#i'm like one of those annoying millenials but instead of

[lesbianherald]

you leaving twitter 🤝 jayce getting out of that noxus contract

at first i was confused and then I remembered my own work and then I honked like a goose

[nerdyfangirlingbooks]

Every now and then I remember the times I would mention to my flatmate that I was thinking of buying myself something reasonably expensive (that I had been eyeing up for months and had budgeted for) and she'd tell me that I shouldn't spend that much money on something I didn't need and it would be stupid etc etc while she regularly impulse bought things that cost at least as much and she would use once (while complaining that she was under a lot of financial stress and couldn't afford <$3/week for 2 months for a rental washing machine when ours broke). She is... perhaps not my first call for financial advice

[catsconflictscopicsandchamomile]

No but full stop. if you say anything like "Gen Alpha is being raised wrong/horrible to have in class/morally fucked-up/idiotic/doomed/just really really cringe" I will unironically lose all respect for you immediately.

all this stuff about "they're illiterate", "they have no respect for parents or teachers" "screens have rotted their brains" "they just speak in weird Skibidi Toilet Gyatt Rizz Meme Language" "the screens have made them have no behavior standards or morals" "the ScReEeEeEeEnsssss"

...you sound literally exactly like our parents' generation did with us. and elder millenials'/Gen X/even really late boomer's parents' generations did with them about video games and cable tv and...regular tv

and radio

and records

and. dime novels.

and it literally just goes back like that forever

OVID talked abt this stuff in the EXACT same way

so yeah, if you say that stuff without a shred of self-awareness, then I

1) do not think you can keep your commitment to "not fuck up future generations like we were fucked up", since you're contributing to that fucking-up right now by your words and actions.

2) will assume that you have a similar shortsightedness in other issues that require you to compare your own/modern-day views and events to historical ones, and lose faith in your interpretation of everything from aesthetics and online drama to world-altering current events because of that

3) genuinely I just have nothing but disappointment in people who say these things. anyone on this site who hates "icky gen alpha things" almost definitely did the same thing themselves.

They have "Gyatt", we* had GLOMPING, Yaoi Paddles, shitty mspa twerking gifs everywhere, and "Oh My God, Look At Her Butt"

They have "Rizz" we had "YOLO SWAG" and "I made you a cookie but I eated it" and those selfies where you held your camera up too high and then looked up at it from under your bangs

They have "Skibidi Toilet" we had SO MANY THINGS. Llamas with Hats. Charlie the Unicorn. Annoying Orange. Crazy Frog. Potter Puppet Pals. Minecraft Parodies if you're younger gen z. friCKING TOBUSCUS MUSIC, that man was a PLAGUE.

They have a toxic social media culture focused on heavily edited and unachievable beauty standards, enforced popularity culture, rigid aesthetic-based social groups, harmful rumors about health & beauty, a pressure on young girls to act mature, and underlying racism/classism, all leading kids who dont have adequate guidance to, AT BEST, try beauty "products" that arent meant for kids and are usually scams. We had... literally the exact same thing except our airbrushing was on celebs and models instead of coming from filters.

*I am older Gen Z (24 y.o.) but was so fucking sheltered until ~2014, and even then... I'm going off tumblr-history blogs, yt retrospectives and "my friend said so" to understand what "we" had

TLDR STOP BULLYING GEN ALPHA

...except about "Starpatch" or "Starface" or whatever it is. yes, ik its also popular/more popular with younger gen z. yes I'm literally making a post rn to bully(lh) yall JUST as hard about it. if it were my exact age group doing this I would be bullying yall. i dont care who does it, starpatch is so fricking silly.

[erose-this-name]

How the fuck do you pronounce Izutsumi

I keep pronouncing it as Itsuzumi and Itsutsumi, but it's Izutsumi, fuxk.

Anyone else do this? I'm normally pretty good (they lied) with foreign pronunciation, but this one keeps tripping me up.

In English (American, anyway, not sure about other accents [dialects? {languages??}]) we almost never pronounce a Z right after a vowel. It's not Na-Zee, it's Natsi. It's not Pi-zza, it's Peetsa. It's not Mozart, it's Motsart.

This is very consistent, even with loan words. (unless it's Benghazi???)

What makes this even funnier is because of this and contractions like "it's", the [t͡s] sound is actually pretty common in English phonology. But most of us seem to be convinced that it's FOREIGN and ASIAN, making words like Tsunami or General Tsao IMPOSSIBLE TO PRONOUNCE! ...UNLESS YOU KNOW HOW TO BEATBOX! WHICH IS ALSO IMPOSSIBLE TO DO!!!

Anyways, my point is [z] and [t͡s] sound the same to the English ear, and since I know this I often overcompensate, which makes words containing both right after the other like Izutsumi really tricky.

Which is kinda like how Japanese learning English are infamous for often confusing L and R then overcompensating and switching the two, because those sound the same to Japanese people as they are also interchangeable in Japanese.

I just think that's funny.

Unless you're a Millenial/Zoomer, like I am! (if you are, you have my condolences).

Then you can even replace the [t] with a glottal stop. Instead of pizza or peetsa, it's "pee'sa".

Yes, I lied. I actually mispronounce it as "I'susumi".

It's becoming increasingly common among American Millennials to pronounce Ts in the end or middle of words as a glottal stop. (possibly from listening to Bri'ish people on the internet???).

Which, of course, is even more hilarious to me. Because THERE ISN'T EVEN SUPPOSED TO BE A FUCKIN' T IN THERE!!! THE MISPRONUNCIATIONS ARE COMPOUNDING!!

But it gets worse. Because, I also have the terminal throat condition known as Being From Chicago. I actually pronounce it as "I'suzooomy, duh' reladible autistic ca'-gurl from thuh anime Dungeon Meshi."

Because the only thing we Chicagoans love more than losing at sportsball and being annoyed by tourists who think deep dish is the same thing as Chicago style pee'sa is having extremely fucking inconsistent pronunciations of T and Th. It's not that we can't pronounce them, we just overcomplicate pronouncing them with a grab bag of Gaelic bullshit.

[bitegore]

Random question, but what do you think SG Stunticons would be like?

So obligatory "i'm bad at SG in general" warning.

I prefer when SG characters all have the same base personalities, just different methods of interaction and socialization. So Motormaster is still an authoritarian type who likes to be listened to; Drag Strip is still rather approval-hungry; Wildrider still likes fun in all forms and will chase it and gets bored easily; Dead End is still introspective and prone to thinking about the future rather than the present; and Breakdown is still very aware of other people and how they relate to him and his. But they're socialized better and very differently.

So.

Motormaster is a "kind but firm" leader. He's probably got a lot in common with regular!IDW Ratchet, being a bit of a buzzkill and not exactly sugar-sweet but he cares and he makes it obvious that he cares through his actions rather than his words. Because it's SG he's probably nicer than Ratchet though, verbally speaking. He still has very high expectations for his team, but he also makes it clear when he feels like they've met those expectations and is encouraging when he feels like they've fallen short. He's still not great at leading, probably, though - a little bit of a bumbling dumbass who at least has the good grace to admit when he's the one who fucked up.

Dead End really depends on the world, but I really struggle to imagine him not intensely morbid and miserably depressed no matter the situation. It's hard not to be when you're constantly thinking about the future and how you're on the losing side of a war, and in everything I've ever seen that's SG, the Decepticons are losing. He's probably less pretentious about it though - less of a classic lit guy and more of a. I don't know. Insert that one "Millenial Depression vs Gen Z depression" meme, he's probably a sparklecore nihilist instead of a miserable cynic. Prone to exclamations during bad moments of "It's okay, it could be worse!" "HOW could it be worse?" "We could all be dead!" or some shit like that.

Drag Strip runs around scrounging for compliments the same as ever, except this time he can just ask with his mouth so he just pulls that "aw, I didn't really do a good job, did I?" routine about everything all the time to force you to reassure that no, actually, he DID do good, and you're impressed with him. If regular!Drag Strip pulled that shit the regular!Stunticons would just be like "no dumbass you suck lmfao. anyway" so it wouldn't work for him, but in SG it would. As a result he's probably just as annoying but way less competitive, a hell of a lot more cooperative instead. Happy to work on a team and great at picking up skills because that means he has more things to go rooting for compliments on.

Wildrider is exactly the same except that he doesn't kill people. That's it. Oh he's probably also not paranoid about things when he's left alone but he's still easily bored and he still would rather be doing things. He does stuff all the time and he's still a firewords and explosions guy, he has fun. He'd get along with his regular counterpart- possibly the only sg character to ever LMAO

And Breakdown has no reason to be shy- instead he's just constantly thinking about other people and their emotional states... he's probably a terrrrrrible busybody. Hyperaware of gossip and the giver of the best gifts on the planet. If you have a problem, SG!Breakdown knows about it before you do. He's probably besties with Reflector and Soundwave instead of petrified of them. Maybe this is the universe where Breaky gets to be in Intel like he deserves.

[atwas-gaming]

Thoughts on the Final Horizon

I've been trying to put my thoughts on Final Horizon into a cohesive analysis, and... it hasn't happened yet. So just have some terribly disjointed thoughts.

Gameplay

First off, I want to say that I only filled in about a third of the map, so I probably didn't get the full story on anything. But I did beat The End, so I have seen how the story actually ends. And personally, I'm calling this the true ending. For one thing, the boss feels like a proper boss- it's very difficult to figure out on your own, it's easy to mess up, it's not just an out-of-place mini-game that felt like it was shoved in at the last second, and we're not left scratching our heads and wondering why literal Death wasn't so much harder.

Easy and medium modes in the base game left me with the same reaction as Sonic: "Is that it???" Hard mode left me feeling like nothing made sense. Seriously, a destroyer of worlds can't do better than a few dark and light particles and an occasional death laser? I spend most of hard mode in the base game going, "Ugh, I suck at bullet hells, what does this have to do with Sonic, anyway?!?"

The required mini-games were annoying enough, but to make it into a boss fight? Never made sense, and it never felt like a real Sonic boss.

But The End in Final Horizon does. First we fight Supreme. Same old Supreme fight as ever. And he whips out his gun and you're going, "gee, I wish they'd done more with that." But then you get into the final boss, and they did. The gun is how The End is filling Supreme with its power, connecting its siphon to it to fill Supreme with its power. We have to remove the siphon, and then the gun, to be able to destroy Supreme, and that gives us the opportunity to go after the moon.

I am not convinced that the hands that sprout from Supreme's back weren't inspired by TOTK's gloom spawn XP. Especially in the second phase of the fight, when they start glowing and spitting at us.

The perfect parry we learned to use in Master King Koco's trial (along with the punch-stomp technique, amirite?) suddenly becomes important instead of just a nuisance.

If you're like me and you were a little disappointed that Sonic automatically cylooped Knight's sword instead of us getting the chance to cyloop it, we now get the chance to cyloop Supreme's gun.

I have a few nitpicks on the design, largely the fact that those dang trees were in the way most of the time, and also that it was so hard to figure out how to manage the fight (I totally forgot that dodge changes the target, so I spent an hour or two trying to figure out why I couldn't just kill Supreme and then go after the moon). Otherwise, I think it was fairly well-designed, considering that it was a DLC addition.

Story

As for the story aspect, I loved it. It was honestly about time Sonic got a new form, and Cyber Sonic fits him so well. It's clearly more than he can handle, but he "goes all out," because if he doesn't, it's over. He's not just saving his friends, anymore- he has to destroy literal Death, or the universe itself will be destroyed. (Just the universe? From the way this thing is capable of destroying the walls between dimensions, I think Sonic just saved the whole freaking space-time continuum.)

And it becomes a team effort. First Sage steps up to throw up a shield similar to the dimensional shield that kept The End trapped for milleni- albeit a much smaller one that begins breaking almost immediately; however, the fact that she could do it at all speaks volumes about not only her strength, but her ability to tap into Cyberspace. Then Team Sonic joins in, each of them equal in strength to Sage because of not only their connections to Cyberspace, but also the cyber corruption they've suffered as a result of retrieving the Emeralds.

Sonic develops new attacks and abilities, apparently having gained even greater speed and agility than ever before because of the Cyber Corruption. I don't know if this happens all the time or if I just screwed up somewhere, but it seemed like The End shot out some kind of huge energy ball that ripped both the Emeralds and the rings right out of Sonic- but then he just pulled them all back in, somehow?

I was sitting there through the whole fight going, "Come on, come on, we gotta take out that moon!" And the way they did it was, I think, even better than the normal ending (base game). In the normal ending, Sage throws Sonic into The End, and while it's enough to do some damage, Sonic is just too small. Sage, in Supreme, is large enough and has enough power to completely obliterate The End- something Sonic couldn't have done even if he'd released all the Emeralds' power while he was passing through the moon's center. He would have died for nothing. But Sage dies, instead. And we get a post-credits cutscene of Eggman rebooting Sage from backup copies. This is the normal ending.

That's why I think of Final Horizon as the True Ending- it's the one where no one dies except the bad guy. And its so perfect. Eggman and Sonic just... they just work together like they each know what the other one's going to do (one of the benefits of having been enemies for so long, I guess). There's almost no conversation between them, Eggman's already got the gun attached to the Eggmobile, he doesn't have to tell Sonic that Sonic is going to be the bullet, he just knows to do it.

Once Sonic is safely enclosed deep within the barrel of the gun, he releases the barriers that he himself put up to protect himself from the corruption, becoming a little ball of pure cyber energy. The last time the corruption took him over, he turned into a statue, like stone. This time, he holds onto his mind long enough to remain conscious while he does what he has to do. Nothing is said about his mental condition, he just roars like an animal as he rushes at the shell of Supreme's casing and the moon. I imagine he let his amnesia take over, let his mind be taken over by pure rage and one thought: DESTROY THAT THING.

(Also, I recommend watching Sonic strike the final blow in Japanese. Junichi's screams are just so perfect. Roger's voice acting in Frontiers is amazing, but I'm sorry, Roger is still the worst screamer. Junichi is amazing here.)

And then... maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think I've ever seen Super Sonic look beat up, or unconscious. Perhaps it was the Emeralds that gave Sonic the ability to hold onto himself long enough to fight? At any rate, he unleashed his Cyber power while inside The End, destroying it, and neutralizing the corruption so it didn't affect him anymore.

And then Sage finally gets to hear Eggman call her his daughter. And... the final boss music from the base game finally makes sense. I never understood why it was so tender and lovely, or why it was called "I'm With You." I figured it had something to do with Sage, but I couldn't figure out what. Now that we have lyrics, it makes sense. All she was ever thinking about was her father. Even in the base game, before she realized that she would have to die, she was just looking forward to the day that she would have a family.

BTW, I'm still not a fan of the whole "daddy Eggman" thing, I see his fondness for Sage as purely narcissistic- he built her, and she protects him, and he's proud of her for exceeding his expectations. I don't think he cares about her, he just cares about what she does for him. But even so... it's still touching. And Sonic does have a monologue on Ouranos where he says something like, "Eggman, maybe you'll finally get your act together this time." Perhaps they are leaning in that direction. Hmm... tbh, I wouldn't mind seeing him get a redemption arc, eventually. Doubt it will ever really happen, but I'm a sucker for a redemption story, so I can hope.

Final Thoughts (and some hopes for Frontiers 2)

Anyway, despite some of the shortcomings and a lack of properly setting us up and preparing us for it, I think Final Horizon was good. I can't say that it leaves me feeling like they gave us the ending they had originally intended. For instance, I've heard that Ouranos was originally intended to be set in space or something (just a rumor I heard in one video- apparently there's a lost voice clip of Sage saying something about a mothership). So, I don't feel like we got the full story as it was originally intended.

But, like... this was the biggest and most well-received Sonic game to come out in generations (see what I did there?). And I believe Sega has already said they plan on using a similar format for the next game.

Now, I'm not trying to make a prediction or get anyone's hopes up, but... well...

I mean, Team Sonic's gonna go do their own things, right? Amy and Tails are going off to explore on their own, Knuckles says he wants to go somewhere and not be tied down to Angel Island so much anymore. So, who's gonna go with Sonic on his next adventure?

May I suggest making Team Dark relevant again?

And then, since we've already involved aliens and Ancient alien technology and the Emeralds apparently came from space... and Shadow is part alien... You see where I'm going with this?

It's just my own idea, but hey, I can dream, can't I? They could make a whole 'nother huge game if they went such a route.

Anyway, whatever they decide to do, I'm looking forward to it. Frontiers was a heck of a ride- lol, I've been on this ride almost non-stop for a year now. If Sega does as good with the next game, I definitely want to see it!

[mcrmadness]

Is criticism always negative? Does criticism equal to constructive criticism? Is there some generation gap between us Millenials, and Gen Z?

English is not my first language, and "constructive criticism" usually translates to "constructive feedback" in my mother tongue, that's maybe why I often think of criticism as neutral.

I have seen so much debate going on about how you should not criticise unless the author/artists asks you to, and I think that has spread to people thinking "you should not leave feedback at all unless the author/artist asks you to", which in turn has turned into people being too scared to leave feedback EVEN when asked to, because people are so easy to misunderstand things as criticism, get upset and block people, and it's "easier" for everyone to not use any words at all and instead stick to non-verbal interaction such as kudos or likes etc.

I grew up in the era where there was no non-verbal interaction available (so: the 2000s internet). There were no counters for when something had been read (unless it was on a message board that had such feature), so the only way to let the author or artist know that they have been seen was to leave a comment. I don't remember any "is this criticism? should I get upset?" debate from that time. The longer the comment, the happier the creator. Constructive feedback was very welcome, even without the creator mentioning it.

I have noticed that today's culture is so different from that time's culture. I keep writing to my fics and drawings and everything about how all kinds of comments are welcome, and I accept criticism, and I just want to hear what YOU AS READERS/VIEWERS think of my work, and I keep writing in my art posts that reblogs are allowed, but what I get? Nothing. I don't know if people just are so insecure or find it difficult to word their thoughts, or if it's the consume-and-don't-interact culture (which sucks), but as a creator it just makes me feel like I'm expected to be some sort of a machine that prints out content like on a conveyor belt for others to consume. Like, feedback and interactons is my fuel, you know? I don't really feel like there's need for my creations. Literally the only reason I still sometimes post on AO3 is because I have a friend who likes reading my fics and always leaves comments, but without that friend... I would not post at all. I would just keep writing to myself and store everything in my files. Same with my art. I have given up on posting my art on so many channels because all I get is radio silence, which then makes me think there is something wrong with either me or my art, which eventually leads to me quitting arts completely because I don't want to create to only myself. I want to create something that makes other people feel happy, and to smile and laugh.

I often compare this to how musicians and bands do concerts, and how much it would suck to perform to either a completely empty hall, or to have people stand there but everyone is completely emotionless and just walks out without saying a thing the second the concert ends. I don't think they would carry on with that very long, tbh. That is what it feels like to me when people don't interact with creations anymore, and when the current fandom culture makes it feel like everyone is scared to interact because someone, out there, might get upset. You can't please everyone, and mistakes happen, and you can always apologize and talk it out. And to those you easily get upset: not everything is on purpose, because mistakes happen to everyone.

Sorry for the rant but it's annoying me when there seems to be this very b&w thinking over this where others say "X is the right way to go" and the next one say "no, Y is the right way to go!" and both are stated as the universal truth when both can exist depending on a person and what they personally prefer. I personally prefer all kinds of feedback (and when I say that in my notes, I MEAN IT) and don't mind criticism because I never take it as hate. Hate is different, and at that I just laugh.

Saw this comment on a booktok and I'm wondering what y'all think. I take issue with the idea that if you do want criticism on your writing then you shouldn't post it online. Not everyone writes, especially fanfic, to improve. "Most of these fic authors want to be published authors" no I don't think they do actually, writing fanfic can be about improving your skills to become a professional author; but it can also be about engaging in community or IDK putting your fav characters into situations???

I personally don't leave criticism on ao3, I wouldn't mind it on my work if it was said politely.

"I get these fic writers are writing for free" yes, so you're not entitled to anything from them... if you can't read fanfic without wanting to give criticism then you either aren't reading fics that are right for you or you shouldn't be reading at all.

[the--sad--hatter]

I know I don't have a fully legitimate reason for it, but I get unreasonably annoyed when I read 'on accident' instead of 'by accident'.

I know American English is different, and I even agree that a lot of those differences make sense, like Math vs Maths, THERE'S ONLY ONE! Why are we pluralising it Britain?

But reading the words 'On Accident' do make my blood pressure shoot up so dramatically that I need to lie down and resist the urge to scream in rage.

Then I realised, while I see that phrase pop up in fanfiction quite often, I rarely read it in published writing. That got me researching.

Do you know what I discovered?

I'm old. I'm old, and set in my ways, and language is evolving and changing like it always has. I'm willing to bet that the reason it's rarely used in published writing is because editors are changing it, older editors, or ones who subscribe to the olden laws like I do.

Millenials and Gen-X are developing their own version of their languages, just like previous generations did (which is why we don't still speak like we did in days of yore). More than that, thanks to the Internet, cultural divides are shrinking, and different phrases from other languages are working their way into our vernacular.

There is a point to this long ass rant of mine, and here it is.

Write however the fuck you want to write. Use whatever phrases you want to use. At the end of the day, so long as it's understandable to the reader, that's all that matters. Don't get bogged down with things like the above (unless you want to). Because I have noticed this elitist trend of politely correcting fanfic authors on their phrasing and their grammar, and I've even been guilty of it myself. I'm done with that bullshit.

Languages aren't set in (Rosetta) Stone (sorry, puns), they never have been. They're fluid, and changeable, and subject to the whims of our creative minds. So play around with it, have fun, go nuts, find your own voice.

[ericvilas]

I feel like I was born on the cusp between millenials and gen z. My first exposure to Navigating The Internet On My Own was when I was 10 (2005ish), and a friend of mine showed me how you could find random images on Google Images and what Newgrounds flash games were and he showed me Miniclip and for a while, Newgrounds was basically the majority of my life. Before then, the majority of my life had been Nintendo 64 and Xbox (original) games. He also introduced me to RuneScape, which became an instant obsession for like. A year or two, until July 2006 when that friend decided he wasn't interested in that game anymore and I felt devastated and heartbroken (I was 11, shut up).

On Newgrounds, I would just go through the Mario, Zelda, and Videogames sections to find as many things that referenced stuff I knew as I could. All the memey songs, like Ultimate Showdown or the Llama Song, as well.

Around 2008, I also discovered speedruns, and TASVideos, and lurked in the TASvideos forums for a while. I followed these people on YouTube, and over time found a Zelda and gaming community which I followed avidly on Youtube. That's how I first found Let's Plays (thank you Lancun). You'll note this is right in the middle of the shift to more centralized websites - that's where I grew up.

I fell in love with YouTube - there were VIDEOS FOR EVERYTHING (I mostly looked at funny videos, speedruns, AMVs, and random videogame stuff). I never did too fancy a search, mostly just going through people's channels and seeing all their videos. I commented a lot and one TASer blocked me around 2009 for being too annoying lol.

In 2010-2012 I found science videos and vlogbrothers and Let's Plays and PBSIdeaChannel which showed me Homestuck and I joined the nerdfighter facebook group and the Homestuck Google+ group, the latter was my first ever Online Community that I felt truly comfortable in and where I was an active participant, where I made friends.

That progress, to me, doesn't feel like Stuff Getting Worse, it just feels like me Growing Up And Becoming More Aware Of Things. I never talked in the TASvideos forums cause I never really had much to contribute, I was a little kid. I came into my own in Google+ and YouTube. And because of that, maybe I'm biased, but I don't think that stuff got lost.

Cause that stuff is still there. JimLad800 still has those same Nintendo AMVs uploaded and more people are making AMVs about other shit. Homestuck happened. There's tons of fandoms and subcommunities. I don't think stuff is worse on that end. And I still just go to my sub box instead of the home page, and every so often I see a recommended video I like on the sidebar and I watch it and I'll appreciate it more often than not. I like what YouTube is, far more than I dislike it.

All this new shit can definitely improve experiences. It can and has been badly implemented in many places, but I don't think it's all bad.

But again. Maybe I'm a special case because of my particular experience, idk.