#and like I know I've seen the general visual concept around but I now I can't find specific examples and its itching in the back of my head

[paintedcrows]

He may be a God, but I am a Scientist

[maleyanderecafe]

Good day! I was wondering if your review on Restart Heart has changed after the new demo came out recently? If you haven't played it yet, I suggest trying it out and letting us know what you think of it.

After trying my hand at the updated demo, I can safely say that my personal opinion has changed quite a bit since the very first version. The MC seems a touch more like an insufferable prick now with how rude they are towards some characters, how "Mary Sue" they act in given situations, and how they overreact to certain events occurring around them. Their inner thoughts and rational thinking are nothing like mine as well, but that's more of a personal thing. While I'm aware it's currently still a demo and these events aren't considered "canon" by the dev, it isn't exactly doing a good job at persuading me to try out the finished version of the game once it comes out.

I do like that there are more than one "main" yandere now, however unfortunately none of the other characters aside from Ezra and Sammy really appeal to me. Each character seems very "stereotypical" and play into a very specific trope, but it's been like that since the first release so I'm not too bothered by it. I guess I was hoping for more developed and interesting characters in the update and got let down with the lack of improvement from the first version.

I'm also unsure how I feel about how overly "woke" the demo is trying to be? The overuse of Arabic phrases by Bess seems somewhat out of place and repetitive, so many characters are overtly trans or use their ethnicity as a base for their personality (especially seen on tumblr), the NSFW scenes [in the first version] feel like I was being babysat with the constant "consent check ins" and boundary implementations, and characters like Steph talk about their job [a pornstar] as though it's something to glorify or romanticize. The game's job is to make these characters appealing enough for us to pursue but I can't get over how forced/unnecessary their backstories and personalities feel. I'm transmasc myself but I'm put off by these constant reminders being shoved in my face at every turn, especially on the official tumblr page. I like that these sorts of things are being represented in a positive way (much less in a visual novel where it's so rare), but I don't like how constant and overplayed they are.

I will say that the writing has definitely improved in the new demo and it doesn't feel as overtly casual with the grammar and punctuation anymore (almost as if the narrator was texting me rather than talking to me). The characters have established connections with the MC now which I like, though I understand that this may not be everyone's cup of tea. The new CGs are nice too, however I won't comment on the updated art style since I personally prefer the scratchy anime style of games like TKATB, Mushroom Oasis, and even 14DWY [the first version]. I've always liked the music used and the GUI looks good, so I didn't mind not seeing much of an update for them in the new demo.

Overall, I have mixed feelings but I'm hopeful and optimistic that the finished version will be much better if the updated demo is anything to go by. I also hope there won't be a price tag on the finished product because as good as it is now, there is still so much that needs to be improved on to justify even a $5 label. These are my personal thoughts, though I'd love to hear yours as well.

It took me a while to replay the new demo and then find the older demos since it's no longer on the itchio page (There is still a link for the third day, but I had to watch epsylion's video on the fourth day, which excludes some routes). I admit that while I am generally aware of what is going on with various vns and their updates, I haven't had time to really go through and play most of them, so if there is a game that I have gone over before but it has updated, feel free to send me an ask.

Restart Heart seems to have an interesting conception, with the game going up to it's fourth day, before eventually being pulled back into a shorter demo that encapsulates the first day, likely to revamp and improve on the game as a whole. As such, I'm not sure if I've missed anything specifically as I'm not on the patreon . As a quick recap, the general plot of the first demo was that the MC, Sugar basically went on a huge party rager after finding out their ex fiance cheated on them and got their younger sister pregnant. As a result, the four days that we do spend with Sugar and the other characters are generally Sugar attempting to get back on their feet with the help of Ezra and the other characters, Bess, Blaire, Sammy, Chris and Steph along with sleeping with some of them if you so choose to. The new demo is a bit similar but only covers Sugar before finding out about the cheating, with them having a smaller interaction with the rest of the crew at the chocolate place they work at (namely that they almost got crushed by a bunch of staplers).

I think compared to the four day version of Restart Heart, I actually prefer this new demo's Sugar to the old one, though that's likely going to change once they find out about the cheating that's going on. While I understand that Sugar is going through a generally horrible situation of someone cheating on them, I also find their behavior kind of hard to deal with and not that much fun to play with. This is just my general gripe with a lot of yandere vns, not just Restart Heart in particular, where the MC tends to be very cynical and dislikes doing... well anything, which to me is a touch tedious and kind of annoying at times. I also feel like from the four day version, they feel a lot more bitter and angry (again due to the break up) but also coddled very heavily as well. Understandably it is nice to have someone who is able to care about you and try to make things feel better when everything feels like it's falling apart, but to me it still feels very infantalizing in some aspects, with every character seemingly trying to nurse Sugar back to feeling better. It's likely more of a me thing since I've always been the type of person to drag myself back up by my feet, rather than attempt to rely too much on other people. In the new demo, Sugar has yet to experience this (at least from what I can tell) so is generally more stable and less prickly. I don't think it's particularly Mary Sue like in the new demo, considering that I feel like if my friend almost got crushed by a bunch of staplers, we'd all run over there too and make sure that they're okay, though I can see where you're coming from since most of the characters are revolving around Sugar in that sort of way. It's hard to say what kind of characters the Restart Heart gang will be considering that it is still a demo, but considering it did have four days already out, I can see what you mean. We don't get to see too much into their lives (outside of Blaire, I think which probably has the most characterization out of Chris and of course Ezra). It would be nice for them to do other things as well like go out on dates or just hang out more one on one (like going to hang out at the library with Sammy, for instance) to get to know them a bit more.

Interesting take on it. I did notice that Bess uses a lot of Arabic phrases, kind of like someone who is trying to learn the language and is attempting to use it in their every day life so that they can remember it. I don't think that specifically was the intention, but it did come off like that for me. I'm not really sure what you mean by "overtly trans or use their ethnicity as a base for their personality", do you mean as more of like that's their main personality trait? A very minor confusion I have with the game is the use of pronouns that are attached onto the characters. That in itself isn't really a problem but it does seem a touch redundant because there is a character bio for all of the characters that already has the pronouns on it. Not anything huge, but it is a strange decision to make. The checkins for nsfw content is generally a thing that happens in a lot of r18 yandere vns, but I do get that it does feel very babysitting like, especially if it's something that happens after the initial agreement.

I do agree that the writing has improved a lot more, with the characters written in a more lifelike manner and feels more like they have known Sugar for a while. I also agree that it's nice that they have more stronger connections to Sugar this time around. I think the music is good, though I do wish that they would change it up more since the same soundtrack repeated does make it a bit tiring (though this is likely just a demo thing). Lilith did a good job of coding everything as expected, especially with the pronoun, name, partner, nickname choices in the very beginning. There is a lot of variation for people who want to be called a specific way during the NSFW parts (though admittedly I don't really like most of them since well, I prefer submissive yanderes). They are doing a lot of projects right now, so it is hard to say when the full version will come out and what the quality will be right now. Hopefully it will come out well though, and there will be more yandere content that I can shift through.

[thelampisaflashlight]

Headcanons about the ghouls, because I feel like crud and stayed home from work. Let's go.

-Aeon can't cook, he burns pretty much everything he tries to make except for eggs. He can make eggs, but that's only because Dew stood by and watched him do it.

He gets too fidgety/wants to move around instead of paying attention to what's going on in the pan, and that usually results in burnt or underdone food.

In contrast to Aeon, Dew can cook... he just doesn't like to.

It takes too much time in his opinion, but he will happily wait for someone else to make him something to eat.

-Rain eats bugs, and he's not even remotely ashamed of that fact, though perhaps he should stop trying to get others to join him for "a dip and dine" at the lake if he's unwilling to provide other options...

-Cumulus is a dinosaur enthusiast, which I've said before, but on top of that, she loves to explore and learn about things in general.

She's the fun fact queen and absolutely kills at trivia night.

-Mountain is very particular about how he keeps his garden, to the extent that no one helps him with it anymore, because he gets huffy/annoyed when someone does something "the wrong way".

The only gardener he hasn't scared away has, in the past, chased him around the grounds with a metal rake, thrown a boot at him, and kicked him in the face.

It's probably the healthiest dynamic the abbey has seen between him and one of the staff members.

-For reasons unknown, Dew has a strained relationship with Delta, to the extent that he will run if confronted by him.

Everyone is pretty sure the majority of the awkwardness is on Dew's part, though no one has been able to get a straight answer from him about it.

-Copia knew basically nothing about ghouls when he started, but now he has a whole notebook full of fairly accurate information about their physical traits, social dynamics, and various bits of trivia regarding them as a species/individually.

He knows more about them than even some of the other members of the church.

-The ghouls have a whiteboard in their den that is used for a variety of things, but usually for impromptu meetings and visualizing concepts that are hard to articulate.

Copia also has a whiteboard upstairs in his office that he uses for similar purposes, usually to the chagrin of the poor sibling of sin he dragged in there to act as his "rubber duck" for songs or design work.

-Sunny has abandonment issues, and often struggles with articulating her needs, preferring to do things herself for fear that others won't do them for her, even when they offer to do so or have done so in the past.

She feels like she is easy to forget, and tends to be very down on herself internally despite appearing outwardly bright and happy.

Although she knows it's not healthy/is the result of her own internalized issues, she has a hard time being friendly with Aeon and Aurora, but because Aurora is the one who "replaced" her -despite Sunny asking to take time away from the band- she has a bit more misplaced anger towards her.

Because of this, Sunny has been attending counseling to unpack why she feels the way she does.

And lastly;

-While the ghouls act/appear human for the most part, when they gets startled, they instantly devolve into creature mode. Lots of skittering and scampering away and sliding on tile because their claws can't get traction.

[bonny-kookoo]

Jungkook:Sugar & Spice (Intro)

In which Jungkook really wants people to love you just as much as he does - or maybe not.

Tags/Warnings: Raccoon Hybrid!Reader x Idol!Jungkook, established relationship, opposites attract because I love that concept, are you tired of my hybrid stories yet because I'm not, fluff, romance, smut, jealous koo, slice of life, mild ddlg themes

Chapter length: short

Other content: Spoiled, Calm

━━━━━━━━━━.~°♡°~.━━━━━━━━━━━

"I forgot.." you mumble quietly, a little ashamed about your entire situation as you've just had to explain to your boyfriend that yes, you've just gotten your period, and yes- you've probably now stained his nice expensive little sofa in his studio.

"It's fine, see?" He mumbles before casually wiping the leather with a tissue before throwing it into the trashcan nearby. "Didn't even stain at all. Do you wanna go change?" He asks casually, looking at you - before he clicks his tongue, the clear waters in your eyes a telltale sign of your typically emotional reaction to things like these. "Come here, crybaby, everything's fine!" He laughs a little, letting you cling onto him as you hide in embarrassment.

"I don't feel good." You whine into his chest, and he chuckles.

"I know baby." He says, as he pats your head. "You wanna go wash up?"

"But I don't have anything to change.." you complain, now getting even more frustrated.

"Bullshit. I've got your pyjama pants here somewhere-" He says, parting from you to search for the clothing item before he crawls.. underneath his desk?

"What're you doing, Kookie?" You giggle a little, watching him pull out a simple black canvas bag that he opens the zipper of.

"Excuse me? You think after what- 4 years I wouldn't be prepared for shit like this?" He proudly claims, before holding up one of your period-slash-heat pull ups- something you've been horrified of telling him about the first two years of your relationship with him, too fearful of how he might react to it. But you've learned soon enough that while Jungkook does sometimes get a little mean in his fun with others around him, he's not a bad guy at all. He's just a bit clumsy at times.

"Why do you have them here?" You whine, grabbing after the pair he's got in his hand.

"Why not?" He shrugs. "Your heats can start random as shit, and your periods are even worse. Better safe than sorry." He simply answers, closing the bag and shoving it back underneath the desk. "Now go change, I'll prepare the couch so you can nap." He jokes, smacking your thigh as you get up to follow his word.

Pulling out a blanket, he puts everything he knows you'll appreciate where he thinks it'll be good, before he checks his phone.

Only recently, he's gone public. While fans knew you existed, they didn't know much about you, nor that you and Jungkook weren't just platonic but a genuine relationship. And while he'd been prepared for what surely was to come, he'd been surprised by the welcoming reaction of the fans, many already expecting it and others defending that he's a person who deserves a private life.

And so, he's been more open with you, company even allowing you to now be seen in behind the scenes footage, and even publishing professional photos from backstage of you. People became pretty much just as charmed as he himself had been years ago- happily accepting you as a part of it all now, and he couldn't have been luckier.

But at the same time, he starts feeling just a little upset at the comments some fans keep repeating.

"She's so cute, I wish I had a hybrid like her!"

"Honestly though, if hybrids were allowed to be idols, she'd definitely be the visual of the generation!"

"She kind of seems almost too nice for Jungkookie~!"

"You think she ever feels lonely at home? I mean, he's at work all the time.."

"Jungkookie?" You ask, and he snaps his head up from his phone, boiling emotions quickly forgotten at the sight of you holding your fluffy striped tail in your hands. "Can you take a nap with me?" You wonder quietly, and he internally swells with pride.

"Of course, baby bear." He chuckles before joining you on the couch, holding you close and tightly just how he knows you like it. Does he leave you alone too much? Do you feel lonely sometimes? He's interested in the answer, but scared of it just as much- so he won't ask the questions. He'll just hold you, love you, and care for you.

Because the love you have is special, and nothing will break you both apart. Not time, not work, and for sure, not his career.

Hopefully.

☆━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━☆

[tranquilpetrichor]

the friendship problem

synopsis: in which you have company during morning break, and it is strangely tolerable.

cast: jiung (p1harmony) x gn!reader

genre: strangers to friends, high school!au

wc: 1.1k (1,117)

warnings: discussions of loneliness, reader is implied to show some symptoms of social anxiety, barely proofread

notes: looking back at my high school experience (and reflecting on my growth throughout school in general) thus far makes me oddly nostalgic. this one's definitely self-indulgent. here's to the people who didn't ask me why i was so quiet, who accepted my idiosyncrasies and admittedly, brought out a friendlier side in me.

(also peep that word count i wasn't gonna post this originally but i must, i count 1117 as a small ateez reference.)

erasing the inappropriate drawings from the side whiteboard, you began to write a problem from your calculus textbook.

“integral of w squared times sin of 10 w…” you said out loud to yourself.

you could have gone outside, as it was time for break, but you found your math teacher’s classroom to be more comforting. natural light gently shone through the windows, the air freshener emitted a scent of pine, and best of all, there were no crowds to be found.

you had tried to get over your discomfort around large crowds and navigate to the cafeteria to buy a snack, but found that it was quite the pain in the ass to squeeze between couples who walked as slow as tortoises and boys who elbowed people everywhere they went.

through those wonderful experiences, you learned that the epicenter of your high school’s social life overwhelmed you the hard way.

shaking intrusive thoughts from your mind, you began to visualize solutions to this calculus problem. after a minute or two of writing, you had the answer.

“let’s go!” you cheered, knowing no one else would hear it, but finding it funny nonetheless.

suddenly, you heard a voice and turned around to see a classmate you vaguely recognized from classes you shared. jiung, that was his name.

“don’t mind me,” he said, “just looking for a place to read.”

your shoulders tensed up a little, but you nodded, resuming your work on another problem.

normally, you would expect an noticeable and uncomfortable silence, but jiung seemed to be just as at peace with the quiet as you were. that was more than you could say for a lot of people, who felt as if they had to fill silence with words that seemed rather meaningless.

curiously, you glanced at him reading. the book was an alternate history fiction novel by haruki murakami, titled 1Q84. you've read it before, of course.

"uh, enjoying your book so far?" you asked him, cursing under your breath afterwards when you got the low battery notification on your laptop.

"well," he paused briefly, "murakami's descriptions tend to be long-winded and i find some of the scenes a bit odd, but it's interesting for me. have you read it before?"

"yeah, i have. i had fun trying to make sense of all the symbolism, but i admit that 1Q84 can be a tough read for some."

you tried not to show it, but your eyes sparkled with excitement.

"since you've read it, it'd be nice to talk to someone about the book once i'm done." he smiled. "wait, your name is y/n, right? i've seen you in some of my classes."

you set the whiteboard marker down. “yep. and i know your name is jiung.”

he stared at the board in front of him, now filled from the not-quite-top to the bottom with math problems. "you wrote a lot in such a short amount of time. do you find math easy?"

you shrugged. "let's just say it's relaxing for me."

he did ask an interesting question. to be fair, you hadn't always liked math as much as you did now, being a highly stubborn child who was averse to doing their homework back then.

however, a natural curiosity to learn new concepts coupled with a preference for being alone gave you the time to sit down and ponder random topics, developing a special love for math due to its basis in objectivity.

in general, your teachers loved the fact that you asked questions and stayed during morning breaks and after class sometimes—their classrooms felt like a second home.

so yeah, you discovered that you liked doing math, and it was better than being around people who deliberately excluded you, or trying to participate in conversations where you knew you wouldn't get a word in.

better to be alone than to feel lonely, right?

(yeah, just keep telling yourself that.)

he stood up to stretch. "that's cool, i definitely admire that. you don't hear people call math relaxing often."

"to each their own. i just think it's important for someone to have something they enjoy, and who gives a shit what it is if it doesn't hurt anyone?"

you probably shouldn't have added the last part, as it came out more defensive than you anticipated. however, jiung didn't seem surprised. his eyes were kind and welcoming.

"i think it's a good rule to go by. there'd be way less conflict in the world if people minded their own business. oh, speaking of that, i hope i didn't bother you by coming in."

to your surprise, you didn't mind. "of course not, it is a teacher's classroom anyways, not mine, so obviously people have the right to come in, although most don't. and i mean, i do prefer it to be quiet while working. but your presence isn't bad or anything."

you twirled the whiteboard marker around in your hands. “quite the opposite, really. i actually liked talking to you.”

“do you not like talking to others?” he joked, probably noticing the emphasis you put on “liked.”

“i figure i either scare people away or they’re not the kind of person i want to be friends with anyways. also, not gonna lie, socializing is hard.”

for better or for worse, you knew what people thought about you—this was a fairly small school, after all. it was easier to just isolate than to worry about who was judging you.

"nothing wrong with incompatibility," he said with a small smile and a shrug. "it just means there's people out there who are better suited for you anyways."

you hadn't thought about your situation like that, but that was probably a wise way to put it.

"that... actually makes sense."

where was this dude lurking? it would have been nice to get to know him earlier, you thought. although it might be too early to tell, you had put him tentatively under a category of "people that were better suited for you."

jiung glanced at his phone for a quick second. "break's ending soon, so i have to head to my history class, but i enjoyed talking to you!”

he headed toward the door, but as he was about to leave, he turned back, as if he was forgetting something. "hey, mind if i get your kakaotalk information? let's chat again sometime."

you entered in your number, voice a little shaky. "i'd love to chat. and if you ever need to find me, i'll be here, like i always am."

"well then, i'll see you around!"

he walked to his next class, leaving you to ponder if it really was so difficult to make friends after all.

[respectthepetty]

Hi RTP! 👋 big fan.

I'm watching We Best Love: Fighting Mr. 2nd (and I think I like it more than the first season???)

Anyway, I've seen your color post about them, but in S2 specifically I've been noticing reflections, mirrors and glass barriers are a thing a lot? I'd love to hear your thoughts, if you're willing.

Peace and love! 🖤💙

Anon, you like the second season of We Best Love more than the first season?!

You like this

over this?!

I won't fight you because both hold a special place in my heart and on my Top Taiwanese BLs list since Taiwan finally delivered me a color-coded BL TWICE (which I missed the first time around until @gillianthecat asked me about it! - Look at Zhou Shu Yi give Gao Shi De his heart while they wear their respective colors! )

So I'm thrilled to answer this ask, but know I won't be mentioning the second or third pair. That's too much! I gotta focus on the main couple.

I also will be writing about how the show used space in general to reinforce the narrative. I'm unsure if you have finished watching the second season, so let me warn you that there will be spoilers ahead.

SPOILERS!

We started the second season with a flashback to how it all went sideways for the boys after the first season ended, and the aftermath gives us the first reflection of Zhou Shu Yi who is heartbroken and dismayed.

After this, Zhou Shu Yi is closed off emotionally AND physically. He lives in a concrete house!

And even though the entire workspace is an open concept with glass offices,

The main office they argue in has the shades down on all the windows, so people can't see inside. Even when Zhou Shu Yi is riding in the car with his friends, the windows have curtains to block out the world.

While Gao Shi De's house has plenty of sunlight streaming in from the windows, and he tends to talk outside, out in the open.

We only see Zhou Shu Yi's emotions in reflections because mirrors show us the truth (mirror, mirror, on the wall and blah blah blah).

So even though Zhou Shu Yi claims he is over Gao Shi De and continues to hide his emotions behind shaded windows, concrete walls, and barriers, the mirrors and the colors don't lie. Since you read the colors post, you know that no matter what Zhou Shu Yi does, he is always surrounded by Gao Shi De's blue, just like he was when they were in high school, but now he is staring at a shattered image of them.

However, both guys pick up a trait from the other. After their sexually charged back-and-forth in the shaded office, Gao Shi De's reflection in the BLACK table shows he is quickly breaking down due to Zhou Shu Yi's animosity.

And Zhou Shu Yi decides to step outside and speak openly about his lingering feelings for Gao Shi De while wearing a BLUE stripe across his shirt.

But both their issues finally come to the surface when Zhou Shu Yi learns about the lines Gao Shi De and his father crossed without his consent. We visually see those barriers being crossed as well.

This forces Zhou Shu Yi in a box, alone and isolated.

And the two who are responsible for their own predicaments are forced outside to clear the air to get rid of the barrier between them.

Because everything is out in the open now, Zhou Shu Yi's world starts to brighten up, and we see him near the windows since his feelings are no longer being repressed.

Even when he gets sick, he ends up in Gao Shi De's blue car that has windows without the black-out curtains.

Zhou Shu Yi might still be upset at Gao Shi De, but he is willing to forgive him, so they are now in the glass box together since their feelings are completely out in the open.

We get a call back to the bed scene from season one, but this time, Zhou Shu Yi 's eyes are open and the light is shining through because there are no more secrets.

And this honesty transfers to the office. We now see the boys in the glass office together, without all the shades down.

We also see Gao Shi De trusting Zhou Shu Yi marked by him standing in front of the open blinds, while Yu Zhen Zuan, standing behind the closed blinds, does not trust Zhou Shu Yi.

The guys are stronger together now that everything is out in the open, and they revisit the bridge from the first season where they laid everything bare and confessed to each other.

Because even though they have to be secretive to find the person who is responsible for the company leak (which is why they have to go back into the shaded office)

They remain in their own open glass box of honesty.

The only remaining barrier is the one between Gao Shi De and Zhou Shu Yi's father, who still wants to keep secrets from Zhou Shu Yi.

Gao Shi De speaks with him in front of the window acting as the divide, but since it is a window with no curtains and the blinds are open, we already know that Zhou Shu Yi's father can no longer allow his secrets to be the barrier between him and his son's boyfriend.

With everything finally settled, the boys enjoy their glass box of honesty over dinner with the light shining on them.

And the series ends with their friends getting engaged, and them coming back to to where it all began - in the openness of the blue water, which is the biggest reflection of their love.

Thanks for this ask, Anon. I'm making a separate post of two more color items I noticed while collecting a few images for this post. Our Blue Boy, Gao Shi De, had a blue cell phone and blue chopsticks when talking with and eating with his Black Brooder boyfriend, but I never noticed that, so once again, thanks, and I hope I answered your question!

[variousqueerthings]

Okay, well, what would you prefer then? The Dustmen?

Sleep No More! this season's dedicated spooky episode. I feel like I ought to have vibed more with this one than I did and I dunno why it didn't work with me that well. maybe I powered through s9 too quickly (EDIT: I have now analysed why it didn't work so well for me, ey!)

also: is this the first out trans actor we've had on this show? definitely some things to say about that

sexism rank objectification (female character is ogled/harassed/turned into a sex joke by the doctor and/or a lead we’re supposed to root for and/or the camera): 10/10

sexism rank plot-point (lead female character is only there to serve plot, not to have her emotional interiority explored, or given agency to her emotional interiority): 4/10

interesting complex or pointlessly complex (does the complexity serve the narrative or does it just serve to be confusing as a stand-in for smart, this includes visually): 6/10

furthers character and/or lore and/or plot development (broader question that ties into the previous ones, at least two of these, ideally three should be fulfilled): 3/10

companion matters (the companion doesn’t always have to be there, but if the companion is there, can they function without the doctor– and overall per season how often is the companion the focus or POV of the story): 3/10

the doctor is more than just “godlike” (examines the doctor’s flaws and limitations, doesn’t solve a plot by having it revolve entirely around the doctor’s existence): 9/10

doesn’t look down on previous doctor who (by erasing or mocking its importance, by redoing and “bettering” previous beloved plotpoints or characters, etc.): 6/10

isn’t trying to insert hamfisted sexiness (m*ffat famously talked a lot about how dw should be sexier multiple times, he sucks at writing it): 10/10

internal world has consistency (characters have backgrounds, feel rooted in a place with other people, generally feel like they have Lives): 6/10

Politics (how conservative is the story): 4/10

FULL RATING: 61/100 (if I can count….)

ok ok let's get into it!

OBJECTIFICATION: see, cured!

PLOT-POINT: I mean, it's a standalone episode that doesn't do much beyond the episode itself, so it doesn't really need to give Clara much development. still, I think in a season in which Clara doesn't have many emotional beats, considering what's coming up in the very next episode... I'd have liked something perhaps

COMPLEXITY: it's complexity lies in its structure and I am nooot convinced by it. there's nothing wrong as such with found footage, but it feels gimmicky very fast, and I think there should have been more done with the fact that the dust was "watching" them

the fact that it's basically the beats of a low-budget horror should have meant I vibed with it more, but I think because in the end a lot of it is just running from place to place while going "whaat is even happening here" makes it feel a bit thin

also the ending is probably an "either you like it or you don't" type ending, so I have nothing against it as such. I think the single-episode characters were thinner than a lot of the other ones we've seen throughout the years, which is kind of a shame, because there is some interesting Stuff to dig into with the wider world they inhabit (which we'll get to) but these are all -- with the exception of Nagata I think -- relatively threadbare. this might also be a feeling arising from the other episodes being two-parters, so we got more time with the "under the lake" gang idk. but maybe actually that's why I'm judging it a bit harsher -- this is a concept I've seen before a few times, done better

CHARACTERS/LORE/PLOT: nothing much here either, although there is a delightful little exchange between Clara and the Doctor right at the beginning that goes like this --

CLARA: Looks like a Japanese restaurant. Oh! Have you brought me to a space restaurant? DOCTOR: People never do that, you know? CLARA: Do what? DOCTOR: They never put the word space in front of something just because everything's all sort of hi-tech and future-y. It's never space restaurant or space champagne or space, you know, hat. It's just restaurant, champagne or hat. Even if this was a restaurant. CLARA: What about spacesuit? DOCTOR: Pedant.

I just think that gives me more on them as characters than often exists in their episodes together, which often feel like they go so fast and are so specific to Plot things, that I've often struggled to engage with their dynamic as ostensibly good friends. this was actually something I highlighted in "the girl who died" which was the way everything with them was constantly framed around danger and high stakes and how that takes me out of understanding what draws Clara to travelling, and this is a little counterpoint to that

COMPANIONS MATTER: ehhhh not really from my memory. she's there.

“GODLIKE” DOCTOR: the Doctor just fully runs around like a headless chicken in this one. no that's not fair, he solves most of the puzzle. crucially not the really important piece at the end though, but I'd assume that happened offscreen, as the implications of that ending have never been brought up again on this show to my knowledge

PREVIOUS DOCTOR WHO: couple of tiny references. actually it's more of a big send-up to league of gentlemen, considering Gatiss wrote it and Shearsmith plays the main bad guy

“SEXINESS”: again, cured!

INTERNAL WORLD: I think if this had had more world-building and less attempts at being a PG horror movie it might have been more horrifying actually, because the implications are already horrifying enough. but yeah, this, because of the characters, is quite a thinly built world, made all the more noticeable because the ideas within it are kind of compelling as heck and I do want to know more!

POLITICS: there's a couple of things in this, the first and more intentional of which is it brings up some good horrific capitalist world-building, and I wiiish whatever the story was was actually more about that. I mean, actually there's a really good TV concept on its own in it, that this episode didn't have the time or focus or ability to tell, because it's Doctor Who, we're not spending a season dwelling on the implications of functionally removing sleep from people, but ooooh I'd be interested in a story that did!

the other thing is that this has the somewhat dubious honour of featuring the first ever out trans actor in a lead role, played by Bethany Black, and... hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm I mean. I mean. she's a vat-grown grunt referred to with "it" pronouns (and not, I get the sense, because of personal choice, if personal choice came into this in the first place), who "cannot speak properly" because these "grunts" are frequently not... bred well enough? there's a loooot of episodes on Doctor Who that are about personhood and respecting that, and this... is not one of those episodes. 474 is never a focus of the Doctor in this episode, and in fact relatively early on both (she?) and this cis guy who frequently insults her the most (whom she is in love with???) are separated from the others. she then sacrifices herself for this guy, but it doesn't really matter because he's killed anyway shortly afterwards

it's just kinda messy and badly thought-out, but Bethany Black is great, and we know it's going to get better at some point. I want to make a point though as well that Bethany is fat and was in her 30s during this episode I think, and her character is presented in a relatively genderless way and smeared with camouflage paint or oil or smthin (and again, referred to with "it" pronouns), so I don't think a lot of people casually watching would have noticed that this character was a woman (if indeed, the episode understood that), in the sense that obviously trans people should get to play everyone and not "just" have to be prettified in order to be allowed onscreen, but it's a shame we couldn't see a fat trans woman being respected as a woman in this story, or youknow... get to assert her personhood, considering this is Doctor Who, and I hope that the wonderful onscreen transness we're getting will not be equated with thinness and youth exclusively in the future

but like, they could fully bring Bethany Black back as another character and I don't think people would recognise her as having been on the show before, so... do it cowards. you did it with fuckn Capaldi and Gillan and Cribbins and and and...

FULL RATING: 61/100 (if I can count….)

so I did actually check what the feedback to this episode was, and apparently at the time it was the lowest rated episode apart from Love & Monsters, which if anyone has been on this blog for a bit, you know I'm so into that episode. and I think that's worthy of a little comparison, because the thing about Love & Monsters is that while it is a bit gimmicky in format and to the left of a traditional episode, it does all of this in service to something. it's about specific people who exist in the sphere of the Doctor's influence, and that in turn explores a tertiary character (Jackie) who herself occupies a difficult space in this universe. it is, fundamentally, a very very human, softly tragic tale that builds up ideas that we'll return to many times over the course of the show

this episode does not have that. it's characters aren't very fleshed out, its world-building is shallow, and its purpose as the episode before a Very Important Episode seems to be to just. be there. and I think that's its fundamental weakness. if this were in another season, and given some tightening here and there to give it some kind of focus (my preference would be on giving some emotional insights on the Doctor and whoever the Companion is and/or making this very much about the single-episode characters For A Purpose, with the Doctor and Companion taking a backseat) I would have liked it better

as it is I don't dislike it, it's just oddly situated and relatively forgettable to me. Bethany Black should come back though

[theuntitledblog]

Tenet (2020) - REVIEW

It's hard to know where to even begin with Tenet! I would start by saying that no other film Christopher Nolan has made has come close to being as much of a challenge for me as this . It's not like the general concept of inversion is that difficult to understand, but the way it's realized and utilized on screen just boggles the senses and I find myself unable fully process it. I saw Tenet again a couple of days ago and this was probably the first time where most of it started to slot together for me but even then the visual complexity is still hard to grasp the bigger and more ambitious the film gets. This is Christopher Nolan operating in a similar way as he did with Inception by constructing a complex film around a sci-fi concept and trusting that the audience can keep up. Tenet is a film I admired and generally liked upon release, it's a film I continue to revisit but unlike with Inception, Tenet is perhaps too challenging for some of the wrong reasons.

Despite being 2 and a half hours long, Tenet requires your full attention as well as your ability to keep up with the story as it moves constantly between so many locations, characters, ideas and even points in time. There's nothing wrong of course with trying to challenge your audience with complex ideas, but it is a problem when it requires multiple viewings to understand the basics and Tenet asks a lot of its audience. Nolan has been previously criticised regarding the quality of the sound in his movies and while I haven't generally agreed with this, here I think it's somewhat justified. On my first viewing there were lines of dialogue I couldn't pick up on which was compounded further by just how loud Ludwig Göransson's score is at times. I would point out that at no time was I unable to follow the main story or the stakes involved and if you can keep up then Tenet can be a rewarding experience. But there's no denying that Tenet is too convoluted for its own good and isn't as satisfying an experience than Inception was. But among its saving graces, the biggest for me is that I find it to be among the most intriguing films Nolan has made and my desire to fully understand it is because I admire so much of what it's attempting to be.

If you've ever wondered what a Christopher Nolan directed James Bond movie might look like, then Tenet is probably your best guess. Dealing with espionage, secret organisations, diverse and scenic locations plus heavy hitting, large scale set pieces and you'll see that the Bond vibes are there. Adding to the set up is a suave lead in John David Washington, a sinister Bond-esque villain in Kenneth Branagh and Robert Pattinson's mysterious side kick Neil who always seems to know more than he should and you have an interesting mix. The characters themselves are mostly service to the plot and aside from Elizabeth Debicki's Kat and Branagh's Sator, little is offered in terms of deeper understanding of their motives or back stories. But there's also no denying that Nolan is on fine form once again with huge, practical set pieces that look glorious on screen and can't help but keep your interest.

The inversion sequences are unlike anything I've seen and visually I find it impressive yet tough to process especially during the more complex sequences. What starts off with just bullets later progresses to cars, corridor fights, interrogation sequences and even a full scale battle. Even now I can't honestly say that I fully grasp what I'm seeing on screen nor how concepts such as Temporal Pincer movements affect the larger set pieces such as during the heist in Tallinn. Whether this is really an issue with myself or the film is definitely up for discussion but I think there's no denying that that Tenet, for me at least is difficult to fully understand. Nolan has said that you're not meant to understand everything about Tenet and while I think there's something to be said about ambiguity in films, I ultimately feel that Tenet is too complex to be as satisfying an experience as I hoped it would be ... at least not yet. Tenet is a film that is too interesting to ignore and will be a film I keep coming back to again and again.

VERDICT

Tenet represents one of the most challenging cinematic experiences I've ever had and it will likely prove too much for a lot of people. But this is a film that offers greater rewards the more you stick with it and while it isn't the best film Christopher Nolan has made, it is one of the most intriguing.

4/5

[donnerpartyofone]

More notes on beauty:

1) I started feeling ugly from a very early age, really as far back as I can remember. There is something deeply revealing about being told you're pretty only by blood relatives, friends of the family who are trying to flatter your parents, and platonic friends who are not sexually attracted to your demographic; all those people are trying to make you feel better in some way, even though they might be accidentally pointing out a problem you didn't necessarily think you had.* But anyway, my parents never interfered with my sense of ugliness--even though I was extremely vocal about how worried and sad it made me. On one single occasion when I was probably around 12 and bemoaning how gross I felt, my father stoically offered up that beauty standards are just reflections of reproductive instincts, that the qualities men find attractive in women are markers of high quality breeding stock essentially. I now know that this is only true to a limited degree, and even at the time it wasn't hard to see that the average sex symbol wasn't necessarily "fertile-looking". Besides which, this knowledge wouldn't exempt me from continued rejection and alienation! It was just another way of viewing my natural reject-ness. But still, this shut me up somehow. It was like Oh OK, so even if I'm like exiled from society, at least there's a scientific reason. It's not "unfair", it's just rational.

2) My best friend is ugly. This is her own assessment based on her own experience of just being in society, dealing with strangers, trying to find a partner, etc. I don't know that she ENJOYS being ugly, but I don't think she's offended by the diagnosis; it just is what it is on some level, and it makes her incredibly enlightened about the complexities of embodied existence, but ANYWAY. I was talking one day with another friend about the general concept of looks, and when I mentioned this fact about my closest friend, my interlocutor got very prickly. She said something like "ugliness is a really important concept to me, I've seen pictures of your friend online and she's not it." To be clear this person was being more defensive of ugliness than of the stranger I was describing--but it put me in this corner where I had to go, "OK fine, her skin is like this, her hair is like this," etc, until it was like I had her whole physical person disarticulated on an operating table. Finally the person I was talking to conceded that she understood me, but it was an unpleasant experience and I wished I hadn't taken the bait. This person just had a fetishized version of what it means to be "ugly"; she meant, for instance, character actors with uniquely extreme appearances that amount to their own special aesthetic. She didn't want to include just general people who are routinely ignored and rejected in any circumstance where the key thing is visual attractiveness. And there I was, so desperate to defend my friend's inalienable right to be ugly (which is just one small feature of hers within an absolute treasure trove of amazingly great human qualities), that I carved her up into parts for this other person--I made myself think about my friend in a way that I absolutely never would do naturally, all because of my obsessive resistance of judging people by aesthetics, even the "ugliness" aesthetic. It left me feeling pretty awful.

*Actually I wonder if people, let's just say women who are very attractive are very often TOLD that they are attractive out loud by people other than sexual partners (and suitors who can't control themselves). I feel like people are so threatened by attractive women, in various ways, that they don't necessarily come right out and acknowledge this attractiveness in words. I think maybe people are more likely to express "you're extremely hot/beautiful" through behavior and action, than to be so vulnerable as to say the obvious to a beautiful woman. In fact I theorize that you might know if you face more challenges re: appearance from the fact that people TELL you you're attractive more often than they act like it. But this is all speculation about other people's lives, I really wouldn't know!

[exhausted-capybara]

So, I keep seeing a lot of posts about AI and how capitalism and a bunch of tech companies are doing massive ethics violations, and I do agree that we should be talking about these things!

But I've also seen people go a bit too far and just kinda not get why those things are bad. The problem isn't AI as a concept, it's how they were implemented and how they're being used.

For example, did you know that phone calls are AI powered? Yes, really. It's not even a new development, they've been using AI / ML models since at least the '70s. VoIP calls like Discord, Google Meet and Zoom use more or less the same technology, so this applies to them as well.

Realistically the only reason they've never been marketed as AI powered is because they come from a time where AI wasn't a giant household buzzword (and in some cases, it was after the first major AI crash, so AI was actively a dirty no-no word if you wanted to get funds). AI really just means "inputs a big ball of data, outputs a crude, but smaller, approximation" - it just so happens that for a bunch of problems, we've found very good small approximations. Which means that please, for the love of all that's unholy, DO NOT harass someone using something that has AI or Machine Learning or terms like that attached, without considering whether that technology in question is actually harmful.

Linear interpolations (any interpolations really, linears are just the most common and banal of them) are technically AI, and yet they're a staple of pretty much every 3D rendering engine. Sometimes they're a cheap hack that makes whatever extremely easier and cheaper to make without compromising on visual accuracy, sometimes they're just *The Right Thing To Do*, and sometimes they're just saving an animator / modeler / etc. that's probably already overworked anyways from doing extra busy work. And yet there have been sightings of people harassing animators because they mentioned using some kind of interpolation during the animating / rigging / modeling process, someone mentioned (correctly in a pedantic sort of way) that it was AI to them before, and they just saw "thing that is AI" and "art" in the same general space and went full "fuck AI mode" on the overworked artist.

The problems with AI we're seeing right now are ethical, but there is ethical usage of AIs (and in fact there is a non negligible amount of accessibility devices that are AI powered), and sometimes that includes industries where there have been the biggest violations so far (generative images, generative sound and generative text). If you don't know enough about the kind of AI / ML model that was used, how it was used in the workflow, how it was trained, etc. Please look into that before going around throwing accusations and making call out posts, because there's a fuckton of things that are technically AI in stuff you use everyday and there are people in the Internet ready to start drama just because it's Tuesday or because the partner of a cousin of a friend of a classmate of their roommate's gym buddy said so.

[sapphire-weapon]

Idk if this is of any interest to you, but I remember way back you mentioned RE 7& 8 were hard to play because of the first person thing. I despise that style too. 7 and Skyrim took me forever to fully adjust to and I just generally dislike not seeing my character lmao. Anyway, RE8 does actually have an official third person playing mode now, and plays the same way as the other games. I just thought I'd mention it in case you were unaware and wanted another try or whatever, but I assume you likely know already.

Also, I'm adding on a headcanon that I've had since playing. Nobody else has said it, so I'm sure I'd hear a lot of disagreement. Many point out that Leon and Ethan would've been great friends or had shipping potential, despite them never meeting. I've always seen it slightly differently though, I think Ethan actually shows what Leon could've been if he wasn't traumatised (well, before Ethan got his own hefty dose obviously lmao). I really like E and do think the characters would mix really well, but it felt to me like they might've taken some early, bare bones Leon concepts and built a different character off of it. I don't know, that's just what went through my head before.

Also, is it really true that the Winters story is completely done!? I'm seeing that passed around a lot, but it's completely nonsensical. Rose is not a finished character and the DLC made it very clear that she has a huge role to play in the future of RE. I'd be so disappointed if that whole story was dropped, especially because she's so likeable...

So, real quick -

Yes, I do know that RE8 has a third person mode. I still haven't really had the desire to play it, though, because from what I've seen, it's a bit clunky. The game was not designed with third person in mind, which makes certain sections of gameplay artificially harder and/or lose their thematic impact.

The Winters' family story is done, but that doesn't mean that Rose will never be used again. Like, when the Raccoon City arc was done, that didn't mean that all of the legacy cast went away. They just moved onto the next story arc. Rose can still move onto the next story arc; it's just that the story arc won't be about her family.

As for the middle part of your ask...

I disagree that Ethan is a look at Leon's character if the Raccoon City outbreak didn't happen.

And I say that because -- and this is a theory that I've held close to my chest for years and have never really spoken about -- I think that Sebastian Castellanos (the protagonist of The Evil Within) was, in part, Shinji Mikami's creative exploration of where Leon's character could have gone if he'd stayed a cop -- which is why TEW plays so similarly and is structured so similarly to RE4 in the first place.

Sebastian started his career as an idealistic overachiever who was so good at and so dedicated to his job that he became the youngest officer ever in the KCPD to be promoted to Detective. But, in the end, he broke, too, and went off the deep end into a horrible spiraling meltdown that culminated in him turning into a paranoid conspiracy theorist with a drinking problem who nearly lost his job -- several times -- for insubordination, violent outbursts, and illegal investigations into the corruption within the KCPD. The only thing that saved him was his incredible reputation and spotless record from when he was younger.

If you're interested at all, I have a compilation of Sebastian's in-game journal detailing the rise and fall of his career here. There's also a visual representation of the good times -> the breakdown -> the result that the DLCs put into the game that you can watch here.

Basically, I think that Leon's character was always bound for tragedy, one way or the other, because I don't think that Leon ever had it in him to have a healthy response to grief and hardship in his life to begin with. All roads lead to the same place.

Ethan survived (well, "survived" LMAO) several different traumatic events and arguably came out stronger. I don't think Leon ever would have or could have done the same.

[gaykarstaagforever]

On Highlander

I finally saw the first Highlander movie. I don't know why I had never seen it before. I saw II (ew) and The Source (double-ew), and a lot of the first TV show (mostly yay).

I'm not going to do a full review, because we are nerds and we all know it's a good movie. But I'll say this about it - for a movie from a first-time feature director, from a screenplay written by a guy who was still in film school, starring an effectively-blind man who barely spoke English at the time, it is way better than it has any right to be. It is rough and uneven and the dialogue is bad and the fight scenes are always two men frantically cracking aluminum baseball bats against each-other until one's hands hurt and he drops his. But all that said, it is a good fantasy movie, especially for 1986.

I think generally it has a reputation that is a little overrated, and people who stan this movie apparently fill in a lot of plot holes in their heads to make it work and aren't aware they are doing that. But it is still fun and pretty good in general as an old skool action movie about lightning vampires having sword fights for no good reason.

...The ending sucks, though, and is directly responsible for everything that is bad about Highlander II. I know this because I've watched it

"WHAT ABOUT THE RENEGADE CUT?!"

and about half of "The Renegade Cut," before the self-indulgent, completely senseless "Watch a director make a point to people who do not care at all!" shit got unbearable.

Adding slight less bad mid-90s visual effects and removing all the Zeist crap does exactly nothing to fix a plot that is 100% in service to no one having any goddamn idea what to do with this franchise after Conner wins The Prize. The Prize only exists as an undefined Macguffin that keeps these desperate people motivated, on the off-chance it frees them from this obvious curse. Whatever you officially make it, that is automatically stupid and lame and not worth it. That's the nature of the whole concept, and the bad ending of the first movie proves it.

Which is why, according to Wikipedia, the original screenplay NEVER DEALT WITH THAT. It apparently ended with Conner killing the Kurgan and then immediately "feeling" the presence of yet another Immortal they didn't know about. The Game goes on. There will NEVER be only one. It's a metaphor for the "curse" that is life, you keep going on the basis that you exist to achieve something, but you will probably never find out what that is before you die, all your plans and actions rendered fruitless. And that's really good.

But that isn't a happy ending, so...you can have kids now? And sort of read minds? Maybe? Of everyone? Which means...things?

Maybe you can build a giant shield around the Earth? I don't know. They're from Space. Whatever.

See the problem?

Also the Wikipedia article says Clancy Brown (and the original screenplay) saw the Kurgan as more of a stoic, world-weary villain, more one of circumstance than psychopathy. Clancy wanted to wear a suit and a bowler hat. That also sounds really good. Obviously him being nuts is one of the best parts of the first movie, just like Michael Ironside being nuts is one of the only good parts of the second. But is it dramatically compelling? The most profound part of the first one is when Conner finds out what the Kurgan did to Heather. The movie does that tactfully and earns the payoff. That was something that could also 100% work in a version where the Kurgan is just another Immortal who is dealing with his curse by taking a darker path than Conner does (hence why Conner is the protagonist).

But it is what it is. The first one is good, II is technically a well-made movie but is a fascinating disaster in any cut, and I didn't see 3 because I'm not paying $4 to rent what I hear is another not-good Highlander movie.

...Also, Ramirez probably would have lived a lot longer if he'd actually used that katana like a katana and not like a broadsword. But I guess no one in 1985 was going to tell Sean Connery to take two weeks of kendo lessons.

And a last word on the stupid Renegade Cut. How the hell did changing it from "alien planet" to "anachronistic Bronze Age, with time-wizards" solve a single problem with this childish nonsense? They still have amnesia for no given reason, they still go by the names we know neither one of them used until just before they met, Katana still shouldn't be drunkenly making sarcastic references to 20th Century things he wouldn't know anything about, even if it's fun (and it is; Michael Ironside is a Canadian treasure). It is all still such impossible anti-sense that not even the most adventurous writer of professional wrestling storylines could glue the pieces together into something that makes these railing kills emotionally impactful. There are a thousand possible fantasy stories that Highlander II could have used to try and explain why the hell people who are immune to bullets shoot lightning when you cut their heads off, and they picked "-B *fart noise*". You can't redeem that with editing.

And again, no one should have tried to explain it in the first place. That's not the point. Explaining any of this should never, ever be the point.

Because when it is, THIS happens:

[eldritch-spouse]

Breg reacting to his obssesion finding and taking in a baby breeder? I've been morbidly curious how he would do as a parent.

[Ah yes, parenthood... I pity you.]

H-How? How did you find a breeder? Where? When? The facility... Just how??

Ever since Breg found out impregnation was off the table, he became quiet. Real quiet. He wasn't upset at his beautiful mate, no, never you. Biology thwarted him, not his wonderful mate who accepted everything he ever tried.

Breg was upset with himself.

Because he promised. He promised he would aim higher than conception now. That he would think about accomplishing both himself and his partner in different ways, live a more virtuous life- Enjoy literally everything else he had no access to during captivity, the things he could only ever solemnly dream about or try to visualize from some mouthy guard's lackluster vocabulary. Yet there he was, inordinately upset at the fact that he can't literally breed you.

As if that's a very specific and high priority goal he has to achieve or all of his life is meaningless.

Breg knows what this is. These are mindsets he hasn't unlearned yet. The breeder is still thinking that he'll be severely punished if he fails to impregnate you in some form, that you'll both suffer endlessly as staff tries to determine which one of you is infertile, and therefore a burden to be disposed. Not anymore. He's not there anymore. He's not there. Physically, at least. It's at times like these that Breg realizes he's still living in the breeding facility, mentally.

That's why Breg has been working to slowly undo that thought process. For both your sakes. You deserve better than someone throwing a fit because you can't or don't want to bare a child and he deserves better than believing his life is only useful when he perpetuates another's kind. His mood had been lifting steadily the more he started getting the two of you immersed in different activities. He was getting better, he was starting to forget the idea, to picture a better life.

And then you come home with a baby breeder in your arms.

Putting aside the cognitive crisis of how you managed to achieve such, Breg is freaking the fuck out. He only thought about the fun part, making the baby. He didn't ponder on how to properly raise one. He's had so little contact with children, this will be disastrous! Cue the instant panic. Meanwhile, you're standing in the middle of the room with a now very much startled baby wailing on your chest, knowing damn well that Breg has seen hundreds of baby care documentaries and more than likely knows how to handle a kid ten times better than you.

As usual, his nervous energy is his biggest weakness, as being constantly antsy will naturally have an effect on the infant. Breg needs you there every step of the way even if he's bound to understand the requirements of breeder infants a lot better than you. He's determined to raise this one right, to make sure they never get in the wrong hands, that they're not exploited and forced into a life of constant sexual demand. Breg will give them everything he never had the chance to experience- A family, love, a home and freedom to be whoever they want to be. As a result of this, he has the potential to become a parent very prone to needless sheltering and may even bicker with you whenever you let the kid experience certain things head on.

If your financial situation is stable enough, Breg might suggest adopting a human child so the two of you can have a nice big family life and give the breeder infant a sibling, wholesome considerations. Also something that's not very likely to happen, because I assure you, raising a breeder is a lot of work...

They grow fast, for starters. They also gain mobility and a general ability to grab onto things very quickly, one day they can barely move, the next they 're already instinctively crawling around the house trying to climb counters because their sense of smell is getting sharper and there's food in the cabinets. You're standing in the doorway to the kitchen at three in the morning, watching your strange demon child propel itself at the stools to climb onto the table, this exasperated wheeze dying in your throat when it starts tearing into the fruit bowl on top. Meanwhile Breg is clapping enthusiastically- Look at them, they grow up so fast! They love fruit just like their daddy!

And now, because I'm having way too much fun, kid breeder facts:

Fret not, the fast growth rate slows down significantly once they reach early teenhood, until that point though, you're in for a wildride;

Breeder kids have a tendency to latch onto their parents. Instead of being cradled gently by their guardians, they prefer to latch around the sides and backs of their parents, kind of like koalas. It's all fun and games until the claws start coming in... Besides, they're heavy, you might get tired a little too fast and they'll shriek about it if you pry them off. Breg is content to let the little rascal crawl all over him though;

Part of why breeder kids hang onto their parents so tightly when they're very young is because their sight is quite impaired, it stabilizes later on. Don't hold it against your child if they mistake you for someone else, which can happen if your scent is off or you don't speak to them;

You'll probably find out spreaders can alter the shape of their teeth this way, since your kid will have the naturally serrated teeth most breeders are born with. Breg has them too, he just forced himself to adopt a less threatening shape when he first mingled with humans. That being said, I urge you to set boundaries when it comes to biting, love nibbles are frequent and painful;

On the cuter side, the teeth grow in a little too fast, so they may have a bit of a "buck teeth" look for a while;

Quite like your lover, the child will gradually require less and less sleep, which means you might get woken up in the middle of the night because someone escaped their bed again and wants to play monopoly with mommy/daddy;

Your child will naturally be very protective of you in an almost instinctive manner because they subconsciously recognize you as a bizarre, short and stocky type of breeder- Which means they need to provide and keep you safe. You can tell them you're a human over and over, their brain is still like "pink hairy breeder parent";

Breg will sometimes tug or lift the child by the tail. Don't panic, this is not abusive, it's actually common practice for his kind;

There's going to be a very brief phase when they first get the ability to shift their pigmentation between black and white, in which your kid's skin will flicker like a chameleon whenever they're excited or generally emotionally roused. They'll proudly display it to both you and Breg;

Breeders chirp and trill to each other a lot, you don't understand these vocalizations and it's not something you heard a lot of before because Breg seldom ever did it around you, since you're human and it doesn't have the intended effect. Your kid and Breg will casually chirp at each other, and from what you've noticed, it's almost like a subconscious thing. You once poorly mimicked the noise next to Breg and he instantly returned it, before his brain caught up and he gawked at you like an idiot.

[moonlit-tulip]

The Virtue of Execution

Within local sectors of culturespace, it's traditional for people pursuing creative projects—writers, programmers, musicians, and so forth—to heavily prioritize originality, uniqueness, and other such things, when pursuing their craft. To try to stick out from the crowd on the basis of, in some fashion, making a different sort of content from the rest of the crowd.

This is, as far as it goes, a good and valuable thing for people to do. More exploration of contentspace leads to more chances that a particular person's idiosyncratic tastes will happen to be perfectly hit upon. But it's just that: exploration. It's a way of finding new and interesting sectors of contentspace; it's not a way of producing maximally good content within those sectors.

So, yes, originality is something to celebrate. But equally valuable, and far less celebrated, is execution. The creation of works, not necessarily original, which stick out from the crowd by being good rather than just by being new. Which polish all the pieces already floating around the memespace, and present them in a prettified and optimized form rather than in minimum-viable-product form.

Consider, by way of example:

Fallout 3 was the game which defined the broad shape of How 3D Fallout Works. But it was Fallout: New Vegas, not Fallout 3, which ended up as the widely-regarded best of the 3D Fallout games and the most enduring classic among them, having imported most of Fallout 3's mechanics but combined it with substantially better writing and more interesting world-design. (This now-common opinion, I'll note, stands in contrast with reviewer consensus upon release, under which New Vegas's mechanical similarity to Fallout 3 was treated as reason to give it lower scores than Fallout 3 got.)

Also on the video game front, see the various games which sit solidly within their genres, which aren't known for being particularly mechanically or narratively innovative, but which execute their mechanics well, have pretty visuals and pretty music, are well-written, and in general are exceptionally good implementations of their genres. Celeste, among precision platformers; Hollow Knight, among metroidvanias; Divinity: Original Sin 2, among talky isometric RPGs; et cetera.

Gwern has written previously about the surprisingly-large increase in how many positive comments his website got, once he'd put sufficient effort into improving its design above and beyond the design standards of most of the internet. I myself have noticed that, since his various design upgrades, I've become far more prone to reading his website than I used to be.

DM of the Rings created the campaign comic genre, but it's Darths & Droids which seems to have come out as the enduring classic of that genre, the shining example whose standard of quality other comics try to live up to.

There are lots and lots of artists on the internet who are clearly pursuing very similar styles in their art (e.g. the crop of Standard-Issue Concept Artists, the crop of Standard-Issue Anime Character Fanartists, et cetera), but who have substantial gaps between one another in terms of how good they are at that art, in terms of quality of lineart and shading and lighting and so forth. These people don't tend to be particularly original; but many of them are very good.

...et cetera.

The virtue I'm gesturing at here is a very different virtue from the virtue of originality. It's a virtue seen, not in discrete flashes of brilliance, but in the slow iterative process of taking a good-enough product and polishing it until it shines.

(And, if one does that enough, then eventually one will become practiced enough with it that even one's first passes will look pretty shiny. A skilled artist's ten-minute sketches are likely to look better than the best art I know how to make even given hours of time-investment. But nonetheless that artist's ten-minute sketches are likely to be substantially inferior to what the same artist can do over the course of many hours of their own.)

I call this virtue execution, for lack of a better name. It's not a virtue I see celebrated nearly as often as originality; but it's an important one nonetheless, one worth celebrating.

[slyandthefamilybook]

I've only seen the first couple episodes of Hunters. it got too painful to watch after that. Ultimately I think the concept of the show—and to a certain extent holocaust media in general—just doesn't work for a couple reasons

Number 1. I think the show takes a bit too much self-satisfied glee in portraying Nazi atrocities

The show opens with a Jewish woman (who's either a holocaust survivor herself or the daughter of one, I can't remember) being shot in the head by a Nazi who then proceeds to kill his entire family, including children. it's pretty triggering to anyone who's sensitive towards that kind of violence, especially Jews descended from holocaust survivors who have had to hear time and time again about how Great-Uncle Dov was killed when he was 4. there's no real reason for that scene. it could've been revealed that this guy was a Nazi in so many other ways. it's just gratuitous and self-indulgent

there's another scene in the second or third ep that shows Auschwitz prisoners playing Hava Nagila against the orders of the commandant, before we see him execute them one by one. aside from the gross display of violence, I found myself wondering if any of the actors portraying the prisoners were Jewish, and how, if they weren't, it would feel kind of disrespectful, but if they were, I can't imagine the unbelievable anguish acting out a scene like that must cause internally

Filming these scenes requires building sets that resemble concentration camps, making costumes that look like prisoner uniforms, hiring extras who look sufficiently haggard, and then reenacting scenes of horror that have haunted generations for their entire lives. it's an exercise in misery and it makes me really uncomfortable

having Al Pacino, an Italian man, dress up as a holocaust survivor and mangle his way around Yiddish does nothing to honor the memories of people who actually experienced these things, many of whom are still alive and living in squalor. at the end of the day he wipes off the tattoo makeup and goes home, without having to live with the generational trauma hanging over his head like a sword of damocles

Logan Lerman (my very distant cousin, as it happens) is great, and it's wonderful to hear him call his grandmother Bubbe. but that sense of comfort in familiarity ends when she's murdered in her own home by Nazis. it's brutal and upsetting

I think the reason why this show in particular doesn't work is because it's so far removed from the holocaust that they feel the need to continually justify killing Nazis. the first Nazi we see the Hunters kill is just like. an old man. He's just a really old guy who, yeah, is racist, but it's never enjoyable watching someone stab a pensioner in the eye. they try to justify it by showing you what horrible monsters these people were in the past but it doesn't make me angry, or exuberant that they're dead. it just makes me sad

a lot of people disagreed with the Nuremberg trials. executing Nazis didn't give them a sense of catharsis, or peace, or closure. to many people killing those who destroyed their families was just letting them escape. it prevented people from seeing a living human being and knowing they were capable of such atrocities. it turned them into a myth, a martyr, a ghost who would now love forever

actors pretending to kill actors pretending to be Nazis doesn't do anything for me. it doesn't protect anyone, it doesn't make anyone safer, it doesn't teach people how to recognize and resist Nazi ideology. it visualizes a genocide that Jews have seen in our heads every day when we wake up and every night when we go to bed. every time we hear our ancestors speak Yiddish or see the flash of a number under their sleeve. we see their faces in ours and know that we have to carry their legacy, make sure that we create the world they didn't get to live in

it's just entertainment, and I don't want to be entertained

There are just two kinds of Jewish representation in media:

1) barely there, a character has a Jewish last name, makes a comment or joke about Bar/Bat mitzvah money, or their bubbe and thats it, thats all

2) Judaism as a huge oppressive, terrible, burden they seek to get away from.

outward shows of Judaism, like yarmulkes, Tzitzit, kosher, Magen David, or mezuzot, are almost always missing, unless its to show them as oppressing/burdening characters

I don't really have a point to this rant other than to say the Jews are tired and we'd really like some representation where our ethnicity isn't a passing joke or our religion an oppressive semi-cult

[zeephyre]

Sucked Into A Bagel.

A depressed person who has Not been having a great time lately tries to put their thoughts together in one coherent post about Everything, Everywhere, All at Once

CW: Depressive thoughts, existential dread. Maybe don't read this if you're gonna get bummed out.

I just... what the Fuck. First of all. Genuinely what the fuck.

I've seen vague reviews of Everything, Everywhere, All at Once, but I was in no way actually prepared to have an actual breakdown during the third act.

The movie in general is amazing. The actors were phenomenal. The visuals were gorgeous. The strange quirkiness of the general concept the story is built around made me giggle because it was so Fun to see. I loved every god. damn. second of it.

I especially enjoyed Joy, or well, being of chaos Jobu Tupaki, but all versions of Joy count anyway. When Jobu gets introduced, I fucking adored how cool she was. How strange and unhinged and detached she seemed. And I was like, "I wanna be like her. She's so fun... She's so powerful." Intellectually, I understood that the reason I loved her was because she "felt nothing," and as someone who feels Too Much all the goddamn time, it was easy to want to come to the higher conclusion that I was above all the bullshit, that because none of it mattered, nothing could hurt me.

When Jobu sang that iconic, "Sucked into a bagel," line, my thought was: "God, I wish I was sucked into a bagel," which kind of sounds ridiculous but later on, it gets Very Very depressing.

Near the end of the movie, when the bagel reveals Everything All at Once, and Evelyn and Jobu finally share the same conclusion that nothing matters at all, I realized (or well, I remembered) Joy has depression.

Not just Jobu, but actual Joy. When the two are staring at rhe bagel, and Jobu expresses that she was glad she wouldn't have to die alone, finally, I remembered the scene so much earlier in the movie where Evelyn was speaking to her Joy about Jobu like she was some monster that was ruining Joy's life. There was a specific line that implied Joy struggled with depression, at the very least.

Anyways, Jobu uncomfortably reminded me of myself, and while the entire family made me cry multiple times,

This whole scene, especially where Joy expresses how tired she is, really fucked me up.

More than anything, it felt like in real life, I was being sucked into a bagel - this empty nothing that's supposed to help everything else fuck off so I can finally be happy. I had been feeling like this for years, and it was no surprise, but it was getting worse recently. The conclusion that Joy and Evelyn had was cathartic and beautiful, but I did not experience that.

I just felt like I was being given hope, one of the most painful things I have ever experienced. Because being alive always hurts so much more when you're fighting for the right to be here.

The movie didnt... fix me. But, I cried. I was in so much pain, and I have no real way of describing it.

I have felt so tired for so fucking long, maybe I'm just hoping, just waiting for all of this to make some fucking sense. Maybe I'm clinging to whatever moments i can, like Edalyn said, struggling through the parts that make me feel like a pointless piece of shit, and maybe I'm just so fucking tired and so fucking lonely.

I don't really know what the hell to do with myself now. Every so often I come to this conclusion: I want to be alive. I do. But I hate it so much that it was always feels like I'm at war with myself. Everything sucks and nothing matters, except that some of it does. Some of it makes me so happy I could cry. But I still????? feel so pointless???

This... has been all over the place and very depressing, so. Anyway you should watch Everything, Everywhere, All at Once.