#based on 0 actual competencies

[partangel]

me 🤝 symbolically adopting the foster teens who participate in my study by coming just to chat with them outside foster home

[harmoonix]

🌇Sunset-hour Astrology Observations🌇

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🌇- Capricorn or Aquarius in big 3 (Sun,Moon or Rising) is already a confirmed karmic placement to have, the hard thing to know is that karmic debts can be different from person to person, but for sure they are here to end/complete something karmic

🌇 Lilith in Aries/Aquarius/Capricorn really don't like to receive orders from others or just don't like others to tell them what to do

🌇 Lilith in Virgo/Cancer share a common energy and that is the "submissive" energy, they can act submissive and seductive, that tends to attract a lot of people (aswell very toxic people or just dominant people in their lives)

🌇 Neptune trine/sextile/conjunct ascendant can have sensbile skin, their skin can get irritated fast or just having a very soft skin

🌇 Sun - Pluto aspects can have a pretty rebellious energy in them, usually they act how they want when they want and to be pretty moody

🌇 Libra/Taurus in big 3 (Sun, Moon or Rising) and their aesthetic eye for everything around them is admirable, literally they can see some clouds on the sky and think at some aesthetic photos to do

🌇 Leo/Sagittarius in Big 3 (Sun, Moon or Rising + Venus in some cases) can really photogenic like girlll go thattt photossss, the pose, the look, the clothes they wear are always on everyone's look

🌇 Mars in aspects with Jupiter just have uncontrollable feelings when they wanna get dirty. Like is something they cannot control

🌇 Neptune - Venus aspects are too sweet, they often can get so hurt esp in relationships, they don't deserve it to be honest, but sometimes these aspects can create fake illusions about their partners which can lead to so many wrong things

🌇 Venus in the 10th/11th or 7th house love to be complimented, or just spoiled with sweet words by the people around them. They also like to have certain unique nicknames in some cases (Like your friends giving you a funny nickname)

🌇 Uranus in Pisces Generation [2003 - 2010] can invest their time a lot on spirituality/meditation/healing etc, maybe being interested in tarot or special reiki song for healings

🌇 Sun in the 12th house should embrace their spirituality side more, this is an very spiritual placement so try to connect with spirituality it cam help you so much

🌇 There is always a ride or die with Scorpio or Gemini/Aquarius placements, they love to get into challenges, compete and show their intelligence, you are with them or against them

🌇 Sun in the 11th house are actually the people who can listen to their friends stories all the long, these people loveee to spend time around their friends so much and their love for their friends is something else..is something precious to them

🌇 Venus in the 11th house can met their partners in their circle of friends actually??? When a friend told me this one day I was in shock I was like ":0" this cannot happen, just imagine friends to lovers kind of thing, though is very lovely

🌇 Checking someone's chart and seeing that they have Scorpio, Sagittarius or Capricorn placements I just know they are either very revengeful either waiting for the perfect moment to call the wrong people for their mistakes

🌇 Mars in Virgo degrees [6°,18°] can have a good looking waist/body. They can also be slim or jus tall body and usually the waist shines more for them (This may not apply to everyone but I said based on what I heard about Mars in these degrees)

🌇 Mars in Pisces Degrees [12°, 24°] can have pretty good looking hands/nails, very soft or very prominent veins on the hands (esp at men), and the nails can look pretty naturally + people having the impression you always have nail polish

🌇 Mars in Aquarius Degrees [11°, 23°] can have beautiful bone structure esp at legs and hands, (based on my experience most of these people are tall with a very pereftctioned body] Their body loos so good in general

🌇 Sagittarius Mercury or Mercury in Sagittarius degrees [9°, 21°] can be brutally honest. These people don't like to lie or keep hiding so instead they will call out and be honest about everything

🌇 Scorpio and Taurus Moons and their posesive abilities to be posesive and getting jealous fast over small things is insane, esp having a partner with such moon sign can be possessive and sometimes trying to be in control

🌇 Virgo Suns/Moons can end up criticizing themselves a lot of just judging themselves over things they cannot control or just delete over the time. You have to understand certain things happen for certain reasons and the past cannot be deleted but instead try to create a better future for yourself with a good start and positive vibes

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- Wanted to post this post right on time exactly when the golden hour starts to be seen more prominent on the sky, because is also the time when the sun sets for the sun and sooner let the beautiful moon to rule the sky for the next hours

❤️☀️❤️☀️❤️☀️❤️☀️❤️☀️❤️☀️❤️☀️❤️☀️❤️☀️

☀️ Hope everyone reading my notes has an evening/night 🌆☀️ full of warm energy, and watch the sunset if you can 🥰🥰 in my opinion is majestic and one of the most beautiful things on earth ☀️🌆☀️

[fayharley]

Possible Hades II Romances

Sorted by how likely I think they are to make it into the game. Based on initial Early Access release.

Icarus 100% going to be a romance. No question.

Eris Eris is obsessed with Melinoë. Following her around, the nicknames, the codex entry, the later lines where she actually shows vulnerability. Getting through to her and understanding her issues is going to be a central story arc and I'm almost positive there will be a romance option at the end of it. Also Zag/Meg has established "fighting to the death" as a love language.

Arachne This is going to be a romance but it might not be an endgame romance. We already have the "heart wants what it wants" scenes, but I think her arc is going to be about curing her curse and after that it's 50/50 if Melinoë can kiss her or they're going to pull a "I've been through a big change and I'm not ready for a romance right now" card on us.

Moros and Nemesis They are such bait. I think it comes down to if this game lets you go poly and date everyone or if specific romances will lock you out of others. Supergiant is real squeamish about incest for a studio that chose to use Greek mythology and I don't think you will be able to kiss multiple Nyx kids at once.

Dora She's the funny character like Hypnos last game and so many people wanted to romance Hypnos. Maybe they will throw us a bone.

Hypnos Or just give the people what they want. Hampered by my suspicion waking him isn't going to happen until endgame.

Odysseus Sorry man but 0% chance. They had Mel uncle-zone him. He is for the player's viewing pleasure only.

Artemis Also zero. Cousin who calls you "sister," see above about the incest squeamishness. I'd fold all the other Olympic gods in here as well.

Everyone else is an extreme longshot. If the game follows the first one's pattern and you can end up with one boy and one girl I'm thinking it's Icarus and Eris. Melinoë has a thing for the winged ones. Also one mortal and one god would be thematic. But I'm expecting they will do something different and committing to a romance will cancel out the competing ones. There's just too many siblings floating around.

Eager to know how everyone else is feeling so far.

[getvalentined]

I am so sick of people asserting that Cloud's father is some super special important person like it's some explanation for the fact that he was able to save the world. Superior bloodline stuff never sits well with me in the first place, but in this case it's just so antithetical to the actual thesis of FF7 and does such a huge disservice to multiple characters that it makes me white hot angry.

The most popular contender is President Shinra, because Cloud being a Shinra bastard would (somehow) explain why he's allowed into the company at such a young age (even though enlistment age appears to be 14 and Cloud left Nibelheim to enlist at 14) and how he wound up on so many important missions—because it can't possibly be that he's actually competent, he's so pretty, how could he possibly be competent? It's not as if we see him being staggeringly competent from jump in every title where he's featured, including those that start prior to him being forcibly mako enhanced by Hojo. Clearly this is nepotism.

After all, we know that President Shinra is always so supportive of his bastards! That's why Lazard hid his identity and worked his way up the ranks to become director of SOLDIER at the youngest possible age and then set about trying to orchestrate a hostile takeover of the company by allowing all three of his best operatives to defect in the middle of a war, a process that was only thrown off because one of them passed off every single mission where he would have had an opportunity to go AWOL.

This was clearly the result of nepotism. There's just so much nepotism going on there. Obviously.

The newest contender is Glenn Lodbrok, the lead character from the First SOLDIER section of Ever Crisis, because he's blond-haired and blue-eyed and presumably one of the first people in Project 0 to survive some level of the mako enhancement process. I guess this is supposed to mean that him being Cloud's father would be a perfect explanation for Cloud actually being capable of literally anything, since the only way for him to become the hero that was chosen by the planet to keep it alive would be if it's part of some bloodline destiny.

There are a whole host of issues with Glenn as an option here, not the least of which is the canonical lore about Cloud's father, namely that he was some nobody traveler who kinda passed through and got Claudia pregnant and then left; he may have died up in the mountains, but apparently all that was ever found was his pack, so there's no way to be sure. Further, Claudia was very young at this point—according to her original concept art declaring her to be 33 at the time of her death, she gave birth to Cloud at 16-17 years old.

Glenn is one of two possible age ranges: if he was active in the early stages of Project 0, being a character in the First SOLDIER battle royale game, then he was around 21 in 1985, meaning a 21 year old knocked up Claudia Strife when she was 15 and then walked out on her. If he's 21 during the events of Ever Crisis, which seems likely based on his character design, that would make him 14 at the oldest when Claudia got pregnant.

Okay, I know this kind of thing happens IRL, but I feel pretty confident in the statement that there is absolutely no way that that's the direction SE is taking this timeline and characterization. I'm not even sorry. That's not happening. Either he's giving "predator," or he's Deadbeat Dad: High School Freshman Edition.

But that's honestly not even the worst of it, the math not matching up is entirely irrelevant when the implications of this assertion are applied to the actual thesis of this series as a whole, to the characters we already know, to the actual lore. Claiming that Cloud is only special because of the sperm donation of a man who abandoned him literally removes any concept of his competence as a character, declaring that he's just the newest iteration in a line of "worthy" men. He can't be worth anything unless his father is worth something. He can't be good at anything unless his father is good at something.

Beyond that, it casts Claudia aside entirely, asserting that the fact that she raised Cloud doesn't matter—she may have brought him up entirely on her own, but that doesn't actually matter. She didn't instill values and morals and guidelines into him that would allow him to grow up into a man who could save the world, she was just an incubator, a nursemaid, a nanny, a cook. She was just a servant who kept him alive long enough for his father's bloodline to awaken within him and make him into the hero he was always meant to be.

Insisting that Cloud's value as a character hinges in any way on his father, a person who had no place in his life whatsoever and whom he doesn't even remember, takes away his agency and declares Claudia to be irrelevant. It says that a sperm donation matters more than an upbringing. It says that the place he started is the only thing that defines where Cloud will end up.

This is literally, 100 percent, the opposite of the thesis of this series. The entire concept of these games, of these storylines, is that the way you were made doesn't have to dictate what you can be, who you are, where you're going. Your genetics do not define you, and assumptions to the contrary are literally what make people into monsters. What matters is the people you love, the people who love you, and the person you are now as a result of those people.

And the fact of the matter is that regardless of timelines, regardless of characterizations, regardless of theories, Cloud Shinra and Cloud Lodbrok didn't save the world.

Cloud Strife did.

Claudia Strife's son did.

And I think people could stand to give both of them a hell of a lot more credit.

[kvothe-kingkiller]

okay I want to preface this with: I am Against gender testing in sports, I believe this whole trans panic thing is transphobic/intersexist/racist/etc, and I support trans women and trans people in general being able to do sports.

With that out of the way, I feel like people just....get the facts straight up Wrong on so many levels with all of this. Ledecky would not beat (olympic level) men in any of the competitions she does. Here are the men's vs women's world records on some of the swimming events

100m Free: Mens 46.8 (Zhanle), Womens 51.71 (Sjöström)

1500m Free: Mens 14:30.67 (Finke), Womens 15:20.48 (Ledecky)

100m Butterfly: Mens 49.45 (Dressel), Womens 55.18 (Walsh)

100m Breaststroke: Mens 56.88 (Peaty), Womens 1:04.13 (King)

400m Medley: Mens 4:02.50 (Marchand), 4:24.38 (McIntosh)

The story is the same if you look up running times, walking times, jump heights, jump lengths, throws, skiing times, skating times, etc etc.

here's the gender gap in swimming race speeds and then track and field events over the last century (courtesy of buzzfeed)

As you can see, they get better over time, then plateau. While it's certainly possible they might come down to 0, I doubt it will be any time soon (Nature actually estimated in 2004 that they could become more equal by 2156 but that was assuming an increase over time that has since leveled off). Those slight humps are from before steroids and other drugs became more rigorously tested.

These of course include the intersex and high T perisex women who have competed and will continue to compete so it's not just to do with testosterone, there are obviously multiple factors.

Ledecky beating men was during practice, idk who she was practicing against (it was a comment made by a teammate and didnt say who the men were) but it wasn't phelps or any of the other top male swimmers. Then when you have things like shooting etc, the main reason that's segregated by gender is simply because more men are in the sport. If you have (numbers arbitrary) 1000 men wanting to compete and 100 women and you take the best of all of them, chances are you'll end up with 9 men and 1 woman. Segregating it by gender ensures 10 men 10 women.

Tennis and other things like that are harder to score up against each other since men tend to compete against men and women against women, except for the occasional m/f double match. But I think it's safe to say that with the evidence from power and speed differences from the above stats, men would likely beat women if you're comparing the top vs the top. Yes, even Serena Williams.

Once again, I am against gender testing. I am against the racist and transphobic shit you see in sports nowadays.

But it is simply untrue to say that Cis men and Cis women are on the same level when it comes to top sporting events. I am not saying women are weak or women are shitty and bad at sports I am literally just showing people the Correct numbers.

I do not know the answer to this. I do not know how trans people should be included without excluding others. I am neither an athlete nor a gender scientist.

However, I do know the rhetoric around this on this site is unhelpful given it's entirely based around incorrect facts (that in straight athletic competitions, cis men and cis women are at equal levels) and everyone that tries to say otherwise is either actually transphobic or gets dogpiled as Being transphobic even if they aren't.

(Also, this is just at the top of the top. When we're talking about highschool and Especially elementary school sports, trans kids should absolutely be allowed to play whatever team they want.)

[izunias-meme-hole]

Ranking The Ushiromiya's Based On How Good At Among Us They Would Be

Kinzo: 0/10 - My guy would at least do his tasks, but he's always voted out first based on vibes and how he is.

Krauss: 0/10 - Ass as an imposter, and as a cremate he's always the first to die.

Natsuhi: 7/10 - Very good crewmate, always reports bodies if she sees one, but her imposter is flawed because her lying could easily get torn apart by a gut feeling.

Jessica: 8/10 - She'll keep her guard up at all times as a crewmate, won't hesitate to vote someone out based on a feeling, but her imposter is slightly better than her mothers.

Eva: 9/10 - Effective crewmate, always convincing even if she is condescending, and her imposter is almost perfect.

Hideyoshi: 5/10 - Just minding his business as a crewmate and then his neck gets snapped. His imposter on the other hand gets kicked out immediately after he kills someone, not because he's a bad liar, but because someone always sees his ass in the act.

George: -100/10 - Touched Among Us once, broke his computer in a fit of rage, has sworn himself off from playing it again.

Rudolf: 8/10 - Much like Eva, he's an effective crewmate and his imposter is also almost perfect. Though unlike Eva, he reeks of too much snake oil to be trusted so he gets ejected half the time, even if he isn't the imposter.

Kyrie: 10/10 - It doesn't matter how many red flags she'd give off, you'd never see her coming.

Battler: 10/10 - Actually a pretty competent crewmate who survives off pure luck sometimes and hates suspecting someone he knows. Though if he has to play the imposter, he'll play the imposter.

Ange: 8/10 - An amazing crewmate, will say "If I die, the imposter is X", and her imposter is good.

Rosa: 5/10 - Would try to play like Eva and somehow fail in one way or another.

Maria: 5/10 - Good crewmate, but her imposter is found out immediately. She also promotes trolling and second impostering to someone in particular.

Lion: 9/10 - Helpful crewmate, and she carried elements of that in her imposter. She can also lie pretty well, but ultimately her imposter needs some work.

Beatrice: 100/10 - If you've finished Umineko, you know that Beatrice would be the ultimate imposter.

[incognita-soul]

hey, i saw in your bio that you work on tall ships and i was wondering if u had any advice.

i’ve been on 2 tall ship sailing trips before (+some dinghy sailing) and got my competent crew recently so i’m pretty inexperienced. on those sailing trips i’ve met young adults who were working on the boats as volunteers. i’d like to be able to volunteer on tall ships one day.

do you have any advice for the best way to gain experience and learn stuff? (if possible on a budget). i’m taking a gap year next year and i’d really like to take the chance to go sailing and get better at it. (i’m in the uk if that’s relevant.)

absolutely no pressure to answer and i’m sorry this is so vague and clueless! anyway, thanks for taking the time to read this. your blog is cool :))

Heya! Thank you, and I'd be happy to give you my two cents! All of my boat experience has been in the US so take my advice with a transatlantic grain of salt, but here goes!

Firstly, two trips and some dinghy sailing and a competent crew cert is actually quite a bit in comparison to your average person starting out in the world of boats, so don't worry about feeling too inexperienced! You're already on a good track. I've been working on tall ships in some capacity for over 10 years and I still don't have any specific certifications (I've got a lot of experience and sea time, I just haven't had time to take any of my courses and exams for actual licensing).

Facebook is (unfortunately) still the best place to network, especially for international opportunities. There are a variety of groups that you can join. I'm personally in Schooner Bums, Tall Ship Opportunities, Women Who Sail, Crew Finder, and a few other private groups specific to the organizations I've worked for. A lot of organizations will post to these groups with job opportunities with specific requirements, so it's fairly easy to get the info you need. I'm sure there are a few groups specific to sailing in the UK. In the US, we have Tall Ships America, which is an organization that provides networking, training, and job opportunities for mostly US based sailors and boats. I'm not sure if the UK has an equivalent organization, but I do recommend even though you are UK based you should peruse their website, especially the Billet Bank, which is where job links are posted:

You're in the UK, so there are a shit ton of boats there but as far as I know most of them are museum boats that don't do a lot of sailing. I will say from personal experience that museum boats with a good volunteer maintenance program are great places to start for establishing a strong set of foundational skills (knots, understanding and maintenance of the rig, carpentry, etc.). You might not get much actual sea time with a museum boat, but you will learn the things that will make you a better sailor. I got into tall ships by working as a historical interpreter and then as part of the sailing/maintenance crew here:

https://www.jyfmuseums.org/visit/jamestown-settlement/living-history/ships#ad-image-0

Most tall ship organizations are based around education, both for the public and for the crew, so it's easy to find a boat with some sort of introductory training program relatively near wherever you live. These range from expensive pay-to-play working vacation type experiences, to paying a fee to participate in a structured comprehensive training curriculum after which you can become long-term crew, to volunteering weekends sanding and oiling blocks in exchange for the opportunity to sail.

Since you said you are taking a gap year, my advice is look for a short-term comprehensive live-aboard program that gets your foot in the door for staying on as regular crew, potentially even paid crew. Idk any specific ones in the UK, but here's the one that the last boat I worked on offers as an example of what i mean:

If you've got time before your gap year starts, try to find something local, like volunteering for a mueseum like I mentioned earlier, so that you get used to the vocabulary and foundational knowledge of boats. That way you can really get the most out of a more immersive program later on and you won't feel too much like an oversaturated sponge trying desperately to sop up more information even though your brain is leaking out of your ears.

I'm not sure if you're wanting to do tall ships longer term or just something one-off for the gap year, but if you're in it for the long haul just be prepared that it's a lot of hard work for not much financial return. I don't mean to discourage you, it's just good to know that upfront. On Lady Washington we have a saying that "we work on an 18th century boat for 18th century wages."

Unfortunately the tall ship industry is kind of hard budget wise. Most training programs cost quite a bit of money, most jobs are either volunteer or don't pay very well (industry standard deckhand pay in the US is about $1000/month), and most higher level positions require various levels of certifications (for which course and exam fees can run pretty high). You can do it on a budget, especially since most long term positions are live aboard so you don't have to pay for rent or groceries, but if you want to make a career out or it, it takes a lot of years of working for less money than you're worth before you start earning real money back.

Despite all that, working on tall ships is still an incredible and fulfilling experience that I recommend to anyone with a love of the sea and learning practical skills!

Sorry I couldn't give you more specific information, as I have yet to work on any UK boats. Good luck, and please tell me when you find a program that works for you!

[terrathetulpa]

I would like to bash the Minecraft movie teaser immediately. Because we need to bully the studio into getting rid of it or changing it like we did to Sonic. It is the most egregiously hideous abomination of Minecraft I have ever had to look at through these poor shared bloodshot eyes. The animals look like fucking horseshit supreme! Like someone was fucking around with some fur shaders for the first time and went "What if I pulled in a model of a sheep from Minecraft?" That llama is gonna be in my nightmares and I'm gonna lucid dream for the first time in months just so I can banish it to the wretched cursed CG hell plane that it came from. But first I'm gonna bash it's hideous skull in so it doesn't come back!

I am so unimpressed by your wide angle shot of a landscape that is supposed to be Minecraft, and doesn't even pass for modded Minecraft! It doesn't look like the game at all! It looks like someone tried to do a 4k voxel style remake of genshin impact and then someone else photo-shopped random ass stock photos into it. And when is someone gonna tell the movie execs that we don't wanna look at Jason Momoa anymore!? I hate his stupid bearded face!

The only snowball's chance in hell that this thing has of being watchable at all is Jack Black, and even he looks scuffed as shit! You bought that man a blue T-shirt from the GAP SEVEN MINUTES before filming- didn't even check to make sure that shit fit him! LOOK AT THIS!!!

I love you Jack Black, but you are not Steve!!! YOU ARE NOT STEVE!!! Did anyone bother to like- LOOK at the source material for more than 0 seconds!? Do you realize what this movie COULD HAVE BEEN!? I CAN'T EVEN SIT HERE AND DESCRIBE TO YOU HOW BAD THIS MISS IS FOR ME, WE WOULD BE HERE ALL NIGHT!!!

GOD!!! AT LEAST GET HIM A PROPER SHIT FOR FUCK'S SAKE!!! FUCK!!! FUCKING FUCK!!! FUUUUUCCCKKK!!!!

MOTHER FUCKING DAMNIT! BITCHES IN HELL!!! FUCK THIS MOVIE! PLEASE KILL THIS MOVIE!! BOMB THIS FUCKING MOVIE!!! I need all of you internet haters to pretend this thing is Morbius! When this comes out in theatres, if they haven't at least tried to fix it. Every time you see it just pretend it's Morbius. It is not worth your time. Do not see it. Even if you really like Jack Black. Do not.

You know what fuck it- I can write a long ass post.

Listen, you have to understand that I love Minecraft. I love Minecraft so much. I love running around, making things and exploiting villagers. Roaming vast landscapes of blocks and tricking the skeletons into shooting each other. The greatest burden of my childhood is that I couldn't convince my friends to continue playing Minecraft with me. If Minecraft were a beautiful woman, I would marry her. We would host lavish dinner parties and all of the guests would compete to build the coolest Minecraft build, and I would always win because Minecraft is my wife! Now I will proceed to spend several minutes resisting the urge to describe even the most intimate aspects of this theoretical marriage I would have to Minecraft in excruciating and graphic detail. (The fuck was I saying?)

This movie could have been LITERALLY ANYTHING! Because if it has ever happened, it has happened in Minecraft. This could've been a thriller, a murder mystery, an action movie, they could have remade literally anything and gotten away with it because "It's Minecraft, it's different" They could have made INFINITE MINECRAFT MOVIES!!! But more painful to lose, and more painful to see missing from the discourse about this film is that it could have told stories that nothing else could have told. This could have been a base wars movie, this could have been about conflicting factions competing for land, with complex politics, interesting heroes and villains, doing goofy ass shit like building sheep everywhere or making chicken bombs as much as they actually genuinely fight with TNT cannons and crazy ass ANIMATED PVP sequences. This movie could have been FUCKING SICK!!!

This could have been a retelling of an anarchy server's history, or a long romantic love letter to the game itself in movie form, or a playful exciting romp through someone's LAN game but from the perspective of those in game characters- AND NO ONE PLAYS AS STEVE HE WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN THERE!!! Where is our community's representation??? I don't trust this studio to show us massive sprawling builds that represent years of work, the fortresses, the cathedrals, the giant nether mansions. We're not going to see seasoned players strike down the ender dragon with 5 beds and a wooden axe. We're not getting elytra courses, SMP stories, redstone computers, massive pixel art, giant sculptures, hidden signs in peoples bases, pastoral communities farming by the river, villager outposts, torn up server spawns, that one guy who built a 150 block tall wheat farm overnight, the absolutely massive expanse of mods for this thing, the elaborate RP plots, the full on cities constructed by dozens of people, adventure maps, survival challenges, that one fucking log by the door that you keep stripping on accident- THE ACTUAL ANYTHING ABOUT WHAT MINECRAFT IS FOR ANYONE!?!?

NO!!! NOOOOO!!! None of that for you! You know what you get instead!?!?

You get JACK FUCKING BLACK trying to lug this 150-million dollar 6000 pound TURD through the box office BY HIMSELF!!! In a shitty blue T-shirt that some poor underpaid intern bought for him for 9$, 7 minutes before they started filming!!!

and I don't think he can do it!

There's no band-aid big enough to make this better.

Not even Jack Black!

[artbytesslyn]

I struggle with chronic pain, but I have this horrible mindset that mine isn't "valid" because it might not be as severe as some other people's. I have Carpal Tunnel, and unfortunately not at a stage that surgery is really an option, and I have some days so bad I can't even use one or both of my hands. And, I often feel afraid to talk about it because I feel like people will just tell me that mine isn't REAL pain. And, I have no idea how to handle that.

I'm really sorry that you're dealing with that, it sounds terrible.

I think it might be important (from one chronic pain haver to another) to remember that a 0 on the pain scale is what you're meant to feel. Zero pain. If you feel more than zero pain, then it's real pain. A competent healthcare provider will measure your pain based on if it impacts your daily life and how often.

Also, zero pain doesn't mean 'pain you've gotten used to'. This is a very common issue among chronic pain patients. A normal amount of pain is NO pain.

The area between 'no pain' and 'not physically wrong enough for surgery' is extremely broad. Some pain -can't- be treated with surgery, even if that pain is a 10. Surgery should not be your goalpost for if you're actually in pain or not.

It may help you to find support groups, because I sincerely think most chronic pain havers would not hear your experiences and go 'lol sounds fake'. Most of us have those exact experiences where healthcare providers or non-pain-having individuals discredit us, so most of us don't do that to others.

[padfootastic]

if you were to summarise sirius' personality and character traits, how would you do it?

hi hi hi! so sorry for long this took but okay, so, let’s do this.

so, his CORE trait for me will always be loyalty, hands down. i once waxed poetic about sirius’ devotion to the potters to my friends for like, half an hour straight (one of them actually teared up). the way he talks about james even after so many years, how his first instinct is always to look out for harry, how everyone talked about him & j even when they believed he was the traitor—all of it just really drives home how he gives all of himself to someone when he decides to. if someone’s his person then he’ll do whatever it takes for them (if you’re not, tho? ur lucky if u even get a look in ur direction)

he’s also very competent. he was probably brought up as a pampered heir, with access to all the resources his little heart desired, so coupled w his innate ability/potential/aptitude, it becomes a deadly combination. he uses logic to work through things, prides himself on his intelligence, and probably wouldn’t like hanging out with people who can’t atleast match him in some sense (so laziness/incompetence grates badly).

as a corollary, he’s also pretty arrogant, in that casual sense that old money people are ykwim? he’s had the world on a silver platter his entire life, and even when he’s cut off from it, it’s still a part of him. there’s also the fact that he’s got a lot going for him—looks, power, smarts wise—and that just adds to it. so it can be off putting or it can be hot or both, but he has a superiority complex and he doesn’t exactly hide it. less interaction with the plebs, the better for him.

irreverence and dark humor!!! sirius copes using morbid jokes and making people uncomfortable; he has slight control issues and this way, he makes sure everyone’s always on their toes. it’s also like,,,a way to kind of gauge how others will react to him based on how they deal w his humor. bc he’s not sunshine and roses, right? and he doesn’t want anyone treating him like it or expecting him to be so. and in a way, their reactions to his jokes correlated to their degree of acceptance for him.

intense. when it comes to things he likes, he’s very passionate about it, almost with a single minded focus. and it can get A Lot. he operates in a lot of extremes, right? so either 0 or 100 and this comes across in the way he interacts with people, the level of interest he shows to things, and how much effort he puts in, if it’s His Thing, then he won’t leave a stone unturned but if he doesn’t care? then he will not give a single shit

soooo, these are some of the things i very strongly believe in for sirius 🙈 tell me what u think? (and as always, @artemisia-black has some great metas on sirius’ character so i’d recommend checking those out for sure!)

[futurequibblerjournalist]

Hello again!!!!

I don't really have much to say abt Mary bc you did like,, such a good job telling me everything that I could have asked about her! You do a great job with everyone that I HAVE asked about too but you get it (I hope lol)

Do you have any like,, thoughts on Lucius? :0 or Viktor!!!! Ik you mentioned him a little while ago :3 Idk seeing him with your interpretation of Igor Karkaroff is special to me idk

Byebye!!!! See you soon lol :D

- 🍃

Ahhhhh I’m so glad you liked my little Mary rant!! I love chatting about the girls they’re just all so mwah,,,

I have a handful of thoughts on Lucius!

His full name is Lucius Abraxas Malfoy and he was born September 8th 1953 (making him a Virgo) at Malfoy Manor in Wiltshire, England. He’s the first born son of Abraxas Malfoy and only son of Luceille Malfoy née Famelle (she’s distantly related to the Flamels but as you can tell some stuff has gotten lost over the years hence the slight change in the last name!) and he’s the older half brother of Xenophilius. His mother died in childbirth and thus he never knew her and it’s given him a few issues ngl,,,

Abraxas remarried a few years after Luceille’s death and thus Xenophilius became a thing. Hestia (Xeno’s mother) tried to step into the role of mum for Lucius but he never wanted any of that and he was lowkey mad at his dad for remarrying even if he never felt like he should let anyone know.

I think he and Narcissa fully adopted Severus as like their Hogwarts kid just like how Xenophilius and Pandora later do with Gilderoy lol (it clearly runs in the family). I don’t usually base my headcanons off of the mobile game but there’s hints in there that Lucius and Narcissa’s marriage was a love match and I 100% believe that. He gifted her a Malfoy brooch to welcome her into the family I believe when they were first engaged (which would have been at some point while she was still at school?? because she puts it in her keepsake box that she had with her sisters while they were all at school) and to tell her that she was worthy of becoming a Malfoy. I think he placed a lot of values on family which is why I also think it’s so funny that the family he does have he’s like “nope I don’t wanna be related to that freak [points to Xeno]” lmaooo

I really love the fact that he’s a part of the school board. Like I don’t think people talk about that enough actually. Also the Malfoy house being represented by (albino?) peacocks and him canonically having Malfoy manor decked out with rhinestones or diamond rims or something like that in the windowsill. Like he’s so cunty. And that’s before we’ve even touched on the obvious hair care routine and the cunty bow that he 100% match with Narcissa.

I honestly need to think about him more but I think he’s just,, so funny. Also imagining Severus running around in his cunty ass hand me downs is just??? I can’t

As for Viktor!!!

I think he’s so fun. Like,, he’s actually so sweet and people can say what they want I don’t even care. I think he was really sweet to Hermione at a time where she needed it and I think it would have been fun to see them when they were older as like a fun ass power couple with him being a professional quidditch player and her being minister for magic. They’d like,, they’re so mwah to me.

I think it says a lot about how like,, lonely and isolated this kid was when the most important person to him was a girl he’d met a few months earlier. Like he didn’t have a Durmstrang buddy and one could assume if he had siblings they weren’t close and that just,, idk I feel bad for him. I like the idea of him striking up a friendship with Fleur and Cedric though despite them competing and all that

Similar like how I think Karkaroff is actually Karkarov I think Krum is likely Krumov (Крумов). It’s even stated in his wiki that it’s likely that Krum is just like,, an Anglicisation of Krumov. Speaking of Igor, I think Igor was friends/familiar with Viktor’s uncle when he went to school. I don’t have an explanation as to why he has decided to take Viktor under his wing in the way he has but I do think it’s kinda sweet. Me and a friend talked about this once but Igor would totally favour Viktor to the daughter he (in some universes) has with Charity and he’d be like “no no you’re imagining it” meanwhile we’ve seen how blatant his favouritism is lol

Now to the headcanon I’ve probably thought the most about lol,,, I think he’s got some sort of brain injury. This probably sounds a little damn okay but I think it makes sense. I think it makes sense with how much quidditch he plays. A lot of athletes have some sort of injury and considering how he went professional so early he’s undoubtedly played since he was young and I would not be surprised if he took a hit to the head a few times. I think this injury happened during his fourth-ish year (maybe during the summer when he was going extra hard on practicing at home or something??) and he took a Bludger to the frontal lobe and was knocked off of his broom.

I think he repeated a year because of this injury and having to recover (I’m pretty sure his age doesn’t line up with the rest of his supposed peers which is what I’m basing this on but also it’s 9 am and I’ve not yet slept so I could be pulling this out of my ass so keep that in mind lol).

He’s canonically noted as not being particularly intelligent (one of his canon nicknames is literally Dumb Krum) and I think this is in part because of this injury and the issues that followed him afterwards. I specifically think he’d had struggles with reading, both being slow at it and having poor reading comprehension as well as having a poor memory and being prone to confusion. (I also see him struggling with speech at times, perhaps some struggles with grip (which would be especially frustrating and something he’s working hard to overcome given his quidditch position) and since he’s noted as a bit of a klutz I wouldn’t be surprised if he bumped into things a lot).

His Transfiguration spell during the second task in the tournament is not done properly. Even if human transfiguration is a more difficult kind of transfiguration I would assume that if he’s smart enough to cover the basics, Igor (given his own talents with the subject) would have made sure his favourite student had mastered it. Whether this is something he was able to do before his injury I’m open to any takes on. He’s mentioned as someone who’s confident in his duelling skills but not necessarily good at duelling and even though Dark Arts are mentioned in his wiki it’s only in regards to things he did under the Imperius Curse

Also!!! Completely unrelated to me thinking he’s got a brain injury, I am a skinny twig looking Viktor Krum stan. I will always be mad we didn’t get to see him like that in the movies because he’s quite literally described as Severus and Igor’s love child lmaoooo

Can you tell I’ve been waiting to talk about him?? He’s like,, one of if not the only golden trio era character I care about lmao

I hope you enjoyed my little ramble cjfncjnfjc I saved my thoughts about these two for a bit to send something fun your way!!

[chaoticace2005]

DGM: Noah Competency Analysis

It is 2 am and I have work at 6:30 am and am making the amazing decision to stay up and analyze these bastards because my friend got me into this series and now it has taken over my life (thanks Koala.)

For the Noah, many seem to be pretty bad at their jobs: from the "kill the generals" arc where everyone failed to whatever the hell was up with the ark arc to Wisely/Tyki LOSING the Earl. So, being the autistic individual I am who recently took a stats class, I decided to analyze all the Noah in some kind of mathematical way to look at just how incompetent these losers are.

Note: statistical analysis is not completely representative of the Noah since it is only looking at information revealed in the manga/assumed as of June 2023- it is entirely possible that this information will change.

But now to it... (spoilers)

First, I wanted to establish some kind of system to accurately grade the Noah based on their accomplishments. Originally I was putting down all their activities and noting if they failed/succeeded- giving +1 points to successes and 0 for failures and then averaging it out based on total # of activities, but this led to the problem where some Noah were shown more than other so there was more data (like Mercyma or Tryde) and as a result their competency was put very high despite the fact we have little information on them, so this idea was scrapped.

Ultimately, I made it so each Noah started out with a 5/10 ranking, and then points were added and lost depending on their successes/failures and to what degree they were.

The "successes/failures" only looks at specific missions assigned to the Noah by the Earl- so for instance Tyki going around and killing extra exorcists like Daisya and Suman were not counted, as he was specifically ordered to kill Allen at the time and did this as an "extracurricular." Points were also deducted if the Noah did something that went against the Earl/hurt the Noah (more on this later.)

Points Awarded:

+0.5= Succeed at easy mission

+1.0= Succeed at mission

+1.5= Succeed at hard mission

-0.5= Fail at hard mission/ not a total loss

-1.0= Fail at mission

-1.5= Fail at easy mission/ make things worse

With this established onto the grading!

2nd Apostle: Tryde/Toraido (Judge)

-1.5: Stop traitors of Noah- failed with Nea (they all pretty much died as result)

+0.5: Be in Russia with Jasdevi for Alma Arc- succeed (kinda just stood there)

Total Competence: 4/10 (very limited amount of data but fairly okay, maybe don't trust with your life but can trust to not set house on fire)

3rd Apostle: Tyki Mikk (Pleasure)

+1.0: Kill Yeegar- succeed

-1.5: Kill Allen/Innocence- failed both and actually increased Allen’s power

-1.0: Kill exorcists in Edo- failed

-0.5: Kill Cross- mission given by Earl but never really attempted (Joyd did when awoken but failed)

+0.5: Bring Allen to North America branch- succeed

+1.0: Rescue Allen from Apocryphos- succeed

-0.5: Kill Apocryphos- failed

-1.0: Recruit Allen- failed

-1.0: Protect Road- failed

-1.5: Babysit Earl- failed 

Extra: Responsible for Ark Arc, resulting in death of fellow Noah Skinn, permanent injury to Jasdevi along with himself, and Allen/the Order gaining access to the Ark (which later led to Egg being destroyed): -4.0

Total Competence: -3.5/10 (do NOT give this guy anything to do, if you asked him for milk he’d leave, kill someone in a Chuck E Cheese, and bring the dead body home (WITHOUT THE MILK))

4th Apostle: Sheril/Cheryl (Desires)

+1.5: Cause wars- succeed

+1.0: Take control of North America branch- succeed

+0.5: Help capture Apocryphos- succeed (didn’t appear to do much)

Extra: Did go behind Earl’s back to capture Bookman/Lavi and torture for information about Nea: -1.0

Total Competence: 7/10 (can trust to this guy to do most things, but if it threatens his or Road's life all bets are off)

5th Apostle: Wisely/Waizuri (Wisdom)

+1.0: Unite Alma and Kanda to awaken 14th- succeed

-1.5: Babysit Earl- failed

Extra: With Bookman/Lavi, tried to read minds but failed? So he was incompetent but in a way that supported the Earl: -0.5 

Total Competence: 4/10 (if you leave a plant with him the plant will likely die)

Note: Alma Arc may have been a fluke but he seems to have lost competence after this- maybe Allen bonking Kanda in the head and giving Wisely a migraine had lasting effects? Maybe Sheryl had a point here:

6th Apostle: Feedler/Fiedla/Fiidora (Corrosion)

+1.5: Fights exorcists in China/infects exorcist- succeed, now have spy in order

-1.5: Babysit Earl- failed

+1.0: Act as communication for Noah- succeed, ranked as “1.0” since it is his ability specific

Extra: Did help Cheryl torture Bookman/Lavi, going against Earl: -0.5

Total Competence: 5.5/10 (can trust to not burn house down when cooking dinner, although food may be meh)

7th Apostle: Mercym/Maushyma (Pity)

+1.0: Occupy Madaroa- succeed

+0.5: Capture Apocryphos- succeed (didn’t appear to do much)

Total Competence: 6.5/10 (can be trusted to babysit kids)

8th Apostle: Skinn (Wrath) (Note: PRETTY DEAD)

-1.0: Kill Tiedoll- failed

-1.5: Kill Tiedoll unit- failed, dying as a result

Total Competence: 2.5/10 (very likely to get into a car accident due to road rage if allowed to borrow a car)

9th Apostle: Road (Dreams)

+0.5: Acquire Skinn when he was woken- succeed

-1.0: Retrieve Miranda Innocence- failed

+1.0: Kill Yeegar- succeed

+1.5: Copy Ark- succeed

+1.0: Help with Alma Karma arc- succeed

+1.5: Rescue Allen- succeed, went beyond to protect him

-0.5: Kill Apocryphos- failed

-0.5: Recruit Allen- failed (gets a bit of slack cause she was kinda fading away)

Extra: Responsible for Ark Arc, resulting in death of fellow Noah Skinn, permanent injury to Jasdevi/Tyki , and Allen/the Order gaining access to the Ark (which later led to Egg being destroyed): -4.0

HOWEVER she wasn’t killed by Nea so +3.0 points.

Total Competence: 7.5/10 (likely to complete a group project, but it was likely done by her forcing someone else to do it by candle-point- work smarter not harder)

10th/11th Apostles: Jasdevi (Bonds)

-1.5: Kill Cross- failed badly, acquiring debt in process

+0.5: Be in Russia with Tryde for Alma Arc- succeed

+1.5: Capture Apocryphos- succeed

Total Competence: 5.5/10 (surprisingly high) (if left to bake a cake the kitchen may be a disaster and the sink may be on fire but there will be a surprisingly okay cake) (about 2.75/10 each)

Note: Competence seems to have increased following encounter with Krory, did a reverse Wisely and actually got MORE competent over time.

12th Apostle: Lulu Bell (Lust)

-1.0: Retrieve egg- failed (egg destroyed but Order able to use some of egg to make Thirds)

+0.5: Be in Greece for Alma Arc- succeed

Total Competence: 4.5/10 (considered competent due to loyalty but fairly lazy, if told to do the dishes she would find someone else to do it for her and that person would do a subpar job)

13th Apostle: Mightra/Maitora (Ability)

+0.5: Make cool outfits- succeed

+1.0: Make skulls- succeed

+1.5: Do other magic related stuff with Ark/Akuma- succeed

Total Competence: 8/10 (can be trusted to house sit for a week without issue)

Also, just for fun:

The Fourteenth/Nea D. Campbell

+1.5: Kill Noah- mostly succeeded and damaged memories so kudos to him

+1.5: Restrict Ark- succeeded

-0.5: Kill Earl- failed

+1.0: Reincarnate- succeed

-1.5: Kill Johnny- failed

-1.0: Trick Kanda- failed

-1.0: Trick Link- failed

-0.5: Kill Earl (Part 2 Electric Boogaloo)- failed

+0.5: Reveal past to Earl- sorta? He certainly monologued but who knows if the Earl was all there

-1.0: Take over Allen completely- failed

Total Competence: 4/10

So... all in all (excluding Nea from calculations):

Mightra: 8/10

Road: 7.5/10

Cheryl: 7/10

Mercym: 6.5/10

Feedler: 5.5/10

Jasdevi: 5.5/10

Lulu Bell: 4.5/10

Tryde: 4/10

Wisely: 4/10

Skinn: 2.5/10

Tyki: -3.5/10

With the average competency of the Noah being around 4.68/10 and the median being 5.5/10.

I would also like to take the time to point out just how incompetent Tyki is compared to his fellow Noah:

Tyki is literally graphed as a fucking outlier and even without the 4.0 points he lost because of the Arc Ark, he would still be at a 0.5/10, still the lowest of all the Noah. In fact, if we were to take this data and assume that the Noah are a representative sample for all of humanity, he would have be in the bottom 0.6% for competency (using Z-score to determine this.)

Without Tyki, the Noah's competency would be up to 5.5/10, which I feel like is great evidence of the fact that Tyki is so goddamn stupid and his real Noah ability is the power to lower the intelligence/competence of everyone around him. Why did Wisely lose competence after Alma arc? Because he had to be around Tyki all the time. Why did Jasdevi gain competence? Because they started being babysat by Mercym and Tryde instead of Tyki. They purposely left Tyki to watch over the Earl because they thought there was no way he could mess up watching over their delusional grandfather while the twins/Mercym/Sheryl caught Apocryphos and he still did. Honestly maybe if the Noah want the Order to lose they should just sneak Tyki into the organization and let him just lower the competence of everyone there so the organization eventually collapses in on itself and combusts.

[crastledivorce]

I saw the @trafficdivorcedbracket and it woke up the side of my brain that loves statistics, so I gathered some data based on the competing characters/competing teams

With the bracket consisting of 16 "teams" of two or more characters, the bracket contains 16 individual characters and 38 character appearances on a team.

The average amount for Life Series characters to be deemed divorced is 2.375 times.

Here is a graph of how many appearances the actual Life Series characters make among those 38

With 0 divorces, Skizzleman is the only Life series member not on this poll, making him the least divorced. He makes up 0% of the character appearances in the poll and is on 0% of the teams.

With 1 divorce each, Ren, Pearl, and Tango each make up approximately 2.632% of character appearances in the poll and are each on 6.25% of the competing teams

With 2 divorces each Scar, Lizzie, Mumbo, BigB, Scott, and Impulse each make up approximately 5.263% of character appearances in the poll and are each on 12.5% of the competing teams.

With 3 divorces each, Grian, Martyn, Joel, Jimmy, Bdubs and Etho each make up approximately 7.894% of character appearances on the poll and are each on 18.75% of the competing teams

And with 5 divorces ZombieCleo makes up approximately 13.158% of character appearances on the poll and is on 31.25% of the 16 competing teams!

Based on how many times they were deemed divorced for this poll, ZombieCleo is the most divorced life series character and Skizzleman is the least divorced life series character!*

*in terms of "having the most/least character dynamics deemed divorces by enough people to be in this specific poll" only. I have no idea who'd win an actual hypothetical poll to determine the most divorced character in trafficblr (though I do think Skizz would win "least divorced", and you can quote me on that, especially if there is a poll three months from now and I somehow do turn out to be hilariously wrong about this. I just can't think of any reason any other character would be deemed less divorced than Skizz. He's Skizz!) The nature of the trafficdivorcebracket itself hinges on the idea that not all dynamics in it are equally divorced. A character appearing in this poll twice might very well be less divorced than a character who only appears in this poll once, if enough people agree that this other character has a dynamic that resembles a divorce much better than the other's. Thus, any statement made from data gathered from the entries in the poll must be understand as unreliable, and solely for my own amusement and the potential amusement of others. but then, so was the rest of this post, including this disclaimer. I fucking love percentages!!!!!!!!





[afniel]

There, I did this!

I have more room on Tumblr to ramble than in a Youtube description that nobody's gonna read, so...if you're real into pointlessly technical things, read on, I guess?

I learned some tricks that aren't all that interesting to anybody who isn't using Famitracker while messing with this. Like that you can replicate some heavy slap bass on the sawtooth channel by using V00 for normal volume (0-F as usual) and V01 to achieve MAXIMUM EARBLAST volume with no option to regulate it until you set it back to V00. It seems like volume output-wise, the VRC6 channels are treated as one category that compete with each other for a share of the volume, and the default 2A03 channels are a separate category, so if there's not much going on with the other VRC6 instruments, slapping the V01 command on the saw channel will be overpowering as hell. However, if you're using the other channels, it's not too bad, and you can use it as kind of an F+ volume. As far as I can tell it just expands to fill the remaining volume allowance for the VRC6 channel set.

I used a fairly moderate 10 instruments on this, mostly because VRC6 channels use separate instruments.

As for the sprite art, it's FFIII-based, and the Magus Sisters are heavily heavily edited from their FFIV incarnations. The Tower of Zot background is entirely from scratch, though, as are the weapons everyone's holding. It actually obeys foreground palette rules! It does, however, break the background palette rules by one palette extra. I could have resolved that with fewer colors in the Magus Sisters (swapping the yellow/purple/brown/transparent palette for more yellow/red/brown/transparent would do), but hell naw. I don't think anybody but me will care that much anyway.

Other than that, you could in fact display this on an NES if it were set up properly for it. You'd be sacrificing a kind of ridiculous number of background tiles for the Magus Sisters, but that's okay, they're cool. The music would similarly work if you threw it on a cart with a Konami VRC6 sound chip.

Kinda cool, right?

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Psycho Analysis: Jolene

(WARNING! This analysis contains flaming locks of auburn hair, with ivory skin and eyes of emerald GREEN!)

Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene… She’s perhaps the most famous antagonist in all of music. And so who better to do the first ever audio-only villain Psycho Analysis on?

Jolene is a 1973 Dolly Parton song about the titular woman, based on a true account of a bank teller flirting with her husband (something she’s cited as to why she doesn’t like performing the song live often). In the song, Parton begs Jolene not to steal her husband away from her with her feminine whiles; stealing a man from Dolly Parton is one of the greatest sins a person could commit. But is this truly the end goal of Jolene? Is she truly some man-stealing monster, or is she something else entirely?

Motivation/Goals: In Dolly’s eyes, Jolene is the single greatest threat to her relationship, and throughout the song begs Jolene not to take her man. One might think this is Jolene’s goal, but in fact, the truth is far more perplexing: we simply don’t know what Jolene’s true motivations are. We are only receiving the extremely biased point of view of Dolly herself, and there isn’t much indication that Jolene is actually trying to steal Dolly’s man. There’s plenty of evidence that she could steal him if she wanted to, but it is easy to read this as Dolly just being overly paranoid and threatened by another beautiful woman (something her dumbass man isn’t helping by saying Jolene’s name in his sleep. Dickhead).

Evilness: So Jolene’s evilness is honestly up to interpretation. If she’s just some girl that Dolly feels insecure about for no reason other than she views her as so beautiful she could steal away her man, but is otherwise not actively trying to steal him, I’d say she’s easily a 0/10, just not really evil at all. If she actually is trying to steal Dolly’s man knowingly, though, that’s an easy 5/10; not super evil, but boy is that a dick move (though the man is at fault here too for being an unfaithful shitstain).Now, if you subscribe to one of the alternate theories of the song that paints Jolene as some sort of unholy eldritch horror, a demonic siren luring a faithful man to a dark fate as Dolly Parton begs for his freedom… well, that’s probably an 8.5/10 on the evil scale.

Final Thoughts & Score: Jolene is genuinely fascinating because we know so much about her, and yet at the same time we know so little.

The entire first verse of the song is as follows:

Your beauty is beyond compare

With flaming locks of auburn hair

With ivory skin and eyes of emerald green

Your smile is like a breath of spring

Your voice is soft like summer rain

And I cannot compete with you, Jolene

From this, we get a pretty vivid picture of what Jolene looks like and how beautiful she is, which is… odd, isn’t it? So much time is spent describing her and building her up, and then the second verse just dunks on Dolly’s man and talks about him being super unfaithful and calling out for Jolene in his sleep. So we have a sucky boyfriend/husband, we have a woman who is so gorgeous she warrants an entire verse describing how hot she is, and we have the final verse concluding with “My happiness depends on you.” Is there any sort of heterosexual explanation for this?

But that’s just one of many ways to interpret the song, and that’s what’s so great about it. “Jolene” gives you just enough information to paint a pretty solid picture, but leaves just enough ambiguity to allow you as the listener to finish painting the picture however you’d like. Maybe Jolene is a wicked man-stealing bitch; maybe Dolly’s distress is misplaced; maybe Dolly is actually in love with Jolene despite her advances towards her husband, and this is some fucked up love triangle; or perhaps Jolene is some sort of unnatural horror that preys on the weakest men, and Dolly is pleading for his salvation.

Frankly, I find it hard to see Jolene as anything but a villain considering how stressed out she’s making Dolly in the song, and with that in mind she’s about the single most iconic antagonist a song could ever have. But at the same time, there’s not really much information available for me to adequately ascertain just how evil Jolene really is; is she even a villain at all? Can I fairly score her as a villain? If I have to give Jolene a score, I’d say an 8.5/10 is solid enough. The song itself is a perfect classic, and Jolene is really brought to life with the descriptive lyrics, but it’s hard for me to totally make a judgment call on her as a person based solely on Dolly’s word (and Dolly isn’t even placing blame on Jolene, to the point it reads a lot like projection).

But my score is pretty arbitrary in this case. There are a million ways to interpret Jolene, so why don’t you all tell me what score you’d give her? Just what kind of villain do you think Jolene is, if you even think she’s evil at all?

[hjellacott]

TRANS ATHLETES BANNED FROM OFFICIAL COMPETITIONS.

Will get more clicks than "trans athletes who wish to compete in official competitions will have to do so in the category of their biological sex, for sex-based categories make 0 sense if we forget that males and females will always be biologically different no matter how many hormones they take and how much surgery they put themselves through". It will also be shorter. But contrary to such a headline, my longer one is actually true.