#i wanted to contribute in my own way

[greenbloods]

The idea of a Braavosi alphabet has been churning around in the back of my head for a while, and I’ve finally settled on a version I feel is interesting and “right” for the setting!

Sorry a couple of the letters are out of order and also for the image rendering, my handwriting is not all that great lol

Love love love Braavos it is so medieval Florence Venice core and I wanted to reflect the visual style of the manuscripts of that era with the script. I also felt like the Braavosi script would be in a rounded style especially during this time where it’s written by quill and inkbrush. The script kinda tended towards “standard fantasy alphabet” decisions like making it an alphabet and having both uppercase and lowercase versions of the letters, but I felt like it worked well for the aesthetics.

The script has been in use for more than 400 years, being developed at least in part by the Moonsingers who first came to Braavos by escaped slave ship, so I imagined that it was first used to write a form of Low Valyrian before evolving over time as the language turned into the modern Braavosi thats spoken during the time of the main series.

Most of the letters have existed since the beginning of the script except for “f” which developed later in Braavos’s history. There are two “y” letters: the one that’s just y is treated as a vowel (like in Daenerys) and the one that’s j/y is a consonant (like in the name Yorko). “gh” (as in “Valar morghulis”) exists as a letter but its pretty archaic today as the sound doesnt exist in the language of the city today. “x” only exists for transcribing the back-of-the-throat guttural sound but only like the Iron Bank uses it if you ask pearl merchant #17 about that letter they probably couldnt answer you

More information about the technical details and thought process behind this script can be found at this post

[windcarvedlyre]

I've been following @druidposting's DR2 playthrough on discord and we just had a really good discussion about DR's Closing Arguments. Specifically the way the murderer is depicted as grey and featureless, which until now I found a bit annoying.

In Danganronpa it's repeatedly the case that we don't have the full picture until the talking actually stops- which always goes beyond the end of the trial. We generally vote first and come to understand what the murderer's actual motive was, sometimes filling in important pieces of the timeline in the process, afterwards.

But none of that matters for the killing game because characters' emotions aren't directly relevant to who was the 'blackened'- the only thing that matters to Monokuma- so it comes out afterwards and does nothing to change their execution. It doesn't matter how sympathetic they are (basically everyone) or whether other people share responsibility for the situation (eg. Hanamura, Pekoyama, Momota) or whether they intended to murder at all (Nanami). They objectively pulled the trigger and nothing else matters. Nothing about them as a person matters.

The Closing Argument mechanic might illustrate that problem- literally. They're a dramatic, conclusive summary of the entire case... constructed before the vote even happens, before we know if we're actually right, and they're missing something really important:

The actual perpetrator.

We quite literally don't even begin to see the real person behind the crime, any real exploration of their mental state, anything besides the cold, hard facts of the murder that are necessary to convict them, until the comic finishes and the protagonist makes their final accusation- replacing the grey figure with their real appearance in a shot that's often intensely emotional.

And these comics lack crucial parts of the case's timeline and sometimes important parts of the very scenes they depict that we only find out about afterwards. And those are what we know; characters may die with some pieces of the truth and prevent us from ever learning them. These aren't objective depictions of the murder, they're the protagonist's subjective attempt to connect the facts they have. A join-the-dots portrait of someone with missing dots and no colour.

Even characters' expressions may not match how they truly feel, with the grey placeholder potentially looking way more confident and sinister than they were in reality. Pasting Falter's commentary here since they put it well.

For obvious reasons this could especially be a problem for characters that die before the trial- the ones we never get a post-vote testimony from. DR1 chapter 4 really highlighted that in the way Asahina's huge misinterpretation of Oogami's feelings took up a lot of the post-trial discussion, only for Monokuma to reveal Oogami's real suicide note and recontextualise everything.

It might really be a problem for how Komaeda's depicted in DR2 chapter 5. While he isn't greyed out, we get panel after panel where he's either level-headed or maniacally evil, and even the depictions of his self-torture and death don't humanise him:

But we know that his real feelings were more complicated than that. We have his actual corpse to compare the last page to.

He died afraid.

If we approach the comic as Hinata's mental image of him instead of reality, he died without anyone truly understanding him. He was alarming, very hard to relate to, actively fought against people doing so, ensured even the killer didn't watch him die, and the survivors couldn't begin to understand his motive until a chapter later. The Closing Argument reflects that.

Early in DR1 Togami calls out the rest of his class for judging others by their own standards. However, he, too, is doing this, maybe more so than many other characters; his inability to view other people through anything but the cold, brutal logic of the killing game bites him in the ass in chapter 4. In DR2 chapter 2 voting without a good understanding of Pekoyama's motive or Kuzuryuu's involvement nearly got everyone killed. Komaeda's a walking embodiment of the problems with flattening people into caricatures and not empathising with them, suffered from people doing that back to him, and his case- the Closing Argument for which turned everyone else into grey placeholders- was impossible to solve with objective facts. It was only survivable because the survivors cooperated and one person tried to analyse things the way he would.

The games have always been a critique of the justice system and Japanese society and push us to care about others as individuals, not reduce them to- and judge their right to exist by- something they've done or their net impact on society. There are always consequences when someone neglects to do that, and the above might be yet another way the games explore that theme.

[crystallizsch]

yuusha didn’t have anything else to wear so💥

[if-we-are-free-tell-me-why]

every time I hear someone say "oh you have to listen to Dear Evan Hansen it has such good mental health representation" I cry in Next to Normal

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Drew WWX and LWJ after I finished my rewatch of The Untamed a few months ago. I have gotten marginally better. May this set a benchmark for what to expect from this blog.

June 2023 redraw, June 2024 redraw

[quiet-admirer]

...

[icewindandboringhorror]

I've referenced before how I have a big google document to keep track of every media I've ever seen in my entire life (just for reference because I like to track everything possible lol… I am the Data Collector), but recently as I was updating it, I thought of actually evaluating them to find out random percentages (like for example, out of Total Shows Watched, what percentage did I finish vs. stop watching, what percentage did I like or dislike, etc.)...

Evaluating these things is made easier by the fact that I already place everything on each subsection of the list into 6 broad ranking categories, so I don't have to go back and guess to figure out how I feel about them or anything. The categories are: Ranking 5 - overall best* (despite some criticisms of course because I'm too much of an Analyzer to ever find anything Perfect lol) Ranking 4 - more positive than neutral, but not good enough to be 5 Ranking 3 - either the good + bad negate each other, OR it's just not memorable/interesting in any way enough to be ranked higher or lower (this is the Default category ALL things are placed in if no other rank applies) Ranking 2 - maybe a few redeemable elements but largely more negatives than positives Ranking 1 - So bad that it circles around to being fascinating to observe in some way (not necessarily Funny, or Good, but just interesting somehow) Ranking 0 - Bad in a genuinely frustrating or obnoxious manner

*("best" primarily defined here as most interesting, rather than most good in a technical sense, or some other measure. I tend to value more highly whether there's something novel or thoughtful about the worldbuilding, tone, writing, base premise, etc - than about whether it's actually executed perfectly.)

And here's the amount of shows that have so far been placed into each category -

TV shows ~ Rank 5 (highest) - 20 shows ~ Rank 4 (mid-high) - 28 shows ~ Rank 3 (neutral/default/meh) - 114 shows ~ Rank 2 (mid low) -33 shows ~ Rank 1 (low low but intriguingly so) - 14 shows ~ Rank 0 (iredeemably low) - 2 shows

This would make for a total of 211 TV shows overall. However, there are 57 shows within these list marked as "didn't finish" (typically meaning I quit on the very first or second episode - but log them still to keep a record that I at least had a brief view of them).

So my total of genuinely fully watched shows would be more 154. 211 Total, but a More Accurate Total of 154.

Counting them all and using the Total Number Of The List (211) -- that means roughly 9.5% of all total shows I have ever watched (or at least attempted to watch) have been Mostly Good, 13% have been Moderately Okay, 54% have been either entirely Forgettable or some mix of good + bad that lands them right in the Neutral Middle, 15.6% have been Mostly Bad, 6.6% have been Bad (but in an interesting way), and 0.9% have been Terribly Bad.

Additionally, I didn't even get past the first two episodes of about 27% of the total.

Sooo, discounting ones I didn't finish, my total TV shows ever watched in my life would be about 154 (maybe give or take a few, assuming I might have forgotten some from very long ago).

But instead of entire life, let's just say this is the total for 'About 20 Years' (so, not counting very early childhood when I likely wouldn't remember things I saw/have no detailed recollection of them (like for example, I'm sure at some point when I was like 4yrs old I must have seen an episode of Spongebob or something, but I have zero distinct memories of it, can't quote anything of it, and barely recall the premise - so I don't count it on the list, etc.)).

In that case, 154 divided by 20 would be roughly 7.7 shows a year.

Which is actually surprisingly low considering that I often have stuff on in the background for hours whilst I make sculptures and do costumes and stuff (maybe I should have also marked some distinction between 'things I fully paid attention to' and 'things I kind of half listened to whilst sculpting', but that would further split the categories too much probably lol), but I guess a lot of that is youtube videos or random documentaries, so .. eh.. maybe I get it being lower.

Now, doing the same thing for movies-

Movies ~ Rank 5 (highest) - 4 movies (3.4% of total) ~ Rank 4 (mid-high) - 12 movies (10.3% of total) ~ Rank 3 (neutral/default/meh) - 91 movies (78.4% of total) ~ Rank 2 (mid low) - 8 movies (6.8% of total) ~ Rank 1 (low but interesting) - 1 movie (0.8% of total) ~ Rank 0 (irredeemably low) - none in this category (0%)

That makes 116 for a Total (Actually Remembered) Movies Watched In Lifetime (Or At Least In 20 Years).

116 divided by 20 is roughly 5 or 6 movies a year (I feel this has probably been skewed though by adding everything since like elementary school onwards, as I remember a lot more movies from child/teen years.. Whereas, the past 3 years I feel like I've barely seen maybe even 5 movies?? lol). I also have "Didn't Finish" marked on 18 of them. Which means I quit halfway through about 15% of the total movies.

So, a for broader summary stuff..

I seem to be less forgiving to movies than tv shows, by far. Which makes sense to me, I guess, because I love elaboration and details, so "short form" things that only last an hour or two are often lost on me a bit. My biggest complaint with movies is indeed usually walking away just wishing there had been more exposition, more scenes where characters are doing nothing, more "mindless bantering" conversations, more Quiet Downtime and Lore Elaboration and so on lol, so... of course most 1-2hr films end up feeling a bit Not Enough To Draw My Interest/Nothingy to me.

If you count 5 and 4 as "like" and rankings 2 to 0 as "dislike", then for TV shows I at least somewhat liked 48 of them, and at least somewhat disliked 47 of them.. So it's almost exactly the same lol. I'm just about equally as likely to find something bad as I am to find something redeeming about it. But overall, the largest chance is that I just won't really care much for it at all and it will be tossed into the 'neutral' pile, forgotten forever. Movies have a bit better of a balance, "liking" 16 of them, and "disliking" only 9 of them. So I'm slightly more likely to enjoy a movie than to find it annoying - though still VASTLY more likely to just not find it anything in particular, possibly not even finishing it.

ANYWAY.. this is vague and literally pointless, but like I said, I just really find information fun. Like my document where I've rated every apple flavor I've ever tried (like 40 of them now?), or reviewed every oreo flavor (32?), or ranking data from my entire 10 years of Trying To Make Friends process (out of 100 people, roughly 8% chance of a moderate compatibility, 3% chance of high), or etc. etc.. I love to have random pointless things to analyze I suppose lol.

I doubt anyone tracks things in their life in this same exact way, but I'd be interested in hearing any at least somewhat similar data !!! (like, how many TV shows you watch a year on average, and what percentage of those you like vs. dislike (if you keep track of that sort of thing), etc.)). I guess it might be easier with movies, since I think some people use those websites where you curate a list of movies you've seen and you can rate them or something, so maybe the numbers are already available on those places. :0

[st4rstudent]

i feel somewhat responsible for this, even if i’m not the one saying these things. I’m genuinely so sorry.

No need to apologize! It's not one singular person doing it and truth be told I don't think it's a large majority that thinks that (albeit the ones that do are quite vocal). I didn't mean to upset anyone or anything when complaining about it, I was just letting off some steam.

Having a yap session under the cut sorry I feel like rambling under your ask anon.

Admittedly, I do think there are reasonings for people thinking this way. A lot of the focus with Clash has been on the cogs, especially after the 1.3 update. Which I can't say I blame them! Managers were something new and exciting and (from what I can tell) really separated them from the other servers. I don't blame them for wanting to put focus on that because that was their thing. Alongside other things, but majorly when you hear Clash the managers are mentioned in someway shape or form. But as we all know, toons ended up taking the short stick from this. This isn't helped by the gameplay itself, being mainly a fetch-quest deal so you often only talk to npcs once or twice unless if they're repeated ones and the taskline wasn't entirely accessible on the wiki for a while (shoutout to the wiki maintainers. The taskline script is a savior). Which I'm quite excited to see if they deal with this issue with the rewrite. I imagine they will, but anyways. Social media posts would often contain more managers than toons, which I also believe they're starting to fix. And ontop of this, I believe most of the team in the early era of the sever is gone, so there's been some stuff lost in the change. So yeah, dialogue/writing has been kind of rocky. AGAIN- I am completely aware of the rewrite going on and I am not judging them harshly based off of their current state. I'm very appreciative of the fact that they took the time to listen and are focusing on trying to fix it up. And then there's also fandom mischaracterization- especially of the cogs. Forgive me for mentioning mischaracterization because normally I wouldn't really care (I've mischaracterized characters before..especially in my younger years. I think it's just a process of learning an having fun and I hate to limit anyone because of it). With that being said, there's a lot of baby-fying and coddling of the managers. Especially with those who have more 'sympathetic' stories (Misty, Chip, Winston specifically). Don't get me wrong, I like these characters and I can appreciate the story they're trying to tell, but I feel like so many people will hear their dialogue and then misplace their anger. People get mad at Bessie for trying to protect HER lighthouse or at the Elders for trying to keep YOTT safe (lets not forget Winston was there to brainwash toons). Yes, yes technically there would've been better ways to do it but consider this: The toons are scared. Their homes, stores, lives are being taken over by a big corporation that has more resources that they do. They don't have the privilege of waiting, seeing, and gathering. And then people forget that the company has such a huge role in both toons and cogs lives. If you're mad over the mistreatment of Misty or the fact that Winston is still in the dungeon, your anger should be directed at the company who doesn't care. I may be completely wrong in saying this, but I feel like the stories with almost all of the managers is a reflection of the company. The toons are only trying to protect themself and their environments and yet this seems to go forgotten when people start bashing them. And of course, I'd consider myself a toon guy so me saying all this and complaining may come off as "I HATE the cogs and everyone who posts only about them!" and for clarification that's not true. You all know how much I like that little brain thing. The cogs are interesting, their designs are fun, I don't blame people for liking them because I do too. I just wish that the thought process behind so many of these discussions wasn't so cog focused because I believe that this anger at the toons for, RIGHTFULLY, defending themselves helps push this mischaracterization of them as a whole. That they're mean, boring, unlikeable while the opposite is true. Yes there are some, what I'd consider, "filler" dialogue from the shopkeepers. This is just because of the gameplay. But there are some funny and cute moments with them if people would just listen and read.

Which also brings me into another point: people skip the dialogue. I've caught myself doing this before (on my first account. I have 4 accounts total, so I reread the dialogue on like 3 of them). But people will complain about lack of toon personalities while doing this. It's like reading through a comic book, only looking at the drawings, and then complaining because there "isn't a storyline". Luckily, there's been efforts to keep track of the dialogue on the wiki but I doubt a lot of people are going through and reading the entire script. It just feels very disingenuous to criticize the dialogue when you haven't even read it. Likewise, people don't seem to read the blogposts either. This is both from a dialogue aspect and from an update aspect (people continuously asking about hammerspace/mix-and-match under unrelated posts).

[uncanny-tranny]

In discussions about mental health, I am so tired of the only voices mattering being other people or other people who do not deal with a condition/disorder or a specific situation.

"Here's how I deal with loved ones with [x] condition!"

"If you do [y] because of [x mental health reason], you're selfish and everybody who loves you is having their lives made harder by you!"

"If your symptoms are [z], you're gross, and you deserve no sympathy for struggling"

I understand to an extent why people do this, but holy hell, as somebody who struggles and struggles often, the last thing any of us need to be told is that we're a burden that others have to carry. And it's terrible how everybody else's feelings but ours matter - even if we are the ones most affected by our condition or situation.

If you are dealing with issues surrounding your mental health and well-being, know that everything above isn't true; you are worthy of patience, understanding, kindness, and love. You are worthy of being listened to without judgment. You don't have to apologize or "make up" for who you are or what you struggle with.

[felanndaris]

wanting to contribute to the fandom but not having any skills to do so feels like🧍‍♀️

[loveguts]

i’m not a transandrophobia truther in the slightest don’t get me wrong, but i think some people on here really need to realize and comprehend the fact that cis women, way WAY more often than not, hold extremely significant social and political power over trans men the vast majority of the time in our day to day lives

[sysig]

Getting closer, getting really close now I swear (Patreon)

[basingstokemercury]

am I reading this right do I seriously have to pay national insurance even if I don't have a job unless I'm on unemployment benefits (which require having had a job previously)

where exactly do they expect me to get the money

[crush3dmary]

I would not wish BPD on my worst enemy.

[folerdetdufoler]

Hi, I wrote my first evak fic in early 2023, before that I had been an avid reader for years. I know the fandom is a little quiet but there's this hardcore group of writers and readers that seem to have been around since the start and all know (of) each other. I don't know how to word this without sounding envious but it seems to me that group doesn't really read, comment on, give kudos or support new fics outside of their little circle. I want to believe it's a time issue but I have to say it comes across cliquey and a little hurtful. I really hope I am just being an insecure baby but I would be so happy if the established and popular writers would give me feedback and leave comments.

hiya! congratulations on writing and posting! i know it can be a big, scary jump from reading to writing and sharing, so applause for that in the first place.

i'm sorry your contributions to the fandom haven't been received the way you'd like them to be. if i'm included in this group of writers and readers, then, well my reasons for not reading/commenting/supporting are possibly going to be more hurtful than what you're already experiencing! i've whined about it years ago (first here, then here), and unfortunately it all still stands, because i have done absolutely zero work on bettering myself as a human being. i think i've read a handful of fics, mostly because they've been sent to me directly, with someone asking for my thoughts, and i managed to put in the effort to read it and offer a polite response. but there are also a bunch of fics that have been shared with me that i haven't read, even when i've said i would. i'm sorry if you have specifically done this with me in the past, because i have not treated your work, your creativity, with the respect it deserves.

i can't speak for anyone else, on how they choose to spend their time reading or writing, or the relationships they have with other fans. on the one active skam discord i'm in, i think a lot of them know each other from other fandoms, or have different relationships beyond writing/reading skam fic. also, as skam fades, people might only have the bandwidth for enjoying and supporting fanworks from established relationships, the same way you still want to support a favorite author even when you or they have changed genres or whatever.

but in reality i don't know the group where this is happening or why. i agree, it would be nice to receive more readers and commenters in general, and being jealous of the attention other people receive is natural. but i don't know how to change your relationship with that group, or my relationship with reading & supporting.

[zanzanne]

you know. it just dawned on me...

aside from, how do i put it... those who were prominent in the story i originate from? i don't really. have clear memories of anyone else i supposedly knew. or at least knew about. i suppose i shouldn't be surprised that i don't particularly remember what this body's mind is not familiar with, but... ahhhh...