#and so it wouldn't solve a lot of secondary problems

[servuscallidus]

>something is wrong

>figures out what's wrong

>figures out how to fix it

>it's a multi step plan, requires patience but ok

>is the only plan possible. also, locked steps

>there is a fundamental fault that renders step one unfeasible

>can't repair fault because it's built in

>have fun

[kaufmann-6]

Let's talk about tagging! I feel like many of us need some tips on how to tag on AO3, so follow along to find out some common mistakes people make when tagging their works.

1 - Wrong relationship tag

I feel like we've all been overwhelmed by AO3's interface and what everything meant when we first started posting fics, but I wish people looked up how to tag relationships before posting their work.

What you need to know about this is that relationship tags that have a bar ("/") refer to romantic and/or sexual relationships, and the ones that have an ampersand ("&") refer to platonic relationships such as family, friends, etc.

It affects the readers experience on the site if the writer tags the platonic ship and the fic has those characters in a romantic relationship. I really don't like opening a fic to see that and be immediately disappointed, so please be mindful when putting your relationship tags in.

2 - Cross-tagging

This one also applies to Tumblr. Tagging characters, relationships and other tags that are not important to the story or are secondary and barely appear is not nice and it crowds those tags with fics that don't even feature that character/relationship more than a few times.

I know you are just trying to get more people to see your work, as a writer, I feel that; I always debate with myself which tags are relevant when tagging, but just don't do that, please, the right reader will find your works, but don't crowd unnecessary tags, that disturbs the experience of many readers that have to scroll past dozens of fics just to find one that actually has the character/ship they want in the spotlight.

3 - AUs and fandom tagging

This one is talking about how people tag a fandom when posting an AU instead of using an AU tag for that fandom in the additional tags.

This is specially a problem on small fandoms. People write AUs based on those fandoms and tag them in the fandoms of the fic, and that ends up crowding the tag with fics that don't even have the original fandom's characters.

It's different from crossovers, when you use the fandom tag, because AUs use the plot, not the characters, so you should put the fandom in the additional tags and reference that it's an AU, instead of using the actual fandom tag.

Some examples of what I'm trying to explain are Harry Potter AUs. Many people write their characters in a Harry Potter-like setting, but the fic is not actually a HP fic, if you get what I'm saying, because no HP characters are in it, only the writer's characters form another fandom or original work.

4 - Tagging a trope that is only in the fic for a chapter or two

I feel like this one also relates to cross-tagging, and it refers to tagging major tropes that pop up in a fic at a random time for only one or two chapters.

Some good examples of this are "sickfic" and "case-fic". Those two tags refer to a type of work that is centered in a theme, such as a "sickfic", in which the entire story revolves around a sick character, or "case-fic", when the plot is about solving a case and what it entails.

Maybe instead of using a tag that implies a model of a fic such as "sickfic", you could use, for example "Sick character A".

5 - Not putting possible triggers in the additional tags

It's important to tag for possible triggers in your fic so people can avoid fics that contain them and not get accidently triggered in the middle of reading.

6 - Misuse of Ratings

I know rating can be hard, and we often feel unsure of which rating is appropriate, which is why you should read the description of each rating and find the one that fits better in your fic.

On AO3, you can click on the blue "?" button next to the ratings when putting the fic information in, that helped me a lot when I began posting.

You wouldn't want to tag something that has a sensitive topic as General Audiences just because it's not explicit. Believe me, I've seen everything.

[wisteria-lodge]

lion primary (bird model) + improvisational secondary (bird secondary model)

ME AS KID I made so many mistakes without meaning to, for example… ~ Once in kindergarten other kids had created something with building blocks and because no was there anymore, I believed it was alright to destroy it. Well, it wasn’t fine, and after I got scolded, I felt bad and tried to create something even better for the other kids. I think they reluctantly forgave me because I put so much care into it.

Hm. This could be almost anything, really. An understandable, honest mistake, especially when you're y'know. Five. And wanting to fix the mistake, that's just a human thing. I guess you could say that putting a lot of effort into re-creating the work versus socially engineering the situation is a little Prep-Work secondary? Maybe? It probably just means that you were more comfortable doing a single-player thing vs multi-player thing with your secondary.

~ Once I was on a 12-metre diving tower and when it was my turn a boy asked me if he could jump before me and I agreed. But then I became impatient and just jumped on impulse. I landed on top of the boy and could only recently talk about my guilt regarding that and how I feared I might have hurt him permanently or could have killed him in the worst-case scenario.

That's a lot of guilt for another thing that was not your fault. You were a kid playing around. It happens. If anything, I think it's the fault of whoever was supervising the pool. You're using the the metric system and have British spelling quirks, so I know you're not in the same country as me. But I gotta think that it's a thing to have a lifeguard, parent, teacher, or at least some upperclassman or older sibling keeping an eye on a 12-foot high jump. Even for like, legal reasons. If you had accidentally hurt the boy, someone would have been legally liable, and it wouldn't have been you.

~ I was very possessive about the playtime with my sisters and normally they’d leave me as soon as the neighbour kids wanted to play with them. One time one of my sisters chose to continue to play with me and I was over the moon that for once I was chosen as priority.

~ I made sooo many lists; for example about what names I wanted to give possible future pets or what I had named every single one of my stuff animals.

Lists... I tend to associate those with Bird, all things being equal. And the rest of this, especially the examples that you decided to pick... do kind of support an Idealist primary read. There's this really strong, almost overwhelming focus on morality and guilt, possibly one that's even left you a little afraid to act, and with little bit of a tendency to take yourself out of the equation and make other people (your sisters, the boy on the slide) more important than you. Which is something that's maybe more of a Burnt Bird primary thing, but Burnt Lions do it too. Especially because Burnt Lions are really big on modeling other primaries.

LOW STAKE PROBLEM SOLVING Just play and find out the rules and possibilities as I continue without giving in or up and without relying on a guide (because that takes away my joy). I also tend to imprint on the first method that works for me.

Sounds like an Improvisational secondary (Lion or Snake.)

I also like to stay off the radar and play the invisible that one no one takes notice of, while silently going for the win.

I mean, *stereotypically* that is extremely Snake Secondary behavior.

For my stories I first need loooooootttssss of worldbuilding and character descriptions and later I add and change many details because it fits better but I needed that base to start at all.

Okay. So I know this looks like Prep-Work secondary behavior. BUT. One thing I do hear a lot from Improvisational secondary writers is that... it's a lot more fun to go in and mess with something that exists. ("Play with toys that are already there.") And that's honestly what this sounds like. Not worrying about the outline. Just figuring out your world, your characters, letting them go bounce off each other, and then when it's written - go back and structure it out retroactively. Of course, you might totally have a Bird secondary model if you find worldbuilding really fun.

I don’t shy away from asking strangers for directions, but you could never catch me trying to do small talk.

Yeah, you're definitely more Single-Player.

MY FANTASIES ~ As a kid one fantasy was that my stuffed unicorn would come and bring me away from school and the people bullying me there. They’d realize how incredible my companion was and how they couldn’t compare before I’d fly away with my unicorn and would never have to return.

Been there. VERY relatable. So relatable, in fact - especially with that detail about everyone realizing how special you are - that I'm tempted to sort you as Lion just on the basis of that alone. Young Lions are very susceptible to "chosen one" type stuff.

I wonder though. Because like... it's the unicorn that's the special one. The fantasy is really you having a wonderful, amazing friend. Which goes back to that story earlier, about being just over the moon that your sisters wanted to play with you instead of the neighbor. Is it possible that you're a Loyalist with a very small community? Or a Snake? That would keep the "internal primary" energy of 'I don't need you people. One of these days I'll just leave.'

~ As teen I fantasized about living alone in the woods, far away from any humanity, completely and utterly free. I’d be my own hero without needing anyone else.

Sounding very Lion there. Maybe your fantasy leveled up, and you started being able to think of yourself as the hero, instead of the hero's friend.

~ Now the fantasy would be big house in peaceful nature, where I can give children who ran away from their homes a temporary place to stay, protect & help them to become independent until they can stand on their own two feet. Ah, and I’d love to be a hobby author in the meantime.

So we've got one more level to the fantasy. Now it's like... the fantasy is to be the wonderful friend you wished you had as a child. I've always thought that there's a lot of truth to the sentiment "We become the person who would have saved us." Maybe that's what's going on here. I still think Lion though - there's not enough focus on individual loyalties to be Snake and while this whole Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children thing does revolve around a community, it's one that you caretake, not one that you're part of. Very Paragon Lion.

A CHARACTER I IDENTIFY WITH Xiao Lanhua (LBFAD) She’s so vibrantly herself in that messy, fuck-around-and-find-out way. I adore how she’s utterly confident in her own feelings.

Oh. Lion. Lion primary all the way. Of course you'd like a character like that.

There is one scene where another character leads her to the place, where her clan was massacred, telling her that the culprit is her love interest. This is basically her answer: “I tried to feel the sadness of this place, but I couldn’t. I’ve felt it only once (with the people of her love interest). What is real in this world? I only know, I love him. This is real. He loves me. This is also real. And this is who I am and not this person you all want me to become.” THIS vibes so much with me.

To a Lion primary, the realest Real thing is what what you feel about things. That's the bedrock, and that's what this quote is about.

Also in the start she’s a powerless fairy who is content with a low-rank-position, convinced that this is her place. And as the story continues, she becomes like: Watch me stopping whole wars, going through tribulations to earn the position besides the one I love and the recognition of his people. (It resonates with me, because I’m currently also learning that yes, I can handle responsibilities… somehow everyone trusts me far more than I myself. But even so, I won’t back down.)

I think your timeline of fantasies shows that really, really well.

WHAT MAKES ME FEEL POWERFUL ~ When I’m able to assert myself and my standpoint

Lion primary

~ When I’m able to successfully achieve something on my own without having needed the help of others

I think this probably points to a very strongly single-player secondary. You've consistently been uncomfortable with multi-player, this whole submission.

~When I get others to smile, especially ones who hardly do. ~ When people thank me earnestly.

This... I think is human stuff. I'd be more unusual to *dislike* being thanked.

THE MOST DIFFICULT TIME IN MY LIFE I was the problem child in the family as I skipped school & had social problems. Then my mom got health problems, and we all had to help in the household. At some point my dad called me ‘a nobody’ to my face (he was angry, but otherwise clear minded and he’d also implied this message a few times before) and fourteen-year-old me took it at face-value and let it grow and fester inside of me. That was when I decided to run away from home (after all, if I was ‘nobody’, then if I was gone, ‘nobody’ would be missed as there wasn’t ‘somebody like me’ in the family). So, I planned out my escape, did research on the internet, thought about what I might need, how I would leave without making anyone suspicious, bought a train ticket and then left my home and waited for the train. Minutes before the train arrived, I called my mum - thinking, if she doesn‘t answer, I‘ll leave and I‘ll stay if she doesn‘t want me to go. She didn‘t want me to leave and so I stayed. But for years I still fantasized about running away, but never acted on it again.

Hm. You sound some flavor of neurodivergent. Your escape plan is very... you know, planned. (And pretty much every neurodivergent person built a bird secondary as a coping mechanism.)

The way you talk about your decision-making process here does seem... much more Bird primary than Lion primary. Very "if x is true about me, then y must be true also." You're a little *detached.* Same thing with the "well I guess I'll ask my mom." You're treating it almost as an experiment. But I still don't think this is just a straight Bird secondary. What I suspect is that your Lion primary Burned enough that you started modeling Bird primary, as a coping mechanism. Which is why the two seem... kinda mixed together. But all your fantasies and positive associations are very Lion flavored. AND your Bird seems to come out more when you're in trouble, and not sure of yourself.

MY FAMILY I adore my family to bits and pieces despite the difficulties (partly also because of the difficulties as they knitted us closer together). My dad is a double bird with science deeply rooted into his belief system and lots of tools. He also immediately accepted my behaviour as soon as I was diagnosed with Autism.

Yep, this helps explain where your Bird models came from. Burnt Lions will often start adopting primary of some confident force in their life that really seems to... know what they're doing.

(Even so, the ‘nobody’-comment stuck with me and only thinking about it made me cry for years. Later I did talk to my dad about it and was able to settle that matter. My dad knows he was wrong, tries to make up for it and never said something like this again. But I know I’ll break all contact if something like that happens again. I’m only currently finding myself and I’ll be damned if I let anyone drag me back into this hell!)

I'm glad you... kind of resolved this with your dad. But what I'm hearing is - I'd rather be alone and free than have a community I think I need to compromise and bite my tongue for. That's very Lion.

I’m not sure about my mom, maybe snake, maybe bird? Like, she tells me, I should try and make more contacts outside of my family to have someone I can talk about and relate with when she and my dad are gone, though as long as she is still here I can always come to her. She helps very much, so I guess badger secondary, but she knows her boundaries very well.

I get that you're a very solitary person, and maybe it's my own Badger talking, but I do agree with her. Human beings are pack animals. And something like this, reaching out like this, is hopefully helpful.

I think both my sisters are badger primaries. One with a bird secondary and the other I think partly lion, partly badger. They’re awesome but I’ll never understand how much time they invest in their big friend groups. I adore my me-time for myself far too much and am VERY protective about it.

As my family is very educated and I mostly only fiddle with my few interests, I often seem to lack common knowledge that everyone else in my family has. That makes me feel stupid at times and as if I should learn more, but I honestly only want to spend my time on the things I like.

I mean, autism, special interest, preferred task, I hear you.

My fam often says that I’m their peacemaker,

Are you the middle child? You seem like the middle child, and this is a very middle child comment.

but I don’t know. I tend to fuck up too many situations (especially socially ones) because I just tick differently from lots of other people.

You also seem to (historically) blame yourself when you don't deserve it.

Yea, I like peace and I don’t want to shatter it, only if it’s important and even then, I try to stay kind while being right. But sometimes this makes me feel as if I’m not authentic enough or if I’m too cowardly to be honest and that’s often followed by guilt. I’m not quite sure, but I think I relate my autism with being authentic because now I can finally be authentic with my diagnosis backing me up.

There is a sort of weird gift to autism, because you are almost *forced* to be authentic. There are definitely times in my life where I masked like crazy, where I would have given anything to be able to choose to be weird, instead of just being weird. But... autism is going to step in, and have its say.

But that in turn makes me fear that if I’m not honest enough, I don’t have autism and then, where would that leave me and my relationship to others? Would they start seeing me in a negative light again? Part of me knows (hopes), they wouldn’t, that it shouldn’t be relevant to WHO I am, but somehow, I still can’t shake of that thought. Might have to talk about that with them. At some point. That’s it from my side, sorry for ending on a rather depressing note. Wishing you all the best.

Don't worry, you're fine.

I mean, for one thing, not being 'honest' enough doesn't mean that you don't have autism. My relationships where I can be truly honest are ones I treasure, because much of the time... it's just not something I find particularly useful or safe. You learn to be better at people, you arrange your life to suit yourself better. And in my experience at least, I don't think that a diagnosis *really* effects how people treat you all that much, socially. I mean, your behavior hasn't changed. If they were going to be weird about it, or not respect your boundaries without a diagnosis, then chances are a diagnosis isn't actually going to change that.

You read as a pretty loud Lion primary to me. So loud that I actually don't know if you're a Lion secondary as well, or if your Lion primary is just sort of coloring those interactions. Also, because you are so solitary, the Lion and Snake secondaries are going to look more much similar than they would normally. Some of your video game behavior leans Snake, but there's also an emphasis on honesty and a dislike of lying that leans more Lion. I'd want to look at some more instances of problem solving, because it could honestly go either way.

Thank you to O for such an excellent submission. If you’d like a Sorting of your very own, commissions are open on my ko-fi. :D

If you’d like to read more about the system I’m using, my explanation is right here.

[totallynormalinthemorgue]

I don't think death should be taboo. It's a natural part of the life cycle of all things. It can be sad, yes, but not everyone sees it that way or obsesses over the negative aspects. There's no wrong way to think about it, it's just a thing that happens. There's nothing inherently special about a corpse. Of course, the decedent's wishes should be respected because people have different beliefs about what happens after death. If someone believes they'll be watching from above and they wouldn't like necrophilic acts done to their body, then it would be unethical to do that. If someone consents to it before death, then there's nothing wrong with it. The negative reaction people have to necrophilia is an emotional one, shaped by cultural taboos. Basically, they've been taught to find necrophilia disgusting, and they're confusing disgust with morality. As you know, you shouldn't impose your disgust on other people's choices that harm no one and don't involve you, especially not while treating it like an obvious moral fact. I don't want to engage in any false-equivilancy, but please think about the opinions you have on people who do that on other topics, and whether there's anything genuinely different about necrophilia that can't be solved by a consensual agreement beforehand.

You're allowed to find it personally disgusting. You don't need to justify it morally or harass others about it.

Secondary to this, I hope people who harass and report necrophiles also consider that, even if you can not and will not believe that necrophilia as an act is okay, a lot of necrophiles haven't committed necrophilia. In my experience on here, the vast, vast majority haven't, even while talking in DMs to me, someone who is openly accepting about people's choices in that regard. So what you're policing is fantasy. It's a discussion of desires that society deems wrong. It's funny how that's totally okay for most kink. In fact, censorship of that is wrong, but for necrophilia, censorship is the good and moral thing to do. You can understand that people don't choose what they're attracted to when it comes to queerness and kink, you can understand that thought crimes aren't real when you're talking to someone with OCD (unless, of course, it's P-OCD), but somehow, none of that applies to necrophilia and other paraphilias. We should be able to stop finding corpses hot, we should be able to control our thoughts, we should never discuss the topic or express ourselves in our own community. We don't spam unrelated tags. We don't shove it in your faces. You're seeing it because you either looked in our tags, someone you follow reblogged a post about it, or tumblr's recommendation algorithm is wonky as hell.

Just block. Block the tags and block users when you happen to see posts about it. It's not your problem.

Most of us don't have the luxury of being open about it in person. People get tired of hiding. I'm not expecting the internet to suddenly be free of harassment, but if I could persuade even one person to be more open minded, or at least to hit the block button instead of sending hate or reporting, it would be progress.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Different nonnie, but how do you imagine that things would’ve played out if Nino had been given Stompp in “Anansi” and forward with Fu keeping Wayzz and Ivan getting the Mouse instead of Mylene (she doesn’t get a Miraculous at all in this scenario)? This idea came to me after realizing that Nino is also color-coded for the Ox Miraculous and that the symbol on his shirt can also be seen as a bullseye, plus the fact that Resistance is an upgraded Shield in practicality. The part with Ivan and Mylene was inspired by your recent worthy-of-a-Miraculous tier list where you mentioned that, based on their dialogue when offered their canon Miraculous, the writers could’ve had more compelling character arcs with Ivan having some Stoneheart trauma or something more complex while Mylene could represent the type of strength it takes to know when you genuinely aren’t qualified for a specific demanding role and need to say "no" with the understanding that there can be different types of effective heroes.

The way the temp heroes are used in canon, nothing would really change. There's no clear reason why they get the powers they do outside of the writers being like "oh, an artist! Let's let him make things!" or "Oh, a big strong guy, let's make him an Ox!" And the powers themselves are basically used like Ladybug's special powerups with her almost always telling the temp heroes what to do. They have very little involvement in planning or anything that makes their powers feel uniquely chosen for them. To make these changes matter, you'd have to design the characters around the powers in a much bigger way.

The Ox power is the easiest one to do this with because self defense is an interesting power that you can have thematic elements with. It works well for a character who is a pushover and who needs to work to prioritize themselves or even a character who has some fear of being hurt, though I'd be hesitant to make that kind of character a hero. They seem like they're just not qualified, but you could make it work if they have some other skill that makes them needed such as Max's technology talents. The Ox also works well for a character who is already fine and just needs a power that lets them rush into battle without getting hurt.

For example, I don't think it's wrong to view Adrien's self-sacrificing streak as concerning, but at the same time, Ladybug needs to survive to win the day or else everything is lost, so it's hard for me to view it as a character flaw when he's usually doing a thing that truly needs to be done. If you don't view it as a character flaw, then you can just give the Ox to Adrien as a second miraculous and bam! Problem solved! (Canon 100% should have done this, btw. It's one of the many problems with the expanded power set and why I don't like to use the Ox. It's a little too OP. Like if you're off your five-minute timer and activate the Ox, are you just perma untouchable?)

As far as Nino goes, I don't really see him as a match for the Ox. He doesn't seem to have any issues or talents that match the power. Then again, the Ox is so generally useful that it wouldn't be a bad power for Nino. It's not a bad power for anyone! I'm just more inclined to give it to someone else as a secondary power than giving it to someone as their only power.

The mouse is a lot harder to work with. There's no real theme around the power that lends itself to a specific person, so almost anyone can use it. It's also not a good power in most situations. It's a highly situational one. Not a bad power to have on the roster, but not something that you want to bring to every fight. I'd once again be far more inclined to have it be a secondary power for someone. Something they always have on them for when it's needed, but that generally isn't used during a fight.

[panlight]

I'm not sure if its possible to get something like pigs blood from a butcher in the US, but i feel like someone like Esme would prefer that over hunting animals.

And maybe Carlisle and Rosalie would work on a blood alternative, kind of like TruBlood, for vampires.

What are your thoughts on that?

My understanding is that it's tricky in the US to find it, but with the Cullens' money they could probably pay off some local butchers to save blood for them. Just imagining Esme being like "oh I make authentic black pudding and sell it online!" as an explanation and they make like a fake online store front for it and then people start trying to actually order it and she's like, oh crap I guess I have to make some now? Like when you read stories about restaurants that were really fronts for mob activity but someone wanders in and the mobsters have to get their mom to cook some pasta for the oblivious customers.

But, really, if SM were more interested in 'vampire slice of life' stuff AND if she had more room in her story for the secondary characters to have desires and motivations outsides of either facilitating or resenting the main romance, of course Carlisle would have been trying to make a blood substitute, and of course Rosalie and Edward, with their various STEM degrees, would be helping him. And OF COURSE they would have researched the myths surrounding vampires having children long before Bella got pregnant. It's absolutely impossible for me to suspend my disbelief to accept that the Cullens and especially Carlisle were just like 'wow we literally never thought or wondered about this until just now' when Bella gets pregnant. Esme and Rosalie LONG for children! SURELY they've researched this before!?!? I could accept that they researched it but found no concrete evidence and thought it was just a myth made up by the Volturi or whatever but just the 'literally no idea . . . even though apparently there are books in our library about it, and our groundskeepers on Isle Esme know about it, and there are websites online about it' does not make sense to me unless the Cullens have just literally been standing around like unplayed Sims waiting for Edward and Bella to need them for something.

I also think the Cullens probably should have been working on some kind of sparkle-suppressing vampire make-up. I've seen people asking why they don't just use make-up to hide the sparkle or look older, but since their skin is so different from human skin, normal make-up probably wouldn't work that well. But again, you've got Alice the fashion maven and bunch of other vampires with backgrounds in biology and they can't put their heads together and come up with some kind of vampire-friendly, sparkle-proof foundation?

Again, I get it: at the end of the day Twilight is a romance, and romances generally and understandably have a narrow focus on the central relationship. But romances don't usually have so MANY side characters, either. Realistically, I would expect the Cullens, with their various medical and scientific studies, abundant free time (no sleep!) and unlimited wealth, would have already solved a lot of living-as-a-vampire problems by the time Bella showed up.

Assuming they can be solved, of course. Maybe vampire venom on the skin really just makes any make-up lasting for more than a half hour impossible. Maybe a blood substitute just doesn't work because there's some magical 'blood is the life' thing going on here. Maybe pig's blood is just too impractical to get from a butcher in the volume they need it. Maybe the act of hunting helps them release tension and they realize they miss it.

But yeah I'd have loved to have seen more of this. There's some stuff in Midnight Sun that hints at the stuff the Cullens get up to, but it's more like, Emmett and Jasper's complicated chess game with multiple boards, or Alice and Rosalie designing clothes on the computer. I don't think SM really thought about 'what would a vampire doctor who wants to be as human as possible be researching in his spare time?' and so we missed out on some of this stuff.

[magicalpeacekeepers]

🤝 Aya, Miyoko, Lyra

I feel like the best way to describe Lyra in an RPG scenario is as the beastmaster- She (or, rather, her Pokémon) are the major damage-dealers and the tanks. They would also give the team a pretty good amount of maneuverability- Most notably, of course, the ability to fly and cross large bodies of water. Lyra herself is pretty in tune with nature-- I'd imagine she'd be the person who sets up camp, and between her and Miyoko they definitely wouldn't have any issues with surviving out in the wild.

Miyo's the healer in basically any setup. It feels like that goes without saying, but I'm saying it. That said, she's got experience with a lot of nature-based magic beyond that; she could control plants for a number of different tasks, probably speak with animals- And, of course, do a lot with fire-- She's a pacifist, so the most I can really see her doing with that in most situations is walls of fire to keep enemies out of certain areas. That said, in the rare circumstances where she is willing to fight outright (mindless undead and constructs most notably), she'd easily be dealing the most damage of everyone there, mostly again with fire damage... But she wouldn't hesitate to drop trees on people, either. She's also the physically strongest member of the group, surpassing all but maybe the strongest of Lyra's Pokémon... But that would mostly be used for out of combat problem solving.

Aya is, of course, the face of the party- She does most of the talking. If this is our standard Aya-chan, I can't see her being much use in combat (we've seen how she handles a sword), but she could maybe take up archery if needed? I could also see her leaning into a bit of a rogue role, actually- We know she's good with her fingers, she could definitely learn to pick locks.

If it's magical girl Aya then she's still the face, but she's a lot more useful in combat too. She would take on a secondary melee damage role, but where she'd be really useful is charms. She'd be able to turn enemies over to the party's side, stun them, make them drop their weapons... Maybe even order them to self-terminate. Between enemies turned to their side and Lyra's Pokémon it would be a very full camp by the end-game.

She's also the tallest member of the party, which is a little messed up.

[minetteskvareninova]

I remain deeply fascinated with the xenophobic rhetoric that frames immigrants as being "imported" or brought to the country by someone else. Like taking people over the border without their consent is by definition not immigration, but human trafficking. However, for many anti-immigration people, admitting that these people come here because they want to would be extremely inconvenient, because they would have to admit that their policy by definition blocks someone from seeking a better life for themselves. Now, they *could* just frame immigrants as inherently malicious or bad for the country, meaning they could just ignore their wants and needs, or even go against them. So far so straight forward.

But to see that for some people, this isn't enough of a rationalization, that is what I find so thought-provoking. I mean ignoring the agency of marginalized people and framing things they do or want as a doing of someone else isn't new, especially since anti-immigration rhetoric is in a lot, if not the majority of the cases outright caused by racism - and denying the agency of people of color is the bread and butter of racism. In the case of immigration, however, what's striking is that this denial is so absurd on its face; like you're denying the agency of a category of people that one by definition OPTS INTO.

I am not quite sure what this denial accomplishes, but I have some theories. First off, it makes immigrants not people who have their own hopes, dreams and agency, but a problem to be solved - by stricter immigration policy, of course. It allows them to ignore the unpleasant truth that people who cross the border do so for a reason, often a very serious one; people we won't let in don't disappear just because we made them someone else's problem, and often face death or destitution in their home countries. A secondary purpose of this rhetoric might be as a cudgel against one's political opponents, who can be framed as the "real problem", shifting the agency from nebulous groups of people onto domestic politicians, who can be more easily labelled bad actors - either stupid (unaware that immigration is obviously bad) or malicious (aware that immigration is obviously bad, but pushing it - read not building artificial barriers to it - anyway). Which of course brings me to the third option, which is just straight-up conspiracism. Honestly, I don't even have to elaborate on this point, we've all heard of Great Replacement Theory; I will just note that while there are anti-immigration people who, while bigoted, can be reasoned with, that very obviously isn't the case with conspiracy theorists. Like, to them, immigration is not even a separate problem to solve, just another Bad Thing that (((they))) cause and that would not exist if they could just get rid of (((them))). If it wasn't immigrants, it would be queer people or an international conflict of their choice.

All of this is very abstract, so for a perfect example, here's an excerpt from a classic reactionary ramble about the decline of the Roman Empire that inspired this post; you don't need to know anything other than its main thesis is "low birthrates destroyed the Roman Empire" (with only a small admission that vague "wars and plagues" might've possible helped a little bit):

So basically what this looks like in practice is some bozo playing pretend that Valens was just fucking overjoyed to have Goths at his borders and that Romans did not treat them as an inconvenience right up untill they proved themselves to be so dangerous that Romans basically had to work with them (at which points these people integrated into the Roman society so well they started regularly participating in their bullshit civil wars, but that's a story for another day). "Imported" my ass. Pity they didn't also import some proper food, so that the Goths wouldn't be forced into revolt by starvation.

Look, it's debatable whether any part of the actual decline of an ancient empire could teach us anything about the modern era, but the rhetoric modern fascists use about this event definitely could. While everyone uses their own convictions to frame the facts rather than let facts shape their convictions to SOME extent, these people are on a whole another level. Extreme conservativism and reactionary ideology in general are basically built on forcing the world into the "ideal" shape their adherents have in their heads and denying the validity of "imperfections" (like people attracted to the same gender or not fitting the narrow mold reactionaries built for their gender). This means they always use the same arguments, whether they are talking about past or present, no matter how absurd they are applied to a given situation. This is because if they actually cared even a little how their ideology maps onto the real world, they would not be reactionaries in the first place.

Okay, I am not even sure where I was going with this, so I guess that is my conclusion. I am not a journalist and don't write essays, except when I go off on tumblr like here. Sorry.

[positivelyadhd]

ik its not ur usual positivity but THANK YOU so much for that post!!! I feel like "gifted kid burnout" really dominates the conversation and thats only one experience of many.

I was diagnosed with adhd in elementary school and was basically like. "the kid with problems" "lost cause" my entire life. one of my teachers even directly told my mom she should be ashamed of me lol. any successes were like-- "see what you just did? imagine how much more you would be capable of if you didn't have adhd." to the point where I don't even feel any sense of accomplishment for graduating college. it's just one more "failure" i avoided in other peoples eyes. (i dont personally think not graduating college is a failure at all btw, that is just Society's Message™)

this part is kinda tangential but from what i've seen a lot (ofc not all) of gifted kid burnout posts are like, if only i would have been diagnosed earlier all of this could be avoided. and maybe that's true - I understand where it's coming from at least, the frustration of feeling that something is wrong but not knowing what or having that "proof" that you're not just "lazy" etc. im not saying this isn't a valid wish or frustration but in my experience... hoooo boy.

personally being diagnosed with ADHD in the early 2000s, didn't meant you got support, it meant you were written off from the start, adults thought you had no future, you were seen as a "problem child" like it wasn't "oh you're not lazy you just have adhd!" it was "you have ADHD so you are built to be lazy and theres nothing you can do about it lol" so it didn't solve much. just created a different type of problem. im very happy to see things look to be changing though!!

I'm curious if other people had a similar experience and thank you so much for adding the 'diagnosed but not supported' part bc that is so real!!!

Absolutely this!!

My experience with diagnosis and lack of support was strange, but basically my primary (ages 4-11) school (I believe) suspected I had adhd/dyslexia and did offer some (very limited) support. But they also always told my parents they didn't think I had a learning difficulty when they asked because I was in extra programmes. I don't really think the support they did give me really helped all that much, and honestly, when I did get my diagnosis (around 12/13?) I'd spent so long thinking there was just something "wrong" with me that I feel like the lack of diagnosis was a lot more negatively impactful than not receiving support would've been.

My secondary school then managed to flip this and despite me getting my diagnosis part way through, nothing really changed either. Being told I had ADHD/Dyslexia changed me and my understanding of myself. I finally felt like things made sense and there was a reason i found things so difficult, it wasn't that there was something "wrong" with me but the system was not built for me. Although my diagnosis was early compared to some people, it felt late to me, and everything that can happen when you're undiagnosed had already set in.

I wished I'd been diagnosed earlier but honestly, I had a similar experience to you, and I don't think it would've done much. And even when I was finally diagnosed, my school also never really acknowledged my diagnosis and wouldn't put any of the accommodations that I needed in place (despite my diagnosis coming with a report which explained everything they should've been doing to support me and how they could've done it) I didn't get any accommodations for my neurodiversity until I was in uni, and I got my diagnosis in 2015 so at least for me, my experience wasn't that different to yours in the early 2000s.

When I tried to fight for the accommodations I should've been given, I was told that I would pass my exams, and so it didn't really matter, they didn't believe going through the hassle of giving me accommodations would help me (although the diagnosis report itself said otherwise.) I always felt similarly to you, I could scrape by but "imagine how much better you'd do without dyslexia/adhd" but I also had this weird "well because you're "gifted" you can get average grades, you don't need support!" message as well?

And yeah, just like you, I didn't really feel as accomplished as I should've done when I finished uni. I'm proud of myself for doing it but I do feel this weird pressure of knowing that if I didn't have adhd/dyslexia or managed it better, I would've done much better.

I apologise for rambling about myself but yeah thank you for this ask! I feel the same way, and I'm glad to hear I'm not alone in it as well.

I wish you the best dear anon <3

[hopeymchope]

Trying to endure the unpleasant characters of "Bakemonogatari"

After receiving numerous recommendations that I should check it out over the years, I've finally started watching "Bakemonogatarai."

It's... weird, for sure. Interesting at times, definitely. But the two focal characters thus far make the series so incredibly hard to watch.

This is Koyomi Araragi, who is evidently our primary protagonist. The most important thing you should know about him is that he will endure the worst verbal abuse imaginable while only BARELY ever bothering to push back even a smidge, to the point that he infuriates me. This bitch has ZERO self-respect. It might even be in the negatives.

Now, maybe something will change with him! After all, I'm only five episodes into the series! He has plenty of time to grow a spine and stand up for himself. But right now? He spends most of the series hanging around — and getting cruelly abused by — a girl named Hitagi Senjougahara.

Senjougahara seems to be our secondary lead. Araragai spends the first two episodes going out of his way to help her with some difficult problems, which makes her declare herself to be his "dear friend" immediately thereafter. However, in ALL FIVE episodes to date, Senjougahara just brutally abuses him. And it just makes him depressed. He doesn't fight back, he doesn't get upset or angry... he just gets really sad and hangs his head silently, ultimately agreeing with her horrible put-downs.

-----------------------------------------------------------

The dialogue in this show is seriously like this—

Senjougahara: You're a very dear friend to me, Araragi. I owe you a lot. It's sad that you're a disgusting little bitch baby, but I'll still repay my debt for your kindness regardless of how odious of a person you are.

Araragi: ...thank you.

Senjougahara: Seriously, I can't imagine having to touch anything you've ever touched. The thought is so abhorrent. And the thought of ever touching YOU? Christ. I could vomit.

Araragi: Yeah.

Senjougahara: You look like a pedophile with that greasy hair over your eyes, you know that? In fact, I bet you ARE one. You fuck little kids, don't you??

Araragi: Come on... I'm not like that.

Senjougahara: Shut your nasty, hideous excuse for a mouth. Don't try to deny it. I can tell you fuck little kids.

Araragi: ...okay....

Senjōgahara: You sickening child molester. Rapists are the lowest of the low, but you? You're lower than they are. You're more vile than a gremlin's shit-stained taint, Araragi.

Araragi: ...sorry. It's true.

Senjougahara: If I wasn't such a wonderful and forgiving friend to you, you wouldn't have anyone else breathing the same air you've spoiled with your repulsive, loathsome presence. You'd be all alone. Which is all you'll ever deserve, of course.

Araragi: .......of course.........

-----------------------------------------------------------

I get that Sejougahara is just a massive, miserable asshole. That's at least very consistently portrayed. The bigger problem to me is that Araragi will go out of his way to help literally anyone in need but will do NOTHING to stand up for himself with this asshole.

The worst part is that I think these two are supposed to be possible love interests??? I THINK she's supposed to be a thugdere or something. I hope that I'm either wrong about that or something RADICALLY changes, because right now I only want to see Araragi remove her from his life forever.

Which is pretty unlikely.

Man, even in the second story arc, Araragi could've just taken the incessant abuse he received from the newest character he met as adequate reason to leave her the hell alone, and WOW, that actually would've solved everything instantly!

[rainbow-fairylandsystem]

My therapist and I are starting to move in the direction of doing actual trauma work, and I've gotten a lot more interested in the science behind being a system.

We've been talking a lot about left-brain vs. right-brain parts (aka ANPs vs. EPs). Left-brained parts (such as myself, Sicily, and Jez) have access to narrative memory, verbal language, rationalization, and problem solving. Right-brained parts (such as Ghost, Sophie, and Styx) have access to emotional and sensory memory, nonverbal language, survival instincts, and perception of emotions. My therapist says that my corpus callosum, the part of the brain that connects the left and right brain, is underdeveloped due to trauma. It's apparently common in people who experience 'fragmentation' (aka systems), and causes the left and right brain to largely act independently of each other.

A good example of this is me (Nimm) vs. Styx. My memories come to me as blocks of text rolling across a blank screen. There are very few visuals to them, and I never have any emotional memory (doesn't matter whether the emotions are positive or negative). I can usually relay my memories in an orderly fashion, but I can't tell you how I felt in that moment or any small details.

Styx, on the other hand, is a being of pure instinct. He can't speak and his handwriting is completely illegible (mostly because he writes with his left hand, which my therapist says is tied to his existence in the right brain). Even if he could communicate, he likely wouldn't be able remember the sequence of events that occurred. He only remembers how he felt in that moment and small flashes of memories without context. He's is permanently trapped in the emotions of the past.

What Sicily (our system manager) and I have discovered is that some of our ANPs and EPs come in pairs. The most obvious example of this is Gilly and Ghost. Gilly is an ANP that remembers things narratively, and can relay things in the order that they happened. However, he has no emotional or visual component to these memories; its more like he's just reading a story. Ghost (an EP) has access to the same memories as Gilly, but he can only see and feel them happening in small flashes; there is no narrative context or timeline he can place them on. Together, the two of them paint a relatively full picture of those memories. Ghost and Gilly are best friends, and are our system's primary and secondary co-hosts.

My current project is to try and figure out all of these pairs (I've only found three so far), and it'll be a good starting point for me and my therapist. I think Gilly and Ghost want to potentially work towards fusion, and starting the fusion process with pairs seems like the first logical step in system integration (not final fusion though, that's not really my goal). It might also make it easier for me to access past memories, which I feel is a step towards finally being able to manage my triggers. I can't prepare to face triggers in every day life if I can't remember what they are.

Anyway, if you got through the whole post, feel free to share your thoughts or experiences. I'd love to hear what anyone has to say.

[jesswithane]

I don't mean to be rude, but the conclusion of Hbomberguy's video goes into why your idea wouldn't work. People still plagiarized in the early days of youtube, it just was motivated by clout instead of money. They did it a lot too! The only way to stop them is to either give creators more tools to more easily find copycats or make it easier to fact-check video essays by making the sources to their topics widely available to all. If monetization goes away, new plagiarists will just pop up motivated by fame, just like it was in "the good ol' days".

Not rude at all! I did forget that section of the video, it was very long and I went straight into Todd's video after.

It is true, it was done for clout as well. As they say, "was it ever really the Good ol days?" (I don't remember the real quote and I am more tired than I thought). Personally, I do wonder if more people would copy or lie just for clout/fame, and not for the financial compensation but that would require a study and I don't even know how you would test it.

I would love to see an actual fact-checker on videos on all platforms. Misinformation is a huge problem that I would like solved in my life time...wouldnt hold my breath, but would be nice. I worry about copyright strikes being used improperly or to bully, but maybe that could be solved to? Unsure

The only other thought I have here, if anyone is curious (which...doubt, but I can dream): I don't think videos with children should be monetized. I think it's hard to prove a child can benefit from their lives constantly played online, and we don't have a financial way like Coogan Laws for child actors. [This may seem out of nowhere, but this was actually an argument I've been making for the last...three years or so for a paper]

So yeah...that's my mini secondary rant that I probably could've answered shorter but yeah, thanks for asking!

[wisteria-lodge]

lion primary + snake secondary (bird model)

Hey, I was hoping you'd be willing to help me out with my primary! I'm sure of my secondary, (snake) but I'm stuck between lion and bird for my primary. When I was a kid, I was the sort of kid who was just effortlessly good at school; so I never really cared about grades or doing good in school because I always did, so there was no need to worry. I honestly don't remember caring about much of anything other than being well liked by my classmates for being the class topper and childish stuff like that.

This is definitely more of a a young, Glory Hound Lion than a young Black-and-White Bird. Lots of times your causes as a young Lion will not be the most... complex things in the world. (That's extremely relatable.)

When I got older and more mature, I still didn't really care much about school, still sort of because I was never really in danger of failing, but also because I'd decided that school was a very ineffective and stupid way to teach kids, which also made me lose all motivation to try for all of middle school and a good chunk of high school.

You are not wrong. The science behind how memory/learning works is pretty young, and (depending on where/when you went to school...) chances are you were hit with a lot of the memorization/repetition based learning techniques which were a big deal in the 1950s... but which just become more arbitrary and meaningless, as computer usage gets more and more widespread.

That said, I bet you never got a chance to work on your executive functioning skills, because you didn't need to, because school was so easy, and you were maybe a little too smart for your own good. :)

A decent time into high school, I realized that I'd have to get good grades in final exams, if only so I'd get into a good college and stuff like that, but it still took me months and months to convince myself to study.

I spy some kind of executive functioning block, possible neurodivergence creeping in.

That seems really lion to me - unable to care about something I consider to be useless. But, the way I'd convinced myself is to study regularly for learning's sake - even if my sources were kinda dumb, information is information and if I wanted to succeed in life I needed to study this, so I might as well try to enjoy it and study, at least for the bragging rights of being class topper again. And that sounds really Bird.

What we have here sounds like a Lion primary and a Bird secondary (or Bird secondary model - very common) working together. What do we want (that's your primary): bragging rights, to succeed in life. Love it, very in keeping with your Lion primary.

But how are you going to do this? (that's your secondary.) Statements like "information is information," that's extremely Bird secondary. You need to pull in a lot of info in a short period of time, that's how Birds solve problems, and they absolutely enjoy it. What it seems like is you either are a bird secondary, or you built a Bird secondary as a coping mechanism.

My family could be influencing my decision- and wouldn't that be like a bird, to take in information from external sources? - A good chunk of my desire to not fail is because my family has a lot of expectations, because they know that I'm capable of doing really well if I set my mind to it.

A Lion primary is definitely the most likely to go - 'oh they don't like what I'm doing? Screw 'em.' But we could be dealing with a Lion primary that's just a little burned, maybe a Paragon Lion that looks really Badger, maybe you're a *Snake* primary and we've got a little Snake primary hedonism going on.

But what I think is happening is just that you've got a Lion primary. In this litlte bit, you lead with your own desire to get good grades,then followed that emotional response up with some reasoning: it would please my family. The fact that it went 'emotional response' first and 'reasons to explain/justify emotional response' second - that's Lion.

My mom especially, my dad's more casual about schooling, as long as I passed and had decent marks, he never cared much, but my mom always said how she expected me to get A+, above 95 marks, etc etc. But I never really let her opinion affect me much

Oooh yeah, that's not something you're going to hear from a young Badger. And if you were a young Bird, I would definitely have expected a line explaining why your Dad is a more credible source than your mom in this instance.

grades never mattered that much to me, aside from the cool factor, it's not right to judge someone stupid for getting bad grades, and anyways grades aren't a measure of someone's intelligence. And that seems Lion.

I agree. And here again, you're presenting information emotion first, then explanation. First - 'it's not right to judge someone for getting bad grades.' Strong emotional response right out of the gate. That 'It's wrong because it just is' thing is something Lions say that drive Birds crazy. Then you follow that up with an "anyways..." and come in with some reasoning.

(I agree with you, by the way. Good vs Bad grades are not a great measure of intelligence. I cannot tell you how many people I've met who understand the topic like you wouldn't believe, but who are bad test takers. And the inverse, people who don't really get it, but have enough meta-knowledge to fill out a test sheet well. And that's only the tip of the iceberg.)

I don't know if I'm a Lion who rules-lawyered myself into caring about school out of practicality concerning the future; or a Bird who temporarily burned after being disillusioned with school and ended up unburning thanks to familial pressure.

I think you're a Lion who found yourself caring more about school as you got closer to university (like I bet you're actively looking forward to going to university, right?) And then you built yourself a Bird secondary model to get what you needed to get done, done.

Want a Sorting of your very own? Comissons are open on my kofi page.

[tina-19w]

Halloween parade (MonoShin Fic)

"Come on, Hitoshi. It will be an experience unlike any previous dates we've had before." Neito argued to him.

Hitoshi exhaled and made a grunt before nodding his head, agreeing to what the blond had laid out for him minutes before.

The two of them had had a heavy week as they had had to cover for two fellow agency members with their night patrols, in addition to the patrols they had in the mornings. Just that day they had had a chance to rest in the afternoon before going to their night shift.

They were both lying on the couch, Neito on top of it. Hitoshi was reading one of the horror novels he had bought last week while stroking the soft hair of his husband, who had interrupted him to explain the plan he had for their anniversary. 

After graduating from U.A., they were made the offer to accept them into the agency where they now worked as sidekicks with the possibility of later founding a secondary agency to the main one. The two boys had accepted immediately because it fit in with the life plans they had made in their senior year of high school. Their dating had begun in the middle of their sophomore year and had lasted three years before Neito had proposed to Hitoshi. Although they were very young they were obvious that they loved each other and wanted to live their whole lives together, so they got married in their twenties, after four years of relationship. At first, their parents did not agree because of their young age, but after a year of marriage, they had shown them that it had been a good decision. 

The following week, specifically on Friday, they were going to be two years old and Neito had persuaded Hitoshi to let him organize it. The blond loved making plans for various occasions so the purple-haired young man agreed. What the boy planned was a date at the amusement park they used to go to in their high school years. On those dates, Halloween was celebrated the whole month and there would be a parade just on Friday, what better place and time to go? Hitoshi loved everything related to the horror genre and Neito loved making her husband happy (and being called the best organizer.) The problem Hitoshi had been hesitant about was that Neito was easy to scare and not very resistant to the things Hitoshi saw. Every time they watched a horror movie together, Neito couldn't sleep for a week. The last time they had gone to a horror house he had fainted. But the hero would not give up and insisted that the more exposure the more endurance he would have. So far his theory has not come true.

"Are you sure you'll be comfortable, Nei? I don't want you to have to suffer through something like this. It's a date for both of us, not just me."

"Don't worry about me, mon violet. I have everything under control. Besides, you know I love going to that park because of that French café that has those delicious breads and those crepes you love to eat, the buttery ones, even if you refuse to accept them" Neito kissed him on the nose as he let out a giggle.

Hitoshi gave another grunt and without another word, continued with his reading and stroking that soft hair. He just hoped Neito wouldn't faint again if they decided to enter the horror house.

~°~°~|~~|~|~|~|~|

Neito felt fabulous about himself with his anniversary date plan. He always tried to organize events in grand style and without any unforeseen events, everything had to go perfectly even more so when it came to celebrating his marriage to the love of his life. He had to think a lot about certain problems that could arise and how to solve them. After asking for some favors from some colleagues and the help of his friends (and Hitoshi's friends, even if they were the boys of class A, although it pained him to admit it, it was worth it), Neito could say that everything would go according to the letter. 

At that moment the young couple was at the gates of the amusement park, disguised as the yōkai bakeneko and nekomata, with their masks and yukatas. Although Neito liked the French culture he also liked their culture, Hitoshi was happy with anything related to cats. Several people had complimented them on their costumes (feeding Neito's ego a little, but very little). It was the afternoon and they were both very excited to get on as many rides as they could. In the morning they had gone to their favorite restaurant, some of their closest friends had gone as well. They hadn't eaten anything afterwards, to avoid getting sick during the ride on the rides.

Neito liked rides where the attraction was speed and Hitoshi liked rides where the attraction was height. The tallest and fastest roller coaster was the favorite for both of them.

An hour before the parade started Neito pulled Hitoshi to the Ferris wheel, the taller young man rolled his eyes and asked him if they were going to do what a cliché date they did at the fair. Neito just smiled at him.

When their booth was at the highest point, the wheel stopped and Hitoshi asked him the same question again. Neito shut him up and told him to wait. A few minutes later something in the sky lit up. There were many drones with purple and yellow lights forming letters. Letters that touched Hitoshi's heart, bringing tears of emotion to his eyes. The letters said ‘Happy anniversary mon violet’. 

Neito would have to thank Bakugo and Kirishima for having achieved the exact colors he had asked for. The blond was feeling very happy. Seeing his blushing husband with a soft but sincere smile and slightly teary eyes told him that he had achieved his main goal. There was some cheering from the people below the game and in the other booths, even if they didn't know who they were cheering for.

The taciturn young man rushed at Neito, taking him by surprise. He hugged him tightly and kissed him after kiss on the face and then a long one on the lips. All the while murmuring I love you and thank you several times. Neito started to cry too from the emotion. Who would have thought that two of the most fearsome heroes for the villains were those two?

~°~°~|~~|~|~|~|~|

"We still have time to get into the last place we're missing." Neito let the other young man know. 

"Are you sure? We can just watch the parade," Hitoshi clarified to him.

"Sure as hell. I just need to go to the French cafe for a bite to eat and a drink. I need to have a bellyful of something if we're going into that place, to calm my nerves a bit,"

"I could also use one of those crepes..." muttered Hitoshi, taking her husband's hand as they made their way to the aforementioned place.

They both ordered the same drinks, a type of red fruit tea with coconut syrup and sugar decoration in the shape of two eyes. It was called witches' brew. Neito ordered a croissant filled with chocolate and Hitoshi his favorite butter crepe decorated with red jam and with more sugar eyes. Neito ordered another tea. He looked a little flushed and more smiling than ever. Hitoshi connected him to what had happened on the Ferris wheel.

When they arrived at the horror house Hitoshi was surprised not to see many people, the line was only about five people, all dressed from head to toe. Neito tugged on Hitoshi's arm excitedly and once they entered, Neito walked ahead. They passed through all the rooms and all the guys in costumes with no problems, Neito screaming but laughing afterward, hugging Hitoshi when someone disguised as a crazy guy with a chainsaw came out in front of them. But he didn't faint or feel bad, on the contrary, he looked very happy and excited. Just as they came out, the parade was starting. The people who made up the parade were leaving the same house of terror but through the entrance door.

Hitoshi hugged Neito before the blond ran after the parade. Ever since they had entered the terrifying attraction he had suspected that Neito was not quite normal and seeing him so excited and not scared only increased his suspicion. When he turned him around and kissed him he knew the truth.

"Neito, where the hell did you get alcohol from?" Hitoshi asked him. The blond was a little drunk. That explained how lively he was and how little fear had been incited in him by the people at the house of terror and the parade. 

"From the witches' brew," Neito whispered to him before chuckling and kissing him back.

"From the brew...but I drank that too and I'm sure it didn't have a drop of alcohol in it."

"Not yours, silly. Just mine. I told you I had everything under control," Neito kept whispering with his eyes a little closed. The alcohol had also calmed him down enough for the tiredness to finally catch up with him. This time Hitoshi laughed as he realized that his husband had somehow managed to convince the coffee barista to add alcohol to his tea. To his teas, since he had had two now that he remembered. He had indeed planned everything. I'm sure he had also planned for there not to be too many people at his favorite attraction.

"Let's sit down, Nei. Let's wait until we see the end of the parade and then we'll go home and sleep."

"But we can't sleep yet. I have something else planned when we get home" replied Neito in a spoiled child's voice. "Something that has to happen in our room but it's not sleeping" he gave a wink as he said the latter.

Hitoshi let out a laugh and whispered in the blond's ear, "If you manage to sober up before you get home maybe I'll also show you a little present I got you for the occasion".

Neito made a chuckle and replied in his ear, "Oh? I hope it matches the other costume I got." 

Hitoshi blushed again, pulling the blond to a bench that was close to where they were. Neito sat down next to him, resting his head on the purple-haired man's shoulder.

"I love you, my violet. I hope I have come up to your expectations this date."

"I love you too, Nei. It surpassed them by far, thank you for arranging it, although the important thing is that we both celebrated our marriage this way don't you think?"

"The love we celebrated every day, Hitoshi. But yes, I'd rather it was like this than going to a boring dinner in a fancy restaurant."

"Even if it was French food?"

"Mmm I might have accepted some year that, but yes, even if it was the delicious French food."

They stood in silence, watching as many people passed by after the parade in all kinds of costumes, both traditional and western.

"Nei, for the next time you want to have some cocktail themed to these dates, just tell me, we better go to some bar."

"Hahahaha maybe you're right this time, mon cher."

[glassmarcus]

UI Overlord

So after going through the Kingdom Hearts games again, I've been thinking a lot about menus. Mainly what percentage of a game can I handle being comprised of navigating menus. And I'm gonna cut to the chase and say that my conclusion was that the percentage doesn't matter at all. Navigating menus actually rules as long as the menu is worth navigating.

I've found that a good menu is either extremely complex or extremely simple. Look at the first Kingdom Hearts game for a perfect example. There are 4 options and 3 drop downs. That's it. In fact it’s so lean that it expects you to play an action game while navigating the menu in real time. Secondary actions such as using items, magic, and summons are done though menu navigation. Simplicity breeds brevity, and Kingdom Hearts keeps it simple so that you spend as little time in a menu as possible. And this isn't cutting out the fat, this is turning menu navigation into an entirely new layer of challenge in a way that Active Time Battles were never able to do. Active Time Battles are basically normal turn based battles that replace turns with cool down timers added to any character action. I've always disliked them because they add unnecessary stress in a way I don’t find all that engaging. I find no pleasure in navigating a menu quickly if that's the only thing I'm doing, so I'd rather just sit still and play at my own pace. The menu in Kingdom Hearts acts as a way to do non standard actions in combat as opposed to being the sole interface in the game, hence why I’m perfectly content with how it is implemented.

Navigating menus is not stimulating, at least not for me. Thinking is stimulating, which is why I love complex ones as well, as they show you a myriad of options to solve any problem thrown your way. Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories has more of a rolodex instead of a traditional menu, which isn't any more or less complicated than the original. The complexity comes from the deck builder outside of combat. This is the actual fun part of the game. The combat is just executing on a gameplan you decided on before the encounter started. Ordering cards in the perfect sequence and predicting where the cards will be positioned later in a fight. That's the good stuff and it's certainly better than playing the actual game.

What does this have to do with Unicorn Overlord, the 2024 Vanillaware developed strategy RPG? Well, in Unicorn Overlord, the menu IS the game. It's got wonderful art, charming writing, and a simple yet engaging story, but if you look at its body composition it is like 80% menu. Setting up your party of 50 soldiers is done through a menu. Customizing your character's actions for specific scenarios is done through a menu. Positioning your units before a skirmish is done through a menu. You can explore the overworld to your heart's content, watch the gorgeous fights play out, and view a few cutscenes every now and again, but it won't be long until you return to the warm nutritious bosom of the unit editing menu. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

What separates Unicorn Overlord from a lot of RPGs I've experienced is that you don't play as individual characters, but multiple groups of characters. You normally expect to control a single party of colorful protagonist, or in a lot of SRPG’s cases, multiple individual characters. Unicorn Overlord does both, having you build multiple RPG parties that you can control on a field. I found that the core joy in this game was constantly tweaking my units so that they synergize perfectly. I've always enjoyed doing this with a single party in games, so it's not surprising that doing it with 10 parties gets a little addicting. It’s fun forming a team built for a specific niche and tunnel visioning them into a special ops unit. It's fun getting all the characters you find aesthetically congruent into a squad and making then work. If fun making the most busted all purpose posse you can make. And a big part of that fun is that it lets you use its large cast of wonderful characters instead of letting them rot in the reserves.

I've talked a bit in the past about RPG party structure and I how I prefer all characters be involved in some way rather than being benched for the whole adventure. The way Overlord gets around this is by just having a large amount of those characters be playable at once. There are 10 parties of 5 characters you'll end up making by the end of the game. This means most units are gonna see some action as there are only like 60 unique characters you’ll end up recruiting. I say ‘only’ as if that's not a huge amount, but it really doesn't feel that way. You're never overwhelmed by choices in party members. As you get more available slots for your initially small roster, there will continually be a few characters left out of fray. Every new unit you get and every new slot for your party you unlock makes you rethink your team’s composition and your ability to do so slowly grows. You'll steadily end up managing dozens of characters, eventually building parties not only by battle strength but character affinity as well.

Each character has their own social link with any other character. This link is built up through having them fight in the same squad and dine together (a completely optional mechanic that allows the artist of this game to flex their ability to draw mouth watering food). As the social links build, you unlock buffs to show how your characters are now working with each other more effectively. They unlock scenes which you can find on the map that show off that individual character dynamic. Basically, it's Xenoblade Chronicles, but with 10 times the amount of party characters. And just like in Xenoblade you can track the affection of every character through a large yet easy to navigate menu. Everything in this game is pulled together through menus. I don't really have a larger point than that, I just think it's neat how engaging menus can be. Probably didn’t need to write that much about Kingdom Hearts in the beginning. They’re really only superficially connected. This write up is a mess.

A few more things I wanna mention about this game. For as much of it is quality menus, its time spent being interactive gameplay is just as good. There's a solid gameplay loop in exploring the continents, finding new villages, saving villages from enemies through missions, foraging for materials to give to the villages, and repeating the process until the whole nation is prosperous. On map enemy encounters are also fun because they introduce a way to gain experience and practice without doing missions.

The story is not 13 Sentinels tier. Few things are. But it's satisfactory for what it is going for. It's a simple fantasy narrative, with great voice acting and it is easy to get attached to characters. And boy these characters all have banger designs. Not a single miss. Especially Selphie, Rosalinde and Yunifi, a trio of girls which mark so many of my boxes it's kind of eerie. There's something for everyone here, and most of them aren't extremely horny. There's clearly restraint taken. Though if you are a degenerate, you will be served as this is still Vanillaware we’re talking about. I really want to go back and play their entire ludography one day, because they seem to just never miss.

[b-blushes]

okay the book in question is 'living well with pain and wellness' by Vidyamala Burch, here are my reflections on it. note that they are not a summary of the book, this is what i took from it - if you want to know what the book actually says then reading it is a much better bet :P

I'm really glad I revisited this booooook! The first time I read it, I had just had to stop working altogether after having to quit my third career pivot where I kept trying to start my life but kept experiencing worse and worse symptoms that meant I had to give up my dream and think of another one as I moved to an 'easier' job. Then I couldn't work altogether, and then I gradually became increasingly disabled. I got my first chronic pain condition diagnosis and my consultant recommended this book to me. I was 21, it felt like all my friends were starting their lives, at uni and progressing to careers, and I was physically disabled now???? NOT my finest moment! Looking back now, I know of course it wouldn't have all been so clear and simple and smooth for my friends, although by that point I'd lost touch with most of them due to how severely our lives had already diverged by this point (there was only one other person I knew who didn't go to university, et moi). Anyway I feel like I got a LOT more from this book with the life experience I have accrued between the two readings.

The book is about using mindfulness to reduce secondary suffering, where primary suffering is the pain you are experiencing and secondary suffering is the unpleasant things that can result (e.g. grief, despair, feeling overwhelmed, feeling like your life is out of your control and at the whims of your physical condition, etc). Mindfulness can be a challenging concept to think about for me, because it can have airs of 'you are feeling bad because you are dealing with it badly' and 'everything can be nice if you have a good attitude -> if things are bad it is because you have a bad attitude'.

This book is written by someone who experiences chronic pain and is a wheelchair user, which I mention to illustrate that they are a sympathetic speaker, although of course we as disabled people are not a monolith and attitudes that work for someone might be the enemy of another. While I didn't agree with 100% of the sentiments in the book, overall on rereading it with the intent to genuinely engage (NOT going into it with haterous tendencies, in which case I think it would be hard to find anything positive in anything) I appreciated the tone, and felt that a lot of my concerns or hesitancies about the practice were addressed. Some are still unresolved, but I also don't think the book intends to solved every problem in your life.

The key point I got from it was the use of mindfulness, being aware of the present moment, as an opportunity to make choices. This is very appealing to me as someone who has been feeling incredibly overwhelmed by not only the core symptoms that I'm struggling with recently but the sheer volume of appointments and accompanying (and maddening) admin that comes along with them. This year I'm making a 'final' push to make sure that I've seen all the relevant specialists and had full investigations of all of my symptoms before I pivot and 'give up' and practice more of a radical acceptance.

I have found it incredibly hard to judge as a disabled chronically ill person how hard to push at making improvements, when I actually am actually receiving exhaustive medical care, and when the efforts I am putting in are actually likely to bear fruit rather than just exhausting me day after day for no or marginal improvement. I'm glad I did decide to make this final push as it turns out I actually have had two quite significant things diagnosed by my new doctors, but none of my conditions are fully curable so there will come a point very soon where we will decide that it is possible to gauge a plateau of improvement and I will need to work out how I can live my best life while experiencing a still significant number of disabling symptoms.

A point of friction that I felt came up whilst reading in several places was the idea that I feel that even if I make the best choices that I have the ability to make, I'm not totally free to make any choice that I want, and I still will have to be living in the limits of my pain and other significant symptoms (e.g. fatigue). It's not that the book promised total freedom from these things, it's just that I find it hard conceptually to feel like I'm not being steered by pain if I'm still having to make my choices within those confines. It's difficult to fully crystallise my feelings about it, and I really got in the weeds in my notes as I was reading tbh! I think the crux of it though is that if you have chronic pain, regardless of your input you will be experiencing a degree of pain as you go about your life, and through introducing awareness in each moment of what you are doing and thinking, you are introducing an infinity of options for the path of your future to diverge - if you are present in the moment, you can actively choose what your next action will be.

Some concepts I really appreciated (beware these are possible misinterpretations of the text)

the importance of not avoiding your current experience, or distracting yourself from it constantly, with the metaphor of walking into a pitch black room and letting your eyes adjust rather than turning on a torch

the idea of actually living in and as your body instead of just in and as your head/thoughts <- something I've been aware of as not doing and wanting to work on for agessss (instead feeling like mind and body are separate and quite often in tension), so really glad to have some concrete methods to practice this

"I am still returning to my body and will do so for the rest of my life" Matthew Sandford - person quoted by the author

on the topic of practice, the conceptualisation of mindfulness and meditations as actions, not states!!!!!!! it is the practice, the verbs, that you are learning from and that becomes the skill, not the moments where you feel like you have 'achieved' them - those are inherently fleeting, but the repeated practicing of the skills only strengthen as you repeat them, and as such any instances that you might previously have classed as 'failures' such as your mind wandering while you're trying to do a meditation are crucial loci to actually honing the skill!!!! i adore this, as you might guess from my previous discussion of doing thought experiments centred around skills and habits :P

"If you're fully present in this moment it will be easier to recollect it in the future; that may mean remembering where you put the car keys or it could be a deeper sense of moral and ethical continuity, which means you needn't keep relearning the same lessons."

'the zone' as mindfulness!!! "happily absorbed in an activity" "when you're fully mindful you no longer feel awkward, self-conscious and separate - you feel at once with the activity" <- veryyyyy persuasive conceptually to me!!! I am able to recall moments of happiness when I was present in the moment and thinking to myself "I'm so happy!' and had that sense of ease, confidence, and belonging that was quoted here, so if that experience is something I can do more by practicing mindfulness then I would like to give that a go!

the idea of responding to right now instead of imagined and/or predicted future consequences - "the present moment, informed by past learning"

"If you're clear about your intention and values, then as soon as you notice what's happening, your natural emotional and mental response will be shaped by those intentions" <- this quote stood out to me as I can clearly remember a recent instance where I realised I had become the scroller and stopped and went out into the garden instead, and then came back to share the photos that I had taken. I felt proud of this moment and would like to live this way more

tension in a moment is caused by unnoticed disconnect between ideas and reality - noticing the tension means you can inhabit the moment and thus gives you an opportunity to make a choice. This concept really resonated to me as someone who often has been experiencing a vague and unpleasant state of being, and has both responded by not turning towards it and continuing to ferment, and by turning to face it head on and then watched all the secondary tension dissipate immediately, just by looking at it! The idea that I can strengthen my likelihood of defaulting to the second one is inviting.

So, the book outlines a series of practices that you can do to start developing these skills (and others, once again these are the parts that particularly resonated with me and are also my interpretations of the text to varying degrees of accuracy I would presume). There's an 8 week suggested program of guided meditations and mindful movements. The author also runs retreats, and has lots of free and paid resources through her company (Breathworks). I'm going to follow the 8 week meditation program, doing a meditation every day.

Previously this felt like a huge and unreasonable commitment, but this is another place where the experiences that I've had in the interim of both readings of the book have changed my perceptions of it. Now that I've experienced floor time (where I lay on an extra thick yoga mat with my eyes closed and listen to classical music until I feel some energy return to me, usually between 5 and 20 minutes), I know what it can be like to have a short period of restorative rest that feels pleasant and actively pauses any aggravation of my symptoms, and I also feel that I have a posture that I know works for me to trial a period of quiet. The first time I read the book, and for a significant potion of the interim, I couldn't recall any experience of a rest that felt good, and so meditation was not really at all appealing to me and actually felt at least a little antagonising. Not that meditation is entirely restful, it's still an activity, but it is a period of quiet and hopefully calm that now feels like a useful time where I will be practicing skills that I'm motivated to develop. The names of the practices are week 1 and 2 'breath inquiry', week 3 and 4 'body scan', week 5 and 6 'mindfulness of breathing', and week 7 and 8 'kindly awareness'. It's also suggested that you do the mindful movements starting from week 2, but I don't think I will as I'm already doing crocodoro (14 new physical therapy exercises that I do each day by setting a 20 minute timer any time I start an activity, and then get up and do an exercise each time it goes off). They suggest at least 6 out of 7 days of practice per week, but I'm aiming for 7 for continuity and routine's sake. But if I don't do this, thog don't care, because any time you practice a skill is a moment of practice that you have accrued in your life experience <3

Overall I feel like even just reading the book, alongside practicing crocodoro, has meant I'm checking in with the present naturally more often than I was before, being more aware of the choices I'm making with pacing during the day (e.g. doing a task for ages is making the choice to continue a task for ages, for just one case that sounds obvious but can be hard to catch in the practice of actually living your life), and adjusting my posture. I think it will help me aggravate my pain less (I say this as distinct from reducing my pain, because there will always be a present level of pain for me, but I can make choices that influence the level). I'm interested to see how doing the daily meditations work for me, and feel like due to floor time, even if I don't really hone my meditation skills in an immediately noticeable way, I know that laying down quiet style each day is good for me anyway so it feels like it's hard for it to make things worse.

TA-DA that was my post (: I am pleased to report that I crocodoro'd successfully while writing it o7

alsooooooo i finished rereading the pain book and i will share my thoughts about it maybe tomorrowwwwwww but overall VERY positive and i'm gonna do the 8 week program at home starting monday bc 8 weeks are gonna pass anyway so might as well (: