#i don't have ideas for some - even the alternatives

[virtualcarrot]

Ok no wait I'm sorry but can we talk about the sheer, casual, unbridled violence of those anti-environmentalist comments though? We're not gonna pretend that's normal and totally acceptable behavior, right?

I wish all environmentalists a very suck cocks in hell

[yanmuffins]

Hey there

Im actually gonna talk about your other series

I'm super curious for the yandere Batfam dynamic was they find our reader is a vampire, I kinda like the idea of reversing the typical vampire creepiness and instead of us, is the Batfam that really enjoy feeling the reader drinking their blood and each one figure out a way to convince reader.

For example let's say Cassandra manages to figure out which days your instincts are at the strongest so those days she always makes sure it's her turn to stay in the manor to keep guard and make sure you don't escape while the others are doing vigilante stuff

context.

oooooh vampire! reader ask!!! mild spoilers for future fic, gotham by night.

i'm honestly so excited to see where this story will go. this reader will not only have to deal with batfam issues, but also being introduced to a completely new world of vampires and deal with sire issues on top of daddy issues. she's having a great time (not)!

but tbh, i don't think reader would drink the batfam's blood. she would find the idea of feeding on her family extremely gross, and unnecessary, since there's other methods out there. it could be a last-resort thing, if she was starving and close to frenzy, but even then that would be something she would hate to do, as there is a risk of killing them accidentally.

and one of the main conflicts in this fic is yandere! platonic! batfam just not understanding (obviously, since they've never been exposed to it) the richness and intricacies of vampire culture, practices and social dynamics, leading to them to mishandle reader and her new condition as a vampire pretty badly. not only that, but batfam essentially kidnapping reader from her sire (who had also kidanpped her btw) messes up her self-discovery process as a vampire. oh, and a possible masquerade breach! disastrous.

but i can see the batfamily starving reader on purpose, to get her to drink their blood, saying it's safer for her to get used to drinking from her family so she doesn't feel tempted to attack innocent civilians. and she's yelling that that's not how any of this works, but they won't listen. yup, that's diabolical.

you see, this concept pretty much follows v*mpire t*e m*squ*rad* mechanics. and according to established lore, we have a variety of predator types: one of them being bagger, referring to vampires who prefer to consume blood through blood bags instead of live human bodies. this would be convenient for both reader and batfam, but mostly batfam since they could just arrange reader an endless supply of blood bags with ease.

we also have consensualists, who do not feed against their victim's free will (the lines of consent and free will might still be murky, lest they straight up admit they're a vampire looking for blood and won't you please spare some) and sirens, who seduce their victims! i'm not entirely sure which predator type vampire! reader will be, but i'm leaning heavily towards bagger, meaning she doesn't have a preference for biting necks. but who knows?

to be fair, it's a big adjusment for batfam. you were being weird before you got kidnapped (and embraced), and it takes a while and reader almost going into frenzy (aka vampiric reaction to situations of extreme stress, like starvation) for them to find out, holy shit, she's a fucking vampire now! that's what happened! and they can't just... let you go. the situation is complicated. the person who turned you is still out there, and you're unpredictable, and this wouldn't have happened if they just paid more attention to you! so let them keep you safe (captive) and provided for.

ALTERNATIVELY, deviating a bit from the original concept where reader is taken by her sire and then taken by the batfam straight back into captivity, we could have reader being so neglected and ignored in the family that they just don't notice she's been turned, and she gets time to go through a complete change in personality and confidence, and involve herself with the social and political webs of vampire society that wants to establish itself in gotham. it's not drastically different direction for this concept to go, because either way reader will be thrown in the world of darkness (ha), except here the kidnapping happens after she comes contact into it and in the paragraph above it happens before.

reader escapes them either way, cause she's a vampire ofc, and the batfam didn't have enough time and info to prepare and keep reader sufficiently trapped. they'll keep an eye on her, though.

either way, there's room for yandere madness, dark content, neglectful batfamily drama, sociopolitical vampire drama, vampire! reader being cunty, and all that in both ideas, which aren't that different, really.. i'm not sure! sorry for rambling. it's still a work in progress but i'm very excited for it.

[synthaphone]

Allowing myself to go on a tangent about the nearly 26 year old virtual pet website that i am way too invested in.

So today they released the Candy Pteri. While I appreciate what they were trying to do here with it effectively having two designs that you get to choose between (The "Melted Candy Pteri" on the left is a Paint Brush wearable that can be removed to reveal the customizable base pet on the right), I think in this case, they have created two extremely boring designs when they could have easily created one strong design, or hell, even two strong designs if they wanted to do extra work.

Because with this release, we get a base Candy Pteri with no real lineart changes (like the rounded hair tufts and spines on the Candy Zafara), and an alternate design that's just... a drawing of a Marshmallow Peep™???

I would have WAY preferred a base Pteri where they did something like give it a little marshmallow dollop shape on its head and in place of the tail tuft, like my friend @darieyrie suggested. Or they could give it the Peep dot eyes and more rounded features! There's all kinds of ways you could do this concept.

I'd be less frustrated if the Peep wearable had any Pteri traits whatsoever, but its JUST a Peep that's been slightly microwaved. Which is a little funny, but even more than the Toy Poogle is just an iDog, the Candy Pteri does not have any deviation from its base inspiration at all. It's not actually an execution of the concept of "Candy Pteri thats based on a Peep" if there's no Pteri left at all!

(also are they just banking on the Just Born corporation (who make Peeps) never taking any action on this? it kind of goes beyond 'cheeky reference', its EXACTLY their product. I mean, it seems unlikely that they'll notice or bother doing anything if they do, but i don't really know why you'd risk that.) The saving graces of this design, imo, are that the pink and cream color scheme of the base pet IS pleasant (though the lineart and shading treatment aren't really my bag), and some people will enjoy the novelty of having a pet Marshmallow Peep™.

But really this is just the latest of a number of recent outfit and color releases that feel like they don't think people want Neopets. Like. This cardinal outfit that they also released today.

I love the idea of a cardinal Pteri! But this outfit literally takes away every distinguishing trait of the Pteri to make a high effort, nicely rendered, but stylistically incongruous generic cartoon cardinal????? Its not even a Neopet anymore!!! Even if I set aside my personal dislike of the overly rendered style they're using for more and more of the site assets, this wouldn't work with most of the rendering removed either, because it would still be a Pteri in pose and proportions only.

Not every new design and outfit that's come out in the past couple years has these issues and there have been a number I've really liked, and I DO think its great that the quality of the art has improved since the JumpStart era. But I would really appreciate it if the new pet colors in particular were designed a little more thoughtfully, so that they at bare minimum still resemble the species they're supposed to be outside of the rough pose and proportions. It sometimes feels like there isn't a rough draft or workshopping progress for new colors, and the members of the art team just kind of do their own thing and then the very first draft of an idea is what gets polished and released.

The current art direction for the customization aspects of the site just has me feeling like they've decided to throw out years of relatively cohesive art and world design for a strange jumble of ideas that don't really capture the appeal or feeling of Neopets to me.

[quantomeno]

I have been trying to find the article or opinion piece or whatever I read that discussed this, but this appears to be a significant issue with all left-leaning governments. If you'll forgive the gendered language:

Political analysts have long considered these three fields – managing the finances, managing the economy, and defence – to represent the “daddy” aspects of national political persona, traditionally dominated by centre-right parties the world over. The centre-left parties have been seen to excel in the more “caring” fields of health and education: the “mummy” aspect.

(from here, an opinion piece in the Sydney Morning Herald, which I don't think was exactly the thing I was looking for, but it's the same idea more or less)

People in the tags have noted this occurs with the Tories/Labour in the UK, and it definitely occurs in Australia with the Liberals/Labor (the Liberals are conservatives by the way, it's confusing, we know).

The problem is that people often don't 'feel' the effects of economic improvement, or they fixate on things that are still bad and think when the government is talking about improvements they're lying or think the improvements are happening to other people, probably 'coastal elites' or what we in Australia might call 'inner city latte sippers'.

Then the right can capitalise on this resentment, and even if they don't achieve their claims of making life better, people have such short memories they don't realise things have worsened. Another issue is the fact left-wing policies tend to involved bigger government involvement or significant changes to the status quo, and the right can then run scare campaigns which the left can't combat because having nuanced debates over complicated policies doesn't make snappy headlines. And you also get, as @what-even-is-this said above, the left inheriting failing economies and the right inheriting improving economies. So things often get blurred about who was responsible for what benefit, and if things are good under one government, the other will claim it was because of their actions before it etc etc.

Celinda Lake (Biden's pollster in 2020) was interviewed on the Australian TV show Planet America this week and said something very similar (it starts at 28:23), that the Democrats need a better economic message, a better 'conversation' with the voters the Democrats traditionally worked to support but who now believe the Republicans will help them more.

It is quite sad to admit, but it seems people often care more about their economic wellbeing than any other consideration. Part of it is a sort of survivalism though, where they go, yes, I would like to help xyz, but I'm struggling too.

From my position, well at a distance, I got the vibe this election was just people annoyed at the current administration and going to literally the only viable alternative, as opposed to a population shifting dramatically in their political views. I expect a lot of people don't like the guy who'll be president and don't really even want him to be president, but still voted for him because of his party. It's an electorate who has long been made to believe left bad at economy, right good at economy. Plus you guys don't have a third parties that presents itself as a viable alternative.

Elections are often decided by the political issues that the right is seen to be better at, but a lot of it is just bluff and posturing. The right can talk tough and it makes people think they're getting things done. It's not until it all unravels that people will consider the left. I've got a long discussion about Aus politics below if you want to read about it, which provides some more concrete examples of these things.

Also there are obviously other issues at play, the electorate isn't one monolith, people have individual reasons for voting etc etc etc. This is just one thing that I think was a big factor generally. Harris seemed to be too much a part of an administration they were unhappy with and people weren't convinced she would bring anything new to fix things.

Australia has two major parties, the left-wing Australian Labor Party (yes, Australian English spells it labour, but the party is US-style, it's a long story) and the right-wing Liberal Party (they are conservatives but they're called Liberals. The reason is they believe in libertarian sort of values like the free market and small government). The Liberals govern in coalition with the National Party (ostensibly the party of the farmers and rural Australians, they're more right wing than the Liberals), and so we often call them the Coalition.

(Also, Labor is red and the Liberals are blue, so our colours are opposite of US but the same as the UK. This isn't important right now but I enjoy reminding americans that their colour-coding of politics is actually not the norm)

After 11 years of Coalition government under John Howard, we elected Kevin Rudd and the Labor Party in 2007. Then the GFC happened. Labor got us through very well, relatively speaking. But K-Rudd was losing popularity so members of the Labor party decided to vote for a new leader (this wasn't an election: for any Americans out there, the prime ministership isn't an elected position, it's just the leader of the party in power and they can choose that amongst themselves). And so we got Julia Gillard, our first female PM. She narrowly won the next election, and suffered through a number of things that lowered her standing in the polls (including misogyny, but also a few broken election promises the opposition pounced on) and so before the next election they backstabbed her and reinstated Kevin, hoping the change would improve their odds. It didn't work: Labor lost to (shudder) Tony Abbott and the Coalition. I really dislike Abbott. Raw-onion-with-the-skin-on-eating Abbott. 'Suppository of all wisdom' Abbott. 'Shit happens' Abbott. Wanting-to-knight Prince-Phillip Abbott. I mean, these are just his gaffes. The less said of his politics and personality the better.

The Liberals governed for a simultaneously stagnant and tumultuous nine years. Nine years with three prime ministers being overthrown by their own party and never actually getting all that much done. Abbott, rapidly losing favourability, was replaced with Malcolm Turnbull, an erudite, moderate Liberal who was under constant attack from his government's right wing and got murdered by them at the slightest whiff of a policy that might have the vaguest of emission reduction targets (these years are known as the climate wars and they're still not really over). Turnbull gave way to Scott Morrison. Scomo went to the election with really only one major economic policy which was some tax cuts. He won. Then the pandemic happened and yeah. We went massively into debt due to the huge spending required to keep everyone afloat. I am glad the Libs did that, but it points out their hypocrisy since they had banged on and on about Labor's 'debts and deficits' (I think particularly to do with spending during the GFC) and yet had not given a single budget surplus (i.e. they had been spending more than they gained in taxes etc) in that entire 9 years. And then, when it's their turn to spend big to save the economy, they're happy to ignore debts.

Labor was led during this time by Bill Shorten, a good guy but no one really liked him, nor his 'zingers', and his policies involved a lot of reforms and changes, leaving him open to scare campaigns from the right. Labor eventually decided to shed Bill and put in Anthony Albanese. Albo ran a very small target campaign to try to neutralise the differences between him and Scomo. It was... moderately successful. Labor got into government but really, it was the Liberals who lost because we all just disliked Scotty from Marketing (he mishandled the pandemic on a number of fronts, among other crises including, but not limited to, going to Hawaii during the 2019-20 bushfires and sexual misconduct allegations involving members of his party). The 2022 federal election is a story of its own though. The point is, Labor got into power.

They have given us our first budget surplus in 15 years. A budget surplus had been hyped up by successive Liberal governments who consistently failed to deliver one. Sure, Labor is still dealing with a housing crisis, but prices had been rising under the Coalition who just twiddled their thumbs and eventually suggested the policy of allowing people spend their superannuation (it's a bit like the US 401(k): here it's compulsory for money to go into a fund which you can't access until retirement) on a house (they're still suggesting this last I heard). And inflation has been high, but it seems to be going down, and the inflation was the result of (guess what) high levels of government spending during the pandemic (combined with supply issues caused by wars and the pandemic). Labor has done a decent job of bringing the economy back on track. They've been fiscally responsible. They even rejigged Scott's tax cuts to make them better for lower-income earners. Labor is clearly on par, if not better, at handling the economy and have shown this twice in my lifetime.

But do they get any credit for this? As if!

Labor has been absolute rubbish at explaining how they're helping people. Rubbish! It's why the Voice to Parliament referendum failed, because no one explained it clearly and succinctly. I don't think it failed because people were really racist, I think they just didn't get the point of it. I mean, some of it was underlying racism and a sense of 'why do they deserve this? don't they have enough?' but that stems again from a communication issue since people don't understand how big the gap still is. (for confused non-Australians, I'm talking about the referendum to enshrine in the constitution an advisory group of Indigenous Australians who would give advice to the government about matters pertaining to First Nations issues. The referendum failed abysmally)

Labor is currently heading towards a minority government (they will be the biggest party, but won't have a proper majority in parliament and will need to deal with a crossbench of minor parties and independents). They're expected to win partly because the Liberals are becoming increasingly right-wing (they lost a lot of their moderates at the last election to independents) and the current leader of the Libs looks like Mr Potato Head and has all the warmth of Darth Vader, so they might not win the centre very easily (we have compulsory voting, so you need to be at least relatively moderate to win big). But Labor will struggle (and could still lose) because Albanese is just terrible at getting any cut-through. It's pitiful. Personally, I'd kinda like Penny Wong as PM but she'd need to resign as a senator and be elected to the house of reps, so it's highly unlikely (plus I do like her in the Foreign Affairs portfolio). I think Jim Chalmers, our current treasurer, would be a good fit. He's got twice the charm of Albo and ten times that of Peter Dutton (Darth Potatohead, the current leader of the Liberals). He's also an effective communicator and can take a lot of credit for the economy since he's the guy making the budgets. I don't necessarily think he's an amazing treasurer (he's no Paul Keating), but he's done a good job. The thing is, Labor is highly unlikely to have another leadership spill for fear of appearing unstable (they made it much harder to have a spill after the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd debacle).

And sadly, Dutton has quite a bite, and loves to rip into Labor right where it hurts: the economy and immigration.

Don't get me started on immigration... I totally skipped over it but it's been a big issue here just like in the US.

Also I am not the biggest fan of Labor after they started to shift rightwards (the whole 'neutralise issues' thing). They're a bit like the Democrats in that sense, but the situation is a little different.

It seems like there’s this cycle of republicans making the economy bad and then people get tired of the republicans and elect a democrat and the democrat inherits a bad economy and then they sort of fix it somewhat and then people are like hey the economy is bad it was better during the Republican administration and then they elect a Republican who inherits a better economy from the democrat while he’s trashing it and then people are like hey he’s trashing the economy and then they elect a democrat who inherits a bad economy and fixes it somewhat and then people are like hey the economy was better when there was a Republican and then they elect a Republican who trashes the sort of better economy he inherited from the democrat and so on and so forth like forever I guess

[my-rose-tinted-glasses]

When I wrote about this part during the book club, I talked about how this romance made me feel hopeful and brought me so much joy. And watching this part of the series, I had the advantage of knowing how it all ends, and yet, the way this romance is built, it's almost as if I was expecting a different ending. Cause I felt the same sense of joy watching these two people come together, and I'm sure a small part of my brain was hanging on to the idea that it would be different this time. As if somehow this Young and this Gyu-ho were completely different people and so their story would have a different ending. Foolish, I know, but it's a testament to this show, that I got to be so enamoured with this romance knowing the pain that would follow.

I remember being a wreck when I finished this part of the novel. I felt Young was being so much more honest about himself that he had ever been in previous chapters. But this time I was overwhelmed. The reason of course being, Gyu-ho. There he was. A full person. Not just a recollection of moments told to us by Young, in his words. I could see his smile, the way he looked at Young, the way he slept, the way he brought so much light into Young's life, the way he tried just so damn hard to break through the wall Young had built around himself.

And for a while, he found a way in. Young allowed himself to be open, to be vulnerable with this person. Showing him parts of himself he didn't allow others to see. And what a beautifully normal romance this was. And we were allowed to see all parts too.

I have no doubt Young loved Gyu-ho fully. And if only he loved himself a small fraction of that, anything would've been possible. He doesn't believe he deserves this kind of happiness, and wouldn't even think of fighting for it. 'I'd been too greedy' - Young says when he realizes he won't be able to go to China because of Kylie. Like a sign from the universe, saying, that's enough. As if he'd been living in some alternate reality where he was allowed a small moment of happiness but now reality comes crashing in. And he simply sighs. Like it was somehow expected. So he doesn't fight it. He simply accepts it and does what he needs to do. Don't get me wrong. I'm not condemning him. Nor am I judging the way he chose to handle all of this. I understand it all. But, I wish he was kinder to himself. I wish he could see himself through Gyu-ho's eyes just for a second. And maybe believe that they could find a way.

[laundryandtaxes]

It really highlights how deeply unserious, superficial, and functionally random the populist conservative bit is for Trump (the alternative explanation is being surrounded by enough real conservatives to tame his populist impulses, but I think Trump actually learned his lesson on that even by the end of his first term) that his idea of boosting American manufacturing involves just placing tariffs on basically everything Americans purchase day to day when the vast majority of Americans cannot afford the American made alternatives where they even exist. Perhaps a shift at McDonald's didn't teach him this, but it is obvious to me that the manufacturing capacity of the country itself is a fraction of what it once was- it's not that American goods are just being outcompeted in the global market AND in the domestic market, they often just don't exist at all, or are too expensive for most American consumers to consider purchasing (which they largely have to be, in order to support anything like a living wage for the workers who produce those goods because the person making your T shirt has to eat food).

If the end goal was actually just to make more stuff here, we could just pay people to manufacture here via financial incentives- carrots such as nearly free money. This would still not solve the math problem of the cost of making goods here, but it would mean more factories and workshops making shirts and boots and plates and such, and it would mean employment in those jobs. He could tax an incredibly small population of unimaginably wealthy people to fund it and even call it an "elites tax" if he wanted. He could run it through Congress and brag that it was bipartisan whether it needs to be (due to the makeup of the House) or not. And he could actually inject money, meaningfully and directly, into American manufacturing and its growth. And I genuinely think that would be great- even if it wouldn't solve high prices, it would mean new jobs and it's possible that prices could come down a bit on products if they became more widely purchased generally, and there are enough people interested and able to purchase American made to, I would guess, sustain real growth for those manufacturers.

But that would mean that Elon Musk and literally just 800 other people would be given a new tax burden, and we can't have that because it would squash innovation. Offshoring was an innovation, once. We just ended one of the longest periods of basically free money for them in my lifetime and have seen how much good that does for working people- none.

So no, instead let's give even more tax cuts to the corporations that intentionally decimated America's manufacturing capabilities so that they could pay almost nothing for labor and have almost no accountability for workplace conditions offshore. Thanks for offshoring the work that sustained whole communities and never got replaced in many places- here are some juicy tax cuts for you in return. It's actually a joke.

[tales-of-wocdes]

Question: I’m assuming if MC has blade trauma that they’ll be able to work through it, since they become a silver protector when they’re older, is it like something mc will actually conquer or will it just be something mc learns to make small?

Because honestly, I don’t want Lexia to have to be bladeless forever, and I genuinely feel like it’d be so sweet if mc go to bond with her over swordsmanship (please, my heart 😭). And Lexia seems like the kind of person who would literally abandon the sword forever if it continued to unnerve mc, even if they got it to a manageable level (why is she so earnest 😭)

There have been a few posts with ideas about this one: here and here.

I would say MC will work on it :D There was also some suggestions for alternative weapons but that does not mean MC has to be afraid forever. It will probably depend on the MC of course!

And yes, Lexia would indeed give up her beloved sword if MC she deemed it necessary for MC's peace of mind... but she would like MC to like that part of her :D

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

"It's ok kid." Lexia said softly as she locked her beloved blade away in a container. "It bothers you, so now it's gone."

You stared at her, confused. But she... she likes the sword. Really, really likes it. Why would she?

"Don't worry about it. Let's go get snacks." Lexia beams at you, and ruffles your hair.

You keep staring at her, confused. Why would she do that? Put something she likes away.

Your face must be doing things again, because she smiles more softly at you.

"Kid, I like the sword but you are far more important."

That doesn't make any sense to you. Swords are useful! You are just a broken thing that vaguely looked like a person.

"Don't look at me like that kid." Lexia says and leans down to peer at you. "Your nose will stay scrunched up like that." She whispers.

Is that true? You stare at her trying to figure it out.

She laughs and picks you up.

"Come on kid, let's go to the kitchens. Or play in the garden."

You don't get it.... but with a cookie in hand and Lexia helping you build fortress out of little wooden blocks that floats a bit in the air to avoid the grass, you soon forget it.

[mitchfynde]

There's only one evil. The Democratic party is simply not evil. Government itself has an evil element that you cannot disconnect from it. That's true. But that's not the fault of the Democrats. A country must have laws, it must be governed, it must have rules, and a lot of this stuff has to be done democratically. Do you know how hard it is to make good changes democratically? People are not smart. Our brains are not built for high intellect. Our intellect seems to be mostly a side effect of our strange evolution.

Now, all that aside, I'd like there to be a better system. Some kind of different system of voting that empowers third parties would be very cool. That being said, a lot of what you are saying is just conspiracy shit you've bought into. You think some random third party is going to care more than the Democrats? Why? Based on what? And based on what do you believe they don't care or are evil?

There's barely any substance to what you're saying. You're actually a big part of why American is declining as a nation. People no longer give a fuck about facts. Figures like Ben Shapiro used to say "facts don't care about your feelings" and he was RIGHT, but in that truth he hid a massive lie. He didn't have as many facts as he was letting on and alternative media as a whole is the same.

Whatever you're watching or listening to... I hate to say it, but it's most likely in some way influenced by Russian propaganda to destabilize the west. You're right that someone wants to divide you, and they already have. You spreading this foolish idea that we can all unite, when nobody fucking agrees ON ANYTHING or even understands any facts of the matter... it's all foolishness. This is idiocracy and you're just another idiot.

let me say this.

there is not a single person at the top that cares about you. none of them will fight for you the way you fight for them. you could die tomorrow and they wouldn’t even notice. the illusion politicians put up of hatred towards each other is just to keep the american people fighting amongst themselves instead of turning on those who have truly failed them.

we’re dogs in a ring, and they’re laughing spectators. it’s about time we maul them instead of each other.

there have always been more of us than them. we need to care of each other now more than ever. fuck politicians. fuck the government. change starts within our communities, within us. fuck voting and fuck the two party system. it’s all designed to keep us begging for scraps and i’m sick and goddamn tired of scraps. all of us are.

care for your neighbors. donate to food banks. grow a vegetable garden. don’t bother with these rich fucks, because none of them give two tits of a rats asshole about any of us, so we shouldn’t give one about them. want someone to get angry at? blame the people in power. blame the greedy bastards that will happily screw you over for even a second of benefit for themselves. this is no one fault but theirs. not black men. not latinos. not people who didn’t vote. not anyone else who twitter is blaming right now.

as long as we are divided, the very assholes we don’t want in power will stay in power. don’t let them control you anymore. tear it all down. we can dismantle their whole plan for control by simply taking care of each other. do it not just for yourselves, but for every single child that will inherit this world in the future.

[lunarharp]

What led to this (orufrey comic, cw an uncomfortable/creepy scene)

[retributory]

when you think about it clive and flora are actually perfect narrative foils on complete accident. like what's up with that. professor layton and the completely imagined literary devices

[harrowscore]

if only i could pull off a convincing harrowhark nonagesimus cosplay for the next lucca comics.....

[grim-echoes]

unironically though i think smt may be one of my current favorite examples of creatively implementing theological concepts into its narratives in a way that completely recontextualizes the roles they play. and i don't necessarily mean in the way that god represents law and lucifer represents chaos which are Nuanced Actually i mean that there's usually god and lucifer but then also a dozen other different names for god and lucifer that are basically the same guy irl but in the context of smt they occupy completely different roles with particular philosophies often all within the same game to the point where you'll have both lucifer and satan and maybe an antichrist/anti-messiah who is neither of the former two people and then god who isn't simply god but YHVH but may also be named the creator but who is also subordinate to a greater will and none of these closely related culturally distinct takes on the same idea will step on eachother's toes and i think it's such a fun way to approach ideas like this

[a-s-levynn]

So i had a dream last night which wasn't a nightmare and i even remember most of it! which is super exciting. I barely ever remember dreams that are just simply that so this is a fairly rare occasion for me.

It was weird tho

But it was.. i don't even know what it was so let me ramble about it in the tags a bit

[steakout-05]

drawing my Craig fan design for REAL!!!!! + stupid little doodles

earlier i made a post talking about how i was planning on making my own canon where Crarry could still feasibly exist (as well as having other story beats and whatnot) and i mentioned how i refined my Craig design a little bit from the last time i drew him. i finally got around to actually drawing a proper full-body sketch of him and what he's supposed to look like!!! i think i drew his eyes a little more far apart than i intended but. whatever.

he's my skrunkly. he's my baby. he's got perpetually bored resting face and a phd in Pocketbeasts lore. he's got messy hair and a few stray whiskers as he tends to forget his own personal hygiene, what with being a hardworking scientist who usually doesn't show his face and all. i redesigned his eye to have more of a prominent scratch on it that warps and distorts his pupil, as i felt like that'd be the most fitting for his facial scar and the type of injury he has!

and for fun i'm gonna do a general timeline of the evolution of how i've drawn this design over time, because it's actually changed quite a bit since i first drew him back in 2022!! (click for better quality)

god it is. so weird looking back at that first design. it's so..... why is he so square shaped............. lol

now, in terms of differentiating this Craig from Canon Craig, i've thought of giving him some slight personality enhancements that i've always thought would fit him. i haven't seriously thought about it yet (i am tired) but here's some basic little traits i want to make more apparent in his character:

Logical Knowledgeable Creative Naive Perfectionist Fearful and Cowardly Not a very high self-esteem; Afraid to take charge Easily exhausted Not physically strong; Makes up for it with his quick-thinking skills Easily irritated when presented with inaccurate/false information Easily embarrassed; Tends to erase memories when this happens Reliable Honest Earnest Nerdy; LOVES to infodump about any given special interest he has Focused, sometimes to a fault Detail-oriented Introverted

this will likely be expanded on and developed more, but these general personality traits are quite fitting for how i headcanon Craig to be as a person!

i love how whenever i get attached to a character or even just really like them, i always bestow my best headcanon onto them in high regard: the autism headcanon. gonna try to keep this short so i don't infodump for 12 hours but the major autism traits i like to imagine Craig displaying are issues with social skills (unaware of many cues, accidentally says things in an inappropriate way/unintended tone, takes things literally, misconstrues sarcasm as genuine statements), a speech affect (monotone affect), low empathy (doesn't feel what other people feel and has trouble reacting to and feels uncomfortable with certain emotions), has special interests (robotics and engineering, Pocketbeasts, cats, and he loves infodumping about them!!), stimming (rubbing the back of his head when uncomfortable, fidgeting with and studying a particularly intriguing object or tool very closely, doing little puzzles that make little clicky noises that are very pleasant to listen to), experiences sensory issues (joint pain, eye strain, sensitivity to loud and sudden noises, despises certain tastes and textures, often experiences shutdowns), has a strong need for a solidified routine (sudden routine changes can cause distress for him, as he needs more time to process his surroundings and has a strong need for structure in his daily life), a few motor control issues (he's quite clumsy and has issues with spatial awareness, causing him to bump into stuff. this has unfortunately resulted in him bumping his thigh on the edge of a table way too many times.) and a few other things i've probably forgotten about. a lot of these are inspired by a few of my own traits as an autistic guy myself. the dude's like a combo of Data, Barclay and Geordi mixed into one dorky nerd (apologies for any non-trekkie followers who don't know who those characters are :skull:)

Craig seems like the type of person who, once you get him started, will infodump to you about his special interests for HOURS and he still wouldn't even be done yet. just like me fr. also tiny little Craig getting his face smooshed

get squoshed idiot

this is an older sketch i did when i was still finalising Craig's design along with doodling other stuff on the page. this was a little expression test of Craig blowing his face up with chemicals because 1. i thought it'd be funny. and it was. and 2. i've never really drawn him with big wacky expressions before, and i LOVE drawing big wacky expressions lol. it will be a rare sight to see Craig making a face like that but it'll still be funny nonetheless lol

no comment. only moob. i feel the same way about barry tbh HAHAHAAH what who said that

i fucking LOVE the Yababaina music video so much, it's absolutely insane and fun to watch, although it does put my eyes out of focus when i look at it for too long. heavy eyestrain and seizure warning for anyone who wants to check the video out, it's extremely fast-paced and has a lot of bright saturated colours. here are my three boys drawn doing that little handholding thing Miku, Teto and Zundamon do in the video. also first drawing of Prince Runingunin!!! he's so silly <3

that's everything i have today. i'm excited to draw this version of Craig more and make more art of him and Barry together!! just sucks i have to sorta swerve around canon with a convoluted solution but whatever. i like diverging from canon and making stuff up into my own thing anyway lol. blond nerd craig my beloved

[lord-squiggletits]

NGL I think one of my least favorite "gotchas" that I see/get while critiquing stories is "so how would you fix it? oh so you don't have an idea of how to rewrite the story to make it better? oh so basically you're just complaining that you don't like it and don't have actual critique."

Buddy.

Sometimes the reason I don't have a "solution" to how the author should've rewritten their story to be better, is because I'm not privy to the author's thought process, what their alternate story ideas were, what they talked about with their editor, what they might've been forced to do by deadlines, or even what they might've thought they were writing towards at first but then later changed the trajectory of their story to be about something else.

It's all well and good for me to say something like, idk, "I think Character A should've gotten more narrative focus because their story could have helped fix XYZ Plot Hole," but it could very well be that the author never intended for Character A to be a prominent character (just a secondary or tertiary character). Maybe using Character A to solve one Plot Hole would've gone against the writer's plans because then it would open up a different plot hole for something else they had planned later in the story. If it's an ongoing story, maybe something I see as a "plot hole" is actually a deliberate mystery that the creator left open to write about later-- or maybe the plot hole is because there was a deadline crunch and the author had to drop a certain character/plot point/etc because they couldn't fit it into the story any more. Maybe having Character A be a more prominent part of the story is just based on MY personal tastes and what I would want to write in MY version of the story, but completely clashes with the characters/conflicts the author wanted to focus on.

Because yes, there are some story critiques that are as simple as "part A doesn't make sense, you could just fix it by doing B", but there are also some story critiques where suggesting a viable "solution" would require BEING the author or someone involved in the production of the story to understand what limitations or plans were involved in the selection of that flawed plot point. There are also some story critiques where even if there is a "problem" and my critique offers a "solution," there could be another "solution" or even dozens that do just as good of a job fixing the issue, but involve vastly different characters, plot ideas, so on and so forth.

Being a good critic isn't (just) about going "the story would've been better if X happened" because the story is ultimately in control of the author and their vision, and without knowing what the author's vision was (something that you almost exclusively know if you're 1. the author or 2. their beta reader), it's impossible to definitively say "this plot point should've been cut/[completely different thing] should've happened instead" because THAT is the point at which you're complaining, not critiquing. I would argue that in some cases, trying to "fix" a story yourself actually makes your critique worse, not better, because it ends up being a case of you simply imposing your artistic vision over the author's to say "I think it would've been better this way."

At least if you just say "this part of the story was flawed because XYZ" without saying "it should have been ABC instead", then you're stating your grievances with the story without being presumptuous enough to assume that YOUR version of the story would fit the author's original vision, or the constraints they were working under, or the other versions of the story that they were debating over at the time before ultimately settling on one version (even if flawed).

There's a point at which "this plot is flawed, that should've happened instead" is just fix-it fan fiction and not actual critique that could help the writer write their story in a way that fits their vision.

[icewindandboringhorror]

It's always interesting to hear about people's weird/unexpected "alternate life paths". Like, something that you could have done with your life, a job you almost took, a school you almost went to, etc - that was still actually realistic enough that it could have happened, but NOW it seems to not suit your current personality.

Like for example, I currently hate advertising (how manipulative it is, brands trying to be 'relatable', social media amplifying it to an obnoxious extreme, etc.) so much that even seeing a little ad before a youtube video is grating to even witness, but there was a point in time where I was genuinely seriously considering going into marketing/making commercials as a career lol. Or like, I have a relative who was very inclined to be a pastor when they were younger, even though today they're a super strong atheist, etc. etc.