#i know there will be a lot of divisive opinions on this depending on how much you feel anakin was still ''there'' or

[robotsandramblings]

well now i'm dying to know what, if any, flicker of emotion or reaction crossed Anakin Vader's mind when he read that Captain Rex was listed as killed in action

[akkivee]

rivals

[hwallazia]

SOOTHE ME, SUGAR – 최산

synopsis . in which san pampers his girlfriend when it’s that time of the month for her.

pairing . choi san & fem! reader

genre . fluff, fluff, and fluff (you’ve been warned), comfort, slice of life, established relationship, non idol!au

taglist . @bro-atz | apply to join my taglist ♡

word count . 1,5k

DISCLAIMER! blood (ofc since we’re talking abt menstruation), nicknames (princess, love, sannie & more), very relatable (ಥ⁠‿⁠ಥ)

NIC’S NOTES lowercase is intentional! (wrote it at 1:00am, half asleep (⁠｡⁠ŏ⁠﹏⁠ŏ⁠)) also! i recommend listening to ocean eyes by billie eilish and love songs by kaash paige while reading this. yk, for the vibe ;)

“sannieee”

you moaned from your bed, wrapped in the sheets like a burrito, your knees knocking against your chest in search of some kind of relief. your belly generated pressure throughout your lower area that became more unbearable as the minutes passed, which seemed to be hours. fortunately, san knows how to act in the most docile way in these cases.

as soon as you finished college, you and san decided to live together without having the slightest idea of how challenging, exciting, and companionable that process would be. both of you, although you were in a relationship before living together, had to know, respect, and get used to each other’s home habits, since it would be something you would live with for a long time.

it was somewhat difficult to understand san’s attitudes, which varied depending on his momentary needs, how tired he was, and other factors that affected his behavior in the apartment. but with a lot of patience and love, you managed to understand at least the basics of what you should know about the topic: “choi san and home.” the path you had to take to know the person “choi san” in its entirety was a long one and one that you were willing to walk until the end of your days if necessary.

there was no shortage of discussions; there were many that were needed to be able to understand aspects of both him and you. when faced with an argument, san, first of all, would dedicate himself to listening to what you have to say, he would pay all of his attention to listening to your sentimental and very expressive arguments. once you’re done, he’d continue saying his and finally give a solution to the problem that divides you and wait for your excellent approval.

despite being very understanding and collected in discussions, san hates them with all his being; although he’s a tall man with a strong body, his heart is still soft and as delicate as glass. he hates that a simple disagreement of opinions causes a division with you, the person he loves the most, respects, and for whom he would give his life.

but he knows how to suppress his discontent very well in the face of absurd discussions for which you don’t speak to each other for hours, and even absurder when it’s that time of the month for you. he knows how much your feelings are weakened, how sore you feel throughout that week, in which your need for attention and affection doubles up.

san remembers with affection and laughs that month in which he found you crying in your bed, wrapped in his blankets scented with his essence, because the stuffed animal that you had given him, shiber, had fallen off the bed and, he quotes, “he looked at me very sadly from the ground” and he felt his heart skip a few beats inside his ribcage when a pout formed on your lips at how funny he found the situation. you never seemed so cute to him as you did at that moment.

and the moment san hears your voice whine his name from his room, the mental image was projected in his head without him asking for it or thinking deeply: “you, covered in dark blankets up to your nose with an exaggerated amount of pillows giving you comfort staring at him with pleading eyes as soon as he entered the room.” he couldn’t help but smile fondly.

“coming, love” he says, a few steps away from the room. thanks to his long legs, with four steps he gets there immediately, gently and respectfully hitting his knuckles against the dark oak door. the muffled ‘come innn’ you say with little strength was the permission he needed to turn the handle.

a sweet hum coming from san echoes through the room as he finds you under the exact same conditions that his mind, infected with you, had outlined. he doesn’t wait for you to say another word and he sits on the edge of the bed, watching you with so much love that he could never express verbally.

“how are you feeling?” he simply asks, without being so insistent or trying to bombard you with questions, thus avoiding causing you any annoyance. you have enough of what you were dealing with now.

“awful. the pressure down there has become unbearable, and now i don’t feel my legs.” you stopped for a moment to analyze your reality and the poor physical condition you were in. “i feel dizzy, kind of hungry and numb. but not like emotionally numb, because i wanna cry so badly but i can’t get anything out of my eyes.”

your hands go up to your eyes, under the sheets, covering them in frustration. “fuck, i hate this so much.”

san finally starts talking, soothing you with his honey-dripping voice. “shh, princess. one breath at a time. come on” he brings his palms, which were facing the ceiling, and rests them on your stomach, implicitly indicating that you hold his hands.

breath in and out, in and out. you stay like that for about thirty seconds, maintaining eye contact, his eyes conveying nothing but love and comfort to you. “thaat’s it. perfect.” he praises you, giving you the purest smile known to men, which does nothing but wrinkle your heart a little with tenderness.

“do you still have enough sanitary napkins and tampons?”

you appreciate and appreciated, from the first beginning, in which san became excellently familiar with all the technical vocabulary characteristic of this week that was so painful for both you and san. “no, but-”

he interrupts you and asks again “you want me to go get you some more in the supermarket? maybe some chocolate as well?” it seemed so sweet to you how generous and helpful he was to you when this time of the month came around.

“not really.” you pause briefly, squinting your eyes in search of the perfect plan that would calm, at least for a few hours, your impressive menstrual pain. until the right idea hits your head. “honestly, i just wanna cuddle here, with you.”

another sugary hum is audible. “if that’s what my princess wants, then that’s what she gets.” he sentences as if he was a soldier of a castle in which you are the queen of the “choi san’s heart” kingdom and san is nothing more than your faithful and most beloved servant. he leans towards you to place a fond kiss on your warm forehead, saturated with pain.

you shift in place, moving to the right so that san joins you from the left. ss soon as both of you are already warmly covered by the sheets, smeared with the smell of floral essences, your hand is quick to locate the remote control, pointing it in front of you to turn on the television and immediately go to the netflix app.

while your fingers insistently press the control buttons in search of a movie that meets the common cinematographic interests of both of you, san’s hand is agile in sneaking into your shirt —well, san’s— and cupping your waist in his palm, his fingers tracing scribbles on your skin, calming the pain, the tension and your mind. the magic that san has between his fingers and how they affect you is a divine mystery that would require his own science and study method.

“sannie” you pronounce his name in a faint whisper, disconnecting your eyes from the big screen to focus on the perfect face of your perfect boyfriend, totally forgeting the movie and focusing in his ethereal details.

“yes, darling?” he drones, looking at you adoringly. he truly couldn’t believe how you, an angel fallen from heaven, could be his and only his. and that you decide to stay by his side until the end of your days was the most genuine and beautiful demonstration that any lover has ever given him. definitely, you are different and san would risk it all for you. of course he would.

“thanks for everything. for understanding me and being able to be that mountain on which i can rest when i’m exhausted.” you say, truly meaning every single one of your words. “thank you for being you and for choosing me.”

san’s heart is reciting all the existing love songs to yours. his heart is yours and yours alone, giving itself fully to your love, and yours is the sun that warms his soul, casting golden rays of affection that dance across the canvas of his heart, painting it in hues of devotion.

“no, princess, you have nothing to thank me for.” he stops for a moment. “i’m the one who should thank you; for allowing me to be your boyfriend and please you, for being so patient with me. i know that i’m not an easy person to understand, and the fact that you voluntarily decide to stay here with me only makes me fall in love with you even more; even when i think i can’t love you more than i already do.” san confesses and, in just a matter of seconds, he manages to observe in close-up how in your precious irises tears start to well up in your eyes, causing him to let out a soft giggle, finding it cute. “why are you crying, sweetheart?”

you sniffed. “because you’re just too sweet to me and it makes me emotional. you really are the best boyfriend in the world, choi san.”

“oh baby.” he hugged your anatomy between his strong arms as he laughed softly, giving you a warmth and security unique in the world. “i love you, yn. “so much.”

| masterlist

[infamous-if]

avina's pov was so interesting my impression of them from the demo was that they were more mature and grounded i didn't expect their whole saviour complex with seven it actually broke my heart reading some of the differences between the two povs - avina seems way more invested in the friendship than seven like the bit where they're trying to make sev laugh literally gave me second hand embarrassment for them like oh baby noo get out

I think the best comments I get on the POVs are the ones talking about how they realize the characters aren't what they seem! a few people told me Blake seems a lot more professional and mature than they thought which I agree with

in regards to avina, yeah they and sev both have their own perceptions of their friendship and they're very much on different pages but... history repeats itself and whatnot.

Seven is careful not to repeat history when it comes to having a close friend like Avina but they don't realize they are still repeating history because their flaws from back then are still the same now. Communication, closeness, dependency...it may wear a different coat but it's still getting them the same results. dun dun dun

I know avina is a divisive character so im curious to see how the opinion shifts as time goes on. Maybe more people will like them? or hate them? who knows? their whole situation is complicated

guess we'll see! things must get worse before they get better <3

[tokyo-daaaamn-ji-gang]

how much of bonten and manila Mikey's actions is Tora really responsible for?

Well that depends really, if we're looking at it all from the dark impulses angle then none of it, the curse did it all and made all this happen.

But if we're looking at it more from everyone being responsible for their own actions then he is a bit responsible. (I feel like this is a bit personal and there isn't one right answer to this, more like everyone has their own opinions so this is just mine). Kazutora does two main things that contribute to those futures, first he kills Shinichiro and then he stabs Baji which leads to Baji taking his own life. Killing Shinichiro is definitely the bigger one because if Mikey had Shinichiro all along then he likely would've been able to help and guide him through his impulses/ difficult times. However it's hard to say exactly how things would've gone if Shinichiro were still around. I think it should also be remembered that Kazutora wasn't trying to kill Shinichiro, he didn't even know who he was. He did something stupid (a lot of kids do) then saw his friend being cornered by a guy carrying something which could be a weapon and he acted to save Baji. It was a horrible mistake. That doesn't absolve him of responsibility but it is important to keep in mind.

Now with Baji he wasn't fully responsible for that, he was being manipulated by Hanma (under Kisaki's orders) to not trust Baji. This whole thing was also Kisaki's plan, so I don't think Kazutora deserves all the blame here for bloody Halloween. Kazutora's mental state at the time wasn't great and he really needed professional help. Again this doesn't clear his actions but it is important to remember. Baji also decided to fight a whole division by himself after being stabbed and then stabbed himself. He did it for a very selfless reason and I get it but he also get's some blame here for not seeking medical treatment or making the others aware immediately.

Now as for the impact on Mikey, Baji's death is one of few that sends Mikey closer to his dark impulses. It definitely contributes but it's not what pushes him over the edge. So Kazutora doesn't get the blame for Mikey's future selves, those come from a lot more actions. His actions play a part but he doesn't deserve to be blamed for what happened. Though Kazutora does seem to blame himself a lot for everything.

[truly-sincerely]

How “smart” you believe someone to be depends a lot on what intellectual qualities you value, so there’s a lot of divisive opinions about how smart Gortash is. Some people think he’s a machiavellian genius, others think he’s fantasy elon musk. The evidence is just a little too scant for us to know definitively, but I find the concept of smarts to be fascinating so I’m gonna break down the evidence we do have as much as I can.

I’m gonna focus on his technical skills for now. Might do a part two later, re: social skills.

Gortash is not a particularly creative or original thinker, that’s not the yardstick by which his skills should be measured; his area of expertise lies in iteration / innovation and problem-solving. He’s an engineer more than an inventor. But is he a good engineer?

The Gondians do, in fact, deserve the lion’s share of the credit for the Steel Watch. Gortash’s role in their development was primarily in the realm of conceptualization and the acquisition of exotic/black market/fucked up materials. Zanner Toobin deserves the credit for making his concepts actually work together (see: How to Build a Watcher). We’re all pretty, reasonably skeptical of the ‘idea guy’, but Gortash arguably does deserve credit for the ‘out of the box’ thinking in bringing together Mechanical, Magical, and Psionic designs, from Gondian, Illithid, Githyanki, Necromantic, Infernal, and Netherese sources and having them actually, provably work together (tho with mixed results).

We also know the submersible was designed by Gondians. We don’t know who designed the Iron Throne lab (tho it was assembled by Sahuagin). The infernal power sources in the Steel Watchers and Karlach were most likely designed by infernal mechanics. Balthazar credits Gortash with the design of the slack-skinned head (which allows laymen to interface with preserved brains). Presumably the traps in Wyrm’s Rock were also designed by Gortash (but let’s be honest, they’re not very impressive). There’s also the malfunctioning trap in his office. The mad alhoon Blue Apex conceived of the suspended ceremorphosis concept, and it was probably the Elder Brain that implemented it. There are in-game books that point out that keeping all of the Steel Watch brains in one building is a huge oversight.

The picture painted by all of this evidence is not particularly flattering, but it’s also got just enough inconsistencies and exceptions to suggest a more complicated conclusion than that he’s an empty shirt. Here is a person who is very smart and who works incredibly hard but can never quite overcome the limitations of his background and personality; he’s entirely self-taught and he clearly has an attention disorder and unmanaged anger issues.

And that’s where I’ll need to segue into social skills (or lack thereof) in order to form a more comprehensive conclusion, but this post is already long enough.

[mythalism]

despite being a clear solas stan i do genuinely understand and empathize with people who feel slighted by the blatant narrative focus on him versus other characters, especially if he doesn’t particularly resonate with you. people often call him as “controversial” which is undeniably true among the fans, but i honestly wonder if he was written to be controversial or if it was an unexpected consequence of his writing that they didn’t anticipate. the devs with the most creative power and agency all clearly adore him, if not as a person at least as an interesting character. but i remember how much the popular opinion towards him changed after the release of trespasser, from "some guy i never talked to because hes boring" to "evil maniac" and i honestly cannot imagine the developers would intentionally create a character, whom they knew would one day become effectively the central point around which the narrative orbits, and make him.... hated by like half of players? and not just hated as in "love to hate" but like genuinely hated. like i know people who are literally are not going to buy this game because it focuses so heavily on a character they dgaf about or dont like. and the devs definitely know this. they literally changed the name from "dreadwolf" to "the veilguard" because they didnt want to make it seem like it was all about solas. they literally said this when asked about the change. which is just... fascinating because... he was written this way!!!! he was written to be an asshole to people who dont like him. hes literally a pride demon who hates people who hate him LMFAO. and he only really becomes sympathetic if you put effort into getting to know him. but what incentive does a player have to get to know him??? LITERALLY NONE??? like he actively dissuades you from getting to know him. and the game really does not give you any other reason to until the very end, when you find out he was sketchy... but some people just do not care? and why would they? a ton of people played inquisition as their first game and would barely know who fen'harel is despite a few vague mentions in the temple of mythal and like... 2 codex entries. some people dont even read the codex entries. and all of this is made even more insane because all of this was necessarily for him to be in-character as a trickster god cosplaying as a nerdy loser. and a lot of fellow solas lovers write off criticism of him or people who just dont like him as automatically wrong and invalid because "he becomes what you think of him" and while thats true, he basically becomes Pride or Wisdom depending on how the player treats him, it still presents an insane conundrum that has led us to this point of contention. but the worst part is i literally dont even know what else they wouldve done?? like i dont have any fixes for this LMFAO. making him bestie coded just so people liked him going forward would be completely out of character. i just find it so interesting that we have ended up here, and while obviously im personally glad there is such a narrative focus on him because i love him, and i think the way he molds to the perception of the player reflects the "expectation makes reality" concept that exists in spirits is a brilliant narrative tool (that also further suggests he was originally a spirit), it also makes perfect sense to me how he has become so divisive with people interpreting him as two entirely different characters, literally an evil pride demon or a beloved wisdom spirit, and i wonder how they are going to continue it in veilguard

[uriekukistan]

Something I've been thinking about in the past couple of months is what current fans of JJK will think of the series in the future: 1, 5, 10+ years down the line after it ends. I don't think it's a secret or anything that fans are really divided and have during opinions about where the series is going and how it might end, but I'm curious about what it's legacy will be. Do you have any thoughts about that? (Also hi I hope you're having a good day!)

oooh interesting ask, thank you winnie :D hope you're having a good day too !!

hhhhh im not sure im smart enough to conceptualize this kind of thing fairly, but im gonna do my best 🤞 sorry in advance for the essay omg

one thing i wanna touch on really quickly is that i feel like the lifespans of fandoms are decreasing. im not sure if this is a fair assessment, but it seems like people move on quicker that they used to and migrate to new fandoms quickly as series end. i think it has to do with the increase in the amount and accessibility of new media, plus the trend of "consuming," rather than enjoying. part of a growing problem of rapid consumption and accelerating trend cycles.

that being said, jjk is still ongoing for who knows how long (allegedly finishing this year), and has to be animated after that. so depending on how they break the series up, and how hard mappa decides to push their workers, could be up to 5 more years of releasing content, which means retention of old fans and acquisition of new fans. i also think it will be impacted by the ending of the story.

the other two fandoms i participate in are 10+ years old (death note is 20+ at this point...) so im gonna use them as reference points

i was like...1-5 years old when death note was actively releasing, so im not sure how ppl were reacting at the time. but death note has become a "classic" anime/manga that new fans are constantly discovering and appreciating, keeping the fandom going. a lot of people still love death note, and from what i've seen, it's generally less divisive. people like death note, generally. everything has flaws and can/will be criticized, but as far as anime/manga goes, people are generally able to come to a consensus that death note is good. it has interesting characters and interesting themes and comes to a satisfying conclusion- that no man can be god. because of that, it still has a large and active fanbase that has enjoyed much longevity.

in contrast, tokyo ghoul is very divisive, and its aggravated by the fact that the anime completely diverges from the manga, and creates its own story, so the reviews are always mixed. it's wonderfully tragic or it's edgy. it's beautiful or it's boring. it has great themes or it's incoherent. it doesnt help that the mangaka was seriously burnt out towards the end of creating it. despite the fact that tokyo ghoul was one of the most popular anime/manga at one point, its fandom, while very much alive, is also pretty small. im either oomfs or oomfs-in-law w pretty much everyone here. i think the amount of criticism tokyo ghoul got (which dont get me wrong, some parts are very much worthy of it, but that's not what people were saying) affected the longevity of the fandom.

that brings me back to jjk. i think there's two camps of people in the fandom right now: those who are only interested in a "happy ending" and those who are interested in whatever ending may come, so long as it suits the themes and the character arcs feel completed. so i think the way jjk ends will be the deciding factor of its legacy and the direction the fandom takes.

personally, i'll be happiest with the second option, i mean im a tragedy fan if nothing else, and i love the thematic aspects of jjk. but i know most people will be looking out for a happy ending, at least based on what i see people saying. the fact that so many people are back to saying jjk is good after last night's leaks is proof of that to me. i think if the manga ends happily, whether it suits the story or not, people will be more likely to stick around than if it ends in a way that is less happy, but suits the story perfectly. if that makes sense.

[intosnarkness]

I was raised in a very Christian household, used to get on this website for teenagers and young people to mingle among other people in the faith and I had a friend who was what she called a Messianic Jew. From memory I can’t really remember the differences, I’m strictly just curious. It always fascinates me how different being raised in Jewish household can be compared to Christianity, a lot of similarities but a lottttt more big differences.

I'm not sure what your exact question is here, but I'm going to answer "what is a messianic jew?". If that's not what you meant, please let me know.

Messianic Jews are people who call themselves Jewish while believing that Christ is the Messiah.

And here's why I have a problem with that:

The first thing we have to do is define "jew", which is a lot harder than you think. Jews are an ethnoreligious group. Very simply, that means that to be "Jewish" is both an ethnicity and a religion.

My family is ethnically Ashkenazi Jewish; when we entered the diaspora we went to the Holy Roman Empire, then Germany, and finally settled in Eastern Europe. When my mom did a DNA test, she got "96% Ashkenazi Jewish" on her results. It is a group that can be traced through DNA as well as culture and location. (More about Jewish Ethnic divisions.) You cannot become an Ashkenazi Jew unless you are born as one, just like you cannot become Hispanic or Latino unless you are born as one.

Now, my family is also religiously Jewish, meaning I grew up in Jewish traditions. I went to Hebrew school, I became Bat Mitzvah when I was 13, and I hold Jewish values and a Jewish outlook. Anyone can become a religious Jew through conversion. It's not easy, but it can be done and is done all the time. Once you convert, you are considered no different from people who grew up in the faith, and I was raised that it is forbidden to ever ask if a person is a convert.

So, a religiously Jewish person can be of any ethnicity and an ethnically Jewish person can be any religion. Therefore, it is possible to have a Christian Jew- that is, an ethnically Jewish person who has converted to Christianity. There are actually a lot of these, in no small part due to things like the Spanish Inquisition, which allowed conversion as an alternative to death or exile. It's why people like Madeline Albright are possible; she was raised Roman Catholic and didn't know she was ethnically Jewish until she read about it in the Washington Post.

Okay, so that's our definition of terms. A Jew is someone of the Jewish ethnic group, a person who practices Judaism, or someone who is both.

Now, we have to ask ourselves, what is a Messiah? Messiah, or Moshiach, is a Hebrew word for King. And depending on what kind of Jew you ask, he may or may not be coming. Remember, if you have 5 Jews, you have 6 opinions. We don't agree on much. And for the record, I was taught that it is every Jew's job to make the world as good as possible and get us as close as possible to the Messianic age, because Moshiach will only come when he is no longer needed. This is part of what Tikkun Olam is, literally "repairing the world". But the general thrust is that, if he is coming, Moshiach will rebuild the temple in Jerusalem and usher in an era of peace and prosperity for Jews.

Because Jesus did neither of those things, he does not fit the Jewish requirement to be Moshiach. So Judaism believes that Jesus was a false messiah. He said some good shit, but he wasn't The Guy.

So, a person who believes that Jesus is Moshiach cannot be religiously Jewish. It just doesn't jibe with the rest of it. They can be ethnically Jewish, but that's not in general what Messianic Jews mean.

Now, I also have a knee-jerk "oh fuck that" reaction to messianic Judaism, specifically Jews for Jesus, because they have run themselves for years as a covert conversion front. Cause Jesus is only going to come back when the Jews are all either in Israel, dead, or Christians. So convert 'em. It's deeply unsettling to me. I don't want to call it genocidal, but it does seem to hinge on the destruction of groups of people, so.

IDK if that answers your question, but that's what I've got for now.

[android-and-ale]

Historian's Perspective on Vulcan Time Zones

This was supposed to be a quick response to something on a Discord. As you can see it turned into 750 words on the history of Earth time measurement, time zones, and my opinion of how and why Vulcans would use time zones. If you're into Vulcan vs Human cultural minutia, enjoy diving down this rabbit hole with me!

Vulcans, with their canon innate sense of time, would in fact still have time zones - but they wouldn’t use them the way we do today.

Here on Earth, time zones were a secondary effect of trains. Before trains, people had a lot of different means of telling time, but they mostly revolved around dawn and dusk. You can still see that today in Jewish and Muslim timekeeping. We’re in the month of Ramadan right now. Fasting is from LOCAL dawn to local dusk, not the time of those events in Mecca. Shabbat starts at local dusk on Friday night. The whole idea of tying human time to precise minutes would be nonsensical for pretty much everyone living before the industrial revolution.

Hours also used to be variable in length, based around good old dawn and dusk. So for the Romans the “first hour” was literally the first hour after dawn. They divided the daylight into 12 hours (because Sumerian math is persistent AF). During summer, one “hour” was about 75 modern minutes long, while during winter, one hour was 45 minutes long. An hour was a division of daylight, not a collection of minutes.

Up until the industrial revolution this was fine. If you needed precise timing for a chemical reaction there were surprisingly accurate measuring devices, but those weren’t applied to everyday life. 

Christian church bells and Muslim Adhan calls to prayer followed the dawn to dusk modified hour system to let people know what time it was. In Christian literature, you find a ton of references to different churches hourly bells tolling for a solid 3-5 minutes back to back. 

It was part of the rhythm of the day. Many church clocks didn’t even have minute hands, because yo didn’t need them. In daily life, you honestly didn’t need to know anything more precise than “half” or maybe “quarter” past a specific hour.

Time zones as we know them were literally invented by train companies. It was the only way to ensure the trains ran on time. You can find tons of contemporary writing about how “two of the clock” could mean damn near anything. If you’re trying to get meat butchered this morning in Chicago to New York city on quickly melting slabs of ice so it’ll arrive in time to be taken to shops and sold before it spoils, you really need your trains to run on a dependable schedule. 

So I say:

1) Vulcans would have time zones because they are the most logical means of scheduling long distance transportation and distribution. 

2) Local time has little to do with time zones. Vulcans in canon have an innate sense of time in a way we humans do not, so really, the point of time zones is just ensuring transportation and distribution networks are efficient.

3) Nimoy infused a lot of Judaism into the lore of Vulcans. As such I think their innate time sense would also be tied to a dawn-to-dusk schedule. (The modern idea of starting a new “day” in the middle of a late night sleep cycle is very weird and totally ahistorical.)  Therefore Local time is still linked to dawn and dusk. It’s also useful to know what time dawn and dusk are for people halfway around the world. That way you can efficiently schedule meetings with them at mutually convenient times. Once more, we come back to time zones. 

If you want a real world example of how No Time Zones fucks you up, look at China. There is officially One Time Zone in all of China, even though geographically it would be cut into 9 if you followed the same lines everyone else uses. That means a normal meeting at 10 am for someone in Bejing is at what we would consider 1 am at the furthest point west. But 1 am is legally “10 am” for them. If you don’t have to deal with Bejing on the regular, then the clock numbers have zero correlation with the way people in those places actually live their lives. 

I suspect what a lot of people really object to is daylight savings time. 

Vulcans who use local dawn and dusk to define their days would find this equally nonsensical. 

Now if you want to get weird with it, you could make all VSA starships use ShiKhar Central Time, regardless of where the crew is from. 

[goodluckclove]

Edgar Gallows Blog Takeover - Intro Post!

Uh - hi! Hello!

I don't really know what I'm doing here or why I'm doing it, but Scott told me there's no way he's trying this unless he sees me do it first. And if Scott's not doing it Tenzin won't be comfortable enough to try either - really, Katy's the only one here comfortable chatting to strangers. It's a delicate web otherwise.

But yeah, my name is Edgar. I'm 30 and I live in New Orleans. Scott and I looked up what people put in intro posts like these and a lot of them had genders and pronouns, so let's just say I have both of those and not go any deeper than that.

I've worked in a few tourist-y traps in NOLA, mostly back of house doing prep and assembly work. Right now I'm a bartender and I'm great at it. I'm the best in the world. I've won awards. You can lie on the internet without consequence, right?

I should say that I am ex-Academy. I won't say which one for the sake of anonymity (And - let's face it - my own safety as well). I wasn't expelled or discharged or whatever. Technically I wasn't even released. I don't practice anymore, or really keep up with the news and politics of Academic witchcraft, so don't expect me to get into it unprompted.

Interests

I don't think there's a genre of music that I don't love, but I'm a big fan of funk, disco, new wave and Japanese city pop. Talking Heads is my favorite band of all time.

I'm a self-taught chef. I think I'm pretty good at it. I also bake, which I am less good at. Those skills do not transfer like you might think they do.

Scott's looking over my shoulder and he's telling me to mention that I like birds. I do. I feel weird saying that because I don't really know that many bird facts for anything other than my few favorites (Goldfinches and Buntings). I just like looking at them.

I say that I play video games but the only video game I'm remotely good at is Old School Runescape, which I don't think is that cool to say.

Things to Ask me About?

I would love to talk about cooking or food. This could be to give advice, recipe suggestions, food pairings, knife skills - ask me something as simple as how to scramble an egg and I'd be happy to share my technique.

In regards to the Academy, I will say that I'm Legacy and so I never actually enlisted. If you're thinking of going down that path at your own branch, I worked at the University of mine as a librarian for maybe five years, so I got a good perspective as to what the process looks like. I'm open to offering insight and tentative guidance if you aren't weird.

Scott says I should mention that I'm also a birthright. He's really the one that has more authority to talk about that since he actually grew up in a witch town, but apparently he has a lot of opinions on how I should do this for someone who barely understands how the internet works.

He's watching me type now. Fuck it, you can ask me about Scott too if you want. I assumed I was straight until about a week ago. Now I seem to have bagged myself an ethereal magical boyfriend. He saw me use the voice command on my Pixel and now he makes me say goodnight to my goddamned cell phone before we go to sleep. I love him.

DNI List

I heard admission rates for Academies hit a major spike recently, and I'm just putting it out there that I really would rather not debate anyone super invested in the "mission statement" of their local University. The newer members never seem to realize that the culture of the Academy differs like crazy depending where you are, and because of that there really isn't the kind of centralization they claim exists to Junior Members.

Also - and this might be a divisive take - but I was born into this world. I spent decades of my life in the Academy. I truly do not care about the opinion of someone who trained for two years after joining straight out of high school. I won't block you, but I will send your username and any comments you make to my friend who is far more Anti-Academy than I am (Hi, Katy).

Anyway that's all! I look forward to posting things today and maybe talking to some new people! I hope everyone is nice and not weird and I do not regret this happening!

who is this? why is this happening? check out the pinned post on my blog to learn more!

[nikofortuna]

JTTW Chapter 2 Thoughts

Onto the second chapter for the @journeythroughjourneytothewest Reading Group!

On dual-reading, it has now become a multi-reading of each chapter as I have added the German translation for additional comparison! At that point shoutout to @journeytothewestresearch for compiling many different translations including the German one!

For those who understand German, I can very much recommend taking a look at the translation. It is very easy to read, almost reading modern/casual. Though it does not translate everything for example most of the poems of which the ones essential to the story are kept while the descriptive ones are largely glossed over. However instead it has some pictures, which were really lovely to see!

Either way the second chapter has been overall easier to go through in my opinion than the first one likely due to it having more dialogue. In hindsight there was a lot of exposition in the first, while this one really gets the story rolling.

Sun Wukong reads so neurodivergent to me and I adore it so much! Him practically stimming when he’s happy is so cute! Additionally immortality is basically his special interest or at least his current hyperfixation. Not to mention him calling himself stupid/feeble-minded, when he is actually really smart! He just doesn’t understand slang, which honestly I didn’t get the first two metaphors without the explanation either, only the one about scooping the moon from the water I figured right away.

It is also rather interesting how Sun Wukong is very relaxed with everything as of current, even the few times he does get insulted. He truly displays no temper, yet. The first instance of him getting the angry kind of upset is when he finds out his family has been attacked, which is very understandable. I wonder if getting sent away by Patriarch Subodhi has put a first crack into his self-confidence.

Speaking of Patriarch Subodhi he is such a Dad to Sun Wukong. Particularly when he wants to keep Sun Wukong out of danger even if that means sending him away. I believe he might suspect his other disciples to potentially trouble him now that they know of his abilities. Though he doesn’t actually blame Sun Wukong for showing off since he didn’t know better at the time.

And he’s a great teacher too with how he adjusts his teaching to the specific ways his student does things! I actually didn’t know before that the Cloud Somersault is a technique specific to Sun Wukong, while most other’s practice Cloud Soaring instead. Very neat to see!

Once again a second read of the J.F. Jenner translation coming in clutch with additional understanding! Particularly of the different divisions via the titles with the mention of Sects. Truly made me go “Oh yeah, it’s that Way!”.

On a related note to this particular example, I always get very happy whenever my love for Xianxia and Cultivation comes into play in understanding certain things like what Dāntián are. Or another term I recognized correctly being Elder Brother aka Shīxiōng.

Also I knew exactly what Patriarch Subodhi was holding thanks to it.

Additionally I occasionally use a combination of the Chinese version and Google Translate whenever I pick up on a term I recognize to check if I’m correct.

Like Lǎo Sūn whenever Sun Wukong calls himself Elder Sun or Old Monkey depending on the translation.

The specific phrase I checked up on for this is:

你不要怕，只吃老孫一拳。

Nǐ bùyào pà, zhǐ chī lǎo sūn yī quán.

Or Xiǎo Sūn for “Little Sun”, but that’s an easy one.

Regarding this scene specifically, I actually prefer the J.F. Jenner translation of it, though a mash-up of both would be ideal in my eyes. May I propose: "If the Great King is Elder Sun, then we are all Second Sun, Third Sun, Little Sun, Junior Sun - a family of Suns, a nation of Suns, a den of Suns."

Though an honourable mention goes to the German translation, particularly the “fein und klein” part, which is a very adorable way of saying it!

I would like to point out the Audio Drama Series again. Even if you don’t listen to the chapters themselves, do definitely check out the Production Notes for each! They’ll give you some extra insight that even with all its notes the Anthony C. Yu translation doesn’t provide.

It actually took me over five hours to finish this up. Roughly four of it having been spent going through each translation of the chapter and another one to refine all my notes into a coherent post.

[darkfictionjude]

Etymology nonnie here!

I was wondering how you came to a decision when it came to game stats. In WWC, as far as I recall, we don't have (visible) personality stats as other IFs may have (I think most, if not all, games in Hosted Games and Choice of Games do have personality stats, and multiple Twine games do as well). Which makes sense to me, since this story is so much more focused on narrative and relationships than in min maxing stats.

Of course, not having stats also results than certain choices with different paths only have one result. In other words, choice A always results in result A, which may be a failure or a success because of the narrative. Like, choose choice B next time to get a different result. While in a game where there are stats, choice A can develop into both result A1, which is a success, and result A2, which is a failure. Of course, this kind of patching is not always result of personality stats, but more often thanks to skills. It depends a lot on the game.

Had you ever considered including personality stats/skills? If so, what did you have in mind?

If not, does any of the other IF projects you have in mind have a chance to include personality stats/skills?

For example, vampire games often have a thirst mechanic. Which I understand where is coming from, but very few times I have seen it doing much unless you purposely make sure your MC gets thirsty. And even then, it often doesn't benefit the narrative.

But, in another scenario, both the Hollywood IF and the Superhero IF could benefit from having a Public opinion/Reputation Stat. Either as a tag (as in: famous, hated, mixed, etc), or a percentage bar. Or both. Specially for the Hollywood one, it's hard for me to conceive the game with that mechanic or similar.

That said, I'm not trying to say WWC is poor mechanically. I don't know if there are hidden stats, for instance. As well as I enjoy the flirting/friendship mechanics a lot. It feels fresh in comparison to other IFs, where flirting is always more focused on "flirty" vs "shy". Which is a weird division in my opinion, that can work, but not always. For me is a bit puzzling, since flirting is not always one or the other. Other games may add oblivious choices too, and maybe some other flavors. But it's rare, from what I've seen. There is also games like Fallen Hero where the flirting options change entirely based on who is being romanced (Ortega, Mortum, Lady argent, Chen and Herald's romances are so different it's almost shocking how all of them fit into the narrative and Sidestep's characterization).

For WWC it seems like an almost obvious decision to separate flirting into antagonistic and "friendly" (I cannot remember what it was, but I'm sure you had another term for it). It makes sense for the MC, and for the RO's. So it fits narratively, and in terms of characterization. I also enjoy you have symbols that make it rather clear what kind of interaction they are meant to be.

Of course, flirting is a different kind of mechanic to the ones that caused this ask to be written. But I did distract myself as I did write this on a whim. As always. Although I think it makes sense as a deviation. Hopefully.

Yeah so I could’ve added mechanics but you’re right in saying this game is less about skill than it is about narrative and characterization. In a way it resembles a traditional book. I’ve never really mechanics like that in games, all it’s ever done for me is make it less fun for me to be immersed because I’m too focused on passing skill tests. I’m a reader before anything and if I can’t be immersed in the world it suffers in quality for me.

Fallen Hero has some mechanics but I feel it’s strength lies in its narrative, storytelling and characterization.

For the Hollywood IF I might consider a public reputation one and for other IF make choice based set personalities kind of like a tale of crowns. I like playing around with mechanics but I don’t think I’ll ever do a traditional skill game with mechanics but I will play around with things

[granulesofsand]

Y’all, CDDs are underresearched. Most of psychology is when it comes to western medicine, and that’s how we’re approaching this.

It’s less of an information issue than a communication issue. People make blanket statements about disorders and then act like there is no deviation.

The general population doesn’t always believe DID is a thing, and within our own communities we dismiss any presentation deemed “too much” or “not enough”.

We aren’t validating everyone, which is the key need for science at all— ya know, explaining observable experiences. Citing resources shouldn’t depend on a person’s ability to sift through bullshit, and a lot of old papers are very out of date.

When I can open my search engine or go to my local library and find myself and my community represented, I’ll agree that we’re on the right track. But that isn’t true right now, so stop telling me it’s well and fine.

A few topics that we don’t know enough about: polyfragmentation and structures, multiplicity vs division, endogenic systems, dissociation in full, I can keep going.

One study is not enough. I want to see replication, case studies, unbiased opinions as far as we can get them. Medicine doesn’t know shit as it is, and it doesn’t get better by sitting down and kicking our feet up.

[controversial-blorbo-bracket]

Hello again!! I'm back in your inbox with more Thoughts (about potential ways to structure matchups when limited to 10 options because this is SUCH an enclosure pumpkin to me)

I still think the most effective method would probably be two polls per matchup, especially if they could link to each other and/or have a Main Post for each matchup that links to the two polls.

My thoughts right now: the point of a matchup is that it provides the ability for a voter's opinion on a one character to impact the score of a different character. Hence there needs to be a way to "steal" votes from one character in favor of another. The primary issue is that this usually favors characters who are more well-known, and incorporating the 4 different options for knowing or not knowing a character would cause fatigue reading all the options. However, since we already have statistics on the love/hate/no opinion ratio from round 1, what I'm most interested in for a matchup round would be how the characters compare rather than the actual objective divisiveness/strength of opinion (especially if the less controversial ones are excluded from round 2!). So here's my current idea:

Poll 1: "Which of these characters do you LOVE more? (If you HATE one of these characters more than the other, see [link] for the HATE poll.)

- Know both; love character A more than character B

- Know both; love character B more than character A

- Know both; don't love either of them (no strong preference/hate both)

- Only know A; love them

- Only know A; don't love them (no strong opinion/hate)

- Only know B; love them

- Only know B; don't love them (no strong opinion/hate)

- who are these people (don't know either of them)

... and then a matching poll in parallel for hate. Maybe both posts could be linked to in a main post for that matchup; I'd be interested to see how the reblog and vote numbers distributed for separated love/hate polls, too!

The main issue I could see with this setup is that it would allow voters to vote both love and hate on the same blorbo. But honestly that might not be too bad; if you know two characters and feel more love AND more hate for one of them than the other, that says something I think.

Also, in terms of seeding, it may be satisfying to match up based on each character's "don't know" vote percentage or their total vote count! Then again for the more obscure characters that may just result in not a lot of people knowing both of them.

Whatever you decide for round 2, I'm sure it'll be amazing! Thanks for running this, it's absolutely fascinating to watch/participate in!!

This is an ask I’ve been saving intentionally until round 1 ended. I was already thinking of two polls that link to each other, and I think your idea of having one for love and one for hate is better than my initial though of one for each character because you’re right about the stealing votes being a necessary component. And being able to vote on both would satisfy the people who keep asking for an “it’s complicated” button as well. Seeding method I’m not sure on yet and will probably depend on how the round 1 data looks. Thank you for being so interested in the workings of the tournament! It feels good to bounce methodology ideas off of others

[soapkaars]

I'm searching a few ideas to characterize a Dutchman who migrated to the United States in 1933 and accidentally found a job in Hollywood (the current year being 1941 - this man just had his breakout role). He has a story pretty similar to Lorre's and his persona is largely inspired by his role in "The Mask of Dimitrios". Do you have, by chance, any interesting suggestion?

Sorry I made you wait! Ooh this is a tough one. So you're talking about a professor van Leyden type?

It really depends on what exactly you're looking for or what you want to tell. If you're looking for a reason a Dutch person may find themselves in the US, it might be for a number of reasons - from the more familiar (star-struck, wanting to make it big in pictures) to the mundane (set up a farm in Iowa, immigrating to avoid tax collection and/or debts) to the spicy (political dissident - anticolonialist fighting against Dutch occupation of Indonesia).

If you're looking for a 'typical' background of a Dutch person similar to Lorre's character for Van Leyden, there's a lot you can do. Cornelis*/Cornelius may live in Amsterdam, but wouldn't come from there originally, as many Dutch people tend to move from the countryside to the city (literally, from the East of the country to the West of the country, which is where the more urban areas are) to develop themselves, look for more intellectual pursuits and/or opportunities, etc. My personal headcanon for van Leyden has always been that he was born somewhere near Amersfoort from German-Jewish immigrant parents and he moved to the slightly more tolerant city of Amsterdam to escape the oppressive black stocking-wearing Calvinist communities back home.

If you want to know the broad strokes of what defines a Dutch person and makes them different from an Englishman or a German person, a rough stereotype you could use to build off on or contrast your character to: We're a tiny country not just in how much physical square meters we have (three hours travel is long for a Dutch person!) but also in attitudes. I say this as a Dutchman myself: there's a very provincial/country bumpkin way of being that gives a lot of Dutch people a weird naiveté and bluntness compared to their European counterparts. There's the classic 'you don't get to be the boss of me!' that you find a lot with Dutch people - it's not that we're so anti-authoritarian (we do still have a monarchy, for example) but there's a huge distaste for formal and external displays of status in favour for more subtle displays. Also Dutch people are like German people in the sense that we're very protocol driven and we want to do everything 'by the book' - there's a strong sense of 'we all agreed to do it this way, so there's no use in doing it differently' and a lot of Dutch people I know can genuinely get very upset when other people don't do it in the specific way they think is 'correct'.

A person like Cornelius van Leyden probably would be a bit of an odd duck in Dutch society. Which is why he's living in Amsterdam! That city used to be (and still is, in my opinion, but way too expensive now) one of the few cities where there was a more lax way of being in comparison to the rest of the country. A lot of Dutch stereotypes non-Dutch people have come from there! In comparison to Amsterdam the rest of the country is much more strict and less open (with the exception of The Hague, but I come from there so I'm biased). We have a sort of division of the country where there's the 'randstad' (Edge City - Amsterdam, Leiden, The Hague, Rotterdam, and Utrecht - a very urbanised area where most of the wealth and finances used to be historically, and where more open attitudes used to flourish) and everywhere else (generally referred to as 'The East', 'the provinces', or 'the countryside' - all of which aren't very accurate names, but most Dutch people will know that you're referring to anyone who isn't from the Randstad)

Anyways, let me know if you were looking for something specific, and if this ramble was useful to you in any way!

*I always tend to 'correct' Cornelius' name to the more common 'Cornelis'! Also I used to know a guy called Cornelis and he hated it when we called him 'Corny'