#about how he talks about how we experience the internet and how it affects us and like... our sense of self and soul

[renthony]

In which I'm angry about intersexism from trans people. Again.

"AFABs don't experience [thing experienced by intersex people of all assigned genders]!" is getting really fucking old. People re-inventing the sex and gender binary through their weird fucking fixation on "are you AMAB or AFAB? Are you TMA or TME?" is exhausting.

I'm tired of existing in trans spaces as a trans person, only to realize how actively hostile those spaces are to intersex people. I don't bother to go to the local trans support group, because my experiences there when I first tried to attend were fucking rancid. Trans people of all assigned sexes and all genders act like I don't belong there, and I hit my limit on that shit real fast. It's exhausting, it's alienating, and it's fucking miserable!

Trans people, you have got to fucking stop acting like intersex people don't exist. You have got to fucking stop acting like you own the concept of sex and gender based violence. You have got to fucking stop acting like transfem and transmasc are a set, incorruptible binary. You have got to fucking stop acting like your fucking bullshit in-fighting isn't affecting people who aren't you.

I'm tired of intersex people discussing our own experiences only to get shit all over by perisex trans people who want to put everyone in a binary.

I'm tired of watching intersex people get treated like shit by terfs and transphobes, only for perisex trans people to accuse us of "appropriating trans struggle" when we talk about it.

I'm tired of talking about my experiences as an intersex trans person only to get constantly hit with endless variations on "shut up, theyfab" or "um, you're TME."

I'm tired of talking to my transfem friends and partners, us relating to each other on our similar experience, and then having random other trans people on the internet decide that, actually, I'm a raging transmisogynist who doesn't value trans women and is trying to "appropriate" their struggle. Never mind how many of my own experiences I've been able to articulate thanks to the support of trans women in my life.

Perisex trans people, do better. Y'all fucking suck! Y'all fucking treat intersex people like total shit! Fuck you for using us as rhetorical devices against transphobes and then ignoring our actual needs and struggles!

I go outside and people call me a tranny with a freak ugly beard. I get targeted by all the same bathroom bills and public policy trying to force trans people out of the public. I get people asking me if I have a dick. I get people aggressively calling me "sir" in public. I started getting called a "he-she" when I was a child. When I started developing breasts, a family member told me they weren't "real titties, just extra fat." I have had total strangers tell me I "look like a fat man" when I got upset at being misgendered. I get "helpful advice" from strangers about how to shave "properly," even though I didn't fucking ask, nor do I intend to shave my beard. I've had people tell me I have "tranny feet" and tell me to "try the drag queen shoe store" when I talk about how hard it is to find women's shoes that fit me. I have been the subject of nasty rumors about what's between my legs and why I "try to look like a woman." I'm not a woman, mind you, but I still get treated as a "wrong woman" by society.

But when I talk about all these things? When I seek support? Trans people of all genders call me a TME theyfab who is appropriating transfem struggles.

I still don't understand how I'm the one "appropriating" when it's the outside world calling me a tranny he-she freak.

But whatever. I guess I just have to accept that intersex people are subhuman to perisex people, even the trans ones. 🤷‍♂️

[seireitonin]

“Toby/ other characters would be an abuser!1!” A talk on why that pisses me off

Hi. My name is Seirei. I don’t want to share super personal shit on the internet, but due to certain factors in my life I have BPD. (this is NOT self diagnosis. I have been to a professional and for now they think I have this due to certain trauma/ symptoms I’ve shown) This is part of the cluster B personality type. That being said Toby and many other creepypasta characters either canonically have ASPD/ BPD or it’s a generally accepted headcanon that they do. Now this in itself doesn’t bother me if it’s done well and with research. But the problem is most ppl just slap these labels onto them without doing the proper research. I’ve gotten multiple comments on my TikTok like “well I think Toby is an abuser bc he has ASPD/ BPD” I hate that. I hate that so much. You guys say it’s for “realism” but you’re just demonizing mental disorders. You’re demonizing people like me. In you having your “realism” youre hurting me and ppl in the cluster B personality type. ASPD/ BPD doesn’t instantly make you an abuser. These are personality disorders brought on trauma. Especially trauma with parents/ family. People with ASPD/ BPD know that we’re not well all the time. We’re suffering from disorders that affect our lives. From trauma/ experiences that we didn’t ask for. These are DISORDERS. These aren’t fake edgy illnesses that you can slap onto a character with no thought when you want them to be angsty. For example when ppl say “Toby would be an abuser/ not be capable of love because of his ASPD and he went through abuse in his past” not only are you taking away the depth of his character, you’re just straight up demonizing mental disorders. If you read his story, he loves his mom and sister so much. People with ASPD can love. But it does cause him to be obnoxious and rude. But this isn’t coming from a place of malice. He’s a traumatized man w a disorder! This isn’t me saying Toby can do no wrong and he’s 100% healthy. Toby definitely has issues and I’d never erase that. But to call him an abuser because he has ASPD is so gross and you’re just demonizing ASPD to be edgy without doing research on it or the cluster B personality type in general. As I said before, people with cluster B personality type KNOW we have disorders. We live with them every day. They affect our lives, our relationships, ourselves. We know that we fuck up and what we do isn’t healthy all the time. We KNOW. We’re not doing it because we’re “abusers” we’re suffering and hurting. Again this isn’t me saying that everyone with BPD/ ASPD is a good person who’s willing to do the work and grow. There are bad people with these disorders. But that doesn’t mean everyone who has them are instantly abusive. I’m not an abuser at all. Never have been and never will be. But BPD does affect me and the way I act that can come off as hurtful/ unhealthy and I KNOW THAT. Im always actively putting in the work to be better, like a lot of people with ASPD/ BPD. Just because we have these disorders doesn’t instantly mean we can’t change/ be better. Doesn’t mean we’re not humans with emotions/ trauma of our own. Toby obviously had to do some kind of inner work to be able to be with Clockwork the way kastoway portrayed them. (If it’s canon or not is irrelevant here)When you say shit like “Toby is abusive bc of ASPD/ BPD” that’s what you’re telling us you think of us. You see us and treat us like monsters but then talk about how much you love Toby/ other characters for having our very real disorder. ASPD/ BPD can be seen as two sides of the same coin. They have so many similarities but are shown in different ways. Do proper research before you talk about mental health because you’re stigmatizing/ demonizing disorders that are already looked down upon. Toby does canonically have ASPD and possibly BPD but it’s written into his character pretty well(as well as a 13 year old in the 2010s can do) and now that ppl are older we can actually analyze his character/story correctly. But Jeff and many other characters still aren’t getting this same treatment and they need it.Do better.

[aretheyqueer]

Anyway I sent you that ask but I’m not like boiling over mad about it, it’s just like. The experiences of men and women are different but it is because a woman’s experiences breaks off from the default, which is the male experience. I do not think things can be that clean cut when it comes to gender identity but for cis men? The intersectionality of being black and disabled makes sense, the intersectionality of being black and a man doesn’t. That is called anti black racism. And it is foolish to act like the ways black men are seen, as violent, aggressive, poor, untrustworthy, older than they are as children, aren’t applied to black women too

what are you talking about

well its about this post and normally I try not to give attention to angry anons but I'll talk a bit about it

misandry. a difficult topic for some. it seems that a lot of people believe that in order for misandry to exist, misogyny has to not exist. but that's not true. both exist at the same time and both affect everyone.

men are seen as more violent than women, and if you combine that with the "black people are more violent" mindset, you get a violent black man stereotype, which is different from what a black woman experiences. doesn't mean one is more oppressed than the other. but one of them has been affected by misandry as well. one of the people I know is a black man and because we get "violent black person + violent man" together, people cross the street in order to not pass him on the sidewalk. he has been told to his face by women things like "you're actually cool, I thought you were going to hit me when I first saw you...", which they somehow think is a compliment. this is not only because of racism or misandry, but because of both at the same time.

generally speaking in the US, women get away easier with crime than men. there have been cases where all the evidence shows that the woman killed someone, only for it to be randomly decided that she didn't. this is a combination of pretty privilege, and difference in how men and women are treated. white people also get away with crime easier than black people. it's not ridiculous to think that these combine, that black+man (violent+violent) has different expectations of how much evidence is necessary and how harsh the punishment should be.

when a trans man transitions, it's likely that he will feel a change as he starts to experience male privilege. but things aren't as great as a man as they tell you on the internet.

men and women have different beauty standards. generally, it's seen as unattractive if a man is chubby, has acne, lack of muscles, beard growing in the wrong places etc. (even women who "like dad bods" often go for the conventionally attractive men). now, as a trans man basically going through your second puberty, acne, fat redistribution, hair growth - it can all impact your appearance in ways that you don't actually like.

and this happens. some trans men experience these "ugly" changes, and suddenly they go (literal quote) "people are so mean to me now!" becaaauseee... society has different expectations of men and women, and when men don't meet those expectations, they are treated differently. not only because they're "ugly", but because they are "ugly" men.

a lot of women don't like to admit it, but they can be really horrible to men. there's this assumption that men have it easy, which leads to a couple things:

"Ugly" men are treated horribly by women

Every ugly man is assumed to have worse morals than handsome white men

Women's abuse against men isn't taken seriously

Remember the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard case? There was a lot of evidence that a man was being abused by a woman. Him literally taking her to court and showing the world that men CAN be abused by women and there are things you can do about it, was an inspiration to other men that had been abused. But then you open twitter, and... people are demonising him because he has "started a culture where men take women to court over every little thing". You hear that? That's misandry, baby. (btw, rape and abuse accusations have been used against men to take advantage of the "trust all victims" mindset. it's horrible to do something that causes distrust against women who speak up, but it is an unfortunate truth. this happens both off the internet and on the internet.)

Now...

It's important to step out of radfem and "hate all men" bubbles sometimes, because while their purpose is to support women, they are frequently spaces where misandrists thrive. there, it's normal to think every man you pass wants to rape and/or kill you, and it's normal to laugh at and make fun of ugly or weird men.

men and women have different experiences. disabled men and disabled women have different experiences. trans men and trans women have different experiences.

and that's ok. we don't need to have a competition about which one is worse. misandry being a problem doesn't mean that misogyny isn't. we can fight both at the same time.

I would encourage people to think about what they mean when they say they hate all men. if you tense up when you walk past men. how quick you are to believe that a man is a rapist before you've seen the proof. how you define an ugly man, and how you think about ugly and handsome men differently. if you've ever made fun of a man for having traits that you praise women for. if you've ever forgiven a woman for something that you would have never forgiven a man for. etc.

there aren't any titles or stuff in this post so I don't know how readable it is. but if you got this far, cool.

tldr: misandry is real and it is amplified to the max when a man is a minority or doesn't meet the expectations of what a handsome man is, go talk to a man in your life about it

[hyperfixationstation128]

I'm sure this has been said before, but I'm of the opinion that Gale didn't love Mystra. Not really, anyway.

"But, Hyper!" You cry, "He tells the player flat out that he was in love with her! What are you talking about?"

Well, allow me to shed a little light on what it is I mean.

It's pretty much unanimously agreed within the fandom that Gale is Autistic, which I find awesome. He's such a great source of representation for those of us who've been through similar experiences and relate to his personality. Those of us with Autism know the frustration of being portrayed as "the weird kid", "the manic pixie dream girl" or even as non-verbal people with a propensity towards violence with our meltdowns. Fun fact: not every person with Autism has "violent meltdowns", some of us go through what's called a shutdown, where we become non-verbal, secluded and kinda "stop working".

"Okay, okay, that's cool and all, but what do you mean by Gale didn't love Mystra?"

I applaud your enthusiasm and am going to explain now. As someone with Autism, someone who's been researching the topic for years, and someone with immediate family members who are on vastly different sides of the spectrum, I can say with about 95% confidence that Gale did not love Mystra... not for real, anyway. He had what is called "Limerence".

Well, why don't we turn to the internet to look up the definition of the word. "Limerence is a psychological state characterized by an intense, all-consuming romantic infatuation. It is an involuntary cognitive and emotional state in which an individual feels an overwhelming desire for another person, known as the “limerent object.” This state was first defined by psychologist Dorothy Tennov in the 1970s."

Now, the act of limerence is completely involuntary and could happen to anyone, neurodivergent or neurotypical! However, based on anecdotal evidence, it appears to affect women with Autism more than anyone else. When you experience limerence with someone, they become everything to you. You are completely obsessed with them, they can do no wrong in your eyes, they are everything to you.

Sound familiar? The way Gale describes how he viewed Mystra is unmistakably Limerence, at least in my opinion. And if you aren't convinced, allow me to be vulnerable for a minute and share a personal story on my experience with Limerence.

I was about 12 or 13 when I first met my friend, let's call her Tina. Now, Tina was that one girl in school who loved anime, played the violin, and made incredible art. From the first moment I met her, I was smitten. And this went far beyond a normal teenage crush. I was obsessed with her, her opinion, her tastes, her likes and dislikes. I was so in love (I thought) that once stole my late grandmother's wedding ring and gifted it to her. I devoted every breath in my body to her, every fiber of my being. We were friends for years and even dated for a while. In my mind, we were meant to be. We got along great, she was funny, silly, and so incredibly talented. What I didn't know - or maybe didn't want to believe - was she didn't feel the same way.

"But, Hyper! Isn't that just unrequited love?" No, dear reader... 'tis not. Limerence is not love, no matter how much you may want it to be; no matter how deep your feelings feel like they are. Limerence is an unhealthy obsession and there is typically very little one can do to sway oneself from their "object of desire". In the mind of the person with Limerence, there's nothing else in the world except the person they're obsessing over.

Now, there are three stages to Limerence: Infatuation, crystallization, and deterioration, which all seem pretty self-explanatory, but I'll explain further for those of you who don't know.

Infatuation: The first time you notice the other person's positive qualities. Their eyes, their smile, their abilities/talents.

Crystallization: The "obsessive" part of the act. Where you feel a heightened sense of anxiety, walking on eggshells to avoid any "turn-offs" around the other person. You may find yourself thinking about them to the point where it's affecting your normal, daily life.

Deterioration: When the intensity of your feelings begin to wane, and you no longer find yourself attracted to or wanting the attention of the person you were pursuing. In my experience, this is the worst part of Limerence as it usually blew up in my face.

Now, you may be thinking something along the lines of "Okay, but how does this relate to Gale?" or "Are you trying to imply that Gale was abusive towards Mystra? That's ridiculous and you suck!!!" and you're right. I do suck. But I'm not implying that Gale was abusive towards Mystra. Given the fact that she's a literal goddess, it's impossible for that to have happened. What I'm implying is that how Gale viewed Mystra for the time that he was with her was not genuine, true love like how he has with Tav.

This post got way longer than I originally anticipated and I'd love to write a full-length essay on this someday, but I feel I've assaulted y'all's brains with enough jargon for now. If you guy wanna hear more of my thoughts on this particular subject, I'd be more than happy to oblige.

Please feel free to keep the discussion going in the comments or your own post! I adore Gale and discussing things like these regarding his character and personality is my bread and damn butter.

[thedroloisms]

I think what's worse about people doing it to Dream is he's very reluctant to call attention to it himself so people do it for him and it's not just with abuse. They'll do it about him being queer or about having rsd and people need to realise if he wanted to use those things as excuses but he doesn't. Like it's okay to recognise the influence those things have on a person but you can't reduce an issue down to a single factor and remove all the nuance.

i mean yeah he "doesn't use it as an excuse" because 1) he'd be crucified even harder than he already is 2) people already make things up in their head abt him using it as an excuse when he doesn't (like claiming he uses his RSD to get out of things, which was particularly hilarious back in 2021 or whatever when it seemed debatable if he even knew what RSD is) (like this is the same guy who like, during every drodcast around that time, would like list off textbook adhd symptoms and then be like 'yeah idk why i do that tho') but ... that's. like.

like the point i was making isn't just "we shouldn't make excuses using his abuse/queerness/neurodivergence because he doesn't do it" -- in situations where a conversation revolving around smth like queerness or victim advocacy or neurodivergence is relevant, then i don't think these topics should be barred from conversation? as an example, people used to get on people's cases all the time about mcc 14 and how you shouldn't talk about neurodivergence in relation to it while dream was like. clearly and obviously overwhelmed and out of it literally almost until the end of the conversation because of the buildmart rework. just because dream wasn't going "wow, this was an overstimulating environment that clashed terribly with my adhd" out loud on stream doesn't mean people couldn't independently hold conversations about how the game was kind of designed to be stimulation hell, with or without relating that conversation to dream.

obviously people should have more tact when they talk abt abuse specifically, re: dream. i just...don't think that throwing his situation into his face (especially as a weapon to use against other people) is in any way appropriate. people can, have, and will use his experiences against him.

but back to my main point, it's less about "not using these things as excuses because he doesn't" and more about "not using these things as excuses when they're not excuses." like. while i understand that being a survivor, being queer, being nd affects literally everything you do...as you said, there's a difference between understanding the impact something like past abuse can have on your feelings and actions and concluding that your actions and feelings are valid because of your abuse.

like. just as an example. if a DV victim acts erratically while details of their specific situation are being dredged up and said person does things out of character for themselves like shutting down their accounts on social media and refusing to acknowledge an important situation Immediately, even if they themselves don't bring up the specifics of their situation, i think it's fair to say "hey yall are lacking any empathy whatsoever to a survivor of DV who is a victim in this current situation, grow up and piss off."

on the flip side, if someone who's been through abuse is harassing people online and doing things like campaigning for them to lose their platforms and refusing to give any information as to why they believe this is necessary or provide any proof outside of "just trust me, they're bad bro" and cries that they're trying to do the right thing because they're an abuse victim...being an abuse victim does not excuse your current behaviors, many of which are enabling and/or encouraging abusive actions and telling people (such as abusers!) that your corner of the internet is a safe place for them to make baseless accusations (including towards their victims) as long as it's towards someone you don't like. which is, you know, fucked up and kinda abusive. i sympathize with the trauma that these people have been through, but bringing up your victimhood is not immediately relevant to the current situation and also doesn't excuse abusive actions.

i hope that made sense?

[igncrxntripley]

haters gonna hate

Synopsis: Y/N and Damian confirm their relationship online, and he makes her feel better after reading mean comments. 

tags: age gap, fem!reader, top!damian, fingering, grinding, NSFW 18+

A/N: take this to hold you over while i work on more poly!judgement day LMAOOOO

Being in a relationship with a WWE superstar wasn’t easy; schedules never matched, travel was always interrupting the regular flow of the relationship, and it was hard to work on intimacy. Damian wanted nothing more than to be with someone who understood what his job was but he had little to no luck over the years. Y/n felt the same way as a young superstar in her twenties, wanting the same experiences with dating as other people her age but having no luck given how often she was on the road. 

Damian and Y/N met while in NXT together and connected over their shared thoughts about the difficulties in maintaining a personal life. But they both loved it and wouldn’t trade it for the world, and they bonded over so many other things besides their jobs. It was just easy to be around Damian, so as the years went on and they moved up to the main roster at the same time their relationship only developed from there. Fans speculated there was something between them but no one had confirmed it, until Damian and Y/N talked it over and decided it was the right time to come clean. 

They both posted the same pictures on their Instagram - a recent mirror selfie of the two of them at home before going to the gym. Damian’s arm was around Y/N’s waist and they were cuddled quite close together, Y/N wearing some of Damian’s merch to almost confirm even more what was going on between them. Her caption was a simple heart emoji, and Damian’s was more elaborate; Life is a little sweeter with you in it, mi princesa. 

It didn’t take long at all for fans to run wild with the information, and it felt good for them to finally be in the loop as to what was going on. But for every good comment there was a bad one, and Y/N spent so much time hyperfixating on trolls who didn’t know anything about her and Damian’s relationship that she stopped enjoying this period of bliss. Sure he was older than her, but why should it matter? They both cared about one another and they were happy, so why couldn’t people on social media leave them alone? 

“Mi amor, I’m home.” Damian said as he came back from the gym to see Y/N in bed, sadness written all over her face as she stared at her phone and he knew immediately what she was doing. “Baby, what did I tell you?” he scolded softly, sitting next to her in bed and gently taking the phone away from her. “You’re still reading comments?”

Y/N sniffled and wiped her eyes, trying to make herself stop before she got even more upset. “They’re just so mean,” she said softly. “All we did was post one picture, and people feel like they know what’s best for us.” Damian frowned and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into his chest. “And guess what? They’ll never know what’s best for us, and that’s okay.” He said softly. “What we do is our business, and I refuse to let stupid comments from stupid people on the internet affect us.” He kissed the top of your head and gently rubbed your back. “We knew this might happen when we made everything public. Now we just have to prove them wrong.”

Damian was right, and Y/N knew that. But it didn’t make the hate comments on their posts any less mean. She looked up at him with a small pout and gave a small nod. “You’ll beat them up for me?” She asked and it made Damian chuckle. “I’ll beat every last one of them up.” He confirmed before giving her a gentle kiss. Now that he knew his girl was upset, he was committed to making her feel better and forget about all of the awful things she was reading on social media. Damian needed to make sure she knew he wanted her, so after the first kiss he continued to press his lips to Y/N’s in passionate yet gentle kisses. After a few moments she adjusted her body so she was straddling him and sitting in his lap, and her arms were wrapped around her man’s broad shoulders. 

“Let me show you that you’re mine, mi amor.” Damian whispered against her lips, his large hands gripping her hips as she made herself comfortable in his lap. Y/N gave a small smile against his lips and played with his hair as she began to move her hips in small circles. The smallest touches could make her go crazy with Damian, and he wasn’t making it any easier as his kisses moved to her neck and chest. “Please…” She whispered. “I need it.”

His girl’s words made Damian kick things up a notch. He held her hips and coaxed them into continuing to move against his cock. “Tell daddy what you want me to do to you, mi princesa.” She shivered as he spoke in Spanish, something that only added to Y/N’s arousal. “I want you to ruin me,” she started. “I want you to show me who I belong to.” She couldn’t help but grin as she moaned and Damian flipped them over on the bed. He wasted no time once he was on top of her and pulled down her shorts and underwear. “You’re so perfect,” he mumbled against her lips while her own hands started to pull his sweats down. “I’m gonna make sure the neighbors know you’re mine.”

Y/N smiled up at him as her hand wrapped around his length to tease him. “I want everyone to know I’m yours.” She whined once his fingers started to tease her, almost trying to get her to beg for him. “Please, papi…” Her words were enough for Damian to push himself into her and he started to thrust, his large hands holding her cheeks as they watched each other. “You’re mine, amor. All mine.” Damian making love to her was enough for Y/N to forget about anything that had happened earlier in the day; he just knew how to make her feel beautiful and loved, even when they weren’t being sexual with one another. But moments like these? Where he worshiped her body and made her feel beautiful when others couldn’t? She knew he was the one. 

He held Y/N close as they finished together and kissed her again, interlocking their hands next to her head and not even daring to pull out just yet. “Mine.” Damian whispered. And that had never been more clear.

[aihoshiino]

Hey there! Love your analyses of Ai and ao3 fanfics! They're so good and you always bring interesting points to the table! I want to know your thoughts on something (it's possible that I sent this ask a while back but I have a feeling it never came through lol, my Tumblr/Internet be broken sometimes): In chapter 140 (not 100% canon, but I think the brought up subjects still resonate), page 5, Hikaru says that the student should come to the teacher, while Ai says don't just invite a man to your house. Do you think this has a link with their traumas? It also makes me wonder why exactly Ai would say something like that. Could it have a link with Ayumi's boyfriend (="man") that ogled her? I would like to know your thoughts on how this boyfriend would've affected Ai, her image on men or just relationships/sex in general. Would it even have a big impact on those factors? Thank you for your thoughts!

Thank you so much! 💜 Looking at my inbox I do think Tumblr just ate it the first time you sent this….. Functional webbed site……………..

Honestly it's so hard to know what to make of those HikaAi movie scenes in general but especially off the back of Hikaru being like "fake and gay lol" about it. The characterization feels additive and consistent with the real Ai and Hikaru but at least one of these scenes was written by an author who had literally never met them. And while they do communicate things to us about their respective baggage, it's complicated by the fact that this is in-universe fiction written by an in-universe author. So it's like - is this characterization Aka Akasaka is trying to communicate to us or characterization Yoriko Kichijouji is trying to communicate to the audience of 15 Year Lie? Both? It's a mess!

THAT SAID, Hikaru's "fake and gay lol" is explicitly challenged and undermined by the narrative and the whole point of the confrontation is slapping him with the fact that (among other things), he doesn't understand Ai half as well as he thinks he does. With that in mind and given that it doesn't directly contradict anything else we know about the real Ai, we can probably treat it as true enough for the purposes of using it as jumping off points for discussion.

I don't think Kamiki's line is super important on its own as its really just the setup for Ai's response - so the talk as a whole is really more about communicating things about Ai to us, through Hikaru's POV. And I think strictly in this context, Ai's line there is less to do with her mom and her experience growing up in Ayumi's house (I actually got the impression that the movie barely touched on that stuff? but I could be wrong) and more about her like… responding to other people's expectations without necessarily fully understanding them. I do think the specific way she phrases it is probably parroting something Ayumi may have said to her though - similarly to the way she calls her past self a 'nasty brat' in the Da Vinci interview which was just like… so pointed and unkind I can only assume it was something Ayumi called her in the past that just burrowed its way into her brain forever like that shit does.

Overall, it's part of a much broader pattern of behaviour on Ai's part of, as I've described it to friends, performing normalcy to the point of abnormality. She imitates the end of the "normal behaviour" process tree without understanding or following any of the steps that get there. I can't believe I'm reaching for this reference lol but I was rewatching a bunch of CJ the X vids last week and in their essay about Cat Valentine from the show Victorious, they describe some of the (certainly accidental) neurodivergent coding in Cat's character in a way that really pinged me as also speaking to the way Ai is also (much more intentionally) coded:

"[…] There's a big difference between following social procedure naturally and Attempting To Behave As One Might Act. […] She mimics convention, while fundamentally misinterpreting what part of convention is important in the first place."

That's really the cornerstone to a lot of Ai's behaviour - the combo of her social isolation and her neurodivergence means that she does not have the same frame of reference that most other people absorb from their peers and families as they grow up. So instead she just sort of… looks at the people around her, figures out what successful social interactions look like from the outside, and tries to replicate that to varying degrees of success.

Her argument with Nino is probably my favourite example of this - Nino is all but screaming at her to have a normal fucking human being conversation with her and Ai just sits there like ^_^ Nooooo don't be insecure your so sexy aha. no wonder nino wanted to kill her with a brick HGSJSSKS. And like - from an outsider perspective, you can see exactly why this happens! This is basically Ai short-circuiting because none of her usual scripted responses are resolving this situation. She defaults to the fawning response because she doesn't know what else to do, even though it should be clear it's making the issue worse.

It would be sooooo easy to just make this a one sided instance of Nino being cruel to her but it's really just the inevitable and unavoidable conclusion of Ai's instincts towards avoidance and fear of vulnerability. And it's not Ai's FAULT she's like that. it's learned behaviour. she is the way she is because allowing herself to be sincere and vulnerable only ever gets her hurt, but it still hurts her and the people around her as a result (like with Kamiki).

oh my god i'm like 5k words in and i haven't even touched the question you directly asked LSKDJKSSK. I MEAN, I ASSUME AT THIS POINT PEOPLE SEND ME ASKS LIKE THIS KNOWING THE RISKS OF GETTING AN ESSAY IN RETURN…

ANYWAY, I definitely think Ai's experiences growing up in Ayumi's house (incl. ayumi's pedo boyfriend lmao) were a huge part of why she ends up with such an utterly fucked concept of love and relationships. When I see people talking about this aspect of her character, I feel like it gets downplayed because the series itself is more about her life as an idol but her childhood is the literal foundation of everything that follows - Ai becomes an idol because she wants to know how to love people and be loved in return and the reason she's never experienced that is because of how Ayumi raised her and how she failed to protect Ai from and properly respond to Ai's narrow brush with that type of victimization.

It's hard to really say exactly how this specific incident impacted her with how little we know about how all that went down, but I definitely think it was part of a pretty consistent pattern in her childhood of having failed/toxic relationships modeled for her - there was All That with Ayumi's boyfriend but we also know that Ai's biodad was not in a relationship with Ayumi at the time Ai was growing up and that she saw him pretty infrequently. It's not hard for me to imagine that Ai's kind of wishywashy confusion as to wtf marriage even is expressed in 45510 is the result of seeing dogshit relationship after dogshit relationship fall apart in her formative years. And I definitely think The Incident (& Ayumi's reaction to it - she herself admits her behavior escalated as a result) probably planted the seed in Ai's brain of her being like… more aware of sex than she should have been at the age she was?

In fact, ironically, Hikaru's line about 'giving your body to body to receive love' was actually how I've always interpreted Ai - pretty much the entire time I've been brainrotted about her, my interpretation has always been that Hikaru was not her first boyfriend or sexual partner and that she had probably run through a couple of extremely fast burning short term relationships before they met.that escalated to physical intimacy very quick and burned out just as fast.

I don't necessarily have a ton of capital-E Evidence for this other than a line or two in the series and also just Vibes. Not only can abuse and neglect in childhood lead to premature sexual behaviour in teens (as a sort of attention/intimacy seeking mechanism) but Akane specifically pegs Ai as having obvious emotional imbalances typical of a person who engages in this kind of early sexual behaviour, but then notes that it settled down after she turned 15 and notes 'did she meet someone nice?', implicitly tying her improvement in behaviour to Kamiki - but then of course, that means her destructive behaviour can't have been the result of sleeping with him. In addition, the TL that was available for the manga when I was getting back into the series had Ai refer to Kamiki as an ex during their phonecall, implying she had more than one.

This is one of those things where like… if you are normal about this character it probably doesn't really matter but unfortunately for everyone else i'm insane ;SKFLSNMSLSMKA So stuff like this is really interesting for me to dig into. One of the things I find really fascinating about Ai that mostly exists in subtext and idk how intentional it even was on Akasaka's part is this sense of internalized shame and even disgust she has directed at her own body and sexuality. She calls herself 'dirty' and 'impure', and her final words to Ryosuke are her more or less apologizing to him for that - and idk, I think that aspect of her character (and OnK's ongoing refutations that Ai being 'dirty' in this way is in any way something she should have been rebuked or punished for) is that much more interesting if all that is the case vs the more straightforward and "pure" (for lack of a better word) version of events where she met Hikaru and they fell in love and had sex… if that makes sense.

Honestly Ai's relationship with like, sex and intimacy and sex in the context of a loving relationship being healing and reclaiming for her is one of those things I have so much fun writing in the context of RP and stuff but if I continued rambling about it here I would go on all day lol and this post is already so long. IN ANOTHER ASK, PERHAPS……..

[medleymisty]

Normally I would put this on my personal (@deathlygristly if you wanna follow it) but I have a lot more followers here and also Simblr does involve a lot of fiction, so I'll ask here.

I've seen some posts on my dash lately about what's "appropriate" for children to read, and in the notes I've seen people talking about fictional death being bad for kids. This is news to me, as my father died a month after I turned seven and I never met the spousal person's mother since she died a few months before we met. He was 17 when she died. He's the oldest of five, and the youngest was 5 when their mother died.

So to me it feels really weird to see other people saying that my and my in-law's IRL experiences aren't "appropriate" in fiction for other people.

I kind of want to make a poll asking how old you were the first time someone close to you died, but really I want to talk more about fiction.

I haven't written in a few years because I don't have much time for it now with the spousal person's Korean drama obsession, but all my stories tend to be what I guess other people consider "dark." But also one of my most treasured Sims stories memories is a comment on Valley about a group of nine year old girls reading it together at a sleepover.

If you write fiction, do you care about the age range of your audience? Do you think some topics are appropriate and others aren't for some people who might be reading your work? What did you read as a kid, and what did you think about it, and how does that inform your writing and your stances on fiction today?

More personal stuff under the cut that you ain't gotta read if you don't want.

Personally when I was 9 I read every book the local library had on the Holocaust. I think that was a very good thing, I would fight anyone who said I shouldn't have been allowed to do it, and I think that now as an adult I am much less likely to be radicalized by the internet than someone who didn't read about the horrors that the human propensity for authoritarianism/hatred/etc. can lead to in their formative years.

Which honestly as I was writing the bit about my real experiences as a child being considered inappropriate for other children to even just read fiction about, I realized that censoring comes from a place of privilege and power and that keeping children of certain groups unaware of how the children of other groups live because it's "not appropriate" for them to know about the lives of people without their group's social power is....something.

An example I found related to parental death:

Black Americans are more likely to experience the death of a parent earlier in their lives. Using adults aged 25 to 34 as an example, about 15% of the white population and Asian population in the age group have lost one or both parents. That is compared with 17% of the Hispanic population and 24% of the black population in that age group who have experienced the death of a parent. Poor Americans are also more likely to experience the death of parent earlier in their lives. Among adults aged 35 to 44, 43% of those living below the federal poverty line (FPL) have experienced the death of one or both parents compared with 28% of wealthy adults (defined here as those earning at least 400% of the FPL). Taken together, the data shows that inequality is just as inescapable in death as it is in life for Americans.

So....yeah. I am firmly in the people can read whatever they want whenever they want to camp.

[ryuichirou]

Jade gaslighting anon here, sorry if I sounded offended. Gaslighting is a very specific type of abuse that I went through for a very long time and while Jade is very toxic and problematic, he is not a gaslighter so it bothers me when people slap that on as a catch-all for all manipulative characters. Again, sorry if I sounded angry or offended.

Anon, I heard you. And I am sincerely sorry that you went through some very bad stuff in your life.

However. I want to say something and I am not going to mince my words this time because I need to make one thing clear.

Here is TLDR if you don’t want to read the whole post: No offence, but I can’t keep in mind everyone’s trauma, I don’t think Rook is a gaslighter, we will continue to post content about Jade being one.

I disagree with you on Jade not being a gaslighter and Rook being one. I don't think that this is the case, in fact, I think the opposite is true. But we are not going to have a character discussion right now because this clearly isn't the point of the situation that’s happening here. Based on what you’re saying, your opinion is influenced by your past experiences. Which isn’t a bad thing, we all have our own biases, but it makes a proper discussion quite difficult, especially when there is trauma involved.

Here is the thing. I know what gaslighting is. I myself was also a victim of gaslighting, believe it or not. I was in a very bad place for a lot of years, and some of the events from that time affect me to this day. There are a lot of things that trigger me, ruin my mood, make me panic, in fact, all of us have those things to some degree. And all of us have content that is deeply upsetting, even if it’s not related to one’s past trauma. But that doesn’t justify asking people on the internet to stop talking about characters a certain way or reading them a certain way. How is it different than people asking us not to post Shroudcest or not to talk about them in as a romantic ship? There might be people who don’t just use it as an excuse, but are actually getting triggered by me drawing these two, so what should I do about it? Obey every single one of those people? Then it’s just easier not to post anything about any character.

Unfortunate as it is, I cannot take care of all of you: it's impossible. You have to take care of yourself. Mute the word, avoid our posts about Jade, whatever feels more suitable. Because we are not going to rewrite the way we view certain characters because of someone else’s bad associations or even just different reading of the said character, it just isn't fair to ask that of someone. You didn’t say “you know, I personally don’t think that Jade is this way, because of this, this and this”. This isn’t how you approached this; you were upset about the fact that I made Jade into a gaslighter instead of making Rook one, and this is clearly your bias. Which is, once again, not a bad thing in itself, it’s just that I still have no idea what exactly you wanted me to do. Even if Rook reminds you of someone from your past, even if Jade is your comfort character, I can’t take those things into account about every single one of our followers, so why should I do it for you? This wouldn’t be fair to the rest of the people here, right?

We are all entitled to our own opinions and feelings, and I wouldn’t dare to argue with you about it anywhere else: this topic is clearly hurting you; so arguing about it would just be mean and uncalled for. But this is our blog, our space and our territory; and we are going to talk about the characters in the way that we want. Especially when this is a hc post, for fuck’s sake.

You didn’t sound offended or mad, you sounded upset. And I might also sound upset, but I actually am a little mad because if you are the person I think you are, I am a bit disappointed by you saying this to me via Anon.

Please understand. I am being this strict because I feel like I need to remind you about certain boundaries that I don’t want to get violated.

Having bad associations and getting triggered by a character is a horrible thing, and as someone who had to rewatch a bunch of stuff to get new fond memories of quite a lot of characters, I understand that,  believe it or not. I actually had to rewatch a lot of shit to get to love some characters again. And it was my fight to fight that Katsu was kind enough to help me with because Katsu is my partner who wanted me to get better: I am a part of Katsu’s life, that’s why Katsu listened patiently when I was mad at a character that had nothing to do with the thing I was actually mad about.

My point is that we have our own circumstances, and you have no idea how bad of a timing this whole shit is. You don’t know what kind of life we live and what we go through right now, and, to put it mildly, it’s not the best, so we’re really not in the mood.

So please. Take care of yourself and just ignore shit that you don’t like because while it might be traumatic for you, to us it might be one of the few things that bring us happiness.

[thenatashapulleyuniverse]

🍬🔪🥐

🍬- post an unpopular opinion about a popular fandom character

This question was hard to answer, but I thought of a response after like two hours of thinking in bed. Before I say what it is, I would like to preface this with the fact that if any of you guys disagree with me, you are free to send me an anonymous ask saying so, or DM me to discuss, or whatever. I am open to changing my mind and love discussion.

That being said, I do not think Takiko Pepperharrow should have been half-white.

I can think of no major and essential reason for her being biracial besides the fact that her being half-English allowed for her to have an interesting sounding last name for the title and her being able to learn English.

Authors are allowed to write in biracial characters. And the biracial experience is no monolith, so who am I to stop a half-Japanese/white person from seeing themselves in Pepper. But Pepper lived in Japan all her life, has been racialized as a Japanese woman, is seen by others as a Japanese woman—and the only thing “foreign” about her appearance is her gray eyes. In her POV, she doesn’t note anybody who pauses to wonder if she’s half white (if I recall correctly. I haven’t read Pepperharrow since last year in January). By all accounts, Pulley could have made her a full Japanese woman and the story nor her character would have changed. 

Pulley's characters of color are written in this interesting way where a lot of them come so incredibly close to introspecting their racial identity in a very English and white world, but do not delve any deeper because Pulley wants to add diversity but doesn't have the experience to say anything more. (Think: Matsumoto talking to Thaniel in Watchmaker about being as English as Francis Fanshaw, he still feels like he's constantly performing whenever he wears Western clothes.) Which is valid. I can understand if she wants to stay in her lane or whatever

And there’s also the argument to be made that well Pepperharrow’s biracial identity doesn’t need to add anything to the story. A person of color can simply exist to be a tool for the narrative and we don’t really need to dwell on their racial background because it simply isn’t important to the larger story. LOOK I GET IT! But this thought can also coexist with the idea that a character’s racial background can affect who they are as a character! How they view themselves, how they act in public, how they act behind closed doors. It adds another interesting layer of characterization!

I can’t help but compare her to Pulley’s other biracial Asian character, Joe Tournier. Whereas I believe Pepper didn’t need to be half-white, I could not say the same for Joe at all. His being half-Chinese creates an interesting contrast to Kite in that both men are hiding who they really are; both men have changed their last names in order to be taken seriously (Kite even lets his Spanish accent show when he’s feeling vulnerable!!) and both have never really felt like they had a place to truly belong to. Joe’s racial background doesn’t add anything world-changing to the overall stakes of the narrative, but it adds a depth to the themes of The Kingdoms about characters finding home. 

tl;dr: my girl pepper didn’t need to be half-white ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

🔪- what's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project

I can't think of anything absurd right now so here's what I've researched in the past and you decide if they're that weird:

pre-colonial filipino boats (because i didnt know if they used sails or not)

victorian dinner party etiquette

victorian stocks and investments

🥐- name one internet reference that will always make you laugh

"they call me the fujoker. why so yurious?"

[toldbytendo]

"no more microphones: how misogynoir continues to reveal itself — it’s time for podcast licenses." 🙄

Hey lovelies,

I’m tired and I wanna talk about it…🤦🏾‍♀️

Podcast licenses should most definitely be a thing. Honestly, if this is the kind of content that "free speech" allows, maybe we need to rethink it altogether. Imagine the peace we'd have if people (men) needed approval before being handed a mic—because right now, it seems like anyone (men) with an internet connection and a bad opinion gets a platform. If a little censorship could keep this kind of nonsense rubbish out of our ears, it may be worth it!

Watching the recent controversy unfold with James and Fuhad from Shxts and Gigs has actually really irritated and annoyed me. James and Fuhad’s comments about Black women weren’t just offhand or "jokes." They were rooted in a long-standing pattern of dehumanising, belittling, and degrading Black women in ways that are too familiar to ignore. I saw their apology, if you can even call it that, and I was left wondering—do they really believe they did something wrong, or are they just trying to calm the storm? When Andrew joined in, laughing at their apology on his own platform, it only made it worse. This is the circle we keep going around in. Men laughing at other men for even attempting to apologise for their wrongdoing, while we, Black women, are left sitting with the pain of being torn apart by the same people we would naturally expect to come to our defence.

First and foremost, it’s absolutely nobody’s place besides Black women to tell us how we should feel about this controversy. We were the ones disrespected and degraded, and it is entirely our right to process and cope with that in whatever way we see fit. Whether that means speaking out, stepping back, or holding onto our anger for as long as we need, it’s not up to anyone else—especially not Black men or those defending these actions—to dictate how we react. We are the offended party here, and we deserve the space to feel, grieve, and respond on our own terms.

My initial thoughts were simple: we (Black women) need to stop expecting Black men with microphones, who *very clearly* do not like Black women, to run to our defense. I’ve spent too much time hoping for the men in our community to step up and recognise the harm they perpetuate, but the truth is, many of them simply won’t. They don’t have the emotional maturity, nor the desire, or mental capacity to understand the nuances of what it means to be a Black woman in this world.

But my perspective has since shifted. It’s not just about expecting them to be ‘pro-Black’ or ‘pro-Black women’. That’s too idealistic at this point. It’s about speaking up against blatant racism and disrespect, especially when it’s directed at women in their own community. This isn’t about policing preference. I truly support and encourage anyone, Black men included to love who they love, wholeheartedly. It’s literally not about who you’re attracted to. It’s about the line that gets crossed when Black women are made to feel inferior, unworthy, and less-than in the eyes of Black men who have been indoctrinated with the same anti-Blackness that white supremacy relies on. You can quite literally see it playing out in this situation, Andrew (a known misogynist, racist and white suprematist) is quite literally getting exactly what he hoped out of this situation.

We’re not even talking about accountability anymore. At this point, it’s about survival. We truly deserve better, but I personally can no longer waste my energy demanding something that feels like it's constantly being denied. I feel so defeated. It’s such a debilitating and depressing experience opening social media and seeing your community, Black women, being dragged, laughed at, bullied and degraded online. We’re only human. We keep calling out the harmful rhetoric. We keep showing how deeply it affects us. Yet, there’s always a flood of Black men defending their behavior, telling us we’re “too sensitive” or that “it’s never that serious.” They show up to silence us rather than holding their brothers accountable.

Would it have been “not that serious” if they had spent an entire podcast episode dragging Black men instead? Would Andrew have laughed and mocked an apology if the target wasn’t Black women, but someone who looked like him? There’s no question that they would have had something to say. But when it’s about us?

Crickets. 🦗

I don’t have the energy to argue anymore. We’re in 2024. If Black men haven’t unlearned their internalized racism by now, then they never will. Anti-Blackness runs rampant within our own community, and it breaks my heart. I’ve said all I can, and I know many of you feel the same—tired, heartbroken, and utterly defeated.

The truth is, we don’t need validation from these men, and we don’t need to keep begging for respect. We’ve seen time and time again that some of them just aren’t capable of giving it. But what we do need is to recognise that our hurt is valid, and it’s okay to feel disturbed by what’s happening. It’s okay to be bothered when you see these “apologies” that do nothing but laugh in the face of accountability. It’s okay to disengage, to stop pouring your energy into a well that doesn’t run deep enough to support you.

At times like these, the importance of looking to one another, to other Black women, for a sense of community is more crucial than ever. We need to uplift one another because, as painful as it is, controversies like this reveal some dark realities that come with being a Black woman. But it’s just one part of the experience—it doesn’t define us. Unionising and speaking out when disrespect like this occurs is essential, not just to raise awareness but for ourselves—to make it clear that we see what’s happening and we will not forget. But once we’ve spoken up, we also need to remind ourselves to move on from these moments of disrespect.

This ridiculousness will never define Black womanhood, because only we have the power to define who we are. Black womanhood is not aggression, manipulation, or whatever else they try to paint us as. We know better. It’s a multifaceted, beautiful experience that can never be reduced to the tired, harmful stereotypes these men keep pushing. We don’t need to rely on podcasts hosted by racists, misogynists, and anti-Black clowns to tell us who we are. Our sense of self, our strength, and our beauty is something only we can shape, and we do.

Because at the end of the day, it’s not about expecting better from them anymore. It’s about demanding respect for ourselves—whether they give it to us or not. And sometimes, that means stepping back to protect your peace.

Just had to get that off my chest, feeling a lot at the moment. 🫠🥴

[midnightechoes]

Okay, so I wanna talk about Jaune a little bit (RWBY volume 9 spoilers warning)

My friend @shera-dnd​ (and others on the internet) have pointed out that in the opening of volume 9, when we see Alyx, we see that there is a second set of footprints already there.

And after today’s episode (v9e5), it seems likely that those prints are Jaune’s, and that he was The Rusted Knight that Alyx writes about.

Also judging from this last episode, Jaune’s been there a while. I had a feeling that this would be the case, and I think a lot of us expected it to an extent. My suspicions that Jaune arrived first was reinforced when we saw Neopolitan arrive so much later than Ruby, despite falling at the same time.

Jaune being the Rusted Knight certainly isn’t surprising, we’ve all been speculating that since we saw the first trailer last July, but I’m not sure many of us were thinking that he was the ORIGINAL Rusted Knight. I figured he would have arrived a few weeks or maybe months before everyone else. But this man’s obviously been here for a few decades at least!

Although, it could have been even longer. We don’t know how time really works in the Ever After, and we have no idea how it affects humans. Do we age at the same rate there? Slower? Faster? 

Back in volume 8, when Ozpin talks about the “Girl Who Fell Through the World” fairy tale, he calls it an old fairy tale. Pure speculation, but if Ozpin is calling it an old fairy tale, then I wouldn’t be shocked it it was a century old at least. If time in the Ever After flows at near the same rate as on Remnant, Jaune’s been there for over a 100 years.

But again, we don’t know how time really works in the Ever After, especially in relation to how it passes on Remnant.

Either way, Jaune’s been in the Ever After for years. His character model certainly has similarities to that of older characters like Qrow, Willow, and Raven, meaning he’s probably well into his 40s at least.

Our poor boy has spent more of his life in the Ever After than on Remnant!

I feel so bad for him. Most of the options feel very bittersweet. Does he go back to Remnant finally, and have to face his teenage best friends as an old man? Does he get de-aged when he returns? And if he does, does he retain his memories? I’m not sure which way is worse. To have gone through that much, only to have it erased feels... hollow. And if he keeps them, he’ll now be a 19 year old with over 40 years of life experience. That’s gotta mess you up.

But what if he stays? What if the Ever After and being the Rusted Knight feels like his calling to him? Could he trust that those feelings were true? Maybe he had come to feel that way as a way to deal with his predicament.

Life in the Ever After feels very... narrow. Which probably works for the denizens of the place, they were made to be content with fulfilling their roles. But Jaune’s human, and we tend to have more robust wants and needs.

Again, he probably pushed a lot of those down or forgot them in order to deal with his situation, but there’s something tremendously sad about him remaining there, content with his narrow existence.

I feel for our poor boy. He’s struggled all his life and had to overcome so much, only for him to be stuck in this position, with mostly only complicated, not great options to choose from.

If you had told me after volume one that someday I would be in near tears at the prospect of Jaune’s fate, I would not have believed you, but here we are. There’s a very real chance that this is Jaune’s last volume, and that his fate may be very bittersweet, and the very thought breaks my heart.

[jimmyogames]

Game Feel and How It Can Make or Break an Experience

What's up. I'm Jimmy, also known as JCJimmy, also known as "shitty Ridley", also known as yet another douchebag on the internet.

Things I hate about the essays I see online: meandering, summarizing, and barely-supported theses. It's my goal with this blog to avoid these pitfalls, or may God or Allah or whoever strike me down with a flaming, nuclear anvil like the proverbial Looney Tune I am.

With that out of the way, today I want to talk about "game feel", and particularly how it can strongly affect one's ability to enjoy games regardless of their other qualities.

Let's start from the top: what the fuck does "game feel" even mean? Video games are usually on screens, right? Is game feel the sensation of a cold, Dorito-smeared screen against your equally-smeared hands? No. Is it the Dorito-smeared controller in your hands? Partially, but also no. Believe it or not, what I call "game feel" has nothing to do with Doritos at all!

When I say "game feel", I'm actually talking about a few different things — all bunched together like three kids in a trench coat. The elements of game feel are "controls", "pacing", and "feedback". Let's explore each of these one at a time, starting with controls.

So obviously, what makes video games stand apart from movies is that you have the ability to play them — to control them, interact with them, influence the events within to produce various outcomes. A movie will always go through the same series of scenes at the exact same pace, every single time. Video games are the exact opposite: there are infinitely many ways that they can play out depending on the unique series of command any given player inputs. That's the core of games as a whole, even beyond the digital realm. What you do matters.

But games are as varied as the people who play them, and every game controls differently, has different ways for you to interface with them. In Pong, for instance, you can only move your paddle up and down, and that movement is instantaneous the millisecond you move your joystick. Then you have something like the original Super Mario Bros. Compared to the titles that came after it, the very first Mario is ludicrously simple; yet compared to Pong, it might as well be a leap into a new dimension. Pressing the arrows on the D-pad doesn't just move Mario any which way instantly. First of all, you can only move left and right; vertical movement is controlled by the jump button. Beyond that, unlike in Pong, Mario is governed by a set of physics. Just like in real life, he has to build up to his maximum speed and ramp down when he wants to stop. Jumping has a distinct arch and is affected by the speed at which you were travelling. Running and jumping are ostensibly Mario's only mechanics, but you can see just how complicated his control is versus what came before, yeah?

Well, as we all know, just as there was a leap from Pong to Super Mario Bros., video games would only become more and more complex with time. Third-person action games like Resident Evil 4 and Dark Souls make the NES look like a toy for infants with how many inputs there are to learn and master; and the less I say about DOOM: Eternal's trillions of inputs, the better.

What I'm trying to say, though, isn't that simple controls or complex controls are better or worse than the other. I simply want to emphasize just how varied games can be on the basest of levels, and why it's important to consider how a game controls before anything else — because the ease with which you can pick up a game and start playing is often what makes or breaks an experience altogether.

This is why I, personally, can't stand playing Super Mario 64. To me, the controls of that game just don't aren't fun to interface with. The physics of the original Super Mario Bros. are already rough enough to get used to, but put that same hefty gravity and momentum into the third-dimension, and it goes from being something to get accustomed to to a wet blanket weighing down the overall experience. I don't like making jumps in Mario 64; I don't like the wall-jump and how finnicky it is; and I really don't like it when the game expects precision performance with such clunky movements.

Super Mario Sunshine, on the other hand, controls like a dream to me. It's as if the iron ingots in Mario's underwear were extracted, giving him the freedom to fly through the air with agility that 64 Mario could only dream of. Couple that with FLUDD and the number of different techniques like the spin jump, and Sunshine is about as "fluid" as a 3D platformer can get, to my estimation. When I boot up Sunshine, I can hop right in and get to having fun in the various jungle gyms the game has constructed for me; when I boot up 64, I feel an exhaustion overtake me before I even get off the main menu, knowing that I'll have to take some time to reacclimate myself with Mario's gelatinous jumps and acrobatics. And don't even get me started on the actual Metal Mario you can play as.

Like I said earlier, however, control is only a third of what makes up "game feel"; another element of it is the game's pacing.

Pacing, put simply, is the flow of events from one to another. Think of how long movie scenes last before there's a camera cut to a different shot. The amount of time it takes for each cut is part of the pacing; the general progression of the narrative is the other big part of pacing. Both of these factors apply to games as well.

Just as every game controls differently, every game is paced differently, as well. There are fast games — Super Meat Boy, Ultrakill, and of course the likes of Sonic. There are slow games, too — puzzle games like Portal, text-heavy games like Disco Elysium, and even platformers that require more deliberation from the player, like Castlevania. The overall speed of a game can be either appealing or unappealing depending on what you like, or even how you feel at any given moment. No game is inherently flawed from its general pacing alone.

That said, games can be paced poorly, regardless of the speed at which they play. Let's pick on Sonic, as I am wont to do. Most of his games are blistering from start to finish, but there are a few outliers that really shit the bed. One of the most infamous examples is Sonic Unleashed, where half the game is spent running around like a coke fiend at a hundred miles an hour... and the other half is a half-baked God of War ripoff beat-'em-up that moves at a fraction of a snail's pace. That wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing if the two gameplay styles were integrated more cohesively. Instead, most of the time, you get to play one super-fast level before being thrown headfirst into a series of brawler stages that each take upwards of twenty minutes to complete. That is poor pacing, and if it's poor enough, it can easily be a reason why someone would drop their controller and go off to do something like pay their taxes, because even that's more entertaining than another half an hour of Sonic x DMC stuck in a brick of molasses.

On the contrary, when a game is paced really well, it can be downright hypnotizing, and you can kiss many hours of your life goodbye before you even start playing. Ultrakill, for instance, is broken up into levels that can be cleared sometimes in under a minute. This makes it appealing to go through stages again and again, grinding your times down; and because the game is just so fucking fast, it never feels like you're stuck doing one thing for too long. An hour of playing Ultrakill barely feels like any time at all. Again, though, even games with lower speed can have intoxicating pacing. Disco Elysium gets sucked off every day between my friends and I, and I'm about to give it another round of sloppy dome for how well it's paced. While it's slow to go around, talking to people, wading through mountains of text, there's always something interesting for you to do in DE. You can help solve local mysteries, try and recover pieces of your missing identity, learn about the history of the slum you're stuck in, or even, if you truly must... try and deal with that pesky case that your partner keeps telling you is sooo important.

Good pacing makes it easy to slip into a "flow-state", a kind of zen where you and the game are like lovers, entwined in a waltz of fun and frolic that can only be broken by realizing that it's nine PM and you have work tomorrow and oh god I haven't eaten yet and-

Bad pacing is a dance where neither you nor your partner know the moves and so you kind of just bumble around until you end up falling on your face and wishing dearly that you were anywhere else, doing anything else.

Lastly, an often overlooked aspect of a game's feel is its "feedback". The exact definition of "feedback" as it pertains to video games can be a bit nebulous, but if I were to try and describe it the best I can, I would say that feedback is how a game responds to your actions.

Donkey Kong Country Returns is one of my all-time favorite games, and it masters game feel in many ways. One such way is how the game responds to what DK does in the world. When you jump on an enemy, for example, there's a loud, satisfying bop that plays both from the game and from your Wiimote, emphasizing just how well you gave that baddie a righteous smackdown. DKCR puts you in the shoes of your player character masterfully; every jump you make, every enemy you kill makes you feel like you're actually a five-hundred pound gorilla, mercilessly bulldozing your way to reclaim what's rightfully yours.

But when a game lacks feedback, it's just kind of... underwhelming. Imagine if you stomped on a Goomba in Mario and there wasn't a nice little ba-boop in response to the impact. Imagine if you didn't bounce up either, so you just kind of fell down on top of the Goomba, silently flattening it. That would be so fucking lame, right?

I wanted to try and keep my examples diverse here, but since he just has so much relevant material, I'll talk about Sonic again. Particularly Sonic 2006, that notorious stain on the franchise's record that I am honestly surprised it survived. 06 has enough problems to fill a book, but in relation to the topic at hand, one thing it did wrong was feedback. In most other Sonic titles, when you homing attack an enemy, there's a crunchy wham, accompanied by the enemy you just blasted going flying off or outright exploding. It's fast, it's satisfying, and it reinforces the power that you wield while playing as this character. In Sonic 06, when you attack an enemy, there's usually just a little metal... bonk. And that's about it. Most enemies in 06 have large health bars, so don't count on them going flying after only a single hit. Instead, you have to repeatedly hammer them like a bent nail, and when they finally go down, they do so literally, ragdolling as if you were playing Garry's Mod and not a Sonic game. Instead of making you feel strong and giving your actions tangible weight, it makes you feel weak — flaccid, even. You aren't a blue cannonball of death; you're a wet stick slapping around your enemies until they lie down in sheer pity. In any other game, this would be a glaring flaw, but as far as 06 goes, it's just another problem for the pile.

Sonic 06 actually encapsulates all three of the things I've talked about today: it controls like ass; the pacing of its gameplay and story are agonizing, especially if you're a fan of Sonic's usual speed; and it barely reacts to the things you do, making it seem more like you're clacking action figures together rather than controlling a real character in a real, physical world. It is pretty miserable.

As for games with great game feel, I can think of a few examples... DOOM: Eternal, mentioned briefly before, is a pretty stellar one. It controls well (despite the amount of inputs you need to keep track of at all times), it's paced so that any stage never overstays its welcome, and the way demons blow apart into meaty chunks when hit by a Super Shotgun blast says more about its feedback than I ever could. Other games with tremendous game feel (excluding those already discussed) include Pizza Tower, Darkest Dungeon (1 and 2), the Like a Dragon series, both Hotline Miamis, and Sonic Mania (had to throw the blue fuck a bone at least once).

Thus concludes today's discussion. If you got this far, thank you for reading. I want to make running this blog a consistent thing, but for that, I will need support. Feel free to suggest topics for me to talk about using the blog's submission feature, as well as to post your thoughts down below.

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That's all I have to say for now. Take care.

[ilikethisacompletelynormalamount]

It feels like Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal are lifelong friends, even though they insist their bond formed while working together on All of Us Strangers, the new drama from Looking and Weekend filmmaker Andrew Haigh.

On a Friday afternoon in Los Angeles in November, the pair remain in their own world. A cacophony of publicists and camera operators swirl around them, in the thick of a string of media interviews, but Scott, 47, and Mescal, 27, sit calmly shoulder-to-shoulder in a press room having their own private, whispered conversation. It's difficult to make out, which only makes you want to know what they're saying that much more. And when you pry, they shrug it off.

Perhaps this was what Haigh was talking about when he said, during an awards-season Q&A for the American Film Institute, that the three of them went to a concert in London together and his actors "completely ignored" him most of the day. "We didn't!" Scott insists. "That's not true," Mescal adds, laughing. "That's a little bit of hyperbolic directorial license," Scott says. "We need to have a word with him." *

*(emphasis entirely mine, because, seriously Andrew Haigh, wtf was that interview)

It's no wonder the internet has fallen for the bond between these Irish gents, fawning over photos of Mescal attending Scott's birthday party at a club.* The pals say they only knew of each other "a little bit" prior to All of Us Strangers, but "not as well as we know each other now," Scott quips — alluding to the sex scenes they shot together for the movie. "We know everything. The whole kit and caboodle!" However, once people see the film — part romance, part ghost story — it's their emotional bond they forge on screen that stands out... and often leads to overt sobs from the audience.

*(a club that was definitely NOT in Spain, no matter what you may have read on Twitter, just so we're clear. It was also the wrap party for Vanya, which had just ended that evening in London, so unless he has super powers, Spain's not possible. Also, Andrew was surrounded by other friends and practically everyone involved in the play, not there with just Paul FFS. Sorry, sorry, carry on. )

...

Scott and Mescal joke how it was their Irish heritage that helped them understand what Haigh was going for. "The means to express is something that we as a culture are still processing," Mescal says. "I think that's why Irish actors, generally speaking, are good at playing the stuff beneath the surface. A good healthy dose of repression helps the ol' acting." The connection these actors forge through performance is palpable. It was a surprise even to them how affected the audience became when they attended their first public screening of All of Us Strangers in Los Angeles earlier in the week. "I was balling," Scott recalls. "We had to do a Q&A afterwards. I was really emotional."

...

"To play being in love or falling in love with someone, it's the best, completely wonderful thing to be able to do," Scott says. "We were starting to get to know each other [as people], as well. Beyond our preliminary friendship, it was like both of those experiences were coexisting."

This was a very good article, you should absolutely click through and read it all so that EW knows that we are interested in this film and these actors!

(Thank you for indulging my asides, I just had some things I needed to get off my chest 😆)

[tavina-writes]

i find it extremely funny that we (mxtx fandoms in general but mdzs especially) will get into huge shouting matches about timelines and research and accuracy and meanwhile she was like "the death of the nie bros' dad, an event extremely important to explaining the buildup to the war that affected literally every single member of the cast, could have happened anywhere in these five whole-ass years" and "yeah they totally had potatoes don't worry about it lol". truly airplane was an autobiographical character.

You know nonny, I DO find this intensely funny at times. My uh, main source of "shaking my head at this" happens when inevitably, meta goes around and we rush back and forth going "X WAS A GOOD PERSON" and "X WAS EVIL! EVIL!" etc, which happens every now and again and always makes me a bit like "ah, yes, it's difficult to convey nuance and also differing points of view that may in whole or in part also be legitimate and valuable to discuss on a place like tumblr/the internet in general because it is difficult to grapple with uncertainties and we often want to nail things down one way or another so we can figure out if we're right or not" <- but this often comes out as me writing a joke post. Or a saltier post than I intended. Sometimes because I'm tired and sometimes because I just happen to be a salty individual on main.

And I do think fandom is a place where like, multiple interpretations of an event or a statement or a character's "morality" and themes and choices are often equally valid. And fandom should be a place for that, that's what makes fandom fun. If there was a One True Interpretation of the text there'd be no need for interpreting text at all, and that's distinctly sad for me. That's no fun. Anyone who tries to use their knowledge to cudgel people into the One True Interpretation is wrong, btw.

Though I think, and here's where I feel that research and accuracy is a nuanced thing and should actually be of consideration for meta/fic/engaging with fandom in general, and why perhaps people strive for it -- the "lol, potatoes" and "poetry from whatever era I want" is fun! MXTX, however, is still writing about a fantasy version of her own culture, which offers along with it a foundational basis of knowledge that makes this...easier? And again, here's where the part of me that does enjoy these anachronisms and inaccuracies (because they're fun and since we have flying swords why not potatoes) wars with the part of me that's also like, "okay but there is a difference between 'not knowing enough to be respectful of the background surrounding the characters and why that might inform their actions' and 'I've decided that peppers, which did not exist in Eurasia prior to the Columbian Exchange are a big thing here now.'" The difference is respect. Different members of fandom will draw this line in different places and it hits different on different days.

And this is one of the struggles of engaging with foreign language media a lot of the time - we try to strike a balance between engaging with it based on our own experiences and backgrounds and not accidentally saying anything offensive or strange or 'that would totally never happen' or 'he would not fucking talk like that' and I've found, with my time in this fandom, most people who are concerned with accuracy and research are largely trying to be respectful and avoid such gaffes.

Over the two or so years I've been here, I've also reacted to people who've insisted their interpretation is the correct one when it was definitely a case of 'the version Chinese culture that I'm familiar with 200% does not work like that', and saltily wandered off to vent about how 'this is inaccurate and also rude' or try to explain why it wouldn't happen like that. Maybe this comes off as preachy at times, or overly concerned with "accuracy," but that is typically where that sort of reaction comes from for me. I expect this is probably true for other people as well!

And by no means like, do we only engage in fandom because we want to be educated or educate others, and by no means is that an obligation of any fic writer or meta writer or casual fandom goer. We engage with media because it engages us, and we engage with fandom because we love community, and sometimes its no more complex than that.

I enjoy research and art history so that's typically why this appears in my fic, and I started out on doing it to better connect with my own heritage, which I've found more important to me as I've gotten older, so that's where it comes from for me.

Apologies nonny, this was probably not the answer you were looking for and I do commiserate, I'm just chronically unable to be funny on main. 😔

TLDR: there's always nuance in everything unfortunately. Even if this is the no nuance webbed site.

[sassykinzonline]

"het sasuke" and this blog

honestly the thing that was most hurtful about that situation is not them threatening to kill me for betraying their favourite ship (i didnt), them admitting to harassing me and others for entertainment/because they were jealous i was talking to people other than them, or them thinking they can give me ultimatums on what to do

it was one throw away line that turned out to be a much bigger piece of the puzzle: "i asked someone else and they also are uncomfortable by you."

this person knew extensively of my anxiety how it affected me. i had discussed it with them privately and publicly. in an attempt to manipulate me, they went around not only to our group of friends but to others to lie about the situation, misrepresent me, and gain ammo to "convince me" to do what they want exclusively. mind you, this is a straight man whose blog is full of porn of anime girls and thinks gay people cant have children.

so now, coincidentally all of a sudden im seeing posts about "hating sasuke being mischaracterized as heterosexual" from blogs and freaking out because this person planted the idea in my head that people secretly hate my blog. i have been on the internet for a long time and have experienced a lot of things, one of them being how a small lie can turn into a harassment campaign. i also personally have experience with someone cyberstalking me to abuse me based on their interpretation of the content.

for my own peace of mind i'm just going to clarify a couple things:

the first instance of "heterosexuality" was a friend saying they got more notifs from me than someone they were romantically pursuing and they were nervous, i tried to make them feel better by saying logically that means we are dating instead. this person has 0 romantic interest in me, so i made the joke knowing theyd react in ire and it would be a fun back and forth to take their mind off the situation.

the second instance of "heterosexuality" is another friend who is not romantically interested in me (in fact theyre interested in itachi, so part of this started as me wanting to beat itachi) that had offered to be a surrogate and godmother to sasunaru children. thats it. thats the context behind jokes between us.

the third instance of "heterosexuality" was me making fun of people's (of all genders) interest in me. it wasnt a serious appeal.

now at the end of the day i justify these choices with these three ideas: "sasuke regularly uses teasing and banter to throw friends off kilter for amusement" "sasuke's only longterm interactions with women are women who disrespect and objectify him" "sasuke's priority is the people he cares about, and is more comfortable around such people". i dont think these ideas are mischaracterizations.

more than anything though, i recognize that as an autistic person with anxiety, this situation has successfully stressed me out to the point where im scared to interact with my blog at all. i cannot tell how serious these posts about hating/being angry about a "heterosexual sasuke" or a "sasuke who doesnt hate women" are. i dont know whether these are people who interact with me/that i interact with but secretly hate me. i cannot tell if people are genuinely angry with me, but i also cannot ask because it would draw attention to me that i dont want. but because this person intentionally put me into a triggered state over it, im starting to care about things i normally wouldnt. i recognize that on its face, being "accused of being too straight" is ridiculous. in order to not be a hypocrite, i personally block people before i criticize something theyve said or done.

so im going to take an indefinite break from posting/interacting until i can calm down from that state. thanks and sorry to those who supported me the past few days.