can be visually flagged by armand after a viewing)

that’s it. my google skill may be weak.

beyond that i’m sure there are codes to be followed on any film set, but I can’t find them. (and lbr, it would be more hilarious to have specific porn codes to break.)

I guess he could be breaking the very specific rules a production company privately likes to go by, and somehow armand knows those? or the TOS on the site he cams on?

I throw myself on the mercy of my fellow iwtv tumblees, all in good fun: lestat is out there violating codes in porn and armand is dutifully calling those in one at a time. please help: wtf is the man doing? (that is not super DARK, but IS hilarious.) [ETA: okay, possible solution added at top of post]

(fwiw, imho lestat’s husband louis is fine with the career, is aware armand is gonna armand, and is honestly too busy with his art curation/brokering/etc career to give more than a passing interest to these shenanigans, and is happy to watch the final products of an evening with his boo)

if I have to make this alternate universe/scifi/fantasy I will, but irl is possibly funnier. please help me perv. for science. and the reading pleasure of the greater community.

[halleehalfgallon]

why do you say you're not Trad when everything you post and have in your bio seems to be? is it because you don't like to admit you have something in common with some rather polite conservative women on here?

there are certainly aspects of my life that are more “traditional”, but I would imagine we both know that there’s more to being a tradwife than that.

growing your own food and nursing your babies doesn’t make you a tradwife. not sure what you’re seeing in my bio that is giving tradwife energy. seriously so, so, so many types of people grow food and body feed their offspring.

I’m assuming you’re not talking about all the posts where I specifically state what makes me not a tradwife, so let’s look at the rest of my content… pictures of my cabin, outfits of the day that contain lots of dresses and long skirts and aprons which people of all kinds wear on the reg, lots of ferns, some things I’ve crocheted, vintage pieces I’ve been given, some thoughts on parenting, notes about how I manage ADHD…

not following.

also fwiw:

1. I don’t really care how polite you are in saying that you’re against me having rights, lol, strange thing to add in there. being polite doesn’t suddenly make me feel like I owe you a pat on the back for having shitty views that affect people I care about.

2. don’t mistake me for someone so fragile that I cannot admit to having common ground with a conservative woman just because they’re conservative women. truly, I am not so disconnected. I obviously acknowledge that we have common interests or I wouldn’t spend nearly as much time letting people know that I’m not one of them and they can depend on me to not be a bigot.

[bisluthq]

I’m catching up on all that’s been said the last 2ish days and have some thoughts lmao

1. I think Taylor felt love bombed by Matty, but I just think it’s adhd. Not trying to like pathologise (or whatever the word is lmao) everything but some things are just that way. And I think they are both the same type of crazy as each other, even just by being creative people, it makes sense Taylor would be impressed by his abstract thinking and writing and he’d be impressed by her more literal approach (I can’t write literally because it’s too confronting lmao so like if I wrote down bad I wouldn’t be crying at the gym, I’d be down bad trying to get out of a corn maze, thoughts going in crop circles. Over commit to the alien vibes lol).

2. I think he knew he was at very least a catalyst for joever (it would’ve happened eventually but Taylor likes monkey branching so if he wasn’t there…) and maybe felt like ‘oh whoops 😬 I thought we would be great but nope and this life is nuts and I want out’ but instead of saying it he just ghosted because they’re hard things to say and head in the sand is safe lol

3. I think Lucas till was the only one who wanted to be Mr Taylor Swift and he spoke about her for years after a short ass music video and if they dated it wasn’t deep for her lol. So yay for Travis taking that title 😂

4. I grew up thinking pop tarts were illegal where I lived but it was because mum didn’t want me eating that much sugar in one go. They were discontinued for a while and only found in speciality shops, but then I saw them when I was like 28 and told my mum and she didn’t realise I actually thought they were illegal 😂

5. The g/k-aylor to maykor pipeline is super easy because it validates their theories, they just had the wrong muse, but they were right that everything we saw was fake and ALL PATT OF THE FUCKING STORY to protect her true muse and feelings and and and (I don’t buy it fwiw but I can see how they would love it - some of them needed an excuse to leave they fandom but needed another monkey branch)

6. I opened my phone and forgot I was typing this and why (there’s a reason I recognise the adhd behavior in matty lol)

lol all valid thoughts xx

[renaerys]

what is it about sakura that makes her just so… shippable?

There are a few answers to this question. I suspect you may not like most of them, so I’m putting this under a read more. But you did ask, so here it is.

Rather than answer this with some sqeeing agreement over our flawless shippable queen being just That Hot, I'm going to try to answer this seriously. This is your second warning that what I'm about to say may not be warm and fuzzy to read.

Prefacing that Sakura is a character I have deeply loved and appreciated for many years, but it is exactly my love for her that makes me critical of her and the way I've seen her portrayed and, in some ways, mismanaged by fanfic authors over the years. Take all this with a grain of salt. These are just my own observations and opinions. I'm not here to ruin your faves, shame you in any way, or make you feel bad.

1. She’s got very self-insert protagonist-chan vibes that allow all types of people (us) to project onto her. This is admittedly an uncharitable answer (and, fwiw) not really in line with canon. Because in canon she actually does have some unique personality and she definitely does have some glaring character flaws that make her more closely resemble a real person. Kishi doesn't go very far with this, but it is absolutely there. So we're not working with cardboard here.

But unfortunately, so many fanfics erase a lot of that about her, or borrow parts of other characters/the idealized girlfriend experience and superimpose them onto Sakura as a catch all to make her "cooler" or "more interesting" to suit whatever they are trying to accomplish with her. I'm talking about how Sakura is portrayed as some combination of all or some of the following: a gorgeous, insanely empathetic woman who also has a temper (but only in the Strong Female Character way, not a true-to-life feminine rage way that addresses and unpacks her canon deep insecurities and demonstrated emotional insensitivity toward others, because that would be unattractive), is able to see past her love interest's issues and secrets and "understand" them perfectly (often without any real substantive work put into exploring how or why this makes sense in the context of the story), is both therapist and powerhouse in all that she does, is possessed of unparalleled kindness but also """"she's so sassy!""" type of shit. She's full of so many contradictions yet somehow the perfect, ideal girlfriend that my head spins. Who is she anymore? I don't know this person. That’s the protagonist-chan shit I’m talking about (see also, relatedly: Mary Sue, but I think that only captures one dimension of the problem). I think we’ve all seen those fics. There are a lot of them, and they are egregious or not to varying degrees. It’s boring as hell.

2. For some reason (no, I know the reason and I’ll get to it in a sec), people tend to like only Sakura and not care about maining any other female characters. Like the number of people I have encountered over the years in this fandom who outright (and, bizarrely, quite proudly) proclaim that they only read Sakura fics and will not entertain any other female main is…well, it makes me sad for them. Not that you can’t main your faves, but to wear it as a badge of honor feels red flag-y to me. What is it about the other ladies that offends you so? Have you questioned what it is about those other female characters that puts you off without giving them a shot? (I have some possible answers to these questions below.)

Anyway, we know why. The generous reason is that she is simply the main character of canon and has the most screen time, so it’s understandable that she’d have more fans than the other girls with comparatively less screen time. Nothing wrong with that on its face. It just makes sense.

However, my cynically in-this-fandom-for-15+-years ass also knows that, to a certain degree, this aversion to other female characters who are not Sakura is related to #1 above. She’s protagonist-chan, an easy personality to obliviate and make vanilla/ideal in a way that is simultaneously reductive and inoffensive, and that makes her approachable. Safe. An aspirational "that could be me." Characters like Ino, Karin, Mei, Tsunade, etc. don’t flatten as easily. They have more polarizing personality traits you can't squirm your way out of like you can with Sakura (I say you can with Sakura only because people do it, not because it can actually be done well or in any way that is satisfying to me personally). Those polarizing personalities put a lot of people off. It’s not unique to Naruto, it’s just the way people tend to write and consume stories in general. That’s why we get the “sassy best friend” trope and "women be catty". Sassy BFF is generally a more interesting character because she is allowed to be a chaotic fuck up on screen or horny on main, but she rarely gets the spotlight because that very same leeway makes her unrelatable to too many people. Some very "I'm in this picture and I don't like it" type of reactions.

Here's the part where I say "not every fan". Obviously, it's not every fan. If you don't want to read an Ino fic, don't. I'm not going to arrest you. But these generalizations are helpful in identifying patterns and for forcing ourselves to question our unconscious biases and unpack them. Which, personally, I find interesting.

3. All this to say that I'm honestly dismayed by how far fandom falls astray wrt Sakura at times. She actually has a lot of cool traits, interesting personality, and plenty of cracks in the plaster to make for a well-rounded, relatable character while still proudly repping the "normal girl" or "everyman" position. All she needs is some care and extrapolation, the same as most of the other characters. The foundation is there in canon even if it isn't fleshed out well enough on its own. But it's more than enough to build upon in fanon, which a lot of very skilled authors do super well! I previously talked about why I think Sakura is so much more than just protagonist-chan in this post and why it isn't a bad thing on its face. There are plenty of authors who understand that and write it well, and those fics are some of the best in the fandom imo. Unfortunately, there are also many authors who don't. Those stories are not bad and those writers don't suck. They just don't appeal to me personally because that's not what I'm looking for in Sakura fic.

4. Why is Sakura so shippable? I suspect that people take her "everyman" positioning and find very little that is offensive when you put her next to other characters. Like a staple food, rice or beans or potatoes. Goes with everything, and it gives room to sweat over the character you pair her with who, typically, is allowed to be more interesting and complex (the patient to Sakura's therapist). And if that's what you like, awesome! I wholeheartedly support you and I hope you create and find the content you wish to see. There's nothing at all wrong with this preference, and the Sakura fandom is very blessed to have a lot of good content to choose from. There is literally something for everyone, which is such a nice perk of being a Sakura fan.

[spaceorphan18]

You’re not going crazy. At the start of making this round of podcasts, Kevin and Jenna promised - and I went back to episode 1 and listened - that they would give an in depth , very open, not sugar coated, talk about everything podcast. Kevin said they’d talk about the bad things too but overall they had so many positive and happy stories to share. Unfortunately, and especially since season 2 beginning, their podcasts haven’t been positive and it’s the negativity that’s coming through, and that’s disappointing. I’m not saying I want to know all bts or gossip that is best not discussed, but I’d at least like to hear an unbiased, open discussion about all the characters, and the actual music, all their contributions to glee and generally come away with a happy feeling. These podcasts just make me feel disappointed and doubting my own feelings for my favorite character and ship.

I hear ya, Nonny!

And, honestly, I know I keep saying it and I really do mean it - I don't mind that Kevin and Jenna have the feelings they do. It's expected. Their characters did really not much of anything after Season 1 and that must not have been very fun to sit through. I don't blame them for having the feelings they do.

It's a shame that the Sag Strike (blame the studios!) has taken something away from the podcast. We aren't getting the types of interviews we were getting a year ago, that's really what's been the best part of the podcast. I hope it can be settled soon. And I hope we can get really good guests back on again.

(Also, a little side shade, I haven't listened to the fans they've had on as guests. How much of a fan can you be if you've never watched past season 3?)

Fwiw - I am going to keep my eye on the podcast, and probably listen to it every once in a while when something interesting comes along or if someone tells me there's a good episode. Otherwise, I'm going to just let Kevin and Jenna do their thing and not worry about it.

[xf-cases-solved]

below the cut are my answers to the poang secret santa gift exchange questionnaire. if you follow me and have no idea wtf i'm talking about, feel free to ignore this 😘

okay, my adhd meds are at their peak atm, so i will try very very hard not to ramble for 84 years 😬

*update after completing: i failed. read my answer to number ten tho, if my inability to stfu is incredibly intimidating

The following questions are designed to give your Secret Santa more insight into the things you like so that they can try and tailor their gift more specifically toward you. You can put as much or as little detail as you wish. It is also not mandatory. If you’d prefer to just be surprised with whatever your Santa comes up with, that’s cool too! This questionnaire also doesn’t guarantee a specific gift. Look at it as providing a guideline for your Santa, but not a rigid set of rules, yeah? Cool. Let’s get started:

1. Starting broad, tell your Santa about your relationship to The X-Files. This could be how you got into The X-Files in the first place, what the show means to you, or just general information you think might be relevant for your Santa to know.

due to questionable parenting decisions on my mother’s part, i started watching the x-files in 1998 when i was approximately five years old. consequently, i quite literally grew up with the show, and sort of absorbed it into my soul so that it became an integral part of my personality and general sense of self. so it’s fairly meaningful to me, lol. it’s never felt like “just a tv show” to me, if that makes sense. it’s cornball af to say, but when i watch it, i get a sense of calm, like i’m coming home

that said, since i was a fucking baby when i started watching, and the only person i knew who also watched it was my mom, i didn’t really have a fandom experience. it’s only now, with the pogang, that i have finally felt like i am a part of the x-files community 🥺

x-files has been there for me through some incredibly difficult times, and this year has been very hard. so hard, in fact, that i purposefully triggered a hyperfixation. i was unbearably overwhelmed with life, and i literally thought to myself “if i start an x-files rewatch rn, i know i will become insane about it and it will distract me from the Everything™️,” which like, is that the healthiest choice in the world? mb not, but it led to me finding x-files friends for the first time in over 25 years, and that’s invaluable to me. so in terms of unhealthy coping mechanisms, i am giving myself a pass on this one

fuck, i’m already writing too much. why am i the person that i am…

2. Tell your Santa about your favorites! Favorite characters, favorite moments, favorite episodes, favorite seasons, favorite ships, etc.

so i’m all about simping mulder. to be clear, not me simping over mulder, but mulder simping over scully. from the jump, i have always been obsessed with mulder’s love for scully, and how batshit insane he is about it. the feminist in me is ashamed, bc i have always loved the episodes where scully gets kidnapped or injured (and there are A LOT of those), bc it meant mulder would lose his gd mind. fwiw, it’s mulder’s suffering i like here, not scully’s. (that probably doesn’t rly help my case, huh? oh well.) i love mulder worrying about her, searching for her, becoming unhinged about her. i love it when he’s jealous. i love it when he looks at her like she’s the most beautiful, precious thing in the universe. basically i want my mulder to be a sopping wet pathetic puppy attached to dana scully’s hip and entranced by her magic thrall. i want him to feel both eternally blessed and completely baffled by the fact that she loves him back. i’m pretty gay for gillian anderson/scully, and as i’m typing this i wonder how much of this is projection. let’s… not examine that

in terms of other favorites (oh my god why am i still talking??) you have to remember that i was a literal child when i developed my opinions about the show, so some of them are… bad, lol. (for example: i think “first person shooter” is a good episode, sue me. imagine how fucking cool it was as a little seven year old to see scully kick mulder’s ass at video games). consequently, “milagro” is my favorite episode 💀. i also really love “all things” 💀. i have good taste, too, tho. other faves are “detour,” “never again,” “memento mori,” “redux ii,” “irresistible,” “jose chung,” “clyde bruckman,” “triangle,” etc. given my mulder confession above, cancer arc is obviously what i assume they would put on loop for me in heaven. for no discernible reason, i have always had alex krycek as a favorite character, which baffled my mother a lot when i was little. the lone gunmen are also choice as hell. but at the end of the day, it always comes down to my favorite two agents. they’re the heart of the show, and the heart of my heart, or something ❤️

(god i’m sorry this is already too long and this is only question two aaaaa)

3. Tell your Santa about your LEAST favorites! We all love our show, but it also sucks sometimes. Which parts suck the most for you?

this show is very good at being very bad, i agree op! i cannot handle mulder/other (i feel the reasons are clear, given my simping mulder manifesto above). diana can get eaten by a flukeworm. s9 doesn’t exist, and s8 only exists when i’m in a particular mood. only parts of the revival exist, mainly the parts that involve rhys darby. i am very “deny everything” about the things i don’t like. mulder is gone for scully’s pregnancy? denied. brain disease? denied. divorce arc? denied. mulder is red/green colorblind? that makes no fucking sense, he’s an fbi agent, i’m pretty sure that would disqualify him, and also: denied.

you get the idea

also, and this is kinda weird, but bc of bad timing in terms of release date, “i want to believe” is intimately linked to some really bad personal trauma for me, and so i can’t watch it or even really engage with it. that’s the only x-files thing that i can think of that’s an actual trigger instead of a coping mechanism

4. Tell your Santa your favorite tropes and genres! Only one bed? Friends to lovers? 5+1? Fluff, angst, hurt/comfort? You get the idea.

i am open to many things. off the top of my head: first time, hurt/comfort (guess who i want to be hurting and who i want to be comforting; see #2 if you’re uncertain). angst (with a happy ending) is always choice. idk, it’s probably easier to list the tropes i DON’T like rather than the ones i’m chill with, which is convenient, given the next question

5. Tell your Santa about tropes you tend to avoid.

so glad you asked! again, not a lot i will write off immediately, but i do have a weird complex about 5+1 fics. i have no idea why. i think they remind me of doing annoying, structured writing exercises in my creative writing classes. there are many wonderful ones out there i’m sure, but i wouldn’t know, bc i don’t read them. au is actually usually one of my favorites, but with x-files i tend to lean more toward a preference for canon divergence than au, i say, having written two different x-files au fics

hard no-nos for me are: spanking; any sort of spit/scat/piss play; D/s unless it’s extremely mild; and i can handle dubious consent if it treads the line veeerrry carefully, but no explicit non-con plz&thnx

6. For your Santa, but also just for fun, describe your ideal X-Files episode. Is it mythology? MotW? A literal porno?

my favorite episode would be a MoTW, which is full of a lot of whimsy and flirting, but also at some point mulder is very concerned about scully’s safety bc -gestures at #2-. then it would end with them sort of solving it, but probably not actually, and then they have a heart-to-heart, and since it’s my imaginary dream episode, they have their first kiss and then fuck nasty all night, god bless and amen

7. Speaking of pornography, tell your Santa what your spice preference is, using the following scale:

Salt only⁠ ⁠— No spice at all please! I.e. General audience rating.

Black pepper ⁠— A hint of spice. I.e. Teen rating.

Chili pepper ⁠— There’s a bit of a kick! I.e. Mature rating.

Habanero ⁠— Definitely spicy, but most spice lovers can handle it. I.e. Explicit rating.

✨Ghost pepper✨ ⁠— Only for the spiciest of spice lovers. I.e. VERY explicit/kink/POANG rating.

i tend to loiter most around the chili pepper to ghost pepper range, but good fic/art/whatever definitely doesn’t have to have smut for me to appreciate it, so no pressure, secret santa, if smut isn’t your thing. (if it IS however, well then, by all means, go to town)

8. Those are the most important things, but I want there to be ten questions because it’ll look better, so tell your Santa what ONE song you would pick to describe MSR. (Or if you’re not into MSR, pick a song for your favorite ship, or for TXF as a whole.)

why the fuck did i ask this question when i knew i would struggle for an answer. my automatic response is “blue skies” by noah and the whale. i think the lyrics are fairly apt, but i also just listened to it on repeat a lot when i wrote my multi-chap txf au, so i might just associate it with msr in a like, pavlovian way. whatever

9. Almost there. Pick your favorite TXF quote.

too many, so let’s just go with “i’d do it all over again,” bc you bet your sweet ass i would

(oh, and also “you made me a whole person” bc what the fuuuuuuck, that’s the most insane, romantic thing to say to anyone, but especially your “platonic” coworker, jfc)

10. Aaaaand, ten. And the last question can be open ended: Is there anything else you think is important for your Santa to know? Put it here!

hooray, you’re free from my rambling! in all seriousness, what i want to make ABUNDANTLY CLEAR here is this: i clearly have a lot of thoughts and opinions about my our show, but the idea of someone taking time to create something for me, especially in this fandom where i have felt very lonely for a very long time, outweighs all of that shit. i don’t care if you’re newer at writing, or y⁠our artwork isn’t at a level you want it to be at, or your gifs are glitchy—i don’t care about any supposed flaws. whatever you make me, i will cherish. i can talk 5ever about x-files (believe it or not, i actually held back up there, isn’t that unhinged? i am broken), but i want to see x-files through your eyes, too. there is no pressure at all, friend, so please don’t worry about getting it wrong. you won’t. i promise ❤️

finally shutting up now! inbox is open if you have any questions. later, friend

-diz

[fluorescentbrains]

ok genuinely I'm sorry for bringing this into your inbox but I saw your recent post about this channel & I guess I just need someone to vent to. mr ballen posted a video earlier this month about a case where the victim was a friend of mine. I have no idea if it's one you've watched recently but it has over 6 million views at this point so you might've seen it. I don't follow his channel and haven't seen any of his other videos, it's just that her case has been covered by true crime types several times over the years, I keep an eye on them even though it usually fills me with rage & other mixed emotions (one recent video got her name wrong in the title). fwiw his wasn't the worst I've seen and he plugged her father's charity at the end. I have a real distaste for true crime frankly, I guess for obvious reasons - even the folks who do it to "spread awareness" are really only rehashing the worst and final moments of someone's life, in service of feeding their own brand. then I get to see that people left comments talking about how her music sucks and her parents are bad and weak people for how they responded, a few saying she deserved to die because she was an sjw (in 2013 which was before "sjw" was even in the popular lexicon), and to top it off, several d*pp stans in the pinned comment whining that her father's charity (which is for raising awareness of male on female violence) ignores violence against men. I don't know why I'm sending this, I'm not mad at you or anything it's just a jolt every time I'm reminded. I don't want to leave a comment on the video where it will just get buried and probably piss people off.

she was a great and a WHOLE person and it's hard to describe how surreal and unsettling it is to see her story, and her parents' story, being spread with a "MATURE AUDIENCES ONLY" warning and an 'omg!' reaction thumbnail to literally millions of people, most of whom are just rubberneckers and fans of the channel mindlessly consuming crime content. you seem like a thoughtful person & I guess I'm just trying to tell someone that she was here and people knew her. she was incredibly outgoing and considerate and engaged with the world, socially conscious in a conservative small town before it was cool, genuinely a people person, she always encouraged me to come out of my shell (even though she was a year younger than me). her hair is short in most of the pictures shown in the news but I always remember it long. she was tiny and willowy but had a big personality and always seemed confident. she was a great musician & fledgling composer, every time she came over to my house she'd beeline right to our piano. she taught me how to play Ingrid Michaelson's "The Chain" and we'd sing the round part together. her singing voice at 19 is instinctive and raw and striking and I wish more people had heard it. she really was just getting started. this is a Bon Iver cover of "Skinny Love" that she did that I like to listen to sometimes (she's singing and playing the piano) -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLSELs5ArN4

this is another song she wrote with a friend:

https://soundcloud.com/ian-nytes-1/resonance?fbclid=IwAR3YIM6D04Vp6miUzizzVOEFcJzbfTxJz8jYsMPoTIaRIKhyqy69g5J7aUQ

i’m really sorry to hear about your friend. honestly the comments on his videos are often pretty awful and victim-blamey no matter how the story is presented in the video. people are always trying to convince themselves nothing in these stories would have happened to them because they would have been tougher or smarter. I hadn’t watched this one; i avoid his true crime videos (and most other true crime content in general) because it does leave a bad taste in my mouth. I looked into it out of curiosity after getting this ask and it is a terribly sad story; I can only imagine how hard it must have been for her family and friends.

for me, seeing someone say anything that i know is misrepresenting/misunderstanding a real thing that happened, even something i’m not that personally invested in, is really maddening and has gotten me into many a blow-out fight, so i can see how watching all of this play out would be incredibly frustrating. i think while it’s pretty normal to have a morbid fascination with scary things that have happened to other people, a lot of the people who watch these videos are just mindlessly consuming, as you say, and have no respect at all for the dead or traumatized. even if content creators try to be respectful, their audience usually isn’t. i’ve rarely seen people pull off respectful true crime content and sadly mrballen is not one of these people; he’s just too clickbaity to cultivate a respectful and restrained audience.

I listened to the music you sent. her voice is very beautiful. it is a shame more people don’t remember her for the person she was rather than the way she died.

[breezeinmonochromenight]

I realize i know nothing about final fantasy besides Cloud who has spikey anime hair with a gaint sword and dressed up as a female. Zack who had Cloud's sword at one point i think, he also looks to be like Sephiroth's long lost child, to me at least. And Sephiroth some guy with a giant ass katana who almost every girl wants to sleep with because he's just that type of bad guy and he has wings or one i don't really know. And I think thats about it.

ahdhsjdjd I have no idea if this will help or not, but to add to your thoughts:

Cloud who has spikey anime hair with a gaint sword and dressed up as a female.

All on point and true. Non-anime hair is rare in Final Fantasy. Hell, FFXV has some of the most normal hair in ages, imo, and most of the biggest badasses there straight up have mullets and wear Black Parade uniforms a lot of the time.

Also, Cloud is almost fully salt-powered.

Zack who had Cloud's sword at one point i think,

Also correct. Zack inherited the Buster sword from his mentor when his mentor died, and Cloud inherited it when Zack died.

he also looks to be like Sephiroth's long lost child, to me at least.

I can see it in a way, kinda, since they’re all bishōnen (+ one major character is quite literally just Japanese pop icon Gackt, to boot) and they all kind of have a little bit of anime sameface going on...

...but fwiw, Zack and his mentor are usually the two that most frequently get mistaken as blood relatives (they’re not):

And Sephiroth some guy with a giant ass katana who almost every girl wants to sleep with because he's just that type of bad guy and he has wings or one i don't really know.

It’s just one wing (hence the song being called One-Winged Angel), but this is also true. Which is absolutely hilarious to me for two reasons: 1.) he’s never given me straight and/or “I’m attracted to women/anyone” vibes in general, ever and b.) the version of Sephiroth that ppl obsess over (the evil one with the one wing and the constant smirk and whatnot that you see in non-FF games like Smash) ain’t even the real him. Lol.

The real deal — before his (canon) catastrophic mental breakdown — was a bit stiff and awkward at times, and had like three friends (including Zack and Zack’s mentor), but was ultimately a good person:

Again, no idea if this helps or not at all, but long story short? You pretty much got the right idea/are in the ball park lol.

[funkymbtifiction]

Hi Charity! Three main questions/points:

1. I notice that a lot of submissions these days are something along the lines of, “Here’s this highly specific description of me or someone in my life; is it x type?” Is this fun for you to answer? imagine it’d be a lot of work to read through them all sometimes.

The more specific something is, the louder it screams out a type, so I prefer specific to vague, generalizing, or just "I can't decide between X or Y, what's the difference?" I need something to work off of, otherwise it's a waste of my time to repeat generalizations.

2. I’ve been close to only a few ESTJs and no ENTJs, so while I could envision what ETJs are like (generally as either fabulous River Song types or stereotypical “CEO” types) I didn’t really have much real-world interaction with them. Then I started dating an ENTJ! [...] Inferior Fi doesn’t really look like how I expected it to. [...] is it possible for an ETJ, especially a healthy one, to not struggle much with their emotions or figuring out how they feel?

ETJ emotions are somewhat uncomplicated. Either they care, or they don't; their emotions don't affect their judgment except on rare occasions. They aren't sure how to emotionally connect, and may substitute gestures for emotional intimacy (they will assume one way to build a good relationship with a child is to take them places, not that Junior needs to feel heard and understood emotionally). They will either deal with their emotions as they arise, or ignore them. It matters very little to them to figure out 'how' they feel -- either they feel it or they don't. They don't need to understand it, it just directs their actions, sets their moral standards, and impacts the decisions they make. Healthy ETJs are usually pleasant, enjoyable people, they are just focused way more on efficiency and getting things done than on 'being' emotional.

3. I recently met this dude through a shared interest (“mock Survivor”, like the reality show) and I want to get to know him better (no romantic overtures though). [...] How can I try to get to know him better? Any invitation to hang out I compose in my head just sounds weirdly deliberate and overly personal but something super casual sounds like… too casual for the amount of time we’ve known each other. [...] Fwiw, I currently believe myself to be an INFJ 3w4 so/sp, and him to be an ENFJ 3w2 so/sp. He has so many friends and so much charisma it’s insane, which partly makes me wonder if he’d even care about connecting with me if his social circle is so saturated. But also I’m like, “He’d have no reason to turn down someone else to hang out with?” But one-on-one stuff seems like it’d be kind of awkward without a reason. I don’t know.

Overall question again I guess: How do I reconnect with this guy without making it weird, because I think about it way more often than is reasonable and I feel like the longer I wait the weirder it’ll get.

Just do it. The longer you wait, the more awkward it will be. If he is an ENFJ, the odds are he won't say no and you may reconnect. If he reconnects and then doesn't maintain the connection, you will know it's not a high priority for him and this friendship isn't going to work. But if you don't ask him, you'll always wonder what might have happened, if you did. Keep it friendly but casual. Contact him and say, "I really enjoyed getting to know you when you were on this thing with me, and I miss our conversations now that you're not. Would you like to (have coffee, chat online, text, etc) together sometime, just as friends?" I'd suggest something that lets you talk, and then ask him lots of questions about his shared interests and offer up the things you like and details about your life in return -- EFJs love to learn about you, since it helps them know how to adjust to you.

[greengay]

I know this is all speculation but I enjoy your insight. How do you reconcile phoebe marrying Joey after it all came out. Like clearly they have their own version of events (not as bad) but they do concede aspects were not right and he fucked up/ “failed her as a partner” in ways. Like even if I didn’t believe it, just reading parts of her statement would be enough. Before anyone says it: she comes from a lot of money

I mean I never really had a particularly high opinion of her? She seems like just another rich kid who’s gotten everything handed to them lol

If you’re asking how I think she reconciled marrying Joey after everything went down, WELP:

(Sorry this got super long, idk how to be succinct)

1. I know on twitter/tumblr there is absolutely no difference between a 17-year-old and an 11-year-old and that makes him a pedophile, blah blah, when.......the rest of the world doesn’t think that way. Is it okay? Hell no! But he isn’t an honest-to-G*d pedophile. He’s a creep...he’s immature...he’s an asshole...but he was not attracted to Lydia because of her underdeveloped, child-like body, come on now. Like...when she turned 18 she appeared exactly the same, and she also started dating her current BF when she was 17, so if we’re gonna call Joey a pedophile, we have to call her current BF a pedophile. The problem with Joey dating a 17-year old isn’t because she magically would have became mature once she turned 18...it was the power imbalance in between them and how he constantly brought it up to make her feel bad.

22 year olds don’t avoid 17 1/2 year olds because 6-months is a huge biological/maturity difference....22 year olds avoid 17 1/2 year olds because if you are an adult/functioning member of society, you wanna have a partner your own age. I think this reddit thread sums it up pretty well?

SO. I’m guessing??? Joey, Phoebe, SWMRS, etc. justified it by thinking that it wasn’t like school or anything and they were on a peer level (even though that isn’t even true because SWMRS were headliners lol), being on the same tour, like with FIDLAR/The Frights/SWMRS or All Time Low/Waterparks/SWMRS, where they all felt like bros/BFFs after the tour.

Again, I’m not saying it’s right, or I would personally have done what he had done, but trying to answer your question lol

Personally, with Lydia’s statement, I think it went unsaid because for some reason it’s extremely, extremely taboo to bring up, but...........the power imbalance didn’t come from SWMRS being headliners, but from Joey being Billie’s son.

EVERYONE KISSED SWMRS’ ASS BECAUSE OF BILLIE AND IDK WHY NO ONE IS SAYING THAT?????

They didn’t respect them as artists or think they were cool, professional dudes (by some accounts they were assholes to tech ppl lol), but because if you’re in the alternative music scene, you fucking kiss the ass of Billie Joe Armstrong’s son. I completely understand why she wouldn’t say that in her statement, however lol. I just don’t get why no one else will say that though.

SO. Long-winded way to say that while I personally don’t think the age/power difference was cool, I can see how people could try to justify it.

ALSO, FWIW. There’s a lot of popular media with people in their 20’s fucking 17 year olds, and Joey and Co. do NOT seem like the type of people to actually critically engage with the media they consume. I mean, most social justice issues they talked about were virtue signaling.

2. PREFACING THIS WITH I DON’T THINK THIS JUSTIFIES HOW JOEY TREATED LYDIA, but how Phoebe would reconcile marrying him. By a lot of accounts....Lydia was not a great person? Apparently there were rumors that she was racist? And kind of just....a bitch.....and habitually went after older dudes (her BF before Joey was older than him) in bands.....and after it didn’t work with Joey, she tried to go after Jakob.

AND LIKE, POWER TO HER. IF I WAS AS HOT AND THIN AND RICH AS HER, I WOULD FUCK MY WAY TO THE TOP TOO. BUT. Joey seemed extremely sensitive to anyone getting with him and acknowledging they knew he was BJA’s son, and Lydia seemed like she knew how to play the game (immediately dating someone way more famous than Joey after they broke up). Phoebe seems extremely normie, so she can probably think to herself, “I got with Joey because of WHO HE IS, while Lydia was just trying to get CONNECTIONS IN THE INDUSTRY” (🙄🙄).

ALSO. I don’t like how she handled things with Destroy Boys. I don’t think she did either, because she immediately deleted the tweet, but she didn’t try to fix it.... So, again, I can see Phoebe writing it off as, “well she’s not a good person so it doesn’t matter”

3. According to some unnamed sources....Lydia was extremely vague on certain details on her post to make it seem worse than it was/make her band & family look better. She did not lie, but it was very carefully worded.

I can see how, if you didn’t have great reading comprehension skills and you knew what went on behind the scenes AND someone you loved suffered the consequences, it would seem like she was lying. I think Phoebe (and Adie tbh) can justify loving Joey by thinking, “oh, she lied about THESE details, who’s to say she didn’t lie about everything!!”

4. The world isn’t black and white. We give passes to the people closest to us. I mean, in almost every single instance of a call-out post, OP is, is probably close to or knows of and doesn’t care that someone who has an equal list of “wrong doings”.

I mean, take the Ariana Grande v. Billie Joe thing that happened awhile ago lol.

We could come up with a comparative list of “bad” stuff for Ariana Grande, but that isn’t going to make her stans suddenly go, “oh! wow this is problematic, i’m over it”

I mean, literally in GD fandom on tumblr, I’ve seen people cancel swmrs, but then say that a certain actress was lying about being raped and abused by a famous musician.

We have to stop putting celebs/musicians on pedestals!!!!!! They’re just people!

5. I genuinely dislike Joey and always have and tbh think it’s righteous that he ruined his career by being a dipshit, but I don’t think he’s.......evil? He’s....just an asshole. A huge, rich asshole. Girls marry assholes every day.

I think he was pushy, manipulative and sexually coercive and that combined with the power imbalance made it abusive. If we go by the above points, we could see them writing off the age gap (literally already had people telling me to kms for saying that 17 and 22 is weird), and writing off the headliner vs. support act power imbalance and coming to the conclusion that they were peers and mutually awful to each other. (Not my belief, but tryna get in the mind of Phoebe here)

Again, prefacing this with how much I can’t stand Joey....I think he has major issues + a mental block about being the son of a celebrity. People will always think twice about crossing him because of his lineage. And I think there were certain? difficulties about growing up with a famous dad who’s most famous song is about jerking off and has very public addiction problems and has been waggling his ass to thousands of people since 1994 and has made not one, but two albums that defined the zeitgeist of a decade. And Billie and Adie are prob semi-aware of that and spoiled him. And they made a little asshole.

And girls let guys be assholes to them! One of my male friends jerked off and humped me while he thought I was sleeping and then gaslit (the real meaning of it, not the twitter version) me about it, and I was literally still willing to be friends with him until he subtweeted me about something career-related. I have slept with so many men while completely black-out drunk...Like, don’t remember parts of the night, stumbling through the streets drunk, and if I was a vindictive succubus bitch I could say it was rape...but there’s nuance. I purposely get drunk so that I can sleep with people, otherwise I’m too self-conscious. It’s a moral grey area on both sides. Sex and consent and love and LIFE aren’t easy puzzle pieces that have a strict rule book. Intention matters sometimes. And more importantly how people act afterwards matter.

If Joey was apologetic or took any accountability or wasn’t such a huge fucking asshole hypocrite, Lydia wouldn’t have made the post!!!!!!!

5. And like. For straight women....men can do a lot worse than just be sort of a dick and cross sexual boundaries. Like, worst case scenario with an abusive man is......death. Men kill and beat women, we live in a patriarchal society.

I know twitter likes to say that the worst form of oppression is calling men “twinks” or saying a male celeb is hot and wanting to see him make out with other dudes is ruining cis gay men’s lives everywhere, but. There is an obsession in our world with sexual violence towards women. Look at the porn industry (note: the industry, not every single porn ever made). Women are treated as expendable sex toys. Women are more likely to be sexually assaulted. I MEAN...LOL I AIN’T GONNA EXPLAIN HOW HARD BEING BORN A WOMAN IS...there’s a reason that 95% of tumblr is AFAB and also very mentally ill, but in a mostly harmless way. (as oppose to reddit & 4chan where it’s mostly men who are mentally ill in a harmful way)

And if the “worst” thing about Joey, in phoebe’s mind, is that he’s an asshole who has trouble apologizing? I mean. There are a LOT worse men out there. Literally not even including the fact that he’s rich, has hobbies, cares about his hygiene, is the son of a celeb, probably a romantic if he’s anything like Billie, is close with his family, is decently fit, etc.

Would I marry Joey? No, but that’s because I never want to meet Billie and I think marrying Joey would include that. If I wasn’t a Green Day fan would I marry Joey? Probably still no because he has ZERO self-awareness, he’s dumb as rocks and he doesn’t know the meaning of the word “humble”. BUT. That’s based on my personal preference, not morality.

TL;DR — IN CONCLUSION: i think it’s a combination of loyalty, her not thinking the age gap is a big deal, lydia not being the “perfect victim”, no one in their circle acknowledging —even to themselves — that they treat joey differently because he’s billie’s son, and honestly...joey having other redeeming qualities straight women would want in a partner.

[hcielh]

Review: Illiyoon Mild Easy-wash Sun Cream SPF50+ PA++++

Illiyoon is a Korean skincare brand owned by Amore Pacific, known for making gentle products for sensitive skin that are often compared to the French brand CeraVe. 

This sun cream, formulated by Kolmar, has become a favourite of mine for the colder months (which here in Scotland is roughly September-May...) for a few key reasons:

Firstly, its size. It’s very rare to find a Korean sunscreen that comes in a bigger package than 60ml, and this is 150ml! When it comes to a product like sunscreen, which you have to apply liberally and often, size matters. This also makes it more affordable- the price varies but on oliveyoung global, it’s $40 when not on sale (this is the highest price I’ve seen it at, btw). That’s $0.02/mL, which when compared to say the Dr.G Mild Up Sun+ which is $31 for 50ml and $0.62/mL on the same site, is a pretty damn good deal (although the latter does come with some pretty good ‘freebies’ whereas the former does not).

Secondly, its pump-type packaging. You can lock and unlock the pump itself to protect the formula from oxidising (fwiw, it has a 12 month PAO), so no worries there, and it makes applying this in the morning convenient. I do 3 layers of 1 pump each, spread across my whole face/neck with a few seconds in between to let it dry down. When applied this way, it sinks in well with a velvet/skin-like finish that isn’t greasy or drying. The formula is certainly on the more moisturising side, which makes it perfect for protecting the skin against harsh winter weather, but it hasn’t broken out my acne-prone skin after about 2 weeks of continuous use.

Thirdly and finally, the ‘easy-wash’ part. Winter tends to = dry and sensitised skin, which means if I can cut down on harsh products at all it’s appreciated. Unlike in the summer where I’m looking for a product I know won’t get sweated off, in the winter I do my best to avoid the need for a double cleanse. With this, I can skip an oil cleanser and only use a water based/foaming cleanser in the evening, which my skin barrier is loving.

Ingredients-wise it’s pretty simple; it has a few plant extracts towards the bottom of the inci list like skullcap root, angelica acutiloba root, and centella asiatica flower/leaf/stem extracts. Aside from that it’s fairly basic, it doesn’t have the ceramides that illiyoon is known for, or any particularly impressive actives- but this is not a complaint! For me, it’s most important that a sunscreen is user-friendly, and this one certainly is.

The UV filters used are homosalate, octisalate, uvinal A plus, tinosorb S, and mexoryl SX. These are all organic/chemical filters, meaning they won’t leave a white cast! I was happy to see it was an organic sun scream, as typically ‘mild’ in the world of Korean skincare means inorganic/mineral SPF filters.

The texture is a medium-weight cream, and it doesn’t sting my (very sensitive) eyes, or skin. It also hasn’t stained my white tops, which is something I’ve had trouble with in the past.

With all this in mind, I’d happily recommend the illiyoon mild easy-wash sun cream to anyone looking for a reliable and affordable sun cream to use in the winter. I’d say it’s probably not the best if it’s summer/very warm where you live, though, as it could sweat off in the heat

I bought this from ABHolic for ₩17,940 (~£11.25) which makes it ridiculously well priced if you ask me.

It’s also on StyleKorean for $21.00USD, YesStyle for £27.26, and StyleVana for £22.89

[ourpickwickclub]

FWIW I wouldn’t think too much about signage when basically the whole damn place has been shut down for a year. I think I read they might now be up to 50% capacity in the casino. All the casinos took a bath, I’m not sure paying to remove signage when nobody knows what the future is yet is the priority. Basically it’s trying to figure out when they can do it at 100% capacity, 4600 is not a lot of people to pay big acts to be able to start at 50% capacity, then you have to see if everyone associated with the project is available in that window. To me it’s more likely they try to start fresh with a big boom reopen with acts that are going to be there a while to create momentum. Not finish a few shows and then start over with a new one. Only my opinion of course. It’s 3/21 and we’re talking 10/21-1/22 before they probably start again. A lot of life will happen between that. Also remember covid will likely wave in the fall again as all flu based viruses do. Just enjoy the album coming and let the future take care of itself.

Once the world is back to normal wouldn’t it be awesome if Gwen (or Blake, or the two of them together) did a Vegas-based Crash My Playa type thing.  Group packages and booking excursions provided, events calendar with Voice alum and friends mini-concerts, including coupons for meals and drinks.  Every bachelor, bachelorette party, 30th, 40th birthday, family reunion type event could sign up and pay one flat price for a 5-day package with 4 concerts, events, meals.  I’m just saying, pickwick would be there!

- B

[bisluthq]

The funniest part to me about swifties obsession with money and call Joe in particular poor is that 90% of them can only wish to be that poor. In normal standards you are the poor ones here. You're not throwing your friends expensive parties or giving them expensive gifts cause you can't afford it for yourself. So you're living out the fantasy of being gifted expensive stuff through your rich popstar. It would be more understandable if Taylor was like this normal girl who is being given this once in a life time glamourous party. But you treat her as if she's poor like you and never had good things in life. I personally don't even get the appeal of ridiculousy expensive parties and gifts specially if the gifts in question are supposely jewelry. Idk if you want to spend a lot of money with me atleast give me something useful or some type of experience. But to each to their own

see, personally I find two things baffling about it: 1) Joe is definitely not poor lol like he's very financially secure and tbh has been all his life 2) TAYLOR, while obviously into having money, is actually not especially materialistic? We know this because of the kinds of gifts she herself gives the people she really cares about, which are mostly handmade weird thingies lol. So given that’s what she gifts people, presumably that’s what she likes getting. And that’s where I’m saying this party was SO CUTE but not because it was expensive or because someone else paid (which I think Taylor genuinely dgaf about) but because he got so many little things right and researched like numbers and stuff. That’s what makes it cute lol not that he idk paid. Like if Universal threw this exact party they would also have paid but it wouldn’t have been as cute and it would’ve had a lot more industry randos rather than actual loved ones?? I also idk just often wonder what these people are like with THEIR boyfriends because do they idk count how much he spends? That seems either exhausting or extremely transactional lol. Like I’m not even knocking the sugar lifestyle if that’s what works for you but then you’re MAKING MONEY off it and fair enough then yes it matters what he’s spending. But like if that’s not the case then I’m not sure why it matters that much? Again, unless the person is totally freeloading which is then just a shitty relationship but also imo - and I’m also obviously gonna be biased on this because I make and spend comparatively less than my partner - that’s not just got to do with money? Like I earn and spend less so I do lots of other things too because fwiw I’d need to earn A LOT more to match him and he doesn’t really need that? Like his financial planning, much like Taylor’s, doesn’t require a partner. Me paying for shit for us (which I do do) is more about the effort of idk going to do that than about alleviating financial stress for him? Anyway.

[felassan]

i really hope da4 isn't co-op cause cause playing co-op games on singleplayer sucks, like idk if you've played it but divinity original sin 1 is co-op for two players and playing it alone is so bad

Hi Nonnie!

I hope not, though I think the devs know that DA is a SP game franchise and that a SP-first RPG with a strong story and good characters is what their playerbase and this niche of the market want and are interested in. They’ve made comments about DA4 saying stuff like “[we’ve been working on it] for quite a while now with an eye to what the fans love about DA” [source]. In contrast, Anthem was always intended as a social, online game. 

Haven’t played Divinity: Original Sin so can’t really comment on that. Turn-based combat and such an isometric view aren’t my thing. It sounds like the game has an interesting premise with two customizable Player Characters..? DOS2 has a big long story-campaign that can be played SP or co-op, is playing it alone any better there? I’m not opposed to something like that being an option as long as it isn’t the focus and as long as it doesn’t detract from or impact the SP design or subsequent SP experience. Baldur’s Gate had a type of drop-in and drop-out co-op iirc.

Although a different thing to drop-in/out co-op in SP, I liked DAI’s compartmentalized co-op MP, although it wasn’t as good as ME3′s. Some insight into DAI’s development from dev Luke Barrett recently explained that for DAI, most decisions weren’t made with the MP in mind and indeed instead, SP needs were dictating MP.

On DA4, there isn’t much to go on on this topic and related ones right now, info-wise. “Live service components” can be any one of a number of different things.

Schreier’s article had this to say, emphasis mine:

We’re not sure about all the details, and in fact they’re likely still being decided, as the game is still very early in development and could evolve based on the negative reception to Anthem. Rumor among BioWare circles for the past year has been that Morrison is “Anthem with dragons”—a snarky label conveyed to me by several people—but a couple of current BioWare employees have waved me off that description. “The idea was that Anthem would be the online game and that Dragon Age and Mass Effect, while they may experiment with online portions, that’s not what defines them as franchises,” said one. “I don’t think you’ll see us completely change those franchises.” [...]

If it does turn out to be an online game, which seems likely, it would be shocking if you couldn’t play the bulk of it by yourself. (Diablo III, for example, is online-only on PC yet can be played entirely solo.) One person close to the game told me this week that Morrison’s critical path, or main story, would be designed for single-player and that the goal of the multiplayer elements would be to keep people engaged so that they would actually stick with post-launch content. [source]

Only a small fraction of players stick around with a singleplayer game like DA and actually buy post-launch story DLC content, sadly. On the EA-stuff front lately, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order was a SP game and quite a big success, which I hope EA takes note of.

Anyway around the time of that article fwiw Casey Hudson tweeted,

Reading lots of feedback regarding Dragon Age, and I think you’ll be relieved to see what the team is working on. Story & character focused. Too early to talk details, but when we talk about 'live' it just means designing a game for continued storytelling after the main story." [source]

[thedreadvampy]

1. Sorry to jump into the QPR convo but reading those posts brings up /emotions/, like I have my friend & life partner where we're physically intimate sometimes but it's very casual (?) compared to our friendship. And certainly ppl have tried to label us as QPPs, but in terms of labels it just doesn't fit our relationship. And in comparison, I've been in a relationship that we mutually labelled a QPP, that was differently emotionally & physically intimate.

I really feel like there's a difference (at least to me) although it slips away from any easy definition. (also fwiw I'm allo, but was in a relationship with an aroace person). I guess I like the box idea, because my a romantic relationship without the romance is a good description, but it also isn't my friendship box, though they were also in there?

Maybe romantic-raspberry icecream without raspberry bits in it, in the same cone as friendship-chocolate sorbet? Very different, but similar & complementary. (Also sorry, wow that got long, & I hope it was coherent because WAY past bedtime. But goodnight 🌻🌻)

Like, I really hope I'm not coming across as if I believe that there's no difference between friendship and QPR because very evidently there is. I'm just not sure there's a material difference, but I'm equally not sure there's a material difference between a friend and a girlfriend, but there is an emotional and relational difference - it's just that emotional and relational differences are much harder to clearly define, so I think people revert to trying to demonstrate a material difference which isn't really there. Like yeah! It's the same but different and one doesn't eclipse or invalidate the other because we are capable of different types of relationship at the same intensity!

also yeah re that first message I've definitely...resented having the label QPP put on my closest friends? like that's a Thing but it's not The Thing That This Is and to me it feels like a diminishment of both QPRs and friendship to conflate them.