#bc its level is scaled very low

[perenlop]

oh god this game does not level scale

[suffarustuffaru]

I don’t speak Japanese so I’d LOVE to hear more about the differences between the English and Japanese Re:Zero fandoms

yeah sure its very interesting to me now that ive noticed it more lately :o !! though ok disclaimer - i dont speak japanese either hah so if anyone is seeing this and does speak japanese + is familiar with the japanese speaking side of this fandom please add info if youd like!! and of course ill be mainly speaking from the english side of things bc im more familiar with that yes (sorry anon again im not a japanese speaker T^TT so sorry if i tread on info you already know!!). but yeah im speaking from my own experiences given the Topic at hand. ive been in this fandom since... 2019?? which is so wild to me aljsdfljsd.

anyway so - i think the big difference is mainly that the english fandom and many english speaking people that engage with rezero are. to put it bluntly, misconception runs Rampant to a very Interesting degree. to the point where it seems like the english speaking side of the fandom is More. Aggressive. than the japanese fandom. not that the japanese speaking side of the fandom is perfect - also bc what fandom is ever perfect 100% of the time, tbh - but that the louder people in the english rezero fandom are. well its a Very low bar. Very low. and from what little ive seen and heard so far, the japanese fandom tends to understand rezero and its characters better than the english fandom. which ig makes sense bc you know, rezero is japanese media, and also im sure cultural differences come into play here as well (im not familiar enough on this to speak about it in depth but the cultural differences feel Pretty Clear even though i cant 100% put my finger on what they specifically are).

but also bc yeah. its not That hard to beat some of the english fandom when it comes to media comprehension. misreading rezero is unfortunately Extremely common, both in and out of the rezero community. its Everywhere - youtube, myanimelist, ao3, ff.net, reddit, twitter, various rezero discords - and from what ive experienced, rezero tumblr basically kind of feels like finding an oasis after crawling through the desert for days on end lajdslfjs. which is probs bc rezero tumblr is Smaller and also a lot of us seem to be lgbtq+ in some way or be allies, so you dodge a lot of the misogyny and homophobia that happens in other rezero english circles. its why you see a lot of openly queer rezero-related posts on here while its a bit more. barren. in other rezero english places yes. bc its more safe to post queer rezero things on rezero tumblr rather than rezero reddit for Sure.

im not sure how the japanese fandom is with that exactly but theres some interesting differences between whats popular in the english fandom vs the japanese fandom. i mean as an otto fan ive been noticing how hes more popular with the japanese fandom—and on top of that, ottosuba is Way More popular in the japanese fandom too. reinsuba and julisuba seem to usually be the most popular mlm subaru ships in both fandoms but ottosuba is like A Little Up There in the japanese fandom. not sure if its on the same level as a ship like reinsuba but ottosubas Definitely loved as a ship. from what little ive seen it also seems like ships like vichisha are more acknowledged by the japanese fandom? im not entirely sure on like—Complete differences regarding what the japanese fandom finds interesting that may differ from english fandom, so ill really have to look more into the japanese fandoms fanart and fanfic when i can bc im pretty curious too. in general though, it seems like the japanese fandom has a bit more variety…. you can find fanart on So Many characters in rezero (which already has a very Massive cast full of very fleshed out characters) there. not that you cant in the english fandom bc theres a Bit of variety too, but id more so contribute that a little more to the Big Cast and less to having actual variety in fancontent. and of course im not saying that the japanese fandom may be a bit barren in some areas of fancontent—bc inevitably when u have a big cast of characters, side character content is gonna be more sparse compared to the main characters, but to me it does feel like the english fandom lacks variety in comparison. (and also yeah. seems like the japanese fandom acknowledges gay ships more in general tbh.)

whats focused in fancontent makes it easy to tell what may be popular in a fandom in terms of how fans perceive the source material and what fandoms want to do with the source material, if that makes sense. and its very easy to tell that with the english fandom if you just hop on rezero ao3–or even better, rezero reddit given theres a fanfic ideas thread thats usually pinned right at the top of the site. again i havent looked at japanese fanfic for rezero yet (bc i dont know where to look oops ajdndn) but when it comes to the english fandom you can tell that theyre generally more focused on the female cast both in fanart and in fanfic bc. theyre women and many fans on say, reddit or various rezero discords, are cis straight men, so inevitably… well lets just say you can tell when a man makes content for this fandom o.o theres also the. very weird reaction fic trends and trends following popular fics in the fandom, the two biggest being the watching him die again and again react fic and re:forgotten, the former of which includes a harem plot with subaru and the main girls of rezero while the latter is one of those subaru gets tortured by his ooc friends and then he gets revenge on them fics. which i suppose says something about the english fandom too.

of course on ao3 its dominated mainly by english fics (of course not all fics on there for rezero are in english— big shoutout to all the non english fics on rezero ao3 ur doing great <3 — but the majority are in english). and while yeah ur occasionally gonna find stuff like queer content or side character content or rarepair content, its definitely not that big in amount and also comes with the risk of. Hate. if anyones reading this and remembers the lone star stuff. (if u dont know—lone star was a julius x emilia fic where they NTR subaru or some shit and then it got bombed with hate bc of the ship? yeah.) so yeah english fandom is very cis straight oriented, ironically with the nastiest people being the very people that rezero criticizes. though this is also my personal experience, i do know several people personally whove been in this fandom for a while or were here for a while and yeah english fandom isnt very welcoming at times???? and it seems like at the very least the japanese fandom is A Little Less Aggressive than the english fandom is.

otherwise. yeah im very very curious about more of the differences in popular content between the japanese vs english fandom. i mean the english fandom’s main focus on the female cast for. Interesting Reasons other than their actual character depth is… interesting. and the astreas being popular in general vs otto + ottosubas popularity fluctuating is also very interesting to me (but i have several guesses as to Why that is), among other things. yeah id love to know what else the japanese fandom likes about rezero and see more of their content. i also have to wonder if characters like emilia and subaru are hated less by the japanese fandom…. T^T well that and the english fandom and many english speaking people engaging in rezero have this interesting pattern of either hating subaru No Matter What, wanting subaru to Not Be Subaru (ie using him as a self insert almost or attempting to change him into virtually another character), or putting subaru on a pedestal and ignoring his flaws and mistakes and that he Can do wrong. like theres Really not a lot of nuance there. so i wonder if the japanese fandom is. A Little more chill when it comes to character opinions like this too.

[boogiewoogieweeb]

I'm not saying The Terror in general and Joplittle specifically have definitively given me permanent brain rot but I am finding it funny that I'm picking up parallels and similarities with both in a series as far removed from it as Netflix's Blue Eye Samurai

[the-lavender-room]

Welcome to Earth-2004:

Lore:

Unknown to Peter, Norman had tricked him into helping him build a weapon.

Unknown to Peter, Norman had tricked him into helping him build a weapon.

Unknown to Peter, Norman had tricked him into helping him build a weapon.

When Norman had revealed himself to be the Green Goblin (he was goblining before Peter was spidering) he also revealed that the weapon was supposed to make him stronger and he wanted Peter to be a villain with him.

While Goblin was monologuing, Peter noticed that the weapon had become unstable and was going to explode. Before it did; Goblin throw Peter out the window while he stayed inside as it exploded.

Peter (having survived falling 30+ storys bc plot) managed to get back home Aunt May and Uncle Ben’s house. At first; everything was fine for a few weeks.

The infection started with insects; becoming bigger, more aggressive, more “not right”. Then, it jumped to bigger and bigger animals and became worse. Rats with sharp spines on its tail, cats with venomous fangs, horses with eight legs. They even started to resemble other animals.

Around this time, Peter had gotten sick from radiation and had isolated himself from others. Uncle Ben had dragged him to the car to take him to a hospital (it was a long, difficult drive with bread loaf sized cockroach with acidic spit every where) while Peter was in the ER, Ben had also gotten sick due to exposure to Peter and eventually dies from radiation.

While Peter’s in the hospital, the infection jumped to humans. It started small, with most people feeling very itchy and getting nasty rashes; hospitals became overcrowded and many people had to deal with severe body pains at home. The infection got worse and people began to mutate; peoples bodies would twist and burst open and became more animal like. What was left of society had fallen as many people had become more animal than man.

People in urban and suburban moved to large, interconnecting, underground cities or repurposed the tall abandoned buildings, strung together with bridges and paths. 

Peter(now NOT dying) gets his friends and aunt may underground and becomes a photographer(takes pics below and above ground for news reasons) he decides to become Wolf-Spider so he can protect people from the fugitive and literal monsters.

————————————————————————

Other info:

Peter’s not the only person with a spider mutation, but the radiation just gave him enhanced strength, speed, and healing.

Wolf-Spider’s not the only hero. There are other non-enhanced people, they usually deal with other people and not monsters.(I MIGHT add “street level” heros too)

There are three levels of infection:

Low infection: little to no visible changes and are more likely to be cured(if one is created)

Mild infection: partial changes, often have extra limbs and patches of fur, scales, or feathers. Not likely be able to be cured.

High infection: the big monsters. The animal part of them has taken over and are now unrecognizable.

Only people and animals(and sometimes fungus) can be infected naturally. Plants have to be infected by hand and has a different reaction to it.

Spidey has organic webs

The infection started in New York but fully spread all over the world in two years(bugs and animal migrations)

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

I don't have a scale but I weigh myself sometimes at my sisters house or whatever. I'm down 30 lbs.

Congratulations! I know it’s not all about weight but it shows that your efforts towards fitness have not been in vain. You can’t always see other benefits to healthier living (less pain, etc) immediately, so weight can be a good motivator and indicator of your commitment levels! I was impressed just by you having one dessert a week. That would be a true miracle for me haha.

The dessert thing is big for me. I have the worst sweet tooth and I love hot drinks in the colder seasons. I have a tea most days which is very low cal so that sates that and I have one starbucks drink on fridays. If I get something more sugary from Starbucks, then I don't typically have my dessert bc its about the same thing.

[anime-grimmy]

My thoughts on Pokemon Scarlet and Violet

The game’s been out for almost a week now and Ive blasted through it in like 3 days because my sick ass couldn’t really do much but lay around and suffer anyways. Rn I’m trying to fill my Pokedex and I’ve started a second, way slower playthrough to really enjoy everything the game’s got to offer.

Criticism

So, Pokemon’s first open world game. We’ve all seen the memes, the game has a lot of bugs and especially performance issues. While I have not run into a high amount of glitches, except for some visual stuttering and one shut down, the performance of this game is sometimes atrocious. And this coming from someone who plays Monster Hunter World on an old laptop at 30fps where more than half the textures don’t even load. Sometimes the game dances on the line of death when it loads in too many Pokemon, or god forbid you’re on water because your switch will sound like a chainsaw trying to cut through a stubborn trunk.

And it really IS a shame, because the concepts and ideas of this game are a lot of fun! Like, this game IS fun but it does get bogged down by its issues a lot. Also bcs it does not have dynamic level scaling. Don’t tell me I can go everywhere and do anything, but then throw me in a zone I can’t go through. Don’t get me wrong, the whole “I SHOULD NOT BE HERE YET” experience is very funny and makes you look forward to going back to places, but the layout is just confusing. At the start, Nemona tells you the West Gate is for the first Gym Challenge, Arven tells you the East Gate is for the first Titan. You’d assume either way you go, the challenges in that zone are at least around the same levels but NOPE. You can beat the Gym Leader on the side of the first Titan relatively easily, but try to take on the Team Star base in the same area and be sure to suffer. This weird layout design goes through most of the game. Like, why is the Gym Leader that’s FARTHER North than Grucia weaker than him??? Like, you kinda HAVE to go through his town to get to the other one. It just does NOT make any sense!

 I wanna say that Game Freak just needed more time but we know that even a year more wouldn’t have helped much, because Game Freak just isn’t a studio that’s equipped to do everything they set out to do. They’re short development time makes them build the games on an already wonky base, so even if they did suddenly extend the development by a year, I don’t think much would have changed since they had a faulty game design from the start. It pisses me off so much how Game Freak won’t or can’t reach out for help, they always try to keep everything in their small little team and not let outside hands touch their product (which ofc also is because of all the branding around it), but with their short 3 year development cycle, these guys just aren’t fit for the job to make the games they want to and the people demand. For fuck’s sake, they’re the biggest media franchise on earth, I do not understand what makes them think that one more year of development from the start or an extension of their team would do to fuck that over. So far the people stick with their games because they give us glimmers of hope and lure us in with great Pokemon and characters, but if this continues, they are slowly but surely going to lose their status as top franchise.

Because not making a game with this low res run well on the switch when the Xenoblade’s Chronicles games can be played on the system is unacceptable.

The Good stuff

Now that Ive got the negative stuff out of the way, I can go to stuff I really enjoyed. Because while I do have my fair share of criticism, this game also did a lot I liked.

For one, I am deeply saddened they removed the chugging balls mechanic from Arceus, this just makes catching Pokemon a hassle again. However, I do like the autobattle mechanic. It’s a bit rough because your Pokemon are so slow and once you run for 3 steps they’re back in their Pokeballs. But it’s a nice mechanic to get some off hands exp when traveling from place to place.

Speaking of traversal, I really love Kuraidon. The sound design of this Pokemon is immaculate, I love the scaly boy, he has so much personality and I love how you’re unlocking HMs for him through the Herba Mystica. It’s such a stupid pun but I love it.

As for the other new Pokemon, I’m hit and miss on them. A lot feel weirdly Fakemon. Like, the Flamingo and the Stork don’t feel like real Pokemon to me. Others, however, I really really liked. The Smoliv line is one of my new fav Gras types, Fuecoco has no braincells and I love him for that, and this game did give us some awesome new bug and fairy types. DUDE, A BREAD DOG?! HE’S SO CUTE!!(Spoiler for endgame)

And then the ancient Pokemon. I do prefer the ancient Mons to the futuristic ones tbh, and I like the concept also way more of trying to bring back old, extinct Pokemon to live alongside the present ones than bringing some from the future. Dude, like, the ancient Volcarona is so fucking cool, it’s my fav of the old mons.

(spoiler territory)

But on to the one thing I truly loved about Scarlet and Violet, the characters. Specifically the main three, Nemona, Arven and Penny (and Mr. Clavell/Clive). I never thought I’d like Penny and Arven at the start but holy shit they grew on me. Even Nemona, who I figured I’d like, took a turn in character I hadn’t expected.

Let’s start off with Penny since I have the least to say about her. It was pretty obvious she’s the leader of Team Star from the start, right? The predictability aside, while the Team Star story was nothing to write home about, by the end I did feel attached to this group of misfits, and Penny’s relationship with them is so sweet. Like, when after the game you can join her looking after the team Star bosses to see if they’re doing well in school, it’s so adorable. What I like about Penny though is how surprisingly sassy she is. Freaking hacker Otaku with no chill, I love it.

Then, Nemona. She’s like the epitome of a “nice” rival. I like that from the start it’s established that she is a great trainer, since she already has the Champion title, but the fact she chooses to start from scratch to grow alongside you just screams how much she loves battling and respects a good journey. She wants you to be the best because she sees your potential and she just knows she’ll have the best battle in her life if she helps you out. She’s a mix of a rival/mentor character, who at the same time kind of has a screw loose since battling is all she thinks about. But it all comes from an honest place and the fact she doesn’t act as a cheerleader and actually challenges you in battle when you’re not ready for it, makes her a great rival.

Lastly, Arven. (BIG spoilers) My sweet baby boy, I cannot believe Game Freak dumped so much trauma on you. It was obvious from the start that he had some parental issues, I did not expect it to be year long neglect. I mean, he hasn’t seen the prof in YEARS and has NO memories of playing together with his parent? And apparently his other parent walked out on them the MOMENT he was born??? Then he gets a dying dog, which thankfully got better (it did make me teary eyed by the end ngl) but then the one who’s actually dead is the PROFESSOR???? I hate how quickly he got over the fact, the dude just found out his parent who he hasn’t seen in years is fucking DEAD and has been for YEARS. I mean, I’m happy this makes him find new ambition and a new path in life but fuck me, let the boy process this for a bit.

But yeah, Arven’s story was my fav (im very weak for dogs ok.) Though, all coming together in the end and you running alongside your friends down the Great Crater was so damn cute istg. And the dialogue between them, getting to know each other, is so damn good. You see some different sides of them, showing interest in someone else but you, and it gives them some more dimension, I love it.

Now if Game Freak just FINALLY added voice acting, at least for the damn CUTSCENES, I’d be the happiest. Like dude, that last emotional cutscene really needed some raw emotional voice deliveries.

But yeah, all in all, Scarlet and Violet has a ton of fucking problems, but it also has a lot of good sides to it. Now if Game Freak just took it’s fucking time and accepted some help, they truly could make a great game from the get go.

[salt-baby]

#please tell me anything you may know about propranalol bc i've been on it for a year for tachycardia #that they can't find the reason for - and recently it's either getting worse or the dosage isn't strong enough anymore #they want to put me on metoprolol but the side effects listed are ... not appealing #and the fact you can't just stop taking it scares me but also i'd like to lay down to sleep #and not feel like my heart is gonna vibrate out of my chest #it's even more disconcernting when i check my bpm and it's in 70s but i still feel like i just got off a rollercoaster inside #they checked my heart and it looks and is functioning fine and don't seem to know what else to do # my bp is very slightly high so they latched onto that and like ok but they haven't even looked at #like adrenal gland issues even though my thyroid is also acting up #it's currently fine while i'm walking and moving around but trying to lay down i 'feel' my blood pounding in my ears #it's terrible trying to concentrate but i also can't sleep i am so tired also my legs keep cramping #idt it's pots though bc up til now the increased heartrate was if i was standing up and moving #thenit was under control for months #then suddenly the thyroid stuff kicked up and the tachycardia too just in the last month or so #they keep saying the propranolol was also 'off-label' for anxiety which they seem to be trying to say i have #but like yeah having a heartrate that untreated shoots up to over a hundred when sitting down doing nothing #does cause some level of anxiety you know?

I’m glad you asked! your tags prompted a bunch of research (which i had an absolute blast doing)

I feel very strongly about the usage of propranolol in pots because I think its extremely frequent prescription is reflective of a misunderstanding of how POTS works. to walk you through this:

I recently attended a talk given by a neurologist on forms of dysautonomia in children - POTS was a central focus. The presenter showed head-up table tilt data like this (which is from Cheshire et al.):

[image ID: a line graph from a scientific paper. the graph is of head up tilt testing data, specifically SBP, DBP, and HR. the graph is labeled “Postural Tachycardia Syndrome”, and the axis of the graph each have a short line labelled “50 mm Hg or beats/min) for the vertical axis, and “1 min” for the horizontal axis, to indicate scale. Below the lines of the line graph, testing periods are labelled “Supine”, “Head-up tilt to 70 degrees” and “Supine”, from left to right. All lines are variable, fluctuating up and down a few mmHg or BPM. the SBP line remains mostly level, the DBP line increases around 10 mmHg during the “Head-up tilt to 70 degrees” portion of the graph, and the HR line increases over 50 BPM during the “Head-up tilt to 70 degrees” portion of the graph. DBP quickly returns to normal in the second “Supine” section of the graph, with HR slowly returning to normal over the course of around 2 minutes. End ID ./. ]

The presenter went on to say that this proved that people with POTS don’t have any drop in blood pressure when they stand up, just a sudden increase in heart rate. which, isn’t how pots is understood to work.

in general, when you stand up, gravity is suddenly acting on your body (and the blood inside it) in a different way - suddenly, its a lot harder to get your blood up to your head (and to your arm or fingers, where blood pressure is measured). in healthy people, the blood vessels in the lower half of your body constrict automatically, and push blood back up to the heart. In people with pots, this is impaired, and blood starts to pool in the legs. 

As a result, sensors near the heart called baroreceptors (among others) realize that the blood pressure coming from the heart is low, and speed up the heart rate to compensate. This compensation happens almost instantaneously, hence why there’s no sign of it on the tilt table data, but regardless the blood pressure did still drop out. All the tilt table data tells us is that the rest of the body, those baroreceptors and other blood pressure mechanisms, that’s all working fine. In some people with POTS, there’s even a little dip in blood pressure before the HR shoots up. 

Eventually, though, if the drop in blood pressure is severe enough, the heart just can’t keep up, and the lack of blood to the brain makes you faint (syncope). People with POTS don’t have symptoms of just high heart rate, they have symptoms of low blood pressure as well. But some doctors think that because they can’t measure the drop in blood pressure, it doesn’t exist, and heart rate shoots up for no clear reason.

propranolol is a type of medication called a beta-blocker, which means it acts on certain kinds of receptors called beta receptors (and on certain types of those receptors, but I’m not getting into that here). in effect, it lowers heart rate, and can lower blood pressure as a result. It’s a very familiar medication to any cardiologist, and generally regarded as safe and mild.

But in people with POTS, that heart rate rise didn’t pop up out of nowhere - it’s really important to keeping you conscious! so decreasing the heart rate without thinking about the blood pressure isn’t really a great idea.

That said, there’s evidence its effective in people with POTS, from a variety of different studies, and its one of the first meds usually prescribed for POTS. However, in recent years, I’ve started to see some others arguing against it as well. 

for more on your specific symptoms:

What you described rang a bit of a bell for me. supine (laying down) and resting tachycardia aren’t really associated with the kind of POTS I know, although not completely unheard of. that said, you said you weren’t sure if your heart rate really was increased while lying down, but you were pretty sure you felt it (and I trust you - something is going on, even if you can’t catch it with a sensor). and you described yourself as slightly hypertensive - if its under 130/90 ish at most of your appointments, I wouldn’t worry. nurses don’t always have the best technique in taking blood pressure, and can often measure falsely high readings. over 140/100, and they’re probably on to something with the hypertension thing.

Anyway, those symptoms (hypertension and supine tachycardia) remind me of a subtype of POTS (a less common one) called hyperadrenergic pots. It’s proven pretty difficult to find stuff on this subtype, but I was able to find a couple papers. From Conner et al.:

“This form is characterized by a gradual onset with slowly progressive symptoms. Patients report experiencing tremor, anxiety, and cold clammy extremities with upright posture. Many patients note increased urine output when upright. True migraine headaches may be seen in over half of patients. Gastrointestinal symptoms in the form of recurrent diarrhea were seen in 30% of the patients.”

One paper mentioned those with a hyperadrenergic form of POTS had supine tachycardia that gets worse when upright (Ross et al., second paragraph of the introduction).

You’re on the right track with the adrenal gland stuff - to confirm this, there should be about a 10 mmHg increase in systolic blood pressure upon standing, and there should be elevated catecholamine levels (which has to do with adrenal hormones). Your doctors will have to rule out something called a pheochromocytoma, which is a benign (NOT CANCER) tumor on the kidney that can cause similar symptoms. (and if it is a pheochromocytoma, which they’d figure out using a scan like an MRI or CT, then they’d want to remove it surgically).

Your doctors likely didn’t test your catecholamine levels because its a pretty finicky test, and can be time intensive for both patient and administer. additionally, as a wild guess, this doesn’t seem like the kind of test insurance likes to cover.

So lets suppose you do have the hyperadrenergic form of POTS - what medication options are available to you? According to Conner et al., a couple! They list bupropion (wellbutrin), escitalopram (lexapro), clonidine, and labetalol (a different kind of beta blocker). Clonidine was recommended by other papers as well. Worth mentioning is that I did come across a study that suggested midodrine WON’T work for the hyperadrenergic subtype (Ross et al.), which Conner et al. agrees with.

And if you have the more common form of POTS (neuropathic), then it may be helpful to try fludrocortisone (or florinef). Some studies also suggest increasing blood volume (ie, drinking a lot of water and eating a lot of salt), which is what florinef does, can be helpful in the hyperadrenergic form, so florinef might be worth trying either way.

anyway, i hope all of this was helpful. you’re welcome to reply back with questions or comments, or send them to my ask box. i’m glad you liked my post, and hopefully my response wasn’t too overwhelming! I wish you the best of luck with your symptoms.

POTS Medication Vocabulary

after about the third time a doctor prescribed a medication that made my POTS drastically worse, and about three doctors visits past giving up on being an easy patient, i started asking my doctors the following questions whenever they prescribed a new long term medication:

is this medication a hypotensive? (will this medication lower my blood pressure?)

does this medication have a risk of tachycardia? (can this medication raise my heart rate?)

is this medication a diuretic? (will this medication dehydrate me?)

can this medication cause hyponatremia? (will this medication cause my body to lose salt?)

your doctor likely doesn’t know all of this off the top of their head for every medication, but they should know the most common adverse reactions. some may simply tell you they have no clue. i still think it’s worth asking to force them to consider these mechanisms.

for additional consideration:

Keep reading

[orossii]

tw csa, rape

child porn is a multi-million dollar industry with hundreds of thousands of new victims every year. it has obvious close, almost indistinguishable connections to the mainstream porn industry, and yet we very rarely see truly large scale crackdowns in its epicenter, the US. those we do see gather evidence on a few low level child porn consumers and small time pimps while producing very few arrests or major shakeups at the top of the supply chain despite the fact that the US is the most extensively surveilled country on the planet. the child porn industry at the scale it’s currently operating on would not be able to survive without some degree of coordination with the government, and I’d argue that much like how drug smuggling in Nicaragua was coordinated by the CIA to fund its extensive black operations with the added bonus of destabilizing black neighborhoods in LA by flooding the streets with assault weapons and crack cocaine, the child porn industry serves a similar purpose

internet pornography is largely free, and we’re at the point where “simulated” CSA, rape, domestic violence, and slavery are all mainstream, front page content. you don’t have to wander far to find further extremes of the extreme. children are being exposed to porn at younger and younger ages, and in the case of furry and cartoon character pornography that’s bizarrely prevalent in Google image search results it’s almost like it’s being marketed to them like brightly colored candy. orgasms become addictive quickly, and when you’re wearing out that response multiple times a day you inherently need more and more extreme content to satisfy the addiction. when you watch a ton of teen porn, ddlg, cartoon bestiality, hardcore bondage, simulated snuff films etc etc to get off it extinguishes your boundaries even further over time and encourages you to dehumanize the people you see on screen. when that grooming process is complete the slip to illegal porn just seems like a logical next step to the porn addict, and the illegal porn is significantly more profitable to the industry. and, in a surveillance state, very easy to leverage as blackmail to ensure that politicians and business leaders do whatever you tell them to. porn in general also has the added bonus of turning us into an even more sociopathic, deeply individualistic culture bc it eliminates much of the prerequisite human empathy needed for the struggle and compromises the integrity of our movements. it keeps women terrorized by the men in our lives that view us through the lens of pornography (a lens through which we also view ourselves, generating increased consumption of things like makeup and risky plastic surgeries) and both sexes politically paralyzed. this post is a little all over the place because I’m half asleep as I type this but im firmly of the opinion that there’s more to porn than most people are willing to think

[weareallstardustfallen]

Minecraft world building is always interesting!! What are your nether worldbuilding ideas? T

well i do Not feel like giving the entire 4k so i will just talk about my thoughts on the history of the nether bc that is the part that i like best of it

so the nether was canonically not always like that; the soul sand valley might have once been "a habitable paradise full of huge, bygone creatures," the ancient debris is the remains of historical netherite mining by piglins, stuff like that. as such, i decided that i wanted to take what we're given in the game, use that to figure out what the original nether was like, and then go from there to the modern nether.

and me and @bananasofthorns were listening to some of the ambiance tracks for the different nether biomes, and we realized that hey, some of these sound very Hm. like, there's a couple in the basalt deltas that sound a little like laughter, or like war drums. and after listening to literally all of the nether ambiance tracks and tossing ideas back and forth and such, i settled on this idea, under the cut because it's Long:

the nether was originally a much more habitable place, with a lot more biodiversity than exists now. originally, there were four intelligent races, not just piglins, and they were loosely settled into the four biomes which existed at the time- the crimson forests, the nether wastes, the basalt deltas, and the soul sand valleys, though they weren't very wasteland-y or soul sand-y at all, so they were probably called something else.

the soul sand valley was home to a bunch of very powerful mages, as well as the massive beasts which became the fossils. they were probably the most able to use magic of all of the societies, and any overworld enchantments which can be found originated in the nether (like the ones on piglin armor) are actually a completely different form of that enchantment derived from ancient enchanted books from this society; soul speed was essentially reverse-engineered from them. the valleys were probably the most utopian of all the biomes at the time, full of many, many different kinds of flora and fauna.

the basalt deltas, on the other hand, were very hostile even then, with practically nothing living there except for the delta warriors. they were very warlike and probably conquerors, and were the ones who built the nether fortresses for military purposes. they spent decades at war with the valley mages, and while they most definitely had access to some pretty powerful magic it was not to their level of artistry.

there was also a society in the nether wastes, which has been next to forgotten. both the biome and the people were caught in the crossfire between the valley mages and the delta warriors and over a very long period of time, their entire civilization pretty much got wiped out. the land itself is still basically barren, and sometimes unstable.

the fourth, of course, was the piglins of the crimson forests. they didn't get involved with the wars, and managed to avoid getting much damage from the massive amount of fighting. they, and the hoglins, are the only mobs who are still around from this period of time.

the war did, of course, come to a catastrophic end in what i'm calling the cataclysm. the delta warriors gained access to very powerful and very volatile magic. what did they do with it? attempt to smite the valley mages off the face of the earth, of course- a little too effectively.

they did manage to totally wipe out the valley mages, which was their goal! they decimated the mages, as well as literally every other living thing in the biome, their own society, and did a lot of Bad Shit to the environment of the nether as a whole.

because the area and the people were so charged with magic already, the mages weren't just completely killed- instead, they were trapped in the newly-created soul sand, half-alive, with their souls only being released upon the sand being burnt. the valleys are now completely devastated, and you can hear the mages whispering or calling in the distance, sometimes enough to lure an unwary traveler to their death, though this isn't out of malice.

the delta warriors, also killed by the cataclysm, became the wither skeletons and skeletons of the nether. those who were in the valley at the time of the cataclysm became the wither skeletons due to the magic of the area; they spend their eternities protecting the fortresses they built. those who weren't there are the normal skeletons, forever attempting to provide reinforcements for a battle which is long since over.

and the piglins? they were adversely affected by the cataclysm, of course, everything was, and their glory days are past. but they're alive, where the other two are not- despite this extinction-level event, they are still continuing on, essentially the same as they were before. and this continues even through the most major thing that would harm the crimson forests after the cataclysm, that being the introduction of the warped forests.

the warped forests were essentially corruption which crept in just after the cataclysm when the environment was still unsettled; it began to slowly expand, eating away at the crimson forests, and it is also very... weird, as far as the biomes go. it's not really hostile, it won't kill you to enter or anything and there's even some helpful stuff there, but... it is Deeply Wrong. the endermen there are numb and expressionless, like they're sleepwalking. they never really react to stimuli other than being looked in the eye, but sometimes they scream in the distance like they're being tortured.

and, bonus, because i'm not sure whether it's piglin legend or reality but i think it's cool:

each of the biomes has an Entity to it, not quite sentient but enough to have intent, like a manifestation of the ones who used to live there. it's not quite a god, not quite real, but it is there and you can feel it, when you step into its domain.

the basalt delta is a conqueror imprisoned, the warrior who lost. the Entity of the deltas is trapped far beneath the surface, but it is still there, angry and vengeful, straining to get out, and sometimes you can hear it laughing, or the distant echo of the drums of war. the basalt delta is angry. the basalt delta hates you. the basalt delta wants you fucking dead.

the soul sand valleys are asleep. it's not quite dead, nothing with so much power and life could just die like that, but it isn't quite there, either. the valleys are a tragedy of unimaginable scale, and there is murmuring in the distance, never quite close enough to make out.

the nether wastes are dead. they are barren, empty, lifeless; nothing really grows and nothing really lives. the wastes died a long time ago, even before the cataclysm- the only trace of it is in the occasional odd noise, and the way the rock shifts and crumbles at random, unsettled by the fighting which reduced it to nothing.

the crimson forests are the only one left as it was- weaker, tired, but still alive and still awake and still free. the crimson forests do not get involved with wars not their own, do not play with the kind of power that can reduce a civilization to dust. the crimson forest, and its residents, are survivors above all. they will still be there, living, and so will the forests.

the warped forest, on the other hand... the warped forest is not of the nether. the warped forest is a foreigner, come slinking into the gaps left behind and slowly gaining ground, bit by bit. if any of the biomes has a mind, it's this one- the warped forests make odd, terrifying sounds, and the endermen are screaming in the distance or wandering like ghosts, and there is something laughing, low and heavy.

best not to stay too long.

[ruthlesslistener]

V. messy because I technically shouldn’t be drawing rn but I have some Thoughts:tm: about how breeding hormones can alter wyrm physiology

i feel like a lot of a wyrm dadbod would be stored in the tail, bc that's where a lot of that shit ends up stored. Some on the belly would become apparent, but really that would be more loose skin for holding eggs; both 'males' and 'females' have it bc if an egg-developer keeps their eggs for the whole eggnancy they'll need the space, but if they oviposate them then the male-analogous wyrms would keep them in a pouch to develop, like seahorses. Usually this is advantageous for a mated pair, bc long-term egg developing wyrms tend to be bigger and have more stored fat, meaning they can sacrifice more energy and food to their smaller mate, but both go through that sort of chonkification during breeding seasons bc the extra fat and the like helps with all the fighting and territory claiming that occurs. 

The ridged plates along the sides and on the back also become more apparent as the skin loosens and more fat/muscle gets stored underneath, bulging them out. This slows speed in the tunnels, but also makes the wyrms seem larger and more intimidating, which is useful when defending the nest. Extra muscle also gets padded around the jaws and throat to protect the neck and deliver more powerful bites, useful for breaking through wyrm carapace. Infanticide and fatal territory wars are common during the breeding season, as wyrms compete for territory, fight to prove themselves worthy of mates, try to stealthily kill clutches and other mates to breed another, etc etc, so defense becomes quite important. 

Typically, all wyrms that develop eggs have these characteristics year-round until they decide to switch their sex, but mates that have successfully bred a clutch would both undergo an increase in the hormone analogous to estrogen during this time, leading to increased moodiness, aggression, territoriality, and fat retention. Scale darkening may also occur after the eggs are laid, caused by a long-lasting surge of this hormone that lingers beyond the breeding window, but this will not become very noticeable unless both wyrms decide to retain those elevated hormone levels past the breeding season. Wyrms previously incapable of developing eggs may also be capable of developing dud eggs or retaining fertile clutches if their spike of hormones are unusually high, though fluctuating between developing eggs or producing sperm is natural to wyrms, so this is not typically met with alarm. If a mated pair/trio/etc are in a habitat suitable for a double clutch, the opportunity would typically be accepted, as the survival rate of wyrm hatchlings is exceptionally low, and a double-clutch would bolster the meager chances the wyrmlings have of survival. 

Wyrms that do not form mated pairs, mate-and-go, or do not have their hormones triggered by nesting behaviors and/or the pheromones of a gravid mate would retain the colour and fat-muscle distribution they had before the breeding season. The changes in the Pale King’s physiology outlined above would only occur in the event that he actively got involved with Hornet’s infancy, and would be lost due to detachment and grief-starvation post-Sealing. Some fat and muscle retention was observed during the period of attempting to breed the Pure Vessel, but the induced losses of the clutches/abandonment of the eggs prevented the nesting instinct to be triggered in its entirety, thus ‘breaking’ the normal cycle a few weeks after every clutch was lowered into the Abyss, though the behavioral changes would cause psychological distress to the individual for a while after that, as the heightened hormones slowly drained out of its system.

[yozzers]

vexos hcs and random notes

ill update as i go, because yes i do update my masterlists every once in awhile, i should probably add them to my pinned... 

General

I sincerely hope they have a small living arrangement so I can inflict them with the pain of having to share almost everything with each other

I just want Shadow and Lync to share a bunk

Like to think that alongside Volt, Mylene and Lync were also recruited by Hydron

None of them officially joined until they were a bit older but probably trained to eventually join the Vexos; in the mean time they probably worked for Hydron or something like that

Volt recruited at 11; Lync a year later and Mylene following not long after (respectively 13, 8, 12 when they’re all gathered)

My reasoning to why Volt is patient with Lync’s antics and Mylene less so but doesn’t lash out as badly as you think she would around annoying little kids; grew up tgt moment

Spectra probably forced his way into the Vexos like “hiiii i see you dont have any Vexos members <3″ bcs obv he wasn’t using royal scientist dad privelages (i think, bcs Clay seems horrified abt Spectra being a Vexos and well, being Spectra) 

Shadow had an advantage of being a nobleman (in terms of him being accepted into the Vexos’ ranks)

the Vexos and their set of rules magent-ed on the fridge door or something and every time they go over a page they have to staple/tape a new page on

Joined in this order, Volt, Spectra, Shadow, Mylene, Lync, Gus 

Vexos being a “chance of death low but the chance is still there” type of job... they feel like idols girl help they are bakugan idol group who work for the government 

sorry the way the vestal kids talk about them... going to treat the Vexos like a kpop group now

Spectra Phantom / Keith Fermin 

[canon] son of a (royal?) scientist. definitely had it good and comfy

think it’d be REALLY funny if he already knew Shadow before he became Spectra, Shadow just doesn’t recognize him bcs of his stupid get up

throws childhood friends Shadow Spectra at you, just two weirdos 

Keith specifically keeps Shadow from ever meeting his sister which is why neither of them really recognize each other

Pre-Spectra; probably would’ve been really into bakugan biology and what not. Feels like the kind of person to talk w/ his dad about “do you think we could change their appearance if we messed w/ their mechanical ball form or would it not carry over to their released forms”

this mf looks like a biology major i feel it in my guts 

mom isn’t dead she just divorced Clay bcs he didn’t know how to balance family and work, good for her

probably lives in another city now, and it’s a bit more of a hassle to meet with her kids so they don’t see her as much but she is present in their lives (keep in contact in other ways) 

probably went a bit silent when Keith went missing

didn’t bleach his eyebrows bcs he didn’t want to harm the skin around there and he never thought he’d take the mask off around others, or about how stupid he’d look without the mask

please please please please draw him with his pink hair roots in his MS fit he should've grown out some of his bleached hair by then

daddy issues is truly the root of evil

Gus Grav

Just Some Gut background; middle class just living life

[canon?] was going on a route to being an “idol brawler”, because that’s kind of what their brawls felt like, since it was all purely for show with some competition. it felt less like a sport and more spectacle.

Gus wanting to be an idol brawler is actually such a funny string of words put together I’m making that a thing, if he didn’t join the Vexos he would’ve been an idol brawler

I like the Gus needs glasses hc (shoutout to @marmeladebois ‘s post on that) 

The hc of him being half human and Runo’s half brother is so good 

Cooks well but refuses to help cook fr the Vexos (unless Spectra specifically asks) --> that job is usually left to Volt

not related but reminds me heavily of yugioh vrain’s Spectre (or other way around... Gus was the blueprint) 

Shadow Prove

[handbook canon] a vestal nobleman 

has an older brother (oc; Lux- casual Haos brawler)

inferiority complex or whatever, the only thing he bested his brother in was Bakugan

the Prove family being typical prim proper noble family and forcing Shadow to be repressed is something, but the Proves having the same kind of wavelength as Shadow but in different variations is funnier. They’re just Like That.

Probably not a military family, does work closely with the government still; um im thinking somewhere under the Fermins but not by much

Considered running away from home several times 

Unwillingly has knowledge on Vestal classic literature/ music

hard clutching a wall whenever he wants to join in on discussions about it bcs he knows this stuff but no way is he going to make himself look like a nerd + hes not actually that interested

*debates you for fun and bcs i hate u <3* 

You know how he doesn’t take his job as a Vexos member super seriously, I wonder:

did his parents force him to be a Vexos since he wasn’t interested in the political side of his family and probably against taking up anything related to it, so they had him do something that’d still be beneficial to the family?  

joined to pursue a freedom he didn’t have as a nobleman and is now just taking it really easy?

has clowns > jesters debate with volt; obv he’s team clown, volt is team jester

incredibly irrelevant but if he was a human he’d be chinese, i’ve claimed him, prodigal son older brother and fail son dynamic is there 

Mylene Ferrow

While I like the idea of her being from a military family, I want to make her like Ling Wen (TGCF) in the sense she started from the bottom and climbed to the top... it fits her ambitious nature of grasping for more, she hasn’t reached what she considers the top just yet... 

[very Ling Wen specific but Mylene being put in jail fr crimes unknown to me and being recruited  by Hydron bcs she kicked serious ass is an entertaining thought] 

I like to think she’s closest to Shadow due to the fact he kind of forces his presence onto her so... not her choice in that matter. “annoying” to “endearingly annoying, you still aren’t getting special treatment though”

Ofc Volt and Lync are on the same level, but I think they all know when to give each other space so they’re more of a “we hold each other at a distance, but we’re aware of out closeness which is enough for us”

Then its Spectra and then Gus in the “closest to Mylene” scale; she just straight up hates Gus and it’s mutual

whoever made the “Mylene and Spectra were exes” hc I think it’s really funny so I’m adding it here 

terrible fashion, she’s the one who chose the outfits when she and Shadow went to earth; her fashionable armor look she usually has was designed with Volt’s help, she just voiced what she generally wanted 

Her red lipstick look was bcs she thought it’d make her look more serious/ intimidating (Volt and Lync approved, it rlly does work on her)

Shadow matches w/ her (via his red nails) after they get teamed up tgt several times bcs he thinks they’re basically the go-to duo matchup whenever they’re assigned work n it’d be cool

Very forthcoming about the fact she used to be considered a criminal and was from same rundown area Volt and Lync come from

She’s grateful she got out of jail but she still has no respect for Hydron and despite how much she tries to hide it she does make it pretty clear to him she doesn’t really like him

I wish I had more to say about her... but It’s all relationship esque, i think in general she’s enjoyable and good so what I want more out of her is character dynamics

Lync Volan

[eng dub] he has grandparents; whether they’re still alive or not is...? 

was part of the same area Volt is from

probably aware of each other but didn’t really know each other

you sound like you have mommy issues 

came from the same area as Volt, but lived further out and closer to those areas where there were some bits of nature left 

ill expand on why he got picked up by Hydron another day lazy rn

Volt Luster

[canon] he’s from an area that just straight up looks like yugioh 5ds’ Satellite, and Hydron was the one who pulled him out of there  

He says Hydron pulled him out of there when he was a kid? I’d assume at youngest it’d be like Hydron (8) and Volt (11)

has a neat collection of handmade jester dolls 

lot more artistic than he seems 

Had his guardian bakugan with him the longest; had Brontes even before he met Hydron

Would the others consider him weird fr having a talking Bakugan that acted friendly with him n cracked jokes? 

[crowsent]

a fuckton of things i want in da4

a few words censored bc tumblr will swallow this in the void if i dont. long ass fuck list ahead

a romanceable dwarf

more romanceable elves/qunari

more elf/qunari/dwarf companions

consistent writing for once

more nb representation

good hair. please just give me good hair options. give me long hair. give me luxurious flowing locks. give me braids. give me good fucking hair options

let me shittalk the chantry

dalish elf npcs that impact the plot in unique ways

dalish elf companions that are proud of being dalish

if it is set in tevinter maybe uh. maybe address the issue of systemic oppression (and slavery) of elves???????

a return of the friendship/rivalry system in da2 but improved. maybe instead of a friendship rivalry sliding scale its friendship/rivalry/animosity sliding scale. bc rivalry is more like. two people pushing each other to be better than they were before. friendly competition. hes an idiot but hes my idiot kind of deal. animosity would be just regular disapproval. i liked the crisis cutscenes in dai so high animosity would be the same as low approval and might make the companion leave still, but theres more variety with high approval. high approval “friendship” would be the “were best friends and we share many opinions and agree on almost everything” while high approval “rivalry” being “we disagree on almost everything but goddamn it youre my friend and ill follow you into the fade if i have to” so you can have a high approval with someone instead of being a kissass

actions and choices having consequences again

multiple endings again (epilogue slideshows dont count)

dialogue wheels with descriptions that match what you actually say

characters from rivain, antiva, anderfels, etc

gifts. bring back the gifts. i want to give my companions gifts

maybe. maybe a focus of non-andrastian religion for once?

let me shittalk the chantry

i know its a stretch, but maybe. diverse skin colours. please?

nd characters that are written respectfully and treated w dignity

please bring back the talent wheel from dao and da2

more bi romance options

more wlw romance options

more mlm romance options

ace romance options

nb romance options

background romances

let me shittalk the chantry

far fetched but maybe a polycule?

i lowkey LOVED the fast-paced feel of da2s combat so maybe bring that back in some form? maybe improved to mesh with the tactics of dai to give players absolute freedom of playstyle whether they want to be like me and rush into every encounter or play more strategically

companions with unique companion abilities

would be nice to explore cities

would be nice if the open world were a little smaller so it doesnt feel empty all the gd time

more mage spells. mages felt like just another class of fighter to me in dai. they dont really have any awe-inducing wow factor like in dao or even da2. if the narrative wants me to believe that mages are powerful and dangerous and that it takes multiple templars to hunt down an apostate, maybe show that? give me strong mages

remove the jump ability. its pointless

a narrative that addresses the oppression that the chantry and templars perpetuated please

bring back the attributes

make the choices in dai matter. mages governing themselves? i wanna see that

let me shittalk the chantry

please bring back the healing magic for fucks sakes

multi-class system between rogues and warriors?

multiple specialisations that feel like specialisations and not just skill tree+

player-only skill trees

hardening

companion quests that affect their abilities and further dialogue

actual morally grey choices instead of this stupid mage freedom vs templar oppression narrative that is in no way morally grey but is presented as such and thus leaves the conflicts and narratives set up by dao and da2 to be fucking meaningless

bring back the tactics

would be nice to have an origins-esque prologue again. maybe one that would determine future events in game just to give your character better narrative cohesion with the plot

an approval/disapproval system but for companions with other companions. bringing certain companions together may bring them closer or make them pissed off with each other which affects banter maybe quests maybe combat

give me a fucking mabari bioware. give me back my fucking mabari

day/night cycle

a nightmare mode where you have to finish the main quest on a time limit. it is absurd that dai expects me to believe that i have all this time to do wartable missions that can take literal real life DAYS to finish and still thwart corypheus’ plans in time. bullshit

that said. no more wartable missions. waiting for a countdown to finish isnt very fun

let me shittalk the chantry

kal-sharok. ive been hearing about it since dao let me fucking see kal-sharok

dwarven politics

politics in general. my fav dao quest was the succession crisis plotline in orzammar/the landsmeet and wewh in dai

npcs i can talk to. even with generic dialogue like in dao. makes the world more alive

using the environment to your advantage. far fetched but i would love to be able to pull down boulders if were in the mountains or freeze water to get to places as a mage

home base customisation but the customisation choices you make actually. mean something. and do something. or at the very least give more companion dialogue/banter/approval change

laconic and ergonomic codexes. like. sorted by what kind of codex it is, etc etc but then you just get a brief summary of the codex and the option to read more about it so i dont spend eternity scrolling through cards looking for a specific codex entry. cool aesthetic dont get me wrong but real irritating to deal with. also. maybe. the pc making comments about the codex if you do read more about it? like a dalish elf saying “they got it all wrong” when reading a codex about dalish elves written by a human??? that would a) give character to the pc b) incentivise people to actually read the codex to see what was so wrong about it c) summarise the codex for people who want to learn the lore but dont want to spent the entire game reading text

maybe have the merchants in your home base close to crafting stations so you dont have to take a fucking hike if you miscounted the amount of elfroot you need?

let me shittalk the chantry

avvar companion maybe??? interesting lore right there

bring back stat requirements for weapons and remove the class restriction for most shit. obviously a dagger would be better for a rogue than a longsword and a mage would do better with a staff than a sword and shield but its not about efficiency. its about the roleplay. its about the options. give me the option to make a mage with wildly inappropriate stat distribution

bring back sustained mode abilities

traps. bring back traps. bring back the option to stealth into an area, trap the fuck out of it, and go from there

have the three available classes in kind of a rock paper scissors scenario. warriors do real well against rogues who do real well against mages who do real well against warriors. so you can plan your party depending on who/what youll face AND how much their approval will change during the quest you take them on

let me shittalk the chantry

actually resolve the plot points introduced in dai

a more threatening villain. the inquisitor thwarted every attempt made by corypheus in dai. he was not threatening at all

queer characters. background, companions, etc. queer characters

mounts were meh in dai. maybe. make them faster? or less cumbersome? or have your companions on mounts too so theres still banter?

i liked the armour tinting. let me have armour tinting from the beginning

i would really like mages to move and attack at the same time bc lowkey standing in one spot is uhhhhhhh kinda boring

let me check companions friendship/rivalry levels

would be nice if the narrative acknowledged that elves suffered greatly at the hands of the chantry and stopped victim-blaming them

more taverns. specifically like tapsters in dao where theres a dwarf just reciting something in a language i cant understand and if you look its a ballad/poet about dwarven culture and that was a real nice touch let me have that

dalish elf clan. dalish elf clan that does not get murdered please and thank you

meaningful quests. more cinematic dialogue

make found gear / quest reward gear more valuable than crafted gear

game modifiers like in dai were real nice. i want more

let me shittalk the chantry

quests that can be resolved in multiple ways. like connors fate in dao. and for those ways to impact further quests

companions with varying moral alignments

companions that are mutually exclusive (like alistair and loghain) but are both good companions so itd really make you think

a pc that IS NOT a “chosen one” vanilla da2 is my fav dragon age game for one reason and one reason only and that is because hawke is just some random refugee who escaped lothering. no chosen one magic at all. just an ordinary person who is a real good fighter. and that appealed to me more than this “you are the only one who can do it” narrative

let me meet more elvhen gods

if the setting is in tevinter, GIVE ME FUCKING ARCHITECTURE. give me the high spires, the archways, the buttresses, give me statues lining city gates and magic infused into the buildings. tevinter is a land ruled by MAGES give me magical architecture. give me floating buildings. give me fire floating as orbs above the streets like lamps. GIVE ME ARCHITECTURE

SHALE

let me shittalk the chantry

PIERCINGS GIVE ME FUCKING PIERCINGS BIOWARE

more main quests, longer main quests

if it is set in tevinter maybe. maybe address the fact that tevinter has been at war with the qunari for a while? on and off war is still war. and maybe give us the option to influence the outcome of that war?

more voice options. instead of just american voice or british voice, do the thing in dao again where there are multiple voices of different tones to further cement the pcs personality

more armour designs

biased but uh. can. can taliesen jaffe va a character?

i already said qunari companions but specifically saarebas companions

blood magic

FINISHING MOVE ANIMATIONS

please do not let it be as long as inquisition. inquisition was a SLOG in later playthroughs

body sliders. what if i want a tall but lanky qunari? what if i want a buff as shit elf? body sliders

more eye options

let me call out companions

btw bioware. if you really wanted cullen to be a good guy. maybe handle his fucking redemption arc a little better instead of retconning all the terrible and creepy shit hes done in the past k thx

can female walk/run animations not have. so much swaying hips? no one moves like that

personality dialogue that affects future dialogue like in da2 but meshed with the wider range of emotions introduced by dai

keep the race/s*x lock on romance candidates like in dai. keep the fact that some characters can only be romanced by certain races or s*xes

nb and genderqueer options for the pc

cutscenes of companions interacting

ngl i lowkey liked the random encounters of dao so maybe bring that back

my fav quest in dao is the landsmeet / orzammar succession crisis questline but you know whats my second favourite? the rescue mission if the warden gets captured and you have to play as your party members. give me that again

more creepy/dark shit. dai was too lighthearted for me esp after da2 and dao

let me shittalk the chantry

broodmothers. in hd.

red lyrium broodmothers. in hd

companions with different backgrounds. different faiths. different statuses. different families. etc

maybe make the pcs appearance make an impact on the story? like how bull says he likes redheads, but even if you are a redhead, he says nothing about it????? maybe keep track of which slider the player picks so that can affect the story?

i love my inquisitors but maybe. dont. bring the inquisitor in as anything more than an advisor/npc in this game? let me fall in love with a new pc???

if theres gonna be a homebase like skyhold where youre not in armor. maybe give us better clothing?

a kind of gear skin mechanic similar to ac:odyssey where you can change how the gear looks but keep the stats. so you can equip that higher level armour and keep the look and aesthetic of your old armour and you unlock the skins/looks of the armours you discover/make so you can be both powerful AND aesthetic

i enjoyed the nobility/underworld/arcane/etc knowledge in dai unlocking more dialogue options so maybe keep/expand on that but make it more accessible by side missions or companions or something that isnt the abysmal perk system in dai

let me shittalk the chantry

customisable walking animations. does the pc walk straightbacked? slouched? with a swagger? please

since there will undoubtedly be an obligatory fade sequence, maybe have an option for nightmare demons that ARENT spiders. thank you

slap on subtitles and conlang some languages. i want to hear elvish. i want to hear tevene. give me the languages

more dragons. esp if they look vastly different

more bard songs

i am completely biased here, but i would like to hear laura bailey as a va for a character. preferably a voice option for the pc

hey maybe have the true ending actually included in the base game and not in a dlc (tresppasser cough cough)

better val royeaux

please remove the had to do it to em idle animation tis distracting

on that note, more idle animations. maybe some unique to companions?

very trivial but. unique stair climbing/descending animation

bring back talking to companions on the road. maybe with some dialogue that can only be said on the road???

if banter is interrupted, make like rdr2 and pick up where the banter left off

more vallaslin designs please?

if theres another formal scene like dai maybe. give us. decent clothing. or better yet, decen clothing OPTIONS. i wanna decide how i look in a ball full of haughty orlesians

mage vs templar conflict resolved and addressed please. it is NOT resolved in dai. what we got was sequel bait and a slideshow. resolve it please

let me shittalk the chantry

a pro-mage anti-circle circle mage companion like anders

religious person who doesnt victim-blame elves in the codex or in game or anywhere please

characters more like leliana who question the chantry and acknowledge its corruption and greed

unapologetically sapphic companion

idc if its tevinter i dont want to fucking see queer people being disrespected

a true tal-vashoth companion, one who escaped from the qun

have quest decisions affect whether or not a companion will turn hostile to you or not

if IF solas will be redeemed, please do the redemption arc right

more horn options for qunari

an apostate mage who doesnt use me for their personal agenda whilst hiding something from me (morrigan, anders, solas) thanks

i really dig the whole “leader of an army” thing dai was trying to go for. but you didnt actually. lead. anything. would be nice to have that option. command soldiers. send them places that affect further quests. would even use the wartable for its intended purpose. planning wars. battles. like. you get sent word that there are bandits harassing villagers. you can set up an ambush with your soldiers or confront them headon, and theres a new mini-location on the map like the manor you meet vivienne in where you can go deal with the bandits and depending on your choices, there are actually soldiers with you in a field, or traps in a narrow pass, or even in a city. id rather the wartable shit dont return but if they have to, at least this way youre not just waiting real life time for a bunch of text to appear

i am real fucking excited for the possibility that da4 companions can just fucking die on you. good shit. give me that angst

missions that certain companions would refuse to go with you to. you know. so you actually have to use other members of your party instead of the same 3 (three) people all the goddamn time

disabled characters (i want a character who suffers from the same chronic bad leg disease as i do is that too much to ask)

kinda touched on by the da2 combat point but let me do close combat damage with the staff

no multiplayer. and if there is a multiplayer, dont tie it with achievements

let me fucking explore weisshaupt

(i dont think solas will be the endgame villain of da and i dont think da4 will be the last da game but still) again. for emphasis. resolve the plot points dai brought up

full-body scars and tattoo options

companions and npcs changing their opinions about things over time. eg: a pro-circle mage wanting instead for circles to be abolished after a specific side mission or a main quest decision etc

keep the multiple companion quests. and maybe change what kinds of companion quests are available further down depending on choices made in previous companion quests

please for fucks sake give us more characters of colour

let me shittalk the chantry

[firelord-frowny]

not that i’ve ever done it before, but here’s How To Set Up A Very Good Community Orchestra since it’s Frowny Gets Mad About Music At Night time. 

1. Determine what kinds of players are most common in your community. You want to know (a) what instruments people play, and (b) what styles of music they’re most familiar with. This is going to inform the kinds of repertoire the orchestra focuses on. For example, if you’ve got a bunch of strings players but not many winds, you’d do well to organize a chamber orchestra that’s strings-only. If you’d still like to include other instruments, there are pleeeenty of string-heavy pieces that feature a handful of winds or percussion or piano, etc. If you have mostly wind players, you’d want to do a wind ensemble. 

2. Determine HOW MANY of each kind of player is likely to participate. This will inform the scale of the repertoire you focus on. For example, if you’ve only got like 6 violins, a couple cellos, and a lil smattering of winds, you probably shouldn’t play shit like Mahler or Brahms or Dvorak. You’d be best suited for works that are more typical of peeps like Mozart and Haydn. Basically, anything BUT romantic era music would be well-suited for a smaller orchestra. Baroque and Classical are your best bets for the most part. 

3. Determine the skill level of the LEAST SKILLED players. An orchestra, literally, can ONLY be as good as its worst player. If your players aren’t great at advanced techniques, then you shouldn’t torture them or yourself by trying to play things that are Too Hard. there are LOTS of beautiful pieces that are doable for weak ensembles. Don’t play Ravel’s pavane if your players can only handle Faure's pavane. 

4. Commit to hiring AT LEAST one professional player per section - ESPECIALLY if the general skill level of the group is low. There NEEDS to be someone in each section who can guide the others as far as stuff like fingerings, bowings, articulations, how to execute specific techniques, how to practice, ect. If a player has a question or doesn’t understand something about the music, there NEEDS to be someone there who is qualified to help them.  If you collect ~dues~ from the participants, some of that money should be allocated to the professional section leaders to ensure their commitment. 

5. REHEARSALS. ARE. MANDATORY. The ONLY excuses that should permit someone to miss rehearsals while still being allowed to perform are the same excuses that would permit someone to miss a day of school or work without penalty. 

6. REQUIRE practice logs. Obviously, volunteers may not have a WHOLE lot of time to dedicate to practicing, but if you genuinely have NO time at all to practice, then you need to just not be in an orchestra at all. Participants should show proof that they’ve been practicing by submitting a 30 minute-or-so video of a practice session. SPECIFY which parts of a piece they must include in their video. 

7. If the general skill level of the group isn’t high enough to deliver a super solid performance of fun, engaging repertoire, ALWAYS INCLUDE ONE PERFESSIONAL PERFORMANCE at every event. For example, the full orchestra performs something simple and manageable, and at the same concert, the professional players perform alone. Bc like... let’s be real. People go to concerts to ENJOY THE MUSIC, and you can’t enjoy music that isn’t played very well. The audience deserves to hear a performance that’s well done. The audience DESERVES to know what classical music is supposed to sound like. This is ESPECIALLY important if the mission of your orchestra is to “bring the joy of music to underserved communities,” as is the case with so many regional volunteer orchestras. You can’t Bring The Joy Of Music if all of the music sounds like shit. Let the community celebrate and support their peers, and then let them hear a beautiful concert. 

8. this should be obvious but apparently isn’t: DO NOT select repertoire that is too difficult for any of the players. Everyone should be able to play every note with decent intonation and rhythm, and they should be able to play it at the correct tempo. Don’t play Moto Perpetuo if you’d have to slow it down an egregious amount in order for anyone to be able to play it! 

9. There are a LOT!!!! of pieces that have VERY easy orchestral parts, and very challenging and interesting solo parts. These are especially common in Baroque pieces, like Vivaldi’s double concertos, Corelli’s Christmas concerto, Paganini’s Moto Perpetuo, movements from Holst’s Holber Suite, etc. Consider choosing this kind of repertoire to allow the highly skilled players to shine, supported by the less-skilled players who will sound lovely because the parts are compatible with their skill level. 

10. SECTIONAL REHEARSALS ARE MANDATORY!!! It’s literally so fucking ridiculous that any orchestra would try to function without having sectionals. Like. the worlds greatest professional orchestras need sectionals, so OF COURSE a lil rinky dink amature orchestra needs sectionals! These sectionals should be led by the resident professional players. There should be at least one or two sectionals prior to any performance.

11. Encourage all participants to have a private lesson or two with the professional players before each concert. Since they would likely need to pay for the lesson, it shouldn’t be mandatory. But it should definitely be strongly encouraged. 

12. It is literally ALWAYS better to just cut a piece from the program if it turns out that the orchestra is doing a shitty job at it. It’s MIND NUMBINGLY ABSURD every time i hear a community orchestra absolutely butcher a piece in concert. Like. There’s no reason to do that. Just cut the piece and replace it with something easier, or replace it with a piece that only includes the professional and more advanced players. You should ALSO be willing to selectively remove certain players from a piece of they demonstrate that they’re unable to do a decent job at it. 

13. Seating auditions should be held in preparation for EACH AND EVERY CONCERT - not just for new members, and not just at the beginning of a performance season. This accomplishes two things. (a) players have more of an incentive to actually practice, and (b) it places the strongest players in a position where they can more easily support the weaker ones.

14. MASTERCLASSES!!!!! At least once per performance season, hire a bona-fide pedagogue to work with each major section. I’m talking about those kinds of teachers who have the knowledge to help a student reach a world-class skill level. These kinds of teachers can offer insight that can turn a shitty player into a half decent player in just MINUTES of instruction. Attendances to these masterclasses should be mandatory. 

boom! congrats. you have now created a volunteer orchestra that can legitimately encourage an appreciation of western art music, and can everyone can feel proud of theirselves for delivering good performances. 

[autisticcassandracain]

The only one I can really think of is Batman: Prodigal. Granted, Dixon wrote most of it and Alan Grant seemed to care about making the story cohesive so it was more put together than most crossovers. But even Prodigal went on waaay too long because they really had to squeeze 3 months’ worth of issues out of 4 separate books. Like I thought things might be wrapping up around when they defeated Two Face and it just??? kept going??? for five more issues??? I can’t think of any good reason why such a small-scale story should be so long. I haven’t read No Man’s Land yet and I’ve heard mixed reviews but you’ve made me more optimistic, so thank you for that

I haven't read Batman: Prodigal and I'm probably not going to for a while bc I've been really burnt out on Dixon (like you CANNOT escape the guy he seems to have written every batbook in the late 90s-early 2000s let me REST) so I can't agree or disagree with you there but that does seem to be a bit of a common problem with crossover events tbh. a lot of the time the pacing is one of the worst parts of them.

and No Man's Land definitely has its issues; I read the trade paperback so I wouldn't have to hunt down every single individual issue and it's been a while since I've read the latter half of it (bc it's so LONG jesus christ) but even the first half has problems. the thing is that it's so long that it's got several 'arcs' and mini-stories within it, so even when some stories are like, drenched in ableism or copaganda or relying on this weird idea No Man's Land has that all the people would completely loose all common sense/revert to some pre-modern knowledge state (idk how to explain it otherwise it's weird) or something, others may be better. You also need to be willing to have quite a bit of suspension of disbelief about the whole situation because it really doesn't make any kind of logical sense. So that all said I think mixed reviews make sense, your enjoyment on the event is very much based in whether you can suspend your disbelief and find enough mini-arcs you enjoy.

That said I was really impressed with their ability to make this premise work at all, on literally any level, because by all rights and logic it REALLY shouldn't have. It did have some ideas and views that I don't really agree with (one that comes to mind was that one time Superman visited and tried to help but was rebuffed bc ~the people weren't ready~, which was dumb as fuck and an obvious attempt to try and explain why other heroes weren't helping that royally backfired and really broke my immersion), but it also had some ideas and moments that I thought were really good (Poison Ivy helping kids and eventually helping to supply fresh produce, the way the internal economy of Gotham City ended up developing during No Man's Land, Cass's introduction, the way they interpreted Barbara's/Oracle's roll in a city with very limited technology and broken infrastructure, etc.)

I think having low expectations going in helped, but I also think there was some genuine effort put into worldbuilding this effectively post-apocalyptic version of Gotham City, which helped it all feel a lot more cohesive to me than most crossover events I've read; it felt like someone set up the rules for No Man's Land Gotham and everyone, even the arcs/issues that I think were shit, played within those rules. (Obviously idk what the writing process was actually like but that's what it felt like to me.) I completely understand why some people don't like it, but I still think what they managed to accomplish was impressive when frankly the idea should've crashed and burned before it even started. I think that's the reason the good moments stick in my mind more than the bad. In my opinion it's worth a read if ur at all interested, just to form your own opinions on it.

[natsunoomoi]

So sometimes I check wikis to like look things up about a show or series that I don’t have time to read or watch the whole thing fully cuz that’s a time investment I just don’t have but I have questions I just want a quick answer to.

The problem is, wikis are of course, made by like regular people with varying levels of biases and also sometimes selective memory of events. As can be seen in my more recent posts with SVSSS and MXTX’s works I’ve been on those wikis, but sometimes the explanations of plot points and a bunch of other stuff are really confusing and circular. SVSSS’s is being more cleaned up recently, but it still has some things that it says happened, that I couldn’t find at all when reading the book and I’m just like, where did they find that info to put on the wiki?

Like one of my earlier posts when I started reading SVSSS at the beginning, I mentioned how I read that original Luo Binghe got killed by his harem eventually and I thought that made sense cuz ultimately no one in that original plotline made choices that made them genuinely happy. But when I read the book, I didn’t see any mention of that anywhere...? I think last time I went to go look at BC Novels they had one chapter left to translate. Is it in there?

Then at other times, I wonder if there’s an inconsistency because there’s a limitation between the translation I read and like something in the original Chinese text like there’s a typo, which obviously there’s a mistake then. But then other times, I’m wondering if people read a different thing, but most of the people with a different interpretation don’t seem to be able to read Chinese and are reading the same translation as me, but I’m confused where they got certain details from?

Like for instance, there’s another part on the wiki where it says Airplane originally planned for PIDW to be a BL from the beginning, but I’ve literally been trying to find where that was stated because I don’t remember that and I don’t see that anywhere and the chapter citation that is listed on the wiki goes to a chapter that doesn’t talk about that at all. Airplane/Qinghua does say that he made changes to Qingqiu’s character that were originally more complex to make him a trash human and he did that to make a living, but I can’t find where it says he originally wanted it to be a BL theme to begin with. In the chapter they cite it says that Qinghua had designed Binghe to have an appearance in a way that appealed more to a female audience and be more of a pretty boy. That doesn’t mean that he meant his entire book to be a BL it just means you make your main character look a certain way partly for internal logic because that look is really popular with women so the in-story women would probably find him attractive and in a meta sense any females who happen to also read a stallion novel like some women read shounen manga would find him hot in real life. A successful story does things like that to reach people outside of its target audience and that’s kind of a lot of the reason why a lot of Shounen Jump manga are really popular with women too even though a lot of the stories have the male perspective in mind. The chapter it cites only talks about the actual physical appearance design choice he made for Binghe vs Mobei-Jun. He just says that Mobei-Jun was made for the kind of male character he prefers to think about, but Binghe was just designed with the idea of what would make him more popular and also could kind of be like a self-insert-ish for his desire to beat on people for funsies. It doesn’t talk at all about what the genre he planned for the book to be and interpreting the text to that much is really stretching the context to wishful thinking levels. I don’t even actually care either way what kind of novel PIDW was because it’s not actually that important to enjoying the story of SVSSS, but I don’t know if it’s the Ravenclaw in me or what, but it just bugs me when there’s something that seems *wrong* printed on a thing that is supposed to inform other people. I’m literally reading chapters at the same time as trying to write this post to find where I think maybe it was said, but it sure as hell wasn’t the chapter the wiki cites.

The other day I re-read the chapter when Qinghua taunts SY with Qingqiu’s real memories, and he doesn’t even say it then. ATM, I’m trying to look through the last chapter because there’s that one part when Qinghua shows up right at the end and talks with SY at the celebration, but even at the start at the chapter, SY talks about how Qingqiu was super straight to him. SY is an unreliable narrator, but given the context of Qingqiu’s life events that makes sense. His personal trauma because of Qiu Jianluo also pushed him away from any amount of closeness he could have with other men other than ones he already trusted to some degree. He had a lot of problems forming new relationships of any kind with other men because of deep-seated trust issues. Not that he didn’t have any, but meaningful ones were pretty absent. One only because of a very sad misunderstanding and lack of communication and explanation, but the others just tough.

But like also there’s like that SJ slept in the Warm Red Pavilion and he went there just for comfort rather than more lascivious reasons. Yeah, it’s true that he didn’t go there for those intentions, but like it’s still in the environment so it’s not like he’s unaware of what happens there. I mentioned it in the previous post about his search for means to grow his cultivation, but only to say he’s probably not that innocent and there may be some truth to him wanting to do something to Ning Yingying out of desperation to make up for his low cultivation foundation. Like he’s aware of those kinds of things and he probably came across something that said that was a way he could grow his cultivation. Desperation and this motivation I think is probably the only reason why he would be so tempted to cross that line with Yingying because he otherwise treats women rather well. She is his favorite too, so if a person who usually treats females well for some reason wants to do something that would be hurtful to their favorite person, there has to be a much deeper motivation behind that. The only thing that is a canonically greater obsession I think would have to be his cultivation level. He has a number of self-esteem issues and such a well, but his greatest pride and greatest concern is his cultivation. He is proud of his abilities, but also he laments and regrets the version of him he couldn’t become so much I can foresee that if there was a suggestion that he could overcome his late start in some way by using someone female, I think he’d at least think about it and also consider who he knows could be a viable candidate should he want to act on it and that is how that part of PIDW happened. Pain and desperation make people do things that are uncharacteristic, so it has to be something that really bothers him more than in a moment of weakness that idea is there.

Which is another point I have an issue with on the wiki because it says his low cultivation is “logically” because he started late and spent so much time with a fake master. It’s not logically. It’s factually. It’s mentioned several times especially in the extras chapters from Shen Jiu’s point of view where he talks about how he is specifically behind because of wasting time with Qiu Jianluo and Wu Yanzi and also that he was the last to form a golden core. If it was coming out of SY or someone else’s mouth as an explanation, maybe you can say “logically”, but if it’s coming from SJ’s point of view chapter it sure as hell is not. That *IS* his motivation. He states it himself.

Also, I think some people don’t understand what it means to have a low cultivation foundation. Cultivation from what I gather according to the rules of this world is like a lot of talents we have in our world where you need to start young to be good at it. There’s a few skills that you can learn that if you don’t start at a specific time you lose the optimal window to develop your talent for it because of the way the brain functions and basically purges off skillsets you’re not using in your environment. 

Learning a language is one such skill. When a baby is born, it has the capability to learn how to speak every language in the world, but as it gets older its brain purges out the sounds that it doesn’t hear from its environment and this keeps going into older childhood as well. The taxi driver I talked to the other day about this said you have to start before you’re 10, which sounds about right. The phoneme purging in your brain starts quite early though so that’s why my company has classes for Moms and their 1 or 2 year old so that they can speak to them in English to try to keep English sounds in their environment so that they can have perfect pronunciation when they grow up. If you try to learn a new language when you’re older that’s how you have accents. You don’t have the phonemes to speak the language perfectly so your brain is imitating the sounds with the ones you do have. Plus it’s a constant use skill. I used to be able to speak Cantonese with no accent up until my teens, but I haven’t spoken it in so long that slowly I started to have an accent and now I can’t say the words properly anymore. I don’t know that much Cantonese to begin with that aren’t baby words, but I used to be able to say them properly.

Music is another one and that one has an even more narrow window. Kids with parents hoping that they will be music prodigies usually start them on music VERY young like 3 or 4. It’s not that it’s impossible for someone to pick up an instrument later in life, but there’s a type of sense to music and hearing the scale and developing that skill that if you don’t start kids on it at that time, their musical ear will not be as good.

And it’s that “not as good” thing that Qingqiu is chasing. He is exceptionally powerful and talented which is why despite starting late he became favored. He is very capable and good at what he does, but he is not as good as what he could have been. Even though he is so good, he is only haunted by how much better he would have been if he had started on time and had proper instruction. A musician who maybe wants to be a concert violinist but took up the instrument late may struggle to get a good seat in an orchestra because despite any talent they have, their ear is not as developed as someone else. Such a musician would be vexed and lament that they hadn’t discovered their love for the instrument sooner just as Qingqiu is vexed and laments that he didn’t start proper cultivation development earlier.

And I’m griping about SVSSS more because I read that book so I have more points of reference to go on. But like the wikis for MDZS and TGCF aren’t much better. MDZS is maybe a little more coherent and easier to follow, but TGCF confused the hell out of me and it took me awhile to understand what was going on. I really needed it though cuz I was watching the donghua and like I think the way they present some of the scenes is like slightly out of order for like foreshadowing and other like film reasons, so I checked the wiki while watching to try to get more context cuz I don’t have much time right now to pick up another book at the moment. I was so confused though cuz like...it seems like the logic in the entries is so circular and I’m trying to keep track of all the characters and what’s happening. I hope it’s better now but at the time I was watching it I was so confused and struggling to make sense of what’s happening.

And like maybe you’re wondering why if I read the book, would I bother checking a wiki. Mostly out of laziness because I’m thinking of something and I don’t want to go find the exact chapter to help me flesh out my thought and reference point. I end up getting more frustrated sometimes depending on what I’m looking up because of the above things.

Plus again I’m like a bit mystified as to why Qingqiu’s look seems to appeal to me. It’s not just him though and like other characters with a similar style in some of the games I play. I think there’s some imprint from some very old childhood memory that I only vaguely remember. Like it’s a look that seems familiar, but I can’t put my finger on where it’s from and I can’t figure it out, so I keep just going to check images to see if it will make me remember. I think it’s a movie I saw with my Dad as a young child, but I can’t remember it at all. I remember there was one Jet Li movie I watched with my Dad once and I ended up watching all the time cuz I thought Jet Li was really cute in that movie (I was also 3 so I don’t know why I’m thinking that way, but whatever), but like Jet Li was bald in that movie because it was about a Shaolin Temple. I think at the time my Dad showed me that movie I already showed an interest in movies from my own heritage, so that’s why he showed me that. But like I can’t remember anything else. I suppose it could have been something my grandpa watched because sometimes he’d watch a Chinese movie when I was playing in the living room and I’d stop to watch too and then he’d fast-forward through the intimacy scenes, but because I’d just look over at something he was already watching I have no idea what any of those were.

[sol1056]

wuxia/xianxia: a loose and somewhat second-hand introduction to the genre, pt1

Sorry for the unconventional q, but i keep seeing Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation everywhere and I kinda want to get into it but a) don't know where to start (web series? live action adaptation?? wait how many are there!) and b) i don't really "get" wuxia / xianxia, that sorta stuff, i find it really hard to cross that cultural barrier and chinese mentality seems very alien. (it's not that i have no experience w different mentalities but chinese in particular is v hard to grasp w/o sources).

So if you have the time and patience, I'd love to hear a summary of it (like, a coherent summary bc all i get on the wikis is a shower of names and concepts that don't make sense to me) and perhaps some "intro for dummies" abt the relevant parts of chinese history and mentality tied to it? not just the cultivation / buddhist part but also re: familial relationships, philosophy and all that. (v brief and low effort of course) Thank you and sorry for bothering you!

("brief and low effort" referring to what I'm asking from you, not to what I need for me - as in i asked for it so i'm more than ready for a complicated essay, but you can write with as much detail as you like, I don't want to ask for some sort of comprehensive tome)

Okay first, you do realize that if you want “brief and low” for anything, you’re asking the wrong person? I was a philosophy major. brief got drilled out of me a long time ago. 

Second... well, explaining what makes The Untamed / Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (mdzs for short, from the chinese title, Mo Dao Zu Shi) such a standout story does require understanding some of the wuxia conventions it subverts -- as well as some that it plays straight (so to speak) very, very well. 

I figure the best approach (again, sadly not brief) is to first get a handle on the genre of wuxia. Gonna break this post into two, so you’re not reading in a single three-hour stretch or something. I’ll do a follow-up about mdzs, to hopefully make it a bit more accessible for you. 

before I do that, let me first say: I didn’t grow up with this genre, so there’s going to be parts that I may miscast unintentionally. for an insider’s view, my go-to voices are @guzhuangheaven, @atthewaterside, @dramatic-gwynne, @the50-person and @drunkensword. if any of them are reading this and can point to more/other/better voices, please do.

I have three analogies -- like cultural doorways --  and like all analogies, they break down when you get into the finer details. In the broad strokes, though, they mostly work, and if nothing else, hopefully they’ll demonstrate that wuxia may be a chinese-specific version, but part of a storytelling tradition that’s nearly universal.

The three doorways are: the american wild west, the samurai era, and the british arthurian romances. And, in a tangential way, the regency period in the romance genre. 

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

The term ‘wuxia’ can be translated several ways, but I prefer ‘martial chivalry’. Most wuxia takes place in the jianghu, a harder term to unpack. Generally, though, ‘the jianghu’ has connotations not all that different from what americans mean when they reference the wild west. 

More of a concept than a physical place, the jianghu (like the ‘wild’ west) exists beyond the reach of the law and/or civilization. It’s occupied by a diverse cast of farmers, merchants, beggars, and so on, but also by outlaws, gangs, hermits, pretty much all those who don’t like the suffocating nature of the civilized world, for whatever reason. It’s not a lawless place (except to outsiders); it does have laws, but those are only unto itself. 

So, jianghu is a world to itself, for the most part -- which also makes it kind of timeless. Tang dynasty, Song dynasty, Ming dynasty, it could be any of them and all of them and none of them. Just as the heyday of the cowboys and the cattle drives was barely a decade long, a culture’s romanticized history stretches into lifetimes that exist separate from any date you could pin down on a calendar. 

The average wuxia protagonist would fit in reasonably well as knight errants in an arthurian romance, with one important detail in difference: they’re rarely aristocrats. Wuxia protagonists are just as likely (if not more so) to be lower-born, whether the child of farmers, or servants, some common caste. 

This is where wuxia diverges from the british and japanese traditions, which have a bit more noblesse oblige going on (knights and samurai both being upper-class types). Even ‘aristocratic’ characters tend to be so only within the jianghu -- sort of like the way a territory’s elected leader in the wild west would’ve had no pull in Washington, given they weren’t from a fully-recognized state. 

Wuxia does often have politics, between competing sects (think schools of learning), but that political infighting is independent of the capital’s rules or wishes. A lot of stories -- in the rare cases the topic even comes up -- tends to speak of ‘the capital’ in disparaging terms. 

That’s not to say wuxia is all about the flat social systems (it’s definitely not), but most commonly a rank implies some level of competence/study. The title of sect leader isn’t granted, it's earned. Children inherit, but it’s also a common storyline to have an heir with no skills (who then goes through all the trials and tribulations to finally level up and earn that position in turn).

What makes wuxia hard to grasp is its vernacular: the conventions that form the backbone that make something recognizably ‘wuxia’ and not just ‘historical drama set on a frontier in a loosely-defined time period’. 

Frex: in a Wild West story, convention is two gunfighters at opposite ends of the street, and at least one of them is wearing a holster tied to his leg with string in a way that no real gunfighter wore, ever, but Hollywood came up with the idea and now it’s a permanent part of our imagination. In the arthurian romances,  convention is carrying the token of one’s lady love (a distant, untouchable figure who rarely appears on-page), or meeting the unnamed knight in black on the jousting field. Convention are the samurai who’ll die for their lord’s honor, always touchy and prickly at the first sign of disrespect. 

These are things granted the most remarkable gravity, that to an outsider might seem ridiculous. (Why is there always tumbleweed?) 

Now, wuxia is the latest evolution in a long-lived literary tradition (and by ‘long’ I mean like 2000+ years) -- but like any living tradition, each subsequent generation reinvents it for their time. Part of that reinvention comes from particularly influential writers, who put their own spin on things, and their interpretation becomes the next generation’s standard for the genre -- “of course wuxia must have X” or “a protagonist never does Y”. (Like how Tolkien almost single-handedly changed western concepts of elves, in fiction.)

And here’s where I explain what regency romance has to do with it. Another short-lived period, in real history, but along came Georgette Heyer, who took bits and pieces of actual research, blended them with her reactionary politics, exaggerating some things and ignoring other things completely. The result is a time-that-never-was, but she cast (and still casts) a shadow so vast that I’ve seen multiple romance writers complain that readers will see a footnoted-and-researched version as wrong, if it contradicts one of Heyer’s made-up conventions. 

Modern wuxia has its own Heyer-sized influencers -- like Jin Yong (the Condor trilogy, Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils), Wen Rui'an (The Four), Gu Long (The Legend of Flying Daggers, The Proud Twins), to name a few of the biggest. If you have a chance or are inclined, the big names get remade on a pretty regular basis, and catching one will at least let you see some ur-tropes in action. 

But it also means that you can’t really extrapolate, in the sense of saying, “in wuxia, people do X, ergo, X is also a factor in Chinese culture.” It’s like... take any western made in the 50s, and the vernacular is simple. The bad guys wear black hats, the good guys wear white hats, the prostitutes wear bright-colored dresses with frills and the good women wear subdued colors buttoned up to their neck. It told an audience exactly what character filled what role, but that’d tell you zero about real people you might meet in Nebraska or Utah, let alone New York City. 

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Almost forgot: xianxia is basically wuxia but with ‘immortal heroes’ -- so there’s gods, divine influences, non-human beings as characters (main or NPC), etc. (Btw, by ‘immortal’ I mean exactly that, like this character is six hundred years old, that one’s a thousand years old, etc.) You can think of xianxia as wuxia, but amped way up on the mystical scale. 

Xianxia will sometimes take place on earth (jianghu) but sometimes in the celestial realm (heaven). Or a mix of both, like stories where a character falls (or is banished, or defects) from heaven and has to go through various trials and tribulations as a mortal human in order to regain a power, rise in rank, fall in love, or whatever their goal is. 

A number of wuxia stories are driven by some sort of mcguffin, but in xianxia, the mcguffin is more likely to be a powerful spiritual weapon. But I can also think of a number of wuxia in which the mcguffin would fit right in, in xianxia (some near-mystical thing with significant positive, or negative, power independent of the wielder, which often amplifies or boosts the wielder to an inhuman degree, etc). 

Thing is, the mcguffin being divine/infernal supernatural isn’t enough alone to make the story xianxia. I’m pretty sure you need non-human or super-human immortals and/or creatures to be considered in the xianxia genre. 

part two