#and done a far better job than I

[raygirlramblings]

Inspired by @asch2inspire ‘s delightful take on the Scooby gang I just love the idea of Scooby being a therapy dog.  Like, the idea you just rip a cute dog character out of a show because it would be ‘too babyish’ is so dumb when there are so many other ways to adapt the character and make it fit a more ‘mature’ setting.

So overnight I came up with doofy ideas of my own XD

Shaggy suffers from severe anxiety and panic attacks, and has done since puberty.   

He used to do weed hoping it would help but it only made the paranoia more extreme so he quit.  He does however take CBD (as well as prescription medication) to soothe his nerves.  But his time doing weed introduced him to stoner culture and he really loved the mellow energy and tie-dye aesthetic so he never dropped it.  So people assume he’s a stoner when in fact he isn’t.  He is pro-weed though and is all in favour of legalisation and medical marijuana. 

Shaggy adopted Scooby from a shelter he volunteered at.  Scoob came from a puppy mill and was unadoptable because he’s the absolute opposite of what breeders look for in a great dane.  He was due to be put down but Shaggy saved him and the two have been inseparable since.

Scoob is Shaggy’s emotional support animal (fully registered and everything).  When Shaggy is anxious Scoob helps guide him away from trouble, and when Shaggy has panic attacks Scoob lays on his lap and helps him get control of his breathing.

Shaggy and Scoob volunteer at hospitals and care centres introducing Scoob to kids and teaching them about emotional support animals as well as the importance of Adopt, Don’t Shop.  Scoob is so chill he doesn’t mind kids petting him.  

They both still love food, though obviously Shaggy is very conscious and responsible about feeding Scooby right (being a illegally bred puppy means he has various health issues which need to be monitored).  Doesn’t mean he won’t sneak his buddy a bit of hot-dog or half a sandwich now and then ;)  I saw a head cannon somewhere that Shaggy makes his own Scooby Snax for him to share with Scooby and I love it.  It’s a kind of organic brownie cut into chunks which is safe for humans and dogs.

Ultra instinct Shaggy is still very much a thing.  In fact Shaggy can fight like a cornered mongoose in the right circumstances.  But he rarely does as his anxiety tends to keep him controlled, along with his general love for living things, and of course his best buddy Scooby :)  He’s definitely a runner, not a fighter, but heaven help you if you intentionally hurt his friends.

Scooby is 100% loyal to Shaggy at all times.  In fact Shaggy knows to trust or mistrust people based on whether Scooby warms up to them.  Scooby is an excellent judge of character.  

Like fine if you don’t want the dog to talk, but who doesn't love a delightful, devoted service animal companion???

[deoidesign]

I literally just had the thought "I'm sorry I draw so much sexy art" and then I was like what the fuck? No I'm not. You all followed me you know what you're getting into.. you can unfollow me any time you want... What do I have to be sorry about. In fact. You're welcome for all the sexy art. Congratulations you've won by being here and getting to see it.

[manhattan-gamestop]

One thing that’s been fascinating as an adult with PTSD is hearing about other people’s childhoods and being like “oh so what I went through WASNT normal and has made my perspective on life very different from others”

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[princekirijo]

Imma be honest with you chief this week has not been fun. At all

[brown-little-robin]

my last week, a visual demonstration

[synthaphone]

so there's a Stop Making Sense cover album coming out in honor of the movie's 40th anniversary, and i listened to the preview tracks that are out, and the best thing about it so far, for me, is that its reminded me that Girlfriend is Better is a really fucking good song

[wwillywonka]

.

[doomednarrative]

I'm gonna be Completely honest and this is Not a dig at anyone who did like it btw but. Death Island. Kinda sucked in my opinion.

[aparticularbandit]

so.

i actually think, final thoughts, i really liked udg.

and this gets long (and talks about some, ah, sensitive topics), so it's under a cut.

there are two themes it was trying to tackle, and both of those themes are pretty big themes, and in trying to tackle both of them, they hit one harder and did a better job which left them lacking on the other.

udg did a fantastic job (for a video game, and especially for a danganronpa game, i think) of talking about how two sides of a conflict can be radicalized to hate each other, to see each other as less than human, to get to a point where they're no longer just wanting to protect themselves and those they love but where they want to destroy the other side entirely.

like. to an extent, udg is taking on genocide. it never uses that word, but that's what it's hitting.

the warriors of hope are trying to kill all adults because they believe that adults are hurting kids and all adults are bad and the only way to take care of kids is to kill all the adults and just have a safe place for kids to be kids. they are attempting genocide on the adults of towa city.

the adults who shirokuma save steadily grow more radicalized to the point where they want to kill all of the kids in towa city for the mass murder that the children have been doing on the adults (not realizing that the kids are being mind controlled - literally - by the warriors of hope). by the time they find out what's happening (and that the only way to stop the monokumas is to literally explode the heads of all the kids being mind controlled), they don't care. they want all the kids dead. they are literally chanting kill! kill! kill! to that end, they want genocide on the kids of towa city.

(and udg probably never uses that word because it is a very heavy word with a lot of weight and consequences to it. but that is very much what both sides want to do to the other.)

and it does a very, very good job of showing how people who are being attacked and who have these actions taken against them can become radicalized back to a point where it's no longer just stop the pain but also kill them all, they need to all die.

and the game calls them demons.

it has the warriors of hope call adults demons, and it has monaca call the adults who are fine with killing the kids demons, too. says that they've become that. (and part of the process of the adults getting to that point was when they said the kids were demons.)

udg does such a good job with this. and of course, it can't end with hope or despair but somewhere in between because there's not a pat answer there. but it ends with komaru wanting to save both - to save both sides - to find a way to reconcile and save and not fall into the radicalization and staying so that she can try to do that. and that's beautiful.

....

and then also it tries to tackle various forms of child abuse and does not do a very good job of that because it wasn't the main theme. it was backstory theme to support the main theme. it was, hey, the kids also have a good reason for hating adults, it's a lot more complicated than people want it to be, neither side starts with let's kill everyone, they get there from being radicalized through a lot of trauma.

so because it's not the main focus - it's just there to support the main focus - udg does a relatively poor job of addressing it. there's very shallow attempts to talk about each of the different forms in the different chapters, sometimes barely talked about at all before the boss fight (looking at you, chapter one), and some of its attempts are paired with a lot of discomfort, which i'm willing to hope was intentional because it should be uncomfortable and not glossed over, but also is uncomfortable.

worse still, a lot of that theme gets completely shoved under the rug when you get to monaca and yes, she also got abused, to the point that she faked a disability to get people to be nicer to her, and the people who abused her apparently hurt her so bad that they believed they hurt her THAT BAD, which is saying something. but that gets avoid in monaca's exposition because that's not the point; monaca being evil and starting a war is the point - which, again, is the main theme. so the other tough theme gets a not great treatment because it's not the point.

which is unfortunate because they did such a good job with what was the main point that i think maybe they could have actually done a good job with the rest of it if they'd treated it with the same care and consideration they did with the other.

i think this is easily the most coherent of the danganronpa games (so far). it hits its theme, and it does have...ending pacing issues, which seems to be a running issue with the series, but they aren't as bad, i think, as they are in the other games. the ending was basically how much worse can we make monaca, which. wasn't necessary. but it served its main theme well, so.

I didn't feel hit over the head with a lot of things i could not have figured out over the course of the game. i didn't feel like i couldn't have figured that stuff out. i had moments of ah, i was close, but this is the actual thing and oh, i see, that makes sense instead of i don't know how i was supposed to figure this out.

and it did such a good job with the relationship between toko and komaru. that is probably the best relationship that's been written in the series up to this point, and maybe it's because komaru isn't going around trying to make besties with everybody and they can just hone in on this is your friend, we can just develop this and have it mean something.

like.

this may not be a good danganronpa game (given how radically different it is from the main games), but it is a good game.

...albeit sometimes a bit danganronpa gross about its subject matter.

[lesbiancarat]

oh tws hanjin (their chinese member) said he got into kpop bc of cha eunwoo and svt and that watching jun and minghao is what inspired him to actually want to be an idol himself 🥺

[love-has-a-way-ofgrowingbackward]

gonna try for bits otherwise im kinda fucked

[kleptonancydrew]

Things I did to prepare for Key:

brought my laptop to work

put on a movie for one of my classes so I could download the game

-movie was rated R, there were so many tits in my classroom, absolute fuckup

made another class watch a video on youtube and reflect on it, told them I was grading videos from seniors

-put in headphones and started playing the game while 'teaching'

continued playing the game while one of my classes was testing

-pretty sure someone cheated, did not have capacity to care - had already caught someone that morning, didn't want to go through the process again

-lied to them about grading senior papers too

breakfast for dinner

gave my next day's first, third, and fifth periods to a coworker (I didn't have 2nd or 3rd)

fell asleep at work today

(continued to let my class watch the rated R movie so I could actually grade the papers I was supposedly grading before)

[hiddenbeks]

KOTOR was the first rpg I ever played so it has a super special place in my heart! I hope you’re having fun with it! Is this your first playthrough? 👀

yea i'm having a blast with it! it has some issues like the occasional bugs and crashes and the uhhh clunky inventory management.. also i had to disable cinematic cutscenes entirely because they were causing most of the crashes and now i don't get to see any force visions 😔 but aside from that it's been great <3 there's something about the old republic era that is so comfy and fascinating to me... maybe because it's not as bloated as the skywalker saga era idk?? also kotor is just. fun. swinging a lightsaber is fun the minigames are fun the soundtrack is nice and the story is intriguing! i haven't been able to avoid spoilers about some characters and the Plot Twist but i've still enjoyed the adventure and the unfolding mystery and the quest for the star forge...

also yea this is kinda my first playthrough! i played for the first time 5 years ago according to my gog stats lmao but i didn't get further than dantooine when i started having these weird visual glitches and i didn't want to deal with them so i just dropped the game and forgor about it for. several years </3 but i started a fresh playthrough last year! i discovered the clone wars in early 2020s and then i rewatched the prequels for the first time in ages and then andor came out and it was so good and i guess all this reinvigorated my desire to play kotor and actually finish it this time? i don't consider myself a sw fan but i am a very... selective enjoyer of the franchise lmao and i've been selectively enjoying it a lot lately 😌

anyway very cool to find other kotor players out here!! are you into any other sw games or other media? also what are your thoughts on the kotor remake that may or may not be in development 👀

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[whisperofthewaves]

I've been trying to explain in short words what murderbot diaries is about to a couple of people when asked what I've been reading and, yeah. I think all things aside, it is the cozy fantasy genre type of series. to me.