#and that creates all sorts of problems for people who really enjoy that direction in art

[yuurivoice]

A few folks seem very intrigued by the somewhat vague pre-BitterSweet ideas I had for Seth I was discussing on stream last night (and a few times before that) so I'll share in my own words here as well!

Seth's embryonic stage was straightforward.

Create a sexy rival for Alphonse who shares a criminal history with him, and wants to use Boo as a means to fuck with Al. Biker bad boy who fucks. That was all there was in the beginning.

From there I considered doing the Good End, Bad End approach that would expand on a concept I tried out with early Alphonse, where Boo and him hooking up on their first night was a non-canon bad end. This would have been more of a Bad Path rather than just an end, a few audios where shit just gets real wild.

I don't remember a ton of specifics now, but long story short after meeting (not the same as episode 1 of BS) Seth would be a lingering menace stirring shit and taunting Al/Boo before ultimately kidnapping Boo and luring Alphonse to a remote location, something similar to a trainyard or warehouse, like the settings seen in BS3. The climax involved a gun, and an ambiguous ending where we're not sure who got got in the end.

Then, after I sat with it for a while and started hammering out what I wanted his introduction to look like, Seth was not becoming that character. I held on, thinking maybe it'll take shape, and then the "THEY WERE LOVERS!?" bit hit me and it really started to get some movement...and nowhere near the direction of Seth really being a menace.

Also, I find the whole thing so overplayed and cliche in the ASMR roleplay niche that I did not think it would be wise in the long run to introduce even the optional Bad End thing because a lot of people cannot grasp the concept of "this is just a spicy branching alternate story for fun".

And honestly, I don't find it all that fun. A by the numbers kidnapping plot for the folks who enjoy that sort of thing would not have been the level of work I'd go on to do, nor would it have created the long lasting emotional attachment to Seth we have today.

Also, knowing your audience fucking matters. That era of the my audience had people freaking out at the idea that Alphonse might leave Boo. They were not prepared for that kind of content whether it was clearly labeled non-canon or not.

I'm pretty happy with where we ended up, and I am much more equipped to tell a story involving a fucked up asshole causing problems on purpose now than I was all those years ago.

But I hear the folks who want various boys behaving badly, and perhaps one day Seth will have a bad dream about what could have been. 🙏

[laurelwen]

Sorry, it's me again. There's this thing that has been...whispering in the back of mind since I read this post for the first time. Nigel wrote: "... I removed a rat's heart and pretended to be disgusted" Why on earth would he feel the necessity to PRETEND to be disgusted in front of Alex?

I've taken a minute to answer this because it's a very good question but difficult and complicated to answer within the context of the film. For those who aren't sure what you're referring to, please see this post transcribing Nigel's notes.

The short answer is: I don't think the people making the props were entirely consistent with the character as scripted. I think most likely they were given some general directives (such as "make sure it highlights the words "egocentric megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur") Outside those few directives, they just sort of let their poetic license run free, injecting their own ideas of a what a "fucked up weird guy who dissects animals" would say into the text, and creating a different version of Nigel than the movie presents us with. The worst example of that is the newspaper article in Alex's book--which doesn't make ANY sense in the context of the film. No one really expected crazy fans to obsessively pause the movie and use photo enhancing techniques frame by frame to determine what was written in his journals or the text of the article, so I think there was a lot of leeway and perhaps some laziness when it came to the props.

It's hard for me to come up with an IN character justification for Nigel to have written that, because it doesn't gel with my observations of him as presented in the film. The journal entry itself is written before he is kidnapped by Alex and the dynamic of their relationship shifts. This IS the entry that made Alex angry enough to kidnap him and teach him a lesson in the first place. This is the Nigel who barely responds to Alex's confrontational anger over the dissection in the dorm room, the Nigel who seems to be completely unmoved by or even very aware of how his actions might impact others. He doesn't care enough to even consider what effect he has on others, and even if/when he is aware, I sincerely doubt he'd bother to *pretend* anything. Nigel doesn't seem interested in pretending to be anything other than what he is, a defining trait that causes him a lot of problems.

Later in the movie, Nigel does shift a bit into a more puckish role. He fucks with Alex in a variety of ways, very noticeably in the train scene when they're going to visit his secret room. He's playful, mischievously antagonistic, poking and prodding Alex and seeming to enjoy his discomfort. This demeanor is more in line with the kind of guy who might write about deliberately messing with his roommate's head. But I still don't know why he would feign disgust in the middle of the dissection given that he's been dissecting animals regularly and Alex would have no reason to think he's grossed out by it.

I suppose if we apply that puckish attitude backward and say that Nigel was already trying to mess with Alex even before the kidnapping, we could sort of squint our eyes and imagine him being very over the top Fake Disgusted as he waves the heart around in Alex's direction. I still don't find that very likely, but it's the best I've got.

If you wanted to, you could use this as part of a theory that Nigel was the real instigator all along and had been intending/planning to manipulate Alex from the moment he was transferred to the school and forced to share a room. In such a reading of the film, all of his behavior could be seen as pretense in some way, including his initial lack of reaction to Alex--calculated to rile Alex up, put him off balance, etc.

I don't personally buy in to that interpretation, just as I don't buy into Alex being the sole instigator. I think either reading ascribes far too much power and control to these teenagers, however intelligent and manipulative they may be. But if you want to go that route, here's a supporting piece to add to your puzzle.

Thanks for the ask and I hope this rambling mess makes at least some sense!

EDIT: please read my reblog of this post. @silhioutte pointed out the very obvious mis-read of this line.

[Like Minds Masterpost - Main]

[itsbenedict]

Games I Played In 2024 And Whether Or Not I Thought They Were Good (Part 3/4)

[1] - [2] - 3 - [4]

More of them! I've been doing these roughly in chronological order so I'm going to have more to say about these ones probably.

Another Crab's Treasure

Haaaaaah. Mixed feelings on this one!

The idea is that it's a Dark Souls game, only, like, vibrant and colorful and ocean-themed. You're a hermit crab who's trying to get his shell back! Cute!

First off: if you get this game, do not get it on the Switch. It is broken on Switch. Like, crashes regularly, freezes up on simple object interactions, drops frames all the time... it's rough. I've seen LPs of people playing the PC version, where it looks and plays much better, so that's probably what you want to do instead. I'm shocked Nintendo let them release it on their store in this state.

And... that kind of colors my perception of the gameplay, too, because it turns out soulslike difficulty gets way more frustrating if you're usually dying to the game freezing up during an enemy attack, or the camera getting stuck where you couldn't see the tell animation, or some other technical issue that completely wasn't your fault. I was fighting the game every step of the way.

That said, I can easily see the version of the game that works, and the gameplay's pretty fun! The various shell powers, the rolling mechanics, and the smart enemy design make it really smooth to play when it's actually running at full FPS. The environment design is also really good, and overall it's very well-executed.

Hated the story, though. What a mess. It's... totally thoughtless doomer nonsense, whose primary message is "capitalism bad!" while completely failing to depict any capitalism and instead having the government be bad. It's all half-formed ideas from people with no model of how the world actually works- just a vague sense of anger at powerlessness and disenfranchisement, directed at incoherent strawmen. The speech where the evil corrupt mayor tells you that laws exist to make it legal for him to kill anyone who defies him is especially eye-rolling- as is the strawman of techno-optimism who shows up as the surprise final boss. Just idiotic stuff.

None of its metaphors even work on its own terms- like the thing where pollution is a nebulous force of corruption caused by greed in the hearts of the crabs who hoard trash, except that the greedy trash hoarders live in the clean colorful heights and the poors with no trash live in the polluted undercity with too much trash. Wait, what? Yeah.

Fun though.

Loop Hero

This one was really cool! It feels like there's some potential it had that it didn't realize, but I enjoyed it as a smaller experience anyway.

The idea is... the world's been destroyed, and you can sort of bring it back by remembering. As you walk along this desolate looped path autobattling enemies in search of a boss, you can put down tiles that change it- biomes that spawn different types of monsters, buildings that give you buffs, and terrain with global effects. As you progress, you unlock more types of tiles, and learn synergies between different types of tiles that create new effects.

There's a lot of these, and they're really cool. Like, put down nine mountains or hills in a square, and bam, you get a tall peak that spawns harpies to fight. Or put forests next to a lightning tower, and get burning forests that, uh, I think lower everyone's HP or something? Place a light source next to a field, and it blooms with flowers, doubling its XP bonus or whatever it is those do.

My problem I think is just that there's not enough of them. Each type of tile has between two and four different kinds of interactions with other tiles, and you don't really get too many elaborate combos. Most types of tiles ignore each other. I kind of wish there'd been a little more depth to these systems, with more surprising interactions with older terrain types as you unlocked new ones. Let me run a river past a spider nest and get diving bell spiders, or put a storm tower next to a vampire castle to spawn frankensteins! The surprise tile synergies were the most exciting part, and there was definitely room to include more of them.

The story had some kind of cool things to say about, like, the weight of creation, passing judgment on the world, deciding what has the right to exist. I don't know that it really explores it fully, but there's something there!

Hades II

Yep, this thing's in early access! And no surprise: it's good as hell. I've wasted far too much time in it.

Gameplay-wise, it's going to be pretty familiar if you've played Hades, but there's a few major changes. The most impactful, I've found, is that you only get one dash. No upgrading it with the mirror or getting more from Hermes- you get one, and then can hold down the button to run slightly faster if you gotta move fast. This makes Melinoe play very differently from Zagreus, who favored getting in close and overwhelming foes with a flurry of blows before zipping back out with dashes when things get hairy. Melinoe needs to stay safe a lot more than Zag does, and relies on her ranged options to do so.

(There's also a few other tweaks- every attack comes with a charged version that costs mana from a mana bar, olympian calls are replaced with "moon blessings", and of course all the weapons are new and take some getting used to- but the dash is the biggest thing.)

The story, this time, is fascinatingly weird. It concerns a war between the gods and the titan Chronos, and... it's not entirely clear if you're on the right side of it. They play up how callous and evil the gods are with respect to mortal life, and have multiple supporting characters who put this concern front and center where Hades 1 kind of sidelined it. But Melinoe is this weird, uptight honor student type of character with a strong sense of propriety and familial loyalty, and kind of doesn't care about that compared to her quest to rescue her family.

It keeps, like... dropping hints that you're not really on the right side, here? Chronos is personally unpleasant and loathsome, but you keep getting little hints that what he's actually doing is an improvement over how the gods were running things. Various character arcs seem to be headed in a "the gods suck and you should stick up for your non-god friends" direction, but...

...I mean, they can't actually do that, can they? Just, structurally! It's a roguelike, meant to be infinitely replayable! Hades 1 had a pretty elegant resolution to that problem, reframing the gameplay as something that can fit without the central conflict, but I can't imagine how Hades 2 could possibly do that. An entire section of the world takes place on a fleet of ghost ships sailing to join the war effort! Even Melinoe failing to grow and just winning seems incompatible with the game continuing. A good chunk of the game doesn't exist without the conflict! I don't see how they can possibly put a bow on all this, and I'm excited to see how they try.

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door

My favorite game from my childhood has received an updated rerelease on Switch... and they did it right. You gotta check this out.

I've talked about why TTYD is great before- I think one of the first posts on this blog, waaaaaay back in the day when my posts were bad and you shouldn't go looking for them? But the upshot is: the battle system uses small numbers, and you can figure out exactly what kind of damage you can dish out and take in a given turn, and plan your risk-taking and resource management around it precisely- in a way you can't really do when you've got big damage numbers with RNG ranges of outcomes. All the risk is in the execution of your guards and special moves, which let you attempt harder inputs in exchange for more favorable outcomes, with a chance that you'll fail because you fucked up,

Going back to it after so long... honestly, with fresh eyes, the writing isn't quite as lively as I remember? Like, I remember a big reason I was disappointed by later PM games was that there were no partners, or that the partners didn't really talk or figure into the story. But... honestly, TTYD does have that same problem, outside of the chapters where those characters are introduced. Once someone's In Your Party, their relevance is kind of over, and they all deliver pretty similar filler lines while out. That's something they could maybe improve on in a proper sequel.

Still, the writing generally remains sharp and very funny, and the variety of scenarios it throws at you are great. And the remake adds a few things that really enhance the experience- like new remixes of the battle theme for every chapter, and extra animations for every character, even the random background nobodies. You can hit NPCs with your hammer and they'll play a little "hey, ow!" animation now! Different characters get different dialogue bleep sounds! And they added a warp hub for backtracking, so the General White quest isn't so tedious! And a warp pipe between Creepy Steeple and Twilight Town, to cut out like an hour of pointless backtracking! All the changes they made were really smart.

(Including: putting Vivian's trans stuff back in the script, after it was cut in the original localization. Good on you, Nintendo!)

Pokérogue

I was weak. I held out two months, and then gave in. And I regret everything.

This fucking thing ate multiple months of my life. It's... infuriatingly addictive. It boils the Pokémon experience down to this ultra-tuned flow state, with accelerated levelups and mechanics to streamline the game into a roguelike form factor, and it's so goddamn tight. Every moment of it is setting you up with a thing you can do next, so there's no stopping points- just new goal after new goal after new goal. It totally hijacked my brain until I beat the damn thing into submission, doing absolutely everything it's possible to do in it.

Except "ever voluntarily using Skwovet", because fuck that thing.

Don't play this. It's bad for you.

Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree

Technically not a new game, but the DLC is basically an entire new game, with a map about the size of the base game and its own progression system and story.

I don't have too much to say about the DLC itself! It's More Elden Ring. Miquella's story is cool and tragic, the final boss was a terrifying surprise, and the new environments and enemy designs were sick as hell. If you liked Elden Ring for those things, there's more of it here! 'Nuff said.

What stuck out to me was... I started a new character and a whole fresh playthrough of the game, because I didn't know what the entry point to the DLC was. And while last time, I built a strength-focused warrior with tons of HP, this time I decided to try out a totally different build and play a squishy wizard with ranged attacks. And the game was so different like that! Still balanced, still fun, but completely a different game.

Instead of being about getting in close, staying in close, and sticking around for a long time while finding openings to attack, it became about staying at a safe distance, dodging projectiles, and retaliating with nuke spells to end fights before bosses could get much of a chance to hit me. Some areas that were a huge problem for me before were trivialized by my reusable ranged blasts, and some areas that were no trouble were suddenly a difficulty cliff because there was no way to be effective at range. I'm surprised at how much of a transformation it was! Impressive feat of design.

WEBFISHING

This is a cute little multiplayer fishing game based off Animal Crossing's fishing system. It's a relaxing little second-screen game without too much going on! Not too much to say about it- it does what it sets out to do. Kinda wish they'd tried a little harder for some of the fish "jokes", though- a lot of them are anti-humor about not having a joke for this one. I will retaliate by... not having much of a review for this one.

DEATHLOOP

This thing was fuckin' cool. You're an amnesiac trapped in a time loop- but not just any time loop. The people on this island came here specifically to trap themselves in a time loop, where they could kill each other and live out hedonistic fantasies with no consequences, but something fucked up and now only you and a crazy lady who's trying to kill you are actually experiencing the loop. For everyone else, it's their first day, and they don't take kindly to you trying to break the loop and ruin their fun.

In order to break the loop, you have to kill a bunch of important assholes (called "Visionaries") who've somehow anchored the loop to themselves. But you've got to do it in a single day, and they're scattered all over this huge island- so you've got to come up with a plan. Find ways to manipulate where they'll be at what times, when they'll be vulnerable, and line up that perfect killstreak.

It's fun stuff. Initially, it seems impossible- they're too spread out, too inaccessible, too heavily-defended. But as you work on figuring them out one at a time, you learn lots of little details about gaps in their defenses, ways to fuck with their routines, and traps you can set for them so they'll die without you needing to be present. It's like a mystery game, even though the minute-to-minute gameplay is a pretty standard stealth action shooter.

(Said gameplay's pretty fun on its own- though weirdly, the starting pistol pretty much kills everything in the game in one headshot and has perfect accuracy, so I'm not sure why they bother giving you other guns. I upgraded to Frank's SMG which is basically the same gun but it reloads instantly, and basically never needed to use anything else.)

The story's... a little weird. It tries to focus on the relationship between Colt and Julianna (your also-looping nemesis trying to stop you from breaking the loop), but like... she's not... there, except as an annoying random superboss encounter that sometimes spawns in the middle of you trying to do other shit. She's just a voice over the radio that snarks at you and doesn't have any relationships with any of the other characters.

So like, ultimately you learn a twist about who she was to you before you lost your memory, and she explicates her reasons for wanting to protect the loop, and there's like, some decent character work being done there?

Buuuuuut, in attempting to foreground this character dynamic and make it the main resolution to the game, they kind of forgot to give a satisfying resolution to anything else. Like, these seven people you spend the whole game obsessively stalking and learning everything about so you can efficiently murder them in one go... don't really get a resolution other than being anticlimactically murdered. And there's like no resolution to like, what is the loop and how does it work and why did it get fucked up and what are the stakes here. It's all so meticulously done that I get the impression some writer somewhere answered these questions while plotting it, but they just either didn't put any of it in the game, or I missed something huge.

One negative I will say is: this thing made my old computer overheat like instantly. I had to build a proper gaming PC before I could run this thing- and that was in fact my main motivation for building it, was because I wanted to play this game without my laptop melting. Not really playable on smaller machines, even on minimum settings.

-

One more coming down the line, for the games I played but didn't beat this year, and that should do it!

[1] - [2] - 3 - [4]

[thebigpalooka]

Sonic 3 Sonic 3

I've now seen Sonic 3! Welcome back, 2/3s of my dash that I had blocked lol

Spoiler-free impressions, but still behind a cut for those who don't want to draw inferences lol:

TL;DR, Sonic 3 is wonderful and tons of fun, but Sonic 2 was probably peak for my personal taste.

As others have said, Sonic 1 was very different from the games and each movie has now shifted a bit closer in terms of action and pacing. I adored the first movie but I totally get why a lot of folks who thought it was just okay are delighted with the direction things are going. Personally, I just found things a bit rushed on a character level, which was the element that was so charming in the first, admittedly un-Sonic-gamey movie. They hit every note you would want and expect, they just hit them VERY VERY FAST and it does feel like a game where you see an emotional cutscene, the screen fades, and then you begin an action level immediately after lol. Nothing is precisely missing, but quite a lot is kind of just ... told, not really shown.

I adored Shadow, as expected, and was very happy with how they adapted SA2's story generally, but I felt he suffered some of the same problems Tails did in the previous movie, which is that there was too much ground to cover to really develop his emotional arc. It exists, but there's no meat to it, nothing to chew at all, it's a meal replacement shake, one gulp just to get a taste, second gulp, gone. Sonic, too, has a perfunctory character arc in the movie, but it's very shallow: we're told what it is, it occupies a very few minutes of screentime and then resolves in the only way it possibly could. The previous two films felt like we were really seeing things through Sonic's eyes, for the most part; that's really not the case here, and I struggle to describe whose eyes we ARE really looking through, other than Dr. Robotnik.

And that brings me to probably the aspect of the movie I enjoyed the least, even though that's going to be entirely YMMV for people on an individual basis: there was too much Jim Carrey for me, lol. Way, way too much. For obvious reasons, there's a lot of Robotnik in this movie, but it isn't just an issue of lots of screentime: this story is honestly Robotnik's story more than it is anyone else's, and that was ... kind of a bummer to me? Again, a lot of folks disliked how much the previous two movies focused on the human characters, and here, that has been drastically scaled back for everyone else, but seemingly every moment of that screentime is now occupied by Jim Carrey. And he's very good, and very funny, and I'm not even mad about it, but I do wish some of that time had gone to Shadow instead, or indeed, Sonic himself. Creating an emotional journey for a character who didn't really need one and is arguably better without it felt like a shame when it came at the expense of Shadow's story, and I found myself honestly sort of hoping for a new villain in the next movie. It feels like we're running out of juice to squeeze here.

But, end of the day, I AM still completely looking forward to another movie, now more than ever, and truthfully, I'm not sure I've ever wanted to see a Sonic movie MORE than I want to see Sonic 4, lol.

So TL;DR 2: go see Sonic 3 at once and draw lots of fanarts and write lots of fanfics. It hits pretty much all the right notes, it just hits a few of them too loud and misses a few of the spaces between.

[viceconnor21]

Fizzy-Pop Aka Skizzleman

Hopefully this reads as Skizz. I was struggling with the colors. Plus I also wanted to reference the boogyman with the purple. IDK. Maybe I'll redesign it but not anytime soon.

Personality Traits (short version): - People person - Fun-loving - Earth pony (w/ Pegasus magic) - descended from the goddess of love - Vagabond before setting in Hermit Town - “Roommates” with Voltage - Pinkie pie-like personality - Infectious sense of humor - Very presence brings the best out in others - Spreads love and cheer

Background: Fizzy Pop has always loved people. He enjoys making creatures smile, spreading love and cheer in any way he can. The problem was that Fizzy never really felt at home. Of course, the people were always friendly. They always welcome him and most were never unkind. However, no matter where he went or how long he stayed, he never felt like he belonged. So he traveled. He concluded that he would always be a vagabond, a wanderer, and nomad. Maybe this was his purpose. He would always be destined to drift from place to place and spread love wherever he could. That was fine, he didn’t mind. But it sure was lonely. His only respite from the outcast of his own design was the occasional letters he received from his childhood best friend. They shared everything. His friend would talk about his next big project, like Fizz knew what he was talking about, and Fizz would tell him all about the wonderful things he saw on his travels. With that being said, it was only until Fizzy had a run in with a not so nice griffon that Fizzy’s resolve broke and he poured his soul out to his friend. He explained how he was lonely in a crowded room. He explained how even though he loved traveling he wished he had somewhere to call his home. While his friend was empathic towards his struggles, the answer seemed obvious to him. Fizzy Pop should come live with him in Hermit Town. Even if Fizzy wanted to continue to travel, there would always be a place for him with his best friend. Why had this never occurred to Fizz? It made perfect sense. The one pony he had always felt at home with was Voltage. He left for Hermit before the sun rose.

Fizzy Pop is a bubbly earth pony with pegasus magic. The wings he bears, while flesh and blood, and not part of his physical body. While a part of him, he can summon his wings at will. This is because he is a direct descendant of the current love goddess. If he were to trace his bloodline back, he’d find her to be a great, great grandmother. While a lot of ponies can track their lineage somewhere connected to a power being of some sort, most are distant cousins, however, being so close in blood, he did have special abilities. However, most of his life, this just made them a freak. When he was a young colt, despite being an earth pony, his pegasus was unpredictable and he struggled to hide his two sets of odd wings. The adults in his small town on the outskirts of the crystal empire told him that he was special but the other colts and fillies had other ideas. The only good thing was he met the other classroom outcast. A bulky little unicorn with two horns instead of one. He also had a talent for electric magic with little control. This made him less than popular with the others. They grew up together, but eventually went separate ways, but still always kept in contact. After years of traveling, Fizz moved in with Voltage in the small close-knit community of Hermit.

Fizz is still new to the town, but for the first time he feels at home. The town is full of castouts and misfits that found their home in the valley. Fizzy could see that each creature used their talents to expand and improve the little town. From creatures who excelled in creating structures and machines, to talented magic users to creatures who seemingly controlled the very land beneath them. Sometimes Fizzy feels bad about not having a practical talent like everyone else. He wasn’t a builder, he didn’t understand magic besides his limited pegasus magic, and even though he is getting better, he doesn’t understand color pallets. His talent is in spreading positivity and love. He can lift the mood of creatures around him. He was like a walking cup of caffeine for creatures around him. Sure that does sound nice but what else could he do.

That’s when his “roomate”, Voltage, set him straight. Fizzy Pop wasn’t just a walking mood enhancer but his very presence brings the best out in others, and this has nothing to do with any magic. It was just who Fizzy was. He was the guy that sees the bright side and good things in everyone. He brightens the atmosphere with his humor and his joy for life. People want him around because the day is better when you get to spend time with Fizzy Pop. So what if he is not the best builder in Hermit. Given time his skills will be honed like everyone else here. Fizzy brings a new life to Hermit. A light that everyone can see. A light that Hermit embraces wholeheartedly.

[cvnt4him]

Rules, about me, and directions.

looks better in light mode.

about mikah.

It's nothing good unfortunately

I'm mikah Pronounced My-cuh.

17. I am a POC (I'm black shawty)

I'm not really social. Whatever comes out of my brain is what you get.

Please don't be rude to me, I'm a gentle soul I swear.

My "humor" might be a little odd don't judge me please.

I am currently writing about; HQ and MHA.

I also do art!!! If you'd like to see scroll down to the tags and search for, cvnts-art !! You'll find a cornucopia of my art!!

IMPORTANT MUST READ.

I've gotten a lot of backlash for making the things I make. To keep it short and sweet minors and ageless blogs to keep my account and my posts up PLEASE do not interact. And if you do know that what you find on this blog is for mature audiences. Maturity comes from many different things; not just age. I cannot stop you further more, personally I do not see blocking anyone over them interacting is the way to do it. Of course, do not be weird and freaky, if you DO happen to interact do NOT recommend my fics/acc to others. I want to keep my account up for as long ad possible without any problems. Adults [usually aged 25-30+] who read my things and stalk my account usually have problems with my lack of warnings and "mdni"s. You all who are minors/younger than me know right from wrong. Do not get anyone else in trouble for your actions.

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small navi<3

Feel free to click my masterlist to see my fics, or! just click on the tag cvnts-post to see any other drabble, imagine, ECT!!

(i personally would go to my masterlist to have a little order and direction as if you just click the tag you might see everything that's unorganized which i cannot fucking stand. unorganization makes me fr bat shit crazy

So with nothing else left to be said, enjoy exploring my blog!!

NOTICE!!

When reading my fics by going to my navi and clicking masterlist! You will find that they have been sorted by little codes! Please please PLEASE look closely to see what you are reading! I do not want people accidentally clicking something they do not want which ofc isn't a big deal but I spend time assuring all of my fics and things are categorized! Just keep an eye out and be sure to enjoy<33

Updated: 1/14/25.

All dividers used in this or any other post/fic are created by @anitalenia

[alpaca-clouds]

Some Solarpunk Game Ideas

Folks seem to enjoy me writing a bit about Solarpunk, so let me bring in something, that I have been thinking about a lot: Solarpunk in videogames. Because so far, all we have in that direction basically goes into some sort of city builder (Anno 2070), anti city builders (Terra Nil) or some sort of farming or crafting game.

The issue, I think, a lot of game developers, who want to do something with the genre, struggle against, is the rather peaceful and idealistic nature of Solarpunk. A lot of people do not feel it is right to make a Solarpunk game combat oriented. But most game genres are kinda reliant on some sort of combat. Now, while I disagree with this assessment (Solarpunk is as much about rebellion, as about the hopefully idealistic outcome of it), I understand the sentiment.

I personally would love to create a Solarpunk game, but on my own I just do not have the skills for that.

Still, I have thought about it a lot. So, I want to offer to you a couple of ideas for Solarpunk games in different genres, that could be developed. Yes, if you are interested in building out one of those ideas, you are welcome to just take it. Also: Yes, if you want more details on the ideas, you can totally contact me! No fear.

Visual Novel

Let me start with probably one of the genre most easily used under the umbrella of “peaceful”. A Visual Novel. Visual Novels can be all sort of storylines. A lot, obviously, are romance focused, but you can use the genre to tell all sort of stories. Hence, telling a story in a Solarpunk world, could be very easy. And technically you are almost unlimited, about the kind of story you want to tell.

My personal favorites, when it comes to the ideas, is for once a polyamorous romance VN. See, most romance focused VNs do have different story paths depending on which romance you pursue and within that storyline you are very linear. I do think for several reasons, that polyamory and Solarpunk work very well together – so, why not try and mix it up?

Another idea, though, could be a storyline about building up a community within a storyline featuring the challenges of building a new community. Both social problems, as well as technical and environmental issues. This one would actually build a lot around the characters within the community you build and about you getting to know them.

Puzzle Game

Another genre that works well without any sort of violence, is puzzle games. And there would be a lot of possibility here to explore. After all, you can find a lot of reasons the player has to do puzzles of all sort.

The idea I have for this genre, is the idea of repairs. A lot of Solarpunk is also build around the “right to repair” and also around community help and community workshops. So, as the player you take over the role of someone volunteering in such a workshop helping all sorts of different customers with their repair and DIY projects. To repair things, you have to complete all sorts of puzzles.

Point-and-Click Adventure

Another genre, that most of the time does not involve much violence, is that of the old Point-and-Click Adventure. These often, obviously, have a lot of puzzle elements, too, but obviously tends to have a lot more story advancement in there. A lot of the most notable examples of the genre, are rather focused on humor, though you can tell all sorts of stories with the genre, if you really wanted to.

My idea for this, is the story of an archeologist in anno 2500 Solarpunk future unearthing the remains of an ancient 2020s city. A kinda genre reversion of the entire Indiana Jones thing – only that instead of someone being all archeologist-adventurous about something from what we call the “ancient past”, it is people from the future exploring the present. I don’t know. I found that idea kinda cute.

RPG

Now, last genre and idea for today. RPGs typically tend to be combat focused and use combat and XP claimed from it to advance. But of course the basic of it – Role Playing – does not need to use combat as a mechanic. You could use all sorts of mechanics to do this. You do not even need any sort of level progression technically – though of course this mechanic is so closely linked to the core of the game genre, that it is hard to think without it. Still, there recently have been quite a few cozy RPGs, that do not feature combat.

Cozy RPGs often feature you helping other characters and advancing through that. So, why not make it an RPG about mutual aid within a young Solarpunk community. Things of all sorts need to be done. Someone needs you to find a certain spare part. Someone else needs you to find people willing to help with a roof repair. Yet another person wants you to help in the community kitchen. And maybe at the same time you and the people in your town are trying to repair the environmental impact on the surrounding area, leading you to go out into the wildness around.

That’s it for some ideas right now. I might post other ideas at some other point, if you guys are interested.

As I said, I would kinda love to develop some ideas, but… Not alone. So… We’ll see.

[inhuman-obey-me]

What are your thoughts on OG obey me not getting anymore lessons after 80? It worries me because it kinda feels like they are trying to kill it slowly.... This is making me not enjoy nightbringer because i thought i would be a spin off new game with a new story that we could play while waiting for OG obey me to come with season 5, but now it seams like nightbringer will be their only foucus and season 5 will never happen. Sorry this kinda turned into a rant just not liking what's happening now.

Yeah, we weren't too happy when we first heard about it, which was the AMA the devs did on Reddit. It was a shitty way to release that information, and it sucks that they really only said so when people ASKED if OG was going to get season 5/more lessons. It did create backlash right away, which we guess they were...attempting to avoid in the first place lol. But they definitely should have handled that announcement a lot better than they did.

In terms of what it means for the future of OG, we don't think they are trying to kill it per se so much as they just sort of...wrote themselves into a corner, and this was their way of hitting reset, on that and other things.

(no need to apologize for ranting, ours is even longer LOL -- rest under the cut!)

We definitely have some criticisms of the writing in Season 4, particularly how they squandered much of what was narratively set up in Season 3, and they didn't really set anything up on where it goes from there. It's also unfortunate that the original game is just going to be doing the same events as Nightbringer, rather than separate ones, which just means there's really nothing to motivate people to stay. And in that way, it does also sort of feel like a waste of all the effort people have put in to strengthen up our cards and grind affection and stuff, because we can't transfer ANY of that. They probably hope to continue that both sides will make money for them, but realistically speaking, it does feel like they are effectively just pushing everyone to migrate to the new game, and that the original is being sort of abandoned to just a maintenance mode kind of thing.

One thing they did note about the decision was that Ruri Tunes was originally supposed to just be an additional mode, but they decided to split it off as part of a separate Nightbringer game/story in order to not make the original "unplayable" with all they wanted to add and change "under the hood". Part of that, at least at a guess, may be due to the difficulty curve of the original -- despite them adjusting the difficulty in a patch, plus their zero-AP lesson battle promo campaigns, they probably were seeing a lot of drop-off just for people who gave up because they couldn't make it through those earlier lessons to even finish Seasons 2, 3, and 4. In that sense, it's good and bad to shift the continuation of the story to this new game even though they don't seem to have actually learned their lesson with the difficulty curve problem... But that's another thing they get to hit reset on by making a new game.

As for a Season 5, we do know from the same AMA that the story from the original is supposed to "continue" in Nightbringer, which suggests that it might pick back up from the end of Season 4 as effectively a Season 5, like maybe MC will make it back to their own time and continue from there, just in this other game instead of the original. Which, um, is certainly a choice on their part, especially since not everyone has the time or interest in a rhythm game. It kinda feels also a bit like this sudden time travel thing in Nightbringer may almost be a way of buying them some time while they figure out what to do as a continuation to the OG plot.

All of that said, however, considering the lack of direction for the original, we've actually been really enjoying Nightbringer's story! It dives into a lot of super interesting questions and content that fans have been begging for and brings back some of the darker themes from Season 1 that we've really missed, so even though it's not quite the Season 5 we've been waiting for, we're really hyped for the new content to keep coming!

[bisluthq]

JK Rowling is a horrible person and I don’t blame anyone for disliking Harry Potter as a result. But I also think it’s weird that movies produced by Harvey Weinstein or directed by Roman Polanski don’t get the same treatment. If you say you love Rosemary’s Baby or a Tarantino movie no one will bat an eye, but if you bring up Harry Potter there’s so many people that will complain about you supporting JK Rowling. I don’t even know if it’s to do with misogyny or if it’s people who think hating on popular things is cool and have chosen to use JK Rowling being a terf as an excuse. I’m not talking about people who were fans and can’t bring themselves to enjoy the books and films anymore. It’s just that the response to someone enjoying Harry Potter feels so much bigger than to other media created by problematic people. People choose they want to hate someone and then they look up what they’ve done to use as an excuse for their hatred, so it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s the people who’ve always disliked Harry Potter using it as a “gotcha” to people who still like it. I also think there’s a difference between people enjoying the films and actually supporting her. You could watch a DVD you’ve own since you were 12 and not give a single penny to the woman. You could buy the books second hand. You could make your own Hogwarts house scarf. I don’t know where I’m going with this, I saw a tweet about the Harry Potter films and I started thinking about how people usually react to anyone bringing up Harry Potter (I didn’t look at the replies of this particular tweet so I don’t know what people were saying)

I tend to agree with you. I don’t know if it’s misogyny or just that… being a Harry Potter adult (same as a Disney adult or whatever) is pretty “lame” (consciously problematic word choice) so people can mock it from a high horse of like “JKR is a bad person”. Which she is. And obviously being into Harry Potter as an adult is pretty fucking uncool lmao. But also like… idk man if someone is happy with their little hogwarts crap or wants to reread passages of a book that made them super happy and got them into reading or watch a movie that they loved then fuck it let them do it. I’ve got a Harry Potter mug that I’ve had for forever and I’m not gonna throw it in the trash because JKR is a massive transphobe. I wouldn’t go out and buy a new one but I also don’t know that I’d have bought a new Harry Potter mug now even if she was a good person. My brother has some Ravenclaw paraphernalia and fuck it, I think it makes him happy. I’ve got all the original books (most in the hard cover pressing) and I’ve got the DVDs somewhere. What I wouldn’t do is go and watch new Fantastic Beasts thingies in the cinema and that I actually maybe would like to do but I won’t because I don’t want to support her but the rest of it… doesn’t really support her? If I had kids, I don’t think I’d read them Harry Potter and less because she’s a bad person and more because I’ve realized a bunch of shit in those books is problematic and I wouldn’t want to expose my kids to that kind of language (so yes I guess because she’s a bad person with bad thoughts) but 1) I don’t really care if other people want to read it to their kids 2) having Harry Potter crap from before you knew she sucks is really sort of not a problem.

[marengogo]

UGH!-6: But like … Did They Stutter?

Yet To Come - by BTS  [Proof]

[Music is a very big part of my life and I’m MOSTLY INCAPABLE of writing without music, so I just thought I'd share what I am listening to while writing this]

–🐺–🐺–🐺–

…

Given that even my coworkers, who generally REALLY DON’T CARE/KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT BTS except for the ones who now have started listening to some of their songs thanks to yours truly, came to me saying “So. BTS. They are disbanding uh? …” the day after FESTA 2022 dinner, I’d say it wouldn’t be a gross generalization to assume that at least every ARMY, OT7, x/y/z-biased, solo, anti, shipper, whatever-you-prefer-to-be-called, saw FESTA 2022 dinner. Right? 

If you haven’t I’d highly recommend you to do so but as always you feel free to do you as the boys did explain everything that they could at the time, which is pretty much what is happening right now. They also made a couple of sentiments and statements clear, and I, for one, am writing this post even though I am painfully aware that the boys are never going to see it, yet I still wish to put out this message in the universe, maybe its energy will manifest and reach them somehow, as I would really like them not to think that we all have poor listening and reading comprehension. 

BTS’ CHAPTER 1: THE END OF AN ERA.

The Beatles. The Jackson 5. Menudo. New Edition. Backstreet Boys. One Direction.

According to the following Wiki definition this is what they all have in common:

A boy band is loosely defined as a vocal group consisting of young male singers, usually in their teenage years or in their twenties at the time of formation.[1] Generally, boy bands perform love songs marketed towards girls and young women. Many boy bands dance as well as sing, usually giving highly choreographed performances. South Korean boy bands usually also have designated rappers 🤡 LOL LOL LOL 🤡.

That being said, with hindsight, we can add/examine a couple of aspects, which have surfaced through the years and further represent boy bands. For example, the fact that at the very beginning boy bands were usually the union of a group of friends, or classmates, basically, people who already knew each other. Let’s fast forward a couple of decades, and we see that the music industry catches on to the fact that waiting for the next phenomenal boy band to magically appear is not sustainable and that is when they realise that they can actually make the groups themselves. So starts the scouting and the auditioning with the sole goal of slapping together supposedly talented boys who are complete strangers to one another, but who at the very least, have a desire to become rich and famous. “Win-win”. 

Moving on, around the same time, we'll have to leave the West and take a trip to East-Asia, where the boy band industry has had an even bigger eureka moment. What they’ve realized is that even though these boys may not have the affinity of a band of boys who already know each other, from a business point of view they can easily be molded into whatever it is on demand at the very moment, afterall, everybody loves a good story, and even better if it comes with a great soundtrack. So what better than creating a narrative for these boy bands, each member would have a role/character associated and fans can not only enjoy the music but also follow a sort of “storyline” as they watch for example the silent masculine strong member interact with the cute feminine talkative one. Even greater “win”, brr brr!.

Now, in an ideal world, all that reasoning would make sense and bring about endless profit, but we don’t live in such a place do we? The whole purpose of a business is to make money and if money is what you base your every decision on, sooner or later, you are bound to encounter problems that money can’t solve without changing things irreversibly and in most instances, for the worst. The thing about grouping ambitious strangers with the intent of becoming rich (usually more for the company) and famous (usually more for the artists) is that if you don’t have a common goal all you are essentially doing is building a glorified House of Cards. 

And don’t get me wrong, Longevity, is something that this type of companies, and the artists themselves, could only dream to achieve but never actually aim at. Nobody does, because it is very much a pipe dream type of thing. In fact, for the most part, the company's goal is it to at least have one amazing CD, make fans go crazy for a year or two, so that they can spend some money, and then if it doesn’t work anymore, the artist would hope to have garnered enough fame to allow them to start perhaps a solo career, or at least stay within the business, while the group inevitably disbands and the company moves on to the next group. Rinse and repeat ad infinitum. This has been the blueprint, and it was indeed the same blueprint used to form Bangtan Sonyeondan. 

It was the same blueprint, but Bang SiHyuk was a visionary that had goals of his own, with a knack for unusual experimentation 🤡. And exactly like a Mad Scientist, if you will, he played around with what he believed to be “slightly usual ingredients”. However, what he didn’t quite know at the time, was that these “ingredients” were actually very unusual. Some of the “ingredients” didn’t follow instructions, some very quickly dropped their assigned character, and some even had secret jobs but what they all had, and he probably didn’t account for or maybe he did, who knows right? was an extraordinary fighting spirit, which pulled up strong when it became clear that it was Bangtan vs the World. These boys had something to prove. They had somehow found their common goal.

As we all should know, early Bangtan, due to Big Hit's lack of reputation and funds, became the industry’s punching bag. This would have normally caused an “explosion in the lab”, instead, it created something new. The boys were fired up with this fiery will to fight back. They took the negativity and turned it into artistic fuel and did all of that while naturally learning about each other and consequently depending on each other solely. Somehow, these boys ended up actually liking each other. They kinda fought like members of a band made of family members, but had the passion of members of a band of strangers. They were an anomaly. 

An anomaly in a world that had rapidly become full of “anomalies”. Your everyday listener was, yes, looking for good music, yes, looking for something new and entertaining, but when they realised that they could also get someone who they could relate to; … 🤯🤯🤯. And so the “ingredients'' began to mutate. Along the way, they found their true calling, while adapting to their environment and understanding their receptors fandom, which also understood them in return, creating a never before seen bond, Tannies & ARMY, that brought them to where they are now; a world where THEY are the blueprint has anyone else noticed the number of boy/girl bands that got back together. 

These boys have created something unique. 

Something that other “Mad Scientists” have ever since been trying so hard to recreate in “their labs” and so far to no avail. This “something” is not only insanely lucrative, but also so emotionally rare, and has a chance at Longevity. These are boys who trust and genuinely love each other, but because they are also human, and have learned to be honest with themselves, they also know their limitations. And like they’ve always done, they sat down, exposed the problem, and tried to find a solution. And even though they didn’t have to, they also sat down with us, FESTA 2022 dinner, and quite clearly explained their solution. But, as always, the world managed to take their words and turn them into whatever sold better on the front page of the next morning paper we’ll get to that later on or/and whatever better fits their personal agendas. 

BTS’ CHAPTER 2: A LIMITED AMOUNT OF TIME, WITH AN UNLIMITED NUMBER OF POSSIBILITIES.

Have any of you experienced moments where you just wanted some time to yourself? Like, you love your friends, your family, your job, your everything, but at the same time, you are mentally exhausted and you need out for as long as you can afford? This is usually what most people use holidays for, you might be thinking. But the type of out I’m talking about is the kind where you want to be able to pause your present life, start another life for a while, and then go back to your past life kinda out. Basically, a “have your cake and eat it” type of out. 

That’s what I feel the boys are trying to experience and I ain’t mad at it, not one bit. Cause, let's be real, most of us regular people can’t really afford to even think of experiencing such a thing without MAJOR repercussions to our everyday life. But not only do I feel like they deserve it, but if it also allows them to reach their goals, and solve their problems, it would be like killing two birds with one stone. I mean, they really are not hurting anyone, by wanting to have a chance to experience life outside BTS other than those who are setting themselves up to be hurt that is 🤡.  

October 2022 rolled around and we got the following:

This theoretically gives a precise time frame to BTS’ CHAPTER 2. Let’s say that being back together means that they will physically be together and do a WLIVE on the 31st of December 2025, that means that, if we assume their serving period to be 18 months, the latest any member can enlist is the 30th of June 2024 (which I calculated considering the 30th of December 2025 being their last day). Obviously, I don’t know if their plan is to be together by the end of December 2025 and start working on a new album in 2026. Or be together say by August 2025 and ready for a tour in 2026 with a new album; only time can tell. But for the purpose of this post: BTS’ CHAPTER 2 began on the 15th of June 2022 and could end on the 31st of December 2025.

SO, that being said, a couple of things happened on the 15th of June 2022 that I would like to point out and a couple of things, define a couple of others, and I would like for people to remember one particular thing:

THINGS TO POINT OUT:

Some OT7 ARMY decided to dip and come back when BTS comes back to be 7, so after MS.

Other OT7 and/or x/y/z-biased ARMY decided to support each member’s solo endeavour.

Last but abso-fucking-lutely not least, SOLOS FINALLY GOT THEIR TIME TO SHINE AND PUSH THEIR AGENDA, along side antis.

THINGS TO DEFINE:

FAMILY BOY BAND MEMBER or FBBMs: Is what I will call boy bands with members that already knew each other, or were already related, etc etc etc.

STRANGERS BOY BAND MEMBERS or SBBMs: Is what I will call the type of bands that were put together through an audition, selection, etc etc etc.

ONE THING TO REMEMBER OR REALISE:

There was a point in time when BTS was seriously considered by NOBODY. Many knew about them, but still wanted nothing to do with them. Some that knew about them, went on and treated them like trash. Even though they had the talent, it took their fandom at the time to be persistent in order for people to give them a chance. In short, differently from many FBBMs and SBBMs who eventually ended up splitting up after reaching fame, BTS experienced having nobody but themselves and their label and fame came AFTER THAT. Because everyone was a nobody before becoming somebody, but how many were nobodies, who were constantly shoved down by semi-bodies and ignored by somebodies before they became THE BODIES themselves? So yeah, they may be smiling to people that harmed them in the past, and they might have decided to forgive and forget in other instances, but as real and intended as the experience they had were, you can bet that so are the choices that they make nowadays. A method to madness.

If you are a businessperson like yours truly, or have dealt with managing a business, you probably know that it is like in Love and War; all is fair. Obviously, this brings about injustice right away, but this is a known fact, no matter how clean you are, if you come and play in a muddy place, what do you think is gonna happen? Not to say that everyone is trying to get down and dirty, in fact, there are people that try their best to keep clean, but the reality of the fact is that you are still playing in mud. Yet, there is a difference between purposely trying to suffocate people in those muddy waters and trying to simply play by the rules, harm as less people as possible in the process and going home to live another day and start all over again the next day. 

Life is about balance, that’s why I like the color gray so much, it is the balance between black and white. And even though the Tannies are our beloved artists, it is important not to forget that in their own right they are also businessmen. I’m sure they want nothing else than to be there for ARMY always in theri best capacities, but this is not a charity, their lives, and the people who work for them, depend on the amount of money they make; this needs to not be forgotten. Now, how they make this money, all depends on the muddy field they play in, but from what I can see they really try their darn best to keep as clean as they can and harm as few people as humanly possible. 

ALL THAT to say that, when you experience having NOTHING with a group of PEOPLE, you will TREASURE THAT GROUP OF PEOPLE. Hence, ONCE AGAIN and it will not be the last time, I’ll keep hammering this, Chapter 2 wasn’t brought by for them to spread their wings and keep the fuck out, but as a means for them to have the experience they each want to have so that they can eventually be together again, healthily in order ot achieve Longevity which I will also get to towards the end of this post, don’t worry. And this brings me right to the current issues on the fandom-streets: FAVORITISM & SOLOS.

So at the moment “JUNGKOOK and his radio play” are the most recent subject. I will not go in depth, as I’ll be damned if I brought up all THE UNNECESSARY energy that has been riding with this valid topic. In fact, one thing that I found very helpful in understanding the radio play issue, was the following post by Ororo and Artiechikoo: 

​​https://www.tumblr.com/chikooritajjk/722232413519052800/so-youll-are-basically-saying-since-the-industry?source=share

Now, once you’ve read that, you’ll understand that the ACTUAL ISSUE HERE IS: WHY DIDN’T HYBE SEND LIKE CRAZY TO BE PLAYED ON THE RADIO, and that ladies, gentlemen and distinguished enbies, is a legit ass question. However, none of the members have anything to do with ANY of that, or with anything related really. During Festa 2022 dinner, they all told us the order in which their albums were coming out, which would indicate that they all sat down months beforehand, and all discussed what they wanted to do during their chapter 2. I would also dare to say that they also all were responsible for their projects, promotions and every aspect of their chapter 2, but that is just me.

ANYWAYS, back to the Jimin radio play issue, which, once again, is A VALID TOPIC, that unfortunately is being muddied from all the shit that solos are bringing forth that has NOTHING to do with anything. Is like the story of the boy who cried wolf, when the actual wolf arrived, nobody was there to help. When you are still stuck on cakes, on accusing members of sabotage, or any moving thing at that, THE REAL PROBLEM WILL BE OVERLOOKED.

Also, just putting this out there, if you actually think that ANY OF THE MEMBERS is out there actively sabotaging other members, then rest assured that you are also stanning a phonie-ass person. If you took a second to check out every other member, for every member who is being sabotaged by members, there is a story about that same member sabotaging another member. MEANING that we would all be supporting a band of phonies, who wouldn’t think twice to backstab their band mates; ALL OF THEM. 

So when, for example, you are accusing JK of throwing JM under the bus, or in the mud, stop one second, breathe, and TRY to put yourself in JK’s shoes. Imagine for example, spending a whole day reacting to JM content, or even just the following:

And then, imagine not giving a fuck about him: HOW DOES THAT WORK EXACTLY? Yes we don’t like Scooter Braun, yes we don’t agree with MANY OTHER THINGS, but it is vital to know how to address the correct issue and not just burn EVERYTHING DOWN, or/and involve not concerned parties. So when for example, the company is to blame, then the fucking company is to blame only, and not everything you would like to blame along with it. 

I 👏🏾DO 👏🏾 NOT 👏🏾 CARE 👏🏾 FOR 👏🏾 SOLOS 👏🏾 IN  👏🏾ANY 👏🏾 WAY 👏🏾 OR 👏🏾 FORM 👏🏾. 

Not too long ago, I was making this example with someone who told me that there was maybe a valid reason for people to become solos, but to me it felt like people saying they had a valid reason for becoming Nazi; would I support a Nazi, no matter what reason? 🤡🤡🤡THERE IS ALWAYS ANOTHER WAY, and unfortunately, keep suffering for a while longer, is one of them 🤡🤡🤡Becoming a Nazi WILL NEVER BE THE ANSWER for me, in the same way in which BECOMING A SOLO WILL NEVER BE THE ANSWER. When you become a solo you actively decide to care fuck all about all the other members. Now the person you want to support, loves and wants to keep building something with the people you decide are expendable, so, once again: HOW DOES THAT WORK EXACTLY?  Being able to pinpoint the actual issue is hard, it is confusing, it is stressful, but it is essential, please please please understand that.

BTS’ CHAPTER 3: BTS IS ENDGAME. PERIOD.

… I mean, I really don’t want to sound like a broken record so let me allow them to say it:

💙:

Here is the link to the full article: https://www.instagram.com/p/CpgkLqbtEKB/?hl=en

🩷:

🖤:

❤️:

💛:

💚:

💜:

AAAAAND, Except for Yoongi who is being rightfully private precious:

ALL OF A SUDDEN, I have a feeling that Yoongi got a “matching tattoo with the rest of the rapline, so his tattoo is somewhere on one of his legs …These boys have spent YEARS OF THEIR LIFE fighting against all sorts of prejudice, hate, nonsense, and more. It used to be from those who never gave them a chase, but now it seems that the adversary-wave is coming from within the fandom. YEAH IT LOOKS BAD RIGHT ABOUT NOW. But let's emphasize the LOOKS part of that sentence, because Social media “ARMY” aren’t IT. 

When you spend too much time on any SM, it will feel like that’s what ARMY is ALL about but I can guarantee you that there are so many ARMY out there who don’t know or care about the noise and just mind their business and keep streaming and advocating for the right causes. There are ARMY who do their best to support the boys in the best way they can, even if they can’t afford to buy every single piece of merch. 

There are also ARMY who are waiting for the boys to come back and also those people who have no idea yet, but will suddenly become ARMY in 2026 when THE BIGGEST COMEBACK THIS PLANET WOULD HAVE EVER WITNESSED, will kick off after they announce their world tour. In conclusion, as always, DO AS YOU SEE FIT, but if you decide that, believing and following people who think that having the boys competing against each other for future solo supremacy is where it’s at, all I’d “cutely” have to say is that:

THEY DIDN’T STUTTER: OT7 IS ENDGAME.

HAPPY ARMY DAY 🫰🏾.

Always respectfully yours,

Marengo. 

[soyouareandrewdobson]

Some late Halloween recommendation

(Seizure Warning)

Happy happy Halloween,

Halloween,

Halloween,

happy, happy Halloween,

fuck you Dobson!

Well, haven't talked for a long time, haven't I?

Things got busy again the last couple of weeks and with the sort of posts I am working on being rather long + spending my off time from work on other things than somethin Dobson related, I couldn't bring much to the table.

That said, next month something really big is in the making, starting from November 2th. Other than that, I kinda thought I want to do something small, non Dobson related for the holiday..

So in case some of you are looking for some Halloween related fun to spend the next 24 hours with, I thought I recommend some minor movies and other horror related things you may hopefully enjoy.

So let's start

Creepshow (1982) & Crepshow 2

I am a huge fan of horror anthology movies and Tales form the Crypt like stories (comics and tv show), so when I heard that Stephen King wrote a script for a comic like horror movie in the 80s, directed by George Romero, I was kinda hooked up.

Creepshow is something of a hidden gem people are becoming more aware of nowadays thanks to the internet, popculture and the fact, that on Shudder there has been a tv series based on the concept, that currently runs for 4 seasons. And while the quality of some episodes is varying, it is a lot of fun to watch. Particularly the one episode that is literally Bob Ross fighting the Deadites from Evil Dead.

As for the movie that started it all, separated in five little stories, the movie has something from everyone. From a multibillionaire finding himself attacked by cockroaches in his apartment, a zombie wanting cake for father's day, to a henpecked husband exploiting a weird monster to deal with his bickering tramp of a wife. I know the movie was once on completely for free to watch on youtube, but unfortunately I couldn't find it for this entry as quickly. That said, have the still good, though moref flawed sequel here

The Night of the living dull

still one of the funniest jabs at really awful fans, related to my favorite cartoon from the 90s. If you can find more of the Nightmare Ghoulery online, I highly recommend it.

It is still better animated and way funnier than the actual Tiny Toon reboot we got last month. As evident by that opening alone

Franken Fran

Imagine if Frankenstein created a slightly cute teenaged girl who is a masterful surgeon and biologist/genetic engineer, who tries to help other people with her operations. Only for things to go ever so slightly wrong for the people involved in it. Partly because Fran doesn't care for either good or evil, just science, partly because they kinda deserve their ironic fate.

For friends of horror anthology stories and people who want to laugh at Kamen Rider in a certain way, for free to read here

This

considering I am on tumblr, I don't think I have to introduce you to Helluva Boss. So let me just more or less out myself as a fan of it too. I may think it is in part flawed (the people behind it certainly love to overindulge themselves in musical numbers and gay fluff, while I just wished there was a bit more cartoonish killing), but I have quite a bit of respect for the quality of the animation and some of the ideas going into it. Plus, related to the linked episode itself, "2 Minutes Notice" really slaps and it is obvious, that Alex Brightman has a lot of fun here. So alone for that I recommend you watch the episode.

Deadstream

Imagine Evil Dead 2 mixed with your average youtube douchebag prankster getting his comeuppances. One of the best movies I watched last year, Deadstream is about Shawn, a failed youtuber trying to restart his career by spending a night in a haunted house. Only problem, not only is Shawn something of a slightly dumb piss ant who recognizes red flags way too late, the house really is haunted and the ghosts are certainly not friendly or in need of help at all. While "low budget" by certain standards, the movie has some really great practical effects and decent scares, but also some really great black comedy and slapstick mixed in, without ever really going into full on Scary Movie cartoon-esque antics. Also one of the few movies, where the concept of "livestreaming" is actually utilized extremely intelligently for the sake of the movie's style. As far as I know it is watchable on Shudder, so please. go see it

Negaduck

He is the terror, that schemes at the night.

to wrap this post up, a little still ongoing thing in the world of cartoon related comics. Currently published by Dynamite Entertainment in colaboration with Disney, Negaduck is a tie in series to the current Darkwing Duck comics, focused on one of Darkwing's most popular villains. His personal archrival (and I think multiversal evil counterpart, to me they were always a bit vague with that in my opinion) Negaduck. surprisingly well drawn, this comic manages to capture the cartoonishness of the cartoon in vibrant colors and makes Negaduck a lot of fun, when he tries to come up with an ultimate scheme and in his quest ends up going on a treasure hunt for King Midas' gauntled. You can read the first two issues of more hopefully to come here.

Now with that said, I am off to a party with friends and playing some Luigis Mansion 3. HAPPY HALLOWEEN AND HAVE SOME CANDY

[bredforloyalty]

after all that Love i must have my Hater Moment or Negative Nelly Time or whatever (this is a diary entry)

i do see a. broader pattern of downplaying the extent of rick's abuse and of the show sort of, falling under its own spell sometimes, in these last few seasons.. like look, isn't it inspiring that he's changing and going to therapy EUGH and isn't this what everyone wanted, now you don't have to sit through so much cruelty! yay! and then people buying into that, buying into good rick, crybaby backstory rick, and forgetting who his other half is and why they're like that and what holds them together. it feels wrong to me because i don't think that's how it should've been, something's missing, something's inconsistent, and i think it's the focus on morty and on how rick's fucked him up that just hasn't been there in the way that i wanted it to be 😔

like, people are gushing about rick's love and capacity for change because that's what the episodes have been about mostly, that's how it's been framed, and even in the 'inside the episode' they talk about how people are finally getting to see rick and diane interact and that they wanted her to be as smart and cool as rick etc etc. and i just. i think diane is only as important or interesting as she is important in the light of their relationship. when it stops being about the grooming rick and his grandson and starts being just about rick, when we start caring about rick's dead wife as a character, we're not on the right track lol

but that's just me!!! s6 and s7 occupy this dubious space in my mind where like, i'm happy the writing's more consistent but i wish it still had that spark or that bite or i don't know what, i enjoyed them overall but i wish i enjoyed them more, i wish the episodes other than the finales felt important and treated the rick-morty dynamic more like a cool rock they want to show me and less like an afterthought or something to be dealt with in the designated plot episodes. i wish i wish i wish

it's not even that i NEED rick to be the biggest cunt ever or to stay as awful as he used to be, i don't think that's it at least, i just don't like how they went about this shift in the family.. the moments that aren't as deliberately dramatic as the argument in the lightsaber episode for example really take away from the whole thing for me. like one minute they're cool and the next it's like oooh or are they cool tho?? maybe they aren't, we need to create problems to keep the show going so they aren't! but it doesn't feel like a natural evolution to me, definitely not all of it. and that's not a concrete thing that you can judge imo, but part of it is concrete, because i do want the abuse narrative to be what it is and for it to not shove anything under the rug. i'm not sure this is how morty would act, given all the things rick's done to him and with him, and so that makes me think the writers aren't primarily interested in exploring a character like morty. but why would they be, of course what they're primarily doing is trying to create consistent, fun television, trying to juggle 'canon' and 'episodic', write good jokes, please the long time fans, keep people watching

i can't help my cynicism: fear no mort was great, i'm still worried about the general direction though 🥴 and who knows, maybe the next season's going to recontextualize these last two for me, maybe the end of the entire show will allow me an interpretation that i can't afford right now. maybe there will be moments that will blow my tits clean off and make me feel insane!! but for now i feel like i've been feeding on scraps

[7171955]

aw gosh, thanks! i’ve been the only tomorrowlander-run blog for a while, but i’m happy to tell you there are a surprising amount of disney parks kins around, from main street to the haunted mansion! i hope my reblog of your intro post will direct some of them your way, i know seeing them in my inbox always makes me real happy since our sort are a smaller portion of the wider fictionkin community.

also! i hope it’s not too much, but i’d actually love to make a playlist for you as a welcome gift! is there any sort of music you particularly like or a specific vibe you’d enjoy?✨

and not to keep rambling, but have you ever tried out heroforge? it’s meant for making tabletop figurines, but i found it VERY useful in creating a little representation of myself. thought you may enjoy it too!

- @citizenoftmrrwlnd

oh , it’s no problem at all . it is a privilege being able to speak to other people who associate so heavily with tomorrowland , it makes me really happy to have these kinds of discussions with — as you say correctly — a smaller portion of the community !

i would always love to meet more theme park kin folk , i am thankful to know a few who associate heavily with roller coasters and the like . also , that’s so kind of you ! you don’t have to do that at all but , i am trying to find more songs that give off that “retro future / space travel” vibes — so possibly if you find any , don’t hesitate to send them my way at any point . . .

also , i have seen heroforge before ! i need to try it out at some point . i’m hoping soon i’ll be able to start making some art related to how i may potentially look like — i’m trying to really connect with any potential memories i may have / what feels correct for my appearance . thank you so much for the suggestion , i may tinker around with it while i’m figuring things out !

[northwest-cryptid]

Not really a telling you the plot of limbus but more of a question: is there anything about the gameplay you need help with? Or are you just not interested in it? If its the former, youtuber ESGOO has a video called "A better tutorial for Limbus Company" that does explain the gameplay better than the in-game tutorial. If you are worried about the gacha it is entirely possible to beat all cantos with the base IDs with some experimenting and proper team building, and IDs can be obtained without real life money. If its the latter then yeah I get it, very fair and I hope more people help you with the plot and all

So I get that you likely used anon because you thought I'd be upset with you or something and honestly I'm not, but I do got some stuff to say about this, nothing directed at you; the sender. I want to make this clear that my issues don't lie with you they lie with the way LCB functions and the way Proj Moon is handling the game in general.

I hear this a lot and it goes back to what I heard a lot when LoR came out but is actually overlooking a few complaints about LCB that I think Limbus Heads(?) need to better understand.

Firstly, I'm sure some youtuber somewhere could explain the game and mechanics to me, if that's how I learned things I'd have done great in school and I'd likely be a lot better at gaming from all the random youtubers I watch play games, but that's just not the case. I'm not the sort of person who can literally watch a video and understand something. When I learn something it is through a lot of practice, hands on experience, or literally sitting down with someone and talking through it figuring things out because my dumbass brain loves to create problems where there typically isn't one. However, and this part is huge.

Even if they could teach me to play the game perfectly, they cannot fund my gacha pulls for me and they can't send me back in time to get IDs (that contain lore from what I can tell) that were time limited and now completely unobtainable as far as I'm aware (and no one has addressed this issue so I continue to believe this is the case) so even if I was a master Limbus Company Player I could never actually have all the lore for myself in one accessible place for me to look through and learn.

And I literally said this before but it apparently needs repeating, even if you CAN play the game with the base IDs you shouldn't have to play on hard mode just because you don't have the cash. I've spoke on this topic before stating that I once played all the way up to (but never beat) Love Town by only using 1 Librarian per floor with only the starting deck in Library of Ruina. It was awful, it was annoying; and personally I really enjoyed the challenge. However I would never tell someone that "just because it's technically possible, you should play this way" because you really REALLY shouldn't the game isn't designed around it and you will encounter failure at a much higher rate, especially if you're not good at the game and you don't understand the passive system as well as someone who has played the game for a few years.

People seem to get this idea that just because you CAN do something that it's okay to do it that way when the game is physically not DESIGNED around that thing.

You also mention that you can obtain gacha pulls without paying for them, this is a gimmick in every gacha game and I do say gimmick because it's always designed to make gacha pulls better if you do 10 at a time and always always drip feeds you the gacha currency to prey on you.

It's predatory.

This isn't exclusive to Limbus and I'm not breaking any ground for calling it out, but what I mean to say by this is that just because they let you have some gacha pulls doesn't mean you can freely obtain the IDs you would want or need.

You know what, I'm going to take a moment to actually talk about a good gacha system because yes a good free to play "gacha" game exists and I think people need to understand why it's a good system over something where the f2p nature still has you making an effort to make pulls.

Now anyone who knows me already knows where I'm going with this as soon as I name drop this game but Mabinogi does have a Gacha system.

and I'd be remiss to not mention that it DOES contain some absolutely broken items every now and then. So can a Free to Play player actually keep up with a Gacha whaling player whenever these items come out? Well that entirely depends on the player but more or less, actually yes.

If you think the F2P player has to make gacha pulls, maybe with some kind of currency they can earn for free; you'd be mistaken however. See the Auction House allows players to put up items (including Gacha and some cash shop items like pets and such) for sale which can be purchased with gold, the free to play currency of the game used in every shop and such.

But surely earning gold must be difficult for a Free to Play player right? It's gotta be slow enough that it pressures them to purchase Gacha right? Well no. Because Gold is the universal currency so players can literally earn hundreds of thousands in a few minutes if they bother to just play the game.

Everything from passively earning 1M+ a week through Fynni blossoming and selling the Fynni Whistles at an NPC to running Shadow Missions and being rewarded upwards up 250 - 300k per run of a quest these gold obtaining methods don't rely on player driven interaction at all. So a Free to Play player like myself who cannot afford to whale (even if I'd love to) can easily earn tens of millions of gold, and then simply go to the Auction House and purchase specifically whatever it is from the gacha that we actually want all without having to drop a penny on the game and all without feeling pressured to fork over our hard earned money which should probably be used for bills instead.

This is true for most if not all cash shop items people would really want with very very few exceptions (like yea you can't buy Pon through players to be fair so I'm not going to go off saying it's a perfect system, however with things like Pon at least you're getting exactly what you pay for as opposed to a chance at it so you're not falling prey to the gacha problem of paying 100+ real USD or whatever currency you use, and then not even getting something you actually wanted from it.)

Believe me, I played Limbus Company when it first came out, and I was only able to be a F2P player due to having lost my job prior. I used literally every single pull they gave me (and they were going through a lot of maint problems early on so they gave out a lot of shit as an apology) and I still didn't really have a well put together team which is partly my own fault but admittedly mainly just the system of Gacha. While my friends had gotten lucky with their pulls, I had not; and the only solution for me was to either use their units or fork over cash.

There are now, as far as I'm aware; a ton of IDs that just aren't available, side stories and event quests I no longer have access to; and this is horrible for a franchise who's trying to add onto their ever growing lore and world building because I am forever locked out of this content now, I will never be able to read it for myself or understand it and engage with it all because Limbus was made into a Gacha game when it could have been another $60 single player story driven experience like LoR or Lob Corp and in my eyes, still honestly should have been. They've not done anything with it that's really unique enough to justify the format, they've not told us where the money they make goes; and while yes I think it's really cool that they're making donations to charities and such (actually nice to see the money going to something good instead of just lining the pockets of a shit CEO) we still have no idea what projects they're working on for those of us who don't play Limbus.

I really hope this better explains my stance on why I think Limbus Company is unfortunately not a very good game. I really wish I could enjoy it, I wish I could play it and be on board with everyone talking about the newest memes and theories and shit. However I can't bring myself to slog through a poorly balanced game with predatory gacha mechanics just because "it's possible" like my friend, it's possible to do a lot of things I really don't recommend doing, that doesn't mean I want to do them.

It's possible to play Kenshi as nothing more than a torso crawling through the desert.

However I would never recommend the Chester playthrough to anyone who isn't as autistic about Kenshi as I am, because it's not a FUN way to play the game, it's not an enjoyable way to play the game unless you specifically want a challenge.

The difference is that Kenshi doesn't FORCE me to play this way; it doesn't ask me to pay real money to gamble on getting a new limb for my little funky guy. It just lets me start the game normally if I want, but no; for me there's only one way to play Kenshi and that's as Chester my limbless badass who is going to end slavery alongside his many many dumb companions and yes I am playing the game on Hard mode as a result, but that is by CHOICE not because I can't afford to play on an easier difficulty, I am not being punished for not forking over more cash.

[ask-a-thon]

Hi I just wanted to ask clarification on what content isn't allowed before I do questions and tag your blog in replies

I understand that having a concrete list might make it harder later but if you did I wouldn't be wondering what "within reason" means and whether non-con/underage/incest will get me blacklisted or something (since your wording makes it seem like that could be possible)

This is the section I'm referring to from this post:

https://www.tumblr.com/ask-a-thon/727189255425867776/a-gentle-warning

> However, that being said, there are reasonable exceptions that are not allowed to join the ask-thingie here. I think you all reasonably know who you are but if you're confused, please ask and I'll kindly tell you that I won't be adding you to the list.

"reasonable exceptions" is too vague. i worry that you mean writers like me when you say "know who you are"

Thank you in advance for your reply

Anon, thank you so much for your questions asking for clarifications and for pointing out that I was too vague when I made this post. You're absolutely right. I am also very sorry that it has taken me so long to get back to you, as I was very busy yesterday and it took both me and Myth a little bit to figure out some specifics now that we are working together. However, because I unknowingly created this problem I wanted to try to fix it and clarify it myself.

How are we fixing this problem?

We are going to make a specific FAQ and link it in the post you mention.

I am also going to link that FAQ in every pinned post that ever pops up again.

We are going to keep the FAQ updated with any other similar questions, especially clarifying questions from whump, distrubing, and smut writers.

I am going to go ahead and lightly answer your questions now so that you don't have to wait and so that other writers have the opportunity to see the answers twice.

Warning. The following messages use triggering language for some people. Some triggers include SA, incest, non-con, underage themes, etc. Please read at your own discretion.

Some of the things you said re-framed as questions so we have an answer:

Will non-con get me blacklisted?

Consensual non-con will not get you blacklisted. Not in smut, not in your romantic writing, not in anything. This is something that might make people uncomfortable but there is consent. Non-con in purposefully disturbing writing is also allowed because one of the key factors of disturbing writing is to be disturbed. I have always said that writers do not always write what they enjoy, what they believe, what they want the world to be like, because that's just not how writing works. However, anything that glorifies rape with the direct intention of just saying "rape is okay" is never, ever, at any point, allowed.

What about underage content?

I, Mod Aster, completely understand that there are a lot of minors on this website that want to read smut that includes their age group and that no matter how you spin it, it is legally underage content. That being said, underage content falls under a legal grey area that both me and Myth are uncomfortable navigating. We are also uncomfortable pre-reading your work and seeing if it will be allowed so, maybe unfortunately, we are going to put a hard NO on this one. I do apologize for putting a hard no on any form of writing because Ask-A-Thon is supposed to be a safe space for everyone to share their writing, but I do personally fear that even if the legal area is wider than I would suspect, Tumblr's TOS is graceful, all of that, some really nasty adults will use this as an opportunity and I'd hate to expose minors to that sort of thing.

And/or Incest?

We cannot keep track of where it is illegal for you to post incest smut, disturbing fiction, otherwise online. That is up to you to figure out. Personally, as someone who reads a lot of disturbing fiction, I loved Flowers in the Attic for how the main character struggles with this "issue" and navigates this through her life. I am not saying incest has to be disturbing for you to be able to post it, but because of the comfort zones of one, or more, of our mods and admins we are going to say that as long as you put this under a mature filter and it is not super explicit, we will allow it until we feel people abuse it.

For things that end up on the okay list we will ask a few things:

Please make sure all trigger warnings and content warnings are labeled appropriately and are at the top of your post so that people understand exactly what they're getting into before reading too far.

Underage smut is never allowed. However, if you're writing a very "steamy romance" between minors without intercourse in it, you should make sure it has appropriate warnings for adults that want to avoid that sort of thing.

Things that include anything on this current list BUT are just a short explanation of something happening, only briefly mention, and have nothing explicit are always allowed.

If you feel like you are still confused and are wondering if your works will get you blacklisted, please message Ask-A-Thon for clarifying questions. You are more than welcome to send your work, show us a post, and we would be more than happy to read it over and tell you your answer without any aggression, without any finger pointing, and without judgement despite how the linked post was written.

Please remember that the post that was linked was written somewhat aggressively because the original intention was to get people to be nice to whump writers. I, Aster, had no idea that disturbing fiction, non-con, etc, writers would think I was being aggressive to them. For that I am so apologetic and I do hope you'll forgive me.

Please give us some time to make the FAQ, post it, and link it everywhere.

-Mod Aster

[salsa-and-light]

I'm curious to read this because I'm an American in Europe and trying to explain this isn't always easy

Yeah, Americans are competitive, Both Harris and Trump have appealed to tribalism but Trump does it more often and I'd argue more effectively

Managed decline is not some common or agreed upon political philosophy in Europe, not even in the poorer parts. But I do think that Americans have different ideas about energy production & consumption, so that is a valid explanation

Inflation is absolutely a real concern that's gone under-addressed Even if all Republican candidates did was blame the other side they were addressing the issue.

Europeans aren't universally socialist, nor are Americans totally content with current inequality. Yes, people are madder about inequality when they're suffering but that's true of most people. This really just loops into the previous point: that there are economic problems and Trump and others promised to address them.

I wouldn't have thought about it but I do agree that Americans are generally neutral to positive on immigration. Anti-immigrant sentiment does absolutely exist in America but more often there are legal/economic concerns or people have wrongly blamed immigrants for some issue. In comparison, Spanish & French media regularly acknowledges a common undercurrent of resentment towards immigrants even where this resentment is being countered. Often times this is directed at legal immigrants from other EU countries, Romanians and Poles particularly. It's not a massive difference but it is a noticeable one, which makes European critiques of American immigration seem out of touch even to me, an immigrant to Europe.[On that note American immigrans enjoy a high level of privilege but even then casual discrimination and criticism for non-native accents are common even for us, at least in Spain and France.]

I would agree with the assessment that Americans are starting to grate under "DEI" measures. Bu I would disagree that that was a major influence in the Election. Harris was already unpopular and she wasn't chosen as the candidate for "DEI" reasons, Tulsi Gabbard(a mixed race woman)was blackballed in favor of Biden(also removing Harris from the running at the time).

Maybe I'm in a bubble, but American opinions on the Israel-Palestine conflict seem to be mixed. But I could see how Trumps pro-Israel stance gained more support than the Biden-Harris apparent plan(from my impressions) of giving supplies to both sides, which made everyone angry.

I don't think that Europeans are especially literary in comparison with Americans. I know far more Americans who aspire to become a writer for one. I think that Americans are very pragmatic and that does make them more apathetic to rhetoric of all sorts. But I also think that this is again a question of exposure. Americans see these concerns in their own lives, Europeans can only hear the rhetoric. That creates a difference of perspective that has nothing to do with how "literary" the cultures are.

I do think that ascribing unique and permanent evil to America is somewhat common among a cerain type of American, but this is a waning idea in my experience which tends to discredit it's proponents. If this helped Trump win it was likely more of a bogeyman of this idea than the actual idea itself.

I do agree that Americans are generally indepenent-minded, but I don't think that this election was affected by that as much as previous elections. Most of the central issues were around government action in regards to economy, border control & International relations. Abortion access is a common start point for arguments about individual autonomy but in that case people would be more interested in Democrat candidates.

Overall I can't say that this is wrong, but some ideas are a little roundabout to the actual cause.