#but now i am at work and suffering the consequences for my hubris........

[velvetineblue]

I couldn't sleep so I Bedazzled tai's carrd .

[enbycrip]

ID: “Reflecting on it, the reason I think the OceanGate situation has become such a flashpoint for anger is because it's such a perfect microcosm of the problem with everything right now.

Decisions are not made based on safety, reasonable caution, or concern for human life. Every decision is instead made from a default assumption of what if the bad thing just DIDN'T happen?'

We are given pie-in-the-sky promises and sizzle reels and an endless PR hype-cycle for every new innovation and inevitably it fails to work, harms people, and then is maybe barely apologized for before the next bad idea comes down the pike.

OceanGate's underengineered, undercooked, doomed submarine isn't merely a metaphor for the hubris of the wealthy, it is a scale model of the way the wealthy dictate our reality. All consequences can be ignored, all blowback can be forestalled, let the end-user eat the cost.

I am not angry because the submarine was badly-made. I am angry because I live in a vastly larger pressure vessel being managed and maintained by the exact same people.”

This encapsulates my thoughts on Oceangate so well.

People who amass vast, obscene amounts of resources through fraud and harm to others, including criminal negligence and exploitation, then build generationally on that fact, passing those lessons on to their kids along with their stolen wealth, try to portray themselves as “genius entrepreneurs” because they know that actual story of how they obtained it will, rightly, make people excoriate them.

The small safeguards we had, at least for a while, like health and safety rules, unions, parental leave and protections for characteristics like gender, disability and race, however inadequate, were small protections for the vast majority of humanity against limitless exploitation. So of *course* oligarchs have been trying to destroy them since at least the 1980s (as ever, fuck Reagan and Thatcher).

The Titan situation was an incredible microcosm on how disaster capitalists work - exploit the public purse mercilessly, put everyone involved in terrible danger through deeply irresponsible, criminal negligence towards their rights and safety, spin that fact as “sleek innovation”, and then expect the public purse to pick up the pieces when it implodes.

The sole difference was that, in this rare case, the disaster capitalist actually suffered the consequences. Usually they walk off with huge profits.

[misanthropecopy]

So thoughts on Pokemon scvi, or in just my case violet. Warning there are major spoilers below:

I personally enjoyed it, more so than I did with the last gen at least. Though I must confess that I am what you call a casual gamer, who focuses more on the story than the actual gameplay so the obvious glitches didn’t bother me too much. I actually found some of them to be funny. That being said, I know if my filthy casual eyes noticed them, everyone else probably saw them too. Personally the only glitch that bothered me was the elite four soundtrack going on like a broken record as I battled them. It did produce some kind of urgency within me, but it was a shame that I didn’t get to hear the full theme. With that out of the way, lets get on to what I enjoyed the most about it the story. 

Now when I purchased Violet I was set on doing all three paths, which seemed to be the right decision. I really enjoyed how the stories addressed different kinds of trauma. Arven with his parents, Penny/Team Star being bullied into becoming a lowkey gang themselves. Heck even Nemona despite her happy-go-lucky and frankly fearless nature probably suffers from having a lack of real friends. Since it’s apparently implied her battle-loving nature often drives people away. Then there is Miraidon or the main box legendary, whose dealing with not only losing a territorial dispute, but also LITERALLY WATCHING THEIR “CARETAKER” TAKE A FATAL BLOW FOR THEM. I CANNOT stress enough how scarred they must have been from that.

Another thing I enjoyed was that in the climax we actually STOPPED some human innovation here. In Pokemon science is often praised as seen with the npc in each starting town claiming “Science is amazing” and all that in every generation. But Pokemon doesn’t often address the price you pay for “progress” and how easily it can lead to hubris before an inevitible downfall. It’s part of why I like both Mewtwos stories/origins so much, as they are living testaments to the cost of humans trying to play God. Both Turo and Sada were so consumed with their work and seeing their dreams fulfilled, that not only did they neglect their son they failed to see the consequences of what their goals might do to the environment. Sure they protected Miraidon/Koraidon in the end, but did they ever learn their lesson? This we are not given an answer on. 

Speaking of the Pokemon, let’s talk about them. I or was leaning towards Sprigatito when the first trailer came out and while I was a little disappointed that it stood up, I have to admit it was the cutest of all the gen 9 starter evos for me. I love my Modest-natured girl named Spring and will take down anyone who gets creepy with her. The tinkatink line is freaking hilarious and there are plenty of weird, new mons that I caught simply because I wanted to know more about these funky little creatures. There were very few designs that I didn’t like in this gen, which is pretty sweet. The fact that you interact and actually get the box legendary in the beginning of the game is great, as it let’s you really form a bond with it. You may not be able to use it in battle, but it’s with you when you picnic, it’s your main mode of trasportation, you share your meals with it and frankly it has a cute, almost dog/cat-like personality. It’s really fun, to be around and use.

Now let’s talk about the implications of the future Pokemon found in area zero.

I’m fairly certain that in both version of the games these paradox Pokemon are violent and can be beyond anyone’s control. As seen with professor Turo/Sada. Now in Sada’s case, that would seem obvious right? She literally took Pokemon that were from a million years ago, during a time where humans probably didn’t exist yet. Of course these Pokemon unfamiliar with mankind in general would be prone to lash out at them, right? So what’s the deal with the futuristic Pokemon? All of them seem to be robots of some design, so wouldn’t it be logical that they obey human commands, like most current Pokemon do? Why are they so volatile then? Well I have two theories on this. One is that humanity died out and left the planet in an almost uninhabitable state. So much that some or many Pokemon species had to become more mechanical to survive. Who knows? Maybe even some Mewtwo had a hand in altering their genetic structure, so they might live? The second theory I have is basically just that humans in the future are made of far more sturdier stuff then present people in Pokemon. 

Either way, I had a fun time. Though I probably won’t bother with the post-game stuff until Gamefreak updates the scvi to fix their blatant bugs.

To any Gamefreak/Nintendo person who may be reading this: Please, there’s no need to rush your games. Take time to have a break once in a while. Spend time with your friends and family. An overworked head will not bring out the best you have the offer. We don’t need a Pokemon game every year. Heck you don’t even have to release any side games for a while. Just focus on the next gen for now and if you need to delay a game, do it. I at least will understand.

[f3ralblog]

Peerless

Please understand my reticence in describing this feeling I’m about to detail. It feels self-centered, and like I roll through life with my head held high above Mt. Washington.

My work as a musician has been to blend in and suffer the consequences of my perceptions. The work that makes me money ends up being the work that most saxophone players are used to: playing background music, playing in horn sections, or thrusting my hips around and barely playing (pop music).

Hired gun status was fun for a while, don’t get me wrong! Vague as my mind’s eye pictures it now, I still see a potential future where more lucrative opportunities present themselves to me and I have the urge to play music for a talented (and if not yet clear, well-funded) touring artist. The dreams I once had of doing well-paid touring work, at least from a starting place like Pittsburgh, have long been squashed.

I’ve been exhausted of this work for years, because none of it feels like me. I’ve been SCREAMING to the masses (Twitter) that this isn’t me. I’ve found joy in learning, and becoming the type of musician who can do whatever is asked of him. Utilitarian and useful as I may be to my peers in the arts/music, my ability to do whatever is asked soon turned into a pigeon-hole. Ultimately, I’ve felt locked into the perceptions that my primary instrument had created well before I blew into one.

My work as an artist, by contrast, has been to break molds. Like many innovators on the instrument before me (and I do, perhaps through hubris, consider myself among innovators), I looked to the past. I looked to my favorite Black American and Latinx composers for inspiration, while simultaneously re-absorbing the post-hardcore music I loved from my adolescence. I looked to the future, where the musicians in rock and “heavy” music scenes look less like they do in Hockey arenas and more like the multi-racial melting pot that is America.

The “stuck” feeling that had been festering was transformed by the boundlessness of imagination (who knew?!). My artistry pushed me into unique, niche and interesting musical perspectives…

…and I’ve felt a certain alienation because of it.

My music is by no means inaccessible. Every time I perform with my band live, the room lights up with an undeniable bewilderment. The crowd is both in awe of the spectacle (I am a performer, after all) and yet wonders why they hadn’t heard anything like it before. They jam pack their praises with phrases like “jazz meets X” or “I didn’t know a sax could do all of that.”

That is my work. That is my charge. To create for people moments where they can see music/art as limitlessly as I do. Where the casual listener flips a switch, suddenly brimming with confidence over what they could do with their next day. What they could do with a lifetime of existing as their full, honest selves.

Too few peers of mine venture away from the common themes of saxophone. There are some ardent, masterful improvisors around Pittsburgh whose work continues to inspire me. Outside of that, most of my peers are content playing the roles that society has given to them.

I feel a sense of complacency that I actively and vehemently run away from. A sense that, if I do what they do, I’ll never be happy. I can’t just be another improvisor whose best gig is the local jazz club on a Friday night. I can’t just be another dancer that plays saxophone as a complement to their crowd-pleasing “saxiness.” I can’t be some run-of-the-mill mono-instrumentalist, sandwiched between two brass players who had given up on creativity decades ago.

I am not without community. I am indeed still a saxophone player, and enjoy the camaraderie of others who share my interests. I’ve even found a limited number of brass/woodwind instrumentalists on Twitter (and the greater internet) whose fondness for heavy guitar music has gifted them opportunities to play some of the coolest music I’ve ever heard.

As my interests grow, and my palette widens, I do hope to find more kin in the same vein. Until then, I stay impatient and peerless.

[revasnaslan]

I'll be honest about Annilis, I love him and his sympathetic background AS well as his awful approach to keeping Hec-tor safe, because he's probably in some legitimate danger but he took it too far. I love HP, but I also wanna beat his ass too. Just grab him by the ears and yell, "What are you doing you idiot sandwich?!" I just wanna ask him "Are you even happy? And no getting pegged by a Shade isn't happiness." Don't want him to die though, only because it's a cop-out for actual punishment.1/2

2/2 That's what kinda bummed me on HP in-show, he did so much horrible shit, was an arrogant living "God", and he was just killed? That easy? HP's hubris was grotesque and he deserved a worse punishment than just a lightshow to the face. HP was also a non character in the end and whatever characterization he did have was lost quickly, gonna admit. But, an arrogant jerk dying that quickly is too easy a punishment, he has to suffer the consequences of his actions and experience his loss in detail.

sorry I'm sending you so many asks about HP. But dear God did the show drop the ball on Horde "supposedly endgame villain who was woefully underutilized until the last minute and even then was handed the villain ball to make sure what credibility he did have was lost" Prime. Could have been great, his story was there, but Crew-ra wasted time on frivolous characters(star siblings might have been cool but s5 needed to work on its existing characters, not introduce new ones)and wasted plot points.

I actually have done a ton of analysis on why prime just doesn’t work as a villain for pretty much six months now. Like I started doing this pretty much the day that the finale dropped cause I never liked S5 at all. There’s just much wrong with it, strictly from a narrative prospective than I cannot get over it, which I why I’ve kind of retreated into doing Fuck Canon aus. And I don’t think the major problems plaguing prime is that he’s a bad person or a cult leader or whatever, that would be fine. This is a matter of set up and pay off. This is a matter of narrative structure. Those are my major problems with everything about this.

Anyway, I guess we’ll try a flaccid attempt at positivity, just to make it clear that I am not coming strictly from a point of view of hate… the one thing I remember liking about prime is that creepy dinner scene. Loved that scene, I was so giddy when they dropped it as a teaser clip, and I got to enjoy it in peace for like a day and a half before my love for the show went crumbling. Prime is absolutely on his game in that scene, I can very clearly see his mind working, because my interpretation of the scene is that he’s trying to bait glimmer into giving him information. Did he actually intend to harm adora? Who knows! Does it matter? Not really, considering he got the information he wanted, which was what was needed to work the heart. I can feel the tension in that scene, that is how he should have been for the rest of the season.

So what the fuck happened? *cracks knuckles* well let’s see shall we.

Foreshadowing It’s Fun Cause It’s A Thing I’ve Heard Of

So I think we all remember just how shocking it was when prime actually showed up, and he wasn’t anything like we’d all come to assume he’d be based on what had been said about him up until that point. What we had been fed was essentially that he was cold, calculating, and didn’t look upon “defects” well. He saw the clones as disposable. And they set up that aspect of his character just fine, and I don’t have a problem with how that was set up.

What they utterly failed to properly set up (and even contradicted themselves on) was the cult thing, and how prime is essentially this messiah figure to the clones. I highly suspect this occurred because they were writing the show as they went along, and hadn’t fully fleshed out prime’s whole deal until he actually appeared at the end of S4, but that’s just my own speculation given some of the things that had been said in interviews regarding other aspects of the writing (namely that micah was apparently not supposed to be alive in the first place and that happened because of a miscommunication between noelle and one of the other writers).

Regardless, there are a number of things that should probably have been done differently in order to properly foreshadow prime’s cult leader status, that actually would have heightened hordak’s characterization as well. For one thing, there’s a reason we all assumed that the galactic horde was merely a military program and it’s because of how hordak acts throughout the first four seasons. We can talk in circles about headcanons until we’re blue in the face (i.e., he might have memory problems), but the fact of the matter is that those are headcanons and that hordak’s entire narrative changes from one of an ableist family to one of a religious trauma seemingly on a dime come the very end of S4 when prime shows up.

imagine how satisfying the foreshadowing would have been if hordak had actually been spouting dogma the entire show (i.e., “cast out the shadows” and “all beings must suffer to become pure”) only for it peter off once he’s befriended entrapta, if he had been calling those who he respected brother/sister instead of force captains (which is a far more militarized word to use, and judging by the galactic horde isn’t even a term they use), if he had still been dressed in his uniform and only actually started dressing differently after entrapta had helped him? Hell, he never even so much as implies that entrapta is leading him astray before he’s back with prime, he doesn’t even seem particularly distressed about being around her most of the time, and the only reason he even gets persnickety with her is because of his medical condition.

One point I’m going to expand on for a moment is the whole “brother” thing, because that is actually a very good way of explaining what I mean. Now, hordak doesn’t actually mention any other clones at all from what I remember. This is contrary to all of the clones in S5 referring to each other as “brother” pretty openly and it being seen as a term of respect. However, the only person that hordak actually calls “brother” up until S5 is prime, and this inadvertently ended up making the word seem far more neutral than it should have been considering the context of S5. The word “brother” is actually a control tool, and if they had wanted to establish that sooner, hordak should have been calling anybody he respected that.

So, either the writers hadn’t actually thought of that part of the narrative yet, or they’re just that bad at foreshadowing.

There are also three instances of the narrative contradicting itself with regards to prime, one in S3, one in S4, and one in S5. The first is that hordak wanted to make a new body for himself. While one could argue that this was meant to be foreshadowing that prime takes new bodies whenever his old one failed (which is fine, that works as foreshadowing), the act of hordak admitting that he was intending to do that is what actually creates the snag. With the context of S5, we learn that becoming a vessel is meant to be a place of honor, but this comes with the caveat that it seems like only prime is allowed to take new bodies. So why the ever living fuck would someone as “pious” and “unworthy” as hordak think that was something he could ever be allowed to do, much less that prime would welcome him back with open arms if he did it. But there’s zero hesitation on hordak’s part, he doesn’t even mention that this is something usually only reserved for prime.

The second is that prime literally looked at the heart of etheria and said it was “unlike anything [he had] ever seen” despite canonically fighting the first ones, so he’d presumably have recognized the energy signature that first one’s tech gives off and be like Oh Shit. This one in particular drives me absolutely nuts because if I was writing a villain who had lived long enough to fight the people this mystical weapon was created by I would never write them saying that what the actual fuck. My gripe here is not that prime is ancient, that’s fine, I could’ve vibed with that. But the fact that he not only fought the first ones but also recognized mara is really egregious in a way that borders on parody for me. Like what a flimsy excuse for him to be connected to adora (and we’ll get to that!)

The third and final one is that hordak was allegedly thrown out for his defects. That’s what we were told, that’s what a major facet of hordak’s trauma is centered around. However, at the same times, prime seems like… oddly fixated on hordak in a way that usually implies something deeper is going on here. That was why I was so convinced that hordak wasn’t remembering something clearly, because why would prime spare him instead of killing him immediately after returning if he was defective enough to warrant being thrown out? Come S5, prime seems to have forgotten about the pesky little plot detail that is hordak’s defects, since they never come up again! Nope! Hordak is not only completely healed of his ailments (which Can I Get A Yikes?) but he’s also been welcomed back to his original position as prime’s right hand by the mid-point of the season, and he stays there until the finale unless the plot demands he be elsewhere to interact with entrapta cause hordak was added in post. You can’t even argue that he was keeping hordak alive because eThErIaN kNoWlEdGe because he has those fucking mind chips. Literally every single person he’s chipped is connected to the hivemind because of that. He’d have every single bit of knowledge that he could possibly want right there at his fingertips. He doesn’t need hordak alive at all.

Which brings us to…

It’s Almost Like He Wasn’t A Villain To The Proper People

The thing about villains is that, in order for them to not feel out of place, in order for their defeat to actually give a true feeling of satisfaction, you kind of have to put them up against the right people. The reason that prime ultimately fails in this respect is that he is not adora and catra’s villain, despite the narrative pushing him as that…

I actually once joked on twitter that if the rise of skywalker had come out when S5 was being written, then prime would have likely ended up being revealed as adora’s long lost grandfather in some attempt to make his fixation on her seem warranted. That’s the level we’re at in terms of how connected the two of them appear to be for the villain and hero thing. They just are not connected, and prime has absolutely no reason to be this fixated on her. They tried to explain it with she ra and prime being old enemies, but that’s equally as confusing because a) mara hadn’t mentioned him up until that point, b) this inclusion actually makes the first ones creating a superweapon look justified since prime is such a huge threat, and c) she ra is explicitly stated to have been on etheria long before the first ones even colonized it, so why the fuck is she just gallivanting around the cosmos fighting cult leaders?

And to be clear, if this whole prime versus she ra had actually been hinted at, I would not be taking so much issue with this. But as there was absolutely zero mention of him, it just comes off as egregious and very, very sloppy on their parts.

Prime also should not be as fixated on catra as he is, that doesn’t make sense at all. I know why this happened in particular, though, and it’s because the writing team was so in love with her that they just had to give her this arc. That just makes its inclusion all the worse to be honest. Why does he go to such great lengths to use catra to torture adora, why does he go into a total breakdown after catra escapes? He isn’t connected to either of them…

… because he is hordak and entrapta’s villain.

that prime didn’t immediately want entrapta dead continues to confuse me to this day, nearly seven months after the fact. Like you mean to tell me that this cult leader, who is presumably used to complete obedience from his followers, finds one of the wayward members of his proverbial flock lost on some backwater, who didn’t want to be found, and he knows exactly who is responsible for sewing those seeds of discord in this poor lamb’s head. And he doesn’t immediately want entrapta dead?

Not only does prime never mention her, despite it being very easy to push a plotline about how it’s necessary because she’s perceived as a danger to the rest, and especially to the poor lost soul who was ultimately returned to him. Instead, prime just doesn’t seem to realize entrapta exists. He doesn’t know who she is despite literally reading hordak’s mind. He doesn’t even seem to interpret her as threat considering he wasn’t worried about putting her and hordak right next to each other in the finale. He should have been using hordak to torture entrapta, and he should have had his break because hordak escaped him. That whole scene where catra is under mind control and adora was trying to snap her out of it was textbook entrapdak. Hordak should have been the one to delve into the hivemind to help adora. It was his story and it was taken from him when he was sacrificed on catra’s narrative arc altar.

And this is ultimately completely fixable. Because they had a villain they could have been using for adora and catra the whole time. Shadow Weaver. Y’know, their mutual abuser who was the main cause of strife between the two of them, and the person who kind of set the plot in motion since she’s the reason catra is the way that she is?

He Blew It. Super Hard. Complete Buffoonery.

Ultimately one of the biggest writing fumbles with prime is that he is just really fucking dumb as the plot demands, and it doesn’t make any kind of narrative sense for him to be that way, it is literally just him being at the mercy of the writers who need him to do something stupid so they can push the plot forward since they made him too overpowered for it to happen any other way.

There’s numerous instances of this across the season, including him bringing entrapta aboard the velvet glove when the very person he would have had very good reason to not let her near is standing right there, and him deciding to give catra pretty much free reign of the velvet glove and seeming to decide to trust her despite him knowing damn well that she’s likely to betray him the second he does something she doesn’t like, and the time he literally left adora to be beaten by catra instead of just killing her outright when she couldn’t even activate she ra. And in all these cases he had the fucking nerve to seem surprised when it happened?

However, there is one plot point that I feel illustrates how goddamn stupid he is to move the plot forward, and it’s the mind chips.

I mean one of the reasons I dislike it is going back to how little foreshadowing the writers actually seem capable of committing to. There is nothing to indicate in the narrative that prime actually employs mind control on anybody besides the clones, and this becomes especially egregious when we later meet the star siblings, and we find out that there are large swathes of the universe that are seemingly not chipped? It just screams like they needed some type of angst plot point for catra, so they had to find a way to make it work.

But the very inclusion of the mind chips as a plot point makes prime look so ridiculously dumb, because we are told those chips connect people to the hivemind, we are explicitly shown this for catra angst. So a) why does he need hordak around at all, because the excuse he needs to know about etheria doesn’t work since he literally chips like half of the etherian population later on anyway, b) if he needed information on the heart of etheria, why didn’t he just chip glimmer outright, it would have saved him a lot of time and hassle, and c) if he knew damn well that catra had betrayed hordak numerous times and was likely to do the same to him, why didn’t he just immediately chip her so he could mitigate two problems. If he had chipped catra immediately, he wouldn’t have lost glimmer, and it would have been next to impossible for adora and bow to storm the velvet glove through the means that they did.

When your main villain is that fucking stupid, the tension is completely sapped out of your narrative, and prime doesn’t have enough character unto himself to continue holding up his own arc. He is a sexy lamp cardboard cutout that just happens to be brought onto the scene when they were in need of someone to throw the idiot ball at. Prime is supposed to be this thousand year old body hopper who has the wisdom of the ages, and yet he was defeat by a group of teenagers driving a clown card held together by nothing but duct tape and prayers.

Anyway!

Guess Who Just Got Murdered!

Anon, I completely agree that the way prime got taken out was just… hm. Well, it was a choice, given how they had written the rest of the season.

I’ve said this before, but I really wish I could actually enjoy hordak yeeting him, but I just don’t feel anything. That scene is a culmination of an arc that never happened because hordak was barely on screen for S5. It feels like we’re missing this whole season-long arc about how hordak managed to break free of prime and was actively working against him, and that scene is the lowest point, right before the greater scope villain is ultimately defeated by the protagonist. Which just furthers my point that prime is really hordak’s villain, because hordak reads more like a protagonist than I think the writers actually intended for him to.

Since you mentioned anillis, I feel the need to comment on him as well, because I do know exactly what happens to him at the end of my au, because I actually planned for his ending from the beginning and built his arc towards that point. The very bare bones spoilers is that he isn’t going to die, because a) he needs to live with the consequences of his actions and b) him dying would affect hec-tor horribly, especially since if anybody had to deal the killing blow it would be hec-tor. And hec-tor doesn’t deserve to be forced to do that. He wants freedom, he doesn’t want his brother dead by his own hand.

So, I completely agree that just killing prime off feels a little… like a cop out? I’m not going to get into a discussion of how he was defeated by the power of (romantic) love because my issue there is not with the trope itself, but ultimately how it was handled, and that also has to do more with my grievances with how catradora was ultimately handled than my grievances with prime. However, him being like… exorcised…

Well it sure does clean up some loose ends that we don’t want to discuss huh?

[lulusoblue]

this isn’t me vagueing or anything, or I’m not intending to because people have previously expressed the same of what I’m about to rant on, and I don’t want to @ or refer to any blog specifically for reigniting my bafflement of this take because this isn’t a personal grudge match against anyone, just a general *what* of this concept, but

jesus h christ on a stick, why do people want BioShock Infinite’s Elizabeth to have been a racist?

I get an AU fic of another timeline where Comstock’s motives weren’t messy as fuck and he didn’t just plan to force his messiah with a spinal shock collar from the word go, like “what if” stuff, but like saying she should have been racist in the original game and actually wanting this change because it would “improve” her character?

like, disclaimer because I am a white woman who may not have a say in things like this anyway, but honestly the racism angle was a huge mistake in Infinite in the first place, and should never have been done in this game because the lead writer is a white man and I can bet my bottom dollar he most likely did not consult anyone on race or racism beyond what historically accurate heinous racist acts to not depict in the game so players could “sympathise” with the flying racists getting their dues post-Finkton.

You know how important the racism of Columbia is to him? How relevant is it to the ending of the game? Answer: it isn’t. BioShock 1’s ending has the failings of Rapture relevant to the ending regarding the player’s choices. The ending of Infinite, however, focuses on Elizabeth, Booker and the multiverse, where nobody mentions the Vox or how Columbia was a failure or anything. Nothing with the Vox Populi or Columbia’s hubris is linked to the game’s ending. Both are left feeling superfluous. It was just something to stick into the background rather than be a story element that properly tied in with the story’s real focus. If you wanted Levine to write a better racism story I would have to ask you why??? Do you trust him to?????

What reason was there that we switched from extreme nationalism and its consequences in the demos as late as 2012 to “racism bad but the victims of it are also bad if they fight back” in 2013? Who fucking knows. Probably shock value, because I don’t see how time and resources would cause such a change from what Irrational put out there in interviews leading up to release. Given how Levine tried to retcon Daisy’s story in Burial at Sea (and keep in mind Black Lives Matter didn’t start as a movement until a few months after Infinite’s release and before BaS Episode 2 was released) he certainly didn’t commit to “Daisy and Comstock are the same”. If he had conviction for his “both sides” story, he wouldn’t have tried to rewrite it to Daisy choosing to play monster as a necessary sacrifice for her cause (which itself is its own can of worms with how it now plays out).

Considering as well how we had that article revealing how long it took to get a playable build out of Irrational thanks to Levine’s lack of solid direction, as well as the recent revelation that he had never read Ayn Rand when making a game about a city BUILT ON HER IDEOLOGY, I’m pretty sure the poor writing around Columbia’s racism and the Vox Populi in the final game was just made up as he went along to push out a finished product, because it had been five years at that point and 2k was piiiiiiissed.

Then we have how Elizabeth is your companion character, your escort mission. Friends, do you know how escort mission characters were viewed back pre-2013? Bad. The AI could just look at a player funny and they’d draw a 5 page comic on how awful a character they were and post it to deviantart. One of the worst levels in BioShock was when we had to escort a very killable Little Sister with a fishbowl filter on our FOV, and one of the major complaints people had with BioShock 2 was how they had an OPTIONAL escort mission to get more mutation juice. We didn’t start getting games with escort characters like Elizabeth or Clementine or Ellie, characters people actually cared about and WANTED to protect, until around 2012-2013.

You think the people creating Elizabeth, the escort mission character built to be a likeable, enjoyable to be with and empathise with her character, who can never get hurt or kidnapped in combat and actively helps the player, should have had her been a racist??? In a post-Mass Effect world??????

Ashley Williams is a woman from a military family. She is a proud member of the Alliance military who has concerns on working with aliens after having had no prior experience working with aliens. However, you can ease those concerns and help her warm up to building alliances in the first Mass Effect game. Ashley grows to trust alien squadmates, and even without your character’s influence will regard two anti-alien groups with disgust for their outright racism and human centrism.

And here’s the kicker, even with that nuance to her character, in a game of plenty of other more overtly racist and prejudiced characters? ASHLEY IS STILL THE BUTT OF THE SPACE RACISM JOKES. She had flaws, she developed, she proves her loyalties to the point of refusing to work with you when you’re forced to join one of the human centric groups, AND SHE’S STILL MOCKED FOR SPACE RACISM. EVEN IN PROMOTIONAL MATERIAL SHE’S RETROACTIVELY REGARDED AS BEING DIFFICULT TO WORK WITH. THAT IS HOW MUCH THE FANDOM AROUND MASS EFFECT HAS AFFECTED HOW ASHLEY IS SEEN.

And you want Infinite to have Elizabeth be very obviously racist with real life racism? (which is the vibe i’ve been getting) Like, you think all the people behind Elizabeth’s design, her game functionality, her interactions and personality, would give players ammunition to hate a character you’re supposed to enjoy having around on purpose? You think they’re going to give the actual racists and bigots and nazis of the internet a mascot????? Because we already had the facebook header image debacle for a Columbian propaganda poster, you KNOW they would.

And personally I don’t think it would make great character development, because the game is not in the format for that kind of exploration of character’s story. BioShock Infinite is not an RPG with you making dialogue choices with squadmates where you feel like you really influenced them to see the error of their ways. Infinite is a linear shooter. There is no real sense of the passage of time in a linear shooter, the player will experience it like it really doesn’t happen in the span of 20 hours.

Unlearning racism and religious brainwashing is not a quick fixit, and a quick fixit is how it would feel in the 20-40 hours you take to play through the entire game. If Infinite had had Elizabeth going from “I’m racist” to “*sees a black person suffering* maybe racism is wrong???” to “i am no longer racist, I see the error of my ways, you can like me now” in the span of what feels like less than a day to players in a linear game, people would be super critical of the pretty white girl getting cured of her bigotry way too quickly and how the game makes it like we’re supposed to applaud her for being so brave and mature and open-minded, and how much Levine really doesn’t understand nuance or anything about how internalised racism works.

BioShock Infinite’s final release proved that the Vox Populi should not have been handled the way they were. Yes, more media should be discussing and making audiences aware of what is racist, and how irrational it really is when you get down to it, but BioShock Infinite should not have been that media. It was originally written for two opposing sides in a city built on extreme nationalism, much like how BioShock was for objectivism, and then changed relatively last minute. It was written by a white man who’d already written the franchise’s only gay named character as a horrific monster of a man (Cohen) and has expressed how autism is what made a person evil (Tenenbaum). It was written with Elizabeth in mind, a main character who was literally designed to be an escort mission players would actually enjoy, most likely from Day 1 given how much behind the scenes stuff we know of her.

I wouldn’t trust someone like Levine to write a story of a character unlearning racism over the course of a game’s story, i don’t think he should ever have touched a story where racism is a such a prominent element with a 100 foot pole.

[young-bev]

An essay abt Fabian Aramais Seacaster

This is the essay that i wrote for my greek myth class. The assignment was to find a contemporary example of Hubris and Nemesis.Understand that some story elements are simplified and glossed over bc this was only supposed to be three pages and i wrote five. Idk like one person on tumblr wanted to see it and a few ppl on twitter as well. So enjoy??

In recent years there has been a rise in popularity in TableTop Role Playing Games (RPG), this is due to shows like Critical Role, The Adventure Zone, Not Another DnD Podcast and Dimension 20. These shows have amassed large followings and have even gone and performed live around the world. Viewed as a collaborative storytelling medium, using dice to define the success of one's actions, it is only reasonable to wonder if the traditional storytelling devices seen in classic mythology translates into this medium. Examining the plot to Dimension 20 Fantasy High a clear example of hubris comes to mind. This hubris is shown by a Player Character (PC) named Fabian Aramais Seacaster in the second season of Fantasy High. To understand the significance of the hubris and Nemesis, one must understand Fabian’s personality in the context of this show and how that relates to the situation he was placed in. Understanding Fabian as a character will also allow the viewer to understand how cruel Nemesis was to him. Nemesis’ cruelty can also be examined as a part of games mechanics and reflected in the relations between Dungeon Master and Player.

 For ease of understanding, I will first explain the context in which Fantasy High takes place. In the introduction to the show, the Dungeon Master (DM) Brennan Lee Mulligan explains that: “Now we can answer the age-old question of; What if John Hughes ran a tabletop RPG game?” The show follows a group of heroes who call themselves the Bad Kids as they attend the Aguefort Adventuring Academy: the world’s premier training ground for would-be Heroes. It is the first episode of the show that Fabian is introduced. He is a half-elven fighter raised by infamous pirate Bill Seacaster and Hallariel Seacaster. Played by Lou Wilson, Fabian is: “Everything [Lou Wilson] wanted to be in high school; rich and hot.” as he stated in an episode of Fantasy High: Extra Credit. It is here in Fabian’s very first scene that the viewer is given a key insight into Fabian’s hubris. While talking to his father before the first day of school, Bill Seacaster says to Fabian; “You’re my son, you’re a direct reflection of me! You and your glory is the same as mine and my glory! That’s how we relate to each other!” (Mulligan, S1 E1).  This statement is important because it will directly play into many of the choices Fabian makes in the following episodes. In the very same interaction, Fabian is gifted by his father an Auguefort Owlbears letterman jacket, as Fabian hopes to make it onto the team with the tryouts happening later that day.  The jacket becomes a great symbol for both Fabian’s hubris and identity as he does not initially make the team but still decides to wear the jacket to school nearly every day. As hubris is defined as someone viewing themselves as either above or below their true social rank. hubris is also seen as acting out of an overblown sense of importance. In a society where a social ladder is clear, Jocks and cheerleaders ‘rule the school’ and the nerds find themselves at the bottom, wearing a letterman jacket for a team that you are not a part of is very much believing yourself above your true position on the social ladder.

While the jacket is a minor display of hubris in the first season as Fabian does eventually find his way onto the Owlbears, it is not until Fantasy High: Sophomore Year that Fabian’s hubris is met with Nemesis. In sophomore year, the Bad Kids find themselves on a quest to retrieve the crown of the Nightmare King. Their journey leads them to the pirate city of Leviathan. Here the city is made up of ships roped and assembled together, it floats in the Celestine Sea. On their first night in Leviathan, Fabian separates himself from the party and heads off, now pensive as this city reminds him of Bill Seacaster. On his own, he meets members of his father’s cult. Warlocks who have given patronage to Bill Seacaster as he is now causing chaos as a devil in the nine hells after dying at the end of freshman year. Initially, these pirates praise and celebrate Fabian as he is their patron’s son. They believe Fabian their saviour. Their reaction changes, however, when they ask Fabian to describe how he defeated Bill Seacaster in combat. These warlocks believe Fabian to have killed his father in a grand and epic battle. Although, in actuality, Fabian killed his father in an act of mercy after their home was attacked by mercenaries. Fabian tries to explain this to these pirates and they immediately become frantic and fearful of the lack of potency and power of their patron. They believed Fabian a powerful enough swordsman to defeat Bill Seacaster, thus powerful enough to defeat one of Bill’s long standing rivals, a man named James Wicklaw (Mulligan, S2 E5). With a hurt pride and desperate to prove himself, Fabian declares: “I am perfectly capable of leading an army, Alright? I am my father’s son through and through. And I am as good as he is...” (Mulligan, S2 E5). It is here with wounded pride that Fabian sets out to prove himself in the eyes of his father’s cult. He leads them in an attack against James Wicklaw. Fabian’s hubris here comes from overcompensating for his hurt pride. He goes above his social standing, believing himself powerful enough to defeat Wicklaw on his own. This is however not true, as Dungeons & Dragons is a game where antagonists have challenge ratings and players gain levels in certain abilities. It is up to the Dungeon Master to balance encounters and choose antagonists appropriately. James Wicklaw was a Mind Flayer, listed in the Monster Manual as a level 7 challenge rating. Fabian at the time was a level 8 Fighter (Perkins, p.222). While this seems balanced, Fabian was immediately grappled and stunned, leaving him unable to do anything but watch, while Wicklaw and his crew slaughtered the 20 followers he had brought into battle. Nemesis comes to Fabian by removing his sense of identity. As Chungledown Bim, one of the warlocks says to Fabian before dying; “Ye ain’t no pirate and Bill would spit in your eye…I’m gonna shit in your mouth” (Mulligan, S2 E5). Ultimately these words would affect Fabian so much that they will come to haunt him in later episodes. Punishment in Dungeons & Dragons does play out differently then it does in classic Mythology. Where the gods of the pantheon are near impossible to reason with and are cruel and unforgiving in their punishments, the ones in control of the world of D&D are you and your friends. A good DM is on the side of their players but it is their job to react as the world in which their players find themselves. In this situation, Lou Wilson made a series of dangerous and reckless decisions as Fabian but these decisions were exactly the decisions that Fabian would make. He is prideful, he is overconfident, he is selfish and ultimately insecure when his pride is threatened. By losing his sense of identity, Lou and Brennan made the decision away from the table to push Fabian’s punishment past simply a character choice and into the mechanics of the game. At the table, we see Fabian shed his father’s eyepatch and sword along with his letterman jacket. These items are obvious symbols of Fabian’s sense of self. It isn’t until a later episode that the viewer sees the true effect that losing his identity has on Fabian. He suffers from exhaustion and pneumonia in the following episode and seems to have fallen into a depressive state. In episode 8, the Bad Kids go to face Wicklaw again, this time together as a team. It is here that the viewers and the other players learn that Lou and Brennan decided to remove all classes and feats Fabian had taken throughout the campaign. This leaves him with a single attack. Talking about this decision in the Fireside Chat, Brennan and Lou said: “[Lou Wilson]: A lot of it is a relationship and trust between you and your DM; in that your DM sees you make that choice, the less strategic choice…and meets you in the middle...It was so much more fun because...Brennan rewarded my choices with the reality and groundedness they deserve...’[Brennan Lee Mulligan]: ‘I think there comes a moment when playing D&D, where you can say: ‘I can really blow it and tell a better story’...I need to honor the danger Lou has put himself in and I need to put consequences here and I just can’t be vindictive.” This quote highlights the main difference with how hubris is treated in this media. Nemesis and the other Greek gods do not care, as characters, if their punishments are juste. They are particularly vindictive and often do not care if you die because of your hubris. Athena did not care about the importance of storytelling when cursing Arachne for boasting of her weaving skills, she simply cared that Arachne be punished for her hubris (Buxton, p.80). In opposition to this, a Dungeon Master and their players are more similar to the poets composing the myths. They make choices while considering the narrative, they enforce nemesis in a way that adds to the narrative. Using Nemesis allows the DM to enforce consequences onto the players allowing their decisions to feel more significant and raise the stakes. However, because of teamwork between player and DM, Nemesis will be much more forgiving to a Player Character then a Non-Player Character (NPC) or those showing hubris in myths. In conclusion, hubris and Nemesis still find their place in the world of RPGS. Fabian Aramais Seacaster is a clear example of this. He boasts of his abilities, believes himself a captain, when in actuality he is at his best when working in a team. Nemesis removes his sense of identity and confidence, forcing him to face his enemies without the skills he had honed in the past few years. She forced Fabian to realize that his true strength comes from the bonds he has with his friends and not borrowed from another's reputation. Nemesis forced Fabian to face his insecurities for which he was overcompensating, playing a key part in the larger elements of Fabian’s journey to becoming his ‘own darling man-boy’.

[mittensmorgul]

I've watched season 11 again, and I have a question if you're willing to answer. In season 5, Cas was very disappointed about learning God was basically a "dead beat dad," as Dean called it. But when Cas had an opportunity to talk to Chuck, he didn't seem all that interested in talking to him or even asking a question or two. Why do you think they never had Cas interact with Chuck as a son talking to his father when it was such a huge deal for Cas in season 5?

Hi there! I’m happy to talk about this, because honestly I was personally GLAD that Cas treated Chuck the way he did in s11.

(A/N: I was halfway through writing this when my power went out last night, so now that everything is back on I’m gonna see if I remember wtf I was even talking about... if this goes sideways halfway through, blame Potomac Edison)

Cas had already realized long before exactly who and what Chuck was. I mean, not that Chuck was actually God, but that God and “His Plan” was always a load of BS.

Chuck left the angels a lot of conflicting information, and not a lot in the Free Will and Critical Thinking arena. I was just thinking about season 6, and this sort of feeds into a lot of the same distinction between Cas and the rest of the angels. My personal line of thinking earlier this evening was this line in 6.20:

CASTIEL I'm doing this for you, Dean. I'm doing this because of you. DEAN Because of me. Yeah. You got to be kidding me. CASTIEL You're the one who taught me that freedom and free will -- DEAN You're a freakin' child, you know that? Just because you can do what you want doesn't mean that you get to do whatever you want!

Major Tangent Warning, because I gotta write out what I was thinking earlier in order to explain why I am So Pleased with Cas and his reaction to Chuck in s11, which I think of as abject disdain. This is key to everything Cas had learned, to all of his growth as a person up to that point.

What Dean tells Cas here is in direct contradiction to what Raphael’s self-stated motive in restarting the apocalypse was. Also from 6.20:

RAPHAEL You rebelled - against God, heaven, and me. Now you will atone. We'll start by freeing Lucifer and Michael from their cage. And then we'll get our show back on the road. CASTIEL Raphael...No. The Apocalypse doesn't have to be fought! RAPHAEL Of course it does. It's God's will. CASTIEL How can you say that?! RAPHAEL Because it's what I want. CASTIEL Well, the other angels won't let you. RAPHAEL Are you sure? You know better than anyone, Castiel. They're soldiers. They weren't built for freedom. They were built to follow.

Raphael is just doing “whatever he wants,” in the way Dean was trying to convince Cas NOT to. Because if Dean learns anything in s6, it is the cosmic cost of his own actions. Think 6.11, and the lessons he learns having to play Death for a day. As much as Dean tries to work around the Bigger Picture of the Universe, he does understand that there is a right and a wrong, and that some things are worth fighting or even dying for, but the cost might sometimes just be too great. And unleashing all the souls in purgatory on the planet seems like just a different sort of apocalyptic level of bad... like putting out a fire with a flamethrower.

Cas had to make a choice here. He’d chosen his path every step of the way, wrestled with each decision he’d had to make over the previous year leading up to that point, but he’d passed the point of no return, and his direct prayer to Chuck went unanswered, and he never got a sign whether he was doing the right thing or not.

I’ve argued in the past that he absolutely DID get a sign, in the form of Dean telling him to stop in 6.20. But Cas dismissed him, out of pride, out of hubris, out  of desperation to do the one thing he believed could give him the power to stop Apocalypse 2.0, save Heaven, and also save Dean in the process, since Dean would be back on the radar to be Michael’s vessel if Raphael succeeded in breaking him out of the Cage.

And here’s the really tangenty part of the tangent: it just made me think of all the nitwits who won’t wear a mask in public, or follow social distancing rules because MAH FREEDUMB, you’re impinging on MAH LIBERTY. BUT THE CONSTITUTION!

Because yes, we can do what we want, but we can’t do WHATEVER we want when our actions are harmful to others!

The framers of the Constitution could never have foreseen a pandemic like this. But any SOCIETY where people must coexist needs to put some constraints on liberty, and the framers absolutely DID understand this.

They also couldn’t have foreseen air travel, but we have established rules about this. They couldn’t have foreseen cars and traffic lights and interstate highways, and yet we have rules that govern our behavior there, as well. Air traffic controllers, stop signs, speed limits-- we don’t just have the right to drive 90 mph through a school zone and run through red lights. And yet nobody yells BUT MAH FREEDUMB! when they get a speeding ticket.

Polite society ALSO must include *MY* right not to be killed because someone else decided that traffic laws didn’t apply to them, see?

Basically, wear your mask and shut up about it, whiny pissbabies. This is what is required of you to live in a functioning society. You do NOT have the right to infect others with a potentially deadly illness. Full stop.

But back to Cas and the Leviathan infection he’s about to infest the entire planet with...

Dean was effectively giving him the “wear a mask, nitwit” speech, but on a cosmic level.

And Cas had to live with the consequences of his choice, with the GUILT and DEPRESSION that resulted. And he spent the next few seasons desperately trying to make up for what he’d done, to atone and do whatever he could to redeem himself-- to Dean. He’d tried to redeem himself to Heaven, but the more he eventually began to learn about Humanity, the less affinity he felt for his fellow angels, and for Chuck’s construct of Heaven.

Because back to another previous point, Chuck effectively left the angels two opposing sets of instructions: orders to watch over the earth and act as shepherds to humanity, and orders to bring on the apocalypse at any cost. Can’t do both, truly. Even Naomi will eventually say, right before Metatron stabs her in the head, that she (and the other angels) forgot that their true mission was to protect and defend humanity, and she didn’t know when or why that ever changed.

FINALLY back to the point! WHEEE!

Basically, Cas has, in the six years between s5 and s11, experienced “god-ness” from every angle, experienced his own guilt over what he now believes were misguided actions, that sometimes Humanity has a better answer, and there are some things that just aren’t worth it in the long run.

Mostly, he’s realized just HOW deadbeat Chuck has always been. And the revelation that Chuck had actually been God all along? Saw their pain and suffering at trying to STOP the apocalypse all those years before? KNEW FULL WELL that Sam, Dean and Cas were doing everything they could to try and save the world from basically the entirety of Heaven and Hell, who were plotting the destruction of humanity and most of creation with it. I mean... Cas spent s5 begging for God’s help, to save the world, to convince Michael and Lucifer that they did not have to destroy humanity, and Chuck... had done LESS than nothing. He’d sat there and ghoulishly watched the entire mess unfold like a bad tv show... oh wait... :’D

By s11, Lucifer had not reached that point that Cas had. Lucifer had many other issues, having been rejected and locked up for most of existence, and even HE had been the one in 5.22 to try and talk Michael out of enacting Chuck’s battle plan. Lucifer never had the experiences Cas did (and despite being given every opportunity to have them over the next few seasons after s11, he continues to reject those experienced at every turn anyway, only serving to highlight the difference between Cas and, honestly, most of the rest of the angels). Lucifer had a personal need for a direct apology from Chuck for everything he’d been put through-- starting with taking on the original Mark and ending with the cage.

Of course Lucifer didn’t get an honest apology, because in the end, it was all just a theoretical production to Chuck. He had never apologized, in any of his universes, to any of the beings he created. And he never would. And on some level, Cas-- via his experiences, what he himself had already come to understand about God and creation-- already understood this about Chuck.

Cas... didn’t care about him anymore. He cared about HUMANITY, about Chuck’s CREATION. The creator might be a worthless jerk, but what came out of his creation is a thing of ultimate beauty. Humanity, love, free will, and the beauty of the universe is what ends up saving the world in 11.23, so I’ve chosen to accept this read of Cas and his relationship and opinions of Chuck. Because it’s perfectly in line with the “moral” of season 11.

Plus it’s just so personally satisfying to me watching each individual character’s reactions to Chuck, and understanding how that aligns with all of their personal arcs.

Dean: brought the “how could your forsake your creation” of a broken-hearted son who has finally seen the truth. something he worked out YEARS ago between himself and his own father, so it didn’t come with that particular personal baggage and didn’t completely break him in the process (as it may have done with Cas had Chuck revealed himself, say, in 7.01...)

Sam: brought his life-long hope that God was real, his faith in God’s inherent “goodness,” did the Chuck Fanboy for a bit before seeing Chuck a lot more clearly. He was able to relinquish his idol worship of Chuck as the Savior of Humanity.

Cas: had brought his experience of Humanity and Godhood, the entire spectrum of Creation that he had experienced for himself and grown through. Cas, for all his mistakes, had never stopped TRYING to do the right thing, never stopped doing everything in his power to save humanity and creation from every cosmic threat, while Chuck himself had only hidden away and watched from the sidelines, when he’d ALWAYS had the power to make everything good and right and allow the Winchesters their peace. Honestly, what BETTER response than to treat Chuck like a bit of gum stuck to his shoe?

Metatron: who had basically spent s9 trying to turn himself into Chuck Lite, literally plagiarizing his Supernatural novels to create his own origin story as the new God, and failed miserably. What other angel could truly confront Chuck, writer to writer, and call him out for His Story? Even fallen as low as he could go, Metatron understood first-hand the responsibility of The Cosmic Author in ways even Cas couldn’t, because narrative symmetry. Metatron was always about the Word, as God’s Scribe. He was a bad copy of the original with the names scratched out. He basically wrote the worst self-insert fanfic of all time. And that gave him the narrative space to confront Chuck about everything that Cas no longer had. Cas had long since rejected that role, sided with Humanity, and smashed Chuck’s Word. The original tablet-breaker.

Crowley: carried on Crowley-ing. Doing the best he could with what he had, and somehow miraculously BS’ing his way through.

Rowena: recognized the Biggest Power in the room and ingratiated herself to it for comfort and protection, and hopefully for a bit of power and security.

Billie: gosh she just stepped in at the 11th hour to annoy Chuck. :’D

But yeah, I’ve always been incredibly pleased that Cas basically ignored Chuck in s11. Good for him.

[1lymark]

yellow paint blues || renjun

→ summary: a few hours before renjun needs to submit his art project, he realizes that he’s run out of yellow paint. luckily, you’re there to help (or not.) → genre: fluff, humor, college!au → words: 3.2K → a/n: dedicated to mary, my lovely patron. as always, this got way out of hand and got longer than i anticipated. i hope you enjoy!

Renjun had thought that the art course would be an easy A. He hadn’t needed the easy A to begin with anyway––his grades in every other course were beyond stellar, so most people would probably assume that he was doing it to pass time or to gain extra credits. Or so, that was what he wanted people to assume.

In reality, he had signed up for the course because you had wanted to. It wasn’t like you asked him to accompany him; he recalled you mentioning the course in passing a week before registration and somehow, that little comment had wormed its way to the forefront of his mind as he clicked “ADD COURSE” to his already packed schedule.

“Should be easy enough,” he assured himself, patting his own shoulder in untimely congratulations as he thought of the extra three hours in a week that he would get to hang out with you. After all, Renjun’s art skills weren’t shabby, so surely this could not go wrong in any way possible.

He forgot, in his hubris, about the tantalizing taste that procrastination had to offer. The sweet nectar that he had yet to conquer in all his years of education had once again enticed him like a fly to a fire. It was inevitable, and yet… how could he have been so blind?

So there he was, in his room at one in the morning, with more paint on his fingers than he had on his canvas. The blank surface taunted him in his mind, laughing hysterically at the cruel fate he had assigned to himself in the name of love.

The project should have been simple enough: it was a self-expression piece, wherein the objective was to present what makes them happiest. His professor was lenient to the point of negligent, allowing her students to use any medium they pleased for this first assignment. Macaroni and glue, string and popsicle sticks, scrap paper with a drunken doodle… She was open-minded to anything under the sun. However, the thing about Renjun was that he was an overachiever to a fault, so even though he could’ve theoretically slapped a Spotify playlist together on a CD and called it a day, he simply was not spiritually able to hand in anything less than perfect.

So of course Renjun chose to paint for his first project. Painting wasn’t even his strongest suit, but he wanted to challenge himself, or so he said when he had loudly announced that to you almost a week ago.

A week ago. He had an entire week to finish, with no other pressing assignments or tests in between, and yet he still found himself in this predicament. Thus was the fate of unending suffering that every university student must face.

You had texted him a few hours ago, asking to see a picture of his work. Despite your excitement to take this course, you had always been a bit self-conscious about your art pieces, though you have never expressed this to anyone. Renjun could see it in the way that you would close in on yourself when people ask to see your work, quickly redirecting the conversation elsewhere once people have their eyes off of you.

Not him though––you always showed each other your works. It made Renjun’s heart race just a little bit every time you exposed this side of yourself, and so he made a promise to always give you any sort of reassurance you might need.

Unfortunately for this time, he was a bit too busy trying not to drown in his own irresponsibility to answer you properly when you had texted.

to: renjunnie from: y/n-chi

hey!! how’s your project holding up? can i see yours? i finished mine just now and idk if i’m happy with it tbh…

to: y/n-chi from: renjunnie

not… going well… send reinforcements… T_T i think i’m gonna rot now…

to: renjunnie from: y/n-chi

eh??? the infallible huang renjun is suffering??? from a first year art assignment??? someone call the catholics, because i think the rapture is coming

to: y/n-chi from: renjunnie

y/n don’t be mean >:( this is srs!! i think i have inhaled enough paint fumes to fail a drug test by now

to: renjunnie from: y/n-chi

tsk. that’s what you get for procrastinating, babe. sending my thoughts and prayers!! txt me updates so i know you don’t die from paint ingestion ^^

If you weren’t so god damn cute, he would have smothered you (with his love) by now. Even if you didn’t know it, your texts had given him enough motivation to get something on the canvas, even though none of his drafts seemed to be good enough at the moment.

What was it that made Renjun happy, anyway? He liked listening to music, but that was as generic as it gets… Who didn’t like music? He also liked reading and travelling, though those don’t seem to be too appealing to paint either. Some of his friends had joked that he should just paint a bunch of Moomin, so that he wouldn’t really need to paint because it would mostly be white anyway.

Those things just seemed too shallow for him. While they were things that he enjoyed, he wouldn’t want to be that guy who showed up to class with a half-assed doodle and some stupid explanation like “happiness is what you make of it.” No, he would be better than that.

There was something quite obvious that he could use for his project, or rather, someone. It would be too embarrassing though––not that he was embarrassed of you, by any means. He just wasn’t brave enough to do it, not yet at least. Someday, he’ll have the heart to tell you his feelings, but for now… he was stuck with a blank canvas and an emptier mind.

The clock read 3:30AM when Renjun had decided to throw all his morals to the wind and just paint a field of sunflowers out of desperation. He thought that if all else failed, maybe he would submit that and say something about how he remembered going to a place like that in his childhood. It would be a complete lie, since his family hardly went out to nature spots like that, but at least you would like the painting. Sunflowers were your favorite, after all.

Halfway through his painting however, he realized that his tube of yellow paint was looking awfully empty. He squeezed it as much as he could, scrapping it out as much of the remaining paint as physically possible.

“Crap,” he moans out, looking at his half-colored canvas forlornly. There were still at least six sunflowers to be painted, though he had already painted most of the background. This couldn’t do; he had no time to start over. The art supply shop didn’t open until at least 9AM, but his classes start shortly after that. There was no way he could pull this off at this rate. Unless…

He reached for his phone from his table, almost tripping over his easel in his haste to grab it. He knew you were an early riser, though he doubted you’d be awake even at this ungodly hour. He just hoped to whatever entity up in the clouds that you would pick up your phone and not start cussing him out for ruining your sleep. Though it was hard to imagine you getting mad at him for anything, as he knew you always had a bit of a soft spot for him.

To his relief, you answered on the fifth ring.

“Hello?” You murmured quietly, voice still sounding rough with sleep. Renjun could hear you smacking your lips sleepily, the mental image of it all eliciting a grin on his face. He wanted to know how you looked right now, with your impossibly cute bedhead and droopy eyes.

“Y/N? You awake?”

You yawned, the sound of rustling sheets accompanying your reply. “I am now, I guess. It’s… 4AM? What gives? You don’t normally wake this early. Unless…”

“Yup,” Renjun sighed, head hanging in defeat. “Kinda haven’t slept all night. The project isn’t coming along too well.”

“Aww,” you cooed. Renjun perked up a little at your tone.

Then, “Tough shit.”

Renjun flinched at that, staring wide-eyed at his phone before returning it to his ear. “Excuse me?”

“Well, if you hadn’t been goofing off the entire week before, you wouldn’t be in this mess, would you? Now excuse me… I have another two hours of sleep before my alarm is supposed to go off, so I’ll see you later! Peace,” was all you said before promptly hanging up.

The room was silent as Renjun stood in the middle of his room, shocked beyond all belief. Was that really you that he had just spoken to? Where was the kind, empathetic friend he had come to know and love? Perhaps lack of sleep really does change a person for the worse.

Undeterred by your rejection, Renjun decided to head over to your house anyway. Was he probably going to get his ass handed to him for disturbing you even more? Probably. Was he willing to face the consequences of your fiery wrath? Absolutely. Was he going to enjoy getting berated by you as he stared, lovestruck, at your cute pajamas and angry, puffy eyes? Undoubtedly.

Luckily, your house was only a few blocks away, although Renjun still ran all the way because he was (maybe, slightly, on a little bit) afraid of the dark. So what if he screamed a little when a cat jumped out of some trashcans? No one saw, and that was all that mattered.

He arrived at your place in record time, the dark window panes indicating that you were still, in fact, asleep. He tried opening the door to no avail, not being able to find the spare key you used to place under the mat. With no other option in sight, there was one last thing he could do…

Tap. Tap. Tap.

There was something tapping incessantly against your window for a couple minutes now. At first, you had ignored the sound completely, assuming that it was the first drops of rain before a storm. After a while, you began to realize that rain did not sound like that, and it reminded you more like a finger tapping or knocking. That was impossible though, because you lived on the second floor of a shared house. Surely, it wasn’t what you thought it was––

Before you could contemplate further, you phone started to ring for the second time that night, and the pieces of the puzzle immediately fall into place. It was him, that fucking bastard. Grumbling loudly, you grasped your phone against your ear, a chain of swears tumbling out of your lips quicker than any seasoned rapper out there.

“Wait, Y/N! Lemme explain—“

“Renjun, I swear if I go downstairs right now and find you throwing pebbles at my window to disrupt my sleep even further, you better believe I’m calling the cops on you, friend or not!”

“I just need yellow paint!” He cried out, loud enough that you can hear him from outside. You hiss at him to keep quiet, worried that his noise would also wake up your roommates.

“No, Renjun! You have to learn to be more responsible! You can’t always expect things to go your way without proper preparation! 4.0 GPA or not, I’m not letting you keep doing this––hold on,” you paused, stopping mid-sentence. There had been loud thunk just outside your bedroom wall. There was a suspicious lack of response on Renjun’s end, though you can hear his heavy breathing through the speakers. You slipped out of your covers, padding your way to the window. You peered over, squinting blearily at the darkness of the night.

“Renjun? What are you––“ You gasped before finishing, slamming open the windows and letting the cool breeze gently brush your face. The sight before you was not as great as the wind, though. “Are you fucking crazy? Stop climbing before you get hurt!”

“Almost there,” Renjun grunted, his hands grasping tightly on your ledge. You watched in stunned silence as the gangly boy hoisted himself over and into your bedroom with the ease of someone who had done that at least a few times before. It took you a while before you could find your bearings as you stood, mouth agape, at the beaming boy now standing before you with neon green paint on his cheek.

“Hey,” he greets, smiling.

It took all the energy in your body to keep your hand from meeting his cheek (either to caress him or to slap him? No one was for certain.) “You could’ve fucking died.”

Renjun lifted both his arms into the air and shook his legs around. He shot you a cheeky look, faking contemplativeness. “I feel pretty alive, I would say. All limbs in working order, as far as I know.”

Oh my god. You were friends with a maniac!

“This is so unlike you,” you said. “You’re never this relentlessly annoying.”

“Well, you wouldn’t let me finish my urgent plea on the phone, so of course I had to take drastic measures! I’m gonna fail this GPA booster course, and then I’ll die, and then it’ll be your fault!” He said in one breath, grin never faltering. As his gaze flitted around the room, he noticed your finished project, sitting on your desk and covered in plastic to hide its contents from the world. “Ooh, is that your submission? can I see?”

You rushed over to it, hiding it behind your back with a huff. “Absolutely not! You lost all privileges from me the moment you called me up at 4AM! Now get out of my house before I really call the cops.”

He pouted, deflating visibly. “Okay, look… I know I’m being a prick right now, but you really gotta help me! I ran out of yellow paint and you’re the only person who can help me!”

You were not sure why, but hearing that reason coming from Renjun of all people was making your blood boil in anger. He went all this way to your house, throwing pebbles out your window like some cliché romcom protagonist, even climbing up a building, just to ask for fucking yellow paint?!

“Are you hearing yourself, Huang Renjun? I’m going to kill you!” You grabbed a few of the still open paint tubes by your desk, squeezing its contents all over his clothes in a fit of rage. He gasped, crying out in anguish as globs of blue and red marred the cute little Moomins on his shirt.

“You did not just do that!” He yelled, slapping the paint out of your hands. You were pretty shocked yourself, though you can’t help but giggle a little at how flabbergasted he looked.

“That’s what you get for being ridiculous, you stupid shit––hey, stop! Put down that cup of paint water now before I––NO!”

Murky black water splashes down your left cheek and onto your pajamas, the gross, cold sensation making you splutter out indignantly at the smirking boy. “Oh my god, you absolute bastard!”

It did not take long for the argument to dissolve into a full-blown paint fight as the two of you sprayed each other with every bit of available art supply in your room. Paint, brushes, pens, and markers were launched into the air, both of you screaming in both anger and delight as you hit the other with every type of projectile imagineable.

Renjun jumped across the bed, searching your bedside table for more ammo once you managed to hoard most of them on your side. It didn’t take long for him to find one of your unopened bottles of yellow paint, and he hooted in victory as he held it up in the air like a trophy.

“Yes, I found it! Ceasefire, Y/N! I got what I wanted!”

“And you think I’m supposed to stop just because you’re happy?” You screeched back, readying a large amount of black paint on one of your paintbrushes like a makeshift catapult. “Drop that paint bottle if you wanna live, Renjun!”

It was in that moment when one of your roommates suddenly barged in to the scene, her entire being blazing with heat as she furiously accessed the room. There you were, paint dripping from every inch of your body, with a similarly painted boy on the other side of your bed with a little 50mL bottle of yellow paint in his open fist. No one made a sound for a moment, afraid to explain what the hell you both were doing, until––

“I’m not even going to ask. Just shut up before I get you evicted,” Yeri growled, slamming the door with the frame rattling in her wake.

“Oh god, she’s going to kill me tomorrow,” you moaned, dropping the paintbrush and dropping your head against your newly painted bed. Not looking at him, you pointed your finger in his general direction, forcing him to stop as he tried to covertly escape through the window. “Don’t you dare move another muscle. You are helping me clean my room before class, or so help me I’ll paint angry eyebrows on all your Moomin plushies.”

That got him moving to help you quickly, at least. With the two of you working together instead of fighting, you managed to get all your bedsheets into the washer and most of the paint splatters removed from your walls and floor in record time. Thankfully there wasn’t much damage on your room, as you and Renjun were the main casualties of the paint war.

While the two of you finished up, you hadn’t realized that the sun had already begun its approach into the sky, meaning that it was time to get ready for class.

“Shit, I won’t be able to shower in time,” you whined, fruitlessly picking at the paint clumping your hair together. You gave Renjun the evil eye, who had the decency to look sheepish at least.

“Wait, hold that thought,” he said, grasping your hand in his as he appraised you with an odd look. His brows were furrowed, thinking deeply as he traced the strokes of yellow and blue on your cheeks, all the way to your neck. His proximity made the blood rush to your face, and you hoped that the paint was doing a good job covering your flush.

It was an odd sensation, feeling so aware of your friend’s presence. You never noticed how cute he looked until that moment, when he was so focused and thoughtful like this. He had always looked handsome to you, but for whatever reason, the dash of red on the corner of his lip never looked more enticing than it did then.

After a bit more staring, he smiled softly at you, tucking a bit of your hair behind your ear with the sort of gentleness that you have come to associate with him. Your stupid, funny, smart, lovable Renjun. The only boy that you could never stay mad at.

“I think I have my submission for my art project right here,” he said, simply and honestly.

You giggled a bit, not quite understanding. “Well, you got the yellow paint, right? Shouldn’t you head home and try to finish your painting before class starts? You got a bit of time, I think.”

He shook his head, cupping your face like something to be held. Like something to be admired. There was something blooming inside your chest; a field of sunflowers, all of them reaching towards the light right in front of you.

The sun grinned at you, and the sunflowers rejoiced. “Nah. I think I’m good. More than good.”  

[carriagelamp]

October Book Review pt1: Spooky Month

I made the conscious choice this month to try to read some “spooky” books, and honestly it’s been a really fun way to get into the Halloween spirit in a way I haven’t in years. So pt1 of my October posts will go up on Halloween, and pt2 will come after with the non-spooky books.

Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark

A classic from my childhood that I obviously had to reread the second I decide to do this. Thanks to the movie (which I also watched last August) there’s copies of these books everywhere again and I was able to pick one up cheap. Nothing “scary” for an adult reader, but some of them still gave me delightful little chills when I was reading them every night before bed! Also they’re tons of fun to read out loud -- getting to scream ME TIE DOUGH TY WALKER at my cousins was a goddamn delight.

Goosebumps: Escape From Bat Wing Hall

Readers beware. You choose the scare. 

My friends and I played with this book tons as kids, and was another delightful one to reread. I read it out loud for my girlfriend (who had never read it before) and I got to watch her die miserably multiple times in her attempt to win. OBVIOUSLY you don’t lean INTO THE MUMMY SARCOPHAGUS, fool.

Goosebumps: Wolf Skin

Last Goosebumps book I’ll mention, promise. But I was actually surprised by what a well put together story this was. The characters were nothing to write home about, but it built tension really well, and the plot twist at the end delighted me. The story starts when Alex, aspiring photographer, goes to stay with his aunt and uncle in the small community of Wolf Creek. Except he runs into something truly terrifying when he’s in the woods trying to get a good picture to submit for the Halloween Photo Contest, and strange sounds and sights seem to come from the reclusive neighbours’ house...

 Honestly, if you want to revisit you childhood Goosebumps phase (or just want something chill and “spoopy” to read that won’t take you long, since that was what I needed) I would totally recommend going with this one.

Hilda and the Mountain King

I am eagerly awaiting the second season of the show, so obviously I had to get into the comics. After the cliffhanger that Hilda and the Stone Forest left us with, I was dying to get my hands on this one. The sudden shift the story seems to take from misadventures to a greater plot was fascinating, and as always the art was gorgeous and the world so enticing I never want to leave it. After a fight with her mom, Hilda finds herself stuck in the troll mountains with no way to escape as she is right now. While Hilda learns more about troll society and her own predicament, her mom is frantically trying to find Hilda and get her home. Stunning, but don’t read without reading Hilda and the Stone Forest first.

ParaNorman

The novelization of the Laika film, and about what you would expect. If you liked ParaNorman, this is a fun, quick novel that does the movie justice, though without delivering any other real surprises and bonuses. It tells the story of Norman, a normal boy with the unusual gift to be able to speak with ghosts that no one else in town sees or believes in. Life is tricky enough, but then on the eve of the great Witch Trial that the town is famous for an ancient curse is reawakened and Norman finds himself wrapped up in the middle of it all.

I Spy: Spooky Night

Falling into my Read For Joy category of books. I loved I Spy books as a kid but was never allowed to buy them. Well, I’m an adult now who is fully capable of buying I Spy books! I spend about a week gradually solving all the riddles and it was such a wholesome joy I can’t recommend it enough. I just love looking at how the pictures are put together!

Alice Isn’t Dead

The story is about a woman who suffers from anxiety, and who recently experienced the loss of her wife, Alice. Except Alice has started appearing all over the place, in news casts, at the edge of the screen, and Keisha is compelled to follow her missing wife’s trail, taking the job as a cross-country trucker and finding herself thrust in the midst of horrors she could never have imagined.  I’m not finished this one, but so far it is unfortunately disappointing. I really enjoy the podcast, but the novelization leaves something to be desired. Switching from the original spoken person framing device to plain prose means a lot of the chilling, unsettling, and beautifully poetic descriptions have been dropped, and the the writing feels a lot flatter and less compelling to me. I wish they’d done what they did with the Welcome To Night Vale adaptation and just kept it in it’s original script format. Still, it’s intriguing story, and I always enjoy some queer lit.

Warren the 13th and the Whispering Woods

It has a similar heart to The Series of Unfortunate Events, though a little less melancholy and a bit more fantastical. This is the second book of the series that follows a young boy, Warren, the 13th in a line of Warrens who have always run the hotel. Once the hotel fell into his uncle’s care though, after his father’s death, it became increasingly run down and dilapitated, though Warren worked the hardest he could to keep it running. Filled with secrets, riddles, witches, monster, and off-the-wall adventure, it’s a engaging, easy read. The biggest highlight though? The pages are all SO MUCH FUN TO LOOK AT

xxxHolic

One of my old manga that I reread this month. Not true “horror” by any means, but I’ve always loved stories that play with a just-beyond-your-vision, cosmic sort of spookiness. Filled with lots of ghosts, a spirits, and forces working against Watanuki, you get a story of a high schooler trying to deal with mundane problems like friendship, a difficult boss, as well as his place in the universe and exactly how dangerous that place might be. One of my favourite manga, tbh, and there are definitely better descriptions out there. Story, art, the way stories seem to start as very benign until all of a sudden the stakes shoot up? Excellent shit.

The Witch Boy

A comic series about a family in which the boys become shapeshifters and the girls become witches. Everyone knows how dangerous it is for a boy to learn witchcraft or a girl to learn shapeshifting -- that sort of hubris can have fatal consequences. And yet Aster wants nothing to do with shifting, and does everything he can to sneak around his family and learn the witchcraft secrets the rest of his family is learning, he knows that this is his calling. Beautiful art and a great exploration of gender norms through the lens of fantasy; I can’t wait for the next book in the series.

The Okay Witch

Another cute graphic novel about witches. This one about a girl who is shocked to discover that not only does she have magical powers... but so does her mom! Something that’s been kept a secret from her for her entire life. This one also has lovely art, though the story is nothing particularly new. It’s worth the read, but between the two Witch Boy delivers the stronger adventure in my opinion.

Deltora Quest

Another one that isn’t necessarily “Halloween-y” but the covers of these books always scared my brother too much to read, so I figure I can include it. This was my favourite children’s series growing up and to this day I still genuinely love the story. It’s the epitome of an adventure quest, and Emily Rodda went hard when it came to the monsters and horrors she populated her books with. One of the best series out there for grade two or three readers in my opinion, as it really introduces the idea of a continuing narrative that builds from book to book and can have plot twists not just within a single book but within an over arching series.

Liō

A cutely dark comic strip series about Liō, a Weird Kid, and occasional mad scientist, necromancer, world destroyer, and prankster. Almost entirely visual, with minimal text, it’s such a charming comic there’s no excuse for not reading it. Go find some of the strips online, they’re a delight.

[ravenscar-witch]

♕            Her Seventh Sin            ♕

                                                      .• ♕ •.

There I am, committing the unthinkable; the undesirable, and I have sealed my fate in eternal damnation. 

Asariel thought to herself, her research while proving fruitful, now have humbled her high horse. The act performed by the Magistrix is one of heinous abhorrence; to be forever shunned by her people as her father. 

I would never be like him, I promised.. oh how those performing my hubris are laughing in their twisted horns and creaking chairs of karma. 

Stuck inside her head, the high lady mused the ironies and intricacies that the whispering ears of the judgmental will spread about her. Would she lose her station as a Magistrix? Perhaps it was time to abandon the once coveted title of Bloodmage. She hadn’t touched fel in the longest time, favoring her newest fascination with blood of the past few years. Tanaan forever scarred and changed her, having spiraled into a maddening descent that no one suspected.

There was something monumentally breathtaking about the ritualistic art of blood magic. The one a power-hungry mogul like herself naturally obsessed over and often locked herself in her tower about. It took the Magistry of Silvermoon City quite a while to accept her, as the spells and techniques she possessed were of no easy, nor common practice. One commonly misused by savages and they thought her one. However, she brought a sense of dignity and poise to the craft. 

                                                       .• ♕ •.

My brother is the only one to know about this..

Asariel stared at the table rendering her creation. Saving the life of a Sin’dorei was a feat that kept getting easier and easier for the thaumaturge, however, there are always consequences. Consequences she often ignored. Every experiment- patient, as she called them- failed. There were not many, as she dared not push the limits of the law and how not even she can be saved from the wrath of the state’s lawmages.

Only to succumb to its father; Necromancy. When she fell down the hole of fleshcrafting is when it all went downhill. It was one thing stitching flesh back together by hastening the blood’s healing process of open wounds, but it was another entirely to graft skin to bone and other essentials to survive despite how little use she made of it.

It was only a matter of time, after all. Asariel went from despising the art, to skirting around the very edges of the title. Hemomancy and fleshcrafting were all part of necromancy’s deceitful web of seductive lies, and yet she thought herself always above them. 

To the public, she was a powerful asset. An asset that championed the downtrodden and taboo of arts to better assist the Horde as a whole during the Fourth War. She held no ulterior motive than to help assist her beloved at the time. Though their tryst ended, she felt deeply for her project and never faltered for a moment to quit. If society had finally accepted her, then they would surely feel differently about the rest.

Every one but the reanimators of the dead were eventually accepted. She used the ancient knowledge stored in the Forgotten Library to figure out a more natural way of bringing someone back. To store a soul in a vessel even if it not be their own, and have the transition be seamless.

It was still out of reach. The result of one such phenomenon laid there, a peaceful slumber though a lie if anyone were to ask what happened next.

                                                       .• ♕ •.

I wonder how I will hide my eyes, and the rest of the process when a necromancer becomes.. more.

Elves of her lineage were well known to host the magic most prominent in one’s system just by looking at the glow of their eyes. Asariel stared into the mirror of her bedroom’s vanity as though expecting the red glow of the undead to taint her vision to forever alert those around her of the creation laying still. For now, it seems she saved one on the brink. Though lifeless for a vaguely short period of time, one cannot tell the habits the necrotic aura of blood magic enhancing the heart to keep one alive. And not only that, it’s a mystery of the same soul inhabited the body. 

While the thoughts raced in her head and losing track of time debating the what ifs and future, she had work to do. For now, her eyes remained green- the effect of using fel for so long, and only recently abandoning the practice. She remembers the necrosis each necromancer would suffer, and will do whatever she can to remain.. 

Perfect.

[oflgtfol]

ALSO im thinking about The End again, aka the nano story i wrote in 2015 (very bad title for a casual reference like this) 

so like . im just gonna spoil it honestly bc its been years and nobody cares. the whole point of the story was that everybody dies in the end. quite literally humanity goes extinct. the whole point of the story is that you get used to these characters, you root for them through all their hardships as their world comes tumbling down and they’re helpless to stop anything, and then they just die and it’s supposed to hit you really hard because you’re attached to these characters and it’s just so unfair

but honestly? i first thought of the plot in 7th grade and i wrote the story in 9th and i’m in a completely different mindset from then now. i really dont want to write that kind of story anymore. but it sucks because i do want to rewrite and post this story eventually. but i cant change that ending because the whole point of the story IS the ending. if i changed the ending then the entire tone, message, theme, EVERYTHING about this story changes

it’s supposed to tell the downfall of humanity based on our own greed and hubris. i cant tell that story if the characters triumph in any way at the end. we are our own undoing

the way this comes about is through warfare and refusing to care for the planet. my frustration at how full of hate this world is and peoples outlook that “oh we dont need to care for the earth bc im not gonna be alive in 50 years :)” was really what caused this, and back then i was..... so full of anger and indignation about the injustice in this world that i was like “You Must Reap What You Sow” 

so here i wrote a story about a common family. theres nothing about them that makes them particularly worthy of telling this story other than the fact that they’re a normal family. i never even described any physical characteristics of the characters because like, thats not what this is about, i never even imagined what they looked like in my head because the whole point of them as characters is to just be normal people that anyone can see themselves in. and then when the world is taken away from them? it hits you hard. because you saw yourself in them and now they’re facing the consequences of actions we all partake in. the whole message is that unless we fucking change for the better then we will suffer the consequences and they’re not gonna be pretty, so fucking Get It Together

but now im in a different mindset. im still very much frustrated at all this but im.. a lot more adjusted to the idea of injustice in the world. by god i am full of anger but its no longer so.. all consuming as it was.

idk how to explain this but like if you read my posts about space and how humanity has the potential for good, yadayada, then like thats basically what i’m trying to get at. i’ve actually.. become a lot more positive over the years! i’ve sat back and realized that like... the issue with human greed and apathy is rooted in society, people are blinded to the impact of their actions and they never really realize what’s Up..... i think it’s just kinda a harsh way to get my point across, in the original story.

nowadays i want change to come about through hope and peace and cooperation with fellow humans.. i know it probably wont happen that way but ideally thats what i want. i’ve sat back and seen that like, god humanity has so much potential for good and it’s just so upsetting that we time and time again use it for evil. it really is upsetting that we’ve accomplished so fucking much and then we go and do heinous things. we destroy the earth, thousands (millions?!!) of species go extinct because of us, and then you look at the sins humans commit against each OTHER - genocide, murder, bigotry, its just, why the FUCK are you wasting all your measly time and space in this universe on such horrible horrible things when we can use this for GOOD like what is the POINT

and yes im MAD ABOUT THIS but now im .. not only mad but its GENUINELY upsetting!!! but it also gets me kind of hopeful, that maybe one day as the generations go on and learn from past mistakes, that we can put this violent past behind us and come together and achieve what humanity is truly capable of. and maybe this hope that i have is what i want to initiate this change in the first place. that maybe if people saw what good we’re capable of too then they would want change to come about, and maybe if we all realized this then we’d all be able to come together and see it happen for real

and like. that vision i have now conflicts a lot with the original story i wrote for the end and just. yeah idk.

ANYWAY so my main point here (god i started rambling) is that im thinking of .... now this may be a stupid idea LOL but maybe i could rewrite the original in its depressing bullshit, but then maybe do an alternate version where things do work out in the end.... like two sides of a coin, in one overall story... one timeline where things go wrong - what will happen if we dont change - and where things wind up right - what can happen if we work for it. it still keeps the original warning in my message intact - reap the consequences of your actions if you dont work to improve - but showing the flip side of how improvement is good may actually help that message even more in the end??? IDK im just throwing ideas out here but i’ve been thinking abt the end a fair amount lately...

also bc im a cliche bitch and love working with conflciting ideas i’d call the more optimistic outcome The Beginning maybe to play off The End lol

also im kinda thinking, because rewriting + writing a whole second part will take FOREVER, i might release the original draft of the end. it sucks whole ASS and i literally never even named a character or two because i didnt feel like it (since i was working under nano time constraints) but like, god just to get it OUT there....

[the-dubstep-strawberry]

Asks for Margo -- 19, 29, 44

Oh my God, this has been sitting here forever. I am so sorry, @maxrev! These were good questions btw, it took me a while to think #19 over in particular…

19. What were your character’s deepest disillusions? In life? What are they now?

Margot has always had a healthy amount of scepticism when it comes to authority. While she loved and believed in the USA and thought it was a good place to be, she was never really convinced that she should trust in the infallible wisdom of the government or the idea that Science! would fix everything. Rumors of corruption, oppression, and negative news being hushed up by the authorities quietly bothered her, even though nobody around her cared to talk about it very much.

Things she definitely believed in, however, were justice and the rule of law - as a young lawyer, she witnessed her society coming apart at the seams, and while she’d never considered herself one of nature’s activists, she was sufficiently rattled by the increasing numbers of civil rights violations to start championing the cause of citizens who were being hung out to dry by those who were supposed to protect them. Had her career continued, I think she would have become a thorn in the side of local government, and experienced increasing opposition and harassment by those would have preferred to see her clients’ cases covered up.  

Post-War society came as quite a shock to Margot, but meeting Preston Garvey and the Minutemen early on (and later on, Nick Valentine, the ultimate Good Cop) helped to reaffirm her faith in humanity, as well as her belief in the importance of helping others, maintaining order for the benefit of all, seeking justice for the wronged, and keeping innocent people safe from those who sought to harm them.

Other firmly-held beliefs, however, took quite a beating in the years following the Great War. She’d been raised in a church-going family and always believed that no matter how much bad seemed to be happening in the world, things would turn out all right in the end, but her husband’s senseless murder and some of the horrors she saw in the wastes made her start questioning her childhood faith.

The importance of family took an even bigger hit after she found that her kidnapped infant son had grown up to embody some of the things she hated the most - abuse of science and power, holding human rights and lives in contempt, living in luxury at the expense of others, causing unnecessary suffering, refusing to share knowledge that could improve the lives of others, and disdain for her efforts to help the remaining survivors rebuild wasteland society. Forced to take up sides against her own son in favor of the people of the wastes, she became deeply and bitterly disillusioned with the idea of the perfect Pre-War family and the home with the white picket fence. However, adopting young synth Shaun after the destruction of the Institute has helped her come to terms with her loss, and her family unit has grown to include many other important people in her life - friends, neighbors, comrades, pets, robots, and even the occasional Super Mutant.

She became somewhat disillusioned with the Brotherhood of Steel for a time, in the wake of the Blind Betrayal incident, although she still believes in their cause, and her own disregard for what she considers to be unlawful authority helped to protect Danse from the worst of the consequences. After demanding concessions from Elder Maxson (and ultimately making him an offer he couldn’t refuse), she’s working her way back to being a productive member of her faction again, this time with Danse at her side.

She does, however, very firmly believe that death is preferable to Communism. Some old habits just die hard.

29. What is your character’s weaknesses? Hubris? Pride? Controlling?

Margot’s greatest weaknesses stem mostly from her impulsive nature. She’s quick to anger and quite incredibly vengeful when wronged, although the people around her are usually enough to remind her that she needs to keep that particular impulse in check. She wants (and usually tries) to think things through, but her plans are often forgotten in the heat of the moment, and she often makes hasty decisions that she comes to regret. She is also plagued by anxiety and self-doubt - Nate was the person who helped her to overcome much of her social anxiety when they were younger, and now that he’s gone, she often feels lost, afraid and out of place, although she does her best to hide it - and overcompensate - with confidence that could sometimes be mistaken for arrogance. She is also desperately afraid of losing family or friends after the deaths of her husband and son, and frequently has nightmares about seeing loved ones injured or killed.

44. How badly do they want to obtain their life objectives? How do they pursue them?

Many of Margot’s original life objectives have already been lost, or become impossible to obtain. Her life as a Pre-War housewife and mother is gone for good, although she’s trying to make up for 200 years of lost time by being a Post-War mom instead. Her ultimate career objective was to obtain the Attorney General’s office for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts - she now has to make do with being a former attorney (and General) in the Commonwealth instead. She’s done her best to take those changes in her stride, and military life suits her - she’s making good progress in her military career with the Brotherhood of Steel, although she’s still rather uncomfortable with having obtained the rank of Paladin under (somewhat) false pretenses.

She’s slightly more comfortable with the Minutemen and enjoys building up the faction (with Preston’s help), and finds it particularly satisfying to see new communities in the Commonwealth rising from the ashes of the old ones. Her ultimate Post-War goal is to have a happy family life and to see her home state and city thriving again, and she’s well on the way to accomplishing both.

As for how badly she wants to obtain those goals? She’s very determined indeed, although she tries to avoid using phrases like “the greater good” (she knows where that path leads and wants none of it) and she will go to great lengths to avoid causing any harm to civilians or other innocent people. No matter how much she wants something, she refuses to get it at the expense of people who have done nothing to hurt anyone. Enemies, however, are fair game and she’ll use stealth, subterfuge, or even fight dirty if she has to - after all, there are no Queensbury Rules where Raiders and Gunners are concerned.

[shouter-to-dead-parrots]

Short Story - “The Adjustment”

“The Director will not like your report”, said Eleanor.  “What you propose is insane.  How the hell are you going to sell that shit to anyone?”

“The numbers are all there, Eleanor”, I replied.  “I don’t like what they say either, but I’ve run them a hundred times with deviations on the scenarios and the results are the same - plus or minus five percent.”

“Plus or minus 50 million,” she said.  “That just can’t be true, Adam.  Did you use the standard projection algorithms?”

“And the advanced, and the experimental, and the old ones.  They all gave essentially the same answer.  All of the projections eventually converged within five percent of each other.  Three tracks came in less than one percent apart. 

“These numbers are as solid as our computers can make them.  Is this unbelievable? Is this totally insane?  Is it a ride on the WT&F?  Hell yes.  I wish they weren’t.”

The comm on Eleanor’s desk beeped. “He will see you now.  I don’t know if I should wish you good luck or not.”

I smiled at Eleanor and replied  “I don’t know either.”

I entered the Director’s office and walked up to the desk.

“Projection Statistician Adam Mackensie sir.” 

“Sit down, Mr. MacKensie”,  said the Director. “This is one hell of a projection you have here,” he said, holding up the data pad on which I could see my report.  “Where the hell did you get this from?”

“The upcoming year is a major inflection point in some major countries.  We know many of the current actors will be contending for power.  While the behavior of some of these individuals is difficult to project, a distribution analysis of their past actions does provide a basis for calculating their future actions.”

“You mention here that psychological aspects of the prime individual remain a wild card in these calculations.  Explain.”

“Psychological aspects are a wild card because there is no accepted method for factoring them into the projection process.  Several experimental frameworks exist but they appear to have very little shared theory and processes  - no easily located common ground.  For that reason I have not included such data into my projections.  However as noted in footnote four, one reasonable approximation of psychological aspects of individuals can be to increase the randomness factor in certain modelings.  I have done so for data sets six, eight and nine, for which this idea appears most applicable.  The original computations are, of course, also included.”

“I noticed that.  Your randomization factoring gives some very interesting and also disturbing results. In fact I find all your results disturbing.  If true, these projections are extremely disturbing. If not true, then this deviation from your usual standard of work is disturbing.”

“I understand,” I replied. “I hope these numbers are wrong, that I missed something important, that I made an impulsive conclusion which is not really backed by the data.  I am very disturbed by these projections.  

“But I know that just because I am not sure about a projection, that does not mean it should be dismissed.  Even if what I learn from it is what not to do in the future, all projections have value, even if they are wrong.”

The Director leaned back in his chair, listening.  After an eternal few seconds of silence, he leaned forward, placing his arms on the desk.

“I believe that you believe your projections.  I find no procedural or process errors in your computations.  I have no objections to your source data, though I think some of it is well outside our usual information acquisition channels, but that is how we get answers - ‘Listen To Everything’.

“You are not the first Projection Statistician to bring me a report like this. Two others very similar have landed on my desk in the last three months.  They were also disturbing and in places, terrifying.

“Now I have three data points - although your projection is not as … colorful as one your colleague’s.  But they all say essentially the same thing.”

“Thank you sir,” I replied.  “It is reassuring to know that others have followed the bread crumb trail and reached the same destination.”

“Now,” the Directory continued, “About this possible ‘adjustment’ of yours.  No one else has suggested much in the way of revectoring their projections - such things are usually way above the paygrade of a Projection Statistician.”

“Indeed so, sir.  I assure you that my projections were not influenced by my theoretical adjustments.  The adjustments are the product of counter-scenario infraction point analysis. “

“Yes, I recognized the structure of the adjustment scenario. But this is the most extraordinary adjustment I have ever seen.  It is also the most unbelievable and horrible one I have seen.”

“Yes sir, I am aware that this may fall into the category of world-wide effect with long-term alteration of societal and economic structures.”

“Well, that’s one way of saying it.  I trust you know what happened the last time an adjustment of this type was employed. It was meant to quickly end a terrible war but indirectly caused another more horrible and murderous war.  I’m not sure we made the right choice.”

“I agree that the 1918 adjustment had severe unexpected consequences. As did those of 1940 and 1943. I am fully aware of the hubris of attempting such large scale adjustments.  Understand that I would not have even worked on a counter-action had not the conclusions of all these projections converged at the same place at slightly different times.”

“This idea of yours would.. “

“Cause considerable damage and losses, but still orders of magnitude less than the projections.”

“I am not sure that I can agree with you on that,” said the Director.  “Our goal is to avoid as much trouble as possible, to smooth the road as well as we can - fill the holes, remove the rocks, put up guard rails.  We don’t blow up the road.”

“I consider this placing tire spikes on the road,” I replied. “We can see the bus weaving from side to side at a dangerous speed.  We know the driver is reckless and none of the passengers who can speak to him will be listened to. 

“I am telling you that the bus is soon going to take out a guard rail and crash into the ravine, killing many and wounding more.  Ripping up the tires will not stop the bus, but they won’t be going fast enough to breach the guard rails. Yes,the bus will be damaged and quite likely a number of the passengers killed, but more will walk away than be carried and the driver will be pulled from behind the wheel.”

“Are you sure about that?” asked the Director.

“No way in hell,” I replied.  “The probability distribution here is totally insane.  A million things could go wrong - and the outcome would still be better than letting the bus fall down the cliff.”

“You estimate the loss at about 1.3 billion, plus or minus 50 million.  Your adjustment comes in at about 10 to 12 million.  Still a lot.”

“The difference between going over the edge and smacking up against the guard rail.  I am not happy with any of those numbers. I don’t want any of them to be right - I want them all to be so damn small that everyone gives me shit about it.”

The Director is quiet for another eternity.

“Adam, I believe your projections.  Your work is as solid as anything I have seen in years.  So is the work of your colleagues who came to the same conclusion. If things continue as they are, certain powers will consider themselves totally unrestrained.  What is already bad for many will become horrible. It will only take a small match to start a huge fire.”

“And finally the long knives,” I said.  “Eight-nine percent probability of another world war within three years.  At best there would be about 100 million dead during the first week.  Then more war, more bombings, more genocide, more dying of a rampant contagion.  Hundreds of millions die in the vacuum where governments used to be.  My number of 1.3 billion sounds insane, but every projection gets there within twelve months of the war starting.”

“But your way could also kill millions”, said the Director.  “Do you really believe that this would properly adjust the vector?”

“All evidence indicates that Actor One would fail to manage such a crisis, bringing forth a chaotic response that would cause great suffering and damage and that would be enough.”

“Have you considered the unexpected side effects or consequences of this plan?”

“All that I can without trying to factor in more psychological vectors.  But yes, there will be unexpected side effects.  There always are.”

“Sometimes the ‘side effects’ are more important and more remembered than the actual actions taken.  And more deadly.”

“Yes sir, there are a lot of wildcards in this game, and we don’t even know how many cards are in the deck, much less who is the dealer.  We will have to deal with that when it comes up.”

“Not ‘if’?”

“We both know the answer to that,” I said.

“How do you get the tacks on the road?” asked the Director.

“The same way you always do - let people do what people do, despite being told how bad or dangerous it is.  But we will have to do a nudge here and there to keep up the momentum.  We both know that won’t take more than a couple of months.  And we have less than a month to take action.”

“Why hasn’t this crossed my desk earlier?”

“I did not believe that a projection of this grave a nature should be presented without at least the outline of a possible adjustment or revectoring.  I ran many scenarios, tweaking the parameters to come up with something better.  Time has run out for that.” 

“Indeed, the Board of Governors will not meet for two more weeks.  That does place a considerable time restraint on this plan.  I suppose I could authorize this as an emergency act, or conduct a flash poll of the Governors, but I suspect some of them would have considerable problems with this proposal.”

“I believe you are correct about that,” I said. “Taking into account the composition of the Board, I agree with your assessment.”

“Well thank you Mr. Mackensie.  You have left me with much to think about - and have nightmares about.”

The Director and I rose from our chairs. We shook hands and I turned to leave.  I was just about at the door when he spoke to me again.

“You are right.  That son-of-a-bitch is going to get us all killed.  This is an insane way to get rid of him, but I haven’t yet been presented with an idea that isn’t a hell of a lot messier.  It may be that we sacrifice the lives of millions than lose billions later.  We shouldn’t have that power.  No one should have that power.  Only God should have that power, and oh are we not presumptuous to believe that we are fit to wield it.”

“This was not what I signed up for either,” I said. “Maybe we are better off not knowing?”

“You and I know that is bullshit.”

I nodded in agreement.

“I dare not authorize this, you know that?”

“Yes sir, I know that.’

“What would it take?”

“All you need is a living body in the right place at the right time,” I said.

“Aren’t you due for some time off?  You have been working very hard.  Take a trip - see some exotic corner of the world.  And then go to Europe, Russia - take the Grand Tour.”

“Thank you sir, but although I do not complain about my compensation, such an undertaking is well beyond my means.”

“That can be managed,  Mr. Mackensie. That can be managed.”

The look on the Director’s face stifled any questions I might have had.  I understood.  Oh fucking hell I understood.

“Yes sir, good day sir.” I walked out the door of the Director’s office and heard it close behind me.

“How did it go?” asked Eleanor.  “Still got your job?”

I looked her in the eyes.  Within seconds she understood.  Her face went pale.

“Oh shit”, she said.

“Oh shit,” I replied.

[elegant-etienne]

What sort of moral code do they follow?What circumstances would make them break their moral code?

1. In life and death, respect all, as we are equal upon Nald’thal’s scales.

“My personal moral code is that all life is equal. I have killed in the past: I do not enjoy it, and I do not believe in making others suffer. I think it is an act of spiritual impurity to take souls to Thal’s gate before He has decided to take them, and that means I will not kill when I don’t have to. Of course, as an adventurer, there were many times I committed this sin with the convenient excuse I had no choice. Survival is still a better choice than my own death, and when it comes to that, I’ll always choose my own life over another.”

Etienne ‘tsks’ quietly.

“I believe the dead deserve the utmost respect, and it is my sacred duty to help them to the Gates of Thal, or to the side of their holy deity - and I will always do what I can, for enemy or stranger, to help them on their journey. Thal judges them - I do not. Those who are not ushered to their proper rest are likely to become angry spirits - ghosts are bad enough, but the bitter dead call to the Void, so it’s housekeeping as much as it is a spiritual calling.”

A pause. “I am strictly against desecrating bodies of the dead. I think necromancy is disgusting and spiritually impure. But I don’t think that’s a shocking point of view. As far as necromancy is concerned, you might as well open a portal and welcome in a voidsent - that’s more straightforward. You are fooling yourself if you think anything will else will inhabit the shell of a living thing once its soul has left.”

Etienne leans in closer. “About dying... The thaumaturges will tell you that more money will buy you favor in death, but I have studied extensively and I do not believe this to be so. The weight of your successes - the scale we will be judged on - it seems rather silly to assume it would be something we could understand in human terms. Don’t tell them I said that, however, I don’t want to lose the right to work with them.”

2. We can strive for our better nature, but we cannot trust it. Be critical.

“Obviously, I seek to improve my community and I wish to believe that most people want to do the right thing in their heart of hearts. But we cannot trust, depend or expect that people will do what is best for others when they can benefit themselves. Hells, some people would rather destroy themselves, even. I don’t even trust myself to always do the most correct or sensible thing. What we believe in the moment is not always true - I’d even say it’s rarely true. We are all flawed creatures that way. That’s alright - if we were perfect life would be terrifically dull. But here is what I mean...” Etienne rubs their temples a moment. "I cannot deny that the use of magitek has improved the lives of others I’ve known, or that new innovations in magic have healed those in dire need of help. But everyone pushes forward with little sight into their own hubris - so little caution. When I was drinking, I never thought to myself, ‘I drink too much.’ I thought I was handling it. I thought I was fine. In truth, it nearly killed me many times. It ruined friendships. Within our own minds, we are never as critical of ourselves as we think we are. We cannot blindly trust that even the person we saw as so good-hearted, gentle and sweet would not...”

Etienne takes a breath and closes their eyes briefly.

“I believe that people want to be good. I do believe that. I must, if it is only what I believe about myself. But people aren’t good, and I won’t live my life with the expectation that people will do the right thing, or the smart thing, or the kind thing -- not when everything else has taught me otherwise.”

3. Don’t gamble anything you’re not prepared to lose.

"This one is simple. This is a succinct way of saying people need to consider the consequences of all that they do. If there is a risk of loss, consider every possibility. Make sure you have all the information possible.”

4. Death is the only thing that is true and certain

“This sounds so grim, but it is really just a reminder to be flexible, be skeptical of my own observations and thoughts. It also means... be spontaneous. Take risks - in spite of what I said before. Try and live without regrets. You’ll probably die soon, and it will probably stupid and random and not at all what you hoped. Don’t go before Thal wishing for what might have been.”

A small breath. “Those last two are at such odds with each other that I struggle frequently.”

OOC: TEN MILLION WORDS LATER... Etienne usually comes out as neutral good, but depending on different factors they can be pushed fairly close to the chaotic side of that. Should their mental state become more disturbed, they could easily start believing that it was their right to take lives for the greater good... or even if they didn’t see as their right, that they were too far damned to worry about it anyway, and so they might as well keep going with it. 8)

Etienne was once in a position where they might’ve had to condone or even attempt necromancy in order to save the life of their then-lover. They were willing to do it because they could not bear the thought of being separate from him, but the mere act of realizing that’s the length they would go for love caused them to spiral almost irreparably until another solution was found.

Many of Etienne’s connections are so fierce and intense that they would probably be willing to reevaluate their beliefs in order to save/protect them. They wouldn’t like it, and they would proceed with caution, but they would argue it would be better for them to do it than someone less aware, someone who would jump at the chance to do dangerous magic and become powerful just to see what would happen.

Etienne did their best, but would say in retrospect they did not follow through with #2 regarding their (now-defunct) marriage.

Thanks for the ask @lothcats !

[mistresstrevelyan]

CD Project Red and its Glassdoor reviews

Remember that post I made where I mentioned how shockingly low the score of RPG Darling CDPR was (Esp. compared to EA, Ubisoft etc.) a while back?

It seems like conditions there are even worse & even major gaming journalists picked up on it after Yongyea made a couple of videos on it.

The reaction is rather telling:

First, there’s a sudden influx of five star reviews clearly written by people who do not actually work in the industry. But that’s just one symptom.

CDPR released a statement where they state they want to address these issues and then do anything but that:

The employees’ issues regarding subpar wages, murderous crunch, incompetent middle management, cultlike atmosphere, insane rotations (Their expat rate is through the roof) and complete disregard for their employees’ welfare is completely ignored while they fish for fan kudos re: Witcher 3 and assurances that Cyberpunk 2077 will come out...whenever. Additionally, their self-congratulatory bullshit about re-inventing the wheel and the whole “Abusing our workers is ok as long as the product is stellar!” vibe are despicable. Can you even imagine the outcry if the statement above had been made by EA, Ubisoft, Activision or Bethesda? NVM the “This is Poland, it’s our culture to work hard!” derails cropping up a lot as well.

It was only after Yongyea’s highly shared video that outlets like Polygon and GameInformer began writing about it and, very hesitantly, began to entertain the idea that their latest darling might not be the Dev Studio Of The Year they’ve been pushing ever since TW3 was released. But the fan reaction is outright chilling to me.

From “I don’t give a damn as long as their games are good!” to “Fuck those whiners!” and worse the player base, so easily offended when they feel slighted by a game, doesn’t give a damn about real people being worked into the ground & receiving pennies for their efforts to make that ONE game a reality. There are critical voices who do state that no company is above reproach and no game is worth human suffering but I still get the feeling that CDPR feels encouraged to keep going as they are because why change when there are no consequences to their behavior?

The whole “If you can’t take it, leave!” their “This approach isn’t for everyone!” bullshit has is right out of every abuser’s ABC, it’s utterly despicable. Especially while they keep projecting their jolly “Dev studio of and for the people” farce.

Now let me state that I’ve been a fan of the Witcher series since 2007, way before they were everybody’s darling. I loved all three Witcher games for different reasons, though I think that the third is overrated. The issues in the gaming industry won’t be fixed like this, be they micro transactions and loot boxes on one side OR horrific working conditions and success at any cost on the other. 

Before I go on, I want to link both of Yongyea’s videos, the one before the statement:

And the one after:

Now I openly admit that I am biased in both directions because on one hand, I love all three Witcher games (Though the books are better) and CDPR’s treatment of their consumers is golden but I’ve also been increasingly critical of them lately due to the preferential treatment they’re getting and the fact that they’re pulling shit other dev studios would NEVER get away with. I fully admit that I give my fave studios (IE BioWare) more leeway too because that’s the truth....however I’d like to think that in such a case fan preferences should not matter in the slightest because real people matter more than games. ANY GAME, for that matter.

And now I’ll be brutally honest. CDPR’s overdone fawning has struck me as ott and an insincere PR act/stunt for a long time now. Especially once it crossed the line into hubris ala “reinventing the wheel” (!) at any cost. Never mind their appeasing of and catering to the worst kind of demographic (The “anti SJW” dudebro faction) and blatant disregard & scorn for anyone outside of it. (Because “realism”, yolo)

My interest in Cyberpunk 2077 is below Zero. I will not be playing Gwent either. This is unacceptable and I hope that Yongea will keep talking about this while gaming outlets are tiptoeing around it bc oh noes, the Emperor’s not got any clothes.

/Persephone Out