#and that's because the third one doesn't actually specify what number it is

[uquizrat]

thank u for taking all my quizzes, i love being able to see when someone has gone thru and done all of them and seeing what they get for each one, very cool

[eksvee15]

MORE PROOF THAT MEGALOVANIA IS THE PLAYER'S THEME

THANKS TO DELTARUNE AND SUSIE FOR PROVING US RIGHT ONCE AGAIN!

So we all have this constant argument of whether MEGALOVANIA is Sans' fight theme or the Player's (it's not Chara's. Stop) fight theme. Well, I believe Deltarune's use of the soundtracks solved that issue for us.

There is a firm belief that in Undertale, and by logic Deltarune, the theme heard is the theme of who initiates the battle. Undyne starts the battle against us, both times we hear her theme - Spears of Justice and Battle Against A True Hero. Flowey ALWAYS starts the battle, so we hear his themes - Your Best Nightmare and Finale, also counts for Hopes and Dreams given he and Asriel are one and the same. And it's pretty evident that whoever has the first turn DOES NOT ACTUALLY MATTER, it is misleading and is canonically not actually relevant - Undyne herself specifies she's letting us have the first turn, in any fight, she's fair, and ALLOWS US the first turn. Sans gets the first turn to catch us off guard, which is what he does during the ENTIRE fight, ATK 1 DEF 1 yet takes multiple attacks to be defeated and will obliterate your health bar, suddenly has laser weapons, dodges, can manipulate space and gravity, teleport, stops time, his entire character is "surprise bitch", no wonder he gets that first turn - heck on the third turn he won't even finish his "beautiful day" speech and start attacking MID SENTENCE

There is, aside from Sans, one other occasion where the Player initiates the battle - that being Monster Kid. Yet MEGALOVANIA doesn't play there, instead, we hear the OST "In My Way" which is ONLY played against Monster Kid and Flowey in No Mercy. But I believe it's intentional, think of your first Genocide playthrough - you still kind of feel iffy, like it's wrong. It's not much of a challenge as it is a chore at this point. You just killed Papyrus. You just killed Toriel. Two people that have shown love, care, and so much genuine friendship to you, it feels awful. You're a danger, but not yet, a megalomaniac. (Side note, I think Etika's playthrough of No Mercy shows us how LOVE affects the actual player, because killing Toriel is a pain, killing Papyrus feels absolutely awful, but then when you get through Undyne the Undying? Etika celebrated beating her, then stopped and said "Wait no, why am I celebrating, I just killed her". THIS. LV affects us and how we view the Undertale characters, from being friends and caring about them, to being a challenge to overcome in the end. And not a lot of people realise that fact)

Now that I've established all this, where does Deltarune come into play? Well, specifically in Chapter 1, we fight Lancer a number of times. And he has that memorable bouncy theme when you fight him, Vs. Lancer. We all know that theme. However there is ONE moment where we DON'T hear Vs. Lancer DESPITE facing Lancer in battle.

The Susie V Lancer battle in the Card Castle's prison.

There, Susie alone engages battle against Lancer. And we know she engages because Lancer doesn't want to fight her, heck he even avoids to attack her at some point. The battle engaged is ENTIRELY Susie's intentions to put Lancer in his place. And the theme that plays, is Vs. Susie. Because SHE engaged the battle. So it's not Susie against Lancer, it's Lancer against Susie, despite US controling Susie. Just like it's Sans against us, despite us being in control.

This is proof. Proof that we hear the theme of who engages in a battle. You could also take as back up proof the Spamton NEO fight in Snowgrave, because he has every reason to engage against Kris - they're threatening everything Spamton COULD have, so of COURSE Spamton engages, furthermore because Kris goes from puppeted to puppeteer in his eyes. Sans never engages in battle against us. We engage against him. Because we're trying to get it over with.

MEGALOVANIA is most definitely the player's theme in late No Mercy run, and we know this thanks to Susie evolving the opposite way in Ch1 that we do in No Mercy.

Thank you for reading!!

[rorywritesjunk]

breathe the freezing crystal air, watch my baby crack a smile

You and Buggy agreed on exchanging just one gift for the Winter Solstice, but he's a pirate and doesn't follow the rules. Rating: G-PG. It's just some fluff, that's all. Warning: None. Buggy can't bake in this. Richie causes very mild chaos. A/N: I wanted to have something about gift giving. This has no connection to any other story, it's just a fun one-shot. Title comes from "Cold Sunshine" by S.J. Tucker.

You and Buggy agreed on exchanging just one gift, simply because you knew how over the top he would get with gift giving. You always appreciated it, and he often gave you really good gifts, but you had no need for clothes, books, anything. Honestly, just spending the day with him doing nothing sounded like the best gift to you. So a month before the Winter Solstice, you talked to him and got him to agree to just one gift each. 

However, after so many years with him, you weren’t actually specific in what you meant by one gift.

When you woke up the morning of the Solstice, you found our bed empty of your boyfriend, but in his place was an envelope with your name and the number #1 on it. Rubbing the sleep from your eyes, you took it and carefully opened it, frowning at the contents. It was a photo of you from when you first started dating, which was sweet. He didn’t always want photos taken, conscious about his nose and worried it would be the main focus on the photo as he insisted the camera made it look bigger than it was (it didn’t). You didn’t ask too often to take a photo because of that. There was a note stuck to the back of it that read,

you didn’t specify what you meant by one gift.

buggy

You rolled your eyes, shaking your head with a grin as you finally got out of bed. You were already feeling the chill of the day so you dressed warmly, putting on wooly layers and your warmest jacket before heading out to the deck to find your boyfriend. He often gave the crew a case of rum to go around and the day off for their gift, which allowed you two a bit of peace and (some) quiet for most of the day. 

There was a package in Mohji’s hands when you saw him and he held it out to you. It was weird not to see Buggy yet, but you accepted it with a frown. Your name and the number #2 were on it.

“From you?” 

“No, the Captain.” The beast tamer replied before going off to join his shipmates in enjoying the gift.

You opened the package and jumped with a shriek. Colorful glitter spilled out onto your hands, shoes, and the deck. It got everywhere and you were mortified that Buggy actually thought that would be a good idea, because the first time it happened was the first time he gave you a Solstice gift. Instead of using tissue paper or any other kind of packaging, he used glitter and even years later you were still finding it on things. 

There was a note inside that box with an orange that had cloves sticking out of it and a blue ribbon tied around it, as well as a layer of the colorful glitter. 

there’s more to come

buggy

You were unsure if that was a threat or meant to be romantic. 

~

You got most of the glitter taken care of, but there would forever be a stain of red, green, and gold forever ingrained in the spot where you were standing. Buggy only had himself to blame for that one.

You got the glitter washed off the orange, however, and happily hung it up in your wardrobe to keep it smelling nice. It was a weirdly sweet reminder of when he took over Orangetown, only to disappear for a few weeks with most of his body left behind with the crew. And while they set up the tent on an island, mourning the loss of their captain and unsure what to do next, you were (kind of accidentally) left behind in Orangetown. While you were mad about it, you went about your life helping them rebuild and getting a job in a tea shop for a few months until Buggy showed back up to “rescue” you.

The third gift was left in the fridge. You were trying to think of what to start expecting from him. At this point you had been together 7 years, so was he going to do 7 gifts, or just a random number? Was there a particular order to these gifts? You carefully took the package out of the fridge and opened it over the sink, just to be on the safe side.

It was a piece of chocolate cake which was one of your favorite things. You took a fork and poked at it carefully, hoping there wasn't anything in it that could break a tooth, before you took a forkful and popped it in your mouth. Buggy was… an okay cook, but baking wasn't necessarily his thing. He didn't have the patience for it, nor did he follow the directions properly. The cake definitely was chewy, almost gluing your mouth shut. You decided to save the rest for later so you put it back in the fridge, which is where the note was still at.

because you're so sweet to me

buggy 

Okay, this was getting to be a bit too sweet and adorable for you. He was into grand gestures, flashy announcements and proclamations on his feelings for you, and other eye-catching things. But finding packages around the ship from him with little notes was almost too much. You were starting to feel like your gift was going to pale in comparison to what he probably had planned, but you also knew he would loudly say he loved whatever you got him and it was wonderful.

~

You actually found the fifth gift next. Were you supposed to find these in a particular order? This gift was… calmer. You didn't have to clean up glitter or unstick your mouth from glue-textured cake. It was a scented candle, something you didn't get to enjoy as much as you used to due to conserving them in case of an emergency. This package didn't have a note, but you took it to your room and set it next to the bed. 

Was he making a statement with these gifts? They were all rather sweet and you were now thinking of cooking him a nice dinner the next chance you got. 

When you left the bedroom you actually bumped into him. He hid something behind his back, looking slightly panicked at seeing you.

“W-What are you doing in there?” He asked as he stepped back from you. You shrugged as you leaned over to peck him on the lips.

“Just putting one of my gifts in a safe spot, Buggy.” You told him. “Thank you for the candle.”

“Yea, well… don’t burn it all at once!” He told you as he sidestepped around you to get into the bedroom. “Don’t come in here until I tell you too!”

~

You found what was left of the fourth gift with Richie. He had torn into the package, thinking it was for him, and when you walked up to his cage, you saw the remnants of paper and ribbon with a little stuffed toy hanging from his mouth. There was a letter that had some nibble marks in it which you managed to rescue while giving him some pets. 

You didn’t fight him for the toy but you read the letter.

because you give really good hugs

buggy 

Well, okay, you were told that was something you were good at, and often knew when Buggy needed a hug before he even realized it. When you peered through the bars to see what the toy was, it was just a cute little pony plush that was now being cuddled by the big cat. Richie deserved a gift so you kept the letter and let him have the plush toy.

~

It was closer to evening time when you saw him again. He shut the door to the room pretty quickly and stood in front of it, arms crossed. “You can’t come in here yet.”

“Okay, but… why?” You asked. 

“Because I said so!” He told you as stomped away. “Stay there and wait until I get back!”

You raised an eyebrow but did as he asked. There must be something in there that was part of the gift-giving. And you needed to get in there as well since your gift to him was in there, and you hated that you were starting to feel a little unsure about it. His were all sweet gestures and memories while yours was… not that spectacular in your eyes. 

He came back with two glasses in his hand and paused at the door, shot you a look you didn’t quite understand, and threw the door open and gestured for you to step inside. Confused, you did so, looking in the room to see… nothing. There was nothing in there. You scratched your head and looked at him.

“What am I not supposed to see?”

“Give me a minute!” He told you as he handed you the two glasses and went to the small locked cabinet. You knew that’s where he kept his favorite rum. Saying nothing, you walked over to the wardrobe to grab his gift, something wrapped in some pretty paper you had found at a port. He looked over at you and perked up. “Is that for me?”

“Yea, it is…” You hesitated and walked over to him. “I found um, the gifts, Buggy, and I appreciate them so much, but now I feel a little put out because I only got you one thing.” You took a moment before adding, “Richie found the fourth gift. I managed to get the letter.”

“What? Don’t worry about it.” He told you as he reached for his present. You sighed and handed it over to him. “Your gifts are always thoughtful.”

“Yea…” You raised your hand to your mouth, chewing on your thumbnail as he tore the paper off excitedly. He paused for a moment when he saw what it was: a wooden box with a locking latch and his jolly roger burned into the top. “So, I made that… thought it would be something you can… keep important things in, like, special treasures and stuff…” 

“You made this? When?” He asked as he opened it slowly. The box was well made, lined with a blue velvet while the outside was stained a dark color. His eyes lit up as he examined it. There were little imperfections that made it unique and told about being handmade, such as a few dents in the wood, a hole where a screw mistakenly created, and a few jagged lines around the lower jaw of the jolly roger, likely where you were first starting the design. “How did you find the time?”

You shrugged, moving onto one of your fingernails now as you watched him rotate the box in his hands, opening and closing the lid multiple times before he finally settled on tracing the design with his fingertips. “Some late nights. I started a month ago.” You hesitated before asking, “D’you like it?”

“It’s perfect!” He said as his hands went to place it safely on the bed while he wrapped his arms around you, pulling you close for a kiss. Buggy wasn’t just saying that to make you feel good, you knew he meant it because there had been a few mishaps of gifts where he gave you his honest opinion of them if he didn’t like it, but you could tell he liked this one. “It will pair well with my final gift to you.”

“Final gift?” You repeated as he moved you to a spot in the room. 

He looked up at the ceiling for a brief second before making sure you didn’t look up. Next, he swept his coat back before reaching into his pocket and dropping down to one knee in front of you. Oh, oh you knew what was happening now. He held the box in one hand while preparing to open it with another.

“My love, the only one I cherish,” Buggy began, the small box open and revealing to you a necklace with a ring on it. “After seven years together, I’d like to spend another seven with you as your husband, so will-”

“Only seven years?” You asked, cutting him off, looking confused for a moment. Buggy stopped and narrowed his eyes at you for interrupting him. “Why only seven years?”

“I was trying to be poetic!” 

“Okay, but do you intend for either of us to die in seven years?” You asked, still a little confused by his wording. “Or… is that how long a pirate marriage lasts?”

“L-Let me finish!” He stammered as he got to his feet. “I just… I just want to know if you’ll marry me! It can be for seven months or seven decades, I don’t care, I just want to be married to you!”

“Oh, oh! I got it now.” You laughed softly and smiled at him. “You’re so sweet, Buggy, I will marry you.” 

He looked satisfied, though a little thrown off from the interruption, but he didn’t let that stop him from putting the necklace on you before he kissed you; one of his hands popped off and went to a rope hanging nearby, giving it a firm tug. You glanced up as dried flowers fell over the two of you, a bright collection of color during a cold winter day.

It was very sweet. You picked a flower that landed on his shoulder and stuck it in his hat before kissing him again.

“Thank you for the gifts, Buggy.” You told him. “I love you.”

He smirked, pulling you closer as his hand poured the good rum into the two glasses. “Cheers, my love. I love you too.”

[vaedar]

𝐎𝐎𝐂; 𝙾𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙷𝚘𝚝𝙳 𝚂𝟸 𝚘𝚙𝚎𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚊𝚙𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚢

Okay, so I wanted more Valyria and dragon lore and that new season 2 opening delivered on both, if only a little bit. Below cut, I will try to break down the first sequences of the opening pertaining Valyria with some theories. As always, a reminder that these things are just my interpretation to be used only in this RP blog, and it is in no way to be considered canon unless so specified.

(Doesn't really contain spoilers about HotD, only the use of the first 3 opening theme scenes to elaborate on dragon lore/valyria theories).

The first one is pretty straightforward. Valyria was built on blood, and so that shows here, which transitions into the next scene, where we see Valyria (particularly, the Anogrion, which we are told was the 'source of power' of the valyrian bloodmages) be formed or 'weaved' from this first sequence of the blood.

We then get the blood continuing the path down to the figure that looks almost like a sphynx, with wings of fire, body of a dragon/lizard creature, and a valyrian head. This is reminiscent to the song Daemon sings to Vermithor, especially with the next sequence:

We see a valyrian seemingly 'offering' themselves to the creature, while apparently being stabbed, with their blood gathered in a bowl. We also see glass candles, three to be specific. Again, the number three, like the song tells of a 'winged leader, fire breather, two heads to a third sing'. In the original english song (not the literal translation) it's more clearly stated:

"One who breathes fire, one who bears wings, but two heads need three, and a spell that sings."

The song is describing a ritual, more specifically, a bloodmagic ritual:

"Follow my voice blood magic old the price has been paid as the fires foretold.

In visions of flame listen to me the spell that needs three is made whole through me."

What I initially take from this all is that we're being shown how the dragon bond was formed. This could also explain why Daemon sings this to Vermithor as a way of 'appeasing' the dragon, as it was once part of the spell/bloodmagic used to bond with the dragons. It would seem that the ritual requires a union of dragon and human blood (DNA?) for the bond to happen, which explains various aspects about Dragonlords and dragons themselves.

The intermarrying to keep the blood pure. GRRM has said that not all valyrians practiced this, only/mostly the Dragonlord or noble families. If only the blood of that original valyrian that was part of the ritual to bond with the dragons is what works then, of course, you would have to preserve that blood as pure as possible. However, does this mean that only certain dragons (from the lineage of that original dragon that bonded with the original family member) can bond with that family? Can this be used as an explanation to why the Cannibal ate other dragons, because he was hatched from an egg that was already there from the original valyrians that founded Dragonstone and not Targaryen bonded dragons? Does this confirm that Dany's eggs are Dreamfyre's? Maybe, maybe it's coincidence. I personally prefer to not take it as coincidence, especially for the sake of lore building.

The miscarriages and 'dragon/lizard babies'. If the dragon bond is through a magical fusion of human and dragon blood, then this means Dragonlords have dragon DNA in them, which of course, would probably not make for a great combination sometimes. And we get the deformities and dragon features in the unborn babies from that dragon DNA overpowering the human. It's no surprise that miscarriages can also be common because of some 'error' or incompatibility on the cellular level (magic can only do so much I guess?).

The creation of dragons. In TWOIAF and F&B both we are given the possibility that dragons were actually created. In the song/spell, I believe we are given a little hint to support that theory in the very first stanza: "One who breathes fire, one who bears wings, but two heads need three."

One who breathes fire = fire wyrms. We are told these are essentially blind, wingless, worm-like lizards that live under the Fourteen Flames. This can be supported with the appearance of Caraxes, the Blood Wyrm (the dragon looks like a winged worm pretty much), and the 'dragon' that hatched to little Laena Velaryon (a wingless wyrm, maggot-white and blind). One who bears wings = wyverns. We are told they are reptiles that look like smaller dragons since they have wings, but they don't breathe fire. They are wild in Sothoryos, where we know Valyrians liked to 'experiment' with creatures (because maybe a certain civilization already did as much? little bit more on that below).

In the rest of the song, we have the "But two heads need three" and "The spell that needs three is made whole through me". That second one is particularly interesting to me with the 'made whole' part. It could simply be symbolic only to the dragon bond, since the literal translation of the song says "To bind the three, to you I sing". I think this can be taken as in a fusion of three DNAs are needed to create the dragon, as much as three 'heads' are needed to forge the original dragon bond of a valyrian Dragonlord lineage.

The 'three' aspect is the base of a lot of things throughout the whole of ASOIAF, it's not exclusive to just one particular thing, or even the prophecy itself. So I do believe that it's possible it can apply to both the dragon bond and the creation of dragons. I would go as far as to wager that the hidden symbolism behind the Targaryen three-headed dragon is not just to represent the conquerors, but the original recipe of the 'three ingredients' (for lack of a better term) necessary for dragon creation, dragon bonding, and all else that the three symbolism is used for valyrians and bloodmagic. Let us not forget that the 'Fire and Blood' the Targaryens use is also based on Valyrian culture as a whole, not exclusive to the Targaryens alone, as Fire and Blood are what valyrian magic was rooted on.

However, it's important to note that we are also given in books how dragons pre-date Valyrians, and the existence of ancient Dragonlords before the founding of the Valyrian Freehold. What is an even older civilization that started out great but descended into brutality and slavery, that also practiced incest, dark arts (like manipulating DNA of creatures?), necromancy, bloodmagic, etc.? The Great Empire of the Dawn.

It's an old and pretty possible theory that GRRM might be giving us clues through Dany's dream of those 'gemstone eyed kings' that valyrians are either directly descended from this civilization or are its inheritors, and it's from their legacy that valyrians 'learned' how to forge the dragon bond ( and other magical aspects, including valyrian steel, which is also very likely forged through bloodmagic ). It could be valyrians did not create dragons but instead this older civilization ( that, interestingly, occupied the east of Essos, very likely Asshai, which is often used as the place from where dragons 'originate' from).

All of these things tie into the show's theme regarding prophecy but also how dangerous dragons are, because everything that made Valyria powerful is built on bloodmagic. I will not go into details because I don't want to use spoilers, but I believe that opening tapestry was purposely done to support these theories exposing the 'wrongness' of the dragons and their power. And how eventually, bloodmagic always has a price.

[practically-an-x-man]

The asks aren't numbered so: How does (canon character) feel about your OC? How does your OC feel about (canon character)? Is there someone your OC liked at first, but then grew to dislike? What is your OC's redemption moment? For Eris?

Thank you so much!!

Fandom OC Ask Meme

How does (canon character) feel about your OC?

You didn't specify a character, so I'll go with.... hm, Robert DuBois (since they knew each other pretty well).

I feel like they set him on-edge a little bit, they're a little too unpredictable for his tastes and there's a part of him that thinks they'll eventually just get bored with this whole crew and just snap for their own entertainment, but aside from that they're almost friends. He wouldn't trust Eris with a personal matter like watching his daughter (at least, not without Rick with them, it seems like they're a little tamer when he's around), but when it comes to a fight, they're a damn good ally.

How does your OC feel about (canon character)?

Still sticking with DuBois, because why not.

Eris respects him the same way they respect Rick. Honestly, they probably consider him their third-in-command - Rick's their first choice and always will be, but if Rick isn't there, DuBois is a good Plan B. He's a damn good fighter and they respect that, he's not afraid to push back against them and they respect that too, and when it comes to a battle they'll absolutely tank a few shots for him (since their healing factor can take it, he can't). He's the closest thing to a friend they've really got, though they wouldn't admit that.

Is there someone your OC liked at first, but then grew to dislike?

Peacemaker. At first glance, he seemed to be a competent fighter in the same vein as Rick and DuBois, but on a closer inspection there's just something off about him. He relies too much on flashy tools like his compression bullets, and he seems to see violence as a game rather than something of honor (this is a hill Eris will die on - they love fighting but still have respect for death, which is why they dislike guns and still fight with traditional weapons, while Peacemaker seems to have no regard for it whatsoever). He rubs them the wrong way.

What is your OC's redemption moment?

I don't know that Eris can really be redeemed at this point, and they don't want to be. So I wouldn't say they have redemption moments, more just moments where they show a bit more connection and morality - like where they try to slow down and comfort Rick in Vestalia, or the discussion of why they choose which side they fight on in Dead of Night, or a moment in an upcoming fic where they recognize they've overstepped on one of Rick's boundaries and choose to accept his response rather than pushing back.

Eris is a really interesting character when it comes to morality. He isn't a truly amoral character - he does have a moral code and is actually fairly strict about his rules, though he has a lot fewer rules than most people would - but she does make a lot of openly self-motivated choices and doesn't hesitate in getting what she wants. I don't know that they're truly evil, but I also don't know if they can be truly redeemed. There's moments of both bad and good there.

[samueldays]

Retrospective: D&D 3e class feature advancement and design

Of the editions of D&D that I've played, I think Third Edition is my favorite. It's imbalanced, sure, but part of what differentiates D&D from videogames is that there's a DM on hand to say "let's change that". Much of the general success of 3rd was probably due to the Open Gaming License that you may recall a recent fuss about, and two specific impacts of the OGL were 1) explosion of fan content to add on and change stuff, 2) fanmade polish of the System Reference Document (SRD), such as this hyperlinked and crosslinked version where just about everything is accessible in one click. Much less searching for rules!

I also personally liked it for the unusual way it tried hard to put player characters and monsters in the same mechanical framework using the same scale, unlike far too many games, video or tabletop, where the PC has 138 HP but does 9999 damage. (This was to some extent present in earlier editions, but 2e's Monstrous Manual fails to give a creature's Strength score, only specifying its damage directly.) D&D in general was unusually fair and honest about letting you loot Lord Mega-Evil's Mega-Sword instead of doing "2% drop chance" shenanigans. 3e went a step further to making the bugbear playable out of the box, if you wanted to play a bugbear. Bugbears were now real creatures in a sense, not simply bags of HP you popped for XP.

If you're waiting for me to get to the subject announced in the title, just keep waiting, this is a twenty year old game and I'm a grognard with a pet topic. ;-)

4th edition decided to strip much of this stuff back out again, and I detested it. 4e was super weird. 5e tentatively tried to be the simplified best bits of 1e and 3e (IMO) which is nice for the newbies, but I feel its class system still leaves much to be desired. The whole notion of "classes" in a RPG is a bit of a necessary evil. It doesn't exist in-universe, it's an abstraction because doing full pointbuy is more tiresome for players and far easier to accidentally break the system by neglecting one stat or pushing another too high. At the same time, you don't want to lock characters into a progression at level 1, so designers tend to re-invent various class options and class choices that veer back towards pointbuy, and multiclassing...

Bluntly: The "favored class" rules and multiclassing xp penalties in 3rd were failures. The hypothesis was that it would discourage "5 levels of this, 1 of this, remaining levels of this" cherry-picking and encourage keeping 2-3 classes balanced, with an exception for the favored class. What it actually encouraged was "5 levels of this, 1 level of this prestige class, remaining levels of this prestige class" because prestige classes (PrCs) were exempt. Removing that exemption would have had worse second-order effects because prestige classes had different numbers of levels and conditional advancement permission! A deeper overhaul was needed, but didn't appear. My groups usually ended up ignoring multiclassing xp penalties. Worthless rule, no content, no value. Especially the bit where it's possible to get stuck at -100% XP if you made deliberately bad choices, that's nonsense.

What was also a failure, but less so, and produced the content I want to ramble about today, is how the class system incentivized multiclassing in very different ways for different classes. I'm going to gloss over questions of obscure splatbook availability and optimization level here; if you know enough to have an opinion on them you probably don't need to be reading this.

-

Fighter: Multiclass out or prestige class ASAP. This because Fighters have no class features that scale specifically with Fighter level - feats, BAB and HP can be gotten anywhere, and stack cleanly from different classes. Fighter 4 / Barb 1 / PrestigeClassA 5 / PrestigeClassB 10 is an example outcome of starting from "Fighter" and keeping the concept without being bound to the classname.

Sorcerer: Prestige out, but only to +1 caster level classes. Sorcerers have 1 scaling class feature, "spellcasting", which is advanced as a whole by several prestige classes. Something like Sorc10 / Loremaster 10 is cool, gets you 20th level casting, and more class features.

Druid: Stay pure. Druids have multiple scaling class features, and very few prestige classes advance other than spellcasting.

(I reiterate: this is what the class system incentivized. Not what you 'should' play.)

-

This difference was not a matter of party role, but of class feature wording.

Broadly speaking, there's two kinds of class features in 3rd Edition: those that provide a static ability at a fixed level (for example, Paladins become immune to fear at 3rd level) and those that have a progression scaling with each level (for example, Paladins can Smite Evil to add their level to the damage done).

Fighters got almost entirely static abilities, and those with diminishing returns. Spellcasting was almost entirely scaling.

Paladins were closer to the Druid end of the scale due to Smite Evil and Lay on Hands saying "paladin level" (not caster level, nor character level) when calculating what to scale with. A few prestige classes explicitly advanced these features, but there was no standard framework for advancing them the way the Thaumaturgist prestige class had "+1 level of existing spellcasting class" for any of druids, clerics, wizards or sorcerers.

Theoretically, the Thaumaturgist or Mystic Theurge prestige classes also worked for other spellcasting classes such as Paladin, but this was mostly worthless because paladins were tertiary casters who got slower per-level spellcasting progression. +1 level of spellcasting had lower value for paladins or bards than it did for clerics or wizards. This was aggravated by partial progression classes such as Eldritch Knight, which provided less spellcasting advancement - measured in terms of fewer levels. They got community shorthand like 9/10 or 7/10 casting progression.

An intuitive-seeming fix haunted me for years: PrCs that give partial advancement to full casters should give full advancement to partial casters. Perhaps even more than one-for-one when advancing tertiary casters. But it was hard to spell out in rules.

Instead, WotC printed special case ugly hack PrCs like the Sublime Chord, which was blatantly "The Bard Prestige Class For Bards" that gave faster-than-bard spellcasting progression up to 9th level bard spells. (In the core game, wizards get up to 9th level spells, but bards stop at 6th level.) It worked by specifying in detail a new separate spellcasting progression meant to be used at each level from 11 to 20, after using the regular bard progression from level 1 to 10.

Ironically, this special case could then fit back into the standard framework: take 10 Bard levels, take 1 Sublime Chord prestige level, now Sublime Chord has its own spellcasting progression so it can be advanced by other prestige classes such as Loremaster or Thaumaturgist. Sublime Chord was a prestige class that bards took mostly for the spellcasting, and then they didn't need to stay in that class for the spellcasting, because spellcasting was a standard class feature that could be advanced in other ways.

What a mess.

-

Still, I gotta give Wizards credit for being willing to fuck around and try new stuff to get out of this mess they'd made.

During 3rd edition, some of their later pile-ons to this mess were the Truenaming magic system that worked based on a skill check instead of levels (this was swiftly exploited because Make Single Number Go Up is easy for nerds with a wide variety of options), the Shadowcasting magic system that got to retroactively convert the class levels of a wizard who multiclassed into shadowcaster (I never saw this used in practice), and the Initiating not-a-magic system in the Tome of Battle:

Instead of caster levels you had initiator levels, and instead of casting a spell you initiate a martial maneuver, and the maneuver involved swinging your sword around so expertly that it shot fireballs or healed your friends or added an extra 8d8 damage or froze the enemy's lifeblood with the Five-Shadow Creeping Ice Enervation Strike. It also let you resist poison or block mind control by concentrating really hard on how you are a mall ninja One with the Blade.

(image: a Blade Magic user who has convinced the DM that hitting people with your bare hands counts as a 'blade' if you call it Knife-Hand Strike.)

It was actually pretty good, once you got past the flowery names, the weeaboo aesthetic shift, the increased complexity, the dissociated mechanics, and the fact that Wizards printed three initiator subsystem classes that were different enough to be annoying. Now that I'm done damning it with faint praise: you calculate multiclass initiator level by taking your main initiator class's class level and adding half the levels in other classes, whether or not they are initiator classes. A Swordsage 6/Fighter 6 character counts as Swordsage 9 for purposes of the Swordsage's primary class feature: initiator level and martial maneuvers.

This sort of worked to encourage a moderate amount of multiclassing on occasion by reducing the cost, but not really, because of nonlinear scaling. The low-level Swordsage abilities are on the order of "Fighter but with 1d6+1 fire damage". The high-level Swordsage abilities are like "Enemy has to make a Fortitude save or die. On a successful save, enemy still takes 20d6 extra damage on top of your regular damage" and "Quasi-timestop: you get 10 opportunities in a row to pick up a nearby enemy and throw him. Your choice whether you want to throw 10 guys off a cliff, or bounce 1 guy against the wall until he dies."

This class feature progression was cribbed from the core spellcasting system for Sorcerers and Druids, see above for the multiclass incentives on those.

-

I don't have a general solution. Here is my sketch of a fix to the spellcasting part, also usable with the cribbed-from-spellcasting class features like initiator progression:

Build a spellcasting progression separately from a class. Each progression goes up to 9th level spells at character level 20, or the system equivalent. The "Wizard" class then gets a class feature which says something like "+1 spellcasting progression at each level". The "Bard" class gets a class feature which says something like "+0.75 spellcasting progression at each level". The Paladin class get a class feature which says something like "+0.4 spellcasting progression at each level". Round up or down with minima to taste.

This replicates the effect of the 3e progression where the Wizard got up to 9th level spells, the Bard got 6th and the Paladin stopped at merely 4th.

But by separating the spellcasting progression, all these base classes get the same amount of benefit from a Prestige Class which provides +X spellcasting progression per level (X probably 0.5-1). In regular 3e, spellcasting progression classes were worth far more to the wizard than to the paladin, because the paladin got 1/20th of a step towards 4th level spells and the wizard got 1/20th of a step towards 9th level spells.

This eliminates the weird special case that is the Sublime Chord, also eliminates certain other kinds of dumb cheese around Ur-Priest, creates space for semi-focused casting prestige classes that provide 0.9 spellcasting that's an improvement for bards but a slowdown for wizards, and makes it easier for Fighter-adjacent and Rogue-adjacent classes and prestige classes like Assassin to dabble in a little bit of spellcasting at a controlled rate. In weird design space, it allows backloading on a class that goes from +0.5 to +1.5 over the course of several levels to "catch up".

A downside is that this "fractional casting" is more granular, more bookkeeping, and closer to pointbuy, but it's a small step and D&D 3.5 was already including the similar Fractional BAB/Saves in optional rules. Maybe someone can be inspired by this to make something easier.

-

Now I would like to say that D&D Third Edition has come and gone and will probably never be repeated, having been supplanted by two later editions twenty years on, especially 3.5e with all its baroque customization, but that would be a lie because not only did it spawn a great many clones, Pathfinder is out there being a big name 3.5e clone with just enough tweaks to not be a copyright infringement. (Also: just enough tweaks to not quite be backwards compatible.) So I feel I should try to give helpful advice for design of class-based RPG systems, rather than just this historical overview so far. Here's my big suggestion:

Figure out how a class offers value, and why I should keep taking it.

The D&D 3e Fighter fails this test. You should multiclass out. Full BAB, d10 HD, crappy skills, Fortitude save (more chassis than feature) are available elsewhere. Feats (the only real feature) have diminishing returns.

The Pathfinder Fighter still fails this test - it's been given tiny value buffs like the scaling effect of Weapon Training: for every 4 levels get +1 to damage with a weapon group. Meanwhile the wizards are still off getting caster levels that give +1d6 spell damage every single level, and it's easy to get 1 damage every 4 levels from other sources.

Also, the Pathfinder Fighter has been given a Bravery feature: +1 on saves against fear for every 4 levels. Meanwhile the Paladin is still getting outright fear immunity at level 3.

The converse of this suggestion is asking yourself in design: Which of a class's valuable features can I get elsewhere?

For the Fighter it's "all of them", for the Sorcerer it's "all of them, but fewer places" and for the Druid it's complicated but "one-third" is a first approximation.

Extra corollary: "...and if getting those features elsewhere, what am I giving up or getting on the side?"

[anglerflsh]

re: your poetry post, can you give some pointers as to where to learn the rhyming patterns in poetry and the like? i only ever see poetry from the ideas/feelings perspective, but ive never learned the logic and structure behind it lol

I've learned most of it from my literature and grammar classes, it's taught in our school since elementary, so I wouldn't know of any books or manuals that talk specifially about it - but I can give you a rundown of how I do it, anon, if it counts for anything lol

Prefacing that this will be starting from italian poetica because that's what I know best: any poem, but specifically the pre-futurism/1910s ones (A Lot) will have some kind of structure aside from just the ryming scheme; The structure I am most familiar with is accentual-sillabic, so for example any single verso will have its stressed syllable in a fixed potision and occasionally a set number of sillables (eg. an endecasillablic metre means a stress on the tenth syllable, usually penultimate, equally to 11 total syllables), but there are also only accentual, or only sillabic verses, common in French poetry (?), all of which count as types of qualitative metre - as well as quantitative metre, which was more widley used in Latin and Greek poetry and which rather based itself on patterns of syllable weight (something that I know little about tbh; I think it's based on the lenght of pronunciation of the actual syllable).

this, of course, goes without even mentioning free-verse structure and less well-known ones.

Going back to the rhyming scheme, that also comes into play with structure in the sense that ... there are just a lot of them to pick from. The classic is the repeated AABB one, where each verse will rhyme with the one underneath (''kissing rhyme'' in italian), or the alterning ABAB, the crossed ABBA, the 'chained' or third rhyme ABA BCB CDC used for terzine, and plenty more! That's not all the ways to classify rhymes of course: you have plain rhyme between words accented on the penultimate syllable, cut rhyme between words accented on the last, sdrucciola with accents on the third-to-last, bisdrucciola on the fourth-to-last... etc etc

Then, of course, come the classifications in stanza lenghts! Groups of three verses are a terzina, well known for being Dante's favourite number (joke inserted to lighten this infodump), groups of four a quatrina, etc -

and depending on the number of single groups and on the type of verses in them, you have further classification as canzone, ode, madrigale, carme, filastrocca, ballata, sonetto... the latter for example is made of fourteen endecasyllabic verses grouped in two quartine, one in the beginning and one in the end, in crossed or alternate rhyme, and two terzine with any kind of rhyme structre.

this of course doesn't touch on the inner things and games of poem structure like the falling rhyme, spaces in between groups, enjambement, alliteration, allegorical figures, anafore, onomatopee, and all that fun stuff! Essentially when you see a poem look for the number of syllables in each verse, where the stressed syllable falls, how the rhymes are put, how many verses are in each stanza and strofa...

[desultory-novice]

Do you have any headcanons on Marx Soul?

Do I have Marx Soul Heacanons...?

...This does remind me that sometimes I end up with several headcanons for a character that, oh, maybe differ from each other or conflict in some way? But heck, I typically love them all and want to play with all of them, so I just kind of juggle from one to another as the mood hits me! (I'm frequently balancing several different Kirby "universes" in my head for this reason.)

So I can't just give you one static Marx Soul HC that is my favorite. What I will do is take this opportunity to share several Marx Soul ideas I'm fond of, as well as just gabbing about Marx Soul (and Marx) in general, because there's some cool things going on there that can't easily be wrapped up in HCs alone!

---

Marx Soul is a fusion of Marx and Nightmare

...This one is my baby. Mostly because I think I'm the first one (?) to come up with it? This is entirely based on the similarities Marx Soul shares with Nightmare (color palette, necklace) and the fact that Marx Soul's JP pause description doesn't specify that it is Marx's "evil soul" that resurrected after the collision. Aka, what if a part of Nightmare got stuck in Marx (through any number of methods, but obviously, I favor the "he was once a peaceful Noddy hit by Nightmare shrapnel" theory) and when Marx was on the verge of death, Nightmare "woke up" and took over his unwitting host.

I like this one a lot because I, err, maybe kinda like body hijacking as a plot point...Oops... But also I just love love love the Dreamer (Marx being a Noddy) vs Nightmare (Nightmare being, well, a "nightmare"...) parallel and putting them together in one body gives me even more fun ground to play with there!

This way, Marx Soul has DOUBLE the reasons to want revenge on Kirby! I would argue that you could use this as an explanation for the infamous Marx Soul flash frames that occurs right before Marx transforms!

Because there's like a frame or two before Marx grows his wings and goes all boss mode where he actually looks like Marx Soul. And this is back in the original game, before Marx Soul was even created! Which is just fascinating...! 

So, if Nightmare IS lurking inside Marx, that flash could be a hint of Nightmare's power resurfacing/awakening with the sudden surge of energy? Also, Marx is *exceptionally* pale during that brief flash, with his skin turning a pale, sickly, corpse-like purple, just like Nightmare's skin!

Ahem. Outside of my desperate attempts to find enough evidence to make other people latch onto my favorite HC, I also just like it because it would make Nightmare more of a threat too. Which I always enjoy. Gotta give credit where credit is due to the OG "scary" Kirby boss. (...Even if the scariest part was how surprisingly easy it was to run out of time in the orb phase of the fight.) 

And if Nightmare, in *some form* carried on over into a second game (aka, Super Star) we'd have an antagonist who makes a much better foil to Dark Matter/Zero! Now we've got “The Dark Matter Trilogy” and “The Nightmare Trilogy!” Or maybe “The Fountain Trilogy?” Err, duology! Because I can't link a third game into this. Unless I'm missing a relevant game somewhere...?

(...Smash Bros Ultimate...??)

Oh, yes! Another thing that's kind of fun/funny about this theory is that, if it were true, in light of the connections Forgotten Land gives us regarding the Galactic Novae, then a Nightmare-carrying Marx Soul has the potential to be a fusion of THREE lifeforms, depending upon if the Novae are made from a living Elfilis simulacrum or a fake one. (But again, the *heartbeat*...)

Anyway, three may honestly be too much, but I absolutely believe Marx Soul is a fusion of two lifeforms, minimum. You COULD see the "splitting in two" at the end as just a random creepy thing, or some kind of ironic fate based on his black hole attack, but I can't believe it’s unrelated. The Kirby series has too many meaningful lore and background bits tucked away in innocuous places for that and I think the splitting is a sign of...SOMETHING. 

Just not sure what.

--

Marx Soul and Void...?

I've been trying to think about WHY Marx Soul and Void share a battle background. Obviously, I considered the shared BG to be an important element in my Nightmare v Marx comparisons. They're not identical, such that you could say they occur in the exact same place, but they are close enough to be noticeable.

But I really have no idea why...! The fight with Void's core takes place inside Void Termina's shell body (?) and it's difficult to say WHERE that space even is.

Given that Marx Soul is absolutely an Ancient artifact-fueled beastie made out of various Nova parts, it's not unreasonable to suggest that the weird polygonal beehive-esque space these fights occur in is one that spawns when you break or otherwise corrupt some kind of Ancient power source? ...Or rather, something the Ancients USED as a power source? ...A twisting of reality?

Void Termina wields the Master Crown as a weapon. And I think Void/Void's power must have been the inspiration for the physical crown's creation on Halcandra. Plus the Ancients (presumably/possibly) built the Novae based around Elfilis's dreamscape-creating/dimension traveling powers. 

Man, what little we know about the Ancients, we're already getting the feeling their "best" creations came from stealing the powers of other lifeforms...

Would you believe that, as big a Marx fan as I am, I hadn't even made the connection between Void Termina's glass wings and Marx's glass wings until it was pointed out to me? Ahaha... I guess I just associated Marx's with all that pretty color-changing, where as Termina's wings looked so static. But they are the same shape...ish. And I think that's relevant! Somehow! Again, it's a little hard to make a solid connection, unless you can somehow connect the Void-born species and Elfilis with each other...? That is, a connection outside of "A Voidborn and a fragment of Elfilis went on a journey together in Forgotten Land!"

(Also, why am I suddenly interested in calling Kirby's species "Voidborn?" What is this weird Bloodborne/Gothic-Horror Kirby crossover building in my head...?)

Oh, oh! But another thing that's kind of neat (BIAS TALK INCOMING) is that, partly due to their popularity in the fandom at large, Marx and Magolor ARE slowly working their way up into sub-main character status of the Kirby series! And I'm not just talking about the concert promotion either...!

I can't say if this was in all 30th Anniversary merch, but I got the Kirby Room Light (sooo cute) and it came with a booklet introducing the various major characters of Kirby and right alongside the four heroes (and Rick, Coo, and Kine) were Marx and Magolor. Not only does this please me for personal reasons, I think it's a REALLY GOOD CHOICE.

One way or the other, whether Magolor is just a Halcandran fanboy (fan cat?) or an actual Halcandran, whether Marx is just a jester or some sort of green goop producing semi-clockwork being now, the two of them provide an excellent link to the broader Kirby cosmos! They were villains once, are no longer serious villains now, both survived (?) their experiences, and they can be "friendly" to the heroes (...if you have enough REAL CASH on hand. Or maybe they’ll ambush you mid-credits sequence because it's funny!) 

Anyway, the brilliance of upgrading them to major characters is that the dev team can keep the main 4 relatively free from weird, complicated Ancient backstory hijinks (...although Meta Knight, should he also be Voidborn, remains a big, untapped secret...) while still giving us players a cute orb-sized link back to them any time they choose! And that's another reason Void Termina is such an interesting fight! Because while Void calls back to pretty much every Kirby boss, the two bosses they call back to the most are... Marx and Magolor.

.........This was about Marx Soul. Right. Sorry. Didn't mean to get distracted.

(But WHILE I'm distracted, I meant to say that part of what this means to me is that, if we were to get a new, more faithful Kirby anime, I can totally see/respect/want desperately for Marx and Magolor to become a Team Rocket-esque pair of reoccurring villains this time around. A selfish, greedy Dedede as villain of the week needs to go. Let the selfish mischievous jester and greedy lying wizard cause all the problems!)

--

Ahem. Now back to Marx Soul. And headcanons.

So, I dropped this idea out there once, but I headcanon Drawcia as Marx's magic teacher pre-Milky Way Wishes, and the reason for that is almost entirely due to their connection as Soul bosses and the inherited move set. I mean, he turns INTO PAINT! Who else could he have picked that up from but the living painting herself?! Of course, moves would be carried over from Soul boss to Soul boss after that, regardless of any potential ties between them, but eh, this one is too firmly entrenched in my mind that I just can't get rid of it!

...I like to imagine Drawcia made Marx's training anything but easy. (She IS a villain.)

--

Marx Soul and Death in the Kirby-verse

This one gets a little complicated because it's tied to a bunch of things and is more of a philosophy(?) thing rather than a headcanon thing? I’m going to talk about it anyway though because why not!

So, I think, in general, the understanding/implication is that Marx either died or was very near death after the collision with the Nova. His body is an ashen grey and he's not moving after that. This would, in a sense, make Marx Soul out to be Marx's animated corpse. (Yikes...)

But death is WEIRD in Kirby. There's that line in one of the early material books or earlier interviews or something (although every time I get asked about a source for these things, I end up being wrong so take what I’m saying here with a grain of salt, please!) but I RECALL a bit about the creatures in Popstar coming back "like the grass in summer." ...Or maybe it was weeds...? 

And yes, it might've been referring to the respawning system in the 2D games and NOT a lore element. But I'm ridiculously fond of this one as lore for whatever reason and I tend to work it into my generalized Kirby headcanon almost every time: the idea that things on Popstar never really die.

(It’s a stretch but then again...the critters in the Forgotten Land DON’T respawn like the Popstar ones when you destroy them. Now, that's because there's no "screen border" you can cross that means its safe for them to do so...and they DO respawn if you exit and re-enter a room. It’s an out there idea, but isn't it kind of interesting...?)

So, anyway! Popstar as a weird Fountain of Eternal Youth/paradise planet where nothing ever dies! Maybe it's energy of the planet? Maybe that's why everyone is attracted to it/always wants to invade it? And if Marx and Kirby had fought on Popstar, maybe Marx would have just been sent flying ala King Dedede in Dream Land 1? But they fought juuuuust outside the bounds of Popstar, so when Marx makes a magnificent crash into a Galactic Nova, he's a little more messed up than typical. (If Popstar residents CAN’T get permanently injured or die, that crash must have been a real system shock to poor Marx...)

And now you have this weird dead/dying/undead/undying Marx (...all the worse if he had just enough lingering Popstar energy in him so that he COULDN'T just die post-crash, but wasn't alive either...) Anyway, depending upon how deep you read into it, what you get there and the emotional implications of it are all kind of horrible, really. Because Kirby has never really faced or had to contend with, err, death before... Not yet, at last. Anything that's been an invader to Popstar is destroyed or dispersed in a safe clean way, but Marx is different because Marx was at one time alive and now...isn't.

I imagine, sometimes, what that must be like for Kirby. Kirby wouldn’t be exactly responsible for Marx’s death or the creation of Marx Soul because it was Marx himself that went spiraling out of control, but still... 

Even though Kirby games have no specific timeline, I occasionally think about how various events would take their toll on Kirby. Affect Kirby’s growth. (Like the stuff with the friend hearts in Star Allies and how Kirby goes on to save EVERYONE in FL, right off the heels of being unable to save either Secty or Haltmann. When you look at the big picture, it DOES tie together.) 

Long story short, I have various thoughts about the fact that the next mainline game to be released after Super Star Ultra is Return to Dream Land - where Kirby is (implied to be) constantly in the company of Meta Knight, Dedede, and Bandee. Maybe they thought Kirby shouldn't be alone after, well...after the ghost of a former foe came back from the dead for a ghastly revenge...? And boy is Marx Soul ghastly. At least for the early Kirby series. The awful noises, glitchy movements, and the weird bits of sanity-slippage you get from that fight does play strongly into the "zombie Marx" theory.

Speaking of Marx Soul graphical weirdness, I love how, among the new animations for him, we get this cute (?) little one where he curls up into a ball...? Except the way he tucks his wings in so that they slowly cross over him/vaguely meld into his body...? It's not your typical HORROR horror, but there's something unnerving about it. Maybe it's that "creepy cartoon" effect?

...Brief aside. I’ve only watched, like, 10 episodes of Steven Universe but I did watch the movie, thanks to a friend. And my mind almost can't help but make visual parallels between Marx and Spinel. At least as far as "creepy cartoon characters who are creepy specifically BECAUSE they are a cartoon."

What makes this one move of Marx's even more weirdly dissonant is that when you stop to look at the sprite, he's got this surprisingly peaceful expression on his face for squishing himself into a physically impossible little ball of impossible.

--

Marx Soul is Marx's Negative Impulses/Thoughts

This HC is one I barely use myself, but I LOVE to see it??? 

I'm not at all into Marx/Marx Soul selfcest, which, frankly, is where I see this headcanon pop up the most, but ahhh, I can't help but enjoy the concept of a Marx Soul continuing to linger in the back of Marx's mind whispering all sorts of horrible things in his head even after Star Allies. As someone with negative intrusive thoughts, it feels kinda good to see versions of a comfort character struggle with them too, in either a mental or physical form...

It also makes for some damn good fanart.

On that note, temptation is strong to make a parody of Guchiry’s Flower song "Abnormality Dancing Girl" that plays into this version of Marx + Marx Soul.

--

Back to random Marx Soul observations!

You know what I also love? The minor detail of Marx Soul's hat switching colors! Regardless of WHAT Marx Soul is, we understand him to have needed to use the power of the Nova to reconstruct/revive himself, and I occasionally like to think the reversed hat is a possible representation of just how wrong he was when he came back. Yes, it doesn't exactly work out logically or physically, because Marx wasn't (yet) split in two when he near-died, but it's almost like, while absorbing Nova's parts to remake himself, he (or it) put himself back together in the wrong way. His eyes are more prominently facing outward too. I'm not exactly saying his left eye is on the right and his right eye is on the left now but...maybe?!?

 So much body horror in one tiny jester 

...Oh geez...! Speaking of...

This just came up in my feed today, but Super Star was supposed to have one last mini-game included in it that was horror-themed and it was initially planned that Kirby would have his *mouth sewn shut* by the villain so he couldn't use copy abilities?!? (Yikes yikes...) And he'd have to collect them instead? 

This is, I gather, the base of the system used in Milky Way Wishes? 

The lost game theory makes sense, because Milky Way Wishes is more like a rehash/revisitation of the other Super Star mini-games. Every planet is made of reused tiles. The most original element in it is Marx. So...if Marx was originally planned to be the villain of that horror game (...and it fits, what with him being a scary clown...) Well...you can sort of see why Sakurai's original version of Marx is a whole lot scarier if THAT is the kind of thing he'd do to Kirby...

...Also, I don't know why...but I get the strong feeling that, seeing as how Marx in MWW suffers a very karmic "He's destroyed by the very comet he wished on!" defeat, the ending to this horror-themed Kirby game would probably have the magic Marx used on Kirby backfiring on him in a very bad way... 

Imagine a zombie Marx Soul making Those Noises with a stitch-ripped mouth... 

...Or don't, because, you know, that's awful.

...

...

I CAN'T END THIS ON THAT IMAGE IN GOOD FAITH SOOOO....

...Aha, I know what I can still talk about! The Roses! 

Marx Soul's roses! Who told them they were allowed to add roses to Marx's attack patterns?! It's so...gah, it's so interesting! How is it Marx goes from thorny vines (...thorny catci?) to blooming roses?! I have NO idea. Kumazaki, why did you give Marx Soul roses?! Marx isn't tied into the plot of Triple Deluxe in any way, is he?! It's just...I mean, roses have a ton of associations, of course. One for every color. But Marx Soul's roses are blood red.

And he has those hearts on his wings. What do those mean??

I actually ended up doing some research on this, because I was trying to figure out if there could be some meaning to Marx's heart wings. Tbh, the first thing that came to mind was "...Is this a Dio Brando reference?" Because of the heart-iconography + crazy villain thing. But through that, I learned that the "heart shape" actually existed in Japan for centuries! Only it wasn't a "heart," it was a boar's eye(?) And it was a symbol of good fortune and to ward off evil. Interesting how, even if it didn't mean love yet, it was still a positive symbol.

So why is Marx associated with these positive symbols?! But this may be another Void connection because Void is all heart imagery all the time!

...And...so is Elfilis...

Huh. Wasn't I just wondering about ties between Void and Elfilis toward the beginning of this essay? If Marx's hearts are Elfilis's hearts are Void's hearts...?

Alas, I don't have an answer. Ran out of headcanons.

In any case, I really do hope that Marx's rising popularity means a consistent appointment to the position of semi-regular character (like with Magolor) because there is just SO MUCH packed inside this little jester to explore!

[arewordsenough]

Shipping Headcanons

5, 10, 14 for Thiam and Sterek (if you want, you can choose which number per ship or for both. Up to you.) 😄

Heya, thanks for the ask! Since you didn't specify which list, I'll stick to the safe ones 😉

Thiam

5 Who buys the groceries? Theo buys the groceries because Liam is too much of an impulse shopper. Theo hates to buy nice things for himself but always caves if Liam is with him and that's how they end up with a third of their pantry dedicated to snacks and junk food. 10 Any pets? Or plants? There have been plants and that's why there's no pets, at least for a while. Theo has taken care of the only plant to survive any kind of tenure in their home and he doesn't want to take care of a pet and even Liam can't convince himself he would properly take care of one. Eventually, Liam finds an abandoned kitten and Theo finally caves and they keep it, though as he expected, Theo does almost all the work of taking care of him. 14 Who is the highest maintenance? Does the other mind? Liam is definitely the highest maintenance. Theo doesn't like people going above and beyond for him, but begrudgingly accepts when Liam does. Liam has lived a pretty good life as the step-son of a doctor and hasn't really ever wanted for anything in his life. Theo doesn't mind, he actually likes making sure Liam still doesn't have anything to worry about.

Sterek

5 Who buys the groceries? Derek. Stiles never actually gets what's on the shopping list and definitely buys things they don't need, but almost always because they're on sale so "Why not?" 10 Any pets? Or plants? They definitely get a rescue dog and take care of it together. The doggo is a good excuse to go on walks and a great reason to stay home instead of going out. The dog is absolutely spoiled. 14 Who is the highest maintenance? Does the other mind? As weird as it is to say, Derek is absolutely more high maintenance than Stiles. He likes expensive cars, nice clothes, and even fine dining on occasion. Stiles could sit home all day and eat junk and be happy. Stiles doesn't mind at all, especially since Derek can afford to take care of himself. Still mad he never gets to drive anymore after one fenderbender.

The Shipping Headcanons Ask List (or make up your own and send it)

[evilvarric666-archive]

This is gonna be long, so sorry in advance, but as someone who enjoys long fics here are my two cents:

I get why some ppl may not want 75 tags in fics, but this is gonna hurt long fic writers. On a long fic there are probably gonna be more relationships that are central to the plot that aren't the main ship. And side pairings that may be a squick to some ppl. Not to mention trigger warnings and tone tags.

For example: a long fic with the pairing Y x Z. Z had an abusive relationship, and that's gonna be explored. So the author tags abusive relationship, bc that's a trigger, but an explanation next tag saying "not current ship" or smth.

Then Y has very important friendships with some of the cast. These are central to the plot so they're tagged too.

Turns out, character W is controversial in the fandom, but they're central to the fic too. The author is gonna tag after the character tag W positive/negative; so ppl who don't wanna see positive/negative things about W can skip this.

And guess what? Ship A x B appears in this fic too. Maybe it's not that central, but this ship is also disliked by some people, so the author will tag it, so ppl can filter through.

Another problem is with media that has different mediums, like, the media Y, Z, etc are from has movies, and books, and games and a tv show. All these things actually have different stories, different enough at least that ppl may only want to see fics written for the movies! But the author wants to take plot from the movies and the books. So instead of just tagging the all media tag for that media, they also tag media (movies) and media (books)

These tags end up accumulating. And especially in long fics. The author could make the first chapter a list of tws and stuff that they keep updating, but that destroys the purpose of ao3 tags: you can't filter content like that, you can only filter tags.

I honestly think they should just find a way to delete the fics with the trolling tags, or make a readmore thing so it doesn't hurt the browsing. At the very least make the tag limit longer.

sorry in advance that this is going to be rambly and weird. I have a lot of thoughts.

I get where you're coming from but I also still disagree. Like it's definitely going to change the way longfic writers tag, but I really don't think it's going to hurt them. I think it's going to encourage more effective tagging and that that's going to be better for everybody in the long run. If anything, I think that overtagging is what's hurting longfic writers, it makes their works look unappealing, and actually important information gets buried in a wall of text.

i will admit though that I do understand better now why less room for trigger tagging is going to be an issue. My preferred tagging style is "General/umbrella warnings in the tags, with whatever elaboration/specifics the author deems necessary in an author's note/author's notes at the beginning of each chapter" (example: "animal death" in the tags, so that the filters catch it + people who can't handle the subject At All know to keep scrolling, and then the author's note specifying that its in the context of game hunting & not a pet death, so that people who were uncertain and needed more info could click in and get the specifics.) and I thought that preference was pretty universal? But apparently a lot of people use the tags as an exhaustive list of warnings, which I didn't know because when I see a work with more than, well with more than 75 tags, I just start scrolling until it's gone.

(this is a tangent and I get that my experiences are not universal. but I genuinely dislike full warning lists in the tags because, for me at least, it makes it harder for me to figure out if the story is something I can/want to read. The things I Really Do Not Want To Read about are rare, and rarely tagged the same way twice, so the exclusion filter isn't really helpful for me. I have to actually read the full list of warnings and if the things I'm looking for are sandwiched inbetween a bunch of trope/character tags in a big wall o text I am going to miss it. This has happened to me multiple times.)

I think that that's an ineffective tagging style, basically. Lots of tags is kind of the opposite of useful tags, imo. Short, to the point and consistently worded warnings are better and I think having less space will encourage people to do that. I understand why people do this other style, though, and also why it would frustrate them that they can no longer do that. I think it really sucks that ao3 let everyone wild west their website for so long that it managed to spawn like three distinct groups of people who all use the website in completely incompatible ways, and now it's at the point where any new rule implemented is going to screw a lot of people over no matter what. But I digress.

Anyways, as long as someone isn't putting Revolutionary Girl Utena levels of warnings in their tags (and if your fic needs that much... maybe you should just put yur top 10 biggest warnings on there and slap a Dead Dove Do Not Eat on the end there, yknow?), I think that 75 tags will fully accommodate them. I get that tags start adding up, but also I think a lot of people are underestimating how many tags 75 tags is.

Like to just add up how many tags are used in your example: three / pairing tags, lets go crazy and say three more & pairing tags, tag every character tag in those pairings that's twelve, #abusive relationship + #not main pairing tags, three fandom tags bc multiple source mediums, a #[controversial character] positive tag... that's 24 tags. Like all the necessary character & pairing tags are handled in less than a third of the space given (and personally I consider this slightly over tagged. I think the only character tags you should put on a fic are the very mainest/pov characters, but yknow) and honestly if you can't then figure out a way to communicate the rest of the necessary information about your fic in 51 tags and a 1250 character summary then I really don't know how to help you. I personally would have to really push myself to figure out how to put more than 75 tags on one fic, regardless of the length of the fic. And I can't help but notice that a lot of the fics I could find with over 75 tags while searching last night had a lot of... unnecessary duplicate tags, often for information that could've been easily otherwise intuited (tagging #mandolorian #mandolore #mandolorian character and #mandolorian culture on a Jango Fett pre-series fic, for example)

I do have some criticisms about the current change though. I think it would've been better to have individual tag number limits for each individual field (x number of fandom tags, x number of character tags, etc.) instead of a 75 tags over all limit (or make a "warning tags" field that's separate from "additional tags" but that's a separate essay and would... probably mean overhauling the whole site. so not very practical.) A readmore option would be good too, and I'm not sure why they didn't go for that? I also think that this change will be most effective if done in combination with other changes. Like posting very loosely or not at all enforced official tagging/style guides for the site. I really think that even a tepid attempt at standardization will increase the site's usability like, A Lot.

I'm not sure how cohesive that was. TL;DR I appreciate hearing your thoughts, mine are that I still think this is a step in the right direction. And that cutting back on overtagging will lead to more concise, effective tagging which will make browsing and filtering easier in the long run.

[blueper-saiyan]

Alright, I finally remembered how to use statistics well enough to investigate this! Literally no one asked for this but I'm bored and need to practice using R and putting statistics into semi-understandable terms, so I'm sort of explaining it like I'm teaching it lol.

Does preferring cats or dogs affect whether you prefer Goku or Vegeta?

First, we need to set up our hypotheses for the answer. This is necessary to be be able to run most statistics tests, and an important part of the scientific method. We'll need a null hypothesis and an alternative hypothesis. In general, the null hypothesis is that there is no link between the variables you're looking at. Our two variables here are whether a person prefers cats or dogs, and whether a person prefers Goku or Vegeta. So in this case, our null hypothesis would be that preferring cats or dogs doesn't affect whether you prefer Goku or Vegeta. In contrast, the alternative hypothesis is that there is some sort of relationship between the variables, although you often can't specify what that relationship is, just that it exists. It's called the alternative hypothesis because it's the alternative to the null hypothesis. In this case, our alternative hypothesis is that whether you prefer cats or dogs somehow affects whether you prefer Goku or Vegeta.

The null hypothesis is what we assume to be true by default, but if we can collect enough data that doesn't match what we'd expect if the null hypothesis were true, we can reject the null hypothesis. This still doesn't technically allow us to confirm the alternative hypothesis, but it does tell us that something interesting is going on. If we don't find data that is noticeably different from what we'd expect to see if the null hypothesis were true, we fail to reject the null hypothesis instead.

Now, to get back to answering our question, we need data, which is helpfully already collected by this poll. To start, I calculated the actual numbers from the poll by multiplying the percentages by the total number of votes. Then I put them into a table.

Next, I plotted the data to get an idea of what it actually looks like.

This is a mosaic plot, which represents the results of the poll. The width of the boxes represents the proportion of votes for each category. So, the most people liked Vegeta and were cat people, and the fewest liked Goku and were dog people.

Looking at this plot, it suggests that there's no relationship between our two variables, because about a third of people who liked dogs preferred Goku, and a third of the people who liked dogs preferred Vegeta. If there were any correlation between, for example, liking dogs and preferring Goku, we would expect to see a higher proportion of people who liked dogs picking Goku.

However, I still want to run an actual statistical test, even though this visual almost certainly means that there was no link between being a cat or dog person and favorite Dragon Ball character. This is for completionism's sake lol.

This post is already solely for an audience of myself, so I won't go into how to choose the right test for different types of data, and I'll skip to saying the right test to run for this is a Chi-squared contingency test. This test gives a p-value as a result. p-values are often complicated to explain, but the most basic explanation is that they represent the probability that the current results occurred if you assume the null hypothesis is true. It ranges between 1 and 0. A 1 means that the results are exactly what you'd expect if the null hypothesis was true. A 0 means that you would not expect to see these results if the null hypothesis is true. Anything 0.05 and below is considered to be statistically significant. This represents a 5% probability that the null hypothesis is true and these results have occurred by random chance. This cutoff is honestly somewhat arbitrary but at this point it's tradition. Now to run the test on the actual data.

Here's the output of running the Chi-squared test. I don't know why tumblr blurred the picture, but the important thing about this result is that the p-value is 1. I've actually never seen a 1 before lol, usually it will be more like 0.97 or something. This means these results are exactly what you'd expect if the null hypothesis, that being a cat or dog person doesn't affect whether you prefer Goku or Vegeta, was true.

I think this actually makes sense, since they both have some cat-coded traits and some dog-coded traits.

TL;DR Whether you are a cat or dog person does not affect whether you prefer Goku or Vegeta, according to this poll

I have no idea whether or not I was coherent but I had fun. If anyone wants to ask me stats questions or find/make new polls for me to do this to, I would be excited lol

[stimtoybox]

I'm such an idiot I already knew I didn't have it. So I went to my therapist to see her thoughts on it, and she said she doesn't think I have autism. Especially becuse my previous therapist and psychiatrist were experts/more experienced in diagnosing that they would've picked up on it if that were the case. I feel like such a fake for thinking I had it. I guess I just thought maybe I had it too because almost all my close friends have it. I feel like an idiot. I'm sorry.

Anon, you have no reason to apologise.

What are you apologising for? Because you have experiences in common with autistics? Because you found something useful in the autistic community? Because you wondered? Because you sought out advice or an assessment? Because you wanted a label that makes sense of who you are? Because you tried out a label and it turned out to be the wrong one? You’ve committed no crime, anon. You’ve done nothing wrong.

I’ve never heard of an autistic person being mad because someone else thought they were autistic but turned out not to be, and if someone is, that’s a failing in that individual. That’s not a response common to the community or generally accepted by it. You’re not an Autism Parent or an Autism Ally speaking for or over autistics by making your identity around autism; you’re somebody trying to understand yourself. So you’ve tried on a few labels in search of those that fit? Join the club, anon.

I’m sure there’s a lucky neurodiverse person or two who hit on the right labels the first time around, but most of us, I suspect, have tossed aside a few in the quest to find the right combination of words that describe the mental and developmental landscape of who we are. I have. Trauma/PTSD and autism look pretty similar, so similar I was treated as having the former. BPD may or may not describe my moods and various other struggles; it may be a word I’ll find myself tossing away, because there’s another PD that better fits, but right now that doesn’t mean I don’t get to explore it to see if it makes sense of the person I am. And if I find resources and connection with others who have similar experiences, well, it’d be an uncommonly awful person to begrudge me that.

Anon, if you agree with your therapist, that’s fine. You’re ND in some way. (You don’t have to specify how you’re ND or to what degree you’re ND, not on this blog.) You still belong in this community. This blog and many other general ND blogs are still yours. This isn’t an autistic-only space and autistics aren’t the only people who stim. Our resources and this community are for you, always.

If you don’t agree, know that therapists can be wrong. My first therapist just called me “quirky” and talked about my trauma. My second said that I was “like her autistic son but she doesn’t like labels”. My third said was “difficult”. My fourth said I was “probably borderline” because that was the only DBT program on offer. Only psychologist number five actually took the time to explore autism with me. Ironically, since then the people I’ve worked with haven’t doubted autism once I mention it. Neurodiversity can be hard to diagnose, and it’s often a matter of just finding the closest labels that group your symptoms/experiences. There’s little exactitude here.

If you decide you feel, now or later, that autism still makes better sense, your word is enough for the majority of the community. It’s enough for me.

If you don’t? Doesn’t matter. This isn’t an autism-only space.

Wondering, exploring and investigating a label is no bad thing, anon. Even making a mistake isn’t a bad thing: it gives you information. If you agree with your therapist, then now you can start looking for other words that make sense of who you are. Cross that label off your list and keep on searching.

Anon, I’d like you to do a favour for me. Please, take some time out to look after yourself.

Listen to some favourite music. Watch a movie or a TV show you like. Go out with a friend. Wear your favourite clothes, play with your favourite stim toy, use your favourite bath wash. Take a sheet of paper and write down at least one awesome thing about yourself and then put that paper in your pocket. Stand before the mirror and say, out loud, that you are proud of yourself for talking with your therapist. Stand before the mirror and tell yourself that you are allowed, always, to explore who you are. Stand before the mirror and tell yourself that you are allowed to make mistakes. (The shower is often a good place to do this sort of thing, as the water covers up the sound of your talking.) Do something special that you don’t ordinarily do as a reward for your courage. Take a day and make it a treat day in all the ways you can think of, in which you treat yourself as nicely as I think you deserve. I want you to be nice to you, in acknowledgement of this difficult thing you’re dealing with, and all it has taken from you to explore it.

Your ask, anon, tells me that you care very much about not hurting people, and that’s amazing, but you do not need to apologise.

You’re not a fake. You’re not hurting others. You’re not pretending to be something you’re not for some kind of advantage or gain. You’re just someone trying to figure out who you are.

That isn’t something for which you need to apologise.

- Mod K.A.

[generalstrangereagle-blog]

class 10 computer string chapter explanation: Java

Introduction to Java String Handling

String is probably the most commonly used class in java library. String class is encapsulated under java.lang package. In java, every string that you create is actually an object of type String. One important thing to notice about string object is that string objects are immutable that means once a string object is created it cannot be altered. In Java, java.lang.String class is implementes using Serializable, Comparable and CharSequence interface.

In Java, CharSequence Interface is used for representing a sequence of characters. CharSequence interface is implemented by String, StringBuffer and StringBuilder classes. This three classes can be used for creating strings in java.

What is an Immutable object?

An object whose state cannot be changed after it is created is known as an Immutable object. String, Integer, Byte, Short, Float, Double and all other wrapper classes objects are immutable.

Creating an Immutable class

public final class MyString

{

              final String str;

              MyString(String s)

              {

                            this.str = s;

              }

                public String get()

              {

                            return str;

              }

}

In this example MyString is an immutable class. MyString's state cannot be changed once it is created. Creating a String object

String can be created in number of ways, here are a few ways of creating string object.

1) Using a String literal

String literal is a simple string enclosed in double quotes " ". A string literal is treated as a String object.

String str1 = "Hello";

2) Using another String object

String str2 = new String(str1);

3) Using new Keyword

String str3 = new String("Java");

4) Using + operator (Concatenation)

String str4 = str1 + str2;

or,

String str5 = "hello"+"Java";

Each time you create a String literal, the JVM checks the string pool first. If the string literal already exists in the pool, a reference to the pool instance is returned. If string does not exist in the pool, a new string object is created, and is placed in the pool. String objects are stored in a special memory area known as string constant pool inside the heap memory.

Concatenating String

There are 2 methods to concatenate two or more string.

1.     Using concat() method

2.     Using + operator

1) Using concat() method

string s = "Hello";

string str = "Java";

string str2 = s.concat(str);

String str1 = "Hello".concat("Java");   //works with string literals too.

2) Using + operator

string str = "Rahul";

string str1 = "Dravid";

string str2 = str + str1;

string st = "Rahul"+"Dravid";

String Comparison

String comparison can be done in 3 ways.

1. Using equals() method

2. Using == operator

3. By CompareTo() method

Using equals() method

equals() method compares two strings for equality. Its general syntax is,

boolean equals (Object str)

It compares the content of the strings. It will return true if string matches, else returns false.

String s = "Hell";

String s1 = "Hello";

String s2 = "Hello";

s1.equals(s2);    //true

s.equals(s1) ;   //false

Using == operator

== operator compares two object references to check whether they refer to same instance. This also, will return true on successful match.

String s1 = "Java";

String s2 = "Java";

String s3 = new string ("Java");

test(s1 == s2)     //true

test(s1 == s3)      //false

By compareTo() method

compareTo() method compares values and returns an int which tells if the string compared is less than, equal to or greater than the other string. It compares the String based on natural ordering i.e alphabetically. Its general syntax is,

int compareTo(String str)

String s1 = "Abhi";

String s2 = "Viraaj";

String s3 = "Abhi";

s1.compareTo(S2);     //return -1 because s1 < s2

s1.compareTo(S3);     //return 0 because s1 == s3

s2.compareTo(s1);     //return 1 because s2 > s1

Java String class functions

The methods specified below are some of the most commonly used methods of the String class in Java. We will learn about each method with help of small code examples for better understanding.

charAt() method

charAt() function returns the character located at the specified index.

String str = "studytonight";

System.out.println(str.charAt(2));

Output: u

NOTE: Index of a String starts from 0, hence str.charAt(2) means third character of the String str. equalsIgnoreCase() method

equalsIgnoreCase() determines the equality of two Strings, ignoring thier case (upper or lower case doesn't matters with this fuction ).

String str = "java";

System.out.println(str.equalsIgnoreCase("JAVA"));

Output: true

indexOf() method

indexOf() function returns the index of first occurrence of a substring or a character. indexOf() method has four forms:

·   int indexOf(String str): It returns the index within this string of the first occurrence of the specified substring.

·       int indexOf(int ch, int fromIndex): It returns the index within this string of the first occurrence of the specified character, starting the search at the specified index.

·       int indexOf(int ch): It returns the index within this string of the first occurrence of the specified character.

·       int indexOf(String str, int fromIndex): It returns the index within this string of the first occurrence of the specified substring, starting at the specified index.

Example:

public class StudyTonight {

   public static void main(String[] args) {

       String str="StudyTonight";

       System.out.println(str.indexOf('u'));   //3rd form

       System.out.println(str.indexOf('t', 3));    //2nd form

       String subString="Ton";

       System.out.println(str.indexOf(subString)); //1st form

       System.out.println(str.indexOf(subString,7));   //4th form

   }

}

Java String class functions

The methods specified below are some of the most commonly used methods of the String class in Java. We will learn about each method with help of small code examples for better understanding.

charAt() method

charAt() function returns the character located at the specified index.

String str = "studytonight";

System.out.println(str.charAt(2));

Output: u

equalsIgnoreCase() method

equalsIgnoreCase() determines the equality of two Strings, ignoring thier case (upper or lower case doesn't matters with this fuction ).

String str = "java";

System.out.println(str.equalsIgnoreCase("JAVA"));

Output: true

indexOf() method

indexOf() function returns the index of first occurrence of a substring or a character. indexOf() method has four forms:

int     indexOf(String str): It returns the index within this string of the first     occurrence of the specified substring.

int     indexOf(int ch, int fromIndex): It returns the index within this string of     the first occurrence of the specified character, starting the search at     the specified index.

int     indexOf(int ch): It returns the index within this string of the first     occurrence of the specified character.

int     indexOf(String str, int fromIndex): It returns the index within this     string of the first occurrence of the specified substring, starting at the     specified index.

Example:

public class StudyTonight {

   public static void main(String[] args) {

       String str="StudyTonight";

      System.out.println(str.indexOf('u'));   //3rd form

       System.out.println(str.indexOf('t', 3));    //2nd form

       String subString="Ton";

       System.out.println(str.indexOf(subString)); //1st form

      System.out.println(str.indexOf(subString,7));   //4th form

   }

}

length() method

length() function returns the number of characters in a String.

String str = "Count me";

System.out.println(str.length());

8

replace() method

replace() method replaces occurances of character with a specified new character.

String str = "Change me";

System.out.println(str.replace('m','M'));

Output: Change Me

substring() method

substring() method returns a part of the string. substring() method has two forms,

public String substring(int begin);

public String substring(int begin, int end);

/*

   character of begin index is inclusive and character of end index is exclusive.

*/

The first argument represents the starting point of the subtring. If the substring() method is called with only one argument, the subtring returned, will contain characters from specified starting point to the end of original string.But, if the call to substring() method has two arguments, the second argument specify the end point of substring.

String str = "0123456789";

System.out.println(str.substring(4));

456789

System.out.println(str.substring(4,7));

Output:456

toLowerCase() method

toLowerCase() method returns string with all uppercase characters converted to lowercase.

String str = "ABCDEF";

System.out.println(str.toLowerCase());

Output:abcdef

toUpperCase() method

This method returns string with all lowercase character changed to uppercase.

String str = "abcdef";

System.out.println(str.toUpperCase());

Output:ABCDEF

trim() method

This method returns a string from which any leading and trailing whitespaces has been removed.

String str = "   hello  ";

System.out.println(str.trim());

Output:hello

NOTE: If the whitespaces are between the string, for example: String s1 = "study tonight"; then System.out.println(s1.trim()); will output "study tonight".

trim() method removes only the leading and trailing whitespaces.

Extra note:

format() Method

format() is a string method. It is used to the  format of the given string.

Following  are the format specifier and their datatype:

Format  Specifier                                                                                    Datatype

%a

floating  point

%b

Any  type

%c

character

%d

integer

%e

floating  point

%f

floating  point

%g

floating  point

%h

any  type

%n

none

%o

integer

%s

any  type

%t

Date/Time

%x

integer

public class FormatDemo1

{

   public static void main(String[] args)

   {  

       String a1 = String.format("%d", 125);          

       String a2 = String.format("%s", "studytonight");  

       String a3 = String.format("%f", 125.00);      

       String a4 = String.format("%x", 125);          

       String a5 = String.format("%c", 'a');  

System.out.println("Integer Value: "+a1);  

System.out.println("String Value: "+a2);  

System.out.println("Float Value: "+a3);  

System.out.println("Hexadecimal Value: "+a4);  

System.out.println("Char Value: "+a5);  }}

";msoū��g�

[cleanergarrettxukr906-blog]

Secrets Office Cleaning Doesn't Would Like You To Know

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[darklinaforever]

What Luke saw was literally Snoke being manipulated into turning against Kylo. Not reality.

Then... Yes, Kylo has killed people, but not as many as people seem to believe.

He killed the guy he knew at the start of episode 7 (I forgot the name), the village, and his father. And as shown later, only things he regrets, since he is constantly torn between the light side and the dark side. Kylo literally sees Finn with his eyes not shooting the villagers and he doesn't do anything to him, doesn't say anything to him, he just leaves him alone. Probably because Kylo must have felt emotions similar to those of Finn. It is not for nothing that Kylo understands directly who is the traitor among the Stormtrooper. The character's ambiguity was there from the start for Kylo, but people refuse to see it.

I add that Kylo did not kill his father out of hatred or pleasure (nor any person for that matter in fact but that's another subject), but because he thought that killing him would complete his training on the dark side and the pulling pain would stop. He killed his father because he loved him. This is the whole principle of this act. Except that it only broke him even more, reinforcing the fact that Kylo does not belong to the dark side despite all Snoke / Palpatine's efforts.

Afterwards ? (Don't let anyone tell me that you care about the weird guardians of Vader's temple in episode 9) The planets destroyed were Hux and Snoke. Kylo didn't destroy Luke's temple either. It was Palpatine, but the idiot screenwriters saw fit not to put this crucial information in the 9th film...

If you want to count fairly, Kylo has killed fewer people than Vader for fuck's sake. Why will Vader's redemption pass and not Kylo's in this case ? It's ridiculous. Especially since Kylo's redemption is suggested from the start of 7 ! While Vader's redemption only suggested in the middle of the third film with almost nothing to support that it was possible, except Luke's faith and his words ! Tons of fictional characters who have killed more people than Kylo (especially having killed in the context of a war where he was manipulated into joining the wrong camps since he was little) have been entitled to redemption in fiction. So this ridiculous excuse about the number of people Kylo killed, you can (without being offended) keep it.

We understand very well in the films that Kylo has been manipulated / groomed by Snoke since he was very young / child in order to push him to the dark side. (It may not be made clear in the films how old Kylo was at the time, but when Leia and Han talk about their son being trained by Luke, unless you're being willfully stupid, you understand that it dates from the time when Kylo was little. Luke logically did not train his nephews when he was in his late teens, that would be ridiculous ! And the extended universe confirms this logical thought, and once again much worse than what the films basically suggest. Especially since Kylo, ​​although officially an adult in the events of the films, is in fact played as an angry teenager by Adam Driver, and the other characters always refer to him as a "boy" or "child". Kylo Ren is therefore a character who symbolically and mentally has not yet reached adulthood, like Rey in fact) Kylo literally hears voices in his head, including one who pretends to be Vader. He is constantly torn between light and darkness, suffering. His father believed in him and had only one gesture of love for him even when he died. Luke still believed in Kylo at the end of The Last Jedi, giving Leia hope. All the old characters from the main trilogy have died trying to reach Kylo. All this for nothing ? Rey also believed in Ben Solo. It's all in the movies. And the extended universe makes it even worse by specifying that Kylo has been hearing voices since he was actually a fucking fetus and that Han and Leia, not to mention, have been even shittier parents / educators than the films suggest !

So sorry, but when people try to explain to me that Kylo Ren is poorly written... no ? It's just you who don't understand the character and what the first 2 films showed. If the last one had been made and written correctly Kylo Ren / Ben Solo would have had a very good redemption, the first 2 films having all the bases for it, whether you like it or not.

Also last little note on the so-called torture that Kylo allegedly subjected Rey to in episode 7. From 1, they are at war. 2, they are enemies. From 3, Rey has informations that could be valuable to Kylo's side, it's literally his job to interrogate Rey. And 4, he was gentle and careful with her, avoiding hurting her. So damn, we have to stop with this stupid torture excuse. What exactly do you think the torture scene of Poe by Kylo at the beginning of the film was there for ? It served as a contrast to Rey's situation later. Poe was beaten and had his mind searched in an extremely painful manner. Rey was having none of that. Do you want a real scene of torture suffered by Rey ? Snoke in The Last Jedi, or this time, Rey screams in pain like Poe when her mind is invaded.

And if you come to point out all the times Kylo and Rey fought, should I remind you that it's war and they're in enemy because they are in different camps ? Just the basic thing that forces them to be against each other ?

I'm not saying Kylo Ren / Ben Solo is like Zuko. Simply that the characters have certain similarities. No need to come and list their differences for me, I know them. And clearly, in my opinion Kylo Ren had an even more horrible life than Zuko. So it's partly for all these reasons that I explained about the character of Kylo Ben that I don't understand how anyone can have reservations about him. If you do, it's simply because the character wasn't understood, not because it was poorly written.

Tons of young people with various disorders and problems in their lives recognized themselves in Kylo. Without forgetting lots of other landa spectators. Kylo Ren's death literally flopped and almost no one liked it, even the youngest children. For what ? Because the character deserved redemption where he survived and ended up happy with Rey. If these young people who identified with him were able to understand this character, including children, just through the films, why not you ? Why was I able to understand, like so many people, without the extended universe material as supplemental information, for a very long time, and you couldn't ? The character of Kylo is well written. You just don't understand it, and that's a shame.

Me, when I see a pro Zuko and pro Zutara being anti Kylo Ren / Ben Solo and Reylo :

Zuko and Kylo Ben are certainly not the same characters, but they have similarities. For me, adoring Zuko and then hating Kylo Ben ;

[suchusernameveryweb]

Heads up, my attempt at responding to something I"m probably unqualified to talk about, but I'm trying anyways. Sorry in advance if I literally wrote a pile of bullshit that makes absolutely no sense. I hope at most my writing is incomprehensible and not actually offensive gibberish because I decided to switch thoughts between a sentence as a tired fool at 3 am (if something I wrote does seem incredibly wrong, plese for the love of god let me know so I can fix it). Fyi, this is from the pointo f view of a POC, queer woman who is not disabled who doesn't want to come accross as speaking authoritatively on behalf of other peoplese experiences and apologizes if that's what seems to have happened (again, 3 am, but gotta get out what's in my brain man).

I think it's horrifying that the fact that the kid was disabled was not considered a factor at all. It seems like there was a power imbalance that may have specifically depended on this child being disabled that needed to be addressed for future precedent, but instead it sounds like the system simply got caught up in this excited notion of "look! reverse racism!' instead of realizing that these boys took a vulnerable child mostl ikely because of the childs disability to do what they did and addressing it for what I think is it's blatant ableism

As far as 'all white people being held accountable for Trump' goes, an enormous reason why Trump is in power in the first place (in terms of some sort of identifiable accountabilty when considering white peoples role in this whole thing that's basedon individual action rather than the nature of heavy disadvantage woven into the american democratic system) (would like to specify that I am neither white nor American) is because of a) direct suppor from the public to actually put him there and b) People who tried what they could to ensure he did not rise to power and c) people who did nothing.

Now that this monster is actually in power, those pre existing categories seem to transition into the formation of a new question: regardless of what you did, this is what happened. Now what? With someone like Trump and his the-everything-about-him-and-everything-he-does, there seems to be only 2 reasonable stances that exist for white people.

[I say specificall white people because regardless of his policies and how they may affect subcategories of white people (LGBTQIA+, poor, women, and more), ultimately anything that Trump does seems to be intended (regardless of whether or not it is actually helping ALL white #not ALLwhitepeople #justwhitepeople) for the benefit of white people. This seems to show itself when we look at the number of cases where Trump supporters have turned arround and effectivly explained their version of the face eating panther party story ]

In terms of the accountability and responsibility for what Trump does or says being held over people, regardless of whatever control they had or have over him, still comes down to the distinction of 2 categories under 'now what?" a) I agree with him b) I do not. With many politicians, there is generally a middle ground, a third option where you may agree with some parts of their approach and not necessarily with others, but with a xenophobic, rapist, abelist, child abusing, incompetent, woefully underqualified and shamefully assigned world leader, that third ground does not exist for most people.

Now, this doesn't mean by any measure that it's ok for children to, let's say, bully (?) one another for the political involvements, acttions,a nd decisions of adults. The fact, however, that even children are demonstrating signs becoming aware of the significance of Trumps decisions and actions in their life and the lives of others as opposed to just being carefree, learning and devoloping children as one would hope is alarmingly indicative of how parents may need to be more involved in communicating with them.

For POC and other minorities discussing the values of politics, any communication with their children should effectively boil down to some sort of combination of "a)no one person controls , a person's political beliefs are generally a strong indicator of the type of person that they are b)while it is important to recognize what institutional injustice and the roles of individuals in its creation, to keep in mind no one person in the general public controls everything (if anything at all), much less your 3rd grade classmate, regardless of how accountable you want to hold them for what you think their (or the relevant adults in question) involvement may have been c) whether or not someone is or isn't a monster or a supporter or a victim or a bystander or any number of things, they need to speak their titles and stances for themselves, it's for them to say on their behalf, not yours." At least, in some way that acknowledges the intricacies of society's relationship with politics without dead ass confusing or scarring a child for life (which of course makes this difficult but also all the more necessary)

For many white people, the need for them to be vocal about their suport for literal human decency has always been a call that many minorities (even white minorities) have heard unanswered for decades, even centuries if we're quite honest, and if there ever were a time to communicate with their children or to answer this call, now is probably the time. The message that effectively should be communicated is "We know that monsters are sometimes in charge and the do monster things. We do not want anhything to do with a monster that uses it's power to hurt people. It is not something we can control by just ourselves but if we could, we would do what we can to stop any monsters from hurting anyone else like they have been ever again.

TLDR:

Abelism is a huge part of types of abuse and bullying where a person in power tries to make someone do something they don't necessarily want to from what I understand should be acknowledged for being that way (those kids don't seem like they would've tried doing the same thing with an able bodied perosn who would be better suited to fight back). Kids holding each other accountable for the affects of the political environment caused by adults is actually super terrifying, but not totally unexpected considering the source (trump) of all of this. Parents need to talk to their kids about their observations to help them undersatnd that an 8 year odl classmate did not put trump in charge/even though they and the respective parents aren't responsible for the actual empowerment of this monster, that it is important to be support and validate the struggles of their peers by making it clear that this monster and his actions do not have your support. Why? because we live in a world where people are becoming less and less acountable for and actually feel free and encouraged to support monsters like Trump, and that's not ok.

Black man charged with hate crime against white boy

There were other accomplices but Jordan Hill got the most severe sentence (only 8 years) after he finally pled guilty. He kidnapped a teenage disabled boy for three days, tied him up, scalped and beat him, and streamed it live to Facebook. He had the victim say “fuck white people,” “fuck Donald Trump,” and “I love black people.”

He and the others were charged with a hate crime against the victim for being white, not disabled. It obviously was a racial issue but I’m still uncomfortable that didn’t factor into sentencing.

Full disclosure: I’m white and I’ve never believed that you can be racist against white people because of the power imbalance, but this case has me wondering if that’s right. Besides being about a disabled person this particular story stuck out to me because my friend’s daughter has been having problems with being harassed by kids in her school for being white and thus responsible for Trump and she isn’t even actually white, she just passes for white.

What you guys think?