#it made the stakes real

[lyriumsings]

i think it’s funny people are getting mad people died in acolyte like it wasn’t about them? lol it’s about osha and mae and their masters lol we don’t need 50 side characters pointlessly getting random ass narratives (like in mandalorian lol) they didn’t die for “shock value” they weren’t central to the story. it’s not that deep. it’s literally not about them they’re side characters. like *gestures at andor* plenty of people died in that and it was also sad but jfc they aren’t the focus

[mayvette]

doodle from when i was rewatching stakes

[julijbee]

i kind of miss when he had genuine beef with a 12 year old and wanted him dead.

[abirddogmoment]

A little bit about CKC pointing field trials (puppy stakes) in general for those who are interested in how they run.

CKC has its hunting dog events broken out pretty specifically. CKC is restrictive in which breeds can run which events (e.g., only CKC registered approved pointing breeds can run pointing tests, other breeds are excluded even if they technically could complete the exercises. Rory can only run pointing events, she couldn't do a retriever test or a spaniel test).

We also have a distinction in trials vs tests, as most other venues do.

Trials - you are competing against other people and being judged against a standard. You run in pairs. Top 4 dogs get placements, once you get enough points you get a field championship.

Tests - you are running alone and being judged against a standard for a qualifying/non-qualifying runs. 3 qualifying runs gets you a title.

We are currently running CKC pointing field trials.

CKC pointing trials have two main distinctions within them - puppy stakes and senior stakes. You can enter whichever stake you're ready for, with some exceptions (like age) - you don't have to run puppy stakes before running senior stakes.

Puppy stakes are a little lower pressure because they judge puppies' potential. Within puppy stakes, there are two main types of runs.

Open puppy stakes: any puppy *of eligible breed* between 6 and 18 months old. No birds hidden in the field, no gunshots on the course, 15-20 minutes running.

Derby stakes: any puppy of eligible breed between 6 and 27 months old. At least two birds hidden in the field, puppy needs to point birds if encountered, gunshots, 20-30 minutes.

We run open puppy for now. Here's how this goes:

We are randomly paired with another puppy and handler (this pairing is called a brace, the other handler and dog are our bracemates). We walk up to the start line together (usually the entrance to a big pasture) with our puppies on leash. Two judges (on ATV or horseback) give us a quick overview of the course we have to walk. The course is usually through a big open field with medium cover (think knee high grasses and shrubs, some wetlands, some hills but no forest) and typically avoids fencelines or roads. They tell us to release our dogs at the same time, so we let the dogs off leash and start walking (very fast, and I'm a fast walker to begin with). The course is usually huge, much bigger than we could possibly walk in 20 mins.

Usually the puppies play a little bit and then get to work. The judges are looking for puppies who can ignore the other dog and handler, judges, ATV, horses, and spectators, hunt independently, cover lots of ground (move fast and steady across the terrain while still sniffing), use the wind to follow scent, and respond to their handlers' directions. If the puppies want to play too much, the judges will ask the handlers to split up a little bit to encourage the puppies to work independently. Usually you stick within about 10m (25ft) of your bracemate. Puppies can range anywhere as long as they stay visible and ahead of their handlers. (Puppies are often about several hundred metres/yards away from their handlers depending on breed. Rory ranges about 50-100m in real life and about 75-300m in field trials. It is an exhilarating exercise in trust in my training.)

The judges follow behind us and then spectators can follow behind the judges, if they want. We have to keep up a very fast pace to encourage the puppies to cover as much ground as possible, not at a jog but pretty close.

In puppy stakes, you want to keep as quiet as you can. The judges are looking for instinct and basic potential, so you don't want to ruin that by giving your dog tons of directions. If your puppy follows directions, that suggests they need directions to function. If your dog ignores directions, that's unresponsive and also bad. Ideally you shouldn't say much during your run unless there's danger (if a deer runs out, you would recall your puppy) or evils (if your puppy is eating poop, you could recall or redirect). You are allowed to chat with your bracemate but you have to hustle fast so it's usually friendly but minimal.

One important piece of open puppy stakes is that there are no planted birds in the field! There may be wild birds, but it's unlikely. Many people "over train" their bird dog puppies on live birds, and then the puppies get really frustrated that there are no birds in the field after they search so hard. This causes puppies to slow down or give up entirely during their run, so this is something that judges look for. In real life hunting, there's no guarantee of birds so it's important that puppies can work through frustration without losing enthusiasm.

The judges kind of shout directions (go left, head for those trees) from behind to keep us on course. In the best courses, the judges make you walk a loop, but sometimes your time ends in the middle of a field. When your time is up, the judges will thank you and tell you to leash your dog. We recall our puppies and put them on leash and walk them back to our cars for water and snacks.

That's the whole run for open puppy! It's very low pressure. The puppies basically just follow their hearts and do what they were made to do.

Derby is extremely similar, except there are birds planted in the field. The puppies don't HAVE to find birds but obviously its preferable that they do. If they find birds, they must point (stop moving and stand still staring at the bird). They don't have to be steady to flush or shot (they can chase when the bird flies or when the gun goes off), and only blanks are shot in derby. The course is a little longer but everything else is the same.

In open puppy and derby stakes, the judges are just looking for potential. They want to know if your dog would be competitive in the senior stakes, so they're looking for lots of independence, lots of bird drive, lots of stamina, things like that. Because they're judging potential, younger puppies may be judged a little easier than older puppies.

I think that's the gist of puppy stakes in CKC pointing field trials! Send me a message if you have questions about our experience so far!

[kyouka-supremacy]

//

[rrat-king]

Personally I think even if he was "just" there to kill a different innocent person it still proves he's an asshole because he would be completely fucking over the girl he supposedly has a crush on's academic chances.

oh for sure he sucks. but i was just pointing out that there is a difference between like… wanting to screw over a girl you like so she can’t graduate vs like actively wanting her dead. though i suppose if he knew that kipperlilly was stealing the revivify crystals that would end with adaine dead anyway with no one surviving the last stand before.

but again, he could have just thought kipperlilly was there to kill the proctor not knowing that she would steal the crystals and thinking the proctor wouldn’t super die, he would just die enough to hurt the bad kids academically.

the fact that we dont know for sure is what’s makes this so interesting and infuriating, plus the rage that kipperlilly seems infested with along with the existence of devils nectar makes the idea of reality and truth hard to grasp.

this is actually me being an accidental rat grinders defender cuz i can’t get them out of my head so sorry

[gibbearish]

every time i see discourse about fundraisers go by on here im just fully struck with the realization that not a single one of you people have either taken a cybersecurity fraud prevention course or bothered to take one singular second to consider the website youre on. this is the broke bitches website. none of us can afford to fund our mutuals' grocery bills, much less entire evacuation funds, and CERTAINLY not FAKE evacuation funds taking advantage of genocide victims. all this shit abt how people are deliberately choosing not to fund every post that passes their dash because they hate palestinians literally just does the work of actual scammers for them by laying the high-pressure sales tactics groundwork, and the "do you guys have any idea how hard it is to keep coming up with new attention-grabbing fundraiser posts?" ones just ring EXTREMELY hollow because YEAH! YEAH I DO! and so does everyone i follow! and everyone they follow! because all of us are FUCKING BROKE and surviving on crumbs! i just saw one that said "i make sure to keep $40 in my wallet at all times so i can give $20 to any panhandlers i see, this is the same" and its like!! good for you, thats very nice, but like!!! you need need NEED to take a step back and realize that /being able to do that/ is a position of privilege, not the default setting to be a good person. i wont discount that some people do ignore fundraisers specifically because of racism because Of Course, but like. a) yelling at them isnt gonna make them stop, or more accurately yelling at /everyone else/ isnt gonna make those people stop, and b) trying to apply that as a blanket motivation for everyone just. realistically doesnt work. not donating is a nonaction, it is the literal default status, and while in specific situations you can use CONSISTENT absence of SPECIFIC actions to track a person's motivations SOMETIMES, broadly speaking that just. doesnt work.

there are 8 billion people on this planet. most of them will never know you exist. of the ones that do, most will not be able to help you. of the ones that can, most will not be on the broke bitches website passing the same communal $20 around. consider your audience and stop shitting on fellow poor people for having the gall to need to be careful with their money. and if you are genuinely only posting your fundraiser to tumblr, like. im sorry, but you need to anticipate not reaching your goal and prepare accordingly. theres a reason the last big scam scandal people talk about actually getting the money is like. all-or-nothing era, as a website none of us have the funds to make that kind of thing happen anymore or the security to risk it. a fundraiser not meeting its goal on here is not a personal sleight against whoever made it, its just how life goes sometimes. and it's unfair and it sucks and we should help however we can, but. sometimes you just arent able to help someone else, and continuing to feel responsible serves only to torture yourself. and blaming OTHERS serves only to move that guilt from yourself off onto another person. i imagine that has to be where a lot of the vitriol comes from, is people who cant afford to donate more getting pissed at people they see as having the funds but choosing not to share them, but again, sometimes you just are not able to achieve the goals you set out towards, through no fault of the specific parties involved.

people on tumblr choosing to buy groceries rather than potentially donate to a scam are not your enemy and are not the ones facilitating a genocide. we're all victims of the same horrific system, the question is just how that system manifests its influence on each of us. poverty kills just as thoroughly as a bomb. everyone is just doing their best to survive, and as much as we like to pretend that everyone should be a perfect selfless angel that puts others before themselves no matter what, humans are by default a selfish species, and it is a lot easier to say what youd do in theory than actually do it. and there's a reason you have to put on your own oxygen mask before helping the person beside you, youre of no help to anyone if youre too dead to do anything.

[quixtrix]

the saddest thing about captain laserhawk is that its like a child caught in the middle of two neglectful parents where one parent offhandedly mentions it like its a fun fact and the other parent is a failing content creator with two likes on every video trying to revolutionize a new frontier with their kid that genuinely has no audience nor is even good content. netflix and ubisoft, count your fucking days for your shitty advertising.

[ahoneesan]

look i gotta be straight with yall: i like the big demon baldy gate lady. i know this makes me a normie passoid fake fag cissie dyke but its just true. shes big and strong and niceys, i think, i havent and probably wont play that game but i think shes cool as hell. im sorry. im sorry.

[screambirdscreaming]

At the bus stop one time there was a gaggle of preschoolers waiting to catch the bus for a field trip day, and someone walked past with a couple of friendly little dogs, to great general delight.

But after a little bit, the dogs were getting overwhelmed, and the preschoolers were gently coaxed to back off so the person with the dogs could continue on. Specifically, one of the preschool teachers said, "Sometimes, when you're small, being surrounded by big people can be a bit scary and overwhelming. Even if they are friendly."

This was recieved as great wisdom: after all, the preschoolers were also small, and understood how scary and overwhelming big people could be! And the dogs were indeed even smaller than the preschoolers, so it made sense.

What was funny and charming was that, upon absorbing and reflecting on this wisdom, they all felt the need to tell it to one another. In tones of great insight, they turned to one another and said, "Did you know? Sometimes when you are small, being surrounded by big people can be scary and overwhelming! Even if they are friendly!" Back and forth, without any particular concern that they were all saying the same thing. Have reached comprehension of an insight, it must be shared!

I must say that this behavior is less charming in tumblr users than in preschoolers. Not least because tumblr users, having gained a little analytical skill to misuse, insist on Summarizing and Generalizing and Unifying the insights they repeat, quickly turning any interesting new information into formulaic dogmatic mush.

[what-is-it-to-be-pk-esque]

My partner finally finished BG3 but has no idea that his ending was actually bad cause he was a pro-Vlaakith githyanki who rode off with Lae'zel but got NO EPILOGUE where Withers points out y'all died im 😭😭😭

they have no idea what happened with Gale or anyone else (who was still alive) after flying away 🙃🙃🙃

[fruitsyrups]

The episode right after "Jake the Starchild"... I always forget what it's called but it's gotta be one of my favourite episodes. I have a lot of favourite episodes but like. It's up there!!! Always a good episode when Jermaine is there. And the part with all those leap frogs and Betty going "Oh, there's more on that side." I just really like that part. S10 is a good season for Jermaine in general, like in CAWM with him and Jake goofing off during the part where they're all dreaming... I mean like he's only in 2 eps in s10 but they're A+ episodes with A+ Jermaine content

[br1ghtestlight]

everytime somebody talks about wanting a gene and tina episode/subplot i look forlornly at my unfinished gene and tina focused fanfic that everybody would love soooo much if it was actually written (i promise) (it would be good)

[wretchedbirdthing]

I don’t want to hate on Lost Word for any reason, that’s not what this is about; I don’t actually care all that much about the game. I just want to put out my own thoughts on their “version” of Aka or what I'll refer to as Shikigami Aya (cause they're wholly two different entities).

(I’ll probably put this under a thingy if it gets too long) (it got too long)

Now, I want to preface this by stating that I am very biased. Very very very and obviously biased towards Aka over Shikigami Aya. So keep that in mind! This is also just my opinion. I believe that despite this, my points still stand.

I also don’t want to talk about the characters themselves, mostly because I’m not fully comfortable in evaluating that (I don’t know if Yukari would wait for someone’s permission before doing something though I’m leaning towards “no” but I’m not comfortable with making a definite answer).

I also haven’t read the event yet cause I’d like to finish all the CDs first just in case the characterization sucks and I don’t want a bad impression of Merry and Renko. So I’ll just be going over the themes from the youtube trailer and the screenshots so graciously posted by neoaya. (I’ll read the story later once I’m done with the CDs.)

Let’s start with the “permission slip” that Yukari obtained from the Tenma. The concept by itself as a plot device is underwhelming to say the least. Having permission given by another character removes Aya’s agency in the process thus making the stakes lower and the story as a whole all the less satisfying. It could’ve been Hatate or any other tengu because it wasn’t their decision, it was the Tenma’s. 

It shifts the characterization towards one of circumstance, rather than being directed by the characters themselves. This isn’t because of Aya’s failings or her character faults or anything she did, it’s because the Tenma said so. But what of Aya? What are her thoughts on it? I don’t know about anyone else, but the Tenma’s reasons and justifications are far less interesting to me than Aya’s reasons and justifications, maybe because we barely know anything about the Tenma. 

It’s not fair to say that it’s bad writing but it’s just unsatisfying and unfulfilling, and just kind of lame. 

Disregarding what I don’t know about shikigami, it’s safe to assume that “becoming a shikigami” is a much greater deal than what’s presented in her profile on the account of what a shikigami is (to put it extremely simply, a shikigami is a spirit shoved into a youkai to make said youkai into a living computer). Aya is stated to be curious about what it’d be like to be a shikigami and that she could always “expose the truth” “if things went awry.” I won’t harp on it too much, but it seems like shikigami aren’t things that shouldn’t be taken so lightly. 

Aya as a shikigami brings such burning questions to my mind. Why would she do such a thing? What made her trust the least trustworthy (probably) youkai in Gensokyo? Did she know what she was getting into before she was turned into a shikigami? Did she know that she’d essentially be a servant to Yukari? Someone who you’d definitely not want to be a servant of? Does she even know what a shikigami is? What could have transpired for a typical youkai to give up their entire life to serve as Yukari’s servant? What do her friends think? What about the other tengu? (I acknowledge that these last two questions could be answered by the event and probably are but the others still stand.)

All these questions and more don’t matter because it wasn’t her decision. She had no control over how she ended up. All the tension and conflict that could arise vanishes. 

And that’s just such a shame.

Before I move on, I just wanted to focus on the “permission slip” given to Yukari by the Tenma. I’m giving it the silly name of a “permission slip” because that’s what it is; a document signed by the Tenma that explicitly states that Yukari has permission to turn Aya into a shikigami. I gave it that name because it’s also infantilizing to the characters involved. Having Yukari not only ask someone for permission but getting a signed note stating that she has permission, as if she’s a child asking their parents if they could go on a field trip, feels so childish, as if she doesn’t have any agency herself. Having Yukari act so cocky towards Aya about having permission and having Aya’s first thought be if Yukari forged the signature and not something that reinforces her position as an independent person reinforces this almost childish nature of the characters.

It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

(I said I didn’t want to harp on this but I did anyway, sorry! I will admit that I don’t know much about the tengu and their system of governance but I do know that Aya isn’t too fond of it. I also could be wrong about all of this if it’s discussed in the event.)

Moving onto the next point, that being Aya’s relation with Zenki, the oni that “possesses” her. It seems that Aya isn’t normally “possessed” by Zenki and Zenki only really makes their appearance when Aya uses her “phantasm-level power.”

My feelings and arguments are less concrete and more subjective than the previous point.

I don’t know, as a narrative device, it just seems kind of lame. She’s just normal Aya when she’s not using her powers? Sure she has to listen to Yukari’s rules and everything to keep the powers but still. Aya herself says that she’d “become pathetically weak” if she breaks Yukari’s rules, but her profile states that she’d just go back to having her normal power. I’d probably trust her profile over Aya herself because that's probably what Yukari told her. 

It seems almost “too easy” for Aya to just remain Aya. 

It has potential at least. There’s the irony being so power hungry that you’d do all these (potentially) terrible things to keep it yet you could go back to being normal at any time if only you abandoned that power.

Though it seems like Aya has had some alterations to her personality. She states that she “feels a bit like Ran” occasionally. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and not harp on this point too much.

I feel like Shikigami Aya has missed potential at a narrative level due to how her transformation into a shikigami is set up. It makes her backstory and character underwhelming due to her lack of agency and control.

But at the end of the day, it’s a fun, goofy character written for a fun, goofy game for fun, so it doesn’t really matter all that much (I say as I finish writing all of this).

[pbscore]

People asking you to respect their boundaries is NOT the same thing as them oppressing you for being a minority of some kind, I PROMISE y’all 😩 please learn to differentiate these scenarios and stop relying on white queer, quippy leftist (terminally online) dialogue to get you through low stakes human conflict…

[merrymorningofmay]

saw a XXk notes post about how hard it is for people in peaceful countries to keep up with their daily life while there's genocide happening elsewhere and got unsurprisingly salty because wow, poor you, now imagine how it is to do dishes/go to school/work while there's genocide happening in YOUR country to YOUR relatives, friends, coworkers etc as opposed to Some Guys on The Internet

then thought "no, i'm being uncharitable, op probably didn't expect their post to go beyond their bubble which likely doesn't include any palestinians, armenians, ukrainians etc, otherwise they wouldn't have made this tone deaf post"

then realised that it would actually be really sad if that's the case because if you care about another group's suffering why wouldn't it result in your including people from said group in your media/info bubble, why wouldn't you make their voices present in your life and ensure your perspective reflects that