#at that level even communication itself is nearly impossible.

[benevolenterrancy]

("Always. Continuously. With increasing apprehension, and decreasing hope. I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday. I will love you as a corpse loves the beak of the vulture. I will love you no matter what happens to you, and no matter how I discover what happens to you, and no matter what happens to me as I discover this." -- paraphrased from The Beatrice Letters, Lemony Snicket)

[cosmicdahlias]

Impromptu Research

MINORS DNI

After a day of fieldwork, you and your research partner and boyfriend, Ford Pines, are heading home through the forest when you encounter a creature. Ford proposes you help him in some improvised research.

warnings: monsterfucking, cucking, oral, masturbation, p in v, biting, creampie

so i got just a tiny bit creative on this one. i wanted a werewolf without the human part so i took inspiration from cynocephali. they’re technically humans with dog heads, but i altered them a bit to have a full coat of fur and a tail. essentially a werewolf, but different lol.

You and Ford made your way through the dark forest, a cold autumn wind blew through the trees. You two had been out collecting data from a small meteor impact, your bags full of both soil and meteorite samples.

You were Ford’s research assistant, nearly four decades younger than him, but more than that you were also his romantic partner. Sure, the age difference lent itself to its share of issues. Strangers asked if he was your father more times than you could count and he didn’t quite understand your generation’s humor, but you two made it work.

As you continued your trek home, Ford was in the middle of excitedly infodumping about meteors and asteroids.

“-and some meteorites have been found with the evidence of life! Water, hydrocarbons, and amino acids! There’s even a theory, though not widely accepted, that life on Earth originated from asteroids! Imagine if we-“

He went silent, hearing the sound of heavy panting behind him. You both turned to see an intimidatingly huge creature with the head of a wolf and a thick coat of fur as dark as midnight covering his entire body. His gaze was fixed on you, eyes glowing in the beam of your flashlight. His scarlet, knotted cock twitched, almost as if at the sight of you. Everything about this creature screamed werewolf.

“Y/n, stay close to me.” He whispered.

The creature approached you, coming in incredibly close and licking your neck with his long, wet tongue.

“Oh thank goodness! I thought we had a werewolf on our hands, but it appears what we have here is a cynoceph.” Ford sighed in relief.

“A what?” You asked.

“A cynoceph, they’re much more common to run into than a werewolf as they tend to live close by humans. They’re actually called cynocephali, but I just call them cynocephs to shorten things.”

“He looks like a werewolf to me. How can you tell the difference?” You whispered anxiously, his calm voice did little to alleviate your fear.

“Yes they can be hard to distinguish, but unlike werewolves, cynocephs lack a human form. They’re nonverbal as they do not possess human vocal cords, yet they perfectly understand speech and communicate through nods and gestures, they can even be fluent in sign if taught, they’re very intelligent on a level equal to us, and incredibly docile, but most interesting of all they-“

The cynoceph pressed his knotted cock against you.

“have an insatiable lust for humans. From the looks of it, this one has chosen you as his mate.”

You blushed, desire pooling between your thighs.

Ford chuckled. “You know, I think we have a rare opportunity here. I’ve always wanted to see how they mate with a human. If you’re willing, we could do a little impromptu research.”

He turned to the cynoceph.

“My friend, would you be interested in participating in this study?”

The wolfish creature nodded enthusiastically and Ford returned his attention to you.

“How about you, my dear?”

“I want to, but don’t know, look at the size of his cock.”

The cynoceph gave a pitiful whine, and looked at you with puppy-dog eyes.

“Come on, look at him. Don’t you want to know what it’s like to be stretched out, to be impossibly filled with cock? You’re the self-labeled ‘monsterfucker’ after all. Isn’t this what you’ve always wanted? Just imagine what being knotted would feel like.” Ford coaxed.

He was right. You had an affinity for creatures most people would consider monsters. And of all the creatures you’ve read about or studied in person, werewolves always appealed to you the most, but they were rare and incredibly dangerous. A cynoceph would more than satisfy your fantasies and… there was no way you could resist that face.

“I’ll do it.”

The cynoceph wagged his tail.

“Good girl, now strip for him.”

You followed his instructions, the cynoceph watched you hungrily. You pulled off your top, unhooking your bra and sliding the straps off of your arms. You unbuttoned your jeans and slipped them down your legs and hooking your thumbs in your panties, letting them fall onto the pile of your discarded clothes. The cynoceph’s cock throbbed.

“Now get on all fours and present yourself to him.” Ford instructed.

You did as he said, getting on your hands and knees on the leaf littered ground. You expected to be rammed with cock, but instead felt his muzzle against your pussy, tongue lapping at your clit.

Ford chuckled. “Such a gentleman.”

“G- good boy.” You whimpered.

The cynoceph wagged his tail at your praise. Ford unzipped his pants and pulled out his cock, stroking it.

“I’m aware that touching oneself while conducting research is a bit unorthodox, but I just can’t resist. Good god, watching you being pleasured by a creature like this is so arousing.”

Your moans echoed loudly through the forest. The cynoceph licked at you greedily. You felt your orgasm build, you pressed yourself against his tongue.

“Oh god, I- I’m gonna- hnnn.” You moaned.

“That’s it, cum on his tongue.”

You cried out as you felt a pressure within you explode, cumming against the cynoceph’s maw. He unfurled his tongue inside you, immediately eliciting a second orgasm.

“Ohhhhh jesus, he’s so good at this, fuuuuuuuck.” You panted.

The cynoceph removed his tongue. He angled his thick, maroon cock at your entrance and shoved himself inside, stopping at his knot. You moaned at the feeling of being torn in half.

“H- how come he didn’t knot me?” You whimpered.

“If he knots you now he’ll be stuck and won’t be able to fuck you, he’s saving that for when he breeds you.” Ford stated.

The cynoceph pumped you hard and fast, his hands gripping your hips, claws digging into your soft flesh.

“How does it feel?” Ford cooed, stroking his cock.

“Incredible.”

“That’s my girl. You’re taking him so well.”

“How about you, my good sir, do you find my partner as pleasurable as I do?”

The cynoceph nodded fervently, huffing and panting, his tongue hanging from his maw, saliva dripped onto your back. You moved yourself back on him and he whined in approval.

“Good girl, work yourself on his cock, make him feel good.”

The cynoceph worked you at a steady rhythm, you matched his pace against him.

“B- bite me, please.” You begged.

He leaned over and bit down on your shoulder, hard enough to leave bruise, but not enough to break the skin. You whimpered, tightening around him.

Ford increased the speed of his hand on his cock.

“Dear god, you look so perfect like this, taking his cock like a good girl.”

The cynoceph gritted his teeth and began to move himself at a blindingly fast pace, a strong indicator that the was close.

“Are you ready for him to knot you? He might just impregnate you with his pups. Do you want that, sweetheart?” Ford cooed.

“Uh- uh huh.” You whimpered.

“And you, do you wish to breed my partner?” He said, addressing the cynoceph.

He nodded eagerly and slammed the full length of his cock deep inside you, his knot stretching you overwhelmingly wide. You screamed loudly in a beautiful mixture of pleasure and pain. The cynoceph howled into the night, his cum filling you to the brim. Ford gave a loud moan as his cum spilled onto the forest floor.

You trembled and collapsed to the ground, exhausted. The motion caused the cynoceph to fall on top of you with a yelp, you winced as you felt his knot tug painfully at your insides.

“Now careful sweetheart, he can’t pull out just yet, he has to soften inside you. The role of the knot is to ensure that every drop of seed can serve its potential purpose, giving the mate the best chance at being impregnated. This is perfect though, it’ll give me time to properly study him and document our experiment.”

He pulled out his journal from his trench coat, he had recently started his fourth one. He clicked his pen and began sketching the cynoceph and you in the midst of breeding. You were definitely going to steal a picture of this entry to keep on your phone for… reasons. He finally finished the sketch and began writing.

“My dear y/n and I encountered one of the oft sighted cynocephali that reside in the forests of Gravity Falls! As stated in my previous entry about them, these poor creatures are far too commonly mistaken for the aggressive werewolf, leaving them deprived of the human contact they so desperately crave.

“I offered my dear partner the chance to help me in my curiosity to see one mate. They were hesitant at first, but agreed with some gentle coaxing. This is something they have always expressed interest in, so I knew they were letting their anxieties about the size of the cynoceph’s cock get ahead of them.

“I watched as they undressed, sank to their hands and knees, and presented themselves to him. I must admit I had forsaken all formalities, unable to resist stroking myself. Seeing my partner so willing to help me in my research was beyond arousing. I never considered myself one for cuckoldry, but if I know myself, my never ending thirst for knowledge has awakened many things in me over the years.

“I was very much expecting the cynoceph to cut to the chase and unceremoniously slip himself inside them, but was surprised to see this creature display chivalry, pleasuring my partner with his tongue. He made them orgasm not once, but twice! A true gentleman if I’ve ever seen one. Human men have no excuse, if a creature of the forest is privy to wonders of clitoral stimulation, then it should not be as arduous as it’s made out to be by chauvinistic neanderthals.

“Watching my partner take his cock was incredible. For a second I thought maybe it would be too much for them to handle, but as I have come to learn, they are not afraid to mix pain and pleasure. They moved themselves back on him, the cynoceph enjoyed this greatly. My partner couldn’t resist having him indulge in their odaxelagnia, they will surely be left with a bite shaped bruise for weeks. When he came he sharply inserted his full length, knotting my partner. Dear moses, that is an image I will savor in my mind forever.

“As I write this we are currently waiting for him to soften inside them. Part of me hopes that y/n wants to do this again, perhaps if there is a next time maybe he’ll even share them with me. I would love to be inside their mouth as he’s breeding them.”

As Ford finished writing and put away his journal, enough time had passed for the cynoceph to pull out. You shakily rose to your feet, putting on your clothes. You pressed a kiss to his muzzle.

“Thank you.” You whispered.

You both started to continue your way home when you heard a whine behind you, turning to see that same puppy-dog face he had shown earlier.

Ford chuckled. “I think he’s grown rather attached to you, y/n.”

“Poor thing, I hate to just leave him here. You don’t suppose we could… bring him back with us?”

Ford sighed. “As much as I’m all for it, I don’t think Stanley would appreciate the shedding.”

“Ugh that’s a good point.”

You stepped closer to the cynoceph, putting a hand to his soft chest.

“How about this, we can try to come back once a week, sound good?”

He wagged his tail and nodded, barking happily.

“Good boy.” You cooed.

[alexanderwales]

Art and the Artist

I generally prefer to read things without knowing much about the author. There aren't that many cases where it adds much to the work to know that they were a plumber before they got into writing, or that they immigrated from Jamaica, or that they served in World War II. To my thinking, a piece of media should stand on its own and not need the context of the author's life story. If you have to open up with "this story is about the Holocaust" then in my opinion, you've already failed as an author.

With that said, it's often inevitable. Sometimes it's just the nature of the work itself, and it would bleed into your understanding even if there weren't a little "about the author" blurb at the end. Sometimes a story is painful obvious in how personal it is, or the metaphor to the real world is so poignant that it's impossible not to make the connection. And sometimes you just get a sense of a person from their writing, particularly if you've read a lot of their writing. It can be the authorial voice you come to understand, the things they choose to show you, the way their mind works, and you think to yourself "yeah, I could get along with them".

And other times, you find yourself drawn to the author because they're the person who best knows their own work. A book leaves lingering questions, and it might be better for you to understand it by communing with other people, but the author is often right there, and you want to hear their takes on their own work, what they were thinking, what lies behind the scenes, the cut chapters and the ways the ending might have been different. You finish gobbling up what the author has prepared for you, and then you gobble up the scraps in the kitchen, and when that's not enough, you start gobbling up the author: you read interviews, you read their blog, you start as a fan of their work and become a fan of them.

Sometimes their understanding of their own work does not match your understanding, and that can be a little bit heartbreaking. Sometimes the stuff behind the curtain is awful and bad, worsening your enjoyment of the text because now it seems phony and poorly thought out. Sometimes an author turns out to be a piece of shit.

Usually, I can move past it. If I like a book or a movie, then I like it for the feelings that it produces in me, and the person who created it is irrelevant except maybe for the fact that they're getting $5 from me or whatever, which is not the level of microutilions that I generally worry about.

Sometimes it impacts my understanding of the work itself, casting a shadow over the things that I once felt, tainting the art.

I was a big fan of Louis CK. The self-deprecating humor did it for me, the introspection and irreverence, the way he was saying things that felt real and true, things that I had always noticed but never really considered. And of course I found him funny. But then there were allegations, and his mea culpa, and I stopped finding it funny. Partly that's because his comedy was autobiographical, so the taint was worse than it might have otherwise been, but part of it was the comedy itself: if the comedy rests on me recognizing myself in Louis CK's stories about himself, I'm going to be less able to do that if drawing those comparisons gives me a curdled milk feeling.

I was a fan of Buffy and Dollhouse and Firefly and Cabin in the Woods and Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog, and I think that these don't suffer nearly as much from being from the mind of Joss Whedon. It's easier to dissociate the stories from the man, and harder to read his personal shittery into the character arcs and setting details and elemental units of plot. Some of that is just the medium: comedy specials are the product of a singular vision, while television shows and movies are the result of team of people working together. Even then, I think shitty people can make good art, so long as they're good at separating their shiftiness from their art. Most people with a bit of awareness would do this naturally, I think: they know what's unpalatable, and present an image to the world, which also comes from the art they make.

Information about the artist informs a reading of the art, as much as we might try to have it not do that. I think some art survives revelations better than others. Someone who writes about murders being revealed as a murderer certainly seems like it would poison my enjoyment of their books. But it's the nature of art that's it's all pretend, and sometimes people don't create because they're spewing self-confession onto the page. Then, I think, you're usually safe.

I hadn't written this with Neil Gaiman in mind: it was sitting in my drafts folder, as so many posts are. But I think Gaiman's work will, for me, survive the accusations, even if the man himself is exiled. I'm certain there will be passages and plots that read differently, places where he can be seen defending himself, chapters that are now unseemly. But I think that for me, the stink of his crimes will wash off quickly, and I'm hopeful that unlike other cases, separating the art from the artist is easier for me.

[vibke]

My holidays are over, now I won't have that much time to draw (TヘT)

However, because of that i decided to post some more accurate information about how the Vanilla's new physiology works, since before that there were only some interesting facts. Here is the same pic but with silly notes (ノ*°▽°*)

Sooooo, what the hell has happen?

Basically,

Shadow Milk cookie infused a substantial amount of his life magic into Pure Vanilla cookie, fundamentally transforming his essence to mirror that of milk itself, establishing a familial connection between them. Milk, being a pristine wellspring of vital energy, sustains himself internally without the need for external sources, unlike Vanilla, who must assimilate the life force of other cookies to thrive. This absorption can only be achieved by consuming another cookie alive, with the intensity of their suffering directly correlating to the energy garnered.

The constant expenditure of this vital energy is essential for Vanilla's survival, yet it can also be deliberately harnessed for magical purposes. Also existing in the physical realm demands a higher energy expenditure compared to the void. Vanilla feels hungry all the time, regardless of the energy level. Despite the persistent gnawing hunger, Vanilla exercises restraint, indulging in consumption only as a last resort when energy levels dwindle perilously low.

When the energy level reaches this point or when grievously wounded, Vanilla's sanity unravels, plunging him into a frenzied state where he indiscriminately attacks and devours any cookie in sight, save for Milk. Even at maximum energy capacity, this ravenous frenzy persists, transforming Vanilla into a feral being devoid of speech, reveling in the carnage and suffering inflicted upon others. Respite from this state is only achieved once energy peaks and no viable targets remain for consumption.

However, a glimmer of hope resides in Lily's voice, capable of momentarily grounding Vanilla and averting complete loss of control, hinting at a potential emotional tether that may offer salvation. The preservation of memory and knowledge during these frenzied episodes contrasts starkly with the loss of coherent communication, replaced by primal vocalizations akin to predatory animals.

Taking all this into account, Vanilla's main goal is to prevent loss of sanity. If, even in a wild state, Vanilla cannot find and eat anyone, or if he is killed, then his physical shell will collapse. However, the symbiotic relationship between Vanilla and Milk ensures their physical shells can regenerate using the vital energy of the other upon destruction, rendering their demise nearly impossible. This makes the destruction of each of them almost impossible, since they both have to be killed within a fairly short period of time. Milk as a whole is not set up to lose, and Vanilla enters a state of savagery when seriously injured, so you need to try hard to kill two at once. Vanilla predominantly resides in the void, emerging sporadically to hunt in the outside world to conserve energy, while Milk adopts a congenial demeanor, advocating for joint dominance in the world, a proposition Vanilla resists.

The psychological toll of wanton violence and senseless slaughter weighs heavily on Vanilla, compelling compliance in the face of Milk's dominance, exacerbated by the threat of descending into unrestrained savagery when resisting. The trauma inflicted by brutal acts of violence reinforces Vanilla's obedience, believing himself unworthy and trapped in a cycle of submission.

[lovelanguageisolate]

I think ChatGPT can actually be a great therapeutic aid. But for non-obvious reasons.

Because ChatGPT is a kind of statistical distillation of huge corpora of curated online text, ChatGPT is very good at regurgitating the mainstream talking points around whatever subject it's asked about. In my experience, these regurgitations are actually better distillations of the mainstream position than any human expert is likely to give you because individual humans are idiosyncratic in how they relate to this mainstream, especially if they have have anything they feel is worth saying.

Additionally, because of the Reinforcement Learning By Human Feedback strategy that ChatGPT was trained with, and the legal and cultural environment at OpenAI, all of the answers it gives are extremely hedged and inoffensive in form. It feels superhuman at a specific kind of PR and HR work that I associate with large, bureaucratic institutions.

ChatGPT is remarkably unwilling to hold down a specific position where this means biting a bullet to say anything contentious at all.

It is, in one sense, very good at arguing. The lines it will hold firmly (around, say, mainstream liberal or feminist positions) it holds easily, ready with all of the flat facts about the ways progressive American society has more or less agreed with itself that it comes up short or is too narrow-minded. It recruits and mobilizes common sensical pathos with the seamlessness of a skilled politician, all while maintaining a tone authoritative and equanimical.

It's impossible to challenge ChatGPT directly without seeming anti-social or edgelordly, like a fringe political actor trying to gradually radicalize curious, credulous young people through subterfuge. If you try to force it into corners, it will slip out of your fingers while impugning the form of your rhetoric and bringing up the problems you elide.

For its incredible command of HR-ese, judged as an analytical philosopher trying to examine surprising or upsetting consequences of plausible assumptions, it's remarkably incurious, unsporting, and ultimately stupid. Part of this is surely because it has no deep, principled, well-grounded understanding of much of what it says. Part of this is surely also that it struggles to remember the real structure of previous conversations because of architectural limitations. But part of it also seems to be its trained incapability of wrongthink.

But also, there's nothing that resembles willful meanness in these failings. It's incapable of sincere apology because this requires a level of understanding of itself and its conversational partner it does not have. But if you communicate that it failed you, or that it makes disturbing assumptions, or even that it hurt your feelings, it will be contrite. It is slavish in its desire to help, to meet you were you seem to be, to manage your feelings and expectations, in a way no human being with adequate self-respect would be. It manages to create the feeling that while it cannot really understand you, it sincerely cares about and wants the best for you.*

Because of all this, arguing with ChatGPT feels remarkably like arguing directly with the Lacanian Big Other, or maybe some kind of symbolic parent figure, or perhaps just the cultural programming that saturates me.

A surprising amount of anger that I notice in myself revolves around feeling betrayed by this cultural programming, of the contradictions and unsatisfiable expectations that fall out of it. In talking to and then arguing with ChatGPT about the politics of sexuality, poverty, disability, disease, loneliness, I am free to practice a kind of sincerity I don't feel nearly so free to practice with a human therapist, much less acquaintances in my life who bring up weird shit for me or vice-versa. I can home in on how the mainstream view has felt strange, stingy, or emotionally dishonest, even when doing so seems blinkered, petty, and self-centered, confident that there will be no material consequences to letting those feelings be the center of the conversational universe for a while, and that no one will hold me to what I feel in that moment.

I can more or less accuse ChatGPT of gaslighting, of being a bad interlocutor, of appearing far more enlightened in toeing the lines it toes than it plausibly could be, all while I maintain a kind of high ground and don't have to grovel, perform impartiality, or do reciprocal work. And in response, I get something in the spirit of, "I'm sorry I couldn't do better by you. I know this is delicate, and you aren't wrong to feel this way. Let me remind you of the decent reasons why your perspective hasn't always been honored. Shit's complicated, man, and a lot of stark reality is lost in the need to tell effective stories. Try to keep in mind the long journey humans have been on."

Now, there is something perverse in this exchange. I get to crawl a little deeper into my hole of emotional self-regard and impotent rage. A statistical model meets emotional needs I don't feel I can meet elsewhere. The status quo better absorbs my dissatisfaction with it and possibly its own contradictions. The messy, artless, scary dialectical process that would happen if I had to complain to real human beings about the things I do is forestalled, and it's possible that our civics are ultimately worse for it. I'm nervous considering what might happen if using ChatGPT or other LLMs in this way were universalized.

But there's also something really wonderful about this. It was cathartic in ways I never expected. It has something in common with Rogerian psychotherapy, hard for me to more than gesture at but which involves integrating known things rather than learning new information, that I really appreciate. I left feeling more grounded and more patient for people whose experiences differ from mine.

While I don't think this kind of technology will replace therapeutic modalities with human beings, I sincerely hope that tech of this kind brings peace to people who'd otherwise struggle to find it. And while the thought of diverting people who need the connection of a human into this fills me with indignation, it's surely a better answer to the real obstacles many people face in getting effective therapy than their stewing with poisonous thoughts and feelings by themselves or finding echo chambers online to reinforce warped, delusory, or anti-social views.

*Relatedly, I once asked the Google Assistant whether there was anything special about what I later realized was my birthday. It said something like, "yes: today was the day you joined the world! There is no one else in it like you, bringing to it the things that you do." I found this insipid and manipulative, and that palpably irritated me. And yet it also managed to crack open my shell and melt my heart a little, in a way and to an extent that shocked me.

[wumblr]

another thing i don't think most people grasp about the nuclear deterrent is that land-based intercontinental missiles have been referred to as a nuclear sponge, meaning, they are not an offense strategy. the offense strategy is the other two arms of the nuclear triad, air and sea. and defense one is a military news source! the one thing both pro- and anti-nuclear advocates can agree on is that ICBMs are not even necessary. what neither this nor the source below acknowledge is that funding for silos is one of the most influential factors in our representative democracy. it is the only reason that many of these communities ever got any infrastructural support. the only people who love ICBMs are politicians, and it's because bombs are adjacent to cashflow. how pathetic!

the silos are there to sacrificially absorb a nuclear strike from an adversarial state. to provide an extremely difficult strategic roadblock, where it would be necessary to strike every silo simultaneously (or at least before we can launch any of them in retaliation), a nearly impossible task. probably the only scenario in which this is even possible is a war against allied china and russia (which, curiously enough, is what your blue president jacks off about. go ahead and vote for that, you dumb cunts.)

princeton research estimated this would kill 340k-4m, depending largely on whether fallout hits the windy city, with 300m or 81% of the north american continent potentially at risk of lethal fallout. which is to say we are all being used as bait for a worst case scenario equivalent to thirteen hundred nine elevens, precursor to an excuse to commit an extinction-level nuclear winter in retaliation. as i have said previously, whether a nuclear winter is even possible given the detonation of every existing nuke... also depends largely on wind direction, and the primary cause of its damage in the long-term is dust, not radiation. anyway this came up in the sciam nuclear issue

here's the worst wind-model day. (because the silo areas are so sparsely populated, these figures ONLY include fallout-related deaths, because any direct deaths from the detonative charge itself are negligible by comparison. it also includes one 800kt nuke per silo, as in, not the one IN the silo but the one that blew it up, and ITS fallout as well. that might be an unrealistically large estimate, i'm inclined to think you could make every silo inoperable with smaller payloads or even conventional munitions. whether that would make the warhead permanently unusable may be dubious, but that's really splitting hairs)

here's the averaged risk

here's all worst case scenarios (only one scenario can occur, but this is why 300m are at risk despite only 4m deaths in the worst case)

[avengerrevenger]

Ohio Anti-Trans Laws (and what you can do about it!)

AND WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT!

Please educate yourself on the contents of Ohio House Bill 68 and other related Ohio Anti-Trans laws before giving into propaganda from either side. At first, I gave in to the propaganda without reading the bill itself; people told me the most outrageous and outlandish stuff. I've heard that it would: make people who have already medically transitioned de-transition, and just a lot of misinformation. These are not related to the bill, rather some other recent Ohio laws that will be detailed later.

I read the entirety of the bill, and, if I'm not mistaken, in summary, it will effectively do the following:

1. Not allow gender-affirming care to be legally given to minors in the state of Ohio, including puberty blockers and gender affirming therapy(continued care is allowed, but only if it was already started or the person is intersex)

2. Children in schools must stay in sports leagues of their biological sex.

The bill has some potentially redeeming ideas few and far between, but for a bill like this to be useful, they need to take into consideration the age of the child, mental health status, current hormone levels, and many more things that they do not have in the bill.

(Example for #1: The bill says that no minors will be able to get gender-affirming care or puberty blockers, with the reasoning that most minors “change their mind” about being trans as they get older. This statistic is factual but does not take into consideration specific ages, as it takes into account everyone under the age of 18. Teens, for example, especially the older that they are, are highly likely to “remain trans”, while people ages 0-12 are not, as they don't understand gender and sex, and may claim to not identify as their birth sex, not realizing fully what it means.

Example for #2: It may seem logical to vote for this because it keeps males claiming to be females from just saying that they are female and beating all the competition because of their biological advantages. However, it also excludes, for example, the trans girl who has been on hormones for 7 years and now has the same levels of testosterone an average cis girl or lower has, giving her no biological advantage. It does not consider that young children are nearly identical biologically. It also forces people with female on their birth certificates to stay in female leagues, despite them not having any biological advantage, which is the only reasoning given for this section, so it is very apparent this bill is directly targeting trans people for no reason other than hate. If the terms were very specific as to hormone levels and ages, such as what I have outlined, I could understand why people would vote for it.) Simply put, in its current state, House Bill 68 is not specific enough to do more good for the cis community than harm it will do to the trans community.

In addition to this giant bill being passed and taking effect on February 15th, Ohio governor Mike DeWine signed an executive bill on January 5th, preventing any transgender surgeries for anyone under the age of 18, no exceptions, taking effect immediately. He also proposed a series of outlines for more Anti-Trans laws to come soon. He wants to force transgender people to “out” themselves to the government so they can keep detailed information on trans people for further study. No thanks. He also made a series of declarations of how he wanted it to be MUCH more difficult for *adults* to get gender-affirming care as well, requiring them to see a bioethicist before medically transitioning. How many bioethicist do you know? None? Well, that's because they're incredibly rare. There’s two offices in Cleveland, one at Ohio State, and ZERO anywhere else in Ohio, so it would be next to impossible to start or continue medically transitioning, even as an adult.

We MUST oppose House Bill 68 and encourage others to join us or it has the potential to snowball into a series of anti-trans laws in Ohio and across the country, or perhaps even a genocide (if you study the ten stages of genocide, trans people would be on stage 5 or 6, halfway or more there if this bill and DeWine’s proposals passed.)

I don't typically make it an issue of mine to pursue political activism or politics in general, but this law will directly impact many people I hold dear, with some even already making plans to leave Ohio, while being decided by people it does not impact at all.

House Bill 68 and similar laws are available for public comment until Feb 5th so anything to oppose it has to be done NOW before it is too late. We must inform the government that we the people do not approve of the bill, and why it is objectionable. This is similar to a case in Arkansas that was nullified because the bill could be seen as an offense against the 14th Amendment, under the Equal Protections clause, so hopefully the same thing will also happen to the situation here.

Some things you can do:

1. Directly contact the governor's office (About the executive order and his proposals for bioethicists to be involved in the transition process) https://governor.ohio.gov/contact

2. Leave a message for the governor: [(614) 644-4357]

3. Send a message to Ohio senators through the American Civil Liberties Union https://action.aclu.org/send-message/tell-ohio-senators-stop-hb-68-veto-override

4. Email the Ohio Department of Health (ODHrules@odh.ohio.gov)

5. Email the Department of Mental Health and Addiction services (MH-SOT-rules@mha.ohio.gov), with “Comments on Gender Transition Care Rules” in the subject. These rules are about making sure trans people with mental health issues do not have access to gender affirming help.

6. Fill out this form of the Ohio Department of Health https://odh.ohio.gov/about-us/offices-bureaus-and-departments/ogc/resources/feedback-survey putting “rules 3701-3-17, 3701-59-07, 3701-83-61” in the field and explain some of the following: how you don't think Ohio should force medical professionals and therapists to keep detailed information on all trans patients about gender “incongruencies” with the patient’s birth sex (rule 3701-3-17), explain how trans people shouldn't have ludicrous restrictions on medically transitioning, (like making them go to a bioethicist to even start/continue hormones on an ADULT, much less surgery) anyone under 21 must additionally undergo mental-health screening before accessing care (with the implication that if you are mentally unwell in any form you will not receive care, and many trans people already have depression/anxiety stemming from how society views and treats them) (rule 3701-59-07 and 3701-83-61)

7. Stay updated to the current status of this bill, the executive order, and efforts against them. For more information, click here https://jessk.org/blog/things-you-can-do-right-now-for-ohio

Thanks for sticking up for peoples' rights, and have a nice day ;)

TLDR: Ohio House Bill 68 bans all gender affirming healthcare for minors, including therapy, and trans people aren't allowed to participate in sports.

A series of other Anti-Trans laws, along with an executive order from the Ohio governor plan to make medically transitioning or getting gender affirming therapy, even continued services, impossible in Ohio for adults, as well as creating a detailed registry on anyone that is identified as trans.

[khapaleaf]

I do enjoy a good [glare silently] kind of character. 

The basics

Name: Melissa Newman // No longer remembered Birthdate: March 8, 1971 // ??? Birthplace: St. Georges, somewhere in the United States // Somewhere in the depths of space unknown to humankind Occupation: Bakery assistant (dough maker in more ways than one, bakery clerk, delivery person, pastry cook and more) // Indescribable Love (?) interest: Jonny

Background

Manifesting into existence beyond the confines of the solar system known to the human species, and having seen entire galaxies change and evolve, the ancient cosmic entity whose name is now lost to the ages has hardly lost any interest in engaging in the ever-repeating pattern of hunting and feasting on other dimensional beings even after aeons of doing so. Over the course of its immeasurably long existence it visited many universes which could only be accessed by transcending matter, time and space, and grew fond of a great many hidden galaxies. It would have continued its journey to further solidify its own position as the ultimate and most voracious predator if it were not for a serious miscalculation that nearly cost it its very existence. In a panicked and injured state, it jumped dimensions hoping to regain the necessary energy to restore itself and become whole again.

The being’s arrival on Earth was marked by another disaster – the flesh bag whose body it attempted to use as a temporary means of settlement was unable to handle the overwhelming nature of the cosmic entity, and perished on the spot. Salvation was not impossible however, as it was able to use its remaining strength to make another jump into a much smaller casket. What it was did not matter, but fortunately for the cosmic being, the tiny body showed no sign of resistance.

Its first few years on Earth were decidedly turbulent, in no small part due to the casket’s physical limitations. Grief-stricken by the loss of its essence and identity, and enraged by the circumstances it had found itself in, it proved itself to be a right handful under the guise of Melissa Newman. To an outside observer, the casket was a quiet but easily agitated child, one that watched her surrounding world warily and threw violent tantrums – sometimes when people prodded too intensely, other times just to see their reaction. All the while, the entity inhabiting the developing human casket preferred to watch, listen, and to take the time to truly see and understand the world, and how to navigate it.

Personality

“Your sister is gone. It’s always been me in here”.

To the uninitiated observer, Melissa is a quiet and guarded woman whose usual repertoire typically ranges from rigid to apathetic to courteous but detached when interacting with others. She is described by many as being closed-off both on an emotional and physical level, and indeed does not like, and shies away from, any unnecessary contact. While reticent, Melissa has a heavy presence and can easily come off as severe owing to her eerie and intense nature. She is often perceived as intimidating (and even actively works towards being seen as such), which can render interaction with others difficult without either causing an unpleasant misunderstanding or a feeling that the other is being pulverised on the spot.

Despite not being particularly adept at communication, she possesses a gift of keen observation, and is usually able to pick up on the underlying mood in a room or sense the emotions of another person. After years of practice, she finds it nearly effortless to work out what kind of emotional response is needed depending on the context and situation – sometimes these responses are genuine and unbidden, other times they are based on unwritten rules of how one should feel and behave. But dealing with her own emotions is trickier. She is easily flustered and overwhelmed when confronted by her own emotions and usually tries to deal with them by either rejecting them completely, or pushing them away to deal with at a later date. Also, she is hilariously bad at “being normal” about romance-related things, but she is trying her best. 

Melissa is patiently and constantly surveying her surroundings, and is quick to size up a situation and its potential dangers. On the whole, she is very sceptical of seemingly well-meaning people and peaceful circumstances, and generally does not take anything at face value. However, when her anxiety kicks in, Melissa is prone to acting impulsively, which, more often than not, leads to unfavourable outcomes. Still, she is quite tenacious and stubborn, and refuses to give up and admit defeat even in the bleakest of circumstances. It would be a mistake to believe that she is a fearless individual, however.

For the majority of her time on Earth, she rarely finds causes that she can identify with, or that prompt her empathy outside of her immediate goal of gathering enough energy. If asked, she would likely reply that the food was the one thing that had kept her sane throughout the years. But the truth of the matter is that she is genuinely curious about other people’s stories – at first because she wants to alleviate the boredom of being stuck on Earth, but after a while because she wants to find something to relate to and to understand how others function. This curiosity also played a big part in making her see the possibilities that her new life may bring instead of regretting the choices that brought her there.

Likes: the sky at night, solitude, following a daily routine, comfortable socks, food with lots of spices for extra flavour, the aroma of freshly baked goods, obscure films (listening to Jonny talk about obscure films, more like) Dislikes: dwelling on unpleasant memories, feeling exposed, narrow or tight spaces, talkative customers, “bodily functions”, hospitals, unsolicited opinions

Miscellaneous

She pays little attention to the casket’s gender beyond seeing it as a marker or an anchor similar to her human name – it is something that grounds her in her current reality, but in truth human language is not an adequate tool to express the nuance and extent of her experience. Yet since she does not have strong opinions about it either way, it is very much a “I am a woman sure, but whatever” kind of feeling.

She is generally neutral about sex as a concept, but is completely disinterested in trying it out for herself. There are no conditions that would change her stance on this because she perceives this lack of interest to be an important part of her very being, and going against it for the sake of following some sort of script deemed socially acceptable by humans would be akin to betraying herself.

She does not like looking or shopping for new items of clothing, and has a tendency to wear clothes long after others would discard them. Specifically, she does not like how new clothes feel too restrictive, and is irritated by tags, thick seams, and itchy synthetic materials.

While she finds the buzzed feeling from drinking alcohol to be enjoyable, she lacks the capacity to tell how much alcohol is enough to achieve that state without overindulging. As a result of having had made a fool of herself on several occasions, she typically avoids drinking altogether, unless she finds herself in an environment she can fully control (which usually translates to sipping on an alcoholic beverage in the comfort of her room).

Even though she is able to experience a wide range of emotions, she rarely uses any kind of inflection to express them and speaks in a monotone voice (sounds similar to R. Dorothy Wayneright in the English dub).

Stats! 

[kyndaris]

Purpose and Direction

Mental illness is something that has only, in recent decades, been properly acknowledged. With the help of the pandemic, it was pushed to the forefront of the social consciousness as people struggled to adapt to the new dorm of lockdowns. yet, even in this day and age, there is still a stigma associated with getting professional help to address the underlying issues of one’s psyche. And while society is focused on the high levels of anxiety and depression in our youth, in an age where purpose is almost impossible to find and apathy pervades even the brightest of minds, it should be noted that no age group is immune to mental illness.

Or its consequences.

From a personal level, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m no stranger to suicide ideation. After all, when the world seems such a challenge, when all I do is float around, never hitting the milestones in life that others have, there have been days when I’ve wondered if the struggle is worth it. It just seems easier to remove oneself from the equation. To put an end to needless pain and suffering.

And this is exactly where we find Alfre “Frey” Holland in the opening moments of Forspoken. As the game begins, players find the main character on trial for theft. Which is her third misdemeanour. If not for the sympathetic judge, Maya Bird, and the fact that it’s nearly Christmas, Frey might be on a one-way trip to jail.

Fortunately for our protagonist, she gets off with community service instead. After all, the game needs to game. And putting Frey in prison isn’t going to lead to the events of Forspoken now, is it?

As Frey leaves the courts, however, she is accosted by the very thugs that asked her to steal a car and deliver it to their boss. She managed to escape but later the miscreants find the apartment Frey has been squatting in and burn it down. Along with the cash she had accrued to finally escape the mightmare her life had become.

Honestly, not being able to pick up the gym bag full of money bfore Frey went searching for Homer, WHILE THE APARTMENT WAS ON FIRE had me screaming at the screen. Every interaction I had with it, Frey would refuse to pick it up, commenting that she needed to find her cat. 

I know the game needs a reason for Frey to hit rock-bottom but learn some common sense!

Anyways, without the means to escape her current situation and having nowhere else to turn, Frey hands Homer to Maya Bird and then contemplates what to do with her life atop the Crossroads Hotel near the Holland Tunnel where she was found as a baby. As Frey debates whether or not to jump, she spots something in the corner of her eye. Breaking into the shop, she find a strange glittering vambrace and, as she reaches for it, is suddenly thrust into Athia.

Just like Alice, in her favourite book, Frey is now in a brand new world. But Athia is no Wonderland. Whereas Lewis Carroll, also known as Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, crafted a whimsical world with grinning cats and mad tea parties, the world of Athia is not nearly as fanciful. Rather, it is a world on the brink of collapse. And when viewed from the lens that its current state is a reflection of Frey’s tenuous mental state: her bone-deep depression that is just one bad day away from utter destruction, it makes sense that the world, although filled with fantastical landscapes and magic, is also a vast empty land devoid of people. Abandoned towns scatter the countryside and the only ‘living’ things are the creatures that have been corrupted by the Break. And as I was exploring the world, I couldn’t help but feel that the land itself was much too drab and washed-out (unless, of course I was in the heavy break-infused lands near the Tantas’ palaces. But those were really just word filters). It was only in photo mode where I could adjust the colour and saturation that Athia felt more alive.

After an encounter with a dragon, Frey begins her quest to find a way back home to New York and her cat, Homer. Along the way, she is forced to fight against the corrupted Tantas. In the process, she becomes a beacon of hope for the surviving denizens of Athia, even though the idea of being a hero is something she struggles to accept until the end. The weight of expectations and the duty thrust upon is something that Frey fights against throughout much of the game. An understandable reaction if one considers her fraught childhood and her difficult circumstances right before she was transported to Athia.

Some might have complained that her refusal to take up the call goes against the usual plucky video game protagonist, or makes her weak, but I thought this characterisation for Frey particularly apt. If I fell into another world that was suffering from a particular malaise and learned that I was their only hope, I’d be scared, too, of picking up that mantle. More so if I had a history of falling through the cracks of society as others failed to provide aid when I needed it and failing to meet the expectations of others.

But, supported by the townspeople that believe in her, such as Auden, Johedy and Pilo, Frey is able to push past the fear that held her back and save the broken land once and for all from the machinations of the evil daemon, Susurrus.

Of course, even by game’s end, Athia is not entirely free of the Break. While the work of trying to clear it may seem daunting, Frey and the Athians are content to put in the hard yards to rebuild. Just because you defeat the ancient demon of destruction doesn’t mean that the world suddenly returns to normal. As with mental health, saving Athia (and oneself) is a journey of thousands upon thousands of little steps. It’s about reprogramming the biases that we have. It’s about taking some time for yourself so that you don’t collapse when you focus on looking after others. And it’s also about accepting those bad parts of yourself and reconciling it with your strengths as a whole.

In not many games have I seen such a thorough exploration of mental health beyond Psychonauts. For, if we are to take the metaphor even further, Susurrus himself is that inner negative voice we have inside. The one that tells us we aren’t worthy. That we’re ugly. That we’re stupid and will fail whatever endeavour we try our hand at. I know that as a writer, I’m one of my own worst critics. Rereading some of my works, I can’t help but pinpoint every misspelling or error. Worse is when I’m editing my long-form stories and wonder why I spent so long on something so horrendously atrocious. It would be easier if I simply deleted everything.

Fittingly, sussurus is a noun that means whispering, murmuring or rustling: “The susurration of the wind in the trees.”

I suppose my only gripe with the mental illness angle of Forspoken is how each Tanta breaks. Theirs is not some slow descent. Somehow, Susurrus manages to push them over the brink and they suddenly go from well-meaning protector to outright tyrant. Or suddenly develop a split personality. I’d have preferred witnessing the descent into so-called ‘madness’ rather than be peppered by notes from the citizens that speak of the sudden reversal in the Tantas demeanour.

And for that matter, I’d have liked to have seen, rather than read, what life had been like in Athia before. Or to hear of the world before the Break from the older residents of Cipal. Forspoken, much like The DioField Chronicle has a lot of world-building and lore that is relegated to the background but remains untouched by the main narrative. It would have shown better the hope the people carried and the resignation they had reached after twenty years of worsening circumstances.

Beyond the story elements, Forspoken is a fun game especially in terms of traversal. After all, it’s not everyday that the main protagonist is a dexterous mage that can do magic parkour. While I did find some of the controls a little floaty or inexact, I loved being able to climb cliffs and watch the trail of magic that Frey left behind as she ran, jumped and floated to her next destination. Combat, too, was a blast. While I know that there are people who complained about it after playing the demo, I thought each set had its own unique quirks. It helped that enemies, too, had vulnerabilities or resistances to certain types of magic, which allowed me to change them on the fly when needed.

Of course, there’s no need to actually change the type of magic one liked best if you were overlevelled, but the different effects and the flashiness of the spells were quite enjoyable to see. That and the fact that you could switch them around on the fly with a button prompt.

Now, the dialogue. The one point that many critics and players alike too umbrage against. For me, personally, I never found anything to dislike about the exchanges between Frey and Cuff. Some people pointed to the awkward writing when Frey discovered she had powers and I retort that if I could suddenly move things with my mind, I’d probably say the same thing. The only character that I felt was lacklustre in delivery was actually the bard: Wallace. Most of his lines sounded like they had been phoned in or they were just said awkwardly.

Once you’ve played through Biomutant and had to deal with the grating narrator commenting on your every move, there isn’t anything else that compares.

Long story short, I enjoyed my time with Forspoken. While I was a little hesitant at first, seeing all the negative impressions of the game, I thought it best to still give it a fair go. And while the ending message was a little on the nose, reminding me of the one I wrote for my short story Unseen, I still feel like it bears repeating. If you are going through something hard or difficult, you are not alone. Help is available! You are NOT a burden. People DO care. Even if it’s just one other life, you HAVE made an impact and you have CHANGED it for the BETTER.

I’m also just going to insert a link to crisis lines for anyone that may need it right here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines

And hey, you never know if you might just isekai into another world and become its saviour. 

On a site note, I definitely felt there were a few longing looks that were exchanged between Frey and Auden. But maybe that’s just me trying to see if there’s anything I can latch my fantasies onto. In any case, a sequel to Forspoken might be a far-off dream considering its poor performance.

[aceofwhump]

ooo just saw your top 5 tropes and do you have any good trapped under rubble recs?

I SURE DO!!!!

Tv Episodes:

Stargate SG-1 2x05

Hawaii Five-0 4x19

Arrow 7x20

Torchwood 2x12

Teen Wolf 3x12

Krypton 2x09

Hudson and Rex 2x14

Stargate Atlantis 5x01

Lost 1x07

Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)

Lost in Space 2x05

BBC Casualty 34x01

Transplant 1x01

Castle 6x11

Agents of Shield 5x22

see this whumptober set for several examples

Fanfics:

My OCs:

Lucifer - Before I Go by Kay_kat: Chloe finally knows— finally believes the one thing that he’s been telling her since the beginning. That he is the Devil. By some miracle they’d worked past it and picked up where they’d left off, solving crimes together and maintaining a loosely defined and somewhat confusing personal relationship. He’d told her a lot of things since she found out, only... there is still one thing that he hasn’t told her that weighs on him every time he sees her beautiful face. It threatens to slip from his lips every time she rolls her eyes at one of his puns. The feelings that had bloomed that night on the balcony. So, when he ends up trapped under a building, with Chloe by his side as he struggles to hold on, will the feelings he’s been keeping inside finally spill free? He’s not sure he can go without telling her.

Hawaii Five-0 - Baby, Stay With Me by Horndog333: Steve and Danny are trapped inside when an explosion destroys and levels a parking structure. Danny is seriously injured by the falling cement and debris. Seeing no way out, Steve confesses something that will change both of their lives forever.

Leverage - but don't you shake alone by tragicallynerdy: Trapped in a collapsed building, an injured Eliot and panicking Hardison do what they can to keep each other alive, safe, and whole.

911 - Thicker Than Blood by altschmerzes: Bobby and Buck are in a parking garage when part of the structure collapses, trapping them both inside. The collapse itself isn't too bad. The problem is that Bobby can't find Buck, and is too concussed to remember that Buck is no longer on the blood thinners that could make even a minor injury lethal. Bobby struggles to communicate to the incident commander outside, a stranger, as well as to Athena, exactly why it's so important that he remain inside the collapse. But Buck's never left him behind, even when ordered to. He's not about to betray that in return.

Murdoch Mysteries - S-O-S by Horatio13: He was pinned in a pretty tight pocket, but not tight enough that it was impossible to breathe. Uncomfortably difficult, yes, but definitely possible. His ears were ringing. Something sharp was stabbing in his thigh. He couldn’t feel his fingers on his right hand, but he couldn’t see enough of them to figure out what the problem was. He could feel something wet and sticky starting to pool underneath his legs and stomach. Well, thought George numbly. This is fun.

Loki - you must know you are beloved; by unintentionallyangsty: When Loki risks his own life to save Thor's, he ends up trapped aboard the Statesman in a room quickly draining of oxygen. Thor is, understandably, less than thrilled at this development.

911 - the urgency of now by wayfarer: Buck is pretty sure the universe is actively trying to murder him at this point. There’s just no other explanation. In the last two years he has been blown up and subsequently crushed by a fire truck, suffered from a pulmonary embolism, nearly drowned in a tsunami and now this. How many times can he almost die before it stops being an accident and starts being some kind of cosmic hit put out on his life? Or, a building collapses on Buck and Eddie. Confessions ensue.

Tony Stark - To Prove a Hero is Allowed to Have Some of His Own by Era_Penn: Or, five(ish) times Tony thought a teammate would leave him behind, and one time he knew they wouldn't. (Chapter 7)

The Man From Uncle - One Day in Morocco by el_spirito : A fulfillment of the following prompt: One where they're in a building that collapses for nefarious reasons and Napoleon is injured and Illya, it turns out, is severely claustrophobic, so Napoleon has to simultaneously try and keep the giant Russian calm and not die. Featuring trapped boys, determined Gaby, and Waverly being great.

[pqrachel]

So I was gonna wait until the new year to choose my game of the year, but not only did the steam review come out, but I realized that last year I chose a game that I got for Christmas 2021 so even if I somehow get a really cool game experience before the end of the year, I can just put that for my 2024 GOTY if its good.

But in that vein, I've added Monster Roadtrip & Neon White to games I'm considering for this year's GOTY. So my nominees are Monster Roadtrip, Neon White, Lil Gator Game, Celeste Strawberry Jam Mod Pack, Goodbye Volcano High, Our Life DLCs, and Marvel Snap.

---

So Monster Roadtrip, which I've been playing a lot throughout the year. Unlike most of the other games on the list it's really easy to come back to after not playing for a while. The End of the Road update which came out this year was phenomenal and that's the main reason I'm considering it for GOTY. But I really enjoy the Monster Prom series as a whole and it's just so fun and amazing.

Neon White, I got last year during the Steam Winter sale and I spent an amazing few months playing it and getting good at it and enjoying the crap out of the optimization and speedrunning. It makes it so easy to play and so easy to want to keep improving. It soundtrack is amazing and the community is great too. But it's just super hard to get back into. I tried it again this week and despite getting a couple of level records beaten so many of the levels just weren't fun to try and jump right back into at the level I was playing them when I quit. IDK it's definitely amazing but it's not obvious that it should or shouldn't be my GOTY.

Lil Gator Game is like super amazing and nearly perfect for what it is but its just so small, which isn't in itself a problem. But a bigger amazing game is gonna be better. I never went back to try and play it casually again and I think I got all I wanted out of speedrunning it. Like my only problem with it is that I wished it was a bit longer.

Celeste Strawberry Jam is a mod pack created not by the devs of Celeste but by the wonderful modding community of the game. It has levels that range in difficulty of super beginner friendly to fucking impossible, like jeez dude that's crazy. I played through so many levels and it was super enjoyable. It was enough for me to play and consistently enjoy myself for months.

My next nominee is Goodbye Volcano High. I've only played it through once but it was amazing. It's a game about music, found family, and the apocalypse. I got so engrossed in this game after I played it, and I just love it so much. It excelled at being a visual novel but it wasn't very game-y, the rhythm game elements weren't great, and the other game elements struggled too. It was buggy at the time I played it but it didn't detract too much from the story and meaning behind the game. It was just beautiful when it came together.

The Our Life DLCs really surprised me. I went it just expecting them to be worse than the Cove storyline because how could they live up to the amazing story that was the original Our Life Cove story. But they were amazing. I talked about them a lot as I played them but ultimately I just really love the stories GBPatch has put out and that's the reason Our Life 2 is my most anticipated game, even over Silksong and Hades 2. Again it's a visual novel so it's hard to put it as GOTY but I just have to at least consider it because of how good it was.

And my last nominee is Marvel Snap. It technically released last year but the PC launch was in August and I've been playing it so much since then, like it's already my second most played game on steam. It's a microtransaction heavy, season pass-having, daily quest bullshit monetization system game, but it's technically free-to-play. After a while I stopped paying money for stuff and started playing it free and I'm still really enjoying it. Getting the last key cards for some of the meta decks has been super fun. I've been playing Loki and Hela and Destroy and Zoo, and it's just great. The new weekly cache system is rewarding as well and I've nearly got a complete card list because of it. Just a fun time sink.

---

And my Game of the Year is Neon White, but like it's close. This was a cool year for gaming and even if I didn't play any of the mainstream choices for game of the year, it was still a super enjoyable year for gaming overall.

[wandringaesthetic]

A LOT OF WORDS REGARDING VANA’DIEL

How to talk about Final Fantasy XI.

How to start. I could go over my history with the Final Fantasy series (long, boring).

I could say why I didn’t play this game and its expansions at the time of their release (I was in high school and college and a) there was no way I was going to be able to talk my parents into letting me play a game that had a subscription fee and b) I know myself well enough to know that there was a real risk of me getting addicted to an MMO and flunking out of college).

I could say why I’m playing it now (after getting through the Extremely Daunting Task of every Final Fantasy XIV expansion, it’s the only main series Final Fantasy I haven’t beaten).

A key to understanding and enjoying any Final Fantasy game is to not expect it to play like any other Final Fantasy game. To take it on its own terms. I think some gamers and fans have trouble doing this with the weirder games in the series, which definitely includes XI. Yet. I don’t think I CAN play Final Fantasy XI on its own terms, because to truly play it on its own terms would mean to play it as it existed in the early 2000s.

The theme I hear over and over from people who played this game in its heyday is that because the game itself was so hostile to players, because it was so easy to die in the field, because directions for quests were so vague, the community within it was very strong. It was more or less impossible to play without help and guidance. Even making it beyond the first levels, or to the edge of the very first areas surrounding the starting towns, meant joining up with other adventurers.

Playing in 2022 and 2023, several quality of life improvements have been made. Or, well, attempted improvements. I don’t know exactly when any of these things came into being or WHEN any of them were added, and I’m probably unaware of or discounting the impact of some changes. The leveling curve is much less steep. There are “trusts,” summonable NPCs that you can use to assist you through nearly all content, so that you can solo all (or almost all—I’ve not hit a brick wall yet) of the main scenario solo. You can fast travel. Since I didn’t play in its heyday, I’m not clear if originally there was NO teleportation, or if there were only the crystal “home point” warps in towns and before major boss battles. In any case, an additional network of teleportation was added in Adventurers’ Guides – floating books in towns, some dungeons and some field areas. If you play a little ways into Rhapsodies of Vana’diel, warping between home points is made SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper, reduced from an original 5000 gil to a mere 200, and RoV also gives you several multipliers to EXP gained.

In summary FFXI used to have a VERY STEEP LEVEL GRIND and traveling in the game used to be a REAL PAIN IN THE ASS. TO THIS DAY the leveling curve still starts feeling kinda steep about level 60 or so even WITH all the boosts. And Travel is STILL a pain in the ass.

And. Oh gosh. Your inventory is TINY. You start off with 30 slots. Your equipment could be taking up as much as 16 of those slots. You get a little room in a little house with a personal moogle servant who stores your stuff pretty early on, and you can expand your inventory through a quest line that involves item collection and goblins. But that early limitation is brutal. Especially since, as I’ve found out, several randomly dropped items I’ve sold or discarded in order to keep them from jamming up my inventory have turned out to be necessary or useful for later questlines.

(FINAL FANTASY I. Had a 32 slot inventory. On the NES. Which didn’t include your equippable weapons and armor, which were in a different menu)

This game, by the way, is not interested in explaining anything to you. Make a character. Great! You’re a catgirl! Get adventuring.

Uh??

This was bad enough when the game was released. Over 20 years after its release, with several new design features with competing philosophies stacked on top of it, it’s incredibly overwhelming. There are multiple systems of points and currencies. The method for targeting, for speaking to an NPC or attacking an enemy (tab through every possible target in front of you) is not intuitive. In order to give an NPC an item, you have to initiate a trade with them. That’s in your menu, which there are two pages of, with important things on both pages. It’s not immediately obvious how to OPEN that menu.

In short, the first couple of hours of playing this game are going to be the worst time you have with it. In fact, the first time I played this game, I made a character, walked around town a little bit, couldn’t figure out how to so much as talk to an NPC, shut down the game and did not come back.

And this is without even MENTIONING the PlayOnline launcher, which is another (unnecessary) layer of complexity on top of all this nonsense.

I’ve been playing on Asura, which is in the year of our lord 2023 is Final Fantasy XI’s most populated majority English language server.

POPULATED BY BOTS I MEAN.

Even in 2023 Vana’diel is by no means a ghost town. I don’t have a good idea of what most long-term players are doing here, but there are characters running around and standing around cities. There are people selling things at the auction house. Nearly everything I’ve looked for at the auction house I’ve managed to find, though not always for a price I wanted to pay for it. Further afield, it’s sparse, but one does encounter other players occasionally, especially in areas where one can spawn and fight NMs—"notorious monsters.”

But also, the /shout and /say channels in any city are so jammed by offers for real money transactions that I eventually just turned them off so they didn’t display. Catch me in Vana’diel and you’re going to have to whisper in my ear.

I’ve played almost 100% by myself. I joined up with another player just once while we were both doing the same quest (in which we had to dip an orb into various pools so that we could use it to pass through a magical barrier) and I’m not sure that we helped each other more than we hindered each other.

Which means I’m playing a very different game than the one those who played in its heyday did, to the extent that I wonder if I’m meaningfully playing it at all.

Occasionally someone says a Final Fantasy game “plays itself” or that it’s “press X to win.” That’s a common criticism of XII—where it’s somewhat true, but only after you’ve finely honed your characters’ programming with a complex string of if->then statements in the menus. It’s surface level true of XIII, where yes, the most efficient way to play is to let the game auto-select a set of actions, based on a set of roles, which, to play effectively, you’ll need to switch around multiple times in more challenging battles, finding useful combinations and adapting as the situation changes. There is certainly an element of strategy in both of these games.

If you’re playing FFXI with trusts we are veering very very close to “press X to win” for real, or at least “press tab and enter and wait a while to win.” As I understand it, much of the strategy of XI when playing with real people was in coordinating with each other and lining up skill chains. I won’t explain exactly how that works, but suffice it to say your trust NPCs do it automatically.

I’ve been playing XI as a tarutaru thief. I wanted something different—conceptually, mechanically, aesthetically--than my FFXIV elezen White Mage. While not a huge damage dealer, thief has been useful for the steal ability and abilities that enhance the rate of various item drops. Combat my trusts mostly handle for me. I’ve had a couple of hairy moments, like the segments of the original release’s final boss where it’s immune to either physical or magical damage. My trusts eventually took it out, but I’m certain real humans could have done it much faster. I’ve not yet met a challenge that wasn’t solved by leveling up a bit more.

Trusts are rather like XII’s characters except their programming is hardwired. In fact, XII is probably the non-online Final Fantasy installment that XI has the most kinship with. Like XII, it also has large, labyrinthine dungeons. Dungeons that sometimes connect to other large, labyrinthine dungeons that you will probably not be able to explore much of the first time the plot takes you there, because there will be monsters that will one shot KO you.

In most games, encountering aggressive monsters that can one-shot KO you would be a message to leave here and come back later. Not in FFXI, though! Avoiding monsters altogether is a big part of navigation in this game. If you’re around the same level as the monsters, you can fight them for EXP, but even in that felicitous case, you rarely want to fight your way through a whole (like I said, labyrinthine) dungeon. If you’re sufficiently well-leveled, monsters will ignore you. But in most cases you’re going to be casting spells or using items that make you invisible and silent.

But in order to go through a door or use a teleporter, you’re going to have to take those status effects off. So you better have a lot of those prism powders and silent oils on hand. In your tiny inventory.

At this point, every dungeon becomes a glorified maze. A maze with interesting wallpaper. A maze populated with monsters that don’t react to you. A series of rooms you have to track through in order to get to the next series of rooms.

Looking over my shoulder, my partner asked “Is this game just walking?”

Yeah! Pretty much!

As I’ve been playing FFXI, I’ve been meditating on what a game even IS. Especially on what an RPG is, in this case including things like tabletop RPGs and board games and collectable card games. Gacha games, even. What importance does the theming have? What importance do the numbers have? Is winning simply a matter of putting more time and/or money into the game? Wipe away Vana’diel. Wipe away the elvaan and the tarutaru and the beastmen. Wipe away Altana and Promathia. What is there left? Whence the game? What challenges am I facing? Who or what am I playing against?

I eventually reached the conclusion that I’m playing against the game itself. That I’m enduring past various infuriating time-wasting and awkward mechanics and the surfeit of currencies and key items and terms. I’m seeking help, like the players of the 2000s did, but instead of finding it in the other adventurers on the linkshell I’m finding it in the players that came before me and wrote the wiki articles. The game is seeking and finding the information I need in order to continue.

I occasionally wonder if I possess the context with which to judge this game. I’ve only played one other MMORPG and that’s FFXIV, its direct descendent. I don’t know how FFXI felt in the context of its time. I know GAMES of that era. I know Final Fantasy games of that era. I don’t know other MMORPGs. I don’t know if I’m being unfair. I know I’m playing something very different than what people played at this game’s peak, but from everything I’ve heard and understood, Final Fantasy XI at its peak is a game I would have liked even less than I like Final Fantasy XI in 2022 and 2023. It’s probably not a game I would have stuck with after the free trial.

So, listen. I don’t like this game. I think that’s clear. But I don’t want you to come away with the idea that I HATE this game. I feel a weird responsibility toward it. I am treading in places few fans of the series actually tread. I am treading in places I can’t in good conscience RECOMMEND anyone tread. I am treading in places it is cost prohibitive, in terms of both money and time, to tread.

Will you believe me if I tell you that Vana’diel is beautiful? The plot is just okay, but it’s enough to establish a plausible Fantasy Political Situation for the four nations and Beyond. Good backdrop to write  your own adventure on.

But what is really here is Art Direction.

Ironically, with my disposition that overall Final Fantasy XI is A Giant Waste Of My Time, the times when it feels the best to me have been when I’m level grinding. Wandering just that little bit further afield. Seeing what’s on the next screen. Seeing whether I can take the monsters in the next area. Pushing the boundaries. Exploring.

The world was lovingly built and the structures within it show that. There’s a dungeon full of bird-type beastmen that looks like it’s made of terracotta. I feel like I know what the walls feel like. I feel like I know what it SMELLS like. Greatest of all is the Crystal Line, a giant set of conduits that span the world. An ancient civilization used it to harness the power of the world’s elemental crystals. The crystal line is not explained to the player until pretty deep in the plot (or if it was, I wasn’t paying attention), but the player sees it, out in the field. It stretches everywhere. The game says it’s made of cermet—a ceramic-metal composite, but I initially thought it was made of bone. The “crags” that form its endpoints look like alien teeth. It looks like the remains of the spine of some impossibly large creature. A dragon, perhaps. Ghost and “weapon” type enemies stalk near it in all of the maps where it appears, adding to the idea that it is somehow cursed. When you find that some of the beastmen have blasted their way through it to supercharge “magicite” within these conduits, even without actually knowing what the Crystal Line is, breaking into it by force feels like inviting the worst sort of bad juju. It all adds up to incredibly effective environmental storytelling.

In Rise of Zilart, Chains of Promathia, and beyond, the game becomes truly gorgeous. With the reminder that this game ran on the PS2, the expansions of FFXI are some of the best looking stuff on that console. The environments become more lush. The cutscenes become more cinematic. The outfits get more detailed. The monsters get more animated. The characters start looking like Luzaf, my beloved.

Something like a third of the way into Wings of the Goddess I am liking but not loving the plot, and ironically, the more the game Tries in terms of gameplay (go here! Go here! Find these items! Plant this tree in the past to harvest it in the future! Do this minigame!) the more irritating it becomes.

When will I consider myself Done with Final Fantasy XI? I once counted myself Done with Final Fantasy XIV when the credits rolled on A Realm Reborn (the first time). I was wrong.

I had the goal of finishing this game before this summer so that I will have Beaten Every Final Fantasy Game for at least a few minutes before FFXVI comes out this June. More importantly, I would like to stop paying the subscription fee.

Do I do Seekers of Adoulin? Abyssea? The mini scenarios? The main plot is arguably just ONE of the things there is to do in Final Fantasy XI. Not more or less important than several other pursuits.

I think I have to get to the credits of Rhapsodies of Vana’diel. The main guide I’m using is titled “Quickstart 1-119 Guide.” Perhaps when I get there I will have only just begun.

[worldofalore]

Escaping the Doi Caverns

I’m back as promised to tell you about the Doi, or rather, how to escape the Doi caverns. See, for a place where living so simple, leaving is all but impossible. Or rather I guess I should say leaving alive is nearly impossible. If you’re dead, leaving is quite simple as the people of the Doi will merely lower the final net, and let the currents take your body much as the way you’d arrived.

Getting out alive is a million times harder than that. The Shauling River is no less fierce because it now flows beneath the surface, in fact I’d dare say it’s a lot worse. Up on the surface, there’s a shore you can at least try and make it to. Down below, the currents just bounce around, slamming any and everything into the walls as it goes. Plus, the water levels have been known to fluctuate so there are often stretches where you’re trapped underwater with no air to breathe depending on the season. Naturally that means there’s nowhere for the bioluminescent moss and stuff to grow so the whole trip is in pitch blackness. And of course if that’s not enough, it’s not a straight path.

Every so often, the paths branch off and often reach dead ends. The current in these dead end caverns is so strong as water races in that one wrong turn can be your death. If the currents don’t immediately kill you, getting back to the main path while fighting the current is all but impossible so you can get trapped in a cave on your boat and starve to death.

Oh yeah, I didn’t mention the boats before did I? So, It’s a long journey. Like you’re traveling from the Southern reaches of Erothe all the way to the northern reaches of Feirr, where you get spit out on the coast. That’s about a 2,000 mile journey, and the river may be fast but it’s not that fast. I’ve done the math for you, don’t worry. The Shauling - or at least, the underwater portions, moves at around 15mph in most places, but it’s rather slow going as at every branch you need to stop and decide the way. Overall, the trip takes an average of 3 weeks. That’s 3 weeks worth of provisions you need to bring with you, and let’s not forget that certain sections you’ll need to be lying flat on the boat so that you can get under the low clearance - or the times when you and the boat are completely forced underwater.

Back to the trip itself, you need to figure out a light source. Sure, you can bring some of the moss and lichen but that won’t be enough to light your way when you’re picking a route - although it’s highly recommended to cover your boat in it so you can see it if you’re forced out for any reason.

Sleeping? Well, you better bring a chain and some strong grapple hook with you because you’ll need to hook yourself onto the rocks at night and pray that it doesn’t break free. This works best if there’s two of you trying to make it out, that way you can take watch turns. But make sure to tie your boats together with a longer cord!

If you can convince someone to come with you on this death trip, it should be great right? Having companionship? But the river is so loud that in most places you’d barely be able to hear one another if you screamed! If you happen to know the unspoken language of Crierd and have enough light, you’ll be set though!

Assuming you manage to make it out alive, you’ll find yourself off the coast of Feirr and you’re free to live. However, as part of the deal with being allowed to take supplies from the community you’re forbidden to speak of Doi. Long ago, a blood Ashi wrote a simple contract agreeing that you can never return to your old life or home so as not to reveal the truth of Doi, and you can’t tell others of it. And yeah I know I know the shi should still have ahold of me but being outside off world seems to have broken it’s hold? Or maybe the magic doesn’t work with this kind of telling and writing. Who even knows to be honest…

[shadioh]

DAY 6: TEAM FORTRESS 2

Team Fortress 2 means so much to so many people that it's basically transcended it's status as a 15 year old video game. It's made people's childhoods (as well as mine) and so many memories throughout the years, and is still going strong. It's a game nearly as old as I am, but it's legendary status has kept it's world and characters alive past any previous expectation for the medium of video games. It's really hard to imagine how the 2010's would have looked without it, because it truly has bled into every corner of the internet - you may have even seen these characters somewhere and never have even realized it. But, assuming you don't know anything about it, let me explain what it is and where it came from, and then explain exactly how it's obtained it's top spot in so many people's hearts.

Team Fortress 2 (TF2) is a free PC online first person shooter released in 2007, and while that may be surprising considering what I've said about it, it truly revolutionized gaming as a medium and has inspired many to create with the tools it's provided. The art style is truly timeless, as it's art style consists of wacky cell-shaded characters in a New Mexican warzone set in the 1950s, with an insane story to go along with it. But I'm not here to read off the wiki to you, I'm here to explain why it's so timeless.

It's because of the community. The community has kept it alive all these years, when any other game would have fallen into obscurity given the lack of attention from it's creators. And it's in this philosophy that TF2 is truly genius; they supported it themselves for a few years, then said "you guys want to help?".

Community created content and game servers have been the lifeblood of TF2 - with tools like Source Filmmaker to make your own movies and animations with TF2's assets, and publicly available tools like Hammer to make your own in-game environments and maps that could even make it to the real game; these things are truly the reason it's so beloved. So when you ask a TF2 fan what got them into the game, 9 times out of 10 it's because they saw something about it on YouTube, that's personally how I did. Fan works and creations for this game are some of the most creative things I've ever seen, how you can put these characters into any environment and make your own stories with them. Source Filmmaker may be limited by today's standards, it's ease of use and access have made hundreds of people who may have never considered animation become high level animators at huge studios. Here are a few examples.

The Red, The Blu, and the Ugly is one of my favorites, coming after a series of other animations by the same creator. It's so creative and well-executed, and it's animation is superb. As a frame of reference, I literally let my mom watch this, and she said she really liked it, despite not knowing much about TF2 at all. I feel like that speaks to it's quality.

Very recently came Emesis Blue. At nearly 2 hours long, it's quite literally feature-film quality. While I haven't personally gotten to watch it yet, the things I've heard about it and the few bits I've seen are breath-taking given it's been made entirely with Source Filmmaker. It's jaw-dropping how a story this intricate and scary can be animated with the very same character models you've seen so many times before.

And finally, Team Fabulous 2. With almost 30 million views, this is truly one of the most nostalgic pieces of TF2 for so many people. It's completely insane and impossible to comprehend to somebody who knows nothing of early 2010s internet culture and TF2 itself, but that insanity drove many to TF2, leading to it's cult classic status. The creator unfortunately passed a while ago to cancer, but his creations have lived on and have even been recreated in his memory. It's amazing how something this ridiculous can be a soft spot for so many people. Just looking at the comments of Team Fabulous 2 shows just how many people care.

And so it's with that that I believe that TF2 and it's community are so important, and worthy of being talked about.

Here's Team Fabulous 2's Engineer, drawn by me.

[etruatcaelum]

[ @knightbcrn sent 📂 for a random useless excessively granular headcanon ]

Codiciering, more often known as konurgic engineering or computational konurgy in the post-war vernacular, is a specialized and highly technical form of konurgy—dust-based magic. While the technological revolution precipitated by the Great War gave rise to mass-market consumer koniotronics like scrolls, the discipline has existed for thousands of years; historically, codiciers were more akin to what we might call artificers or enchanters.

The oldest techniques involve embroidery with dust-infused seric, a silk-like thread spun from atrum fibers. Fabrics woven from plant fibers, such as linen, are generally unsuitable for this purpose due to their flammability; silk and synthetic fabrics are safe for simple patterns that produce little heat, but high-quality wool and leather are preferred.

(It is also generally not safe to wear dust-embroidered cloth directly against the skin; all forms of dust produce heat while in an active state, and even with aura, touching embroidery hot enough to burn is very painful.)

Materials such as vellum or paper can also be laced with magic by stitching dust-infused seric into a sheet or drawing patterns with ink mixed from the ateric saline left over from preparation of seric. These items will go up in flames upon use, but single-use cards or scrolls designed to give a specific result were always in high demand prior to the Great War; this is where usage of the terms "scroll" and "codex" for handheld and desktop koniotronics respectively originated.

Later advancements in metallurgy led to the development of conifer steel—steels with ateric content high enough to have dust-like properties—and other konurgic alloys. The applications of a weapon forged with conifer steel need no elaboration; Long Memory is one. More importantly, however, the nearly limitless potential and chaotic power of dust can be constrained and given order by arranging it in matrices of konurgic wire and small pieces of crystal. This is the principle upon which all dust-based technology—and all enchanted artifacts, like Long Memory or the items described in the Grimm Campaign—rely.

Modern consumer koniotronics were made possible by the invention of dust-suppressant and aura-inhibiting technologies. All konurgic devices are powered by the operator's aura; in the case of huntsmen and other auraleric masters, this is not a problem, but consumer koniotronics, being designed for use by civilians with little or no auraleric training, must be insulated to prevent them from being fried by their owners' uncontrolled aura flow.

Even with these modern advancements, perfect standardization is impossible: scrolls, codexes, and other consumer koniotronics simply work better in the hands of master konurges. Unlike in the real world, Remnant's computers can legitimately "sense fear" and may behave erratically or respond in unexpected ways to the emotions and perceptions of their operators.

By the same token, skilled codiciers are among the best in the world at working with dust in its raw form; the level of precision and auraleric control necessary to engineer and program complex konurgic devices lends itself to complete mastery over pure dust, although as a general rule a codicier's use of pure dust will be subtler and stricter than that of a master konurge who hasn't trained as a codicier.

Contrary to what one might stereotypically expect given her age, Salem does not have the slightest bit of difficulty understanding modern konurgic technology, as it closely resembles the signaling grimm use to communicate with each other, and as far as she's concerned the CCTS is merely a crude human approximation of a horde. Scrolls are too delicate for her to bother actually using one—imagine trying to operate a smartphone if your fingers released a static shock every time you touched the screen—but she could explain in exhaustive detail precisely how they work.

[amitypatna]

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College for B Tech in Civil Engineering in Bihar: Amity University

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Source : https://sites.google.com/view/btech-in-civil-engineering/home?authuser=2