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miyamiwu · 5 months ago

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4S Blue Lock Ego Classification v2

@mathematical-apprentice left some insightful suggestions on v1, and I’ve been pondering over them to see how I can improve the classification system. Although I think their idea for a major class and sub class is good, I decided to keep all the classes on the same level for the sake of simplicity. @mathematical-apprentice has also pointed out that the Striver and Supporter classes are too broad, and I think this was just because I didn’t define them well. What v2 will include, then, is better definitions on the different categories to make them more specific, limiting their scope. Additionally, I will be changing the name of Striver to Savant because I think it better captures the idea I have for that class. More examples for each class will also be included.

Moreover, I would just like to clarify that this system is meant to classify character egos based on what a character desires and what would bring them fulfillment (i.e. what would boost their ego). It does not refer to how a character plays.

Lastly, all characters strive to improve in one way or another, but how they measure their improvement varies. This is also partly why I decided to rename the Striver class because it sounded like they’re the only class who cares about self-improvement when that isn’t the case at all.

Strategist

A Strategist is fueled by the desire for success through careful planning and problem-solving. They find fulfillment in being in control of the situation and having others revolve around their vision. They may have metavision, but it is not a precursor to be assigned to this class. (Metavision is a tool that any character of any class can use; it is simply a means to an end.)

Characters with this ego: Isagi, Hiori, and Snuffy

(Too lazy to find a panel for Snuffy, but I don’t think I need to prove this. You get it.)

Isagi is the very obvious example of this for reasons I don’t have to explain.

Then as mentioned in v1, Hiori is so close to falling under the Supporter class because of how he desires to “produce the world’s best striker.” However, I opted to put him under the Strategist class because he is not bound to any one striker, nor is he supporting anyone for the mere sake of seeing them succeed. And in a way, Hiori is a lot like his parents.

Savant

A Savant is fueled by the desire to win through their weapon (or personal style, in the absence of a clearly-defined weapon), as they greatly think of it as a part of their identity and not just a tool that can help them win. They focus a lot on sharpening their weapon and may follow a training regimen that targets its enhancement.

Characters with this ego: Bachira, Chigiri, Yukimiya, Kaiser, Lavinho, and Chris

(Once again too lazy to find relevant panels for the coaches…)

Bachira’s and Chigiri’s developments in the NEL arc centered on them improving their weapons and making a name for themselves based on it (i.e. Ginga x Monster or just Monster, and Red 44)

Yukimiya’s Sword Screw (alt. tl, “Sword Pierce”) shot is a direct improvement of his previously blocked shot, but it didn’t come out of nowhere. He took inspiration from Chris’ shot, understood it, then made it his own. This shot is also an assertion of what he believes in, the “sword” piercing through his fate (“I won’t hand my fate or my ego over to god!” –c202)

In v1, Kaiser was tentatively put under the Strategist class, as it wasn’t clear yet in the manga what his ego type should be. But after c266, it is now apparent that Kaiser is a Savant. His magnus shot was something he thought of and carefully crafted, and him executing it was an assertion of his identity, a callback to the young!Michael Kaiser. (Heck, his own weapon is even called Kaiser Impact.)

Saboteur

A Saboteur is driven by the desire to destroy and disrupt, as it is a way for them to mark their presence in the world. They find fulfillment in undermining their enemies’ plans and obliterating their efforts.

Characters with this ego: Aiku, Niko, Lorenzo, Sae, Rin, and Barou

Niko, Sae, and Rin all have metavision, so it can be easy to confuse them as Strategists. But as aforementioned metavision is just a tool, and these three have decided to use it as a means for destruction.

To better understand the difference between Strategist and Saboteur, just look at the Isagi-Yukimiya winning goal in the match against Manshine City. This play shows how Isagi is a strategist through and through, as he found pleasure in defeating Kaiser not through direct destruction but by outwitting him.

You may also wonder why I put Rin under Saboteur and not Strategist. This is because Saboteur is his true ego. Right now, he’s acting like a Strategist, still obsessed with planning and calculating, but that’s not where his true strength lies. Sae knows this, so he keeps provoking Rin in order to bring out his Saboteur ego. And to be a Saboteur, you must have someone you want to destroy. In the beginning, Sae used himself as a target for Rin, but after Rin defeated him in a 1v1 during the U20 match, he then shifts the target to Isagi so Rin can still have the drive to destroy.

Now, for Barou, I previously put him under the Striver/Savant class, but after @mathematical-apprentice pointed out that they should be a Saboteur instead, I realized that they were right. Barou’s new weapon is even called predator eye, and he’s obsessed with hunting/killing.

Supporter

The class that nobody should hate because Supporters have done nothing wrong ever.

A Supporter is fueled by the desire to see their partner succeed. They find fulfillment in providing valuable assistance and thrive on the positive impact they have on their partner. Their development thus revolve around how they can become more useful to their partner.

Characters with this ego: Ness, Nanase, and Kurona

With ego often interpreted to be equivalent to selfishness, it can be easy to dismiss Supporters as having no backbones or in need of a development arc to evolve into a typical bluelocker who’s strong and independent. But I believe that there’s also strength and beauty in being content with oneself and seeking instead to serve others. Not everybody has to want to be a star.

Besides, without Supporters, a lot of strikers won’t be able to do much. (Especially you, Isagi!)

Kunigami gets me. (And idk what class Kunigami should belong to, but for sure he’s no Supporter.)

Characters I’m not sure how to classify...

Nagi - Although Nagi is in football because of his shared dream with Reo, I don’t think he’s actually a Supporter. I think he should either be a Savant or a Saboteur.

Reo - Most likely a Supporter, with how obsessed he is in seeing Nagi succeed. But I’m gonna have to see how the MC vs Barcha match plays out to decide for sure. He may also be a Strategist.

Kiyora - He needs more screentime coz I honestly can’t tell. But I think he’s either a Supporter or a Saboteur

Kunigami - Savant/Supporter before his emo era. I don’t know what’s up with him right now, but I’m leaning into Kunigami being a Saboteur post-development (if he ever gets one coz he’s been cooking for too long now…)

Hmm… I should make a uquiz of this sometime...

But for now, take this and go!

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nadvs · 1 month ago

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Bestie idk if you’re interested in sharing a little about this but I would love to hear about your writing process, especially when it comes to smut because (as I’ve said before) I find good smut incredibly difficult to write and you do it so well, especially when it comes to story-driven, intimate smut. Like I was thinking about the scenes in WAL where they get progressively more intimate and emotional and complicated with each chapter and how you were able to build it slowly to match where the characters are in the story. Also in OOB when the first time is actually so kind of innocent and giddy, the second time is passionate and but still sweet and the third time is fueled by heated emotion (and even just a little bit dirty in the best way). Like all 3 scenes are the same two characters in the same room and yet somehow so distinct and critical to the story development. Like how do you decide what they’re gonna do and say and how do you approach actually writing and editing it? No pressure I know I’m asking a lot haha but if you wanted to share a little about your process I personally would be here with a pen and paper soaking up any advice or insight you have 📝 🤓

aaa YES bestie i’m always happy to talk about writing!! i could go on forever 🙂‍↕️ thank you so much for asking ugh you’re fr such an amazing writer so any compliment from you is like WAIT, ME?? 😭💘

regarding process, i’m not ready to write until i feel like i know my characters inside and out. i start every story noting their qualities, flaws, fears, and motivations. i reference these notes as i outline and write. when i know the characters well, it helps me feel like there’s direction in the story and i don’t get stuck wondering what should happen next.

knowing who the characters are helps me so much with determining how a smut scene would go. i think every scene in a story should reveal something about the characters, whether it be their personality or their feelings or their history, and intimacy, to me, is such a vulnerable and telling way to do it. even a single line of dialogue during a smut scene can say a lot about a person and how they view their partner.

along with characterization, for a smut scene to feel ‘complete’ to me, it needs to have these elements:

• a sense of what the characters feel for each other and how much emotion is involved. i write these details between action paragraphs, so there’s a balance of what’s happening and the emotional undercurrent. i think it makes the scene feel more real when you’re showing both what’s happening and what the characters are thinking and feeling during it.

• an idea of where the relationship is going. i try to make every smut scene story-driven (so you saying that MEANS THE WORLD) by knowing exactly how and why their connection is growing. between the smut scenes, i try to illustrate how their bond is strengthening through conversations and the things they do for each other, and then the smut scene is sort of the ‘result’ of those conversations and actions. they know each other better, their feelings for each other are stronger, and every time they’re intimate, they’re more vulnerable and loving with each other. i like to mix up smut scenes to stay interesting so they’re not doing the same thing every time, but i also decide what they say/do based on what i think would line up with their current level of intimacy, regarding where they are in their relationship.

• sensory descriptions, even down to what they can hear happening outside of the room they’re in. in my opinion, it makes the scene feel more realistic and easier to imagine when you write more than just what’s happening in the bed (or wherever they’re getting freaky 🤪).

OK I YAPPED A LOT but that’s me 🙂‍↕️ ily nat!!

#ask #advice

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warrioreowynofrohan · 5 months ago

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Elizabeth Gaskell - Mary Barton, North and South, and Wives and Daughters

Over the past year I’ve read Elizabeth Gaskell’s Mary Barton, North and South, and Wives and Daughters, and I wanted to try to pull together some of my thoughts about these books and how they relate to each other.

Elizabeth Gaskell was a rough contemporary of the Brontës (and a friend and biographer of Charlotte Brontë), but outlived them all. These three novels were published in 1848, 1855, and 1866 respectively; Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre were published in 1847.

The three novels follow, in my opinion, a rough trajectory of decreasing radicalism, but (in some respects) increasing skill as a writer. Mary Barton is the most intensely socially conscious, and in my opinion Gaskell does a better job of writing a engaging novel on the behalf of the working class than Dickens often does - the writing is tighter and more engaging, and the working-class characters more nuanced and textured. (For context, all the Dickens I’ve read is A Christmas Carol, A Tale of Two Cities, Oliver Twist, and Great Expectations.) The book is scattered throughout with caveats - for example, that factory-owners feasting while workers starve may not be a fact, but that it is something workers can understandably feel to be true - that show how aware Gaskell was that it would be controversial. It was written before - but published during - the Revolutions of 1848 in Europe, and Gaskell even goes so far as the reference the revolutions in her preface to the book:

“To myself the idea which I have formed of the state of feeling among too many of the factory-people in Manchester, and which I endeavoured to represent in this tale (completed above a year ago), has received some confirmation from the events which have so recently occurred among a similar class on the Continent.

OCTOBER, 1848

(Charlotte Brontë appears to have been affected by the revolutions of 1848 in a very different way; her novel Shirley, published in 1849, is fairly strongly anti-worker and pro-factory-owner, portraying anyone who protests against the treatment of workers as a drunk or a troublemaker.)

While it has its meldoramatic elements, Mary Barton is on the whole a sympathetic depiction of a Manchester working-class family and their friends. In the opening chapters, some of the arguments of conservatives are dealt with deftly rather than by direct assault. The depiction of the two central families in comparatively better times shows what ‘luxuries’ were to working-class people - some slices of ham, a bit of butter, a bit of sugar, a dinner-party between friends, a handful of pretty objects around the house - in a way that undermines conservative claims that poverty was due to overspending in good times rather than saving for bad. There’s a varied cast of characters - some more idealized or archetypal in typical Victorian style, but most of them three-dimensional, human, and engaging. (Some of them - including both developed ones and archetypal ones - made me wonder if Gaskell ever read Les Misérables, and if so what she thought of it.)

This makes some elements of North and South frustrating by comparison. While working-class women in Mary Barton (at least some of them) are living, breathing people, the sole working-class woman in North and South is a Victorian archetype, a chronically ill girl who speaks in Bible verses and dies to prompt the redemption arcs of other characters. It’s evident that Gaskell got blowback for Mary Barton and was pressured to provide a more ‘balanced’ perspective in North and South - it’s telling that being ‘balanced’ meant reducing the humanity and complexity of working-class characters.

I will be blunt: I do not like John Thornton. He talks too much like a Calgary oilman resenting big government for daring to impose basic environmental and working standards. He makes a template of conservative arguments that endure to this day - that he’s a self-made-man and any working-class person could do what he did, if they had the grit and gumption. He’d rather go bankrupt than allow his workers to unionize. And he does not undergo a ‘redemption arc’ or change of heart on this - rather, the worker who supports unionization undergoes a ‘redemption arc’ to realize that unions are bad! What John Thornton does learn is that 1) using inexperienced imported scab workers rather than experienced and knowledgeable workers gets you a crappy product and 2) he can talk to his workers and plan out some basic reforms to improve their lives a little.

That said, one major improvement in North and South is that the relationship between Margaret Hale and John Thornton is much better written than the relationship of the title character in Mary Barton. Mary’s involves her abruptly (and unconvincingly) realizing she’s in love with a man who has been pursuing her throughout the book and whom she has been doing her utmost to discourage, and has never shown any interest in. Margaret and John’s is developed over time and with more complexity, and in a way that is far more compelling and convincing - probably what makes North and South more popular than the others.

Wives and Daughters is another sort of book entirely - gentler and less melodramatic (and with fewer major character deaths - though there’s a notable death toll among side characters), set in the countryside and in the past, and more a social comedy/dramedy with a side of romance. The class commentary as regards the working class is almost gone - the main characters are a combi ation of middle-class people and lower-level gentry. It is, in a sense, more Austenian in its gentle satire of the foibles of its cast of characters, interspersed with some more dramatic moments; or more like some of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s books that combine romance with poking gentle fun at the various characters of small-town life. But the characters are more nuanced and less archetypal, and the moral lessons mostly less pointed, than in the two previous books, and the main character’s challenges and struggles are of a more grounded nature. (There’s a side character, Cynthia, who particularly interests me and whom I might do a separate post on.) You can see the improvement in Gaskell’s writing; you can also see that she’s stepped away from politics. (The romance isn’t as good as North and South though.) The main theme that could be considered political is that good, solid, practical knowledge, hard work, courage, and honesty are preferable to any amount of upper-class ‘refinement’. The worst crime any major character commits is to be shallow and annoying.

Here’s one interesting case of a contrast between Wives and Daughters and Gaskell’s earlier work. In Mary Barton, Mary is pursued by - and actively interested in - a factory-owner’s son, a man outside of her own social class, and this is portrayed as a serious moral fault that precipitates some of the book’s major events. In Wives and Daughters, there is a much more socially unequal marriage between two side characters, and the lower-class woman is not treated as bad or faulty for it, but the plot gets into some of the complications of the match (the husband is afraid of disinheritance if he reveals the marriage to his father, and in that case would have no ability to support his wife abd child due to being gentry with no useful skills; the husband dies; there’s some personality and culture clash between the wife and his family in the aftermath, but ultimately it works out). In the more melodramatic Mary Barton, a woman accepting attentions from a mich higher-ranking man is a major issue of moral character; in the more grounded Wives and Daughters, it’s a matter of practical challenges entailed by the match.

(Gaskell died before finishing Wives and Daughters, but it’s close enough to finished that you can easily see the briad strokes of how everything’s going to wrap up.)

I’d recommend all the of the books; they’re all worth reading if you like 1800s literature. Though, being from the 1800s, they do all have some moments and sentiments that are jarring to the 21st-century reader.

#elizabeth gaskell #north and south #mary barton #wives and daughters

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vgfm · 1 year ago

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Predicting the Release of Deltarune Chapters 3, 4, and 5

a.k.a., “I spend way too much time analyzing a dev cycle that I do not fully understand and have no control over”

Undertale’s 8th anniversary has come and gone, and it’s left some fans feeling disappointed. I wasn’t expecting anything too major this year since the last three anniversaries were a bit of an anomaly. We’ve truly been spoiled to have gotten the Undertale concert, Chapter 2, and the Spamton Sweepstakes back-to-back-to-back. It’s easy to forget that the anniversaries before this were far more low-key affairs.

Even so, the 8th anniversary still felt a bit lacking. I had been hoping for a full status update post to the Deltarune website, but instead we got a much shorter update in the autumn newsletter. It’s true that we’ve gotten 3 other newsletters in the time since the 7th anniversary, and each has had tidbits of Deltarune news as well as their own share of fun extras. However, even all four newsletters combined seem to have less to say about Deltarune’s status than an annual update post usually does.

Fans who’ve been paying attention also seem a bit disappointed with the current progress of the game. Early status updates made it sound like Chapters 3, 4, and 5 were speeding along, while later ones make it sound like Chapter 3 has slowed to a crawl. I initially felt this way, but upon reflection I think this mindset is due to two main factors: (1) fans interpreting status updates overly optimistically, and (2) Toby sometimes using unclear language when describing the status of development.

I’ve poured over the recent newsletters, Deltarune’s past status updates, and Toby’s old tweets and interviews to get a better picture of how the game’s development is progressing. I also looked to the development of Chapters 1 and 2 to get an idea of what a completed chapter’s dev cycle looks like, and with that info I’ll try to piece together my best estimation for when Chapters 3 through 5 might finish.

Yes, I’ve hit peak hiatus brainrot and, like some others, I’ve run out of things to theorize about the game itself and now I’m trying to write a theory about game development, despite the fact that I have zero experience in game dev outside of making a couple of goofy low-effort mods. I want to emphasize that I’m doing this for fun and that I don’t want to rush Toby or his team—I’d like for Deltarune to take as long as it needs for the best result and for the team to not be overworked.

With all that said, before I can make a prediction, I must first break down my observations for each chapter’s development cycle so far. As mentioned, I’m pulling this info from newsletters, status updates, and Toby’s tweets and interviews. I won’t cite a source for every bullet point, but it’s not too hard to track down this information.

Note: Dates referred to here are release dates for products and status updates/posts. I’m aware that most major posts that Toby writes nowadays are made at least 1 month in advance due to the need for translation. To make things simple, I’m using the publishing dates instead of second-guessing the date of writing.

Chapter 1

Took roughly three years of total development time, from late 2015/early 2016 to October 2018

An unknown amount of early planning was done during and prior to Undertale’s development.

Toby and Temmie largely worked on this chapter alone

This chapter required creating the entire party-based battle system

This chapter required designing the entire Hometown and ensuring it would “set up” future events in the game properly

Except for composing some songs and writing the story, Toby didn’t work on any future chapters during Chapter 1’s development

My assessment is that this was almost certainly the hardest and most time-consuming chapter to develop. Toby had to create the game nearly from scratch with the fewest resources at his disposal. All future chapters benefited from using chapter 1 (and later 2) as a base and having things like Hometown already set up in advance

Chapter 2

Came out three years after Chapter 1, but Toby later said Chapter 2 only took 1.5 years of active development—beginning in May 2020 and releasing in September 2021. This 1.5 year period likely does not include planning and pre-production, since Toby tweeted about designing and writing parts of Chapter 2 prior to May 2020. However, this 1.5 year development period would include testing and other finishing touches.

The other 1.5 years prior to Ch 2’s full development were spent experimenting with other game engines, hiring team members, pre-production on Chapter 2, and planning future chapters of the story.

Toby finished outlining the rest of the game and writing most of the full game’s dialogue during and prior to Chapter 2’s development. Toby decided what all battles will be for Chapters 3 through 5 and most battles for the rest of the game. Toby also has all locations planned (in the form of text) for 3 through 5 at this time. This is all outlined in the 2020 status update.

After the first four months of active development, Toby guessed chapter 2 was 50-80% content-complete by the time of the Undertale 5th anniversary. He also projected that the game would be ready to enter beta testing by the end of 2020.

Chapter 2 was in beta testing by April 2021 at the latest, since Toby tweeted about it at that time, so Chapter 2’s development phases can be broken down thusly:

Design (Pre-production; writing, planning, designing assets): Less than 1.5 years

Implementation (Active development; programming, graphics, creating battle assets and environments, music): 8-12 months

Finishing (testing, translating, polishing): 5-9 months

My assessment is that, although there was a 3-year time period leading up to both Chapter 1 and 2, it feels like Chapter 2’s development period got a lot more done. Toby has said that chapter 2 is the largest chapter in the game in many ways. Toby was working with a team starting with Chapter 2 and he was able to start planning and pre-production work on future chapters in the meantime, allowing for a much smoother start to Chapter 3’s development than chapters 1 and 2 had. Chapter 2’s release also seems to mark a shift in how Toby’s team structures their development phases, which I’ll go over in 3 through 5.

Chapters 3 through 5

Most early planning for chapters 3 through 5 was completed during chapter 2’s development, likely shortening the pre-production phase compared to previous chapters. However, Toby did mention in the 2022 update that “certain aspects” affecting 3 through 5 needed a while to set up. As of 2022, those “aspects” are now in place.

As of September of 2022, one year after Chapter 2’s release, Toby’s team is working on 3 through 5 in parallel and has already completed more than one chapter’s worth of “bullets, cutscenes, and gimmicks”. I will elaborate on this in a bit.

In March of 2023, Toby’s team is primarily focused on finishing Chapter 3. We can say for certain that Chapter 3 entered active development in early 2023 at the latest

As of September 2023, Chapter 3 is in a fully playable state from start to finish and is presumably ready for alpha/beta testing

Chapter 3 seems to mark a slight shift in the team’s production order for each chapter. Chapter 2’s phases were outlined in the 2020 update as three phases: Design, Implementation, and Finishing. Based on context clues from last year’s update and this year’s newsletters, chapters 3 through 5 seem to be following a modified four-phase workflow:

Phase 1 – Design – writing the story, planning the game, and assigning roles to team members. It’s hard to quantify how long this took with chapters 1 and 2, but the good news is that most of this phase was completed for future chapters during chapter 2’s development, according to the 2020 status update. The 2022 update does imply that there was still some set up required leading into chapters 3 through 5. This could be connected with the rumored engine changes to GameMaker to allow multiple games to be launched from a single launcher. Either way, this set up was finished before the 2022 update and be presumed to be done for all three chapters.

Phase 2 – Early Implementation – I’ve split implementation into two phases for reasons I’ll explain in the next phase, though these two halves likely overlap. I suspect this first half of implementation involves preparing dialogue for translation (which was previously done as a finishing step for Chapters 1 and 2) and creating assets in bulk to plug into the game later. This phase is likely when the “chapter’s worth of bullets, cutscenes, and gimmicks” mentioned in the 2022 update was created. Later newsletters imply that Chapter 3’s locations were in an earlier state of development than many fans expected, so I think Toby has artists and programmers design enemies, puzzles, and cutscenes in advance before areas are created to put them into. Chapter 3 seems to have completed the early implementation phase. Chapter 4 has had a significant chunk of this phase complete, based on the 2022 update, and currently 4 and 5 both seem to be in this phase, as of June 2023.

Phase 3 – Full Implementation – This consists of programming game world locations and assembling the full structure of the game. I believe this can be treated as a separate phase from the early implementation because (1) Toby mentioned in the 2020 update that he doesn’t draw map designs until the team starts programming, (2) Chapter 2’s maps had only just been started when its cutscenes, songs, bullet patterns, and other assets were nearly finished in 2020, and (3) Chapter 3 seemed to be early in this phase in 2023, despite more than a chapter’s worth of assets being created in 2022. Chapter 3 recently finished this phase, and chapters 4 and 5 likely haven’t gotten far in this phase or reached it yet. All implementation for Chapter 2 lasted between 8 and 12 months. It’s likely this will take less time per chapter for 3 through 5 due to Toby saying Chapter 2 was the longest in the game and Toby having more resources available to complete early implementation on 4 and 5 while 3 undergoes full implementation and the next step:

Phase 4 – Finishing – This is presumably the same as Chapter 2’s finishing phase, only with translation likely occurring earlier in the process, per the March 2023 newsletter. Chapter 3 recently entered this phase. This phase took anywhere from 5 to 9 months for chapter 2, depending on when that chapter entered beta.

Conclusions

Overall, we know that chapters 3 through 5 are using Chapter 2 as a base, Toby has a larger team and more resources available to him than ever before, and Chapters 3 through 5 are being developed in parallel. Chapters 3 through 5 also had the advantage of having most of their planning and design taken care of during Chapter 2’s development cycle. To reiterate, Chapter 2’s development ended up like this:

Design: Less than 1.5 years

Implementation: 8-12 months

Finishing: 5-9 months

Based on what we’ve heard regarding chapter 3, I think we can extrapolate the following timeline for Chapters 3 through 5 so far:

Design: FINISHED (all chapters). Less than 1 year – I’m not counting the design work on 3 through 5 that was already completed before Chapter 2 released. The 2022 update did hint at some form of set up or planning affecting 3 through 5 that had been resolved by September 2022—this makes one year of design the maximum possible amount in this development cycle, though it was likely considerably less

Early Implementation: FINISHED (Ch 3), IN-PROGRESS (4&5). 6-17 months – The 17 months figure is from adding up the year between the 6th and 7th anniversaries and ending at the March 2023 newsletter, when finishing chapter 3 was announced as now being the team’s main focus; this assumes that early production began as soon as Chapter 2 released and that priorities didn’t shift to Chapter 3 until right when the March newsletter came out. The 6 month figure is assuming that most of 2022 was spent on design and resolving the “factors” that affected 3 through 5, which is highly unlikely. We know that early implementation assets were worked on for chapters 3 and 4 simultaneously in 2022, and it’s likely that Chapter 3 alone would have taken less than a cumulative year at this stage. Extrapolating from where things were in 2022, I’d guess Chapters 4 and 5 are at least halfway done with this phase cumulatively.

Full Implementation: FINISHED? (Ch 3). 6-12 months – I base the 12 month figure off of the idea that focus switched to Chapter 3 immediately after the 2022 update and I base the 6 month figure off of the March 2023 newsletter being the point where focus shifted. Chapter 3 became fully playable in September 2023, marking a probable end date for this phase

Finishing: IN-PROGRESS? (Ch 3). Unknown. This could match the 5-9 months for Chapter 2. It’s also possible that 4 and 5 could move onto full implementation while 3’s playtesting takes place, since the latter can rely on people outside the team playing the game while members of the team are freed up to work on other things. Bumping up translation earlier in the pipeline might also shave some time off this phase.

The Prediction

Overall, I’m reasonably certain that Chapter 3 will be completely done within the next 6 months, barring some unforeseen difficulties. Game development can be unpredictable, so anything’s possible (especially delays). Toby has remarked on how strange chapter 3 is and he’s implied that some segments have had to be removed or cut down, so it’s possible this chapter was a lot more experimental and needed more time.

I’d say chapter 4 is, bare minimum, halfway through early implementation. More likely, I think it’s nearing the end of early implementation. I say this because having more than a chapter’s worth of assets completed in 2022 meant that not all of that was for chapter 3, and 2022’s update made it sound like 3 and 4’s progress was roughly neck-and-neck at the start of this phase—hence, half a chapter’s worth of assets done for 4. Obviously focus has shifted to chapter 3, but Toby did reiterate that assets are still being made for 4 and 5 during the summer newsletter, so it’s likely 4 has the majority of this phase done and 5 has made some progress.

Where do I think we’ll be in a year? The optimist in me would like to say that all three chapters will be done by next September, but I’m honestly doubtful. I think a more likely scenario is that 3, 4, and 5 will release sometime between the 2024 and 2025 anniversaries. If we’re lucky, then end of 2024 or early 2025. I think the best case scenario would be that Chapter 3 wraps up around the end of this year (or final testing frees up the team to focus on 4 by then) with Chapter 4 ready to have its maps created immediately afterwards (or already started). Chapter 4 would then enter testing in early-to-mid 2024, with chapter 5 following a few months after to be ready just in time at the end of the year.

I know it may sound bleak to some to be willing to wait another 1-2 years, but keep in mind that this pace is still much faster than what development has been so far. In six years we got two chapters of Deltarune. With my estimate, we’d be getting three chapters in 3-4 years. Chapter 2 took 1.5 years of dedicated development time, plus pre-production, whereas 3 through 5 seem poised to take less time per chapter. I predict that chapters 4 and 5 will go more smoothly, partly because they seem to be more “standard” chapters but also because the groundwork is already being laid for them while 3 is being finished. It took less than a year for Chapter 3 to go from a pile of assets to an assembled and test-ready game. At that pace, it wouldn’t take much longer for 4 and 5 to both bridge that gap—the only extra time will come from finishing up early implementation on 4 and 5 as well as testing each chapter.

I don’t have much else to say in terms of predictions, but I did write up a big timeline of Deltarune (and Undertale’s) development while making this post. I was originally going to put it at the beginning, but it was hard to parse and contained some redundant information. On top of that, Tumblr messed up the formatting so it may be a little hard to read.

Instead of placing the timeline front and center, I’m including it below for all you truck freaks out there who want to know where I pulled various dates from, or if you’ll just read anything Deltarune-related. For everyone else, this post is basically over now. Bye!

Timeline

2011

Toby is first inspired to make Deltarune from a dream (according to interviews)

2012

Toby attempts to create a Deltarune-like project but abandons it before creating Undertale

2013

May 23 - Undertale demo is released

2014

Toby develops Undertale and continues creating Deltarune concept art on the side (according to 2018 tweet). Toby also teases Deltarune’s existence on the Undertale Kickstarter at some point between 2013 and 2015

2015

September 15 – Undertale releases on PC and Mac

Toby creates and updates the Deltarune.com website between 2015 and 2016. Development on Deltarune chapter 1 likely begins in earnest in late 2015 or early 2016

2016

July 17 – Undertale releases on Linux

2017

August 15 – Undertale releases on PS4 and PS Vita

September 15 – Undertale 2nd Anniversary. Toby releases early draft of alarm clock dialogue. First mention of Rudy Holiday

2018

September 18 – Undertale releases on Switch

October 31 – Deltarune Chapter 1 releases on PC

According to Toby’s Twitlonger, Chapter 1 was content-complete “a little while” prior to October 4th and was still being translated as of the 4th. This implies that, during Chapter 1’s development, translation was one of the final steps. According to Toby, Chapter 1 took “a few years” to create. At this time he says 7 years is the maximum time he’d be willing to spend on a project. Toby announces his intent to release all remaining chapters at once. It’s implied that Toby created chapter 1 mostly on his own, with art by Temmie. He mentions wanting to hire a team for the rest of the game. Toby mentions that Chapter 1 needed to create the entire Hometown “correctly on the first try” in order to “set up properly for the rest of the game,” likely adding to development time. Toby says that apart from creating some songs and writing the whole story, he hasn’t completed any work on the other chapters at this point. Specifically, no programming or final art has been done.

According to later statements by Toby, he and his team will spend the next two years writing, composing, designing, and drawing content for future chapters

2019

February 28 – Deltarune chapter 1 releases on Switch and PS4

March – Early development on future chapters begins, but “99%” of the work at this time is spent on investigating alternative game engines to GameMaker. During this period, Toby continues planning the game and writing its story

April 18 – Toby tweets that he’s “making great progress designing Chapter 2” and posts concept art, indicating that the chapter is still in early development

June 12 – Toby tweets that he has “about 50” songs past Chapter 1 in various stages of completion, compared to Chapter 1’s 40 songs. He also mentions that he’s currently writing and drawing bosses, bullets, cutscenes, and characters for future chapters

July 5 – Toby reiterates via tweet that he plans to release all remaining chapters at the same time

September 15 – Undertale’s 4th anniversary and Deltarune Chapter 2 status update

Toby reveals annoying dog in toy car sprite from Chapter 2. Toby posts early versions of the songs Lost Girl and Welcome to the City. Toby posts concept art of Susie’s angry reaction to Noelle looking at her tail. Overall, Toby says the design of the game is going “really well” but that other aspects are “facing some hurdles”. This seems to imply that Chapter 2 is still in early development at this point.

2020

Around March or April, Toby experiences severe wrist pain that slows down his ability to develop the game

“A few months” prior to August/September, Toby completes readable outlines for every chapter in the game, including first-pass dialogue for almost all cutscenes. All major events and battles that will take place are now known. Toby also decides around this time to go back to GameMaker as the engine of choice for the full game

May – Deltarune chapter 2 begins full development, using Chapter 1 as a base

September 15 - Undertale’s 5th anniversary concert and Deltarune Chapter 2 status update

Toby reveals he’s now working on a team with four full-time members (including himself) and other part-time members. Toby is designer and programmer. He also proposes hiring more people to work on Chapters 3 and beyond. Toby believes that Chapter 2, content-wise, will be done before the end of 2020 (not accounting for translation, bugtesting, and porting). This likely meant that, by the end of 2020, Chapter 2 was in an alpha or beta state where it could be played through from beginning to the end. Toby estimates that Chapter 2’s design/early development phase is 100% done. Toby estimates Chapter 2’s art is 90% done, Cutscenes are 80% done, Bullet patterns are 70%, other battle elements (ACTs) are 30%, audio is 80%, “other”/misc content is 65%. Chapter 2’s maps are mostly started or placeholder but with all NPC interactions completed. Toby reveals that he doesn’t draw his map designs until his team starts programming. Chapter 2’s balancing/bugfixing/translation/porting are all 0% done. Overall Toby suggests that Chapter 2 is between 50% and 80% done. Toby makes a distinction between Chapter’s 2 development and the development of remaining chapters. He also says that the game will be released in “many Chapters,” perhaps implying he was already reconsidering his goal of releasing all chapters at once at this time. Toby describes Chapters 3 and onward as having story and progression 100% done, cutscene dialogue 95% done. Ch 3+ Textual map design is 70% done overall and earlier chapters 100% done. “Earlier chapters” likely means 3 through 5. Drawn map design is 0% done. Ch 3+ enemy conceptual design is 90% done and bosses are 100% done. Enemy bullet designs are 80% done overall and 100% done in earlier chapters. Ch 3+ music concepts are 95% done, completed music is 50% done. Ch 3+ background concepts (first-pass) are 75% done. Ch 3+ bosses (first-pass) are 100% done. Ch 3+ sprite art is 20% done.

November 23 – Toby tweets the giant toilet from Chapter 2

2021

March 16 – Undertale releases on Xbox One

April 17 – Toby tweets about a friend playing the beta version of Chapter 2, confirming the game was in beta and undergoing playtesting around or prior to this time

July 20 – Toby tweets again about another friend playing the Chapter 2 beta

September 15 – Undertale 6th anniversary, Deltarune Chapter 2 announced

September 17 – Deltarune Chapter 2 is released

Toby’s team has expanded since the last status update and he considers expanding the team a little more. Toby says Chapter 2 was the biggest chapter in the game in many ways, including by cutscene count. Toby confirms changing his mind about releasing all chapters at once. Instead, Chapters 1 through 5 will be bundled together as a paid release once 3, 4, and 5 finish development.

September 23 – Deltarune Chapter 2 released on Switch and PS4

September 24 – Toby confirms in an interview that Chapter 2’s development took 1.5 years. This would line up with development starting in earnest around May 2020. Toby also confirms that chapter 2’s programming was handed over to another member of the team due to Toby’s wrist injury. Toby is now working as director on the project.

2022

February 9 – Toby posts concept art of future chapters

May 17 – Toby posts more concept art and mentions he’s gotten more people to help with development

September 15 – Undertale 7th anniversary

Toby’s team is simultaneously working on chapters 3, 4, and 5. Toby confirms more people have joined the team and the pace of creation has improved from Chapter 2. Most work completed has been for Chapters 3 and 4. Between 3, 4, and 5, the team has created more than one chapter’s worth of bullets, cutscenes, and gimmicks (likely meaning puzzles). Toby mentions 3, 4, and 5 having “certain aspects” that took a while to set up but are now in place, which will make development go smoother. Toby releases screenshots and songs from chapters 3 and 4.

September 17 – The Spamton Sweepstakes

November 17 – Toby announces Undertale/Deltarune mailing list

December 19 – The first Undertale/Deltarune newsletter is delivered

Toby says “the end is in sight” for some of the content in Chapter 3, but is very vague overall.

2023

March 30 – The second newsletter is delivered

The team’s main focus is completing Chapter 3. Translation for chapter 3 is close to starting. Based on what we know from later updates, it seems that translation is beginning sooner for these chapters than it did for chapters 1 and 2.

June 29 – The third newsletter is delivered

The team is still focusing on Chapter 3, but a few people are working on bullet patterns and puzzles for later chapters. The team is creating the final overworld area for Chapter 3, which is the last thing to complete before Chapter 3 is fully playable from start to finish (i.e., entering an alpha/beta state). Toby mentions how chapter 3 is an unusual chapter and implies it may have been harder to work on than a typical chapter. He also says Chapter 4 will be a “much more standard chapter”.

September 14th – The fourth newsletter is delivered

Chapter 3 is now playable from start to finish and is (presumably) undergoing testing and polish.

#deltarune #undertale #deltarune theory #toby fox

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familyabolisher · 2 years ago

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can you explain the tlt/sexual violence connection at like, a 7th grade reading level? (or - you’re British right? idk what year that would be but it’s the grade where you’re 12-13) i struggle with reading comprehension and im trying to get better at reading long/intricate text but a lot of your posts just end up confusing me when I try to read them 😅 thank you

sure, i'll do my best. i’ve bolded the ‘key’ parts and i’ve tried to keep this to just a few paragraphs, so hopefully that makes it a little clearer?

At the heart of how Tamsyn Muir writes about interpersonal relationships is the suggestion that the necromancer-cavalier relation emerges from the discourse of Nabokov's Lolita. I wrote in-depth about this reading here, but the gloss of it is: John uses Annabel Lee to explicate and rhetorically bolster the relationship between himself and Alecto, which is similarly used by Humbert Humbert in Lolita explaining his relationship to Dolores Haze (and the 'nymphet' in general). Muir has written in the past about Lolita, such that I find it impossible to believe that she would reference Annabel Lee without intending to usher in Nabokov's novel as a possible interpretation. From the John-Alecto blueprint emerges every other necromancer-cavalier relationship we see; though each is of course individuated, the current of power and subjectivity running through each retains the same base shape, and that power/subjectivity current emerges from Humbert and Dolores in Lolita. This sets the stage for relationships that are pretty explicitly abusive and predatory (Cytherea and Gideon; Harrow and Gideon; Ianthe and Coronabeth) to be understood not as aleatory happenstances, but as epiphenomena relative to, and consistent within, a social order that sanctions and facilitates and even demands such a practice.

What this does is suggest that a relationship can be drawn between the conditions of sexual abuse and the conditions of (imperialist) hegemony; if what Humbert did to Dolores Haze (pedophilic rape, in short, on particular aesthetic terms) can be expanded upon, systematised, and used as the base for a society-wide set of relations that ultimately exist with intent to sustain an imperial order, what questions can we start asking about those relations? What lies at the heart of this is the idea that sexual violence, sexual abuse, is a currency of the hegemonic order, and that this abuse is made possible not only through particular normative social relations but through the backing of the dominant culture affirming and normalising (and thus invisibilising) the process by which this abuse takes place. This is an idea that also occurs in Nabokov, who crafts Humbert's abuse of Dolores around a fictive, composite "Lolita" emerging from the legacy of a number of women from the literary canon: Annabel Lee, Lenore, Beatrice, Botticelli's Venus, Virginia Clemm Poe, Petrach's Laura, to name a few. In short: what is the relationship between the aesthetics of imperialism, the enactment of imperialist conquest, and the social facilitation of sexual abuse?

The key development Muir makes in relating the subjectivity of Alecto (as Dolores Haze) back to the other subjectivities in which she deals comes from the parallels she draws between Alecto and other characters. A strong example of this is Kiriona, paralleled with Alecto at a number of points that I list off in the linked essay. In rendering John's 'creation' of Alecto as functionally equivalent to Humbert's 'creation' of Lolita, which we understand to be a process of rape, and then making the 'creation' of Alecto equivalent to the 'creation' of Kiriona, Muir suggests at a number of things. Firstly, that rape and the deliberate destruction of the Earth are the same, which I've always read as a play on the double meaning of 'rape' as 'sexual assault' and 'pillage'; secondly, that this twinned process 'creates' the valorised subject position that we see Alecto occupy, one similar to 'Lolita''s and one denoting (in short) normative white femininity and its currency under capitalism; thirdly, that to this enactment of rape-plunder-killing-creation of the subject can be added the creation of the imperial weapon, which is the position that Kiriona takes up, and arguably the crux of cavalierhood as a state of subjectivity as a whole.

Other examples of this parallel process include John's relationship to Harrow, which in my opinion threads in the relationship between Catholic imperialism via proselytisation and the language of 'fatherhood'/paternity being used to describe the language between the Christian God and his subjects. A crucial throughline here is the question of if we are to understand the position of 'father'/'fatherhood' not as one of safety but as one of violence, how does that change our relationship to the language of fatherhood as used to describe God? God as 'the father' when the father carries out an imperialist crusade of sorts hearkens back to Humbert Humbert as the incestuous pedophilic rapist able to enact his violence via the social relation of fatherhood.

(I focused on Lolita here because I find it the easiest framework to explain my thoughts, but I think you can make sense of this reading even without using Nabokov as a guide? I think it's very textually substantiated that John's relationship to various others – Alecto, Harrow, Kiriona – is one of abuse, so it's about using that as a starting-point to unpick the rest of the discourse.) There are some other key questions going into this – I think, for example, John himself being indigenous has some v crucial significance and I wouldn't claim a 1:1 analogy to Nabokov's Humbert, rather a development with significant caveats – but hopefully this is a clearer summary?

#ask #tlt #nona the ninth spoilers

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rabbit-harpist · 1 year ago

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O Segredo Na Floresta (episodes 1 and 2)

Thoughts on a first-time view of OSNF

To start I’d like to say that I’m just an English-speaking gal and the only Ordem knowledge I have is from osmosis and Quarentena. Which I loved, so I’m trying to get into the subtitled seasons of Ordem Paranormal now.

I did not watch the first season (subtitles take a lot of brain energy and I heard OSNF was more settled into the flow of the series) but I did watch an ‘Ordem Paranormal but very very fast’ animation!

-It was interesting that Mr. Verissimo is an actual guy they can just talk to? It felt like he was going to be much more mysterious, or a symbol for the order, or perhaps a late-revealed villain. He still could be, I really don’t know.

-It’s been a bit since I watched the first episode, but I liked the characters. The dynamic between Cesar and his father is so interesting—Christopher can’t stop him from joining the order; he’s his own person and he can make his own decisions. But he knows that this isn’t safe and he doesn’t want his son near it—I want to see them be forced to understand each other better.

-Also, that overenthusiastic police guy. He was funny. It’ll be great if he comes back later and gets immediately killed off. Talking to him also helped make me feel how remote this place is—it makes sense that something paranormal could be hiding out here.

-What happened to the first investigation team? They couldn’t have gone through the sanatorium—all those monsters will still trapped and waiting when the player team came through. There’s so much story waiting to be uncovered and I’m fascinated by the planning it takes to make a campaign like this work.

-The sanatorium was very gross. Worse than everyone kept saying Christopher was. And very creepy. It’s awful what they were doing—the critical mass it takes to get a paranormal meltdown so bad that everything is transformed must be hard to achieve and they did it without even meaning to.

-the discovery of the fused women and the spiral goop! the sequence as Liz unconciously reached for it, began tracing out the symbol, felt as if she was regaining health only to be revealed she was losing sanity—so good!

-I love Cellbit as GM:

‘Wait a minute, I’m taking out my /list of mental diseases your characters can develop/‘

The noises! He narrates calmly but any battle scene must be acted out with full monster noises and impassioned gestures. it’s one of my favorite things about this honestly

the other noises too. In the subtitles it’s all rendered as (punch sound) (growls) (sound of door opening) and it’s all him doing it

-Jyoui and calling Liz Liz-senpai and being so happy when she gives him any kind of compliment. it’s sweet. he’s great. I want him to be okay at the end of this.

-Christopher’s bad english accent. I find this funny because I cannot pick up on it (I’m bad at recognizing accents even when they’re /in/ English) but it was the focus of multiple scenes

-that moment when, after the defeat of an enemy near the end of the second episode, Jyoui, overcome by admiration for Christopher, asks to take a picture of him (holding up his phone in real life.

cellbit, very seriously, asks for a photography test. Jyoui takes an okay picture. Christopher rolls and fails horribly. He is the worst model possible.

it was just very funny after a lot of tense fighting and I really liked it.

-also the ‘gods of death eat apples’ because I got the reference and also duolingo is doing something! I know ‘eat’ and ‘apple’!

-I like this! it’s difficult to find time when I’m able to focus on reading subtitles but when I am watching they don’t impact my enjoyment much. I enjoy the characters and the vibes and I’m really interested in what’s going to happen in all the many episodes. I’ve only seen quarentena, I’ve got no idea how that works.

so cool. it’s so cool and I just want to record my thoughts to go back to. when I’ve finished the next episode (could be awhile) will record more thoughts

Thank you so much subtitle people!!!! If you ever see this I’m so grateful <3

#osnf reaction #ordem paranormal #osnf #osnf spoilers

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d3sertdream3r · 1 year ago

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I really liked the Ahsoka show but it also felt kinda weird to me idk what did you think of it?

I have the same feeling as you, anon. Overall I liked the show, but I didn’t love it. There was a lot going on mythically/symbolically, but it didn’t all land narratively for me.

First of all, there was a big Lack of Backstory™ problem going on through the whole thing.

There was a lot of telling and not nearly enough showing. Ahsoka and Sabine are supposed to be the emotional heart of the story, but we don’t know anything about their history besides vague references.

We see in the first couple of episodes how much Sabine loves Ezra, but the general audience doesn’t have a clue who he is and once she finds him, it’s just business as usual. Their hug was great but for those who don’t know their backstory (and even people who do), it doesn’t really hit emotionally because there wasn’t enough time spent on showing their relationship in live action and them getting to know each other again after a decade apart.

We didn’t learn anything about why Morgan is so desperate to bring Thrawn back despite the fact that the Empire eradicated her people. We didn’t learn anything about how they knew each other before he was yeeted to another galaxy.

We don’t know much about Baylan and Shin’s relationship either. They’re cool and mysterious, and that’s about it. He tells her he trained her to be something more and then decides to leave her on her own in the very next episode to take her place in the new Empire. Why wouldn’t he take her with him if he wanted her to be something more?

I understand that this is part of a larger story, but every season of any show should have solid character arcs that tie into their series character arcs. I just personally didn’t feel like the character arcs were developed enough this season, largely due to Filoni not delving into anybody’s motivations beyond surface level.

I think having flashbacks between Ahsoka/Sabine and Ezra/Sabine would’ve helped a ton. It also would’ve been a good idea to have a Rebels recap at the beginning of the first episode for those that didn’t watch the show. Kenobi had a Prequel recap that was gorgeously edited and summed everything up before diving in.

As far as the cast:

EMAN ESFANDI IS THE LOVE MY LIFE!!! I adored every single scene he was in, every single mannerism and facial expression he made, his smile gives me butterflies, and his curls are to die for.

Natasha as Sabine was really good, but her character needs work. She didn’t translate nearly as well as Ezra did into live action imo, which is not Natasha’s fault at all. It was 100% a writing problem for me. The first two episodes nailed her character, but as the series progressed she started to flatten out.

Rosario feels really stiff to me. I don’t know if it’s her or the writing or both. I’m not familiar with much of her work, so I can’t really say. She just seemed really apathetic about everything despite her dialogue saying otherwise. I really love Ahsoka, so I hope her live action portrayal gets better, whatever the issue is!

Hera was given crumbs, but MEW absolutely crushed it! I’ve seen a lot of people complain about her portrayal, but I thought it was amazing. I need to see more of her immediately!!

Lars is spectacular as Thrawn, but the writing didn’t quite make him as intimidating as he was in Rebels. I want to see Lars get to chew the scenery in the future!

Other thoughts:

I feel like the Baylan/Shin dynamic is kind of what Maul and Ezra would’ve had if Maul found Ezra before Kanan did. I really hope they expand on that, especially since it was mentioned twice that Ezra is like Shin. It’s super interesting!

I want to know why Thrawn is so pro-Empire without any mention of the Ascendancy. I hope they don’t turn Thrawn into a generic mustache-twirling villain. He isn’t AT ALL, and that’s the main reason he’s a fan favorite in the first place.

I need Ezra to be in every Star Wars project going forward! I can’t wait to see him interact with all the other characters in the Mando Era!!

Anakin was awesome, but I needed him to have a deeper conversation with Ahsoka considering the last time they each other, he tried to kill her.

I need Leia and Ahsoka to interact, or at least a reference that they know each other! Ahsoka telling Luke and Leia about their parents (especially their mother) is really important to me!

Jacen is the cutest! Ezra and Jacen are going to be the most cinnamon roll master and apprentice duo of all time!!

PISSED THEY CUT BEFORE HERA AND EZRA COULD HUG!! WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL!!!

WHERE IS ZEB?? IS HE SAFE?? IS HE ALRIGHT??

#Damn this got long lol #star wars #ahsoka series #ezra bridger #sabine wren #hera syndulla #jacen syndulla #ahsoka tano #thrawn #dave filoni #shin hati #baylan skoll #anon #star wars rebels

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kichous · 1 year ago

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✧･ﾟ:* but we were born to be alone

summary. nanami kento is probably the most reliable man you know. but by god is it hard to talk to him, sometimes. series. a night of dark trees. part one . part two . part three . part four you’re here ! pairings. past nanami kento x gn!reader. mentioned gojo satoru x gn!reader. warnings. none. word count. 1999

This is a massive ethics violation. If one were to look up the definition of ‘conflict of interest,’ a photo collage of every one of your sessions with Nanami Kento would be directly underneath it. You’d known this when you first started dating Kento, shortly after he abandoned the mundane world for this cavalcade of peril known as jujutsu sorcery. When you brought it up to him, he hadn’t cared.

“That makes your dating pool rather small,” he’d commented instead, not unkindly yet neither pitying. He was right. It’s not like you have any other colleagues. Everyone comes to you. You and Shoko have always referred to each other as siblings for this purpose—she’s in charge of the physical, you’re responsible for the mental. Yet, as bad of an idea as it was, your vocation hadn’t come between you. If anything, it was your issues, rather than his own, that had put the kibosh on your relationship.

(Funnily enough, this issue of ethics arises with everyone except Gojo, who had never once made use of your professional services, in spite of the open and persistent invitation.)

You suppose that the rest of the sorcery world wouldn’t care, even if half of them didn’t think you were a hack. They tolerated much—inbreeding and eugenics, passing death sentences onto children, systemic misogyny. The thought that power imbalances would cause any of them to blink is almost laughable. And it seemed Kento’s time among the mortals hadn’t whittled away his sorcerous sensibilities.

The issue of being the only sorcerer therapist throughout all of Tokyo was that you didn’t have anyone to turn to. It’s not like you can off-load on a civilian counterpart. Yeah, so my fiancé was murdered on my wedding day, and the entire ceremony was treated to the sight of his gory remains. I’ve developed commitment issues ever since, and while I’m desperate for love, I don’t know how to open myself up to it. Also there’s this guy, and he’s really cool and powerful and a little stupid and he told me he loves me, but I said ‘Thank you’ like a fucking idiot and now he won’t talk to me—yeah. There’s your dilemma.

“Thank you for your time,” you tell Kento at the end of your session, shorthand for ‘everything we talk about afterward is off the record’ that somehow still lasted even after the two of you had very awkwardly broken up. Worst homemade candlelit dinner ever. At least he hadn’t humiliated you in public. Despite the circumstances, you both recovered well. You can’t quite call Kento a friend more than an occasional drinking buddy, but the care and concern is still there.

He gives you a quick nod and buttons his jacket, though he still remains seated. “You’re curious about Itadori, aren’t you?” asks Kento.

“Perceptive as always,” you smile. “He hasn’t been out in the field since his resurrection. It would be irresponsible to put him on a mission for adults, but the boy, Junpei… well, I suppose it’s irresponsible to involve children in these affairs to begin with.”

“He’s a good kid,” he says simply. There’s something wistful in his voice, a softness in his gaze.

“He is a lot like Yuu, isn’t he?” You prop your chin up on your hand, tossing your legal pad onto your desk to avoid crinkling your notes with the point of your elbow. Truthfully, you didn’t know Kento’s fallen friend very well. But you understand the feeling better than most. Itadori reminds you of someone else, and the band on your finger almost seems to shine brighter when the kid’s in the room. It’s almost like he knows, and he’s amused by the comparison. Not that he’d ever given you signs from beyond the grave since the time that he left you. “I guess we’re both still haunted by the ghosts of our pasts.”

It’s immediately clear that you’ve once again misspoken. Batting two for two, it seems. “Is that your professional opinion?” Nanami’s tone is sharp and the arch of his eyebrow severe. You’re not friends. You barhop together sparingly and the focus on the night has always been the alcohol. You’re not close enough to bring up his dead friend even if the commonality of losing someone deeply important to you is what brought you together in the first place.

“More of a friendly observation,” you wince. “I see that it didn’t land. I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing you need to be sorry for.”

At that, you release an incredulous laugh. “And you’re so certain about that?”

Nanami blinks. “Nothing to me,” he amends.

“Yes, we’ve long since established you don’t mind an abuse of power if you get hot sex out of it.” Whoa—you did not mean to sound that bitter. “I don’t do that anymore. Cross professional boundaries because I’m lonely, which—wow, I’m really just digging this hole deeper aren’t I? If I keep swallowing my foot and beyond, will I disappear or—”

“I know about you and Gojo,” interrupts Nanami with what you can only describe as bemusement, with a knowing incline of his head. “You’re starting to ramble like him, too.”

You slap a hand over your mouth. “You take that back!”

“Although, I shouldn’t be too surprised at your similarities,” Kento continues with a dry wryness you came to realize is the closest he’ll ever get to playful. “There must, after all, be a reason why you are nine and a half points ahead of me.”

“What?”

His lips twitch. “Never you mind.”

You pout, but all that does make him snort.

“Well, since we’re already on the topic of atrocious breaches of professional etiquette, it appears our mutual acquaintance was… upset before he left on his work trip. That wouldn’t have anything to do with your fuckbuddy arrangement?” He adjusts his spectacles, your office’s LEDs glinting off the lenses and the TAG Heuer on his wrist, impassive as your tea goes down the wrong pipe. “Please don’t mistake me—customarily, I couldn’t care less about his mood. But he’s been even more obnoxious than usual as of late.”

“And you want me to fix it.” Not a question. It’s mortifying enough that he sussed out the fact that you’re boinking—and you thought you’d been hiding it so well, too!—and it’s a whole other realm of shame that he’s asking you to unbreak Gojo Satoru’s heart. You’re not certain how much he knows; Gojo isn’t the type to gossip about his sex life beyond boasting in the vaguest of terms, much prouder of his skill as a sorcerer than anything a regular man might brag about. But on the other hand, you don’t want to chance exposing too much. If Nanami even really cares to begin with. “I already tried, he left me on read.”

“You apologized via text?”

“No, I asked him to meet so I could do it in person,” you snap. “Why’re you so invested, anyway? If he’s being annoying, just get Shoko to smack him upside the head of a couple of times.”

“Can you blame me for being intrigued? You’re probably the only human alive who could best Gojo Satoru without breaking a sweat.” Nanami crosses a leg as he speaks, sporting a pose uncomfortably similar to your own, typically used to balance your notepad on your knee.

“My love life isn’t a sports match!”

“No,” continues Kento evenly, “but Gojo is… not a friend.” He makes an expression like he’s just bitten down on a whole lemon. “But as far as colleagues go, he’s closer than most. He stopped being a symbol to me a long time ago. Can you say the same?”

You open your mouth to protest—and then you stop yourself short.

Gojo Satoru is but a man, flesh and bone that you’ve mapped countless times with your fingers and tongue. But even his name in your phone—pure jest that it is—belies the inhumanity with which you’ve been treating him. The colloqualism for your relationship is ‘friends with benefits.’ How much can you say that you’re actually friends? You’ll deny it any time someone asks, but that’s just how people talk about Gojo. They respect him, some revere him, but those in Tokyo get a closer glimpse at him than most. He’s harmless and friendly, if a little annoying—so long as you aren’t a conservative. No one really hates him in that they want him dead. He’s like an irritating younger sibling, at best. He’s got allies, and that’s as good as friends, right?

Everyone knows the tale of Gojo Satoru. The myth, the legend. But how many can say that they truly know him?

And can you dare to count yourself among them?

“If a punching bag counts as a symbol,” you admit. For the most part, it had been purely transactional between the two of you. At some point, for him, that changed. But you’d used him, under the assumption that he didn’t mind. Because everyone else did. He was someone to aspire to, someone to rely on. Just as easily, he was someone to envy, someone to resent. And you’d done just about enough of that. His good fortune was not your justification—it was his chipper attitude. Someone who suffered as you did had no right to be that happy. Worse, even, as his beloved’s butcher. But that wasn’t right. You were just jealous of his resilience.

And yet, when the supposedly omnipotent Gojo Satoru—however unwittingly—bared his soul to you, you hadn’t crushed it on purpose. You’d done it with the same lack of consideration you’d always given Satoru. Because he could take it, just like he could weather everything. And because you refused to let anyone get too close, no matter how cruel you had to be to keep your distance.

He’s the strongest. He’s untouchable. When someone needs something done, no matter the cost, they go to him. And, ever cognizant of his responsibility, he took it upon himself so no one else had to needlessly suffer. So when you needed a sexual outlet, you went to him, never once considering that it might mean something to him, that he was a person underneath the heated glances and booty calls. Gojo’s a martyr—and it’s only by the grace of his grating personality that he’s spared the full brunt of the worship that entails. You’re just another arrow piercing Saint Satoru’s side.

“I messed up.” Your voice is hoarse, strained by the lump in your throat.

“I know,” says Nanami helpfully.

It’s the thought that counts, you suppose. “When did you become the therapist, huh?”

“Not certain. I should charge you for this.” Kento’s always had a handsome smile. You’d like to see it more often.

“I’m afraid I don’t have much by way of cash. Can I pay you in rosé instead?”

“You insult me.”

It feels good to laugh with him, a weight lifting off of your chest with each movement of your shoulders. It’s nice. Much better than pushing people away. You wave him off with a hand. “All right, it’s late. You’d better get out of here if you want to catch the last train. Skedaddle, Kento-kun.”

Nanami lingers by the door as you see him out, a coy tilt to his mouth. For a moment, you consider that this turn of conversation hadn’t been random at all. It wasn’t exactly the smoothest of segues, but he’d always been a little stiff. But now, you wonder if he’d been sent as a messenger—either from Gojo or from the big guy upstairs. Or maybe one of the big guy’s citizens, whom you hope you haven’t disappointed too badly.

But before you get to ask, he huffs out a quiet little chuckle. “You had better make up with Gojo quickly, sensei. Otherwise, I might just steal him right out from under your nose.”

You’re too stunned to properly respond to his cheerful (for Nanami anyway) ‘Goodbye’ as he shuts the door to your office behind him.

#gojo satoru x reader #gojo x reader #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader #nanami x reader #anodt tag.#jjk fic.#this is the part of the romcom where reader runs to the airport to catch gojo and gets tackled by security for being a public disturbance

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shiny-jr · 2 years ago

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Ursula's henchmen are the eels, but the eels are Floyd and Jade. So I'm curious of what other henchmen Ursula would have that the reader would be.🤔

(Azul is my favorite housewarden so I'm very excited for this test/story😆💜)

If you don't mind anon, I'd like to use your ask to share some answers I provided to a mutual who messaged me with feedback. In my very long response, I do reference the answer to your question. The mutual brought up four important points for the different results and stories that follow. I'll copy and paste everything below the cut, because it is a lot to talk about and I don't want to take up a lot of space on people's feed. Oh, and also, I edited the last part a bit because it did have some major spoilers for the story.

the mc’s dialogue

the crime they committed

their approach to surviving in the tale

the mc’s overall personality

- I’ve actually got all four points covered, for the most part, in general ideas and thoughts/outlines, you know? So I tried to vaguely base each mc according to the character they replace, so as you noticed, the first mc is more timid like the king. There's a second mc I've yet to show (but I've mentioned before) that carries more authority, has a bit of charisma, and enjoys humor, this one will be based off the hyena Shenzi from the Lion King. So on and so forth, but some "henchmen" are not particularly developed at all. Like take the raven from Snow White, the character you mentioned. The raven was used by developers of the movie so that the Queen would have someone to relay dialogue to, so the audience can get a better understanding with words instead of most of her scenes just being silent. At least that's what I've read before. So in cases like that, or even in the rare case that there is no henchmen, I take creative liberty to fill in the space.

- This fourth point in their personality kinda aligns with the first point of dialogue. So for example, the first mc (king/queen/royal mc), as you noted, will have stammering and be more hesitant and soft-spoken. But it’s still important to note that they did commit a crime (I’ll come back to this point later), and they are trying to survive. I tried to make all the mcs morally gray or debatable by their actions, by them using questionable tactics or even risking other’s wellbeing for their own survival (again, this will be evident later as a few of them like royal mc would rather risk the death of the protagonist instead of their own demise). But I’m getting off track. Back the dialogue bit. I’ll try to keep using the three mcs I’ve revealed more about so far and might insert another one occasionally just for examples. So royal mc, parrot mc, and raven mc. Okay, so you know how Iago talks like in the Aladdin animated film? Yeah, well he’s way more aggressive and vocal compared to Jafar. I kinda want this for parrot mc. Not to such a degree where it’s annoying, but enough where it’s evident that the mc talks more and is a little more brash compared to the other mcs. As for raven mc, I was thinking of having them be on the more quiet side, the type to just try and blend in or try and be charming if they have to interact.

- Point two, the crime. Yup, they all committed different crimes, most of them pretty bad, some pretty similar. But anyways. That’s one of the questions in the quiz. I won’t reveal the whole list of who did what... I wanted their crimes to align with their character and role as well. So the others can probably be guessed. And finally point three, how they survive. As mentioned before, most of they may not have the best intentions...

#shiny speaks #damnation twst au

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inamindfarfaraway · 10 months ago

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omg u like cleuce! i came for the jason adopts billy fic (which i LOVE btw, its everything and more) but i just get very excited whenever i see a mention of cleo and deuce like, cleo was my first ever fave, i love to see it

Me too! Cleo is one of my favourite Monster High characters and I adore her natural, consistent character development throughout Generation One and how her and Deuce’s relationship was written. It would have been so easy to drag out conflict, misunderstandings and will they/won’t they. But instead we got such a sweet, healthy romance. They only seriously break up twice, in Ghouls Rule and Boo York, Boo York, due to sympathetic reasons on Cleo and Deuce’s respective sides - their insecurities being actively manipulated by Cleo’s abusive family - and each time, they work through their issues, reaffirm their unconditional love for each other and emerge as both better people and a better couple. Fuck Ramses and Nefera de Nile. Someone please kill them again, properly.

Francleo shippers, I see you. I hear you. I am so, so happy for you and the representation in this franchise. If that pairing had come first, I’m certain that I would be one of you. But Cleuce just has too special a place in my heart for me to get invested in Cleo being with anyone else, and I don’t really like the post-Generation One franchise as a whole anyway.

The fanfic you’re referring to, Lightning Bolts and Breaking Clouds, is on an indefinite hiatus, I’m afraid to say. I was a bright-eyed, naive fic writer who published the first few chapters when I was writing by the seat of my pants based on Vibes with no plan, and although I still love the concept and its potential, I couldn’t help but run out of steam. It also got (and has continued to get) absurdly popular, all its interaction stats an order of magnitude ahead of all my other fics, absurdly fast. So suddenly I had thousands of people waiting on me for a story I didn’t know how to write. I WILL return to it. I promise. But to prevent this aimless floundering happening again, I want to do so with a clear outline, and considering the premise’s endless potential, that feels like a daunting task.

And I’ve kept having ideas for other fics! Most of which I have finished! And all of which I’ve outlined better! If you like my writing, I recommend you check them out. My skills at crafting plot and prose have improved over time as well, and I personally like some later fics much more than my runaway celebrity one.

#cleuce #cleo de nile #deuce gorgon #monster high #monster high gen 1

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jrenvs3000w24 · 10 months ago

Text

Who are you to interpret nature through art?

Art can be a very powerful tool for many purposes, specifically with regards to nature interpretation. We discussed a little bit within the course content how art can evoke heavy emotions as well as be analyzed intellectually. I believe that these are two of the main tools that we can use to interpret nature with regards to art. However, there is a lengthy list of other lenses in which we can view art through; including a historical context, aesthetics, culturally, etc.

As an individual who enjoys an artistic approach to nature interpretation, finding joy in activities such as photography, I believe that the question of who are we to interpret nature can be applied broadly. For example we can be individuals looking at pictures of nature scenes for aesthetic purposes. I typically analyze art and interpret nature through an educational perspective, being an environmental science student. I’m very lucky that I’ve been exposed to a lot of environmental art and I believe that combining what I’ve learned about nature and being able to apply that to some of my personal hobbies, such as photography, provides me a unique experience and way to observe art and interpret nature.

Additionally, I believe that how anyone is able to interpret art is through developing and making personal connections. It's really interesting that even when looking at the exact same physical piece of art, individuals can form unique ideas and opinions on the same piece.

Furthermore, with regards to interpreting the gift of beauty, this involves the perception individuals have of the world and what's around them, with specific regards to nature. This isn't just necessarily targeted towards visual beauty and esthetics, but instead goes deeper and challenges individuals morally. We’re confronted with the obligation to look at nature as a resource and have a responsibility to take care of the world around us (Beck et al., 2018, p. 85).

For me personally, the idea of interpreting nature through art and the gift of beauty go hand in hand. We can examine artistic nature pieces and use our interpretations of those pieces to develop our knowledge of the world around us. This ties into the gift of beauty as not all nature pieces have to be aesthetically pleasing. We can look both at pieces of artwork and the natural world around us and think about more than just beauty, we can think deeper, developing more unique ideas and experiences with each piece and each time we examine nature as a whole.

An example of this is the pictures/posters that I have in my room. These are photographs that I took while visiting lake louise and camping in algonquin park. I took these pictures and have displayed them not only because the scenery is beautiful, but because I also have a connection to the times within these photos. Looking at these pictures reminds me of how much I enjoy disconnecting and being a part of nature. I’m inspired to go outside, discover new plants, recycle, etc. I believe that this is an example of how we look at nature, specifically within art pieces, and gather more than just visual aesthetics.

References

Beck, L., Cable, T. T., & Knudson, D. M. (2018). Interpreting Cultural and Natural Heritage: For A Better World. Sagamore Publishing.

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thompsborn · 6 months ago

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Don't want to end up oversharing, but I've been following homeward bound from chapter 3 and so much has changed in my life for the better ever since then. I weirdly feel like I've been maturing alongside the fic. I'll be getting my bachelor's degree in two months and I started reading during my first year. You have no idea how special this piece of work is for me and I'm very thankful you've decided to share it with us. I absolutely trust your process cuz each chapter you release is just perfection, whenever you're ready to release more I'll be there to read it. Now getting on with the actual question (sorry for writing so much ijbol), what do you think Harley and Peter think their dream home would be? What style, is it an apartment or a house and all that stuff.

oh my god i ?? i am lowkey crying omg

homeward bound is so special to my heart, i could write pages upon pages about my emotional attachment to this fic, but that would take a whole lot of time and i wanna try and answer your question, but just !! like i know logically people really care about hb too, like i’ve read so many comments and gotten asks and i know it but getting new asks or comments still sends me reeling because it’s so mind boggling and i’m just like?? damn!! thank u sm i’m glad that my post nwm coping mechanism turned general life coping mechanism has been with you like this <3

also! congratulations on getting your bachelors!! hell yeah!!!

okay, okay, okay, so to answer your question, i think it varies on the era of their lives, so like

peter growing up probably always thought it would be nice to have a house one day because he knows his parents had a house that he could very vaguely remember living in, but he was pretty open to home being anything. harley, on the other hand, grew up in tennessee and probably always assumed he’d live in a house because he’s always lived in a house. it probably wouldn’t have been until after meeting tony and thinking about maybe going to new york one day that he even considered the idea of living in an apartment, but even then, he couldn’t imagine it being permanent

by the start of homeward bound things are different. harley is living in the city for the first time, living in a dorm and sharing close quarters with harry, and he’s mourning tony and his life before the snap, still struggling to a world that’s so different from the one he remembers, so for him the concept of a dream home feel irrelevant. like, he’s focusing more on just making it to his classes and his shifts at late night and the unexpected social life that he sort of develops with the friends he was not planning to make, so picturing his future doesn’t extend further than getting through his first year at ESU and signing up for classes, yk?

peter, at this point, has entirely lost his sense of home and assumes he’s never going to get it back (which is why he has not once referred to his apartment as home, outloud or in his head) so he has no dream home because he doesn’t think he’ll ever have a home

i’ll keep this as light in spoilers as possible, but i’ll tag it homeward bound spoilers and give a warning here that this is future hb stuff butit doesn’t actually give away the plot if that makes sense?

the series is called homeward bound for a reason, basically—it’s following the theme of home. the mcu trilogy is titled with home becoming inaccessible (homecoming, far from home, no way home) so i want this series to explore an idea of finding it again

as the series progresses, ideas of home and what it is and what it looks like are going to change and adapt, but in terms of your question specifically, harley and peter are going to wind up with the same idea of a dream home: a small cozy house, not in the suburbs but not in the heart of the city either, within a reasonable driving distance from their friends.

(bonus: harry loves the idea of a penthouse, but in reality would like a house like his moms, or a nice apartment if the location is worth it. gwen grew up in apartments and likes the idea of a house but wouldn’t care if she never moved into one.)

#homeward bound fic #homeward bound spoilers

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matan4il · 2 years ago

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Idk if you're watching Lone Star but I am LIVID and if you've seen it I'm sure you have very eloquent thoughts??

about the (SPOILER AHEAD)

Nazi bar thing with Owen

Hi lovely! How are you? I’m giving you BIG hugs and I hope you’re taking care of yourself, my darling! *cuddles*

So I tend to binge watch shows. I know, 911 OG is a glaring exception for me (in part so I can write weekly meta posts for everyone interested), but binge watching at the end of a season is what I’ve been doing with LS. For you, however, I went and watched 401.

Well. Yeah, I can’t say that I’m feeling too great about it. As you know, I was already critical of 911 LS’ Jewish representation with TK (and his mom, Gwyn). To me, doing a storyline like this is touching on REALLY sensitive matters, and before you can do that, you should “earn” some credit. Based on seasons 1 through 3, LS has not yet earned that “credit” by showing us it is fully committed to handling these issues with the required care and sensitivity.

On the other hand, I’m also not livid. So, let me try and share my thoughts, in the form of bullet-points to give each one its space, and I hope they can explain where I’m at right now when it comes to this storyline:

First off, it always troubles me when people refer to ‘Nazis’ past 1945. After that point, it is only correct to refer to ex-Nazis or to neo-Nazis. Let me try to explain why this distinction matters. The Nazis might have started as an extremist ideological fringe group, but they rose to be a political party with considerable influence in Germany (responsible for the murder of several individuals and the corruption of German justice even before they came into power). Once they became the ruling party, which then led Germany and used all its resources to launch a world war, occupying as well as collaborating with countless countries, that increased its strength tenfold. They had power the likes of which today’s neo-Nazis never had (and hopefully never will), and they used that power to commit an actual genocide against the Jewish people, as well as persecute and murder members of many other groups. We mustn’t dilute these heinous crimes by conflating the Nazis with today’s neo-Nazis, who are still just a pitiful extremist ideological fringe group (again, hopefully they’ll never rise to be more than that. That’s on us to prevent). And we must also not absolve the neo-Nazis of what it means, that they CHOOSE to follow the ideology which was responsible for those crimes against humanity. Today’s neo-Nazis can’t claim ignorance about the meaning of this ideology, not when its history is so well recorded. The fact that 911 LS is referring to these guys as ‘Nazis’ rather than ‘neo-Nazis’ is already a bit troubling to me.

Another thing is the humorous reveal. TBH, I’m not bothered by the fact that Owen rode with these guys for a week without realizing they’re neo-Nazis. It does ring true to the way such groups indoctrinate new members, which is indeed gradual. If anything, it’s the sudden and complete reveal that they’re neo-Nazis which rings false. They would not have sprung that out of nowhere on a potential new recruit. It’s done this way to bring humor into the situation, which is 911 LS’ way of telling stories, but this is just too serious of a matter, which means once again the credit to use humor here has to be earned IMO. First show us that you’re not taking this lightly, that you are integrating this storyline because you actually care about things like the current rise in antisemitism in the US, and only then do you get to inject humor into it. The fact that this was not a throwaway joke, the fact that they will develop it into a whole storyline where they might yet show us that they are taking this seriously, is the main reason why I’m not livid right now. But it doesn’t mean that this is okay, it just means that I’m reserving judgment until we get the whole storyline and have a better, fuller idea of how they’re treating it.

One of the reasons why I’m giving 911 LS credit that it might still do this storyline justice is because I know that Rob Lowe is married to a Jewish woman, and their kids are, in terms of ancestry, half-Jewish (and in terms of Halacha, the Jewish law, they’re Jewish. Period). One of those kids actually works (I’m assuming he’s on board for s4 as he was for seasons 1 - 3) as a scriptwriter for 911 LS. Even just based on Rob’s involvement as a producer for the show, and assuming he cares about this issue as a man who’s married to a Jewish woman and raising Jewish kids, I’m willing to assume the intention was good. It doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll do this subject justice, but I am willing to believe they brought it up because it is something that does bother them.

Speaking of doing this right, Owen is actually not a likely candidate for this neo-Nazi group. I’m not saying it’s impossible, there are always exceptions, but such groups usually prey on people who are young and disenfranchised, feeling cast out and unwanted by their own societies. Young people who are likely to be patriotic towards their country, but angry towards its chosen government, which they blame for their own failures. Owen is older, less likely to be easily malleable to their ideology, he’s successful in his profession, and while as a firefighter he can be assumed to be patriotic, they have no indication that he harbors any animosity towards the American government. If 911 LS was gonna tell this story, it has no way of really doing this one right, ‘coz none of the 126 members is a likely candidate for a neo-Nazi gang. Which makes sense, that’s the cast diversity they were proud of and even integrated into the actual plot in s1, right? I can only once again assume that they took on this storyline because it matters to them, and in spite of not having the right cast to tell the story as it usually unfolds. They can still “fix” that if in the following eps they’ll have someone (like maybe the FBI agent we saw) address the fact that Owen doesn’t fit the usual profile.

Which brings me back to what I said earlier, that to a great degree I feel like my final judgment of this storyline, whether it’ll make me just slightly uncomfortable or downright angry, is something I’ll only be able to properly address once I’ve seen the whole storyline play out.

I hope this helps? I’m here for you either way, you can always talk to me about whatever upsets you, regarding this storyline or anything else. Sending you so much love, hon! xoxox

(more of my posts about Jewish rep can be found here, and my other ask replies here. xoxox)

#911 meta #911 lone star #911 lonestar #911ls #911 ls #tk strand #owen strand #911meta #jewish representation #jewish rep #jewish #jumblr #frumblr #911lonestar #911 ls spoilers #ask #gingerpolyglot #jr

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notaplaceofhonour · 1 year ago

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The question of justifiability is strange. Oppression doesn't justify these things, but cultivates it. Your morality isn't just what you would or wouldn't do, right? "X or Y hurt me, so I must hurt them." isn't the lone thought that leads to someone justifying an attack, bad things are bad, but not everyone will be able to develop that frame of reference for morality.

Imagine someone being starved, deprived of food, water, heat, left to rot with the bare mininum in a cage with their only human contact being violence. The question of their retaliation would usually be framed with the question of whether or not it's justfied, a lot of people would say yes, I guess. But does framing it that way actually make the situation any better? Because you could say that it'd be justified if it was bare mininum self-defence, but is someone who has lived in that way actually going to be someone who even developed their ability to idk think about those things?

I'm willing to bet that when it comes to mental illness that you probably understand that someone's actions don't exist in a vacuum, right. Sorry.

Part One:

I understand that individuals’ actions don’t exist in a vacuum. In fact that’s a large part of why so many of the responses I’ve gotten to this subject are so upsetting and have severely impacted my mental health. (I’ll get to that more in “Part Two”)

I’m not interested in framing things only in terms of justifiability, but I also don’t think that’s a framework that can be totally disregarded—it’s still an important lens to employ when talking about any conflict.

And you mention mental illness. Sure, that doesn’t exist in a vacuum, but if a mentally ill person rapes someone or murders them I believe it’s necessary to not give them the power or opportunity to continue to do that. They deserve care for their illness, a safe place for them to heal, & respect for their autonomy & dignity. But they do not deserve people turning a blind eye to the abuse or enabling them in it, right?

So it’s important to recognize when that happens so that it can be prevented.

And I’m not disagreeing with the idea of understanding Hamas’ actions in part as a product of Palestinian trauma, but we can’t shrink that discussion of context to one group or brush aside how these actions are part of a cycle that is creating more violence & trauma for both Palestinians and Israelis—as well as broader Jewish, Arab, and Muslim communities.

As if Israel’s excessive violence isn’t also a product of trauma. As if both Palestinians and Israelis didn’t enter the conflict severely traumatized by a lot of similar things, and haven’t continued to traumatize each other over and over throughout the conflict.

Not to mention, another problematic aspect of this shrinking of context in these asks & comments that lay the actions of Hamas at the feet of Israel is that it treats Palestinians like they don’t have free will, as if they’re animals or a force of nature who don’t know better or can’t avoid committing atrocities. And that’s dehumanizing. They can—and most of them do. Most Palestinians are not doing what Hamas is doing. Plenty hate Hamas, and are regularly traumatized by them.

Israel is not an all-powerful puppet master or the source of all problems in this conflict. It has more power, but it’s not the only entity with any agency here. There is absolutely a cycle of violence where Hamas is motivated by trauma from Israel’s violence, and Israel is motivated by trauma from Hamas’s violence—and it goes on and on and on.

Part Two:

I need you to understand that the context of me talking about Israel-Palestine this week (my post about Hamas) was seeing a bunch of leftists swallowing & regurgitating tropes that come from ancient antisemitic libels, and these leftists insisting that Israelis can only be understood as colonial invaders (nay, even comparable to Nazis) who forfeited their right to live by settling in Israel, while Palestinians can only be understood as victims who must be given carte blanche to expel Israelis from the region “by any means necessary” (which for Hamas, does not exclude genocide). The context of my post was leftists being ignorant and acting like we should turn a blind eye to anything bad Hamas does and enable them in it, and leftists saying a bunch of heinous, antisemitic shit. So I made a post telling leftists: don’t do that.

Anything anyone has said to me about Hamas or Israel or Palestine since is said in the context of me telling leftists who are saying antisemitic shit and want to give power to an organization that has not been shy about what it will do with that power why it’s a bad idea to get in bed with them and lift them up as heroes who need to be given that power.

So surely you can understand how upsetting it is for me to be facing a bunch of antisemitism, for me to say “hey, let’s support the Palestinians in a way that doesn’t make my life dangerous here and enable genocide against my people there” and then to be flooded with hundreds of people telling me to kill myself, that every Israeli deserves to be shot, that Jews control the media and banks, that I’m part of a conspiracy to deflect attention away from Israel’s crimes, that I didn’t mention [thing I said multiple times], that I didn’t take into account [thing I clearly am taking into account], that I wasn’t hard enough on Palestine, that I wasn’t hard enough on Israel, that I’m too hard on both of them, Israelis telling me they’re worried about their friends and family who are missing and presumed dead, and then people like you coming up and being like “yeah, but what about context?” or “okay that sucks, but like… why are you surprised? it’s Israel’s fault”

If you want to talk about context, that is the context you are entering here. So please understand why my patience with this line of philosophizing is paper thin.

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