#anyways the source for all of this is that i made it up.

[xxactlyperfect]

I did in fact do my research because I've been studying biology all year. Like, classes and all.

Curious how you say me listing out gonads is weird. Gonads are very important when it comes to sex. I am well aware the comic does not exactly include intersex people, I think just saying "female/male" would look better than adding the chromosomes. But here we are. Was there a point b)? Who knows.

Anyway, let's check your sources.

Science Based Medicine - Off the bat, I can tell this article is quite unprofessional. It is also irrelevant to the conversation, but I suppose it doesn't matter when you're the one providing it? This article talks about "transgender and non-binary people" (as if enbies are not trans?). He also mixes in gender identity, gender expression, and sexual attraction, which, frankly, is also completely irrelevant. The article is not unbiased, and he lets us know.

I skimmed over the entire article. He mentioned ovotestes. "However, even here there are intersex individuals with “ovotestes”, some of which can make both eggs and sperm." True hermaphroditism does not exist in humans. Humans can not produce both sperm and eggs. A lot of intersex people are also infertile. Mind you, intersex people are intersex because they have a sexual development disorder. It's not a third, secret sex. They are males and females who, for various reasons, didn't develop properly. Otherwise, we can probably tie it in with gonadal dysgenesis. Whatever, let's move on.

Scientific American - Scrolling down, something caught my attention.

"People with CAIS have Y chromosomes and internal testes, but their external genitalia are female, and they develop as females at puberty. Conditions such as these meet the medical definition of DSDs, in which an individual's anatomical sex seems to be at odds with their chromosomal or gonadal sex."

Well, no. CAIS happens when the male fetus doesn't respond to androgens. People with CAIS are always male. They might be easily perceived as female and are therefore assigned female at birth, but by the time puberty comes, the story changes. Boys with CAIS don't experience menstruation, which is a part of regular female puberty. He also mentions female genitalia. Well, there is no cervix, uterus, fallopian tubes, and the entire "vagina" is just a blind canal, if a canal at all. The external genitals look like they do because of the androgen insensitivity.

And of course, honorary transgender mention. Totally unbiased.

Cade Hildreth - This made me giggle because the entire article is titled "Gender Spectrum: A Scientist Explains Why Gender Isn’t Binary". Like, yeah, obviously. Gender is not real; there's nothing to support the binary.

She pretty much raised the points that every other person who believes in gender ideology has raised. Truly unamusing.

This was groundbreaking. Really, blew my mind. As a very masculine woman who's tall, broad, and covered in dark, thick body hair, this saved my life. Sarcasm aside, I was mostly agreeing with her on a lot of things, and then she brought up the brain.

I think this is a load of crap. Yes, the female and male brains are slightly different. Keyword: slightly. But what leads to being trans is usually dysphoria. I think I'd know a thing or two, considering I deal with it myself.

She also mentioned "two-spirited people," which was debunked. The entire point of the two-spirited fellas was literally just homophobia. Homophobia and sexism, which together became gender ideology. Ain't that something? And no, being gnc does not erase your sex. Tsk, tsk, Cade. Am I less female for being a big ole tomboy?

Anyway, I'll end it here.

[oddballwriter]

Hello! I have a vague idea for something, hope that's alright! I've seen other people write and it got me thinking about more and it got me thinking about more scenarios and possibilities and I started thinking about dbbq!ena x reader where the reader gets hurt and ena freaks out cause she doesn't know how to help or handle it cause she doesn't know how human or organic?? bodies work since her world and the entities there are so different from ours. Could be a smaller injury (deep cut that's just bleeding a lot but not enough to cause major problems or something) or could be a major injury (losing a limb, long deep cut, idk dawg can't think of examples, sorry) and she again, freaks out. It'd be completely up to you on what the injury is and how severe, doest matter to me. Writing this also made me wonder on whether or not an injury could get infected in her world. Is bacteria the same there? Or would it just not get infected? Also, sorry my examples aren't great and I didn't give many, I tried and my mind went blank like I'm taking a test, lol. You absolutely don't have to write this if you don't want!

Anyways, I love your writing and your doing great! Have a great day <3

Small Mishap of Personal Property

Dream BBQ ENA’s reaction to her partner getting injured

Warning: Gender neutral reader (pronouns and gender never mentioned or used). Reader getting injured (minor cut on the hand), bleeding, and pain. Implications that ENA is having a trauma-based response towards reader’s injury.

I’ll shut up now. Enjoy! And don’t be afraid to request.

You were trying to make a jump right behind ENA. She managed to make it fine, but you’re foot tripping on the ledge of the platform. You were set to land perfectly fine on the ground, but the knowledge that your jump went a bit wrong triggered your instincts to brace yourself for the fall or to catch yourself. The momentum made you slide just a little on your extended hands and you felt a sharp pain on one of them in particular. When you get up and check yourself for any scraps and then look to your hand, you realize that you’ve cut yourself on something and that’s what the sharp pain was.

It looks a bit deep and it’s actively bleeding, and of course stings with pain, but it’s not that bad. You’d probably just need to wash the wound and wrap it with something

But you hear the sound of ENA glitching, with bother her voices making noise. You look up at her and she’s already lunging to you and taking your hand

You can see it on her face that she’s panicking and worried

Her salesperson side is jabbering about “critical work ethic violation” and “liability to precious cargo” to which her meanie side comes and starts looking genuinely panicked rather than scolding you

She’s really freaking out, you can’t fully understand why. Maybe she’s so worried because she still doesn’t fully understand how injuries work for you and knows that avoiding pain and injuries is a thing “programmed into your squishy code source (your brain)”, and thinks that all injuries are bad for you. Or a response that she has that comes from a more… troubling time.

Either way, you make an effort to reassure her that you’re fine and just need to clean and bandage it

She looks at you confused. Like you just said a concept that is alien to her.

…maybe it is? Maybe people don’t get injured the same way you do as a human. Maybe when people here get hurt they just regenerate or something. Maybe this is the first time ENA’s ever heard of having to clean and dress a wound. Do you even need to clean it? Do infections exist here? Like bacteria? What the hell would you even clean it with? There’s nothing here like actual water. Or anything that can be a bandage

You set for ripping off a piece of your clothes that would work

ENA watches you intensely, like she’s watching you do surgery as you wrap your hand and tie it to keep it from slipping off

You show your hand to her and say “See? All better.”

She visibly calms down and her salesperson side pipes up, commenting “Fascinating. Have we mitigated the collateral damage of our form?”

You tell her yes, through you might have to take the safer route next time till it your hand heals and avoid getting another one and possibly freak her out again

She agrees and vows to “take less business risks when in the possession of highly valuable properties of my admirations.”

[obsessivevoidkitten]

I have some really important information that may concern you and a blogger on Tumblr that I think you might know of, or could be mutuals with…

This was an anon send in that can be found on this blog [censored, blogger doesn’t want people to mistake them being part of the drama, and does NOT SUPPORT the following bigoted beliefs]…

“Ew, you're collaborating with a white supremacist's best friend?

Just a heads up, but @fangdokja-anon has been called out by multiple authors here for being homophobic, fatphobic, and racist, as well as making multiple problematic posts (like wanting to write about genocide and infant SA). The only person who publicly supported her was @yanderedrabbles who praised her in the comments and even made a post to defend her friendship.

It's your choice to have her as a writer for the zine, but please make it public knowledge so people can at least opt out. I myself won't sign up to share space with a bigot.”

Then there was this follow up post by the same anon, who goes into detail of the issues above…

“Sorry for the sudden accusatory ask, I'm one of the people who unfollowed @yanderedrabbles after she openly expressed her support for the homophobe and I was annoyed to see her acting so careless on another blog I follow. I guess she's hoping we'll just forget about it at some point and keeps quiet on her main.

Here's the first post where she explained in many empty words she doesn't care about the issue because the blog has been nice to her and they're friends: https://www.tumblr.com/yanderedrabbles/780435897593315328/hi-idk-if-your-mutuals-with-fangdokja-but-shes?source=share

The problematic post on @fangdokja-anon blog has since been deleted or removed, but I have a screenshot of @yanderedrabbles commenting on it with ‘THATS why your pro pic went all blurry when I logged in. Literally freaked me out so bad. I'm glad to see you reorganising fang! Gonna learn to use AO3 just for you 😘’ while the rest of us were freaking out at the atrocities mentioned.

Instead of coming out and telling us why she chose to publicly support someone who fetishizes stuff like concentration camps and pedophilia she's all giddy about writing for a yandere magazine, like we're dumbasses who'll just swallow up any content. The audacity is amazing.”

Hopefully the last follow up post by the anon that goes into some more history/evidence…

“The post that started this whole drama is from December, but it didn't gain traction until some bigger blogs like ozzgin and moyazaika talked about it, which happened recently. It's still available and you can read it for yourself, including the paragraphs where she explicitly says she doesn't support LGBTQ+ content: https://www.tumblr.com/fangdokja/770117292416712704/blog-rules-guidelines?source=share

The main conclusion from it was that she's (@fangdokja-anon) homophobic, though more people pointed out she's made questionable statements in the past, too. It should've stopped there, but then she made a post basically explaining that she's been gathering an audience so she can switch to different platforms (her website and AO3), where she can finally write without censorship. It was an extremely cringe story about her ‘shackles’ coming off, listing a bunch of offensive topics from the Trigger Warning Database and saying that nothing is sacred and she won't hold back. (Yes, it included the part about children and infants not being safe from it) Same blogs called her out again and she proceeded to block everyone who interacted with those posts. I guess a lot of people reported her blog since it's now hidden and tagged as ‘mature’, for which she had a meltdown.

Anyway, friend (@fangdokja-anon) is against queer people but you (@yanderedrabbles) argue she's actually kind because you haven't been targeted? Suspicious, but I let it sit.

Friend (@fangdokja-anon) publishes entire paragraphs about wanting to write downright atrocious content and you (@yanderedrabbles) comment how excited you are for it? Yeah, that doesn't work anymore, sorry. You're clearly ok with it and that's fucked up. Go support your cult member somewhere else, not in my gay household.”

Since this all seems to be true, please reconsider any relationship you have with @yanderedrabbles and @fangdokja-anon

That's a lot to read and I do not follow these people.

[youryanderedaddy]

I have some really important information that may concern you and a blogger on Tumblr that I think you might know of, or could be mutuals with…

This was an anon send in that can be found on this blog [censored, blogger doesn’t want people to mistake them being part of the drama, and does NOT SUPPORT the following bigoted beliefs]…

“Ew, you're collaborating with a white supremacist's best friend?

Just a heads up, but @fangdokja-anon has been called out by multiple authors here for being homophobic, fatphobic, and racist, as well as making multiple problematic posts (like wanting to write about genocide and infant SA). The only person who publicly supported her was @yanderedrabbles who praised her in the comments and even made a post to defend her friendship.

It's your choice to have her as a writer for the zine, but please make it public knowledge so people can at least opt out. I myself won't sign up to share space with a bigot.”

Then there was this follow up post by the same anon, who goes into detail of the issues above…

“Sorry for the sudden accusatory ask, I'm one of the people who unfollowed @yanderedrabbles after she openly expressed her support for the homophobe and I was annoyed to see her acting so careless on another blog I follow. I guess she's hoping we'll just forget about it at some point and keeps quiet on her main.

Here's the first post where she explained in many empty words she doesn't care about the issue because the blog has been nice to her and they're friends: https://www.tumblr.com/yanderedrabbles/780435897593315328/hi-idk-if-your-mutuals-with-fangdokja-but-shes?source=share

The problematic post on @fangdokja-anon blog has since been deleted or removed, but I have a screenshot of @yanderedrabbles commenting on it with ‘THATS why your pro pic went all blurry when I logged in. Literally freaked me out so bad. I'm glad to see you reorganising fang! Gonna learn to use AO3 just for you 😘’ while the rest of us were freaking out at the atrocities mentioned.

Instead of coming out and telling us why she chose to publicly support someone who fetishizes stuff like concentration camps and pedophilia she's all giddy about writing for a yandere magazine, like we're dumbasses who'll just swallow up any content. The audacity is amazing.”

Hopefully the last follow up post by the anon that goes into some more history/evidence…

“The post that started this whole drama is from December, but it didn't gain traction until some bigger blogs like ozzgin and moyazaika talked about it, which happened recently. It's still available and you can read it for yourself, including the paragraphs where she explicitly says she doesn't support LGBTQ+ content: https://www.tumblr.com/fangdokja/770117292416712704/blog-rules-guidelines?source=share

The main conclusion from it was that she's (@fangdokja-anon) homophobic, though more people pointed out she's made questionable statements in the past, too. It should've stopped there, but then she made a post basically explaining that she's been gathering an audience so she can switch to different platforms (her website and AO3), where she can finally write without censorship. It was an extremely cringe story about her ‘shackles’ coming off, listing a bunch of offensive topics from the Trigger Warning Database and saying that nothing is sacred and she won't hold back. (Yes, it included the part about children and infants not being safe from it) Same blogs called her out again and she proceeded to block everyone who interacted with those posts. I guess a lot of people reported her blog since it's now hidden and tagged as ‘mature’, for which she had a meltdown.

Anyway, friend (@fangdokja-anon) is against queer people but you (@yanderedrabbles) argue she's actually kind because you haven't been targeted? Suspicious, but I let it sit.

Friend (@fangdokja-anon) publishes entire paragraphs about wanting to write downright atrocious content and you (@yanderedrabbles) comment how excited you are for it? Yeah, that doesn't work anymore, sorry. You're clearly ok with it and that's fucked up. Go support your cult member somewhere else, not in my gay household.”

Since this all seems to be true, please reconsider any relationship you have with @yanderedrabbles and @fangdokja-anon

This person @moyazaika goes into more lengthy detail too of what @fangdokja-anon writes and supports. And remember, @yanderedrabbles also supports @fangdokja-anon

Oh my! Thank you for telling me about this, I had no idea. They will be blocked. This behavior is disgusting - I scanned some of their page now and noticed they posted some really questionable things (like reader only being pale and skinny? lmao yikes). Homophobia or any type of hatred is not something I can accept or stand by.

And to be completely frank and transparent, I wasn't exactly thrilled to be tagged in their mega-recommendations post. I felt like my work was being reduced to just erotica or porn, which honestly hurt me a bit, and to be broadcasted and compared next to other blogs (without being asked first or anything) in the way they did, as if putting us in excel sheets... yeah. But anyways, thanks for bringing this to my attention. time to get even gayer :33

[gabbrofan27]

I have GOT to post something outer wilds related, you like ONE drawing of Noelle DeltaRune (first name last name) and your feed is full of deltarune. This is NOT a deltarune blog tumblr you mistaken wench website

anyways, chert with a kangaroo tail bouncing instead of walking, no I need serious post. At time of hatchling launch day, say hatchling is 19-20 when launching, feldspar has been gone seven years. I don’t know how to begin to approach coming up with the reasons they were able to survive for seven years. maybr…

gossan always feared feldspar getting into a crash they couldn’t be rescued from easily, or them getting lost to the void of space with no fuel and no means to track them. so they probably packed a years worth of rations into the ship, fighting with slate the entire time about “carrying capacity” and “worrying too much.”

feldspar is stupid, but they aren’t dumb. They took one look at gossan’s written manual on rationing the rations, saw them say it could only last a year, and took that as a challenge. They needed some heavy initial intake for immediate healing after the crash, so they were able to make it last between 1.5-2 yrs. They got, veery sickly and malnourished, but it worked for a time

we dont see it in game, but if the travelers have all of the means to set up a semi permanent camp, why wouldn’t they also take seeds for trees that can bear fruit? Feldspar got them to grow after some time, and helped after the rations ran out. There wasn’t much nutrition in the soil of the anglerfish skeleton (related: tree fic named Tree Life), so they didn’t last much too long, but probably got them out to year 3-3.5

the water collectors (moisture farm? vapor condenser? Idk a good name but you get the idea) we’re actually very, very effective inside the node. Turns out, having grown from an ice planet, there is a looooot of moisture and water floating in dark bramble. One can tide them over for 2 years, and they have 3

after the fruits are gone and dead, all the soil used up, they probably had to get adventurous again, seemingly out of food at the moment. They have tanks full of jetpack fuel, and all the time in the world, so they go hunting for anglerfish. Of course, they only spear the mini ones, not a chance of anything more grown than a baby, and collect the eggs if they’re feeling reckless enough (and they are bc they’re feldspar). they have plenty of fuel by year 4.5-5, but a near fatal encounter with the anglerfish knocked them down a few pegs, alongside breaking their… speargun, I guess? No, it’s just a piece of pipe sharpened on the anglerfish skeleton with a rope attached to it, and maybe a fishing rod to actually hook the anglers

year 5 is year of the egg and year 6 is year of the bug. they had collected several hundred eggs and prevented them from hatching (shake it fast and hard for a bit), and they stay useable for a long while. Or at least, if they muscle through the myriad of symptoms that eating early eggs gives them, they’re useable for a while. But they run out, and so? Bugs. Yeap, they gotta eat bugs! Nothing much to it to be honest. Maybe they’ve been intermittently eating bugs in place of other items throughout their stay at Dark Bramble Express & Suites, so they don’t immediately use up all of their bugs, but like, bugs throughout get them going to the end of year 6

at year 7, they are running out of bugs. to avoid getting into the more uhh, sourcing of food “from the self” gory aspect of extreme survivalism (although in another post, that is exactly what happens here instead of bugs), I’ll say they’ve been on a grueling regiment of bug and jellyfish rations by the time the hatchling finds them. just in time!

if gossan knew that feldspar kept that drawing they made on the rations manual, gossan’s little scribble of the five founders together, kept it on their body at all times to always remind them of home, I think they would be put at ease just a little bit more, even if felds were to never get back home.

[battle-of-alberta]

Bike Lanes

A Rare BoAB and IAMP crossover, featuring ctcsherry's Alberta, Ralph Campbell.

To be honest I am trying to recall why I try to limit the provincial cameos in BoAB and I think part of it is because I wanted to develop the relationships between the cities more and part of it is just because anything about Bertie is going to become a bit of a rant 'n rave from a municipal perspective. There's just too much material and it could consume everything I do, and I can only do so many annoying straw man comics about the province making dumb decisions that, forgive my bias, disproportionately target Edmonton, before I lose my mind.

Also, I already spend so much time torturing Bertie, and BoAB gives me fewer opportunities to paint him in a more positive light than I'd like. I do love him even though he's a dumbass, I'm just bad at showing it.

Anyway, here's a dumb decision to meddle in municipal politics, or at least the echoes of one. The word was actually "encourage" and not "order", but the messaging to city council was still the same

Some notes about references and easter eggs and things

Take a Risk It's the Most Edmonton Thing You Can Edmonton is a bit of a layered joke but a direct reference to this video.

PRINCESS PROVINCE ACTIVATE. The result of me sketching that thing about not sure when to show Bertie as the raging redneck or the spoiled ohimesama.

This particular municipal-provincial infighting is just one of the latest in a long line of the province punishing us for existing. Also, it's not even a road that really connects to provincial roads, it's a collector road, and this particular section is like, about 3 blocks directly across from a school. Bert's parked in the residential zone, not on the main road. There's tons of space.

I can't take credit for Ed's hilarious lines, that goes to a city councillor

A city councillor who has been spending time taking petty photos comparing the province's latest tirade against the city bike lanes with their risky and expensive move to buy a bunch of unsafe children's medication during a shortage and then waste taxpayer money storing it since it can't be used.

Speaking of taxpayer money Where Are Our Goddamn Property Taxes, Alberta

If you have any interest in urbanism and conspiracy theories and where they've intersected recently, particularly in North America, you have probably heard of 15 minute cities. These involve using the entire city budget to lock people behind electric fences in sherwood park and then sprinkling ninja stars in their driveways so they can't leave. Who said that...

Beard!Ed is here for playoff season! We have made it through round 1, so I have to post this comic soon to keep up the good momentum :)

Calvin is in a tough spot as the city that Bertie likes better, but also someone who doesn't realize he's the exact kind of latte sipping liberal he claims to be fighting. Poor guy.

If it's not clear from this comic i'm joining the war on bike lanes on the side of the bike lanes. i love not driving, i love multimodality, i love occasionally pissing motorists off at critical mass events like fancy lady bike ride. Bite me Dreeshen.

That's all I can think of, I'm trying to be better at citing my sources because I realize not everyone is as weird about municipal politics as I am or keeps up with my very local and specific news.

[wendelsae]

okay so.

I am a writer not a visual artist, so that makes things very different.

no one is going to trace my writing (do the Borges thing where you type out the exact same thing with different intentions behind it) and then post it themselves to show their writing progress. no one is going to take a chapter of my story out of context and just post it no attribution as social media content. no one's going to take the whole text of my story and post it anonymously or under their name- and even if they did it would be trivial, given how text search works, to find the original. the most sort of use of my writing contrary to my will I can think of is someone writing fanfic of it that doesn't understand it, which isn't really using it at all, or someone excerpting a tiny contextless generic passage to post on one of those image quote Anais Nin blogs for girls, which, whatever.

my point is that a written story takes a fairly long time to appreciate, requires a devotedly thoughtful literate to appreciate, and is integral. even if it's republished with no name or a false name, it's not going to be chopped up or decontextualized, and everyone will know that some unknown writer wrote it and give me honor thereby.

for visual artists, the creators of images, it's different.

images online are constantly chopped up, decontextualized, anonymized in ways that make it nearly impossible to know the source. look around, on tumblr there are thousands and thousands of blogs endlessly posting images with no context, no sense of who made them or why, no way for the viewer to seek out more of the maker's works. it's just an image that, for all the poster and the viewer are concerned, simply emerged out of internet chaos meaninglessly. and this is the primary way images are treated on the internet- as decontextualized meaningless Content to be rapidly consumed on a feed with no time or effort, posted & reposted again & again. and of course now with the putrid filth of the thinking machines this meaninglessness & decontextualization of images is heightened even more, since plenty of images now have no meaning or context at all, and apparently this is acceptable for all most netizens care.

the structure of the internet doesn't help with this- if I want to save a text I have to copy & save the whole thing into a word file, including the colophon unless I'm malicious to the author for some reason; it takes care, much as appreciating the writing does. if I want to reupload someone else's fanfic- well, I won't, I'll just link it. but if I save an image I've looked at for two seconds I'm going to get an isolated image file renamed 52357875473377.jpg, and if I reupload it it's renamed again to tumblr_g6e57vk8rfi8tfrgb.jpg. unless I go out of my way to note the artist's name- if I even can know it- then the image is already lost. and then every person who saves & reuploads it after me will have to do the same thing or the chain of context will be lost time & again anyway.

(I do wonder why so few image-makers just sign their works in the image since it seems like a very good way to reduce this sort of problem.)

you often see them call this theft, which is either unreasonable (I don't care about copyright) or misses the point. it's not that someone else is claiming their work to be their own, it's that their work is fragmented & anonymized & shattered into a thousand untraceable pieces removed from the corpus.

this is asking- to be sure in a rather naive & weird way to someone not in these sorts of visual artist subcultures- please don't do this to my work. please let it be integral to the meaning & place that are as much part of the work as the pixels themselves are, please don't deprive me of my honor.

now this particular person is objecting not just to decontextualization, but to recontextualization. "I drew a picture of my dear Elyth who is a Yuljit, here's her life story & historical context" -> (copy just the picture) -> "this is Ruminella, my Elf character". do you not see how this is even worse than mere decontextualization? this is personal, deliberate dismemberment of a corpus, a disrespect for the work of art, treating it as something to be stripped for raw materials.

I think this sort of warning is very often silly or unrealistic or not understanding how the internet works or pointlessly limiting or overkill, but I get why someone would feel this way and ask this sort of thing.

i really scoured for signs this was joking but didn’t see any, maybe i’m just blind + stupid but it really seems like this was sincere which is unfathomable to me, how does this kind of thing not get you mocked until you delete all your accounts / slit your wrists in a bathtub

[lucabyte]

i CANNOT stress enough how incompatible the themes of these two pieces of media are. i promise my media literacy ability is actually good im well aware that these character mappings are absolutely nothing. that said. play with me in this space. in this sopping wet miserable space. its bad luck to kill a piou piou

original screenshots (and hypnosis 1904) for reference

[ajastu]

god okay. sorry for yet another text post. but i'm just still thinking about the argument that veilguard is bad because the only option re: morality of your player character that it gives is kindness.

Now, to preface. I understand where this criticism comes from. Veilguard IS a departure from the general scheme of the previous games, in several aspects. And i understand how people would be upset at not having quite the same kind of options/ways to influence the world. It took me some getting used to, also.

What i do disagree with, however, is using that to claim that the game is bad, irredeemable, and also meaningless n soft or whatever.

Because it's really not. It's just different, with a different narrative focus. I've played the previous games several times, and as i said before, origins is in first place for me. Veilguard is a very close second. And i'm not more right or wrong in this opinion than someone who thinks datv is the worst game in the series.

You can still make choices that will influence the world in wildly different ways, they're just not... ''genocide or no genocide'' kinds of choices. Which i can see how some people would not consider the difference significant enough to be interesting for them personally. Which is whatever, im not their dad, i dont really care.

However. I think it's kind of weird to say that ''the game made me resent being a nice person'' or that "kindness you dont have the choice not to offer isnt worth a lot"

Like, game criticism aside. That is just an objectively weird thing to say.

There are ways to phrase that particular dissatisfaction in a way that will not make most people side-eye you. This is not one of those ways.

The thing is, it was a deliberate choice in characterization. Since game development at AAA scale is. an incredibly complex beast, i suspect there were many different reasons for it, and not all of them purely narrative. It is also not 2009 anymore. We are not getting another Origins, like, probably ever.

But. Rook is established in the very second cutscene to care about other people. It makes sense narratively, too, with Varric being the one to recruit them. Their backstory also shows that they gravitate towards the 'moral' choices. It's not bad writing. It's deliberate.

That does not mean that everyone has to like it. And i don't think the people who are upset about the change in this gameplay aspect are stupid or wrong.

We are all different people with different preferences, and i really am sorry if the game ended up being a disappointment for you. I know how it feels, and it does suck.

But i also do think it might be worth to examine the way people choose to phrase this complaining. The claim that kindness is somehow diminished in value if you aren't offered the choice to be cruel alongside it. I just think that, like. misses the point of what kindness is?

I know what those people mean when they say it, i just...fundamentally disagree with the sentiment. And i think phrasing it in this way is incredibly weird. sorry 🤷‍♂️

There is a better way to talk about this particular complaint. I just never actually SEE that being done. and i do think a lot of it comes from not actually engaging with the source material people are trying to criticize. Like, the person i sort of quoted earlier explicitly said they have not finished the game. If you never give something a chance in the first place, if all the information you have is second-hand, then i do not find your criticism valuable in any way. There is no substance to it, no backing. You are not proving a point, you're just chasing your own tail at that point. There isnt even a bone to chew. You've only heard of the bone. you havent actually experienced it.

Another part is people being too twisted up in the emotion of disappointment to actually see that they're not making compelling arguments, necessarily, and that they're actually being a tar pit.

I know not everyone thinks as much about the push towards dismissing the value of kindness for kindness' sake as i do. But like. It really is very weird to see this insistence that game bad bcs it didnt have the option to do a murder to an innocent person, or something. While also dismissing the horrible things we Are shown as 'not in your face enough'.

And honestly, personally? I dont love origins or any of the other ones specifically for the ability to choose the evil options. It's never even been a choice for me, because you can very well play the games without having to make the bad choices. theres always a workaround. And that workaround doesnt even harm u in any significant way. there isnt an actual like. terrible complexity here. I enjoy the dwarf politics quest a lot but ultimately, knowing the outcome? its EASY to choose Bhelen. Unless you're playing a dwarf noble origin, i guess. Rip Harrowmont 🙏 you would have made a terrible king.

And again, my personal opinion is not more right or wrong than that of someone who adored the prev dragon age games exactly because they allow you to make some terrible terrible moral choices.

At the end of the day. why are people still so pissed about a game that came out almost 6 months ago that many of them havent even played in the first place? Relax. take a walk if you can. Maybe move a snail out of the road if you find one. There tends to be a lot of them after it rains. Think about the ones that didn't make it. Try to find compassion for lives so easily dismissed. Maybe that will make you think about whether or not kindness on its own really is so lacking in value.

[egophiliac]

Hello!! I followed you for your absolutely amazing Twisted Wonderland comics (thank you for making them, by the way-) but I saw you posting about something called Ride Kamens? I haven’t heard of it before, what’s it about? Or if that’s a bit much to ask, where could I find more info about it? It seems right up my alley 👀

Thank you!

thank you! :> :> :> (this is also for the other anon who asked about where to find it, I am honored to be infecting the world spreading interest in this silly game)

Ride Kamens is still doing prerelease marketing and isn't out yet; it's set for "early summer 2024", so a bit yet to go! similar to Twst, it's a mobile game about anime boys loosely based on an existing franchise (Kamen Rider), although it seems like it's going to be more standalone/won't require familiarity with Rider going in.

the (very) basic premise is that your player character has just taken over their late father's role as a secret agent, supporting the city's superheroes by running a secret base disguised as a cafe (plus you have a personal butler for some reason) (the reason is because it's amazing). you also have to help the heroes regain their lost memories, and it looks like it'll have a bit of a route/choice aspect there (not romance, just different endings to the character episodes depending on what you do). the details are kinda hard to tell at this point but the characters seem like a really fun bunch; there's definitely big "idiots with emotional problems" energy which I am extremely into.

all the official info is in Japanese only at the moment, but here's the website and the ride_kamens twitter! (though the twitter is sort of overtaken by posts about the AnimeJapan exhibit right now, whoops.) and I believe some people are already planning on doing translations for it too? lots to look forward to! :D

[qiu-yan]

👀👀👀👀👀👀 this is super interesting

[spoilers for golden kamuy below]

you are super right about their backgrounds being similar: as you said, both characters are the lowborn bastards of a high-status man and a low-status entertainer, both characters feel some sort of way about their moms, and both characters commit fratricide. and both characters enact some incredible violence upon their fathers due to said fathers' wrongdoings against their mothers. despite also having read both works, i did not make that connection myself, so i'm very 👀 to see your analysis.

i think you bring up two especially interesting points: [resentment of the "morally pure" socially-sanctioned brother-figure], and [guilt]. i'd like to discuss these in more detail.

long ass reply below.

resentment

i really like your point about the "moral purity" of the brother figures that both jin guangyao and ogata kill, how that "moral purity" is in some aspect only possible because the brother figure holds a level of class privilege that jin guangyao and ogata themselves do not have access to, and how the kills can be said to be driven in part by resentment of said "moral purity."

the last point is more obvious with ogata, who (if i'm recalling correctly) directly complains about yuusaku's "moral purity" in his internal monologue multiple times - and also tries to get asirpa to kill him, just so that she will have violated her no-killing vow, simply because she reminds him of yuusaku. it seems that, whenever ogata encounters someone he sees as "morally pure" in the way yuusaku was, he hates it: he first tries to get the person in question to violate their "moral purity;" then, if he fails to do so, he kills them. this seems to be the result of ogata trying desperately to prove (to who? the world? himself?) that his self-perceived lack of moral purity is in fact normal; that everyone in the world is actually like him.

i'm not as sure about this, but i think you can also say that jin guangyao's murder of nie mingjue was also drive, in some part, by resentment of nie mingjue's socially-sanctioned "moral purity." i think that, to jin guangyao, nie mingjue represented "heroism" - more specifically, both something genuinely virtuous that jin guangyao legitimately admired, and the socially-sanctioned, socially-constructed concept of a "hero" itself. meng yao genuinely wants to be a heroic person - however, for the majority of his life, he's only ever been spat upon by the rest of society as the son of a whore.

but nie mingjue was different. nie mingjue, a respected general and the highborn sect leader of a legitimate great sect, recognized meng yao's abilities. to put it more cheesily, he believed in meng yao when no one else did. that someone both as morally upright and as socially recognized as so would then in turn recognize meng yao must have meant the world to him. it must have felt like nie mingjue was telling him: "you, too, can be a hero."

but then meng yao's circumstances change. he becomes jin guangyao. in the process of becoming so, he commits all sorts of moral violations; due to these moral violations, he loses the faith of nie mingjue. but here's the thing: jin guangyao could not have survived and accomplished what he did without committing those moral violations. nie mingjue can go around following his own moral compass because he's physically powerful and the highborn leader of a still-powerful great sect, but jin guangyao, the bastard son of a whore, cannot do that.

jin guangyao tries to explain this to nie mingjue. he tries again and again to get nie mingjue to see that he's in an impossible position. but nie mingjue refuses to accept his reasoning. jin guangyao says: "if i do what you are asking me to do, i will die." in return, nie mingjue says: "then die."

nie mingjue was the first person to say that meng yao was more than just the son of a whore. yet now, through his repudiation of jin guangyao's reasoning and excuses for his actions, through his refusal to accept that jin guangyao "had no choice," nie mingjue says (in jiggy's view):

"i take back the dignity i gave you before. you in fact cannot be a hero."

"the fact that you are unable to resolve this situation without causing some moral violation is proof that this path was never open for you. such is intrinsic to your nature. such cannot be separated from your very existence. from the very beginning, there was never any place for you here."

this is not what nie mingjue said, but i think it’s what jin guangyao heard.

there are of course a wide number of other reasons as to why jin guangyao ended up killing nie mingjue - nie mingjue tried to kill him on three separate occasions already, nie mingjue put him in an impossible situation, his dad wanted him to kill nie mingjue, nie mingjue insulted his mom, and so on - but i think this resentment played a part, too. and it explains why jin guangyao kept nie mingjue's severed head in his private storage long afterwards.

guilt

or, the feeling some kind of way part. i like the way you contrast them here, in that ogata - despite his best efforts to pretend otherwise - is in fact haunted by guilt, while jin guangyao....is not.

ogata is an interesting character because he seems to be trying to prove two opposite and contradictory points via his actions simultaneously. on one hand, he wants to show that what he believes about himself - that he doesn't feel guilty about killing people, that he doesn't feel it is wrong to kill people - is in fact true for everybody. everyone actually thinks this way. no one feels guilty when they kill someone. that "killing is bad and makes you feel bad" is simply a polite fiction everyone in society has agreed upon. ogata is a normal person - the fact that his parents did not love each other did not affect him at all.

peak ogata moment.

on the other hand, though - what he believes in himself is also a self-fiction he convinces himself is true. it isn't that ogata actually doesn't feel guilty - rather, it's that he's convinced himself that he doesn't feel guilty. "no one would feel guilty about killing their brother" is the claim he aims to prove in order to justify the preceding statement "i don't feel guilty about killing yuusaku" - except this preceding statement, "i don't feel guilty about killing yuusaku," is also a claim he needs to prove.

i think that's why ogata seems to go out of his way to be such an asshole throughout the story. chronic backstabbing disorder, constantly switching sides and thus alienating everyone, and a consistent refusal to bond with any of the other characters unparalleled by anyone else in the story: it's as if he's going out of his way to prove (to the world? to himself?) that he is an aberration. that he is cursed. that gleeful violence is simply his nature, in a way that cannot be changed.

why?

i think it comes down to the idea that [a child of two parents who don't love each other is cursed]. on one hand, all of ogata's actions are directly stated to be for the sake of disproving this idea: he insists that everyone is just as morally corrupt and empty inside as them, he hates genuinely "morally pure" people and goes out of his way to destroy them (as described above), his actual goal is to become commander of the 7th, just to prove to his shitty dead dad that the bastard son can achieve what the dad achieved.

on the other hand, though, i think deep down ogata has actually accepted this idea as truth. deep down, he's convinced himself that since he is a child of two parents who don't love each other, he's fundamentally cursed. the violence in his life, the suffering in his life, the fact that he killed his mom, the fact that his dad refused to acknowledge him even as he slowly killed said dad, the fact that he killed his brother - was all inevitable, due simply to the circumstances of his birth. this way, none of it was avoidable. this way, all of it was fated. this way, he doesn't feel bad about any of it - because he's a cursed child who doesn't feel guilt. so he doesn't feel guilty. so he doesn't feel guilty. so he doesn't feel guilty.

but this is a fallacy. in other words, it's a Cope. because, deep down, ogata does in fact feel guilty about killing yuusaku. ogata is in fact a human being. he wanted his mom to love him, he wanted his dad to love him, he wanted paternal affection from lieutenant tsurumi, he knows he was in part manipulated by tsurumi into killing yuusaku. all of the above bullshit about proving various statements to the world only exists because ogata does in fact feel guilty.

now, as for jin guangyao...i think it's entirely reasonable to argue that he legitimately does not feel guilty. i think it's also entirely reasonable to argue that, while he does feel guilty, his approach to guilt is such that [a jin guangyao who feels guilty] is indistinguishable from [a jin guangyao who does not feel guilty].

in the latter case, jin guangyao approaches feelings of guilt in a manner vastly different from ogata. ogata says: "yes, the thing i did was wrong and unnecessary, but i literally don't even feel bad about it at all. i am someone who doesn't care." jin guangyao instead says: "yes, the thing i did was questionable, and yes, i do feel guilty about it. but it was also necessary; i had no other choice." ogata's reaction to guilt as a result of evildoing is to lean into the evil and deny the guilt; jin guangyao's reaction to guilt as a result of evildoing is to accept the guilt and deny the evildoing.

everything jin guangyao gets criticized for by other characters, he justifies with one word: necessary. i think this is probably how he justifies things to himself as well, as he carries on calmly every day with his feelings of guilt: yes, it was terrible, but he had no other choice. if he did in fact kill jin rusong, that's what he tells himself. and if he did not in fact kill jin rusong (because sect leader yao is not a reliable source), that's probably still what he tells himself in order to cope: jin rusong had to die, every additional day jin rusong lived was an increase in the chances of the incest marriage being discovered. therefore, his death makes things easier. therefore, he was going to have to die anyways. therefore, there is no need to be sad.

so long as the harm caused was necessary, jin guangyao can live with guilt. so long as the harm caused was necessary, jin guangyao has no need for guilt.

but in order for this Cope to work, jin guangyao needs two other things to be true. first, jin guangyao's actions have to be normal. everyone who was put in jin guangyao's position has to behave the same way he does, make the same choices he did. everyone who is forced to choose between their ethics and their life must choose their life. after all, jin guangyao is a normal person: every decision he made was a decision any rational person in his position would have made. all human beings are actually just like jin guangyao. the only reason why their hands are cleaner than his is because they got lucky. that people pretend otherwise, that society pretends that ideals like "i will die for justice" exist, is a polite fiction - one that is only able to maintained because the people who believe in it have never been put in jin guangyao's position.

that someone would choose their abstract moral values over their life, that someone would choose to die for what they believe to be justice - it is not merely unthinkable. it is not permitted.

second, jin guangyao has to be uniquely cursed, such that all of his choices were inevitable. all of his justifications are based on the unique horribleness of his circumstances - he's the bastard son of a whore, his status and life depend wholly on his father's goodwill, his cultivation is weak, he was forced into a secretly incestuous marriage with his own half-sister - the fundamental axiom of all his self-justifications is that, due to these horrible conditions, jin guangyao is always at risk of death. the mere existence of these conditions means that anything jin guangyao does that alienates enough of the gentry puts him at risk of death.

therefore, the idea that [jin guangyao could have been saved had he only made different choices] is not permitted. it is not merely untrue that he might have dodged the incest marriage had he honestly asked his sworn brothers for help, the possibility is not permitted. it is not merely untrue that he might have chosen to kill jin guangshan instead of nie mingjue, after nie mingjue demanded xue yang's execution - the possibility of this is not permitted. nor is it merely untrue that jin guangyao, upon being blackmailed, could have chosen a less drastic option than immediately trying to wipe out the entire jianghu - no, jin guangyao must be trapped, he must have no other choice, so this very thought is not permitted.

thus, perhaps what ogata and jin guangyao have in common regarding their approaches to guilt are the two statements: [i am normal, everyone is in fact like me], and [i am uniquely cursed, so all of my choices were inevitable]. it's just that, for jin guangyao, these two statements are consistent with each other (as the first describes his internal psychology and the second describes his external social position); while for ogata, these statements instead contradict each other (as they both describe his internal psychology).

if they met

i think ogata would hate the public-facing lianfang-zun. this fellow bastard son of a whore, who instead of becoming cursed like ogata, was beloved by the people; who instead of becoming cursed like ogata, went on to become "morally good." and it'd only be when all of jin guangyao's secret murders were exposed that ogata would relax, because then both of ogata's self-beliefs would be proven. he is normal, because even the kindest politician in this world was secretly an unrepentant killer. and he is cursed due to his birth, because this fellow bastard son of a whore is clearly cursed as well - there was no other path available for either of them.

meanwhile, if jin guangyao realized exactly why ogata called him "cursed" - that it wasn't because of jin guangyao's external social position, that it wasn't because of society; rather, ogata simply believes that children of parents who don't love each other are intrinsically broken in some way - it would drive him insane. jin guangyao already has to deal with an entire society of people who think he's inherently unclean due to the circumstances of his birth - and now he has to deal with this edgelord's bullshit too?

thus, jin guangyao would respond with: no, i am not the same as you.

but you did just as much fucked up shit as i did, ogata would reply, so how are you any different from me?

i had no other choice. i wish there had been a different way.

you're lying.

and now both of their coping mechanisms are at risk, so they start biting each other.

meanwhile, if they met while both elbow-deep in corpses or whatever, i think they might instead get caught in a loop of "wow i'm so normal :) and you're so normal too :) :) everyone is like us." and so long as no one asks any clarifying questions then it's all good.

bonus: the moms

i think both of them are using their moms as an excuse to hide the fact that they wanted their dads to love them. at least a bit.

it's a good thing jiang cheng doesn't exist in the golden kamuy universe, because if he ever met first lieutenant tsurumi it would be so joever for him

[xavalav]

explodes forever and ever as i think abt dnd session from tonight. we beefed it so hard and now my freak is having a mental breakdown.

[strohller27]

Yes Hello to all my fellow Miss Lemon fans out there:

If you love her as much as I do, then 6.2 Hickory Dickory Dock is the episode for you

Now let us all just take a moment out of our busy day to bask in her glory:

That coat with those hats?? ICONIC she has such a flawless style

and this little scene where she's like 'this is just a quirk of Mr. Poirot's, don't worry about it' fellas help she's so cute

also HELP lads she took Poirot's comment about Inspector Japp's 'healthy appetite' way too literally!! LEMON SOLE! she's so funny aagh

Also she looks really damn good in burgundy wow

Also you know I hate the trope where guys tell ladies to take their glasses off and let their hair flow in the wind because they'd somehow be 'sexier' or whatever. That is just simply not true. Case in point: Look at how cute Miss Lemon is in her glasses!!

Just. Everyone just. Look at my favourite girl. Look at her!!! Her filing system is perfect! Her filing system could kick your ass!!!

[cappycodeart]

I got tired of circling back to frustration over my nitpicks on the f&c series so I OC’d my boy. Whoops. 😅💦. I'll still post stuff in the future about the AT version because I still have a lot of doodles I haven't posted yet and doodle ideas I want to draw!!... Buuuuuut in the meantime my brain gears have been turning hardcore over incorporating this version into my OC-verse... he's a silly astronaut now <3

[michaun]

watching the pitt and then trying to watch things like the last of us is really something god I love when writers don't treat you like a moron jesus christ I'm not stupid I could gather Abby's motivation without the added scenes that weren't in the game and without playing the game at all and especially without her 5 minute long detailed speech trust your audience don't force feed me the motivation behind every single thing a character does let me figure it out on my own it was on par with yellowjackets having hilary swank wear that fucking backwards hat

[aiscapades]

shit's so fucked my mom whom i never talk to is checking up on me. bro where was this energy my entire life lmao