#anything the human race has accomplished as a whole

[mocksyoucondescendingly]

over two hundred millenium of cumulative techniological evolution - and, no natural predators; yet i am still extremely afraid of the dark and the “Shapes” within it =_=

[punkzines]

hi, first of all i wanted to say that i really like your writing style! i don't see many ghidorah x reader and yours was perfect! could you write more ghidorah x reader? i don't really have anything specific in mind, i think i would like it to be angsty or something like that? have a nice day/night! <33

HEYY THANK YOU SMM Im just starting out so this means a lot. so sorry for taking such a long time to finally answer this I kept redoing the whole work.

Im not sure if this is angsty be ghidorah and reader dont have a relationship like that but I hope this is good enough

and you're right there should be more ghidorah x reader. i need it in my bones.

anywaysss lets get on with the video!

NO HAPPY ENDINGS

summary: reader is crazy and delusional. ghidorah isn’t even concerned about them.

warnings: planning for suicide and death

word count: 1.9k

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They called you crazy.

Crazy for believing in what was right.

For believing that humans— the source of suffering, a virus to the innocent— were nothing but Gods of Destruction.

Destroying everything on their path, not caring about all the bad that happens around them— no. It only mattered that their own selfish needs were met. The world which was once so great, was now dying. The titans weren’t enough to help it. Earth was at the brink of collapse. Everyone knew it— they just weren’t brave enough to admit it. They never were.

But you were. From an early age, you were exposed to the chemical that is hatred. How could someone be so evil? So inconsiderate? You knew something needed to be done.

You were there, when Ghidorah finally rose from his deep slumber—( or was he ever sleeping? painfully aware of his surroundings…a fate worse than death).

It was perfect, he was perfect. Although you almost died getting out of the base at Antarctica, it was worth it. You saw the way he fought Godzilla— which you did feel a bit guilty about, Godzilla wasn’t a bad guy— it was a small price to pay. He fought so…it was simply breathtaking. Ghidorah would be the one to finally put an end to this so-called Human Race. He would be the one to finally bring peace.

When it was time to escape into the bunkers, for safety after Godzillas death— you betrayed your supposed “Leader” — a person you had no interest in following, you had only stayed for said objective and now that it has been accomplished, you will escape and abandon your crew. Because you weren’t going anywhere. You would stay outside, and die. It was your choice. You couldn’t live with killing half the planet’s population. That was impossible, as much as you wanted to pretend you could. You really thought everyone should have done the same, die for what they worked for. Because, they weren’t exempted from what they had done to the planet. They too had contributed to this mess. You would have killed them all, if you weren’t just one person. You’ve made mistakes before, but not stupid enough to make the mistake of taking on hundreds of skilled fighters with guns— as one might say. They would all die anyway.

Nevertheless, Boston was a shitty place to fall into your impending doom. The place held no sentimental value to you and since you had no accessible way to travel— which in this case would be an airplane— to a place where you did hold dear, you would just…die here? Yeah, you will. It was just a matter of where in Boston you would, well, shoot yourself.

There were people on the street, running towards refuge— ones that hadn’t been evacuated— for some odd reason (maybe they all came to understand what this is all for)— families. It’s hard to look at, but... This would all be worth it in the end. You could only look at them as they passed by—

“Watch where you’re fucking going.”

Your legs were beginning to grow tired— after aimlessly walking through the city, it was dark—

An odd sound— which wasn’t odd at all, but it was odd that you heard it all— captured your attention.

It was the Orca.

You furrowed your brows— turning around aimlessly, trying to pinpoint exactly where it was coming from. What were those guys doing?! You were in on their plan for a long time, but…this was never discussed. Not to mention how much of a stupid move this was! This was bad. The whole plan was set on— and promised that it would happen slowly. Another place being set ablaze would be devastating. Since Godzilla's death, and the Titans turning their loyalty to Ghidorah— Ghidorah would have no reason to wreak havoc on Earth unless challenged. This would quite literally, not be good at all!

Ghidorah— although a risky one to rely on, because of his alien nature— would surely deliver if he isn’t challenged. He wouldn’t be challenged though, no titan would take on him and win. But the orcas here! It was close— not too far away. You needed to find the Orca and eliminate whoever was that had it turned on. There was no other choice, someone this stupid couldn’t roam the Earth.

There was a car nearby, you ran towards it — broke the glass and opened the door like the universe was depending on it. Dropping the gun on the other passenger seat, you sat at the driver's seat and began to mess with the wires — of someone's abandoned Toyota — after seeing there were no keys around. Damn it. So much for going out peacefully.

You were halfway through driving— getting closer to the call— when you heard something much more chilling. Such anger, something you felt deep in your bones. Ghidorah was approaching— he is going to be here at any second. You grit your teeth— there’s going to be blood on the walls as soon as you get your hands on whoever turned the Orca on.

Turning the wheel in a dangerous way a few times, the ground was beginning to shake— you turned your head around and you saw a giant cloud coming your way— a giant cloud that you mistook for a Tsunami for a few seconds longer than you’d like to admit. Ghidorah was here. Looking for the Orca was starting to feel useless now— but you had to keep going — he would find it wherever it was. Ghidorah would go away immediately if you were to destroy the device.

Steering the wheel was harder than ever— especially when there was a giant cloud of disaster coming right behind you but you were finally where the Orca was turned on. You practically jumped out the car, and ran towards the broadcast booth above you were sure the Orca was being held at — but you were too slow.

The storm enveloped your entire surroundings— hugging you tightly, there was no way you could escape this. You were at the eye of it. Your eyes were drawn upwards and through the veil of the harsh winds— much like a Tornado— that’s when you caught a glimpse of him flying towards the ground. Oh, fuck. You had forgotten how fearful you had been the last time you were in his presence. As great as he was, he still scared the shit out of you— that sense of panic caused you to run away towards the entrances of the stadium— close to the benches where you were sure he would not see you, lest he confuse you as the one emitting that alpha call. Not that he’d spare your life if you were not. It’s still good to let your God know that you weren’t the one causing him trouble.

It takes Ghidorah no longer than a mere moment to jump down onto the ground with a low set snarl. His wings created winds so strong, they would be considered natural disasters of their own.

You pressed your hand onto your mouth— trying to stifle your cough as you watched Ghidorah scanning the building, until his eyes landed on the big glass window. He knew it was in there. His body illuminated— lightning rising up his chest and that’s when you knew you had to go back away— but once again you were too slow. And too clumsy, because amidst the darkness of the storm, you tripped on nothing. Really, where was your survival-

You gripped your head—having hit it hard on the ground, as you sloppily got up from the destruction going on around you. But— No! You couldn’t get up, your ankle was broken. So you tripped back down onto the floor with a grunt— could this day get any worse?

Somehow evading the destruction around you— you saw something— someone— running out the demolished building. That child— Emma Russels child. She did this. Of course. How could a child— a fucking child— steal the Orca? She caused all of this? Upon seeing who the person was, your anger grew. If Ghidorah doesn’t manage to get her…Turns out, Ghidorah was about to kill her. She tripped—dropped the Orca, and was now cornered by him. Could you be any more thankful? If only Ghidorah knew you would have done the same. If you— a mere human— were to bow down to him, would he accept you? You knew you wouldn’t, after all— you would die by your own hand. But…If there was a chance that maybe you were accepted by him— that your devotion was —

Ghidorah was struck down in the blink of an eye by something you recognized. By someone you recognized. There was only one being capable of doing such a thing to Ghidorah himself— turning around, you saw him. Godzilla.

Godzilla.

Your heart dropped— ignoring the child running away from the scene— your heart was sinking to the bottomless shell of yours. How could he be here right now? How could— why? How? He was dead! He was supposed to be dead! He was supposed to be asleep for another— you weren’t the one who kept tabs on his hibernation time— but surely longer than just a few hours! What the hell happened? Pressing your back to a broken wall— your eyes stared at the fight in disbelief. There was nothing— worse than this.

This had to be a prelude to hell.

—Suddenly, a giant piece of rubble fell on your lower body— tearing your muscles and fracturing every bit of it with a sickening crunch. The impact sent shockwaves of agonizing pain— you were helpless. There was no one who would help. Not Monarch who has taken their leave after realizing that child wasn’t here.

Was this— Was this— was this all for nothing?

No! No! It wasn’t. It wasn’t. It couldn’t be. Ghidorah will win this fight. Just like the last time. It didn’t matter that Monarch was with him. It didn’t matter that Mothra was with him. It didn't matter because— because you worked hard for this and Ghidorah heard you— your prayers— and he would answer. He would be the one to bring peace because— because you did this.

You did this. Not Ghidorah— you.

Your lower body was broken— you couldn’t move. I can’t move. This was all your fault. This was all my fault. You deserved this. This death— this painful and pitiful death— you deserved it. The fight that was going on around you— you couldn’t see it— everything going on around was— it wasn’t happening. Everything was— dark. The chaos— everything— it couldn’t be real. It was real.

You— How could you ever think you could change things? Place all you had to this— You became the same thing you sought to destroy. You’ve always known that— you have. That you promise. You thought you were doing the right thing but you weren’t, were you? Instead of trying to be a hero you should have died from the moment you realized there was no salvation— at least the people who died for this wouldn’t have died for nothing. For nothing at all. Any chance of dying with the certainty that the world would be restored— has left.

You were crazy— you laughed. You couldn’t stop the tears from flowing down.

A small part of you wishes there wasn’t an afterlife at all— because it would be worse than what you will experience in Hell.

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a/n: ill just put the fries in the bag😞

[moeblob]

(SLAMS MY OCS DOWN)

I MISSED THEM SO MUCH YOU GUYS

Reynold, the ADHD human that he is, has a very hard time focusing on much of anything and the only way he can be considered "accomplished" in his former line of work (CIA) is because he knew. He knew he had to do the task as fast as possible before he forgot what he was doing.

Now he lives in another world and is basically the trophy husband to the demon lord and Reynold is like "this is amazing I'm adopting the whole entire demon army as our children". And the demon lord is like "you want to adopt my demon army" and Reynold is like "starting with your advisors, yes. those are our daughters now. I love them. I would literally kill for them."

And Sascha, the demon lord determined to NOT ACTUALLY FIGHT PEOPLE, is like please don't kill anyone. And his job is now "take care of the entire demon race and also act as impulse control to one human". Luckily his twin advisors love Reynold too and agree to help keep him in line in the world.

And since idk how much I posted on main and not my OC blog for the advisors, Melo (left) is mute and Lody (right) does the talking. They are able to share what they see with each other because of the pink/yellow eyes acting as like a gateway of sorts. So they're rarely assigned to survey the same area since if they're apart they can see twice as much and report on more in order to aid Sascha. (But at the castle they both like to stick together and trail either Sascha or Reynold)

[catchascatchcn]

would love to hear the hateration on Babel 💕 share those prongs pls!

the people CLAMOR for my Babel rant ... I really do have this down to a tight five. The main source of my Babel dislike is that I was excited for this book and for all intents and purposes, it seemed like a book I would love! I love alternate history and critiques of power and academic settings so I preordered it, but I knew it would be a bust by the time I was done with the author's note at the beginning. Here are my Four Key Points:

Despite using one of the most interesting magic systems I've ever read, there is just a bone deep lack of creativity throughout the whole book. For an alternate history, there's not much alternate about it: you're telling me that despite this massive, powerful magic system, absolutely everything in human history has stayed exactly the same except the construction of this one building and its subsequent collapse? What I mean by the bit about the author's note is that right at the beginning, RF Kuang starts off by defending having her characters eat oysters and visiting a cafe that wouldn't have been open for another 5 years in the real world. You don't need to justify these things! Have some creativity! Have some curiosity!

This brings me to my most important point - how defensive the book is. She writes this book as if she thinks her audience is both dumb as HELL and also ready to attack her at all times. It's written for an audience of people with twitchy twitter call-out fingers and so pre-empts any possible bad faith point by adding little foot notes saying "the thing that this obviously racist white man said was obviously racist, which you need pointed out to you, and which I the author do not condone ". She writes the book expecting her audience being able to understand an incredibly complex magic system but also have zero understanding of race/class/history/etc. There's a scene where the narrator essentially turns to the camera and says straight to the audience "it's weird that we're all comforting the crying white girl despite us three being the ones to actually experience racism". Yes, we got that, it was very clear. I really have no idea WHO this book was written for. Who is her intended audience?? Similarly, a lot of characters talk like they're making discourse posts online, rather than using the terms of the time (despite billing itself as an "arcane history" it's not particularly historical), so everyone just has a 2020s-style race/class/gender analysis. There are several lines that sound like they were plucked from twitter (if I recall, one character pops out with the phrase "narco-imperialism"). This makes many of her characters feel quite flat as well, as if they're just talking heads.

On that note, I think Babel utterly fails to prove its thesis, which stated in the title is that violence is necessary to achieve revolutionary change in a violent system. This is a point I fundamentally AGREE with, and if you can't prove a thesis that I the reader agree with, you've failed to make your point. At no point does violence actually do anything revolutionary and the book ends with the narrator having essentially achieved nothing. Like I said before, it also bills itself as an "arcane history" and I feel tries to accomplish this in part by using footnotes to build out the story and achieve a certain "academic" "jonathan norrell and mr strange" vibe, which I also think it fails to do. The footnotes make the book drag and often just read like parts her editor told her to cut and she kept anyway (including one that's just a very long scene told from a different character's point of view). To quote that one famous goodreads critique, she's trying to be in conversation with other famous academia-style books but really only seems to be in conversation with Harry Potter (which I guess answers my question about who her audience is).

Lastly, these are purely petty personal grievances, but I have a list of three tiny things I HATE in a book and this book ticked all three: a) when a book, especially one set in the past/future, references an internet meme, b) when I can instantly tell what social media sites the author is a poweruser on, and c) when the surprise twist at the end is that one of the characters is actually the writer of the book in-universe all along (FWIW these are also all reasons I disliked TLT series).

All in all, I think it's a book with great prose and a fascinating magic system and one of the reasons it makes me so angry is that it had so much potential and never delivered. I wish so badly that this book was good! However, I always say that this book makes me really want to read a non-fiction work by RF Kuang. I think many of her narrative weaknesses in fantasy/fiction would be overcome by writing academic/journalistic non-fiction, as the parts where she's describing the thesis behind her translation-based magic system are far and away the best parts of the book. In summary, [Aretha Franklin voice] great prose … beautiful prose …

[gorisni-wrackel]

Ted Kaczynski was a reactionary and shouldn't be admired.

I do not think most people need to see this, but a lot of pseudo-left people - notably anarchists - Think highly or at least favorably of Kaczynski. While respect for Kaczynski is multifaceted - It may be due to thinking specifically ecoterrorism is viable or worthwhile, or admiration for propaganda of the deed, or thinking he was on the left or left-sympathetic. While what I'm saying is not unique, this may be someone's first exposure to this information; I'll give a few bulletpoints here. Of course, if anyone has anything I did not cover here, feel free to add.

Virulent anti-communist. if one reads his manifesto, he regularly decries the left and communists. As seen in this excerpt from the section titled "THE DANGER OF LEFTISM", "To avoid this, a movement that exalts nature and opposes technology must take a resolutely anti-leftist stance and must avoid all collaboration with leftists. Leftism is in the long run inconsistent with wild nature, with human freedom and with the elimination of modern technology. Leftism is collectivist; it seeks to bind together the entire world (both nature and the human race) into a unified whole." Quite clearly reactionary.

Did not believe his actions would change anything. "My motive for doing what I am going to do is simply personal revenge. I do not expect to accomplish anything by it." From his diary. He also added "I certainly don't claim to be an altruist or to be acting for the 'good' (whatever that is) of the human race. I act merely from a desire for revenge. Of course, I would like to get revenge on the whole scientific and bureaucratic establishment, not to mention communists and others who threaten freedom, but, that being impossible, I have to content myself with just a little revenge." Also from his diary

May have outright been a misogynist incel. I do not have anything further to add upon the article, as I think the profiler ought to speak for himself here, But I think the conclusions are sound.

[greypetrel]

I see you've been asked several already, so for the Tolkein asks: whichever question you want to answer most, but haven't been asked c:

Hi Mo! :D

Thank you! The temptation to answer all the questions left was there... But I don't want to pester you with basically an essay, so I'll select a few x°D

Edit after writing it: *it's still an essay* Oops.

2. If you were the Middle Earth race that your personality most matches, which would it be?

I'm a Hobbit. Definitely a Hobbit. No love for being on centre stage, will eat six meals per day (listen, snacks are important ok), is very comfortable at home, but resourceful when needed. I miss the love for gardening, my thumb is very black and I have little interest for plants that I can't eat because what's the point. But Bilbo in the book dreaming while camping in the cold of a cozy afternoon spent reading with the kettle on the fire speaks to my soul.

10. Favorite performance by any actor in the Tolkien film projects? Bonus: What's your favorite scene with them?

Bernard Hill as Theoden always gets me. He's just the right level of intensity, melancholy and grieving because he's old and feels like he hasn't accomplished anything. The tenderness and the respect he has for Eowyn as his beloved niece AND a wise woman he can be happy leaving his kingdom to (Eomer goes with him to a potentially suicidal mission. He's saying, to me, that his heir is HER, not him). And his speeches are all-!!! The Pelennor Field's one always have me shivering. The words are nice, sure, but his acting was just great. All of the Rohan part is just peak casting and great. Miranda Otto did a stunning job, her singing the mourning song haunts me. And THAT SCENE where Karl Urban just screams himself raw when he finds apparently dead Eowyn. I still don't know why exactly it was cut from the cinematic version, it was a pity.

Andy Serkis. I am appalled that he doesn't appear in more movies because honestly find me any other person who would have delivered a Gollum in the same way. (and please Hollywood cast him in more diverse roles, make me see his face, he's GOOD, give him a chance)

Since no one named him: Sean Astin as Sam. REALLY. The way he can go from grumpy and pouty to bright and happy seeing Frodo and absolutely EPIC. He's a whole journey by himself. Favourite scene: I can tell you the PO-TAY-TOES scene by heart, mimicking Gollum as well. But his speech at the end of Two Towers.

And also. Not a favourite because it's down for lines that are not so good, but... I know it's highly unpopular, but I really liked Morfydd Clark as Galadriel. She's not Cate Blanchett, and she's not supposed to be. That's still Edgy!Galadriel that she plays, she's younger and still hot-headed and please read the book and find out that Galadriel is not an ethereal lady, she's a Noldorin and she can and she WILL kick your ass. Clark does it, she has the right look for it. (her lines could have been better? Yes. I still think she did good with what she had.) (I'm all for edgy and angry, more human-like elves, and thought I know it's flawed, but I liked Rings of Power.)

12. Tolkien's work contains a lot of interesting themes: devastation of war, things lost that cannot be restored, rebirth/renewal, holding true to one's companions even when it is darkest, and others. Which is the most important to you?

I'll try to be brief here, I could fill a dissertation over this.

But mainly:

“It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going, because they were holding on to something. That there is some good in this world, and it's worth fighting for."

This.

The fact that no matter how dark it is outside, there's the promise of light and joy at the end of the tunnel. Hope in spite of everything.

And the fact that it doesn't matter where you come from, it doesn't matter who your ancestors were, how tall are you, how much your people has been involved in a situation before. You are valuable, your help is not in vain, there's some good you can do. See: Pippin's arc. Going from fool of a Took, basically a baby thrown in a world so much greater than him... And standing up to the situation, in the end, just because he wants to help, even if he's scared. His taking the Palantir and talking to Sauron, in the end, is one of the biggest assists given to Frodo... and he's the member of the Fellowship that had the least reasons to be there, the least experience and knowledge to help the mission. In the end, he's just as useful as everyone else.

[sorcerous-caress]

Imaginary Human and elf conversation I have in my head the past few day :

Elf : I’m finally 100 yo! I can’t wait to start picking up some study and hopefully start venture outside my home in the next 50 years!

Human : That’s neat. I left home when I was late teen to find job by that time I’m quite a competent wizard since I started immediately after I can read. I got accidentally captured by drows, lived in Menzoberranzan for a year or two. I escaped after poisoned Matron mother to death. Then I returned to surface, helped a random village from being wiped out by goblins and orcs. Dating one high elf, who I already divorced, and had two half-elves children. Oh and I probably changed nationalities two times by the time I’m 25. I don’t think I accomplished much as a 25 humans :(

Elf : Y O U W H A T

— RED Anon

Dudee that's what I'm saying! Elves are too coddled fr.

Humans start their education at 6 years old, sometimes younger if you count kindergarten, then finish it at 18.

And the second you hit 18, all the questions start pouring in like

"When are you getting a job?" // "When will you ge married?"

"Who will you vote for?" // "So, did you find a place to move out to?"

And don't let me get started on the weird 20's span where half your friends are married with kids and the other half are in the club.

And that's just the basic of human life, there is still their adventurer class studies or training.

Sure, elves consider their 18-year-old youngs technically adults, but that's just an excuse to allow them to drink and go wild with each other. But in their own circles, they still treat them as kids who don't know better and should wait for their 100th birthday to mature.

Also, the inherited human feelings of shame and incompetence, a tendency towards addiction.Like you're not doing enough, and you're lagging behind.

That is a real thing.

It's called the hedonic set point. Each human has it a certain point in a scale of "happiness" or the emotions responsible for it in general, the feel good hormones your brain releases on average.

If something happens that makes you feel good, your emotional state goes above the set point, if you feel bad, your emotional state goes below the setpoint.

But eventually, you will always return to the starting emotional state, your hedonic set point.

And we don't determine where it's set, nor do all humans have it equally set. Which means some people will always have a worse emotional state by default, with no faults of their own, no matter what they achieved.

Addictions are an easy source of happiness hormones, rewards hormones etc. It can be food, sugar, gambling, gaming, or even more extreme addictions. That's why human resistances to addictions varies widely

Which is what honestly drives some people to always seek more, to achieve more or climb higher.

( i removed a previous written part here after editing this post months later because I couldn't find sources to support the theory, it was the part about the hedonic set point being the caused by evolution and natural selection, that sad humans are more likely to survive)

It's also an existence crisis in It's own, isn't it? The feeling like everything cool has already been done before and you will never stand out from the billions of the humans on earth. The feeling that your life is meaningless and the world wouldn't change if you had stopped existence.

So you take art, like writing, hello there :), or music or climbing or anything that will leave your fingerprints behind. Leave an essence of yourself behind that says I was here. I am a human being and i effceted people and things, I Existed and I Mattered.

All of this is the human experience. To be human.

The constant race between each and every one of us, the constant need to shift and change and improve upon ourselves and our own society. Each generation is vastly different than the last and sometimes condems all their ancestors' rules.

By the time an elf matures, a whole generation of humans came snd reshaped society before bidding their goodbyes. All races will have to readjust to the most recent human culture that frequently changes.

If anything, one could argue that long-lived races hinder human progress. The only thing constant in humans is change and expansions. But for elves they rather take a small space and join the natural progress while humans seek to destroy and flee the the cycle of nature.

[yutopia-eleftheria]

Bill Edward Backstory

My version of his backstory is a combination of all stories from Another Code Two Memories (Trace Memory), Another Code R : A Journey Into Lost Memories (where he is mentioned and we understand his actions better), and Another Code Recollection. Like with Ryan Gray, I decided to combine both backstories into one in my AU, although it's less "impacting" than Ryan, as there are only a few details that have changed for Bill.

Note : The writing is inspired by the official page from the Cing Wiki.

To see the original page, click here.

Full Name : Bill Henry Edward

Race : Human

Age : 38

Gender : Born Male ; Gender Neutral

Birthday : December 31st 1966

Zodiac Sign : Capricorn

Blood Type : AB+

Home : United States

Relatives : Frannie Edward {Mother} (deceased)

Unnamed Father (presumably deceased)

Thomas Edward {Great Uncle} (deceased)

Jane Edward {Great Aunt} (deceased)

Daniel Edward {First Cousin Once Removed} (deceased)

Henry Edward {Maternal Grandfather} (deceased)

Marie Edward {Maternal Grandmother} (deceased)

Leonard Edward {Ancestor} (deceased)

Sally Edward {Ancestor} (deceased)

Lawrence Edward {Ancestor} (deceased)

Helen Edward {Ancestor} (deceased)

Occupation : M.J. Labs Scientist (formerly)

Affiliation : Sayoko Robbins (Former Colleague, Crush and Murder Victim ; deceased)

Richard Robbins (Colleague and Ennemy)

Jessica Robbins (Richard's Younger Sister and Former Girlfriend)

Ryan Gray ("Colleague" ; "deceased")

Judd Fitzgerald (Superior ; deceased)

Ashley Mizuki Robbins (Sayoko and Richard's Daughter)

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"That's ENOUGH out of you ! Why don't you listen to me ? I don't HAVE anything else. Another is all I have left !"

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Bill Edward is a major character in Another Code : Two Memories and its remake Another Code : Recollection.

He is a scientist who worked on Another with Ashley's parents. He is the last descendant of the Edward family and the current owner of the Edward mansion on Blood Edward Island. According to a D.A.S. card, Bill does not live on the mansion, however, only visiting it every few months. He is the son of Frannie Edward.

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Personality :

He is first portrayed as a father like figure to Ashley when he posed as Richard which can come off as creepy. He took this to his advantage, manipulating and lying to her as a result. Later on, it's revealed that he is a serious person and he's dedicated to his work. Bill had fallen in love with Sayoko but he became bitter when she got together with Richard and he lost trust in people. He is also not above harming others to accomplish this goal of his, considering that he murdered Ashley's mother, knocked out Jessica and Richard. Plus, he attempted to kill him.

It is speculated that he wanted to sell the Another for financial gain as he had the mindset that anyone could pay top dollar for this sort of technology. Bill has more of a short temper and he felt that the Another is the only thing he has left, meaning that he needed it to feel happy or whole again. It is said that Bill was optimistic in the past.

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Background :

In 1966, Frannie Edward had a son named Bill after she supposedly got together with an unknown man. She seemingly raised him as well. However, it is unclear if Bill's father was even around to take care of him. When he grew up, Bill worked at M.J. Labs. In 1994, his mother passed away.

Bill knew Sayoko and Richard when they were working at M.J. Labs, as well as Jessica Robbins. They worked on researching memories and the project known as Another, with him and Sayoko being the driving forced of the project.

It is hinted he had feelings for Sayoko and felt bitter when she fell in love with Richard. Meanwhile, it is hinted that Jessica had a crush on Bill, although for unclear reasons, it appears they never became a couple. On the chance they were in a relationship, Bill would have ended it when he fled to Blood Edward Island after his crime.

Bill was annoyed when Sayoko left the project to focus on being a mother (which she did because she felt Another could fall into the wrong hands and be used for evil), as well for betraying the company by hiding her work on Another in her house, feeling Another wasn't just hers or Richard's. In order to stop Another from completion, Sayoko also lied by claiming there was a false report that there was an error in the Another theory. Bill claims he begged Sayoko to share their work, but she refused.

In 1994, under the manipulation of Ryan Gray, he intruded in the Robbins' home with a handgun. He found Sayoko and ordered her to give him the research on Another, but she refused. He shot her with a handgun, while Ashley hid in a closet and witnessed the act.

Sometime later, he arrived at Sayoko's graveyard and left her some flowers. He stood by her own grave for a long time with a stricken (sad) look on his face (possibly because he felt emotionally hurt). It is unknown if he noticed Richard at that time. Bill continued to work with him to finish Another, and encouraged Richard to isolate from the rest of the world by offering Blood Edward Mansion as a place to live.

He eventually discovers that Richard secretly encoded Another to be only usable by Ashley's biometrics, fueling his anger and seeing this as another act of Richard being secretive and selfish.

Bill manages to subdue Richard and implant a false memory of Sayoko's murder into Richard's mind using Another. He later leaves an unconscious Richard in a secret room belonging to his ancestor, Lawrence Edward, and begins his plan to pose as Asley's father, manipulating her into giving him her Dual Another System as well as the Another keys, and allowing him to take Another for himself.

Although not made explicitly clear, it is hinted he may have wanted to kill Richard afterwards so he would not interfere with him taking Another. It is shown he is not above murder, having killed Sayoko and he tells Ashley to say goodbye to Richard while holding him at gunpoint.

Bill abducts Jessica after he told her he will take her to Richard, so she crossed the bridge to reach the main entrance of the mansion. She is knocked unconscious and he locks her in the wine cellar. She was seemingly drugged as well (which was presumably done to make her sleepy and woozy, so that she wouldn't have the energy to meddle with his affairs after regaining consciousness). Bill never actually intended for Jessica to come to the island.

He later meets Ashley in the mansion, pretending to be her father. She is taken aback by how he smells of smoke. She has a conversation with him and asks some questions. Then, they part ways when Ashley goes looking for the Another keys while he goes for Jessica. By the time Ashley reunites and hugs Richard (her real father) at the laboratory inside the mansion after remembering his face, Bill tells him to meet up at the mines through a speaker.

He is confronted by Richard and Ashley in the mine. This is where he's revealed the be the main antagonist. Ashley tells him that was an incredibly creepy thing to do when he posed as her father. He tries to mess with Ashley's head by positing Richard being her mother's killer, but with intense focus, she is able to identify him as Sayoko's murderer from her memories of her third birthday.

He holds Richard at gunpoint, but Daniel Edward's ghost appears briefly and spooks him, telling him to stop or he will make Frannie cry. The shock makes him lose balance and he ends up dangling over a cliff, Richard having caught him. Richard's grip slips and Bill meets his end after he falls off the ledge of the mine. It's never explained if his body is retrieved after.

Bill is referenced a few times during the events of Another Code R : A Journey Into Lost Memories. His figure can be seen in Ashley's dream as the figure who shoots her mother.

Near the end, Ashley discovers Ryan's role in manipulating Bill to murder her mother. It is revealed Bill was one of the few people who knew that Ryan was actually the son of Judd Fitzgerald. Ryan was dismayed when Judd refused him to be his successor, and Bill revealed the truth to him. Ryan wanted revenge against Judd and his successors, and pretended to ally with Bill, although Ryan just saw Bill as a tool to be used.

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

Quotes :

"You're a bad little girl, Ashley. To accuse someone of such a heinous crime without proof... Richard, did you fill her mind with all this poison ?"

"Ashley, your father is the horrible one. He pretended to be my friend, but then he stabbed me in the back."

"I thought it was your weakness that made you hide from reality, not any grand goals for humanity. For eleven years, you reveled in your solitude and research, never thinking of the cost. Who do you think paid ? Me and Ashley !" (to Richard)

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

Trivia :

Depending on the moment and possibly his mood, Bill's characterization can be a bit different. For example, when Bill is calmer, he attacks Richard's masculinity by saying, "And you call yourself a man ?"

Bill can come off as more patriotic, saying Sayoko betrayed their country.

He seems more concerned about money, annoyed he financially contributed to funding Richard's agenda.

He can have a shorter fuse ; telling Richard to shut up, twice.

He seems angrier at Richard in general, wanting him to die sooner than later, pressuring Ashley to say goodbye to him. However, he actually puts focus on getting her to talk more about her memories. He also takes jabs at Richard for not attending Ashley's birthday party sooner, supporting his view that Richard is a bad father.

It is not revealed Bill is Frannie's son until Ashley and D. sees the picture of Frannie alongside a young Bill in his notebook, but there was evidence. D interrupted him when he is about to shoot Richard by mentioning Frannie's name (D : "Stop. You're going to make Frannie cry.") and Frannie is likely the only one whom is able to give the inheritance of the estate to him. One of the D.A.S. cards reveals that Bill's mother died in 1994, the same year that Sayoko died, and she refused to set foot in the "cursed mansion". Considering what happened to Frannie's family during her short stay on the island - her cousin's death, her uncle being shot by her father, and her father's madness leading to his suicide - it makes sense that she'd be unwilling to ever return.

It is stated that he smells like cigarettes (smoke), so it can be speculated that he smokes to relieve some amount of stress or emotional pain from what he had experienced. Examples include : losing his mother, the memory of Sayoko being more distant and ignoring his pleas, Richard acting secretive and selfish in his eyes or other reasons.

In a D.A.S. card, Richard mentions, "Bill visits me every few months to hear about my progress. When he visits this mansion, he often acts strangely. When his right hand touches some of the furniture with the golden bird designs, he sometimes recoils as if he had been electrocuted. It's all very peculiar. Oddly enough Bill doesn't even notice himself recoiling, and looks at me very strangely when I mention it to him." It can be theorized it has something to do with Henry (who is Bill's grandfather) losing his right arm in World War II.

It can be speculated that Bill probably tried to get Richard to isolate himself on the island in order to avoid any possible contact with Ashley. At some point, Richard probably told Bill that Ashley was found hiding in the room and may have witnessed Sayoko's killer. Bill would not be aware of how well toddler Ashley would see his face and if Ashley saw Bill, she could claim he killed Sayoko. This held true 11 years later when Ashley was able to recognize Bill. Even though, she didn't recognize him at first when they met at the island. Ashley regained her memory of Bill committing the crime by focusing on his face and the gun intensely in the mine.

As Bill visits the island every few months, it is likely Bill who brings fresh canned food to Richard which he mentions eating in a D.A.S. card.

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

Family Tree :

Note : All the family members has met their demise earlier.

[leam1983]

On Necessary Evils

Caught Bricky's condensed Warhammer 40000 exposé last night, while waiting for the ice pack to do its thing on my two injection sites - yay, Updated Boosters Season - and I was sort of amused by how Games Workshop took the exact opposite approach to my earlier post on perfunctory evil in fiction (simply put, thinking that your protagonist acting like an ass is "in their nature") and somehow made it work.

It's never obvious if you're focusing on the top-down perspective, and a 40K fan could spend whole decades making grenade noises with their mouth while moving minifigs around without knowing the ins and outs of the battles they're laying out. The fact is that 40K's envisioned future for Humanity would make the local Prescriptivists on the Hellsite run for the hills, shrieking about how "problematic" everything is.

To make a long story short; imagine a far-flung version of Humanity that's soared from Golden Age to Golden Age and who's effectively gone past being a Type IV civilization. We've colonized entire galaxies, we're so completely in a post-scarcity mindset that it starts negatively impacting our culture as we excuse the worst excesses of our nature as a result of an unending bounty of riches - until the Luddites among us stamp their foot down and attack the fundaments of our culture.

We fall from dizzying heights and enter a second Dark Age, emerging from it as a religiously technophobic, xenophobic and exclusionary monoculture, forged into a machine of relentless hate by a combination of necessity, fear and pure unfettered greed. There's no division between Humanity's races anymore, and our culture is effectively singular, now - all of us worship the Emperor of Man, his myth and accomplishments; and we mythologize the Crusades that saw his stolen sons - genetically-engineered eidolons of perfection - return to the fore as Chapter leaders for the boldest of us, the Space Marines.

The problem is what unites us is hatred, hatred for anything that isn't human. The universe is vast and is teeming with life, with untold amounts of sapient lifeforms asking for nothing but peace - but we come to it with our swords drawn, in the name of a religiously-mandated hegemony.

We, incontrovertibly, are the bad guys.

The setting is quick to suggest that most other races are driven to similar excesses out of fear and the base need for survival and gives plenty of examples as to how the elf-like Eldar or the machine-like Necron are just as monstrous, but we effectively are the Devil we Know - in all facets including disturbingly familiar military imagery. What drives us to these excesses is the merciless nature of our rivals, which feeds on our own cruelty to excuse itself in a recursive loop that makes diplomacy difficult - and the implacable nature of the Warp, a sort of netherworld that weaponizes all sentient minds' fears and desires while also enabling faster-than-light travel. There's beings in the Warp that feed off of and enable our worst fears and our greatest hopes, and they exist in this fittingly Lovecraftian status where people have an idea of Nurgle, God of Pestilence, as a singular entity - but he typically manifests as physical corruption, disease and madness - but also as miraculous healing and the sudden onset of lucidity.

Simply put, everyone loses. Everyone is equally despicable and every single named character has plenty of reasons to incite disgust and disapproval from the perspective of humans like us who predate the Emperor of Man's emergence by millennia and exist in an entirely different set of circumstances. The setting effectively says that our striving for Progressive policies is the result of our ease of living as of the late twentieth century, and that we have every single social and technological foundation that's needed to allow for acceptance and representation. If the scales fell differently, if billions among us went hungry every day and resources were tight, we might sing a different tune.

When everything about a setting is problematic, when there isn't a single shred of redeemable design lying in wait somewhere, you can either accept the concept for what it is or disregard it entirely.

What's interesting is that Games Workshop are mature enough to assume that players and content-consumers will make that choice on their own. If you draw the line at pickelhaube designs and Iron Crosses and if the idea of a civilization wholly embracing technocratic Fascism rankles your worldbuilding hairs, the door's right over there. Still, in a world of hyper-optimistic tentpole settings like Star Trek, it's nice to have something that evens out the scales by being determined to consciously represent the worst of our tendencies. I've always thought it reminded me of the fact that tolerance and kindness are surprisingly hard-fought - which so many people tend to forget.

Being kind isn't easy. It involves foregoing your own nature. Being Progressive doesn't come naturally; it involves consciously choosing the Collective over yourself. Reminding ourselves that some people will consciously choose our darker half out of some semblance of security or some perceived lucidity is important, because it frames people who enable Right-wing policies as being motivated not by evil or base pettiness, but out of something that feels necessary to them. What we see as the accession to the better angels of our nature, they see as a backslide into decadence. They're wrong, of course, but History packs several civilizations who did indeed lose their way. What if the Fall of Rome happened to the Western world as we know it, for instance?

Plus, if all else fails, if the idea of playing as a xenophobic and would-be omnicidal monster dressed in the garb of detestable righteousness is a bridge too far for you, you can always play as the Orks. These green palookas fight for the sheer fun of it and have zero hangups as to how morally justifiable they may or may not be. They'll kill you on sight but don't hate you outright - it's just that, well, you're a Humie and they're Orks! You're supposed to fight, aren't you? They don't have nearly enough brain cells to figure out that you could technically nurture an Imperium-era human back into the twenty-first century's tolerant ideals, and you couldn't convince them of that fact, either. So, well... Mutual aggression is all that's on the menu, even if some deserting Humans short-circuit it by painting themselves green and yelling at everything and everything.

As yes, Orks are dumb enough that a human could pass for an Ork if they just happened to look literally green. Slap on some body paint, pick your best or worst Stereotypical Cockney accent, make sure you sound like wanton violence is about on par with a Spring Break kegger with the boys, and you'll basically have buddies for life and proportionally tolerant comrades that are probably stupefyingly kind, in comparison to the Imperium of Man's institutionalized hatred. The franchise also contains the Tau - effectively Space Communists made up of a confederation of survivor species banding against the Imperium of Man as a bid for survival - and even they sometimes veer closer to Stalin's concept than Marx's or Lenin's. Like I've been saying - no good guys on offer, here.

So, yeah. I like a setting where the best guys on offer are assholes in the face of the actual Bad Guys being worse assholes, mostly because it feels like a breath of fresh air in a wider Geek culture where shades of grey are increasingly seen as narrative failings. You can count me amongst those armchair theorists who think, for instance, that Joseph Campbell's narratological theories did more harm to Genre fiction than it ever did good, and that it's possible to embody Progressive values in fiction without joining the ranks of concern trolls or virtue-signalling moral crusaders. I'm old enough that a story's protagonists being free of any criticism or objections strikes me as being unrealistic, and in such a way that mustache-twirlers who offer an uncomplicated form of evil to oppose are honestly boring. I'm starting to like protagonists that require some mileage on the reader's part, and antagonists that you could almost agree with, under certain lights.

It really is no surprise, then, that actual bigots and unhinged idiots see 40K as a vector for self-expression. We've seen Stephen Colbert in Space Marine power armor, and there's also fanart of... Donald Fucking Trump as the God-Emperor of Man.

Deep breaths - I know. It's cringe and it's vile. I agree. The same company that cribs from Nazi Germany's uniform designs for its Very Obviously Not Good Guys is also the first one to openly state that Alt-Right fans of the property aren't actually welcome in its associated spaces.

It's fiction. Extreme fiction, yes - but still fiction. You might roleplay as a xenophobe, it doesn't excuse you being one IRL.

I don't know, settings like this just feel... necessary, to me, in this day and age. Imagine how Israeli fans of the property feel, as they're bombarded with justifications for the IDF pelting refugee corridors with rockets, or how German fans of the property feel when they see some idiot hick from the American heartlands wave swastikas around. It's important to recognize when your own culture can enable someone else's worst tendencies. We can all be someone else's bad guy, even as we wall ourselves in Purity Culture discourse at the worst of times.

[bugbyte]

I keep thinking about the whole AI art scenario, and I keep returning to the same metaphors in my mind, because apparently my brain just works in a Darmok and Jalad fashion most of the time. Anyway.

What gets me is that it’s a neat computer trick, it feels magical, which is when technology is often at its best, in my opinion. There’s a sense of wonder in watching a thing a happen.

However, it also makes me think of other experiences in my life. Even if all the popular AI art-generating platforms weren’t based on theft and scraping real artists’ efforts from all over the web, how can it possibly be fulfilling?

Like this:

I am a former half-marathonner. I enjoyed running because it was fun and it felt good, but I was far from able to run well. I was very slow. I never really got good, but I had fun trying anyway. But! There are a lot of races that accept runners who are more beginner, as well as those of higher skill levels. You just need to be able to do the thing, you don’t have to be a professional. So I did, and it was fun. I ran in the same races that some former Olympians ran in! That feels neat to know! But I, myself, am not, nor do I aspire to be, an Olympian. And that’s ok!

But about that “former” part from above; I can no longer run half-marathons due to some health issues. I could, in theory, get in a car and drive the race course from start to finish, moving my body from the beginning point to the end, which “technically” is the same thing, and I’d finish in minutes, with an incredible time. But I wouldn’t, obviously, because there would be absolutely no sense of accomplishment. I would feel nothing, because I did nothing, and what would the point even be? Just because you technically finished the task doesn’t mean it has the same value when taken out of its proper context.

I can see toying around with an AI in various ways as a learning tool, or something, but I simply do not understand the arguments pro-AI folks make about how they are artists now, too. A driver is not a marathon runner just because they went fast. Artmaking is a very human experience. You don’t have to be “good” at it if you like doing it. And like anything else, you can continue to practice and your improvement will be measurable! Look at the archives of practically any webcomic. I mean, look at the entire human history of art. We all started by drawing on cave walls and rocks, and the entire process was refined slowly as we learned, together, how to draw babies that weren’t just miniature adults, and stuff like that. (Like, for real, learning a bit of art history will change your thinking about both art and history.)

If you want to make art, just do it. The learning is part of the making. It’s ok to be imperfect.

Temba, his arms wide.

[goblinstone]

Developer Interview: Level Designer

Have you ever wondered how Goblin Stone levels were created? If so, then today we are taking a deep dive into the exciting world of level design with our Level Designer/Game Scripter, Daniel. Get ready for some insider tips, behind-the-scenes glimpses, and a whole lot of inspiration! So buckle up and let's get started on this Designer Devblog!

Daniel is responsible for creating content for game levels using Unity 3D and implementing environmental events and level loops to make the world come to life. 

Let’s hear what he has to say about his work.

How would you describe your experience working in Orc Chop Games as Level Designer/Game Scripter?

It was quite daunting at first, as this is my first time working in a game design related role. The responsibilities were fresh to me, and because I had no previous experience, I had to learn new things from scratch and experiment. To be honest it was quite tough, but it was also fun.

What inspired you to become a level designer?

It was quite daunting at first, as this is my first time working in a game design related role. The responsibilities were fresh to me, and because I had no previous experience, I had to learn new things from scratch and experiment. To be honest it was quite tough, but it was also fun.

What is your thought process when designing a level? Where do you find inspiration?

One thing I usually do is to look at my surroundings. You’d be surprised that even the things on your desk can make an interesting level with a little imagination and creativity.

Imagine this scenario: Think of a miniature version of your character. Your character is at the bottom of your desk, and the goal is for your character to reach the top of your desk.

How will your character accomplish this goal? What obstacles will your character have to go through along the way? This is the fun part, because you as a level designer have to solve these problems.

Maybe your character can climb up a wire dangling on your desk. Or maybe there are other objects in your room that are low enough for your character to reach, and then those objects can be used to reach other objects. This is the mental exercise that I usually do on a daily basis.

The level beats depict the major events and activities that the player will engage in, as well as how these will be spaced out and timed throughout your level.

How do you work collaboratively with developer, artist, producer and community manager in Orc Chop Games?

Communication is key. In times when I need a software tool that will help me work more efficiently, I ask the developers for it. If I need guidance on how the level should look like and how it can be easy on the eyes, I ask the artists. If the community managers need clarification on some features in the game, I can answer because I’ve conceptualized some of those features as well. And I give updates to the producer so that he can keep track of my progress.

As both time management and organization are important skills within this profession, what techniques do you find useful when working on Goblin Stone?

Learning to seek help. I understand that I don’t have the best ideas or the best judgement for my levels. Which is why it is important to perceive how others see your work. Most of my teammates know a lot more about the game than me, so it is important for me to learn not to shy away and ask for guidance.

Scene design for Unique Scenarios

What's the hardest part of designing levels for Goblin Stone?

It’s one thing to make a good level, it’s another thing to make a good level using recycled resources. Assets take time, and coding takes time. So to reduce work loads on other departments, there will be times where you have to make do with assets you already have. I’ve had cutscenes where I plug in animations from a Human to a character of a totally different race, and somehow made it work. It really pays off to be resourceful.

Before we wrap up this interview, is there anything you'd like to say to our community and aspiring level/game designers?

Thank you so much for supporting our game. It means so much to us that you support our game the way you do, and I am extremely grateful for that.

As for the aspiring game designers/level designers out there, just understand that if you yearn to be in game design, my advice for you is to get out there and interact with other people in the industry. Never underestimate the power of connections, because you’ll never know who can help you get an opportunity.

To be really honest with you, I was lucky to even be here. It’s not an easy industry to get into, but if your passion is strong enough, you’d be surprised at how far that passion gets you. It’s hard but not impossible.

[daisy-blooms]

Google docs make me want to kill myself.

I've been trying to write a script for a comic this entire semester. I'm supposed to have a whole volume done by the end of it. So far? I've written about four to five pages. It's a story about the last human in the world. She's approached by a god of death, and told she has one chance. Her people froze her in cryostasis, and preserved her until the end of time. The second singularity is forming, an ultra-massive black hole. Eventually, all will be swallowed up by it. Her role in the universe is to rediscover the lost arts of pseudo-alchemy and induce a premature big-bang. This would launch the creation of a second universe. After this, she is meant to clone all manner of life she preserved. By doing this, she will accomplish her goal: to defeat time, the final enemy of humanity. On this adventure she'll encounter alien races built for survival with little to no stimulation. Most species in this story are likened to the animals at the deepest depths of our oceans.

I'm calling the story The Darkest Age. Because that's what it is. As for aesthetic, it's future-medieval. Similar to Hyper Light Drifter, Dune, or Poptropica's Astro-Knights Island. I'm using a lot of corny-ass naming conventions to imply story ideas. The main character is a woman named Joan Dark (Joan of Arc). There's also a lot of religious commentary with a cult that worships the coming end of the universe (alluding to the rapture and general Christianity). The god she meets is not a god, but a creature called an Elemiri (Mirror of El). All of the universe's I write have a being called a primal at the center of them. This universe is a part of Universe 'B', which is overseen by Gro-El. "Gro" is her family of thought's name (Primals group based on vibe, not by kin). The Elemiri is called the Traveler, he basically looks like a homeless kid with a mask. His role in our universe is to oversee life and make sure all species that come to be get a fair chance at survival. Which is why he is inclined to assist Joan. In the makeshift Joan of Arc allegory the Traveler would be the archangel Michael. So they aren't really gods, more so just a species of very powerful and ancient aliens.

I have been writing this story for months now, and I feel like any time I open the google doc for it I'm either going to explode or hit 'ctrl+a', followed by 'del'. I absolutely hate feeling this way. I feel useless, like a waste of space. I can't bring myself to do anything for any of my classes because honestly, I do not care anymore. The whole world could go to hell for all I care. It all sucks, it's all useless, and I'm just a cog in that machine. I'm just a depressed person with a keyboard that hasn't been kicked to the curb yet. It's annoying as hell. I hate feeling like this. All I want in life is to have meaning again. But I just cannot convince myself that anything I do is worth doing. So at the end of the day, why do anything at all? Why live when dying is so easy? Why die when living is so rare? It's a split in opinion. It's all bullshit and so is everything. I am very clearly not well. But I've become so good at masking it that I keep forgetting. I push myself into escapism. I push myself into the mind of people I create and write their names into a google doc. If that's not what being a writer is, I don't know what is.

I have no purpose in life outside of simply wanting to. That is not a good reason to keep living. But I have to live, if not for myself now, for myself when I was a kid. All she would have wanted was to see me write these names and tell there stories. I don't think I have a choice. But maybe I do have a purpose. Maybe writing silly works of fiction to help people escape this shitty reality we were forced into is my point.

This post got a little away from what I wanted to say initially. I am not going to erase what I wrote. For the same reason that I draw with pen. Sometimes we shouldn't be able to take back what we say. Some things need to be said. Maybe not for the purpose of being heard. But instead maybe just to say something. I'm going to take my daily vitamin now. Then, I'm going to get a notebook. If I can't stand looking at a google doc, I'll write this fucking story with a pen. Because I don't want to delete it. I want to say it, and I want it to be heard. Thank you for reading this, if you did. I'm going to keep trying.

[greatwyrmgold]

To be fair, while there were some technological advances between the various Soviet accomplishments (like landing a probe on the Moon and spacewalks and stuff) and the whole process of landing on the Moon, a big part of why the Moon Landing was lauded as the defining goal of the Space Race is that it's the biggest thing the USA did first. It's easy to argue that Sputnik, Laika, and Yuri Gagarin accomplished more significant leaps for mankind than Armstrong's small step—but that would mean celebrating the Soviets, who are disliked for a wide variety of reasons (many legitimate).

The Space Race as a whole was a great accomplishment for humanity, the first step in what could be a grand new chapter of history. But it was also a big political pissing contest, transitioning from "Look at how far we can send nuclear missiles!" to a set of self-contained moving goalposts. And those same political concerns sapped the new chapter of what could have made it grand.

It's been more than half a century, and the future everyone envisioned has failed to come to pass. Barely anything has been done in space, and current trends suggest that the next great leaps will be made in the name of profit, not human achievement.

The moon landing was a great achievement. It is also a species-wide embarrassment, a dream that never came to pass, an achievement we squandered.

Hey. Why isn’t the moon landing a national holiday in the US. Isn’t that fucked up? Does anyone else think that’s absurd?

[anthonybialy]

Override or Die

Anything that irks politicians should be cherished, especially if it surprises them.  Sneak up on ruining their plans with a jump cut.  Government fans despise Congress doing its job because it limits their desire to order society into compliance would really hate passing an agenda that’s completely counter to what the executive wants, so do just that.

A usually unused feature could shut down exactly who needs to go out of business.  Pursuing a veto-proof majority feels as desperate as hoping for cars that drive themselves.  But we may be just a couple algorithms away.  The teetering incumbent is way more predictable.

Even dedicated educators may think it’s too late for Joe Biden to learn the Constitution.  The problem is what appears to possibly be his inability to absorb teaching.  He may have avoided lessons because they’d constrain his ability to shape America in his image.  Biden’s minders decide they don’t want particular bills to become laws.  It’s crucial to ink the correct rubber stamp.

Kamala Harris wants so desperately to tell you she’s already president.  Keeping the secret has been her greatest accomplishment.  It’s not like anyone is unaware.  But she deserves as much patronizing praise as can be mustered.  If letting a simpleton who can’t manage simple tasks advance to the presidential finals sounds alarming, I agree.

It’s sadly easy to list the handful of times they woke up the ostensible incumbent long enough for him to mutter “Nah”.  A president who makes making Woodrow Wilson’s last months look spritely is nearly as elderly and just as appalling when it comes to his urge to take your stuff.

We could all use a little surprise, and not in this universe’s typical style of inflicting an unplanned plague.  A bill becoming a law without a particular signature wouldn’t merely be fun.  Mischievous subversives could get things done without the approval of whatever awful nitwit thinks a head shake offers is the final word.

It’s time to halt letting one person set the nation’s agenda.  We shouldn’t let a couple hundred, either, but spreading around blame would be a welcome step.

Putting the president in his place should be the dream of every patriot.  A disturbing quantity of aspiring serfs feel fealty to their goon will guarantee a good harvest.  Your personal beloved dreamboat savior is not exempt.

The existence of a document that balances domination by law is like telling a liberal costs are lowered by private companies competing with each other.  But truth doesn’t change with who holds it, especially with said liberals.

Congress is supposed to be the strongest branch because of that whole representatives thing.  Linking the rest of us with the regrettable choices filling the offices is not intended as an insult.  The problem with electing congresspeople is how closely we’re embodied by the dreadful nitwits who get to man the Capitol.  Emblematically despicable humans you wouldn’t trust to water a plastic plant decide how your money gets torched.

Focusing on individual races combining together treats Congress like Voltron.  Return the balance of power like a defender of the universe.  Privately-funded lions are more efficient at defeating space fiends.

A branch shift would check the balance.  Focusing on Congress would not quite return authority to the people but at least make those responsible easier to scold.  The legislature is supposed to serve as the embodiment of citizenry, which should mortify us all.

It’s not that everything Congress passes that a president dislikes is incredible.  They’re still public servants, which means they’re not serving the public.  Laws to remove present laws are my dream, and I hope it happens while we’re awake.

The imperial presidency era has resulted in one miserable empire not just by exceeding the office’s parameters but because of the horrid dopes driving.  Quasi-limitless dominion defines not just a government but a nation.  Worst of all, far too many consented.

Sophisticated modern leaders think they shouldn’t have to go through the indignity of all that waiting for a bill to pass jazz.  Heeding the rulebook is for a quaint time when Washington’s supreme purpose wasn’t forcing fast food eateries to tell you how many calories are in your fries.

Ignoring procedures for progress is favored by the enlightened caste that thinks government is the source of prosperity.  If you meditate hard enough, you may become omniscient to the point where you too can invent self-permission.

Americans are way too accustomed to getting bossed around like we live in a tinpot banana republic without chinos.  Unsurprising unfortunate results are just the practical result of a philosophical violation.  Ends don’t justify lousy means.  We reside in the best of both worlds aside from getting violated by illegal incursions.  Political scientists hold a sophisticated modern view of the office which involves you shutting up and complying.

Dreams of a Congress that’s only active when it’s thwarting a grabby president are especially necessary when the alternative is liberal harassment in front of an American flag.  The legislature provides a couple hundred Individual races that aren’t based upon an obnoxious swindler.  The alternative candidate who’s going to drag down a perfect chance to flip off a putzing regime.  Donald Trump will impugn those whose chances he ruins for insufficient loyalty.

The best option involves rethinking politics in case that wasn’t obvious.  Restraining the reach of a most imperfect entity for those with ideas on how to fix everything prevents Year Zero-style resets.  Whatever approach is being tried right now isn’t working in the same sense Ivy League universities are unenthusiastic about Judaism.

Liberals loathe results as much as they adore having an appalling person to gesture at instead of making cases.  By contrast, it’s easy to argue against what they believe: just point.  The only way Democrats have stopped crime is by letting criminals steal everything.  Printing enough money makes it worthless.  And gun crime thrives when the devices are banned from those who obey laws.

That’s too much jurisdiction for one person.  The parodic overextension is particularly so for the kind of persons chosen for the task.  America is effectively controlled by an individual just like everyone would expect in a democratic republic.

Electing congresspeople who are sick of the imbalance would lead to a single pompous nitwit pouting while flailing, which truly embodies the presidency.  It’s true even when there’s one you like and merely especially so in the midst of a two-decade Oval Office clown parade.

[summerf0x]

heyyy girl whenever you can- octopath traveler 2 for the ask game? Ok love ya bye

Favorite Male Character

It’s a very close race between him and Hikari, but I’d have to say Osvald V. Vanstein. A thing I take into account when determining a favorite character in rpgs is if their story is good and if they’re fun to play as, and he easily fills both of these categories. Primary magic users are always going to stand out in a cast that mostly relies on weaponry with a few spells of their own, so the combination of his three big spells with elemental barrage and advanced magic bring wonderful variety but still make combat feel balanced due to the setup required. His story is great as well, going from a hardened convict who’s been muzzled in a hellish prison for five years to slowly letting his walls down and letting go of his journey for revenge in favor of protecting his daughter and the other travelers.

Favorite Female Character

My starting character, Castti Florenz. As stated above, I like characters with a good mix of fun gameplay and good story, and she fulfills both of these categories. She’s a good mix of supporting others and dealing stupid amounts of damage (axe attack and drastic measures my beloved) and her concoct ability allows for many different ways to play. While the “character gets amnesia as a metaphor for loss” trope has been done and done again, it’s made even worse for her due to the literal loss of Eir’s Apothecaries. Despite that, she still fights for a brighter future. Her final boss is also one of the better, blending her gameplay and story well. While others are a bit too one-dimensional to be anything outside of a good fight (Mugen) or connect to the character’s story at the lack of a fun battle (Kaldena), Trousseau hits the perfect sweet spot between the two of these. Castti having to fight her fallen apprentice driven mad by the book of night and the perceived futility of the job that apocatharies do is really good for the story, and his own hazardous concoctions being a direct reference to Castti’s paired with the poison rain that will perminatly decrease your hp turning it into a battle against the clock as well, which also connects back to the story stakes with Castti having to stop him before the rain kills the people of Timberrain, plus the ending that has her make a cure for the effects of the rain with all the materials she gathered across her journey- Castti’s story is just really good. I like her a ton!

Least Favorite Character

Thurston. He’s fine on his own, but the fucking steam engine fight was so painfully unfun I managed to finish Ochette’s whole story quest before I went back, overleveled, so I could deal with him the easy way (and by easy way, I mean use max boost Call Beasts to break him before he could do anything funny).

Favorite Ship

There's a few that are pretty universal (Temenos and Crick, Castti and Malaya) and I do understand the merits of each of them. God knows how many "I miss my wife tales" jokes I've made about both of them. My personal favorite would have to be Partikari, one for the silly name, and two for the genuinely sweet way they interact throughout the game. Both of them have seen devastating hardship at a young age (Partitio was thrown into poverty to the point where he regularly had to eat weeds and Hikari fought in one of Ku's many wars at fourteen years old and beyond) but still fight to make a brighter future (Hikari wanting to end Ku's warmongering and Partitio wanting to end ALL POVERTY, which both of them end up accomplishing).

Favorite Friendship

I have two of these, actually. Thronè and Osvald and Castti and Hikari (go figure). Thronè and Osvald are two characters who have had their identity shaped by a long period of suffering (Osvald in Frigit Isle and Thronè in the Blacksnakes) who are slowly regaining their humanity as they travel with the others. They're also the only people in the main cast who have a literal collar around their necks (Osvald's prison manacles and Thronè's poison collar), and the postgame travel banters where she tries to get him to change his prison rags or where he attempts to order goulash are a really nice look into their relationship. My other favorite is Castti and Hikari. They were my first travelers and consistantly support each other across the game, Hikari talking to her after she regains her memories and Castti helping him before the storming of Castle Ku. They're in the same "weird brain" boat (Castti's amnesia paired with the rumors about Eir's Apothacaries and Hikari's curse that regularly attempts to possess him) and often try to comfort each other when their troubles rear their heads.

Favorite Quote

"I had to take one life away to extend a hand to thousands of others."

Castti says this after she kills Trousseau, in response to him making one last attempt to drag her down to his level. It really sums up her character, how she'll try and help everyone she can but is willing to put her foot (and apprentice) down if they're beyond help.

Worst Character Death (if any)

Claude. Ew. Why was he like that. I'm glad he's dead.

This made me so happy you have no idea Moment

Osvald chapter 4. I know, weird choice especially considering he's at his lowest, but it was the big moment his character needed. Up until this point his more emotional side had been reserved for a few travel banters you could easily miss if you didn’t have the correct character for it, and while chapters 1 and 3 did show what he thought and felt through internal dialogue, he was still putting up a cold front. Making him confront everything was a very satisfying moment, even more so considering the shift in his goals. Up until this point his game plan was get out of prison -> find Harvey -> kill Harvey -> kill self(?), so throwing Elena into the mix switches it up to get my daughter away from Harvey who will try and kill her for a magic ritual -> help her get her memories of me and Rita back -> find the rest of the moonshade order and get rid of them so they can’t hurt her again -> learn how to be a father again. Also, he has to fight his stone/blood construct that is HIS WIFE and he’s so sad the entire time about it and just when you think it can’t get any worse Harvey shows him his daughter, who has been brainwashed so that she doesn’t remember him. I said earlier that I wanted to see him on the floor, covered in blood, crying, and oh boy did chapter 4 deliver.

Saddest Moment

Castti chapter 3. While for Osvald I was watching like the “yessss… yes!” image, for Castti I was exploding into one billion pieces. We know very little about Eir’s Apocatharies, so seeing them as a happy community trying their best to help people across the globe when in Castti’s first chapter they’re rumored to poisoned an entire town already puts a massive sense of dread over the place. The slow signs of the plague creeping up on them (the animals eating less, the crops starting to wither) as well as Castti thinking she treated the sickness when it first appeared replicated the fabled “yelling at the screen to tell a horror movie character to not go into the basement out of fear for them” experience. The slow death of everyone from the families living in Healeaks to Andy and Randy literally throwing themselves over the fire to extinguish it as Malaya desperately feeds an unconscious Castti snowdrops before hauling her into the skiff so she can escape alive was… UAAGH. It was really well done and very sad.

Favorite Location

New Delsta! I love it’s design.

[the-single-element]

Good morning.

Now that we're three weeks into Lent, a pattern is beginning to emerge in the Sunday readings. The TaNaKh excerpts, so far, have all had to do with covenants. This is another of God's peculiar habits, one which we hear of throughout the history of his relationship with humanity: that when he's seeking to establish or reestablish those relationships with us, he'll tend to present, clearly and up-front, what we can expect from him, and what he - if we accept - will expect from us.

We've heard, already, about God's peace treaty with the human race. We've heard about his relationship with Abram - who became Abraham - and his promise of various blessings, if Abram was willing to pull up stakes and go to Caanan.

And today, we hear about the most famous of God's covenants: the one he made with Abraham's descendants on Mount Sinai, after rescuing them from Egypt. The Ten Commandments, which we hear repeated today, were the beginning of that covenant (which, all told, spans three whole chapters of Exodus). And like all of God's covenants with human beings, it didn't only set out a code of conduct, but promised the blessings of a better world, so long as Abraham's children could hold up their end of that relationship.

Of course, one of the practices instituted in that covenant is the feast of unleavened bread, where all the Israelites' descendants would gather before God. That's what Jesus is doing in this excerpt from John's Good News, after all. This year, we won't be hearing John's account of Jesus's "Signs", like we did last time around, but rather, especially provocative moments from Jesus's Passover visits to Jerusalem, over the years.

And what an example today's is! Jesus's ejection of the moneychangers and sacrifice-merchants is a famous moment from his life, and certainly provocative if you consider people's reactions - "who do you think you are? what authority do you have to do that?" - and the fact that, well, travellers to Jerusalem certainly needed to buy sacrifices for the feast and change their coins for the local ones.

But what's the most often repeated, most stressed, most belabored point in all the Sinai covenant? What point does God want them to understand so clearly that he brings it up six or seven separate times, depending on how you count?

It's "no other gods".

Why God so jealously clutches us away from worshipping anything else - why Ezekiel's vision of idols in the Temple was framed as the ultimate, unmendable horror - I still can't say for sure. But perhaps it has something to do with the danger that a split loyalty can undermine everything else in a relationship; if you have someone or something you idolize, you have to choose between what it says and what God says, and you'll have reason after reason for turning away from the law's substance - or, even more likely, keeping to its substance by ignoring its heart.

After all, as Matthew reports Jesus teaching from his own mountaintop, "no man can serve two masters"; before long, one of the two will fall from grace.

And this is an easier trap to fall into accidentally than we might initially assume. Consider Aaron, for example, whose golden calf – which had probably been intended to be a metaphorical representation of the God of Abraham – got God so angry that Moses needed to talk him down from doing something drastic about it. Aaron thought he was being faithful... but the fact that he defaulted to representing God with an animal motif showed that he was already reverting to thinking about gods and worship the way an Egyptian would. If God was going to accomplish his chosen people's metanoia – if he was to change the direction of their hearts and minds towards the Kingdom of Heaven – then that whole line of thinking had to be torn out at the root. What a setback this was! How frustrated he must have been!

It's in that context that we can more easily understand Jesus's frustration, when we see what he does in today's Good News. When Jesus was speaking about how divided loyalties will eventually force you to choose between them, he wasn't speaking only generally; he finishes by specifically warning us that we "cannot serve both God and Wealth", with the latter conjugated as though it was the name of a foreign god.

This was the mistake of the merchants that Jesus drove out when he saw them in the Temple's outer court. The problem wasn't that they were selling sacrifices and exchaning currencies; that was necessary, after all, so that everyone could gather in Jerusalem and celebrate the Passover. But religious and community reasons aren't a good enough explanation for why they were doing it in the Temple courtyard. They could just as easily have set up tables on the way to the Temple, or near the inns. The only reason to put your money-changing stall in the chokepoint that everyone has to pass through is because you're deadset on maximizing your profits, on making the most sales you can.

In other words... if Mammon - if the logic of Striking It Rich - is an idol, then Ezekiel's ultimate horror (translated to an era more like ours than like Ezekiel's) is exactly what Jesus was driving out: not trade per se, but profit motive imposed upon a holy place.

Jesus said, once, that he came "not to abolish the Law, but to complete it". Today, we see his work on Earth especially in that light - in setting right what has gone wrong in the relationship between humanity and God. In wiping the slate clean so that we can restart our relationship on firmer ground. Jesus's work in life, then, parallels our work in Lent, to straighten out that relationship from our end.

And so, today is a reminder that part of that work is examining, not just our relationship with God, but our relationship with other things in our life. Are we serving two masters? Are we using God as an excuse, but really obeying some other, foreign value or urge? Are we like Aaron, fumblingly constructing a fake, earthly idea of who God is and putting it in God's place?

If so, let's rejoice that God forgives us... that God has given us this opportunity to make things right with him... and let's get it straightened out while we still can.