#if I am to legitimately switch over to an art major

[abyssalzones]

have you ever seen the soviet cartoon "film, film, film!" (1968)? i think you would really like it. Animation Upscale yt channel has a translation

oh my god. my icon on social media/discord used to be this character for ages but I had no idea what he was from and could only find low quality screenshots of him

I might switch back to this I'll be honest. he resonates with my soul

[rewrite-the-wrongs]

introductions / howdy, pardner

My first short story was about a fishboy and his human best friend. They battled a mutant piranha (whose name I think may have been Mutant Piranha, such was the monumental daring of my creative endeavor) and his army, who were out to destroy a mountain that held a whole planet together. The boys won singlehandedly, because scale was apparently a bit of a mystery to me.

This was the second grade. My teacher--who held me every day as I cried for weeks, confused and miserable and stranded in the throes of my parents’ divorce--understood before I did that I create to a ploddingly slow and steady drumbeat. A sentence is always so much more in my head than I’m able to let out, at first; I have to pore over it again and again, fleshing and flourishing (and often correcting) it, the same way I often have to reread paragraphs or pages or whole books to truly capture their meaning. In a word processor, this back-and-forth is as easily said as it is done; on double-wide ruled paper with dashed-line handwriting guides, the task is magnitudes more time-consuming, especially for somebody as messy as I am. So, while nearly everybody else played at recess on the sandlot and the jungle gym around us, a select few stragglers laid our reading folders on our laps and finished our stories.

My villain, that dastardly Mutant Piranha, found himself in prison at the story’s close. Awaiting trial, I guess; I never ventured that far ahead, seeing the big fishy bastard for a coward. “When no one was looking, he stabbed himself.” That’s the last line, stuck in my memory, not for its own sake, but for my poor teacher’s horrified face as she read my final draft there on the playground.

A mom volunteered to type up the class’ stories and get them printed and bound. For years afterward I reread that collection, always proud to have written the second-longest piece therein. I felt the weight of the pages, inhaled the tiny but acrid breeze that came from rapidly leafing through them. Knew it was a whole smattering of worlds inside, that one of those worlds was wholly mine, and I had the power to show it to people however I wished. Yes, I thought, I want this.

*

I’ve been introduced to writing many times over, by many people. Don’t get me wrong--I nightowled the first several chapters to many half-baked novel concepts all through my youth. But teachers have a way of showing a thing to you from new angles.

The first person to impact me as such was a high school teacher who was essentially given carte-blanche to construct a creative writing workshop in the English curriculum. The first semester was structured--you practiced poems, short fiction, humor and essay writing, drama, the gamut. Every semester after, the carte-blanche was passed on: A single assignment due a week, each a single draft of a poem or a minimum of two pages’ worth of prose. Forty-five minutes a day to work, and of course free time at home. By the time I graduated, I’d finagled my schedule such that I was spending two periods a day in the computer lab, and several hours after school every day working the literary arts magazine before I went home to get the rest of my homework out of the way and write some more..

My next big influence came in the form of  a pair of writers who taught fiction at my university, a married couple. One had me print stories and literally, physically cut them up section-by-section as a method of reworking chronologies. Told me stories happened like engines or clocks or programs--pieces that meshed differently depending on how they were put together, rules that held each other in place. The other showed boundless confidence in me, listened happily to some older students who recommended I be brought on board for a national arts mag. They both encouraged me toward grad school, but toward the end of my junior year I began to stumble, and by senior year I was, to be frank, a drunken asshole. Time I could be bothered to set aside for writing began to dwindle. I limped through the editorship with the help of my extremely talented, utterly more-than-worthy successor--and come to think of it, I’ve never truly thanked her. Maybe I’ll send her that message, now that I’m feeling more myself.

*

On feeling more myself:

That drunken rage was brought on by a myriad list of factors, the primary ones being 1) I am the child of recovering alcoholics, and our inherited family trauma runs deep, 2) An assault that will likely be mentioned no further from hereon in, as I have reached a solid level of catharsis about it, 3) Some toxic-ass relationship issues, and 4) I was a massive egg and had no idea (or, really, I had some idea, just not the language or understanding or even the proper empathy to eloquently and effectively explore it).

I had a recent relapse with drinking, technically--a mimosa at Christmas breakfast at my partner’s parents’ home--but I’m not honestly sure I can call it a legitimate relapse. I’m not in any official self-help group, I’ve never engaged in the twelve steps or a professional rehabilitation. I had a very wonderful therapist for a few years but reached a point at which I could not pay her any longer and we parted ways--I miss her dearly, as she truly became my friend and confidante; she was the first person I came out to, and very well-equipped to handle it, lucky for me--but I’m still on behavioral medication. That tiny smidgen of alcohol pushed my antidepressants right out of my brain, and I became terribly anxious and angry and sad all at once, and briefly lashed out during a conversation with my partner behind closed doors. Not nearly the lashing out I’ve released in the now-distant past--more on that maybe-never, but who knows, as I am obviously a chronic over-sharer.

Frankly, I don’t deserve my partner. She endured my past abuses, told me to my face I had to be better, and found it in herself to wait for me to grow. She’s endlessly and tirelessly supportive of me. She sat with me to help me maintain the nerve to start this blog tonight. I came out to her as a trans woman just under a year ago, now, and I’m happier than ever, and we communicate better than ever. Our relationship is, bar-none, the healthiest and stablest and happiest I’ve ever been in.

So, naturally, I apologized fairly quickly at Christmas, and continuing where I’d left off at two and a half years, decided I’m still solid without booze.

If we’re all being honest, though (and I’m doing my best to be one hundred percent honest, here, though I will absolutely be censoring names because no shit), I still smoke way too much fuckin’ weed. High as balls, right now. 420 blaze it, all day erryday, bruh. That self-medicated ADHD life. I should be on Adderall and not antidepressants, probably, but it’s been a while since an appointment and psychiatrists are expensive, so I’m at where I’m at for now. Sativas help a lot. It helps with the dysphoria, too.

I don’t have a legal diagnosis for gender dysphoria, but tell that to my extreme urge to both be in and have a vagina. I’m making little changes--my hair, an outfit at a time, no longer policing how I walk or run or how much emphasis I put on S sounds. If I manage to come out to my parents sometime soon--and it feels like that moment is closer every day--maybe I’ll tell y’all my real, full chosen name. For right now, call me Easy.

*

Anyhow. My goals here are pretty simple:

1) Share words, both those by people I like/admire/sometimes know! and occasionally words I’ve made that I like. See the above screenshot from my notes app. Steal some words if you want, but if you manage to make money off some of mine, holler at ya gurl’s Venmo, yeah?

2) Discuss words, how they work, and how we create them, use them, engage with them, and ultimately make art of them. I am not a professional linguist, but I went to undergrad for creative writing, so, hey, I’ll have opinions and do my best to back them up with ideas from people smarter than I am.

3) Books! Read them, revisit them, quote them, talk about them, sometimes maybe even review them, if I’m feeling particularly bold. No writer can exist in a vacuum, and any writer who insists they don’t like to read is either a) dyslexic and prefers audiobooks or b) in serious need of switching to a communications major (no shade, but also definitely a little shade @corporate journalism).

5) I added this last, but I feel it’s less important than 4 and does not deserve bookend status, and I am verbose but incredibly lazy, so here I am, fucking with the system. Anyway: Art! Music! Video games! I fucking love them. I’ll talk about them, sometimes, too. Maybe I’ll finally do some of the ekphrastic work I’ve felt rattling around in my brain for a while now. Jade Cocoon 2′s Water Wormhole Forest, looking right the fuck at you.

6) Ah, shit, I did it again. Oh well. Last-but-not-last: This is obviously, in some ways, a diary, or a massive personal essay. I will sometimes discuss people, places, or experiences that have informed my work just the same as other people’s art has.

4) Be an unabashed and open Trans woman. TERFs, transphobes, ill-informed biological essentialists not permitted. Come at me and my girldick and prepare to be dunked on and subsequently shown the door via a swift and painful steel-toed kick in the ass. Everybody who doesn’t suck, if I screw up on any matter of socio-ethics or respect for diversity, please feel free to correct me.

*

Punk’s dead, but we’re a generation of motherfucking necromancers. Be gay, do crime, fight the patriarchy, and fart when you gotta. May the Great Old Ones select you to ascend to a higher plane and learn the terrible truths of existence.

Much love--

Easy

[ladala99]

Spyro Reignited Countdown - A Hero’s Tail

And finally we get... I guess it’s not really a return to form but it is a return to greatness.

A Hero’s Tail uses the Spyro characters and basic mechanics and makes it a modern (for the time) platformer. This does eliminate one of the franchise’s core features (finite gems), but ultimately, it did a good job and did the franchise justice.

And it also officially introduces Ember, who Spyro fanficcers liked to ship with Spyro, especially as a rival ship versus Cynder of later titles. Yes, that was a part of the fanbase I frequented. I am not sorry.

Gameplay

Spyro’s controls are brought to the modern (again, for the time) age, with a much more responsive camera and really that’s the only major difference. Spyro feels like Spyro. He flames, he charges, and he glides.

...Well, aside from the fact that they swapped the Flame and Charge buttons, and now you have to hold X to glide rather than just press it. I first played this game as a demo and legitimately thought the change was a mistake, but nope. Not entirely sure why it was made, but it was. Perhaps it aligns with other PS2 platformers better?

Mini rant, courtesy of how 3-year-old me remembered the controls: Circle is flame because it’s red and the mouth makes an O. Square is Charge because the sides are pointy. X is jump because the X is blue like air and you are in the air while jumping. Triangle is zoom in because the bottom represents a really wide view and the top represents a really narrow view. Why would you change this?

But anyway, it works for the game. Aside from not matching previous games, it’s easy to adapt to and the controls are very responsive. They’re not quite as tight as in the originals, but they’re very close.

Additional Playable Characters

We’ve got a few this time. There’s Hunter, Sparx, Sgt. Byrd and the new character Blink. Totally new. What are you talking about with the “but he appeared in a GBA game”?

While Hunter was technically playable before, this is the first time you can platform with him. His moveset’s pretty similar to Spyro’s, aside from one of his main attacks being very ranged. Aside from his arrows, he’s basically Spyro, but not as maneuverable. Yeah, he can scale walls and Spyro doesn’t in this game, but that ability originally belonged to Spyro, so it doesn’t feel unique.

What is unique is that one section that you’re forced to play as him as part of the story. That was neat. And frustrating because he does not platform as well as Spyro does, since his movements are floaty and you can’t correct them with gliding like you can Spyro’s, and this area has a lot of small platforms.

Sparx has a completely different gameplay style this time: rail-shooter. It’s honestly not that bad, especially in comparison to Season of Ice’s Speedways. I just prefer the other Sparx gameplay.

Sgt. Byrd, speaking of Speedways, takes over for Spyro during them. And his levels are definitely not designed in the same way the old Speedways were designed. It used to be that there was a clear linear path to take from one object to the next, but that is not the case here. I like these Speedways better than Season of Ice’s, but I don’t like them much.

As far as actual controls go, Sgt. Byrd does just fine. Sometimes his turning is a little difficult, but it works for how wide open the areas are.

Blink controls very similarly to Hunter, with the main difference being how the level is designed. Blink’s levels are all underground, having a specific set of enemies and such, and they’re all considered minigames with the goal of destroying Dark Gems. He suffers from the same floatiness as Hunter, and there’s certainly a lot of platforms. Somehow, though, his levels never got me stuck like Hunter’s did in that one section.

Sometimes I feel that Eurocom wanted to make a Blink game, not a Spyro game. While Blink’s levels are minigames, they’re really fleshed out and well-designed. They have plenty of variety, if not in appearance.

Collectables

Gems are not just currency to be used at Moneybags’ shop. They’re found everywhere, and can be collected from enemies multiple times. At the beginning you’ll be hurting for them, but by the end of the game you’ll have much more than you know what to do with. At least, that’s my experience.

Dragon Eggs return, with a twist. They’re pretty much optional, and much less valuable than the other main collectable. This time, dragon eggs come in different patterns and if you collect a set, you unlock a thing. A lot of those things are just the ability to play minigames from the main menu.

The things that I care about are the concept art gallery (as that’s always cool) and the Ember and Flame skins. Mostly Ember since I like playing as female characters. It’s just a skin, though, and it changes back to Spyro in cutscenes plus uses his sound effects. Still: first time skins are in the game, unless you count the color cheats!

Finally we get Light Gems. They’re used to power up gadgets and open doors. They’re required for progress in certain places, but not always. They’re always rewarded on the second round of minigames, which means everybody talks about how worthless Dragon Eggs are in comparison. We don’t want these unborn children, give us the shiny thing!

Oh, and Dark Gems. They aren’t collected, but destroyed. You need to smash all of them to continue.  They’re just scattered around the levels. You’ll come across them.

Powerups

Supercharge returns! Sort of! It’s one of the powerups that the Professor unlocks for you when you collect enough Light Gems. It really doesn’t feel the same, and it’s used for a few doors, some of which you can’t just charge to from the pad.

There’s also invincibility which works like it did in Lost Fleet, allowing you to travel through acid. Just with a stricter time limit and now it makes Spyro metal rather than red.

Finally I’ll mention the orb-thingys that let you use a ranged version of your breath abilities. I literally have never used them, but they’re there. I can’t say one way or the other how useful they are, but they definitely are not necessary.

Other Modes

The other minigames, as all minigames repeat, are turrets and ball gadgets.

Turrets aren’t hard, but they are stressful. You need to protect the thing while other things try to steal/eat/whatever it. Or you need to protect yourself and hit a huge number of enemies. I don’t like this minigame. Especially the baby turtle one.

Ball Gadgets are much more fun to watch than they are to play. The controls work, but it takes a bit to stop. There’s also a couple of on-rails ones that are really trial-and-error. Even knowing what to do, you’re going to fast to react so you need to memorize every action.

Breath Abilities

This game continues the trend of having them! And acts like it’s the first time at the same time. Enter the Dragonfly is apparently not canon.

Fire acts like it always has. They didn’t do the particle effect thing like Enter the Dragonfly did so it moves forward with you as it should.

Electricity starts out as a weaker Fire and then ends up being much more useful. It takes longer to defeat enemies, but there are certain enemies that are immune to Fire but not Electricity. After a point, it’s not worth it to switch back, since Fire just isn’t universally useful like Electricity is.

Water is just used for puzzles. Nothing else. This is also the only time Water is an element in the series.

Ice freezes certain things (like steam vents so you can use them to pole spin), and enemies of course. There are certain enemies in the final area that are only weak to Ice. (Maybe Water too, but I haven’t tried) Otherwise it freezes enemies so you can charge them like in other games.

Bosses

Finally, we get some new ones!

Gnasty Gnorc returns as the first boss. He’s actually far stronger than he was in Spyro 1, ironically enough. The fight itself is a pretty fun platformer boss fight, but his personality... it’s so childish. It’s like they didn’t know who he really was before.

Ineptune is a new character. The fight itself is, again, great for this style of game. Her character is kind of forgettable, though.

And then we get Red, who we fight twice. The first time is actually harder if only for the fact that you’re in an icy arena and thus the controls are more slippery. He’s not a very complex villain, but his fights are pretty fun, but very similar to the other two.

Special mention to the mammoth, who wins via being in a cutscene. You never see him again, having no chance to best him. He is truly Spyro’s greatest foe.

Levels

Continuing from Attack of the Rhynocs, the levels are much more seamless. They’re still very distinct, but in a lot of cases (moreso early-on than later) they feel like the same level as you begin in.

And again like Attack of the Rhynocs, the levels don’t have concrete ends. You can check your map and see how many Dark Gems are left, but it doesn’t really feel like you’ve finished even after you smash them all.

There’s no main conflict to defeat or anything, it’s just exploring and smashing Dark Gems, and occasionally finding a Dragon Elder to give you new skills. You get a checklist, but it’s not the same.

The theming is fine, if generic. Older Spyro games tended to have an irony to them, but not this one. Everything is played straight. Which, of course, makes it so this game doesn’t stand out very much.

Story

I don’t even know if I fully understand it. So Red’s an evil dragon who mined some Dark Gems to spread evil throughout the lands. And the Elders are very hesitant to tell you more.

Eventually it comes out that Red used to be an Elder, but he betrayed them. I really don’t understand why they couldn’t just tell Spyro that. Do the Elders just have a reputation that they don’t want to sully or something?

We get no motivation on Red’s part, and normally I’d be fine with that, but with all the secrets I expect a bit more. Also: who’s Ineptune in all this?

There’s parts where I feel I missed a game. Ember knows Spyro, and Spyro appears to know Ember. I feel like I should know who Ineptune is just because of how little introduction she gets.

I read that there was going to be a TV show that got cancelled but the games didn’t, but it was literally one forum post and it may have just been someone making things up. It would certainly explain things, though.

Unique in the Series?

Yes and no. It definitely has a unique feel as far as the series goes, but it’s very generic at the same time.

A lot of what it introduces is used again in later games, even though that part of the series is very different.

But yeah, Water Breath, Pole Spinning, and Wall Kicking are unique to this game in the series. They aren’t unique in general (See: Mario. Yes, even Water Breath. See: Sunshine), but for the series, definitely.

It’s at that weird awkward part in which it’s not anything groundbreaking, but it’s still really good.

Conclusion

Best post-Insomniac Classic Spyro, if only by default. It’s generic for its time, bringing Spyro fully into said time. It works, it’s fun, and I wish there were more to this part of the series that weren’t... well, Orange.

[damnit-samnit]

I wanna know what artisans real dream job was? Because I think it's clear she doesn't like her current job, that poor girl :( I wanna know more about her

lmao so I did make a background for art because I am all about lore (does this constitute as lore?)

and I wrote so much. but this is one of those “omfg you made an oc stop trying to pass it off as a reader-insert” moments because I gave her a background to help guide the story.

spoilers? eh… maybe?

oh god i might have word vomited much more than was needed to answer the question.

Art has wanted to be a support scientist for as long as she can remember. That’s the only dream job that she’s had since she was a child.

She was a smart kid growing up, one of those kids that excelled at academics effortlessly, and she was told that — that she was gifted. It just so happened that her best friend, Yume, was in the same boat.

Art has a cool quirk, and it would have undoubtedly helped her had she taken the hero route, but she didn’t/doesn’t have the desire or the constitution to be a hero. Still, she was enamored with the whole hero lifestyle and set her sights on support work. It was a way for her to have a finger on the pulse without the risk of dying on the job. So, in middle school, she decided to apply to a very prestigious support high school. She got in, along with Yume.

That was basically the start of her downfall.

In public school system in Japan, she was a big fish in a little pond. Math, science, writing — all of that came easy to her. She would tinker and create things for fun during her off time (with whatever she could find in the home of her non-scientist parents). But, in high school, she was suddenly surrounded by big fishes from all over the world. She wasn’t special anymore. If she wanted to succeed and excel, she actually had to put effort in.

Thing is, your girl didn’t learn those skills (as simple as they seem). High school was really hard for her and she just made it by the skin of her teeth and it was no thanks to Yume.

But she believed she was stuck on her career track. Although she didn’t rank high in her class, she still went to a prestigious high school and there was an equally prestigious support college in the same “city”. Graduates of her high school were kind of fast-tracked into acceptance. so although her academics were mediocre/poor, she was still viewed as desirable in the college’s eyes.

In college, all those issues that she had in high school were compounded. Not only were they compounded, they were also made much worse. And she struggled. 

Art thought that she had dug herself into a hole that she couldn’t get out of. She had dumped years of schooling and put all this effort into achieving her life dream and was learning, in her mind, that her dream was unachievable. And it was unachievable because she wasn’t good enough.

So, believing herself to be an absolute failure, she quit school and returned home under the guise of finishing her studies in another, less pressurized environment. Instead, she was going out, dwelling on her failures and just being a lost soul. That’s the big thing about Art — she’s not a bad person, she’s really just a lost soul.

She ends up frequenting some pretty divey places with some pretty divey people, and she gets talking. She lets it slip that she was a support scientist, that she went to this really major school, and she’s approached by someone looking for help.

Art gets offered a considerable amount of money to craft him a support item for their quirk. She does have the connections for supplies and eventually, through these divey places, she forges new ones that can’t be so easily traced back to her. By the time attachment starts, she’s been in the biz for years.

I think, during those initial jobs, she felt very guilty and very torn about what she was doing. But, like I said, there’s not a lot of support scientists out there for villains and suddenly she was that big fish in a little pond again.

She was useful, she wasn’t a failure, she was desired. That’s when personal achievement started to outweigh societal good when it came to influencing her decision making.

Art’s hero lab job — that was her ultimate career goal. The thing little Art would daydream and imagine as a child. I’m trying to hammer it, not just in this upcoming chapter but in later chapters, how big this job was to her. It was basically a dream come true. The unachievable was achieved. In her mind, it was kind of her second chance. Not only to prove herself wrong but also make a legitimate name for herself in the hero world.

And what happened?

It sucked.

You have Yume, who had the same life goal and who works in the same environment, who unintentionally implies that any issues Art has been facing are her own fault. Because she knows art. She’s seen it before.

Art knows Yume understands her better than she understands herself, so she takes that information and her brain basically tells her that she’s having issues because she’s an utter failure.

And what does art do when she experiences failure? She shuts down and she leaves.

She’s stuck in a cycle and she’s heartbroken. Not only that, seeing what happened at the lab, seeing Mikki die, really really impacted her. She saw a villain attack firsthand. For once, she was personally impacted. And that little empathy switch her head that had gotten rusted in the ‘off’ position over the years… that sucker was flipped right on and now she doesn’t know what to do.

And that’s where we come in! We’re watching the downward spiral of Artisan folks. Her background will be expanded more in the future when a certain out-of-country trip is taken (though that’s super far ahead in the timeline). 

Oh god, this was so long.

Anyway, this might be too oc so I might rework it going forward. 

[vitalpen]

A criticism of Persona 5

So I’m gonna preface this diatribe with three disclaimers:

First off is going to be the SPOILER WARNING.  This post spoils the game all over the place as it needs to given the nature of the discussion.  That’s why the read more is there.

Second, this post is long.  Coming in at a lover 2000 words.  So if you ready this, get ready for an essay.

Third: I love Persona 5.  I played through it twice, did every social link, filled out the compendium, and beat the secret boss.  It is a fantastic game with a fantastic story, loveable characters, beautiful art, and menus stylish enough to have their own fashion show.  

That being said, there are things that it does with each character that I can’t help but sigh at in frustration.  There are a few running themes for all of these that I’ll expand on at the end.

A lot of the issues come down to how a character is treated after their “important thing” is resolved. I’m gonna run down them in order of people entering your party.

Starting off, there’s Mona.  Leaving behind how happy I am that he was not just another Teddy, there are points with Mona that make him out to be such a whiny little brat.  Mainly, the section where he leaves the party because he thinks they’re getting too greedy.  Rather than try to get them back on track, he drops them after one bad conversation with mostly just Ryuji (the rest of the party is pretty unclear on where they stand), thus leaving them with no supervision when they seem to need it the most.  There’s also the whole constant insulting of Ryuji to the point where it’s eyeroll-inducing and the fact that backstory wise, he does end up being part way to a rehash of Teddy.  

Actually, speaking of Mona insulting Ryuji, man that guy never gets a break.  Despite the fact that he has a compelling backstory and motivation, after the first palace, he starts to lean pretty heavily toward the “punching bag” type of joke character.  He’s the one that everyone (especially Mona) calls an idiot, he’s the butt of nearly all the slapstick, and he’s the one that gets harassed by the gay stereotypes with some really uncomfortable cutting to black (and that one’s an large issue all on its own).  At the point Mona leaves (with poor justification) Ryuji, understandably, doesn’t want him back and is treated like the bad guy for it.  Even when you aretrying to get him back, suddenly Ryuji is uncharacterisitically cold toward him.  Even near the end of the game, when Ryuji does something incredibly brave and selfless, seeming to sacrifice his life, the game completely undermines it by having the girls beat the ever loving shit out of him when he makes the mistake of... surviving, I guess.

Now, Ann, aside from the way they pronounce her name.  She is a straight up different character in her Social Link than she is in the main story (which is actually connected to another problem that we’ll get into later).  In the story she is typically caring, usually level-headed, if easily annoyed, and loves sweets, whereas her Social Link turns her into little more than a ditzy blond with a penchant for competition that we don’t see anywhere in the main story.  It creates this disconnectio between the two stories that’s really hard to reconcile.

Yusuke is window dressing.  He does nothing substantial for the main plot after the second palace is done.  The majority of his unique contributions could be summed up with deadpan, straight-faced joke moments (that are legitimately amazing every time they show up), dialogue that any of the characters could have said, and saying “yeah, that’s right” in the “every party member gets to say something” moments.

Makoto’s issue involves another theme that we’ll expand on later.  Her relationship with her sister is incredibly unhealthy and never realistically addressed.  It gets to point where she’s actually afraid of her.  It isn’t helped when the rest of the party guilt trips her into installing a virus on her sister’s computer (one of the few moments that I think is legitimately bad in this game). How is this resolved?  Once you do the palace it’s all just gone, despite you not stealing Sae’s treasure.  No counseling, no baggage, no promises to do better, not believable progression, nothing.  That’s not how that works.

Futaba has a similar issue.  After her palace, she is just magically cured of her crippling social anxiety, as far as the main plot is concerned at least.  She hangs out in front of LeBlanc, plain as day, totally fine, never having any issue in the main plot with other people ever again.  No therapy, not even the slightest relapse or difficulty, no believable progression, nothing.  I repeat: that’s not how that works.

Haru... poor, poor, Haru.  She gets nothing when she should have had so much.  She’s introduced at about 3/4 of the way through the story, doesn’t get a proper awakening to her persona and reveal of her thief outfit, never gets a moment of catharsis for her father and arranged fiance treating her like an object in the real world, nor any catharsis about dealing with the emotional trauma of her losing her father in a way that is as crushing as it could ever be, and eventually just ends up kinda telling the one who killed him that it’s no big deal.  Everything about her just gets buried until you’re left with a Persona Q character, which is a game that has a serious problem with reducing complex, multifaceted characters to one-note personalities.

And then there’s Goro “I have daddy issues disguised as an interesting take on personal justice” Akechi.  A character that was waaaaaaaaaaay better before the heelturn.  The switch from morally aligned but methodologically opposed antagonist to mustache-twiddling, muhahahing, train-track-damsel-tying villain sucked all the depth out of him.  They had a three-dimensional character that portrayed an interesting foil in both personal beliefs and public opinion of the party.  And by the end, all of that was stripped away because you have to have a bretrayal in a Persona game, and he gets with nothing resembling a satisfying sendoff.  The fact that he has essentially disappeared from the real world is never even addressed (this is yet a third thing that we’ll get into shortly).

All of these issues culminate in three specific themes.

The first is that the Social Links feel very disconnected from the plot.  P3 escaped this because the party member Social Links were specifically tied to events in the main story and sometimes couldn’t be progressed through until certain events occurred.  P4 didn’t have this problem because the Social Links all resulted from the personal issues that came up in their dungeons with their shadows, so there is connective tissue to the events.  

But the Social Links in P5 feel so distant.  Ann’s modeling stuff, Ryuji’s track team, Yusuke’s painting, Makoto’s friend, and Haru’s arranged marriage and coffee stuff, all have nothing or very little to do with the story.  The only one who didn’t quite have this issue, is Futaba, who got the P4 treatment, complete with confronting and accepting her shadow to gain her persona.  But even that deals more with her social anxiety than her acceptance that her mother’s death wasn’t her fault but actually an assassination.  Because the Social Links, which are literally “character development as a game mechanic”, are separated from the story, it gives the feeling that they’re inconsequential.  We never see the fruits of the character’s labor as they try to better themselves.  As far the main story is concerned, they may as well have not happened.  This is especially salient if you do the Moon social link, wherein you have to teach Mishima not to let the power go to his head, only to later have your party let the power go to their heads (or Ryuji at least, like I said earlier, it’s not super clear where everyone stands during that part of the game).

The second issue is that, for a series whose core themes are based off Jungian psychology (personas and shadows), it’s really bad at handling psychological stuff.  They want to have the drama of things like:

“a character who has social anxiety and intrusive thoughts of guilt about her mother’s death that have haunted her for years” 

“one of your party members has an older sister who’s her legal guardian, but is neglectful of her duties in that role and verbally abusive of that party member, thus creating a dependent relationship that revolves around trying (and failing) to gain her sister’s approval���

“After thinking that she may have helped turn her father into a better person who might love her as a daughter rather than an asset, in mid-celebration, a girl sees her father die on live TV and she may have been the cause of it”

But they aren’t prepared for the fallout that comes with those kind of elements.  Social anxiety severe enough to keep you in your room is typically going to take more than just support from friends to rehabilitate from.  Sae’s abusive tendencies toward her sister are explained by her palace, but they are not excused by it.  The palace’s are physical manifestations of the point where someone can justify anything to themselves, not a mind control device.  Nothing about Sae’s resentment toward her sister (that is doing everything she can not to be a burden) is given any kind of proper follow up.  It needed more addressing than the NOTHING it was given.  And don’t get me started on the rush job that was Haru.  

Her father is killed in gruesome fashion, eyes literally rolling back into his head and leaking blood, after she thought she had saved him from his own cruelty, and for a period of weeks, it seems a lot like it’s her fault.  She is left orphaned, and being pulled every which way by members of her father’s company in the void of power that’s left behind, once again turned back into an asset just after she thought she had escaped that.  This should have been the mother of all gut punches.  This should have been something that took her out of the game reminiscent of Shinji from P3.  This should have given her a hate boner for Akechi twice the size of Aegis’s for Ryoji.  This ruined her life just at the precipice of it getting better.  In one fell swoop, victory was ripped from her and replaced with bitter defeat and loss.  There was so much set up for her to have a character arc.  But we never see her react to it.  No crying, no depression, just back to her sweet, gardening self.  To top it all off, like a month later, she forgives the person who killed him and betrayed your party in a passing comment during one of those “every party member gets to say something” moments.  This is the pinnacle of emotional blue balls.

(Edit: @lightybulb brought it to my attention that Haru doesn’t actually forgive Akechi.  She, in fact, specifically says that she can never forgive him.  While it’s swept under the rug, I totally misremembered on that one.  My bad.)

Pretty much all of this fits into the third main issue that Persona 5′s narrative has.  It has a bad habit of not sticking the landing or following up afterward.  Which sucks for stuff like Akechi, where he was built up the entire game, and personal traumas like Haru, Futaba, or Makoto.  It sucks when it takes away a lot of the character’s depth like it did with Yusuke.  It sucks when the villain backstory and plan is literally just told to you in an exposition the likes of which I haven’t seen in years.  

This is not to say it never sticks the landing, as it very often does (more so in the first half of the game in my opinion), but there are a lot of key points where plot threads just kinda peter off into nothing or are wrapped up way too conveniently with a little bow on top.  

There are ways to fix these issues.

You wanna connect the Social Links to the main plot?  Lock ranks of party member Social Links behind story events.  This intrinsically ties the personal growth to the main plot and lets them talk about story events.  Events from the story can be used to kick of a conversation that moves it to the next level or draws a parallel to the personal situation they’re dealing with.

You wanna have satisfying and believable treatment of psychological issues?  Understand that they are not just something you deal with in a few days or weeks.  Understand that “the power of friendship” (Copyright Anime 1962, please support the official release) is not a substitute for counseling or medication.  Understand that the road to recovery is long, arduous, and sometimes loops back on itself.  It’s anything but a straight line.

There is no set remedy for sticking the landing and following up other than a pretty general good writing tip: don’t leave plot threads hanging and don’t introduce plot threads you don’t have adequate room to include.

Now as previously stated, I love Persona 5 and nothing I’ve said here takes away from that fact.  But I also want to see the things I love do even better for themselves.  That’s kinda the point of this post.

That’s pretty much all I got for this.  If you agree or disagree, feel free to add your own arguments to this, I’m always down for a conversation.  Cheers.

[centaurrential]

1-2-3-Yes!

My, I’ve been very productive over the last few days. I’ve experienced an upwelling of inspiration, and I find it in the oddest of places. In my last post I went on a mini rant about cleanliness, and how the people we rely on to bring us to that state have had the tables turned on them. Make no mistake though, I do like to tidy the bedroom before I sit down to write. We’re always trying to create order in our lives because we’re just reflecting the need for security, and clarity. I give credit to my own happiness for my ability to write again, and in a more focused way than ever before. I’m a natural thinker, a conceptual problem solver, and I do get this ‘high’ from being able to sort out my thoughts, and to put them in a form where they can find themselves in the world.

I consider myself a late bloomer in the sense that during the years I spent in university, when you’re supposed to be reaching your peak, my point of view on my own thinking was cracked. I felt like my thoughts were muddled, there was no clear direction, and that led me to doubt my capabilities. I can’t even count the number of times I’d decided I’d be switching majors. I’m sure my parents were anxious about that. I’d be told I was smart, and my private response would be “what the fuck?”. I felt inauthentic, like a bloody fraud. That I got there by pure luck. There was a thick fog in my mind. But over the last little while I feel the cohesion of my thinking, and the way I see myself, cementing incredibly rapidly. Again, I owe this to My Own Happiness, generously holding a mirror up to me wherever I go, so that I may see myself more accurately.

In a way, language--its mechanics, its malleability, the mind-blowing and surprising connections contained within it--has followed me through life. For many years it wasn’t a thing I thought the core of me--it was more like people telling me I had a talent for it. But where to apply such an idiosyncrasy? Reflecting on my years in university, I think that the trouble I had settling on one major was just an indication that this essential thing in me refused to be bound by the constraints of a certain ‘discipline’. And ‘discipline’ is the right word for it. I tried organic chemistry, for instance, and while I found it fascinating I felt like being in a lab was suffocating too, because it didn’t answer the questions I had in me that were begging to be answered. Screaming, really. I am expansive and I wanted to find what responded in kind, with encouragement. The closest companion I found was the body of Philosophy, but ‘thinking critically’ had its limits too.

I never got my degree. The courses I took never amounted to anything considered ‘viable’, but I was hopelessly obsessed with ‘the big picture’. And in my mind, I could never achieve that understanding by specializing.

No matter how other people viewed me, there was a wall between me as an agent, and me as people perceive me. I felt like this lost soul wandering the earth, not grounded in anything, no roots, no ability to explain what and who I am. Now seeing how vital Language is to my entire being, I finally have found my identity. It moves me; it is meaningful to me.

Anyway...

I suppose the theme of this post is ‘measurement’, but the two major things I want to comment about greatly diverge in terms of the meaning they give to that word. This post consists of a bit of cultural commentary, but there is also a deeply metaphysical component to it.  I feel that, only for now, I might exhaust those ideas that are clamouring to be let out and to dance in the air. Like I said though, more will come.

So lately I’ve been addicted to watching “The Crown” on Netflix. I never really cared about the Royal Family--the gravity of their divinity never struck a chord with me. To me, they were always just these stuffy, uber aristocrats with a solid, unmistakeable and long and celebrated genealogy. Their “direct” connection to God, above any other humans, seemed rather arbitrary. Lucky, maybe. There wasn’t anything in me that the publicity surrounding them yanked at. Until “The Crown”.

It’s obvious there is no way the depiction is totally accurate--there are a lot of secrets. But the show as a whole really gets you thinking about the way they view themselves. It’s clear that while they live a privileged life in terms of their financial reserves, their status in the eyes of the public, and a thick protective entity swaddling them, there is also this agony they feel, bearing the prison-like responsibilities that come with being who they are. Of course, the agony is underplayed because they are British and they are the Royal Family. Poise, measured expression, is king. One particular conversation the Queen Mother had with Queen Elizabeth II made me think, damn, these people are like the X-Men!! Along with this divine power they have, they think of themselves as endangered, as super-humans, precious and vulnerable. During the period depicted--from roughly the late forties to the late sixties--they seemed to spend more time making sure this mysticism surrounding them was intact, rather than doing anything else.

It’s pretty astonishing, the internal conflicts depicted, the contradictory nature of their roles. Every single damn move they make, which might penetrate the barrier between them and the British public, requires careful thought and a weighing of all the options. Elizabeth and her sister Margaret are often played up as foils of one another, and in one episode Prince Phillip remarks that this has always been the case throughout the family’s lineage. One is reserved, the other is a free spirit. I know absolutely nothing about the real Princess Margaret but the way she is depicted in the show is never something I would have expected from a royal other than Prince Harry. She drinks like a fish, smokes in every scene, is vulgar and impulsive. So the royal family isn’t a mere pillar of tradition, stuffiness, tight rules and manners. That’s not what sets them apart from everyone else. It’s the feeling of their own institutional, legitimized divineness, the sacredness they carry deep inside of them, that makes them different.

In the first season, John Lithgow’s Winston Churchill gets a lot of screen time. Again, I don’t know much about Churchill but I vaguely recall learning that he had quite the way with words. It’s really impressive, the art he could create, speaking, ad-libbing, on the spot, using such obscure vocabulary. It’s like he’s creating the verbal equivalent of an Impressionistic painting. And he does it with such defiance, such exasperation, that it’s quite a thing to see.

But, we enter an entirely different linguistic world when we watch films like Save the Last Dance. I re-watched it recently, because I love dancing, I love hip-hop, and every now and then I feel like immersing myself in a deep well of nostalgia. I particularly appreciate Kerry Washington’s character--Chenille, a high school-aged black, inner-city single mother--because of her ability to communicate an incredible intelligence and character where everything she says is sharp, austere, emotionally meaningful, and deeply insightful. The use of metaphor abounds here too. Able to sympathize with an antagonist, she knows the political is personal.

A while ago I started reading “The Language Instinct” by Steven Pinker. I never finished the book, because the honest truth is that I rarely ever finish books. It’s a dense volume, but I did glean some important things from the limited amount that I did read. The crucial thing is, if you can derive meaning from something spoken, then the grammar is right. Churchill’s use of language is long, flowery and drawn out, and by contrast Chenille’s is short and economical, but they impact with equivalence. Both characters use language artfully, but the colour, the diction, the wit, the grammatical structures, the cadence, it’s all evolved according to their respective cultures, which are vastly different. Both styles are things of beauty to me.

I so appreciate hip-hop as an art form. Not just beats, melodies, though those are important too... But imagine Winston Churchill trying to stuff everything evocative, in a song, with as much efficiency and skilled wordplay as the great hip-hop artists. I’m not sure people would be rushing to award him a Grammy...

Now on to the more common type of measurement: the mathematical kind.

In a metaphysics class I came across the question, “are numbers real?” Well, yeah! Of course they are, if you think of the sense in which we use them. But outside of their practical utility, are they pure in the sense that they tell you something on their own? If you think of the sequence of Arabic numerals from 1 to 9, you think of the corresponding numbers as ordinal. 1 is first, 2 is second, 3 is third, etc. In terms of quantity, however, it might be more transparent to think of seven apples as a group of apples where the number 7 is transformed from having an ordinal quality into quantitative one. Don’t let multiplication fool you; what we are doing essentially is adding 1, the simplest integer, to every group of apples we have. One apple added to one apple is two; one apple added to two apples is three, one apple added to three apples is four, and so on. In this context the multiplication sign is mere notation; it doesn’t capture the reality of the counting process. And ordinally speaking, numbers are like stairs. Every 1 added to the previous ordinal digit gets us from one ordinal spot to the next, in a linear fashion. And there aren’t really any ‘decimals’ because it is helpful to think in these terms via ‘wholeness’. After all, our psychological tendencies are to organize and make sense of things using the innate concept of wholeness.

I can think of a way in which the numbers 1 to 9 and beyond might be real, but you’d have to think of them as ‘geometrically stable’, or in terms of the relationships between each “one”, rather than as “groups of things that don’t know each other and don’t interact”. For example, three would be thought of as an equilateral triangle, four would be thought of as a perfect square, five a pentagon, six a hexagon, and so forth. If the angles are all equal, I wouldn’t be surprised if this geometry was sacred in its own right. (Astrologers use geometry a lot, to determine whether what is called an “aspect” is beneficial or not. Example: trines (triangles) are much easier to deal with than squares, which signal tension.)

You could continue increasing the number of apexes as long as you like, but as the number of apexes you add to your geometric shape (which MUST contain equal angles) approaches infinity, you approach a perfect circle. It just occurred to me that the numeral for zero also looks like a perfect circle. Not really sure what that means, but it is interesting because zero is thought to be very different from infinity, indeed.

I should mention here that it’s entirely possible someone’s already figured this out, but I want to take it one step further and remind you of the implications this has for what we think of as the stuff of reality.

I think of the above process as a calculus of sorts. But the hard thing to wrap one’s mind around is the notion of infinity. Essentially what I am doing is a thought experiment, extrapolating from the series of geometric shapes that are related to one another because of the ordinal addition of 1 to each sequential quantity of apexes (corners, angles). You could think of ordinal numbers as “slots”, with quantities being the total summation of the things that occupy those slots. In fact that might actually have been the third component to my first-year calculus class, which I was totally unable to comprehend.

What I was describing above was 3 and up. But what about 1 and 2? Well, one is just a point; we’ll get to that in a second. 2 would be a line segment: a line drawn from point A to point B. I should note here that 0 and 1 have special status as binary numbers (like the kind that are used in computer science, but that also have other meanings... which is where we get into the REALLY New Age stuff! not yet though). But two is special on its own because there is a relationship between points, but no angles, and therefore no apexes. The utility we get from its own analysis shows us how to reach infinity in the so-called “opposite” direction (maybe ‘complementary’ is a better word) from the one I talked about above.

If the number 1 represents a point, how small can we get that point? Any point you can form, either on paper or in your mind, will take up some sort of space in terms of the Cartesian plane. If it takes up space, its size can be reduced. Usually people think of halving things, so we’ll go with that. Off you go, dividing your point into smaller and smaller constituents. We’re approaching infinity again, because theoretically there is an infinite number of times you can divide this point. But wait, don’t points make up line segments, which are finite? That must mean your line segment is made up of infinity points. That must mean there is infinity in the finite! What a concept.

Over the years I’ve thought about changes, and what it takes to make a significant change in something. (In mathematical notation, change is represented by a triangle, known as the Greek letter ‘delta’.) An interesting study was once done to examine how newborns count. They don’t do it ordinally like 1, 2, 3, 4... They do it in non-linear ways. Some tribes in the Amazon count that way too: there is no need to have a concept for large quantities of things, probably because there is no utility if you’re not measuring something like the distance from the Earth to the Sun, or even building cathedrals for that matter. Anyway, babies “count” by noting differences in quantities of things, not absolute values.

Here are some examples: there is a huge difference between one apple and two apples. Visually, you can tell. You don’t need to go, “okay! one, two...” You just know. As the number of apples in the original set increases, the quantity of apples added to generate the new set must increase too, in order for there to be a sensible difference between the two sets. The production of difference is dependent on what your origin (set A) is, and how the value of the addition relates to your origin, not just the mere fact that there is an addition.

I’m trying to break down the process of change-making. So the other day I was at the train station getting some tea. I like having my tea with my cigarette. I was pouring sugar into my tea when I thought, would a single grain of sugar make a difference in the taste of my tea? What about 2? 3? 100? At what point will I be able to tell the difference between the plain tea and the sweetened tea? Depending on how fine your units are (in the tea example, it was a grain of sugar), the leap from one ordinal step to the next ordinal step may bring about no change at all. It’s like observing 167 black apples, not arranged in any strict fashion, and then having one more black apple added to that group. Unless you’re a savant, you probably wouldn’t be able to tell.

Let’s think ordinally for a moment. It’s theoretically feasible to add granules of sugar, one by one, to your tea. Let’s forget for a second that concentration is an issue; after every granule added we taste the tea, or find some other way to measure its sweetness. We know there is a threshold between non-sweet and sweet, we can taste it! But what is the point at which we cross that threshold? We’ve already established that one granule of sugar plus another singular granule of sugar (so two granules of sugar in the entire cup of tea) doesn’t make a difference in the taste; the quantities are too minuscule to produce anything. After all, all the sugar anyone has ever added to their tea has ALWAYS been significantly more than just two granules. Somewhere along the way, a shift happens. But how can this be the case if sugar granules come in discrete “quanta”? So even though the difference in sweetness is undetectable between granule number 1 and granule number 2, the change can be detected further along the temporal axis of my pour...? The only explanation is that the power of the single granule of sugar beyond that threshold is dependent on what’s already in the cup. That’s not a linear progression. You know what that sounds like to me? Fractals.

Another example I can think of is the increase in sonic volume. Depending, again, on the unit of volume change decided by the manufacturer of a stereo system, if your volume is at a certain level, one step up may not be significant in terms of the volume of music you sense with your ear.

I mentioned Wittgenstein in my last posting. Along with language games, another thing that stuck with me was the conceptual problem with standard units of measurement. The problem was that we don’t really have an absolute, hierarchical source that gives us the absolute dimensions of a standard unit. The closest thing we have to that is the new definition of a ‘meter’, which is the distance light travels in one second. But how long is a second? Anyway, when we try to grasp what a “pound” is, we may use other units of measurement like grams and ounces, and then we attach a numerical figure to that. An interesting thing to note is that often these conversions aren’t tidy numbers made of integers. They often contain a number of decimal places, things that are not pleasing to the human eye. Why wouldn’t someone just arbitrarily set the value of a pound at 250 grams? That would make things easy for us.

So, not knowing too much about the background of this area of study, I wonder if the real definition of measurement, with numbers not being easy, nor arbitrary at all, is “the quantity of something that is required to induce a significant change in something.” But now we must think of the subjectivity of a thing like sweetness level, because biologies can differ widely from person to person. Some people are sensitive to sugar, others less so.

Measurement as we currently think of it is supposed to be objective, but it may be the case that for many areas of life, it is not objective at all. Also, things are easier to digest, to handle, when everything is rounded nicely. You see that in itineraries: there aren’t too many times you’ll see a lecture scheduled on paper to start at 3:27. In our grocery store, 6 boxes of granola bars for ten dollars, flat! You get my meaning.  

I thought a while ago about what gives words, seemingly random compilations of letters, meaning. One thing I came up with was that meaning emanates from boundedness. Take homonyms, for example. If we are aware of only one meaning for a word, then that’s that. That’s boundedness. But if we are aware of two or more, we need at least a clause, a sentence, effectively surrounding that word, cushioning and giving it its actual meaning. That’s another type of boundedness. Numbers may be elemental, but when we use them in daily life, in politics and whatnot, we’re always using them in context, to deliver something, to get from point A to point B. Take 38591. We can see the structure of the number, but what is it telling us? 38591 dollars? Miles? Kilograms? Years? 38591 isn’t part of the set of numbers that I would say is sacred. It doesn’t tower on its own. It is in need of something. Most things are in need of something to give them the quality of meaning, of truth. That something is “relationships”, interactions with things thought to be on the outside. Once you initiate analysis into this chain of relationships, you start to see that there are very few things that can exist, in a stable state, on their own.

I finish by saying it’s these little peculiarities, the mysteries, the counterintuitive (the world is chock-full) that I love to think about. The world is so much more, so different from what the Enlightenment told us it is. There is still room for wonder and awe. Once you stop experiencing awe, the world is a little less bright.

[prosteticanimals]

How to Solve Issues With best beginner keyboard piano

One these millennial who knocked my socks off was this youthful Woman named Anushka, a teen in her early twenties. Her white t-shirt with "MILLENNIAL" in major, black, bold letters just caught our fast attention and we could not stop contemplating her One of a kind Talent Presentation, in this article at Nirmiti Academy. The Do-it-yourself (Do It Oneself) Craft was her exclusive expertise. She represented a youthful facial area from the millennials. Also, it absolutely was her presentation that spoke far more of her for a millennial. She was a true go-getter when it came to existing her one of a kind expertise in a unique way. We could see her beaming with pleasure and joy to showcase her one of a kind expertise to Other individuals. She was so enthusiastic that she was chatting a mile a minute. She experienced a lot of to state about it and he or she could go on and on and preserve us glued to her presentation. The millennials like Anushka and several Other folks are enthusiastic to operate on factors which desire them. Concurrently, I could also see her currently being unable to smile and current herself happily. Absent would be the times for the millennials where by they really feel current and enjoy their surroundings. They are really the technology who experience the regular have to have for Digital awareness which sales opportunities them to overshare their lives and moments on social websites or go inward in deep conscience to seek out themselves. This leaves them unconnected with the physical entire world close to them.

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Millennials are here to stay! They are really young, vivid and energetic and they ARE the FUTURE. They are great assets which the whole world will have to harness and use. They can be the generation that is revolutionizing the entire world. They are really the budding leaders of tomorrow. They adopt technologies and stimulus in precisely the same breadth. This era is additionally a collaborative and social technology that features a center on comprehension and building their understanding by many sorts of medium to find out the solutions. It really is for your educator like us to offer an arena for engagement and discovery and also be considered a information professional and mentor. It's for Finding out System companies like Nirmiti Academy to present an explorative and experiential experience and produce out their legitimate potential in life and at function. It is this transformational journey that we at Nirmiti Academy look ahead to every day to discover, unlearn and relearn with these youthful and magical generation - the Millennials!

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Some MOOCs are intended to be taken for awareness gained, but a lot of courses also give a certificate of completion by websites like Coursera.org. Certificates of completion--that happen to be different from training course credits--usually Price close to $50. Money aid is obtainable for many who qualify.

Good reasons to take into consideration a MOOC

There are numerous main reasons why a MOOC class may be right for you over and above time administration, Even though most MOOCs make it possible for students to work at their own rate, meaning they easily in good shape into most schedules, Regardless how chaotic. Other strengths incorporate:

A chance to Check out A serious just before paying for school programs. Any one striving to decide with a career path, for The 1st time or on account of a midlife change of direction, is familiar with the annoyance of pondering "Imagine if I'm Erroneous about my choice? How much cash am I going to invest prior to I notice this is not for me?" MOOCs are a great way to 'dip your toes' in, so to talk, before the headache of handling classic university courses and common university prices. You could Check out as quite a few courses as you have enough time for until a little something truly sparks your fascination.

Acquire courses not accessible domestically. There are actually literally A huge number of MOOC courses out there on the internet. Even when you are in Boston (the place Harvard, MIT, Tufts, Boston Higher education and Boston College are all Situated) or Another comparable university-dense spot, you can in all probability discover a category or two as a result of MOOC offerings not available to you locally.

Master (or relearn) a language totally free. Not just can you are taking a foreign language program without spending a dime via MOOCs, but because of courses taught at international universities, You can even train your ear by Hearing native speakers. Take a course taught inside the language you ought to learn and comply with together making use of English subtitles. The 2nd system is a great way to in essence double your Discovering, but only works if you have already got no less than an intermediate grasp on the language.

If Discovering Yet another language isn't really higher on your to-do record, perhaps it should be: In 2017, New American Financial system documented employer demand from customers for bilingual workforce in excess of doubled considering that 2010. This need carries on to increase. Best languages to review? Spanish, Chinese, and Arabic.

Construct up your resume with essential competencies. Possibly there's a better task at do the job you are aware of you are able to do, but your manager doesn't Assume you happen to be qualified for it simply because you deficiency particular competencies. MOOCs are a great way to become proficient in locations like HTML coding, Search engine optimisation analytics, or whatsoever skill you'll want to grow to be the ideal individual with the job.

Stick to the one-way links in this article To find out more on lots of MOOC courses. MOOCs are accessible through various educational platforms, which includes Coursera, Udemy, and edX. But MOOCs is often accessed right by means of each university, and are available by making use of the subsequent Google search restricting syntax entered into your google search bar:

web site:edu MOOC topic

Such as, if I enter web site:edu MOOC robotics, I get about 7,000 outcomes, which include this Introduction to Robotics Specialization from Penn Engineering. Through the use of this syntax, it is possible to normally bypass the clearinghouses and uncover just what exactly you're looking for on College sites, even classes the clearinghouses might not give.

Joyful MOOCing!

[neohanaa]

When art college/university professors become assholes instead of guides.

WARNING. THIS IS A LONG POST.

Look, I don’t want my blog to be about this anymore than it should. We all have them and I’m no different. I’m in University for art. I’m a senior/4th year student in a thesis class. Very briefly, I don’t go to a school dedicated to simply art. Art at my school is one of the many departments (there’s science, psychology, math, literature, language, etc) and it is VERY conceptual and gallery based. I have absolutely ZERO problems with that. Any character drawings I do are put to the side to really work on school projects and sometimes I sneak in some of my preferences, such as doll related things, into my work. I have trouble thinking conceptually, but it doesn’t mean that I can’t think conceptually at all. 

To be fair, my goal is to be a children book illustrator. So I’m not really aiming to be a gallery artist. It’s nice to know and understand how to make artwork that’s based on conceptual ideas. However, I’m choosing a different route for my skills to be put to use. Although this might be shallow of me to say this, but drawing and sculpture are my concentrations, with sculpture being more of a supplement than it is a major concentration like drawing. I can’t do photography to save my life and video making, while I liked doing that when I was younger (where’s my 2010 Vegas Pro community at), I can’t see myself doing that sort of thing professionally. I can paint, sure, but I don’t exactly particularly enjoy it unless it’s for a sculpture or a painting for fun. Where I truly want to hone my skills are with drawing, primarily with colored pencil. With sculpture, I want to make dolls.

So, where to actually start with this...

When art college/university professors become assholes instead of guides.

You heard me right. Not saying this for all art professors. The ones I have are all practicing artists and I’ve met some really good ones that push you harder than ever. As for the one I’m talking about right now, here’s the problem:

Instead of helping me push my skills in the medium I want to push myself in, this teacher tosses the idea of my drawing concentration out the window and wants me to perform my piece instead.

My project is simple: create short stories and create an illustration that embodies each one. Choice and consequence are my themes.

I mentioned earlier that I am in a thesis class. This project is for said thesis class. Generally, a thesis refers to a paper/essay/presentation of facts and arguments for some majors such as political science that span over about 60+ pages. For art at my school, thesis is a class where each student works on a project or multiple projects and at the end of the school year, they present it in a show all together and then we all critique each other later. I have 2 professors this semester for the class. One is OK in help and the other is just... demotivating. They’ll be switched out for different professors for next semester, but in the end it just... whatever.

Going back to my project. Besides the idea itself and deeper meaning at hand, it’s still got a long way to go. I presented some of the stories and to be fair, the teachers were delighted. OK professor says for my drawings to not be direct illustrations as it would take away from how the writing is presented (confusing in a good way). She told me to not outlaw performance or sculpture, but to also not rely too heavily on drawings. I agree with OK professor, so my idea is to work around the drawings and possibly incorporate a sculptural element. She was also supportive of me in my decision to make the drawings a decently large scale.

HOWEVER.

The other professor, DEMOTIVATE (for short, DEEMOH), tells me to throw drawing completely out the window and just present the writings as my artwork by practically doing a performance. I have DEEMOH as a teacher in a sculpture class. He actually got me from wanting to have people involved with my work to having me perform. And let me tell you, it isn’t fun to see that pattern I assure you.

Look, I don’t know if I sound super stubborn about wanting to draw but I really don’t think that’s how a person in a teaching position is actually aiding you to push your work. It’s one thing to give options to guide you, listening to you. It’s another do the opposite, ignoring your input, not providing any steps to take to jumpstart your idea and put it on paper.

OK was pretty okay in helping me. Not as helpful as I would like, but still better than DEEMOH, who just shuts out your whole entire art concentration. There is just no constructive input from DEEMOH about drawing. It was all perform-perform-perform. I’m not saying I don’t want to perform. In fact, I want to consider it because of the writing. But when only one agenda is pushed, it legitimately shuts me down. At one point, he told me I should make a video of the performance. I know this is probably me being dramatic, but that honestly sounded like an insult to my skills. 

FOR 2 MONTHS I ACTUALLY PRODUCED NOTHING BECAUSE OF THIS. 

All I had the ability was to write more stories. No drawings. Just stories. I was at a creative standstill and I got severely conflicted about what to do. I felt like crap all the time and whenever I entered class my heart sank, terrified about what we’re gonna do.

“But your writings are drawings!”

He told me that. I’m down with anything being called art, drawing, or whatever. But when it is said in such a way to get me to simply perform an act, it’s demeaning to the actual skills and labor and work I want to put out as an artist. I’m not saying that performance is easy; I think it’s super difficult and I get stage fright. What I’m saying is that instead of aiding me in trying to push my skills, this professor is simply rejecting it. How would you feel if your teacher told you the same thing?

“But what if he said that because you’re too comfortable with drawing!”

There’s a difference between getting too comfortable with the drawing and wanting to push your drawing skills. I chose drawing, not only because I am good at it and am comfortable with it, but because I want to be able to push myself with the medium in order to get the highest quality work out of it possible. I do sculpture, but my skill within sculpture is really just making dolls and figurines and I have so much to learn when it comes to that. There’s such a thing as knowing how to do draw with colored pencil, with ink, with pencil, with graphite, with charcoal, and even with pastel. There’s also such a thing to know to draw and paint, but in painting you have watercolor, acrylic, oil. You can know how to use these mediums, but it doesn’t mean you know how to push all these mediums to their utmost potential without years and years of using them.

Like a lot of people out there, I was, predominantly, a self-taught artist. It took me 5-6 years (aged 13-18 or 19) to learn how to draw a decently proportional figure with graphite. Even then it might not be perfect. It took me 4 years to learn colored pencil (Aged 16-20) and I STILL have to teach myself on it and test it on other things. I can do charcoal albeit it isn’t on the level of professionals. I know how to paint well with acrylic and I know how to use oils and render an image with detail. I can use ink for outlining better than painting with it. In the end, I chose drawing with colored pencil because it’s the medium I want to master for the work I want to get into. I know digital swooped in to take the pedestal of traditional drawing in many areas, especially in the line of work I want to get into, but it doesn’t mean I’ll be getting into digital straight away and this is another argument for another time.

In the end, I strayed away from my original rant about a useless teacher. In the end I’m complaining about something that will be temporary. In the end, I just lost precious time because I was lost. In the end, I hope this will all work out.

And in the end, I hope all of you do not have to deal with the same bullshit I have to go through in my thesis class.

[vronicaz]

hel llooo babes, i’m satan acacia (◠‿◠✿) nineteen, she/her. lol sooo sorry you guys are all trapped in this rp w/ me. but wtver~ you guys will learn to adore my 3am messages comin’ up with plot that’ll hurt us and what not. also meet veronica jeon, the queen of trash, and she’ll own up to that. anyways, i’ll try to keep this as short as possible. since i always get wayyyy too invested into writin’ my intros. :~)) )) ) &&. *so like... this got really long, just scroll to the point with the star for the overall summary. // aim: alohacacia && skype: alohacacia

****psa you clicked on this so you’re obligated to plot with me srry but i don’t make the rules.

— ( jennie kim. cisfemale. she/her. ) have you met ( veronica jeon ) yet? the ( twenty-one ) year old ( artist / beauty vlogger )? yeah, we shared a cab and now i’m late but can you blame me? ( she ) is so ( talented ), but now i see what they mean about ( her ) being a bit too ( presumptuous ).

BACKGROUND + TRIGGER WARNINGS: daddy/mommy issues

okkkk, this is veronica. also known as ronnie (but she doesn’t care what you call her whoop diddy doo.) she was born and raised in south korea. but, she has stereotypical strict korean parents. and they moved her out to america in hopes that she’d become more successful than them. her father and mother are owners of a cafe/bakery. they live a normal upper-middle class lifestyle. but they’ve always wanted more... therefore, they pushed a lot of their hopes and dreams onto veronica since she’s their only child. their dream was for her to become a surgeon.

so, they sent her off to school (which lands her in williamsburg) once she turned to eighteen and paid for everything. her apartment, her school, etc. they even sent her money so she could focus on her studies instead of working. so, yes, she’s spoiled in that sense. (but it gets dark just wait) at first, she just went with the flow of being forced into becoming a surgeon. however, while spending more time in williamsburg she realized she wanted to do something else. something that actually made her happy.

ronnie always had an artistic eye. drawing was something that always set her heart on fire. but her parents never approved of this because.... an art major?? god forbid!! but, thanks to the influence of a close friend (probably ronnie’s first friend in williamsburg) they convinced her to do what makes her happy. because what’s the point of hating your job for the rest of your life?

eventually, she switched her major and she was super nervous. why? ‘cause she was actually turning her hobby into her potential career. but a week passed, then the month, and she was completely in love with what she was doing. she was even able to sell some of her art! she started expanding her knowledge on how to go about making a legitimate career by drawing. and while this was all overwhelming, it was also way more exciting.

now, she was making her own money. plus some from her parents. but of course, art wasn’t the only thing she liked. she began to develop a love for makeup as well. she always had a steady hand, which made learning makeup pretty easy. so, she found two things she loves. art and makeup! she even decided to create a youtube channel for her makeup. (and also to promote her art shows of course.) so three sources of income!

but guess what ---- her parents found out. and they were not happy. they felt betrayed and disappointed. because how could their pride and joy chose happiness over stability?? this ultimately lead them to cutting her off completely. stopped paying for her rent, school, and just stopped talking to her all together. so, she was left completely alone to fend for himself. luckily, she didn’t struggle too much. she was making good money through her youtube channel and her art.

but wait, it’s not that simple. (it never really is) since, ronnie isn’t a u.s. citizen she eventually had to go back to korea. but she didn’t want to face her parents. not after all the drama. but she also knew applying for citizenship would take awhile. she was running out of time. sooo, she did the only thing she could do and married her longterm american boyfriend for a visa!! (i’ll probably make a wanted connection for him) yeah, she’s a married woman. technically. but not a lot of people know that. she just calls him her boyfriend!!

PERSONALITY + RELATIONSHIPS

PERSONALITY wise, she is charismatic, creative, and intelligent. she’s one of those people that set their mind to something and goes through with it until the end. however, stubborn, sarcastic, and big headed. because anyone who tells her she can’t do it, she’ll prove wrong no matter what. no. matter. what. but she’s slowly growing out of her tough head of hair and morphing into a young woman so beautiful over the years, but also at times, terrifying?? self destructive?? even if she’ll never let anyone see her deteriorate her insides sigh. basically she’s a hot mess. but she tries her best to hide that shit. yeye sweg.

when it comes to FRIENDS ronnie can always use loads of friends! she possess the qualities of a good friend loyal, honest, trustworthy. however, she is stubborn and egocentric so people might not want to be around her? she still wants a shit ton of friend. she kinda has that mom friend vibe. she plans out their day, makes sure they stay on task, looks both ways before crossing the street, etc etc. but… she’s most likely the youngest of the group. considering the fact she just turned twenty-one. so, mostly everyone has the need to protect her at all costs. but she ends up being the protector instead. she loves deeply and cares deeply. she would literally give up the world for the people she cares about the most. she likes to keep to herself most of the time, because she knows it keeps her out of drama. but she can still kick it with people who get themselves into drama (does that make sense??) you can say, she tends to hangout with the wrong people sometimes. rip. maybe because she wants to believe people r good (even though she knows they aren’t lol.) overall, i would say she needs a lot of friends. LOVE THIS LIL SMOL BEAN.

ENEMIES... i don’t really think she has any, but she might. deep deeeeep deeeeeeeeep down the girl is trust issue central when it comes to letting people in. she can’t help it. she has abandonment issues thanks to her parents. therefore, she might come off as standoff-ish to new people. she keeps her circle tight. so maybe they think she’s cliquey? or she could have pushed people away. she’s like that one rihanna meme, them: you can’t just cut people off. ronnie: *holds a pair of scissors* she doesn’t have problem with letting people go. so maybe people think she’s a bitch because, “how could you just drop our five year long friendship like that.” and she’d just shrug. but really, she’s hurting beyond repair and will go home crying while eating a thing of ben & jerry’s chunky monkey. and there’s always that possibility where a friendship just didn’t work out. maybe they just stopped having time for each other and now it’s just mad awk. whatever it is, an enemy would b beaut.

as for LOVERS. veronica has most definitely dated a lot. she’s had a handful of serious relationships as well. and she most definitely does believe in love. thus making this girl is a hopeless romantic. (she’s a soft bitch on the down low) she just needs lots of love in her life. and her husband would totally tear down her big headed/tough bitch exterior and show how soft ronnie can really be. how is ronnie in relationships you may ask? she’d be very loyal to anyone she’s dating. she’d spoil them with gifts, surprise visits, and honestly just give them the whole world. they’d be the only person who’d be able to tell this bitch to stop acting so unreasonable. and *gasp* she’d actually listen. i feel like she’s the type to do whatever she needs to do to please her significant other. sad, but it’s true. she’s not as independent as she makes herself out to be. but everybody needs somebody. am i right?

WANTED CONNECTIONS

FRIENDS

best friend — her closest confidant. she’d never let go of this person. they’re her ride or die // TAKEN BY SADIE MEYERS

her first friend — the first person ronnie met in williamsburg. one of her best friends. someone she really trusts since they convinced her to switch her major. // TAKEN BY NATALIA STEPHENS

childhood friend — someone who has always been around. practically family at this point. // m, f, or nb

roommate — self explanatory. obviously a close friend because she wouldn’t just live with a stranger. they probably gossip a lil now and then. // TAKEN BY LYLA JACKSON

winghoe — another close friend of her’s probably the person who got her and her boyfriend together. // m, f, or nb

exes — she’d be the type to still be friends with her ex. yes, they’ve loved each other. but they’ve come to terms they’re much better off platonic. // m or nb

brotherly figure— completely platonic relationship. just someone who can protect this small bean at all costs. // m or nb

sisterly/motherly figure — someone who she looks up to. someone who she sees a role model. // f or nb

ENEMIES

mistaken — someone who thinks she’s just a rude, standoff-ish, biatch. veronica has probably tried to explain to them that she doesn’t mean to come off like that. but this person just ain’t having it. // m, f, or nb

pushed away — they used to be friends but once shit got real, ronnie dropped them real fast. she just cut them off and it kind of resulted into this fucked up unnecessary tension. // m, f, or nb

rivals — someone who hates her and some she hates too. maybe she they’re always just trying to one up each other for some reason? maybe they throw some mad shade at her all the time? just a lot of fighting. // m, f, or nb

fake friend(s) — she found out they were only using her for publicity. through her rapidly growing youtube channel. ooOOoOoOoo drama. imagine the subtweeting. wow. // m, f, or nb

LOVERS

husband / “ boyfriend ” — married them to get her visa. but, this would be the love of her life. even if they bicker and argue. she’d be 100% dedicated to them. // m or nb ( WANTED AD CAN BE FOUND HERE. )

first love — once ronnie is dedicated to someone it’s a little hard for her to let them go. especially if it was her first love. this could be drama central between her, her husband, and them. // m or nb

on and off ex — just the person she always runs back to. she’d probably even try contacting them if she ever got into a fight with her husband. // m or nb

*** to be honest, throw whatever ideas you have right at me! i’m so down for whatever

MISCELLANEOUS

☆ veronica is: overall ronnie is a big ol’ fluff ball. the world sees her as a princess dressed in black and pink. an absolute doll. charming, cute, and talented. she seems like the full package. an absolute angel to her small group of fans, acquaintances, and etc…. but anyone who really knows her, knows the girl has some bad abandonment issues thanks to her parents. my muse inspo is a mix of harley quinn, blair waldorf, and rick sanchez. YIKES. cause this makes her hella chaotic. anyways, give her girl scout cookies and she’ll love you til the end of time. she’s not as lame as she portrays herself to be and is actually a pretty rad chick. veronica jeon is overall a beautiful, driven, stubborn, egocentric, opinionated, artistic, and truly a mess for someone who seems to have it all figured out.

wEW this got waaaaaay longer than i expected it to be. anywho, if you actually read all this i love you and i cherish you hella. if you just skimmed, i would too. i would really love to plot with everyone. so just slide into my dms and we can get things started!! luv u *blows a kiss*

[fly-metojupiter]

Mini-Review and Rant: Monsters University, Anti-femininity, and Some Other Stuff

So, this time I am going to have a little rant. I always think that feminism is important, but I usually try not to hit my readers over the head about it. But not today. Because oh boy, I have a lot to say about Monsters University.

I am not sure why Monsters University particularly irritated me. Probably because it’s Pixar, and I do expect better from them. Pixar is famous for producing high-quality, critically acclaimed children’s animation movies, some of which are my absolute favorites. They are also usually excellent at handling femininity and masculinity, and the majority of their movies are non-gendered (neither a girl’s film or a boy’s film). The second reason is probably because I just finished Pop Culture Detective’s thoughtful video essay about “The Complicity of Geek Masculinity on the Big Bang Theory”, so the topic about masculinity and femininity is fresh in my mind.

Anyway, let’s review Monsters University! (Includes spoilers for Monsters University and Monsters Inc.)

Monsters University (or MU for simplicity in this review/rant) is a prequel to Pixar’s Monsters Inc. (or simply Inc). MU tells the story about how Mike Wazowski and James P. “Sulley” Sullivan met in university, way before they worked for Monsters Inc. In MU, Mike is not a scary monster, but he is determined to be a Scarer and works hard for it. Sulley, on the other hand, is a preternaturally gifted Scarer and serves as Mike’s rival for most part of the film.

MU, on its own, is a good film. It has good set up, a definite arc, and satisfying conclusion. It has characters we care about, and it’s pretty funny too. But it’s when we think beyond the scope of the film that things start to get… shakey. First of all, the story arc of MU is immediately undermined by Inc. MU is about how Mike works to achieve his dream to be a Scarer in the company, but we know in Inc that Mike does not even get to be a Scarer. In Inc, Mike serves as Sulley’s partner, which is basically an assistant. So during MU’s runtime, we already know that all of Mike’s hard work in MU eventually will never pay off and he will forever live in Sulley’s shadow.

Also, Inc’s whole premise is about how Mike and Sulley revolutionize their industry by retiring Scream Energy and switching to Laugh Energy instead, because they met Boo. But instead, all of MU is about glorifying the act of scaring. I know, the events in Inc happens after MU, so Laugh Energy is not a thing yet, but there are ways to incorporate a more cohesive theme throughout the two movies. Probably one of their friends from Oozma Kappa could make an off-hand remark about how they wish there’s another energy source other than children’s scream–just something to foreshadow what will happen in Inc. But there’s no such thing in MU, instead MU is laser-focused at idolizing the scaring industry. Which, again, is fitting when we think about Mike’s arc in just MU, but completely falls apart once we consider the broader theme from Inc. 

And that’s all I can say about MU, from the filmmaking standpoint. From here on out, I want to discuss about the representation of social themes in MU. Let the rant begin!

Our protagonist is Mike. Kind, small, with big round eyes, and is underappreciated for his whole life. While the antagonists, the fraternity brothers of Roar Omega Roar or ROR (pictured above)--and also Sulley to a certain degree--are big and muscular, cocky, aggressive, and intimidating. I think it’s safe to assume that ROR is meant to represent the ultimate form of masculinity (they’re fraternity bros, for starters), and, as a consequence Mike and the Oozma Kappas (pictured below) represent a more feminine form of masculinity. You might accuse me of “reading too much into it”, which I think is fair assessment if every other little thing does not reinforce my point.

I also know what you’re thinking: Isn’t it a good thing for feminism, that our protagonists (Mike and the Oozma Kappas) are the more feminine of the bunch? Not in MU, because their whole arc is that they really, really want to be like Sulley and ROR. Also, the movie is relentless at making fun of characters for their femininity. In fact, baking and hospitality, which is usually viewed as a part of femininity, was literally spelled out loud as “L-A-M-E” by the movie. When the movie wants to make fun of a character, they used glitter, flowers, stuffed animals, heart signs, and dream journals with unicorn and golden stars.

The message of Monsters University is clear: masculinity is coveted, while femininity is viewed as lesser and deserves to be made fun of.

I think it’s no coincidence that there’s no notable female character in MU, aside from Dean Hardscrabble. Hardscrabble is one of the good things in MU–she’s legitimately scary, firm, but kind. Other smaller female roles are Squishy’s mother (who is mostly used as comic relief), and sorority groups HSS (the goth one, pronounced “hiss”, who I don’t even think has any speaking role) and PNK (pronounced “pink”, because they’re girls. GET IT??). PNK consists of six non-descript, identical cheerleader-type girls, because…. GURRLS, am I right?

In a comedy movie, it’s important to ask ourselves, “Who do we laugh at and, and who do we laugh with?” Answer: We laugh at the Oozma Kappas. Always. So eventhough Oozma Kappa eventually wins the Scare Games, the takeaway is that they won despite their more feminine form of masculinity, not because of it.

Which is a shame, because none of that animosity towards femininity exist in Inc. No character in Inc is outright masculine or feminine, except the ultra-feminine and flirty Celia (Mike’s girlfriend) but she’s never shown in a particularly negative light. Sulley in Inc is not even particularly masculine. In fact, his defining characteristics in Inc are his kindness and his paternal relationship with Boo.

And I want to emphasize that even though I am here to talk about the portrayal of femininity in MU, it is not about the women. It is about the men. With MU as example, it is clear that feminism is not just a woman’s fight–it’s everybody’s fight. Look at how miserable Mike’s life is in MU. Even though he is kind, smart, and works hard, he is belittled because he does not fit the standard definition of masculinity. Mike is only miserable because of the arbitrary societal rule of “how men should be like". So it is clear that misogyny not only affects women, it affects men too. As Emma Watson once wisely said (paraphrased) about feminism, we can only be truly free if women are allowed to be strong and men are allowed to be sensitive. But even in the end of MU, Mike and the Oozma Kappas still end up conforming to the idea of toxic masculinity.

There’s another thing that I want to discuss about MU. I did point out that the entire plot of MU is about glorifying the scaring industry, which is fine in itself because it fits Mike’s arc (a Scarer is not a real career choice anyway). But the movie also goes out of its way to depict other geekier career choices like scream-can architect, or more creative ones like dancer, as–for lack of better word–lame. So MU basically teaches children who watches the movie that a career in STEM and in Arts is neither an important nor fulfilling career choice (Direct quote from the Dean, “Scariness is a true measure of a monster. If you’re not scary, what kind of a monster are you?”). That’s totally not cool, Monsters University, not cool. (I could add a paragraph’s worth of rant about how MU depicted Scarer as an ultimate “masculine” career choice, but I digress. The article is as long as it is.)

So… yeah. This rant/review is all over the place because I have a lot of things to say, but I hope this will give you a new perspective. Pixar, you could do better.

[certainheartrunaway]

Airspy HF+ Discovery on pre-order

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The signal path includes very high dynamic range data converters along with high performance passive mixers with an excellent Polyphase Harmonic Rejection structure. The included band-tracking pre-selectors eliminate unwanted interference and preserve the dynamic range of the receiver. With its world class strong signal handling capability and incredibly Low Noise, the HF+ Discovery is the ideal companion for All your High Performance Receive Scenarios.

Both the architecture and level of integration achieved in this design allow us to bring top performance reception at a very affordable price. All the major SDR software is supported. Check the download page.

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Audio signal without processing:

Audio signal with our Digital Noise Reduction processing:

State of the Art SDR streaming technology!

We concentrated state of the art DSP and networking techniques into our SpyServer software to allow multiple users to stream high quality IQ data from the same receiver at the same time. No compromises in the quality were made like it is usually done in Web SDR interfaces. You get actual IQ data you can process with your plugins and extract the last bit of information out of it. The server software is highly scalable and can run on computers as small as the $7 Orange Pi Zero to top end 64bit servers with multiple cores/cpus, including the popular Raspberry Pi series.

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HF Tuner

Airspy HF+ Discovery achieves excellent HF performance by means of a low-loss preselection filter, high linearity LNA, high linearity tunable RF filter, a polyphase harmonic rejection (HR) mixer that rejects up to the 21st harmonic and multi-stage analog and digital IF filtering. The 6 dB-stepped AGC gain is fully controlled by the software running in the DSP which optimizes the gain distribution in real time for optimal sensitivity and linearity. Harmonic rejection is a key issue in wide band HF receivers because of the large input signal bandwidth of the input signal. The output of the IF-filter is then digitalized by a high dynamic range sigma delta IF ADC for further signal processing in the digital domain.

VHF Tuners

Excellent FM performance is also achieved by using optimized signal paths composed of band filters, high linearity LNAs with a stepped AGC, a polyphase harmonic rejection mixer and IF filters optimized for the FM broadcast bands. The amplifier gain is switchable in 3 dB-steps and fully controlled by the AGC running in the DSP. The RF signal is converted to baseband by a high linearity passive mixer with a polyphase harmonic rejection structure. The low-IF signal is then converted into the digital domain by the same IF ADC used in the HF chain. Extended VHF coverage is assured by a second Band-III tuner up to 260 MHz, but with reduced performance.

IF Sampling

The IF analog to digital converter (ADC) is a 4th order multi-bit noise shaping topology; it features very high dynamic range and linearity. The IF-ADC sampling rate is determined by a control algorithm running in the embedded DSP. This advanced technique adjusts the sampling rate depending on the tuning frequency with the goal of avoiding the disturbances and spurs generated by the switching discrete-time sections of the IF-ADC.

Digital Down Converter

Once the IF signal is digitalized, the high sample rate I/Q stream is then frequency translated and processed with cascaded CIC and FIR decimation stages. After every stage, the sample rate is reduced and the resolution increased. The final signal at the output has 18bit resolution and an alias rejection performance of 108 dBc. The data is then scaled to 16bit and sent to the Micro-Controller for streaming over USB.

Architectural Advantages

The main advantages over techniques from the legacy super-heterodynes up to the now mainstream direct sampling is that the whole receiver chain is well protected against out of band blockers while still relaxing the RF filtering constraints, making it simple and cost effective. The natural filtering of the sigma-delta ADC combined with the excellent linearity and sensitivity of the analog chain reaches an unprecedented level of performance and integration.

Use it over the network!

Connect as many SDR applications as needed to the HF+ Discovery, over the Internet or in your own local network with near zero latency thanks to the new SPY Server software. This setup basically brings all the flexibility of Web based SDRs while still benefiting from the full power of desktop applications. The IQ data is processed in the server with state of the art DSP and only the required chunk of spectrum is sent over the network. What is sent is the actual IQ signal, not compressed audio. This means you can use all your favorite plugins to process the IF, eliminate noise and perform heavy lifting of the signals as you are used to do with locally connected SDR’s. We have a tradition of building multi-tools, so we made sure the SPY Server runs on 32/64bit Windows and Linux on Intel and ARM processors without any compromises. Low cost Raspberry Pi 3 and Odroid boards are in the party.

Technical specifications

HF coverage between 0.5 kHz .. 31 MHz

VHF coverage between 60 .. 260 MHz

-140.0 dBm (0.02 µV / 50 ohms at 15MHz) MDS Typ. at 500Hz bandwidth in HF

-141.5 dBm MDS Typ. at 500 Hz bandwidth in FM Broadcast Band (64 – 118 MHz)

-141.0 dBm MDS Typ. at 500 Hz bandwidth in VHF Aviation Band (118 – 260 MHz)

+15 dBm IIP3 on HF at maximum gain

+13 dBm IIP3 on VHF at maximum gain

110 dB blocking dynamic range (BDR) in HF

95 dB blocking dynamic range (BDR) in VHF

150+ dB combined selectivity (hardware + software)

120 dB Image Rejection (software)

Polyphase Tracking filters for close range interference suppression

New High Performance Pre-selector for HF with 4 filter banks (corners at ~DC, 5, 10, 17 and 31 MHz)

New High Performance Pre-selector for VHF (Air, HAM, Commercial and Military VHF)

New High Performance Pre-selector for the FM band (Japan, US, EU, OIRT)

Up to 660 kHz alias and image free output for 768 ksps IQ

18 bit Embedded Digital Down Converter (DDC)

22 bit Resolution at 3 kHz channel using State of the Art DDC (SDR# and SDR-Console)

+10 dBm Maximum RF input

0.5 ppm high precision, low phase noise clock

1 PPB frequency adjustment capability

Very low phase noise PLL (-110 dBc/Hz @ 1kHz separation @ 100 MHz)

Best Noise reduction of the market using state of the art algorithms

2 x High Dynamic Range Sigma Delta ADCs @ up to 36 MSPS

Single RF Input to cover all bands with High Linearity switching

Improved input matching down to virtually DC

Smart AGC with real time optimization of the gain distribution for Best SNR in all situations

No drivers required! 100% Plug-and-play on Windows Vista, Seven, 8, 8.1 and 10

Industrial Operating Temperature: -45°C to 85°C

Ultra small Form Factor: 45 x 60 x 10 mm

Typical Applications

High Performance Networked HF/VHF Radio

Ham Radio (HF + 2m)

Short Wave Listening (SWL)

AM DX

FM DX

VHF-L TV DX

Remote Telemetry Radio Receiver

Low Bands IoT

Product Limitation

While the in-band performance of the Band-III tuner is excellent, it will require some filtering for very strong out of band signals at multiples of the tuned frequency.

An RF isolator is required when using long wire antennas with a PC with moderate EMI protection.

Supported Software

The gold standard SDR#

The other excellent SDR suite, SDR-Console

The Suiss-army SDR knife for Linux and Mac, GQRX

Network server for use with SdrDx for Mac, AirspyHF+ Mac Server

All ExtIO based software (HDSDR, Studio1, etc.) via ExtIO by Hayati Ayguen

All ExtIO based software (HDSDR, Studio1, etc.) via ExtIO by Andrea Montefusco

Check the full list of tools in our download page

Supported Operating Systems

Windows Vista, 7, 8, 8.1 and 10

Linux

*BSD

OSX

Supported Hardware

Intel compatible PC

Raspberry Pi 2 and 3

Odroid C1, C2 and XU4

Many other Single Board Computers (SBC)

Minimum hardware requirements

1GHz Pentium or ARM

1GB of RAM (to run your own OS, HF+ barely needs 1MB of memory)

High speed USB 2.0 controller

Fully Open-Source driver

Open source, multi-platform user mode driver libairspyhf on github

Firmware Updates

R2.0.0 2019-05-02 (Changelog)

  We are pleased to announce the availability of the Airspy HF+ Discovery on pre-order.

Details:https://t.co/Cmfg0qCMc0

Airspy Fans Coupon: AIRSPY2019https://t.co/VdEQSEG4Ndhttps://t.co/jusDbIK58Z#Retweet to win a free unit! pic.twitter.com/s5EDx92jxb

— prog’ (@lambdaprog) May 23, 2019

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The post Airspy HF+ Discovery on pre-order appeared first on QRZ NOW - Amateur Radio News.

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[luzrof-rulay]

Tales of Berseria - Post Game Thoughts

Topics:

Introduction

Gameplay (graphics, systems, all that technical jazz)

Plot

Sidequests

Characters

Character Relationships

Music

In Relation to Tales of Zestiria

In Conclusion

  Introduction

After playing Tales of Zestiria, I found myself yearning to know more about the world’s lore – especially since we only see one continent during the game. Having heard that Tales of Berseria is set in the same world, but 1,000 years prior to the events of ToZ, of course I wanted to play it.

And last night, I after about 40 hours of gameplay, I defeated the final boss.

This will be a post much like my Post-Game Thoughts for ToZ – a collection of my thoughts immediately after finishing the game. I also tweeted a few vagueish reactions whilst playing the game, so take a look at that thread if you want to!

I’ve tried to keep this post spoiler-free where I could, but there are a couple of sections which contain spoilers - I’ve marked them with asterisks like so: *** spoilers ***. The spoilers generally come at the end of a topic section, so if you’d rather avoid spoilers, just go on to the next topic section.

For a short general review: 4/5 stars. It took me a while to get into the story, and much longer to care much about the characters (aside from one or two from ToZ bias). I’d definitely recommend playing it if you’re a Tales Of fan.

As for whether to play it before or after ToZ if you’ve not played it: if you want the story in chronological order, go for ToB first; if you want a more heart-breaking experience, play ToZ first.

(I’ll elaborate later.)

Now, onto my thoughts.

Gameplay

Okay I know I said that ToZ was beautiful when I played it, but ToB is gorgeous too. Somehow it feels like they’ve managed to smoothen the camera and the motions of the characters to look even more natural. I also loved the 3D cutscenes which showed the characters in battle – they looked fluid and realistic.

The designs for the locations didn’t fail to look amazing, either. Even though there are a few locations we already know from ToZ, they managed to show new sides of those locations, giving more insight to how they have changed over the last 1,000 years. We also got a lot more locations, in that this time the player is able to visit locations all around the world rather than just on the main continent. It made the world feel more open in some ways, though personally I felt closed in when running on the field, since the areas were made much smaller instead of being the large, open fields of ToZ (which I know a lot of people felt looked too barren and empty, but I found myself loving).

The character designs were also great, though it took me a long time to get used to Velvet’s outfit (seriously, was that the only thing she could find in the prison?). Roukurou’s in particular is a design I love because of its traditional Japanese aesthetic.

(Eizen’s design, whilst perfect for him as a pirate, has far too many references to dragons for me to not feel sad looking at him.)

In this game, they’ve changed the system so a lot of the buttons are assigned to different actions than they are in previous Tales games (on the PS4, at least). It took me a long time to get used to the menu, and any time I went back to ToZ, the change was rather jarring. Still, I enjoy the look of the menu, as well as the new menu actions we are given (though I do miss the characters doing the cooking for me).

As for the battle system, I prefer the ToZ battle system to the ToB one. I felt restricted by having artes assigned to the four buttons instead of analog stick movements, but perhaps I still need to find a way which works for me in battle. I also didn’t enjoy having some of the action buttons moved, simply because it makes switching between games more jarring. The amount of times I’ve tried to guard on ToZ and ended up armatizing instead is one thing, but they really need to find a set input for mystic artes in these games, I’m not kidding.

(Speaking of mystic artes, a certain endgame boss uses the mystic arte Savage Wolf Fury. Way to copy Yuri Lowell, lol.)

One thing I did think they did well in terms of battle was the use of break souls – I found myself using them quite often, even though I didn’t use burst artes in ToV or blast artes in ToZ. For a while I didn’t understand how to fill the blast gauge, and I still think it’s a little tedious, but mostly I’ve been avoiding battles for my first playthrough, so I suppose if I do another I’ll find more effective battle strategies.

(Speaking of battle strategies, I missed the monoliths from ToZ. Not because of the information, just finding them was fun.)

The skills system is something I didn’t put much thought to in this playthrough, mostly because this was a story playthrough which I did on the easiest difficulty. Still, it might take me a while to wrap my head around enhancing/dismantling equipment, mostly because they’ve changed it from what I’m used to.

In all honesty, the game did feel more hack-and-slash than ToZ, mostly because there weren’t quite so many puzzles. In some ways, this was good because it allowed me to power through the game quickly. Still, I felt a lot of the dungeons were less interesting than they could have been, but it makes sense considering the cast of characters presented to us – most of them would rather break down a wall than solve a puzzle to open it.

(I did really like the design of that one earth temple, though, and the water one was really interesting too, especially since it actually had a puzzle. Nothing will beat the trial shrines, though.)

Plot

Tales of Berseria is a game set 1,000 years before ToZ, following a young girl named Velvet Crowe as she sets out for revenge against the Shepherd, Artorius. Throughout her journey, more people who have a bone to pick with Artorius’ Abbey join her.

I enjoyed the plot, I guess. It was certainly an interesting concept, especially since we ended up following a character whose morals weren’t exactly those of our usual ‘pure hero’ archetype. I feel like it became more interesting as time went on and more characters were introduced. The ending, I felt was definitely more than satisfying, and I loved getting more context on some of the things which are only glossed over during ToZ. For me, the pace of the game felt good, since something was happening all the time.

A lot of my problems are with the characters, since I am of the opinion that plot is pushed on by characters and the decisions they make.

Sidequests

I didn’t do many of the sidequests, mostly because my ToZ bias made me care more for Eizen and Zaveid than any of the other characters. I did feel that the two sidequests relating to these characters which I completed – the nor dolls sidequest and the white-horned dragon sidequest – fulfilled the majority of my hopes for more information about these characters in relation to later events. I’ll talk in more specifics later on, but I loved these sidequests a lot.

  Characters

Overall, the characters in this game were certainly interesting, though most of them differed from the type of characters I enjoy in fiction media. I’ll talk a little about the main cast and some of the NPCs.

*** This section contains a lot of spoilers for ToB. ***

Velvet

Our main girl, the revenge-lustful daemon Velvet. After Artorius sacrifices her brother Laphicet, she becomes a therion and swears to have her vengeance.

And I get it, I really do. But all she does is whine.

Okay, maybe that’s not quite true. But for a lot of the game, I felt that she was kind of annoying, since all she would do was talk about wanting to get revenge and telling the others that she doesn’t care about them, so long as she gets her revenge. And it makes sense, for her character, and I see why others might like her. But personally, that kind of character just rubs me the wrong way.

Now, after the plot twist/Phi telling her to “quit whining already” (bless you Phi), she actually became a much more interesting character to me. She showed a lot more of her caring side as well as focusing on her goal, and hence felt a lot less one-sided. I admire that she doesn’t regret the consequences of her actions which lead her to becoming the Lord of Calamity, and I also admire that what she wants isn’t calamity for the world – just vengeance. It gave a much more interesting aspect to the character of a Lord of Calamity – the idea that what they want isn’t necessarily calamity for the world, but vengeance for someone doing wrong against them.

(Honestly, it makes it interesting to look at Heldalf from ToZ with this perspective.)

Her ending is one which I didn’t expect, but it makes a lot of sense.

Phi (Laphicet)

My boy!!! Protect him at all costs!!!

It might be my ToZ bias coming in again, but I have loved Phi since before I played the game. He is a sweet and pure malak who isn’t afraid to learn more and understand about the world, and the balance of light and dark within it. Hell, he helps the Lord of Calamity and genuinely cares for her.

(This boy is such a Hufflepuff.)

He legitimately cares about people and wants to make the world a better place for everyone, and he understand that the world needs to have balance between light and darkness – not just pure light, free of sins, which is what Innominat represented. Innominat felt empty because a world without sin is a dead world, and he can’t feed on emotions of people who have none. Honestly, this aspect of the plot is my favourite, because it’s so interesting to see how these characters feel the world ought to be.

Phi is such a great character, and I love that as he gains his own free will and learns how to be alive, he is able to stand up for himself and not be the pushover that he seems to be from appearance alone.

(Thinking about his future makes my heart hurt, but that didn’t stop me from giving him the bookworm Sorey attachment. For reasons.)

Roukurou Rangestu

For a while, I didn’t care that much about Roukurou’s story, but by the end of it, I really loved it. As a character, he is super interesting – calm and chill and laid-back, but able to get fired up and angry and filled with the desire to kill his brother. He doesn’t care that he is a daemon – it’s just who he is, and I love that.

I love his traditional Japanese aesthetic, as I mentioned before. I love that it extends past his appearance into his fighting style and even the food and drink he enjoys.

Magilou

I didn’t expect to love Magilou as much as I do, and yet here I am. She’s a super interesting and fun character, even more so once you consider her backstory and future. If you played ToZ before ToB, like I did, then her real surname might make you understand her motives a little more, because I felt like it did for me.

Eleanor Hume

I actually enjoyed Eleanor’s character a lot more than I thought I might, and I think that’s because I understand her viewpoint more than most of the main cast’s. Rather than seeking vengeance, she wants purity and peace for the world, but soon figures out that the Shepherd Artorius who she once followed has ideals which she does not agree with after spending time alongside daemons and malakhim.

Her development makes her character feel a lot more fleshed out and interesting, and her backstory makes it clear why she wants what she does.

Eizen

I saved him for last of the main party because I know I’m going to ramble a bit here. Apologies in advance.

I love Eizen so much???? Like I knew I’d like him because I’ve played ToZ and I love Edna but oh my god I love Eizen.

To start with, his Reaper’s Curse is something I found super interesting. I already knew from ToZ that it’s possible for seraphim/malakhim to have a curse instead of a blessing, but for some reason I really didn’t expect it with Eizen. It makes a really nice contrast to Edna, who mentions in a skit in ToZ that she has strangely good luck. Seriously, siblings with contrasting blessings? I’m in love.

(You would think they would cancel each other out, but I suppose Edna’s good luck is that she survived all the shit that happened to her when Eizen was around lol.)

I also love Eizen’s personality so much. He’s similar to Edna in some ways – stubborn and wayward and never straightforward about his personal emotions. Still, he geeks out about things like a typical middle aged man would about a car (fujibayashi’s rod, anyone?). I love that he has so many interests and so much knowledge… knowledge which ends up being outdated or wrong half the time lol.

(I finally understand that one ToZ skit (‘Edna talks about her brother’) where Rose asks if Eizen was like Sorey and Edna says “Maybe.” They’re both as adventure-crazy and interested in ancient artefacts as each other.)

And then there’s his fate – the malevolence he takes in from Theodora which will eventually turn him into a dragon. Since I’ve already played ToZ, I knew this would happen, which makes it all the more heart-breaking knowing exactly how that’s going to play out.

Zaveid

I had to talk about Zaveid here okay he’s half the reason I played this game in the first place.

Zaveid.

Who hurt you?

(That’s what we find out through his ToB sidequest lol.)

I had already heard that his character is a little different in ToB because some stuff happens to him, but I never expected it to hurt this much. He was so happy? Finally free of being a slave? Happy to just go around fighting but never killing? Checking in on a little family he cares about? Probably hoping to start his own one day?

I feel so bad for Zaveid. So, so bad. I love him so much. He has been through so much but I understand now why he is the way he is in ToZ. They really did a good job of filling up the holes in his development, because I remember after finishing ToZ the first time that I wished I knew more about Zaveid. Now I do, and I understand him better for it.

Others

Artorius was a really interesting villain. It was nice to see a Shepherd who had fallen so much, who had lost hope in humanity to the degree that he felt that taking away the emotions which create humanity was the only way to save it. His final scene is actually heart-wrenching.

The other side characters are all also really interesting, for the most part, and I felt they got good amounts of development.

(What I didn’t enjoy was Kamoana. I liked her story, but her English VA put me off her so much for some reason. Her voice grates on me so much.)

  Character Relationships

I’m not going to talk too much about this, because there isn’t much to say. In this game, however, the relationships between the main cast feel so much less like the ‘found family’ we get in ToZ. It’s definitely a ‘selfish co-dependence’ or whatever they call it. They use each other for their own ends, and sure they care about each other to an extent, but they are mostly self-focused, in my opinion.

Perhaps, in a second playthrough, I’ll have more appreciation for the relationships between these main characters.

  Music

If you’ve seen my ToZ Thoughts post, then you know I’m a massive music nerd. One of the things I love most about video games is the soundtracks.

Tales of Berseria’s soundtrack isn’t really all that striking, in my opinion. Sure, the music is good – I’m listening to the soundtrack as I write this post – but none of it is particularly stand-out amazing. I can’t really pick out a theme which I love above all, because none of them struck me all that much. I’m actually a little disappointed in how lacking this game is in the music department.

That having been said, a few of the tracks from ToZ have been re-used for this game, so I’m not complaining. I loved that they kept ‘Zaveid the Exile’, and the fact that they used the slow, calm part for the battle against the dragon gave me chills which I haven’t experienced since ‘The Full Moon and the Morning Star’ in the battle on the Zaphias Sword Stair in ToV.

I did enjoy a couple of the battle and area themes, and the music which plays in the two elemental shrines we visit (the water one’s called Palamides but I forget the earth one’s name) was beautiful. There were also arrangements of other themes mixed in there, but once again, none of them struck me very much.

The opening theme – Burn by FLOW – is one which, I’ll admit, I love a lot. Both this game and TOZX have introduced me to FLOW’s music, and Burn and Kaze no Uta have become two of my favourite songs. The part in Burn where the strings fade out and we get a guitar riff is honestly my favourite thing. Whilst I prefer White Light from ToZ, I still loved Burn as an opening.

  In Relation to Tales of Zestiria

This section is basically an excuse for me to rave about the connections between Berseria and Zestiria, and why those connections made the game more enjoyable for me as a whole. This does in fact mean it requires the following warning:

*** Major spoilers for Tales of Berseria and Tales of Zestiria follow. ***

I’ve already said that I played ToB because of its connection to ToZ. This meant that, when playing ToB, all the connections really meant a lot to me as a fan.

The most obvious thing to start with, I suppose, would be the world and its locations. Seeing towns and fields which I recognised and could place geographically from where they are in the future gave me a lot of joy, and I love that I now understand how Glenwood becomes how it is in the future, geographically speaking. I actually edited the map of Glenwood on top of the map of ‘Wasteland’ (that’s apparently the ToB world’s name) and marked where the locations in ToZ are in relation to those in ToB, and it definitely helped a lot.

Below are two images of that map, so you can also see how things have changed. It’s interesting to see how little the main continent actually changed, save perhaps for the drying up of a couple of areas which were once seas/lakes. I’m convinced that some if the islands surrounding the continent definitely shift to make some of the features present in modern-day Glenwood’s map, such as a couple of islands in the north. I also think perhaps Eastgand moved towards Midgand, but I’m not entirely sure.

Credit for the maps: Glenwood | Wasteland

Another thing which becomes clear thanks to ToB is how the situation of the world in terms of malevolence and shepherds comes to be in ToZ. That is mostly thanks to the fact that we learn of Maotelus’ origins, and by linking that up with what we know of him from the iris gems, we can see that once he became the Fifth Empyrean, he spread his flames of purification across the world and became the prime lord for shepherds who would swear to purify the malevolence in the world whilst allowing people to live and have a second chance at life.

Maotelus obviously stays as the prime lord for all these shepherds until a calamity 200 years before ToZ, which is when we hear of the last known shepherd having lived. After that point, I assume the belief that people had in Maotelus fell, and he continued to give his blessing to the continent until 20 years before ToZ, when the Age of Chaos began, and the malevolent Maotelus is bound to Heldalf, the Lord of Calamity of the time. Lailah, not wanting there to be no chance of there being a new shepherd, takes the oath in order to gain the powers of purification, and is unable to speak about the events surrounding Maotelus due to this.

I feel like this explains why Zaveid, in ToZ, says he has a score to settle with Maotelus – because he knew Phi, however briefly, and obviously he had heard that Phi became Maotelus, the new Fifth Empyrean. When Maotelus suddenly disappeared, Zaveid must have thought that he gave up on purifying the world, or something similar. That’s why he has a score to settle with him – the Phi he met would not give up as easily as this.

Maotelus managed to hold out against malevolence for probably 200 years as people stopped sending prayers to him. He did not give up easily, but was forced to, once people desecrated his shrine.

This means, ultimately, that Lailah is most likely the only one aside from Mayvin and the survivors of Camlann who knows what actually happened back then. Zaveid learns the truth at the same time as everyone else – the only help he had was having known Maotelus back when he was Phi.

There is so much more about the connections between ToB and ToZ that I could rave on about, but these were the main two which relate directly to my understanding of the world which I haven’t already spoken about in non-spoilery detail.

(I’m thinking of saving discussion of Zaveid’s backstory and Eizen and Edna for some meta posts I’ve been planning. Feel free to yell with me about them in my ask box though!)

  In Conclusion

I liked Tales of Berseria, but had I not played Tales of Zestiria beforehand, I don’t think I would have been so invested in it as I ended up being, because I had already fallen in love with what I knew of the world in ToZ, and what I loved most about ToB were the connections to that world. Really, I can see now why I relate with Sorey and Mikleo so much – because it’s the history and the lore of the world, and the backstories of the characters I already knew from the future, which made this game as enjoyable to me as it was.

I enjoyed playing the game, and I’m glad that I did experience it for myself. However, Tales of Zestiria will always be the game which I prefer in this universe.

That isn’t to say that it might not be different for you, if you’ve not read it, though. Playing both games is really useful if you want to understand the world a lot better, even if you play ToB first – playing ToZ afterwards gives you an idea of how the world has changed for the better, as well as how one or two of the characters are doing. I definitely recommend playing or watching both games, if you can.

Now we’ve reached the end of this post, I’d like to thank you for reading it! If you want to discuss anything with me, please feel free, because I love this universe and would love to share thoughts and opinions on it!

[igotthegayonme]

Everyone is different. Let's remember that.

After reading some other’s experiences with the American school system, I decided that I have some things to say, as a dyslexic student, as a multimedia artist, and as a musician.

I have had some great experiences in my school district with some of my teachers. They understand that I have anxiety and depression and that it can effect my performance in class. But, there’s always the teachers who don’t.

My 5th grade Social Studies teacher shamed me for not getting commended on the STARR test because I marked questions down the wrong way. Example, I would answer it correctly in the booklet(answer B) but on the bubblesheet, I would put a different answer (answer d). I did this multiple times because of my dyslexia.

My 6th grade math teacher didn’t understand that I had a legitimate case of dyslexia in math. I would switch numbers around- the answer would be 15 and I would put down 51 as the answer instead. And despite my mom emailing over and over again to check with me if that was the case, she never believed it because “it didn’t exist when she was a kid”.

My 8th grade Social Studies teacher tried to fail me because he found out that I’m apart of LGBT.

My 9th grade Pre-AP English teacher gave me 50s on every major projects because I exceeded the expectation. But as soon as I turn in a project that I put the least effort in, I got a 92. She also called me out in front of all of her classes with said project and said that “anyone could do this piece of work”

The same teacher congratulated my older sister for getting into Nationals with her FCCLA project and then told me to be more like her [my older sister].

My 9th grade Speech teacher made fun of me in front of the class because I was too opinionated and made everyone upset.

My 10th grade Beginning Music Theory teacher hated how I grasped the concepts so well.

My 10th grade ART TEACHER told me that I’m too advanced to be in Art 1 and that I should dial it down because I’m making other students feel like crap about their art.

The same teacher I have this year, my 11th grade Sculpture teacher, discriminated a couple pieces of my girlfriend's work and validated it by saying “I’m an educator. I can do that.”

My 7 year old brother moved to Michigan with my mom. Both my sister and I have dyslexia. My brother is showing signs of dyslexia but the Michigan school system doesn’t have learning disability services. So, my brother might be held back because he thinks differently and struggles more.

And my 1 year old brother will have to deal with that too.

Those are a couple of bad experience that have made me hide who I am as a student and an artist in the classroom.

But, on another hand, there are some good experiences.

My 5th grade Science teacher congratulated me for almost getting commended on STARR.

My 7th grade English teacher happily told me that I had a great mind and that I shouldn’t hold back because she loved the way I wrote and thought. And as she handed out failing grades on major assignments, she would smile every time she handed me a 100.

My 7th and 8th grade math teacher always took my dyslexia into consideration when it came to grading tests and always encouraged me.

My 6th and 7th grade Choir teacher continuously pulled me out of the choir to show everyone what it would be like without me. She encouraged me to go to UIL Solo Contest where I got a 1 (the highest rating a singer can get). She encouraged me to go into Varsity choir. And although I didn’t go in middle school, I took her encouragement and am now in the highest level high school choir.

My 8th grade English teacher always believed in me and loved every piece of work I turned in because she loved to see a unique mind.

My 10th grade World History teacher always loved having me in class and wasn’t afraid to tell the class.

My 11th grade AP US History teacher loves the way I think about history and how I connect one event to another.

My high school choir and AP Music Theory teacher pulled me into her office and asked me what I wanted to do after high school. When I told her that I was debating between Performer, Sound engineer, or educator, she said “I think you would love being a choir teacher. Plus, we need more people like you. Kids these days need someone to look up to and they can definitely look up to you. I look up to you. You’re a lesbian, dyslexic musician and that’s amazing. I know some people with dyslexia that really love music but can’t read it. You never cease to amaze me. Everytime a student says they can’t do something, I’ll tell them your story.”

I promise, the people who hold you up in school are the people you should focus on. There will always be a critic. The American school system sucks, but there are some teachers that are there because they want to make an impact. Those are the amazing educators that challenge the system.

Those are the educators that are going to change the school system.

[comeallyelost]

2019

So this post was intended to be my 2019 year in review, but I started it and then put it off and off and off, so I’m just gonna post here what I had already written for the career portion of my year in review and I’m thinking a few more personal posts down the line to add on to the whirlwind that has been my life since I’d say about September of 2019.

2019 was quite the year to say the least.

Now that I look back on it, this year had like...all the elements a full life usually has and I just happened to get a major dose of it all in these past 12 months: travel, a big career rejection, a(nother) boy’s rejection, I bought my first car, the loss of a major family member, a wedding, then a new career, and finally, FINALLY a real, reciprocated romantic relationship.

Now that I’m thinking all these things through, it’s been so so much that I need to space this all out. 

SO

Gonna break it down into sections, I guess:

Career

Alright. So I kicked off the year with a request to interview for a Programming Coordinator position at the biggest performing arts center here in Miami. Given my time at the museum and my shift in career prospects, this opportunity was basically created for me. I interviewed twice, the second time I had met everyone I’d be working with. I passed a background and reference check, and got the job offer in late January. Those few weeks of anticipation were crazy. Everything felt amazing. The job, the people, the environment. It really felt like I was finally finding a niche where I could do the kind of work I loved to do and make a difference and serve the community somehow in return. This happy medium that I was looking for in a career had finally fallen on my lap. 

Only, I got the offer and the salary was so so SO low I was legitimately insulted. When I got the call from HR I had been so caught off guard that I had to ask her if I could think about it before accepting. The role required work. Hard work, dedication, organization, insane follow though, and really, a passion for the arts and serving the community. It required the skills I already had from working for FIVE years and from my six years and two degrees in school. I was offered seven thousand dollars less per year than when I FIRST started working full time five years before that. And this role was asking for nights and weekends whenever I was needed during performances. The commute was to downtown which is already costly with gas, tolls, and TIME, on top of having to pay to park in downtown which was not covered. I spent the weekend weighing the pros and cons and really struggling with making a choice here. I prepared to counter and negotiate for salary. I had a whole speech at the ready. And I had made the decision that I would turn down the offer if I couldn’t get my minimum ask. But when I made the call and started to prep my negotiation, the HR lady literally said sorry that’s what’s in the budget and clicked. 

I COULDN’T negotiate. And I felt angry and cheated that they thought after interviewing me, investigating me, and seeing my value in my work experience, my education, and my references, that they could offer me so little and that I would accept. Turning down that job was so hard. And I felt guilty for it for a while. That what-if kept haunting me. But in the end so much was going against me that I would have been miserable and unable to get ahead. 

So I said no. And it was the first time I said no to something that would have led to a significant life change. I decided I would stay at the museum, part-time where I was happy for the time being until I found what felt right. And for a while there, I was starting to think that maybe, MAYBE the museum would be that for me. I had no other real career prospects and the couple opportunities I did find were not even close to leads. I went through periods of searching and searching and searching to just not looking at anymore emails and almost entirely giving up.

I mean, I HAD a job. And the museum was proving to be fun and enjoyable and totally stress free. But I never took it seriously. And then, for a brief time there I looked into possibly switching over to grant writing because the grant writer was leaving and he was vouching for me. And then they posed the idea of making my part time role into a full time one. But I would have to apply and interview like any other candidate--I wouldn’t just get promoted. 

And THEN in September, I found a random posting for a Media Rights Analyst at a major TV network and applied on a whim. It was another one of those job postings that just read like it was made for me. This time though, I had no connections. No ins, no word of mouth recommendations, no nothing. But I got a phone interview. And then an in-person interview literally two days later. And then another one with all the execs two weeks later. And then the background check. And THEN the offer. And they MATCHED MY SALARY ASK. And I started on November 18th and it has been heaven on Earth ever since. The team, the environment, the work, the benefits, everything everything everything just fits so well and I feel like this is a place where I can grow my career for a really really long time. I have been so so so happy and it’s been so long I really thought for a while there that I was never gonna get it. But it did. And I ended the year at a place in my career that felt right in every way.

SO I’m back in the media industry. But in the best way possible I would say. And that’s all there is on that. Although I don’t think I can even properly evoke how happy I am in this new job. It is amazing and I’M amazing at it and my team around me is amazing and ahhhh. Just everything. :)

Aaaand just for my own future reference, this is where I had left off:

- My Best Friend

- My Other Friends

 - My Home Life

 - My Family

- Travel

- My Sister

- Boys and Romance

[doesitreallywork]

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66 Texts That Make Her Chase You For Sex Review – Does It Really Work?

Stumbling over words when you are attempting to tease with a woman is so discouraging that the majority of males prefer to avoid the embarrassment that might result. You do not need to tease with her personally if you occur to be the timid kind.

You will certainly recognize the significance of a phone in scenarios such as this, your phone in this instance will certainly play a significant function of obtaining you that woman of your desires. In this evaluation I will certainly take you via a program that is mosting likely to alter your dating life totally.

With simply the click of a switch you have the power to obtain any kind of woman, with this technique you do not require to have great deals of loan or excellent search for you to be on the girls most desired listing. You are visiting just how you can utilize a basic message to obtain any type of female.

I am mosting likely to take you with the entire program on points such as, what is this program, just how does it function, the benefits and drawbacks of the program as well as f the program has a refund ensure for its customers.

What is 66 Texts to make her Chase you for Sex?

The 66 Text to make her chase you for sex is program that has actually been developed simply for you in order to aid you learn the art of texting. Ladies like to play video games as well as really feel charmed by words and also this program will certainly make you a pro at these video games.

In this training course you will certainly locate the excellent one-of-a-kind design of messages, this program provides every male the precise words that can be made use of to obtain any kind of lady. With these this program you will certainly develop into that excellent and also amusing individual that many females are constantly seeking.

You do require to recognize whatever there is to understand about ladies and also connections. All you require to recognize is just how to obtain under the skin of any kind of female. You will certainly learn the correct language that you require to share on your own as well as every little thing else will certainly form.

This program has actually been around for a lengthy while as well as it is claimed to have actually aided hundreds of males obtain the females of their desires. This program makes use of messages that have actually been evaluated as well as catalogued for over 5 years with incredible success.

The majority of males believe that there is something all-natural that triggers as well as tourist attraction in between you and also the females. This is not just how it takes place due to the fact that as a guy you are confronted with the duty to light the trigger. Your beauty as well as wit will certainly obtain you whatever female you desire.

With this program you are mosting likely to be sharp at the temptation video game that a lot of ladies will certainly be food craving for your focus. With simply one basic message that has actually been well crafted to obtain under the skin of our target.

It does not matter exactly how for how long you have actually never ever had a female search in your instructions, utilizing this program will certainly have them all searching in your instructions. If you require to obtain that female to wish to make love with you within a day of understanding her after that this is the program to go with.

This program features message examples to reveal you just how it is done and also video clip tutorials that will certainly educate you every little thing you require to learn aesthetically. It is an extremely cost effective program that addresses just $47, for this percentage you will certainly get on our means to being the king of temptation using message.

Just how Does the 66 Texts to Make Her Chase You for Sex Job?

Well I will certainly reveal you exactly how this program functions to make sure that when you choose to acquire it you recognize what you are obtaining right into and also just how to browse your method around it. When utilizing this overview out are mosting likely to experience subsections such as the initial message, techniques as well as methods to place in play.

It is not a complex program given that it is an on-line training course with a digital book where most details is composed as well as video clip tutorials that you will certainly utilize in the detailed overview that you are provided.

With this program you will certainly pertain to find the emotional technique that you can utilize on any type of lady to draw her right into your discussion. You will certainly methods to make a discussion so intriguing that a woman can leave whatever they are doing to find respond to your message.

This program that has actually been referred to as a function loaded and also functional program that is really reliable as well as very easy to make use of has actually changed the globe of temptation. You do not require somebody serving as your wing male on this. You as well as your phone obtained it covered.

Is the 66 Texts to Make Her Chase You for Sex a Rip-off?

There are no wonders, at the very least not in this globe. As a guy you might stop working to recognize exactly how the women mind jobs. You might not understand just how to set about it or simply reach have a female intend to make love with you.

It is not as made complex as it might appear and also to make it also easier you obtain this digital book program that will certainly make it much more interesting. When texting a female you like you require beauty and also wit, this program reveal you simply exactly how to be that.

You might locate on your own questioning and also believing that there is absolutely nothing you can do to obtain the female of your desires, nevertheless that is not specifically appropriate, there is a whole lot you can do to obtain her to prefer you and also be sexually consumed with you.

The 66 Text to make her chase you for sex is the method to go. You will certainly need to acquire it as well as attempt it out to see if it certainly functions as the developers assert and also not to stress, you will certainly not have actually taken any kind of monetary threat your loan is secured by a 60 day refund ensure if it stops working to function.

The Final Verdict

It takes some guts to trust an on-line program however that is the factor I have actually composed this testimonial. You no more need to cross your fingers and also in the hope that it functions you can currently acquire this program since it is legitimate and also it has actually benefited numerous other individuals.

On its main web site you will certainly see numerous favorable evaluations of customers that have actually utilized this program to obtain the females they can just desire for. I highly suggest that you acquire this program if you require to transform your sex life around and also have all the ladies crowding towards you.

Pros

– This is a simple to make use of program that will certainly show you the art of temptation and also exactly how to obtain any type of lady you desire by message.

– The 66 texts to make her chase you for sex has hundreds of example, evaluated as well as catalogued messages that will certainly reveal you exactly how it is done.

– You will certainly learn the psychology of the women mind as well as just how to attract it via basic smart texting

– It comes with a really economical price that almost any kind of male wanting to obtain laid can manage

– This program features a 60 day 100% refund ensure in situation it stops working to function. If you acquire it you can feel confident that your loan is secure.

Cons

– This program is a mix of Video clip tutorials as well as pdf data. If you are not a massive follower of reviewing after that you far better begin liking it or you will certainly not take advantage of this program in any way.

Summary

A lot of guys are weapon reluctant and also they are constantly stumbling over words when the strategy a girl they such as. It is also worse when texting due to the fact that they do not recognize what to state to the woman and also make them preferable. It just takes a well-crafted amusing as well as amusing message to make any kind of female thaw at the knees. You learn just how to do this utilizing 66 texts to make any type of lady sexually consumed with you.

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The post 66 Texts That Make Her Chase You For Sex Review – Does It Really Work? appeared first on Does It Really Work?.

#DoesItReallyWork, #review #reviews

[bensopinionsonvariousthingsblr]

Top 5 favorite games

Alright so here is the second, part I’ve been spending a lot of time working on this whole thing so I hope you enjoy! 

 Number 5:The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap                                                Developer and Release year: Nintendo, 2004 Japan, 2005 NA                            What it can be played on: GBA/ Wii U Virtual Console 

       So I’m not gonna pretend like 4 of my top 5 picks aren’t Zelda games, that being said the Minish Cap is a game I played more recently, around last year, and at first after beating it I sort of just put it in my top 20, I loved it yeah, but I never really thought about it until now that, even though it was short, every thing about this game was solid and fun to me, the shrinking mechanic was challenging but very well done aesthetically, and the story was good, with the relationship between Link and Zelda, them being childhood friends and Link doing whatever it takes to have his friend back, and the villain Vaati was interesting in his relationship with the Minish (The inhabitants of the tiny world) and his final boss fight being very difficult for me, and the story wraps up nicely as usual, all in all it was a Zelda experience that I truly loved, and my favorite 2D Zelda game.

 Favorite part(s): Definitely the Aesthetic and design of the tiny world, and all the charm around the entire game

 Number 4:Sonic Adventure 2                                                                                  Developer and Release year: Sega, 2001                                                              What it can be played on: Dreamcast/Gamecube/PC/PS3/XB360    

 There it is, probably the most controversial pick on this entire list, unless maybe the next one is too i dont know, but I am a Sonic fan, which is something sort of rare these days, unless you like Mania which is pretty awesome but I’m more of a 3D guy, but this game is my favorite Sonic game because, even though the story is confusing I love it, it was dark and i legitimately felt like Dr.Robotnik was actually a major threat. There are 3 types of gameplay, the Classic Sonic/Shadow, The treasure hunting, and the robot/mech levels that make up the game, the best is the Classic gameplay of Sonic and Shadow, that usually isn’t up for debate, the other modes are pretty fun, but I love the game for the Sonic/Shadow levels, and the game to me really picks up on the Space Colony Ark in the Final Act. The *spoilers ahead* part where Shadow (who I forgot to mention is one of my favorite characters and not because I’m an edgy frick) turns to Sonic’s side and fights the Biolizard to buy them time, Shadow’s character arc was amazing in this game, and the final boss was really fun too, not to mention the soundtrack i mean, it’s a sonic game of course there’s a good soundtrack.

 Favorite part(s): Shadow the Hedgehog, his levels, character arc, and general mystery surrounding the black and red anti-hero was amazing to me. 

 Number 3:The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword                                                  Developer and Release year: Nintendo, 2011                                                        What it can be played on: Wii/Wii U virtual console   

 I have defended this game in so many tweets and irl debates it’s incredible, Skyward Sword released to a 10/10 from IGN (that doesn’t matter to me much but it is an accolade) a 93 Metacritic score, which I do care about since it is an overall score and even got some Game of the Year awards in a year where Skyrim, Portal 2, Minecraft, Mario Galaxy 2, and many more were up for contention, but that proves nothing I just wanted to prove that I have argued about it enough that I know what I’m talking about. The main problem everyone has with this game is the motion controls, they say they are not accurate or don’t work, which can sometimes be true but, Scott Falco (he makes the “”with a side of salt series which he has some very good opinions on) says it the best, he said that he didn’t like it sitting down just waggling the wii remote, you’ve gotta stand up and play, then you fell immersed like YOU are the one doing it and not the wii remote, that is what i agree with and stand by anyway. Now past those criticisms I don’t think there are many more, some people don’t like the story, but to me this game has the BEST story in maybe any game I’ve ever played, the Link and Zelda relationship is better than any other game in my opinion and only Breath of the Wild comes close to that relationship in my opinion, now, the rest of the story is intriguing too, the origin of the master sword (I’m not going to comment on Fi, some people got too annoyed with her to focus on her amazing character arc in my opinion) the existence of Skyloft and the very first Link, Zelda, and Ganon in the form of Demise, all of it was done well and was very interesting to me. I liked the gameplay too, I think the new sprinting and stamina system was revolutionary to the series and made movement a lot more improved from previous entries in the franchise. The final act with the boss battle with Ghirahim and eventually Demise were very cinematic and awesome, and with Zelda’s life on the line during the whole thing it made it just that much more intense. 

Favorite part(s): THE STORY, I can not say enough how much I love the story but also I loved the boss battles,  Demise,Ghirahim,The Ancient Automaton, and all of them were fun to me.

 Number 2:The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild                                              Developer and Release year: Nintendo, 2017                                                        What it can be played on: Switch/Wii U   

  This game is a new staple in the Zelda series, the highest selling of all time, a new open world, a Game of the Year winner in almost all the awards shows, and even still people love to pick on this game a little bit, with all the weapon-breaking criticisms, and I know that can get annoying, but it does add a new layer of difficulty to an already difficult game, anyway Breath of the Wild was first known as Zelda for the Wii U, and it was revealed with a trailer at E3 2014 and was slated for release in 2015, of course it got pushed back and with Nintendo now finished with the switch they announced Breath of the Wild as a launch title, March 3rd, 2017 will always be one of my favorite days of all time, as I got my switch and had the first mainline Zelda game release as a fan of the series, and I did NOT stop playing it that night until about 1 AM (thats a rookie number now i mean c’mon I tweeted at 3 AM last night then went ahead and watched a movie) which was super late for me at the time though and I went to bed ecstatic about the game, I had gotten to a part where the story was starting to go forward and I couldn’t wait to finish it, about 6 or 7 days later I did and BOI let me tell ya I loved every second of that week, the gameplay is smooth and fun with combat being re-invented and then the Guardians were really fun because up until the end i didnt know about the shield thing so I would just bash them with all the brute force i had, the final boss fight was incredible (thats a common theme with my favorite Zelda games) and the Dark Beast Ganon fight was really atmospheric and entertaining as well and the ending with the re-uniting of Link and Zelda was so well done and just makes for a perfect ending.

Favorite Part(s): I loved the massive open world and all the secrets and new enemies and shrines to discover, it just made my time playing the game very enjoyable! Plus everything else like the story and the combat.

Number 1:The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker                                                Developer and Release year: Nintendo 2002 JP/2003/ 2013 HD                            What it can be played on: Gamecube/Wii U

  The Wind Waker. My unwavering favorite game for who knows how long now, the first Zelda game I ever finished and my introduction to great single player games as a whole really. The Wind Waker released in December in Japan and followed up the next year World Wide, the art style of the cell-shaded characters had never been seen before in a Zelda game and people were skeptical about whether or not it would go down well. Well it released and the people of December in Japan and of March World wide were very pleased with the game and loved it for its gameplay, story, vast ocean and many islands to explore with many hours of gameplay to be put in discovering everything the game had to offer, as for me i wouldnt get to play it for a while longer considering i was VERY young at the time of its release, so I would get to play it when it re-released for the Wii U in 2013, about ten years after the release of the original, I didnt get it though until Christmas of 2015 (or 2014 Im not honestly sure) but it wasnt even my gift, as I’ve said before it was my brother’s and i just watched him play it for a bit and tried it myself after being intrigued, and I dont know if I stopped very much over the course of the time I played it, I was challenged by the puzzles, and from the very opening at Outset Island I loved the art style and loved the characters in the story, with the new unique take on Zelda as Tetra, having Link sailing instead of walking, heck even having Hyrule not even the setting (for most of the game anyway) was new to the series and as my first 3D Zelda game I was captivated by all of it, everything about my favorite franchise now was fresh and new and thats something I’ll never get to experience again which is probably why I remember and still play the Wind Waker which such a fondness today, because of how new everything was to me and how much I enjoyed all of it, not to mention the final boss fight (here we go again) was and is still my favorite, with the world being submerged around you and you and Zelda enclosed with no way out other than through Ganondorf, the games story as always (I hate how repetitive I am) ended very well and to this day it remains one of my favorite stories ever told, and I don’t know if anything will be able to top this game just because of the time in my life in which I got to experience it and with how solid the game as a whole is.

Favorite Part(s): The Wide-open sea and the islands are all so cool and creative, plus the Final boss fight still stands as my favorite to this day.

Thanks a TON for reading through all of this, I had started work on it some time last year and got super busy doing other things during all this time but it really means a ton to me that people would actually care enough to read what I write, or even just skim it, 

                                                         Thanks -Ben :)