#how to review an essay

[watermelinoe]

Have you seen this post?

ivyblooms (dot) tumblr (dot) com/post/742518636794839040/ormondhsacker-randsexual-scifigrl47

It’s theories why men don’t write fic, and it’s got such a libfem take at the end, essentially saying: “Fic is written by marginalized groups in order to see themselves in canon, so cishet white males don’t need to write fic because canon already caters to them”

The observation is correct (female fandom is more creative than male fandom) but they come up with the wrong explanation bc it’s only “cishet white males” they’re willing to dunk on.

Gay men and MoC aren’t represented in most mainstream media either, but they aren’t the ones writing 300k fics to resolve this. So the differences between male and female fandom can’t be explained by the need to “see oneself in canon”. Creative fandom and fic especially is a majority-female hobby. But female writers aren’t trying to “see themselves in canon” either bc all they ever write about is fictional men. I’d say that women ACTUALLY write out of intense and often romantic passion for the (usually male) characters, which compels women to generate endless fanworks to satisfy their romantic ideals and numb the pain of their dull realities. Men also have dull realities, yet the fandom divide is purely male/female and the reason is money vs passion.

Women’s passion for fictional escape is so great that they’ll write a 300k fic saga for free if they have to. Do you honestly think any man capable of producing 300k words of creative writing would share it FOR FREE? No, he would try to publish it as an original novel to make money off his labor. Men aren’t socially conditioned to perform free labor like women. Women are conditioned to generate free resources for others while men hoard resources, only giving them away if something of equal or greater value is promised in return. That’s why YouTube (monetization) is male-dominated and they will never touch Ao3, because it’s illegal to make money off fic. It’s the one female-only space men aren’t interested in.

Men live by the motto “If you’re good at something never do it for free.” Whatever passion and creativity men possess comes second to their need for material reward. Women dominate fandom bc we value love and connection more than squeezing money out of every opportunity.

i don't even have anything to add to this bc i think you hit the nail on the head, it's not about "seeing yourself" in the work at all it's about intense passion for the work and the characters and the relationships, and male characters get much more love than female characters do! it's literally the urge to get out your beloved toys and put them in elaborate situations

[sainteclectic]

What is Whole, Exactly?

Part 1 - Calamity

Disclaimer: This series of posts are meant to be my own personal interpretation of the album! I'm just one person, and the beauty of this album is that there's so many interpretations. I don't want to come off like I'm stating facts about the story here- it's all my personal thoughts, you're free to have your own!

that said, let's get into it!

Time Machine Reprise

(Soul)

Oh, live the dream in a time machine I've been waiting forever But I can't seem to find my footing back on one What's the time? Where's it gone? When's beat one?

This is the very first mention of Whole, or at least the concept of Whole. Here, “one” refers both to Whole and the first beat of the song. This sets up the idea that Whole is the end goal of this loop (whether it be a literal or metaphorical loop), and that the splitting of Whole is what causes this loop to continue. Soul has been waiting forever for the harmony to last, but he can't find his footing (i.e. ending the cycle). This segues into the next song nicely.

Dream

(Soul)

There’s still another sunset to be found inside this tangent, so I will try again. And perhaps when we become whole, it’ll hold.

Soul’s determination here defines this song. The first half of this song is chaotic and frantic, the middle half bitter and mournful. Here though, he finds his resolve. He knows that being Whole isn’t permanent, implying Soul knows something about the loop. This is further supported by the fact he says he “can’t go another round of cacophony.” It puts a lot more weight into his words: He knows that this is pointless. He knows that it won’t hold. Whole is an unattainable goal that Soul knows won’t last. But he still tries. This devotion in the face of futility is what defines his character.

Perhaps we’ll meet at Tycho, or somewhere more solar, yet colder. This world’s hard to shoulder. But when Harmonia shines, Atlas beholds her, so bathed in serenity; beauty, in synchronicity; blissfully entwined. Divine. So I will try one more time...

This is the reference most people think of when they think of Whole. Obviously, Atlas refers to Soul in this metaphor. People think of Atlas as holding up the earth, but he actually holds up the sky. He keeps the sky from crushing the world below. Now, what characters are represented as the sun and moon, the two main things you see when you look at the sky? This metaphor is even evoked in this very segment: Tycho is a crater on the moon, and the “solar, yet colder” is a clear reference to Mind, who’s directly referred to as cold despite being the sun. Soul holds up Heart and Mind, keeping them from crushing Whole—his world, the thing that he’s shouldering this burden for despite knowing it’s fruitless.

Now, Harmonia. Harmonia is the goddess of concord and harmony. In fact, she's also called Concordia—which could be the inspiration for Concord as a name. It's unclear here whether Harmonia represents Whole in this line, or she's the abstract concept of being Whole. Either way, Atlas seeing Harmonia is Soul clinging to the image of Whole as a beautiful, serene, divine thing. The perfection of Harmonia is what keeps him going. Becoming Whole is also referred to as “harmonizing” several times in the album, furthering the connection that being Whole is seen as a harmonious and beautiful thing.

{I had an entire paragraph interpreting the mythos around Harmonia before realizing it's probably not that deep, but I digress.}

My point is, our first descriptions of Whole come entirely through Soul and his determination to make it through Cacophony again. It's not until Cacophony that we hear Heart and Mind's thoughts on what Whole means. Next time... we hear those! I was originally going to make this all one big post, but I'm already at 2k words and I haven't even finished my analysis of Cacophony yet. So... no, we aren't doing that.

...I have no idea how to end this post. Ok bye

[azure-clockwork]

How Does it Feel to Read Classic Sci-Fi?

Orson Scott Card: Two of the most interesting books you’ll ever read if you’re willing to look past a handful of things. And then you find the planet of Chinese people who worship having debilitating OCD. And the Mormonism. And the fact that the author is wildly homophobic and ought to read his own books.

Robert Heinlein (or at least the Wikipedia Summaries): I guess that’s a neat concept—oh, it’s a sex thing. Um. Gotcha.

Ray Bradbury: Man, I gotta read this thing for class huh. Well here’s hoping it’s good! *three hours later* oh. that’s why he’s famous. this will stick with me forever and I will never look at the phrase ‘soft rain’ the same again. christ. And then repeat 3x.

Isaac Asimov: Wow, this is such an interesting concept! I wonder how the exploration of it will influence the plot! Wait, hey, are you going to add any characters? Any of em? No like, with character traits other than ‘robot psychologist’ and ‘autistic’ and ‘woman’? None of em? No, ‘detective’ isn’t a character trait. Those are all just facts. Aaaand now I’m bored.

Ursula K. Le Guin: Hah, get a load of this guy! He’s never heard of nonbinary people before. Lol, what a riot; how dumb do you have to be to comprehend that these people aren’t men *or* women actually? Oh, wait, what’s happening. Oh shit, it was about society and love and learning to understand each other? And now I’m crying? And perhaps a better human being for it??

Andy Weir: Alright, this guy’s a really good writer. Funny, creative, knows so much engineering stuff…ooh, a new book! …I guess he can’t write women. Well, he wouldn’t be the first sci-fi writer…ooh another new book! And it’s more engineering problem solving and—wow. It’s not just women he can’t write. Please stop letting your characters talk to each other.

Lois Lowry: Oh, I remember this being fun when I was a kid! Wouldn’t it be fucked up to not see color? …upon reread, it would be fucked up to have your humanity stripped away, replaced with a tepid, beige ‘happiness’ for all time. Yeah.

Tamsyn Muir (let me have this ok): Haha, “lesbian necromancers in space” sounds fun. Lemme read this. Oh wow, yeah, this is right up my alley. OH GOD WHAT. NO. FUCK. OH SHIT WHAT IS EVEN HAPPENING AND WHY IS IT REFERENCING THE BOOK OF RUTH AND HOMESTUCK BACK TO BACK!!! AHHHHHHHHH!! Now give me more please.

[corpsentry]

there’s something so epic about hetero chinese period dramas and i think one part of it is that there is absolutely nowhere in the narrative i could exist.

lately i’ve been on a western media detox— i’ve cleaned english language music out of my playlists and have never been able to stomach western dramas anyway, so that part is easy— which might seem funny, because if i’m in singapore and i hate it and i won’t touch american music then what’s left? the answer is the false binarism of chinese period dramas, at least for me. the badly written ones are misogynistic and stupid and the better ones are less of those things, but regardless the world that emerges is clean-cut and easy to parse. there’s someone to root for and someone to hate. there’s a girl and a boy. there’s the comedy and the drama, the sheer thick drama, the music that signals to you precisely how to feel before the scene even starts going

try to jam a fifth culture transnational transgender they/them with 2 mental illness and 1 autoimmune disease into this world and it simply doesn’t work. and that’s kinda epic lolzers! it’s like watching high fantasy, or super hardcore sci-if. it both represents a simulacrum of the real world and is so far from the reality you know that you understand it as a hypothetical universe, one that disincludes you on principle. i exclude myself from the story and in doing so fangfei from moyuyunjian’s steely gaze becomes all the more important. i give so many shits and laugh and yell and spectate. but i am safe from the eyes of its inhabitants. if i entered the story it would break. so i sit outside of it, clapping by myself

in other news, we gave up on mysterious lotus casebook 16 episodes in. there are many character archetypes in these shows that i can no longer stand; the salacious sexy seductive supervillain lady is not necessarily one of them but the way they did miss ‘this man didn’t even Look at me when all men fall at my knees so i hated him’ ‘no one is allowed to steal buttchin from me’ jiao was way up there. surely a woman can have multiple personality traits and yet you would think from this drama that that is not at all true. and the strange harem that grew around li lianhua despite his absolute loser attitude— like i get it, he’s the gintoki of this show, that’s hot, but the way the women who were into him were written made me want to Eat Horse. it bothered me that di feisheng and lianhua’s homo as fuck dynamic was so intriguing and them + fang duobing was a winning trio but all the women in the show were written like complete fucking ass, and one of the big antagonists being a woman, the stakes throughout were not only lost to me but also Pissed Me Off. also, that case about the corpse flowers dragged on forever and all my pocky wilted

I Just Think, women deserve better in these damn stories. make them slutty as hell, sure, but make them other things too and i mean this in the most generous sense. slutty and proud. slutty and weird. slutty and oblivious. literally anything at all so they don’t come out cardboard flat from all angles. this is why i have a personal vendetta against the ditzy clueless female protagonist as well because if everything stems from the fact that she doesn’t know shit it’s like please someone Please tell her shit i’m on my hands and knees begging. give her more to chew on she’s dying of boredom over there

this is why i liked the so called antagonist of blossoms in adversity best (spoilers ahead). he was cruel as hell to huazhi and gu yanxi’s only parental figure. he was paranoid and selfish and lonely and craved a son’s love from the one person he couldn’t hold onto. in the end he is pushed further and further by huazhi, who won’t give in, to isolate yanxi from the people he loves and to lash out at those people as a way of punishing yanxi. and when he dies it’s because of his own distrust, his own negligent parenting, his absent cruelty from decades of insomnia and lack of faith in his people. but he cries for yanxi, and there’s something so human about that. to think of evil not as a first principle but rather an adjective for a verb that is set in motion by other events. to be honest, i haven’t seen such thoughtful writing in any chinese period drama before or after that and i strongly suspect i will never see such writing again in this genre but man, it was so fucking good (spoilers end).

in the meantime, i’ve dragged my mother to moyuyunjian/the double for the return casting of liu xiening and wang xingyue who are Eating so hard. they’ve got wang xingyue done up with the sluttiest makeup and liu xiening is breaking my heart with her pout and her Sassy Mean constitution and this is a revenge story, yes, but it’s a double revenge story. it’s a grief story. and fangfei is carrying more on her shoulders than lingbuyi imo, and doing so with much more grace too. her step mom’s a dick but she’s a smart, 5d chess playing dick who wears hot shades of green so i’m personally interested enough to keep watching (something lotus casebook DID NOT accomplish with their epic female antagonist…. mein gotte). and the princess too. unhinged as hell but god, so charismatic. and beautiful, with scary big eyes and the sweetest head tilt. fun fun fun! that’s fun character writing right there. the comedy might be too straightforward for my tastes but everything else is kind of hot and sexy And after the coming of age ceremony when jiangli appeared amidst the flowers i felt my throat close up even though we saw her for all of one (1) episode). i was like yes. they got me alright. i Care now

really that’s all that matters isn’t it. we want stories about people we care for. we want to give a shit. why else would we listen to the stories of other people. we are looking for us and the people we love in them

oh also moyuyunjian soundtrack goes hard as hell i love a little three step waltz. here’s a pic from the ‘gym’ for ur time. guten night

[spilled--the--milk]

blah blah blah something about passions being passed down through generations and the ties that bind people together yadda yadda yadda

[signorcerullo]

Book haul!!! The Wizard of Oz and the swedish edition of the My Brilliant Friend tetralogy

[pinkpastels113]

random lore go

when i was in fifth grade i was famously known (and bullied for) being the teacher’s pet bc i was the smartest in the class lmfao and when it came time to do math problems i was always the first one done with all the correct answers and every time, my ANCIENT teacher would just tell me to go around the room and help/teach my classmates how to do solve dem problems and to this day omg i still shudder at the friends and crushes and enemies made along the way

[antonivs]

i've been obsessed with lucius malfoy for over 10 years and i've finally found someone who understands what i need 🛐

[encrucijada]

and again! i wanted to do one for evergreen lung because it's my one wip with more than 3 chapter titles lmao. if i make more of these look away

[ transcripts below! ]

Show Summary: Ezra Borja returns home after waking up in the local forest to find a significant amount of time has passed and everyone believed her to be dead.

Episode One - Creation Act: Ezra Borja wakes up in the local forest with no recollection of why or how, and she returns home to find she's been gone... a while.

Episode Two - Pressed Flowers: Ezra visits her best friend Raquel Hernández as step one on getting things back in order... but things aren't so simple.

Episode Three - Dead Heading: A look into the past and what Ezra's life was like before disappearing in the forest.

Episode Four - Nothing Beautiful: Ezra spends the day with her parents, trying to get a routine back.

Episode Five - Blink Twice: An old classmate hosts a Halloween party Ezra decides to attend to reconnect.

Playing Episode: [BIRD SONG], [EZRA] I'm not dead!

[that-aspiring-academic]

English - Final Essay (rough copy)

Hi!! So, I have an Essay due tomorrow for my English course and I need help. I was away sick for the entire week we were doing writing & peer review, and so I’ve been unable to get much done outside my (rather rushed) rough draft. I need to have this in, ideally, by tonight, and by tomorrow evening at the absolute latest. My grade in English is currently my worst and I cannot fail this course if I want to stay in my current program.

The essay is under the cut, it is supposed to be argumentative, there is no word limit but it’s supposed to be a 5 paragraph essay. Would anyone be able to give me some pointers to improve it? I’ve never written an argumentative essay before and the last time I properly wrote an essay was a year ago.

The Failings of the Hero’s Journey:

Why Joseph Cambells work is not as critical as it is made to seem

Joseph Cambell’s ‘The Hero’s Journey’, as well as the associated archetypes, are imperfect and outdated. Though we are taught the Hero’s Journey from elementary school through to highschool (and beyond if your English Lit. professor is particularly spiteful), we are not told to question its many failings, such as its limited applicability, inefficiency in classifying characters, and all-together blandness it brings to a story, and are often made to believe it is the end-all-be-all in determining the worth of a story within public academia.

The Hero’s journey, while applicable to some stories, is not applicable to all. It was based on historical epics and sagas, often which had little to no concept of the ‘anti-hero’ or characters that were morally grey, two concepts that are now beloved by readers across the globe. While it is a functioning tool to compare the Epic of Gilgamesh and Beowulf, both having similar story arcs and being in a similar epic style, it is a lot harder to use it to compare a novel like A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers to Angie Thomas’s Concrete Rose, or to Xiran Jay Zhao’s Iron Widow series. These discrepancies don’t simply lie in the realms of modern literature, the concept of The Monomyth, as outlined in Joseph Cambell’s ‘The Hero with a Thousand Faces’ cherry-picks ideas from individual legends while ignoring outliers; it is a lot harder to set the creation story of the Raven and the Clam from Haida mythos to the tune of the hero’s journey then a multi-year, inscribed epic, but it is a legend nonetheless. Should it not, then, fall into the Monomyth? According to Joseph Campbell, the format should still apply, yet one would have to twist the tale into something near unrecognizable for it to fit into such a rigid mold.

Cambell’s formula is not just narrow in scope, but inefficient. It wastes time and energy squashing characters and plots into neat boxes with little room for change, when better and more in-depth analyses could be made in similar time frames if one were to forgo using The Hero’s Journey entirely. While one could spend hours debating the role of any specific character and which of the categories illustrated in Cambell’s work they best fall into, one could just as easily list and map their behaviours, internal dialogue, and motivations and come out with a much more detailed picture of both the character and how they affect the story. In terms of plot, The Hero’s Journey work states clearly that each and every story holds the same path, be it for a specific character or the overarching plot, but this is simply untrue. Many works often cited as the purest examples of the Monomyth (Tolkein’s works, and the first 2 Star Wars trilogies to name a few of the more famous examples) still do not fall completely into the pattern of The Hero’s Journey. One could argue that, while the original format of the Monomyth does not apply to every character and plot, it is still a good foundation for many classics and can be rearranged to fit many other tales more comfortably. The former point is one I will not argue, and is a fair reason to still teach it in schools, the second, however, holds issue: you cannot rearrange the steps of The Hero’s Journey, that is its very point. It says that every story follows, give or take, these exact same steps in the exact same order, hence the ‘mono’ in monomyth. It makes sense to cut up and rearrange the steps, it helps it fit more stories and, for middle grades, it is a good way to show the complexities of ‘traditional’ stories, however, in changing it it is no longer Joseph Campbell’s interpretation of myth that one is using, rather a new system based upon it. In this way Cambell’s archetypes and Monomyth cannot be considered a truly good tool, as one has to break and rearrange it to give it any semblance of application to the vast majority of modern, and even classic, literature.

The Monomyth, and ensuing archetypes, were taught to me throughout elementary, middle, and now high school. I don’t believe I can think of a single English course that did not, in some way, reference Cambell. Not only is this repetitive, but it also risks boredom in classes that otherwise are rather engaging. That is not to say that it should not be taught in schools, but constantly hearing it may lead to both a subconscious bias towards stories that follow this format (something harmful in later studies of folklore, poetry, and many nonlinear works), as well as creating a distaste for one's own creativity, cultivated by the repeated use of The Hero’s Journey as grading and assignment criteria. I, for one, have certainly fallen into the trap of the latter. This is incredibly relevant, given the recent decline in literacy amongst school-age children and adolescents. While one should not blame modern English curriculums alone for these plummeting statistics, having little change in lessons from elementary school through high school, and having to do similar, if not the same, assignments every year is sure to drive those who are already underperforming and/or unmotivated for English, or any humanities course for that matter, to try less and be less engaged with the course and it’s material.

None of this is to say that Joseph Cambell’s work is not a tool to be taught in schools, nor that it cannot be used in literary analysis, simply that you cannot expect the work of a professor of Medieval Literature that was published in 1949 to be able to apply to the vast range of stories that are available to us and have been created throughout the history sapiens.

[keelanrosa]

terfs when a study shows literally anything positive about trans people/transitioning: 'hm i think this requires some fact-checking. Were those researchers REALLY unbiased? Because if they were biased this doesn't count and if they weren't knowingly biased they probably were unconsciously biased, woke media affects so much these days. Have there been any other studies on this? Because if there haven't been this could be an outlier and if there have been and they all agree that's a bit odd, why aren't there any outliers, and if there have been and any disagree we really won't know the truth until we very thoroughly analyze them all, will we? Were there enough subjects for a good sample size? Did every single subject involved stay involved through the whole study because if they didn't we should be sure nothing shady was going on resulting in people dropping out. Are we 110% sure all the subjects were fully honest and at no point were embarrassed or afraid to admit they didn't love transitioning to the people in charge of their transition? Are we 110% sure none of the subjects were manipulated into thinking they were happy with their transition? In fact we should double-check what they think with their parents, because if the subjects and their parents disagree it's probably because they've been manipulated but their cis parents have not and are very unbiased. How many autistic subjects were there because if there weren't enough then this doesn't really study the overlap between autistic and trans and if there were too many then we just don't know enough about what causes that overlap to be sure this study really explains being trans and isn't just about being autistic. How many AFAB subjects were there because if there weren't enough this is just another example of prioritizing AMAB people and ignoring the different struggles of girls and women and if there were too many how do we know sexism didn't affect the results. Was the study double-blinded? We all know double-blinded is the most reliable so if this one wasn't that's a point against it even if the thesis literally physically could not be double-blinded. Look i'm not being transphobic, i want what's best for trans people! Really! But as a person who is not trans and therefore objective in a way they cannot possibly be, i just think we should only take into account Good Science here. You want to be following science and not being manipulated or experimented upon by something unscientific, right?'

terfs when they see a study of 45 subjects so old it predates modern criteria for gender dysphoria and basically uses 'idk her parents think she's too butch', run by a guy who practiced conversion therapy, 'confirmed' by a guy who treated the significant portion of subjects who didn't follow up as all desisting, definitely in the category of 'physically cannot double-blind this', completely contradicted by multiple other studies done on actual transgender subjects, but can be kinda cited as evidence against transitioning if you ignore everything else about it: 'oOOH SEE THIS IS WHAT WE'RE TALKIN BOUT. SCIENCE. Just good ol' unbiased thorough analysis. I see absolutely no reason to dig any deeper on this and if you think it's wrong you're the one being unscientific. It's really a shame you've been so thoroughly brainwashed by the trans agenda and can't even accept science when you see it. Maybe now that someone has finally uncovered this long-lost study from 1985, we can make some actual progress on the whole trans problem.'

[deepfriedseagullfeet]

gonna start filming today for youtube!! i want to make clay items for my family for christmas and i think it would be fun to share the process and maybe inspire others with gift ideas?? idk ive been really wanting to film something cool, i have all of this week off work (BAD) so im going to try and be productive with my time. as well as apply for other jobs

[i-dont-pay-taxes]

Umurangi Generation: The last generation who has to watch the world die - quick review/analysis

Umurangi generation is a first person photography game set in a fictional cyberpunk-ish world where humanity is facing an extinction level event. We follow our voiceless MC and his group of equally voiceless (yet endlessly stylish) friends on their trip around new zealand.

The game is split into 8 different stages, consisting of classic punk street slums, restricted rooftops and military bases. Our goal is to take pictures of certain objects or people around the map within the 10 minute time limit, these tasks are called photo bounties. The game also includes bonus objectives with every mission, like collecting all hidden film canisters, taking a photo of all your friends, or finding a spot to recreate the picture of a postcard you are shown in the pause menu.

Stage 1 - The start of your photography taking spree is a small rooftop brimming with graffiti and the punk spirit. This stage acts as the tutorial of the game, containing easy to find photo bounties and collectables. The main thing of note is about this stage is just how nostalgic it makes me feel. To be honest, I've never gone onto restricted rooftops full of punk graffiti, yet the amazing art direction and colour palette make this place feel like a sanctuary of teen angst, as if I've missed countless conversations between friends which have all moved on. It invokes that same feeling as seeing years old graffiti where someone confesses their love to a person you have never met. A painful hit of nostalgic melancholy. All in all an amazing stage which sets a great starting tone for this game.

Stage 2 - Turns out i forgot to mention that the indie punk environmentalist game has a complicated relationship with the government (the UN to be specific). The second stage is set on a UN military base which is riddled with tired soldiers and graffiti expressing anti UN sentiment ("I just wanted meaning in life yet here I am" and "My dreams of being an audio engineer are over." are some of the more notable ones). The base is a clear sign that the UN is trying to stop whatever world ending event is happening, much to the dismay of the people. The stage also contains a hint at what might be causing all this, with a sign counting the number of killed "squids" (they look like jellyfish but fine). Upon completion of every stage we get a new camera lens or picture editing option, and this stage requires smart use of the camera lens we got on the past stage to earn a bounty, teaching the player about smart positioning. At this point in my playthrough i had assumed this game had a strong anti UN sentiment, but later I found another way of looking at things, that comes later tho. Not my favorite stage, but a well done one nonetheless.

Stage 3 - Anyone else love cyberpunk? For me it's not the futuristic technology or sci fi story that's intriguing, but the lively backstreets and (depressingly) squeezed housing. This stage is just that, with even more anti UN (and cop! how political!) messaging, so much so that the stage is a no UN allowed zone, with cops not even responding to any crisis calls. From a gameplay perspective it's a way more vertical stage, with a few bounties being hidden up high on the rooftops. Not much more to say about this one, past complimenting it's amazing design.

Stage 4 - If the stage before was about realistic cyberpunk streets, that being dirty, cramed and depressing housing, then this stage is about the cyberpunk utopia. Bright neon signs and loud dance parties can be found above a tunnel filled with the homeless (and more dance parties!). This stage aint for me, as I dislike the bright neon colour scheme... still, it provides a fine, I'd even say amazing, set up for the next stage (remember that). An interesting thing we see are these huge UN walls blocking off all exits. While they were present in the first stage, their position was far away. This stage is, in my opinion, the worst in the game. Not that bad to be the worst stage in this masterpiece of a game tho.

Stage 5 - The bright streets sure were relaxing, what follows them is logically a warzone. Stage 5 starts on the same UN base from stage 2 (yay, reusing assets in a smart and clever way!), but a huge battle has started between the soldiers and... a giant jellyfish squid godzilla thing? The spawn point of the stage is like a flashbang, with people in front of you fighting for their life. The contrast between this and the rest of the game is amazing, and shows how it's not afraid to make darker stages to tell it's story if need be. The stage from a gameplay perspective offers a bigger challenge, with the player having to avoid squid corpses and find their bounties in a pretty dark area. One of my favorite stages as well.

Stage 6 - My favorite stage. A train ride after the battle that happened on the stage before. Everyone stands around in a surprisingly relaxed way, taking their time. From an outside perspective this level of stoicism (while admirable) is completely unnatural, yet when we take into account the seemingly inescapable and unstoppable ending of the world that is to come, that level of calm nihilism is only logical, even if depressing. The photography we do feels like a distraction this time, an unnecessary hassle. This game may present itself like it's about photography, but by now that's clearly not the case. It's about facing the end.

Stage 7 - The train stopped and the last bastion of human bureaucracy is left doing things that bureaucracy does. People stand in line waiting to get let through a UN checkpoint. We don't see anyone actually moving, or really doing anything, we just see people waiting, not even annoyed as it doesn't matter if they are let through or not. Some people are dancing, not even bothering to step in line, deciding a death embraced is the best way to go. We take our pictures as usual and continue, as there is nothing our camera can do to help.

Stage 8 - Back where it all started, back on that same restricted rooftop. It's nostalgic melancholy is finally realised as we watch the giant godzilla jellyfish squid thing threaten humanity. Humans arent really meant to face death, you know? Our friends stand around, some sit and look, some dance, we take pictures, but really none of us know what a proper response would be. The UN built a big fuck off robot thing to fight the damn godzilla, i mean that just aint the action of someone who's accepted death. And so we wait, our destruction ensured, taking out final batch of photos. I can't call that nihilism, I think it's not a lack of hope, but an acceptance that hope won't help.

One final photo - We are transported to a beach, no context is needed. We are dead. Humanity is dead. As we look up we see the thing that caused our doom, and our last action is clear.

After pulling out our camera, a click can be heard, following which are the credits. At the very end it says: "Umurangi Generation: The last generation who has to watch the world die".

My own interpretation of the story - At first, as I've said before, I thought this game had a straightforward anti UN message... and to be honest, it somewhat does. Still, I believe this is moreso a story about what being a generation that has to face the death of humanity is like. We are destroying the planet, to say the least. We are watching our world die, and the generation after us will also have to do the same, so to be the last generation who has to watch the world die is something both overwhelmingly scary, but also indescribably easing. The ending of a book is always somewhat relaxing, no matter if good or bad.

I don't think I need to point out the obvious connection between global warming and the story of this game, but i'll just add that one of your friends is a penguin, and I chuckled when i got the irony of being in the same position as the penguin, losing my life to something i can not stop.

The anti UN sentiment this game provides is a direct response to the mishandling of major national crises in the year of 2020, from my personal reading this game isn't so much against the UN as it's against the damaging of local citizens and cultures by the UN's mismanagement.

Conclusion - The game is fucking good go buy it already!

[laulo821]

do you have thoughts on hersheys/american chocolate

to be frank i don't know what "american chocolate" reeeaaally means. like. do kitkats and mars and twix and stuff count? they're not chocolate per se, more like chocolate fingers. but if those are included, yea all that shablang is good but arguably more for the filling than for the chocolate itself (but since they're so common maybe they're france/europe-made and if so they definitely taste differently than real usamerican ones)

also i am not the best one to answer this kind of question cuz i have a very low sugar tolerance, i'm not a chocolate bar addict and i'm not a snacker in general at all. so yknow!! maybe biased answer!!

now to the taste test.

i have gone to three different superstores, a sweets-specialised store and a usamerican-specialised store and this is the only type of hershey's i could find so very limited choice here (arguably since it's not a plain chocolate i'd argue the test is null and void but let's carry on regardless)

(+ reese's cup cuz it's very usamerican, it's not very common and i never had one before. although it belongs to the chocolate finger kind of sweets)

the reese's cup is genuinely a horrible, awful snack. i'll be completely honest and had "mini reese's cups" before this test (i'm writing this live btw) and i was very close to just spit it all out because of how disgusting it was to me. and it happened again with the big ones lmao, albeit they were more balanced. by the second cup it's a bit enjoyable but it's really not . good. milk chocolate + peanut butter is Not It (never had peanut butter before so maybe it's solely because of the pb). plus it's sooooo sugary. i'm not gonna sleep tonight after this. i feel like i drank a cup of monster energy drink but there's no caffeine so it's not even worth it

now the hershey's – i took a square of black chocolate for cooking before hand to remember the taste of my usual chocolate (i don't like black chocolate but still. For Reference i had to). soooo. it's good. i like milk chocolate so it's very nice and the crunchy of the biscuit is cool, i like crunchy things. the milk chocolate feels very similar to the white chocolate i'm used to, albeit more sugary maybe. hard to tell with the biscuit. taste wise it's good. however the squares are very little (height-wise) compared to my usual chocolate bars so it's very unsatisfying hunger-wise, a feeling which i don't have AT ALL with my usual chocolate bars (4 squares and i'm usually "ok that's enough chocolate") so i understand better how you can just eat that stuff up until your cupboard is empty

so anyways. that's my review for that particular type of hershey's lmao. would eat again. i'd rather buy a snickers instead though. if i ever encounter regular hershey's i'll do an update i guess. but the reese's cups can fuck right off

[littlemaher1]

Don't ask me what compelled me to make this video...idk either

[orcelito]

Also I got my essay exam back today. Full points!!! Which was a surprise bc my 4th essay was definitely lower quality than the other three (bc I rushed it), but still good enough to get full points!!!!

Makes me wonder what that other one I spied being a 1 was like 🤔🤔🤔 bro was NOT good at writing I guess.