#but because I give a shit about *guessing narrative solutions*

[familyagrestefanblog]

I know I posted about that already, but the way the special pushes the narrative that Gabriel Agreste would have lived if it wasn't for the wish is greatly bothering me.

Gabriel was minutes away from dying from the Cataclysm wound. The man would have died anyway and only a wish could have saved him which he didn't use for himself but for Nathalie.

The finale was NOT hiding that AT ALL and it was already annoying enough that Marinette seemingly didn't pay attention to Gabriel SAYING that he and Nathalie are about to die when she said they will find a way without a wish even if it's not perfect.

"Perfect" wasn't the problem here. I still don't understand, did she just not LISTEN when Gabriel said that?? Cause that is still the only way her actions and behaviour make sense.

And that it makes sense that Marinette now thinks that Gabriel having killed himself through the wish is her fault.

But that doesn't make it true and I dislike that the special didn't include the truth whatsoever.

It already felt contrived as hell in the finale that it was made so CLEAR that Gabriel and Nathalie were done for without the wish, but Marinette was made to just not listen at all just for contrived conflict now of her blaming herself.

She extended the emptiest hand ive ever seen and it would now be fine enough if at least the narrative around Marinette were honest enough to not suddenly pretend like Marinette is right. They could have easily included that moment of Gabriel saying that he and Nathalie are about to die and Adrien will be alone through having Alix watch that moment alone so the AUDIENCE knows the truth and understands that Marinette is incorrectly placing that blame on herself cause she apparently just didn't pay attention, but fine!

That annoys me so much. That even the narrative is siding with Marinette now in hiding the truth and instead frames Marinette saying that she "tried everything. She tried reasoning with Gabriel, to find another way, but now Adrien's has no father anymore because of her" as a nobel and tragic truth instead of the incorrect desperate confusion that it is because we must always paint Marinette as a tragic saint over all else.

You could have still highlighted that Marinette thought she was genuinely extending a hand to him. That she didn't pay proper attention (somehow??) and truly thought Gabriel and Nathalie could have had been saved in another way.

You can still give her credit for that without lying to the audience that her words could have been an option. Because they weren't and that was made obvious.

There was no other way. No other "not so perfect solution". There was no time, Gabriel and Nathalie were as good as DEAD. Gabriel was already turning into dust right in front of Marinette's eyes.

Why is the special supporting Marinette's incorrect assumption that she was unfairly robbed of the chance to save Gabriel? There was no chance. GABRIEL knew that and SAID so.

I wouldn't be so bothered by it if the show had handled Marinette's misunderstanding this wrong in a better way than just having her become deaf and switch off her brain for her conversation with Gabriel to an aggravating degree.

Cause she wasn't listening. She wasn't THINKING. What she offered was wishful-thinking SHE preferred to be real in that moment that was rooted in nothing of the reality of their situation. No shit he venomed her and did the wish anyway. And I'm annoyed that the special couldn't respect the audience enough to make them aware of Marinette's misunderstanding because that wouldn't praise her enough I guess.

The truth was perfectly fine, you could have still given her credit that she may have gotten it wrong but she genuinely tried. But nah I guess. Why respect the audience when crediting Marinette something she didn't do makes her look even better? It's not like that makes her look WORSE now for people who don't just ignore what actually happened in the finale.

Same as Marinette claiming she was greatly insured and hurt in the finale. People are already acting as if that wasn't a complete lie just because it makes Marinette more pitiable. Just go with the truth for once Miraculous, you have enough tragedy to work with for Marinette.

[anamericangirl]

Honestly, I'm pro-choice to an extent (rape, incest, mother's life at risk, or the fetus is confirmed to not be viable with life and would only suffer being born), but MAN do I hate that I'm in the same group as a lot of the pro-abortion types. I think it's irresponsible and not ok that some women use abortion as birth control. I think we do need certain restrictions and not just 'yeah anyone can abort anytime for any reason' because that leads to dark roads (like eugenics, aborting any disabled fetus).

I see it as killing the fetus, but I'm not sure I'd call it murder, at least not in the cases I mentioned above. But I think abortion is being pushed as a solution so much that people forget there ARE other options. And with the demonization some people give any non-abortion crisis centre (I dislike ones that lie, as rare as that is).

Like idk. I still don't particularly think it's my business, but that doesn't mean I won't judge someone. Or advocate for things to reduce the rates of abortion (like comprehensive sex ed, places to get condoms and b/c for free or cheap, no strings drop offs for unwanted babies, financial support for new parents, etc.). It's a hard issue for me to put a line on it, but I know my line is a lot closer to "no abortions ever" than most pro-choicers. Partly because pro-life blogs (and a pro-life friend) have taught me a lot of shit about the abortion debate and "industry" that I didn't know, no one on 'my' side discussed it. So like, I guess thanks, because I'm more confident in my stance and can actually explain it better.

Well you certainly have more sense than most of the people I call pro-aborts and they do really give the whole movement a bad name.

It's a sad reality that the pro-choice movement, that claims to care about women, just ignores and lies about the ways abortion harms women just to prop up their own narrative.

You're a testament to the fact that their behavior and disregard for human life and decency are working against them and pushing people away from their cause. And you are also a testament to the truth I say all the time that the more educated a person is on abortion the more pro-life they will be.

[takaraphoenix]

I’ve been meaning to make this post since season 1, but particularly with a book-based fandom as an exclusive show-watcher, it felt premature. After season 2 and the elements added to the narrative, I have an itching in my fingers.

What makes the Darkling, as a villain, so very compelling is the fact that his incredibly fucking valid motivation is just completely swept under the rug. And I mean completely.

I think there might be less appeal to him if there was more acknowledgement to the shit going on in this world, to be honest? I just find it completely impossible to actually root for the “good” guys because I don’t... see an argument made for what they stand.

It’s a tale as old as time, when it comes to storytelling.

You have a character and his motivation is that his people are being mistreated, abused and straight-up murdered by an oppressive force and he won’t stand for it anymore.

Now, here’s the problem with that. This does not read like a villain’s motivation. Not at all. So the author will sprinkle a good amount of murder and atrocities in there to show the audience that This Is The Bad Guy and the majority of the audience with then nod along with this. And, gotta say, really working well in this fandom, it’s baffling how much blind hatred I see for Aleksander based on all of the murder and atrocities but I don’t think I’ve seen anyone outside the people who like Aleksander bring up that what he actually stands for is right. So, that worked, I guess.

The bigger problem with these narratives however, the much, much bigger problem, is that usually, it creates a hero who doesn’t stand for anything. Because instead of giving the hero the same motivation - especially in cases where the hero comes from the same oppressed group, and they usually do - and making the hero find a better solution for this problem, a heroic solution, a no-murder-and-no-atrocities solution, the hero just... fights the villain.

The hero fights the villain to ensure the status quo, very often even directly in the name of the oppressive force. And that’s exactly what’s happening here and I’m not having a good time with that, fellas.

I love Nikolai as a character - would love him 300% more if he was just a pirate and not a prince. Because now he is just... the latest... in a long line of monarchs. And Alina aligns herself with the same bloodline that’s been oppressing Grisha for centuries. And Alina fights in their name and at their side. And Alina is now, in the aftermath, rebuilding... the status quo.

She wants Zoya to train the Grisha, back at the palace, so they can once again serve the royal family and work under the non-Grisha. She is actively helping Nikolai claim his family’s throne. Again, I like Nikolai as a character, and you could give me a whole list of book spoilers of what amazing changes he may make once he’s king or whatever, that doesn’t change the core premise of what he symbolizes and what system is being supported here.

If it were at least the narrative of her wanting the throne, her wanting active change. A Grisha on the throne, who would rule the people, would change the laws and the way her people are ruled, but instead, she’s playing side-piece to the exact same royal family and helping them stay in power and... what about that is satisfying?

What about that is worth rooting for? Why am I supposed to be on that side?

Everyone seems to have very personal feelings on that matter that really are about Aleksander, as a character, and are very specifically about the atrocities and murders that were written for this exact reason and I... really struggle with this.

It’s so lazy. I think the Grishaverse is a very interesting world with a whole lot of potential and the characters in it are absolutely amazing - this world does live off its characters alone, honestly. But the very core confrontation that we’re presented with is incredibly lazy and unsatisfactory.

I understand that Aleksander is supposed to be the villain. I understand you’re not going to have Alina join his side. But... Alina didn’t have to join the side of the monarchy either. Alina could have had her own side, she could have fought for genuine change and true freedom for the Grisha and that would have been a cause to get behind.

But as things stand? As things stand, I quite honestly rather support the guy who has seen centuries of oppression, enslavement and murder of their kind and wants to end it with all means rather than the side that fights for the status quo.

[your--isgayrights]

Probably a bit silly and you’ve likely answered this before, but do you think you’re going to come back to “at the Very least, the Wall will change?” I’m just getting into ORV and I want to read some fanfic! I promise I am patient but I’m hesitant to start reading something that’s abandoned. I hope this doesn’t come off as disrespectful! I completely understand burnout (med student here hehe) and there’s no shame is shelving a project for a time if it no longer speaks to you. I just wanted to check

You're right that I've answered this before but like it's totally fair to ask me again after how long it's been lol. Bc like I think about this a lot too and thus the answer/feelings I have about it kind of changes?

Like my journey with this fic has kind of been tumultuous because I started it before I had access to ADHD medication and a lot of my life can be divided into the Before times and the like Now Times where my baseline happiness/standard of care of myself is vastly improved. I outlined all of wall fic before publishing the first chapter and then the scenes I wanted to include took up a lot more time to create than I initially thought they would and that like frustration was really harmful to like my sense of being a "writer," I guess?

Sorry, getting into this bc I'm trying to articulate my own feelings to myself, but I'll tldr; it at the end probably.

Like when I first started wall fic it had like a strangle hold on my imagination and was a way I was able to articulate feelings about things in life. Truth is, I'm someone who has called 911 for suicide/self-harm of friends/classmates like 4-5 times before turning 18. There is this feeling of helplessness I always had as a minor that the world was always ending around me but even when I was up till 5 am making sure my friend got to the hospital ok without any way of really knowing except waiting for a text back, I still had to just buck up and go to school the next day. The emotions I have towards these times in my life really latched onto omniscient reader, because the way it discusses suicidal ideation and what can help with it rang really true to me. I love KDJ a lot, part of that is, in my interactions with suicidal ideation, his sense of narrative inevitability really describes the emotions behind it well, the feeling of "this is the only Solution that will Actually work" is sewn into the fabric of the universe as "probability." And I've actually been thinking about that term "probability" a lot lately, and how it relates to ideas about Narratives. We're always estimating the likelihood of future events based on past experiences, calling things "realistic" or not. But the function of this system in my own life has often been to convince myself to 'give up' on certain things, conserve the energy it would take to try them. Sure that has helped me when Ive not had any free time/energy in crunch times or big projects, but when something is actually important, giving up feels like shit to be honest. Which is part of why I really love and kind of idealize this character of Yoo Joonghyuk, someone who 'never gives up.' To me KDJ and yjh in wall fic represent these two radical sides of a spectrum where someone becomes unhappy by giving up caring about everything and someone becomes unhappy by never giving up on anything. KDJ is then sort of this love letter to people who give up on themselves, people who could never imagine living past a certain age and yet somehow implausibly remain. YJH is a love letter to people who have been left behind and are So aware of their choices and their power over situations that they blame themselves for things that were actually out of their control in the first place. It's these two different ways of interacting with helplessness and grief and fear, giving up knowing you never could have made a difference in the first place or being convinced you could always have done Something and blaming yourself for failing, constantly stressing about what you could have done and what you ought to do the next time it happens.

Codifying these themes into Characters is originally this fun way of exploring emotions I have about them and sharing the experience of feeling them with others without having to tear too much of my self a part. I feel like when we're young it feels like a sense of self is something like a wall, an image of ourself that we have Built and must put in work to Maintain from erosion. This sense of self and protection makes us feel distinct from other people, the line we draw where we begin and end in the universe, and they become rules dictating How we will Act and Appear towards others. Drawing these walls and lines is pretty important to KDJ's perspective in wall fic, but i now realize I had sort of started doing to myself? Towards the middle of writing it?

Just because I've been on the Internet so long, I know the sort of "narratives" of being different "kinds of authors" online. Because of this, when I started posting wall fic, something that was of a lot of concern to me was how I appeared as an Author to people reading. I honestly think now that the performance of things I associated with like Being an Author were more sort of motivated by a fear of failure and disappointing others than anything else. It's kind of only been recently that I've realized that I have a choice to do things because I enjoy them instead of the fear of not doing them, which sounds a little crazy/obvious to be honest, but forcing myself to be an honor roll student for like more than a third of my adolescence while completely unmedicated kind of made that sort of intrinsic fear of disappointing others the ole'reliable of Task Motivation. Participating in ORV fandom has sort of been this emotional tight rope walk for me of like. Kind of really desperately desiring validation from others but also being afraid of receiving it bc of like the pressure it then puts on to Keep Doing the thing that Works and otherwise feeling like a Failure. But obviously like creative writing isn't going to have the same like Fear/Urgency factor as life stuff and it shouldn't feel that way, anyway, tbh. I'm kind of having to like. Re-invent the idea of writing being Fun and Relaxing for myself. And the idea that talking to other people on the internet (also like. People in general I still do this at uni even) does not actually have to have like any performative elements or factors of like? Disguise? Because like my sense of self doesn't actually have to be a wall I keep building and have to repatch whenever someone comes along with a pickaxe like my sense of self doesn't actually need a metaphor attached to it because it just is what it is lol. Like whatever I am RN is my "self" and that meaning would only suffer under the restraint of comparison, lol.

It's been easier to like feel normaler/better quicker in like my day to day stuff, but because a lot of the time I spent previously trying to write wall fic lies in that like that brain space where I felt afraid and stressed out etc I think I currently have like an aversion to sitting down with it out of like a fear of returning to that mindset. Because I'm like looking it in the face and such I do have like strategies of getting over it like doing warmups or taking time to make nice writing spaces and having a name to/strategies to access the creative part of my brain, but that stuff takes time and because it's a lot less likely I'll have writing on the brain than go through my every day life like the process of becoming normaler/feeling better goes a lot faster day to day than in my approach to writing.

Because in my brain the progress of wall fic is a sort of gentle curve I've been trying to shape the growth of upwards, I wouldn't say it's abandoned at all. But also like because the next "update" is not really guaranteed and I'm kind of hesitant to force myself to commit to a timeline for finishing/releasing it, I think it makes sense to like hesitate about starting it as a reader? In terms of a sense of completion, the chapters are organized in such a way that each one concerns a sort of complete Section of KDJ's life/relationships, tho. Like, Chapter 1 shows KDJ and YJH's first meeting as kids and establishes the "soulmate" setting. Chapter 2 shows the life KDJ carved himself to thereafter, how he and YJH's paths have diverged, established the stakes of KDJ's current "world" in a way parallel to the first few chapters of wos/orv. Chapter 3 focuses on how the soulmate worldview and KDJ + YJH's characters/past interact with the way they view children/the idea of "childhood/youth." Chapter 4 is meant to show how that worldview encounters adult life/ adult friendships/relationships, but the final part of it is something I'm still working on a bit. The structure is such that I tend to bring the end of the chapter back to a moment of peace/resolution/settling in the "new world" after the events of the chapter and then writing a one sentence cliff hanger about what the next chapter includes. So if you want to give some of it a read but don't want to be left feeling too incomplete, I'd read up till before the last sentence of Chapter 3, tho that's a bit silly, lol.

I will say again and have said before, I don't mind that much getting thoughtful comments/messages like yours at all. Thoughtful in the sense of like, desiring a response from me as a person, I suppose? Towards the start of writing online i really like needed the validation of little comments to feel good about myself/my work, but now I realize that the thing I like actually desire that ao3 comments aren't often a good format for is that I just like talking/discussing these things with other people. Sometimes comments will make me feel more like an unpaid customer service representative getting feedback or a student looking at a quick note on my report card. The kind I like most are messages where people want to ask me questions, argue with me about something, share something of their own interaction with the text that there's room for me to interact back with them as a person. The thing I hate most is feeling like I care too much about something/talk/think too much to the point that people are tired of hearing from me/form a bad opinion of me.

So like typing this all out has actually put myself in the brain space of remembering some of the things I like to write about and feel and how the current part of wall fic explores them. I'm kind of setting up my computer and such to start working on it like rn actually, hopefully the like feelings I'm having towards wall fic won't evaporate when i have to go to my class in 1/2 an hour or when i try to reread some of what I've written so far lol.

TLDR; Wall fic isn't abandoned or on hiatus or anything, but I am super slow about it lol. If you wanna give it a read I recommend stopping before the last sentence of Chapter 3 if you don't want any "cliff hangy" feelings. Questions like yours that ask me to interact with orv/wall fic/related themes do honestly help me start thinking about it again and I'll probably try to work on some of it tonight bc of you so thanks 👍

[afurtivecake]

i'd like to hear some positive opinions, something you find impressive about the books or the characters or even exy idk

oh i have so many generally positive opinions on aftg...strap yourselves in.

the thing that blew my mind about the books especially the first time is how it really put me inside neil's head. like i felt like i was learning shit along with neil and figuring andrew out. i've got adhd and sometimes i don't pay attention to stuff i read so well because my brain is too busy spotting the patterns and predicting the direction the author is going to take the story. but aftg? it snapped me right into neil's thinking and made me follow along at his pace. it made me really feel those 'holy shit' moments when characters were doing something significant instead of just thinking, 'ah yes, of course, i thought that might happen'. and that's something special to me.

i love that aftg reads like an ace romance. and i don't mean a romance that features an ace character, i mean a romance that sees romance the way that someone who is ace might see romance. i am ace and i can't really explain it that well. but i guess it's sort of how love is contained in the small moments, the tiny gestures, like andrew opening neil's protein bar for him because he sees him struggling with it, like neil looking to andrew to silently ask him, 'hey, can i run my mouth or should i not?' and andrew understanding him. one of the most memorable moments i've had in my life that i felt was romantic but probably wouldn't be interpreted as such by others was when i watched an ad with someone and thought of a dumb joke. we looked at each other at the same time and we both burst out laughing without saying anything because we could tell that we both had arrived at that same dumb joke at the same time. I think that's very much how nora sakavic writes romance in general because you can also see bits of that kind of feel in tsc, even though jean and jeremy aren't clearly ace like neil.

i also love how relatable the characters are. the whole series is a damn good look at various trauma responses. it feels familiar to me and it reminds me of people i know. i love that the narrative doesn't judge the characters for how they deal with their trauma responses. the narrative doesn't try to push the characters to heal in professionally proscribed ways and i find that really reassuring. cuz i've been there before. i've been at a place where i wasn't letting myself want anything because i just couldn't picture a future where i could have it, i've been down that irrational, borderline paranoid trust issues hole and it would have pissed me right off if i had read a story where the message was, "it's all in your head and getting professional help would fix it". but the narrative in aftg isn't trying to fix its characters. the narrative asks, "what do you need to get through this?" and then gives it to its characters.

and lastly, i actually really like the sports narrative that is present. i think the sports narrative mostly applies to andrew. his character development is one of the only ones that actually has a lot to do with playing exy. he starts off the series as someone who is not just apathetic but disdainful of exy even though he has buckets of talent. being a goalkeeper is easy to him and it's also boring because that's all he does. that's a fairly common trope in sports. usually the arc of those kinds of characters is finding something that challenges them and finding reasons to play and to enjoy the sport. and that's exactly what andrew goes through. neil tells him at one point that he's good at being a goalkeeper because he plays it how he plays life: letting other people run themselves ragged and cleaning up afterwards. and andrew kind of takes it to heart because he starts to apply his batshit crazy methods for fixing people's problems to exy. his solution to one match that was dragging on was to tell nicky to pick a fight. and he finds that he enjoys playing that way. by the end of the series, he's having a blast being the brains behind the operation in that final ravens match where he switches neil to defense. and yes, a lot of that character development happened outside of exy (ie. andrew finally starting to let people in), but it's a progression that you can track through the matches he plays. character development that you can track through how they play a sport is what a sports narrative is, to me at least. (i came at aftg from the world of sports manga, alright? where it is ALWAYS all for the fucking game. you see the characters develop as people by playing their sport and that's what i really wanted out of my sports novels. and seeing andrew get that kind of character development isn't much, but it's pretty cool all the same)

[itsu-saragi]

Devlog #6 - My Brain Hurts, but When Does it Not?

Good timezone! Sorry I'm late with the update, but the good news: we're so back. I've finally settled in and have resumed my work on this blasted project.

Writing

I reviewed my notes and decided to do another pass on the love interest character.

Ngl, he's really fucking hard to write. Usually, I can imagine how my characters act and speak pretty well, but this guy... this guy. I'm still struggling to get a grasp on him.

I wonder if it's because I'm creating him for a VN? Or maybe I'm just overthinking?

Actually, let's talk about this for a brief moment.

I'm someone who loves creating original characters. Just this past month, apart from this VN I made two other OCs for some DnD games, and that came easy. So in comparison, why has this LI-creating process been so hard for me?

Well first, it's worth noting that there's a specific method to creating characters in DnD. You pick your race, class, background, et cetra... And those selections in turn inform who your character may be. Does your character have the Soldier background and high intelligence, but low strength? Well, maybe you could interpret that as your character being a military strategist, but with little combat experience. Those rules allow for creativity within the limitations. On the other hand, I'm trying to create a character in my own homebrew world, plus there's no RPG system, so I have fewer constraints which can make my indecisive ass suffer.

Now that I think of it, it might not be a bad idea to try turning him into a DnD character...

I'm getting off track.

Anyway. Though I said there are fewer constraints when creating a VN character, I'm not totally correct there. It's just that I feel there's a different set of requirements that are more... challenging. At least to me.

You see, when I create characters I don't typically construct them with a greater purpose in mind. I just want to make them a cool little creature, and if there's an existing world or story I'll modify them so they make sense in the lore. I’ll add their shortcomings so that they have room to grow, but in a collaborative setting like DnD it’s not guaranteed that my character will go through their arc, nor do I know how that arc will play out, so it’s not my main focus.

But when creating this VN, I've realized that not only does this character need to be interesting and appealing, but I also need to give them a complete arc while simultaneously fitting the narrative and theme. And maybe more stuff I'm not aware of. These constraints aren't mechanical, they're more... structural.

I'm not sure if that's the right word. But it sure as hell made my head spin.

I don't know what the solution to this is other than keep drafting and iterating. Maybe it's turning them into DnD characters.

It's a fun challenge to think about though.

Programming

On another note, after weeks of dreaded avoidance, I finally cracked open RenPy again. And turns out it didn't suck, so yay?

I've added more scenes and choices in my prototype, which is satisfying to see when I run the code.

I think my next challenge is figuring out the scope and the UI. The scope can only be determined by working on the narrative outline so... I should probably prioritize that.

And on the days when my writing brain isn't working, I should tackle some of the UI. Hearing other devs talk about how annoying RenPy UI can be gets me a little nervous, but I guess it's time to find out for myself.

October Goals

Try to get this love interest character locked in holy shit

And if possible, figure out scope, if not try UI

Thank you for reading! I appreciate it.

[a-room-of-my-own]

During the Arab Spring I was sitting with my family and we had a friend from New Guinea over. He was a black man, Muslim, and I had known him my entire life. He was one of the nicest, most laid back people I've ever been around, polite, good with children. We were watching the news as they covered the unfolding events. We would usually have non-alcoholic drinks whenever he was over because of his religious beliefs, so we were all chitchating and having a drink. And out of the blue, he says, pointing at the tv.

"This will all end up being a big pile of nothing. Africans don't understand democracy".

And I remember thinking that was such a scandalous thing to say, such a racist thing to say, especially coming out of a black Muslim man who was from an African country. And now after a decade, and event after event, I'm starting to understand what he was trying to say, and I wonder what he has experienced in his life for him to say that.

People will claim this as racism, but I don't think these people are more prone to certain behaviours because of their skin color.

I do think that cultural attitudes, especially pertaining as to how violence is an acceptable way to solve conflict, coupled with the eternal victim narrative, gives leeway to this destruction. I used to be very anxious to the rise of far right parties in Europe and now I feel nothing. It is so predictable why it's happening. It's so predictable that when people wake up day after day, going to work their jobs that don't pay that well so they can pay bills, and they see the same types of people burning shit down and destroying their transportation, their businesses, their community services, their homes etc, they will get fed up. And then the commies will cry racism thinking it will solve the issue, and for a time people will be taken aback and prostrate themselves to social justice mafia. And then a time will come when they're so tired of being called racist and islamophpbes for noticing who's always destroying things, and for talking about it, and they will say. Yes. Fine. I guess I am racist then. Because you won't allow me the speak on the obvious. And the animosity will grow, and people will come increasingly fed up with the ones ignoring the core issue and thus the people who do speak about it, who do call a spade a spade, and who belong to once fringe groups and who are obvious authoritarians will be voted into power. Not because they are competent leaders or have solutions, but because they can at least point out the obvious.

And everytime a Boris Johnson, a Trump, a Meloni, an Orban happens, people will say "how can this be? Must be those racist islamophobes who hate minorities" and they will learn absolutely nothing. And the eternal self-victimizing narrative will deepen.

It's all so obnoxiously predictable.

It’s extremely predictable in the sense that at least in my country, it’s been 20 years that some issues are left to the extreme right to talk about, and it can be things as obvious as everyone has the right to be safe in the public space or religions should be a private matter basically things everybody agree on. The only reason for that is that the left is completely taken by a perverted definition of anti-racism that is basically cultural relativism. When you abandon common sense to the extreme right the problem is it makes their actually extremist solutions suddenly worth discussing which they aren’t.

Then for the people coming from Africa in the Middle East, I think there is a naivety that tends to believe that someone who comes from a very authoritarian country / culture can convert to liberal democracy pretty much overnight. You have a many people coming to Europe and other western countries, who are perfectly capable of wanting to be free individually, and not to suffer from political brutality or corruption, but it doesn’t mean that they agree with the whole package. It’s especially visible as far as women’s rights are concerned ; you can have men who absolutely want to be free but who still want their women to be oppressed and controlled like they are at home.

The influence of religion is also something we could discuss. What we are going through now has happened to North Africa starting in the late 1970s. Intellectuals there have been warning us for years about the terrible influence of Saudi / Gulf extremism that led in their countries to political unrest, riots and even civil war. The Arab Spring is a recent phenomena but yes, in the West everybody thought it would bring modern democracies, but we were only listening to urban, college educated people. The majority wanted more religion, more conservatism, and the diaspora always vote for the extreme right - we saw that in Turkey just recently.

Of course the influence of the west is something that should never be forgotten. At a time our leaders could have supported democrats in the Arab world and in Africa, but between decolonization and the Cold War, they preferred supporting Islamists and tyrants rather than risking seeing countries rich in natural ressources align with the USSR. We’ve been paying for that ever since.

[deeply-unserious-fellow]

With Frozen 3 being a Thing that Is Happening, a couple of people(or maybe a lot idk) have started theorizing about what the plot could POSSIBLY be. I, personally, have nothing to offer in that regard. I think pretty much everything got wrapped up nicely in Frozen 2 and they well and truly do NOT need another installment, and also the plot of a 3rd movie in a Disney trilogy is usually WILDLY unpredictable. Aladdin 3 was about finding a golden hand on a magic turtle island with Aladdin's Hot Dad or whatever Karina Drawfee called him, Cinderella 3 was about motherfucking TIME TRAVEL, these things are fuckin wild. No, instead, I'm here to say what I think Frozen 3 SHOULDN'T be about, and that would be Anna getting powers of her own.

Okay, to be fair, I don't think they should introduce ANY human characters with powers in the 3rd movie. It would feel cheap and fan-service-y at best, and make the lore 8 MILLION times more complicated at worst. But, hypothetically speaking, I think I could potentially be okay with them introducing some other human elemental magic user to the story. Unless it's Anna.

Why am I so against the concept of Anna having powers? It would make more sense then if like... Kristoff had them or some shit. She's Elsa's sister, after all! Well, I hate the idea of Anna having powers because it undermines her as a character. The narrative has NEVER, not even ONCE, implied that Anna is any lesser then Elsa because she doesn't have powers. The only moment I can find that comes even remotely close to that is the fuckin... don't run into fire scene in Frozen 2, I guess, but even then that's really, really stretching it. Anna not having powers has never been a source of conflict. She's been put into situations that having powers would probably make somewhat easier, sure, but uh. Most characters end up in situations like that. Cool powers make fighting easier, but just because it would be easier doesn't mean it's the only solution. Anna not having powers doesn't actively make her life more difficult in any capacity.

All that to say, why retroactively give her them, then? They wouldn't add anything to her as a character, and would in fact take away from all the things she's accomplished in the past by making it seem like the Brand New Powers are putting her on equal footing with Elsa, when in reality, as far as the narrative is concerned, they've always been equals. All it would do is take away from the story, distract us from the parts of it that actually matter. Kinda like the Hans plot twist did in the first movie.

So, tl;dr is basically that there really shouldn't be any new elemental magic users in the next movie, but if there ARE then Anna definitely shouldn't be one of them because giving her powers undercuts everything we've seen her accomplish in the last two movies, and retroactively makes it seem like Anna and Elsa were never equals to eachother because Anna wasn't "special" enough.

[narwhalandchill]

anyway finished the story and. (firefly Heavy (!!!!!!) negativity im basically toxic and venting; overall spoilers)

im just. the ayaka-teppei act they were doing for firefly was way too fucking heavy handed and rushed in delivery to feel anything than hollow and artificial im sorry 💀💀 we knew her for 2h and that shes super sick and sad about it and lied to us from the start and thats warranting the kind of overblown emotional response in the cutscene when shes offed from TB??? yeah its giving delusion factory lmao what a joke

like granted fireflys VA was doing the absolute MOST to sell the act and all the props to her like the performance was excellent but i am. never. going to give a shit about a character whose entire manner of introduction and narrative presence equals to the writers smugly fanning themselves at their so-called genius because of COURSE youll keel over in awe and fawn all over this character uwuwu AND youll like it!!!!! as they gleefully shove it down your throat

like when the fucking LYNCHPIN of an emotional arc presupposes that every single player is absolutely obligated to feel soooo super emotionally attached OwO to the one character thats so blatantly designed to be the most formulaic fucking bait for self inserting and setup for a predictable kick the puppy moment its just..... this isnt it chief ugh i hate it

unironically worst part of the entire TB quest i am. Never going to be the target audience for this shit

like. logically ik part of this is just bc i am just.so vehemently opposed to this trope that i start developing a violent allergic rash the second i smell even the hint of the archetype so i was like. Groaning from the second it became obvious it was going to be another ayaka story quest (which didnt take long). like shes not as offensive as a character as my vitriolic dislike of her archetype suggests but shes easily the weakest aspect of the new story and just subpar writing it suckkssss

like robins death was EASILY vastly more emotionally impactful and shocking bc at least it came out of left field. firefly gets merked and im rolling my eyes bc its just so embarrassing lmao like. was the lesson they took from ayaka that her circumstances werent sad and sympathy baity enough to warrant attachment and thought the solution was to just make hsr ayaka-teppei Super Giga Mega Tragic omgggg. God im tired of this shit

like to be clear im just. such a hater for this trope i dont think its fucking humanely possible to make me like it but i was hoping for firefly to be at least like. Tolerable. let us remain apprehensive and wary throughout and then let those players who get attached to her project those feelings into their experience but NOT presume their existence by default in order for the story to work but. Well. guess they never learned the right lessons eh

im fucking begging her not to play any more significant role going forward i cannot stand it

im sorry firefly you deserved better than this clumsy ass embarrassment of a writing and im sorry ill never be able to like you as a character. your VA was pulling all the stops and your design is visually quite pretty but. it is what it is. im less mad as im just disappointed that it ended up rhe same old formulaic sympathy bait after all.

[taroraine]

Gotta love when you tell people, who claim they totally respect the things you are telling them, something and they turn it on you as soon as they think they can prove a point or get a cheap laugh out of it.

For example, a while back I had a conversation with someone, who claims to respect people's gender identity, about pick up lines. As soon as I disagreed with him, his response was "well, you're a woman (I'm fucking not and he knows that) you would be okay with it if it was someone you found attractive." Like holy shit, why can't you accept an answer? Why do you have to pull out both sexism (he honestly pulls a lot of this "all women are xyz" shit) and disregarding my identity just to defend your point. It's infuriating, and I don't know how to respond. Do I point out the sexism or the disregard for my identity? Because I know damn well if I get into an argument over it I am only going to get to discuss one point and not the other.

It also happens when I bring up dating in general. I will be talking about how people shouldn't need to be in a relationship in order to be happy, and he will be like "well, you have to understand that you're aro (I'm not. He knows this. He just doesn't give a fuck apparently because he alreafy has a narrative in his head fhat he is dead fucking set on) So you're just not going to get it" and I want to tear my hair out because it's like yeah, go ahead I guess and just ignore all of the shit I have ever told you about me or my opinions so you can feel fucking right. I could bring up data about how that isn't actually the reason most people who abstain from dating give, but it doesn't matter because they have already made up their minds and think painting me as crazy is better than actually discussing things. I'm just a cheap punchline tbat they think they can pull out to make their point at my expense.

Idk. I guess my feelings kindof boiled over today because I was in a conversation where he brought up mental health stuff, and I mentioned bringing something I had made to my first session when I get a new one, because I finally had exactly what I had been going on in my mind laid out in an easy to understand way, showed it to a friend who gave their verdict on it, and I said "I just need a licensed professional to give their opinion." Since I am 95% sure they are right, but don't have a clue where to start with actually working on it. I told the person I was talking to that the conversation was strictly between us because everything I said was in an attempt to get him to understand why I do some of the things I do (really I just wanted the jokes/jab about me always working & people pleasing to stop, and for him to stop insisting that it is so fucking easy to "just relax." I know it may seem harmless, but it really gets under my skin because do I want to be this way? No, but he knows the stuff going on surrounding it and should know it's not something I like joking about, and I thought that if he knew I was working on a solution it would get him to stop), and I thought he would take it as seriously as he takes everyone else's problems, but nope. This dude starts cracking jokes about it, just a couple hours later, even when I had directly asked him not to bring it up outside of that one conversation. At this point I am just glad I didn't tell him what exactly I was suspecting, but it just blows my mind that someone can claim to care about things so much, but as soon as they are asked for even a little bit of consideration, they throw all of their values, as well as my clearly set (and dear god don't get me started on how long it took me to work up to trying to set those) boundaries, out.

It's just like, what's the fucking point? What's the point of trying to communicate what you think/do and why when at the end of the day even the people who claim to care/take that stuff seriously don't follow through on those claims? It's kindof fucking hard to follow the cliche fucking advice of "oh! Just ask for help/reach oht" when the people who claim to be safe are far fucking frkm it, and insome cases actively make it worse. I'd be better off just never talking about any of this shit, because at least then I am giving them less to mock and can convince myself they were making honest mistakes instead of deliberately disregard how I feel about things. I'm pretty sure I would be better off if I just never opened my mouth again.

Tl;dr: communicantion is bullshit and a scam. Don't even fucking bother

[swolesome]

Expanding on this great post by Aranock. I have talked about this before: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuRpNDgp5Ck&t I will be talking about it again, because for whatever reason, the message is not sinking in with a great many people. This "The left doesn't try to reach men" narrative is one of absolving responsibility and placing blame; not only is this not helpful to boys and men, it is actively harmful to all of us. Quite frankly, the right treats men like absolute shit, reinforcing the idea that all men are in a constant battle for dominance (and thus, that there are "superior" and "inferior" men), or that they must perform to a certain contrived patriarchal standard to be adequate in their manhood or worthy of acceptance. Whether it is Andrew Tate peddling vicious misogyny, or Jordan Peterson cramming bioessentialism down our throats and acting like crying while he does so makes it a balanced and compassionate take, the mechanism is the same: Boys and men are drawn in by the reinforcement of what patriarchy has taught them about manhood. That it is domineering, aggressive, violent, and positively correlated with power. It is validation of patriarchy, that is the appeal, it is not because "the left doesn't try to reach men." Are there problems in leftist and progressive spaces in how we talk about boys and men? Yes. Absolutely. Unfortunately, this is an inevitable byproduct of the trauma so many people have experienced at the hands of men. It's also an inevitable byproduct of a space where diversity and self-determination are core values for most people. There is no specific, strict behavioural doctrine we're all beholden to--that's kind of the point, and it means we have to engage with problems as they arise rather than downplay or deny them. Social cohesion and change is work, and that's that. But we all need to stop acting like someone on social media posting "Men are trash" is the driving force behind this problem. Andrew Tate literally uses his fans as foot stools and calls them pathetic wastes of space, yet he raked in millions and rose to unimaginable influence specifically because of this unapologetic contempt toward his target audience. If you take twenty seconds to look beneath the surface, it becomes painfully obvious that the issue isn't what's being said, it's who's saying it. Boys and men who have taken the patriarchy pill do not listen to women, and they do not listen to anyone challenging their worldview because the very idea of being challenged is a threat to their identity. Men do not compromise. Men dominate. Men do not listen. Men already know what's real and true. Leaving space for correction is admitting weakness. Pushing this idea that leftists aren't trying not only erases the hard work so many of us are doing, it absolves the men suffering under patriarchy from doing the internal work that would free them from that suffering. Like I said, it is not. Helping. And relying on the input of a literal sex pest to elaborate on this problem not only keeps this creep relevant by giving him a foot in the rhetoric door, it just ain't a good look. We should be having this conversation, being able to talk about this stuff is part of the solution, but you can find better sources of insight flipping logs in a swamp. My guess is that the reason Vaush even takes this stance is because it protects him from having to face his own inability to admit wrongdoing and concede space to people who know better. It's the same male dominance concept masquerading as "progressive" because the guy pushing it publicly says "trans rights" while privately salivating in the DMs of every trans woman content creator this side of Saturn. Let's clean it the fuck up, boys. We're better than this.

Seeing people fall for the "left doesnt speak enough to young men, and I the most sexist creep whos platform is devoted to harassing women and who thinks you need tactical n words am definitely a good source on this" stuff again and I just am so sick of it. There are actually a lot of leftist people, particularly leftist men, who are speaking and reaching out and trying to help young men grow.

Please go watch; F.D. Signifier or Swolesome or Colormind or Babila or Noah Samsen or 50 other of my colleagues who do good work online.

Trying to find a progressive way of doing sexism is not a solution and seeing multiple people sharing a fucking v**sh tweet on here is disheartening. Like no actually the racist sexist creep does not have a point, catering to sexism is not going to help young men. Yes of course the right appeals more to young white men, because power is appealing, being told that "you deserve everything and you are better than everyone else and actually women not having sex with you, which obviously you are entitled to, is because traditional gender roles(ones which benefit you) are being taken away" is more appealing then "actually you do need to work on yourself, you are not entitled to sex or power" then idk what to say. But theres no world in which you should want to cater more to the first thing and still genuinely call yourself feminist.

[ihopethisendswell]

A long ramble about the Zara and Bo universes vampires and werebeasts cause I need to get this shit down. Still some blank spots but I think this is how I want them to function in this world.

Vampires - Drink blood to survive,any blood. However human blood gives them more...power? Compared to the likes of animal blood. But both gets the job done. Can walk in sunlight, just a bit sensitive to it. Humans made the narrative that they can't when really they're just nocturnal creatures. Modern vampires not so much but alas. Silver, stakes, fire and beheading are still ways to kill them. Holy symbols vary depending on the vampires religion. If the vampire isn't religious at all then they won't work. Currently unsure about the whole " vampire have no soul so they can't look in mirrors" aspect for this universe but I adore the idea that vampires can look in non-silver mirrors, and can be in pictures digitally. Old problems modern solutions I guess. Also! Garlic still wards off vampire, but don't hurt them. It's possible for a vampire to eat garlic bread but they're not gonna have a fun time going so. Lastly, all vampires have natural inhuman speed and durability! Different vampires can have different abilities, depending on age or lineage. Turned vampires are always turned with a bite, and even then you'd have to survive that bite to become a vampire.

Werebeasts/Folk: A pretty sizable spectrum, but here's the simplified gist. Werebeasts generally have 3 forms: the "human", the animal and the beast. The animal transformation can be at will, no full mood or anything. The beast is at a full moon. Their base "human" form varies between werebeast. For example, Grace has a wolf tail and slightly pointed ears, while her little brother has cat ears, a tail and generally have more feline features. Their das only really has his bear ears. Some werebeasts look completely human. There some werebeasts that look more like their beast form permanently, which is kinda a whole deal on its own. Again, werebeasts are a spectrum, so not every werebeast looks the same. Silver is one of the main weaknesses of werebeasts, and mistletoe tends to ward them off ( which makes it very controversial in modern times) (( also dunno if this will stick in universe)). Their human base is the most squishy, while being sturdier than a regular human, their beast form is the most invulnerable, sans the silver. How someone becomes a werebeast, surprise surprise, varies. You can be born one ( like Grace), be cursed to be one via magic, or bitten. The thing with being a werebeast is that it can be cured. Not sure about the ones who were born with it, but those that are bitten or cursed can be cured. How....I haven't thought that far. From what I gather magic + wolfsbane works. Because of how flexible and varying werebeastism is, there's a lot of different outlooks on it in modern age. The same for vampires, specifically around those that are turned, but I don't think vampires can be cured for their vampirism. But werebeasts can.

I don't know about how magic relates to these two, as I still need to figure out how witches(/ wizards/ sorcerers/ mages/ whatever you want to call it) work in this universe. I'm thinking maybe werebeasts and half- vampires can learn magic? Maybe? I don't know, I need to think about it more.

[triflesandparsnips]

A whole lot of you are weird about Izzy Hands on this here tumblr dot com -- and I mean that it both directions. There's just a whole lot of... all that, for one dang mid-level antagonist in a capital-r Romance. Which... you know how many of those antagonists end up getting their own romantic storylines? Most of them. Will that happen to Izzy? Idk, man, I just look at narrative patterns.

I think, to a degree, it was a bit of a disservice pretty early on to latch on to him as the only human on a ship full of Muppets. Dude is a full-on Muppet-- he's just a Sam the Eagle, rather than a Gonzo or Piggy. I mean:

He demands people call him Izzy, an objectively stupid name for a middle-aged serious-guy

He stripped a dude on their first encounter instead of just killing him because? Why?

He regularly runs a ship that looks like a 13-yr-old got to buy all their goth birthday party decorations at Hot Topic

Does a stupid weird finger wave at Ed when the British point him out

Izzy's Revenge

He brought up Daddy kink on his own, like wtf, c'mon now

The character's done awful things, absolutely. Because the story needed mirrors of trust violated, safety shattered, etc etc. The narrative trusted Izzy to help drive that part of the overall arc of Stede and Ed's love story.

And the thing is: a defining part of Romance is the Happily Ever After (or the Happily For Now, if you need to keep things riled up across multiple books/stories). That means that unless a character is dead, they have a chance at that HEA-- even if they have to go through absolute shit (or be an absolute shit) before they get to it. That's what makes Romance so great-- it gives all of us the chance to believe that even at our worst, maybe we too can get to a place of love.

So... idk, man. Lot of Izzy hate, lot of Izzy love, a lot of talking at cross-purposes. Critical analysis is great and I love it, but when it starts warping the understanding of story mechanics... that's I think a recipe for a lot of broken hearts and hurt feelings when the canon story eventually progresses and the narrative reveals what genre (with whatever associated tropes and arcs) it's going to ultimately end up being.

[knowlesian]

going feral over stede and the bar scene in the finale, send help.

because in some ways, this is a continuation of the party scene in e5; only now, ed’s not here. his pain is theoretical, and stede still thinks they’ll never see each other again.

ed would never know if he let it go, this time. no one would ever know.

it’s tempting. stede’s brokenhearted and feeling utterly alone, and these men are offering him attention alongside a fucked up poison pill masquerading as acceptance. 

all he has to do is share a couple stories, so long as they’re the stories that confirm the horrible things these men so desperately need to keep believing, or realize they only thrive and profit off endless cycles of human misery. if that ever happened, they would be forced to make an active choice to keep perpetuating the misery or step away and become part of the solution.

which means: that cannot fucking happen. under no circumstances do they want to be in that very uncomfortable place. they like their lives, they like their clothes, they like their nice houses. they are just doing their best, they tell themselves; they do not go home at night and feel like they’re The Bad Guys.

so they do not want to hear about ed, who is lonely and confused and strong and super hot and very complicated and the most lovely person stede has ever met.

ed would fuck with their emotional economy. if ed exists and he is not subject to their definitions of the world and the reasons they made up and codified into science and law to explain why they have what they have, then hooooooly shit kids. holy shit: what the fuck else are we wrong about???

these are the thoughts they cannot think. world-shaking, identity-sundering thoughts. these thoughts fucking suck.

all they want is blackbeard. they do not want a man in all his beautiful nuance; the ways in which he is angry, the ways in which he is tender or silly or looks like an elvish prince or romance novel cover without the beard. ed, who kissed stede on the beach and was willing to give it all up for him isn’t the story they want.

they want a monster, born of the devil. they want to go gawk at the locals like the poverty tourist shtick from the republic of pirates, but without even having to leave the comfort of the home they stole. they already feel so fucking superior, but they want more. 

the hunger that gnaws at them has nothing to do with the food they can afford to take for granted. they will always want more. 

and now they want stede to feed them. they want him to show them that he had his wild fun, off with those little urban friends of his— now he’s back where he belongs, intemperate fit of madness over. 

he’s still weird, and he’s definitely still gay and they still do not like that at all, no sir, but in this moment they decide: for right now, he’s one of them.

this is how he can do it. this is how stede can win, just this once. now, he can give them someone else to gleefully chew on and bask in the shared glow of keeping somebody else down.

because here’s the catch: stede will no longer be one of them if he defends ed even a little, their pushback says. 

so make your choice, stede, these fucking assholes/the narrative says. what’s it going to be?

and because this show is very real and heartbreaking and understands that good and bad is not so much something people are, it’s something people do: stede slips up. the words come out of his well-meaning mouth, and he can’t take them back.

because mary hasn’t yet attempted murder with a skewer, stede’s still in his belly of the whale moment, so instead of remembering what he learned at the party (that now is the time to say fuck you fuckers, here or not ed would be horrified to hear this and thus i am horrified, because his pain is my pain now that i know it exists and then burn their lives down) he backpedals, but he doesn’t take it back.

ed’s a killer: the worst thing he could possibly say.

the secret ed told him—the secret i would guess ed has only spoken aloud to stede in that exact way— alone in their little bathtub confessional: he denied it. he knows that ed has hurt people and let people die, and while the morality hair is being split admittedly fine there along with the exact definition of murder, to ed that makes a difference. 

and because stede is flawed and human and kind of an asshole sometimes but at the end of the day, so so wonderful: he knows that even if ed will never know he said this, it matters. stede will know it happened, that these gross men wanted to point and laugh at his friend and the man he doesn’t yet understand he loves, and that stede didn’t protect ed from that.

the world ed moved in means he was told the acceptable methods of protection only have to do with the physical world; you teach a man to fight, you shield him with your body, you fuck around and jostle. he was starting to test those limits and move outside his box to allow his other instincts and desires to surface alongside the parts of himself he allowed out already, but these men don’t care about any of that. 

it’s supposed to be stede’s job to protect ed here, because ed is perfectly fucking capable but he shouldn’t have to, and because these are stede’s people — or more accurately, it’s everybody in the crew’s job to protect each other because that’s what a fucking family does, and without frenchie and abshir and the rest of his compatriots, stede wouldn’t have been able to do what he did at the party.

unfortunately stede left the crew when he left ed, even if he didn’t see it that way. they would have reminded him who he actually is: the gentleman pirate, thieved plant and all. they know he’s a weirdo and he might misuse all the oranges again, but they love him. part of loving him is knowing he’s still on his way to figuring it out, and giving him a little more room to grow within their space. that’s what you do when you love someone: even when they drive you nuts, you give them way more benefit of the doubt than you would some asshole on the street. (or in a bar.)

because he’s worth that love and kindness and does the same for others, stede tries; he redirects, won’t say another mean word about ed (won’t say a single word about ed, in fact) but the words he already said ring in his ears. he lied in a way that would be a particularly rough blow to ed’s feelings, he didn’t stand up for ed enough after that, and he fucking knows it.

so he stumbles back into the party and is a real shithead to mary (while... acknowledging she should absolutely be mad at him... for being a shithead. stede fuckin bonnet, i fuckin challenge you to c’mere a second i wanna give your complicated, sad face a gentle hug) but what he says is very, very important.

the gentleman pirate, he called himself at the bar. ed called him that when they met; the crew went full sports movie locker room speech vibes confirming it in front of the royal fucking navy and thus probably god. stede finally believed it in that moment, that he was achieving his vision of forging a new path in piracy. maybe all the nice things people said about him were... not something to just brush off???? seems fake, but big if true!!!!

and then chauncey’s big dumb mouth and big dumb gun blew that rising thread of confidence to absolute shreds along with his big dumb face, so here stede is: yelling at mary and pretending he’s not just yelling at himself.

he says mary needs to give up her fake title: he means, i hate myself. i was never actually that strong and loved man. i was not a gentleman or a pirate and i did not have a family. i was pathetic, there and here, and i will never be anything other than that.

my father was right.

and then mary has fucking haaaad it and tries to STAB HIM! IN THE EARHOLE! and we get like, the most gorgeous move into a journey out of the underworld/reverse lot’s wife deal where stede’s sin was not looking back and it’s going back and dying that heals him and i am. i am honestly sort of lowkey forever wanting to chew on this show like old bubblegum but it never seems to lose any flavor!!!! 

love it.

[flaetsbnort]

I've been thinking for this post for quite a while (I guess a good thing of having a hundred-post queue is that you can sometimes go back and add something to a post you'd originally queued only to reblog).

First, I don't think D&D is bad. What's bad is that D&D has played so extensively that, to many people, it is conceptually identical to RPGs itself. So no, I don't think homebrewing systems is a bad thing. The bad thing is thinking that if you want anything from an RPG game other than what D&D offers you, your only option is to homebrew D&D into doing it. Granted, if what you want from a game is just "D&D but with this one thing different" then yeah, what you want is homebrewed D&D. (In fact, this has a name, Fantasy Heartbreaker, that refers to the many games released along the 90's that were identical to D&D, down to stuff like weapon lists, except for one or two different rules.) But if you want to change the experience a lot, then you don't want homebrewed D&D. Sometimes it's better to rent a jeep instead of spending months installing off-road tires and suspension on your Ferrari.

Even the thing about people wanting the fantasy, not the rules, is something that was caused by D&D's dominance over the hobby. It's evolved from wargames, and for most of its life it had characters that were squishy and fragile, with is ultimately incompatible with the Heroic Fantasy it tried to sell. So the solution to this - the hack, as it is - was to find ways to fit the Heroic Fantasy into a system unfit for it. From homebrewing to overpowered characters to dice fudging, these are all off-road tires on a Ferrari. Modern narrative games have the fantasy as part of the rules. The idea that the DM has to keep doing summersaults to make the game narratively interesting is a holdover from D&D; modern narrative games will allow these stories to emerge naturally from their systems out of the box.

(I understand that the latest editions try to address this issue somewhat; I only know them from osmosis so I don't know how succesful they are. All I know is that, while sometimes you can mod a Ferrari so it won't get stuck in mud, you can't do that and still have a sportscar that drives at 300 kph.)

The problem, ultimately, isn't that people are playing D&D, is that people have never played other system so they don't know what they're like, and therefore assume they're the same thing. Once you start playing those games you realize that many D&D games only work because the DM had internalized decades of unspoken rules and was doing summersaults to keep the game interesting, while modern narrative games will have these rules written in the book and give you plenty of support to use them effectively. Much of the idea that DM'ing is incredibly hard comes from D&D lacking a way to structure anything that's not combat or exploration. Once you play a game where the dramatic part that you love actually emerges from the system, you can never go back.

Anyway, this isn't about the people I'm quoting specifically, of course; lots of people love D&D and V:TM and legitimately don't need to try anything else. And I understand why people like me, who don't like D&D, may seem aghast at the idea that people do like it, since we're always pushing for people to try new system. For some people, it seems like we're saying dumb shit like "you don't need to install mud tires on a Ferrari to drive on muddy roads, there are cars designed to do that". But there legitimately are people who don't know Jeeps exist, or at best think a Jeep is just a Ferrari that already comes with mudtires.

Just as an aside to this whole "try other ttrpgs" discussion: my hersband is currently running a Vampire the Masquerade campaign, and you know what they're doing? They're homebrewing the bejeesus out of that thing- because actually there are a lot of rules and systems that their group doesn't like. They're still playing it though, because everyone wants to play the vampire game.

Two things from this: 1. Homebrewing is not inherently a sign that you're playing the wrong game system 2. People are generally more interested in playing the fantasy, not the rules

[that-gay-jedi]

Me: listen if the scar above Anakin's right eye is indeed a lightsaber burn then he should definitely have lost the eye because the heat from a lightsaber injury continues to spread through the tissue after contact with the blade has terminated. There's simply no other way for this to go, it's fucking plasma, it's going to transfer a fucktonne of heat in that split second which the remaining tissues at the edge of the wound will in turn transfer into surrounding undamaged tissue until all the heat has dispersed. Unless there's some kind of super effective cooling system never mentioned in canon that attempts to contain the damage to just the actual wound but even for an elegant weapon for a more civilized age that seems like quite a stretch.

You're either not wounded at all or you're in serious trouble, even a graze is going to leave deep subcutaneous burns. Once you break that invisible force field that gives the blade its shape there's nothing holding back the heat.

Like have you never mildly burned yourself in the kitchen before? You know why cold water and/or ice feels so good? It's because it's stopping tissue damage that was continuing to happen. And that's way less heat than a lightsaber! Way less!

Come to think of it, that scar is close enough to his brain that he should have some neurological damage on that side, just from heat conduction, and it looks pretty fuckin close to his frontal lobe???? Ventress fuckin gave him a plasma lobotomy bro. I'm not convinced there's any amount of bacta that can fix that. Can bacta even canonically regenerate nerve tissue at all? Brain cells are harder to replicate than regular nerves even. That's why IRL once it's gone it's gone. Assuming it would help, how would you treat a brain injury with bacta when the skull isn't fractured anyway? Just saw his head open and pour it in? Sounds kinda fucked if you ask me.

Like we all accept without question that Grievous lost brain matter during his horrific shuttle crash and Sidious used the damage as an opportunity to alter the poor fucker's personality to better suit his own aims but man, Anakin's got to be missing a chunk of his brain from that lightsaber burn, I'm no thermophysicist or whatever but my guess is he may have lost as much as 1/16th of his brain tissue not to mention how much wasn't lost but might be firing poorly or something due to the heat exposure. We never hear mention of any neurocybernetics for him and the narrative treats it like just a surface wound. That's not how anything works. Palpatine would love to replace part of Anakin's brain I'm sure!!! Imagine the fuckin shit he could do considering what the much less personal inhibitor chips did to the clones.

Anyway back to the eye again I'm not a physicist but like I think realistically it would have exploded from the heat since it's full of liquid? The aqeuos humor would have flash evaporated within fractions of a second. He'd probably be lucky if that didn't also do damage of its own like steam destroying the optical nerve. Or unlucky to survive the whole thing. And what about the fluid around his brain, would it boil from the heat? Is the bone itself burned?

And I mean don't get me wrong, I adore Anakin's eye scar. Like not only does it look cool as fuck and symbolize all the invisible ways the war has changed him but I want Obi-Wan and/or Padme to kiss it when they tuck him into bed every night because I'm fuckin deranged. But you have to admit there's just no physical way in hell that a light saber only left a single line of badly burned tissue and he still has a head when googled estimates put plasma at between 11000°F and 14500°F and the surface of the sun at about 10000°F. I would say the easy solution is to have it come from an actual laceration which I'm sure we could easily come up for a story for in a war, especially with his propensity for spaceship crashes, but the Star Wars universe actively hates easy medical explanations that make scientific sense because George Lucas is trying to kill me. Or was Dooku evil enough to only give Ventress shitty training sabers for an actual fight? And she somehow didn't notice or couldn't do anything about it? Wild.

Meanwhile this also means Qui-Gon died because his internal organs were overwhelmed and/or destroyed by the heat. Either his heart got cooked beyond use as the heat dispersed or he died of rapid heatstroke from the inside. A puncture wound to the gut like that could take someone hours to die from or maybe not even be fatal depending on what it hit, especially if cauterized, but dipping something extremely hot inside your body even very briefly would kill within a few minutes. Which explains why he's only wincing a little because the likelihood he's too in shock to really feel much pain is way higher being plasma'd than being merely stabbed.

Note also how a slight graze drops Obi-Wan to the floor when fighting Dooku during AotC and all he can do is writhe. That's because he's continuing to get burned from inside! His thigh muscles are cooking! But does anyone ever think of that? No, he's just fine the next time we see him. The scarring alone a person would have from losing that much tissue should be enough to restrict movement and cause him to limp the rest of his life and I'm not sure how much bacta and Force healing it would take to prevent it. That's before we even get into whether there's enough left of his muscles to repair. Lightsaber fights should be absolutely terrifying and there should be a lot more Jedi with life altering injuries and the injuries themselves should be absolutely immense. Nobody who ever survived being struck by a lightsaber at full power should ever be the same again.

Cashier: Ummm sir? Ma'am? Mx Thembo? This is a Tim Horton's.