#also the media control here is fucking atrocious

[vorpalmuchness]

I'm screaming at Speed 1994 like I'm a straight man watching football

[bookishtheaterlover7]

/ He literally said it out loud at NYCC but y’all refuse to believe it. //

Honey Chris has said A LOT of things over the years to the point he has his fandom questioning the validity of this “union” so do you really want to go there?!

How about this….tell his ass to drop the wedding pics, that would shut everyone up,… oh wait they can’t.

The optics would be atrocious, people will say they are photoshopped, Chris would be a fool and ridiculed because it would prove this is legit and he was never who he claimed to be. His wife is racist, her friends are racist, so therefore Chris……yep and she literally was rude to the reporters at the GQ event, yet we’re supposed to believe Chris is the decent man so many claimed he was? Nope.

Also he controls what she’s allowed to share and do, he married a twenty something year old from a foreign country, had her ass living. With him for a year so that he could mold her.

The red pill idiots are making him their king.

He won’t ever be allowed to publicly talk about social injustice because people will forever call him out.

So, yeah let him drop the wedding pics so this bs can officially end and we can all move the fuck on permanently and stop holding on to the hope he’s better than the above. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Also, they could have had a pic or two added to the thousands of articles talking about them being married, wouldn’t need to do all of this pushing media wise if it were legit. He could have ended the speculation months ago, yet here we are.

THANK YOU, AN🫶N FOR PUTTING ALL OUT THERE WITH NO FILTER!!!

This is genuine, and I will let you go off, because I have nothing else to add 🥹

[strawberry-nugget]

𝙈𝙤𝙤𝙙 𝙈𝙪𝙨𝙞𝙘 | E.Kirishima x Reader

Pairing: Kirishima/ reader, Bakugo/ reader (mentioned)

Summary: You shouldn't want him and he shouldn't want you, it's sinful and forbidden. But he can't help coming back to you, and you can't do anything but take him in every single time. Until today that is.

Word Count: 3.6k

Warnings: Aged up characters (twenties), NSFW 18+, plot with some p//rn but it's not very detailed, unprotected sex (please use condoms everyone), cheating, casual penetrative sex, jealousy, the seggz is pretty vanilla though

↪A/N: tennis player Kirishima, tennis player Kirishima, idk how I came up with it but I can't get it out of my head, written for @doinmybesthere 's 3k event collab and based on The Hills by the Weeknd, don't be shy to tell me if you liked it, I almost wrote 4k in a day which is unusual for me

5.30pm [Missed Call: Red]

5.31pm [Missed Calls(2): Red]

The bubbling notifications are spamming your phone, each call, succeeding the other in persistence and length, making your phone crawl onto your coffee table in restless buzzing. To your salvation the device is on silent; you're just unable to bear the overwhelming sound of your ringtone echo through the empty walls of your apartment, to let it bounce between concrete like a slimy ball, only for it to hit you on the face with tremendous force.

It's one of those days that you can't answer Kirishima. Too perplexed in the wields of your mind, blaming yourself for this horrendous situation, delivering raw swears at him for simply existing.

You don't know how it came to this nor when was the exact moment things switched. Was it at the party that you met him? Or the thousandth time you took him in and let him ruin relationship after relationship. Either way it was horrible for not only you, but also him, and all the people that have been caught up in the sidelines of this rotten affair.

You shouldn't want this anymore and truly, you don't. You're tired of being the second choice, of hiding behind your little finger, crying yourself to sleep at night, only to put on a sultry face for every time he comes. Once, twice a month.

[New Messages: Red]

Babe, you there?

Read 5.38pm

[New Messages: Red]

Babe I got practice at 8.

I know you're reading those.

Read 5.39pm

[Red is typing…]

[New Messages: Red]

I'm outside btw

A fresh, tremendously sharp wave of anxiety rushes through you at the little notification -it can't be like this again, not today. The thudder in your chest is unbearable, heart too weak to stomach the weight of your decision, fingers too reluctant to type out your response.

He's probably smirking while staring at his phone, not a single care in his head. It's loathing to your mind as you confirm your speculation, shooting a glance out of your window, landing your eyes on his car.

He shouldn't be here.

His thousands dollar car doesn't belong in your urban street, not in your side of the town. And it's so dangerous that he's doing this to see you. You've played the worst scenarios in your head a thousand times, millions of headlines on sites and the news about this; Eijirou Kirishima, on his way to claiming a fifth Grand Slam, caught in affair with university student.

Atrocious, degrading, exposing. A hit to his career that would bother the media for a couple of weeks and paint your name in mud along the way.

Why can't he just be content with the model that he's with? You're nothing like her, not as pretty and you don't have her body, you don't have her face, but he still says he finds you better, says he knows you better, but he just can't be with you.

[You]

Can't do it today

Sorry

You're good to yourself, only when you deny him and only when you feel the satisfaction of being the one to do so. It's pointless to sulk over saying no. He can go fuck other girls, play with their hearts and leave you to your otherwise peaceful life. Even if it is just for today.

You don't have the chance to let a smile creep to your face when your doorbell rings. The jiggling sound bursts into your eardrums once and twice, three dreaded times and they're enough to make your stomach churn, your neck tight and your skin ache.

You contemplate on opening the door for him, subconsciously letting yourself feel like a vulnerable prey, who, after running away to save yourself, is choosing to walk into the wolf's den, so willingly that you can feel yourself drifting away with each step you're taking towards the door.

"Babe,"

The swing of your door handle, the crack of your wrist, the creaking of your door as it opens to reveal him; they're all embarrassing. You can't tell if they fall short on his ears, too caught up in the way he looks -all swollen muscles and tall legs. You're running out of courage to say no and he knows this.

He's not as innocent as this cheeky smile frames him out to be, he's not the sweetheart everyone wants him to be either.

He's Eijirou, who's selfishly standing on your door, who's barging his way in your apartment, who's grabbing your cheeks and slamming your face in his, biting your lips until he draws blood, just to punish you for standing up against him.

Your door is slammed behind him, one bend of his knee and it's falling into its rightful place. To shield the sins of your affair, to bring you comfort and privacy as he attacks parts of your neck, your chest. Places that only squeeze perfectly under his touch.

"Babe," He calls again, in between soft kisses. "What's gotten into you?"

You frown and try to look away, past his cocoa colored orbs, past the swelling that's taking over his lips -and yours- with a numbing, tingling sensation.

"Eijirou—"

"I don't have much time in between training, I got a game the day after tomorrow."

It's always like this, you know. He doesn't have to tell you twice or try to excuse his own self for what he does or how he acts. You're pushed between schedules, or slammed into his timetable like a truck when he feels like indulging with you again, hidden between the lines of his free time.

You're sure at this point that it's the thrill he's after. The sinful taste of your lips on his, how he feels in control while chasing after you, when you can't keep up with him.

His lips don't taste like sour cherry anymore, but you let them wiggle against yours with triumph, you let him want to catch his breath as he pulls back and you put the minimum effort in returning the passion you receive.

You pull back, ignoring the words he's whispering against your face, only to take in his features once again.

Soft black hair pulled into a low ponytail, spiky bangs that fly all over his face and his tips drowned in a fiery, foxy red. The only reminder for who he was before his tennis career blew up. For who he was before he turned into this cocky womanizer whom you're desperately after with a longing heart.

"I'm just not in the mood today."

"Well let's get you in the mood then huh?"

He smiles, nose scrunching and chapped lips hiding behind his gums as his hand moves to your thigh, tagging your shorts with furry. As if he's desperate to have you, right here and now. As if bending you over the couch will help put out a fire in him. That's how he always convinces you to keep this going.

He's making you feel like not having you this way is insufferable.

You're buried in the crook of his neck while being pushed onto the couch, nibbling a soft spot that you've found, rubbing his skin on the top of your tongue. You know how to do this without leaving a mark, you can hold back from wanting to take all you can get from him.

But today it's different. It's going to be the last time.

It's not like any other time you've told yourself that you are going to end this. Today you're going to leave a mark, you're going to bite your way into his skin and drink from his poison -the intimate attention he's only ever willing to give- and you'll get drunk in it.

"Fuck," He grunts against your lips. "Fuck, don't stop that feels good."

You don't stop, eager to listen to him, to breathe into his neck before you wrap your lips a little lower and closer to his collarbone. You should be asking if this will cause him problems, but gone is the guilt that veils your coinsense otherwise. You suckle on a spot and then another, stealing his groaning moans one by one as they fall from his lips, plushing them softly in a spongy part of your brain, where they can rest forever, until you've forgotten them.

"Get your shirt off Eijirou," You plea, ogling eyes watering from the pressure that's applied in the apex of your thighs and he's quick to follow your command, lips curling upwards in a sweetheart smirk.

You're going to miss the way the apples of his cheeks cover his eyes when he smiles like this. But there's no going back for you and him.

With legs that feel like burning rubber you hug around his horse, watching the way his muscles flex and fold with his snappy movements. His shirt, tousled and wrinkly, tossed in an unknown corner of your living room, only for him to guess where it is after he's gotten his fix of you.

Thick fingers probe at your sides, pulling your shirt downwards in a silent plea, take off your shirt, give him the satisfaction that he wants, indulge into this as much as he wants you to.

But today, you're not in the mood for this. So instead of pulling your shirt off, you unbuckle your pants, pulling them down at the most dreadful speed, making him bite his lip impatiently.

You won't miss this, the way he's expecting so many things of you.

And if he notices something's wrong, he doesn't say a word, presumably content with getting what he wants; the rear view of the gap between your legs, where he can bury himself and get lost for the next thirty minutes.

"Fuck baby," he moans. "Why do you smell so good?"

You grunt, averting your gaze from his as he pushes your bangs away from your face with the back of his hand. You want to miss his puppy eyes. Ghosting him won't be easier for you if you don't.

But damn if he couldn't read you this well, things would be easier.

"Not in the mood to talk?" You look even further away to avoid the question, "babe, you can tell me if you're not well, you'll feel better if you let it out"

You don't need someone to tell you how to feel. You've decided when the two of you are going to be through. It's set and done, even if he feels at the top of the world right now, you won't inflate his ego anymore.

"M fine Eijirou, put it in," You bite his lip, putting huge effort in making him forget about what he thinks it's bothering you. "Want you to put it in m'kay?"

Sultry, fake voice, he's heard it all before and he doesn't have the right to call you out for it. Whatever he does next, you're his for the moment and for the last time.

Repeating is your rightful way of convincing yourself of not giving up on your decision. If only he could have broken up before deciding to wet himself in you, if only you hadn't taken him so eagerly, if only you hadn't become just like him. Welcoming him despite availability status, afraid to lose him, saying that a little sex wouldn't hurt. If you could do this on repeat, then you could get rid of him quite as easily.

You're not better than him and he's taken your vulnerability to him for granted. He's loved the attention you've paid him from time to time, whenever he's given you so much as a mere call.

You should pretend to moan, to hurt his ego, but as he's delving into you, slowly, mellowy, his kisses feel like burning sunshine, August breeze against your skin, kissing your shoulders lightly. It hurts that this salvation is coming from his mouth, as it moves rhythmically against every inch of you.

"Fuck, fuck, ah, you feel so good, you know that?"

You don't answer, nor do you wrap your lips around him. You don't move them against his when he goes to kiss you, but you coo into his warm embrace once his hands come to cradle you in a tight embrace.

"I love you," He slips up and you contemplate on whether you have to start hating him from this very moment. "I just wanna be with you, I—" He grunts. “—this is why you don't believe him, but nonetheless you hold a moan in as well. "Fuck, I'll break up just for you.”

Now that's a new one. A new addition to the long list of red flags you have with his name on top. You can't fall for it. You absolutely can't. If you do, he'll treat you just like this, he'll fuck behind your back and kiss you goodnight before going off to sleep with someone else. Like he's slept with you, once, twice, thrice.

And you're going to hate being the one who's fooled, despite deserving it more than anyone else. And another girl, or guy, is going to be his subject of desire.

You shouldn't want him to be yours, but you're lewding your 'I love yous' out of your mouth like they're nothing, poisoning your heart until there's nothing left but dust and sucked up blood, all devoured by the greed he's made you feel.

"You love me too?"

"I do," You cry, rocked between him and the couch, neck hurting by the way he's digging his teeth in yours.

"I'll fucking leave everything for you babe,"

He shouldn't. He won't. You tell yourself he's only saying this because he wants to come, to make you feel dirty with his actions and fish out words that make him ecstatic or send him over the edge from your mouth.

Rhythms are peaking, his hips burning from his movements, foreheads are dripping in sweat, lips taste salty against each other. The perfect picture, the most tingling sensation, and you're too fucked to go back, or keep yourself content with him. It feels the same as the last time, a numbing knot in your stomach, commanding you to rip your heart out and throw it away, spooning mewls out of your mouth.

If you could, you'd mute him, not wanting to listen to how beautiful he sounds as he's coming down from his high. If you could, you'd look away, and wouldn't try to burn the image of his body as he's falling apart in your mind.

"That was—" The sigh that leaves his chest through his mouth is liberating, you can tell—"amazing. I still love you, so much babe."

His hand soothing the pain of his thrusts, does nothing to make you feel better. You want to shove it away, but you don't, unhappy with the way you're turning out to be.

"It's time for you to go, Eijirou, isn't it?" You remind him. A hand pushing him off of you and quickly smoothing your T-shirt over your legs to deprive him of the view that'd make him wear a smug of triumph.

"So quick to get me to go. Did you find someone else again sweetheart?"

You don't reply as you're putting on your underwear and pants, shoving his shirt into him with a heavy hand.

"You did, didn't you?"

"None of your business, go off to your practice, your girl, don't patronize me anymore."

He gruffs, beautiful features scowling in that stormy gaze that reeks of his authority, "Here I am pouring my heart on you and you found someone else"

"Eijirou, it's seven thirty, if I were you, I wouldn't be late for practice. You got a game the day after tomorrow."

No more dealing with his pouting, you're going to bawl your eyes out if you have to do it. The sooner he's out of your house, the sooner you'll get this over with; the tight lamp in your throat, the image of him smiling at you like this, him admitting feelings that he shouldn't have.

Hurting him isn't the role that suits you. Because you can't do it. You can't hurt that warm sunshine he has on his face. He has to be the one to hurt you like he's been the one to drive you away. It's too late for him to change or reverse your roles.

You don't want to fight and he knows it.

He knows you, so well, well enough to use you as he wishes to, letting you believe you're using him too. You're going to make him watch you slip away, and he won't do anything about this.

So he's eager to leave as you're pushing him out of the door, he doesn't cup your cheek with his hand, and doesn't kiss your forehead tenderly like he always does.

"You should come to this party Mina is throwing, let me meet your new guy."

Like hell you'd ever do this, he knows, but teasing won't hurt a bit. Eijirou can deal with you dating other men, he's claimed you well before, he'll do it again if he has to, especially now that he's decided to have you.

"Yeah yeah, and if I do, don't ever call me again, 'kay?"

You're too good to not do as he says, or not to fall back to him, and he's too good to not come back to you. To him, you're a match made in heaven, to you, you're a lost cause, burning in the fiery pits of hell as atonement for your sins.

He doesn't know that you'll fall apart before dressing up, how you'll tell yourself you're not doing this for him, but as a statement against him.

You're no better than him, in fact, you're worse.

…

The only problem is, that when Eijirou pulls up at Mina's party after practice, you're already there. Drink in your hand, flared jeans hugging your legs, layered tank tops that cover the bruising truth of this evening, laughing at whatever your friends are saying.

When he puts out his phone, calloused fingers furiously typing a text addressed to you, you're too far gone into another glass, dancing a little dance before grabbing everyone's cups to go for a refill, greeting them in that silent way of yours, drunken smile.

And then you'll pass him by and blink at him, you'll mutter a small greeting and he'll grab you by the hand and whisper in your ear just how hard he'll take you driving the night. You'll swoon, moan, forget about the drinks and follow him anywhere he leads you.

That's how everybody knows about the two of you.

This time, though, you don't cast a single eye on him. In fact, you're tainting him, walking past him while ignoring him, leaving him awestruck and hurt, like his confessions earlier in the day meant nothing to you.

It's a hit to his heart, how your jaw drops as you bump into Bakugo over the kitchen counter, eyes too wide at the sight of him. How your finger dances playfully on his chest and as you smile at him when he whispers something in your ear.

It's infuriating how you drop the cups near the sink and follow Bakugo outside, or how the blond waves at him with a pressed smile against his lips, signaling that he'll be busy for a while.

His insides churn, tummy aching in a feeling of guilt, one unlike anything he's felt before. Losing you doesn't taste in the way he thought he would, it's worse; sour and poisoning. It makes him flee the party, furious and bitter.

When he's back, his body is heavy, feet dragging him across his apartment, mind blank as he follows his basic routine before bed time, fixated on how easy it seemed for you to just ignore him and flee with one of his friends as soon as he came over to the party he invited you to, wondering how you could be so ruthless with him all of a sudden.

Sweet talking Kirishima with a smile of gold, the sweetheart of the professional Tennis scene and you're over him in the split of a second, pushing him away from you without an explanation or heart wrenching speech. Not giving him the satisfaction of some closure, just forcing the cold tempo of your sudden departure in the depths of his heart.

He pays no mind to the girl that sleeps beside him, back turned to him like she's oceans apart, despite the unspoken bound that's keeping them together. He'll leave her, make up for all the damage that he's done, in any way that he can manage to.

It all comes down to the fact that no one can love you like he does, no one can want you like he does. Someone can do it better, but you have to want him.

5.30am [Missed Call: Red]

5.31am [Missed Calls(2): Red]

[New Message: Red]

Fuck, with Bakugo out of everyone?

Delivered: 5.31am

[New Message: Red]

Did you have sex with him?

Babe answer me.

Delivered: 5.32am

[New Message: Red]

I'm breaking up with her tomorrow morning.

And I'll come over.

Babe.

Babe please.

Delivered: 5.33am

[New Message: Red]

I'll take you on a date and we can talk about us okay babe?

Let me know when you wake up.

I love you.

So much.

Delivered: 5.38am

Read: 10.23pm

[You]

(Attached Image)

Sorry 'Red' even if you sound like a total douche, cheeks forgot her phone at my place.

I bet on her answering your late night drama when she takes her phone back.

[Red is typing...]

Super thanks to @celestidarling for proofreading this and giving me the biggest pump of confidence to post

↪Up Next: Dragon King Bakugo

[do-you-have-a-flag]

saw a video commentating on how toxic (buzzword, i know, but i want to capture the general sense of the term before it got overused) twitter is and while it was 100% correct in it’s points (addictive design, harmful culture, negative impact on mental health, encouragement of harassment, lack of control over how things spread ect) hearing this sort of stuff discussed over and over again is kind of repetitive to me and really reminds me that not everyone had the same internet experience i do

i have a moderately addictive tendency with entertainment, i know it so i am extra careful to moderate my use of online spaces so i don’t fall down hate motivated engagement too often (e.g: i will watch a carefully worded essay about an internet weirdo for the sake of curiosity, i won’t view or engage with direct bullying of that person) 

i spent a chunk of my teens in the 2000s looking at memes on one of the most extreme online forums and while it was definitely less consumed by actual hate groups then it still contained a LOT of horrible content so i quickly 1: got desensitised to shock images 2: got to see the risks of being a victim of online targeting 3: learned the syntax or tone of edgy internet humour/trolling. So I learnt how to spot certain patterns and be wary of certain types of people

the result of all of this is that even when encountering tumblr’s brand of harmful content (the sheer amount of E//D and S//H in the early to mid 2010s on here was atrocious) things like dogpiling and sock puppet accounts and drama provocation didn’t really phase me i learnt how to curate it and the same goes for twitter (although i have less control there of how much shit is promoted BY twitter trending)

so like i sympathise with criticisms of tumblr or twitter or tiktok or any other social platform because the attention driven infrastructure of these types of websites really accelerate the WORST messages and behaviours. but at the same time i kind of despair what i consider to be web literacy. 

Web literacy, for lack of a better term, is the kind of learned practicality in using online spaces similar to how people should ideally be taught to evaluate the news and media and social interaction ect. i’ve said it before but when computers became more household standard in the 90s there was a push for child and adult education that was primarily hard/software based, in the 2000s there was SOME online safety stuff introduced but it’s really not until now that the actual impact of the internet as a social space is discussed in how it effects culture. I feel like there’s a gap where older adults have little frame of reference to cope with the web, children lack the critical skills to deal with it on their own, and teens and young adults grew up having to figure a lot of this out on their own so there are gaps.

I wish there were more standards and oversight for how people are taught to interact online and what large web companies were allowed to do with their platforms. i wish other than grouping everything in with “bullying” cyber safety was paired with lessons in curation and restraint and critical thinking. i wish that the predatory and gambling-esque practices of bigger online companies in their infrastructure was restricted and penalised. I wish that the internet was treated as a utility and people’s information and attention weren’t bought and sold as products to companies. I wish a lot of things about how people behave and react online.

i spend too many hours online and not all of it is constructive or engaging with positive topics. but i’m careful about malicious content and negativity bingeing. i make sure that the online spaces i do frequent are wrangled either via algorithm or organised exploration into environments i find fun and engaging. mainstream media like tv and radio didn’t allow for the level of customisation we have now and i like to take advantage of that fact, i acknowledge that the way i engage with the internet creates a bubble.

but just because i am under-informed about the darker aspects of web culture at the moment doesn’t mean i take for granted the existence BECAUSE i spent my teens and early 20s seeing the worst of it. the last several years has been an eye opener in just how much online behaviour is not just an extreme version of real world behaviour but it also feeds back into irl spaces creating new and complex problems. the kinds of problems that MIGHT be less pervasive if we had more social structures to support digital literacy and critical media engagement. 

sorry about the essay but tumblr was originally intended as a blogging platform so consider this a semiformal blog post of my thoughts idk. internet’s fucked but no more than the rest of reality. I wish more people actively worked to make their online spaces pleasant for their own sakes at the least. 

[ever-so-skeptical]

Emerging water crisis in Bulgaria and the consequences of a decades-old governmental miserliness

Whoever’s reading this - please spread this however you can. It means a lot to me, my community, my country and spreading the word would be of immense help! ❤💖 I couldn’t include all the details about the case but I hope I’ll get the chance to do that if this post gain popularity. Thank you all guys!! 💕

Woah – one of my few own posts and it’s got nothing to do with what my blog is mainly about. But whatever - this is important to thousands of people, my family included and I’ll spread the fucking word.

November 18th, 2019 - Pernik, a town with a population of over 120 000, and several villages in its region have to be put under water restrictions. Officially. In reality that happened in October but people were expecting it earlier. Why so?

Ever since the beginning of summer in 2019 there were apparent problems with the water supply - nobody could ever be sure when there would be running water at all. By September it was apparent that something was not alright and people were getting impatient with the government’s silence. In October it was finally revealed that the main source of the local water supply - reservoir ‘Studena’ - had been steadily losing water over the last months at the very least. The schedule underwent several changes over the following periods of time:

1st: 6am-10am and 5pm-10pm / October 2019

2nd: 2pm-10pm / mid-December 2019

3rd: 3pm-10pm/ January 2nd 2020

The initial outlook provided by the media and Water and Sanitation Pernik representatives is the following: the restrictions were supposed to last until April. But the more time passed the more dire this outlook became - first the period was extended by a month, then by two months. Now even the media can’t hide the truth - the ‘Studena’ reservoir’s water level is below its critical point and the supply’s expected to last for about a month before it’s completely gone.

People have been buying hundreds of litres of bottled water because of the restrictions but now there’s an even worse reason - tap water’s not drinkable anymore because of the heavy chlorination. Rumors about the water being infected with salmonella were also spreading (they’re ‘untrue’, according to media but I doubt that).

Here are a few photos of what ‘Studena’ looked like in 2015, keeping up until early 2019:

Here’s how it looked in September-November-December and now in January:

I wanted to show you how bad the situation truly is - no coverups, no hypocrisy, no lies. Just the truth.

I want you to consider those thousands of people, a large part of them families and retired people living below the poverty line, just in this one municipality. Now multiply them by ten, by thirty, by fifty and so on. Why? Because Pernik is not the first municipality, part of the EU country of Bulgaria in the 21st century, to be put under water restriction. Several others at the very least have been under restriction for years already but only now are the people speaking out about the atrocious coverup of those restrictions.

 Against the Amazonian fires, Philippines floods and the current Australian fires this problem might not seem like much but it is to all the people suffering because of the government that caused it. Please, spread this however you can so that we can shed light on the hypocrisy of the Bulgarian government because this is the only way the truth is going to be seen. Not through manipulated media but through the people subject to the damage caused by the inhumanity of those in control of the lives of an entire nation.

[trilies]

an argument for AO3

So I’m in a conversation with someone who is kind of in the “against AO3″ camp, and they asked me a couple of questions. Namely, who wouldn’t be uncomfortable with pedophilia? Isn’t it sketchy that a beta website is asking for so much money despite reaching its goals?

And my answer became so long... I figured it might as well become its own post. Please bear in mind that this is cut from a whole conversation.

But here it is.

------

No. It doesn't seem sketchy to me at all. Why would it? I know we make jokes about how much money tumblr has cost the various sites which purchase it like Yahoo, but there's some truth there: it's really expensive to host a website to thousands and thousands of people. It's why we see so many tumblr owners trying to shoehorn in ads or make people buy services, or why Photobucket tried to pull that truly atrocious bullshit a year or two back. Without image hosting capabilities (tumblr and photobucket's big thing), the strain isn't as huge.... but AO3 is MASSIVE. It is hosting literally thousands of accounts, millions of stories. That's massive on a server scale alone, ignoring all the other work they do. Yeah, it's in beta... but that's because it's trying to reach a goal of being as good a fanfic archive as they can be, and they don't believe they've reached that goal yet. Being in beta means they can better listen to their uses on shit like tagging systems and make those changes. Not to mention, again, they are INCREDIBLY transparent. If you are worried about where the money is going, you can go on the site and they have all their stuff up there.

As for the pedophilia subject matter.... Please give me a moment. because there's honestly a lot to say on that particular issue, if nothing else. This will take a while, so if you see this and there hasn't been a reply yet.... I'm still typing lmao.

To start with, of course people are uncomfortable about pedophilia. However, there are a lot of problems with how pedophilia is viewed or *used* as an accusation in the current fandom climate.

For example, in honestly EXTREMELY recent times, I was told I was "defending" pedophilia because I disagreed that a character (an immortal food gijinka) was "minor-coded" or "designed as an underage teenager". (As a note, an argument for this view was that the character's breasts were too small.) When I pointed out, hey, that's kind of a fucked up accusation to throw at a complete stranger, especially as I am a CSA survivor, I was told "You have to be lying about that, then, because a real CSA survivor would understand."

c o o l

That's just my personal experience that happened within a couple of months. Other people have talked about running into people who think that a character turning 18 means they're a pedophile for still dating a 17 year old. Or running into people who think a 40 year old dating someone in their 30s is pedophilic. Or believe that even SHIPPING characters who were not yet 18 was pedophilic if you yourself were over 18.

(Of course, you also have the kinds of people who try to use Moral Purity as a way to bash ships they don't like. I once saw someone try to claim that a popular mlm ship, A/B, was pedophilic because one half of the equation looked young.... when some other artists drew him... Of course, on the side, this person liked to also get angry that *their* favorite ship, a dude/chick ship composing of A/C, wasn't more popular. So. You know.)

So that's one half of the problem: the word "pedophile" being so warped that a lot of people now have no idea if the person using it has a genuine concern or if the accuser is trying to smear someone who doesn't ship the same thing. FFnet and Tumblr have gone with the "burn it all down" approach, which hasn't actually helped anyone and is, to boot, sloppily moderated. So we know from history, from experience in cases like mine, that it doesn't help in that area.

The other half of the problem is... How far is too far?

This is where "anti" culture begins to find similarities with the whole Warriors for Innocence thing. If you completely and blindly block an entire tag, or anyone associated with it, you have to ask: who are you hurting? Warriors for Innocence hurt actual rape victim, and queer folk, and a whole lot of others. Far as I can tell, anti culture is on the route to the same thing, because I have yet to see appropriate answers to a lot of issues.

If one says "anything with underage sex in it is bad and should be banned", what about fics that tackle it in a serious manner? The young adult novel "Speak" deals with rape of an underage girl and how she works through that mental trauma; are fics with stories equivalent to that allowed? Do fics with underage sex have to focus purely on how it is Horrible And Bad to be allowed? Does only a chapter have to be allowed? A paragraph? An author's note? A tag? Or are we allowed to never explore dark subject matter?

Is fic with underage content in it only horrible if it's someone over the age of eighteen who writes it? Can a teenager write smut (terribly written as it may likely be) between teenage characters? Can a teenager write smut between a teenage character and an adult character? For the record, i did in fact, over the summer, run into someone who said that teens/minors "shouldn't even know about NSFW", which is asinine to me, because Abstinence Only is a terrible thing to put in schools, and somehow worse in a way when you try to put that into effect in fandom. If the answer is 'yes', what are you going to do, demand to see people's birth certificates in fandom?

(As a note, I think this is a terrible message to put into fandom for teenagers because I believe it will inevitably lead to self hatred and a warped view of sex. If you make the extremely simplified black-and-white statement of "teens and sex should never go together ever in any way", that's going to mess up teens who are starting to experience arousal in their bodies. The message, whether intended or not, ends up as "NSFW things are bad, which means my brain which thought NSFW thoughts is bad, and my brain thought those thoughts because my body had these feelings". )

(This is bad for any average teenager. This will be especially worse to CSA and rape victims, along with queer youth who, in a lot of places, are still struggling with their bodies and/or feelings because the world is still pretty damn queerphobic.)

Speaking of CSA and rape victims, what about those of them who write/read underage ships or dark content as a way to cope with what happened or Just Because? That's a thing lots of us do, especially those of us who don't look like the Perfect Victims people can use as an excuse for whatever crusade they're waging. I've heard anti types go "Well, it's an unhealthy way to cope" or claims that CSA/rape victims who write such dark content are "just as bad as their abusers"... But are they psychiatrists/therapists? Are they the psychiatrists/therapists of *those specific people*? Will you moderate this kind of content by forcefully interrogating CSA/rape victims to out their trauma to a complete stranger? Will you demand to speak to their therapists? Over fanfic?

When I was a teenager, I wrote all sorts of stuff. I wrote dark dub-con fic, because I liked to explore those dark feelings in the process and the aftermath separate from myself. I wrote a fic with a fairly young teenage girl (what age was kh2 kairi? who even knows, I sure didn't) falling for a MUCH older man built like a brick shit house so that there was never any doubt to him being an adult, even giving him her first kiss, because they were my favorite characters, I wanted both of them to have a moment of happiness (that i promptly ruined but hey), and, *in this fic*, I knew it would be alright. I knew the girl would always be in control, she'd be the one making moves, that the guy was nonthreatening and kind and protect her and work alongside her.

(and then I began the process of killing him off in the next paragraph through him saving her life, but, like. Drama (tm), baby)

This was all good for me. At an age where I was young, vulnerable, and figuring out weird shit like arousal and romantic feelings, it was *invaluable* to have a space where I could explore all of that while relatively safe from actual danger, even if the stuff I wanted to explore was a little messed up. This whole thing against AO3 wouldn't have helped me, and I'm pretty sure it's not helping a lot of other people too.

There is an issue with underage people and sex stuff- not just in fandom but in culture at large. We have Hollywood dressing up young girl actresses in super slinky or revealing clothes. We have schools saying girls basically should never wear shorts, and capitalism fucking this up further by only selling SUPER SHORT shorters. We have media of all sorts giving us adults, whether in real actors or character design, in the roles of young people. (See: "how do you do, fellow kids") We should probably take more care about fandom spaces, so that people of all ages don't feel pressured to engage in sexual shit they're not 100% game for or into, or just have it shoved into their faces without consent. It's a complex issue... and it's not stuff that can just be 'banned' and have that fix it.

AO3 has on its plate a very complex problem that will, if we're all honest, never have a perfect answer. It has given us the best that can possibly be asked for. It obeys the law by not having actual child pornography on it (aka visual proof of actual real children, defined by us law as such), which is closest to "objective" we can get at the current stage in humanity and state of fandom. It has a very comprehensive and moderated tag system, so that people can post warnings along their fic so that people don't stumble onto shit they don't need to, and so that people can moderate their own reading experience to some degree.

If some people aren't comfortable with AO3, that's fine. However, most of us are getting annoyed not with those people, but with the people who just blindly say "AO3 supports child porn and is probably stealing money" (statement simplified for the purpose of this post). It shows an ignorance of the fandom history that lead us here, no understanding in either AO3's practices or how expensive it is to run a site, and no consideration for how complex this problem can really be. It would be great if this was a black and white issue, if there was an easy answer as just "banning" certain kinds of content... but there isn't. And that's where I am.

[gundamgamer]

The Last of Us Part II: "There Was This Sequel... Wasn't As Good."

After seven years of what felt like forever, The Last of Us Part II has finally arrived on PS4. And…well, after the leaks were released in late April of this year, it has left the fanbase, and the Gaming Community polarizing, to say the least. Some cancelled their pre-orders, others gave the game the benefit of the doubt, and see for themselves, and then there were those who had no choice because they were getting paid to play and review the game…Only to have mixed feelings of the story. But what do I personally think of the game, overall? Well, after playing through it for a week, and processing the entirety of the main story, I don’t think it’s “the WORST thing ever”…But it’s definitely not masterpiece worthy. Let’s begin with the simple, NON-SPOILER aspects of the game:

 GAMEPLAY:

At first, I thought there was a lot of changes made with the gameplay, since the first game. I wouldn’t say the Combat Mechanics, in TLOU1 were perfect by any means. But, for a 2013 game, they were pretty solid. Though there are times where things can get glitchy and finicky, the controls felt fine…In THIS entry, however, it just feels the same. There’s little to no changes with the controls and, at times, they felt stiff to the point where I would freeze in the middle of picking items up or performing a “T pose” while getting shot at by nearby enemies (Yes, this actually happened to me during my playthrough). Granted, I do like that they gave players the Aim Assist feature, seen in the Uncharted games, which can SOMETIMES make combat a little easier, but that’s not saying much when you’re trying to aim at enemies that have the advantage. And I do feel like the jumping action was pointless, since all you had to do was run off an edge and hope to God you made it to the other side of wherever you were jumping to. Since most of the actions require you to press the Triangle (△) button, this action felt needless. The weaponry has somewhat improved, since the last game, with some familiar returns (such as the Flamethrower and Shotgun) and newer weapons (Semi-Auto Rifle, Hunting Pistol and Crossbow), the variety, on how you choose to kill your enemies, is literally at your fingertips. Finally, there’s a neat guitar mechanic where you use the pad on your DUALSHOCK 4 controller to strum the chords and play tunes on a guitar. A small but neat feature. GAMEPLAY: 3.5

 VISUALS & MUSIC:

There’s no doubt the Visuals have vastly improved since the first game; from the far horizons of Jackson to the deep overgrown forests in the Seattle area, the environments and locations look phenomenal…For the most part. Some areas, however, look so bland that they all look the same just for the purpose of Gameplay. Now, I know that sounds absurd, but hear me out: Using the same environment, for the purpose of Gameplay Mechanics is FINE. However, you need to use a different variety of location designs and settings. Otherwise, the gameplay will feel repetitive at best, and lazy at worst. But I digress. Overall, the Visuals are gorgeous to look at, especially in different season settings. Of course, it wouldn’t be a Last of Us game without the Music. Composer Gustavo Santaolalla returns to give the game life with his score, which (and I know it’s gonna sound crazy) isn’t as memorable as the first game, but is still remarkable to say the least. I also do like that they made him a character, in the game.

VISUALS: 4

MUSIC: 4

AND NOW, WE COME TO THE MEAT OF THIS REVIEW: THE SPOILERS! SO, IF YOU HAVE YET TO PLAY THE GAME, I SUGGEST YOU STOP READING, FROM HERE ON OUT…YOU’VE BEEN WARNED.

I’d also like to point out that NO, I have absolutely NO PROBLEM with LGBT+ representation in any form of media (Gaming, TV, Film etc), as there is a character, Lev, who’s LGBT+, and that is FINE. But…it’s the story that needs to get a beating in all of this. Let’s begin:

 So, let’s talk about the Story, because I have a feeling that a good number of us will agree with me when I say…IT’S ABSOLUTE DOGSHIT!! …I really have no idea where to begin.

This game’s writing is all over the place, and it’s backwards at best and atrocious at worst. Everything from feeling sympathy for the main antagonist, Abby; because it’s revealed that Joel murdered her dad while he was about to operate on Ellie at the climax of the first game (as if we were suppose to know that), to PLAYING AS ABBY FOR A GOOD TEN PLUS HOURS, A CHARACTER THAT HAD SHITTY DEVELOPMENT TO THE POINT THAT NO ONE GIVES A FLYING FUCK ABOUT HER OR ANYONE ELSE AROUND HER! Not to mention that, between Ellie and Abby, you play through flashbacks in flashbacks. This is not creative writing, this is fan fiction bullshit, and it fails FAST. Seriously, I wanted Abby’s playthrough to be done because I did not give a shit about her and wanted to go back to playing as Ellie. Can’t also forget how little to no point these characters serve in the story, from Abby’s side or Ellie’s, they all range from forgettable to needless, in the end. Aside from Dina and her ex-boyfriend, Jesse (yea, he’s pretty forgettable too, but at least he gets shot later on, by Abby), these characters serve little to no purpose to the story besides Story Progression that COULD’VE been done better. But nothing, AND I DO MEAN NOTHING, can compare to the atrocity that is the ending of this game:

Ellie finds out where Abby is heading, months after the what happened in Seattle. I’ll also mention that, for a bit you’re playing as Abby again, however it’s…somewhat forgivable as it’s only for a short period of time. Afterwards, you’re playing as Ellie throughout the Climax of the game. You come across a group of Rattlers who hunt down and take prisoner to lost travelers, when you [as Ellie] learn where Abby is kept prisoner. Once you find her, and her friend Lev (who TL;DR, identifies as a boy, but was born a girl, and his mother wanted to marry a guy but he refused so her mother went nuts and he killed her…yay?), she follows them to some nearby boats. But Ellie isn’t done with Abby yet. As the two fight it out, Ellie finally has her in the water and makes her drown. But then, for a LITERAL SECOND, she has a flashback of Joel sitting on his porch with his guitar…and feels guilt…So much so, that she lets Abby, the one person who she; wanted revenge on, set out on a mission that killed multiple people, even someone who nobody really gave a shit about (Jesse), risks just about everything to get to this point…And for what? A moral epiphany…Oh god…Ellie then returns home for Dina and their child JJ, only to find that they’re not home. She learns that they both left Ellie, for Dina could not take the chance of losing her. And so, with her ring and pinky finger, on her left hand, bitten off by Abby, she tries to play guitar and has yet another flashback with Joel. This seems to be the last time they encounter each other before he gets axed. It, for the most part, is a nice little moment between the two, as they discuss some issues that need to be resolved. But mostly that Ellie wants to forgive Joel because he lied to her about what happened in the hospital. Afterwards, she sets out on what could be an unforeseeable future…

As you can see, the story isn’t necessarily the greatest…In fact, it doesn’t even come close to the first game’s story (which by the way, won Best Storytelling and GAME OF THE YEAR. Yea, let that sink in). The reason why the first game was so successful is because it focused on the development and bond between Joel and Ellie. How they grew as characters and learned to endure and survive in a chaotic, post-apocalyptic world setting. And we, the fans, WANTED to see that again in this game. But instead, got bamboozled by false advertising. Oh yea, that scene in the trailer where Joel pulls Ellie back and asks “You think I’d let you do this on your own?” NEVER. FUCKING. HAPPENS!! Instead, it’s Jesse in that position. Seriously? WHO THE FUCK CARES ABOUT THIS GUY?! NOBODY, THAT’S WHO!! We don’t care about any of these characters. We just wanna see the ones we cared about grow and learn more from each other. We actually wanted to see if anything changed from these two, over the years. The closest we get to ANY of that, in this game, are the flashbacks with them; from the museum setting (which makes some not-so-subtle nods to Jurassic Park and its sequel, The Lost World: Jurassic Park), to the only good scene in this ENTIRE game, in my opinion: Ellie heading out to the hospital, from the first game, finding out Joel lied but having Joel confess and tell the truth…That was such a powerful scene, and the acting from both Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson was superb. It shows the emotion between the two, from guilt to betrayal, how both Ellie and Joel lost so many people within their lives, only to go their separate ways after a crucial and impactful reveal…But none of that matters to Neil Druckmann and the crew at Naughty Dog. They just wanted to push ideas that nobody really cares about, especially for a game that’s set in a post-apocalyptic setting. We play games to escape reality and venture into worlds that could NEVER be real for the sake of entertainment and fantastic storytelling. These types of media are slowly fading away, and being replaced by writers who really don’t even give little to no shit about constructive writing, internal consistency, and above all else, THE FANS!! (even if they claim to do so…Looking at YOU, Rian Johnson)

In the midst of it all, the reason I didn’t cancel my pre-order was that I was one of the few that gave this game the benefit of the doubt. Despite only vaguely knowing what those leaks had and how they could’ve affected me, I still played it through beginning to end…Only to be disappointed by an entry I – and MILLIONS more -- had waited seven years for, only for Druckmann to say “You see this? THIS ISN’T WHAT YOU WANTED! THIS IS MY STORY!! AND IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT, YOU’RE A BIGOT!!”…However, to be fair, I’ll say this: don’t take my word for it. Maybe there CAN be something to your liking, in this game. Maybe there’s a little something for everyone…just don’t expect me to play through – scratch that – suffer through this mediocre attempt of a sequel ever again. There are ways this game COULD’VE been as fantastic – if not, MORE – than its predecessor. I might have to do that in another essay, sometime. Til then, this the last of my playthrough of this gigantic disappointment.

STORY: 1.5

CHARACTERS: 2.5

THE LAST OF US PART II: 3.5/10

[captainfawful]

 With the year coming to a close, that means it’s time for me to do my “Nobody Cares Awards” thing I like to do! Check under the cut for some hot takes I may or may not have!

Hello, hello! It’s me again! Third year in a row I decided to jot my thoughts down on the years various game. I decided to change things up more from last year, kind of eliminating most of the categories in favor of writing more about the games I enjoyed. I tried to write at least something about every game in the Top 10 this time, even if it’s the bare minimum. Let’s see how it goes!

BEST MUSIC

This entire thing was first created because I wanted to write about how good Death Road To Canada’s soundtrack was. So no matter what changes with my format on this, there will always be a Best Music category. I’ll be honest though, there weren’t a whole lot of games this year with amazing soundtracks. The only real contender for most of the year was Celeste, which OST is very good, and fits perfectly with the games tone and style, but it’s not... The Best music. They aren’t songs I’ll put on loop and listen to multiple times throughout the day. They’re not the hard hitting tracks I would typically put at the top of this category, despite how great the music is. That’s how I felt until about August, when The Messenger came out. Messenger is not a game that will be in my Top 10 by any means, but it’s a pretty good game nonetheless with a couple of really weird twists. But the OST is phenomenal. Easily my number 1 favorite of this year. Just about every track in the game is a total banger. But don’t take it from me, take a listen yourself! A little later in the year I played through Just Shapes & Beats. I have a personal stigma against saying a thing with licensed music should qualify for Best Music, which is why JS&B did not make it into my top 3, but rest assured that it is sitting comfortably in the 4th place spot. Almost immediately after I played JS&B, Deltarune suddenly came out. I don’t think I have to tell you why that’s on here, right? Toby Fox cannot make bad music.

SPECIAL MENTIONS

THE MISSING:J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories

It’s hard for me to talk about what makes The Missing so special without diving deep into spoilers. There’s a reason it’s in the special mentions, and not the Top 10: And that reason is because the gameplay isn’t great. The Missing is a side-scrolling puzzle game, in the same vein as Limbo or Inside. Unlike those two, however, the puzzles you have to solve are not that hard, and most of the difficulty around it revolves around how slowly and janky the movement is. However, the overall story and twist is what makes this game great. There’s not a whole lot for me to say about the themes this game presents, so if you want to play The Missing, play it. If you don’t want to play it, then maybe take a look at some writings from actual queer women who could talk about its subject matter in a way I never possibly could.

The Quiet Man

The Quiet Man is a terrible game. When I first saw the trailer during Suare Enix's E3 presentation, I was super interested. I've always wanted a game that transitions from FMV to gameplay with as few seams as possible, and The Quiet Man promised that. Not only that, it promised a compelling story told from the perspective of its' deaf protagonist. The way I saw it, this game would either accomplish what it set out to do, or fail miserably. Either way, it was a win/win scenario for me! Little did I know just HOW miserably it would fail.... Oooooh, how miserably it failed... The gameplay is absolute trash, the graphics leave much to be desired which makes the "seamless" transitions from FMV look unconvincing and bad, the story is needlessly complicated despite how generic it is, the acting ranges from decent to awful, and it requires you to play it twice in order to actually understand what's happening. And all of those problems are the LEAST offensive parts of the game. It's racist, misogynistic, somehow ableist against more than just deaf people, semi-incestual, and also kind of pro-abuse??? I mean, it doesn't take a stance to be anti-abuse, and certainly doesn't condemn abuse, so does that make it pro? Maybe? Probably? I have a headache. I've watched this entire 2-4 hour game be played 10 or 11 times, and I still don't understand how this exists. Square-Enix published this. They dropped Hitman and IO Interactive not even one year ago, yet threw money at this horrible abomination of a video game! Oh by the way, you might be wondering why I said you have to play it twice to understand, and that's because the first playthrough doesn't give you any sound. Yup, aside from the intro cutscene and the credits song, the entire games' audio is just muffled ambiance. This includes all of it's cutscenes, of which there are MANY, and they are LONG. Entire MINUTES of dialogue happening at a time that the game just doesn't want you to hear or have subtitles for. The only way to get audio is to beat the game once and replay it. Not only that, but the New Game + with sound and subtitles didn't even get patched in until a week after it's release!!! Who does that!!!!! And the version with audio has some ATROCIOUS writing. Just about every scene has at least one line of dialogue that makes no sense, almost as if the writers were only told about how humans speak, but never actually heard one themselves. I’ve heard a lot of people saying it’s The Room of video games, and I sort of agree. Much like The Room, it’s not the absolute worst of it’s form of media, the game is playable start-to-finish, extremely straight forward so you can’t get lost, no bizarre puzzles to figure out, the FMV cutscenes are at decently produced. Hell, I wouldn’t even say The Quiet Man is the worst game to come out THIS YEAR. Crying Is Not Enough released in June, and boy oh boy is that game a trash fire. But it’s just BAFFLING that this game exists. That’s the perfect word to summarize my feelings on The Quiet Man. Every single thing about it is just, baffling. I need to stop writing about this game. This whole paragraph is probably going to be longer than anything from my Top 10, which feature a few games I ADORE, but no. All my writing energy is going to how terrible this fucking video game is. Don't play The Quiet Man. Or do, fuck if I care. Maybe watch someone else play it, I don't know. I don't know anything anymore.

Ori and the Blind Forest

Back on the topic of good games, I finally got around to playing Ori and the Blind Forest! I played it for a little while after it originally came out around 2015, but it just didn’t stick with me at the time. There wasn’t any real reason why it didn’t stick, I just got bored and stopped playing, which isn’t that uncommon for me to do. But for whatever reason I decided to go back to it super late last year. It may have been the excitement for all the cool looking Metroidvanias slated to release throughout the year, I don’t know. But I played through it, and it’s fantastic! Most Metroidvanias tend to go with around a 60-40 split between platforming and combat. Different games have different splits, sure, but most of them tend to keep those somewhat even. Ori is like an 85-15, greatly favoring tight platforming over fighting enemies. Your main attack automatically locks on to nearest enemies, and boss fights are replaced with autoscrolling or stealth segments. The traversal is also super smooth and fun, making that 85-15 split much more favorable than others in its’ genre. Great controls combined with some amazing visuals and music, Ori is definitely a game I regret not playing earlier.

2019′S COMING IN HOT

Spelunky 2, Wargroove, Indivisible, Hypnospace Outlaw, Ooblets, UFO 50, Kingdom Hearts 3, Overland, Sea of Solitude, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, and  Get in the Car, Loser!. These are all great looking games that are supposed to be coming out in 2019. I remember last December when I last did this, I couldn't think of THAT many games I was really excited for, and despite that I ended up with a pretty damn good list of games for 2018. So who knows what next year will be like?!

And now... The Top 10!

#10: Spider-Man

It’s been a great year for Spider-Man. His best buddy Venom had a pretty good movie, his new video game is good, and he has a new movie that’s fantastic! Yep, it’s been such a good year for Spider-Man in which nothing bad has happened to him or the people who created him.

#9: Megaman 11

2 > 4 > 3 > 8 > 11 > 7 > 5 > 6 > 9 > 10 > 1. Don’t @ me.

#8: Iconoclasts

Iconoclasts has been in development for a very long time. Officially, development for it began in around 2010, but there is a seemingly earlier game by Konjak that shares many similarities. Basically, Iconoclasts began development at least 8 years ago, and it shows, for better or worse. On one hand, the game is gorgeous. Grade A sprite work all around. The characters are interesting and well written with their own morales and arcs, and the story is surprisingly deep and compelling considering the type of game it is. On the other hand, the gameplay feels very outdated now. The combat is super simplistic, the puzzles aren't terribly challenging or rewarding, and the weapon/ability upgrades are very limited. The traversal can be sluggish and boring, which is a red flag for a game where you have to backtrack a decent amount. If Iconoclasts came out 4 or 5 years ago, I feel like it would've been at least a cult classic. But in 2018, it's a decent Metroidvania in a year of great Metroidvanias. Overall, I'm glad Iconoclasts finally came out. I just wish it either came out sooner, or got more updated for modern game design.

#7: Slay the Spire

For all intents and purposes, I shouldn't like Slay the Spire. I always hated card-based RPGs, and always hated RPGs with only one party member. And for the most part, the issues I have with both of those are still very much present in Spire. So why have I sunk 50 hours into it so far? Beats me! If I had to guess, I’d say it’s the similarities it shares to Darkest Dungeon, one of my favorite games, that ultimately drives me to it. Now, you might be asking why Slay the Spire, a game that came out in 2017, and won’t be in 1.0 until probably 2019, is in my top 10 for this year, but Ori & the Blind Forest isn’t? Well, I started Ori last year, and didn’t start Spire until the middle of this year! Also, they’re my awards, and I can do whatever I want!

#6: Just Shapes & Beats

Just Shapes & Beats’ concept is simple: A rhythm bullet hell. Certainly not the first of it’s kind, and not even the first one to use simplistic shapes as the obstacles/characters. But there’s a bit more to it than that. JS&B has some good personality to go with it. It has some fun characters, all of the levels are demonstrative of the areas you’re in on the world map, it even has a couple lightly emotional moments! It’s much more than you’d expect from a game about Just Shapes & Beats. When I was younger and had vague dreams to make games, I always imagined making one that was basically “What if a Windows Visualizer was trying to kill you?” and also be themed around a world and a story, and JS&B is basically that.

#5: Pipe Push Paradise

What happens when you take Pipe Dream, an iconic puzzler which has given inspiration to countless others, and mix it with Stephen's Sausage Roll, arguably one of the greatest puzzle games of all time? You get Pipe Push Paradise, of course! That’s all I really have to say, and all I NEED to say.

#4: Dead Cells

Go play Dead Cells. Really, it’s the closest thing to a perfect Rogue-like (that isn’t Spelunky) out there right now. It’s a game so good, Filip Miucin couldn’t look away from it long enough to write his own review!

#3: Subnautica

If I had the opportunity to become a Fishman and live underwater, I’d probably take it. As long as you take out the jellyfish that can kill you .0001 seconds after stinging you, I have no qualms with open water. In fact, the isolated feeling from it is really relaxing to me. That’s what initially drew me to Subnautica. Survival games are usually hit or miss for me, but the ones I like I really dive deep into (Heh heh), and Subnautica is one of those. Also, I was rewatching the Super Mario Bros. Super Show on Netflix as I played this, so now I’ll have those two permanently linked in my mind from now on.

#2: Into The Breach

I love tactics games, especially Advance Wars. While I do still love others in the genre like Fire Emblem or X-COM, there are some intricacies of the AW series that most of the others don't have. When I first heard about Into The Breach, I thought it would be exactly what I wanted, a true successor to the series I'd been waiting for. And it was not! But it's still pretty damn good. It's not so much a tactics game as it is a puzzle game, described by Waypoint's own Austin Walker as a "tactical dance". You know at the start of each turn where each enemy is going to attack, and it's your job to navigate and attack with your 3 mech units in the exact right way to minimize or even straight up prevent any damage that would befall you or the cities you're protecting. You aren't trying to advance a map during combat, or conquer any enemy bases. You are merely trying to avoid damage for a certain amount of turns and move on to the next level. And it's all super fun! I've let the game sit for 10, 20 minutes while I try and figure out every possible option I have after being backed into a corner, and coming up with the absolute perfect solution and getting through to the other side is super satisfying. The biggest gripe I have with Into The Breach is the same one I had for FTL, the developer's last game, which is I don't think the unlockable mechs/mech teams are as fun as the default ones. I played most of them once or twice and went "Yeah, that's a thing" and migrate back to the first mech team. All in all, Into The Breach is a fantastic game, it just doesn't scratch that Advance Wars itch I've been feeling. Oh well, at least there's still Wargroove!

#1: Celeste

Celeste is a game I got 100% completion in. For those of you who might not know me well enough to know how I play games, that’s something that never happens. I think the last time I purposely got 100% on a game was in Uncharted 2, and even that was only to get a skin for multiplayer. Despite that, it’s been really difficult for me to write up a whole thing about why I love Celeste so much. It’s just a compilation of everything. I love the look of it, both the sprite work and the character portraits. The music, as mentioned before, is fantastic and perfectly fitting for all of the levels themes which deal in different forms of anxiety or self-doubt. The levels are hard, but not too hard. The secrets hidden throughout the game are so satisfying to figure out and find, very reminiscent of Braid. I feel confident in saying that Celeste has cemented itself as one of my favorite games of all time.

Well, that’s all I can handle writing for this year. Thanks to the few of you who skimmed through all this, and extra thanks to the fewer of you who read all of it! I’m not 100% sure if I’ll do this whole shpeel next year or not; maybe if 2019 turns out to be an incredible year for games, and definitely not if I have to move to Twitter in the off-chance Tumblr dies out completely. Hope you all had a fun holiday season, and have a great 2019! 

[guccifloralsuits]

some zarry headcanons?

- 1st of all hell yeah girl zarry is both love and life and I’m proud to consider   myself trash for them

- This is about to get angsty as hell so get ready. Also this is about to b soooo long imo 

- Oh god where do I even start? Both just have this quiet companionship and understanding of each other??? 

- Like, both tip toward introverted, especially compared to Niall’s boisterous laughter and Louis’s loud demeanor, or even Liam’s steady going confidence.

- They loved the other boys with all their hearts, but sometimes it would get loud and crazy and all too much and both occasionally needed their breaks. They just…got that about each other where some people wouldn’t understand.

- So they’d cover for the other whenever one went ghost or needed a moment alone and it was just this unspoken agreement to have each other’s backs.

- They’d stake out hidden corners and nooks in every arena they played, looking for somewhere where the grounds couldn’t touch them, somewhere the chaos of the production hadn’t yet reached.

- It became a sort of game; they’d scout for the spot first thing after docking, and then they’d sneak to it whenever they got the chance.

- Harry would sit criss crossed while zayn would lean his back against the walls, stretch his feet in front of them, and light up a smoke (even when they were indoors because fuck the people who told him he couldn’t).

- Harry would always take a drag or two, start coughing profusely, and then ask zayn how the hell he could chain-smoke like he did. 

- Zayn would only smile, and they’d spend the rest of their time comfortable in each other’s silence.

- It drove the production team abso-fucking-lutely nuts because where the hell were harry and Zayn??? they were suppose to be here 30 minutes ago????

- The pair would show up 15 minutes before opening, without fail. After a while, the crew began to expect it.

- But, time went on, and things became more and more stressful.

- They both tended to bottle up the emotions they didn’t want to feel,

- And would only really talk about their problems when drunk.

- But, on those nights, they’d sit, facing each other on their hotel bed, and vent, truly vent, for hours on end.

- They’d spill everything: talking about anxieties they both dealt with, the control they felt they lacked in their lives.

- Zayn knew about the ache harry got sometimes, the sadness that came with the constant media attention. Harry came off as unruffled, but sometimes the negative media got to him. He’d sort of shut down - go mechanical in interviews and slur through the motions of the day without really being all too there. He always pulled himself out, though, after a while.

- Harry suspected about the ED zayn was developing, but never found concrete evidence, and sometimes thought he (himself) was looking for shadows where there were none. Mostly, he noticed how thin zayn was getting.

- He was terrified of confronting zayn about it because they had been drifting apart and where no longer as close as they used to be. Harry would offer zayn food on stage, whenever he got the chance, and occasionally zayn would bite.  

- They still went and found those hidden stadium corners, but the silences began to feel tense, and the words they didn’t say started weighing down the air between them. 

- And then one day, Zayn stopped looking for their places, altogether. 

- Harry was the first to know zayn planned to leave the band, and felt the most betrayed by zayn’s choice to go.

- It was selfish, but harry just…needed zayn sometimes, needed his calming presence in the constant craziness of their lives. He felt off-balanced without zayn’s quiet demeanor to calm him down.

- At first, pride, betrayal, even a drop of jealously kept harry from forgiving zayn. Losing a close friend, someone that significant in his life…it hurt, okay? It hurt more than anything he’d ever encountered. And the constant questions and spotlight on the issue only made him feel worse. He felt more isolated and alone than ever.

- So harry shut zayn out completely, because that’s what harry does when he’s wounded and hurting. He blocked zayn’s number and left his emails unread, because he thought reading them would leave his heart worse off than before.

- Zayn tried, at first. He did. Eventually though, he got angry, feeling as though the other boys didn’t care at all. Did this last four years mean nothing? They were suppose to be friends - brothers even, and yet. Now they they were treating him like yesterday’s news. Like he never mattered to them, at all.

- They did care though. 

- God, They all cared so much. Harry listened to every track on zayn’s album, the minute it’s released. He chewed on every lyric and line, trying to find meaning in the metaphor. 

- So time passes and 1d goes hiatus. They start their solo careers.

- Zayn listens to Sign of the Times three times in a row. He thinks about the lyrics and about how they don’t talk enough, about how, yeah, they’ve spent their lives running from those fucking bullets. They’re still running, and probably always will be. It’s not a happy thought. 

- Both realize that their relationship will never be the same. There’s still a bitterness between them, even though the fond memories are coming back, too. Their friendship has been damaged beyond the point of repair. 

- They’ll think about each other, at random points in the day, wondering what the other is up too. Trying to hope the other is doing well. 

- Now that the dust has settled, they both see their own mistakes, the ways the let the other down. They miss each other, a lot, but it’s not enough to smother their pride. 

- Maybe one day, though, they’ll apologize. Maybe one day, they’ll move on. They are dealing with it, slowly. For now, that has to be enough.

- Anyways im crying I regret writing this and im sorry this is so long. sorry about the atrocious grammar and verb tenses I got rlly excited and yeah

Send me ships and I’ll write some head cannons for them 

[violetsystems]

#personal

What an atrocious week it has been.  I didn’t end up getting my coffee.  Hoping for Monday when I return to work.  I still have some Columbian left from the last order.  Disrupting my coffee is like disrupting anything else in my life.  I saw it coming.  I spend a lot of time planning these days.  Analyzing what works and what doesn’t.  Staying home for the record works for me more than people know.  I don’t really share much more than I do here when I write to anyone.  I don’t feel anybody would actually listen.  In fact most of the time I see in plain sight the results of nobody listening to me.  People are inconsiderate.  Sometimes that’s motivated by genuine feelings.  However disturbing the movie Good Time was, a friend made a significant point.  Robert Pattinson’s character thinks every bad decision he makes is for the greater good.  The results are far different.  And for the most part narcissism works that way.  It’s easy to spot.  People are so far out of control in their own lives that they looks for suckers as anchors.  Make you feel good about being needed then manipulate you into situations you didn’t ask for.  Being as old as I am at this point, I’ve seen it repeat itself like a gif loop year after year.  The underlying trend in Chicago has always been this oppressing and overwhelming pushiness that it knows what is good for you.  It knows this without even talking to you.  It assumes you understand the need for secrecy.  It assumes what’s good for the general population is good enough for you.  I sometimes wonder if my coffee disappears because there’s somebody out there shaking their fist at me.  “Hey you fucking yuppie why isn’t Dunkin’ Donuts good enough for you?”  Then the camera pans to the crowd and they address it with a goofy ass look.  ‘Am I rite? Heyyyyyy!”  Cue the canned laughter.  Nervous laughter nonetheless.  When I come home to my block there’s now considerably more people shuffling their feet around me.  Like they want to say something but they can’t.  Like they’re sympathetic but they’re out of their element with me.  I live in a multi unit building.  I’ve kept my distance for a while as much as I feel comfortable.  There’s sort of a culture here of acknowledging one another but nothing much else beyond that.  I’ve talked to people on the property more since the thefts.  Mostly to warn people to proceed with caution.  My front neighbor literally saw the person ride off with the package on a bike.  I probably know way more than that at this point.  When I open my mouth about it most people are the first to downplay my frustrations outside of the property.  Sometimes a. better response could be “That sucks.  I’m sorry that happened.”  Instead it’s about how they’ve been inconvenienced at some time or another.  Sort of like that argument of why I can’t be happy with what coffee everyone else likes.  Chicago can still be frustratingly populist in nature.  The bar is set very low and if you want to be something better you are questioned and discouraged at every turn.  The bar for coffee is set even lower from personal experience.  But you get what you pay for.  And I’m not into shitty service or overbearing people trying to tell me what to do. 

I’ve also explained myself into a brick wall at this point.  I understand society is awkward.  But I’ve been humoring it’s missteps for longer than I can count. And I count more progress staying in and staying by a budget than talking about my problems with other people in public.  Talking about anything in public these days is crazy to me.  We all know the phone is always listening in some context.  Talking to police is an even worse idea in the opinion of any lawyer with a college degree.  People’s opinions who solely watch dick wolf’s law and order don’t count.  Who died and made you Judge Judy?  I’m still dumbfounded that my birthday passed with a whimper.  People are trying to get my attention about other things.  Like whatever it is they have to address to me about community is more important than remembering the day I was born.  I’ve said point blank.  The only place I felt love was on Tumblr.  And why should I explain how intelligent people communicate in a world full of dummies.  Preaching to the choir at this point. A choir full of beautiful cherubs and angels who have kept their distance respectfully on any number of things for years.  I’m sure people talk about me behind my back.  It’s a game of telephone with people who don’t care about you as a person.  So much noise about what it is I am.  What it is I do.  Even people I volunteered with for a Korean Fest three years in a row are crawling out of the woodwork.  For the record I didn’t exactly fit in with that crowd either.  But there was a lot of love for learning about Korean culture specifically.  And I learned a lot about inter sectionalism and volunteering.  Unfortunately I’ve paid my debt to society.  And society thinks it deserves more from me.  That’s a fucking loop and a rat race that I’ve detached from only to be answered by multiple decades of people who can’t keep my name out of their mouth.  I’ve been a lot of things.  Some people think I’m an artist. Other people think I’m a writer.  Some people think I’m a rock star.  Other people think I’m the devil.  Nobody calls or texts on the weekends.  People follow me around with 125 dollar Gloomhaven board games that I own in the street trying to be my friend.  I shit you not.  That’s how broken people are when it comes to treating me with respect.  I have to read into and process every thought that passes me by when I leave my house.  And people wonder why I’m a bit done with trusting people.  Somebody got shot on the train by the police last night during rush hour.  Everybody is paranoid.  Everybody is prying into everybody else’s persona life and fantasies.  Nobody is talking directly to anyone.  And I’m supposed to be chill about all of it.  Mostly because I care too much about the people who trust me low key to stay myself.  Society at this point is a risk to me.  I’ve made so many sacrifices and learned the hard way from so many things.  And nobody gives me the impression they doubt me on that here.  Real life expects a lot more without ever delivering.  Just ask the US postal service.

I would be more existential if I didn’t feel the love.  For the record I don’t really talk to anybody about the love that I feel.  Other than in these posts.  I don’t sit there with my friends and gossip about what I think is really going on behind the scenes.  I don’t even pay attention to the social media of people I deeply care about.  I trust algorithms a little more than I trust the government.  Elon Musk is afraid of artificial intelligence.  I’m afraid of Americans.  Just ask David Bowie and Trent Reznor.  The midwest is kind of the worst in that respect.  Everybody expects you to be kind at all times.  People lull you into a false sense of security and pick away at your core.  I just don’t really have time for it anymore.  I do still get angry about how people treat me here.  Whenever I write something on the internet somebody is always there to prove me wrong.  Flash their Adidas in my face again and accuse me of being discriminatory towards sports wear.  Then challenge me on any number of things while ignoring the bigger picture.  I really don’t have much to prove at this point.  And I am really in a state of total social withdrawal.  It’s relentless and disrespectful how people try to be your interpreter without ever letting you speak.  It’s even worse when you’ve been on the planet twice as long and everybody already has you figured out.  For me it’s not so bad to have figured out I don’t need any of it.  I just shut the door and walk away.  My apartment has become way more organized and peaceful.  I watch movies and play games.  I cook for myself in the kitchen and water my indoor plants. All of this happens and passes people by week after week.  I write here about it and it just seems like it doesn’t matter.  I get passed over, picked on, shunned and avoided out of embarrassment.  And the cycle continues until I’m completely isolated playing diablo 3 season 20 alone on my couch with my cat.  If it sounds so depressing to be alone let’s be fair.  I’m not alone.  I don't need any more people in my life at this point.  I don’t have to give people second and third chances to fuck up my life and my privacy.  I don’t need to reactivate my Facebook or cultivate my linked in profile.  Unless you know something I don’t.  And then I’d ask what else do you know about my life and who do you share that information with.  People hate how confrontational I am.  They're afraid of me.  Sometimes I do get really angry.  But I don’t think anger solves anything.  Society and Chicago has made me something more than angry at times.  And it can’t wait to make you melt down.  Bring you to it’s level.  To break you and show you that you aren’t special at all.  All they end up proving is how much more special I am ignoring it all and walking away.  Because it is not worth jeopardizing the real love I feel growing despite of this bullshit.  When I feel down I realize there are people that have an impossible amount of trust in me to continue to be me.  And in that I walk alone somewhat.  I’m still not in a guild by the way.  And I still love you just the same as always.  So consider this a special delivery.  I handle shit with care.  And know I always care about you.  That’s why I stay out of all of it.  <3 Tim

[sakixhoshina]

Japan Weekend is horrible.

So last weekend, Japan Weekend was hosted in Madrid, it's quite a big cosplay event, and it's expensive as fuck, given how horrible all the pics you take there look because of the atrocious lighting they have inside the bulding; and how you can find all the merchandising they sell on the event but 4 times cheaper on the internet.

But that's not the worst JW has, the worst of it is the horrible organization the company on charge do. JW hosts a lot of contest and activities during the event and all of them are so bad organised, and that’s the big problem, because when you pay 24€ to enter a fucking event the least you expect is for them to give the best to make it enjoyable, but guess what? I enjoy less and even less each time I go to one of these events, because of the horrible way they handle everything.

So, I’ve heard a lot of stories of friends who had problems with this event, but what happened to me was this:

Me and my friend basically attended this event for the only purpose of performance a sing/dance cover of ‘Self Control’ [ as we were cosplaying Saint Snow ] at the karaoke contest, because as I’ve said, this events are getting worse and worse each time. So, you know people usually just do the sing part on karaoke, since it’s obvious I guess? But we were to dance too, and we prepared the choreography of the parts of the songs that weren’t animated in the anime [ and also some other parts since we weren’t doing the short 1:30min version of the anime, we used some of the extended version of the song ].

We planned all this in february, but we started sewing the cosplays and actually practising on summer because the karaoke contest was the last one announced, and it was the only contest without an online enrollment, people who wanted to join had to sing themselves in the same day the event was held, from 13:50 until the contest started, on 14:30.

We arrived at 10:30 or so, and we spent the morning blabla, so my friend has to attend a panel until 14:00pm, so I went to the stage at 14:00pm to inscribe us, and the guy there told me there wasn’t more room for more people, they had already the 25 persons that were joining the contest, in 10 minutes? No, not in 10 minutes, because despite that in the website it said “inscriptions will be open from 13:50″ they had been accepting people since the event opened its doors C: so by the time we arrived at the place, we had no choice already. And they didn’t announce anywhere that they changed the time of inscription, or anything, so we were left out just because of their garbage organization.

And we attended the event just because of a 3min performance which we couldn’t do because of this fucking no communication from them. I paid 10€ for attending a fucking event I didn’t want to do just because of this, and not only those 10€ ofc, all the money I put on the cosplay, as well as the time and effort we both put in this, were thrown away because this fuckers only want your money, once they have it they don’t give a fuck about anything else.

For me this performance was so special, because we were going to dance and sing, two things I’ve always ashamed of doing in public, and I was slowly overcoming that fear to the point I wanted all my friends to come and see our perfomance, and see us cover that song. And people were going to see us, and we couldn’t do it because of this fucking shit of company that only see the cosplay community as a money machine.

And yes I guess we can always go and try to perform in the next event on in any other cosplay event, because this is not the only one here in Madrid, but what really pissed me off wasn’t the fact that we couldn’t appear on the stage, but the reason we couldn’t. It was all their fault I had to leave that stage we were supposed to rise to go to my friend and tell her we couldn’t do it. She started crying as I told her and I wanted to cry so bad but I could endure until I left the event. We’ve been months puttnig our best in this for fucking nothing, everything was wasted and I am so mad I don’t want to attend Japan Weekend anymore. Unfortunately I’ve already joined some groups for other JW before this happened but…

I felt so down the whole day…I didn’t even want to take a single pic with anyone, the few friends I actually saw there told me later in social media that they noticed I wasn’t feeling good, I even left the event 4h earlier than I usually do. And now I feel so bad for everyone because they aren’t guilty of what happened to us yet I feel like I was so rude/sharp to the people who came to say hi idk…

I’ll leave here the only pics I have of this event, which I wouldn’t have if it wasn’t because a friend of us insisted of take them, maybe to confort us? Idk but my face says it all xd

[simpsonsnight]

Episode #502

How I Wet Your Mother Season 23 - Episode 16 | March 11, 2012 | Prod. PABF08 This is a straight-up good episode. Sure, there’s moments that are lame and not everything works, but this is definitely one of the better episodes of this era. Homer starts wetting the bed and dr. frink uses an inception-style machine to monitor his dreams in order to probe his psyche. The entire family goes into Homer’s dream and, like in Inception, they start going in dreams-within-dreams. There is one great moment where in one of the dreams they revert back to their Tracey Ullman counterparts. I think this episode would’ve been better if there were more stylistic flourishes like that going dream-to-dream, but maybe there was a reason they couldn’t do that. I think the Family Therapist they go to is the same one they went to in the Tracey Ullman Show short called “Family Therapy” but I’d have to google one more thing to make sure I’m right. No thanks. B-SODE: 

South Park: “Insheeption” Season 14 - Episode 10 | October 20, 2010 Okay, here’s the deal: My original rule was to only include episodes of shows that aired on the same day or up to one year earlier than The Simpsons episode covered. This was a rule I carried over from how I programmed the B-programming at my FAILED Simpsons Night screening events. But the governor is off, baby. I’m doing an episode SLIGHTLY OLDER THAN THAT. Why? Because the even the actual fucking movie The Simpsons parodied falls back too far to qualify, so it must be a bad rule! Also, this episode is pretty much perfectly matched, it being mostly a parody of Inception, and all. The big thing I remember about this episode is that it also includes a Hoarders parody. This was back in the day when Trey and Matt of “Matt and Trey” fame would focus multiple episodes of South Park per season about whatever reality cable show they watched. This is also the episode where they unintentionally stole a bit from a College Humor sketch and went back and gave credit to them. LOOK IT UP. B-SODE B-SIDE:

Allen Gregory: “Mom Sizemore” Season 1 - Episode 6 | December 4, 2011 THIS is the episode I would have chosen when i was sticking to my rigid one-year rule, but it’s not that similar. It’s just about a dude having “MOMMY ISSUES” (HAHA I FUCKING GENDERSWAPPED A HETERONORMATIVE INSULT FUCK YOU, THE PATRIARCHY). So why write it up? Because it was such a pain in the ass to track down and watch that I just can’t let it go. Why was this show so reviled? I didn’t love this episode or anything, but I don’t see how it was much worse than Fox Animation shit from this era. I’d rather watch this than The Cleveland Show or American Dad. It’s not a good show, but it’s not, like, the worst. Just kinda bland. And no, I don’t wanna watch a show about rich people either. And yes, Jonah Hill’s voice doesn’t suit the main character. And yes, the animation is atrocious. But... I forget my point. You can’t legally purchase this show. I couldn’t find a place to legally buy this digitally to watch it. It’s not streaming as far as I know. There’s no physical media release. I had to download it from Dailymotion so I could fix the out of sync audio and un-reverse the video in VLC. Too bad it was mostly for naught. Even though I lightly defended it, may we never speak of Allen Gregory ever again. I was also surprised to see the co-hosts of one of my favorite podcasts, Hollywood Handbook, in the writing credits for this show. Listen to Hollywood Handbook. Most of the episodes are GREAT and at it’s best It reaches deliriously funny heights. Also they tend to discard running gags before they get out of control so it’s not necessary to go back into the archives. Listen to the newest episode and work your way backwards if you want. It’s good.