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dorizardthewizard · 1 year ago

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Galactik Football season 3 rewatch, eps 10 - 12

Episode 10:

So we open up with Yuki getting mad at Micro-Ice and thinking Zoleen is his girlfriend, and Mice is dumb enough to not reject that claim when she asks him directly if they're going out. He also barely acknowledges Yuki's birthday despite previously rehearsing this dramatic confession of love to her. Thran and Ahito are literally, and I mean literally the only Snow Kids that don't have any love drama going on (I know Mark's got something coming) and every single one has revolved around love triangles, whether misunderstood or not. I can't take this anymore, I'm at my limit.

Anyway, *hits play again*

Since when did this Cyclops dude have a wholeass funded show, when he wasn't even a proper journalist before?

WOOWAMBOO RETIREMENT RUMOUR?! SAY IT AIN'T SO!

Oh christ this is the start of the Sinedd parents arc isn't it. Holy shit they try to stuff so much into this season. But happy we finally got the backstory on Sinedd with him not being born on Akillian!

I can barely watch this segment holy shit it's just so awful (in universe, I mean, not the writing). Not just because I know they're con artists but it's so sudden, Hush Sharky making a whole spectacle of this on live TV in front of an audience and Sinedd had NO IDEA that he was going to meet his freaking PARENTS. WHO HE THOUGHT WERE DEAD ALL HIS LIFE. This emotional and insanely personal moment being used for entertainment fits with the corporate hellscape that the show takes place in, but what the hell. He has the full right to be pissed at Sharky.

Not the con artist parents running off immediately when the ground starts shaking 😭 Parents my ass

lol of course Micro-Ice has to fall in the cake. I think they use him for slapstick too much in this season

Tbf I quite like the villains in this season, it's an interesting dynamic with Lord Phoenix having his own motives but losing control of Vega

Sinedd's reunion with his parents is a pretty sweet moment if it weren't for the fact that IT'S A LIEEEE ToT.

Aarch yelling at Artegor about Adim... all this drama...

THE GIRLS ARE FIGHTIINNNNGGNGNGG and it's so silly

This is how I picture it

Is that the fucking Netherball music

The little TV spots with Yuki and Mei talking about each other before the match are cute! Makes the world feel more lived in and gives us some more interactions between the girls, even if not directly face to face here

I like Mei berating Sinedd for taunting Yuki when she's injured but... girl. He was always like this. You knew this. Why are you surprised?? They never actually showed him becoming a better person, just that he suddenly liked Mei and convinced her to join the Shadows. And Mei does not strike me as a poor judge of character so why would she date him....?

Wow Elektras not letting Mei through to help her friend? Why? They were literally celebrating her birthday together tf??

Poor Yuki, what a shitshow of a match for her although she did score a goal (I'm guessing the Breath is more powerful than the Elektra's flux since she's running in to attack). Loved her lil' chat with Mei though, I will say this season gave us more of the girls in the team being friends which I really do appreciate.

Here for the other Shadows players cooing and awing at Sinedd with his parents, I want to see more of what the team dynamic is like since they seemed to welcome him quickly back in season 1

Thran coming through with his tech knowledge!

Episode 11:

Does Bennett just carry a harmonica on him all the time haha

Harvey fought in the flux war?? ok cool lore I guess?????

Corso wondering whether to trust Sonny just because he didn't bring up Magnus straight away is a bit weird? I just feel that with all they've been through, it would take more for Corso to start questioning his faith in Sonny. This is also like, a 5 minute plot point that goes nowhere so why???

Tia talking with her parents about her concerns is an improvement from what their relationship used to be like in season 1, it's good to see!

Oh so Mei is a striker now. Is this implying that Mei's decision was influenced by her mother? Weren't we over that?? Still kind of sad to see her mum dismiss the SK and seem like she's still the same. Mei probably feels she'll never be good enough for her.

Not Sinedd complimenting D'jok just to be polite to Maya 😂 But what do you mean they haven't met yet? It's literally this season (I think?) that shows Sinedd was friends with D'jok when they were young kids! Maya hangs out with Mama Ice at the cafeteria as well, there's no way they've never interacted before!

Yeah Tia, it WAS stupid of you to be jealous of Lun-Zia. Weird though bc the show previously implied Lun-Zia liked Rocket but turns out she had a boyfriend all along?

Aarch: Artegor? Aarch: I'm sorry we started a bit earlier today, I forgot to mention it

Aarch you're such a petty bitch 😭

Oooo Micro-Ice is up for kick-off. Seeing them antagonistic towards each other is so sad :( Although season 1 Micro-Ice would have found a way to roast D'jok lol

I just realised team Paradisia and the Elektras probably have visors so they can have more diverse character designs in the 2D animation, while still copy-pasting models in the 3D scenes lol

Go Mark! Why did the goalkeeper run out from the goal I don't know anything about football

Nice to see Mark and Micro-Ice working together and having fun

D'jok's plan being to pass to Nikki-4 because the SK will think he's too selfish to let someone else score is so fucking funny

Oooo you don't get penalty shootouts that often in GF

I do love and miss sassy D'jok

Nikki-4: I guess you'll always be a Snow Kid at heart D'jok: At least I've got one

Bold claim with the way you've been acting, D'jok

Niki-4 threatening physical violence on D'jok lmaoo I guess she is a cyborg but it's weird D'jok actually held out until now with the way he's been acting towards the SK. Why does he suddenly now have a moral dilemma?

Episode 12:

Now to rant about the Ahito betrayal plot <3

Ok this how to beat Ahito thing is dumb from the get go. It's treated like some big secret and it would be a big betrayal to reveal it, but that's not how sports work. They could easily have figured out his weak points by just watching a load of videos of his saves, in fact they SHOULD have been doing this anyway – the best teams don't win just by playing their best, but by knowing their opponent's strengths and weaknesses and being able to exploit that! It's not dishonest it's just... how it works! Rocket was doing this back in season 1 when he was suggesting tactics!

So to treat it like a big betrayal to reveal something that's easily obtainable public knowledge is dumb. And also, they're treating this as if knowing a player's weakness is some magic key that means they can definitely beat him if they exploit it, which is... also not how sports work!! It's not like he'll definitely fail to save your shot if you hit in a certain way, and it's not like he can't adjust his play after you score a goal. It just.... it makes no sense!!

It was also kind of weird to hear D'jok talk about wanting to win honestly when he was fouling Warren last match and got scolded for disrespecting the game, they made it look like D'jok fully only cared about winning now, whatever the cost, but now suddenly he's having second thoughts and doesn't want to betray a team he's been shit-talking all this time?

I also don't like that what made him cave in the end was mind control, it takes away a lot of accountability. It also would have fit more for D'jok to continue doing anything it takes to win, so he can realise he's wrong later and that he's just been using that to run away from his feelings. As stupid as this “betrayal” is, it should have been his low point showing how far gone he is, his big mistake, that he can then work up from.

Rant over <3

Nork, commenting on a player's health problems is just rude

Of course Rocket starts feeling ill the second he has to go up

THRAN SCORES!!! Nice to see him do some shots

Goooo Lun-Zia! She's been a good addition

Last season I got sad that Micro-Ice was the first to flunk his shot, please don't let me down this time

YESSSSS

D'jok: Ahito always jumps in place, a little more to the side he's gonna leap to. He can't control it, it's stronger than he is!

And THAT's the way to beat him? Totally foolproof? Bruh. If all the SK knew this and it's sooooo easy to score against him once you figure it out, surely Aarch should have.... I don't know, helped him train so that he doesn't reveal which way he's jumping as easily?? THIS IS EASILY DISCOVERABLE INFORMATION GUYS THE POINT OF TRAINING IS TO IMPROVE ON YOUR WEAKNESSES

NOOOOO TIA OF ALL PEOPLE???!!! I HAD TO TRADE A MICRO-ICE GOAL WITH THIS? 😭😭😭 It happens though. Also weird she's the first to use her flux so far for this like, it's penalties. You don't have to conserve your energy, just use the goddamn Breath!

TT^TT Nooooo they look so devastated :( On the other hand, kind of crazy it took three seasons for them to actually lose an important match lol it's been win win win the whole time so far, so kind of refreshing.

I want to cheer on Mei for putting Sinedd in his place after shit-talking the Snow Kids but like, girl, HOW IS THIS SURPRISING?! HE'S BEEN LIKE THIS IN EVERY MATCH YOU'VE PLAYED AGAINST EACH OTHER, YOUR LAST INTERACTION BEFORE SEASON 3 WAS HIM PUSHING YOU TO THE GROUND AND THREATENING YOU!!!

She thought he only hated D'jok and now she's realising he's just nasty to everyone? Girl where were you when he was bullying Micro-Ice on your team lol. I mean she didn't care back then but she does now! Mei is not dumb, writers

That was a pretty good pick me up speech, Aarch

The animation makes this kind of funny out of context but, Artegor hesitantly reaching out to Aarch but then thinking better of it... aarrrrgh </3

Quick shoutout to the background designs in this show, they look really cool and I love how it's futuristic while still being colourful and bright. There's some beautiful art of the natural scenery too

What's up with reporters immediately wondering if a team is done for, or the coach might be resigning, after ONE loss? They're still GF champions, losing once doesn't mean it's all downhill from there

Adim standing up for her man <3

In this dub he calls her Mum-Ice lmao. So I guess it is just Mama-Ice? I do prefer the novelisation with her actual name, she's not mum to everyone, although I wouldn't mind having -Ice at the end of a name being some family tradition or cultural thing. Also love seeing her hanging out with Maya!

Poor Kernor just can't eat her ice cream in peace huh 😭

Aww Mama-Ice's speech is so sweet

Aarch needs a new start now more than ever? Why exactly?

Norata dancing in the back <3

Holy shit, Brim Simbra actually intervening?

Oooooo secret supplier guy was Harris all along, who would have guessed?

Huh looking at the ending screen of this youtube upload, I didn't know Robotboy was Gaumont animation too! Well probably Alphanim back then

#galactik football #dori watches galactik football #my posts

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damn360llp · 1 year ago

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astroismypassion · 5 years ago

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HOW MARS SIGNS HAVE CRUSHES/SHOW INTEREST/APPROACH SOMEONE 💘

Credit: Tumblr blog @astroismypassion

Finally! The long awaited post! ✨

💓ARIES MARS💓

Will play cat and mouse game. One day acting more invested in you and the next they completely cold. To see how much they actually mean to you. Might put you through trust tests too. They will say things just to get reaction out of you, even if they actually don’t agree with it. They are suprisingly “mental” in inicial interactions and not physical at all.

💖TAURUS MARS💖

They are a mix of Virgo, Scorpio and Libra Mars. Veryyy slow-moving. First, “the evaluating stage”. They will pay attention to your micro reactions while asking you deliberate questions to get a reaction out of you. They will search for your inconsistencies. Remeber they value stability and being consistent in relationships the most. And when they actually start catching feelings for you? They would like to be in your constant physical proximity. They will always find a reason to get closer to you. Like move a chair. If you are even closer or if there is a chance, they would actually lean towards you or whisper something into you ear. But it depends on the situation and context. If the attraction is already pretty high, they might linger on your touch when they hand you something.

💛GEMINI MARS💛

They look for signs of you paying attention to them. They will analyse if you are really listening to them. Might even bring up a topic from a previous conversation. Theh will be more nervous around. Or like they are suddenly being more timid or quiet. They will carefully listen to every word you say in a group conversation.

🦀CANCER MARS🦀

One of those placements, that might go for their already existing friends. Or someone they’ve known for some time and/or been friends with. They are the real Taurus Mars of the signs. They are much into what is already known to them. Because with that they are comfortable and secure. They are already almost at home with you. Might offer you little things or food. Or share it with you.

🦁LEO MARS🦁

They will be more on the straight-forward side. However, they will look for signs of interest from you first. They already know you are their specific person. So now they are just evaluating, analysing and searching for signs from you if this feeling could be mutual. They dislike potential rejection, because their pride would get hurt. They will get extra moody if someone else shows interest in you or approaches you. Because in their head, you are already “theirs”.

💛VIRGO MARS💛

Similar to Libra Mars, they first start in a polite manner. Always kind, respectful towards you. And then they want to suddenly be around you more. Not necessarly directly in your company, like Taurus Mars would be, but indirectly. In group setting, in circle of friends, mutual people you both know etc. They might not talk to you directly at all. With all others yes, but not to you. But they will be paying close attention to your mannerisms, look towards you to get your reaction about a shared joke. They will be paying attention to your reactions. The next stage is analysing and remembering your facial expressions, gestures, mannerisms. Your lips, your forehead vein, your earlobes, your Cupid’s bow over your top lip. Your upper lip being bigger than the lower. Then your habits. Do you style your hair differently every day? Do you chew gum? Why are you keep wearing that blue sweater, is it your favourite sweater?

💗LIBRA MARS💗

Those are sly people. Before not knowing you much, they will be politely smile, always say thank you and please to you, greet you warmly. They will be charming and you would feel this natural warmth in them. But when they are getting to know you, they pull back. They are now in the stage of “readjusting” to you. They are trying to figure out what makes you tick, differentiate between your fake laugh and genuine laugh, how you act to others in comparison to them etc. Now, they will pick their “personality” in according to your personality, that they estimated, would suit well to yours based on characteristics, habits and goals. When they start catching feelings, then “the doubting stage” occurs. They try to weigh in all the options, try to figure out if there is anyone better on the market out there for them, or if their best possible outcome is really settling with you. They act a bit more cold, reserved and non-chalant in this stage.

❤️SCORPIO MARS❤️

It’s all in the eyes and the gaze. They already must have quite magnetic, seductive, alluring eye contact. But it intensifies. Never openly, directly or even subtle flirt with them. This is a no no with them, especially when in a group setting or at a party. If they find you interesting, they CHOOSE you. They allow YOU to approach them. It’s all about trusting, comforting safety with these people.

🧡SAGITTARIUS MARS🧡

They are surprisingly quiet at first. You would not expect it, because of them being a Fire sign. First, “the getting to know you stage”. They are trying to get the bigger picture of who you are. So they might ask a lot for your thoughts. What are your thoughts on this? How do you feel about that? They are trying to gather as much information about you as possible from your answers. But how they start showing interest? By voicing their own interests, hobbies, opinions on things, views, perspectives on culture (music, films, travels, countries etc.)

💙CAPRICORN MARS💙

Actually quite similar to Scorpio, Virgo, Taurus and Libra Mars. A lot of analysing before even taking you into account. After that “growing colder towards you stage”. Then “the thinking stage”. Next, “I woke up one day and decided today is the day, I’m gonna tell my crush I like them stage”. And by tell, I don’t actually mean express their feelings verbally. They will show you through action.

💚AQUARIUS MARS💚

They will want to know what are your interests, hobbies first. What makes you tick. Which things you are into. Based on shared interests they will decide, if they want to develop a friendly bond with you. No matter if Aquarius is on their 5th, 7th or 8th house, they would actually prefer having irregular, from time to time hangouts with you. They most certainly will disappear for a while. BUT they would like to pick up things where they were with you, when they talk to you again or see you. They would like for things to remain the same. And if you can provide them with this type of support, they will start “considering” you. But they will always want to have a sense of their own personal freedom in at least one aspect of the relationship. They would like to have a long distance relationship more than a Sagittarius Mars would.

💜PISCES MARS💜

Might actually act more giving and selfless towards you, especially when you’re in need of something. The last cookie? You can take it. You need a pen, because you lost one? They would GIVE you stuff to show off their caring and giving nature to those in need. You’ll notice they will try to help you in many possible ways.

@astroismypassion

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pandoraimperatrix · 3 years ago

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caught between goodbye and I love you

DickKory | Pining | Eventual smut | Two shots | Post season 3 AU

Chapter 1: My heart is a sad affair

Nobody could say he didn't have been trying. Well, they could but it wouldn't be true.

Even though Bruce had made sure Dick knew how to attract the female attention, nobody told him what to do when it didn’t work as planned. Or how to stanch the wound.

Hell, Bruce made sure he could seduce anyone that could be seduced. "It is a very useful skill to have in your utility belt, Chum" he said then. But it didn't mean Dick didn’t pray for the sweet release of death back then when he was being forced to have seduction lessons under Alfred's or worse, Selina's tutelage.

He should have payed more attention to when they broke up, not that he’d have learnt something useful. They always got back together. He and Kory on other hand…

Well, been taught how to seduce someone for ulterior motives didn’t mean he knew what to do when his goal was not mission oriented. Usually in a mission, after the seduction part was over, even if he had to date the person for more than one night, he had a script and a clear goal. But what if there was no mission? What if he had hopes instead of goals? What to do without no script to follow? No set of rules to guide him?

And he was especially bad when he genuinely cared, never being able to judge if he was trying too hard or too little, usually finding himself overcome with anxiety which resulted into pushing the object of his affections away in the long run. That happened to Dawn, to Babs, hell, despite being a completely different kind of relationship it almost happened with Rachel and Gar too. Thank goodness his children were way more forgiving.

Since Dawn was gone for good and he and Babs had broke up again after deluding themselves for a whole five minutes that their childhood trauma bonded romance could have a last hurrah. He was back to reality. The depressing reality that he, to his absolute despair, cared for Kory, so much, too much, more than he had thought that he ever could for anyone.

Read on AO3

Despite all his overthinking tendencies, all his overplanning, all his precautions, he really didn’t see that coming. Of course, he was aware he was attracted to her from day one, it was nothing alarming back then, at least in the beginning. It hurt when she told him she needed to find out who she was before it got too serious, but he understood, and it was fine. They had time. And time they had, after their reunion, raising a household together, his physical attraction to her remained, and new set of feelings started breeding from their partnership. Something way more aggravating than the constant desire to fuck her brains off every time she entered the room, something deeper.

It took a while, because he was known for being stubborn as fuck, but he knew that a good detective can’t cherry pick evidences, and eventually, he admitted to himself that he wanted to be with her forever. Which not only was a scary thought by itself, considering how much time he spent running from everything serious and true, but it made his insides twist in fear.

Because nothing that good could last. When the love of you life quite literally fell from heaven, heaven can take her back whenever. And the thought of losing her at any moment pushed his anxieties to the roof. Her behaviour haven’t been exactly helping. Despite of not having anything substantial of proof, Dick could feel something was wrong with her, something that she wouldn't talk about no matter how many times he tried to approach her.

Maybe it was his fault, maybe he put himself in a position in which she felt responsible for his wellbeing but not trustworthy to be relied upon after the mess he had made with Slade and with Jason.

Besides, what claim did he have to demand any clarification from her? They weren't together.

But it still hurt. That feeling of uselessness, of having nothing to offer when she gave so much just being by his side.

They lived in the same house and were currently raising super powered teenagers together, everybody outside their tight circle assumed they were a couple, married even, hell, her sister thought they were together. And Kory hardly flinched when they dined out and the waiter called her “Mrs Grayson”, she joked about it, that also hurt, because it wasn’t true. Yes they used to have sex, and yes he was trying to make his grimaces of pain to look like smiles on regular basis to hide how much he wanted her, but they are not together.

But it wasn't by Dick's choice.

It was Kory's.

And the rejection hurt, especially when he didn’t expect it.

From all his many faults, Dick wasn't that kind of guy, it wasn’t as if he didn’t think that her rejection was impossible or insulting due to some high opinion of himself. But it just didn’t make sense. He wasn't deluding himself, although he sometimes had no choice but doubt, wanting to believe and respect her choice, but when it had such dissonance with her actions…

Because, as much as he sometimes wanted to take the easy way out that his internal self-hatred provided – that he was crazy, pathetic and there was no way in heaven or hell such woman would have feelings for him – Dick had also been trained in reading body language and micro expressions.

Everything about how Kory interacted with him felt like an invitation. Unless he had been suffering from a very serious case of psychosis (again), he couldn’t have been imagining the longing in her gaze. Sometimes, even when he thought she wasn’t in the room, he could feel her eyes in him. And it wasn’t just the hot looks he was used to get from people that only thought he was attractive – even though Kory would give him plenty of those too, his skin had been reaping the benefits of all his ice cold showers. But, sometimes, especially when he was giving attention to their children, or just doing something mundane like reading or meditating, he could feel her watching. A gentle smile on her face, eyes like pools of warmth and endearment. Nobody ever looked at him like that, with such unadulterated fondness.

Or the way she found excuses to touch him. He always loved the feeling of falling, doing unnecessary stunts so he could only feel that special kind of rush. With Kory around to catch him whenever he needed, he had been doing that even more often so he could feel her strong arms around him, and she never denied him.

When they fought enemies, or trained, she always found a way to make skin contact, throwing him at their mark to give him an extra boost, instead of shouting for him to clear away from danger, she’d physically pull him away in very unnecessary and unfortunately fast hugs.

She’d lean on his shoulder for no reason at all, even after her powers returned and she told everyone she was not feeling tired all the time anymore. In the mornings, while they washed the dishes together – since Gar banned them both from cooking – she’d bump him with her hip to make him move out of her way, and her hands always lingered when handing him an utensil.

Kory was always pressing away invisible wrinkles on his clothing, and picking things from his hair, so much he could hear muffled giggles from the children every time she did that.

And how could he have been imagining the way her face lit every time he entered the room, or when someone mentioned his name? He couldn't have made anything like that up. Didn't have the self-esteem necessary, or the self-hatred necessary to imagine such torture.

Dick did wonder, though, if living with a woman that looked like what poets sang about, that had the personality correspondent of the most golden of summer’s day, and flirted with him mercilessly, but yet dismissed every attempt he made to turn their relationship into something romantic was just karma. In the past, he had abused his own good looks and knowledge. Hearts had been broken because of his folly, and now the universe was punishing him or something.

Yeah, right, as if the universe cared that much.

But then, when his bitterness and confusion were not settled at all, and he was getting ready for another night of delicious horrible dreams about the woman that did not want him, something weird happened.

Kory Anders, knocking on his door, with a bottle of tequila, just a few days after he finally asked her out and she destroyed his heart and made a mess of his head by saying no. Not only no, she said she didn’t like him like that. That she loved him as a friend, and didn’t want to make things more complicated.

What a bunch of garbage.

For a fraction of second he wondered what she'd do if he closed the door on her face. But he'd never be able to do that, so, wordlessly, he gave away the space she needed to enter his room.

“Can I help you?” he said when she just stood there, looking everywhere but him, as if his room were a great novelty.

Kory bit her lip and he wanted to die. He didn’t want to believe she did those things out of malice, but sometimes one cannot help but being angry over such carelessness.

“Kory?” he asked in that bitchy impatient way of his.

“I lied,” she finally said in a puff of breath.

“What you mean?” His heart was racing, it couldn’t be. Was he asleep? Most of his dreams began with some sort of flashback of their first night. Terrible, terrible dreams that always ended too soon.

She looked away, searching for something, his heart shrank when swayed her body aside, thinking she was about to leave, but Kory placed the bottle and the cups on his dresser and turned back to him, the look she gave him making his throat feel raw. In two powerful strides she was all over him, firm elegant palms cradling his head as she tilted his face to the angle she wanted for their kiss. It was like if time went back.

He pulled her closer carefully, afraid she’d disappear in the smoke of his lust filled memory if he went too hard or too fast, but even when she remained solid, warm under his touch, her teeth pulling his bottom lip mercilessly, then spreading licks and soothing kisses, her perfume making him dizzy, he let her lead. It was easier, which considering his tendency for always taking the most tortuous path, added a layer of pleasure in a luxury hardly ever taken.

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Notes:

I started writing this before season 3, because I wanted to write a fic in which Dick was pining, and also I wanted it to be steamy and smutty. But since the smut part is taking forever to finish and the pining part became bigger than what I planned, you get a two shot.

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Preview:

“Please don’t this. I don’t want to pretend. I’m so tired of lying to you and I’ll have to pretend to the rest of my life. This might be the last night I will ever have to be myself, to be with you. I need this to be real.”

Kory took one of the hands off his hair, bending her arm backwards so she could rub him trough his trousers. Dick let out a moan and she used the opportunity to make a wet path of kisses across his cheekbones, until she reached his ear. She whispered something in her native language and licked his earlobe.

What else could he do? She wanted real. He’d give her real.

Dick pulled her up as his lips claimed hers again, her powerful legs crossed around his hips. He held her up like that for a while, just enjoying the feel of her body pressed flush against his. His hands giving her support by moulding her round butt with his palms.

Dick he walked backwards until his chins hit the bed and he fell sitting with Kory on his lap. She stopped her ministrations to pull her hair from her face and look down at him.

“Hey,” she said, her eyelashes were still wet, but her tears had stopped falling, she looked so… No wonder she belonged to the heavens, no being in the planet could be so perfect.

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incorrectzutaraquotes · 4 years ago

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let’s talk racial micro aggressions, because i’ve been seeing a lot of them being used online toward people speaking out about racism and even in fandoms unfortunately, so i think it’s time we have a talk. this is gonna be a semi long one, so buckle up.

just for reference, im asian american. because of that i’ve gone my entire life experiencing racism and discrimination simple because im not white. of course, i have definitely had it better than a lot of people, but that doesn’t take away from my experiences at all. i grew up hating the way i looked, trying to fix myself because i genuinely thought something was wrong with me. this led to years and years of insecurity and self hatred. something i had to go through alone, because my family was white and i was too afraid to tell them how i felt. i was afraid they wouldn’t understand. it’s still something i struggle with, though it’s gotten better.

growing up, as stated before, i was around white people. growing up in a very white town, i unfortunately wasn’t formally educated on racism or what micro aggressions were, i just knew that certain comments made me uneasy and uncomfortable, and hurt my feelings. it wasn’t until i was older, when i started using social media that i really came to understand what all of this was.

a lot of you who have white privilege are using it to uplift bipoc voices, and i think that’s great. however it’s also important to acknowledge that many people who are actively anti racist still have implicit biases, which can lead to microaggressions.

first of all, what are microaggressions? you may or may not be familiar with the term. if you’re not, that’s okay! you can use this post to educate yourself and make sure you don’t make these mistakes in the future. microaggressions are defined as brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioural, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative prejudicial slights and insults toward any group, particularly culturally marginalized groups.

basically, intentional or unintentional derogatory and prejudice behaviors directed towards marginalized groups.

these are very harmful to marginalized groups, mostly because they’re not as blatant as outright racism, misogyny, homophobia, etc. this makes it often hard to detect, and you may have found yourself using micro aggressions at some point in your life. that’s not important though, what’s important is that, if you have used them in the past, you understand what you said or did was wrong, and that you learn from it.

now, what are specific racial micro aggressions? i’ve compiled a list of them under the cut, and explained why these are insulting and harmful to poc.

“where are you really from” – this insinuates that we will always be seen as foreigners, and not citizens to our own country. it brings on a feeling of not being good enough and that we will not be accepted.

“not everything’s about race” – if you’re white stop telling bipoc how to feel about race. we are tired of it. please don’t speak over us when we are expressing our discomfort. if poc people are telling you something is racist, it’s racist. stop trying to argue with us, as you are not the ones being affected by it.

“your food is so weird” – it’s only weird to you because it hasn’t been westernized or americanized. insisting that foreign foods are weird or gross because you aren’t used to it, is hurtful. it’s insulting.

“all asians look the same” – by saying this, you’re taking away our individuality. asia is a huge continent, not all of us follow the same traditions and not all of us look the same. it’s not a funny joke, and it never has been.

“you’re pretty for a *insert any race here*” – this is just such a backhanded compliment. it implies that we are not typically or conventionally pretty. it has the same negative connotations as saying “you’re really good...for a girl”. that’s misogynistic for the same reasons saying this is racist.

“i don’t see color” – again, you’re basically erasing our individuality and culture and telling us we shouldn’t embrace it. many pocs even completely distance themselves from their cultures to seek white validation, which is in every sense of the word, upsetting. people want to fit in so bad that they’re willing to leave behind their entire culture. something that sucks about being adopted at such a young age from a white family, is that i have never had a connection with my culture. i know nothing about it, and that hurts. i rationalized in my head that the reason i didn’t learn about it sooner was because i was happy, but that was a lie i told myself for years. the sad thing is, is that because i wasn’t connected to my culture at all, i fit in better and had an easier time making friends then other pocs in my school.

assuming all asian people are smart or good at math – stop. it’s not funny. never has been. the stereotype that all asians are smart is not a compliment, and puts a lot of pressure on us as individuals. it objectifies us, assuming we are more like machines and not actual people. long story short, it’s dehumanizing.

“im not/cant be racist i have black friends” – contrary to popular belief, yes you can be. you can still have a racial bias while being friends with bipoc people. being associated with poc people doesn’t suddenly mean you’re not racist. you may even make racist jokes and think it’s okay because they don’t tell you to stop. just because they are seemingly unbothered does not mean it’s not still racist. a lot of times we are uncomfortable in situations like that, but are too afraid to speak up in fear of our feelings being invalidated or being told to lighten up because it’s just a joke. saying we’re too sensitive when it comes to making mockeries of our races and cultures, is also a micro aggression.

saying “you people�� or “y’all” when talking, usually negatively, about a person of a specific race – you’re generalizing an entire group because of one bad experience which is just contributing to the stereotypes and racism we face daily. one or a few bad interactions with a person of a different race does not speak for an entire population.

clutching your bag tight when a poc person, usually black or latinx, stands next to you or following them in the store – the way i still have to explain this one in 2020. they are not criminals, but by doing this, you’re contributing to the stereotype that they are all criminals and thugs, which simply isn’t true. this stereotype is very damaging and harmful, as it also contributes to the systematic oppression of those people.

assuming someone only got a certain job or position because they’re bipoc – this insinuates that we did not work hard to get where we are, and that we did not deserve what we got. we simply got it because we aren’t white. affirmative action comes up a lot in this conversation. all affirmative action does is help decide between equally qualified people by favoring the ones who suffer from discrimination in society, but it does not reserve spots for them.

assuming someone knows how to speak mandarin because they’re asian – asia is a large continent with A LOT of languages and cultures. not everyone is chinese. not everyone speaks the same language. it’s insulting and adds to the already hurtful stereotype that all asians look the same.

“you speak english really well” or “how did you learn to speak english so well” – it’s called practicing because people have been making fun of those with accents for years, simply because they are not used to it. being surprised when a poc speaks english well implies that you may think because they’re not white, they are less educated. we’ve simply assimilated because our cultures are constantly rejected and mocked by white people and even other pocs. this also contributes to the notion that westerners are more “civilized” or that they are better, because they(generally speaking this obviously doesn’t apply to everyone)make no effort to learn our cultures, but we have to learn theirs in order to be seen as “acceptable”.

“but *insert race* are racist too” or pointing out immoral things other countries do when people of that race speak up about racism - you’re redirecting the conversation to avoid responsibility. you don’t actually care about those issues, you just want to invalidate our struggles by pointing out that a place many of us have not been to in a long time, or ever, is very flawed. we have no say in what that government chooses to do. not all places are a democracy, and many democracies around the world are flawed.

something important to remember is that anyone can be guilty of implicit bias and micro aggressions. this is not selective to one race.

if you have anymore of these, please feel free to add on. also, if you’re a poc and something i wrote made you uncomfortable, please tell me. i want to make sure im being truthful with what i said. i did do research for some of these, and some were based on personal experiences, but if you want to add to something or you want me to change or delete something do not hesitate to call me out.

unfortunately they and other racial stereotypes are very prevalent in american media, which has normalized it in our society. this post is solely meant to educate if you weren’t previously aware of the dangers micro aggressions have on minorities. i started the list because i was tired of seeing so much normalized racism online, but i hope you learned something useful with this. if you stuck around this long, thank you for listening. i appreciate it a lot.

as for my zutara fans, i apologize for making so many rant posts rather than posting incorrect quotes. i just feel like im able to reach a larger audience with the platform i have on this account than any other one.

anyway, that’s all. thank you again for listening :)

#this is not to take away from blm #i understand that i talked a lot of asian experiences #but that’s just because i am asian #and ive personally gone through them #i’ll link some carrds to blm resources and other world issues tomorrow #it’s 4am now but yeah #please remember that your fight for equality cannot be selective #it’s important that we all understand our differences #and the different struggles we face #but it’s also important that we support each other right now #micro aggression #racism #racial bias #racism in america #black lives matter #fuck the system #its broken #and we need to fix that

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starcolle-archive · 3 years ago

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I'm not a fan of losing posts before I can make them, but here's my second attempt at this: I'm well past the phase in life where I hate myself after I de-dissociate; yeah, it sucks that my life as a whole is an ebb & flow of "true consciousness" and fractured cognition, but just like all facets of my life, I try my best to ride with the tide till I'm capable of standing on solid ground for good. Utilizing every opportunity I can while my head surfaces for air is something I'd like to believe I've gotten fairly good at over time. One thing that's been interesting though, is the return of a distinct internal voice(s); something I smothered far too long ago. I talked with my therapist recently about how I have reasonably-healthy expectations (albeit maybe lower than they should be), however my hopes/aspirations hover around the same as said expectations, rendering them all but nonexistent in the grand scheme of things. In all fairness, it's pretty hard to have aspirations if you're incapable of talking yourself through them all. So whereas it comes and goes, I'm looking forward to conversing with my inner voice for a change as I work towards contemplating & implementing my plans for life. The thing that throws me for a loop though, is that the times where I can hear it clearest ...it's Her voice. Or rather, to quote a certain writing, "I hear your voice (but it’s my voice, but it’s your words?) inside my head"; and at this point in life, I've learned to not try to overwhelm myself in questioning why that it is, and rather, just accept it as it is & Keep Moving Forward. It's nice to have "someone" cheering me on "from the inside" for a change; although I wouldn't mind it more frequently/louder it's just a nice change of pace from my past partitions. What else is there to talk about? Hmmm, well, so I got a pair of Loop Earplugs recently, and they've been a nice/interesting change of pace. I've actually talked a decent bit about them with my coworkers, and even a customer too; it was the first day I tried wearing them at work, and they asked me specifically "How're you liking your Loops?" (They're thinking of getting their own.) We talked about them a little bit, although they said they'd have to come back again to see how I felt about them after wearing them a while lol; they also mini-info-dumped about their Doc Martin's & we chatted a little about coffee, which was nice. I'm hoping that this might be a regular that becomes a friend; just like I'm still hoping to become friends with a couple of my coworkers outside of work. I'm just worried about my Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria overwhelming me... I know it's silly, but it's been heavily triggered over the past couple years; ever since about mid 2019, it's been like the dial was cranked up to 11. Anyways, an old friend/coworker messaged me recently asking for advice on some autism/ADHD/neuro-divergent questions she had in relation to her young child. It feels nice being able to help others. (I miss this friend, and I really wish I could/could've taken up her offer to visit/stay with her now that she lives in Hawaii ...who knows, maybe in a few years or so I'll be able to finally take her up on her offer; it'd be nice to be able to take someone with me though ...the kiddo will be able to meet their Auntcle Ry'n lol ...here's hoping I don't have to get groped by TSA 🙃) I know I've lost my ability to communicate reliably, but this is the kinda social/online interactions I love having with others. Maybe that's why every so often it's Her voice; the first person in a long time (and what feels like at times was the first ever) to really want to understand me simply for the sake of understanding me & pushing me to be my best. (I do count Krys to a degree, but it was different with Oli.) Through all the hell we might've given each other (I'm talking about my behavior towards Her), I feel like we were the first person to ever truly want to understand the other; maybe that's one of the (numerous) reasons why a decent sized part of me still (will always) wants to

understand Her. Anyways, shifting gears physically & metaphorically, I've recognized recently that my vagal nerves have been stressed/pinched, specifically the left side of my body, and that's caused a bit of exhaustion; case in point: I realized my head was tilted improperly backwards, causing my vision to be askewed & my eyes to stare off in random directions at times. Ideally the realization has allowed me to realign myself. In a way, I'm re-teaching myself my fine motor skills ...update: it's a wild ride "correcting" my vision just by literally having my head on straight. My sight is less blurry, my double vision has drastically diminished, and my lazy eye(s) are slowly drifting into their lanes & eye-deally staying there; and as a bonus: my sinus is clearing up more regularly. I'm hoping that when I get back to working out regularly, my body will "snap" back into a more thorough alignment; I'm actually working on a more structured schedule for myself (and chelli as well; both individually & our overlaps), and maybe it might come across as "micro-managing" myself, but it's currently what I need, and so I'm giving it a try (something I don't think I ever really mention is that over the past 3ish years I've on & off been trying different ways to plan/schedule my days/weeks/months; there have been some great ideas that I want to re-implement once I get the ball rollin.) So yeah, wish me luck, cause I've long missed my "trademark" diligence and perpetual refinement of self; and I think I might just be on the cusp of my greatest & finest version yet!

#keep moving forward #It gets better #Take a deep breath Ry'n #personal #I still hate this blinding whiteness #I know I shouldn't but that's just how it is #I'll get through this all #But it feels so impossible at times #...I'm just glad I didn't ''give up'' back when I really wanted to over the past few years

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nezumiismissing · 5 years ago

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Overcoming Similarities and Fear of the Self: A Lesson in Socialization

Ok so I'd like to start out by saying that this isn't going to be nearly as pretentious and academic as the title makes it sound, but I couldn't let go of how good it sounded (and since it’s me it’s at least a little pretentious and academic), so here we are. But anyways, onto the topic at hand.

Like most stories, No.6 focuses immensely on fundamental differences between people and places, and how those differences lead to conflict that either brings those groups together or destroys one or both of them. On a large scale, No.6 tells the story of the conflict between the West Block and lower classes of citizens, and the institution of No.6 itself as created by the city's elites. On a small scale, we see this larger issue of sociopolitical conflict reflected in Nezumi and Shion and their relationship as it develops throughout the story. This individual conflict is mostly philosophical, with each character having their own experiences with No.6 and therefore differing opinions as to what, if anything, needs to be done about it. However, these differences in experiences, and how Nezumi and Shion were taught to view the world, function not only as a reflection of larger scale issues, but also reveal how they form their opinions about both the world, and especially in Nezumi's case, each other.

Right from the beginning of the story, we are shown, and expected to accept, that Nezumi and Shion are fundamentally different, that their experiences are so drastically different from each other that outside of a certain level of compromise, they will never philosophically align with one another. But I think there’s more to it than that. Because even though this difference is what drives the entirety of the plot forward, acting as a micro level version of the wider sociopolitical conflict, one of the overarching themes of the story, that humans are fundamentally the same, or at least equal, no matter their experiences and beliefs, directly contradicts what is otherwise a story of dichotomies, creating not a grey area open to interpretation, but a single truth that must be accepted in order to accept the events of the story.

And here is where we get to the part where I ramble on about the complexity of Nezumi’s character and how it informs not only his actions, but his emotions as well. Specifically, Nezumi’s “fear” of Shion that develops throughout the story on the surface appears to be based on the fact that not only have they had vastly different experiences, and therefore view No.6 and its issues significantly differently, but also that because of these differences Nezumi is, for the first time, recognizing that there are things about the world and other people that he does not fully understand. By defying Nezumi’s expectations of what a citizen of No.6 should be like, and demonstrating his individuality and ability to defend himself, Shion proves that people are more complex than they often first appear, have motives outside of basic survival or corruption, and can behave in ways that to an outsider seem completely irrational. Looking at it this way, Nezumi’s discomfort with and eventual fear of Shion make perfect sense, as he appears to Nezumi to be someone who is now completely unknowable and irrational. However, Shion’s insistence on that theme, that humans are fundamentally the same, highlights a completely different idea: Nezumi is not afraid of Shion only because of their differences, or because he is an unknown entity, but also because through his interactions with Shion, Nezumi is forced to face the fact that perhaps they are actually quite similar, and that the one who was unknown all along was himself.

Throughout the story, we get very few, if any, chances to see Nezumi do any kind of self reflection. He has already figured himself out, he knows how the world works and what kind of people inhabit it, and no matter what may happen, he is able to approach it calmly and make completely rational choices. Except when it comes to Shion. From the beginning, Shion is so drastically different from what Nezumi is used to that there is no rational approach to take other than to simply observe him and try to decipher what he may be thinking at any given moment. Unfortunately for Nezumi, this is a task that remains impossible for him until he recognizes that there is a crucial part of his understanding of the world that he is missing, and why it is that he does not have it. This lack of understanding ties into many of Nezumi’s actions that to Shion, and us as the audience, appear irrational, specifically relating to why he leaves at the end of the story, as well as why he spends the majority of the story constantly contradicting himself and acting in ways that go directly against what he preaches earlier on to Shion.

This is especially apparent as we approach the end of the end of the story, when Nezumi’s focus on Shion shifts away from teaching him to survive, and instead towards preventing him from becoming too much like Nezumi. Part of this is of course, as the story points out, because to a certain extent Nezumi still sees Shion as an outsider, one who should not be enacting violence and should instead be protected. This is obviously uh, not a good and healthy way to think about another person that is supposed to be equal to you, but I think it also speaks to how Nezumi has grown through the process of self-reflection, even though this process remains unfinished even after the events in Beyond. Because I don’t think that Nezumi’s insistence on keeping Shion the same as he’s always been (which obviously also shows a lack of understanding of Shion as a person, and just people in general) is just about his desire to protect him, but rather a fear that if Shion becomes too much like him, then Nezumi’s actions and beliefs will have become externalized and projected in a way that forces him to face himself and all that he has done in his life. By this point in the story Nezumi has realized that some part of who Shion is as a person is also a part of himself, and Shion’s actions have shown that the reverse may also be true. Thus the possibility that further similarities will arise becomes likely, and out of fear that he does not actually fully understand himself, as well as an inability to self-reflect in a constructive way, this fear is taken out on Shion in the form of attempting to prevent him from changing in any way, in the hope that it will prevent the revealing of any more similarities, and therefore the further deconstruction of Nezumi’s sense of self. In other words, Nezumi’s desire to see Shion not change in the Correctional Facility is less an attempt to protect Shion from “reality” (which yes he does also want to do), and more a coping mechanism for Nezumi as he struggles with his own identity.

Now this is not to say that Nezumi and Shion are exactly the same, or that they should be interpreted as such, or that they will ever become exactly alike. Rather, it is more about the idea that all humans (with some exceptions of course) have the same or similar capacity for certain emotions/understandings of the world, and that what differentiates us from each other is not some innate difference that can never be overcome, but instead a result of socialization that, while not entirely able to be reversed, can be in many cases overwritten and changed through a continued process. In this specific case, for example, we see that Nezumi and Shion are both capable of strong feelings of empathy for other people. However, whereas Shion is entirely comfortable with processing this emotion, because of the way he was socialized (raised) by both the old woman and Rou, as well as a result of severe trauma, Nezumi has no real foundation for understanding human empathy, and so when he does experience it, his immediate reaction is to reject and rationalize it rather than attempt to process it, which would result in him having to fundamentally change his world views. Nezumi’s socialization also forms his conceptualization of the unknown as something to be feared, as the environments he was raised in required things that were unknown (such as No.6) to be seen as a threat rather than an opportunity to learn and develop. Thus the appearance of Shion, as well as his “strange” behavior brought over from No.6, serves as both a deep fascination for Nezumi as something that questions his construction of “humanity”, as well as something to be feared due to its existence outside of this construction.

Just to tie it all together, this is a huge part of why Nezumi ultimately has to leave at the end of the story. Just like every other person who has written about the ending has stated, Nezumi needs time to reflect and heal from his trauma, and that is something that is fundamentally impossible for him to do in the presence of either Shion or the remnants of No.6. After spending the majority of his life crushed under the weight of (and then forced to question) something that is both unknown and the source of his suffering, what he needs is the comfort of an unknown that fundamentally still fits into his preexisting world views while still leaving room for exploration that is free from the influence of others. Most of his life has been spent under the strict influence of those who raised him, who taught him that the world is ultimately a place of suffering, violence, and tragedy, that his trauma was justified, but normal, and nothing would ever fundamentally change about that world. The short period he did spend alone was time when he was too young to really be able to question that idea, and it instead became cemented in his mind as the “reality” he presents to Shion. Shion, on the other hand, so significantly disrupts this pattern that Nezumi is unable to rationally respond, and instead of taking the new information into account, resists it in self defense, not wanting to recognize that what he thought was reality only really existed in his mind. He needs an in-between place, a place where he can be alone with his thoughts and reflect on his life without the interference of people who he feels strongly connected to, who might influence his processing. He needs a place where he can not only recover from his trauma, but also the fear his socialization has resulted in that ultimately ended up only being the fear of his own humanity.

#no.6 #no. 6 #no.6 meta #this ended up being a bit shorter than I wanted #but it's still 1800 words so...#for being out of my comfort zone it turned out ok #nezumi just has a lot of interesting layers going on #and i want him to be able to figure himself out eventually

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dajokahhh · 4 years ago

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Alright, time for some pretentious sociological-esque rambling. This is gonna be long as hell (its 1822 words to be specific) and I don’t begrudge anyone for not having the patience to read my over-thought perspectives on a murder clown. CWs for: child abuse,

I think a lot of things have to go wrong in someone’s life for them to decide to become a clown themed supervillain. A lot of people in Gotham have issues but they don’t become the Joker. I think that as a writer it’s an interesting topic to explore, and this is especially true for roleplaying where a character might be in different scenarios or universes. This isn’t some peer reviewed or researched essay, it’s more my own personal beliefs and perspectives as they affect my writing. I think villains, generally, reflect societal understandings or fears about the world around us. This is obviously going to mean villains shift a lot over time and the perspective of the writer. In my case, I’m a queer, fat, mentally ill (cluster B personality disorder specifically) woman-thing who holds some pretty socialist ideas and political perspectives. My educational background is in history and legal studies. This definitely impacts how I write this character, how I see crime and violence, and how my particular villains reflect my understandings of the society I live in. I want to get this stuff out of the way now so that my particular take on what a potential origin story of a version of the Joker could be makes more sense.

Additionally, these backstory factors I want to discuss aren’t meant to excuse someone’s behaviour, especially not the fucking Joker’s of all people. It’s merely meant to explain how a person (because as far as we know that’s all he is) could get to that point in a way that doesn’t blame only one factor or chalk it up to “this is just an evil person.” I don’t find that particularly compelling as a writer or an audience member, so I write villains differently. I also don’t find it to be particularly true in real life either. If you like that style of writing or see the Joker or other fictional villains in this way, that’s fine. I’m not here to convince anyone they’re wrong, especially not when it comes to people’s perspectives on the nature of evil or anything that lofty. Nobody has to agree with me, or even like my headcanons; they’re just here to express the very specific position I’m writing from.

The first thing I wanna do is set up some terms. These aren’t academic or anything, but I want to use specific and consistent phrasing for this post. When it comes to the factors that screw up someone’s life significantly (and in some instances push people towards crime), I’ll split them into micro and macro factors. Micro factors are interpersonal and personal issues, so things like personality traits, personal beliefs, mental health, family history, where and how someone is raised, and individual relationships with the people around them. Macro factors are sociological and deal with systems of oppression, cultural or social trends/norms, political and legal restrictions and/or discrimination, etc. These two groups of factors interact, sometimes in a fashion that is causative and sometimes not, but they aren’t entirely separate and the line between what is a micro vs macro issue isn’t always fixed or clear.

We’ll start in and work out. For this character, the micro factors are what determine the specifics of his actions, demeanor, and aesthetic. I think the main reason he’s the Joker and not just some guy with a whole lot of issues is his world view combined with his personality. He has a very pessimistic worldview, one that is steeped in a very toxic form of individualism, cynicism, and misanthropy. His life experience tells him the world is a cold place where everyone is on their own. To him the world is not a moral place. He doesn’t think people in general have much value. He learned at a young age that his life had no value to others, and he has internalized that view and extrapolated it to the world at large; if his life didn’t matter and doesn’t matter, why would anyone else’s? This worldview, in the case of my specific Joker, comes from a childhood rife with abandonment, abuse, and marginalization. While I will say he is definitively queer (in terms fo gender expression and non conformity, and sexuality), I’m not terribly interested in giving specific diagnoses of any mental health issues. Those will be discussed more broadly and in terms of specific symptoms with relation to how they affect the Joker’s internal experience, and externalized behaviours.

His childhood was, to say the least, pretty fucked up. The details I do have for him are that he was surrendered at birth because his parents, for some reason, did not want to care for him or could not care for him; which it was, he isn’t sure. He grew up effectively orphaned, and ended up in the foster care system. He wasn’t very “adoptable”; he had behavioural issues, mostly violent behaviours towards authority figures and other children. He never exactly grew out of these either, and the older he got the harder it was to actually be adopted. His legal name was Baby Boy Doe for a number of years, but the name he would identify the most with is Jack. Eventually he took on the surname of one of his more stable foster families, becoming Jack Napier as far as the government was concerned. By the time he had that stability in his mid to late teens, however, most of the damage had already been done. In his younger years he was passed between foster families and government agencies, always a ward of the government, something that would follow him to his time in Arkham and Gotham’s city jails. Some of his foster families were decent, others were just okay, but some were physically and psychologically abusive. This abuse is part of what defines his worldview and causes him to see the world as inherently hostile and unjust. It also became one of the things that taught him that violence is how you solve problems, particularly when emotions run high.

This was definitely a problem at school too; moving around a lot meant going to a lot of different schools. Always being the new student made him a target, and being poor, exhibiting increasingly apparent signs of some sort of mental illness or disorder, and being typically suspected as queer (even moreso as he got into high school) typically did more harm than good for him. He never got to stay anywhere long enough to form deep relationships, and even in the places where he did have more time to do that he often ended up isolated from his peers. He was often bullied, sometimes just verbally but often physically which got worse as he got older and was more easily read as queer. This is part of why he’s so good at combat and used to taking hits; he’s been doing it since he was a kid, and got a hell of a lot of practice at school. He would tend to group up with other kids like him, other outcasts or social rejects, which in some ways meant being around some pretty negative influences in terms of peers. A lot of his acquaintances were fine, but some were more... rebellious and ended up introducing Jack to things like drinking, smoking cigarettes, using recreational drugs, and most important to his backstory, to petty crimes like theft and vandalism, sometimes even physical fights. This is another micro factor in that maybe if he had different friends, or a different school experience individually, he might have avoided getting involved in criminal activities annd may have been able to avoid taking up the mantle of The Joker.

Then there’s how his adult life has reinforced these experiences and beliefs. Being institutionalized, dealing with police and jails, and losing what little support he had as a minor and foster child just reinforced his worldview and told him that being The Joker was the right thing to do, that he was correct in his actions and perspectives. Becoming The Joker was his birthday present to himself at age 18, how he ushered himself into adulthood, and I plan to make a post about that on its own. But the fact that he decided to determine this part of his identity so young means that this has defined how he sees himself as an adult. It’s one of the last micro factors (when in life he adopted this identity) that have gotten him so entrenched in his typical behaviours and self image.

As for macro factors, a lot of them have to do specifically with the failing of Gotham’s institutions. Someone like Bruce Wayne, for example, was also orphaned and also deals with trauma; the difference for the Joker is that he had no safety net to catch him when he fell (or rather, was dropped). Someone like Wayne could fall into the cushioning of wealth and the care of someone like Alfred, whereas the Joker (metaphorically) hit the pavement hard and alone. Someone like the Joker should never have become the Joker in the first place because the systems in place in Gotham should have seen every red flag and done something to intervene; this just didn’t happen for him, and not out of coincidence but because Gotham seems like a pretty corrupt place with a lot of systemic issues. Critically underfunded social services (healthcare, welfare, children & family services) that result in a lack of resources for the people who need them and critically underfunded schools that can’t offer extra curricular activities or solid educations that allow kids to stay occupied and develop life skills are probably the most directly influential macro factors that shaped Jack into someone who could resent people and the society around him so much that he’d lose all regard for it to the point of exacting violence against others. There’s also the reality of living in a violent culture, and in violent neighbourhoods exacerbated by poverty, poor policing or overpolicing, and being raised as a boy and then a young man with certain gendered expectations about violence but especially ideas/narratives that minimalize or excuse male violence (especially when it comes to bullying or violent peer-to-peer behaviour under the guise of ‘boys will be boys’).

Beyond that, there’s the same basic prejudices and societal forces that affect so many people: classism, homphobia/queerphobia, (toxic) masculinity/masculine expectations, and ableism (specifically in regards to people who are mentally ill or otherwise neurodivergent) stand out as the primary factors. I’m touching on these broadly because if I were to talk about them all, they would probably need their own posts just to illustrate how they affect this character. But they definitely exist in Gotham if it’s anything like the real world, and I think it’s fair to extrapolate that these kinds of these exist in Gotham and would impact someone like The Joker with the background I’ve given him.

I have no idea how to end this so if you got this far, thank you for reading!

#clown in command ; ooc #i've got a million of 'em ; headcanon

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nouveauweird · 5 years ago

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bullshit-free guide to actually fucking writing your wip

disclaimer: this isn’t a fool proof method. when it comes to writing advice and techniques for productivity I say keep an open mind, but take what works for you and leave the rest.

disclaimer 02: this is more or less for people who want to eventually publish, but there may be elements in here that benefit hobby-writers.

Where & When You Write

Some people will tell you that your writing routine needs to be sacred. I don’t quite believe that. You can absolutely curate a space for yourself that you aim to write in, but at the same time, focusing very strongly on the ritual of writing makes it hard to create an adaptable habit.

The Writing Zone:

Your desk or table should face away from your bed, my mother always swore by that and it stuck with me. If space doesn’t allow for that, consider putting furniture or some partition up so you can’t see your bed. For some reason, this makes focusing easier.

For those of you who may be bedridden or have limited space, a good bed-desk is absolutely just as acceptable (I am actually planning to get one).

If you have a space separate from your bedroom, the follow applies as well:

Eliminate as much distraction as possible from your desk. Your experience of distraction is unique so do what you gotta do to eliminate it.

Make sure your space is well lit. Background light is essential to avoid eyestrain when staring at a screen.

Your chair should be comfortable, and support your back. Scoot your ass all the way to the back of the chair and try sitting on your thighs as much as possible to take strain off your lower spine (my chiropractor told me this).

The Writing Time:

You need to make time for your writing. Summer means the sunshine is waking me up at 5:45 AM and it’s too hot to doze comfortably so my ass is up and writing or reading until 7 AM when I gotta start getting reading for the day. If I have to catch the 10:15 AM bus, I’ve for about 4 hours to work with between waking up and leaving.

I finished July 2019 Camp Nano by writing in the morning. And I’m not even a morning person, I swear.

Make time for you writing. If you can make a routine you can stick to, excellent, if you have a handful of 5-10 minute time-pockets— also okay! The 30 minutes your dinner is in the oven is just as good a time to write as any other.

How do you learn how to write in tiny time pockets, you ask, well here it is: Micro Writing Sprints and Macro Writing Sprints. The former applies to pockets of time under 15 mins, while the latter applies to pockets of time over 20 mins. All you have to do is set a timer and challenge yourself to write as much as you possibly can.

Another thing to keep in mind is knowing your personal limits. If your attention suffers and you start to wander after 15 mins, keep your sprints to 5-10 minute blocks, and give yourself 5-15 min breaks where you get up, drink some water, move your body and then come back to your writing.

How to Write More, Faster

You have to kill your inner editor. Or at least subdue them. You can fix a typo or whatever but that’s really it. The idea is that you need to allow yourself to get into a mindset where you’re only focusing on the writing, your prose is allowed to be a mess. Insecurity and doubt have no place here, only writing.

Your first draft doesn’t need to be clean. You get to clean it up when it’s done. Stephen King says you write your first draft with the door closed, and the second with the door open, and I like that saying a lot. The revision process is actually way more fun than I thought it would be. I get to make fun of myself for my weird writing quirks— every single one of my “most common errors” in my Grammarly report is about misusing commas!— and restructure and improve upon the foundation I laid with the first draft.

If you come up with something that changes something significant to your story, write a note about it, and then continue on with your draft like it’s been that way the whole ass time. Do not go back and change things. Just keep writing.

Learning how to do Writing Sprints allows you to quickly get into the habit of putting everything down as fast as you can without overthinking it. Because the real thinking is for later, when you’re revising. Essentially these Sprints enable you to get into the writing zone much faster, so feasibly you could write in small time-pockets at the bus stop, in a waiting room, on the bus—anywhere.

Outlining will make you write faster.

Yes I am pro-outlining, please don’t click away because of that, because I also still think that you need to use what works for you, and if you’re reading this something isn’t working, so please keep your mind open.

The very least you should try is preparing or pre-planning what you need to write for your writing session (no matter how short). You will write more and faster this way. Most of all, you will be less likely to “wander” around.

I wrote out a small fragment-filled paragraph of what needed to happen in the first few scenes of my July 2019 Camp Nano project and got them out more easily and faster compared to when I didn’t. I wrote sustainedly in 30 minute time-pockets with a great deal of focus when I prepared my writing before actually writing.

Your WIP Outline

What if your outline was also actually super connected to your character sheets? Libbie Hawker makes this sound so easy in her book “Take Off Your Pants” in which she broke down some very interesting ideas on how to build your characters and your story that I hadn’t previously considered.

What I ended up with was something like this:

CHARACTER NAME Character: write down the basics; age, career, small relevant facts Flaw: what problem do they have that hinders them External goal: the thing they want that they can’t get unless they overcome their ‘flaw’ Ally: who pushes the character toward their goal when they stray Antagonist: who has same or aligned goal, but with different motives and execution Events:

Opening scene

Inciting event

Character realizes external goal

Display of flaw

Drive for goal

Antagonist reveal

Thwart 01

Revisiting flaw

New drive for goal

Antagonist attacks

Thwart 02

Changed goal

Ally intervention

Renewed Focus

Battle

Death

Outcome

End: success or failure or neutral result with regards to overcoming ‘flaw’

The stuff under the “Events” category is stuff everyone has seen before in narrative charts, and it won’t be the last time you see it either. You can use or discard or repeat them however many times you need to. I still think this plot chart that I made it great for figuring out pacing, so check that out if you need some help there.

You can also apply these to series, where the character’s “Flaw” and “External goal” change as the narrative progresses.

All of these parts are explained in Libbie Hawker’s book, but I’m happy to explain if you DM me!

I applied a central idea for my WIP “Hyacinth Stalks” and all the central characters share a common idea with regards to their flaws. Hawker recommends filling in this information for all central characters, and working in which events which characters will interact in.

The common idea is that my characters are “holding onto the past to feel more in control in the present”. Juliet Shain maintains habits of maintaining a “perfect athletic body” in the same way she did as a dancer five years earlier. She can’t exercise that same control over her mental health, which she struggles with, because of questions she has pertaining to the accident that lost her her leg remaining unanswered.

Juliet’s ultimate goal is closure about the accident, which she won’t be able to access unless she stops holding onto the past and in turn the idea that the accident “ruined” her.

I can apply the same things to Alana Murdock, another central character in “Hyacinth Stalks”, who, because she could only rely on herself after her sister’s murder while her parents grieved and her brother cut all contact, rejects her brother’s attempt to reconnect in order to protect herself in the present despite the stress of the upcoming 10th anniversary of the Hyacinth Killer’s disappearance. Her goal, would be to make it to the Olympic Volleyball team, which she won’t be able to do unless she stops isolating herself.

I can now approach the Events sections with more clarity because I know what the characters’ goals are and what their hindrances are as well. I can apply the same ideas to the other central characters, as well as the Serial Killer and weave their stories into the narrative as well. When you have a strong character arc, you can build a strong story.

When you can answer the questions about your character(s) you can fill in those Event sections with far more ease, and begin to break those sections down into chapters, scenes, or beats, with as much or as little detail as you want. Libbie Hawker’s method involves writing out paragraphs worth of scene details before actually getting to the writing. She says this isn’t necessary, but that for her it eliminates “wandering” and any doubts about what needs to be put on the page.

Personally speaking, I lie somewhere in the middle, wherein my scene outlines involve small paragraph or bullet points for what needs to happen.

Hawker has written books in 21 days, so there is definitely some magic in her method. In her book, Hawker details that creating her outline took 4 hours. When I outlined “But a Monster” it took a week (5 days), and despite not having had her method then, the existence of the outline made writing the novel much clearer and focused, which my writing had not been prior to admitting I needed to give outlining a chance.

All writing advice is a tree of wisdom

Take what benefits you most and leave the rest.

I have fully taken the advice that I have attempted to explain here. I read in “5000 Words Per Hour” by Chris Fox and “Take Off Your Pants” by Libbie Hawker and felt incredibly inspired and motivated, but some of what they say or eschue doesn’t resonate with me or my craft. I have to do what works for my writing, and if I’m happy with the pace the work is going at then alright!

What I’ve written here is meant to give you new ideas on how to be more productive. I read the books that helped me come up with this because I felt like something was lacking in my writing routine and I had my eyes opened. I hope I have opened yours too and that your work benefits from this.

#outlining #writeblr #am writing #writing community #long post.#my resources.#resources.

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bathroom-sand · 4 years ago

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Not understanding why NicoleA can’t shut up about that racist bully from her season. who cares that he won comps he was literally one of the biggest assholes in that house. her love everyone attitude is so dumb she rlly needs to let it GO or keep it to herself it’s enough already

Well I think we’re realizing slowly that it’s not real. Nicola doesnt actually feel this way. She’s in a place of consistant insecurity and she has found that security in being part of the “in-crowd”. Jackson represented that, the same with Jack and the others she still interacts with and befriends. Probably exasterbated by her childhood fears of rejection and being on the outside of every friendship.

She’s doing the same this season by trying to stay in with the dominant alliance and blindly trusting the majority’s opinion. If we wanted to get real deep into it we can speculate that the harassment, bullying, and isolatation she experienced on bb21 has a lot to do with why she’s acting the way she is. She’s certainly talked at length about it with Kevin (although we haven’t seen it), and we know that there’s a long term psychological affect on it. We’ve seen houseguests this seaosn talk about how racism faced in the big brother house has affected them long term. And we see the affect ableism had on Ian in bb14. Nicola quit her job to immerse herself on social media. I feel like it’s clear that mentally she’s been damaged and hasn’t been able to address or heal form that. Not to mention immediately going back on bb. She’s still in the same mindset, and I doubt that mentally she ever adjusted to being a “normal person” again. It’s all still the same long game. She isn’t here to actually win.

Like, obviously we don’t like or support Nicola anymore. The stuff she’s said is horrible and her actions are beyond gross. Quite frankly I just don’t like or care for her. When you take out your trauma on others then you’ve crossed too many lines and lose that initial sympathy. She’s done and said too many things (especially those micro aggressions) to earn a get out of jail free card. But I mean... since you don’t understand.... I might as well run my mouth...

#bb22 #long post #racism tw #abelism tw

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screenspirit · 5 years ago

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Critical Approach Question: “A film can be re-interpreted depending on the choice of critical approach” How far have you found this to be true when applying one or more critical approaches to your chosen film? ’Fight Club’

Opening Paragraph

David Fincher’s 1999 gritty cult classic ‘Fight Club’ perpetuates a rather complex and multidimensional narrative under the influence of various critical approaches that can be appropriately applied to the film. It stars Edward Norton and Brad Pitt as two personalities constructed under the values of the contemporary society depicted in the picture who assist in implying interpretations of what the film’s central critical approach is such as identity, violence, materialism and gender representation . This in turn can alter the way spectators perceive the film due to how the prioritisation of the approaches differs based on the individual audience member and therefore causes the film to be re-interpreted depending on the critical approach that has been chosen to be focused on, which is what I am going to be analysing in the following essay.

Arguments/Areas

Consumerism: The Narrator is a representation of the traditional stereotypical American citizen which the spectators can find a sense of personal representative in- he lives an over excessive lifestyle consisting of material items which he fills with false value. “That was not a bunch of stuff that got destroyed...it was ME [I’d like to thank the academy]” Ikea catalogue scene showing how he’s surrounded by material items that have become his personality. Project Mayhem plotting to blow up credit card companies. “All the debt gets erased”. Tyler Durden is the manifestation of an escape mechanism from the overwhelming emphasis on corporate America and is the complete opposite to the Narrator in the sense he rejects consumption and leaves a lifestyle that lacks material items e.g. his thrift store jacket and decaying house “I reject all the assumptions of civilisation especially the importance of material items” “I am free in all the ways you are not". Interpretation of the film is that it is satire on the modern and illogical value of consumerism in America and is attacking those who live a lifestyle similar to the Narrator (Fincher used to work in commercials so there is irony and a personal element in the attack)

Identity and Duality: Narrative grafts itself on two polar opposite characters, one respecting the laws and values of society and one who rebels against them. The Narrator’s real name is never revealed and he takes on numerous alias in the support group to conceal his identity from the members and the audience. He subconsciously creates the alter ego identity of Tyler Durden which is shown through David Fincher’s technique of one frame flashes acting as a subliminal message, the photocopying scene (“everything is a copy of a copy”), Doctor office scene, Testicular support group scene and after Narrator formally meets Marla. Tyler is the Narrator’s shadow figure and a mental archetype representing all the qualities the narrator represses in his daily life- Jungian Psychology. The Narrator starts off polite and well mannered which our society expects and praises but after the inevitable growth of fight club in a physical and metaphorical sense, he becomes more rough and physical. “I used to be such a nice guy”. He beats himself up to threaten his boss and get him fired. His costume becomes stained with blood and swollen face makeup to execute this transformation from sophisticated and white collar, identical to every other corporate worker to bruised and beaten which he wears with pride (Chuck Palahniuk came up with the story after getting beaten up but his bruises were ignored by co-workers who didn't care). Interpretation is that the film depicts an exploration into the human subconscious and what it is capable of creating after the repetitive cycle of a trite and tedious modern life.

Violence: The violence that swarms through the fight club allows the masculine shadow side to vent. The group hug from the support group is replaced with overwhelming and graphic acts of men beating each other changing the film’s overarching symbol of the modern man. The males turn to violence in a desperate attempt to reawaken the senses that have been dulled and watered down by their quotidian existences and corporate jobs. “A guy you met at Fight Club wasn’t the same guy you met on the streets”. “A guy who came to Fight Club for the first time, his ass was a wad of cookie dough, after a few weeks he was carved out of wood.” The setting of the basement is a visual representation of a place where men can experience a true sense of ‘being’ and provides a space in which they can transcend the reality of their lifestyle, contrasts to the setting of the office with its high key lighting making it appear unsaturated and dull. Narrator brutally beats Angel Face demonstrates how excessive violence can cause a lack of control over one’s interactions with others, micro elements of cinematography and editing- camera is placed beneath Narrator in low angle shot to make him appear powerful and threatening (something that has been given to him through violence and fighting). “I wanted to destroy something beautiful”. Interpretation is that it is a presentation on violence and how it impacts and alters those who partake in it. Review by Robert Ebert:”a celebration of violence” and Megan Koester:”brutality they exercise on each other is borderline pornography”.

Gender Representation: Marla Singer is the only female presence in the film but what she stands for is adequate enough to counteract and make up for the severe lack of female presence. Macro element of character representation. She invades the support group where the Narrator seeks refuge and comfort to eliminate his insomnia and this symbolises her invading his security with his masculinity and altering how he perceives himself and makes him insecure. She is found in his mancave and replaces his spirit animal, highlighting how she is infecting his masculine identity. “If I did have a tumour, I would name it Marla”. She has the power to make the Narrator simultaneously despise her and feel unable to ignore her presence, “the little scratch on the root of your mouth that would heal if only you would stop tonguing it but you can’t”. She is brought into the film as a foil character, developed to completely contrast the protagonist’s personality in order to exemplify specific qualities that the protagonist has and lacks which she possesses. She verbally castrates the Narrator in defence of why she has the right to attend support groups which he attempts to take away from her, “technically I have more of a right to be there than you...you still have your balls”. Marla serves as the catalyst to the Narrator’s dissociation and Tyler appears because Marla represents the last descent into gatherer culture. Tyler Durden is seen as the ideal man with his good looks (pretty boy heartthrob Brad Pitt being cast to increase star quality, costume and makeup) , cool and collected persona and confidence to execute his masculine ways through fighting.This again acts as a physical representation of taunting the Narrator by highlighting what he lacks but longs for so badly which is why Tyler is constructed the way he is. “I look how you wanna look I fuck how you wanna fuck”, “I am free in all the ways you are not”. Tyler and Marla are constantly fighting over which sex has the most power, Tyler’s aggressive sexual intercourse with Marla where he objectifies her and makes her submissive but then Marla annoys the Narrator and expresses her sexuality over him by making him examine her breasts which makes him feel uncomfortable. Interpretation is that one sex has to have power over the other, the female can have an even amount of masculine and feminine qualities but the male can only have an excessive amount of one.

Conclusion

Fight Club’s interesting narrative allows it to be analysed in a variety of ways by spectators due to the numerous critical approaches, these all network in with the various possibilities of how the film can be interpreted and what the overarching message of it is. The themes of the film are expressed successfully within the storyline as well as character representation and film techniques.

#fight club #david fincher #film analysis #film essay #critical approach #tyler durden #marla singer #90s movies #essay plan #film studies #film theory #chuck palahniuk #brad pitt #edward norton #helena bonham carter #screenspirit

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artyloreviews · 5 years ago

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Disco Elysium (2019) - A Review and Analysis

A postmodern role-playing game for a much different audience. A combination of skillful artistry and unfulfilled potential. An attempt at tackling difficult topics and pandering to different tastes. A full package, with deceptive contents...

I enjoyed playing through Disco Elysium, but for completely different reasons than those that initially sold the game to me. Going in, I believed that it would be the type of RPG that I had been looking for quite some time – one that is not burdened by most of its interaction with the world happening on a grid, scanning through a list of spells and abilities, franticly pausing every frame, trying to min-max numbers as to not get destroyed by a pack of menacing farm animals of a slightly higher level. Examples of that in the genre would be classics such as Baldur’s Gate or newer re-iterations like Divinity: Original Sin and Shadowrun: Hong Kong. What I would habitually find myself doing is picking up the game, sinking my teeth into it, eventually hitting a numerical roadblock in some quest, and almost immediately retiring to a life of “not playing that game ever again”, as I am faced with the option of either save scumming and beating my head against the numeric wall, until by some fluke of the numbers I get the “good” number and am allowed to proceed; or could just stop doing whatever thing I am currently invested in and go somewhere else on the map, where the numbers are not as disagreeable, so I can get my personal numbers high enough to where the numbers I was having difficulty with before seem less impressive and I can pick up that quest again, but this time only halfway through, struggling to remember contextual cues that were relevant perhaps a few hours ago, but are now a forgotten footnote in some journal entry.

In both cases, the immersion gives way to the idea of gameplay, as the perhaps flawed ideal of an RPG is that which is based on table-top role playing games, such as Dungeons & Dragons, the aforementioned Shadowrun, or anything else that follows the same formula. From my personal experience in TTRPGs, the same issue persists, namely in having meaningful choice and character development take second fiddle to massive 3-5-man 1-2-hour combat encounters in between the more immersive moments of dialogue between players, non-player characters or story development. I’ve always felt that combat is so abstracted from everything else in TTRPGs in the way that it suddenly shifts into an entirely different game, which unlike the elements of role-play is less free-form and bound to a rigid set of rules. You’re no longer interested in how things look, feel or act, but rather how large a number is on a sheet of paper; and this contention of mine seems to always be translated into the video game counterpart of this genre, carrying the same problem from one medium to the other. Games even seem to compound upon the issue, by putting you in charge of multiple characters, where your custom created character is somehow not only equal to them, but at the same time the savior of the universe and all that is holy.

I cannot help but believe that the party ought to be AI controlled pawns, considering that they are supposedly different people with their own goals and aspirations; thus leaving the player to micro-manage their singular character – their avatar in the game world, rather than developing a form of psychogenic schizophrenia by having to deal with each and every one of the party’s members (now, admittedly the remakes of both Baldur’s Gate games have such a feature, but the combat AI is so poor, that you still have to go and remind them that they actually have a whole list of spells that they could be, in fact, using to… for instance, heal you, as you sit there bleeding profusely, crippled and powerless on the ground).

The only games which I have seen managing combat and RPG elements successfully are listed as a fundamentally different genre, known as “immersive sim” or “0451 games”. To name a few, that would be games like those of the Deus Ex, Dishonored and even the Fallout series. Most of those are first-person, for the most part shooters, with some emphasis on a singular character’s development through dialogue and stat point distribution. My main point can roughly be exemplified by comparing the naming convention and the reality for both genres: one is a “role-playing game”, the other is an “immersive simulation”; the first being used deceptively, as you could be playing a multitude of roles at any given time and also suspending that role-play to participate in some rather lengthy tactical combat for what could be 50% of the game’s runtime. On the other hand, you have “immersive sim”, which according to Warren Spector (game designer of Deus Ex and Thief fame) is a game in which “you are there, [and] nothing stands between you and [the] belief that you're in an alternate world”. I simply cannot emphasize enough how even the most engaging narrative and the most skillful writing can be tarnished by this type of abstract combat, which feels so fundamentally foreign and somehow still intrinsic to the idea of role-playing games and immersion.

Disco Elysium seemed to be the odd one out – a RPG that has no combat, except that, initiated by your choices in dialogue (more akin to playing an animation than actual combat). It was also advertised to me as having quite an in-depth ideological system, that was affected by your choices in-game and would automatically adapt dialogue according to your flavor of politics, philosophy or culture through a series of thoughts, which you would internalize, if used often enough. Frankly, it seemed like wish fulfilment for a jaded immersion-loving straight-edge centrist such as myself.

Upon launching the game, I was quickly introduced to the persona that I would be inhabiting – a deranged, drunken amnesiac, who in some cases would pass as a cop, but only if one’s notion of law-abiding is that of a drug-fueled abusive lover; also known as - the farthest thing from me. I already knew that my journey through the game would be that of a redemption arc, where this horrible piece of shit human, was going to become the most squeaky-clean, drug- and alcohol-free centrist known to all of Revachol. A true test of the game’s systems in action – from deranged and corrupt, to the straight and narrow. To my eventual surprise - I could do all of it, and very successfully at that. By the end of my nearly 24-hour playthrough, I had achieved my ideal vision for the character, with only a bit of resistance, which I will briefly mention further down the line. For now, I had succeeded in using all the tools available to me in order to internalize the thoughts for centrism, rejecting any form of drugs, and by the end almost managing to squeeze in the time to internalize being sober, cut short due to the spontaneous conclusion of the game.

The thoughts system was not entirely what I had initially imagined. Namely, what I had envisioned was a system, which converts whatever responses one made throughout the game, into non-internalized thoughts, which would begin to alter the dialogue options available, and only after choosing to emphasize said options, would it eventually internalize and give you a lot more radical options based on said thought. What it would turn out to do instead is make the acquisition of thoughts work in a similar manner, but make the process of internalization a menu, in which you “equip” thoughts into available slots. It seems like a minor inconvenience, but it makes the thoughts feel like yet another item that you just set and forget, rather than the thoughts of a person being actively developed over time, based on what kind of discourse they engage in. I suppose the idea of having it take anywhere from thirty minutes to six hours to internalize is there to be the substitute for the drawn out process of internalization. It is in a way saying “I feel like turning into a centrist in the next thirty minutes.”, while going around doing investigative work around a crime scene. The more active process I envisioned, would indeed take a lot longer, but it would be massively more immersive, as more and more options become available to you over time, rather than after some arbitrary timer has gone down.

Another big detractor is having to use skill points to unlock new slots for thoughts, which would otherwise be put into your more practical skills. Theoretically, one would think a human has an almost infinite capacity for new ideas; and one is surely not going to want to internalize them all. A good example would be the “Volumetric Shit Compressor” thought you gain early into the game, which mainly fulfils its purpose in one skill check for less physically able characters as a part of a single quest and is never made use of again, beyond its flat stat bonuses. No other thought in my playthrough had a temporary pragmatic function like that, which feels like a missed opportunity. Its temporary nature is where the skill-point cost seems absurd, when they could be better used to improve one’s skills. In what way would the character becoming more skillful help them stop “getting their shit together”? Wouldn’t one discard the though immediately after it’s no longer useful? The way the system works currently, meant that I spent most of my points on slots and playing around with thoughts, rather than improving my character until the very last parts of the game, which in effect made the game more difficult than intended. The decision to make thoughts equipable and not persistent passive perks that can upgrade into more radical or complete versions of themselves is perhaps one of my main disappointments with the game. The effect on scope would be minimal, as the game already has the dialogue options for those thoughts written and would only need to change their acquisition and internalization to be less menu-driven and more player-driven.

I tangentially mentioned not having skill-points to freely use until the latter parts of the game: That in turn made skill checks a lot more difficult and perilous, by making white skill checks (ones you can fail and retry upon increasing the skill they require) harder to re-unlock once failed and making red checks (ones that you cannot retry once failed) almost impossible, if not clothed in every stat-boosting piece of apparel in one’s inventory or seasoned with every potentially hazardous bottle of booze or glowing fairy dust left lying on the ground. White checks also do not unlock after one has used a consumable item or changed a piece of clothing to boost said stat, which encourages save scumming, as there is no way to change clothing in the middle of dialogue or knowing what the skill check will be, leading to one of the many pitfalls which I described earlier.

An even greater fault is that some quests just drop dead in their tracks, if the stat check is not completed. Moreover, since one cannot be proficient in all four skill categories, I would regularly hit a brick wall, upon being faced with a Psyche or Physique skill check, as my character mainly specialized in Intellect and Motorics. The thing about hitting a brick wall in Disco Elysium is not so much that you fail and have to face the consequences, but rather cannot continue at all and the narrative stops dead in its tracks until you can succeed the check. Sometimes quests are tied to each other, so not being able to progress in one of them means that you can’t progress in any of them. Suddenly an entire quest chain can just be gone at the click of a button. It got to a point where I would prefer to hear that all my efforts were in vain, fucking everything up irreversibly, rather than having a white check get locked and sit there in my journal, waiting for me to miraculously gain five points in some sub-skill of Physique. One way to fix this would be to have more obfuscated red checks with uncertain odds that lead to failure states. At least that would be more immersive than the current offering, as one could live with the consequences, rather than be left guessing what it could have been if one had slightly higher skills. This, however, could be difficult, as there is a dice roll to every skill. Not being skilled merely means you have less of a chance of succeeding or, alternatively, a higher chance to fail and lock the skill check.

The one thing that the game does great when it comes to skills is the addition of secret tasks. If one were to follow particular lines of inquiry, they often lead to some skill check down the line becoming easier, due to the things learned beforehand about that topic. This system rewards being thorough and attentive and is, perhaps, the best feature of the game. However, observations made through the “shivers” system (where orbs of information will show up contextually above the protagonist’s head, revealing information about the environment or elaborating on something relevant) do not appear to factor into these skill checks. This often leads to you reading something important when it pops up in the overworld, but upon engaging someone in conversation one must often select benign lines of dialogue, acting like one hadn’t made those observations to begin with. The dissonance is even more infuriating whenever Kim (your companion throughout the game) tells you that you are obviously wrong, because he also made those observations but (unlike you) could talk about them. It would have been a lot more diegetic if there were dialogue options available for you to repeat the observation to Kim instead, perhaps as you talk to him in the overworld (a feature that is woefully underutilized, and shows the same five or so options throughout the entire game, except whenever Kim wants to talk to you about something he deems relevant – an ability, which you would think the player should have had as well).

Speaking of the overworld, Disco Elysium does quite a lot with the small real-estate it has on its map. For what feels like a small neighborhood, it packs tens of hours of content, a varied cast of characters and lots of places to explore. Walking around is encouraged by the game, almost to a fault. At many points during the game Kim will remark upon your seemingly absurd ability to run around without getting tired. There even comes a point where you are injured, and are told not to run to avoid further harming yourself. After about twenty hours I realized that this was in order to signal to the player that if they run all over the place, trying to finish everything as quick as possible, they would be left with a lot of extra time at the end of the day, which would have been perhaps better spent looking into side-quests or other optional activities. However, the walk speed is woefully slow and with the amount of backtracking one needs to do, means that you will be seeing the same places plenty of times, which only tempts you even more to not waste your precious time RP-walking. The game has benches, which you can use to pass the time, but they are only available whenever Kim is not with you, which is only durring the night, meaning you can’t make any meaningful progress by resting on one, effectively making them worthless. That and the presence of time-gated tasks, means you will most likely be trying to find ways to waste your time, prompting Kim to berate you even more for straying away from the main focus of the narrative, as he often does. If you’re a fast reader, the game luckily fast-forwards time based on how many options you’ve selected, rather than real-time. This is most apparent whenever you’re save scumming and going though entire trees of dialogue you’ve already read.

And you will be reading a lot, as this is what you signed up for when you relinquished the combat systems of your typical RPGs. A welcome change, I might add, as the dialogue is beautifully written and engaging for tens of hours. (The end credits even thank Chris Avellone for what is probably him lending a bit of his Midas touch when it comes to game writing.) However, there are of course flaws in the way Disco Elysium decides to portray some of its characters, as it is sometimes more interested in making political statements in a very one-note way that might shock some people, rather than what one would think are nuanced and fleshed out personas. A large part of the cast is wearing a thick layer of existentialism, which they seem to flaunt upon every given opportunity. The same goes for characters who clearly exhibit some variety of political radicalism; you’ve got your racist nationalist, your bourgeois-eating communist, your fence-sitting centrist (dubbed moralist) and a whole swath of colorful opinionated people whom you either interact with or endure. Everyone else is mostly pleasant to be around, if not a bit saddening, due to the overall melancholic way of life people of Disco Elysium are forced to lead, influenced by factors that they alone cannot control; an overall sense of futility present at every turn. Most of them have quirks that help them cope with their predicament, which you can explore in full detail through in-depth dialogue trees, leading to some intriguing interactions and ultimately some interesting consequences down the line. Every line of dialogue seems to have a lot of those, which is surprising for a game that so haphazardly makes you select dumb questions for answers you already know. An example of that is the one occasion in which I used a particular brand of alcohol to boost my “Pain Threshold” in order to open a certain mission-critical freezer. Which towards the end had Kim labeling me as someone who “drinks on the job”, even after becoming sober and internalizing the thought that removes all positive effects from alcohol, as well as the action leading to us retrieving an item, which we would later use to further the plot. Instead as a one-off sacrifice of one’s principles, it was seen as a major transgression that would only lead people into thinking of me as even more of a raging alcoholic, rather than someone who is trying to recover and “get their shit together”, as it were.

A major part of the game’s rhetoric is lost to those who do not have a dictionary that has been well tempered through copious forms of political jargon, coming from a various selection of manifestos, academic political analyses and some of the more famous philosophical works for the last century. I would go as far to say that some of the sentiments the game presents are absolutely impenetrable when it comes to wording. I’ll give you an example:

Heartache is powerful, but democracy is *subtle*. Incrementally, you begin to notice a change in the weather. When it snows, the flakes are softer when they stick to your worry-worn forehead. When it rains, the rain is warmer. Democracy is coming to the Administrative Region. The ideals of Dolorian humanism are reinstating themselves. How can they not? These are the ideals of the Coalition and the Moralist International. Those guys are signal blue. And they're not only good -- they're also powerful. What will it be like, once their nuanced plans have been realized?

If you immediately recognized that it was about centrism, then congratulations – you are a lot smarter than me and probably everyone else around you. For you Disco Elysium is the perfect college-level textual experience for your Tuesday-night 1960’s poetry club. For the rest of humanity, it’s a bunch of gibberish. Flowery prose and poetics are riddled everywhere and you're never really sure what you're doing, what thoughts you're thinking or what's happening to you.

I mentioned briefly that the game tries to depict centrism as a form of moralism (a term which it prefers over the former). Even so, it presents centrism as less of an effort to hold multiple perspectives and act with a full and informed range of understanding, but rather as the stereotypical “fence-sitting” argument, where no decision can be made now, and progress can only be obtained through a slow, incremental process. While on the surface, it would seem so – as a self-proclaimed and passionate centrist, I cannot help but disagree with the outsider view that the game seems to be promoting, favoring critique of the right and an emphasis towards the left side of the political compass (making small but insignificant jabs towards both throughout). Contextually, the game’s developers Studio ZA/UM, have displayed a clear favor of the political left in their public appearances, which may explain this somewhat skewed perspective. While it’d be lovely to go on about the politics of ideology, it’s better not judge the contents of the game based on the developers’ ideological affiliation, but rather on its own merits.

Considering the amount of reading one needs to do, I would hesitantly say that Disco Elysium is part RPG, part choose-your-own-adventure visual novel. I say RPG, because of the aforementioned brick walls, inhibiting progress in a way that no immersive sim ever would, as there would be multiple ways to get the same information, which is sadly not a thing Disco Elysium does well. The sheer volume of the text is also a cause for some, I would suppose, aesthetic concerns about the game. Graphically, the game is stunning with its unique painterly style, but it often values it over function, namely in having the UI serve little to no purpose, as Kim and your portraits take up the entire bottom left of the screen. At the same time the dialogue panel is put on the far right side of the screen, even though two thirds of it are spent zoomed in on some 3D models doing their idle animations, instead of having the text front and center, as the thing you will be most likely looking at for 90% of your time with the game. Other technical issues include shadows being displaced from where they should be, especially on stairs, as well as being incredibly jagged for a game that doesn’t really have high hardware requirements and very little real-time lighting, but all of this is frankly unintrusive, compared to the cramps in your neck from looking to your right all the time.

Every once in a while, you get to enjoy not having to read, as a select few scenes are entirely voice-acted by a talented cast. I am unsure, however, of the production team behind the recordings, as they seem to sound as if recorded in home studios with different microphones and sound processors. Other than that, the quality and range of the performances is wonderful, especially since it is coming from some lesser known actors in the industry.

When it comes to sound, the game does a fantastic job of establishing a lot of varied soundscapes for an admittedly small plot of land. The music is ambient, droning and subtle in all the ways that make you not think about it, until you are sitting there listening to the soundtrack on your own time, remembering all the scenes that every piece of music has lifted from monotony. All of the tracks have this aging, somber tone to them, much like the world they are written for, making the music an unavoidable essential part of the experience, as you walk the fields of Revachol with the wind blowing and the small creek near you emitting a slight babble. The only downside is that the mixing of all these layers is often horribly unproportioned. Everything will be quiet, until some random intercom plays two straight minutes of loud white noise into your ear. Those parts are few and far between, but still leave a surprisingly large impression for an otherwise spotless execution of foley and ambience.

Overall, Disco Elysium is a full package. While not necessarily the game that I hoped it would be, it was still an enjoyable experience with an incredible main quest, memorable characters and side quests, elevated by wonderful sound design and fantastic ambient music, with writing that will be unparalleled for years to come. While it is not without its flaws, and some of them are quite major - it does what it set out to do with flying colors and is sure to appeal to a lot of people, who have been looking for an experience such as this. For me, however, it also represents a lot of squandered potential. It is by no means an ideal game – far from it; but I would still recommend you play through it for yourself, just to see where it takes you. It has a way of challenging you intellectually, that not a lot of games can pull off, especially nowadays. It is an admirable endeavor in tackling difficult topics, whilst also spinning an intriguing narrative that keeps you invested until the very end.

Score: 7/10

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prashantrana85 · 5 years ago

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Visual Style: Expression, Aesthetics and, narration in photography

From the beginning, our eyes encounter photons either directly or indirectly. So to speak, under normal conditions, our interaction with the outer world begins with visual contact. Of course, all other senses play their role in this interaction. But, seeing and hearing stimulates the mind at first, because these can work through distances, whereas, other three require physical contact with stimuli.

So, what happens when seeing and hearing stimulates the intellect and emotions? In that instant, seeing and hearing turns into vision, and the act of listening. And, from that moment onward, these senses analyze the world. This analysis usually leads to acceptation, rejection or intrigue.

It is clearly comprehensible that within the frames of regular conditions, we begin with visual diagnosis, even before listening. As John Berger said “It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain that world with words, but words can never undo the fact that we are surrounded by it,” within this establishment, we appreciate, admire or detest, and in certain instances we are simply curious or astonished. And, in the soil of this establishment, emerges the sapling of visual style with its fruits as expression and aesthetics.

What is visual style? As John Berger said “Soon after we can see, we are aware that we can also be seen,” this realization influences a person to try and appear as visually appreciable, or at-least acceptable. This effort to be visually appreciable and, acceptable is visual style at the grass-root level. Is this phenomenon of visual style only limited to people? Of courses not; it is applicable to every visible entity.

As spectator, one applies this understanding of visual style on people, places and things one sees and, classifies them as pleasing, disgusting or intriguing. As the spectated, we use this understanding of visual style to decorate ourselves, our places and things that we create. For example, person X going to a party would try to put on their best clothes and, to carry their best appearance. Here, they apply the criteria of visual style on themselves, but once they reach the party, it is probable that person Y catches their gaze, because he or she is dressed (in accordance to understanding of visual style of person X) in visually pleasing manner, which can also be referred as beauty.

When David Hume writes “The sentiments of men often differ with regard to beauty and deformity of all kinds, even while their general discourse is the same,” he highlights the subjective nature of visual style. This branch of subjectivity bears its first fruit, which is expression. Let’s go back to the example of person X. They applied this subjectivity on themselves and, person Y to justify what is visually pleasing to them. But, when person X would’ve to create something, for example a photograph, they’d apply their subjective expression in that act as well. Even if the task is assigned by someone else, it will contain traces of person X’s individual expressions. This subjectivity is what distinguishes Richard Avedon from Robert Capa. Although, their medium of expression was same, their potential stimuli, and expressions were different.

This subjectivity becomes evident in mediums of visual art and, media and communication such as photography, music, textual expression and design. In this moment second fruit called aesthetics, comes to existence. All mediums of expression such as poetry, theater, music etc. are as inseparable from aesthetics as image making. But, since we are discussing visual style, we will discuss visual art and photography.

Expression is an act and, aesthetic is how one decides to perform that act. To explain this lets take the example of person X again. When they dressed up good for the party, it was an expression. But they decided to wear a particular colored dress, with a specific fragrance and pair of shoes, appropriate for that particular kind of occasion, it turns into aesthetic.

Often, aesthetics is defined as a set of principles concerned with beauty or its appreciation. Is it really that simple? Victor Burgin says “What we see … is not a pure and simple coding of light patterns that are focused on retina. Somewhere between the retina and the visual cortex, the in flowing signals are modified to provide information that is already linked to a learned response. … evidently what reaches the visual cortex is evoked by the external world, but is hardly a direct or simple replica of it,” Roland Barthes put this as “I see, I feel, hence I notice, I observe and I think,” and John Berger expresses that “Yet when an image is presented as a work of art, the way people look at it is affected by a whole series of learnt assumptions about art. Assumptions concerning: Beauty, Truth, Genius, Civilization, Form, Status, Taste, etc.” all three of them talks about similar or same concept, but yet in different ways. And, this selection of different ways represents their personal aesthetic expression.

I use expression and aesthetics together, because both are weaved together as the fabric of visual style. But, with these statements one can surely derive a conclusion that expression and aesthetic are not independent of society and psychology. When it comes to modes of visual communication such as photography, this influence of society and psychology is very important to understand, because photography bears responsibility towards both; the viewer as well as the creator.

Talking about social influence on aesthetics, I prefer to call it as Macro Aesthetic; which is derived from society, culture, and politics etc. This determines the issue, event or sentiment which a photographer decides to portray, and the general ways of viewer’s perception. Photos from modernist and post-modernist era, or works of photojournalists influenced by a certain political movement, are an apt example of this. Roland Barthes talks about this influence as a spectator when he coins the term Studium saying, “It is by studium that I am interested in so many photographs, whether I receive them as political testimony or enjoy them as good historical scenes: for it is culturally (this connotation is present in stadium) that I participate in the figures, the faces, the gestures, the settings, the actions,” and Martha Rosler talk about this influence over photographer pointing out “The Bowery, in New York, is an archetypal skid row. It has been much photographed, in works veering between outraged moral sensitivity and sheer slumming spectacle,” in her essay.

On the other hand, I believe there is also Micro Aesthetics, which emerges from within the photographer, and is influenced by psychology. It influences the selection of subject and not only its way of portrayal. It is determined by personal experiences, hopes or ambitions of the creator as well as the viewer of the image. As a viewer, Roland Barthes calls it Punctum when he says, “It is this element which rises from the scene, shoots out of it like an arrow, and pierces me.”

To simplify, I’d say; Macro aesthetics is where either photographer or spectator or both are playing the photograph as a musical instrument. They’ve control over the selection of theme, shapes, colors, issues and cultural knowledge or curiosity to enhance that knowledge, by studying the subjects portrayed. They’re involved but not participating in the image.

But, Micro aesthetics creates circumstances where either photographer, or spectator, or both are being played like a musical instrument by the photograph itself. Here, they participate in image making i.e. the photographer and spectator, share a part of inner self with the photograph. But, it is next to impossible to set permanent principles around it, because what might socially affect one could psychologically influence the other, and vice versa.

An example to this can be the recent trend in photojournalism, where photos of war and refugees, flood the media. These images might contain Barthes’s Studium for people from safe countries but, they’d have Punctum for persons that encountered war. Similarly the photographs might be results of Macro aesthetics of a photojournalist who hail from a safe country, but for a photographer who faced or is facing loss due to war, those photos might be an outcome of Micro Aesthetic expression.

These expressions can be static, dynamic, geometric or sculptural etc. depending upon the personal psyche of creator. And, can be sympathetic, empathetic, objective or symbolic for creator as well as spectator, depending upon their reference point within the image.

At macro level, aesthetic expressions are connected to society and culture in terms of trends of how one expresses oneself. But, this connection is not strong enough to behold subjectivity. At micro level, subjectivity works to expand the horizon of visual style. One can say that we are going through this phase of expansion of horizon in photography. From the descriptive documentary style to interpretive communicative, and in some cases even symbolically expressive.

The direction of this expansion is still blurred. But I presume that text, sounds, and films are gaining importance as aesthetic additions, or tools in visual style of photographic presentations. Reason behind this anticipation, is the lesser amount of time that spectators invest in image viewing, due to fast paced lives. Flood of images in online and offline visual media. Also, text, sounds and moving images, prevents misunderstandings in global society, by clarifying the meanings of symbols and intentions of the photographer. It appears that inclusion of other senses, than just sight is the next step. We’ll see.

By – Prashant Rana

Every Sunday we discuss live though Instagram @prashantrana_official (Link - https://www.instagram.com/prashantrana_official/ ), at 16:30 (04:30PM) Indian Standard Time (12:00 Central European standard time). The discussion is based on diary entry of Fridays. We pick one topic of photography to write about, and post it here on the website. And, on Sunday at the given time, we talk about that live on Instagram. (Next session on 15th March 2020.

The session is later posted on Youtube - Zikr: Conversations in Photography (Link - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCy129cJLS3_vQN8wUFls_Mg?view_as=subscriber )

So do subscribe and follow. Looking forward to our conversations.

#photography workshop #photography blog #photography youtube channel #Instagram #zikr #Prashant Rana #@prashantrana_official

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