#and it feels so true wtf? how much of this complexity and all the advancements are just leading to stress and anxiety and exhaustion?

[coulsonlives]

Well this is terrifying.

[obsidianpen]

the fact that harry canonically is smart and magically powerful makes my mood improve several times a day, but i don’t get the overwhelming tendency to dumb him down in fanfiction, especially when paired with tom/voldemort. and when i say canonically, i really do mean that it’s written black on white in the books: his grades, which are a bit higher than even an average student, considering how little time harry actually spends studying; his brilliant memory, almost to the point of making me wonder whether it can be classified as eidetic (he remembers spells and wand movements he’s seen maybe once or twice before perfectly, not to mention remembering a spell hermione cast a whole year prior and successfully casting it himself on the first try; remembering specific placements of objects or random things he’s read in passing); continuing on from the previous examples, his ability to cast correctly and successfully a wide range of spells, some being quite advanced, on his first few tries; his ability to plan, strategise and then lead people into said course of action.

obviously, he is hotheaded and impulsive and stubborn and self doubting to a fault, distrustful in his own abilities when it costs him the most, but that doesn’t negate at all his intellect and magical proficiency. he’s not dumb, he’s not just interested in quidditch and he definitely isn’t a goody two shoes, who would tremble at the thought of manipulating, lying or using dark magic to get his own way, as long as the end goal aligns with his ideals.

i’m not referencing any of your specific work here, this is not the point of this ramble, rather i wanted to bring forth something i’ve noticed happening quite a lot and wondering what your opinion is, as a fanfic writer yourself?

i just feel like there is no need to sacrifice one character for the sake of another — in this case, building tom/voldemort’s character at the expense of harry. he doesn’t have to be stripped down of all the things that make him compelling and complex just so voldemort can seem grander on page. we already know he is intimidating and powerful and captivating. he already demands the attention of the reader when making an appearance.

but two characters can be as equally complex and intricately built, and still coexist on the same page. that’s the baseline of their great chemistry, i think: how well they bounce off of each other without even trying too hard.

well, I can’t really speak to whether or not this happens all the time with harrymort or not, as I don’t read a ton of fics, so I’m taking your word on that being true. And I don’t know if I put Harry on quite as high of a pedestal as you do - I do think he is above average in a lot of things and exceptional in a few, but I also think he’s relatively average in many respects, which is why I like him. All that being said, I’d guess it has to do with a few things.

first I’d say it’s that a lot of people like to write extremes, esp when it comes to villain/hero type pairings. They like Voldemort seeming extra big and bad and strong, and so yeah, they make Harry smaller and weaker in comparison. Maybe some do it in reasonable ways, and others do it in a, Harry’s a 5’0” omega male in heat or wtf ever (no shame there if that’s your thing!). It’s fun to write and really does something for a lot of people. I’d imagine this happens with all sorts of pairings.

I’d guess another reason is that, if you have been reading fanfiction for a long time and you come across this weaker/smaller/etc version of Harry a lot, you might start to forget what he was like in canon, and you’re being influenced by the content you are taking in and therefore writing Harry like this, too. Happens all the time in fandom.

lastly, I think this may happen because it’s a lot easier - and therefore fun - (imo ofc) to write extremes than it is to write two characters who are closer together, across the board. There’s a lot more nuance when the couple is much more evenly matched. It’s hard. It’s hard! So much simpler to figure out what’s going to happen next when the power dynamic is 10/90 instead of 50/50. A game of chess with a master versus a novice is over fast; a game with two evenly matched players who like to sit and stare at each other binge analytical can go on a looooong time!

[lawyernovelist]

Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master: A Legend

I'm not dead! Sorry for the long break, and sorry in advance for the fact that this post isn't quite up to my usual wordy standard; I've spent the last several months suffering from massive writer's block on almost every project I have on the go, including a novel, the next chapter of My Tauriel, and several blog posts.

Anyway, to get on with the show, I thought what The Last Jedi did with Luke Skywalker was one of the coolest and gutsiest things in it.

Bring it.

Spoilers for Star Wars through The Last Jedi and Lord of the Rings.

Now, I opened in that unnecessarily confrontational way because I've seen criticism of how this movie handled Luke from all over the place and all directions. And to an extent I get that, like I kind of get a lot of the criticism of this movie. I would, however, just like to get one small thing out of the way, and that's the comment I've seen all over the place that "they made Luke evil to make Kylo Ren good." And... no?

I think where this comes from is a feeling that because we see Luke do - or start to do - something unequivocally morally wrong, namely murder his student and nephew in his sleep, that must mean that the movie is telling us that Luke turned evil after we last saw him in the original trilogy. The main narrative beneficiary of such a change would be Ren, since this means that not only is the person telling us how he went bad unreliable, but he himself pushed Ren over the edge. It's not Ren's fault; his mentor betrayed him and so he fell from grace as a reaction to that. Luke is actually evil - the sort of man who would murder a helpless boy who trusted him - and Ren is his innocent victim.

Well, that only really holds up if you subscribe to the belief that if someone does or thinks one wrong thing they're irredeemably evil and that anyone who's been victimised is automatically good. And to be honest, I shouldn't be surprised this is a thing; it seems to be a really common belief on the internet.

But this was part of why I admired this story beat so much: it goes square against that narrative. What Luke did was wrong. Nobody denies that, even him. Right then in the moment he realised that he should not murder a defenceless boy just because of his own fears of what that boy might grow to do, and he accepts that what happened next was a consequence of his actions. Meanwhile, while Ren was right to be frightened and defend himself in the moment, and it's entirely reasonable that he drew his own lightsaber, force-pulled the roof down on Luke, left him for dead, and fled into the night, you know what wasn't a reasonable thing to do? Burn down the school and massacre the other students.

Luke did a bad thing, acknowledged it as bad, and accepted the personal consequences, including the lasting guilt. That doesn't make him evil, it makes him human. Ren reacted in an entirely understandable way up to the point where he went way too far and continued his trend of, when presented with multiple choices, always taking the evil one.

Ren: Gee, I've captured a teenage scavenger who has information I need. Shall I put her in a secure but comfy cell, apologise for scaring her, and offer her money and a ride home to Jakku in exchange for the information, or shall I tie her up, threaten her and her friends, and mind-rape her?

Also, while I'm defending Luke, you get points for realising that what you're about to do is awful before you do it. They say that the first thought you have is what you've been conditioned to think and the second is what you actually think.

Anyway, that probably would have been a nice segue over from the last post where I talked about the presentation of good and evil in these movies, but I did want to explicitly call out that one piece of criticism because it actually irritates me more than is rational. They did something complex and interesting! Stop discouraging them!

OK, so I mentioned that I can see why people are upset about this, and the next one I'm going to address is one that I actually kind of sympathise with, as well as being the reason I chose this specific quote as the title of this blog post: the presentation of Luke as a disillusioned old man who has failed to live up to his own legend.

I thought long and hard to come up with a hypothetical Tolkien example so I could empathise on this one, because Star Wars wasn't a big part of my childhood or anything, so maybe that's why I find it easy to say "Oh, neat, they're doing a cool new twist on an archetypical character" when everyone else in the cinema is saying "WTF have you done to Luke?" Eventually I came up with the option of "What if some asshole came along and made a sequel to Lord of the Rings in which we see that power corrupts and all the bad aspects of medieval kingship (and there are a lot of those) have started manifesting in Aragorn?" and concluded that yeah, I'd be pissed and that would actually be less upsetting than this must be because at least I'd have the comfort that such a sequel would be terrible fanfic, not actual canon. This is Star Wars canon now.

So yeah, I get why people are upset, but hear me and my outsider's perspective out.

For one thing, this is another difference between that hypothetical Lord of the Rings example and The Last Jedi: the problem isn't with Luke except that he couldn't live up to the legend that had grown up around his name and his position as the last of the Jedi and founder of a new Jedi order. And that's an awesome take.

A couple of things about me: first, I'm actually really interested in the question of what happens after these classic stories end. Now, that doesn't always mean that I want to find out - I don't feel the need to actually see Cinderella struggle to adjust to her new life as a princess in combination with the potential political awkwardness caused by the fact that the heir to the throne clearly suffers from face-blindness, and that's why I cannot believe Disney made two sequels (though I hear Cinderella 3 is way better than it has any right to be) - but it's always an interesting question. That's especially true of bigger and more complicated stories with world-shaking consequences like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings: it is kind of interesting to wonder how, after the happy/bittersweet ending, things fell apart. Because that's what things do.

To continue down this rabbit-hole - I promise I'll surface with a point in a moment - this was something Tolkien really got and which you can only really appreciate if you read all his Middle-Earth work: The Silmarillion, The Hobbit (supplemented by The Unfinished Tales), and The Lord of the Rings, in that order: things fall apart. Every time there's a victory, something is lost and it's only a temporary reprieve because evil always rises again. It may be smaller, but so are the forces of Good. Tolkien actually did start work on a sequel to Lord of the Rings in which we see evil returning during the reign of Aragorn's son Eldarion, not really because Eldarion was a crappy king or anything but just because that's what evil does.

The Last Jedi hits a similar note: Just because the Empire was defeated, evil isn't banished from the galaxy. And just as in that unfinished sequel, it's not because the heroes of the previous stories did anything wrong, it's just that this isn't as simple as it looks and winning one big battle and killing one guy doesn't solve all the problems. Eventually the situation will deteriorate again.

That's even more true where the heroes involved don't necessarily know how to pick up the pieces of the evil empire they destroyed, by the way. The galaxy was pretty lucky to have Leia on hand.

The second relevant thing I find interesting is myth-making: how people tell themselves stories about what's happening around them, and how that affects their behaviour and expectations. This is something that happens all the time, sometimes because someone is deliberately creating a myth around an event, group, or person, sometimes because a story has been heard, mis-remembered, and repeated so many times that it's lost some details and gained others, sometimes because people desperately want to believe in something. And it's honestly pretty fascinating. It's been great fun watching the discussion around Hamilton, for example, and how it seems to have changed views of the founding fathers because it presents a new myth in the form of a history play with awesome music.

Watching modern myth-making in the form of polemic and conspiracy theory is also a little bit terrifying, but that's a whole other topic.

Humans love to tell themselves and each other stories, and you can bet stories spread far and wide about Luke after the Empire fell. Even Rey, having grown up in this crappy backwater town on Jakku, seems to have knowledge and expectations of Luke and the Jedi. Doesn't it make all kinds of sense that those stories became myths and that they grew and changed in the years between the fall of the Empire and Luke taking some students and setting up a Jedi school, painting Luke as a larger-than-life hero who could do anything?

Personal anecdote time: when Obama was elected in 2008, I was at university in the States (now you can all guess my age :P). I watched the results coming in on the TV in our dorm lounge, and when the election was called for Obama the place went wild. We spilled out into the road, I could hear the celebrations from other dorms half a mile away, even I went running down the length of the building screaming and wearing an American flag as a cape. But once I'd calmed down a bit I looked around at the Bacchic levels of celebration and said to one of my friends "He'll be remembered as a failure." Naturally, she looked at me like I'd grown at least five heads, so I elaborated, "Everyone's built him up to be the Second Coming. He can't live up to this. Nobody can." I bring this up because that's what I remember when I look at Luke in The Last Jedi: everyone had such high hopes and expectations of him, a legend had built up around his name, he'd become a figure of myth, but at the end of the day he was just a man. He couldn't live up to that. Nobody could.

That acknowledgment of the effects of myth-making around great people and events isn't something I see very often in film, and it ties into what I was saying about seeing what happens after the words "The End". What stories do the people in the world tell themselves about the hero? How does that affect everyone's view of him? How does it affect his view of himself?

That last is also why I find Luke's characterisation in Last Jedi very believable. It makes total sense to me that after this massive failure, which also cost the lives of his students and might have driven his nephew to the dark side, he has withdrawn and become embittered. Again, I come back to the line I used to title this post; the way Hamill delivers it really sums that up.

By the way, good grief did my estimation for all the actors in this film go up.

Anyway, that also feels like a subversion of tropes, which was something this movie did in spades and I love it. I'm having trouble thinking of another of these epic fantasy stories where the hero tracks down the mentor who will turn them into a great warrior or whatever and finds someone so disillusioned. Rey's not having to persuade Luke she's worthy or anything (side-note: I especially enjoy that he never gets weird about the fact that a girl is so strong with the force. It wouldn't make a lot of sense - I mean, he knows Leia - but it was still nice not to have a a subplot where she has to prove she's worthy despite the ~*~terrible handicap~*~ of a second X chromosome), she's having to persuade him that just coming back into the fight at all is worth doing. She's not having to persuade him to train her but to train anyone, and his refusal actually does make sense. I mean, look what happened last time he got himself a crazy-powerful young student. Clearly he can't do this and it might not even be a good idea for anyone to do this.

Now, again, not very familiar with the original movies, this might actually be the exact route they took with Obi-wan and/or Yoda, but I don't remember ever seeing it before and something that distinctive is something I'm sure I would have noticed seeing for a second time. If I'm way off the mark here, though, I can only apologise.

One more comment, and then I'll close. I also really enjoyed Luke's relationship with Ren. This is kind of bringing me back to where I started, but it was still interesting to see how the break with Ren has affected Luke as well as how it's affected Ren. I like watching the emotional consequences play out, as well as how his previous failures have affected Luke's later relationship with Rey and view of himself. Also, that last fight was amazing. It did a great job of developing Ren's character in how he reacted to the sight of Luke and also the emptiness he seemed to feel when after all that Luke wasn't really there. For me, the way Ren reacted after that fight really did cement my view that this is not about Ren defending himself any more, no matter what his initial reaction might have been when he woke up to find Luke standing over him with a lightsaber; it's now about revenge. It kind of shone a new light on Ren, which was in itself interesting to me.

Anyway, I liked Luke in the original trilogy. I liked his enthusiasm, his intelligence, his determination, and his compassion (why did nobody tell me about him redeeming Darth Vader with the power of love?). However, that just meant that I enjoyed all the more seeing how he's been developed here. That Luke was still there, minus some enthusiasm and plus some world-weary cynicism that makes perfect sense given what's happened in the interim. I liked him as a character, I liked what he added to the story, and overall I think his presentation was one of the gutsiest things in this movie.

In summary: Luke good. Film good. Don't @ me.

If you enjoy my blog, you might also enjoy my novel: Bladedancer's Heirs. You can also find me on Goodreads!

[gay-saltasaurus]

Ok, here's my review/analysis of Death Stranding. Full thoughts in the read more, but tldr:

Death Stranding is an amazing game. There is nothing else like it. It's complex, and the story will probably make your brain hurt a little, but its fascinating. This game is SUPER not for everyone. Some people hate it, and I understand why. How you play the game is entirely up to you, and what you get out of it depends on what you put into it. Its incredibly well made, and I highly recommend it.

That was probably a bit long for a tldr, but if you opened the read more you brought this on yourself.

Context

First, a bit of context. Death Stranding was my first Kojima game. I knew of his reputation and admired his values as a game designer, but Metal Gear just didn't seem like my thing. I just saw the promotional images and stuff for DS (particularly that one of the five black figures in the sky) and was just overwhelmed with curiosity and WTF IS THIS GAME. I forgot about it for a while, then it came out, I watched maybe an hour of a let's play and read a few spoiler free customer reviews. I don't think I've ever seen reviews so divided. I saw maybe one review that gave a middle score. But the let's play showed some interesting concepts and a really strong atmosphere, so I was on board. I haven't looked at any reviews since finishing the game, so I might add to this post later to address those points. (Nevermind that will need to be separate because I am a long winded bitch)

Gameplay

Death Stranding's gameplay probably isn't for everyone. If you're looking for something fast paced or something you don't have to think that hard about, or if menu screens really bother you, this might not be for you. That being said, there is something here for everyone. There's strategy, stealth, action, exploration, ect. Like any good open world game, you create your own experience. You can go take on MULES, make deliveries to side characters to learn more about them and the world, or just go straight to your destination as fast as possible. Do you want to deal with MULEs with stealth, violence, or avoiding them altogether? Do you want to make deliveries by foot and deal with balance, or use a vehicle and deal with rough terrain and cliffs? The game allows pretty much any play style, all of them carefully balanced so that none are inherently better than the others.

One part of the gameplay that might set a few people off is the amount of menus. There are a lot of them, and navigating them is not always the most intuitive. However, they are important to the gameplay, and they are pretty useful once you get used to them. Since my brain is more of a pinball machine than a coherent train of thought, automatically going through multiple menus when taking on a delivery saved me having to go back to the terminal 8 times because I forgot something. I also love the map and being able to see the route I plotted so I don't have to constantly check the map because my pinball brain can't remember where tf I'm going. It also leaves me free to process the story and enjoy the atmosphere.

The balance mechanic might also seem tedious at first, but it seems like it's partially an alternative to the weight/speed system most games use. Excessive cargo slows you down, but balance becomes an issue long before speed does. Personally I really prefer this to the agonizing slow motion crawl that most games use, since in theory you can still carry an excessive amount of cargo, you just have to be good at balancing it. It adds to the realism and challenge to parts of the game that might otherwise feel like a walking sim. It can also look really fucking silly and I love that.

Story

Sweet baby Jesus, this story is a lot. Its complicated af, with a lot of big ideas that can make it difficult to understand. The long quiet traveling segments come in handy here, as they give the player time to process the latest chunk of exposition. This is a story that requires a lot of exposition and long cutscenes, but if you really aren't into that they're all skippable, and you can still see where to go next, but obviously this game isn't really for anyone who's that impatient.

Personally, I'd say the story is pretty good. It's not perfect, but I feel like it's not quite the focus of the game (more on that later), so it doesn't really need to be. The performances are fantastic, and Reedus adds a lot of personality and depth to Sam that would otherwise need to be shown through even more dialog. As someone who's spent years studying storytelling, I'm always relieved to find a story where I have no idea where it's going because the narrative structure is so weird. There are plenty of major twists, but they're set up ahead of time. Everytime I thought "Wait that doesn't add up" Death Stranding would later say "You're right! It doesnt!" And that's wonderful.

Worldbuilding

The worldbuilding here is some of the best I've seen in a game. There is SO. MUCH. DETAIL. Everything feels well thought out, you can tell that the developers spent a lot of time just working out how society would function in this situation. And a lot of it is based on actual science to the extent that you can tell that some of the people involved here had hyperfixation level interest in some pretty advanced topics. The science here is used in a way that shows a level of actual understanding, instead of the usual "I saw an article once that said we don't use 100% of our brains. I didn't read past the headline, but here have some fancy science words." As someone who frequently hyperfixates on random science enough to see through shitty/nonexistent research, I can't possibly express how exiting this is. I'm by no means an expert on quantum mechanics or whatever, but I can tell that someone here did at least some actual research. And of course, as other people have pointed out, the discussion of the effects of isolation in this world have been shown to be pretty damn accurate in light of recent events.

Themes

OK HERE WE GO HERES THE BIG ONE. Like I said, I feel like the focus of Death Stranding isn't on its story, but on its theme of connection. Every other element of the game comes together to support that central experience. You are reconnecting a world that is overwhelmingly isolated. You are traveling through a vast, empty landscape, completely alone (except for BB). As you reconnect each region, the landscape becomes less empty as you're connected to other players. You are aware that you're working together with other people, even if you never see them, just like the preppers and other people you're connecting. Characters continue to send you emails, reminding you of the connections you've made and showing how your actions are slowly making the world a little less apocalyptic. Shoutout to the guy at the 1st waystation, who slowly got better at going outside. I don't remember his name, but I'm proud of him.

Death Stranding is a prime example of a hopepunk game. Despite its somewhat melancholy atmosphere, ongoing apocalypse, occasionally harrowing gameplay (that fucking mountain), moments of horror, and the constant presence of death, it is aggressively optimistic. All the Bridges characters are so positive, and the way they talk about the chiral network makes it sound almost too good to be true. And even when the dark secrets of Bridges and the network are revealed, it doesn't take away the positive impact. It's not one of those twists where everything was a lie and fuck you for trusting it, because you've seen the network save lives. The world in DS is FUCKED. It has been for years, and probably will be for the foreseeable future. But that doesn't mean you should stop trying.

If you actually made it this far, congratulations and thank you.

[logh-icebergs]

Episode 10: Jessica’s Battle

Summer 796/487. Yang and Julian travel to Thernusen, where Yang has been ordered to attend a ceremony at the military academy. Upon arrival Yang is unwittingly sucked into a political battle between pro-war and anti-war factions, and we learn that politics have gotten no more civil in the next 1600 years: Yang is attacked by peace party goons; peace party goons are attacked by the PKC; and finally Yang is saved from Jessica’s rather aggressive advances when the headquarters of the peace party is bombed, killing their candidate. This strategy backfires badly, as Jessica runs in his place and receives 80% (!!) of the vote. Meanwhile, Julian is repeatedly denied the chance to have any fun.

Yang, Asexuality, and Representation

One frankly astonishing thing about Legend of Galactic Heroes is the breadth and variety of queer characters, each with their own personal relationship to issues of love and sex and romance, each with their own personal struggles against societies that want to cram everyone into neat normative boxes, each with their own methods of navigating those expectations. Hell, it’s only episode 10, and already we’ve gotten to know one gay couple well and seen another gay couple in the background; we’ve gotten glimpses of Magdalena and Hilda, whose respective ways of navigating imperial society as queer women we’ll discuss at length as we see more of them; we’ve met Dusty, who flies slightly under the radar by embracing a “confirmed bachelor” identity; and pretty soon we’ll meet a gay character who attempts to pass by loudly proclaiming his (dubious) heterosexual conquests at every opportunity. In the future we’ll get to know a handful of bi characters, some quite promiscuous, others very shy about sex and romance. We’ll see multiple different characters grapple with their parents’ reactions to their queer identities. This is not representation as in box-checking and calling it a day. This is representation as in an actual reflection of the myriad ways that real people relate to these issues individually.

And there’s Yang, who is asexual. I’ve been dancing around this for several episodes, ever since one of the first details the show chose to tell us about him in “My Conquest” was his apathy toward the piles of love letters he receives:

Hints of this have been there all along (remember his overly flustered reaction to feeling like Cazellnu was attempting to matchmake for him?), but finally in this episode, through his interactions with Jessica and backstory about his time at the academy, we get enough detail and body language to start to put the puzzle together. Alliance culture of the late 700’s being remarkably similar to much of Earth culture of the late 1900’s, Yang lacks a good framework for understanding this aspect of himself, and throughout the show we’ll see him struggle with an inability to explain the anxiety he clearly feels when confronted with romantic situations. Although he’s not aromantic, the potential sexual expectations that go along with romance lead him to shy away from it, as he did with Jessica, and is already starting to do with Frederica.

What Yang says here is "tondemonai," which I'd translate as something like "not at all!"

Wading through online lists of supposedly ace characters in media, one finds a pretty frustrating mix of characters who are either actually gay (with asexuality used as a cloak by the creators and/or audience to sweep that gayness under the rug), or rendered “asexual” through some accident or medical condition, or are some kind of biologically asexual being, with just a handful of actual examples scattered throughout. But Yang is not a robot or a legendary Pokémon, or a background character who just never gets paired off romantically. He’s a protagonist, a warm and empathetic and brilliant person with many complicated relationships in his life spanning friendship and romance. The nuance and realism with which his love life is depicted throughout the show is both impressive and Really Fucking Important.

Aww Yang.

Yang and Jessica

I love the motif of reflections in this show. This shot captures the distance between them in a way no words I could type here can.

There are so many facets to the sadness and tension that pervade every scene between Yang and Jessica: their different approaches to working to end the war; the pain of Lapp’s recent death and Yang’s guilt surrounding it; and, as we learn in this episode, lingering regret on Jessica’s part that Yang never pursued a romantic relationship with her. Because of the complexity of their dynamic and the fact that Yang himself is confused about how to act around her, untangling their interactions is a difficult task. There’s a lot that’s deliberately left ambiguous; and while I love that LoGH doesn’t feel the need to make relationships simpler than they are in real life, it doesn’t exactly make our job as viewers easy.

What was Yang about to say? An explanation of why he feels it’s best for him to play nice with his superiors even though they’re using him for propaganda? An invitation to socialize that he decides could be taken the wrong way, or would be turned down because of the political gulf between them? Just tell us dammit, to hell with realistic storytelling!

Our goal, then, like that parable about the blind men and the elephant, is to find the reality that best explains the sum total of the details that we see, even when each detail on its own may feel ambiguous. And the main thread that runs through all of Yang’s behavior, both in the flashback to his first year at the academy and in the present, is his complete lack of initiative when it comes to anything romantic.  

Case in point number one: Although we’re told twice—through Julian, importantly—that part of Yang’s agenda in going to Thernusen is to see Jessica, he never once actually makes an active effort to do so, instead filling his free time by flopping on the hotel bed griping about politics and taking Julian out to fancy restaurants.

Is Julian a reliable narrator here? Unclear—if you’ve ever had the sort of hero-worship proto-crush that Julian has at this point, you might recognize an over-eager interest in that person’s love life as one of the symptoms. Yang’s “oy mind your own business” reactions tell us that the situation is complicated, but not much more than that.

When we last saw Yang and Jessica together, they were saying an extremely awkward and fraught goodbye at the airport; in particular, Jessica seemed to be waiting for Yang to say something further, before finally giving up and walking away. At the time I suggested that Yang’s sadness in that scene could stem partly from not feeling comfortable fulfilling the role that her wistful gazes seem to ask of him, and his reluctance to reach out to her while he’s in Thernusen fits with that. Julian, being astute and keenly interested in the subject, has also picked up on vibes beyond “old college friend” between Yang and Jessica, and his natural assumption is that this ought to mean Yang will seek her out. But on the contrary, Yang’s reaction is to withdraw.

Turns out he didn’t need to seek her out: Like it or not they’re thrown together twice by the political melodrama that’s going down in this city. After the second incident, in which Yang rescues one of Jessica’s friends from PKC thugs, he finds himself walking with her past the military academy campus, and at her suggestion they sneak in.

Pictured: Yang Wenli in his natural habitat, on a romantic walk at night alone with a girl.

This incredibly closed off body language contrasts not only with how Yang acts in situations where he feels comfortable, but also notably with the body language between Reinhard and Kircheis in...well okay in every scene that includes both of them, but I’m thinking specifically of the episode 8 flashback, which also takes place in the romantic setting of sitting together on the grass at night.

Being at the academy leads to a nostalgic mood, which brings us to case in point number two of Yang’s passivity. Through an extended flashback we learn that he first saw Jessica when his friend Lapp literally dragged him away from scrolling through Instagr— I mean studying history, in order to ogle a hot girl he found through a window.

Quick aside on Lapp and how much he sucks: ...a lot. This is fucked up. If Lapp likes her, why drag Yang into it? In his mind he’s probably being generous, but it reeks of positioning Jessica as an object that must be competed for and won in order to have real value. Wtf Lapp. I talked above about the beauty of how this show captures the true panoply of human experience, but did straight white douchebag guys really need the extra representation??

Lapp procured two tickets to a party that Jessica will be at, and when he asks Yang if he wants one Yang responds with an almost offended “of course”—why wouldn’t he? At the party Lapp and Yang are both standing around being wallflowers until Lapp decides it’s time for one of them to make a move on their target, and flips a coin for the privilege. Yang wins the flip, and so finds himself asking Jessica to dance, swept along into that position entirely by Lapp’s own interest in her.

I’m emphasizing Yang’s lack of initiative here because it’s important to the overall picture; I’m not suggesting that 18-year-old Yang isn’t sincerely hoping that things go well with Jessica. My read on college!Yang is that if left to his own devices he would sit around studying history all day, but if anything he’s grateful to have a friend who’s better at this girl stuff than he is who can push him a bit.

When they start dancing, however, it’s immediately clear that Yang is way, way out of his comfort zone.

Yes, Yang “never learning to dance” can be taken as a metaphor for his asexuality. This symbolism is yet another "iceberg": the part above the surface is the actual events of the story, while the hidden depths are the metaphorical connections that we can draw from what's depicted to help us understand things the show can’t talk about more directly.

He’s failing so badly to perform the proper role of smoothly sweeping the girl off her feet that Lapp decides it’s necessary to save Yang from further embarrassment by cutting in for him; Yang seems (rightly!) a bit miffed at this, but quickly resigns himself to being a wallflower again. 

Lapp: Did I mention he sucks? This is another asshole move cloaked in ostensibly good intentions. Lapp would have ceded this “prize” to his friend if he won her fair and square, but as soon as he sees Yang deviate from the proper protocols of seduction, he decides Yang is no longer worthy and claims her for himself.

Jessica seems susceptible to Lapp’s charms, and some undetermined time later Yang spots them giggling together under a tree and realizes, a bit wistfully, that things between them seem to be clicking. 

As always there could be a lot behind this wistfulness: wondering what might have been with Jessica if he’d had more of a chance; or more general envy that Lapp knows how to do this stuff and he doesn’t.

Which brings us back to the present, and Yang again finding himself swept along into a situation out of his comfort zone, sitting under a tree with a rather emotional Jessica. When Jessica confesses that she had been hoping Yang would ask her to dance again, Yang evasively cites Lapp’s infatuation with her, an excuse she doesn’t seem to totally accept. 

What Jessica actually says here is “otoko-doushi no yuujou tte wake?” which I’d translate as “sooo it was a bro code kinda thing?” Good to know that fantastic concept survives for another 1600 years...

And when, overcome with various emotions, Jessica finally breaks through the closed-off body language and throws herself at Yang, we come to case in point number three of Yang failing to assert himself. Although he’s done all he can to passively signal that he’s uncomfortable with the hints of romance between them, he can’t seem to bring himself to actively reject her—maybe just because he hates the thought of hurting her, maybe because part of him wishes he were more interested and feels conflicted, maybe because part of him is interested but doesn’t feel comfortable pursuing it. Whatever the case, as soon as the more passive thing to do is to reciprocate her advances, he goes along with it.

Fortunately for Yang, this incipient tryst is interrupted by the PKC bombing the headquarters of Jessica’s political party, killing their candidate. Despite their last real interaction being an aborted kiss, Yang slips immediately back into passive avoidance mode, making no further attempts to follow up with her before heading back to Heinessenpolis the next day. Jessica is caught up even further in politics, as she runs in place of the murdered candidate and wins; and Yang returns to his military life, glancing at her on the television as he heads off to a meeting with Frederica and wishing her luck. Despite Jessica’s lingering feelings and Yang’s wistfulness, the gulf between them has very clearly widened.

Julian

In the background of all of the drama of this episode we find Julian, teasing Yang about Jessica, listening to Yang’s rants about feeling used by the politicians, lying through his teeth to hotel security, and just generally being a completely adorable shadow-slash-caretaker to Yang. 

Here Julian takes on the role of managing Yang’s emotional state: turning off the TV when thinking about politics is making Yang cranky, then visibly collecting his own emotions enough to smile and offer tea.

In possibly my favorite moment of the episode, Julian is one second away from getting to be the hero who saves Yang from the peace party thugs who are attacking him...only to have his thunder stolen by Jessica. Poor kid.

Yang...Yang...literally thirty seconds ago this abandoned street was full of violent PKC goons who bear a grudge against you and people you care about, and you just… Listen who the fuck put Yang in charge of another human being?

If you pay attention throughout the episode you’ll notice a dozen or so shots where Julian is perfectly mimicking Yang’s body language and expression. (I’ll restrain myself and only include four here.) 

So much is conveyed by all of these tiny moments and details, without Julian ever being the actual focus of the episode. It’s beautiful storytelling. 

Aww Julian.

Stray Tidbits

Worldbuilding alert! We get a bit more detail about how these awesome self-driving zipcars work when Yang hails one. I love how real this feels; how many years away are we from actually having these?

One thing that I find really interesting about the politics in LoGH is that we see characters disagreeing not just about the ultimate goals, but also about questions of the right methods to achieve them. Yang and Jessica both hate the war and feel an imperative to do what they can to minimize the damage done by it; the political tension between them comes from different philosophies about pursuing that end. The questions raised here are difficult and I like that the show never really tries to settle them.

Like episode 9, much of the plot of this episode is anime-only; in the novels Jessica’s victory in this election is mentioned only in passing.

Visibly Angry Yang is a rare specimen and I love him.

Clearly no one was ever supposed to have the technology to pause and move frame-by-frame through the sequence of Yang bouncing up into a sitting position on the hotel bed...this is probably the single most horrible LoGH screenshot I’ve ever taken. 

[independentcreativeservices]

Cancel Cinco de Mayo: What Is This Country Celebrating?

While a good portion of this country prepares to celebrate the Cinco de Mayo “holiday” by superficially guzzling back margaritas and eating Mexican food, but at the same time remaining totally silent to screams of “Go back to your country” and perhaps themselves voting for a white supremacist who scapegoats Mexicans; I’ve got to wonder… What are we celebrating?

And because of this, I’m advocating for the cancellation of the United States of America’s social construction and current recognition of this “holiday.” This isn’t about tacos or tequila, nor is about money or micheladas; this isn’t about votes or vindication, either; it’s about respect. Truth. Justice. If you leave it up to racist Fraternities, they’ll tell you that all Mexicans are low-skilled laborers, which is why I have to take every opportunity to inform the analysis around our current conditions in this country. We, in fact, are more than sombreros, serapes, and stereotypes. We are more powerful than the lies, the hatred, and the hypocrisy; more than the tyranny of dictators and more than threats of deportation.

I’m calling for the cancellation of Cinco de Mayo because we’re not going to allow others to falsely tell our story; those hateful voices are the first to label us with all of the negative stigmas while, incredibly, leaving out the extraordinary valor and courage that we have lived with since the dawn of time. Moreover, it is more than evident that a good portion of this country has no desire to learn or embrace who we really are; on this day, all of the beautiful colors and richness that we live with on a daily basis have been simplified and reduced to big mustaches, “brown-face,” and a border wall. Instead of fighting and advocating for our dignity in this country, it was so much easier to agree with and elect a man who calls us “murderers, rapists, and illegals.”

And because of this, I ask you to reject Cinco de Mayo as we know it in this country. There’s a movement happening; a movement of resistance and unless we fully join, we’ll recognize that “business as usual” will cause our complete demise from a political, economic, and social standpoint.  

What I’m saying is, you can’t have and enjoy our culture without accepting us, too. Think about: wtf is this country even celebrating on Cinco de Mayo? Doesn’t it seem a bit peculiar or even bizarre that this country will claim to enjoy the Mexican people—all that we are and all that we have given the world—on May 5th but at the same time seek to imprison/detain, deport, and ban immigrants, even when it violates law and basic human decency?

From the current political establishment to White America’s weakening grip of power; the insurgent “White Nationalist Movement” to the post-racial uprising of Donald Trump himself—let’s be honest, this country has never cared about Mexicans, Mexican-Americans, or immigrants. If it did, there would be no broad and well-documented history of imperialism, colonialism, xenophobia, injustice, and criminalization against Mexicans. On Cinco de Mayo, I’ve got to ask yet again: wtf are we even celebrating, anyway? Half of the country doesn’t know—they think May 5th is the Mexican Independence Day, with no desire to learn otherwise. Sad. You know what’s also sad? America’s arrested development. We’re living in lazy nation addicted to Big Macs and reality TV. Fast fixes and the next fad. Sure there’s a lot of good in this country and we’ve done some amazing things; but this country also has a dark side, with growth that has been stunted because it has no desire to develop, to learn, and to realize its true potential; this country is holding each of us prisoners of narrow-mindedness and prejudice. And the worst part of it all is the denial. Which is why it makes perfect sense that the same aspects of that repugnant country elected a lying, inept, and incapable man as commander-in-chief. A man who makes up stories to make himself feel good and lead ignorant people into a false sense of security; an immature man who relentlessly escapes, at all costs, any form of responsibility. Donald Trump, President of the United States of Hypocrisy.

The United States: a country that doesn’t care about actual history and will re-write it at its leisure to fit whatever narrative and comfort being pushed at the moment. Because the truth hurts and lies comfort. Given the same opportunity, the same people slamming back Dos Equis on May 5th, would gladly have appreciated a European army to colonize that Mexican land and civilize those brute savages. Whatever benefits their empire and its White Savior complex that this country has always been infatuated with.

Furthermore, if you listen to Donald Trump, he’ll tell you no one cares about “The Hispanics” more than him. An old, tired line with meaningless implications. Perhaps if he stepped away from his Twitter page and looked in the mirror, he’d realize how dishonest and disingenuous he really is. We’ve never believed his lies. And we’re damn sure not going to allow Donald Trump to dictate our experience in this country. We’re not going to allow Donald Trump to add context to the day by telling you that he cares about Mexicans (he cares about no one but himself) and that the best “taco bowls” are made at Trump Tower.

What I’m calling for is clear and can be summed up in five points.

1. Stop the hypocrisy.

You don’t get to have/celebrate our culture without also genuinely acknowledging and celebrating us. Respect us or realize your twisted double-standard. We’re not going to allow you to hate our people but enjoy what our people gave you. Look in the mirror. The truth will set you free.  

2. Resist and reject.

We won’t allow anyone to use, commodify, exploit, co-opt, or appropriate who we are for selfish reasons without also acknowledging our humanity and our livelihood. This culture is not for sale. You can’t put a price tag on it. There’s a new day of critical and conscious consumers who won’t fall for the “okie doke;” a new generation of students and millennials are holding educational institutions, companies & corporations, and public officials accountable. We’re not going back to yesteryear; either practice what you preach, be true to what you say on paper, or be made an example of.

3. Repeal and replace.

Cancel Cinco de Mayo and replace it with something better… something real; something like respect. What the masses are longing for in this country is equality. We want action. Better schools and access to education. Fair pay and opportunity to provide for our own. An overhauled justice system. Comprehensive immigration reform would be nice, too.  How about we advocate for things that are important, rather than promoting binge drinking? While we’re at it, you do know alcoholism is a problem in the Latino community, right? Our health, mental and otherwise, is something we have to take control of. Do not let mainstream America control your actions or your mind. Wake up.

4. No themed-parties.

By spoiled, entitled, privileged brats looking to make a mockery of our culture or by anyone looking to make a quick buck—the themed parties have got to end. We, the people, need to realize how we’re being used, tokenized, and portrayed every day. How long will members of our own community continue to go through the same motions, having our same “Mexican-themed” parties featuring chile peppers on promotional fliers, and expect different results? Results that will not benefit us as a community from a socio-political standpoint. Where’s the respect? Where’s the self-love? Do better.  

5. Educate.

We all have a responsibility today to teach our children the truth. The youth are the future and unless we take the time to educate them on facts, we’ll be doomed to repeat the same fate we’re experiencing right now. Like a broken record. Time and time again, white supremacy, social injustice, and economic inequality in our communities reign supreme. Its time we stand up. Fight back. Access the franchise. Spend your money intentionally. Do something different to get something different. And demand the respect that we deserve. Instead of taking your kid to the Mexican restaurant on Cinco de Mayo; read them the true meaning of La Batalla de Puebla, how the Mexican people resisted larger forces, and how the United States political establishment is seeking to do this all over again with the vehicles of mass incarceration, deportations, and an insidious border wall. We don’t need a day to celebrate Mexicans; we need to celebrate Mexicans and all people every day through our actions. Always remember that a little bit of respect goes a long way and one seed of education can root a tree of knowledge. Wisdom. Love.

The old ways of getting things done have brought us to where we are today, with Donald Trump as President, on the cusp of a retrogressed border wall and a racial animus directed at Mexicans, for as far advanced as we are in society, at an all-time high. If we don’t start doing some things differently, I’m afraid for what sort of future our children are going to be living in.

Furthermore, I’m calling out everyone that is complicit with all the two-faced bull shit we’ve experienced over the past two years in this country; any hypocrite and enabler of this simpleton, unwoke way of life that the masses are living in today is being held responsible. If you’re not abolishing this false-pretense, you’re not off the hook. If we can’t find a way to transform the context in every situation to better our physical, economic, and social conditions; what are we doing? If we’re not injecting a new era of brown intellectualism, self-determination, and unity amongst our people; what are we doing? If we’re not seeking change, what are we doing? I hope it’s not eating tacos and shooting tequila while turning a blind-eye to the plight of Mexicans.

Cancel Cinco de Mayo and replace it with respect for our people.

Cancel Cinco de Mayo and replace it with resistance against Donald Trump’s regime of racism.

Cancel Cinco de Mayo parties and instead plan for our future.

Cancel Cinco de Mayo and ask yourself this May 5th, “what is this country celebrating?”

Cancel Cinco de Mayo and think.

The world, this country, and our people deserve it.

Maximo Anguiano is a creative, organizer, and visionary based out of San Antonio, TX. Follow him on social media @blurbsmithblots.

[sleepymarmot]

Andromeda liveblog: day one

Spoilers!

Eos/Tempest:

The Vault is beautiful! Even though the moving bridges, just like the floating rocks on Habitat 7, are blatantly copy-pasted from Trespasser.

Drack said the fight was fun. Of course it was -- that was the first time I used Annihilation/Charge/Nova!

Military or science -- how is that even a question? :D

Even back in the trial, I instantly became fond of the Tempest crew, in a way different from the Normandy. Not bound by the blood they spilled together -- but a team of nerds and people taking care of those nerds, pretty much. Feels more like the Enterprise!

What helps is that there's already a net of relationships between everyone -- I was thinking about it when Drack was revealed to be Kesh's father and talked about their problems with Tann and their relationship with Vetra. The Nexus backstory really gives depth to this game.

I didn't expect this, but I actually do like Peebee! Since her first trailer appearance, I've been annoyed with her -- obligatory asari LI, shitty design with a sexualized outfit and eyebrows, manic pixie dream girl-ish image -- but her personality won me over. She's a bit similar to my Ryder, and they clicked instantly -- two young, energetic explorers. And she doesn't seem too quirky so far, just a very extroverted nerd. And she has something nice to say about everyone on the ship!

You know, I've been wishing for a romance with a nerdy but genuinely nice person (unlike a certain elf...) and looks like I have not one but two -- and female! -- options here! :D 

The first flirt option with Peebee is good, the second is not.

Ah yes, a readheaded religious wlw written by the same person as Leliana... Look, Leliana is special to me, but this is just annoying. Maybe because Leliana is special.

Another convo with Vetra: "Someone had to know" "Did your father?" "I'm not sure" LOOK THE CONFIRMATIONS JUST KEEP ROLLING IN

Oh, here comes the flirt option I've seen on Youtube! I feel a bit awkward hitting on both of them repeatedly... Will I, on my seventh Bioware game, finally encounter a jealousy conversation?

Peebee has attractive personality, but Vetra's fashion style is obviously superior.

*looks at Liam's handsome face, sighs and stops herself from hitting the heart because that'd be a bit too much*

Nexus/Hyperion:

I love that Tann is the only real politician around, and everybody won't stop complaining about him, even though he's completely benign :D

It's a great feeling that doing sidequests is completely justified this time. In this game, it's literally my job to fly around and ensure random strangers' wellbeing! Oh look, someone on Reddit made a post appreciating this too.

"Your father is my problem. He's everyone's problem. We're all paying for Alec Ryder's ego. He preyed on Jien Garson's trusting nature and bulldozed us to this godforsaken place" !!! More evidence!! (Random angry woman on the Hyperion)

This is a great way to introduce flashbacks! And to reveal information gradually.

SAM is basically the third Ryder child, huh.

The camera angle and lighting in SAM's room is one of the most flattering in the game.

I'm glad we're actually giving spotlight to the transhumanism theme, unlike with Shepard...

Or maybe SAM is Ellen's reincarnation somehow? It's clear Alec somehow intended to save her with it, but how? I'm genuinely enjoying this mystery. Alec sure has a lot of character and presence, especially for a character with so little actual screentime... You can see his shadow over the entire story.

There's some nice animation at Scott's bedside!

"Is dad okay?" Shit. Shit. Now that's a choice...

(I mean, what she's saying will turn out to be true, hopefully...)

I didn't lie about Habitat 7, though. That's not as important.

Holy crap, that was an emotional scene.

I like Garson's Super Ethical VI Interview.

Professor Gerik in the lab on Nexus has a letter about us being invasive species and preserving local biodiversity! That's nice. (But on the other hand, we'd endanger it just as much if the Scourge hadn't done it first.)

Female Salarians look like male Salarians and sound like female humans. I should just learn to live with the fact that there'll be no real Salarian voices in this galaxy... Ugh.

Ahh Drack is visiting Kesh!!

Have I mentioned how fond I am of our new council/advisors? Kandros is a bit bland, but the other three are great.

30 minutes after I said that SAM is like another sibling to Ryder, he got infected with a virus. Give this family a break!

Of course the hackers were wrong etc, but the things hacked!Avina says are still absolutely correct...

BTW I chose to unfreeze merchants first -- to get the bigger inventory. Ugh, the lack of inventory was one of my favourite things about ME2 and ME3...

I had to read a walkthrough for "Station Sabotage"...

I like the design of Zara's face.

The Nexus sidequests are all about intrigue and investigation! Just like the main one about Alec, and the characters' backstories related to the uprising. Nice. I feel like a detective. It really gives the game a unique feel.

The saboteur has a good face too. And another sympathetic voice re: the uprising.

Tempest

Cora the gardener!

Damn, that speech about acceptance sure sounds like she's not talking about biotics... Why is she straight, Bioware?

Poor Cora. I can only continue to admire her ability to not hold grudges -- something that impressed me about her when Ryder became the Pathfinder.

It's so cute that the crew members have a group chat, have I mentioned? Really makes the ship look alive.

Vetra, Peebee, Gil and Liam are chatting like old friends! And the fact that they're playing poker reminds me of the Enterprise even more.

Eos

A timed mission to save colonists... with driving... I was so nervous!

FUCK I can't figure out this Fiend fight

I died like four times already what the fuck

Why can't I charge?! What do you mean "wrong target"?!

Also autosave glitches me through the floor every goddamn time!

Died about 8 times, I'm going to replace Peebee with Drack and turn down the difficulty

Oh thank fuck, this time it worked.

*can't find the evidence in the cave* *fast travel back to the start three or four times, get stuck on rocks*

Oh, here it is. Yeah, I enjoy playing detective, but I'd like less bugs!

I died and the game got stuck on reload

Alright, some sidequests are in the level 3 radiation zone which I don't know how to clear, and I can't find the bodies of the dead colonists. It got boring anyway. Back to the ship!

Tempest

Gil sends me an e-mail mentioning Jaal, whom I haven't even met...

Kallo's still arguing with Gil -- I'm pretty sure there's something going on he's not noticing... Nobody else has anything new to say. Let's advance the plot, then.

New solar system/Tempest/Nexus

Whoa, I didn't expect things to get so intense immediately!

Sooo, are you going to explain how the angara got the translators working within several minutes?

Are you trying to tell me the kett and the angara aren't related, despite having exactly the same faces?

Jaal's cape flapping is mesmerizing.

I don't understand, why is everyone being so weird and unprofessional?? Instead of opening normal diplomatic talks, they stand in a circle and say shit about Jaal in his presence. Why the hell are they being so entitled? If the angara help us, of course we need to offer something in return.

Liam, what movie night?! We're kind of busy!

Well, at least Jaal isn't going to let me exhaust all conversation topics in one go! :D

"I LIVE IN AN ESCAPE POD" :D

Stop! Prompting! Me! To! Flirt! With! Gil! Two different times in the same conversation -- what??

Okay, by this point I'm pretty sure that the poker mentions are not just a coincidence but a deliberate reference to TNG. 

When will I have enough materials for an asari sword? Maybe a quick trip to the Nexus will help. *immediately gets buried under sidequests*

What, you don't have laws for attempted murder? That has never happened in the entire history of Milky Way? Bioware sure likes to create a complex situation then make you decide between two extremes. I let the turian stay, but I'm not impressed.

What, and they didn't even tell the public what really happened? Ugh.

Pacified the protesters successfully.

Was prepared to go and realized I forgot one sidequest on the Nexus, went back... I need to stop doing this! It's ruining all momentum.

Havarl (not sure about the spelling)

Main plot again, here we go!

Oops, clicked on the wrong button and now my team still has Vetra instead of Peebee.

Nice scenery.

Okay, it's stupid to leave the planet just to swap squadmates, but it's even stupider to explore this planet without Peebee.

Oh right, there is a spot here for a forward station. (Don't the angara mind?)

There's an entire alien jungle, and nothing is scannable? Really?

@myself stop fucking dying... how am I supposed to fight enemies I don't see without any reasonable cover...

Oh, right, this is normal water, not the Deadly Electric Water. That's a relief, at least.

Oh look, normal cover, I can use my ranged powers like an adept/sentinel I intended to be instead of novaguarding.

Spent like half an hour trying to find a way towards the forward station mark on the east, gave up. This Pathfinder isn't very good at finding paths...

Let's find the gay turian Pathfinder!

What am I going to do with all this nickel? These aren't the materials I'm looking for, Bioware

And finally, after exploring everything else -- the Monolith!

This happened again: the profiles refuse to switch mid-fight. WTF???

"Follow the Remnant river?" You mean, what I've done an hour before? I sure hope the Remnant didn't respawn...

So the Remnant are Order and the Scourge is Chaos? I see we've arrived to witness an existential struggle of cosmic forces...

Why are my companions so useless during exploration? They don't give advice, they don't even have banter like in DA.

Oh GREAT, a jumping puzzle, and in the dark too.

I must say, the design is really beautiful, they nailed the intersection of "Alien", "Ancient" and "Powerful" here. Though I'm salty because it's just a sci-fi variation of the ancient elven design from DAI, which means DA4 won't be able to use it probably.

Nice view! @people with powerful PCs, please photograph these things for the rest of us!

Novaguarding+shotgun (only a Katana!) is so powerful I don't feel the need to do anything else...

We're nearly at the top and there's a health pack. I better save...

The plot thickens!

Oh. Is THIS the forward station I've been looking for? No wonder I didn't find it lmao. They should have just covered it in fog...

Why are shields so much harder to take down than armor? Ugh, that boss. At least on the second try I managed to kite him...

Yes, I climbed the column. Whatever. I got some Vanadium! Finally, I need it for my asari sword.

Oh, okay, THIS is the forward station from above. OK.

One of the enemies I had to defeat in a camp got stuck somewhere and I had to run around for 10 minutes before I found him, except I didn't even see him and he apparently died when I approached, but idk how it happened.

I met the reincarnated dude. And that's enough for today.

[natsunoomoi]

Problematic Hades

So like, that story really rocked me so I’m still thinking about it and searching about it.

But in doing that, I saw a bunch of posts complaining about how Emet-Selch is fascist or created fascist empires. I wouldn’t actually call him himself so, but yeah he did create them, but for a reason explained in the story. While I don’t approve of what he did, I can totally understand why he did it. For what he wanted to do, that seemed like a pretty sound way to do it.

Spoilers for Shadowbringers.

Okay, so like a couple of things. Yes, he created fascist regimes. I totally don’t think he should have, but I can understand how he came to think that was the only way. And the thing is, as awful as fascist regimes are, his literal goal was to destroy the shard worlds on purpose in order to restore his own. If you want to fuck shit up on purpose, fascism is a good way to do it. We’re all acknowledging here that it is a horrible regime and one that fucks up the world royally and causes a lot of social inequality and so forth, which is bad for us, but the Ascians are trying to do those very things ON PURPOSE because it will lead to a Rejoining. In order to do that you have to maximize how miserable you make people feel, so they chose the most efficient option.

Ascian society itself though was a lot more equal and arguably more democratic.

As for how the Ascians and Emet-Selch treat WoL and company and the other people on the Source, First, and other shard worlds, yeah, it’s deplorable and it’s a real disappointing thing that these Ancients couldn’t see these people as people. However, perhaps they could if they couldn’t literally see the souls of their friends and family in every person. The split souls even.

Some people tried to create equivalences to the story plot points to real life hateful people, but like...there’s similarity in action mostly and not necessarily what they are. That’s a key difference. I’m not even siding with them, but it’s kneejerk stupid to make a false equivalence like that. The difference between an Ascian and the people on the Shard worlds is actually different. Ascians were gigantic and had a whole lot of powers and such that none of the Shard people have. There’s a huge difference in ability as well as potential and even state of mind, so it isn’t really that surprising that they would find the humans to be lesser on the Shard worlds. My argument with them as WoL is that they should count them as worthy because they have sentience, but apparently arguments about sentience didn’t happen among them or at least among those 3 unsundered.

Real life people who are discriminated against though are not different at all from the people who are discriminating against them. There is no actual difference in abilities. There’s a lot of bullshit made up differences, but nothing that can be proven to be actually true. That’s a huge difference between us in the real world and the characters in FFXIV. In the game, there’s an actual difference.

Plus like, I have issues with how the humans in the game treat the beast tribes. Like in Camp Bronze Lake there’s one beastman that just wants to take advantage of the hot spring, but the asshole Yellow Jacket won’t let him through because he doesn’t like how he happy dances. WTF. The beast tribes themselves have actual sentience and are able to communicate with the humans. If anything is actually discriminatory, it’s stuff like that. There’s no actual difference in ability between the beast tribes and the humans other than maybe they talk different.

The Ascians vs Sundered People though, is a situation that has come up in other media in different forms and is a classic thought experiment situation that will come up in our future as we make scientific discoveries and expand our knowledge base. It’s the basic question of when do you consider something alive. It dips a bit into abortion stuff too because a lot of people can’t agree on when life starts. (For the record, I’m pro-choice.) Those same arguments will be applied in the future as we head into genetic engineering. Like say a lab is able to artificially create a lifeform using their technology. That life does not have parents. Is that life property or is it a person? How much freedom should it have or should the company give it? If it has offspring even naturally with a mate, is the child of that created lifeform property or a sentient person? What about robots? We are at the cutting edge of AI. Computers as of yet are not able to compare to the complexity of a human brain yet and still have many failings, but one day when we are able to create a sentient AI, will it have rights? Does it have a right to life or can we as humans do whatever we want with it? These are the questions that I think that are most applicable to the game because essentially, the Ascians vs Shard people is very similar to the gods of Ancient Greece and how they fucked with human lives or the Immortals in Chinese myth and how they guided dynasties. They are higher beings with far more abilities than the humans over whom they oversee and can choose to help or not help whoever they want. I’ve seen some commentary where one person equated the Ascians to people who play the Sims. Do people who play the Sims care about their Sims? Some do, sure. But some also try to kill their Sims person and make entire houses designed specifically for Sims to eventually kill themselves. Like there’s one Try Guys video where Keith is with Kelsey and they made Sims of all the Try Guys and then put them in a house with that exact intention. The craziest one where the only way to get into the house was to swim through a pool maze and Eugene drowned trying to get to the house. This is considered fun to us right? If Sims were sentient, would it be as fun? Would we be different from the Ascians? And like I also play Civilization. It’s so fun and educational, but there are multiple ways to win the game and one of them is to build up your military and just murder all of the other civilizations. That’s not my preferred way to play. I usually like building up my science and technology or aiming for a cultural victory, but when you have a lot of technology and you’re more advanced than the other civilizations it is really, really easy to have one city make a nuclear missile and then travel it down all the roads that you had your engineers built and bomb your neighbors to oblivion. This is actual entertainment for us real life humans and it isn’t considered wrong. That is the position that the Ascians are in, only it’s worse.

The Shard people aren’t merely literal lesser beings with less powers, but are actual pieces of former Ascians. Their literal friends, family, acquaintances, co-workers, etc. These are people they actually know, and they were chosen by their people, elected even, to decide things for them. Those people died though and came back in a sense. From their perspective, them continuing on the way they are without consideration for the Shard people is not different from a loved one who gives you the right to decide if you can pull the plug on them if they are on life support.

This is a thing I actually had to do when my Dad died. Rather, he had a stroke and they couldn’t find the blood clot and when they did another brain scan again later he was functionally brain dead because the clot had blocked all oxygen to his brain cells. The machine at that point was keeping him alive, and it fell to myself and my sister to decide when to stop it. I hate it. I didn’t want to decide. I wanted my Dad to come home and be my Dad. But he couldn’t. Whatever he was wasn’t there anymore. His brain was dead and gone, and he wasn’t able to decide for himself when to do it because he was not functioning enough to have an opinion. We talked with our Uncles about it, and it came down to what our Dad would be happy with and it honestly wouldn’t be stuck to a hospital bed attached to a machine for years. There was no question we had to let him go.

And the thing is, to the Ascians, the Shard people to them are just like brain dead versions of the people they knew. Objectively they are way more functional and have more sentience than that, but they can’t function as Amaurotines so the quality of life is drastically different so they must imagine them to be not really living in that way similar to a life-support aided relative. In that respect, I can understand. I still don’t agree because the key thing is sentience and potential for a lot of positivity and a lot of other things that make human life worth it, but I understand where they are coming from and why they must think they can do whatever they want because their people entrusted them with the resuscitation order.

The thing with Hades/Emet-Selch though is that I don’t really think he 100% wanted to go through with this plan. He even mentions himself about how he lived among the humans and found a lot of fault with them. As I mentioned in another post, he’s not wrong. There’s a lot of fault with real life humans too and I question whether as a species we should all be alive because some among us are actual garbage fires and collectively we do a lot of damage to our planet and the other living things around us. He tried though to see if they were worthwhile and found that they paled in comparison to the quality of life and people that he knew. I don’t think it’s a fair assessment or question though also because he’s biased by the fact that he’s grieving and surrounded by constant reminders of his reason for grieving, so mileage may vary, but I appreciate that he tried whereas Elidibus and Lahabrea seem to be cold and matter of fact about the whole thing. Well, Laha was actually kind of crazy and evil for the sake of it, but Elidibus seems cold. It remains to be seen of course if they develop him any further, but based on what Hades says about how Elidibus summoned him back after he died as Solus already, I think Elidibus is in charge. Hades may have found a way to work on his own in some capacity and like go into his depression hole and terrible methods of coping, but like, he was trying to cope and trying to move on. I know from experience that it is pretty impossible to do as long as reminders are around you. I lost one person though. He lost everything. After the funeral I didn’t touch my travel bag for like a month because putting that stuff away felt like an acknowledgement of what happened, and escaped into the internet and video games to get away from my reality around me. Hades didn’t really have that. Every single person he looked at was a reminder. I think he liked theatre so much though because it provided him a little narrative escape even though he could still see the souls of each of the actors and also recognize them as his fallen people. It just wasn’t enough. Normally you need to like actually get away and make new memories and new friends and stuff, but like, he couldn’t because literally everyone around him everywhere was a sundered person that haunted him. That is literally some kind of hell. And a hell, that Elidibus didn’t really aid in taking care of. Like as a boss, if he is the boss, he didn’t really do a good job of checking in on those under him to ask how they are doing. If Hades would have been able to have any kind of support, it would have been from the other paragons, but they just left him alone. He went with the plan and kept going with it and was tempered himself, but he suffered along the way and actually tried to have hope to find a way out or another way. The Tales from the Shadows chapter about how for a moment he actually had hope and love for his son is beautiful and heart-breaking. His son lived until his 20s so at least for that time he like believed that maybe it would be okay, but his death just reminded him of all the faults he had discovered all of the years and the position he was in and who everyone around him actually was. Just reading that, I really thought that maybe, if his son had lived he would’ve given the whole plan up. It was possible.

And then like, some people like think Square isn’t aware that Garlemald is fascist. There’s an evil Empire in most of their games. They are aware of this. They are also aware of it because they are a Japanese company and as a people Japan has to grapple with its own Imperial fascist history. There’s a bunch of Stormblood specifically that his really similar to historically what Japan was like to other nations in the late 19th to early 20th centuries, and even what Japan was like post-war and occupied by the US. These days modern Japan is pacifist and a lot of Japanese people shun the Imperial days and there is often news and hubbub about how they choose to teach that history to future generations when their neighbors find out, but it’s really no coincidence that those themes end up in a game by a Japanese company. I think in that respect, if you look at the game through that lens, they definitely don’t think Imperial times were good or that’s a good thing. The complexity they add to the characters though, even if they are villains, is realistic because no one in real life is evil for the sake of being evil. Even during WWII there were a number of Japanese soldiers that did terrible things. It’s recorded and undeniable. But at the same time the assumption by the Allies that “all Japanese” thought the same and would actually fight down to the last man was racist and a huge over-generalization. Everyone had their own reasons. Kamikaze pilots who were much feared were also bolted into the planes. Soldiers who were soft or didn’t obey orders could have word of their reprimand travel back to their home and cause patriotic neighbors to shun or bully their families. Like people were basically extorted into the situation by social pressure too, which is why some lines are blurred and why there is much controversy and disagreement in regards to some things like Yasukuni Jinja and those tried for war crimes. I agree that those tried should not be glorified at all, but I can understand that at least some of them thought they were doing the “right thing” because higher ups made a horrible fucking decision or fed them propaganda that they just believed wholesale. Those are the real life controversies and gray areas and some of the Military Tribunal for the Far East was not actually handled well because the US was out for its own agenda and some people got away with stuff and some people were improperly tried for other things, and it was a hot mess. I don’t think that means the whole thing should be thrown out like some Japanese nationalists believe, but I just acknowledge and recognize that true justice was not really served during that tribunal because of personal interest and that sucks. But that’s a real life gray area and one that sparks huge debate everywhere in the world. But what’s a safe way to think complexly about the subject and the gray areas for war and different sides of a conflict? A game. This is a safe sandbox way to think about complicated issues without getting steeped into huge controversy. It isn’t a 1 to 1 direct comparison to what happened to real life, but the idea is just to present that these things are complicated and not everyone on the other side is an outright asshole. That’s the point. 

I speak on this as a Chinese American who majored in Japanese. I have multiple perspectives on the conflict, and basically I just stand on the outside and sigh because I can’t take anyone’s side. Like I grew up with the horror stories from my Chinese relatives about what they went through. I understand their hatred. I don’t feel it, but I understand why they feel that way. The American perspective I studied in school, and a bit of the Japanese perspective, but there’s a bunch of that I learned on my own at uni after starting to study the language. The American perspective though is mired by American self-interest but also actual racism in terms of how they thought about Japan. Japan is complicated in how to think about it, but ultimately I don’t think they would have gone down that path if Western Imperialism wasn’t so douchey in Asia. A lot of what Japan did on its own Imperial path stemmed from fear of not having the country end up like China which was carved up literally by Western powers. As a country I think it got carried away in that don’t be like that path, but ultimately I think they learned from the others in the world what to do to become stronger and unfortunately the other strong nations in the world at that time were largely huge douchebags. Like even Great Britain was an Allied nation and “good”, but like they weren’t a whole lot better to their colonies or to the countries they went to that they claimed in the name of the Queen and try to “civilize” and incorporate into the British Empire. They didn’t cause actual human atrocities, but let’s not pretend that their hands are clean either. Nor the US and what the country has done throughout history to police the world or “protect US interests”. 

Like a lot of people are criticizing these characters for their role in the story, but in all likelihood they are ignorant of the crimes their own country may have committed even if it wasn’t officially “fascist”. You don’t have to be a fascist to be a douchebag. Ultimately, Hades is forgiven and well-received by many fans because despite what he did, he did try to not be a complete douchebag and gave people chances and tried to look for another way. While also doing the bad thing, but like hope for the best prepare for the worst. Like he still has an immediate job to do even if he hopes for a different future. If you have no options to do another way in that moment, you just do the things you can and follow the plan you do have until an opportunity comes. For the Ascians they weren’t aware of another way so that’s just how it went.

[i-like-sex-with-clothes-on]

BRUTAL TRUTH!!

OK so I wasnt born as I wanted to be.

You know WHAT SHOULD OF HAPPENED?

When I was 8yrs old and told my parents I wanted to be a girl like my baby sister - because all the pink bed linen and blankets and long hair and dolls and everything else I had made my world to be - DIDNT MAKE THEM REALISE - they should of taken me to see a specialist that actually NEW WTF he/she was talking about and realised what I was and done something about it. So by the time I was 18 I would not have that THING BETWEEN MY LEGS and would be exactly what I want to be.

BUT that didnt happen.. instead I was told I “was weird” AND I “ was wrong” and only girls wanted LONG HAIR!!!!

WTF-  how obvious could it off been that I WANTED TO BE A GIRL!!!

I guess it was just my UNFORTUNATE life - that had me born too early re medical sciences - and had me BORN TO IGNORANT PARENTS who were primarily interested in how their neighbours and friends thought of them and their kids - RATHER THAN HOW THEIR CHILD WAS TRULY IN PAIN!

Anyway thats my burden to bare - but what I am MOST INFURIATED WITH on a daily basis throughout my life is - HOW EVERY OTHER AUTHORITY FIGURE just let me down.

Yes my parents let me down - BUT SO DID EVERY MEDICAL AND AUTHORITY FIGURE we encountered because of me.

My parents were ashamed of me - and they were SCARED OF WHAT I WAS soo much that they feared CHILD SERVICES getting involved and shaming them and their name BECAUSE I WAS BORN WRONG!

Its allot different now and GENDER DYSPHORIA is recognised nowadays - and the earleir the better is their motto - WHICH IS PERFECTLY SPOT ON!

BUT often along with Gender Dysphoria comes complex sexuality Issues - and I feel that still - EVEN TODAY - in the western world - the MAJORITY OF PEOPLE look at TG people and think “freak” OR someone just trying to play a game!!

IT might be MORE OPEN nowadays than when I was 8 yrs old and just wanted to be a ballerina :)  BUT STILL the world hasnt come to terms with those who just dont IDENTIFY with the sex theyre born as!

In my case I had 2 positive helpers - 1 was my sexuality - its always helped me that I fancy BOTH SEXES EQUALLY - my first love and probably my one true love was a boy as I was when we fell in love - THE OTHER was a woman who gave me my SON!

Throughout life I have had partners of both sexes - probably more Female than male - but thats just because male on male relationships dont tend to last as long for some mad reason I cant explain!

My other “HELPER” was my biologicsl sister - she was EVERYTHING TO ME GROWING UP.

She is a few yrs younger than me but only 4 and once she was born I became a BROTHER for years cause I worshipped her and we had a NUTTJOB of a farther who liked to use his fists!

BUT she was my EVERYTHING and still is - and she was the one who stood by me when nobody else would - and told those in her innocent little voice that “no thats not my brother its my sister idiots” :)

You cant get or buy that kind of unconditional loyalty and love - its only ever there VIA family love - whether its your siblings or parents - if youre lucky.

In our life times - medical technology has come on along way - and im greatfull!

We understand chemicals and dna and rna and hormones etc

As a result I have round legs and hips and a bum [though its kinda small :) ] and I have boobs - and YES I can and will go every mile till I am the me I want.

BUT what I want to say is - this sort of “thing” that is me and my problems - should be dealt with at the YOUNGEST age possible - EVEN BEFORE PUBERTY if possible!

The quicker its done the better and more NORMAL LIFE the individual will have :)

It really is ALL ABOUT HORMONES AND PUBERTY!!

And I HOPE I TRULY HOPE we dont give up on trying to ADVANCE TECHNOLOGY AND SCIENCES so it makes it easier for someone like me to SWAP SEXES quicker/easier/simpler!!!

Lets try and get it down to a simple PILL! YEAH SCIENTISTS???

I dont want ANYONE having to deal with the kind of shit I have - ITS LEFT ME SCARRED!!!

May PROVIDENCE shine down on all you lovely creatures who want to be different creatures.

REMEMBER -- Youre beautifull!! and so long as you know you are - it doesnt matter what ANYONE ELSE THINKS!!

Sonya XXXX

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I was reviewing some notes from 1-1 meetings that me and my manager Dave used to have, and I thought I'd summarize a bunch of the repeated talking points we've had over the years. Here's some of what I've learned about being a competent professional.Identify and focus on your top priorities – because if you don't, wtf are you doing?Is the top priority the top priority? What's the single most important thing you need to be doing? If you don't have an answer to this, you should drop everything and figure out what the answer is. Having an answer here forces clarity and focus. Not having an answer is dangerous – it guarantees that you'll be working on unimportant things and wasting your precious time.There will always be an endless stream of things to do. It'll be tempting to do whatever is easiest, or most fun, or most familiar. But this is a trap that will screw you over in the long run. It's better to make 5-10% progress on the most important thing than to finish lots of tasks that don't actually move the needle.What are you accountable for? Everybody in an organization should own something. Ideally, it should be a metric that is tied to your top priority. If it isn't, you should discuss it with your manager or boss and establish what your top priority really is. Once you've settled on a metric (and you usually need to have some sort of counter-balancing metric, to try and mitigate the problem of perverse incentives), you'll want to make sure that you know as much as possible about how to make a positive dent in this metric.Dominate your area of responsibility. You want to be really good at the thing that you're supposed to be handling. Sounds kinda obvious, but sometimes it can be tempting to try to do a bunch of secondary things. Go back to point 1 – keep the main thing the main thing.Make your goals and targets precise. If things are vague or ambiguous, set aside time to make them precise. Don't work with ambiguous plans – it's a recipe for distraction and scope creep. Learn to identify vagueness in your own thinking, writing and communications, and weed it out.Manage yourself like an important, valuable resource – because you are"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool." – Richard FeynmanBe honest about what you don't know. Be honest with yourself, most importantly. The clearer you are about this, the better positioned you will be to learn and improve. As a bonus, you'll find that being intellectually honest in a candid way encourages people to be honest with you in turn. It just makes for a healthy atmosphere. Practice communicating your uncertainty in a constructive, inviting way. It's refreshing to be around people like that.Have a schedule and respect it. I hated calendars and timetables as a kid, and spent many years dealing with subconscious stress of having to deal with any sort of deadline. But truths are true whether we like them or not: We have limited time and an unlimited set of things to do. In the absence of good routines, we fall into bad ones. If you're not deciding in advance how you're going to spend your time and energy, then other things will decide for you – the urgency of an interruption from somebody, the ease of an unimportant task. This compounds.After years of reflection and oscillation, I came to realize that my issue wasn't with schedules per se – it was with being forced to do things that I didn't want to do. I just subconsciously had a negative association with calendars, due dates and so on. If you're like me, this takes a lot of work to undo. Start by making really small, simple plans and then get them done. Write down something that you can do in 5 minutes, then do it, and scratch it off. Do this over and over and get better at it, and add more time. It gets more complex as it gets larger, like a video game. It's actually quite interesting and exciting once you reframe it this way. You learn a lot more about yourself and the world around you.Take time off. You are a resource and you need to recharge. Don't burn out. Think long term. When I started working, I felt like I was given an opportunity I didn't deserve. I didn't feel qualified. I felt like I was always behind on my work. So I kept deferring and postponing when I'd eventually take a vacation. On retrospect, this was a hilariously bad idea, and I regret it. I would have been happier, healthier, and have gotten much more done if I simply bit the bullet and scheduled my time off in advance.Reflect and review on your past work. Analyze your past work to figure out what worked, what didn't, what went well, what didn't... you should be doing this regularly, on your own. I've always been a little bit sloppy with this – I don't always take notes, and when I do, I don't always review them. If I could start over again, I would work to be more systematic and disciplined about this.( I'm writing this blogpost now because I was reviewing my 1-1 doc.)Articulate your processes. This is helpful at multiple levels. First of all, simply taking something out of your brain and putting it on paper is an incredibly useful habit. It forces you to figure out what you really mean. What are you trying to achieve? How do you make decisions? When you articulate your processes, you can analyze them. You can look for weak points and improve them. It's like watching a replay of yourself. You can share your processes with others, and get feedback.You are in charge of yourself. Even if you have great managers, you ultimately need to take responsibility for your own learning, your own execution, your own growth. Looking back, I think I spent most of my first 3-4 years in a sort of reactive mode (rather than proactive). I did have great managers who gave me lots of great targets, advice, context, structure and so on. And maybe they even spoiled me a little, because it took me a few years to think, "Well, damn, I gotta set loftier goals for myself, and meet them." Unless you have a crazy boss or manager, nobody is going to push you as hard as you can push yourself. (I don't mean overwork yourself in terms of number of hours, I mean challenge yourself in terms of pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. Trying new things, learning new things that are outside your immediate job scope, etc.)Set aside time for learning. When you find good content about your field, bookmark it for later, and go through it at a regular interval. Weekly is pretty good. If you're doing a bunch of reading and learning, share your findings with someone else. This helps you understand. Implement your learnings. Set monthly and quarterly goals.Always take pains to communicate effectively – your impact on your team members is highly consequentialCommunicate early, communicate often. In my earlier days, I was often self-conscious and trying to figure out everything by myself. If I owed somebody something, I tried to figure out everything and get it all done first before passing it on. If I ran into any difficulties, I would either go a little nuts, or I'd procrastinate until I didn't have much time left, and then get it done in a panic. Show your work. Share your sketches and drafts. You need to build trust and rapport with your team so you can feel comfortable doing this. Early-stage feedback is much more useful and actionable than late-stage feedback. Sometimes simply asking a few questions or chatting about something in an open-ended way can lead to superior ideas and solutions that you didn't expect.Ask clarifying questions. Everything is vague to a degree you don't realize. So make an effort to make things precise. Being clear about exactly what is expected is very important. People having different expectations, different understandings of a situation, interpreting vague instructions differently, etc – all of these are sources of lots of friction and frustration. So it's worth spending a lot of time and energy making sure everyone is aligned on whatever you're doing.Lean on your team; ask for help. Real life isn't a closed-book examination, where you have to get everything done right yourself, in isolation. Ask for help if you need it. This may vary a little depending on your company culture and personality. Some people might be intrusive and demanding. But I generally get the sense that smart, respectful people tend to err on the side of caution – not wanting to interrupt others. That said, when you ask for help, be simple and clear about it. "Hey, when you have a moment – I need some fresh eyes to look at my slides for a few minutes and offer copy suggestions". Don't interrupt people with open-ended non-requests, that's disrespectful. Give people a very clear ask, and sometimes they'll even be grateful for the brief distraction + chance to help move something along.Be encouraging and supportive. It makes a difference. It can make all the difference.Always Be Peopling – organizations and industries are made of people; build relationships with themAlways be networking. It's easy to fall into a pattern of thinking that you need to focus on whatever's in front of your face. There's always going to be more work to do. You need to be able to zoom in and out. Meet people who are in similar roles as you, doing work similar to what you're doing. This will help you do your job better. And it's also quite pleasurable and heartening in its own right, for its own sake. ** People know things.** They will tell you things in person that they won't ever write in a blogpost or post online – and these will be some of the most powerful, useful things for you to know. They can open doors for you. They can set things up for you. Sometimes the problem you've been struggling with for weeks or months has a simple solution, and that solution happens to be inside somebody's head – that you can access for the cost of a beer or coffee.Have a pipeline for hiring. Even if you aren't responsible for hiring decisions. Make a list of people you'd like to work with and learn from. It makes sense to build relationships with people for the long haul. It's good to know good people even if you aren't necessarily going to make a career in any particular industry.Practice speaking, give talks, presentations, etc. Communicating what you know with other people is a powerful skill. It will make you a better professional. And you'll feel lighter at work, too, because the act of teaching and sharing makes you more comfortable and confident in your area of expertise.Miscellaneous thoughtsIdentify your constraints. Is it money? Is it ideas? Is it execution? Is it time? What's stopping you from making 2x, 5x, 10x the impact you are currently achieving?Thought experiments can be really useful. What if you had more resources to spend? What would you do with an additional $500 a week to spend? $1,000? $2,000? $5,000? What if you had to start over from scratch, what would you do differently? What if you could only work for half the number of hours you currently work? What are the opportunity costs of what you're doing? What would happen if you did the complete opposite of whatever you're doing?Positioning exercises are useful in marketing. In many ways, marketing is all about positioning. Why should anybody buy this product instead of anything else (or nothing at all)? Why should anybody care about some particular piece of content? Why should anybody hire you? What do you, your content, your skills, etc bring to the table?Study job postings. I avoided doing this for a long time, because I love where I am and it felt a little bit scandalous to even entertain the thought. But it's very useful to know what the job market is looking for. You can plan a career this way. Look up the job descriptions of roles senior to your own, and ask yourself what you can or cannot do. And then build out those skill-sets. Protip: This is also precisely how you work yourself into promotions and raises.Take ownership. Make it easy for your boss to say yes. Every boss fantasizes about having an employee that just shows up and gets things done without having to be told or micromanaged. Once you're both clear about your priorities, goals and targets, figure out a plan and get it done. Your boss hired you to do a job, she doesn't want to have to go over every single decision with you (though a good boss will do this for a while – teach a man to fish, etc). Do the thinking for her, and give her easy decisions to say yes to. (Eg: "We are currently paying A freelancers $B to get content that gives us C traffic, which leads to D signups. If we doubled down on A1, we would get more signups for less cost.")Move fast; go all the way through. I find myself thinking about writing and music. Ray Bradbury had a quote about how a writer "should be a thing of fevers and enthusiasms." Orchestra conductor Benjamin Zander has a similar point about how musicians should "stop thinking about every single note along the way, and start thinking about the long, long line from (start to finish)." I've grown to believe that this is true for all sorts of work.Take care of your mental and emotional health. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, so it's a good idea to do it well, to take it seriously, to enjoy it, to challenge yourself and so on. But if you find yourself getting burnt out, depressed and so on, don't lie to yourself about it. You are the most important person in your life; take care of yourself.I don't have a blogpost to shill or anything like that. You can follow me on Twitter if you like. I wrote this mainly as a letter to my younger self, and to younger versions of me out there. I'm sure a couple of you are lurking on reddit. Hi!