#as for which team i'm on......well. it's certainly a minority opinion.

[thefabelmans2022]

i'm a cam cameron stan. just btw.

[kravchikfreak]

I'm sorry if this ask is coming out of nowhere, but I have been looking for posts that talk about how S2 has declined in quality and there have been virtually NONE. Even tags like 'arcane critical' or 'anti arcane' don't show up even though I know there are posts that are tagged with them. I'm losing my mind. Has nobody else noticed this downgrade? The ideas could have been good, but they were not executed well and the whole thing reads like they wrote it really quickly without any real editing and then rushed to get it out. It feels hollow, like we're seeing a botched or unfinished version of what it was supposed to be. What kind of random ass shit is it that an enforcer comes up to Vi and says, "cait said good things about you," and Vi is just like wow you're right, I'm sold! Even though she already knows Cait has a high opinion of her and that wasn't the issue in the first place! Also who was that random homeless man? Why am I supposed to care about these people? Fans get defensive about the pacing and argue that s1 did a lot in a minimal amount of time too, but I don't think they realize that pacing has to do with making something feel organic. Vi's heel turn into becoming an enforcer was not organic. Viktor's two second goodbye was not organic. Both of these things could have made sense if they'd given these moments even just a little more effort or care. There were so many unnecessary scenes that could have been cut out to give more time to things that desperately needed it (like caitlyn's sad wordless montage about her mom. Why did it drag out so long? Her grief is apparent in every other scene. We did not need an entire abstract slideshow of her making various sad expressions.) There's also the animation. The animation is leagues above a regularly animated show, but if you look closely it is actually not as good as s1. There is less detail, the lighting of the background doesn't always match the characters, and there are moments where the lips don't always sync with their voices. These are minor things that I wouldn't usually care about, but for a multi-million dollar show like Arcane? Riot games recently laid off a whole slew of its creative team, too, and I wonder if they've been making similar cuts before that. It would certainly explain the drop in quality. I wouldn't put it past corporate greed to nerf one of the most groundbreaking animated shows in modern media if they thought they could profit more by cutting corners.

I'm sorry to ramble in your inbox as a random stranger, but it boggles my mind that there are so few people mentioning s2's flaws (not including rage bait, which is annoying because it only delegitamizes real criticisms and discussions.) I feel like I'm screaming in the void like is nobody else seeing this shit??

well hello there! first of all, "arcane critical" is what i was looking for when i was writing that post. gonna put it in tags now before i forget

secondly, i love asks! so no need to apologize. thirdly it's a bummer you went under anonym, i don't believe you get notifs for your anonymous asks, so unless you actually hang out on my blog regularly there's a chance you won't see me appreciating your thoughts and agreeing with you (expect for the animation part, cause for me it was great, i have no questions on that regard. but for each their own. i'm a big fun of the dragon prince first season's animation and still sad they get rid of their 13fps style, so...)

anyway, i got bored at the beginning of my rumbling that time and didn't get into some deep analysis but yes, the first season also had events to go fast and forward, but at the same time they made sense. it wasn't rush or dragged, every scene had a meaning and weight

YES to the burial scene. like i get it, it was drawn pretty and it was sad and grey for cait but my god how many hours can we watch vi going away from 317 different angles? i was actually shocked to see her at cait's, cause after 10 minutes of her hiding in the crowd and leaving before cait saw her i was legit sure the show tried to tell us they broke up for now and won't see each other for a while

and it all feels so odd, as if on the one hand writers had too little allowed episodes to work with their ideas, like they came up with all these important story points but had no more screen time to add actual story development between the points, cause the season is like 10 episodes too short to fit a full coherent story. but on the other hand they have too much unused screen time, like they wrote only 5 episodes but they had to make 9 so now we will just fill the equivalent of 4 episodes of free time with mute repetitive long scenes

who the fuck is that mute lizard cop? is he actually mute? or there were no budget on one more voice actor? what's his problem? why he always looks like he's mad at everyone? should i even care he's always displeased? does he even matter? if no, why he has so much screen time and close-up shots? if yes, why he has no meaning or story or character or name? i swear to god, in the first season that one future-junkie dude had more of a meaning and weight in his two minutes scene than these lizard cop and the new jinx's sister during two episodes

and it all would've been fine, really, if it was the first season, or one of these already bad shows that you don't really expect much of. but arcane was a masterpiece, and also we've been waiting for it for three years. so it's the feeling that we know how GOOD it can be, and the feeling that it just chose not to

w....wait... what if they also tried to do great? and failed to do good in the process

or maybe, as you said, just some internal kitchen shit. i never actually follow media creation stuff and staff so maybe that's just it. still not make it all better for me as a viewer who was too excited to learn at 1 am that the act dropped and stayed up until 7am to make sure to watch it before getting to sleep

HEY THANK YOU for giving me opportunity to rumble about it again

[siryouarebeingmocked]

>I certainly think men, cis or trans, as well as transmasc individuals, shouldn't suffer the effects of Misogynistic Patriarchal culture silently.

I love how talking about something women strongly contribute to - possibly primarily - is somehow blamed on men and misogyny.

And it's just "effects". As if it's not a direct result of societal standards to protect women, which feminists themselves constantly and openly contribute to and support.

>The problem is that when that man is also part of any systematically oppressed group,

If you only care about sexism against men when it fits your narrative, and keep trying to downplay individual prejudice, that, uh, says a lot more about you than Society™.

Also, false accusations don't even have to go to court to ruin or end someone's life. Look at Mattress Girl. The cops and school turned her down, and she still dragged the dude's name through the mud.

Luke Harwood was murdered over an accusation.

One false accusation drove a kid to suicide, which drove his mom to suicide.

The Duke Lacrosse team was a bunch of white boys at a high class school, falsely accused by a black lower-class stripper, and people still harassed them. I've seen speculation that they were hounded by the prosecution specifically because of the racial and class angle.

All of these folks were white, in white-majority countries.

>But for most of those men, it’s not a part of systemic oppression against them - our society is not fundamentally built on and built to support that discrimination.

So….that makes it minor and non-notable?

>When discrimination happens without the support of those societal systems it sucks but is rarely dangerous and can rarely be used as a tool of oppression.

And when it happens to men, it's still sexist and wrong.

Heck, the fact that rape and sexual misconduct in general are seen as inherently M>F seems like a pretty systemic issue to me.

Especially when there are nations like the UK with laws that say a woman can't commit rape. Unless she's pre-op trans.

If mistrusting men is not a systemic issue, what, I ask you, happens when a man stands in front of a judge and/or jury with those prejudices?

Or a cop on a domestic violence call, whose training essentially says, "arrest the man, even if he's the one who called for help"?

How about the consistent worldwide lack of government funding and social support for male sexual misconduct and abuse victims? That's heavily influenced by stereotypical views of those categories as "violence against women (by men)".

The System™ supports and encourages women's sexist fears of men, and uses those stereotypes against men. Blaming "the Patriarchy", at best, hides women's own responsibility for their opinions, and the harm it does.

And victim-blames men.

Frankly, I'm way past tired of people who play down prejudice against men because men aren't an Systemically Oppressed Minority™.

Not only is it blatantly wrong, but hating and mistrusting someone just for existing is completely reprehensible - not just "sucks" - when it's not "systemic".

So here is my problem with the "by virtue of being a man, you have to make your peace with the fact that some people will be uncomfortable with you, and thus you have to make yourself a safe person"

I've heard the same thing about being black. A lot of people have taken my very presence as hostility. I have had people escalate situations just because I am present as a black person in front of them. Before, and after transition.

You know what the problem with bending over backwards to make other people comfortable with your presence even though you haven't actually done anything to them besides breathe the same air?

It's never enough. You can be One Of The Good Ones for ages and at some point you will fail your Good One inspection and people will turn on you at the drop of a hat. People who you thought you had a good rapport with. People you thought were your friends.

I have *experienced* this, both online and in person.

The onus is on everyone to be safe people to be around. Singling someone out and blaming them for daring to share a demographic with someone else who has caused harm isn't cute when people do it to me because I'm black, and it's also not cute when they do it because I'm a man.

People are uncomfortable about my blackness all the time. I didn't magically stop experiencing racism when I started taking testosterone. So it's absolutely wild to me that people think "well, you know, with what you look like, some people won't want you around" is going to fly when I was explicitly taught *not* to tolerate that shit by every single one of my black relatives.

Someone doesn't like that I'm occupying a space? Well I'm not hurting them, so that's a them problem and not a me problem. That's how I've learned how to exist as black in white-majority spaces. Why do you think you can change the demographic and get me to agree with you?

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

I finished work early, thus I got home early, thus I had enough time left in the day to watch Sonic Prime season 3! And uh, it was fine I suppose. More of the same in a way, kids action show and all that. The way they managed to fill the season's runtime is just by having a lot of fighting, and I mean like grimbots getting bodied by everyone from every shatterspace, being brought back, getting bodied again, being brought back, etc etc. Goes on for a while. This is kind of the case with Prime as a whole but you could definitely shave off like half the total runtime of the series and not lose much of substance - in visiting the 3 major shatterspaces within the first season alone Prime kinda blows its load a little early and ends up meandering for a lot of the runtime. Oh well. On season 3 specifically again though I think the climax is reasonably solid, it's fun seeing every version of everyone team up a little bit, and then hey Sonic gets through to Nine in the end and all is well. Could've done without the sacrifice angle, I don't think it really added as much tension as it seemed to want to, but there's some decent Sonic and Shadow interactions to come out of it, so I'll take it - really minor thing in the grand scheme of things anyway so. There's a kind of openness to the ending that I actually don't really like, because it has a lot of bizarre implications; Green Hill - as the series perpetually refers to Sonic's world as - is treated as another shatterspace within that big void area, which is weird as fuck because why then did it specifically house the Paradox Prism when it's on the same level of alternate universe as every other shatterspace, also if it is on the same level then why aren't there other Sonics or Shadows, and what the hell is up with the Chaos Council, and all of these weirdnesses are amplified even further if you want to view the series as canon which hey, word of god seems to want it to be! Buuuuuut I'm just gonna try my best not to think about that. It's just a little easier that way.

Prime overall is probably the best serialised animated Sonic series, granted none of its competition is all too strong but hey, it still deserves some credit. I'd want to rewatch the entire show now that it's all out were I to try post more specifically defined opinions - certainly Prime had a lot of potential to do way way more with its premise that it didn't follow through on and that's a little disappointing, and Sonic himself really isn't the best incarnation of a character. But the show's fun, the action's good, feels Sonicy, and it's gonna get kids into Sonic. I'll take that.

[veliseraptor]

can i ask what problems you have with the published tl of the mxtx novels? i was thinking of buying them for my bday but if the tl is bad then i’ll skip.

oh, please take my comments about the published translations with a sizable grain of salt because I have (a) not read the full translations yet and (b) I am a humorless bitch sometimes.

my frustrations are, first of all, with some of the choices I've seen screencaps of/portions of. this is relatively minor, since I imagine I'm seeing those because they're particularly striking, like the usage of 'ain't it his shidi' which just feels...mm. it's a choice certainly, somewhat reminiscent to me of this one as far as "I think I see what you're trying to convey but actually you're just pitching me right out of the story"

more significant are my issues with the editorializing I've seen and read about that's in the character guides in particular.

like...two things. the first is that I tend to feel like a translator's job is, generally speaking, to try to be a little self-effacing. translator's notes are great and an awareness of how the work of translation is interpretive is actually very important to me, but when the translator begins to intrude on the text then I start to get annoyed.

the thing about translated works is that - all translation is interpretation, right? but to some extent reading in translation is an act of trust on the part of the reader - trust in the translator, that they are going to remain true to the text and are presenting you with something as close to the original source - whatever that means! - as is possible. but when I can feel the translator poking me, as it were, through the text, I'll be very aware of the fact that I'm reading through an intermediary, and I'll start to trust them less, because I will start to wonder what kind of interpretive work they might be doing between source text > translation based on the opinions they are expressing. and I begin to doubt their work.

I'm not talking about translation footnotes that are explaining context or offering explanations for why a given word was chosen or even offering an overall philosophy of translation - those are all good things! that shows me a self-awareness on the part of the translator, without making the translator feel like a veil over the text rather than a conduit connecting me to it.

this was one of the things that frustrated me about the ExR translation - the footnote commentary that wasn't just explanatory/expanding on a translation choice but also included more opinion-based content, which wasn't what I was there for, regardless of whether I "agree" with it or not.

the second is that I just personally find the kind of humor - I guess - that's showcased in the character guides that I've seen remarkably grating. it feels very online fandom "powerpoint explanation" style, which is a format that I do not tend to appreciate there much less in a published text where I want the text to stand on its own, without extraneous editorializing on the part of the translation team about the content of the work.

as I said, I'm a humorless bitch about some things. and also as I said, I haven't read the full translations yet - I am still looking forward to doing so, despite my frustrations. if nothing else it provides me an opportunity to read a new version of these books! and it may well be that, editorializing aside, I actually really like the experience of reading the translation itself - I don't know. and I do feel like I want to say that I am legitimately grateful that we're getting published versions of these at all, if only for the reason of legitimizing this as a genre that is saleable, encouraging further publication in English, and providing a pipeline of money from Western fans back to the authors (more easily than figuring out JJWXC's interface).

tl,dr; I wouldn't take my irritation about this specific thing as a reason to ditch the whole thing. I just have specific things that annoy me and some stuff about the publication choices made here hit a few of them.

[theangrypokemaniac]

There's a sneering attitude that the dub is inherently inferior solely for being a dub, and when I say 'dub' I mean the American one. No one attacks the South American interpretation, funnily enough, or the variety that exist globally.

Why not if foreign languages are so abhorrent?  Do you think it's kewl to hate America?

That's so original you know.

If the moan centres on the dub changing certain things, well that's a pointless stance, because it's impossible to do otherwise.

What's accepted in one country is not always permitted elsewhere, so either you make those alterations or it's never shown. I'd prefer seeing a slightly toned down version rather than have it never reach the West at all.

This is without considering the technical obstacles that a direct translation brings. The words do have to fit the mouth movements, and if they don't, truncation must follow.

America and Japan are different; the population of the former are not going to comprehend the references to the latter's history and culture, which necessitates some divergence from the original to give it mass appeal.

Anime is a branch of entertainment. It has to attract the public's good will to stay in business. If impenetrable, it'll fail, with all the resulting unemployment and finacial losses that brings.

Those in charge of dubbing understandably think they're on safer ground promoting familiarity rather than the strange, but that's not to say Pokémon was stripped of its identity. On the contrary, it was like nothing I'd ever encountered before.

I may have watched Western cartoons then, but the idea of doing so now is silly. I won't give time to any modern animation unless it's Japanese. Growing up on the dub has not produced an ephemeral fan less serious or 'true'.

The 4Kids dub had wit, humour, deep emotion, suggestive comments and flights of fancy. The voices fitted the characters well.

Unlike the current one, where everyone sounds on the verge of vomiting, but then they're clearly working with substandard material on a miserly budget. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear after all.

Dubs can be bad, but the very state of being a dub doesn't confer worthlessness automatically. Considering the work gone into them, attempting to gain your favour, it seems rude not to appreciate the time and energy spent in production.

Knowing a little about history, sub-only fanatics remind me of the kind of folk who opposed an English Bible, because it was too good for the oiks to read the word of God.

Of course it was alright for them, rich enough to be taught Latin, but not so much the ordinary man.

It amuses me how dozens dismiss the dub, but see no hypocrisy in using its evidence to further their ship or anti-ship arguments, so it can't be that revolting.

It's also bizarre that so many hold sacred the sub of a series currently in a frenzy to shed every aspect of its anime and Japanese origins, leaving a vague, rootless ghost, supposedly making it easier to slip down the gullet of the masses.

Pokémon I've seen referred to as a 'gateway drug', as in the anime that introduced a generation to the entire concept. This means the dub. You would not have got enough kids in the late Nineties to read a screen rather than watch it, and even today most would lose interest rapidly.

Where would you be without that dub? Unless you're Japanese, your first experience of Pokémon will have been a dub, and if not the American, the one where you live, which was only made because there was the funds available.

You may have then progressed to watching the sub, but only because that dub stirred love in your soul.

Where would the franchise be without that dub? You think Pokémon would've grown to be a world-wide obsession raking in billions by itself? No, it'd still be a solely Japanese phenomena, and most likely never lasted this long.

Its decades of supremacy rests on the quality of that dub. It sold games and merchandise to kids by the ton, giving an incentive to keep the series going. If you're not a fan from the first wave, then your favourite era would have never existed had it not been financially attractive carrying on.

The team who wrote the first film actually preferred the dub, moved to tears by its emotive use of music, therefore they aren't so precious as the fans.

Where would anime be without that dub? Pokémon brought it to the West. A handful slipped through previously, but made minor impression.

To those who would dismiss Pokémon entirely in favour of more 'worthy' output such as Studio Ghibli, I would say that Pokémon, first the games, then the programme they inspired, must have an integral quality to have caught on in Japan, which isn't exactly short on similar concepts.

To have gained popularity in a crowded market, and so fervently a dub became an option, can only have come about because it held a certain magic.

It was the dub that smashed a hole in the cultural barrier, setting free the tidal wave to engulf the world. In Pokémon's trail followed Digimon, Cardcaptors, Monster Rancher, Yu-Gi-Oh! et cetera.

Without Pokémon, I doubt they'd have been translated, and definitely never broadcast on mainstream television. That came about as channels desperately hunted down anything Japanese to serve as the next craze.

I really appreciated the effort made by 4Kids in converting every aspect of the series to suit American tastes, including changing text on signs, letters and books into English. I assumed this was standard practice until I watched others.

I could never be as involved in them as I was Pokémon because of that block. It was like being denied access to the deeper waters, fenced into the shallows, and implied a rushed dub, with little care shown but to chase the same crowd and money.

If personified, the dub 'n' sub wouldn't be one human being, but rather identical twins: the same to a casual observer, but easy to tell apart by the more attentive.

It's like the games: Red and Blue are versions of a single adventure, but not totally one. Take the dub and the sub the same way. They are parallel dimensions running on separate rails, and beyond reconciliation, and that's before we consider that, sub and dub alike, each generation has only a faint relation to its predecessor, working on its own whims.

Everyone has a favourite, or can like both, and there's nothing wrong in that, but so many are proud of the fact they hate the dub, as if it conveys a revered status of supremacy.

When Disney films are shown abroad, they too are translated, and I'm sure references and jokes are redesigned to make sense to the locals. It's no use selling yourself as a comedy then being surprised when the audience refuses to laugh, having no idea what you mean.

If people prefer that one, for being what introduced them to Disney as a whole, or as a fond memory of childhood, then so what?

I don't mind if their view of a character is minutely at odds with mine, having seen the original, because what they think is canon to their version, so can't be wrong.

I don't go round declaring every Disney dub to be pathetic by its nature, that viewers of them are of a lesser breed of fan for preferring their own tongue, even though more of the world's population understand English than they do Japanese.

If you enjoy one tailored to your country there's no crime in it, just as I like one at least comprehensible to mine. It's not even my culture, but I pick it up mostly.

The choice must be made on which to follow, and this blog runs on dub canon, as that has a claim on my heart. Just because I don't acknowledge what takes place in the sub doesn't mean I'm unaware of it, but it has no bearing on what I write.

The idea that the dub alters things willy-nilly without rhyme nor reason is also mistaken. Often it does it because the original does not make sense.

In the sub, I know Nanny and Pop-Pop are just a couple of old duffers taken at random and dropped in to a castle, supposedly as James's far away nannies.

Oh yeah, that's a cushy position. You doing a lot of child care from miles off?

Mind you, it used to describe 'em as 'caretakers' on Bulbapædia, as if Nan serves as housekeeper whilst Pop tends to the garden.

That's right. Ma and Pa finally got some work out of this pair of freeloaders.

They're not related, remember? No, no, absolutely not, no way. Of course their style reflects that. They just gave Pop a 'tache, thick eyebrows and a bigger nose, and Nan got a bun and lines in her hair, but there's certainly no connection. Oh no. Such a thing is ridiculous.

They're NOT family. No. Yet Hoenn James still panics they might learn he's joined Team Rocket, spending the whole episode trying to hide the truth.

Why? Who are servants to criticise the son of their employers? Why should their opinion be of any consequence to Hoenn James, especially when his parents, fiancée and butler are cognizant of reality?

Children of aristocrats are usually brought up by governesses, thus develop a stronger attachment to these figures rather than their parents, but that isn't the case here.

James lived with Ma and Pa, not the codgers minding the castle. He would have very little contact with distant employees compared to those who waited on him daily, so why seek out their approval?

Hoenn James apparently was permitted visits to Nan 'n' Pop, which is strange considering they're not relatives. Why them and not any other house-stters?

That's right, Ma and Pa sent their son to one of their properties without them, entrusting him to the care of two shrivelled pensioners of his size that he barely knew, and who could keel over at any minute. There are no other servants present. Apparently Nan and Pop clean an entire castle by themselves.

Oh, and they run a makeshift Pokémon sanctuary, but since it's not their home it has to be done with Ma and Pa's blessing, who also have to pay for it, but they're eevul aren't they?

The idea that somehow Nanny and Pop-Pop have not cottoned on to James's occupation by now is risible.

Servants gossip about their masters. I bet the entire household of his home know, and so in turn does the county. That Nan and Pop remain oblivious proves how isolated they are, for no one's thought to inform them.

When it came to dubbing it, they were made his grandparents, removing all the above nonsense. Of course he visits his nan and granddad, it's their gaff and their money funding the place, and it is likely his mother or father would keep James's job a secret, for fear the shock would finish 'em off.

It should do really. If they're not bothered by it that's a sign of where his rapscallion ways were inherited.

They aren't facially akin to Ma and Pa, but display the same additions, so if staff it's bloody lazy, as if nannies have to resemble your parents, but inventing a blood link excuses the slothful characterisation.

Every reference I've seen on Tumblr relating to the coffin-dodgers calls them Nanny and Pop-Pop. Apparently the dub decision is met with universal approval. It does have redeeming aspects then.

Now the sub writers, rather than ignore this development, took to it too. They aren't exactly bursting with ideas these days and are probably grateful for the lifelines offered.

Remembering James had parents, they forced a likeness between them and Nanny and Pop-Pop. How else do you explain the inexplicable ageing, even when Sinnoh Ma and Sinnoh Pa are younger than Ma and Pa?

I've also known for years that the sub has this woman as Jessie's foster mother, not Ma Jess, but that's stupid.

I can grasp the idea that Jessie and Ma might have endured extreme deprivation, considering that's what Team Rocket has brought to Jessie anyway, and that they may have lived at the bottom of Mew's mountain prior to Ma's death.

What I find difficult to take in is that social services (or as they're known where I live, the S.S.), however notoriously awful they are, would give a child to a mad bitch in a shack with no running water.

Come on, they have to at least pretend to be concerned for Jessie's welfare.

As Jessie is very young, bereavement can't have befallen her in the distant past, so how can she be happy this soon after becoming an orphan? How could the grieving period be a cherished memory?

If that woman's creaming off the money, why hasn't she fixed the place up by now? Where do the payments go, sniffing glue?

Then there's the depiction. If this is just some daft bint never to be mentioned again, why do they conceal her face? Who cares what she looks like when she's unimportant?

Here's another figure from Jessie's past. She isn't disguised, and why not when she too briefly appears and is then forgotten?

Who was she?

The only sort of characters they tended to hide were other members of Team Rocket:

During the early scenes featuring Giovanni, he was enveloped in shadow, adding both intrigue and a sense of menace.

Madame Boss also got this treatment, even though there was probably no intention to ever feature her in the anime. What's the use in keeping an appearance a mystery if it'll remain masked?

With that pattern, it implies this woman is in the same category, like Ma Jess.

When it came to animation, it definitely was intended to be a foster mother. Not her real one. No.

What did they do?

They gave her Jessie's skin tone and purple hair hanging down her back!

You know, like Ma Jess?

Any colour would've done. Any at all, and being anime I do mean any colour, but no. The choice was made to give her the looks of the exact person she's not meant to be!

Is it that surprising the dub simplified things?

I don't mind if you like the dub, sub, both, or any from around the world, but I'm tired of the smug condescension, as if we all agree the sub is the only one that counts, and that dub fans are grunting troglodytes, or not 'proper' aficionados.

None of us would be here were it not for the dub. Pokémon would not be here. I think it deserves some respect for how much of a difference it made, to my life and to yours.

[araeph]

I saw that you have the same views on shipping in Voltron as you as me, and just shipping general. With the exception of Zutara (love that couple to death), I'm pretty open to all ships. When I heard about Volton, I waited until the hype died down to start watching it. I was introduced to the fandom first and I saw all this shipping material but when I finally saw the show I was just...disappointed? I don't know how to explain it really. I feel like personally they have too many characters(1/2)

(2/2) and by the time they build a relationship between characters, they add a new one or make that character leave. Or when they do build the relationship, it’s never mentioned again. It’s like they build it up only to fizzle it out. (Sorry to rant something that’s just on my mind and makes me happy that someone is also pretty neutral on the shipping in that show)

Like you, I don’t really “ship” anything in Voltron, especially because V:LD seems to make a point not to divert into romantic plotlines very much. Which is fine by me! But I do agree with your criticism about there being too many characters and not enough screentime for them all. What was it I once said?:

Groups of four to six main members are optimal for group-centered stories, in my opinion. Anything larger than that, and it starts to get messy and unfocused. That’s why the Fellowship split up in the first third of the story, so that smaller groups of two or three could meet up with more allies and the stage wouldn’t feel as crowded (Hobbit, I’m lookin’ at you.) It’s why Star Trek: TNG and DS9 would rotate their cast in and out of the episodes, based on which area of expertise was called for in a given script. And it’s why Peridot and Lapis got shipped off to the Barn of Comparative Obscurity in Season 3 of Steven Universe, when they started doing more with Greg. (Not to mention Connie fading in and out of the main plot as needed.)  

The original main cast of five paladins plus Allura (with Coran being a minor character) was the perfect number. Once other characters joined, they started cutting into the screentime of the main cast, especially Hunk, who doesn’t get a whole lot of attention from the writers these days.

Matt is the perfect example of this. It was good to see Pidge fulfill her quest to find her brother–but what did Matt add, exactly, to the group dynamics? And her father, did he really do anything character-wise for Team Voltron? Did he become a wise mentor figure, like Uncle Iroh? They invested a TON of character focus on Pidge’s goal of a family reunion, and had no idea what to do with that payoff once she accomplished it. I’ll never forget the stunning scene of Pidge kneeling before her brother’s supposed grave–it was overwhelmingly sad and beautiful. I think if they’d had a little more courage in the storytelling, they could have really made it poignant. Instead, it was as if they asked themselves what would make the characters happy, rather than asking themselves what would make the best story. Alive and on Team Voltron, Matt doesn’t do anything from a plot or thematic standpoint. He doesn’t bring a conflict with him; he doesn’t become an indispensable team member; he doesn’t form strong bonds with other characters. Compare this to Zuko joining the GAang; there was a spot on the team just waiting to be filled by him. He bonded individually with the entire GAang, and they helped him to explore a softer side to his character as well. Lotor was a much better example of someone joining the group and bringing a new dynamic with him, but again, the writers couldn’t figure out how to do that without scissoring out screentime from, for instance, Keith. 

Voltron is … well it’s a very pretty show. And it’s a good show. It’s just … it’s much more superficial than A:TLA. Despite the whole universe being in danger, the stakes don’t feel as high, and I think a lot of that has to do with the emphasis on artistry over worldbuilding. The aliens that we encounter don’t have complex and developed societies like the Four Nations that the GAang was trying to save. There is no Ba Sing Se of the galaxy, no Spirit Library or Boiling Rock equivalents. The spaces in V:LD don’t feel lived in; it’s like they’re there for us to look at, but not to touch. And so, we watch more of the action scenes from the outside looking in–exclaiming “Cool!” and “Awesome!“, certainly, but not laughing or crying along the way. 

[tommokindness28]

People sure like to "guess" and make their own conclusions on things before stopping and having any common sense.

I'm not, nor have I ever, been contacted by Louis team to work in partnership for any sort of fan rumour, I have not been put under any sort of contract in relation to the call. Nor do I work for Louis' team as a stunt pusher (wtf even is that!!)

My son was and still is a huge fan of Louis and even more so, loves singing, some of his biggest idols have noticed and commented on his singing which has sparked a fire inside of my Childs dreams, Louis is not the only one.

I share our experience because some of you like to see this, some of you don't, thats fine as well. You don't need to interact, comment or judge. What I do with my son, on my account, within my family, is my own business and does not need for your opinion, especially when the majority of you aren't even close to being in my shoes.

Minor presence online is a slippery slope in this day in age, unfortunately though, thats where this generation is heading and to be able to have the opportunity to connect with our idols in a way we never have before is an amazing experience. And I am very fond of the ones I have been given.

You've certainly liked to deep dive through my twitter account to add to your novel of what I am and what I'm not and why I've done what I have, however, the message button is right there next to where your stalking, if you have a question on my actions, feel free to send me a message and I'll answer, rather than gathering your other fandom FBI agents and trying to make up your own conclusion that fits with a narrative in which you would like to believe.

My son is just that, MINE. He loves to sing, he loves to perform, he does it every single night. I have a tonne of content that displays what my boy likes to do and experiences we have shared with some of his idols, and because I choose to share some of it with the wider community of people who enjoy the same interests as us, doesn't invite your opinion.

Our phone call with Louis was an incredible experience, one that I'm grateful we got to share together. Death threats, hateful messages, and disgusting comments about my son and myself are fuelled by an emotion you need more control over.

#rant

[rage-against-the-meyer]

New Moon (2006)

Previously, I have done a book review on Twilight from my newly gained perspective after a recent read. I shall proceed with the next book: New Moon. Now, New Moon used to be my most hated book. I resented it. I suffered through the first 200 or so pages just to get to the good part, which in return was exceptionally good (I'll probably come to this). This book was coloured by a very big issue for me: there was no Edward. This opinion has not changed. I still cannot grasp the logic behind removing the one character that compelled readers to love the prequel. It was probably done to give Jacob some attention, but really, it made the book a drag for me. That has changed. While I still hated Edwards absence, I enjoyed the Edwardless pages more than usual, though I don't know exactly why. Anyway, let's get into it!

The book starts of with quite a nice moment: Bella's birthday. I think Bella's resentment of aging is displayed very well throughout the book and logical from a seventeen-year-old's POV. This leads me to voice an opinion I hadn't in the previous review: the book really should have been set in college. It would change the book entirely and I think for the better. Bella would have actual close friends at home, the story doesn't need to focus on the secrecy from family and friends, and most importantly, Bella would be more secure. She would know things, maybe things Edward didn't, she would not be so insecure (still a bit insecure, but I think maturity reduces it) and she would be able to move more freely. College as a setting would resolve some of my issues certainly. It would also solve the whole age-thing. Bella wouldn't have such an extreme obsession with age as age in your 20's barely reflects in your appearance. As a teenager, you change so much every year, but in your twenties it's different. In addition, it would give Bella a much better sense of what she wants out of life. At college, she must have envisioned some sort of career; the whole missing human experiences issue would be less important. But that's just my take on it.

Bella gets cut and more importantly attacked by Edward in an attempt to save her from Jasper. Great moment to show the comment of Edward to Bella by, you know, not killing her on the spot. Also GREAT moment for Carlisle and Bella. I think this moment might actually be a first moment in which she projects him as a father figure.

Right after this whole charade, the drag begins. The silent days by Edward and his ensuing absence. Reading it again after years, it still hurt. On his part, I do understand the logic. The one thing I kind of hated was his removal of everything between them. When he said goodbye to her, he wouldn't expect her to accept his leave so easily, that he couldn't believe that she had just forgotten everything about him. Then, he just assumed that by forming a so-called clean break and removing everything that could remind her of him, she would move on so easily. Like her words didn't exactly stick with him either. While I understand their reasons for everything, it was a very emo-goodbye. His absence was terrible. Like I read it for the first time, I LIVED through the pain. I FELT it.

When the Jacob part started, I was wary at first, but I actually enjoyed it to my surprise. I saw for the first time his soft side. I was bothered by his cold facade, though, through all the other books. I guess I didn't like that he lost his innocence but that was just the story.

I really feel that Bella and Jacob's romance was written expertly. It made sense somehow. Still, I can't believe anyone could be Team Jacob based on the books. However, I was annoyed by the pressure on his side along the series - trying to show that she loved him by assaulting her and guilting her into kissing him. She fought hard to deny herself that part and it was not his to expose it. That should have been her. I guess SM thought it was hot/sexy for a man to force her to face her emotions like this, but I really can't think of it as anything other than assault.

The stupidest part of the Edward-absence was the hallucinations. I believe they represented Bella's unconcious knowledge that he still loved her but to me it was obviously the result of a toxic relationship. And then, she had to do the dumbest shit ever to get the hallucinations. If it was adrenaline related as I really believe it was, she could've just done a few rollercoasters. 'But she only had them when she did something dangerous.' No. She had them when she had an adrenaline rush. All her stupid adrenaline rushes happened to be induces by dangerous ass shit. If you don't like this argument, go away because it is one of many concerning the biological aspects of the horse-shittery later on (scientist here). Anyway, the hallucinations didn't do much for me.

Alice returns. You can actually see in my book where this is - as I've turned to this page a million times. I love Alice as I've previously said and I love her here. I also love that Edward wants to off himself. Not too glad about the whole dependency thing in representation, but in their relationship, it's proof that he's committed. What really gets me though is the humorous outrageous amount of dramatics in his decision to die. It kind of aligns with the Volturi but it's still so dramatic to wait until a certain time. Didn't you want to die the second she died??? Dramatic.

I think that everything about the Volturi should be regarded as creative freedom. They hoarded a group of people in every time they were hungry and no one of their relatives started a blog with 'Disappearings in Volterra, Italy'?? Dumb. They were collective even more dramatic than Edward but then, creative freedom.

The most compelling scene was definitely the scene where Bella though she was dreaming. I'm probably not the only one that cried when I read that the first time (and the times thereafter). I have a big issue with their getting together. Yes, they understood both sides of the story and yes, they had both been miserable apart. However, I don't believe that their instinctual feelings also disappeared with their resolve. You can't convince that if Edward said good morning a little bit off one morning, Bella's mind wouldn't instantly think he was going to leave her again. And then, the PAIN of Bella, the shell she was after him, that should have been harder to shake as well. Her body must occassionally involuntarily just recoil when she sees him. Again, I understand but poor representation of pain, SM.

Speaking of representation, the racism is way more obvious in this book than in Twilight. While I loved the wolves, SM exploited the Quileute Tribe. As in my previous post, I have included links to get both informed about and to donate to the Tribe's council. A bit less obvious may be the position of Jacob, POC against Edward, white male. Jacob is regarded as a love interest, sure, but his appearance, his being, is close to nothing compared to Edward. It might be the story, but in combination with all other small and big acts of racism by SM, it seems racist.

Another major issue I didn't address in my previous post is the complete absence of LGBTQ-characters. I myself am not part of that community, but the lack of representation, especially in a book with such a young and formable target audience, is extremely wrong. I am of Molukkian heritage and I know what it is like to not be represented. It alters or limits, whichever way you see it, your self worth. All of Bella's insecurities SM wrote were superficial: Bella wasn't pretty enough (in her mind) for him. I don't want to disvalue those insecurities, we all have them after all, but lack of representation can give anyone of a minority the sense of not belonging and not worthy of happiness. To all minorities, I see you and you are of worth! You deserve better than to be ignored and limited in media and politics. It pains me to see discrimination is still so prominent in society and I stand with you.

With that note, I want to conclude my review. There is really nothing more important than that. Please inform yourself on the Quileute Tribe and donate to their council through the following links:

The Quileute Tribe

Information:

Donation:

TLDR: New Moon is okay but shows, again, a toxic relationship and obvious discrimination. Please inform yourself on the way SM exploited the Quileute Tribe and donate to their council through the link above.

[tcportfoliomgj]

Wednesday, 9th of June, 2021

"There is really nothing so good for thinking, for clearing your mind, for acquiring fresh, unexpected thoughts than crossing the borders of your homeland." - Jeroen Lutters

So today is the day. Well, technically tomorrow, but I have to hand this portfolio in at 8:00, so that basically means I have to finish and hand it in tonight. Things are a little chaotic. I think I've covered most of the competencies and such, but I still need to do a part of creativity, collaboration and professional challenges. I need to do critical thinking as well (though it's already woven in some other posts too), but I'll do that in another post.

At the start of the year, we had to do a PC with our learning teams. This meant I had to do it with Nynke and Marije. We decided to focus on the ideal classroom and wanted to make a 'guide' for other teachers. I must admit, we didn't always take it that seriously and I would do things differently now. Later, Stijn joined the team and he was able to really add something to our project even though he joined near the end. Our final product was a Padlet (appendix 23), something that I would certainly change if I had to do it now. It's not bad, especially not for a first PC, but I think I would prefer to have a booklet, a neater webpage or a more brochure-like product. Still, I learned a lot from it. I did the research for it and got to practice using databanks and such.

My second PC however, is a lot better in my opinion. It's not finished yet, but I think we might continue this project next year. I worked with Joyce, Marije, Kimberly, Dominique and Eva. Ton was our coach and Bert Wienen our 'client'. But let's take it back to the beginning...

One day, the girls and I started talking about something that was said in a webinar. It was about teachers and whether or not they should also help students with personal problems. At some schools, they keep those things strictly separate. The teacher does the teaching, and everything else is done by other professionals. We found this a little shocking. Sure, teachers aren't psychologists and I don't think they should ever try to be. However, a student's personal life can affect their academic life, so shouldn't we as teachers be there for them to lend an ear and support them? We started questioning what we heard and what we already knew. Pretty soon, the idea formed to make this our PC, but we didn't really know how yet.

We worked on the basics first, like making a group contract (appendix 24) in which we decided on some rules concerning our behaviour, et cetera. Then through Ton, we got in contact with Bert Wienen, as we needed a 'client' for our professional challenge. I've mentioned Bert before, because of his research. I was a bit apprehensive about working with him, because of what he had written and of what he had said in a lecture, but I did want to give it a chance. Together with Ton, we had a brainstorming session. We decided that we could definitely work with Bert, but that we didn't have to focus on labels and diagnoses. We wanted to keep it more general than that because being an involved teacher that coaches also means you want to help everyone with personal problems, not just the ones who are labelled with a certain 'problem'.

We started talking to Bert and quickly came to the conclusion that we already know a lot about what teachers think, but that it's just as important to know what students think. Eventually, we decided that we would conduct preliminary research to help Bert with his research. We wanted to interview students of different ages and focus on student voice. Perception isn't always the same as reality, but it does show us how people experience reality. In fact, the perceptions of students form their views of education and influence their behaviour (Quaglia & Corso, 2017). Because it was preliminary research, we didn't have to worry about all the technicalities. This way, Bert really gave us the opportunity to focus on the interviews.

We made a design canvas (appendix 25) together and started preparing the student interviews. We wrote a project plan (appendix 26), with me taking the lead since I had already had a semester of Project Management when I studied Global Project & Change Management. We also created an interview guideline (appendix 27). This way, we can draw a conclusion from open conversations because in every conversation we have recurring questions. Kimberly and Dominique conducted the interviews on VO, while Joyce did it on PO. We are currently in the process of transcribing all the interviews and we haven't really decided what our final product will be, but we will after the portfolio deadline. We think the conclusion will be that not all students need a teacher to take on a coaching role, but they often do appreciate it. The close proximity of a safe haven isn't the most important, but the knowledge of there being one (Stevens & Bors, 2013, p. 77). We also plan on continuing with this PC next year. Hopefully, we'll be able to take the next steps in our research.

I would say our PC has gone pretty smoothly so far. We communicate quite well and are very honest with each other. We created a space in Microsoft Teams so we could easily share files and work in documents together. Setting up a team collaboration environment can be encouraging and makes it easy to work on a project together (Horine, 2017). We decided that we'd use Whatsapp for daily interactions. Face to face would've been an ideal way to communicate, but because of the pandemic, this was a bit hard. Near the end of the academic year, we were able to work on campus and talk face to face, which made things a lot easier. We used Teams video calls when we weren't able to meet on campus and also to organise meetings with Bert. We'd email him whenever we needed to update him on the project.

I would definitely describe our project group as a 'high-performing team', as Horine (2017) calls it. He says that high-performing teams have a core set of traits. The first trait is clarity. Teams need to know where they are going, what they are going and how they are doing it. I think we had a very clear plan and stuck to it quite well. High-performing teams also show commitment. As a group, we all felt very responsible for this project and wanted to go the extra mile, we were definitely invested and willing to put in the time. According to Horine (2017), the team should also be professional. The members take responsibility and do the assigned work. I think that we, as a team, did handle things professionally. Of course, we would joke here and there, but when we had to get down to business we were always able to get into that mindset. Then there is synergy, the fourth trade. I think this took a while for us, but after some weeks we really started to understand what worked well and who could do what. We started to really use our talents and performed really well as a team. Lastly, there is trust. Trust is of course earned over time, but I think we got to a good level of trust quite quickly. We were honest and open, this way we were able to discuss minor problems and easily work through them. All in all, I think we did really well as a team, and I'm quite proud of us and of our work. I definitely think we showed some courage because interviewing students about a topic like this isn't easy. We focussed on a very relevant topic however and we were very persistent. Sometimes things took a while to move forward, but we never gave up. Something we could improve on might be our focus on a final product, taking more risks and being more self-aware so we could use our talents a little more than we already did.

However, there were also some creative journeys and processes this year that didn't go that well at all. An example of this is the documentary we had to make for Art Based Learning. I wanted to do this alone and my first idea was to make a satirical documentary on the Dutch pluriform society. However, I was very behind on a lot of the work and I tend to be a little impulsive and sporadic. At one point I changed my topic to menstruation because I thought it would be cool to take a taboo topic and turn it into an awesome documentary. But it wasn't easy. I'm not the most structured person, and I easily get stuck during projects because of the simple step by step process. When I think I'm stuck or can't do something, I just block all my motivation to keep going and sometimes give up quite easily. It's not unusual for people with ADHD to struggle with going through a process (Regelink, 2020). Eventually, I was so behind on all the assignments that I decided to admit that I was struggling. I think it's important to not see it as giving up. Admitting that you need help or aren't very good at something can be very hard. Bart very kindly took me under his wings and asked me to join his documentary. He was doing it on a very personal topic but needed someone to conduct research to support his work. I quite like doing research so I was very happy with the job. I found him some news articles and went through government reports for him, highlighting all the relevant information. I will say, I still very much see it as Bart's documentary. Also because he is telling a personal story. I only helped him with the research for it.

I think the beautiful thing about Bart's documentary is that he opens up to all of us to simply tell his own story. His story is not representative of all adopted kids in the world of course, but he also doesn't try to do that. He just tells his own story, while also being aware of the other perspectives out there. The documentary shows multiple sides of a very complex and heavy subject and Bart is respectful of all sides too. His documentary gives to stuff to think about. What's good or bad isn't decided, things just are the way they are, with all the experiences that come with it. He gives you space to just let it all wash over you, you can think about it, take a little while and then form your own opinion. Bart's experience with adoption is not related to the government reports on adoption, but because he still involves it in his documentary you can see that the topic is way bigger than just Bart's story. And still, it's his documentary, his story. It's storytelling in such a beautiful and cool way. Everyone can learn and grow from it.

Another assignment that didn't go too well was the final paper for VMT3 (a history course I took for 'vakinhoudelijke onderwijseenheid'). The course itself went really well. Bas, our lecturer, uses the SALT method, where you basically have an assessment every week instead of at the end of a course. This way, you keep up with the theory learned. Most students start cramming right before an exam, but all that knowledge is very easily lost because of the forgetting curve. Students cram but they never get back to it (Van der Meijden, 2021). I did really well during the weekly oral assessments. I thoroughly enjoy history and I loved Bas' lectures, but VMT3 was only worth 4 EC's, so we had to end it with a final assignment to get to the 5 EC's that we needed. Bas gave us two options, we could either write about the SALT method or write a guide to revolution, using the French Revolution as your example. I chose the latter but my planning wasn't very good. Bas even gave me an extra week, but I wasn't able to finish it. I decided to let it go and hand in my unfinished work (appendix 28) because I had to move on. I'm not very proud of it, especially because I know I can do better and really wanted to do better. We haven't gotten our feedback yet, but Bas did tell us that we passed the oral assessments. I think for me this all adds to my learning journey, some (creative) processes go really well, some not so well. But it shows me that I need to work on my planning skills and my self-discipline.

Still, I think I did fairly well this year, and it also shows in the feedback I've received. A lot of student in TC1 wanted to give each other feedback so we decided it would be a good idea to create a platform where we could do this. I made a Padlet (appendix 29) for our year where we all could give each other feedback if we wanted to. Some students didn't really feel the need to join in this, but some really enjoyed the Padlet and found it quite helpful. I definitely enjoyed reading the feedback people wrote for me.

All in all, I think we've all grown a lot this year. With our creative process, our ability to communicate and collaborate, and just as humans in general. I'm proud of us.

🎵 Riptide - Vance Joy

[symbianosgames]

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

I used to be a competitive runner and I have a degree in exercise physiology. I coached track for over 15 years, including the UCLA and USA Olympic women's teams. When my running career was ended in 1994 by a drunk driver, my body went into severe chemical withdrawals as my running mileage went from 130 per week to zero. I became arthritic almost overnight and sometimes needed help crossing the street. This also led to a psychological depression, something I had never experienced before.

While I spent some years rebuilding myself physically, I ended up spending a lot of time playing computer games. The advent of online gaming, and especially competitive MMO's, allowed me to compete again without the use of my legs. I believe my endurance training, especially my neurological and endocrine adaptations, gave me an edge. Playing for long hours gave me a high that was not unlike the high I would get running ultra marathons.

I began playing longer and longer hours, and by the time I co-wrote the first paper on virtual good sales with Ashley Dunn of the Los Angeles Times in 2000 I was "...playing 12 hours a day..." which was a conservative estimate. It was my new profession and I was really enjoying it. Given my background, I was under no illusions about just how punishing this was on my body.

When World of Warcraft was released in 2004, I was well trained for the big day. I had been an alpha tester and knew exactly what to do. I was one of the first 100 players world-wide to L60, I did not use the "bare handed rogue" cheat that was in the game the first week, and I started several days late because I switched servers when I realized my start server was hopelessly congested. To achieve this goal playing solo, I played 22 hours a day for 8 days straight. The second player to hit 60 on my server arrived there more than two weeks later.

Playing 22 hours straight for just one day is enough to cause death as described by this article that came out in March of this year.

This article, the lack of public knowledge of what happens in your body when you do extreme endurance gaming, and some recent new trends that will make deaths more common are what prompted me to write this article. Hopefully the information herein can be used to not only improve the performance of cyberathletes, but also save lives.

Exciting games will trigger the "fight or flight" mechanisms of your nervous and endocrine systems. Real time competitive performance-measured games with audiences (like World of Tanks or many multiplayer FPS's) really are capable of pushing us to our absolute physiological limits, which is in part by design since these games are intended to be very exciting and engaging. For short durations (less than an hour) this is not a problem, and can even be healthy.

When dealing with longer durations, participants should be knowledgeable about General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS), which is a pleasant sounding name for something that has three stages. The last stage is generally fatal so I think as more people decide they want to become cyberathletes, education will be important. When I use the term cyberathlete, I really mean these participants are athletes. In traditional athletics, the respiratory system and/or skeletal muscle is highly trained and stressed. When they become exhausted the participant is forced to stop but this is not life threatening. In cyberathletics, the endocrine system is the primarily stressed organ system and when it becomes stressed the General Adaptation Syndrome is initiated. The problem here is that training this system though game play generally makes this system weaker over time, not stronger. So the better you become at cyberathletics, if you dip into ultra endurance activities, the more likely you will have a mishap as you approach elite status.

Cross training as a physical endurance athlete may help strengthen the endocrine system but I think this is essentially non-existent in gamer culture. In my case I started as an endurance athlete and then following my accident crossed over into cyberathletics. I also had the education and clinical experience to take as many protective measures as possible while I engaged in extreme endurance play and my partner during those years was a crack trauma nurse that literally kept an IV set up at my game station. I never ended up needing it, but it was there to threaten me into keeping my fluid intake up. I absolutely would NOT recommend anyone attempt to reproduce any of the feats I describe myself as doing in this paper.

As gameplay continues the human player will progress through the states of the GAS. Epinephrine and norepinephrine will be released early on, giving the player the edge in focus, reaction time, and alertness they need to win. Antidiuretic hormone will also be released to conserve water, lowing urine output. The body will tap into its stores of glycogen in order to guarantee an increased supply of glucose to the brain. Glycogen stores are very limited and generally run out during running marathons in all but the most efficient athletes, causing "The Wall" to be hit. The Wall causes a disruption of glucose supply to the brain and the result is depression and confusion in the early stages. This example from the 1984 Olympic marathon shows what can happen neurologically when you run out of glycogen during competition. I was there in the stadium crying that day as I watched since as a competitive marathon runner competing for Santa Monica College where that race finished I knew exactly what Gabriela was going through and she was an amazing athlete.

I once staggered into the burger joint next to the Venice Pier looking like that and started ripping open all the ketchup packets trying to get glucose. The workers looked really scared and probably thought I was high on PCP. Nostalgia isn't the main reason I use this example though. I want you to look at the crowd. I'm going to come back to that and it is important.

Extreme competitive endurance events also trigger the release of your body's endorphins. These are natural opioids that reduce pain and cause numbness. As a former ultra endurance runner, I can attest that after about two hours you are high as a kite. After 5 hours and 64km (40 miles), like when I was asked to escort the torch bearers into Los Angeles in 1984 (I was an officer on the Olympic security team) the euphoria makes you 100% fearless. I've never tried opioids for recreational purposes, but beta endorphin has (according to the wiki) "approximately 18 to 33 times the analgesic potency of morphine". You can imagine how addicting this could be even though your own endorphins are much safer than any injected opioid. Trying to get that high using morphine would almost certainly kill you. There is also evidence that endorphins improve brain function and I always felt smarter on long runs, at least until I hit The Wall. I would often use that time to try to solve complex problems that were vexing me.

Endorphins are also released during game play. I'm sure this is why competitive endurance gaming ended up replacing my running addiction. I doubt there is any real research on what happens during extreme endurance play. The problem with such research is that it's generally regarded as unethical to conduct research on humans that could cause the subject to die or suffer significant harm. Thus some of what I may describe from first hand experience may not be rigorously supported in research yet, or any time soon.

As your gaming session goes on, the effects of Antidiuretic Hormone (ADH) become more pronounced even though they are largely invisible to the player. The effect we are concerned with here is that while this may conserve water to slow dehydration, it also slows kidney function. Thus toxic urea levels are building up in your blood stream during this entire process, even if you go to the restroom regularly.

As you become fatigued your body will start dipping into the nuclear weapon of stimulants, cortisol. Under the effects of this chemical humans are capable of nearly super human feats of focus. Your brain actually speeds up, making the world around you appear to slow down. It's basically a minor form of bullet time. It doesn't mean your body will speed up like Neo in The Matrix, but the rest of the world definitely seems to move slower. This gives you a lot more time to mentally react to various threats. Cortisol also impairs your immune system and reduces pain.

ADH also affects how electrolytes are excreted, which can in extreme cases (like these) cause an electrolyte imbalance that can disrupt heart function.

Biomechanically, sitting in a chair for a long time will lead to back fatigue and hip flexor shortening that can make standing up difficult and painful. Over several days this can lead to chronic back pain that might require rehabilitation.

If all of these warning signs are ignored then the body will move to the third stage of GAS in a last ditch attempt to overcome threat and avert death. The liver is trying desperately to maintain elevated supplies of glucose to the brain. Fatty acids are broken down to keep your muscles alive and maintain a glucose trickle, resulting in a buildup of poisonous ketones which make you smell sweet, sort of like acetone. You won't notice since it is hard to smell your own blood. Amino acids will be broken down to make extra glucose, especially when cortisol is high, causing urea to build up faster and making renal failure more likely.

Death is certain if the third stage of GAS is maintained, though how long that takes can vary widely depending on the circumstances.

As any parent with gaming children can attest, when a gamer gets "into it" they have a hard time noticing what's going on in real space. After a few hours of high intensity play the effects of cortisol and endorphins mean the gamer is high as a kite. This is a really pleasurable experience, and one that the player is not going to want to voluntarily stop. Players of "casual" or relaxing games may never have this experience.

Under natural conditions a cyberathlete will eventually have to get up to go to the bathroom. At this point, once immersion is broken they might realize that they don't feel good and call it quits. They might "just lie down for a second" and be out for hours. That's good because that is almost always enough to prevent the third stage of GAS. They might not even make it to the bathroom and just pass out on their computer. I've had many a World of Warcraft raid (which in the old days could last 8+ hours, I don't know if that has changed...) where one or more members of the raid became non-responsive because they passed out right there in their chairs during the raid.

The typical solution to the "problem" of sleep is to use a stimulant. There are many legal stimulants that can be used for this purpose, some even marketed specifically for this purpose. Like Red Bull, which I've seen promoted at several E3 conventions. This child decided that was his solution during a 14 hour Call of Duty marathon.

Our World of Tanks player on Twitch decided he just needed more cigarettes.

I never used stimulants during my extreme endurance competitive gaming. Thanks to my degree in exercise physiology and my time doing research on corticosteroid mechanics, I knew that if my own cortisol was not enough to keep me going then I was way over my head. As a good general rule, if you are under threat (including in a competitive computer game situation) and you still are nodding off, then you are in stage 3 of GAS. That stage is called "Exhaustion" for a reason. At this point the clock is ticking. In both of the cases I linked to in this article, the players were dead before they even got out of their chairs. In both cases they felt so bad that they got out of their chairs and started to die. The Twitch player collapsed off camera, did not receive immediate medical attention, and died. The child playing at school went into a coma, got immediate medical attention, and survived after 13 days in the hospital.

If you are going to use a stimulant to improve performance, then you absolutely MUST GET REST AFTER 8 HOURS. If you don't, or if you start using them after 8 hours, then you are playing a very serious game of Russian Roulette. And, every time you play this game, there are more bullets in the barrel because of progressive kidney damage. So it's only a matter of time before you lose.

If you have any related pre-existing medical conditions, then even that 8 hour guideline may be way too much. Being addicted already to caffeine, nicotine, or any other stimulant is a pre-existing condition since these addictions wear you out and leave you "pre-exhausted" before you even start. As with any other athlete, players wishing to compete at this level should see a physician and get a complete physical. You can't adjust for a pre-existing condition if you don't know it exists.

I must add that if a player has hit "The Wall" and is compensating with fat to glucose glucogenesis, and then consumes even a small amount of alcohol, the liver will switch to alcohol glucogenesis as toxin metabolism is prioritized. This is a much slower process and will cause glucose levels to get critically low. The one time it happened to me, when a teammate handed me a wine cooler after a long race, the initial result was severe convulsions. This was the most painful thing I had ever experienced, which is saying a lot. This same teammate (a notorious "drunken runner") identified the crisis immediately ("I've seen this before, this is bad...") and shoved a piece of candy in my mouth. This was exactly the correct response. In this situation glucose or sugar must be administered by IV or orally (sugar can enter the blood stream across the mucous membranes even without being swallowed) immediately or hypoglycemic coma (often called "diabetic coma") will result.

I have not reproduced this effect while gaming because I've never consumed alcohol while gaming. Alcohol would just make an extreme endurance gamer more tired unless it was in a caffeinated alcoholic beverage like Four Loco. Such products were essentially banned in the USA in 2010 but I do not know if they are still available to gamers outside the USA.

Remember Gabriela from the 1984 Olympics? Yea she totally should have stopped before doing her death march to the finish line. She knew it. The audience knew it and was mortified. The medical team there knew it but they could not intervene unless Gabriela gave them the okay. But...she couldn't do that. Not only was she representing her country, but there were thousands of people in the stands clapping and cheering. Hundreds of millions were watching on TV. This moment would define her life. This is an example of what I call Peer Effects, which are central to my personal research. I'm convinced that Peer Effects stimulate oxytocin, a hormone that might induce an even more intense "high" than any other chemical mentioned in this paper.

The body is incredibly resilient. There is no point in stopping if a tiger is chasing you, no matter how tired you are. We are a winning species because we have cortisol and endorphins that let us keep going even in extreme conditions. Peer effects also push us to fight for each other so that we sometimes win against tigers. In a game of World of Tanks, Call of Duty, or a World of Warcraft raid, you've got teammates that are counting on you. This creates a Peer Effect that can push you to keep going.

When I was studying Chinese competitive pay to win game models in 2009 in order to write my thesis paper (Sustainable Virtual Economies and Business Models, never published) I ended up being the top Western player in a game called Galaxy Online. I didn't have any money, I was a starving student. You know how they say you can still win without spending, but you have to invest more time? Well it was still true in 2009 but that's probably why IGG retired GO and rolled out the inferior GO2 which was impossibly P2W. The rest of the industry followed suit if they weren't there already.

In order to be the top player I played round the clock in addition to being really good at these sorts of games. Ultimately the only way the other team could beat my team was if they could attack me while I was sleeping. So they attacked me literally constantly 24 hours a day. I trained myself to sleep with the volume turned up and to automatically wake up (I lucid dream) if the attack ping frequency exceeded a certain rate. This indicated that it was probably hundreds of players attacking me simultaneously in a real attack, instead of the usual background fakes.

The result was continually elevated cortisol levels over a period of weeks. I had heart "wobbling" for hours every day that felt like premature ventricular contractions which I knew was not by itself immediately life threatening (this was during an 18 year period where I didn't have health insurance, but I previously taught cardiac rehab) for me as long as the PVC's did not get too close together. [Again, I must emphasize that if you get chest discomfort during extended game play, you should seek emergency medical attention immediately] I also developed a very unusual auto immune reaction that, after being misdiagnosed three times, caused an Ebola-like reaction that almost killed me while spraying blood in all directions. Cortisol interferes with proper immune function. I knew I had to quit and I did and my faction was overrun shortly thereafter on that server. Looking back, I was pretty lucky I didn't die back in 2009. I can get a little competitive and now I generally avoid playing FPS's or real time competitive games like World of Tanks even while I am in studios making them. This has caused me to be laid off from more than a couple jobs because "Ramin just wasn't into our game" or "part of the team". The truth of the matter is that I'm really good at these sorts of games but for my health I need to be very cautious about not getting sucked into them again on that level.

The most dangerous kinds of games in existence now are those that put you under threat while you are offline. Other than Galaxy Online (and GO2), the games I mention in this article are not those kinds of games. This class of game includes some of the most highly marketed games in the world including games advertised during this year's Super Bowl. The problem is that they encourage you not to sleep. The idea is that if they can keep you playing, they can keep you paying. They also charge you to sleep through the use of "Shields" that prevent you from being attacked for 8 hours or more. Honestly, it's cheaper in the long run (even if you get free medical care) to pay for one of those shields every night and that cost should be factored in if you want to see what the real cost to play is for these "free to play" games.

Some of these games are very popular with children, are made with cartoonish graphics, and are made simplistic enough to be played by even very young children.

Peer Effects can also backfire, encouraging players to play much longer than they otherwise would. This was a problem in both of the situations linked to here. It used to be that in the past these sorts of deaths were much more common in Asia than in the West. There they tend to play in internet cafes where there is an audience, especially if the player is good. This sort of attention can make you play longer, and pay more. This is a big part of why pay to win performs so much better in the East than it does in the West. In the West we play alone which causes us to have more anxiety, depression, mental illness, drug abuse, and we don't spend as much on F2P. But we are also less likely to "play till we drop".

Twitch and the era of eSports (which I've certainly been working to promote) might be changing that. If a player has an audience while they play, are paid for that audience, and there is anxiety that if they stop broadcasting at any time they will lose audience, then there is strong pressure to not leave the seat. Strong pressure to use stimulants. Strong pressure to ignore those warning signals the body is sending. Players could self regulate but that's probably not going to happen as long as the business and social model rewards them for entering the danger zone.

Amazon (the owner of Twitch) could introduce play caps for those they are paying, similar to what airline pilots have for their work hours. Educating them with something similar to this article might also help too. Have they had a physical? I'm not sure if the lawyers would feel this would limit or enhance their exposure, that's really beyond my expertise. My concern is player safety.

Personally, as a designer, I obviously want to be successful. I realize that getting players more engaged, for longer periods, might mean a lot more money for me especially if I am receiving a royalty. I just can't do this in a way that will jeopardize player health. I can't feign ignorance, this is my area of expertise. On my last project (that reached market) where I used secret sauce to improve commercial performance, I only had 10 weeks to build the meta game for World of Tanks Blitz. That product has become the world's top grossing F2P mobile eSports game and is now going multi-platform.

For my next project, which is completely of my design, I'm going to change some things. I'm lowering the adrenal axis stimulation to put less stress on players and require lower levels of engagement. This will allow the game to be played in a much wider range of environments and conditions. It will also allow it to be played longer with lower cortisol levels. At the same time I am introducing new Peer Effect technologies that should make order-of-magnitude changes to how engaged players feel to the game environment even with those lower cortisol levels.

The risk here is that if we use science (especially neuroscience) to making games vastly more engaging than they are now, we could put player health at risk. This process has already begun all over the world in many if not most leading game development studios. Thus my design has built in mechanisms to cut the player off when they've had too much. Sort of like a bar does if a patron drinks too much. I also anticipate warning players not to try to bypass these protections in creative fashion. I won't reward them for it, certainly. Designing these controls has taken me just as many years as designing the lures. If I didn't do this, I fear that if I am as successful as I would like to be then I could harm people. I realize others won't really care and may copy my future designs without these protections. My hope is that consumers will avoid these products if they have a more consumer friendly alternative, and that by that time regulators and platform operators (and of course lawyers) will be sufficiently sophisticated about these technologies that they will be able to intervene.

In an effort to promote consumer and medical education in this area, I'm determined to open source as much as I can about my methods if they prove to be effective. Thus I've been very careful over the last five years when signing agreements with companies to make sure I still maintain ownership of my technologies even while lending them out.