#and speaking of difficulty... it sucks how inconsistent the difficulty is

[notfebruary]

sonic frontiers dlc has been conquered !

and as is tradition for most(if not all) fully 3D sonic games, the most difficult enemy to conquer on any playable character is the camera angle lmao

[art-of-mathematics]

I turn more and more into a fucking egomaniac asshole. It is saddening. Today my sister confronted me with a bunch of clear indicators of my damned autism. I am so self absorbed. Our interaction has no 'nutrition', as I always complain about daily trivial stuff. And that I never recognize when she feels bad, simultaneously that she hates me asking her how she feels, because she always doesn't answer it in the way I intended the question to; I want to know HOW she REALLY feels, not smalltalk shit, no lying. because I suck at empathy. I can't smell how she feels, but she also does not understand the social difficulty coming with the autism. And I am so so sad. And feel guilty for only using 'my, me, I"...

And I feel so bad about....As I asked her WHAT she wants to talk about with me, she dismissed it. And I told her I don't know what to tell her or what to ask her about, what she would like to speak about. Also, she instantly proposed I believe she is 'too dumb for my special interests', which is not the case... But I am unable to communicate it in a way that people outside my own head can understand. And it makes me sad that people often feel intimidated (?) by my theoretical bullshittery... also, I suck at people interrupting me entirely or going into topics I despise. I am confused everytime.

Yet I finally know why people often react disgusted at my communication: And I understand the reaction actually. It is an awful paradox combination of incomprehensible intellectual pedantry and hyper-emotionalized exaggeration of my pointless feelings. I appear like an arrogant narcissist. And it makes me so sad. Too head-heavy while also hyper-emotionalized... She told me I appear like a joke because of that and can't be taken seriously. I appear shallow and artificially exaggerated. But I don't intend to. I don't intend to be awful. Maybe I should get rid of my voice and become mute forever.

Am I really just a sociopathic narcissist? I never intended to hurt her. But we seem too incompatible. She does not understand how autism affects all that at least to a minimal degree.

I gave up on telling her why it is difficult for me. She only dismisses it as rebellious anti-everything and my "addiction to negativity".

Everything I say.... she seems to not understand. She only puts things between my lines that never were, nor were ever true in any means. Maybe I'm just awful. The only thing I can do is avoid the contact mostly. But then she complains I won't do anything with her. But when I finally take all my strength to meet her, she complains as well. I appear too absent-minded.. She always insists on watching movies that literally make me drive nuts, and the inner aggression is unbearable. Last time I couldn't stop touching and rubbing my shitty ear, until my damn lobe piercing got infected. And I feel so sick. Watching movies is literal torture, my fucking mind dissects every shitty scene, finds every logical inconsistency, and often I also despise the overall entire topic and execuzion... Most things many people find calming, I find stressful and exhausting. Where others watch movies and 'consume' I indulge in work and creative output. I find consumption so exhausting. It stresses me so much like a normal person would get stressed if they had a paper due tomorrow or something... I would rather work all day than watch one movie in a week. And I sound fucking exaggerating, but the internalized hyperactivity gets so intense and unbearable, often I also tend to hurt myself somehow as I can't control the literal pain. It's like you can hear every shitty neuron in your brain killing each other...

And my need for my routine is also really difficult. Currently I only survive each day by adjusting my life on what I am capable to achieve, I have accepted that staying up til 6am is okay. Ironically my sleep is far better since I have a clearer sleeping routine, although my 'day primarily consists of the night'... But the darkness and silence, literal deceleration helps me calm down. It is difficult to come to know which routine works for me, when everyone says it is so bad to stay up that late and the stuff I enjoy is bad and I should "chill more and watch movies etc"... ... I can't use the advice of most neurotypical people. I attempted to use these so often, but everytime it severely increased the negative aspects and symptoms. How can I find my balance and literal equilibrium when the interference with the world around me is so harmful? It feels like I am a bunch of antimatter stranded in a world of matter only surviving by being in my own little cloud of vacuum... debilitating isolation. ... or like I stranded as alien here on earth and would suffocate if I try to breathe the air. Then humans come and insist you to put off your helmet, because they hate it and think you wanna be special, narcissistic. Then you take off the helmet and almost suffocate. Then they can't imagine it is real and insist you to fake it to get attention. Then they bully and exclude you because you have to wear that helmet, and they think you do it to be special... when in reality it only guarantees plain survival... Either you die by suffocation, or by chronic isolation and debilitating loneliness.

[c0smicfern]

today, i find myself thinking a lot about if it could just be high sensitivity that i'm dealing with. to clarify, i definitely am a highly sensitive person, but i'm wondering whether or not that's a complete answer for everything that i'm dealing with & generally what the actual difference is between having autism or being highly sensitive. here are some things i've been considering:

sensory sensitivities. on one hand, i don't seem to have as severe sensory sensitivities as most autistic people seem to have. on the other, somebody yelling (in general, doesn't even need to be directed at me) or having too many people talking around me can cause a meltdown or a shutdown. but then again, these could just be things triggered by a high sensitivity to emotional stimuli, not necessarily sensory stimuli, which would point to me just being an HSP. i struggle to think of other sensitivities that would even qualify. i have a weak sense of smell & awareness of my own balance & where my body exists in space that is exacerbated by stress, but that's really it?? i also enjoy listening to music & smelling things more than the average person as the former helps me regulate & i enjoy the latter bc i don't normally pick up scents very well. these things could point to autism, but they're not the only factors i have to take into account.

early development. i engaged in imaginative play, made eye contact (i assume bc i forgot to ask my mom when i was asking her about this stuff last week), and woke up when i heard my name called at 9mo. i mean, if that isn't a silver bullet for any chance at me being diagnosed with autism, i don't know what is. i was relatively nonverbal for much of my childhood & especially when i started school, but this could be construed as me just being overly shy. in reality, i generally had no idea how to engage in conversation beyond the things that interested me. can that be explained by HSP? is there room for a relative lack of symptoms in early development where an autism diagnosis would be concerned? i don't know.

communication issues. i don't remember when i started having issues with eye contact or if i always have, but i know that i definitely do now as i generally prefer to avoid looking people directly in the eye too much. i just find it to be kind of stressful & disorienting during conversation. i've always sucked at small talk. i mean, it's boring, and i still struggle to think of what to say if i'm not talking about my interests. i also have somewhat inconsistent difficulties with reading social cues as i trend towards interpreting things negatively if there's any room for ambiguity. gestures can confuse me at times as well. i work in a very diverse area, and we oftentimes have customers come in who speak limited english. sometimes, they'll point to something on the menu, and it'll take a second for it to click what they're trying to communicate. after that, figuring what they're actually pointing at can be a struggle as well. i also don't generally use a lot of body language or gestures because it's not really something i think about. on my end, i experience nonperformative facial expressions normally, even if they can appear flat to other people. social smiling, on the other hand, creeps me out even though i've had to be on the receiving end of it my entire life. i also rarely do it back bc my smile either looks flat or unnatural depending on if i'm trying to smile with my teeth or not. i generally experience these things as a physical inability to replicate what other people are "performing" for lack of a better word, though.

monotropism. my mind does often get stuck on things, and i can spend most of my waking life thinking about them. after i've watched a show/movie & if i really liked one of the characters, i'll continually go on yt just to look up specific scenes or lines of dialogue with that character. is this normal fangirling or autism, though? i genuinely don't know. i feel like i also don't experience what i consider my special interests the same way as most other autistic people do because of my issues with executive functioning. i care about writing & being a writer deeply, and i especially love worldbuilding & sussing out the mechanics/concepts i need to build in order for a setting to function & appear how i want it to. i feel like i only do it a few times a week, though, just because i find it incredibly difficult to start tasks or see things through to completion. not exactly the stereotypical vision of autism.

so what have i learned? what is the most accurate theory of mind for me to hold about myself? i can't say. in some ways, i relate to the autistic experience deeply. in other ways, i don't seem to fully meet the diagnostic criteria. could it be inattentive adhd (formerly add) & being an hsp? could it be generalized anxiety & being an hsp? or is it really autism & i don't know, depression? i may not know or learn until i finish the diagnostic process. or i may never know, and that scares me on a level that i can't express.

[martianbugsbunny]

OUAT Thoughts Pt.39--Episodes 14-15

I have watched through S4E15; spoilers DNI. Also, spoiler warning for anyone further behind than I am.

—I love Cruella and Maleficent making bets with jewelry. Maybe it’ll class up Cruella’s look.

—It’s cool that we’re basically pretending the original frilly version of Maleficent didn’t exist. There hasn’t been a single comment about how different she dresses.

—Ursula has gone from regular villain terrible to slightly more than regular villain terrible. Maleficent reveals that Snow is pregnant and Ursula’s like, cool, can I kill her now?

—Is this going to be something where the Charmings are directly responsible for Maleficent’s baby, or something where their guilt is leading them to exaggerate? I have difficulty believing it’s going to be entirely because of something they did, because the writers aren’t going to completely tank two of the most lovable characters like that.

—Maybe the curse is to blame? And because Snow and Charming refused to work with Maleficent to prevent the curse, they feel responsible?

—The concept of dark Emma that has been not-so-subtly thrown out there is intriguing. I’m not sure I want her to go full villain-mode, but some darkness might be interesting.

—Pretty fly that Emma didn’t demand an explanation from Hook about his past run-ins with Ursula, or stay mad at him for not telling her. She had every right to be upset about the fact that he lied about not remembering, but waiting for him to want to talk about it is good. Really, I just find this show consistently thumbing its nose at the expectations other media has ingrained in me, in a really good way. The characters aren’t total arses to their significant others about insignificant things.

—Regina decides to go undercover in the villain gang and immediately switches to wearing a leather skirt. Rock on, Your Majesty.

—Maleficent’s hat is kinda ugly (not actually ugly, just gives too many Zelena vibes) but the rest of her outfit gives 50s lesbian, so it’s all good.

—Also, I love it when other villains call her Mal. I’m *this* close to either shipping her and Cruella or just slapping a 🌟polycule🌟 sticker on them and Ursula.

—And speaking of Mal and relationships, who the heck was she having a kid with? It’s gotta be some as-of-yet unseen villain, cause there’s no way Mal would fall in with a non-villain.

—Such a pretty dragon.

—Belle’s thing with Will Scarlett is kinda tacky. First, as far as I know she and Rumple aren’t actually divorced, which I will admit I am inconsistent on depending on the couple, but right now I’m going with annoyed about it. Second, having dates with Will in Rumple’s store is grody regardless of the marriage issue. And I’m by no means an expert on relationships or the human brain, but given the tragic nature of her split with Rumple, it seems a bit soon for her to already have a new boyfriend.

—I really don’t want Regina to be bad again. I have faith in her to be good, though. If she were a self-existent entity with no writers messing with her life, I wouldn’t have a single doubt.

—Auggie returns!…But unfortunately, this ruins the nice lil family life Pinocchio and Gepetto had going for them.

—Emma’s obsession with grilled cheese is adorable. Me, I hate grilled cheese (American cheese sucks on basically anything that’s not a burger, and finding a melty cheese that also tastes good is surprisingly hard) but I love her for loving it. And Captain Hook bringing her grilled cheese and onion rings is the kind of couple goals I have.

—Very glad Rumple’s got his dagger back. If that dilemma hadn’t been solved so fast, I would’ve spent so much effort waiting for the shoe to drop I wouldn’t have paid enough attention to the rest of the story.

—Maleficent keeping a baby rattle as a necklace is among the saddest things to happen on this show.

[teachingtales]

Migraines

I am writing this for those of you who:

don’t have migraines, but know someone who does and want to know more

don’t have migraines, but may develop them later

do have migraines and don’t really know how to tell other people about them, so you can find some phrases that may help here (or just link them)

My mother had migraines, and I never did. I remember asking her what it was like, and was told, “It’s like a really bad headache.” In no way did that prepare me for migraines. I started getting them after getting disabled in the Marines with neurological issues. I honestly thought I was having a brain aneurysm or something. Was I dying? Is there a parasite boring through my brain and trying to find its way outside of my skull? 

It turned out to be a migraine. 

Later on, I lost strength in my left side. I was confused, dizzy. Is this a stroke? I went to the veterans hospital. Nope, it’s “just” another form of migraine. Uh...cool?

What is a migraine?

Unlike regular headaches that have many causes, migraines are a neurological disorder. You may have another neurological disorder that also produces migraines, or your neurological disorder may produce migraines as the primary problem. Migraines affect about 10% of the population, making them the most common neurological disorder. 

How can I tell if I get migraines?

Being the giant nerd I am, I looked up the etymology of the word and it comes from Greek. The original word is “hemikrania”, with “hemi” as “half” and “kranion” is “skull”, and you can see that over time the “he” part was dropped off. 

While there are lots of different symptoms of a migraine, this is actually one of the most defining symptoms...that’s probably why they chose this name. The head pain will happen only in half of your skull, either the left side or right side. A single migraine event can switch sides, but they won’t hurt at the same time. I usually get migraines on my left side, but occasionally they happen on the right instead. I’d say it’s about 95-5 for the split. 

A friend asked me if having them on the right side was any better or worse, and it’s a great question. The answer is: they still suck the same way, just on the other side. Although I will say that they’re almost worse in a way, because I have my habits to compensate for my left-side migraines and have to alter all of those habits. It’s not terribly annoying, objectively-speaking, but when you’re in the middle of a migraine it is annoying.

If you experience severe pain on half of your head, see a doctor. You probably are having a migraine.

What is it like to have a migraine? What are the symptoms?

This is what I wish I knew going into them. The pain severity can be “oh this really sucks” to “aslasfoiafjagjglkagnlgfjajwoi”, and I use that keyboard smash because when the pain is severe you can barely talk. Think of getting a brain freeze. You know how you stop doing everything to address the pain in your head that’s suddenly there? Imagine that level of pain for several hours. This is what it’s like to have a severe pain migraine. You can’t think of anything else, you can’t even sleep. 

While “really frickin’ bad head pain” is what most people know about for a migraine, there really are tons of other symptoms. As a neurological condition, it can cause syptoms like:

nausea and vomiting

diarrhea 

diarrhea and vomiting together

sudden dizziness (for anyone that’s been blackout drunk, it’s like that period right before you black out, where you’re really dizzy), and you end up walking in a swaying motion, sometimes falling down or falling into walls...it really looks like you’re drunk

loss of coordination, so it’s hard to do things like open a small package or tie your shoes

loss of strength in arm, hand, leg, and/or foot, making it difficult to walk

change in perception of temperature, including wild swings between shivering shaking cold and sweating hot

sensitivity to everything: lights, smells, sounds, tastes, touches...all of these increase the symptoms you’re already feeling

confusion or “brain fog”, which lead to things like you losing your train of thought mid-sentence, forgetting what you’re doing while you’re doing it, inability to focus, difficulty talking

slurred speech (sounds like you’re quite drunk)

suddenly feeling incredibly tired

slipping into sleep  without warning when seated or lying down (not great during commutes on the bus or subway)

changes in vision, such as blurred vision, changes in color perception, seeing “auras” around things, missing one eye’s vision, or having chunks of your vision missing

Sometimes you know when you’re about to get a migraine. This is called “prodrome”, but since most people don’t know this term I just call it a “starter migraine” or “I’m on the edge of a migraine.” If you can catch yourself in this period, you may be able to prevent the migraine with medication. The prodrome period depends on the person and takes a while to get used to, and you won’t always get them. Sometimes you just HEY MIGRAINE, sometimes you wake up and already have a migraine. You’re not guaranteed any prior warning. 

The opposite is the “postdrome”, which I just call the “after-effects of the migraine” because most people don’t know what “postdrome” is. As you can see from the symptoms, it’s quite intense. As a result, you’re left exhausted, drained, sometimes sore, and often feeling a bit vulnerable, like anything you do will cause you pain or bring the return of the migraine. Even though the migraine is over, you still can’t get back to your normal activities. It depends on the person, but it can be quite common to experience the postdrome. As with the prodrome, you may not have this. 

What triggers a migraine?

What is so frustrating about migraines is that there are so, so many triggers, and they’re often inconsistent. Sometimes, they’re even opposing. 

caffeine can help during a migraine, but too much caffeine without having a migraine can trigger a migraine; and sometimes caffeing during a migraine makes it worse

chocolate can trigger a migraine but I personally have not experienced this

strong cheeses can trigger a migraine, but as with chocolate I never experienced this

 low blood sugar due to skipped meals can trigger a migraine 

too much sugar can trigger a migraine

changes in air pressure 

changes in humidity

dehydration

too much exercise 

not enough exercise

moving around too much

too much lying down or sitting

stress is a common trigger

cold, such as cold weather or cold items touching the skin

running/jogging

bright lights, especially flashing lights

loud sounds of any type (human, booming sounds, construction)

vomiting also can trigger migraines, such as if you’re sick with something else or if you have bulimia

being sick with another illness can stress out the body to trigger a migraine

I’ve had relatives ask if I can “just move to another place” to avoid things like storms, and that’s not an option. While stormy, rainy weather is a common trigger, so is bright sunshine (especially if dehydrated)...which rules out most of the world during summertime. 

I was enjoying Avengers: Endgame until I realized that the sounds and light were hurting, and I was shoved into one of the worst migraines I’ve had. I had no prior warning, I otherwise had felt fine that day, but after a couple hours of loud booming noises coupled with bright flashes, it triggered a migraine. 

As you can see, this is really a difficult thing to manage. Some people get rare or occasional migraines, but people like me have chronic migraines. “Chronic migraines” are classified as “having at least 15 per month”, but in my case I will get them daily if I don’t take my medication and do my best to avoid all these triggers. Just this morning, I woke up around 06:30 and a couple hours later a migraine came because of the weather so I went to take a nap, but that made the migraine worse because I was lying down too much. I woke up in more pain and had to go for a walk (after taking my noon medication) for it to try to subside. 

What are the treatments for migraines?

No matter which route you take, you will always have to do your lifestyle changes. This means making sure you have plenty of water, don’t skip meals, manage stress, etc. 

You can take medication. I have medication I take a few times a day, and another one I take for when I feel a migraine breaking through. If that also fails, I take an injection at home. 

You can take supplements. There are things like butterbur, magnesium, catnip, ginger, and other things. Look online and include the words “migraine study” with the supplement name. This way you can see how effective it was, and the dosage. Check the company as well to see if they’re reputable. In places like the USA, supplements are not regulated so companies may put other ingredients instead. You can also make extracts or teas with things like catnip and ginger. Send a PM if you want to know how to do that. It’s easy. 

You can get Botox. I haven’t tried this but some people swear by it. The price was out of my range and I was told that it would impede my range of motion; since I lift weights, I didn’t want to deal with that. My regular doctor told me that my migraines are managed “well enough” with medication and I can’t expect any better with Botox; in other words, it’d be a waste of my money. But if you are having problems managing yours with medication, then see if Botox works for you. 

Other treatments for migraines include:

resting in a dark room

sunglasses or yellow-lens glasses

ice pack on the pain area (or a cold pillow)

stretching (but this can increase pain in some cases)

going to sleep

drinking water

drinking caffeine (coffee, energy drink, green tea, any source is fine)

eating a small meal if you haven’t eaten yet; preferably something with sugar, like fruit or fruit juice

binaural beats (this is my sound-video of choice, but be careful because there’s a loud “BING” type of sound at the beginning)

no screen time 

removing strong smells (such as cleaning the cat’s litter box if it has feces or urine)

not eating anything with a strong flavor, and avoid spicy food

don’t wear a bra

don’t wear anything tight/snug around your waist or upper body, to include: tight waistbands, pantyhose, snug belts, corsets. If you need a belt, wear it looser than normal

If I’m at work and having a vomiting + head pain type of migraine, I will make myself a mix of electrolyte drink (like Powerade) + an energy drink and sip it. This helps get some caffeine and helps wake me up a bit, plus it helps re-hydrate me. 

Not a treatment, but apparently if you get migraines as a child or teen, finishing puberty can somehow result in your migraines stopping, so that’s cool, but it doesn’t always happen because migraines are apparently a gift from some kind of trickster deity.

Are migraines dangerous?

Chronic migraines can unfortunately increase your risk of stroke in your forties. 

Chronic vomiting, if you get this as a common symptom, can have a negative impact on your teeth and muscles...including your heart. If you get chronic vomiting, ask your doctor about any supplements (like potassium or magnesium) that they can prescribe to help mitigate the muscle issues. Wash your mouth out with water after vomiting (this is what my dentist recommended...I asked about baking soda, but they said to just do water. Do not brush your teeth because it can do more damage, but if the post-vomit taste in your mouth is going to trigger more vomiting, gargle with mouthwash or drink some juice).

I don’t get migraines but know someone who does. How can I help?

You are a beautiful person for wanting to help. How you help depends on where you are...you can’t lie down and take a nap when you’re at the grocery store, for example. Ask the person what they need, and remind them that it’s okay to sit down or stay home. We’ll often feel guilty about having to cancel plans, so let them know it’s okay. 

If it’s around a meal time, bring them something kind of bland that they can pick at. This can include hard boiled eggs (peeled and cut into quarters or halves), sliced bananas, peeled/shelled nuts, rice balls, cooked potato pieces (chips, crisps, french fries, roasted potato cubes), small pieces of cooked chicken breast, bread that has been cut into cubes, cubed or sliced apple or pear. 

Be prepared to make an ice pack, which needs to be wrapped in a small towel. Some people have never used an ice pack before and you cannot put it on your skin directly. It needs to be wrapped in a small towel or shirt. If you don’t have an ice pack, frozen vegetables/fruit in an unopened package works. If not, put ice cubes into a zipper baggie and then wrap that in a cloth. If you have a loved one who gets migraines and visits often, buy a small ice pack to keep at your home. This is a pouch with a gel in it, and it is quite inexpensive. You can find them at pharmacies or large stores with a pharmacy section. 

In closing, migraines suck and I’m sorry if you get them. Please have some memes I made.

I thought I had more but I guess not or I forgot where I put them. Feel free to share or ask questions.

[radramblog]

Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon is basically OK

Recently, I’ve partaken in some kind of cultural exchange with a friend of mine- namely, I’ve lent her my copies of the Scott Pilgrim novels (god do they kick ass), and she’s lent me her copy of Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon, seeing as I never played it at the time.

Well I’ve now beaten this game, and I have some thoughts about it, so chop chop Keara the story isn’t getting any younger I expect a full book report on my desk next Sunday.

Jokes aside, this was my first experience with a PMD game since Sky (discounting the demo for Gates to Infinity), and having missed the series’s third entry (fourth if you count those Japan-only WiiWare games), it’d be remiss of me not to at least mention that maybe some of the things I’m going to complain about were originally that game’s fault. But apparently that one actively sucks ass so who cares, just shift the blame over, eh?

(ah, primary-school-tier bullying, exactly what I want in my Pokemon game, cool)

I think one of the foremost issues people have about PSMD is the story, and I can’t help but agree. The game spends what feels like forever fucking about in Serene Village, doing what could charitably described as tutorial followed by slice-of-life-ish plots, and while I love me a good slice-of-life anime, those tend to be a lot less slow than this. Also the characters tend to be a lot less one-note, but it’s a kids game, so whatever. Speaking of kids, this to my knowledge is the only PMD game where you and your partner character are canonically children, and spend a lot of time around others. The game seems to establish unevolved Pokemon as kids, which while it doesn’t really add up with the rest of the series (e.g. in the first ones, Caterpie is clearly a child, but Metapod is as well and Gulpin is at least adult enough to run their own store), it would ultimately be excusable if it didn’t make that huge section of the game so boring.

They aren’t consistent with that kids thing, by the way. When you finally reach the Expedition society, you’re met with a bunch of unevolved Pokemon (Archen, Buizel, Bunnelby, Swirlix) that are running around behaving very youthfully, who then turn around and go hey we don’t allow kids in our gang please leave. Like, the plot had been leading me to believe that the whole place was shut down, Ampharos as its final member, and those kids were just running around an abandoned building, but nope, here are your teammates for the rest of the game.

(brown sus)

The remainder of the plot is basically fine, its not like the plots in this series are the greatest on the planet (save maybe Explorers), though the focus on the villains turning people into stone felt pretty awkward. It’s like they wanted to pull off a more dramatic, more personal-stakesy plot but couldn’t actually kill anyone. This gets kind of egregious when you end up in actual hell for a bit, in what I guess is the series tradition of potentially traumatic experiences and blasted hellscapes being exposed to the protagonists. The endgame plot all seems to come at you at once, not helped by it being lots of chained dungeons without returning to towns beforehand- it wouldn’t be as bad if the whole game was like this, but with such a slow start, it just feels so inconsistent. The endgame twist was pretty spicy, I’ll admit, but it didn’t have enough buildup to feel earned in my honest opinion.

(pictured: the best character in the game)

But the plot doesn’t matter so much as the gameplay does it? And as someone who has also concurrently been playing through the first Pokemon Mystery Dungeon game on my GBA, there’s a lot of interesting comparisons to make. The dungeons on the whole are shorter in PSMD, with few of the main-game ones reaching beyond 10 floors (and not going much past it) compared to the prequels’ capping off with a 25+5 floor behemoth in Sky Tower. This is made up for by every floor of the dungeons in PSMD feeling much larger and more labyrinthine than anything in other PMD games, meaning each one takes much longer than you’d think. I dread to imagine what the 99-floor dungeons are like in this game, especially considering you now need an item to quicksave the game if you want to do anything else now. The dungeons themselves additionally really do not feel like they’ve taken advantage of the 9 years of potential design improvements and two console generations of technology improvements between games- it is frustratingly same-old same-old in the dungeon design.

These problems are capped off with the increased difficulty- that is, that every individual Pokemon is significantly more of a threat to you than in previous games, and you don’t really get the opportunity to level grind much. And I’m not opposed to difficulty in games, obviously, but what it does in PSMD is ruin the flow of the gameplay for me. What works in Mystery Dungeons previous was that blend of exploration and combat, and in Super, that gets completely broken up by protracted encounters with even the chump-tier mons you encounter along the way. Also, they made the basic attack complete shit, and I don’t like that.

That’s not to say that the gameplay is all bad. I won’t comment too heavily on the Looplet/Emera system, because I’m kinda mid on it, but it didn’t help that despite all the game’s tutorialising I still didn’t get part of it until most of the way through the story. The game does have some moments of genuine brilliance in design, though. The way you recruit more Pokemon is so much better than the luck-based mission of the previous games, wihle managing to actually make you want to go on the random missions you get thrown throughout the game- for one thing they aren’t random, but it means you have a guaranteed good reward instead of the semi-RNG system where you just end up with a bunch of Gravelerocks and berries you’ll never use. In addition, the system where on non-plot days (and in the postgame) you just get 3 random Pokemon recommended to you, that get bonus EXP if you use them that day, is a great way of encouraging the player to diversify their Pokemon usage substantially, which is nice.

There’s a few other nice gameplay things I’d like to highlight. Considering the increased difficulty, the ability to rescue yourself (read: come back with the overpowered mons the game dropped in your lap) is really nice, especially since it’s not like anyone else is playing these games who can help. The way moves get better the more you use them is nice, especially considering how much more you use one move over and over in this game compared to main series Pokemon games. The random bonus missions and travelling mons you encounter in dungeons are nice, as well as the increased variety in missions available- as well as actually being able to revive fallen escortees, it makes the mission system overall much stronger than in previous entries.

Beyond that, though, I’m not sure what else I have to say about Super Mystery Dungeon. The game is a decent entry in what can barely be called a franchise these days, considering it’s 6 years old and yet still the newest entry, excluding the remake of the first ones that came out last year. It’d be a shame if this was the note we went out on for Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, but to be fair, I don’t think they’re ever going to be able to recapture the magic of the first two games. They struck gold with a lot of people, but I guess at this point, the gleam wore off.

[weirdfella]

Family Dysfunction and Personality Type

by Susan Storm (X)

What Is a Dysfunctional Family?

Before we get into type’s role in all of this, let’s take a look at what family dysfunction really is. The Medical Dictionary defines ‘dysfunctional family’ like this:

“A family with multiple ‘internal’ – e.g. sibling rivalries, parent-child – conflicts, domestic violence, mental illness, single parenthood, or ‘external’ – eg. Alcohol or drug abuse, extramarital affairs, gambling, unemployment – influences that affect the basic needs of the family unit.”

Psych2go.net lists eight common characteristics of a dysfunctional family. These include:

Addiction

Perfectionism

Abuse

Unpredictability and Fear

Conditional Love

Lack of Boundaries

Lack of Intimacy

Poor Communication

Today we’re not going to get into issues of addiction, abuse, gambling, or unemployment. We’re only going to look at the difficulties that personality type can play a part in. These difficulties include sibling rivalries, parent-child conflicts, perfectionism, and poor communication. We’re going to go through each of these issues one-by-one so that you can see how type differences can cause family dysfunction to show up in an otherwise normal home.

Personality Type and Sibling Rivalries

In a study published in 2016 by the Journal of Marriage and Family, 75% of mothers admitted to being closer to one child. Researchers of a 2005 study observed that 70% of fathers and 74% of mothers show preferential treatment to one of their children. Parental favoritism is often at the center of sibling rivalries. Personality differences also play a part. Here’s an example to give an idea of how many sibling conflicts escalate:

A feeling dominant brother (ESFJ) is trying to maintain harmony in the home along with the feeling-oriented mother (INFJ). They both give priority to feeling over thinking when making decisions involving the family. Meanwhile, the thinking-dominant sister (ISTP) is seen as needlessly critical and argumentative. The ESFJ brother can’t figure out why INTP sister won’t just get along and work with the family “team” to maintain harmony. He de-values her problem-solving abilities because she expresses herself in a way that contrasts with his feeling orientation. It seems to him like she’s always critiquing things and questioning rules. ISTP sister sees ESFJ brother as a “suck-up” and a people-pleaser. She de-values his ability to sense the needs of the people around him. Fights erupt and hurt feelings linger and build over time. The INFJ mother feels a more natural understanding with her ESFJ son because they both process decisions through feeling. She struggles communicating clearly with the ISTP daughter and the daughter feels hurt and rejected.

The scenario above is just one of countless scenarios in which personality type can create chasms between siblings. We can’t possibly cover all the potential scenarios in this article, but we’ll take a look at some of the most common sibling rivalries related to type.

Feeling Sibling + Thinking Sibling: Feeling sibling believes that the thinking sibling is uncaring, cold, argumentative, or overly-detached. Thinking sibling believes that the feeling sibling is overly sensitive, illogical, too attached to their values. Arguments erupt when feeling sibling argues from a place of values or ethics and thinking sibling argues from a place of logic or causality.

Extroverted Sibling + Introverted Sibling: Extroverted sibling thinks the introverted sibling doesn’t like him/her because he always wants time alone. Pushes introverted sibling into social settings which results in introvert feeling angry and lashing out. Extroverted sibling pesters introverted sibling or gives up on relationship. Introverted siblings needs are possibly not respected in the home. Extroverted siblings needs are possibly not respected in the home. Introvert becomes drained by lack of alone time or extrovert becomes drained by lack of outside stimulation. They both see the other as uncooperative.

Sensing Sibling + Intuitive Sibling: Sensing sibling believes intuitive sibling is too fanciful or detached from reality. Sensing siblings wants intuitive sibling to be more specific and literal. Intuitive sibling believes sensing sibling is too unimaginative or literal. Intuitive sibling wants sensing sibling to be more big-picture oriented and conceptual. Both de-value the other’s intelligence and struggle to connect via communication.

Judging Sibling + Perceiving Sibling: Judging sibling believes that the perceiving sibling is lazy, a procrastinator, unpredictable, and inconsistent. Perceiving sibling sees judging sibling as too controlling, rigid, rule-abiding, or too easily flustered by change. Both feel misunderstood and judge/feel judged by the other.

Are sibling rivalries bound to happen when siblings have different preferences? Absolutely not. Sometimes children with different preferences bond in a powerful way and help to increase each other’s maturity and self-awareness. However, these types of rivalries can occur, particularly in families where there is unhealthy or absent communication, conditional love, or poor support and guidance from parents. If the most involved parent in the home shares more type preferences with one child over another, a “type culture” can be created that unintentionally de-values the gifts of the child with alternate preferences.  The other sibling feels misunderstood, pressured, unappreciated, angry, and especially resentful of the sibling who shares type preferences with the parent.

Ways to Heal Sibling Rivalry and Other Family Conflict Issues:

Step 1 – If you sense that there is a lot of sibling rivalry in the home related to type differences then it’s time to make an assessment of your family. Get a piece of paper and write down each person’s preferences (if you don’t know them all, just write down the ones you do know).

For example:

The Johnson Family

Mom: ESFJ Dad: ISTJ Oldest Daughter: INFP Middle Son: ESTJ Youngest Son: XSFJ

Step 2 – Father and mother should get together and assess any similarities or differences in preferences among family members. How do you see the introverts getting along versus the extroverts? Is there an adult or child that is the “odd one out” when it comes to a particular preference? Are there any signs that this child feels de-valued or maybe idealized? The parents in the family should look everything over and also analyze the unique stressors of each of the family members in their home. You can see a list of possible stressors for introverted types here and extroverted types here. Discuss ways you might be seeing stress among each family member based on the expectations, rules, and lifestyle of the home.

Step 3 – Set up a family meeting. This should be at a time when everyone is relaxed and no conflicts are already at play.

Step 4 – Ask the introverts and extroverts to discuss their needs separately. Then ask them to come together and list 3 things they struggle with in the home related to their introversion or extroversion, and 3 things that they appreciate in the home. Look for some agreed-upon solutions to help extroverts and introverts both get their needs met. Write these down.

Step 5 – Continue this process with each preference. Intuitive and sensors. Thinking and feeling types. Judgers and perceivers.  Pay special attention to family members who are unique from the rest of the group. In the example above of the Johnson family, you can see that the oldest daughter is the only intuitive and the only perceiving type. Does she feel misunderstood or forced into a lifestyle that doesn’t fit? Or does she feel overly-idealized because of her differences? Try to find some articles that would describe each child’s strengths so that everyone can realize the capabilities of each individual in the home. Realize, however, that if a child hasn’t been nurtured properly that they may not be showing those strengths. They may have been trying to operate in the same style as the predominant “family culture” and therefore haven’t been able to strengthen their own natural gifts.

Step 6 – Come up with a family action plan for acceptance in the home based on the conversations that take place. Make sure each individual gets a chance to discuss their thoughts and needs. Remember that it’s impossible to completely cater to every personality type and that’s okay. The goal is to let everyone feel heard, understood, and appreciated for who they are. This meeting will give each family member a chance to speak up for themselves and bring up their needs and possible frustrations in a judgment-free zone.

Some helpful articles to possibly reference during the family meeting:

What Your Child Needs to Hear, Based On Their Personality Type

What Your Child Needs, Based On Their Personality Type

The Childhood Struggles of Every Myers-Briggs® Personality Type

Parent-Child Conflicts

Parent-child conflicts are more likely to occur when children and parents don’t share the same type preferences. This is especially true if a parent doesn’t have an understanding of personality type. An introverted parent may view their extroverted child as showy, loud, obnoxious, or attention-seeking. An extroverted parent might view their introverted child as reclusive, boring, anti-social, or cold. Parents might try to change their children into their own image, viewing their natural wiring as the only “right” way to be. The child might try to oblige the parents for a while, but over time this can lead to resentment and frustration for everyone involved.

Extroverted Parents – Remember introverted children are energized by the inner world of ideas, reflections, and inner analysis. It doesn’t mean they dislike you if they want to spend most of their time in their room. They will respond better to a question if they have time to process it first. Chances are, they’ll become irritable if they have to socialize most of the day.

Introverted Parents – Remember extroverted children are energized by the outside world of people, activities, or objects. They aren’t trying to get in your way or disrupt your peace, they are simply trying to connect with you and energize themselves with interaction and experience. Continually shutting them down and telling them to be alone is the equivalent of an extrovert constantly forcing you to be around people. Balance is key. Some alone time each day for an extrovert is a good thing. Spending 80% of the day alone is not.

Thinking Parents – Remember that feeling children are more likely to take criticism personally. Give them words of affirmation consistently, and when you have to criticize, make sure to affirm your intentions rather than focusing solely on their mistake. Affirm that you love them and appreciate their good qualities. Remember that conflict is especially disruptive to feeling types and they may feel compelled to fix it (especially FJ children). Don’t create a lifestyle in the home that forces feeling children into perpetual mediation, need-tending, and peacemaking. This isn’t a healthy position for a child to be in.

Feeling Parents – Remember that thinking children seek logic over value-laden reasoning. They respond to straightforward direction and they want rules reasonably explained. If you have to give criticism, cut to the chase and avoid emotional lecturing or “sugarcoating”. Be kind, but don’t beat around the bush. If they struggle with emotional connection or empathy, don’t take it personally. For some thinking types empathy is a learned skill. Re-phrase insensitive comments to them so that they can have easier communication with others. Show appreciation for their problem-solving abilities and their critical thinking skills.

Intuitive Parents – Remember that sensing children want explicit, literal instructions. Don’t be vague or skip steps when giving them a direction. They might get irritated with you if you’re constantly trying to engage their imagination or talk concepts rather than give them facts and real-world experience. These kids trust what they can touch, feel, taste, hear, or what has been proven to them through life experience itself. Clarity is key and these kids will learn best through experience.

Sensing Parents – Remember that intuitive children need a big picture vision or idea in order to be inspired. They don’t want a ton of sequential steps when getting directions. They prefer to be given an overall goal and then fill in and ask questions as necessary. Let them imagine, question, and try things in new ways. Conversation about concrete day-to-day experiences can make them bored and irritable sometimes. Appeal to their imagination and understand that they will be more drawn to the abstract than the concrete.

Judging Parents – Remind yourself that perceiving children aren’t necessarily lazy or unproductive, although their style might seem like it to you. They like a lot of variety and spontaneity in their lives. A rigid structure and a very repetitive routine can make them irritable and frustrated. They will feel trapped if every part of their day is planned out or managed. They think best when they can mix work with play and mix up their routine. Give them the chance to prove that they can keep up with their tasks in their own way. If they are perpetually missing deadlines then step in and give them some time management techniques and reminders so that they can stay on top of their homework. Make sure that they’re getting unstructured time each day.

Perceiving Parents – Remind yourself that judging children need structure and consistency in their lives. They will get irritated if they are interrupted or forced to change their focus in the middle of a project. These kids want to finish what they start before they do anything else. They need time to switch gears between activities. They may not react well to surprises or spontaneous outings. Try to give them advanced notice of what your plans are for any given day. Remember that judging types feel responsible for the environment they are in. This can make them appear like “control freaks” sometimes, but it’s their way of organizing things so that they can think more clearly and accomplish their goals.

Perfectionism

Perfectionism can be displayed by any personality type, and it’s never something you want overrunning a household. Here are some things each type might want to look out for when running the home.

Introverts: Don’t expect your house to be perfectly quiet with children. Make sure you’re getting regular time alone, but don’t stifle the needs of the extroverts in the family. If things are noisy from time to time that’s normal. It’s not a sign that your family is out of control.

Extroverts: Don’t pressure your family into near-constant social excursions and outings. This may be your idea of fun, but not theirs. Don’t take it personally or consider yourself a failure if some of your family members seem happiest when they’re alone.

Intuitives: Don’t de-value the needs of sensing children by “zoning out” when they’re discussing details or concrete experiences. Realize that they are more focused on the present than the future and may not feel as inspired by your new idea as you are. That’s okay. Show appreciation for their perspective and spend occasional time doing hands-on activities with them. Also, don’t beat yourself up if your family life doesn’t match up to the vision you had many years ago. Intuitives tend to create idealized visions of family life and the reality of family life can be very different from the dream. Appreciate the positive moments and accept that family life has its ups and downs. Get help if you need it.

Sensors: Don’t condescend to intuitive children by saying their heads are in the clouds or they are too unrealistic. Listen to their imaginative ramblings and realize that they will be more focused on concepts that concrete experiences. Don’t talk over them or argue with them constantly when they’re trying to bring up a hypothetical scenario or envision possibilities. Let them have some time each day to let their mind wander over unusual scenarios. Let them try things in new ways sometimes, even if it feels unreasonable to you.

Thinkers: Don’t force feeling children to make decisions the same way that you do. Remember that feeling children will step into a situation personally before they decide. They want to know how a decision aligns with their values or impacts the people around them. They can feel indecisive and stressed if they have to make a decision that may upset other people. Don’t make fun of their emotions, or act aghast when they make a decision that to you seems illogical. Encourage them to stand up for themselves even when it may upset others. Validate their feelings, and calmly explain the logical consequences of something if they are too fixated on the personal aspects of a decision.

Feelers: Don’t act shocked or offended when thinking children speak their mind directly. When they are faced with a decision rather than step “in” to the situation, they step “out” to view it objectively and without personal bias. They try to detach themselves emotionally from a situation when they assess it. This can make them seem “cold” or lacking in empathy to some feeling types, but it also helps them to stay level-headed and logical.

Judgers: Don’t force perceiving children to do all their homework and all their chores as soon as they get home from school. They will likely need some time to de-compress and live freely before they settle back into homework and responsibility. Judgers like to get everything done ahead of schedule, but perceivers work in spurts. Make sure they are meeting their obligations and responsibilities, but try to break up tasks with chunks of regular free time.

Perceivers: Don’t berate judging children or call them “high strung” or “uptight”. Don’t force them into a constantly changing, unpredictable lifestyle. Knowing you’ll be on time, dependable, and consistent is important to them. Give them a heads up when something is going to happen so that they can mentally prepare.

Poor Communication:

So many family rivalries are the result of poor communication. This is especially true when family members de-value each other because their type preferences don’t align. We’ve gone over a lot of the ways that poor communication can show up in the sections preceding this so I’m not going to go into a whole lot of detail right here. However, doing the things below will help to open the channels of communication among family members of all types:

Schedule regular family time together (preferably without screens or devices around)

Have small family rituals (like a story before bed or a family game night) that encourage intimacy.

Eat meals together, without the TV on or phones at the table.

Make sure children get at least 15 minutes of one-on-one time each day.

Be an active listener. Focus 100% on what your child is saying. Make sure you understand your child correctly before you give advice or criticism. Paraphrase your child’s words back to them to make sure you’re being accurate.

If there are issues in the family, make sure that you attack the problem itself, NOT the family member personally.

Start each day fresh. Don’t hold onto bitterness, anger, or disappointments.

Ask forgiveness. Everyone makes mistakes and acknowledging this is important.

When it comes to personality type and communication, you can find a whole bunch of tips to encourage positive communication here: How Each Personality Type Likes to Communicate.

[buff-pink]

Overwatch Tip: Competitive Mode Advice For Beginners

Speaking of competitive mode... 

I often get asked when I stream about tips on what to do when playing solo. I see a lot of people say they just plain stopped because it’s too stressful or they experience the same things they see me experience (when I bother streaming it) in low ranks. It doesn’t stop me, though, and I don’t think it should stop others either. 

Here’s a bit of advice and encouragement: 

1. Ranked is not for everyone. You either like the competition, and have the mindset for it, or you don’t. If you’re not having fun, and/or absolutely hate losing to the point that it causes you anxiety and stress, I recommend taking a break from comp mode and playing another mode, or another game. There’s nothing wrong with that. Competition should be fun and you should go into it with confidence and humility, so try it again when you feel ready.  

2. Practice, practice, practice. If you want to see improvement in your ability, play consistently! Watch how higher rank players play, read their guides, post in forums/discords for advice. Get your VODs reviewed. An important skill to have in competition is to be aware of, notice, and own your strengths and weaknesses. Most importantly, remember you are never done learning.

3. Be a good sport. Read up on ‘the pygmalion effect’ - which essentially is a phenomenon where, if you’re surrounded by people who give good vibes, you are likely to perform better and have more synergy. It puts you in a positive mindset and believe me, it works. Matches where all my teammates and opponents are in good moods and sincere about their compliments always end better, and even if I’m on the losing side, I still have a sense of satisfaction because it was a mutually friendly game. It feels like I lost fair and square, and I want to congratulate the opponents and praise my team for putting in their best efforts.

Likewise, though, if you’re surrounded by bad vibes and pessimistic teammates, or rude opponents, you are likely to perform worse - though, paradoxically, there are occasions where the adversity makes you want to do better and it has the opposite effect. The thing is that doesn’t rub off on all six teammates, and you need everyone’s cooperation, so that’s meaningless in a lot of situations. I’ve had matches where I’m so tilted by my teammates’ pessimistic comments, I see no point in trying, and put in much less effort into those matches. I want to get out of them as fast as possible, even if it costs me the win. Why bother if I need my team’s cooperation, and my Ana just promised she was done healing one of the DPS because they won’t switch? 

In other words, sometimes it’s not about winning or losing, but the sportsmanship between the players, that makes a comp match enjoyable. 

4. Report bad behavior. This is a huge one. If you want more fair, positive games, report those who are disrupting that. Make sure to explain why you made the report. For example, if someone appears to be uncooperative, admits to throwing on purpose, or claims they’re ‘deranking’, that’s gameplay sabotage. If they use racist, homophobic, transphobic, sexist, or otherwise rude and inappropriate language, that is abusive chat - specifying that it’s any of the above in the report helps raise its priority, so don’t forget to do so. (Those are the two most common offenses and usually the only two I ever see, and I try to report them whenever I can)

Another one I get a lot is spam - sometimes, after matches, rude players (and sometimes entire groups) send me tons of friend requests at once and it disrupts my ability to type in chat, because accidentally hitting the Y key will accept the request, then they blow up my whispers with more rude messages until I can unfriend/block them. That’s an example of spam. You can block these players, then report them, because they probably do this often.

Blizz mods can see and hear everything that goes on and will act upon reports as necessary, whether the player is suspended/banned from comp mode, blocked from typing in chat, or just banned from the game altogether. They even thank you for the reports!

Our lord and savior, Jeff Kaplan, wants games to be as fair and enjoyable for everyone as they can possibly be(or so he says), and reports help the mods take out the trash.

5. Your rank is not an accurate measurement of your true skill. Some people trapped in the Silver or Gold rank are actually skilled enough to be on a team with Diamond or Master players, but get mistaken for smurfs because they haven’t finished climbing to their rightful rank. Some players (like me) play for years, but can’t climb out of their rank alone because factors other than the game itself cause difficulties - whether it be irl issues, inconsistent playing, or ending up on a team without synergy. Solo queue is very unfair to all six players almost half of the time.

The truth is the elo scale becomes a meaningless system when the playerbase becomes so drowned out by players who either don’t take their matches seriously, or actively disrupt them. It becomes easy to get trapped in what they like to call ‘elo hell’. This is to say that you shouldn’t be discouraged if it takes you a while to climb alone, because there are more things working against an average player than it seems - after all, you have to compete with millions of players of highly varying skill levels in the rank you might be in.

For some perspective, check this article out about the percentages of players in each rank.  It doesn’t validate what I said above, but it helps to see the numbers with that context in mind. Don’t give up or let your SR get you down!

On that note, experience doesn’t equal skill. As someone with 2000+ hours of experience, I often get bullied because I have a ‘plat border’ but I fluctuate in rank between silver and gold. If you have thousands of hours, you’ve probably heard something like ‘lol ur a gold/plat/diamond border, what r u doing in this rank, obviously u suck’. They’re implying that every single player with that much experience should be masters or GMs.... and that’s honestly comedic. Everyone learns and improves at different paces. Don’t let that eboy get you down because you haven’t reached your fullest potential - and even if your potential isn’t that high a rank, just consider how irrelevant that number or rank is because the bottom line is when you play solo, you’re playing with 5 unpredictable strangers, and you can’t always control the outcome of that.

Uhhhh -twirls hair- I think that’s all for now, but I hope that’s substantial and makes even one person reading it feel a little encouraged. 

Thanks for reading! (I have more guides btw, like outdated Zarya guides and stuff about mouse dpi)

[restlessfeathers]

Writer’s Block

Time for another episode of “I went to college for fiction writing so you don’t have to.” Today, we’re talking writer’s block and how I combat mine.

The reason why I get writer’s block is usually because there is something about what I have written up to this point that irks me. It irks me senselessly. It irks me in a way that I will not be able to realize until I reread it from top to bottom fifty times.

From these seemingly endless nights of futile revisions, I have been able to figure out a very, very easy way to fix this. I have got to turn the whole thing on its head and figure out what’s wrong. My brain knows how to make stories, and when it senses a plot hole, it tells me to stop writing and look for it. Instead of actively looking for it like it’s a physical hole, the way to find it is by retracing my own steps.

Here’s an example for you folks at home: Go through the whos, whats, wheres and whys. Who is here? “Well, I know that X is going to be here, and he’s helping out Y when Z rushes in to the room and...” Now, what are they doing here? “X and Y are reading the Blah because they’re on the hunt for the Bleh, an ancient artifact from Z’s homeland, but Z doesn’t want them to know because of...” Okay. Now, where is this taking place? “In the Blee-Bloop demention, because X can only exist within realms with the letter ‘e’ in its title. They showed up in Y’s lab so they...” 

So, at this point, there come the various whys you must ask. Start very simply. Why is X there? Why is Z there? Why is Y there? If you know all of that, then take it deeper. Does X need to be there? Why? Does Z need to be there? Why? Does Y need to be there? Why?

After this song and dance, you may think that this has been some long, fruitless effort in questioning your own sanity. Stay with me here, because this is when you can and will fix the problem.

Try, mentally, to take something in or out of the situation. Spin it around. You’re no longer in a situation where X needs to be in this scene. Take X out. Even if X is your main character, even if X is holding the key to everything, take X out. See what happens.

If that doesn’t work, then take out Z. Yes, even Z. That big important character of Z! What will X and Y say without Z there?

Then you may discover something is...off. Something here doesn’t sit right. You’re so close to figuring it out! What’s the actual problem, though?! Your brain is telling you it’s there, but there’s no way to know where it is! What part is it?! It’s maddening! It’s itching to get out, it’s...

Step back. Take a step back. Go to your first version of this WIP and take a look at the scene you failed to finish. Read it once more. Based on everything that you’ve just done, what is the issue?

I’m pretty sure you’ve either totally got it or you don’t. If not, keep flipping things. What would happen if X was in this scene with his mother, of all people? What would happen if Z was talking through this without being contrarian? What would happen if Y realized that Z was a part of that place where the Bleh came from?

It happens like this: your plot hole is not a “plot” hole. It’s a very, very minor inconsistency. If you power through that little irk you started with, it will come back to hit you like a ton of bricks that, oh yeah, Y and X wouldn’t be able to even read the Blah because neither of them speak the language it’s written in. They’d need someone to interpret that for them.

Oh crap. Maybe you’re too far in to change all of that. Maybe this really has just all been for naught. Maybe this means we’re back to 50 pages ago before we even picked up the Blah to find the Bleh. “These people would need an interpreter to even read the Blah, and they went on that whole big mission to find it! What do I do now?!”

Well. You have your solution right in front of you; it’s just that you need to change the story to fix it.

“But...my narrative!” you may say.

“But...m-my tension...!!” you may scream.

Yeah. I know. But there’s something very, very important about storytelling that I will pass on to literally everyone I ever meet so it makes their lives a million times easier when it comes to writing:

Your characters are leading you to where your story needs to go.

Are X and Y angry when they, too, realize they can't even read what’s in the Blah? Maybe character Z needs to face the fact they can’t hide their lineage and admits they can read the book. Maybe this will say something about character Z’s morals if they hide the fact they can’t read it.

In storytelling, your characters are a foil for what you can produce. Maybe this started out as a story about finding some prophesy or saving somebody or fixing what was broken. But now it’s a story about...this.

And yeah, that sucks. “My narrative! My tension! Ruined!”

Not ruined. Just changed. This is probably where it needed to go. Or, at least, according to what you yourself have written, this is absolutely where it needed to go. Without noticing it, you’ve just turned a story about finding a book and some character getting overly dramatic and antsy about their friends finding something out into finding a book and some character actually presenting their morals on the page with how they treat this problem of their friends not being able to read said book while they can.

Okay, enough with the bad examples! The point still stands. Your story leads you where it needs to go. If your characters led you on a mission, they did it for a reason. If the thing that irks you is something as simple as a mistranslation or a color, that’s an easy fix. You just change some words around.

But if the problem is deeper, if the thing that irks you is something you have to go back and rewrite the whole thing because of, then maybe that just means you’re too busy thinking of the bottom line and the conclusion to realize, hey, you need to live in the moment for a bit. The ending comes later. It may even come way later than you expected it to. Right now, the thing that you need to focus on isn’t fixing the problem. It’s finding out where the story you have now is meant to go.

This can be a big problem for fanfiction authors who “mess up” something very fundamental in the source material. This was my issue at one point. When I realized I missed something so big that it tore apart all of my plans, I was devastated. Now, how do you fix something as big as that?

Well, you could be writing an AU without realizing it. Just re-label it. That’s a quick fix. But let’s play this on an even harder level of difficulty. How do you still make it canonical?

“This was my big story! It was going to be great! But since this one thing doesn’t work, it’s ruined!”

It’s not ruined.

“But it’s totally ruined!”

It’s not ruined. Take a step back. What is it that you adored about that piece? Maybe it wasn’t the “story” at all. Maybe it was the character dynamic. Maybe it was the fact you’ve never seen these three characters in the same room before, and writing them, making them bounce off of each others’ attitudes is just sending you sky high. Maybe it’s bringing new life to an old setting by putting it in a different context while keeping it canon.

You can still recycle the content from scripts as flawed as this. Yes, key word is “recycle.” If it’s bad enough, you won’t be able to keep it. But please don’t throw that draft in the bin just yet! Please! Just wait!

“But it’s tooootally ruined!!!”

It’s not totally ruined! Stop saying that! You can and absolutely should reuse things from those drafts to create the story that you come up with from realizing this huge mistake. So what if it’s 200 pages long and it wouldn’t exist because you got the date wrong all the way back in chapter one? Is there any reason you shouldn’t keep it? You’ll probably be able to reuse that scene between your characters entering that one cool place in your next draft.

And trust me. There will always be a next draft. “The end is never the end is never the end is never the end,” and all that. Even if this draft was perfect and you released it and the reviews were great and everybody loved it and it was fantastic, there was going to be another draft afterwards anyways.

This is all coming from my own experiences and my own way of solving this problem. The reason I made this post, actually, was so when I do get writer’s block, I can come back and figure out how to fix it. 

Please don’t lament over lost drafts. We are all always learning, and everything you write, from the shortest of sentences to the longest of tangents is a means of trial and error. Some of it works. Most of it doesn’t. But you will get through it, and you will learn from the mistakes you’ve made. Just take a look at the cutting room floor. You may find your next big inspiration in those loose pages.

[youngboy-oldmind]

ALBUM REVIEW: Revival

“It’s true, I’m a Rubik’s. A beautiful mess/At times juvenile yes. I goof and I jest/A flawed human I guess”

Detroit legend and highest-selling rapper of the decade, Eminem, releases his eighth (ninth if you count Infinite) album Revival: a project that is over hated, yet plagued with cringey lyrics, inconsistency, and an excessive runtime (77 minutes), propelling his decline and mainstream hate that’s haunted him since the late 2000s.

Overall thoughts

I say this with pain because I genuinely think this project could’ve been comparable to Jay-Z’s 4:44. Both rappers have been successful since the 90s and they both know their best is behind them. However, Jay-Z hit the mark where Eminem vastly missed. BUT, this isn’t a review of 4:44. Unfortunately, this is a review of Eminem’s controversial 2017 project: Revival.

Revival misses the mark for several reasons. First, the songs he chose for pre-release singles turned off fans from the jump. He pre-released “Walk on Water”, which captured the interest of fans who appreciate Eminem’s calmer, more introspective side. However, his second single release “Untouchable” made me hesitant to expect this album to revive Eminem’s career. This song isn’t strong enough to headline the album. At best, it’s a little annoying. And at worse, its skippable in 60 seconds. Furthermore, it was a political song, so any listeners that disagreed with his message immediately disassociated from the project.

Second, his lyricism is weak throughout the album, downright offensive at some points. Not offensive like its edgy or has shock value. Offensive like I can’t believe he made me listen to such shtty similes and metaphors. Contenders for the worst lines include but are not limited to:

“Instinctive nature to bring the anguish to the English language/ With this ink you haters get rode on (wrote on), like a piece of paper”

“I’m looking at your tight rear like a sight seer/ Your booty is heavy duty, like diarrhea”

“I just bodied the beat, so that hole must’ve been dug/Cause it just died, like food coloring does”

Along with weak metaphors, he also uses his signature play-on-words style to create painstaking lines such as

“The plan’s to bring her to my house/You’re drinking Jack and Beam, I’m thinking soon this tramp’ll lean (trampoline) so we can bounce”

“From the first time I saw you, I actually/Said to myself, ‘I gotta meet her’ (meter) like a taxi”

“I ask does she want a computer lodged in her vagina/Said my dick is an apple, she said put it inside her (in cider)”

Some of the vocal performances were painful as well. On “Chloraseptic” and “Untouchable”, he straight up lets out ridiculous drawn out yells. I have difficulty accepting that the producer of those tracks and long-time friend of Eminem, Denaun, heard him make those noises and didn’t tell him on how bad it sounds.

Third, and most importantly, Eminem’s tone is extremely inconsistent throughout the project. I wouldn’t be as critical towards the goofy songs if Eminem set and maintained one tone. He began the album with “Walk on Water”, discussing the stress of constant scrutiny and how unrealistic expectations make him doomed to fall short. This is a great topic to talk about as someone who was 18 years into his fame. But then, he begins topic ping-pong for almost an hour, switching back and forth between maturity and childishness, (with some high spots that I’ll discuss later). You cannot complain that people stress you out with high expectations, and then make songs that’s just punchlines revolving around breasts, butts, and vulgar sex.

Logic has great examples of priming your expectations and tones. He makes it clear when a project is a concept piece, like Incredible True Story or Everybody, or when he’s just having fun, like Bobby Tarantino I & II. Because Eminem keeps switching between serious songs and dumb songs, it makes everything seem disingenuous. For example, on the song “Like Home”, he basically rips Donald Trump a new one, going so far as to compare him to Hitler. But on the song “Heat” he makes a joke that he agrees with Donald Trump that women’s privates are supposed to be grabbed, which is why “they call it a snatch”. You can’t criticize the president in one song and then agree with them in the next, even if you’re joking. You can have fun songs and serious songs, but they should keep the album’s tone consistent.

Okay, I’m done criticizing, cause there are some great things about this album. “Walk on Water” was a great intro to the album. “River” is great collab between Ed Sheeran and Eminem. While the content of “Remind Me” is unremarkable, Rick Rubin delivers on the beat, creating an entertaining chorus that samples Joan Jett and the Blackhearts’ “I Love Rock n Roll”. I will give credit to “Offended”, which is ambitious to say in the least. I skipped it on first listen but it actually grew on me. And of course, the final two tracks “Castle” and “Arose” are the album’s peak.

If Eminem would’ve shaved the track list to 9 songs instead of 19, weeding out the childish/forgettable songs and making it more tonally consistent, this album would be much better. My ideal Revival album would be:

1. Walk on Water

2. Believe

3. River

4. Like Home

5. Tragic Endings

6. Nowhere Fast

7. Offended

8. Castle

9. Arose

This would bring the runtime down to 40 minutes instead of 77 minutes. At 45 years old, 8 albums into his career and 18 years in the game, Eminem doesn’t have 77 minutes’ worth of material to talk about. And it shows.

I mentioned earlier that this project is over hated. Although there are things I strongly dislike about this project, it isn’t nearly as bad as media and music reviewers describe it. Two of his previous projects, Encore and Relapse, were much worse than Revival. I think it’s an exaggeration to call Revival the worst of his career, but it is definitely indication of a decline.

Album Breakdown

“Walk on Water” ignites the album with an emotional piano ballad, Beyonce’s beautiful vocals on the chorus, and Eminem’s surprisingly self-exposing verses. He talks about the pain of having a section of hip hop disregard him, while having another section constantly hold him to a standard he feels like he’ll never reach again. It’s more melodramatic than what I expect from an Eminem song, especially the dramatic pause at the beginning of the first verse where he dramatically asks “why.........?”. Seeing Eminem express vulnerability instead of constantly acting like a god gave me hope.

But then...I heard the last 5 seconds, and I knew I was in trouble.

“Cause I’m just a man/

But as long as I got a mic I’m godlike/

So me and you are not alike/

B***h, I wrote ‘Stan’”

This transitions into “Believe”, a track that carries on the topic from the previous song but establishes that he is not self-conscious and knows he’s superior in the rap game, asking the audience if THEY believe in him. It’s disappointing to see him abandon vulnerability so quickly. It took five minutes and four seconds for Eminem to backtrack and basically say “Nah, I can reach every height. You guys just need to believe in me”. Like he’s blaming critics and fans for his decline, not his skills or style. I did not care for this shift. And speaking of shifts, we hear Eminem’s first attempt at a trap beat, which sounds off with his rapping style. He’s constantly taking odd pauses to squeeze in rhyme schemes. Not the worst song, but already starting the contradictions to the initial tone of the album.

Eminem’s second attempt at a trap beat, “Chloraseptic”, was painful. I can’t sugar coat it. Half of the time I had no clue what he was saying, and the half that I could understand had no substance. He mocks Migos’ style, using adlibs, shouts, and voice bites that make him sound old and desperate to fit in modern trap music. Over his career, Eminem’s best tracks have either a rock sample or a piano melody. But this is clear evidence that very few Eminem tracks should be trap songs.

As I mentioned earlier, “Untouchable” was released early as a single. This song was painful because I knew what he was going for. So it sucks to be distracted by the subpar delivery. The rock guitars and harmonized vocals in the chorus hit my ears too hard, making me wince and decrease the volume at the chorus. Eminem’s verses have him shouting/teasing “white boy, white boy” “black boy, black boy” which is too immature for someone of his status and stature. And there’s a line in the first verse where he says “then we wonder why we see this side of youuuuuuuuuuuu”, drawing out the last word in this painful, awful voice that definitely should’ve been scrapped. In the second half of the song, the instrumental switches from a hard rock sample to a piano melody that illustrates a sense of anxiety. Also, in the last verse, he switches perspectives and talks as a black person under systematic oppression. While I appreciate the effort, it doesn’t really translate into anything emotionally because his solutions to these problems are shallow.

He talks about police brutality and systemic racial issues. The problem is it’s all surface level. Someone with his age and experience should be able to add more to the discussion. But he comes through with messages like “We need to hire black cops and stop putting cops in neighborhoods they are unfamiliar with. This country was built on slaves. It’s unfair Kaepernick got hate for kneeling during the national anthem. Racial profiling is the cause of violence”. These are things I was able to articulate as a middle schooler. But he delivers these thoughts like he’s speaking from the woke-est perspective the world’s ever seen. When in reality, there are tweets that hold more substance. And because of this, Eminem’s yelling doesn’t feel like anger. It just feels loud and misguided.

Fortunately, we then transition to one of the stronger songs on the album, “River”. He discusses a toxic relationship filled with cheating, lies, and an abortion. Eminem has always delivered good bad-relationship songs, so I’m not surprised another one is one of the best on the album. Ed Sheeran’s singing on the chorus is dope, especially at the end when the instruments drop at the end and Sheeran’s tender vocals cap off the track. Cannot complain; its easily the best track so far.

“Remind Me” is the first goofy track on the album. Eminem is taking a break from serious topics like meeting other’s expectations, success and failure, police brutality, and a devastating relationship, to talk about a girl with “implants so big” she could hang him up on her rack, with her “big ol’ tits”. This song is only tolerable because Rick Rubin’s sample was fun to hear. Otherwise, this song is unbearable.

“Like Home” is his next political song. He takes a patriotic stance while criticizing President Trump. And that’s about it. Pretty much a diss track where he spent 8 lines setting up a Hitler punchline and then calling Americans to unite against Trump. Alicia Keys sings the chorus but its nothing heart stopping. Definitely one of the more forgettable songs simply because it wasn’t painful to listen to.

The thing about bad songs or forgettable songs is that if you string too many together, they become more difficult to tolerate. So I’m coming off the heels of the annoying “Remind Me” and forgettable “Like Home”, when I get to “Bad Husband”. Here, he’s talking about how bad he was to Kim, his ex-wife. This song seems good on paper, but two things make it bad: X Ambassadors on the chorus and X Ambassadors on the chorus. X Ambassadors and Eminem do not fit well. Their loud style doesn’t fit the quiet, soft vocals that Eminem implements. It’s also hard to take Eminem’s apology seriously. On the chorus, X Ambassadors call him a 1) lord 2) good father 3) good dad 4) great father. No genuine apology contains repeated self-appraisal. Imagine if someone hits you with their car and says “Wow, I’m such a bad driver. I’m a great manager. Great parent to my kids. I donate to the local homeless shelter. And I baby sit for free. But I’m such a bad driver.” Is that really an apology?

And to that note, I’d take being hit by a car over hearing X Ambassadors on the chorus.

“Tragic Endings” picks up the album. Skylar Grey is amazing on the chorus. The entire song sounds like a sister of “Love the Way You Lie”. This talks about a toxic relationship with someone who doesn’t encourage him. I’m not surprised he once again hits a high point with a bad relationship song. Eminem’s verses are alright, and the instrumentation carries the same tragic-ness that surrounds the content of his verses. Skylar Grey and Eminem have collaborated on multiple songs over the years and they tend to compliment each other well.

Side note: There’s a curse in this album that’s wreaking havoc. After a certain number of bad songs, my appreciation for a song comes from the fact that it doesn’t make me want to take off my headphones. I’m approaching every song with “it can’t get worse than its already gotten”.

Then it got worse... “Framed”. With an instrumental possessing a western, cowboy-saloon vibe and a chorus that creates a “cowboy please shoot me in the head and end it all, this album is torture” vibe, “Framed” is a storytelling track where Eminem is framed for a murder. Apparently, some of his gruesome lyrics are so incriminating that he could be considered a suspect for a murder. Now, I love story telling tracks. One of my favorite records of all time is The Great Adventures of Slick Rick. But Eminem is too old and passed the point of his career where associating with assault, kidnapping, or murder is entertaining and/or interesting. It was shocking in 1999 when he talks about dumping his wife in a pier so he can be with his child without her interference. I would never condone that, but I was highly attentive. But 18 years later, saying you have Ivanka Trump in the back of your car is just creepy. Definitely the worst song on the album.

“Nowhere Fast” features Kehlani on the chorus and exciting violin strings that accompany Eminem’s commentary on the rap game. Kehlani is definitely talented, but I don’t think her style matches Eminem. Overall the song is middle of the road. Not horrible, not amazing.

Now that he’s dissed Trump, talked about a bad relationships, his “killer” lyrics, and the rap industry, it’s time to go back to a fun song and make more jokes about butt & boob implants. “Heat” is very similar to “Remind Me”. They both use a rock and roll sample and discuss the same shallow content. The sample isn’t as entertaining as “Remind Me”, so that makes it harder to tolerate the excessive double entendres and play on words just to illustrate offensive commentary on a woman. I try not to overuse quotes, but I had to save the worst line.

“Girl, you’re just gonna have to put them other chumps on the back burner/You got buns, I got Asperger’s (Ass burgers)”

I mentioned earlier that this next track “Offended” grew on me over time. The issue with tonally switching back and forth is it’s difficult to tell how seriously Eminem takes himself. How can I know Eminem is actually self-conscious about others’ expectations of him, when he immediately calls himself godlike and makes multiple songs about boob jobs? Here, Eminem makes it clear he is trolling and wants to offend and irritate a hater. Once I understood that, I was able to just enjoy it as a dumb track. The instrument is fun and bouncy, and the chorus is extremely childish, but purposely done so that it’s hard to criticize it seriously.

I can sum up the next two tracks, “Need Me” and “In Your Head” as forgettable. “Need Me” is another track about a toxic relationship ft. P!nk’s amazing vocals. Although the ratio of P!nk to Eminem on the song makes me think it should’ve been a P!nk song featuring Eminem. And on “In Your Head” Eminem simply describes his displeasure with past decisions, the most notable part of the song being The Cranberries sample on the chorus, which ended up being wasted on a take it or leave it track.

“Castle” comes outta left field as a MAJOR upgrade from the rest of the album. It almost feels like it belongs on a different album completely. The chorus is slow building with these subtle organ keys and a bassline where the instrumental doesn’t quite kick in but it hints at a explosion about to occur. Liz Rodrigues on the chorus helps Eminem deliver this song; a series of letters that Eminem writes to his daughter, apologizing for things in her life that are impacted by him and his decisions. They’re written in 1995, 1996, and 2007.

The first verse talks about his excitement about having a new baby daughter. The second verse talks about his failed album Infinite and how he’s not sure how he’s going to provide for them, but he’s stumbled onto an idea (The Slim Shady LP, which thrusted him into mainstream success). The third verse is in 2007, where he states his guilt for her life being thrusted in public light, his distaste for fame, his pills addiction. During that time, Eminem was suffering from drug addiction and nearly died from an overdose. The song ends with him taking pills and audibly collapsing onto the floor.

“Arose” picks up where “Castle” leaves off. Eminem talks over a piano ballad and an echo-ey drum that makes you feel like you’re in an empty dark room. Eminem is currently in the ER hooked up to life support machines, talking about the things he’ll miss if he dies in the hospital bed. Amongst other goodbyes, he tells his daughters to take care of each other and he’ll always be in their memory. Truly heart wrenching. But as he says goodbye to everybody, he suddenly fights to stay alive, his heart starts beating, and he recovers. As he recovers, he mentions rewinding the tape of time. Rewinding to before he made the mistake of overdosing.

Then, in an expert display of technical skill and creativity, the track rewinds to the instrumental for “Castle”, and Eminem delivers a final verse that has a much more “onward and forward”, positive outlook. It brings tears to my eyes every time I listen to it. He describes shredding the old letters and not letting the past hold him back. And that the first half of the song is what he would’ve wrote to his daughters if he had made it 2 hours later to the hospital, which is about how long the doctor said he would’ve lived if he hadn’t checked in. In this masterpiece of a closer, Eminem connects back to the concept of reviving. Without question, the best song on the album and the best outro of any Eminem album

Final Thoughts

The Intro “Walk on Water” and outros “Castle”/”Arose” feel like they belong on a completely separate album; they’re totally different from the tracks that encompassed the middle. So while those three are great, the album ultimately suffers from inconsistent themes and messages. If Eminem would’ve stuck with vulnerability and maturity, this album would’ve been great. Overall, the project isn’t horrible. But besides the few high points, I’m disappointed.

Top 3 Songs:

1) Arose

2) Castle

3) River

Overall Grade: C-

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

U R entitled to your own opinion. but still what could've been so messed up for you to hate it? I remember you fangirling about Anne back when only the Japanese version was released back in 2016.

Summary (and incomplete list) of my problems. 

Yeah as I played the Japanese ver the first time I was focusing on the positives.....after I finished I...it felt off......tbh it felt off while playing it but I didn’t notice/refused to listen to it cause I was waiting to see things unfold. And while I understood what was going on, there was some crucial information (at least crucial for me to process it correctly) I knew I was missing cause of the language barrier. 

After a 2nd time through I saw it..... I saw how all the antagonists were.....not well written besides Kamoshida and Sae (and even Sae could’ve used some tweaks to her motive, tho not as much tweaks as the rest of the game I think needs). I saw how there was a lot of similarities between P4....and not the good time......it felt pretty copy paste....and tbh if it was going to copy and paste one of the past game’s formula.....it should’ve been P3′s.....But hey...that would’ve mean that Atlus would’ve had to write more overarching arcs in P5 like they did with P3, and we can’t have that kind of effort...... The lack of overarching arcs really hurts Anne, Ryu, and Yusuke (who, even in my first playthrough, I felt he literally dropped off the face of the earth after I finished the dungeon, not his arc where we see Madarame’s confession, I literally forgot Yusuke was there right after I finished the dungeon with like a month to go before the confession). Haru and Goro get screwed in their own way. I felt like the game relied too much on Makoto and Futaba to do stuff (it felt like they were doing everything, barring the MC of course). It didn’t feel much like a Phantom Thief game (tho it takes a bunch of the story cliches without any of the fun). I never felt like I had freedom.....which is a problem when the game’s theme is freedom. Not with the MC’s dialogue, he has like one personality to choose from (which for the most part feels like it’s mostly “jerk, sassy-jerk, funny-jerk” like it’s worse than the PQ options). The endings suck in terms of freedom of choice, it’s like 5 steps backwards from P4 which is wrong since they should’ve at least taken a step forward from P4 considering P5 is next gen and P4 was made on a shoe-string budget. The dungeons...oh my gawd..... Give me P3/4′s any day. Yes I like the randomly generated one’s cause it gave me more choice than P5′s. P5′s were good the first time through, but they are such a slog after that. It’s not that P5′s are big, but it’s that they aren’t bigger! Give me an option on how I want to approach the treasure! Give me a short route, a fast route, an easy route, a hard route, a long route, a medium route, and make it so I can back track and go through all the routes if I want. Give me incentive to take the longer/harder route (better weapons, loot, items but of course it’s harder, higher risk means higher reward), give me the short/fast route so when I’m replaying for the 53rd time I can just skate through that without having to spend an hour going through a dungeon I’m destroying (it says something when the dungeon is so long that it’ll take someone an hour to run through the dungeon on NG+ on safety, while it takes maybe 10-30 min to speed through P3/4 on NG+ regardless of difficulty. Like...god....thinking about playing P5 NG+ on the hardest difficulty must take them like 2 hours a dungeon or more @.@). But yeah I never felt free in the game, the characters never felt free in the dungeon setting (AND THAT’S WHAT ATLUS WOULD SAY IN THEIR INTERVIEWS! The characters are suppose to feel more free in the Metaverse! WHY IS IT THEY DON’T FEEL LIKE THAT WHEN I PLAY?????)

Actually bouncing off that, I hate the characterization inconsistencies. Anne and Ryu get the worst of it, but this also applies to comments on Anne/Mako’s thief outfits too. I love Anne I do, but Atlus screw her and everyone over so bad. She’s suppose to speak out against sexualization but then gets sexualized in her own game. And not even in a “I’m being confident and am being sexy cause I want to” fanservice it’s always “someone is looking at me and I’m uncomfortable and don’t want to be looked at” fanservice...... And the former seems to be what they might’ve wanted to do, the artbook stating her short skirt as a reason.....but then the rest of the game is just her hating her outfit and it’s like “WHAT?!” And it doesn’t help the Devs were like “oh yeah we thought that’d be cute.” NO! NO IT’S NOT ATLUS! I’d give you a pass with her wearing it the first few times and then getting used to it and owning it (cause that’d be growth), but no.....not for 98% of the game......  And then Ryuji, he’s all “protect women’s honor” when it comes to Anne being creeped on by random guys, but as soon as he gets the chance to be a creep he takes it. And it really just messes with his values, or how we see his values in that regard....all cause Atlus wants a cheap laugh. Same goes for the MC, the whole reason he was in that mess was cause he was protecting a woman, and he also creeps on Anne a little (tho not as enthusiastically as Ryu, and you could actually be dating her by those times so you could say that Anne’s actually fine with him doing it). And then Makoto.....her’s is minor but it also deals with her outfit, tho iirc it’s only really during the Mementos convos (and Anne’s does too, but it also happens outside in that and her arc’s theme in dungeon one is also a big factor in why it’s bad), but it’s still there. Anne and Makoto’s views on their own outfits muddles how the game address why they are dressed that way. We get “it’s your will of rebellion” but we have a variety of reactions. Ryuji’s was what I expected everyone to be like aka “mine’s pretty cool, but your’s is strange” kinda thing....cause they seem like it’s tailored for them......And yeah you can say “oh the big bad had some influence in it” but.......that’s just.....weird and it really muddies something that could be easy to grasp.....I mean the outfits kinda do a good job at reflecting their Personas! And, at least with Hashino, everyone seems to like their Personas.....WHICH MAKES SENSE! SO WHY NOT MAKE THE COSTUMES MAKE SENSE EVEN THO THEY ARE ALIGNED TO MAKE SENSE AND lkfelnfsd;aknfal;f AHHHHHHHHHh!!!!

Sorry that’s all I can go into for now. You don’t have to agree with it of course but......it’s just......a lot of things....piled on......and....why....why is it like this..... @.@ ;w;

[how2to18]

IS THERE ANY TIME of life more racked by yearning and uncertainty than college? Not, at least, in R. O. Kwon’s The Incendiaries, a debut novel that cannily blurs the line between campus novel and cult lit. As Kwon depicts them, those aching years are a time for confronting the fuzziness of one’s beliefs, for wrestling with the problem of who we want to be.

Even those of us who matriculated with less drama than Kwon’s characters will likely find something familiar in their desire for self-coherence. Mine surged forth sophomore year, when a misguided professor invited me to a kind of undergrad conservative indoctrination seminar in Savannah, Georgia. At school in Chicago, I’d often felt adrift, just another lonely skeptic avoiding the riskiness of belief. Here, though, among true foils, I watched a new, confident version of myself come into view.

I scoffed at the tenets of limited government and made vaguely accurate Rousseau references. What I said was scattershot, but I felt like I had principles. And, I think, the same was true of my foes. In our mutual antagonism, we gave one another the feeling that we knew what we were talking about. Leveling identical charges of naïveté and muddled thought, we made ourselves make sense. There was nothing better than our own certainty.

Certainty’s pull is something Kwon’s novel illuminates well. Already the recipient of significant attention, The Incendiaries touches on a cluster of issues that seem ripped from the headlines. Religious extremism, race, college rape, casual misogyny, North Korea, and abortion are all here in just over 200 pages. The sheer density of hot-button concerns could easily feel sensational, but the text’s immediacy feels effortless and necessary.

Set at fictional Edwards College, an elite school on the banks of the Hudson (think Bard except it’s Princeton), The Incendiaries breaks with much college fiction to portray campus life as inseparable from the world outside the gates. Neither sanctuary nor club, the lush Edwards campus doesn’t let its students escape from anything. This is true, too, of Jejah, the Christian cult that claims one of the book’s protagonists. For Jejah’s devotees, faith in a deity is no more or less fraught than faith in others, or oneself.

Like many stories of faith lost and pursued, Kwon’s hinges on a crisis. In the novel’s opening pages, we learn that an Edwards student named Phoebe has done something strange and awful: “Buildings fell. People died.” In other words, we see from the start where things are headed. What remains to be discovered is why.

This is a question not just for us, but also for Kwon’s central narrator, Will, an ex-Evangelical Christian who saved souls before losing faith and fleeing to a new life at Edwards. At school, Will learns to pass for preppy, though not well enough to avoid being singled out by Phoebe as a fellow misfit. Phoebe, gifted with the ability to put others at ease, makes friends easily even as she privately flounders under a double burden of guilt and loss.

The only daughter of long-separated Korean immigrant parents, she mourns a mother she believes died thinking her a disappointment. Still reeling from her death, Phoebe courts self-annihilation during her first months at Edwards. Walking home from the hospital after a particularly bad night, she remembers her mother protecting child-Phoebe’s body with sunscreen and wide-brimmed hats: “Such pains she’d taken, for the little I’d since become.”

The pace in these early chapters is unhurried, the writing careful and evocative, as though the characters are attempting not so much to remember as to conjure their pasts. Doing so isn’t mere nostalgia — it’s an attempt to pinpoint the moments when things went wrong, when they saw only what they wanted to see. Recalling the heady early days of his relationship with Phoebe, Will seasons even his most exuberant memories with a note of caution: “If I could be anyone, I’d ask to be the Will rushing to see more, again, of Phoebe […] The suck and howl of a siren pierced the cold, and the fall wind smelled of reasons to live.”

As they reflect on their relationship in alternating flashbacks (Phoebe’s mysteriously nested inside Will’s), Will and Phoebe both admit to keeping secrets. They’re so good at being what they think other people want that they don’t know how to stop even when they want to. When Phoebe starts attending what seems to be a kind of Christian support group run by John Leal, a charismatic and mysterious man who claims to have survived imprisonment in a North Korean gulag, Will is baffled by her credulousness even as he’s certain he can unmask John as the same kind of self-aggrandizing faux-Jesus-warrior that he used to be. Will admits early on that he blames himself for having been unable to save Phoebe, but as we learn more about Phoebe we come to question how well he ever knew her.

But as Phoebe is to Will, so Will is to the reader. He’s charming but a little distant, slipping in and out of focus, his passionate self-reflection alternately earnest and performative. What we know of Phoebe is always mediated by Will, but it’s Will who remains the most inscrutable. At one point, during a summer internship in Beijing, Will spies a girl on the street buying a snack and, seeing something that intrigues him, trails her. Is his impulse curious? Protective? Predatory? We never know. The girl, sensing she’s being followed, flees in obvious and understandable terror. Instead of leaving her alone, Will becomes determined to explain that he doesn’t mean her harm, literally chasing her until she dives behind a door. Kwon ends the scene here, a move that, like so much in The Incendiaries, brilliantly turns an apparent moment of revealing self-reflection into another layer of uncertainty.

In such passages, The Incendiaries flips a convention of the religious conversion narrative on its head. Telling a story of faith gained or lost is traditionally a way of reconciling a riven life, of making consistent what defies consistency. In one of the most classic examples, John Henry Newman’s 1864 autobiography Apologia Pro Vita Sua (literally translated as “A Defense of His Life”), Newman describes his scandalous conversion from Anglicanism to Catholicism as a realization of his true self evoked by reading the Catholic proclivities of his childhood as omens. Only when he finally comes to the moment of conversion — the moment, in other words, that requires him to own what he was in order to ground his transformation into something else — does he flinch: “I feel overcome with the difficulty of satisfying myself in my account of it, and have recoiled from doing so […] For who can know himself, and the multitude of subtle influences which act upon him?”

Describing the actual threshold of conversion would require Newman to admit momentarily that he hasn’t always been who he is, and so instead he invokes the distortions of memory to render it unseeable. Doubt becomes a bandage, a way of obscuring and attempting to heal the most profound of inconsistencies so that the coherence of faith and life he desperately desires can be maintained.

The self-account that grapples with a painful revelation is key to conversion narratives like Newman’s. It’s essential, too, to the contemporary memoir genre that, even as it avoids pat conclusions, it often frames the storytelling act as therapeutic. For Kwon’s characters, though, divulging hurts doesn’t guarantee anything. Even the faults they admitted freely and soberly can be used against them. In The Incendiaries, telling one’s story to others never heals old wounds, it only rips them open.

This is true not only for Will and Phoebe, but also for the novel’s secondary characters. One of Phoebe’s tactics for fitting in is allowing others to unburden themselves to her. When she first meets Julian Noh, a campus bon vivant who becomes a friend, Phoebe deflects his questions about her by telling him that she wants to know all his secrets. Months later, trust gained, he finally lets his habitual playfulness drop and confesses that his traditional Korean parents have rejected him for being gay. The confession isn’t salutary, though. It’s a source of shame laughingly diminished as soon as it’s made. Likewise, when their mutual friend Liesl publicly accuses a popular student of rape, speaking out only brings more pain. John Leal, too, uses coerced confessions to exert control over his disciples, then makes these forced revelations a pretext for supposedly curative punishment. Self-doubt in the hands of others is a weapon.

Yet none of these characters stop wanting things to make sense or trying to align who they want to be with who they are. This desire is at the core of Phoebe’s pursuit of faith and her attachment to John. Trying to make Will understand, she speaks of a rift at the core of her identity: “People tell me I’m the whitest Asian girl they’ve met. I think they figure it’s a compliment. I’ve heard it as one. Will, I used to take pride in knowing so little about what I’m from. John Leal calls it a kind of self-hatred, and it is. He’s right. I don’t want to be this kind of person.”

We understand Phoebe’s yearning to reclaim this part of herself, to separate who she is from the perceptions and desires others have imposed on her. Will, inadvertently underlining the point, fixates on her wanting to go to Seoul with John even though she declined to accompany him to Beijing. We may know the terrible thing Phoebe will do in the name of her faith, but that doesn’t make her conversion’s motivations less poignant or, in their own way, logical. For Phoebe, faith means not having to cover up or hate what she sees as her sins and failures. As she tells Will, “To recall those I’ve hurt, to catalog the times I’ve failed, is also to learn how to forgive. Each loss includes its redress; each evil, its pardon.”

Phoebe’s God is an always-present interlocutor who, in knowing what she is and does, makes her cohere, hurts and all. This is part of what makes her conversion so frustrating to Will, who is always seeking and never finding the audience he craves. His own loss of faith arrives when he asks God for a sign and is met with silence. When he loses God, he loses certainty. When he loses Phoebe, he loses his ability to be a person she could love.

Thus, a novel about a former believer’s attempt to understand a former agnostic becomes a more familiar but no less powerful story of how we use others — God included — to make sense of ourselves. This may seem strange territory for a campus novel, but in another way it’s just right. For many of us, college is the first experience that offers the terrifying opportunity for self-reinvention. It’s a seminal crucible in which we see ourselves reflected in the gaze of people we envy or hate or want or even maybe love. It’s when we may first catch sight of, if only briefly, a version of ourselves we might be able to live with.

¤

Anna E. Clark is an assistant professor of 19th-century literature at Iona College in New Rochelle, New York.

The post Leaps of Doubt in R. O. Kwon’s “The Incendiaries” appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

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[hailthetechtk-blog]

Clinton calls for intel surge as predictive technology gathers steam -- and critics

As experts scramble to discover approaches to keep the following mass fear plot, another innovation could change those examinations: fast investigation gone for helping law implementation discover psychological oppressor plotters - and stop them before they assault.

It is the sort of digital asset that Hillary Clinton has seized on for her proposed "insight surge" to thrashing ISIS and other psychological oppressor dangers as they enlist followers and plan assaults utilizing on the web devices.

Meeting with national security specialists in September, Clinton said a territory of profound concentration was "what it would take to surge our insight, to help us distinguish and anticipate assaults before they happen."

In Tuesday's bad habit presidential verbal confrontation, Clinton's running mate, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, said the combine would work to strike "extraordinary associations with some of our digital and intel specialists in the private division so we can, reliable with established standards, accumulate more insight."

In any case, the dependence on innovation extends legitimate and moral worries that common freedoms gatherings and other normal partners of the Democratic Party have about law authorization's utilization of information and innovation, and its checking of online networking.

The Justice Department's declaration Wednesday of the capture of a National Security Agency temporary worker for professedly taking arranged insight just underscored the difficulties and sensitivities of boosting such reconnaissance.

The growing employments of innovation and new abilities specifically have raised alerts at the American Civil Liberties Union.

"There truly hasn't been a satisfactory talk of this or sufficient thankfulness in the more extensive open or consideration by administrators for the results on our political talk or our vote based system writ vast," said Hugh Handeyside, a staff lawyer for the ACLU's National Security Project.

He proceeded with, "It's recently starting to occur to on us that since this capacity exists, doesn't mean it ought to be utilized."

Prescient diagnostic device

The diagnostic device, called "chart innovation," isn't about sucking up more information; it's about having the capacity to all the more productively filter through it. Specialists say it can be utilized to spot indications of approaching digital assaults, for example, the burglary of Democratic National Committee messages or other hacking endeavors on voter enlistment frameworks in 20 states.

They keep up that chart innovation, at first discharged around seven years back, would work similarly well in chasing down psychological oppressor cells.

"We think in the following couple of years, tech will have the capacity to help in a considerably more noteworthy path" with national security work, said Mark Testoni, leader of SAP National Security Services.

"We've multiplied the aggregate of computerized data in the whole world in the last a few years," said Testoni, who included that when you apply fast examination like chart innovation to this mass of data, "It offers incredible guarantee."

"It's not quite recently the customary information," he clarified, alluding to online networking and information on people, however assets like "geospatial data, as well."

That incorporates mapping information and pictures gathered by satellites, automatons and air ship, and in addition GPS waypoints, registration data and other information fixing to particular areas.

"This is the colossal guarantee and expectation," Testoni said.

Clinton's call for more knowledge abilities - human and digital devices - to manage fear based oppression incorporates better collaboration between nearby, state and government organizations inside the US; more hearty insight sharing among US partners, especially in Europe; and enhanced knowledge assembling in the Middle East, including observation, surveillance and gathering data from both information and human sources.

Jim Lewis, chief of the Strategic Technologies Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that a digital surge could be vital as ISIS loses ground in Syria and tries "to slip more into the West."

"The way we used to secure ourselves may not work so well later on," Lewis said. "In a few territories will need to increment what we do, and huge information might be a piece of that."

The more up to date abilities of diagram innovation can be utilized to discover designs by taking a gander at how information is associated and the way of those associations.

For instance, a specialist could utilize a chart to discover everybody who went to secondary school with an individual or had a similar address. It's an extremely complex adaptation of the innovation that Facebook uses to send "companion" recommendations.

Those associations can be utilized to construct calculations that can spot inconsistencies or banner certain exercises in light of past examples. On the off chance that a bank has ever reached you in light of suspicious movement for you, you've encountered the energy of these calculations.

Specialists say that this asset could help recognize examples of action that gone before past fear assaults or digital hacks. By programming the product to scan information for those examples, agents can then look all the more carefully to see whether different hacks or plots are undoubtedly in progress.

"We're beginning to see solid adaption of the innovation" by national security offices, said Emil Eifrem, CEO of Neo Technology, the San Mateo, California, firm that designed the approach and instituted the expression "chart innovation."

Counteracting digital assaults

While Eifrem said that the innovation isn't yet being utilized as a part of "prescient routes" for national security, he said it could without much of a stretch help indicate up and coming digital interruptions of the kind seen on voter enlistment frameworks and the DNC.

Utilizing chart innovation, for example, you could distinguish the system of IP locations utilized as a part of assaults, the focal server the locations interface back to and the way these locations were utilized.

"What isn't being done yet," said Eifrem, "is that you install all that in the diagram database, so you can begin foreseeing it early," and say, "in light of system activity that we've seen some time recently, we speculate will see a rupture endeavor."

The innovation "deciphers indistinguishably, totally, into national security" for specialists searching for associations between fear based oppressors or different plotters, as indicated by Eifrem.

"The pressure is with common freedoms, however as far as proficiency, the more information you have, the better," he said.

The information gathering is now well in progress.

Security and insight organizations effectively gather a lot of information, regardless of the possibility that they may not yet be applying diagram innovation examination to it.

National security organizations have included "socmint" - or online networking knowledge - to the conventional methods for gathering insight: "humint," or human insight, the data gathered by individuals; and "sigint," or signs knowledge, data pulled from electronic flags, for example, radar or weapons and correspondences frameworks.

US security organizations are presently utilizing and putting resources into online networking checking apparatuses like SocioSpyder, Dataminr, Geofeedia and PATHAR that rub the web for data.

Common freedoms concerns

"The way the legislature is doing this adds up to reconnaissance," said Handeyside of the ACLU.

Neo Technology's product is now being utilized by US organizations. It's additionally been purchased by an outside likeness the US State Department that is attempting to union databases over its legislature to make a solitary perspective of its natives.

"There has a tendency to be a lot of confidence in the limit of innovation to uncover this and fundamentally anticipate the future," said the ACLU's Handeyside.

"In any case, we're getting into exceptionally perilous region in case we're looking at eating up increasingly data about what individuals are stating, who they're speaking with, and where they're imploring, and utilizing that as the crude intel for making these sorts of judgments," he said.

There are a few points of confinement on government organization's entrance to information, obviously. Past the freely accessible floods of data on destinations like Twitter and Facebook, law implementation offices like the FBI need to experience certain means to increase any sort of access to a speculate's private records.

They're initially required to send the speculate's email supplier a National Security Letter asking, for instance, for the presume's hunt history. In the event that that yields enough data to warrant facilitate examination, then they need to issue a court order to look all the more carefully.

RELATED: DOJ: Government contractual worker stole mystery insight

US insight offices work under various standards globally, with more stringent breaking points on its way to deal with US nationals instead of non-natives.

Clinton has said there's a need to handle the "prickly test" of exploring security concerns and common freedoms, especially encompassing encryption of versatile chooses and interchanges.

She has communicated an inclination for more focused on information accumulation over mass information gathering and backings the USA Freedom Act, the 2015 law that downsized mass accumulation of US natives' media communications information by US insight offices.

In the wake of 2013 revelations by the NSA contractual worker Edward Snowden of the degree of observation, officials thought making the new law would reestablish Americans' trust.

All things being equal, doubt about the degree of accumulation and the compass of knowledge organizations endures. What's more, regardless of the possibility that a potential Clinton organization succeeded in pushing ahead with such a "knowledge surge," the chart innovation is no panacea.

Lewis of CSIS said these new apparatuses "most likely could have anticipated the assaults in Europe" that were bigger, for example, the Paris assaults or the March assault in Belgium. He and other security specialists say that French insight offices were hampered in light of the fact that they haven't refreshed their abilities.

"The French didn't keep up, didn't put resources into information investigation," Lewis said. "In the event that you aren't taking a gander at the information, you wouldn't discover individuals."

Be that as it may, there are points of confinement, he said.

"How would I make a program that is great at anticipating will's identity a solitary wolf?" he inquired. "It's harder to foresee who will be a fear monger than it is

[theculturalevolution]

2016:  The Year in Review

by David

What a MISERABLE year!   What a God forsaken year, both politically and personally.   And 2017 doesn’t look any better, at least in terms of public life, and likely a lot worse.  I barely want to discuss it.  Why add my thoughts to the many words already expended on this public farce?  We’ve been in touch with some of life’s truisms:  that we don’t always get what we want no matter how much we want it, that the world is not fair or even reasonable, and that life ends.  But this year of public and private tragedy has been mitigated foremost by my family and friends, and, secondarily by the loving and healing world of pop culture.  It’s times like these when we need our cultural lives, and the implied communities those interests provide us.  

But this has also been the year when the time/space continuum imploded for me, pop culturally speaking.  I mean that my consumption of the stuff I write about became largely unmoored by any sense of temporality.  I watched and listened and read stuff with little sense of when it was produced.  One can, of course, do that now with streaming.  It is a funny way to consume pop culture given that the essence of pop culture is its nowness and its symbiotic relationship to the present.  I know, however, that given the collapse of time/space I (and, I assume, everyone) am in an eternal, solipsistic and existential now.  We all create our own pop universes and live in our own independent popular culture.  I know that because I still don’t believe that Donald Trump is President. That fact shocks me every morning when I read the news. We create our own communities virtual or actual, listen to our own facts and have difficulty comprehending a world unlike our own.   Where is that former standard arbiter of popular taste – the water cooler moment – when we work from home or drink bottled water at our own cubicles.  I was at a gathering recently, talking about TV and no one else knew the shows others were presenting as their own personal current faves.

D. Trump/A. Baboon

Anyway, sometimes life sucks, but much of the time it doesn’t. So in this new, strange, fragmented world I want to present what was culturally significant to me in 2016.  

D. Trump/A. Baldwin

Given the rent in the time-space continuum, the first item of business has got to be the movies I missed in 2015 but caught up with in 2016, and thought noteworthy. 

Sicario – beautifully directed, slick and tense, morally ambiguous, with some character and plot inconsistencies. 45 Years – the best of this lot, a luminous and quiet film about relationships.  Though notice went to Charlotte Ramplings’ vibrant performance, I was bowled over by Tom Courtney’s vulnerable and transparent acting.  A great film.  

45 Years

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl – better than you think.   Diary of a Teenage Girl – more disturbing than you think.   Brooklyn – subtle and sweet. I saw this in the same weekend as the Revenant and my head nearly exploded negotiating the extreme chick/dude movie dichotomy.   The Martian – Golden Globe for best comedy????  Huh?  It was, however, fun to watch. Straight Outta Compton – certainly not on the level of the best films, but enlightening and energetic. The Revanent – beautiful, long and gruesome.  What was the point, again?   Room – creates its own world like it’s supposed to.   Bridge of Spies – It’s not the time for my Spielberg discussion, but FINE, and I mean that as a compliment here.   Carol – so that’s what the 50s were about.

The most culturally significant addition to my social media arsenal:   Instagram (i.e. the only addition to my social media arsenal):  When I wrote poetry I would apprehend my world through snippets of language I gathered in my head.  Now I see the world through discrete visual stimuli, and I have a community to share them with.  A whole new reality, and another way that my caring daughter has shepherded me into this brave new world.    

Best Concert:  Ghost Light Radio Show at The Big Chill Cantina in Rehoboth. Sometimes the best band in the world is your neighbor’s cover band playing for a crowd at an open air beach bar on a beautiful summer night:   “Maggie May”, “Copperhead Road”, “Interstate Love Song”, “What I Like About You”, “Thinkin’ Out Loud” and tons more songs that sound great with beer.

GLRS

TV: Glittering Prizes – 70’s British series about friends from Cambridge University that I finally caught up with forty years later.  What an unusual, touching, intelligent pleasure.  

Veep – binged this one.  The joy of invective, hatred, self interest and wild profanity!  Politics as humiliation!  The delight of pure id!  Julia Louis-Dreyfus offers one of the all-time greatest female comedy performances, fearless in her full embrace of the characters’ substantial flaws. Unlikeableness reaches new levels. This series was absurdly hilarious and outlandish when Obama was President,  and now is devastating and nightmarish with Trump.  In a surreal moment I watched the final episode about transfer of power the night before the inauguration.  Arghhhhhhhhhh!

JL-D/Veep

Fargo – The first season explores the nature of evil in the world.  Stunning and dark.  

  Red Oaks – Endearing coming of age Amazon show set in the 80s in a New Jersey country club.  Top notch directors and two mensch actors in Richard Kind and Richard Mazur (in a bit role).  Like Philip Roth in setting and theme, if not in tone or quality.

  John Oliver and Bill Maher – how else to stay informed?

Modern Family - Still....

Blackish- preachy but wacky.

Movies: Moonlight – lovely, powerful and transfixing, the most worthwhile film of the year. Both this film and the other best film, Manchester by the Sea, are characterized by their examination of emotional constraint, and by their deep and specific sense of place: the ocean is key in each film.  

Moonlight

Manchester by the Sea – I just loved this sad, upliftingly depressing movie about how things happen that can never be made right.  Kenneth Lonergin has a distinct voice (see You Can Count on Me – another favorite of mine) Casey’s performance was specific and heartbreaking.  Extra points for Kyle Chandler and his FLN connection.  

Manchester by the Sea

Hell or High Water – excellent modern Western with traditional Western atmosphere of bleakness and destiny.  It portrays  a desolate, marginalized population who would rather support a bank robber than a bank, and sheds light on those who embrace Trump.  Jeff Bridges is, as always, fantastic. Arrival – abstract, metaphysical and poetic sci fi about language, communication and time.  A really unusual popular movie. Great Amy Adams. American Honey – teenage wasteland.  Is that Shia LaBoef acting like James Franco?  Captain Fantastic – intriguingly ambivalent.  Plaudits to Viggo Mortensen. A Bigger Splash – slick and sensual thriller where one character talks too much and one is silent.  Memorable Ralph Fiennes and Tilda Swinton.

                                                       *****

Hidden Figures – movie of the week template elevated by sterling execution and good intentions.  Usually good intentions are a negative for me, but this corny thing gets away with them.  Sully – Tom Hanks used to do swagger; now he excels in anxiety.

Love and Friendship – Jane Austen film without the usual stick up its ass.   La La Land – meta without irony.  I experienced this as a film about the issues in making a movie musical in 2016:  I thought it was quite cerebral.  I really did not get the heartwarming stuff.  And Ryan Gosling?  He was so cool and edgy in Half Nelson, an amazing performance.  When did he become so stiff?  Is it the cost of his working out?   Florence Foster Jenkins – better than you think Sing Street – charming and goofy.  Also better than you thought it would be,  especially for this afficianado of teen comedies and music.   Loving --  reserved and moving.  Another film that got away with good intentions. Fences – Great play, too stagey, too bloviating.  

Sasha Lane/American Honey

MUSIC Music from here, there and everywhere entered (and re-entered) my world this year.  

Josh Ritter – Sermon on the Rocks: When I heard these songs on WXPN this year, they just popped, especially “Birds of the Meadow” which always made me take note.  

“Sunshine Superman”:  The vastly underrated purveyor of the terminally hippy dippy, Donovan, wrote and sang this 60’s single of pure joy.  One of the things that makes Donovan so special is the inventive arrangements of his songs.  Just listen to the baseline.  And the same sunshine that “came softly through my window today” in this song was evident to Joni Mitchell who saw “the sun through yellow curtain lace” on her “Chelsea Morning,” and to the Vaselines “and the sun shines in the bedroom when you play” in “Son of a Gun,” two other songs of unadulterated hedonism.   Let’s also remember another single,  Donovan’s purest expression of hippy mindlessness and flower power, “Atlantis,” which always brings a smile I can’t wipe off my face no matter how hard I try. Performing “Atlantis” on TV in the 60s, midpoint through the song, Donovan whispered “Hail Atlantis” in his most wispy voice, and then stood up in his white Nehru gown, and started throwing blossoms. You gotta believe the 60s were sweet!  For Donovan’s tart musical antidote to this treacle, listen to the bad vibes made manifest in his “Season of the Witch.”  In fact, the entire Sunshine Superman album is well worth the listen.  If you like it, try Mellow Yellow next.  

Donovan

“Autumn Sweater”:  Yo La Tengo:  oh! Yo La Tengo! I’ve been loving their quiet covers album Stuff Like That There from 2015 all 2016, read a decent book about them, and been listening to their other albums, most notably I Hear Two Hearts Beating as One from whence comes “Autumn Sweater”:  Minimal sound, trance-like sensual beat, mysterious, obsessive lyrics, whispered vocal.  Over their long career, this band bit off a piece of Velvet Underground, added a dollop of 60s trash, and built the little band that could (how mixed is that metaphor?): has it been 30 years now of regularly released, lovely soft/ harsh excellent music?

Yo La Tengo

“Falling Rain”:  trance-like folk rock cover from Karl Blau that lasts 10 minutes but only seems like 6 minutes.  Loved it every time I heard it. 

  American Band by Drive-by Truckers –They play churning, passionate classic two (or three) guitar rock that splits the difference between those rivals Neil Young and Lynard Skynard, with sharper politics than either (but more limited melodic gifts.)  They’ve maintained consistently empathic songwriting for over 20 years and 11 studio albums, and, deeply affected by the current political turmoil going on in the USA, this piece may be their best yet.  From Treyvon Martin to Robin Williams.  Words of wisdom:  “Killing’s been the bullet’s business”; “You don’t see too many white kids lying bleeding in the street.”  

You Want it Darker -- Leonard Cohen: I don’t have to go through the list of those major music artists we’ve lost this year.  Though Bowie and Prince are undeniably giants, the two whose loss affected me most deeply are Merle Haggard and this man who left his profound, clear-eyed, stirring goodbye note.  It completed his extraordinary and singular life work, and listening to it is heartbreaking.  An earlier song by L. Cohen I’ve always loved is his epic about “Joan of Arc,” a stately waltz, making manifest his major theme: the confluence of sex, death and spirit.  This final album is its epitome. I treasure the three times I was able to see him perform.  

L.Cohen “You’ve Lost that Loving Feeling”:  This song, that never really left, re-entered my consciousness through a radio interview and a book passage this year.  I loved it when I first heard it: I remember responding to its deep, echoed sound of profound sadness in November of 1964.  I’ve been thinking about what 13-year-old me made of its message of romantic despair and loss.   I realized that this song did not chiefly resonate with feelings of sadness I already had; it instead taught me one way of how to be sad in love that I took with me and held deeply.  I learned how to be depressed in a bad relationship from this song.  Art doesn’t only resound with our prior feelings, it provides emotional education.  

“Cigarettes and Alcohol” – Oasis: tuff “Bang a Gong (Get it On)” remake.

Patti Smith sings “A Hard Rain is Gonna Fall” at Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize induction:  Dylan is great; since 1964 he’s been my hero; I adore him. One could make a case for Greatest Songwriter Ever!  He clearly extended the range of song to include literary influence -- Beat and Surrealist poetry chiefly -- like no one ever has done -- (I’ll have to check that statement out with my Classical Music friends.)  But I experience some melancholy at the choice because his victory denies the prize to my favorite contemporary writer, the richly deserving Philip Roth.  They are not going to award this to another American Jew for decades.  Patti’s genuine emotional presence and humility at the ceremony along with the songs current relevance add layers of complexity to this whole Nobel process. Incredible performance and incredible song. Hail, hail Bob, Patti and Philip!

  Books: Tess of the D’Urberville—a classic is a classic because it amazes.

Thomas Hardy

The Anatomy of a Song by Marc Myers -- Taken from his column for The Wall Street Journal, 45 songs from Lawdy Miss Clawdy to Losing My Religion are discussed through interviews with creators about how each song got to be.  Tidbits about songwriting inspiration are less interesting than the production details, but most of these allow you to hear the song in a new way, and to get some neat factoids.  I found it compulsively readable and it has stuck with me more than some of the other music books I read this year.  Fun! 

Taras Bulba – Gogol.  Yes, Taras Bulba.  Explains Putin (and Trump)

After Dark by Haruki Murakami -- elegant exploration of mediated reality.  Lovely in its unity of time. 

Last Night by James Salter -- Sharply written, stunning stories about adultery.

The Ghost Writer and Exit Ghost – Roth at his best.  Extraordinary complexity, passion and humor in two short page turners -- a book and its sequel -- separated by almost 30 years.   They book end Zuckerman’s story, and offer a prelude to Roth’s retirement. What tremendous place do these contemplative and impulsive men -- Nathan Zuckerman, Rabbit Angstrom (see John Updike) and Frank Bascomb (see Richard Ford) -- occupy in our time.

P. Roth