#but I feel like their priority choice in products isn’t doing them any good

[oneknightlight]

Yknow if Joanne’s really wants to stay in business and thrive again they have to completely redirect their targeted audience. Most people don’t walk into Joanne’s and go “god I REALLY want to get hundreds of dollars worth of Easter decor, and yards and yards of gold metallic brocade and this specialty st Patrick’s day flannel”

Most people walk into Joanne’s and go “man I’m like 5 black buttons short for my project” and then they go to the button isle and all of the buttons are ornately designed except for the single overpriced bag of regular black buttons.

[havnblog]

When Was the Last Time You Heard Someone Discuss the "Quality" of a Chat App?

Chat apps: Part 1

What constitutes a “good” car? (Yes, “car” — I’ll get to chat apps, I promise!) If I were to answer for myself, I’d split it up into three factors (with one added as a bonus):

Security

This is important, both for the people inside and outside the car!

… but it’s not the only factor, of course.

Features

Size, range, etc. — things you can do with it.

Comfort, and sense of quality

This isn’t about what you can do with it, but how it feels to do them. In a car, this could be sound (or lack thereof), looks, driving experience, how it feels to open and close the doors, and other small, and large, things.

Price

Maybe this shouldn’t be here — but when picking a car, it’s often about getting the most features, comfort, and security for the price.

(“Quality” can also be interpreted as how fast it breaks, which could also be included in the cost of owning the vehicle.)

Luckily, the car market is pretty competitive — so there are plenty of options. And you don’t have to buy the same brand as your friends and family! But I want to compare it a bit to chat apps, and both the market and discussions surrounding them. Because even though most of us use chat apps numerous times every day, I’d argue both the market and discussions are lacking.

To me, it seems like most apps only have one of two value propositions —

even though I’d say all the factors from above applies to chat apps as well: Security (and, the connected, but separate, Privacy), Features, Comfort and sense of Quality, and Price. (The way we pay for chat apps is often with “personal data” and “viewing adds”.)

The first proposition is good ol' “Lock-in”

The “default” chap app varies from country to country — and here in Norway, we’ve made the worst “choice” of them all: Meta’s Messenger. It’s just a very poor product. If we look at the factors, Meta’s ad-tracking business affects its score when it comes to both Security/Privacy and Price. And it’s also severely lacking in both features and general quality and polish. It simply oozes that the responsible company doesn’t feel any pressure to make the product as good as they can. 1

The same can be said about iMessage, which is “the default” in the US, and another service I have quite a lot of experience with. It’s not bad, but compared to the best experiences, it’s thoroughly mediocre. Even though Apple is a giant company, with infinite resources, they only manage to give it slight improvements year-over-year.

The security and privacy is good — even though I wonder what the ratio of end-to-end-encrypted conversations really are, seeing as it’s only that if none of the participants use regular iCloud backups. But personally I don’t really care about that - it’s more than good enough for me!

The quality is also good, but the features are lacking. I’d also say the price is pretty high, as you have to buy Apple products to use it. 2

Am I the only one who’s never heard any good arguments for why people are using these, apart from “it’s what everyone else uses”? I get that the network effect is huge when it comes to chat apps — but still!

The second is “Security!!!”

I assume most people reading this agree that you should always wear a seatbelt while driving — even though it’s a slight inconvenience. However, I also assume most of you don’t wear a helmet during your daily commute. Why not, though? It’s more secure, right? The answer is simple: Because we constantly balance security and comfort/convenience in our daily choices. However, there are plenty of instances where wearing a helmet while driving is a good idea — like if you’re Lewis Hamilton.

I think it’s great that chat services like Signal, Threema, Session and Matrix exist — which have “security” as their first, second and third priority. 3 I have users on several of them, and have zero issues with people needing, or just wanting, to use them! 4 What I do have a slight issue with, is people claiming the increased security makes them inherently “better” than the alternatives. Better for what? In what context? Is it “better” to drive with a helmet just because it’s more secure?

Let me try to be precise: It’s crucial to know how secure the different services are — especially if you have a certain threat model. I also think it’s fine to just find comfort in extra security! I just think we should be honest about the cost, and that it’s OK to look at other factors as long as something’s “secure enough” (whatever that means for you).

I guess I’m just a bit annoyed that the only time people actually discuss and compare chat apps, “security” is the only factor discussed…

Am I really alone here? Have you ever heard “features and quality” being discussed? What are the factors of a good chat app in your mind? And which app/service do you think is the best?

I have my own thoughts on this, which will be Part 2!

I’ve only use WhatsApp a little bit - but it seems to be less bad, even though it also coasts on lock-in. ↩︎

Not just because of the price of these, but the “price” of not choosing your devices freely. ↩︎

I mean, just look at their websites! ↩︎

Many of them also seems like great organisations doing good stuff and deserving support. ↩︎

[esther-dot]

You’ve peaked my interest… and I agree, I think there is a bit of a disconnect between how we might view Jon (his character, choices, relationships etc) and how Kit does. And I guess that’s a fault of the show, because being so involved in that as an actor would have had an impact, but are there any other glaring differences in perception for you? Things that make you apprehensive for his continued version? Thanks :)

(about this ask)

Oh, I studiously avoided all interviews and news related to GoT until right before s8, so I'm not filled in on Kit's perspective the way other fans are, and obviously, s8 was such a mess I was gonna hate everything he said after the fact because he had to be unprofessional or defend crappy writing. Also, I don't think interviews are necessarily a writer/actor/director's honest opinion. They have to sell their product, that’s the priority, and if they’re totally honest, as amusing as that can be, it can just confuse the issue. I know EC said a lot of things post finale that were expressing her feelings about what happened, but they didn’t make sense with what we watched happen on screen. So, sometimes the interviews just muddy the water, and in that way, it may be best to stick to the party line. And another issue is that what we hear them talk about is not only guided by what the interviewer is interested in but sometimes further curated so I don’t know what is a sincere thought on Kit’s part, I didn’t listen to his thoughts over the years so I’m unaware of how they evolved, and I don’t want to claim I know things I don’t. I mean, I’m still gonna chat about this but caveat caveat caveat.

After s8 Kit said something about Jon belonging with the FF, and I simply don’t see how someone who has read the books thinks that Jon belongs with them. I know people do, but I don’t understand it at all. I don’t even buy that for show Jon although it isn’t quite as weird to me that show watchers think that. Thinking that he may end up in exile is one thing, but to assert that he’s happy/happier there? It’s implying he’s at peace with their lifestyle when in the books he is clearly disapproving, so I just don’t buy the idea he’d ever embrace it, nor should we want him to? Jon’s view needed to be challenged and developed, but we aren’t mean to think killing kids or kidnapping women is ok.

One quote from Jon’s time with the FF that I always found jarring is when he thinks of himself as a dog when having sex with Ygritte. The fact that he feels dehumanized was disturbing to me, and made the revelation of what he truly wanted, to be a lord with a lady wife, all the more heartbreaking. Jon doesn’t want to just find a rando to fuck, he wants the life he’s been denied through no fault of his own. So even if to the reader his time with Ygritte sounds like fun, Jon’s internalization of it isn’t positive because of his upbrigning. Jon fans should respect that. Now, of course, the show diminished the cultural differences and barriers that prevent Jon from assimilating post canon, but if we’re thinking of book Jon, sympathy and caring for some of the FF doesn’t eliminate them.

I defended (a lil bit) Kit’s thoughts about show Jongritte (link) because D&D changed it from the books, and I don’t want to assume that’s his answer if asked about book Jongritte. But, if we conflate it all, or just combined that with his comment about show Jon belonging with the FF, I worry. How sincerely did he mean that? Book Jon wasn’t truly happy with Ygritte, he didn’t choose her. He resisted her, was coerced into having sex with her, and she was continually forceful and demanding with him. The entire time that Jon is with her, he’s tortured because he always intended to betray her. He feels bad because he’s a good person and comes to care for her and others, but to me the point wasn’t that he ever wavered, it was simply to highlight how difficult it was for him to remain steadfast. I think Martin’s a writer who never wants it to be too easy for his characters, and I admire that. But to take that, to take Jon seeing these people as people, and miss the fact that he has much greater loyalty and love for his family, for the North as a whole, for his brothers of the Watch (and this is big considering what later happens to him), and to himself….uh, well, I think that means misunderstanding him in a major way.

Again, I don’t know that Kit missed that. He was speaking in the context of the show, but I think D&D missed the purpose the J/Y relationship served in the book, and I worry that Kit followed their lead there and applied that to Jon and the FF too. Jon is very much a product of his culture and his upbringing by Ned. He wants to have honor, he wants to adhere to his vows, he wants to be worthy, he has certain values, none of which the FF or Ygritte understand or respect. It bothers me that even in the show Ygritte says it’s time to break his vow and that’s presented as romantic because these two gorgeous people have chemistry, rather than yet another burden poor Jon will have to carry that he must do something that will add to his shame. And yeah, Kit later talked about Dany being Jon’s love and we all saw how he acted that, so everything he says in interviews is suspect, especially when he had to at times outright lie to us (regarding Jon being dead, for instance), so this stuff doesn’t bother me too much, it just makes me hhhhmmm.

 I understand why Kit would want to believe that Jon’s ending is good, that Jon will be ok, but what if he truly believes that Jon belongs with the FF? What does that say about how he read Jon’s struggle with honor/duty/love? What does that say about how he read Jon’s relationship with the Starks? What does that say about how he took the line Jon gives a dying Ygritte? Does he think Jon should have been a turn cloak? Should have stayed in the cave? Does he think Jon should have fucked Ygritte, rethought all his convictions and giving a shit about his family and the North and sided with the FF? I mean, I doubt it, but I’m not sure what he thinks. Even if he meant Jon belongs with the FF now, when they’re seemingly at peace, he belongs with them because he’s done with politics and just wants to live without those games impacting him, that’s still ignoring the child killing and the rape culture that book Jon specifically objects to. Life South of the Wall has been cruel to Jon, there are all sorts of machinations, women and children suffer even a society that considers itself so much more cultured, but he finds those two aspects of FF life wrong, and considering his habit of wanting to protect the helpless, he’d never be able to ignore it. He would never be at peace with it. SO, how can we think Jon is happy to live in that world?

Also, I was concerned by the fact that Kit spoke about how annoying Sansa was and how he didn’t understand her etc. Now, I always thought the way he talked about it (blushing, laughing) was very cute and that he was speaking more in the context of his friendship with Sophie than anything too serious about Jon’s feelings regarding Sansa because of how he played Jon in their scenes, but I was concerned because even though he said that, there seemed to be a weird absence of equal judgment of Jon and Dany. If Sansa is annoying for begging Jon to consider another perspective, what does that say about Dany who says if you don’t kneel I’ll let everyone die? On any moral scale that Sansa registers, Dany is off the charts and that’s in s7, way before she starts randomly threatening the lives of her bf’s family or burning kids for funsies.

Again, I tried to avoid interviews so I’m not trying to say I know what Kit thinks, I’ve definitely heard contradictory soundbites, and at one point he said he would never understand Jon, but while there were some (joking imo) complaints about Sansa, I never heard him acknowledge that in the story they ended up giving us, Sansa was far too trusting of Jon because Jon betrayed her by bending the knee, giving away her freedom, unnecessarily. I never heard him defend Sansa and point out how loyal she was to Jon. I never heard him talk about how accepting of Jon she was. That may have happened, and I think there were some interviews around s6 in which he said Jon should listen to Sansa, but I didn’t think, putting all shipping aside, he acknowledged what Sansa’s actions (giving Jon a cloak like Ned’s, telling him he’s a Stark to her, wanting him to take the Lord’s chamber, supporting him as KitN...) meant to Jon, and I think that meant the world to show Jon and would mean even more to book Jon.

Even Sophie was guided into some Sansa critical comments at times, so I don’t get offended by that stuff, but it makes me squint because Kit continued to talk about Jon’s honor and honesty in s7-8, even then it looks like he lied to his lords and the Starks about that. So it appears Jon felt like he needed to be honest with Cersei in s7 and Dany in s8 but he didn’t owe that to his family or the people who made him king? Now, obviously, that’s shit writing, Kit isn’t responsible, but why isn’t there recognition of what that means about Jon? And what that means about Sansa’s behavior? The context of Sansa’s behavior is Jon’s, and Jon’s is so so much worse then hers. So, what gives? I don’t like Jon bashing but between Jon and Sansa, Jon is the one who sided with a mass murderer. Why wasn’t that brought into focus?

This is probably what gives me the most concern about a sequel. If he doesn’t look at Jon s7-8 and think ��boy, you fucked up.” (and I haven’t heard anything that makes me think that’s how he views things), I can’t see how this show will have anything to say that I want to hear. I remember him saying when they go into KL and the massacre starts that Jon realizes there’s no honor in that fight and that did annoy me because Jon hadn’t had honor all season, not after he lied to his family and forced Sansa to keep a secret she shouldn’t have and refused to listen to any warnings about Dany even though he knew even better than Sansa that all her concerns about Dany were justified, and he then refused to even entertain the idea that Dany needed to be stopped, stood by as Dany burned a man alive, went ahead and dragged his men into KL even thought he knew Dany wouldn’t stop after the bells rang...like, caveat caveat caveat but also wtf wtf wtf.

He spoke about how it broke Jon’s heart to kill Dany, and that’s fine, he has to say what he has to say as part of his job, but what about Jon’s feelings of complicity in the massacre? What about the fact that his choices meant bringing a woman into Sansa’s home (where she had been raped and tortured) who immediately started threatening Sansa’s life? What about his feelings that Ned Stark abandoned his sacred honor and lied to his best friend/committed treason against the king he fought for to protect Jon, only for Jon to side against Ned’s daughters and with a Targaryen conqueror, until the last possible minute? Where is his shame? Where is his guilt?

For book Jon, no matter how fucked up he is post assassination, being embroiled in any of this mess, all I can think of is the self-recrimination he would have and how the kid would never have peace unless the entire time he had remained faithful to the Starks and the North and been serving their interests. Even for show Jon, I found this all untenable. But I never saw anything that made me think Kit felt that way. Hence my misgivings.

[skieystar]

I'm a fan of Code Geass so I'm glad to find sites like these. It makes me think the Code Geass fanbase is still going strong. How does it feel for you about the Code Geass movies remaking the series with some changes? Are you disappointed about them or just think it's alright.

The answer to this came out way, way longer than I expected. Lots of rambling below! I've also been facing a technical issue with Asks, so I'm sorry for the late reply.

I like to think that Code Geass is good enough an anime to garner interest even now. Fans do exist even if activity is not that consistent (myself very much included.) The fanbase does have some fluctuating activity, and I see lots and lots of wonderful fanart nowadays! 

I’ve yet to find an anime I love more than Code Geass. Although I watched it very recently, probably months before said alternate timeline movies were released. I didn’t quite understand what they were getting at with the whole ‘season 3′ thing. 

I’m going to start by saying, quality of both anime and movie notwithstanding, it was a very well-thought decision to make an alternate timeline. Don’t want to accept the end of canon? Movies are for you! Not a fan of the movies? Stick with the anime! The audience is given a choice. 

But the statement stands regardless of whether or not the movies are good. Now, if we actually consider the production of the movies, my opinion very much changes. 

So, do I like the new movies? Above all, I am a fan of Re;surrection? 

The answer is No. 

Now, why is that? 

I successfully passed every stage leading to Re;surrection with no contempt: 

- Oh, they’re continuing the series? It’s nice to see more from my favourite anime!

- They’re recapping the anime? Makes sense if they want old fans to return to the series with ease. 

- The movies are... different from the anime? Following a different canon seems... unusual. I feel like they suddenly backtracked because they thought of something ‘better’ but I’ll give it some time before I judge. 

- The movies have cut some major events that heavily affected Lelouch’s character development (i.e, going against Mao, losing Shirley)? Alternate timeline isn’t looking very nice here...

- And the ‘season 3′ which we have been promised of for a long time, will actually follow the canon set by the movies? Well... I’ll just see how Re;surrection is. 

And then we arrive to the movie itself...

I need to reiterate that it was a very good decision to have a dual canon, and I do acknowledge all the effort that was put into the movie and the attention it gained worldwide. 

However...

My own opinion is that Re;surrection is not a good movie. 

Well, I hope no one comes after my blood. But that’s really how I see it. 

Re;surrection by and in itself? Great. Wonderful animation and voice acting. An adequately interesting storyline. 

Re;surrection, compared to the anime? Bad. 

First thing to address is that events have nothing to do with this. One timeline having an event--Lelouch 'staying alive' or any other thing-- that the other one doesn’t is not integral to my opinion. My thoughts are only based on story- and character-writing, character development, depth of plot, etc. 

So you see where I’m going with this? 

If the character development cut by the recap movies wasn’t enough, what I saw of Re;surrection was enough to show me how terribly ‘out of character’ everyone was. Cornelia, who despised Zero, teamed up with him with no second thought. Suzaku, who loathed Lelouch and made his vendetta his top priority, hit him with the “yeah no it’s nicer to have you around :).” Lelouch himself felt out of character, and most things his character stood for were easily betrayed in the movie, i.e “the only ones who should kill are those prepared to be killed”, leaving Nunnally at the end, etc. 

It felt like the producers just said, “bring Lelouch back to life, that’s what everyone will care about, and we can just do random things with the other characters.” (I know that’s not the case, but this is how I see it.) The characters just feel so different than they did in the anime, like the existed solely for the plot. 

The writing is also very underwhelming (again, compared to the anime.) The things that happened at C’s World felt so rash and had minimal explanations. Even the villains didn’t have the character-depth the anime characters had. Mao, for instance, seems like a much deeper character than any of the new ones introduced in the movie. It’s like, as with the rest of the cast, the villains were only there to satisfy the plot. Combined with the pacing that was all over the place, the writing feels like the aforementioned “bring Lelouch back and that’s all we need.” 

And, finally, the movie as a whole just lacks the intricacy the anime had. Lelouch’s brilliant plans felt really watered-down, nothing like himself. The world-building was rather shallow. Everything from the conflict to the climax felt poorly put-together, with loose explanations just barely tying it up. 

And, well, that’s only my opinion. Zero contempt (pun not intended) against people who love Re;surrection, and mega shoutout to all the wonderful fanart and fanfiction creators. Now those things I actually enjoy. 

[shihalyfie]

Kizuna itself vs. the two versions of the novel

Written on request from a friend who wanted to remain anonymous. This is more of an editorial than a meta, and while I usually have a policy of “this is an analysis blog, not a review blog” it goes into more of my personal impressions and opinions than usual, but it’s something I write hoping to be helpful.

There are basically three “official” full versions of Kizuna: one being, of course, the movie itself, one being the Dash X Bunko version of the novel, and one being the Shueisha Mirai Bunko version of it. While it’s certainly not to say that any of the three is an “incomplete” version of the narrative, if you really want as full of a picture of the story as possible, somehow, each of all three versions of the story happens to have really important information that the other two do not. If I had to pick only one of these three versions to recommend to people, I would of course pick the movie itself; it’s obviously the base story everything else is based off of and was the one the production centered around as a priority, but the novelizations have a surprising amount of info that provide a lot of insight into the movie’s story and themes.

I get the impression that the creation of Kizuna involved making a lot more story and background details than could fit in a 95-minute movie, so these novelizations, which were based directly off the original movie script, ended up being an outlet for a lot of these details (and as much as I could be harsh on the movie itself for being a bit “reliant” on extra material, I have to admit that Adventure and 02 were both like this too -- a lot of our current understanding of the series comes from the Adventure novels and drama CDs -- so frankly I’m thankful we at least got this with a 95-minute movie instead of a yearlong series). On the flip side, while I'm not going to say that the novels are completely and utterly inaccurate representations of the movie, in a perhaps too-close approximation of Adventure and 02's writing style, this is a movie where even the nuances in a single line or split-second moment carry heavy implications, which become much blurrier or harder to identify when they’re presented differently (or not even presented at all) in the novel’s context, especially when they emphasize very different things from what the movie itself was emphasizing.

The short version of this is that I believe the Dash X version contains the greater amount of “plot and story” information but significantly misses out on the emotional themes and presentation, whereas the Shueisha Mirai version abridges and cuts chunks of content but is much better at conveying the intended message. More on this below the cut. (Note that the following post spoils Kizuna’s plot events.)

The movie itself

Since the following parts are more “in comparison to the movie”, I’m not going to go too much into this in this section, but one thing I will say is that the official English subtitle translation for the movie is really not great. Even if you take out nitpickiness about the fact it misses several significant nuances (the difference between “unchangeable fate” and “changeable destiny”, or the fact that Gennai refers to partnership dissolution as a “case” and not like it’s something that happens overall) at really plot-important moments, some lines (thankfully, usually not plot-important ones) are just straight-up incorrect. And worse, there’s evidence the official English dub was based on that translation! (I’m not faulting the people in charge of the dub for this, but whoever handed them that translation to work with.)

The dialogue in the Dash X Bunko version is transcribed effectively word-for-word from the dialogue in the movie (or perhaps vice versa, given that the novel is based on the original script), so I highly recommend checking that version as a reference for dialogue or if you want to do any intimate analysis on it. I don't want to go as far as to suggest not supporting the official version of the movie because of this, but at least please be aware that the translation used there is not entirely reliable.

Dash X Bunko

If you talk about “the Kizuna novel”, this is the one that people usually tend to be referring to, for two reasons. Firstly, it was translated shortly after the movie’s release, and due to the unfortunate circumstances of Kizuna being delayed in accessibility outside Japan for several months, this basically served as the only comprehensive source of info about the movie outside Japan for a very long time. Secondly, in Japan, this one was marketed as “the one for adults” in contrast to the Shueisha Mirai one being “for kids”, which meant that a lot of people assumed that the latter one was just an incredibly stripped down version that was otherwise disposable or replaceable. (This is very, very much not the case, and is extremely ironic when it comes to a movie that partially centers around the dangers of looking down too much on things associated with childhood.)

When it comes to “plot and story info”, this is the one that probably serves as the best reference (especially for fanfic writers or those who need a refresher on certain plot events or to look up something quickly), and probably has the most “comprehensive” listing of plot events surrounding the movie. The dialogue in it is a word-for-word recreation of the movie’s script, and actually includes more scenes than the movie itself does, including two that I suspect to be deleted scenes (a detailing of the specifics behind the initial plan to pursue Eosmon, and a conversation between Koushirou and Tentomon) and adaptations of the first and second memorial shorts within their context in the movie. It also contains some interesting background details and extra context for some things in the movie that you might think would normally be animation flair or something, but take a very interesting implication of story importance if they’re going out of their way to write this in the script. (There’s a scene where Agumon and Gabumon appear in front of their partners when they’d been behind them a minute before, and it’s easy to think this might be an animation error, but not only does the surrounding context make this unlikely, the novel itself actually directly states that their positions had changed.) Given that, I think it was very fortunate that this novel was available to us for those outside Japan waiting for the actual movie to come out, because this level of detail was very important to have on hand rather than fragmented spoilers on social media.

However, the part where I think the novel is significantly deficient in compared to the actual movie (and also to the other version of the novel) is that it describes the plot events in too blunt of a manner and doesn’t bring out its themes very well. (It’s kind of like having a long and very detailed Wikipedia article plot summary; it definitely got all the hard facts down, but the emotion is gone, which is still a pretty significant issue when media’s all about the feelings and message in the end.) While “considering the movie to be more cynical than it’s probably meant to be” happens regardless of which version someone’s working from, I’ve talked to perhaps an unnervingly high number of people who started with the novel and were absolutely convinced that the movie’s message was about adulthood sucking and needing to just accept it, until they saw how the actual movie pulled it off and the surrounding atmosphere and realized it definitely was not. (I think one really big factor here is that a lot of the visual imagery makes it extremely, extremely hard to miss that Menoa’s mentality is completely screwed up and her way of seeing things was dubious to begin with; prose descriptions really just don’t capture the way they slam this in your face with visual and musical cues during the climax of the movie.)

You can figure this out from the novel itself, but you have to really be looking closely at the way they word things, and on top of that it’s hard to figure out which parts you should be focusing on and which parts aren’t actually that important -- in other words, the “choice of priorities” gets a bit lost in there. Even the little things lose a lot of value; it’s theoretically possible to use the novel to put together that Daisuke is wearing his sunglasses indoors during his first scene, but you have to put together the context clues from completely different paragraphs to figure this out, none of which compares to the actual hilarity of visually seeing him wearing the thing in a very obviously dimly lit restaurant because he’s our beloved idiot. (For more details, please see my post with more elaboration on this and more examples of this kind of thing.)

I wouldn’t say that the movie itself isn’t guilty of (perhaps accidentally) having some degree of mixed messaging, but I would say this problem is rather exacerbated by the novel’s way of presenting it due to its dedication to dropping every single plot detail and event without much in the way of choosing what to contextualize and what to put emphasis on (as it turns out, treating practically everything in the movie as if it has equal weight might not be a great idea). So, again, for that reason I think the novel serves as a good reference in terms of remembering what happened in it and knowing the movie’s contents, but I also feel that it’s really not the greatest deliverer of the movie’s message or themes at all.

Shueisha Mirai Bunko

The second version of the novel was not translated until several months after the movie first released, and shortly before the Blu-ray and streaming versions of the movie itself came out anyway, so my impression is that on this end a lot of people don’t even know it was a thing. On top of that, even those who know about it often dismiss it as the “kid version” -- and to be fair, it did baffle quite a few people as to why this version even exists (Kizuna is technically not unacceptable for kid viewing and its plot is still understandable regardless of age, but since the movie is so heavily about the millennial existential crisis, it’s not something kids would really relate to). So a lot of people tended to just skip over it...which is really a shame, because it contains some interesting things that actually aren’t in the other two versions at all. For instance, did you know that, as of this writing, this is the only thing that plainly states the specific explanation for why Yamato decided to become an astronaut, for the first time in 20 real-life years?

While there are still some things that weren’t in the movie proper (mainly the Eosmon initial plan and the adaptation of the second memorial short), for the most part, the actual events are somewhat abridged compared to the movie and the Dash X version, and other than a few stray lines, there’s not a lot of extra information that would be as helpful for referencing the events of the plot. The version of the novel here is rather broadly interpretive of the scenes in the movie, so several things are condensed or taken out (and, amusingly, because it’s assuming that the kids reading this don’t actually know the original Adventure or 02, it has to describe what each character is like in a quick one-liner).

However, interestingly enough, it’s because it’s so heavily interpretive that it illuminates a lot of things that weren’t really easy to glean out of the Dash X version. For instance:

Some scenes are described with “other perspectives” that give you info on someone else’s point of view. (For instance, we see more of Yamato’s perspective and thoughts when he has his first phone call with Daisuke, or a bit more detail in the process of how Eosmon kidnappings work.)

We get a lot more information on what’s going through everyone’s heads during each scene, and what emotions they’re feeling at a given time. (This is something that you could at least get to some degree in the movie itself from facial expressions and framing, but would often be a lot blurrier in the Dash X version; here, it’s spelled out in words.)

When things are abridged, you get a clearer idea of what the intended point and theme of the scene was because it’s stripped down to include only that part. In one really interesting case, the scene with Agumon finding Taichi’s AVs has a “censored” equivalent where Taichi’s pushed to a corner because he can’t find anything non-alcoholic in his fridge -- so when you look at the two versions of the scene and what they have in common, you can figure out that the point isn’t that it was a lewd joke for the sake of it, but rather that Taichi’s forcing himself into boxes of “adulthood” that are actually meaningless and impractical.

Some of the descriptions of the characters, scenes, and background information make it a lot more obvious as to their purpose in the narrative (it outright confirms that Miyako being in Spain means that her personality is getting overly enabled there).

The scene where the circumstances behind Morphomon’s disappearance are revealed makes it significantly less subtle what the point is. In the actual movie, a lot of this involved visual framing with Menoa seeming to become more and more distant, but in this version of the novel they basically whack you over the head with the final confirmation that Menoa is guilty of neglecting her own partner, which contradicts her own assertions that “they were always together” (maybe not emotionally, it seems!) and helps clarify the commonality between her, Taichi, Yamato, and Sora in what exactly led to their partners disappearing.

Bonus: this version of the novel really wants you to know that the ending of the movie is about Taichi and Yamato fully having the determination to turn things around and lead up to the 02 epilogue. (The movie’s version of this involves the extended version of Taichi’s thesis and the credits photo with Yamato obviously next to a rocket, while this novel’s version involves more detailed fleshing out of how Taichi and Yamato decided to use their experiences to move onto their eventual career paths and what kind of hope they still have at the end. The Dash X version...didn’t really have a very strong equivalent here.)

In other words, while this version of the novel isn’t the greatest reference for plot or worldbuilding, it does a much more effective job being straightforward about the intended themes and message of the movie, and even if the scenes in it are much more loosely adapted, it’s much better at adapting the emotional nuances of the things that would normally be conveyed via visuals, expressions, and voice acting. (Although I would still say that the movie itself is the best reference for that kind of thing, of course.) If you just want lore or plot ideas, I don’t think it���ll help you very much, but since this series is so much about characters that had their ways of thinking fleshed out in such incredible detail, and about strong theme messaging, this is all still very valuable information in its own way.

[greaterawarness]

Arc Training Program Ch. 4 "Getting To Know The Cadets (Part Two)"

(Sorry for the long wait! Here is part two! Hope you enjoy it!)

The next stop on hunting down his cadets is the library. He scans the room seeing some odd number of clones and Kaminoans scattered about but none were one of his. He starts walking slowly around the room until he finds someone curled on the floor with stacks of books surrounding him. His face is hidden by a large book that he is completely entranced by. He reads the cover The Species of Gree. Alpha clears his throat, but the boy doesn’t hear him. Alpha walks forward and pulls the book down so CC-1004’s eye would finally register Alpha. The boy jumps surprised and scrambles to his feet.

“Sir! Sorry sir! I didn’t see you!” He says much to loudly for a library. He hears a few shh hissed at him and winces. “Sorry… sir.”

“What are you doing?” Alpha asks realizing all the books scattered around the boy are books on different types of species. The boy’s face turns a deep shade of red.

“Uh…” Is all he manages to get out. Alpha kneels down to look at the book he was reading.

“The species of Gree?” He says before giving a deep hm while flipping through the pages.

“The Gree species is one of the oldest civilizations in the galaxy. They even predate the Republic.” 1004 explains. Alpha gives another small hm. 1004 looks down while squeezing and unqueening has hands in and out of fists nervously. “I know this probably isn’t the best use of my time but… I think studying different species and their civilizations could benefit the Republic.”

Alpha stares at the boy. He looks like he’s about to be scolded but shows no regret.

“Just don’t let your other training fall through the cracks.” Alpha hands the book back to 1004. He takes the book with wide eyes.

“I wont sir!” He says with a big, excited smile on his face. Reading has never been a big priority when training the clones. Most bounty hunters wont even take their cadets into the library. Alpha might have been the first to not scold the boy for wanting to pursue reading for leisure. Unfortunately, he had nothing to offer like he did for 2224 and 7567. Alpha never felt he had the time or patience for reading unless it was a report.

“Seen any of the others around?” Alpha asks before the kid can get to lost in his books again.

“3636 was in here not too long ago… I think… I kind of lost track of time when I picked up this book.” 1004 admits.

“Understood.” Alpha starts to turn away before looking back at 1004. “Don’t slouch when you read. You’ll mess up your back.”

After walking around the entire library and seeing no sign of 3636, he leaves. He walks with his hands behind his back and head held high. Other’s salute or acknowledge him politely as they pass through the corridors. When he makes a turn towards the mess hall, he spots Shaak Ti. She speaks with two bounty hunters. When she notices him staring, she smiles softly with a slight nod of her head down a different corridor. Alpha nods his thanks and heads in that direction.

He finds himself walking above different training rooms where other batches perform practice battles. He spots 3636 staring down at one of the ongoing battles. Alpha quietly walks to his side to watch the batch below. The batch is slightly younger then his cadets and have sloppy movements. Alpha can predict the ending but looks to 3636 who barely flinched when he approached. 3636 lets out a tsk before pushing away from the railing. Alpha raises a brow at him as the batch below fails.

“Something wrong?” Alpha asks calmly. 3636 half turns with his lips pressed into a thin line. His eyes stare at the floor in tense frustration.

“Why is it so easy from here?” He asks finally. Alpha tilts his head slightly so he continues. “From here I can see their moves before they make them. But when I’m down there it’s like I have tunnel vision. And when I slow down to see the big picture its usually to late to do anything before I realize what’s happening.”

He shakes his head and turns away. Alpha feels the corner of his mouth turn into a grin.

“What did you do before?” Alpha crosses his arms before brining one hand up to his chin pondering with great curiosity.

“Before, my batch would move ahead and I could see it all. Not at first but with trail and error I eventually learned the different battle sequences my trainer had us practice. But the ones you have us run through seem to be random. Or its like the droids have a mind of their own. I can’t predict their moves and what the others will do.”

Alpha stiffens.

“CC-3636, there are thousands of battle scenarios. Are you saying you memorized all of them?”

“Yes?” He says it as if it were obvious. “There are 1,325 to be exact. Well, 1,326 but I think one was a glitch that combined 453 and 34.”

He’s living breathing protocol droid.

Alpha stares at the boy not sure if he should be amazed or terrified. Instead, he motions for him to follow. He takes 3636 to the part of Tipoca City that only the ARC Troopers were allowed. They passed many familiar faces who acknowledged Alpha in a head nod, smile, or even gesture. When they spot 3636 following behind him, they turn cold and watch suspiciously. He eventually turns into a break room currently occupied by two ARC Troopers, Hull and Raff.

“Leave us.” Alpha’s words were cold and blunt. They pause and exchange glances pondering if they should protest or not. They make the right choice and vacate the room. 3636 doesn’t look troubled or even scared to be surrounded by true ARC Troopers. The only thing Alpha can find in the cadet’s cold analyzing eyes is curiosity. Alpha sits on one side of the holochess board and gestures for 3636 to sit on the other side. He hesitates for the first time but eventually lowers himself down studying the board intently. When Alpha turns it on, he frowns.

“What is this?”

“Dejarik. You have to use wit to win.” Alpha smiles with the holographic creatures buzzing in front of him. 3636 says nothing so Alpha does a quick run through of the rules. When he’s done, he begins. The first round Alpha goes easy on the kid letting him get a feel for the game and truly understand how it works. He still manages to win but the kid doesn’t look fazed. He merely leans back slightly with eyes narrowed on the board in deep thought. When they play their second playthrough Alpha thinks he might lose but comes through in the end. Still, 3636 doesn’t look deterred. On the third playthrough Alpha can tell there is a clear difference. The kid leans forward with eyes glued to the bored. Other ARC Troopers have begun to fill into the room to watch. Alpha has to choose each move carefully. Halfway through Alpha rubs the back of his neck wondering how he will pull the win when he lifts his eyes. He freezes when his eyes meet CC-3636’s. They stared at him like a wolf that just locked onto its prey. Alpha looks back down. He makes his move and leans back. The rest of the men in the room watch the kid, murmuring amongst themselves. Alpha wonders how many have placed bets. 3636 smiles while making his final move.

“Holy shit.” Alpha chuckles to himself. The room is in an uproar. Fordo leans against the doorway full body laughing. 3636 sits pleased with his victory. Alpha holds a handout, and they shake hands. He gets to his feet to lead the kid out of the rowdy room of ARC Troopers. No need to subject him to that horror. Fordo pats his shoulder as they pass. When they’re finally in the quiet corridor 3636 looks up at him.

“So, what was the point of that game?”

“There are very few troopers who have the strategy capabilities that you have CC-3636. Tell me, while playing the game did you win the first try? Or even the second?” Alpha places his hands behind his back and glances at the cadet as they walk.

“No.”

“Exactly. But on the third try you got the hang of it. Just like with all things it takes practice to be able to strategizes in the heat of combat. We’ll work on that. Soon you’ll be dominating on the battlefield as much as you do in holochess.” Alpha smiles at him. 3636 stares forward intrigued. He might have even smiled if Alpha wasn’t looking.

Alpha leaves 3636 to continue studying other batches so he can continue his hunt for his other cadets. He doesn’t have to go far it seems when he spots CC-1010 leaning against the windows overlooking the mess hall. Alpha frowns when he approaches. 1010 stands up straight when he notices Alpha.

“Sir.” He says plainly. Alpha gives a displeasing hm.

“What are you doing? I told you to be doing something productive not lean against a window and people watching.” Alpha crosses his arms. 1010 raises his eyebrows as if shocked but his eyes remain plain.

“Sir I assure you I am using my time wisely.” 1010 places a hand on his chest offering a small grin. Alpha frowns. “You see I am not people watching but studying. You would be surprised of what secrets you can learn from simply observing others.”

“Explain.”

Alpha decides to bite. Perhaps he’ll catch him in his own lie. 1010 gestures down to the people eating below. It’s mostly other clones but some Kaminoans and bounty hunters are mixed in.

“You see that bounty hunter there? She’s been fucking one of the Kaminoan scientists.”

Alpha frowns at 1010. “This is gossip cadet.”

“Patience, Sir, patience. I’m getting to the good part.” He assures him. Alpha settles again and looks to the female bounty hunter. “Now she is also fucking the bounty hunter over the Bravo Squad. Well, that or she wants to fuck him and is just working with him. I know this by watching their mannerisms. She acts the same around the city unless she is with the Kaminoan scientist or with the bounty hunter over Bravo Squad but there is a clear difference between the two. With the Kaminoan it’s very forced and overly flirty. Very out of her character. Almost like she’s trying to fool the Kaminoan. Then I compared that to when she is with the other bounty hunter. It’s more natural but much more secretive. Little whispers and glances here and there. A small hand gesture no one would notice you weren’t looking for it.”

“I’m failing to see the point of all this.” Alpha sighs starting to lose patience.

���I’m almost to the good part,” He assures him. “All of this intrigued me, so I followed her one day. It intrigued me because why force a romance she clearly didn’t want and hide one she clearly did. Didn’t seem right. After following her I found out that the Kaminoan scientist she’s interested in works in the genetics lab and she often convinces him to have meetings in the lab. Then after having a meeting, she would have an interaction with the other bounty hunter. One no one would notice if they weren’t looking for it.”

“Besides a serious health violation what are you getting at?” Alpha crosses his arms intrigued. He leans against the window with a smug grin.

“I believe our female bounty hunter is stealing from the genetics’ lab with the bounty hunter of Bravo Squad.”

“That’s a serious allegation. What proof do you have?” Alpha drops his arms. 1010 frowns while looking down at the mess hall at the female bounty hunter.

“Nothing but what I’ve seen.”

“Why haven’t you come forward yet?” Alpha shakes his head at the boy. CC-1010 turns to meet his eyes.

“I’m a cadet. Who’s going to believe me?”

They stare at each other for a moment as Alpha calms down. 1010 looks back out the window.

“I believe you.” Alpha says finally. 1010 stands up straight meeting his eyes again, confused.

“You do?”

“Yes,” Alpha nods confusing the boy more. “I’ll have others look into this matter.”

He looks down shocked for a moment.

“Thank you.” He says showing a genuine smile for the first time. Alpha leans against the window again prompting 1010 to mimic his stance.

“So, what made you start watching her?” Alpha asks now analyzing all bounty hunters in his site. When 1010 doesn’t answer immediately he glances over at him. He wears a grimace.

“Words often spoken are lies.” He says finally. Alpha waits for him to go on. “The bounty hunter over my batch was a master at manipulation. I learned very quickly I couldn’t take her words at face value. Instead, I learned to read her body. From there I was able to find the truth. Body language gives most liars away. When I started getting good with her, I started looking at others for practice. Our lunch lined up with the female bounty hunter’s and that’s when I noticed what was happening.”

Alpha nods while turning so his back was against the glass. He glances up at the ceiling remembering his time under Jango’s instruction.

“Jango would play mind tricks on us at times. He did it to try and push us mentally. Made most of us stronger. I know of bounty hunters like the one that taught you. They don’t use those tactics to help you but more to control you. But as long as you pass the simulations then the Jedi and Kaminoans are happy to let you graduate.”

1010 looks up at him.

“You don’t think those cadets should graduate?”

“I think those cadets will deal with more obstacles later down the road then most others.” Alpha says meeting his eyes again. The cadet nods but Alpha wonders if he really understood what he meant. Alpha clears his throat deciding to turn the conversation to a brighter note. “Do you watch everyone’s mannerisms then?”

“Yes, it’s become second nature now.” 1010 crosses his arms with his back to the glass now mirroring Alpha.

“So, what are mine?” Alpha arches a brow at him. CC-1010 pauses with eyes staring forward. At that moment Shaak Ti approaches making 1010 stand up straight.

“Sir, I see you and the General have business to discuss and I should really get back to blaster training.” He says before walking quickly down the corridor.

“Hey wa—never mind.” Alpha shakes his head with a chuckle. Shaak Ti gives him a look, but he just shakes his head.

“Something wrong?” She asks.

“No… well? Possibly. I have good reason to believe that two of the bounty hunters here are selling Kaminoan genetic secrets.” Alpha says pointing out the female bounty hunter below.

“That is quite a claim. And what reason do you have to support this?” she asks.

“I have on good authority that it is so. If it’s not, then I will personally apologize for any damage done.” Alpha insists. This surprises Shaak Ti.

“Alpha, you have never apologized for anything.” She says eyeing him slightly. He gives a nonchalant shrug.

“Times are changing.”

“It appears so.” She chuckles softly. Alpha notices a datapad in her hand.

“Did you need something?” He asks.

“Yes, I’m afraid there has been an incident with two of your cadets in hanger bay three.” She hands him the datapad. He reads the CC numbers and groans. He immediately takes off for the hanger bay.

When he arrives to the bay he finds CC-8826 and CC-1138 sitting handcuffed on the floor surrounded by a group of troopers.

“These are my cadets. What’s going on?” Alpha has to hold back his anger. 8826 and 1138 look nothing but bored while sitting at the feet of the troopers.

“Sir, we caught these two trying to steal a ship.” The trooper shoots a look at 1138 when he yawns. Alpha felt his anger boil in his chest.

“Sorry for any damages or inconveniences. I’ll take it from here.” Alpha squeezes his hands into tight fists already running through every exercise and drill he was about to make them run through and then he contemplated if he should just fail them and put them on sanitation duty. The cadets are uncuffed and follow behind Alpha.

“We weren’t trying to steal a ship.” 8826 says breaking the tension between them. Alpha whips around to face them. They still look unfazed by Alpha’s furious face.

“Then what pray tell were you doing?” Alpha shouts. His voice echoes through the corridor. He hears someone scurry out of the hall.

“I just…” 8826 starts but stops. Alpha shakes his head.

“No, go on. Explain yourself!”

“I just wanted to know how it works.” He says at last. Alpha shifts his weight taking in his words. He must not answer in time because 8826 goes on. “The ship. I’ve studied the design like everyone else but when it’s put together it looks nothing like the holograms. I wasn’t trying to steal the ship I just wanted to see what the inside looked like and how it all connected.”

Alpha felt his anger begin to simmer. He looks to 1138.

“He couldn’t lift one of the panels.” He shrugs. Alpha feels himself chuckle a laugh. He rubs above his eyebrows.

“You really weren’t trying to steal the ship?” Alpha feels like he just experienced a crash landing.

“No.” they both say. Alpha studies their faces. They didn’t appear to be lying but both boys have always been hard to read in the past. Of course, neither boys would be his first to suspect of desertion. Alpha lets out one final sigh releasing the anger he had only moments before.

“Very well.” He says turning away. He leads them away from the hanger by to one of the distant larger storage rooms near their barracks. He has to find 99 to open it for him. inside they cough and cover their noses from the dust collecting on all the items inside. Most were outdated gear and weapons with some obsolete spare parts here and there. 8826 and 1138 walk around taking in all the things while Alpha follows 99 to the back. He helps 99 pull a tarp off an old speeder bike. 8826 and 1138 stare at it intrigued.

“This is an old speeder bike left here by one of the Mandalorian bounty hunters. It’s rundown and needs a lot of work. You want to know how things work? Start by taking this apart and putting it back together.” Alpha places his hands on his hips watching 8826 squat in front of the bike inspecting it. He gets the same crazed look in his eye that he does when he’s in combat. Alpha leans against a crate glancing over at 1138.

“You interested in building the bike too?” He asks. 1138 has always been silent and calm. He only ever showed real anger when he lost and continued to fail at something. Every other time it’s the same blank expression. 1138 crosses his arms and nods. Alpha leaves it at that not forcing a conversation. 99 helps them clear a path to push the bike back to their barracks. Alpha didn’t want the kids let loose in this room to often. When they reach the barracks they walk in at the same time CC-4477 does. Alpha pauses. He had almost forgotten about the cadet.

“CC-4477,” he calls over while 99 leads 8826 and 1138 to the back wall with the bike. 4477 walks up to him. “Where have you been all day?”

“Sir? What do you mean? We passed each other in the corridor several times today.” He says plainly. Alpha frowns trying to think back. Did he really walk right past one of his cadets and never notice? He almost wants to ask more questions when the doors open and CC-1010 walks in with CC-1004. CC-4477 walks over to greet his brothers leaving Alpha feeling odd. He would have to keep a closer eye on 4477.

When the rest of the cadets return, the quiet barracks become loud with chatting cadets that prepare for the night. Alpha stays in the room helping 1138 and 8826 dismantle the bike and providing what wisdom he could all the while keeping an eye on the others. 1010 and 4477 sit on their extended racks chatting about their day and what they noticed while 7567 and 2224 sort through their gear. 99 shuffles around cleaning up here and there before getting pulled into a conversation with 3636 and 1004. Alpha feels a sense of peace wash over him. A feeling he hasn’t felt in a long time. If ever.

When the night drags on he leaves the cadets to bathe and get to bed. He walks back to his room to find Shaak Ti watching one of the cadets practice battles. He walks over to join her at his table. She smiles at him while sliding a data pad his way.

“What’s this?” He asks while examining it.

“It seems you were correct about that bounty hunter. She and her accomplice have been detained. It seems the Kaminoan she manipulated had no idea. Still, he will face his own punishment from the Kaminoans.” She leans back in her chair.

“That fox.” Alpha says softly to himself. He puts the datapad down wearing a proud smile.

“It seems taking an off day was good for you.” She smiles warmly at him. He rubs the back of his neck.

“What can I say? You were right. Each boy is very different and has their own set of skills.”

“Now you must find a way to utilize those skills to get them to work together.” She rests her arms on the table leaning forward slightly. Alpha nods before reaching over to turn the holovid off. The sit in silence enjoying the peace.

“Thank you.” He says suddenly. She tilts her head. “For helping me.” “Your success is all of our success.” She says making him roll his eyes slightly. After a pause she adds. “You have changed Alpha.”

“I believe you’re right.” He nods with eyes falling on the table where his hand rests. He looks up to meet her eyes. “You have changed as well. From the first time we met.”

“That is the nature of time. It changes us. For better or for worse.”

His eyes drop to the table again this time staring at her hand resting on the table.

“Do you think it’s for the better?” he asks staring at her hand resting loosely on the white table. She takes this time to stand, pulling his eyes towards her face again. Before she walks out of his room she pauses and says.

“I hope, Alpha. I hope.”

Read full story HERE on AO3

[osakaso5]

Nagi Rokuya Birthday Photobook Rabbit Chat Part 2: Nagi And Takanashi Productions

Part 1 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

Tsumugi: Thank you all for coming! This project was created to show more of Nagi-san’s true nature as a way to commemorate the release of the Nagi Photobook.

Tsumugi: I believe this’ll show the fans how Nagi-san acts around the agency. Feel free to talk about whatever you like. I look forward to chatting with you all!

Nagi: Hello, Banri and Mr.President. I do hope your day was greatly improved by reading my photobook X-)))

Nagi: If you have any thoughts on it, I would gladly hear them.

Otoharu: Hello, Nagi-kun! I was looking forward to chatting with you.

Banri: Hello! You come across as a lot more sharp and cool over text.

Nagi: (V)o¥o(V)

Nagi: I can even use playful kaomoji, like the one shown above.

Otoharu: You're really something. Talented, not to mention you seem to know lots of trivia. (*^。^*)

Otoharu: (*^。^*)

Otoharu: This kaomoji is one of my favorites. What do you think?

Nagi: I love it. It shows off your personality quite nicely (*´ω`*)

Otoharu: Hehehe, thank you. Banri-kun, you should show our resident kaomoji sommelier your favorite one, too.

Tsumugi: K-kaomoji sommelier..!?

Banri: You think so? Hmm, I don't tend to use them much... Unless I'm talking to a girl, lol

Nagi: OH! You are one smooth operator, Banri. I never knew you took such a different approach to communicating with men and women.

Banri: Huh!? Isn't that normal? I don't want to come across as cold to girls...

Otoharu: Tsumugi-kun, don't let yourself be charmed by a man like this.

Tsumugi: Huh!?

Banri: Sir..!?

Nagi: What about a man like me, Mr. President? As you can probably tell by the cover of my photobook, I would spend a quiet and invigorating life with her.

Otoharu: The only man my daughter needs to have a quiet life with is me, so no.

Nagi: Hm... X-)))))

Banri: But if I was love rivals with Nagi, I don't think I'd win anyway...

Nagi: I also doubt I would lose, but I think you are very beautiful as well, Banri.

Banri: No way... I saw the pictures in your photobook, and there's no way I could pull that kind of stuff off.

Tsumugi: I must admit, I was charmed by that picture of you in front of the cherry blossoms!

Nagi: As photogenic as I am, the locations Sogo chose for shooting also helped.

Otoharu: The style of the pictures caught me off guard. It was like even the cherry blossoms were in love with you.

Nagi: Thank you for your kind words :-))))

Otoharu: I was also caught off guard by your crying. (*^。^*)

Nagi: It was a sight that brought a tear to my eye, whether I wanted it to or not. Would you like to join me for a viewing someday? If you watch with me, you will surely come to love every creature living on this Earth.

Otoharu: I never knew anime could do that. My daughter used to love this anime when she was little, too. I bought her the toys, and she'd use them to transform all day, every day.

Tsumugi: I think that's enough about me!!! Let's get back on topic!!!

Nagi: I would love to hear more about your anime phase, Tsumugi!

Banri: Me too, lol

Tsumugi: Aaaaahhh...

Otoharu: Which anime was it, again? I remember there being a catchphrase that went something like, "Bunny bunny kyun kyun~"

Nagi: Could it be... Rabbits★Panic!?

Otoharu: Ah, I think that's the one. That's the anime that made her like rabbits so much.

Tsumugi: .........

Nagi: Rab★Pa is an anime loved by people of all ages! Why, oh why did you not tell me sooner, Tsumugi?

Banri: Maybe she had emotional anime marathons like yours!

Tsumugi: Let's talk about literally anything else, please...

Nagi: It is important to appreciate the arts. Particularly the arts that cultivate your sensitivity and creativity.

Tsumugi: You really think so..? ><

Otoharu: He might be right. That could be the reason for why Nagi-kun himself is so expressive.

Nagi: You finally see my true charm?

Otoharu: I do find myself discovering a new expression or talent of yours often. I'm excited to see more.

Otoharu: You're a top-tier entertainer.

Nagi: Thank you. You never fail to warm our hearts.

Banri: You can pull off anything, whether it's cuteness, beauty, coolness, or even sexiness. That photo of you sitting on the couch was really seductive. And you're the reason why we've been getting all sorts of new work lately.

Banri: Not to mention you're a smart multilingual. It's practically a miracle that a man like you even exists.

Banri: I was still pretty surprised when a fan sent you a copy of their bank book with the message "I'll let you handle all of this, Nagi-kun"...

Nagi: Is that a courting tradition here in Japan?

Tsumugi: No, it's definitely not a tradition ><

Tsumugi: Let's move on to the questions before Nagi-san starts getting any ideas!

Choices/outcomes:

1. Tell us if there is anything about the agency that incoveniences you.

Nagi: I could not ask you for anything more. Coming back to you puts me at ease. It warms my heart. And that is why I will keep working with this agency for as long as you let me.

2. Tell us which side of you is the real Nagi.

Nagi: Every side of me is your dear Nagi Rokuya.

3. Are you glad to have joined Takanashi Productions?

Nagi: "Glad" does not even begin to describe it. Perhaps it was both Haruki and destiny who brought me to you.

Tsumugi: Thank you! I'll use these for the online publication later.

Nagi: Right. I do hope my answers were good.

Tsumugi: Of course..! They were great.

Nagi: May I say something, now?

Tsumugi: Yes!

Nagi: Banri, Mr. President?

Banri: Ah, sure!

Otoharu: (*^ 。^*)ノツ

Nagi: I am grateful that I was able to meet Iori, Yamato, Mitsuki, Tamaki, Sogo, and Riku thanks to you.

Nagi: I have never loved anything so much I could cry. To me, this agency is a place of miracles.

Nagi: If possible, I wish to never leave your side. And if I must leave, I hope you will still remain a place of love.

Tsumugi: Nagi-san..?

Otoharu: Takanashi Productions wouldn't be what it is without you around, Nagi-kun. We need all of you here.

Otoharu: It's our job to protect your smiles. This is your second home, after all.

Otoharu: Protecting our family is our top priority. We won't let you cry all alone.

Nagi: Mr. President...

Banri: "My heart is always with you". That's what you said in your photobook.

Banri: This place you love so much will always be here, right by your side. I don't know why you're so worried, but you're going to be fine.

Nagi: I truly am a lucky man, to have found so many people to love and be loved by.

Tsumugi: You sometimes look like you're deep in thought... But I think we can help you with whatever it is you're concerned about, at least a little.

Tsumugi: You're like our sun, so we'll be the ones to shield you from wind or rain.

Tsumugi: We'll wait until you feel like talking to us about it.

Nagi: How strong you are, my beloved Tsumugi.

Nagi: As are Mr. President and Banri, of course :-)))

Otoharu: I suppose I can overlook you calling my daughter your "beloved" just this once.

Banri: So you wouldn't otherwise? lol

Nagi: Perhaps the day I call you "Father" is closer than you think ;-)*

Otoharu: I take it back!!!

[itsclydebitches]

Hey Clyde, did you check out Wonder Egg Priority at all? The first ep is super promising, but the series as a whole is one of those real fascinating disasters from a story and a production standpoint that might be up your alley as a thing to pick apart haha.

I’d warn that it’s also reeeeal offensive and this generally gets worse as it goes though.

Hi, Phoenix! How are you and Cube doing?

Okay, I hadn't watched Wonder Egg Priority when I received your ask this morning. Now I have. In a fit of intense curiosity I settled down for a rare binge session and tore through all twelve episodes + OVA in a single sitting. It is now nearly 3:00am as I write this because I, oh so clearly, make fantastic life choices.

A question for you: what did I just watch?

The rest is going under a read more partly for spoilers, but more-so because WEP—and the summary I'm about to give, because I feel like I need to try and explain this to tumblr's faceless void for my own, dwindling sanity—comes with about every trigger warning under the sun. Seriously, if you are triggered by anything that we might think of as a "standard" trigger (meaning, not unique to you and your own experiences), best to proceed with caution.

Right! What the ever loving fuck happened in this show? Well, let's work through this chronologically. Two genius, frat boy brothers (I get their names mixed up so I'm not even gonna bother) are locked in their apartment and closely monitored because of Super Secret Science Research. Even though, I think, they're the ones who created this company. Not important! What is important is that they're bored enough to create an AI for funsies, thinking of her as their daughter and letting her name herself Frill. Frill is the perfect, cutesy, also genius child who has a habit of popping her lips — which the camera focuses on in an incredibly creepy fashion. One day Brother #1 (the hot one) falls in love with a random woman we know nothing about and Frill gets jealous.

"Jealous in a general sense?" you ask, thinking this show is in any way normal. "Like, just of her Dad giving attention to someone else?"

"No," I respond, patting your hand. "Jealous because she's in love with him." Which, beyond the subject matter itself, comes completely out of nowhere. Frill has a line about what you'd do if some woman stole your husband away. I, fool that I was, briefly considered that these two guys were lovers, not brothers. Oh no. They're brothers. Frill just considers Dad #1 to be her "husband."

So, in true evil AI fashion, she murders the wife, leaving only her newly born child behind. Who is a daughter.

Uh oh.

Dad #1 locks Frill in a coffin-esque hole in the basement and goes on with his life. Things are great! Until years later when the daughter reveals that she has fallen in love with her uncle (Dad #2 to Frill). She knows (somehow??) that both her dad and her uncle loved her mom, so if the loser uncle will just wait a few years he can marry her instead! He brushes her off, but the next day she’s found dead of an apparent suicide.

Realizing that this was somehow Frill’s doing, he marches down to the basement and confronts the murderous child they’ve had locked up for years. She’s now surrounded by screens in, again, true creep AI fashion. How did she get all this while she was locked up? Oh, just the three bug girls she created as friends prior to killing the wife. They’re devoted slaves, I guess. So the uncle says enough of this insanity and seemingly sets Frill on fire.

OH and Frill’s subtitled dialogue also puts “uncle” in quotation marks, implying that the daughter was always Dad #2’s??

Anyway, both brothers are now super obsessed with death and claim that they think Frill has had a hand in lots of girls’ suicides, even now after her own death. This is brought into question later when it’s revealed that they might have just concocted this scheme to try and bring back their daughter. I’m really not sure. Regardless, they use hand-wavey science to create eggs that I guess contain the souls of young girls who have committed suicide, then they sucker in other young girls who have lost people to suicide to try and rescue their loved ones in a dream world, saving others along the way. A tomboyish girl, Momoe, lost a classmate who admitted to loving her, but who Momoe rejected. Rika, a former junior idol, used and rejected an overweight fan only to learn later that she’d starved herself to death. Neiru, the 14yo president of some science company (yup) was attacked by her sister before she jumped off a bridge. Finally Ai, our protagonist, is a victim of bullying who managed to make friends with a single girl, Koito, who then jumped from their school building for unknown reasons. They’re all given the chance to bring these individuals back to life, provided they protect other victims of suicide by defeating the monstrous traumas that drove them to that act in the first place.

And you know what? That concept was great. However, the execution ranges from “Okay, that was pretty good for an anime. Kudos there” to “That’s the most offensive thing I’ve seen in my life.” Needless to say, unpacking all the battles they fight would take a lot more than this already absurd summary. Basically, if you can think of something horrible to happen to young girls (and one trans guy whose existence in that egg undermines the whole message of the episode), there’s an attempt to tackle it here.

During all this the four girls become friends and Ai works through her suspicions about Mr. Sawaki, a teacher at her school. What’s going on with Mr. Sawaki? Uh… everything! He’s somehow connected to Koito’s death, he’s dating Ai’s mom, and Ai apparently loves him too because her friends say so, even though this is never actually addressed and she barely interacts with him. It’s all quite the complication.

In time though the girls complete their “mission” of bringing their loved ones back to life. Rika and Momoe manage it first, only to find that Frill’s bug-girl lackeys have arrived to kill them. Why? Because that’s what Frill does, I guess. Momoe’s crocodile familiar (cute animals the girls were gifted to help them fight) takes a killing blow for her and the bug-lady then proceeds to carve up his corpse and force feed it to Momoe. Fantastic!! Building off of that, the next bug-lady who Rika encounters kills her turtle too, following in the footsteps of her bug-sister by, presumably, forcing her to eat parts of its head. Ai refuses to sacrifice her familiar to stay alive, but luckily the suicide she was protecting turns out to be herself from a parallel universe (that's a thing now!) and she takes the killing blow herself, which is done by pulling out the eye she’s sensitive about (she has heterochromia.) So parallel Ai passes on (again?) and the three girls don’t work through this trauma at all, instead becoming more traumatized through the realization that the loved ones they brought back no longer remember them. They’re alive, but the relationship they all had with them is dead.

It’s about this point that the main storyline wraps up and I’m relieved that there’s an OVA to finish things off. Surely they can somehow bring this all together in 45 minutes.

…25 minutes of that OVA is recap.

So with only about 20 minutes left, we learn that Neiru, the only one to not complete her mission yet, has mysteriously gone missing. It turns out she was an AI/clone/something all along, made to replace her sister and, presumably, that’s what caused the whole stabbing-suicide incident. She successfully brings her sister back, but stays behind in the dream world because Frill promises her she can become human. How is Frill here when she’s dead? How will Neiru become human? Isn’t Frill the “temptation of death” or whatever? There are no answers. A flashback finally reveals that Koito was having a relationship with a teacher at another school, he committed suicide, she transferred, she tried the same thing with Mr. Sawaki, he kept refusing her advances, and finally while threatening suicide to get his attention, she accidentally fell.

(So why was she in the suicide egg if it was an accident??)

Except, all this information comes through Mr. Sawaki himself, there’s a whole subplot about whether he’s really a villain, or if Ai is just making him into one, and this show might as well be titled How Much Pedophilia Can We Put into One Anime? So make of that what you will.

A dead character randomly shows up, but it's fine because she's actually just a version from a parallel world. How did she get here? Why is she here? Lol, it's cute that you think these are answered.

Rika, the character who cuts and almost committed suicide halfway through the show, breaks down saying how much she misses her dead loved ones, right after her friends refused to let her go on another mission that would surely end in her death and… that’s it. That’s all we get about her.

Momoe too, though she’s hopefully just vibing somewhere with that longed-for boyfriend.

Ai transfers schools and then one day randomly remembers that she loves Neiru and rushes back to start cracking eggs again because that will? Somehow?? Let her see Neiru???

When I say there are too many unanswered questions to possibly list here I really, really mean it.

Finally, in a personal attack on me, the protagonist with a name that is literally AI is not in any way an artificial intelligence.

And that’s it! Congratulations, you now “understand” WEP. And see, the funny thing is that the off-the-rails, bat-shit crazy aspects kind of catch you off guard? Yeah, the first episode is fantastic. In fact, I think I got through about six episodes thinking that this was a solid, if at times really messed up anime, but I was willing to shrug off a lot of stuff due solely to the amount of sensitive material they were attempting to cover (which is always quite difficult to do). Probably the only reason I was able to binge so fast was because the first half of the series was so engaging. The characters are charming. The animation is GORGEOUS. There's actually a ton of good here that is also worth yelling about. But then the plot comes in like a freight train and I was left staring dumbfounded at my screen as more and more insanity kept happening. Having watched the "explanations" I am now more confused about the show I just saw.

Phoenix, if you’ve bothered to read this rambling, 3:00am rant: thank you. I think? Idk if I should actually be thanking you or cursing you for tuning me into this, but it was definitely an experience, that’s for sure lol.

I'm off to bed now RIP the chance of having normal dreams ✌️

[superlinguo]

Practical advice if you want to start a podcast

I wrote a post for the RED team at La Trobe with some general advice for podcasting, but I’ve found there are some recurring questions that I get about setting up a podcast. This post is here to answer those questions.

If you’re not interested in starting a podcast, but want to listen to more linguistics podcasts, I’ve got a list for you!

I last updated this post in June 2021 - if you find this post a few years after this you might want to search for some more up to date specs. I’ll continue to update this from time to time as new questions (or answers) come up.

Picture your audience

Before you make any decisions about your show, know who it is for. Your topic might be incredibly niche and have an audience in the hundreds, which is very different to a potentially larger but less engaged audience. See the classic blog post from Kevin Kelly on the power of 1000 true fans. Knowing your potential audience, where they hang out online, and how they’re likely to support you, will help your decision making. I have a self-guided slide set for refining your project before you start working on it. It’s also ok to know who you don’t want as your audience, and make choices that don’t actively include them. Do this early and clearly so people aren’t disappointed. For example, having a show with clearly noted explicit language selects away from young kids and their parents.

The length and format of your show are a product of your aims

I personally like shows in the 25-35 minute range. But, having said that, I love Shortwave, which regularly clocks in at 10 minutes, and I’m disappointed when an episode of You’re Wrong About is less than an hour.

Know your audience and the level of depth you want to explore a topic in. The frequency of episodes and the amount of time you have to prepare and edit will also affect how long episode end up. Record a few episodes first and share them with people you trust will give you good feedback.

The best interviews are conversations

Good interviews are just conversations that are intentionally lopsided, and good interviewers make the conversation feel like it’s not lopsided. Do your homework, write out some questions, and then take a step back and actually listen to the person you’re interviewing.

Anyone who has done even a few interviews has already faced most of the questions you first think of. There are some fixes for this: push through your initial brainstorming, think about the specific angles on their topic that are most relevant to your audience and (again) listen to what the person is telling you. Like many podcasting skills, good interviewing takes practice, and you can practice by staying curious about humans you interact with in any area of your life, not just your podcast guests.

Use the best mics you can, but don’t over-invest

You don’t have go and buy the fanciest tech. If you have access to a studio, great! If you don’t, then decide what your budget is. When we started Lingthusiasm, Gretchen recorded into her phone, because we were running the show on no budget and had no idea if we’d stick it out more than 6 months. When we started making money we got Gretchen a Zoom H4n to match mine. It’s still not the fanciest, but it’s rugged and adequate, especially if you make sure you’re in a closet with some blankets. Do I regret the earlier episodes of Lingthusiasm don’t sound amazing? Not as much as I would have regretted investing hundreds of dollars in a podcast that had 4 episodes.

Edit your show

Even a light edit will make the show easier for your audience to listen to, and show respect for the people you interview. I know people believe there’s an aesthetic of authenticity that comes with not editing, but all podcasting is a performance. Editing is a politeness to your audience.

Editing means a very wide range of things. You can do full production editing, including the addition of music, multiple different voice-overs and voices reading parts (e.g. getting someone else to read author quotes to bring them to life) and additional sound effects. Or you might just edit out the start and end of the recording, and any false starts and errors throughout the show. A lot of the pauses and fillers we use in conversation are designed for an audience who is in on the conversation and can reply, and can feel like they’re holding up a conversation when you’re a passive listener like a podcast audience. Many of the best conversational podcasts are given an edit to make them easier on the ears.

I use audacity to edit

Audacity is free to use. It takes a little longer to learn than something like GarageBand, but once you know how to use it, you’ll be much faster at editing. I appreciate that it has stayed pretty much the same since I started using it almost 15 years ago.

Get your levels right

Once you’ve edited your show, making sure there aren’t too many loud laughs, or your two hosts aren’t unbalanced in loudness. You’ll also need to make sure your podcast isn’t too loud or soft compared to others in people’s list. You need to regularise it. A lot of podcasts regularise to -16 LUFS. A few other numbers bounce around (-14, -18), but this is what we use and no one complains.  Audacity can’t do it. You can process a certain number of hours of audio for free each month using the web-based Auphonic. It’s great. 

There’s lots of great free music to use

You want to look for music that has a license that’s free to use. Even if you don’t plan to make money from your podcast, make sure the license includes commercial use so you don’t limit your future options. SoundCloud and YouTube have lots of options, as does Kevin MacLeod - who has created royalty-free music in a massive range of genres. 

Web hosting is different to getting your show on iTunes

We use SoundCloud to upload and share our audio. It’s fine. I have no complaints. Once you’ve uploaded a few hours of audio you’ll have to pay annually for a pro account. Anchor seems to be a good new competitor, it’s free - I assume they make money off people choosing to run ads on their podcasts. You then generate an RSS feed, which is the thing that points all the podcast players to the place you’ve uploaded your recording. You’ll then have to add your show to major podcast platforms (Apple Podcast, Google Podcast), smaller ones will pick it up from there.

It takes a few days for your show to get picked up on all the podfeeders

Launching a podcast is a bit of a mess - it will go live on your hosting site but then you’ll have to set yourself up with iTunes, Google Podcast etc. and that can take a few days to update and populate. The sites that are popular, and the process of linking into those spaces, changes often enough that you should just google advice when you’re ready to launch, and give yourself a few days. This is part of why some podcasts launch a short ‘episode 0′ or a trailer, it gets the show set up.

Transcripts should be one of the first things you fund

Not every podcast has the time or funds to make transcripts. I do think they’re important though; for people who can’t or don’t want to listen, for discoverability and for your own record when you can’t remember when you talked about a specific story. If you have any time or money and want to be taken seriously at all, this should be one of your earliest priorities. This is even more true for educational podcasts, where a transcript ensures all students can appreciate the content of your show.

You don’t neeeeed a website, but it’s handy

You can run a show using a hosting platform and some social media. Having a website does allow you to add more information about the show and yourself. The Lingthusiasm page has grown over the years as the show has; we made a page for our liveshow events, we provide a list of episodes by topic, information about our Discord community, and our marvelous wall of supporters. The website was much more minimal when we started, but compared to just having a SoundCloud it gave the show room to grow.

You probably want socials, but be selective

You need to make your podcast discoverable by people who are likely to be your audience. Social media is one way to do this, but it’s better to be actually engaging on fewer social platforms than overextend yourself. Focus on platforms that are the intersection of where your possible fans are likely to be and where you enjoy being.

Funding a podcast takes time, and takes work

There are three main revenue streams for podcasts: advertising, crowdfunding and merch. A fourth option is institutional support (through your university or business), but then you’re beholden to the funder. Whichever revenue options work for you, think about them and plan towards them early. Part of that is making sure your podcast gets in as many ears as possible. Most successful podcasts spend as much, if not more, time on marketing, audience engagement and business planning as they do podcasting (it’s just not very glamorous to admit that!).

Choose whether each episode can stand alone

Some podcasts build a narrative over multiple episodes. Others allow listeners to jump in at any point and listen in any order. Whatever you choose, make this clear to your audience. This choice is going to influence a range of choices around what information to include in the opening and closing, how topical to make the show, and how you promote your podcast. 

Seasons are a great structure to keep a podcast manageable

Regardless of whether your show runs in a sequence, planning a season with a fixed number of episodes allows you to take some time off, to maybe change some things that weren’t working, or to step away from the project with a podcast that hasn’t been left hanging.

[nemrut]

Has been a long while since I posted anything Epic 7 related.

So, still playing the game, although at a way lesser intensity than before. I even missed doing the dailies once or twice but I can’t say I am that unhappy with that. If anything, being less bound by gacha has freed me up a bit, for better sleeping habits and in general productivity.

That said, still fond of the game. The FMA collab leak is interesting, because I really like Roy and Riza, but apparently, from what I have heard, without looking deeper into it, it seems that Riza is the free unit, and historically, the free unit of the collab has been the worst unit of the bunch. Not unusuable, mind you, but still. The free unit of the Guilty Gear collab had some very niche pvp utility and some hunt/abyss utility, the RE: zero unit could be used in banshee hunt and I actually think no one has used the unit from the slime collab for anything.

Similarly, Kizuna Ai has been rather lackluster as well. So, who knows, Riza may buck the trend and be actually a good unit, but probably not.

That said, each collab also had a unit or two that absolutely defined the meta for a long time. Dizzy was a terror for over a year, Baiken had some usage in PVP as an opener, although that is impossible nowadays, but she is still the best unit for banshee oneshots, since she has the lowest gear requirements. Rem and Emilia are dominant in their respective classes, Milum is very strong and Rimaru is borderline broken.

So yeah, if Ed and Roy are collab units, odds are good that we will be seeing the two having dominant positions within the game for a long time.

I didn’t roll for the new Soul Weaver, because I need my bookmarks and skystones for the summer charlotte unit and the collab that will follow after that. I like the idea of a debuff soul weaver, but her kit feels outdated already, since we have two very strong cleansers running around who do not need effect resistance (ER), and most people seem to have at least one, and even those who do not, can still run a cleanser with high enough ER to deal with that.

But from what I have seen, the venom debuff doesn’t seem to be that good anyway, so it’s hardly something that troublesome.

The issue is, it is a pure damage debuff, with nothing really else to it. Sure, it does more damage than poison, twice as much, I think, but so what? It won’t kill most units immediately, nor will it stop them from doing anything, which should be the two main priorities of debuffs. More damage is always nice, but in that case, it seems better to run a dmg dealer who will actually kill a unit or two, rather than someone who will slowly poison the enemy to death.

It just seems like a wasted unit, and while the cooldown increase for the enemies is solid enough, it is, at the end, not enough. She doesn’t do enough to harm or hinder the enemy and she doesn’t do enough to support or enable your team, so, as of now, using almost any other unit, for any other purpose, seems to be the smarter choice.

So yeah, not going to roll for her, especially seeing that she isn’t limited, so she might come home at any time. If she gets a buff that makes her broken, which is entirely possible, i will still be able to get her at a later stage. Collab units and limited units are still worth saving for.

I did summon and get ML Vivian though.

I am still building her. She is doing decent enough dmg, but since she wants to be on the field for as long as possible, thanks to her S2 and all of its dmg reduction and the cd reduction coupled with it, I want to switch to a lifesteal set.

I am also not super happy with the artifact. Right now, I am using the one that has like a 40 % chance of reducing the CD by 1, which I think has decent synergy with her abilities, since she wants to use her S3 as often as possible and has a skill that reduces her CD as well. This artifact increases the chances and speed of that happening and the more often she uses her S3, the more dmg it does since its attack power increases with each use.

But the cost for that is, that the artifact never does anything on the first turn, since her CD is not in play there, and afterwards, there is a over 50% chance of not doing anything, and the RNG likes to screw you over in this game.

That’s always the issue with the RNG in epic seven in particular. There are some units where its worth taking those risks. Rem, for example, or Belian. Sure,  it is not 100% guaranteed to trigger the effects, but when they do, it so so worth it because their attacks can cripple enemy teams.

With ML Vivian, well, it might not be. If the artifact triggers, the 4 turn cd becomes a 3 turn cd, which is fine, I guess, but also not really that awesome? Not when you could have run her with the artifact that provides you with 20 souls, which allows you to use her S1 as an AOE attack twice.

Or even provide those souls for another team member who could make good use of them like Specter Tenebria.

The other option which I have seen is the old artifact that has good odds of providing a barrier. That is, of course, useful combined with her S2 which already reduces the dmg she takes, so having additional protection ensures she stays on the field longer. It can be stripped from her, and she can be made unbuffable, so it is not guaranteed. Since there is RNG involved again, it’s not even guaranteed without debuffs, so there is that.

Again, the question. If the artifact triggers, is worth that sometimes it will not? Especially when you weigh it against the 20 souls which you are guaranteed unless the enemy runs Belian.

There will definitely be situations where the shield is preferable, but there will also be situations where the artifact will not do anything. So, I think I just might switch to tagahels and go with the souls.

When I go lifesteal, I also want to increase her HP and DEF. Her dmg reduction is neat and all, but 9k HP is just not enough. The trade off will of course be less dmg and with that, less healing.

She is difficult to built, since she wants basically every stat except effectiveness. ER can be neglected as well, but an ideal character would always have 200 %ER, only you can’t have every stat be that high, so most dmg dealers forsake ER alltogether.

Still, I like her core idea, of a tanky dmg dealer that punishes the enemy for attacking her. She doesn’t seem to be meta defining or oppressive like ML Ravi or Hwayoung.

Speaking of which, because I got so many dupes during the ML bookmarks refund thingy, I also had enough coins to buy another ML 5 star from the shop, so I actually went ahead and got ML Ravi.

Mine isn’t that great yet either. She is decent, don’t get me wrong, ideall I would be replacing ll the lvl 88 gear with lvl 90 gear. Or she would have roughly the same stats but also have like 100 % ER, so that I can go with a more offensive artifact, but for now, this will have to do. I don’t like her that much, but she is unfortunately necessary for RTA. ML Ravi is just one of those units where you have to have an answer for her or your team is just done. Her passive is just too unfair, since she regenerates health whenever she is getting hit and she heals herself when she counters. Most of the time, not every unit in someones team is a dmg dealer, so there will be tanks or supports or even aoe units with unimpressive S1s that will have to attack her if she is the last unit standing and she will heal more than she is being damaged. Combine that with her S3 which gets stronger the more people die AND the fact that she can revive a unit of yours with it, well, that makes her a bit of a nightmare unless you one shot her.

And there are only like 3 or 4 units that can reliably do so, and the rest of the team can cover for those.

Before I had her, ML Ravi was always my go to ban, simply because that was easier than having to deal with her. LQC and Hwayoung are the best answers to her, and the enemy bans Hwayoung too often and LQC requires another unit to set her up, preferably two. She absolutely needs an atk buff and a cr push, or risks of being killed herself before she can take out ML Ravi, so yeah, it always sucks when you have to dedicate half of your team to get rid of one enemy unit.

Another unit I am lowkey exited for because of an upcoming buff is Penelope.

She is a three star, which actually means her stats are rather bad and she shouldn’t really be viable in high end RTA and there are other untis who can do what she does better.

I still want to use her, though, mainly because of the upcoming change to Double Edged Decrescent. Its new effect will be 

Increases Evasion by 20%.

After successfully evading, has a 15-30% chance to counterattack.

And while everyone is eying Riolet for this, and I can’t blame them but I don’t have the guy, I feel there is potential with Penelope’s S1. Her S1 gives her a 15 % Cr push when she attacks and, if she defeats an enemy, it gives her an additional CR push of 75% on top. Each S1 use increases her attack as well.

Penelope is getting a lot of mileage out of her S1, so having evasion plus a counter option actually sounds really good for her. If she actually manages to kill a unit, she can actually steal a turn. Her s2 also gives her a barrier, which on top of the evasion will actually give her sufficient protection to survive quite a bit. Sure, it is still RNG, but with her, I feel it’s worth it. I have no idea if this will pan out, but I want to try.

So yeah, still playing the game, still interested, but doing less so. Farming Banshee atm as well, but am behind the story and behind a few SCs, so will need to catch up there as well.

I even rebuilt my Banshee team, by swapping out my high speed Bellona for Leo. So, right now, my team consists of Vivian, Leo and Baiken, which makes it a very basic team for Banshee, but it is relatively easy to hit the required gear to do so. Lots of people do so, and this has been a staple team for a while now. Had to throw a like 5 mola at Leo to get his S2 running, but yeah, it is a very reliable roughly one minute clear.

The speedy Bellona was more elegant, but it was a) less stable and b) required a very fast Bellona, which is gear that is better used on PVP units.

Guess I can also share my thoughts on the Balance Adjustment patch overall, but I don’t really have anything to say that most others didn’t.

The ML Lidica changes are better than nothing but don’t seem to be enough to make her viable in the current meta. She still wants to be an opener and she is too slow to do so, especially since she still wants high effectiveness AND 1oo% crit chance. And we have a few units that are simply faster than her. I don’t think ML 5 units are getting exclusive equipment, but she would need that with a flat stat in speed in order to matter or a fundamental change to one of her skills, which grants her a CR push or a different purpose other than opener.

But yeah, right now, she can be an interesting last pick, but it does seem like most people would usually have better options than her.

Ervalen’s change is a bit of an insult, as it is essentially ruining the character. His PVP purpose and identity will be gone and in turn, he will become a Banshee farmer, which is something he could already do. So, I am not seeing the purpose in this change. I hope they reconsider, since there has been heated pushback against this change.

Senya’s buffs seem to make her the one who got the best changes. Getting rid of the RNG aspect of her S2 and instead getting a barrier based on her tremendous attack power, on top of her special equipment providing additional barrier strength should give her a barrier that rivals Hwayoung’s and her barrier is so strong.

Fire Yufine’s change seems okay, don’t really have any opinions there.

Alencia’s artifact change also seems good, since that makes it best in slot for her in particular. Honestly, I think it makes it useful for only her, I don’t know who else would benefit from it, but yeah, it’s good for her since that frees up the Draco Plate that most people were running her with.

I am rather happy with Alencia atm, ever since she got her last buff, she has been in a really good place. She had been dead for a while, so am happy for her return. Same with Diene.

So yeah, that’s my current epic seven status.

[legionofpotatoes]

I love your art, it is very detailed in a neat way. Was wondering how you got started making it as a source of income? How did you get your first paid work, I'd love some advice on how to get started, if that's ok

Thank you. Of course it's okay, although I doubt I have enough work experience in art to really delve into this. I only went full freelance this year, and had been juggling art as a side hobby until then. If you're still interested in my somewhat narrow perspective, and are okay with my long-winded rambles, I'll give it a shot:

So to answer your question fully, I'll describe how I started and move into personal advice and learnings later on. As a disclaimer, I am a white cishet dude in my late twenties with a moderate cocktail of mental illnesses, but overall I can pass for a functioning adult so a lot I have to say may come laced with privilege I cannot fully identify.

So uhh I began drawing in around 2012? I think? Maybe halfway through 2011? And I mostly made fanart for things I enjoyed and tried to branch out in communities that felt nourishing to my style and interests (I caught a bug for alt posters and enjoyed mainstream movies so I spent a long time on posterspy early on). There were a handful of opportunities that came from there but I could only accept a couple because of primary workplace commitments. Still, it showed that networking in a focused community was definitely a good place to start; I myself have huge trouble committing to social networks and really staying socially active, but I knew it was an essential ingredient in succeeding so I tried to make myself be involved in challenges and art support trains etc. as much as I could.

In parallel to all that I also ran a few third party online stores (redbubble, teepublic) for disposable income and would sometimes, if rarely, hit around $100-150 a month from those sources combined. It is a sort of thing that requires helper accounts on other social media sites to promote it on, because the stores themselves have a huge volume of content that translates into low organic discoverability. Obviously it was never gonna be the way towards financial independence through art, and with community projects being few and far between, I opened private commissions in around uhhh 2017 I think, focusing on offering a few styles I knew I could do well, and sometimes operating in individual fandoms (it was mostly a bioware thing to be frank). But I had to close them back down after a year or so, again because of work-life conflict and how badly it was burning me out. The reason I kept trying to monetize this hobby is because I honestly hated what I did for my main job and wanted to see a way out in some shape or form in the future.

And then in 2020 I had to quit my main job altogether because of *gestures at pandemic* and deal with a mental breakdown from all the wonderful things it did to us and me specifically. I took a short break and decided to give art a shot full-time, and that was around May this year. I was planning on opening up commissions again (and I still am), but a few sudden opportunities that fell in my lap moved that timetable down and now I'm grateful to even be doing something I am getting adequately paid for.

So, with that somewhat limited perspective, here's what I've learned that I'd tell myself if I was just starting out:

1. Being a fan of something can be a shortcut towards effective networking kickoffs. Which are important evidently. If you love something and enjoy making content for it, join communities, settle into a combination of social media websites that feel right for those interests + your body of work + your inner rhythm, and try to play to content discovery as much as your mental health allows you to. Like I said, I know that I myself am incredibly bad at self-motivating to talk to people, so I found that synergizing common interests into fanart - which I enjoyed making anyway - could be a way to give myself a gentle nudge forward and build those bridges leading to community activities, which then net experience and coverage. Sometimes even freelance projects from official avenues. Again; picking the right spaces for what you're after is key. Companies roam twitter, concept art recruiters scour artstation or linkedin etc, instagram can land you private commissions and collab opportunities, so on and so forth. Find your niche and try to kick up dust. However...

2. I do not believe that any social profile can replace a good portfolio. The thing that made an immediate difference to me this year was building a coherent, simple website with my best work front and center and a contact form on top. Every single opportunity I got came from that form (maybe via twitter or instagram initially, but always sealing the decision after going through the website), so I firmly believe that showcasing your skills and portfolio in a visually arresting and user-friendly way is a big priority. I had some reservations about tackling that task but fortunately I had help from a savvy life partner and we slapped it together via wordpress in less than a day. Twitter/whatever social media is prevalent in your target groups is definitely important to get the right eyes on your shit, yes, but those eyes will then look for a second stop where your work and rates are more clear and concise. Simplicity is key imo, I cannot overstate this. So make a cute, simple portfolio!

3. Your skills and rates will grow and change as you do. Let them. Over the years I built several lasting professional relationships from my obsession over mass effect and kept getting opportunities both from bioware and their partner companies, some small and some a bit bigger. A one-off job earlier this year opened an unexpected door to another much larger commitment, and then the work I did there brought some attention from small businesses looking for commercial commissions. These were all incredibly different projects in terms of scope and budget, and I've been tackling them all on a case-by-case basis and slowly coming into my own irt my needs, rates, and SOW thresholds. It is still a work in progress (and a LOT of literal work as well), and very much a thing I struggle with in publicly marketing, which is why I felt a tad underqualified to answer your question in the first place (obviously I did not let that stop me). But what it means for me now is that I am rapidly developing into whatever my "version" of a functioning freelance artist is, and when the conditions for that guy are met, I need to be able to confidently plant myself and operate from that space despite past precedents. Do not let anyone bully you into downpricing what you yourself perceive as legitimate products of personal growth and development. Speaking of which...

4. The shitty challenge of turning envy into inspiration, and paddling outside your comfort zones in full riot gear. it is hard, but realizing that being a miserable, self-hating artist in my early days got me nothing but more misery back was the first real step I took and what truly blew the hinges off. I was just not pleasant to be around, I would badmouth my work all the time, and it all somehow made sense in my broken mind because the validation I sought was purely external and the way I sought it was through eliciting sympathy via self-victimization (even when I made something objectively nice). It all led fucking nowhere. Except perhaps to my own narcissism that I one day managed to identify and start managing. So I started looking at things that made me seethe with envy and calmly deconstruct and figure out their inner workings instead, do studies, and find nuggets of inspiration or discover new ways to approach rendering or building up specific elements. It was an application of analytical diligence to what I wanted to be a purely emotional, esoteric workflow, but that I deep down knew wasn't. Art is a discipline and a skill, and maybe it isn't a straight line, but you gotta find some line to thread nevertheless. Being self-hating was almost an identity I had to break out of, and despite it still being like, 4-5% there? I realize its cause and effect on me, my work, and those around me, so it is with a conscious choice that I gently set it aside when I work and especially when I learn. It won't always stay quiet, but the effort is the difference. Your doors towards accepting true growth and venturing into uncharted territories, art styles, and networking will really open from there. But there's a huge caveat...

5. Toolsets, accessibility, privilege, and all the good things that enable artistic expression and profitability are not given equal to all. you might do all the mental work I mentioned to be ready to rock and roll and learn and draw your way out of anything, but digital art is a fucking money pit that asks almost too much at times. I don't got a good case study here but identifying and ensuring accessibility to the tools you need to do your best work is, like, super important. The ergonomics can improve as you make money and settle into the job, but the basics have to be made available to you. And some of that might not even be under your direct control. That can be anything from pen tablets to software subscriptions to opportunities in hiring sullied by sexism or what have you. You gotta navigate all that through careful networking and money/time management. I don't do a good job of devoting specific slices of time to work/study, and my primary clutch is iPad software which went from a good deal to a nightmare scenario over the years. So all I can say here is do what I didn't; network, invest in a PC/tablet, and pick a software you'll learn that won't burn a hole in your pocket.

6. Be nice to work with? This one is hard to articulate and has landed my own ass in hot water in my early years because of how socially inept I am, but nothing is more worthwhile than being.. like. a good person to work with. That can be anything like meeting deadlines, or sometimes missing them but eloquently articulating why, being generous in early stages, being communicable and not too wordy in your emails, having a good grasp on abstract artistic concepts and how to describe them in simple terms, having a clear, laid out framework of your working rates in commercial and non-commercial projects and sticking to those guns with grace, understanding when you need to say no and saying it well, the works. Just being nice. Sometimes that might mean going headstrong with something you believe in, or simmering down and sucking up to the big man, all relative and adaptive. Part and parcel of the service provision dance that we all have to do in order to make bank. Know your lines here, obviously, and don't like. work for nazis. or uh.. *shudders* exposure. but be nice and empathetic and communicable and word will travel eventually. Skill may be in abundance these days, but good people are most certainly not, and capitalism has a way of bubbling up scarcity. Grim, but uh, them's the breaks.

I know I'm ultimately telling you to like. Have a body of work, make a portfolio, grow, and network. But that's really how I see it for now. And being nice can be a cherry on top that sets you apart, along with the inherent irreplaceable voice of your artwork. I think I rambled on enough, but if there is something specific you need my help with, even if you want to come off anon and talk in private, please feel free.

[mvnvgedmischief]

unremarkable days.

summary: sirius black is trying to be a good man, a good brother, a good person. Sirius has a steady job designing book covers for a publishing house, a flat he never leaves, and a traumatized brother who was just removed from the custody of his parents. All in all, it's wildly unremarkable.

chapter:  4/?

characters: sirius black, regulus black, wolfstar, background marauders

tags: tw: canon compliant abuse, child abuse, social services, abuse

words: 3. 8 k

read it on ao3 here

read the last chapter here

Sirius knew that work was going to be high stress all day. He felt sick to his stomach, thinking about the way he would continuously have to talk to people, when all he wanted was some peace. He wanted downtime. Time when he didn’t have to think about how he needed his paycheck to put food on the table, clothes on his brother’s back, pay bills to keep his lights on, wifi for homework. Regulus occupied his thoughts at all times, protecting him was Sirius’s only priority these days. He didn’t have time for anything else. Not his friends, not his interests, not music. Nothing could come between his focus and his brother’s wellbeing, because if it did, Sirius would never forgive himself. The consequences were too dire. So instead, he just wished for downtime that wouldn’t come, and prayed for the weekend to approach even faster. 

The weekend, when he could finally sleep again, albeit not well. The weekend, when he had the time to take a breath, even if it was only brief. Because his weekends were also spent finding ways to better equip his apartment for his younger brother, going to long grocery runs so Regulus had lunch to take to school, meal prepping all of the things he couldn’t bring himself to eat for dinner. He was definitely tired of all of the ways his mind was spiraling out, he didn’t have the time. He didn’t fault Regulus for it, it wasn’t the teen's presence in his life that was causing all this stress. It really was his own fault. A bit of crying at that first hearing had given Walburga and Orion the satisfaction of a victory over him at that first hearing, and they seemed to crave more of that chaos. They wanted to watch their children suffer, and this was how they chose to do that. So instead he spiraled in the privacy of his own home, because he could practically hear the words they burned into his mind whenever he saw them, and feel the ache of old beatings. 

But it was only Thursday, and that meant he still had to do this all day, and  then get berated by the rest of the team for not attending their weekly bonding happy hour. If he was lucky,  no  one would ask him to go. He knew he should be less terrified of them asking, most of the people on his team were his friends. There was simply the question of Remus, and Sirius didn’t have the time to be thinking about him in the first place. 

He didn’t have time to think about  the way his hair curled just the right way to fall into his eyes when he slept, or the way his caramel freckles made him look sunkist. He didn’t have time to think about the  pink scars that ran down Remus’s face or how they got there. He definitely didn;’t have time to think of the comfort  of his hand combing through Sirius’s own mop of unruly curls. So instead, he needs to  put  all of that out  of his mind. It wasn’t going to help him do well at work. It wasn’t going to solve his problems. He didn’t have the  time for this, nor did he have the emotional bandwidth. Perhaps that was why Sirius was conveniently avoiding the idea that he had asked Remus on a date. With some luck, Remus would think he was just an asshole who ghosted him. That was definitely complicated by the fact that they worked together, that he couldn’t just disappear. He wanted to, he really did, because there was simply no time. 

He set up his deliverables as though he had made tons of them, because his employment in this company  rode on it. Just two months ago, he was pegged to be promoted within the next two cycles, and now he could barely hold on to his sanity enough to handle his workload. He was so fucking tired, and he had so much on his plate. He needed to mentally prepare himself for the long day of meetings ahead of him. He had no true motivation to do his job right now, all he knew was that his exhaustion was no excuse. He knew that his boss, Alice, was giving him a whole lot of leeway right now. She was probably doing more than she should to help him. Being a mentor on the senior design team didn’t mean she needed to keep tabs on his personal life and pick up his slack. 

“Sirius–” 

When Sirius focused back into the meeting he was calling into, it occurred to him that they’re talking to him. So he did what he always did, blamed it on a shoddy connection. 

“Oh, sorry, can you repeat that? My audio cut out.” 

“Remus was saying that some of  the poems could probably use illustrations, and he was wondering if you had any ideas on which ones needed it.” 

“Thanks, Peter.” Sirius was glad that he knew the people on this team, that Peter and James were as close to him as anyone could be. Because otherwise, he’d probably be fucked. 

“So I was looking through them, and I was thinking Bite, Magick, and Love I could probably use larger scale illustrations. But at the same time, we don’t want to crowd the book. How attached are you to the current order or page arrangement?” 

It felt too close, but he was lucky that he had at least read the titles of some of the poems in the first half of the book. Sirius knew Remus didn’t actually know what his level of involvement was. He thought it was just doodles, but Sirius would be responsible for presenting everything from kearning and font choice within the pages, to illustration and cover art to the design team. He was integral to the success of this book as a product, and he  needed to start acting like it. 

“I’m pretty attached.” Remus sounded cold to Sirius, and he wondered what exactly he had done wrong in this meeting. And yet, he didn’t have time to think on it. He needed to keep things moving, keep getting valuable information out of the author. Hook up be damned, Sirius needed this book to actually get off the ground. 

 “Okay, well we should get a meeting on the calender to discuss. What poems and what scale of illustrations you want–” 

“Shouldn’t you be deciding what the illustrations look like and the logistics of those. Isn’t that what you  get paid for?” Remus really wasn’t making this easy on Sirius. But he had dealt with bigger demons and divas then whatever this attitude was. So he put on a light and airy smile, one they’d never know didn’t reach his eyes over the low quality webcam and nodded. 

“If you’d like to take a hands off approach with the design work, that can absolutely be arranged. But in the case of a fledgling project with a new author, the design team, myself included, really hope to prioritize your artistic license so that we can get a better sense of your vision for your literature, should Quill move forward with other publications in the future.  We can provide a completely in-house service, with as much input as you feel necessary during the design process, and deliver collateral towards the end of the project when final edits are done, if you would prefer, Mister Lupin.” 

Sirius practically wanted to scream. He needed Remus to stop fucking with his job, with his livelihood. He couldn’t lose this project. He needed all of the billable hours he could get if he was going to justify the overtime he needed in order to provide for his brother. This was ridiculous. But his clinical and polite answer must have thrown Remus, because he didn’t get much more attitude out of him. The back and forth had ended. So instead, Sirius pulled up his deliverables for the week, which included new iterations for the covers, and twelve illustrations for the three poems he had mentioned. 

He noticed the way Remus looked at his drawings, like he was pained by whatever his thoughts were, and Sirius wants to scream that he’s under no obligation to think that they’re good. But then he remembers that Remus seemed to be nitpicking on purpose, based on his critique of the design system itself. Sirius didn’t have the time to deal with that level of petty, just because he hadn’t been answering. He was too busy. He had too much on his plate. So instead he continues his presentation. 

“I don’t like any of these. Maybe you should start over.” Remus sounded vindictive, even mean. Like he was doing this out of spite.  Sirius could feel his heart drop in that moment. He didn’t want to start over. He didn’t have the time. 

“What do you not like about them?” Sirius is trying to salvage his work while he can. 

“The vibe is off.”

“Oh, is there something specific that throws it off or...” Sirius trailed off, wondering what exactly he needed to change. 

“No, it’s the whole thing. All of them are just off.” 

Sirius needed to think quick on his feet. He didn’t have the time to start from scratch, so he pulled up his original thumbnails that he had discussed with Remus. 

“These are the original sketches we discussed. I moved forward with the ones we talked about. I’m happy to rework those sketches,” no, he wasn’t. “But if there’s another sketch that you think would fit your vision better, please let me know.” He felt like he was pleading with Remus not to hate his artwork. He’d be a liar if he said it wasn’t a blow to his self esteem to hear that everything that he did was bad. 

“No, I would suggest you start over.” 

Sirius nodded, his mind immediately whirring with ways he could start over and re-design this project. He really didn’t want to do it. He didn’t want to do hundreds of thumbnails to get set on thirty, only to be destroyed in a meeting again. Especially when Remus seemed so excited about all of his illustrations before the meetings. It felt like too much. He didn’t have the energy for this kind of behavior. 

Luckily, Marlene directed the conversation away from Sirius’s work. The rest of the call went on without a hitch, like the only person who’s work Remus had a problem with was Sirius’s. He knew that it was more likely for Remus to have a problem with him, because design work was usually something an artist thought of as easy; however, this felt calculated and cold. If Sirius had been avoiding Remus before, it definitely wasn’t about to get better. So instead, he listened to the end of the meeting, and started the project all over again. He could do this. It was an unremarkable critique. It didn’t matter.

[mybg3notebook]

Gale: Hypothesis and Analogies – Part 2

Here, I will compile several hypotheses that are pretty common to find around and I will express my opinion on them showing what EA has given us so far to justify them or not. 

Disclaimer Game Version: All these analyses were written up to the game version v4.1.104.3536 (Early access). As long as new content is added, and as long as I have free time for that, I will try to keep updating this information. Written in June 2021.

Disclaimer about interpretations of Real Life concepts: I’m not a fan of bringing real life issues into plain analogies/allegories in a game which intention in doing so was not made explicit, but the fandom seems to like this aspect and therefore I would like to share those opinions here as well since some seems reasonable despite not being of my taste. This topic may be sensitive for some people. Be aware of it.

Hypothesis: Gale is a gaslighter

Concept

Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation in which a person or a group covertly sows seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or group, making them question their own memory, perception, or judgement. It may evoke changes in them such as cognitive dissonance or low self-esteem, rendering the victim additionally dependent on the gaslighter for emotional support and validation. Using denial, misdirection, contradiction,and disinformation, gaslighting involves attempts to destabilise the victim and delegitimise the victim's beliefs. 

A gasligther's ultimate goal is to make their victim second-guess their choices and to question their sanity, making them more dependent on the abuser. Fandom does an incredible misuse of this word (and similar ones), that over-magnifies situations which don't have those dimensions. For example, it’s pretty common to read in this fandom that Wyll “gaslights” Tav when he denies that his eye is a sending stone. Gaslighting and lying are not synonymous at all. 

Then, what's the difference? A person usually lies by either withholding or concealing information, or falsifying information and presenting it as true.

Gaslighting is similar to lying, but a gaslighter will also be attempting to confuse the other person by flipping a situation and putting the blame onto them, making them doubt their perception of events and second guess themselves. Typically the gaslighter is either trying to avoid taking responsibility for something and they want someone else to take responsibility, or they are trying to gain control over someone because they have an agenda.

So basically, gaslighting is about flipping, attacking, confusing and blaming, gaining power over another, and trying to get someone else to take responsibility for their bad behaviour. But lying doesn’t involve flipping, attacking or blaming and the liar isn’t trying to get someone else to take responsibility for their behaviour, they are merely hiding information for personal reasons. 

Inside the context of BG3

Honestly, nothing of this is happening with Gale, not even with Wyll and his denial about the sending stone. Gale and Wyll are hiding personal information, but without any interest to control Tav. In fact, the one holding power is Tav: the leader of the group that no companion questions. It's clear for any player that Tav has so much power over the group that they can kill any of the companions without consequences. 

Unlike an average gaslighter, Gale is well aware that his dire situation is the product of his own mistakes; the folly of his young self who believed that Mystra's love would last forever. We also learnt in the Loss scene that he deeply regrets this situation and during the Revelation scene he makes it clear over and over again that the only one to blame is “the silly wizard who did not accept a no from a goddess”, while being quite oblivious of the power imbalance his young self was in (here is where the grooming interpretation comes. Read Part 1 for details). Gale never disrespected Tav's opinions, confusing them or dismissing them. Gale can agree or disagree with Tav, and be very clear about it, but like an expected scholar, his disagreements are done with sensible touch and respecting Tav's individuality. In the only moment where Gale is aggressive due to dissidence is during the conversation after the goblin party or in his final scene before leaving the party when he is very low approval. But it's more than understandable since Tav forced him to be part of evil acts he did not want to participate in (after all, he is a good-aligned character, as Sven said it in PAX). 

Even Wyll, lying straight to Tav's face about his stone eye, is not even gaslighting. Gaslighting is about power, control, and submission of the other. I would really like the fandom to learn the context of the words they use. 

Hypothesis: Gale is a narcissist

Concept

Another word that fandom can't grasp and misuses so lightly. The difference between a narcissist and a cocky person or a high self-esteem person is big. 

A narcissist is not just someone who loves themselves in excess and has a big ego. A narcissist is a person that has very specific character traits, the three main are: having a sense of entitlement, being exploitative, and being empathy impaired, or having a complete lack of empathy for others.

Sense of entitlement: A narcissist views themselves as superior and special and better than everyone else, so they think they should be treated that way. They have delusions of grandeur and a sense of omnipotence and grandiosity that makes them feel entitled to have whatever they want.

They see their needs and desires as a priority and more important than anyone else’s; they are ruthless in getting them fulfilled. They crave admiration and adoration and will demand attention, but they will not give anything in return. They’ll punish others if they don’t get what they want. They don’t care about the consequences because they don’t believe consequences apply to them, since they think they are above reproach.

Being exploitative: Because of their sense of entitlement, the narcissist needs to exploit and use others to get what they want. Exploitative behaviour includes: intimidation, manipulation, control, plotting, conspiring, strategising, teasing, bullying, threats, being aggressive and passive-aggressive. They take advantage and treat people unfairly . They do only what is best for themselves in order to achieve their own goals. Due to their lack of conscience they will not feel any remorse or concern for the person they use and exploit. Instead they will just feel excitement and pleasure at having gained what they believe is rightfully theirs.

Lack of empathy: Empathy is the ability to put oneself in someone else’s shoes, and imagine what they are feeling, understanding those feelings. Narcissists lack this ability, so they do not concern themselves with other people's feelings, showing little compassion for others. This lack of empathy means they have no problem taking advantage of people or hurting them when they exploit or degrade them for their own means, and they have no conscience or awareness about the pain they cause in others. This is the reason why they can't offer comfort or reassurance. Another big sign that someone might be a narcissist is if they have trouble being told ‘No’. Narcissists lack boundaries and they don’t care about other people’s boundaries, so trying to set a boundary simply by saying no to them, may provoke a very strong reaction in them.

So, the difference between a narcissist and a cocky or high self-esteem person are clear: 

A person with high self-esteem greatly respects themselves. Self-esteem is confidence in one’s ability to think, make choices, and act on those choices, as well as feeling deserving of happiness and benefiting from one’s hard work and accomplishments. Above all, it means valuing the facts of reality and reason to guide one’s life. A lapse in knowledge or a mistake won't threaten their self-esteem. In fact, they embrace facts, whether those facts come from themselves or someone else, because they know that knowledge will help them in their life.

People with high-self esteem rarely (if ever) evade facts or rational advice because they know reality is their survival tool and means of achieving and maintaining happiness. They may be cocky at times, but they have tact and empathy to understand their own mistakes and the effect that they may cause on others, accepting the blame.

Narcissism is the opposite of self-esteem. Narcissists act as if they know everything, and anything that contradicts what they believe is either evaded or rejected out of hand. They’re not interested in facts that contradict what they feel or want to be true. They feel they must be right all the time. Their charm and show-off is usually aimed to belittle people. They always want to remain blameless. 

Inside the context of BG3

Gale is certainly confident in his knowledge and he is proud of what he does; he spent many years learning under many tutors; his skills are a product of hard effort and a privileged education (wizard education). 

Gale: I'm a wizard of considerable acclaim, and scholar of exceptional accomplishment.

Lae'zel: You strike me as cleverer than most istiki, Gale. Multiple tutors I should guess. Gale: Many a wise man and woman, indeed. Waterdeep is the home of myriads of scholars. 

Gale: Benefits of a wizard's education, you see. Of course my considerable talent didn't hurt either. Well... That depends on who you ask, I suppose. I may have summoned things rather more exotic than a winged cat.

This is not mere fake, because the scene of Ceremorphosis shows that Gale has a deep understanding of the process, compared to the knowledge that any githyanki has (Lae'zel or githyanki Tav). What Gale continues stating are facts:

Tav: And what makes you the expert? Gale: Study. 

He is far from being the typical obnoxious scholar who enjoys making people feel small and inferior. Unlike the archetype, Gale doesn't enjoy mocking Tav's ignorance, on the contrary, the excess of explanation can be seen as a typical vice of a teacher (which is confirmed after the Weave: Gale has been a teacher for some students even though his patience was thin). But in the same way Gale states the fact that he knows a lot, he is also well aware of his limitations, and he doesn't hide that fact: during the scene of ceremorphosis, he acknowledges that his “knowledge fails him” when he tries to understand the anomalies they are experiencing. 

During the Weave scene, he acknowledges the obvious: 

Tav: You’re a good teacher. Gale: I Know.

Annoying? yes, but true. After all, the game allowed a non-wizard Tav to channel the Weave, a unique experience for non-magical users. They are casting the Weave for the first time thanks to Gale's good instructions (and some luck with the dice). 

Another situation can be seen during the scene of the consumption of the artefacts.

Tav: Thanks don't get me that artefact back Gale: I myself am a much more powerful artefact in your arsenal. Rest assured of that.

His comment may be cocky, but it once more displays a fact: a functional wizard (with many spell slots) is more valuable than the power that those artefacts give to Tav (usually one spell alone). It’s also worth noting that none of his show-off comments tries to dismiss or belittle Tav. 

Because of his habit of over-explaining, Gale tends to be considered a mansplainer. I would see it that way if his excessive explanations would only happen with female Tavs. But the truth is that he is explaining too much to anyone, even to fellow wizards that may know all that stuff already. After all, it makes sense: he has the [sage] tag; he read all his life, he knows a big amount of things, and he was a teacher: a terrible combination that justifies a character with a tendency to over-explaining.

But Gale is not even that cocky, in my opinion. Many of his scenes have a level of teasing that implies more a hidden joke than high self-esteem. This is a pattern that can be seen in several opportunities: Gale uses this fake cockiness to put some levity in the moment, showing his joking intentions by context or explicitly with words:

The scene of Ceremorphosis starts with him observing his own reflection. When Tav asks him what he is doing, Gale answers: “Indulging in a spot of vanity. Handsome devil, aren't I?”. He deflected the raw context of the answer with teasing. He was not indulging into vanity, what he was truly doing was to observe any change in his physiognomy, and he attempted to levity by teasing. This is explicit later, when the topic of the conversation focuses on the changes that ceremorphosis causes. Even the handsome devil comment has teasing implications: according to some idiom dictionaries, the expression handsome devil “it's usually used playfully or flirtatiously”. Again, a teasing. 

During the Stew scene, Gale puts some levity before introducing the dramatic conversation about the artefacts he needs:

Gale: Curious time to be dieting. Especially with a chef like myself around. 

When meeting the Myconid, Gale will talk with fascination about the ability of this species to raise the dead through spores.

Tav: Sorry, but I don't share your fascination for fungi. Gale: Nobody's perfect. 

Tav can be a bit dismissive with his response, to which Gale will reply with one of his typical teasing/jokes, implying the ridiculous idea that a perfect person should always be interested in fungi. It’s a joke.

Another attempt to levity despite fearing to turn into mind flayers that night:

Gale: More blood. That's a pretty sight. Give it to me straight, how do I look? Tav: Like your handsome self, Gale. Gale: Thanks, that's what I thought.

During the Loss scene, in the romantic path of “more than friends”, we have this silly, teasing/cockiness which lacks belittling intentions. He is just playful. That can be seen because he doesn't let the situation last more than a moment, immediately calling himself “insufferable”. A narcissist, under no circumstance, would call himself as such. 

Tav: When I said we could be more than friends, you answered “perhaps”. What does that really mean? Gale: If I recall correctly, the Waterdhavian Dictionary of the Common Tongue of Faerûn defines it as an adverb that conveys the meaning of “It may be that”, or “possibly”. Sorry, sometimes I just can't help being quite insufferable. In seriousness, I'm glad you asked that question. [...] 

When the joke/teasing finishes, his words change immediately returning to the “serious” note of the conversation, doing it explicitly: “In seriousness”. Meaning he was joking a moment ago. He is painfully explicit. 

The same exact teasing/joke happens during the scene of the consumption of artefacts:

Tav: Let's hope this was the last artefact I had to part with. Gale: Come, come, these are mere fabled objects of great to enormous value. My continued presence though – quite priceless! On a more serious note, I do not wish to give you false hope. We're only treating the symptoms, not the cause. [...]

After the teasing, Gale explicitly says “talking on a more serious note”, meaning, the previous moment was a joke. Again. 

Another example of teasing/cocky joke:

Wyll: Between the orb and the bug you've got more than your fair share of unwelcome passengers. Gale: What can I say. Mother always taught me to be a gracious host. 

Gale claims to be a gracious host, but the context surrounding this... just makes it into a joke. This is why I insist so much in the Context.

This happens during the “Revelation” scene too, when it's Tav who attempts to use this teasing to relax the tense situation with a joke:

Tav: When you put it like that – no one can say no to me. Gale: After all, even I am only human. (Gale Approves)

It's painfully obvious they tease one another. After all the conversation of Mystra and the orb, some Tavs may want to opt for this option to answer Gale, and he even would approve this attempt of levity, because it's the same exact, silly thing he does as a pattern. He also approves it because he likes confidence. Again, I will repeat myself, but it's clear that Gale is char with high self-esteem, and likes people with that same trait. We know this because during the party when Tav accepts his out-of-nowhere “thank you”. Gale immediately says: “There's that confidence I like”.

During the scene after the party, we have some extra silly, cocky moments that could be the result of wine in Gale's system, or the messiness of the scene itself, since it’s so unpolished:

Tav: I think that sounds delightful Gale: That's because I'm full of delights

Tav: You’re a good kisser. Gale: I’m of the opinion one should try to excel at everything. 

Tav: Thank you for a wonderful night. Gale: Like I said; I try to excel at everything.

I would like to highlight this line because the way it's said shows a level of confidence that is not related to an excess of ego, but to a high self-esteem behaviour: he says “try”. Meaning, he knows he may fail. His past is proof that he can try to excel at things that he would never be able to manage, and unlike a narcissist, he acknowledges his limitations once more. 

Another interesting exchange is after that night: 

Gale: A night to remember. It was wonderful, wasn't it? Tav: Oh, I've had better. Gale: I had a goddess, but you don't hear me complaining. [After apology] Tav: We should do it again sometime. Gale: We absolutely should, after all I need to undone the misconception that you had better. 

Tav can question Gale's performance, and after repaying that rudeness with his comment on the Goddess, (again, Gale is a character that will pay you with the same coin [18]) he accepts the criticism and promises—with a teasing—to do it better. Again, an impossible gesture in a narcissist.

But not only in these teasing/joking situations we see his high self-esteem: in bitter or aggressive reactions, we see he uses it to enrage his rude/violent interlocutor:

During the Weave scene:

Gale: What did I think about seeing my head on a spike? That I still looked as handsome as ever, that's what.

Gale is hurt of being depicted beheaded (we know he fears death, the scene with Nettie shows it). His answer is, of course, rude after such a gore image projected in his mind. But instead of resorting to plain aggression, he pretends that it did not have the effect that Tav wanted to cause. To do so, he shows off.

The scene of Mirkon displays both styles of teasing: Gale started using his teasing/cocky attitude with a clear intention of sharing something personal with Tav, who has just done an action that it's important for Gale (saving children/youngsters of their own mistakes [5, 12b], a concept that echoes in Gale's background).

Gale: Benefits of a wizard's education, you see. Of course my considerable talent didn't hurt either. Well... That depends on who you ask, I suppose. 

Tav can ignore this silly cockiness and engage in what Gale wants to share, leaving the moment at that. But if Tav opts for a rude comment, Gale will answer with a degree of rudeness too, using a condescending tone (but it’s very light if we compare it with the level of aggressive condescending he displays with an evil Tav). We need to remember that Gale is a char who follows the philosophy of giving people their own medicine [18]. That's what he does:

Tav: Considerable talent. Are you always this full of yourself? Gale: Only when the occasion suits. That's mostly a synonym for 'yes', by the by. Anyway-- 

Gale is a very confident character, but his high self-esteem is not that broad. It is limited to his knowledge and appearance, but never to relationships. Exactly it's there where he becomes less confident and when his emotions and abandonment issues conflict with his good sense.

Don't get me wrong, Gale's ego is there, I'm not denying it. But like everything in this fandom, some groups tend to over-magnify what the game gives in EA. Gale has a very well founded self-esteem in academic and researching fields: he has been a prodigy of the Weave from a young age (probably very close to a Weavemaster, skill referred in the novel Dead Masks), and a remarkable scholar with artistic attitudes in poetry. He worked hard for years to amass all that knowledge (he has a [sage] tag for a reason) and then he became, briefly, a Chosen one (not a small feat) which catapulted him to an status of archwizard. He could be so immensely obnoxious, aggressive, and dismissive as Fane is in DOS2. Still, Gale remains in a low level of a playful ego that only surfaces when the situation requires a teasing/levity or when it is a bitter tool against an aggressive and rude Tav. Considering him a narcissist is to over-magnify this trait out of the chart. He is a lore-content character; that character that in many rpg games will accompany us while explaining the context of the fantasy world we are playing in; therefore it is natural and obvious that he will over explain like no other companion so far. 

Of course, all this is EA and may change by the time the game is released. But so far we should analyse what has been given to us. 

I personally don't like this trait of his, but I think it's part of his many flaws. After all, he is the embodiment and the concept "humans are fallible", and he is very aware of that every time he speaks in seriousness.

Hypothesis: Gale is a manipulator

Concept

I suggest reading the post about "Context, persuasion, and manipulation" for the definition and understanding of the concept.

Inside the context of BG3

On this aspect, I won't repeat myself, and I will recommend to read the series of posts I've done about "Gale: Manipulation, Lies, and Trust" which explains in detail the Stew Scene, the Loss Scene, the Party Scene and extra scenes (death protocol and dreams). This series focuses exactly on the degree of truth and lies that Gale shares with different Tavs (depending on their choices). As a broad conclusion I can say that Gale is not a manipulator as a main trait in his personality, and may (or not) withhold information if romanced (depending on Tav’s choices). 

He is not even a liar, since he has always made clear his boundaries and never denied to have secrets. Earning his trust to open up takes its time and good actions, and only in a romantic path there is a more messy approach: the scene pretends to create a “great betrayal”, when there is little since all the information concerning the “orb” has been given in broad strokes previously. The information that Gale has been withholding was personal and private but said in a bad timing making it of poor taste. The whole scene is very unpolished, not reacting to the amount of information that Tav can have from previous scenes. It presents two apparent conflicts: 

The “orb”, which danger has been stated since the first moment we met Gale, and it was reinforced in most scenes; so there is not a great revelation in it by the end of EA. 

The other conflict is apparently Gale's past lover: Mystra. Which can be surprising for a Tav, but not so much for a player who knows the lore background. In any case, the scene offers poor options to react to all this: or it ignores all the information that Tav can know by that time (information given by Gale himself), or gives over-reactive options, pretending that Mystra and the Orb are informations that never were informed in the game. 

So far in EA we see that Gale could withhold personal information not because he wants to have power over Tav, but as a consequence of his visceral fear for a second abandonment. Gale suffers from abandonment issues that make him prone to making bad decisions when confronted with that situation. 

As I said before, for a real and detailed analysis read the post "Gale: Manipulation, Lies, and Trust", which is summary of the posts 

'Stew' Scene    (extensive)

Loss Scene ( extensive )

Party Scene ( extensive )

Extra Scenes: death protocol and comments on dreams

Hypothesis: Gale makes you "cheat" your LI

I won't repeat myself so I recommend to read the post Gale proposes you to 'cheat' "

Hypothesis: Gale still loves Mystra

I recommend reading the post Does Gale love Mystra?.

Hypothesis: Gale has no Tadpole

I recommend to read the post of "The Tadpole"

---

Sources for both parts:

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders ( 5V)

Some concepts were summarised from: https://melcrowecounsellor.com www.d2l.org/child-grooming-signs-behavior-awareness/

This post was written in June 2021. → For more Gale: Analysis Series Index

[dgcatanisiri]

I won’t say this is my last word on the subject of Legendary Edition bullshit, because... Well, I know myself enough to be able to say that I NEVER have a last word, I’ll always want to rant again later on. But let’s just make this a sort of master post of the issues overall.

So... Is it fair to hold a game that is a good roughly fifteen years old to the standards of the present? Not inherently. So if the games were being produced in any sort of unedited format, that it was a strict translation, 1:1 ratio, of the original to the remaster... Honestly, I’d still be bitter as all get out, for reasons I’ll expound on in a minute. But it could at least SEEM justified. I could consider it the kind of thing that would be expected - if KOTOR got a remaster today, I would not expect that Carth and Bastila would be made into bi love interests, or Juhani would have her romance patched up so that it has the same level of detail and attention as the het romances. If Jade Empire were remastered, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Sky or Silk Fox’s same sex romances adapted so that the straight romances had to be closed out first. That is the kind of thing that, on a functional, practical level, I could understand. Doing a translation from old hardware, the old engine, I get the PRACTICAL reasoning for not making things better. I still object to this on the moral level, to say nothing of the representational one. But PRACTICALLY, I see why - y’know, there’s only so much financial resources going in, and changing things like romances, even if justified, means doing new writing and getting the voice cast back in, which has complications the longer since a game’s original release - actors retire or even die, the passage of time changes voices (like listen to the difference of the exact same lines by James Earl Jones between both versions of the Lion King). Even without those complications, that means paying them, which, in the production of video games, for everything that goes in, something else must go out. So that is the practical argument.

BUT!

But.

But, the thing is, even apart from everything else that I’ll get in to shortly, is that there have been a lot of claims from BioWare about inclusion. There have also been A LOT. of homophobic bullshit from BioWare and Mass Effect. And yes, I’m calling it like I see it.

Because we had the game that followed Jade Empire, with a M/M romance option, be Mass Effect, with NO M/M romance option (but FemShep and Liara could bang - the writing obviously favored the MaleShep portrayal, given that there was no marketing use of FemShep until ME3, and we had ME2 give priority to having loyalty conflicts between MALE Shepard’s romances, but not Female Shepard’s, and we even had BioWare hem and haw about how “well, the asari are monogender, so they’re not TECHNICALLY women, so it’s not REALLY lesbians...”). Because the official claim is that they just “didn’t think about it” in time to have these options included in Mass Effect 1. Because we’ve had writers now come out that Jacob Taylor was originally written as a gay man, but in the game itself was a straight man. Because there are plenty of women who throw themselves at Male Shepard, and Shepard is animated with having Significant Looks™ with these women, but not a single man who expresses any interest in him, until ME3 finally offers SOMETHING, which came to just Kaidan and Cortez.

Because we had one of BioWare’s heads, one of BioWare’s founders, say in an interview right around the release of Mass Effect 2 say “Shepard is too predefined a character to be gay.”

That is what I mean by homophobic bullshit.

And I haven’t even started on Mass Effect Andromeda.

And I’m gonna start on Mass Effect Andromeda now.

So after ME3, after Kaidan and Cortez were actually romances, we honestly gave them a lot of faith - they got the message, we said. They understood that they couldn’t just cut out M/M romance in the game, we said. They didn’t need to have the constant observation that demanded they provide good representation, we said.

And then they cut Jaal’s bisexuality, leaving him straight on release, without even a chance to flirt and be turned down, the bisexual male character who did remain not only was planet bound, he also is a character who a solid argument can be made that he falls into the trope of the Depraved Bisexual, a trope that over in Dragon Age, Patrick Weekes specifically said that they wanted to avoid and so didn’t make a character bisexual because of that. And the gay man is not only almost totally disconnected from the game (aside from one point in the plot, he can be avoided entirely and is not included in almost any other group setting among the Tempest crew), he is also an accessory in his own plot line, which was also heavily criticized for being intensely homophobic. And of these, the only thing BioWare deigned to change was Jaal’s bisexuality. (Which, personal note, I’m uncomfortable with personally, because as it’s implemented, it just feels kind of afterthought-y. Much like Kaidan’s in ME3, being unchanged from a new FemShep romance, despite the active inability to romance him in ME1.)

So it is not just a matter of “you have the ability, you’re changing other things, you should do this.” I mean, that is absolutely there - the mods exist for the original game, to the point of being able to even get the romance scene to fire right without Shepard’s gender magically changing once the clothes come off. (I have a vague memory of, at some point, probably around the “too predefined” comment, that being another excuse, that there was difficulty with having the models play nice with one another in that scene.)

But this is about addressing a pattern of behavior on the part of BioWare, that they have to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to the bare minimum that their own statements on matters of representation and inclusion claim they aspire to. That if the fans are not actively holding their feet to the fire, they are GOING to take their fans for granted - “you don’t get better quality content elsewhere, we’re your only choice!” But “only” choice is not a “good” choice. It’s not a choice with quality.

So if we don’t make a big damn deal about this now, when they have a chance - when they have a CHOICE - to make things better, to provide better representation, to correct the mistakes of the past... What will we get in the future? How will they backtrack on this in the future? How will they exclude us in the game they just announced a few months back? How will they continue to tell us that they don’t want gay people in this setting?

Look, I don’t use these words lightly. But that is, whether it’s a conscious attitude at all or not, what they are telling us. By not including us, by making us optionally involved, by making us disposable within our own stories, by cutting out our content, they are saying that they do not envision a world, a future, that includes queer men.

And anyone who does not speak up, does not condemn this, does not demand that they DO. BETTER... That is tacit approval and agreement. Because you’re saying that things as they are now - the removal and undermining of our content, of our EXISTENCE in these games - are perfectly fine and acceptable.

And yeah, I’m sure that reading that has probably made some people mad, believe I’m being unfair by saying that, because it’s going to push away allies. Thing is, and this is one of the things that always comes up in anything even tangentially activism related... THIS ISN’T ABOUT THE FEELINGS OF THE ALLIES. This is about listening to the people who are being hurt and saying “you don’t deserve to be hurt this way, things need to change.”

BioWare needs to change its approach. And, as we have seen, it does not come just because of a handful of angry queers, demanding to be represented in their games. It comes because of the community at large calling them out and saying “this isn’t right. What you have done is not right, and we are calling on you to fix it. To do better.”

Don’t just stand there and shrug this off. Because evidence tells us that if they aren’t called out on this now, the next game will not be better. And we will be in this exact same place, having this exact same argument, all over again, in a few years when the next Mass Effect game comes out. When the queer men are given the shortest end of the stick again, and people who are right now saying “what do you expect from a remaster?” will either suddenly turn around and go “I don’t know why BioWare would do something so homophobic” or, worse, “well, it’s something, I don’t see why you’re upset.”

We’re upset because we keep having this argument. And we are going to keep having this argument until people are willing to actually DEMAND that things be better. This is the chance to make things better now.

At this point, a post-release patch that includes a Male Shepard/Kaidan romance in ME1 that is tracked through to the following games is a bare minimum fix, a change done to make it clear that BioWare understands their mistakes in the past and want to make things BETTER.

It may not be easy, but genuinely fixing problems never is. But it’s work that needs to be done.

[takerfoxx]

Wonder Egg Priority: I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed.

Fine. Let's do this.

Okay, so if you've been following my blog over the last year, you'll know that I've been really high on Wonder Egg Priority. I love the characters, the concept, the direction, the weirdness, the gutsiness in directly tackling uncomfortable topic, and the relationships. I praised it highly and stand by that praise, and despite all the criticisms I'm about to lobby towards it, my feelings toward the show on the whole are mostly positive.

But then the show ended without resolving anything. It introduced a ton of characters and concepts that no one was really asking for, answering questions that very few people were asking while raising further questions in their place, and it ended on a cliffhanger.

But okay! A real finale was promised, a special hour-long episode to resolve things. We'd just have to wait for it to come out!

And then it did, and...

Everyone hated it.

It's was like the ending to Game of Thrones all over again. Well, maybe not on that scale, but I heard things like hot mess, waste of time, total disappointment, etc. Honestly, it put me off from watching it entirely for several months, because I still liked the show, and didn't want to be let down.

But I knew I had to tackle it sooner or later, and last night I did, and...

Well. Those were certainly...choices.

I mean, it might have helped had they not promised an hour but only delivered 45 minutes. And it also might have helped had half of that not been a recap of the series, leaving a normal-episode length for the actual finale.

But even then...

Look, we didn't need Frill and the bug girls in the show. No one was asking for a central villain. But if you're going to devote an entire episode to introducing her, then at least do something with her! Like, on its own, she's a cool concept! But instead of actually making use of that concept, everything...just sort of peters out. Nothing is really done with her.

And the wonder eggs? The girls that our cast was fighting so hard to bring back? Well, they do come back, but none of them actually remember any of the girls that were fighting for them, so I guess they weren't resurrected so much as pulled from an alternate universe, which just raises further questions that go answered. And our girls are upset at first, but then they just sort of shrug their shoulders, go "Oh well," and move on? Koito was a jerk the whole time who killed herself by accident? And then the girls all drift off and don't talk anymore? That's it?

And Neiru...did she kill herself or not? Her fellow clone friend shows up from another universe and then just sort of slips off. What's with Neiru's rat that gets swiftly forgotten? What's going on?

Look, I know this show had a very troubled production. And I know the writer admitted to making stuff up as they went along. I get that. And I'm not saying that anti-climaxes can't work. We didn't need a big, action-packed finale. We didn't need a huge battle against Frill. American Gods is my favorite book, and it very much ended on an anti-climax.

But that anti-climax worked because it still took the time to resolve everything! It still made sure to wrap up its plotlines and definitively end the story!

This isn't an ending. This resolves nothing. This feels more like the penultimate episode that leads into the finale. This feels like the writer tried to answer all the questions, threw a bunch of ideas at the wall, but then forgot to do anything with any of them.

And what's more frustrating is that when judged as a standalone episode, it's actually all right! Like I said, it's perfectly serviceable as a buildup episode. But as the finale? No. I'm sorry, it just doesn't work.

Now, this nothing of a finale hasn't soured me on the good parts. This isn't like how I felt about Future Diary, where all the bad bits made me come to dislike the story as a whole. What's good is still really good! But this really ought to have been better thought out. For everything that was great, there still was a lot of wasted potential here. And while writing by the seat of your pants can work, there are times in which it can blow up in your face. This is one of those examples.

So yeah. Those are my thoughts.

[portraitoftheoddity]

So like I really like Steve and all and he's definitely got the right heart and that's what fandom likes about him, how he stood up to bullies and injustice with his fist raised. But recently I've rewatched avatar and Aang got me thinking, is going against the world fist ready really the right thing. Like Aang was no coward he still stopped Ozai but in most of his battles he tries for peace first. In fact Avatar as a whole talks about change in people.

Like Sokka turned from misogynistic to respecting women, and Iroh's love and patience redeemed Zuko. As much as I love Steve Rogers, fist fighting bullies and getting your ass handed to you or successfully beating them to a pulp isn't going to change them, and it sends a wrong message of fighting fire with fire and bullies don't learn when you punch them usually they get pettier. I agree Steve is right at not letting injustice go be it canon or fandom but Iove that scene in avatar when Aang got into a fire nation school and when a guy tried to fight him he was just like nooope but still managed to be on top as opposed to Steve (maybe just fan fic ver) who would try a punch. I mean I can see Steve screaming at the lies of the fire nation school instead of calmly informing the truth and throwing a dance party. Like Aang might be too pacific sometimes but is charging against people really a good lesson. Stand for what's right, but like in a chill way. And I'm not sure if this is just the fandom version of Steve but in TFS we did kinda see him in an alley fight against a just a ride guy. Sorry about the long rant but what do you think about Steve's fight me attitude being completely glorified in his fandom.

I apologize that I’m gonna gonna get a little long-winded here!

I agree with you that peaceful solutions are great to try first, but when it comes to this punch-happy version of Steve you reference, I think you’re kinda looking at a strawman version of the character, anon --  maybe from poorly-written fic or memes, but not exactly the Steve of film or comics.

Now, the respective approaches of both Aang and Steve are in part a product of the media they originated in. A show aimed at kids with a single overall plotline and arc is often going to aim for a peaceful solution and allow for linear character growth -- while comics, movies and shows developed around a character specifically designed to punch Hitler as a statement during WWII are less likely to have a core message of pacifism, and their structure and circular timelines make growth arcs more difficult to sustain. This doesn’t mean one character’s approach or the other is superior, just that they come from different contexts, narratively and in terms of medium. Plus, there are different kinds of fights, and not all are going to offer us the same options as solutions. Looking for ideological purity -- only ever opting for the ‘right’ solution -- can often lead to doing nothing when no ‘right’ solution presents itself, which can result in more harm than taking a less-than-perfect action.

Let us not forget that when an authoritarian army showed up to kill everyone and wipe out the North Pole, Aang does go all Koizilla with the ocean spirit and wipes out the Fire Nation fleet. Aang has fought people. Aang, albeit with the alibi of “a spirit was in charge”, indirectly kills people (Zhao ends up pretty dead as a direct result of Aang’s spirit rampage). This isn’t particularly glorified, but at the time there isn’t a better outcome presented. Doing nothing would have led to the massacre of the Northern Water Tribe.

That said, I LOVE ATLA and its messages of growth and compassion and I think it’s great to have a protagonist who opts to give people a way out.

...Which is what Steve does. 

We see Steve do this more than once. In CA:TWS, Steve recognizes Bucky and tried to get through to him, to avoid a fight. One ensues, but Steve then refuses to fight him anymore once he’s disabled the helicarrier and saved everyone else, willingly putting his own life on the line to gamble on some part of Bucky’s inner self being in there and worth saving. He isn’t willing to put the lives of other innocents and noncombatants on the line -- protecting them is a priority, even if it means fighting Bucky -- but once that factor is out of the equation, he drops his shield and tries to reach him.

In the same movie, a few scenes earlier, Steve appeals to the personnel of SHIELD -- an organization that has labeled him a terrorist and been hunting him -- and paints out the reality of the situation, giving the good people within the opportunity to react and rebel against the element of HYDRA that has infiltrated -- which they do! But there isn’t a magical lionturtle showing up to tell him how to stop the helicarriers from taking off and murdering millions of people without any casualties, so, yanno. He does what he can. 

Heck, Steve is occasionally teased by other characters for his speechifying -- not just to give pep talks, but to try to get through to people. He does this in the comics a lot. You’ve probably seen this page going around:

It doesn’t always work out. But he tries.

You suggest Steve would punch someone who was wrong in Aang’s Fire Nation School, but I don’t agree with that reading on the character based on what we see Steve do. Steve very rarely is the one to completely initiate a fight. Usually he is reactive. He sees a situation where someone is being a jerk, points out the injustice, and if the person is insisting on hurting someone, Steve inserts himself to make sure it’s him instead of anyone else. Whether the jerk in question is a single bully or an entire army.

You bring this scene up, but when Steve confronts the guy heckling in the movie theater (who is making a woman cry, I’ll add), it’s clear from the man’s posture when he stands up and Steve’s look of dread that while Steve has spoken up, the escalation to violence is not his choice. When we see him a moment later in the alley, he’s fighting defensively -- drawing the man’s ire, keeping him distracted. Steve is reactive in this entire scenario -- not the instigator. (and I think if Steve had Aang’s airbending, he’d love to dodge more punches instead of getting his ass kicked!)

The fact that Steve’s primary weapon is a shield -- a symbol of defense, not offense -- speaks to the fact his entire MO is protection. Violence not for violence’s sake, but to intervene in existing violence when there is no other recourse.

But Steve also admittedly has a stronger sense of responsibility than Aang does at the series’ start. Aang dodges, but he also gets called out by other characters for running away from a lot of his problems instead of confronting them. Steve, if he were a bender, I think would likely be an Earthbender like Toph; solid, stubborn, listening and reacting (though ironically, he would lose his shit over the willful obliviousness and apathy of Ba Sing Se’s leadership). Steve feels a deep personal duty to always be in the thick of it where things are already at their worst. 

If there had been no deus ex machina energybending option presented at the eleventh hour, would it have been better for Aang to die and doom the world than to compromise his morals and kill the Fire Lord? It’s a question of hypothetical principles vs reality of harm in that instance. Aang as a character is allowed by the story to adhere to his principles and get a happy ending. Steve as a character does his best, but ultimately has to compromise with reality when he has to, when it’s not just his life at stake, but many others should he fail to act in time. In those high-stakes scenarios, his cards are often limited.

Steve as a character doesn’t arbitrarily start fights. But he goes to where the status quo is untenable, or where a fight is already raging, and he takes a stand. If he can convince someone to step down peacefully? That’s ideal! But usually by the time Captain America has shown up, there are megaweapons primed and loaded and fascists already hurting people or robots trying to destroy the planet or a Titan about to wipe everyone out, so the ideal option is rarely still on the table. No dance party is gonna be enough to change Red Skull’s crazy nazi mind about killing everyone (which is too bad, because I’d love to watch Steve do the lindy hop). There is no ‘chill way’ to stand for what’s right at that point. 

And ultimately, I think we need both kinds of characters! I think it’s important to encourage diplomacy and compassion, to urge people to find common ground and to find nonviolent ways of diffusing and deescalating situations. To look at things from other perspectives, and to give people the option to learn and grow and be better than they were. I love a good rehabilitation arc, and think ATLA does this beautifully and has incredibly important messaging and philosophies.

But I also think we need stories that say, hey, when those options aren’t on the table? When no one is listening no matter what you try to say, when you’ve looked for a way around it and no lionturtles have showed up to save your ass? Sometimes, you have to put yourself in front of the guy swinging punches and raise you shield and stop him. Sometimes you don’t get the nice options that make you feel good; sometimes the world is messy and ugly; but sometimes, even if we can’t do the ideal thing, we can still do the right thing. Take action and put an end to the perpetuation of violence in the moment to protect the helpless. (Then work on rehabilitation and communication.)