#it was one of the primary ways I got all the jobs to 90

[asleepinawell]

while they've definitely improved some of that, the npcs will always run to the middle for that particular stack in holminster (similar situation with the armadillo in malikah's well). I suspect it's to prevent them from dropping the aoe puddle in the middle of the safe area since it would then be harder to program the AI to avoid that during the next part but idk. by comparison, they do come to you for the line stack in the last boss and in some other places. I'm not sure what the logic was in the hydaelyn fight because I rage quit after that since urianger had already murdered me and I didn't want to start over

and speaking of that armadillo boss, it does a proximity mine in the center followed by a donut aoe. so you need to get out to the edge until the proximity goes off and then in to the center get out of the donut one. the scions will always run into the center before the proximity goes off. it doesn't seem to be that big a problem except sometimes the healer will run directly on top of the proximity and instantly die. I've had urianger do this 3-4 times now. I just know to bring alisaie along now if I don't have a rez myself

in general, learning the scion AI behaviors in trusts is kinda like keeping track of another mechanic since in a lot of instances they're programmed to go to one specific place. for the second boss in vanaspati they all seem to have a set water bubble to run to and will get hit if you take their bubble

despite that, I do like that the supports/trusts let you follow the scions around to learn mechanics and I think it's great for people who are nervous about doing something new with other people and messing it up (like me!), but there's definitely some fun quirks you need to get used to. like the fact they'll often stand exactly one pixel outside of an attack so if you're following them and aren't directly on top of them you may still get hit 😔

though the flip side of that is that sometimes I simply do not learn the mechanics. ktisis hyberboreia is one I run exclusively in support (love the elpis squad) unless I'm playing with someone else and the first time I went in with real people I realized I had no clue how the snake man's head attacks worked because I usually just followed venat around like a lost baby bird. also everyone went to a different spot for the cross line aoes and I was Distressed™ because I was so used to where the npcs went

ALSO (minor 6.3 dungeon spoilers will try to leave vague) in the latest dungeon, on the last boss, there's a super confusing bunch of line and circle aoes that vanish before they go off and the scions will sometimes just go stand directly in one and fuck you over. thanks team!!!!

and then there's the thing where I swear sometimes urianger will get an aoe spread and just run full speed right at me. that guy. but really it's mostly that the npcs are programmed to go to a specific location with those and once you know it's not a big deal but man it can lead to some hilarious disasters

the funniest moment I ever had in a trust was in the hydaelyn fight when I got a stack marker and all the scions came running over to me and then. then. at the very last second every single one of them ran out from under the stack to group in the middle (AI anticipating the next attack I presume) and the stack went off .0001 seconds after they ABANDONED me before I could catch up and the wol's mom resundered the shit out of my poor lizard boy. the sheer and utter betrayal of that moment. exquisite. hydaelyn was like yeah you guys should probably just get on the moon ship and gtfo

[necrotic-nephilim]

for the recent ask game, i’m really curious about your take on 7 + 8 :P

for the choose violence ask game!

7. what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how the fandom acts about them?

i'll be so honest: Jason Todd. i know there's a lot of argument of "who has the worst fans" and i think that question is flawed and impossible to answer, but i will say Jason fans irked me so deeply. because i read mostly 90s era Batfam, i admittedly didn't have a lot of exposure to Jason for a while, expect for his New-52 runs i'd read years ago. and since i never liked him based on those runs, i could not understand *what* his fans liked about him, or where they got some of their headcanons/ideas from. i've never been more baffled. it ranges from "oh i don't agree but you do you, i guess?" to "what character are you talking about i am BAFFLED". and it soured me on Jason for so long that i actually hate read *most* of his pre-Flashpoint appearances just to understand what on earth people liked about him. and now i can say, i love him dearly, but i can also say, i still don't know what character his fans are talking about sometimes. and i hate the fanon version of Jason who feels almost, Deadpool-ified? with this self-aware slapstick humor but a sad soft interior but also sassy and will kill a man it's just. it feels very hollow to me and it has made me almost tempted to block his character tag more than once over the years bc sometimes certain takes make it difficult to even like him. i just have to tune it out or yell about it for hours.

8. common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

i'm going to get particularly saucy with this one: that Dick Grayson has Eldest Daughter Syndrome. or more generally, that he was parentified. not a single ounce of Dick's backstory indicates him as being parentified. to be parentified you have to be a child taking care of other children either emotionally or physically because your parents are not fulfilling that role. and Dick was *never* a child at the time that another child was under Bruce's care. he has been an adult for the entirety he has known every other Batkid. and even then, the *only* one he was something you could akin to being a parent figure to was Damian, and Dick *chose* that. Dick was a grown-ass man in his late 20s who had the facilities and capacity to make the decision to be Damian's primary caretaker. he's never been parental toward any of the other Batkids, nor has Bruce ever forced upon him the role of having to raise them. did Bruce do a sort of questionable job with Dick? yeah. but i would argue Bruce did the best job with Dick of all the Batkids, and even if he was shitty with Dick, he couldn't parentify Dick bc there was no one for Dick to be parenting. and Dick wasn't parenting Bruce either. they just had a normal relationship of loving and caring for each other.

as for Eldest Daughter Syndrome i just.. i Do Not Like calling any male character "female coded" or "female rage coded" or "eldest daughter coded" because they're *not*. especially not in *this* medium. these are male characters, created by men, written by men 90% of the time, and written to be *male power fantasies*. nothing about Dick or Jason or any Batboy is female-coded bc they exist to be badass men. just because they show emotion and have complex relationships with Bruce doesn't make them suddenly women. Dick shows his anger in a very destructive, stereotypically "masculine" way. even if we strip it of gender, Dick doesn't exhibit most traits of Eldest Daughter Syndrome. he easily makes relationships with people his age, he has no issues telling Bruce no, he did not have caretaking responsibilities forced onto him by Bruce, he's not even really hyperindependent. Dick has a support system outside of the Bats, the fandom just ignores it. does Dick force caretaking responsibilities onto himself sometimes? can he be an overachiever? absolutely. but these are internal complexes that just come with making a character a superhero, it's a complex they all have. if i have to hear one more fan call him Eldest Daughter Syndrome-core or say he's a victim of parentification, i think I'll explode a little bit.

[canonicallyobserving911]

Several Sentences Sunday

Fanonwriter2023 on AO3

Where CANON and FANON collide!

FANON FanFic: Buddie Multi-Chapter - “I’m still in love with you but... I needed to learn how to love myself too!”

Chapter 33 will be posted soon!

This is an EPIC LOVE STORY!

Currently 32 chapters completed: 1.465M Words; Rated: Mature

#1 {Previous snippet} #2 {Previous snippet}

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I'm excited to finish writing Chapter 33 because at the end of Chapter 32, Buck and Eddie got the call from Angelo, the real estate agent in San Gimignano, Italy regarding the house they bid on back in December and they were informed the builder accepted it. Later that evening, they told their found family at the 118 about it and they had a lot of questions including if they were going to immediately relocate to Italy.

Eddie explained they wouldn't do it right away but he included a caveat that if Buck or Chris say they're ready to go, they would pack up and leave, no questions asked. They still haven't told the Diazes yet and they haven't told Margaret and Phillip either. Will they tell them in the next chapter? Also, in Chapter 31, Buck and Bobby agreed to have a conversation at a later date regarding Buck's meeting with Captain Mehta and the job offer he got from Captain Clarke at the 115. Will they have that meeting in Chapter 33? 👀

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Here’s more from Chapter 33 of the conversation Buck and Eddie are having with Lindsey Brown, the executive producer of "All About Pasta", Emeril and the show's production team.

__________

When Lindsey finishes explaining the details about marketing ‘Buck Diaz’ as the new face of “All About Pasta,” Buck and Eddie look at each other and after a silent conversation, Eddie nods and Buck responds with a nod of his own, then Eddie takes over.

“I have a question.”

“Of course, Eddie.  Please feel free to ask us questions regarding the aspects of the show.” 

“Thank you and my question is what location will be used for filming the episodes?  I’m asking because earlier today, my husband explained to me most of your shows are filmed in New York City.”

A voice from one end of the table responds, “Eddie, that’s an excellent question and I’ll answer it.  My name is Steve, I’m the location manager and my responsibilities are to scout locations and to make sure the TV set is compelling.  Buck was correct when he explained most of our shows are filmed in New York City because that’s where our headquarters are located.  However, we do film two of our shows here in Los Angeles, mainly at Culver City Studios but we’ve also filmed at Paramount Studios on occasion.”

“Thank you, Steve for providing the information but how will this work for us because it’s my understanding Emeril films “All About Pasta” in New York City.  So, if my husband accepts, going forward, where will the show be filmed?”

Lindsey looks at Steve, they nod at one another, then Lindsey says, “Episodes can be filmed at Culver Studios, Paramount Studios or if you’d prefer to film in New York, that’s an option too.”

Buck and Eddie both raise their eyebrows because neither of them have considered New York as an option.  They discussed it on the way to the meeting and filming in Culver City is the only location they assumed would be available, however this new information is astonishing and they both tighten their holds onto each other’s hand.

After a few moments, Eddie thinks of another question and asks, “We understand the headquarters is located in New York City but what are the advantages for him to film there instead of here?”

Chelsea nods at Lindsey, then she responds, “Hello Eddie and Buck.  My name is Chelsea and as the casting director, my responsibilities include me obtaining and booking guest appearances for you along with scheduling them so you can partner with other chefs who already have TV shows on the network.  Furthermore, the primary advantage to filming in New York as opposed to Los Angeles is Buck will have more guests to choose from since 90% of our shows are filmed there and several morning talk shows happen there as well.  We partner with them in the off season during the summer months or in preparation for the holidays because our chefs are invited to prepare meals on set and sometimes they work with other celebrities including athletes, singers and television stars.”

After she finishes, Lindsey chimes in and admits, “That’s correct but you don’t have to film in New York unless you want to relocate.  We wouldn’t have a problem with you traveling to New York City for guest appearances but all things considered, it may be easier if you resided there to cut down on the amount of time you would spend traveling back and forth during the off seasons.  For the upcoming Spring season, that starts airing next month, Emeril filmed five episodes with guests and...”  She trails off and looks at Emeril.  They have a non-verbal conversation then she nods and explains, “He has four upcoming guest appearances on talk shows to announce his final farewell but they won’t be filmed until June and they’ll air during the summer months.  We designed it that way so the audience will be informed about the show having a new chef when it returns in the fall.  The next few months will include a lot of marketing and advertising meetings and planning sessions prior to the launch of the fall episodes, therefore filming in New York could be more advantageous but that decision is up to you.”

Once again, Buck and Eddie look at each other with raised eyebrows because they hadn’t considered the option to move to another city in the U.S.  They quickly nod at one another followed by them returning their attention to the team.

Silence engulfs the room until Steve speaks up and says, “I have a question.”

“Ok, please proceed.”  Eddie responds.

“Buck, you’re a firefighter, correct?”

“Um, yes, actually both of us are but…”  He stops talking, looks at Eddie, smiles his million-dollar smile that he saves just for his husband, then he gently squeezes his hand and continues.  “My husband’s also a paramedic and he just got promoted to a new role.  Starting in May, he’ll be the Critical Care Paramedic for Los Angeles County.”

“Congratulations!”  Are offered from everyone in the room.

“Thank you.”  Eddie replies with a smile.

The room gets quiet again and when Steve doesn’t continue, Buck asks, “Is there a reason why you asked about our employment?”

“Actually, there is because it involves the location where you chose to film.”

Eddie and Buck raise their eyebrows, glance at one another followed by Eddie asking, “How so?”

“Well, since our business involves chefs cooking with fire in enclosed spaces, we’re required to have a fire consultant and a paramedic on site during filming and because I’m in charge of locations, I know the consultant must be an actual FDNY firefighter.  If relocation is something you’re considering, my team could put in a good word with the fire chief and the EMS director for both of you and that way, Buck you can continue to work as a firefighter and Eddie you can continue to be a paramedic in New York City.  I can’t guarantee anything but I correspond with them on a regular basis and the Food Network’s relationship with the FDNY is impeccable.”

How are Buck and Eddie going to respond to the information about Buck filming in New York City instead of Los Angeles?” 👀

If Buck accepts the job, will they move to New York or choose to stay in L.A.? 🙃

Will they mention they have a new home in San Gimignano, Italy? 😉

If so, will it affect anything since Italy is the pasta capital of the world? 🤷🏽‍♀️

__________

Fic Summary: Months after Buck and Eddie were hit by the same lightning strike; they’re still struggling with the aftermath of it.  But before they make their love confessions, they’ll spend time getting to know themselves as individuals first. Eddie learns to enjoy the simple things in life as he participates in activities on his own and with new friends while Buck learns the rest of the 31-year-old deep dark family secret about his conception and birth. Their journey to forever is still a work in progress but once they finally admit they’re in love with each other, everything that follows their love confessions will be cataclysmic.

__________

Chapter Summaries

Chapter 1 - Eddie makes a new friend while Buck receives devastating news regarding the sperm donation he made for Connor and Kameron.

Chapter 2 - Buck does a lot of research to learn more about the abnormalities found in his red blood cells and Eddie starts a new therapy journey that’s all about him and not the traumas he’s experienced.

Chapter 3 - After more than a month, Buck and Eddie finally spend time together outside of work but it doesn’t end well and they part with a lot of uncertainty regarding their places in each other’s lives.

Chapter 4 - Eddie has a few realizations about his life which causes him to consider moving back to El Paso, TX while Buck continues to be reminded of his past which causes him to take an impromptu road trip across America.

Chapter 5 - Both Buck and Eddie have difficult conversations with their parents and Buck finally learns the truth behind the reason why his mother despised him while Eddie finally tells his mother about the way she tries to control him.

Chapter 6 - More than two weeks after Buck pushed Eddie away after suggesting they needed a break; Eddie decides to try again. Eddie’s there for Buck when he’s at his worst just like Buck was there for him when he was at his worst and he won’t let Buck give up.

Chapter 7 - After Buck’s mental breakdown, Eddie has his back the same way Buck had his when he had his own breakdown more than a year ago.  They share several vulnerable and emotionally intimate moments with one another and they begin to realize their small, sweet and caring gestures matter just as much if not more than any grand gesture ever could because these are the foundations of a long-lasting love relationship.

Chapter 8 - Buck, Eddie and Chris all have their own therapists and during their sessions, they reflect on their pasts while they’re in the present so they can prepare for their future together as a family.

Chapter 9 - Buck and Eddie are there for each other when Buck has to testify as a witness during the trial.  But by the end of it, they’ll both realize their individual and shared traumas are going to keep resurfacing until they talk about them, deal with the fact that they’re in love with one another and face the fact that they can’t live without each other.

Chapter 10 - As Buck and Eddie finally begin to confront their past traumas, they realize how much they need each other to fill in the gaps of their memories.  Additionally, the universe screams at them for what appears to be the one hundredth time so Buck can realize he doesn’t have to ‘find it’ because he already ‘made it’ and Eddie’s reminded tomorrow isn’t promised and he doesn’t have to die alone if he doesn’t want to.

Chapter 11 - A “virga” or dry thunderstorm is in the forecast but once the rain starts, the thunderstorm happening outside won’t be able to match the storm brewing inside between Buck and Eddie.  It’s the universe’s final scream and when the tumultuous winds begin to blow, they’ll have one last chance to hold onto everything they’ve built over the last six years or they’ll lose it all forever.

Chapter 12 - Buck and Eddie have always shared a deep physical attraction and an emotional intimacy that’s unmatched but now that they’re in a relationship, they’re learning how to navigate the romantic intimacy they’ve been waiting for six years to explore. The love they have for each other is a once in a lifetime, soulmate, love of their lives type of love that transcends space and time.

Chapter 13 - While navigating the newness of their romantic relationship, Buck and Eddie take advantage of every moment they spend together. As their individual lives, people from their pasts, time constraints and the possibility of losing each other again make attempts to interrupt and interfere with their journey to forever, they love, care for, support and hold onto each other even tighter to withstand it all.

Chapter 14 - Buck and Eddie can see the lights at the end of the tunnels regarding the results of Buck’s Cancer Screening along with everything else they’re dealing with. But are the lights they see exits to the tunnels or are they headlights on different runaway trains that are speeding towards them in an effort to interrupt their forever?

Chapter 15 - Buck and Eddie have known they were exactly who the other one wanted in a partner since they met six years ago when they agreed to have each other’s backs. They’re in a romantic relationship, they’re both preparing to ask the other one to spend forever with them and by the end of the seventh week into their relationship, together they will plan their most important and greatest adventure for their future.

Chapter 16 - As Buck and Eddie begin to prepare for their marriage ceremony that will take place in Rome, Italy in December 2023, they start planning their first international adventure as a romantic couple. Even though Chris is still the only person they’ve told about their relationship, several people who know them have already witnessed the love they share and as the days continue, others will witness it too.

Chapter 17 - As Buck and Eddie get closer to departing Los Angeles for their international adventure, a moment in time will remind them; life is fragile, tomorrow isn’t promised and every second of everyday should be cherished because everything can change in an instant. The result of that realization will cause them to hold onto each other even more.

Chapter 18 - As Buck, Eddie and Chris prepare for family gatherings before and during the Thanksgiving holiday, the “Santa Ana Winds” start to blow and all sorts of expected and unexpected familial drama ensues.

Chapter 19 - As Buck and Eddie get closer to their wedding day, the universe begins to align everything so that some of their parent and children's relationships are strengthened while others come to an abrupt end.

Chapter 20 - With only 14 days remaining until Buck, Eddie and Chris depart Los Angeles, CA traveling to Rome, Italy, for their first family adventure, an early morning conversation about “tying up loose ends” helps Buck and Eddie realize there are still several things left unfinished on their ‘To Do’ lists. The question is will there be enough time to complete all of them?

Chapter 21 - Buck, Eddie and Chris are finalizing their ‘To Do’ Lists, double checking their itineraries and packing their suitcases in preparation for their trip to Europe so they can board their flight that departs Los Angeles, CA on Friday, December 15, 2023 at 3:25PM.

Chapter 22 - While Buck, Eddie and Chris spend the first 8 days of their European family adventure in Italy, their primary reason for going will be fulfilled as well as several others they hadn’t considered or anticipated.

Chapter 23 - As the Diaz Family continues their Italian family adventure, they’ll say, “Ciao” or hello and goodbye to a lot of things almost immediately after they become an official and legal family.

Chapter 24 - After Buck, Eddie and Chris arrive in London, England on December 24th; the Diazes immediately start preparing to spend their first family Christmas together. During their stay, each of them will hear a few choice words that will be the life raft to get them home to complete their searches to be seen and to be found.

Chapter 25 - After spending more than two weeks in Europe, Eddie, Buck and Chris are back in Los Angeles and they’re getting ready to attend Maddie and Chimney’s New Year’s Eve party. During the event, they have plans to make two surprise announcements but the question is, who’s really going to be surprised, the Diaz family or their found family at the 118?

Chapter 26 - Buck and Eddie are once again faced with their greatest fear of losing each other but this time it could be permanent and if it is, then they won’t be able to spend the rest of their lives together.

Chapter 27 - After Buck resumes therapy, he’ll continue to face the fact that he “DIED” in March 2023 and during those sessions, he’ll learn about the 7 stages of grief. As he continues his healing journey, Eddie will be right by his side just like he promised and the Diaz family will start to deal with their three minutes and seventeen seconds loss as a family.

Chapter 28 - Two years ago, Eddie was asked, “What are you afraid of?”; twice, once by Frank and once by Buck but he only answered one of them without deflecting. Since that time, he’s been to therapy and him and Buck got married but the question resurfaces when Frank asks Buck the same question and Buck asks it of Eddie for the second time. However, when Buck asks, his reasoning will be about something else entirely.

Chapter 29 - After Buck and Eddie have an emotionally intimate conversation regarding their dreams, they make several decisions that will affect their future. When everything falls into place, they’ll realize one of those decisions will result in them no longer being work partners.

Chapter 30 - In 2018, Buck and Eddie met at the 118 and after some initial apprehensions on Buck’s part, they became work partners and they agreed to have each other’s backs. It’s been more than 6 ½ years, a lot’s happened, they got married in December 2023 and they have the family they both chose. With Eddie leaving the 118 in 3 months and Buck getting closer to moving past his grief, what will him losing his work partner mean for him?

Chapter 31 - As Buck’s life hangs in the balance from what’s suspected to be another bradycardia event, Eddie’s by his bedside, their son is being cared for by relatives and their found family is in the waiting room. During this time, many questions will surface that could possibly lead to the truth but will everything be revealed before it’s too late?

Chapter 32 - On January 2, 2024, the figurative skies over the Diaz family became gray and filled with storm clouds. Buck’s recent trauma, Chris’ school project and Eddie’s paramedic studies combined with the attack on Buck’s life, all those things contributed to the grief they’ve been experiencing. However, as the middle of February approaches, will the dark clouds dissipate so blue skies can return?

Chapter 33 - Will be posted soon.

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Read chapters 1-32 are available on AO3.

Continue reading on AO3

Chapter 33 will be posted soon.

[demi-shoggoth]

2024 Reading Log, pt 2

006. Gardening Can Be Murder by Marta McDowell. I honestly thought that this book was going to be about something else. With the subtitle “how poisonous plants, sinister shovels and grim gardens have inspired mystery writers”, I thought it was going to be about, you know, that. True crime themed to gardens, discussions of poisonous plants, that sort of thing. The book is actually about the mystery books that have gardening as a theme. And while the author’s dedication to not spoiling anything (seriously, anything, even 150 year old stories like The Moonstone or “Rappacini’s Daughter”) is admirable in its own way, this leaves the book feeling like endless buildup without any payoff. Big fans of murder mysteries might enjoy this—especially the last chapter, which interviews writers about their gardens—but I found it more boring than anything else, and finished it only because it was very short.

007. Antimony, Gold and Jupiter’s Wolf by Peter Wothers. This book is about how the elements got their names, and most of it deals with the early modern period, as alchemy transitioned to chemistry and then into the 19th century, when chemistry was a real science, but things like atomic theory were not yet understood. The book goes into fascinating detail, and has a lot of quotes from primary sources, as scientists then were just like scientists now, that is, opinionated and bickering with each other over their preferred explanations. And names! Many of the splits between elements and their symbols (like Na for sodium) are due to compromise attempts to appease two different factions with their preferred names. A book covering arcane minutia of history always has the risk of feeling like a slog, but this is a fast and fun read.

008. Doctor Dhrolin’s Dictionary of Dinosaurs by Nathan T Barling and Michael O’Sullivan, illustrations by Mark P Witton. This book is an odd concept, but one that I was immediately on board with—a D&D book written by paleontologists with the intention of bringing accurate and interesting stats for prehistoric reptiles to the game. The fact that it’s mostly illustrated by Mark Witton definitely clinched my backing that Kickstarter. And this book is a lot of fun. So much so, that I read it all in a single sitting. I don’t know how accurate the stats are (like, a Hatzegopteryx has a higher CR than titanosaurs or T. rexes), but they seem like they’d be fun in play, and the writing does a good job of combining fantasy fun with actual education. Even for someone not running a 5e game, the stuff on how to run animals as not killing machines, and the mutation tables, could be useful. There are multiple types of playable dinosaurs, all of which seem like they’d work well at the table and avoid typical stereotypes, and a lot of in-jokes and pop culture references (like the cursed staff of unspared expense, which looks like Hammond’s cane in the Jurassic Park movie).

009. Romaine Wasn’t Built in a Day by Judith Tschann. I’m a sucker for books about etymology. And this one, on food etymology, is a pretty breezy read. I had fun with it, and it even busted some misconceptions that I had, etymologically speaking. Like, there’s no evidence that “bloody” as an explicative originated from “God’s blood”? Wild. Etymology books tend to be written in a sort of stream-of-consciousness style, where talking about one word may lead down a garden path to the next one. The book also has a couple of little matching quizzes, which is something I haven’t seen in a book since like the 90s.

010. The Lives of Octopuses and their Relatives by Danna Staaf. I was previously a little disappointed in The Lives of Beetles, another book in this series, but I knew I liked Staaf, who wrote the excellent book Squid Empire about cephalopod evolution and paleontology. I’m pleased to report that this book is also excellent. Staaf takes the “lives” part seriously, and the book is arranged by ecology, looking at different marine habitats, the challenges that they pose to living things, and the cephalopods that live there. Cuttlefish get slightly short shrift in this book compared to squids and octopuses, but that’s about the biggest complaint I had. I like how the species profiles cover more obscure taxa, and information about the best studied (like Pacific giant octopus and Humboldt squid) is kept to the chapters.

[blitz0hno]

This got long so TL;DR: Mikoto acts on autopilot ~%90 of the time, but I believe he planned (most of) his crimes. He has straightforward reasons that align with his actions, but appears purely unreasonable because of his mental state. Kotoko is very deliberate, but acts her most violent out of raw emotion. She appears calculating, but feels completely out-of-control despite her strong "heroic" front.

y'know it SEEMS cliche that John screams like a madman every time he fronts but gee horror tropes aside has Es considered that switching can HURT?? like a lot???? Like idk maybe feeling your body flood with adrenaline and being made to handle that shit the moment someone "pisses him off" is a little bit agonizing? Maybe having no idea what's going on until he can process the emotional flooding adds fear which really doesn't help???

Fuck mannnnn when you read between the lines, John and Mikoto are a REALLY good deconstruction.

... especially since he is contrasted mainly with Kotoko. I say this because I was just struck with an idea.

ESSAY TIME LITERALLY A WHOLE ESSAY CAME OF THIS RANDOM THOUGHT no sources tho pure opinion~

So KOTOKO, despite saving the girl being her primary objective, kicked her victim to death out of anger. At her core, despite all her ideals, she was not acting out of reason or necessity, however reasonable the actual action seems.

Given that prisoner pairs are meant to starkly contrast, that gives me my best reasoning as to why I defend Mikoto's innocent vote while also praying John DOESN'T disappear:

Despite how unreasonable and irrational John acts at first, there's a reason he reacts the way he does. And deep down, somewhere in his mind, MIKOTO knows the reason he did what he did. His motives are real, even if he doesn't remember carrying out such a "dream." This leads me to believe there were REALLY big reasons, and likely good reasons, for killing who he did.

A deliberate, maybe even carefully premeditated act would undeniably lead to the death sentence. His brain knows this even if Mikoto himself isn't consciously thinking of it. But a defense of randomly "losing control?" MAYBE he can keep surviving. Because all he was doing was surviving.

I believe that when one protects themselves, they protect others as well. Perhaps I am biased, but no, abusive people should not go unaddressed and uninterrupted. It's very very very implied that John and Mikoto went after people he felt endangered by. I went over this in my first "Double" analysis, but TL;DR I think the red herring John gave (which is funny cuz that phrase comes from tactics to throw DOGS off their trail) goes SO much farther thematically than I've seen talk about.

John has reasons that he does what he does, as does Mikoto. Systems are wired for survival. The lucky ones do well in academics and even many job environments because they are ALWAYS processing what to do next. Burnout is SEVERE because the brain is basically always "on alert," even when we're checked out. I can find clinically documented sources for this claim and I will if I make a video or something about this, but yeah it sure is an EXPERIENCE when it all comes crashing down. Trying to end a cycle.

As for Kotoko? She is literally portrayed to have a one-track mind. Her ideals and justice. But ironically? She killed out of raw anger and emotion, which is what the wolf at the end of Deep Cover represents. Despite having a very "normal" life overall, SHE is the one who truly loses all control of herself. SHE beats up the people who annoy her. Because it's grating, as she said in Deep Cover, to face the ugliness of humanity and NOT be able to escape your brain's response to it. SHE cannot "disappear" and forget her rage at injustice like Mikoto can. She is at the mercy of this uncontrolled rage and the resulting violence she allows herself to perpetrate. Repeating a cycle.

it's so brilliant. It's SO brilliant. They are the same. They couldn't be more different. Neither is a hero nor a monster. But they are heroes in SOMEONE'S, or arguably MANY people's eyes. And yet in both 009 and 010's cases, when we see their truest and most raw colors, we question EVERYTHING we assumed before.

Mikoto is not telling the whole truth when he says he doesn't get angry or remember anything. John straight-up lied to cover Mikoto's motives for doing so, and possibly out of his own genuine confusion. He is acting on instinct drilled in by traumatic events that the brain is using as reference; however, with how DID works, John is not going to know that. It's not his "job," the protection role he plays in the system , to know that. Yet there are reasons all the same. His BIG reason, which he calls out to Mikoto in "Double," over and over, was to SAVE Mikoto. Meanwhile, Mikoto is afraid of his actions, but presumably carried them out in order to stay alive. Whatever his "dream," he still wishes he could be seen as a good man despite what he presumably felt he had to do to survive. DID is the "sink or swim" disorder; it's literally about saving yourself and being protected from the emotions that come with it. Whether or not his reasons truly make sense is yet to be seen, but either way, Mikoto feels he cannot trust himself. He is cut off from emotions that would make him believe his reasons were "bad enough" to ACTUALLY warrant murder. That is why he split; to forget how bad it truly got. He has NO idea how protected he truly is.

Kotoko firmly believes that she is COMPLETELY honest about what she wants and what she wishes to do about it. She believes her anger is justified completely, and thus her actions must be justified as well. This reasoning allows her to be completely convinced that she is aware of and comfortable with her every choice. Her reaction to her own anger, leaving Lucky behind in that rage, and her reaction to the wolf in "Deep Cover" revealed her awareness and comfort to be a self-imposed illusion of strength. Her ideals are real and she fights for them, yet she's crossed so many lines that she's actually very afraid of what she's become. It's right behind her, isn't it? Something she cannot run from before it swallows her. And having picked apart every other person there? She is alone; but this fear isn't "strong," so she hides it away for the extraction machine to reveal to us as the audience.

Both are driven by larger-than-life emotions that can only come from raw existential anguish; emotions repressed until they explode. Neither are anywhere near what they seem to be on the surface. Both are unknowingly dishonest. Neither knows what to do about it.

I wanna say there's hope for them but you know. Superhell.

[talenlee]

Talen's Birthday, 2024

Somehow this one feels less of a big deal than last year. I dunno, maybe it’s because turning forty has been a big monument in my mind, turning forty-one feels just like turning forty again.

I had a fanciful idea that I could do something with the fact that 41 is a prime age; that I have turned 1, 3, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37 and now 41, and then I thought it’d be interesting to see if I ever turned a prime age in a prime year. Now, if you’re at all good at math you’d be able to point out that by being born in 1983, every year I turn an odd age, the year is even and vice versa, meaning that for roughly half the population at any time, they’re never a prime age on a prime year, since no even number is a prime.

It’s not a complicated math puzzle here.

Making a birthday post on my birthday doesn’t feel that special now. It’s not a milestone, it’s not important. Comically, because City of Heroes is burned into my brain, I do think of 41 as a level where you used to get access to your first Epic Power Pool choice (except now you get them at level 35, which is cool). It’s good though: This was a good way to fight the anxiety of the birthday. I remember when I turned 35 I had a real horrible moment thinking I was done, that I had wasted my entire life up to that point. I remember part of what made it okay was seeing Adam Savidan on Youtube, playing Magic: The Gathering and saying ‘I’m thirty five or thirty four years old and I don’t need this.’

A thing about Loading Ready Run that makes me feel a tiny bit bad is that it’s this big long project that a bunch of friends have been making and running for twenty years, as an ongoing hobby that became a job and then became an institution managing multiple people creating things. Sometimes I get sad thinking about how what got that big project to happen was, in part, two dudes with supportive parents and supportive school supplies in the late 90s were able to work on a project, together, for long enough to become very good at it.

How do you do something for twenty years?

Well, you start.

You start, and you keep working on it while you work on things.

The internet of today is poisoned. The internet of today demands you create for it, it wants you to produce Content. Your status updates, your pictures, your everyday drama, your existence, they are all things that are being fed into advertising machine to space out the ads in the name of being ‘content.’ It isn’t how it used to be. It used to be people had websites for their special interests, the interest being the primary thing. My first website I can remember was an Animorphs fanfiction space, and I remembered how when I stopped trying to host other people’s fanfiction, and instead just hosted my own, the one author I took down got sad at me. She was probably also like, fourteen like I was.

It used to be that people made things because they wanted to share them. It used to be that people were making websites and stories and web-novels and web-comics and diaries and blogs and vlogs and microgames and RPGs and they were making stuff. It was stuff. It was not for consuming in its own continual sense, it was not being part of a pipe of things that were fed to you, it was not content, it was a lot of different stuff and that difference gave everyone a reason to do things.

But now, it’s Content.

Now, your effort, your creative material, is being pushed into a single tube for four companies who suck and you know they suck and you don’t like them and yet you make things for them anyway. Because that’s where it is. That’s where the habit forms.

Arbor Day - The Lads // Arbor Day

Watch this video on YouTube

I’m fond of this song, Arbor Day by a band that can be politely described as ‘pretty good, for a Church choir.’ The song, very simply, is that hey, do you need a reason to make a change in your life? Well, today is Arbor day, that’s a good enough reason.’ It’s been an idea bubbling around in my head that yeah, Arbor Day is a nearly arbitary reason to make a big change in your life, but that may be all you need. Sometimes you just need something, anything to mark the psychological change between ‘before I tried this’ to ‘after I tried this.’

Here’s my request for you, on my birthday.

There is something you want to make. There is something you care about. There is something you are interested in trying. Today is a day to do that. Today is a day to even just describe a plan, or a hope. Do you want to write a book? Write a description of what that book is about. A series of books? Describe all of them! Do you want to make games? Start, download one of the programs you need to use today.

Don’t waste money on things for this post’s sake, but you know there are steps you can take to make things, and I want you to make them. I believe in a world where people make things because we like making things, I believe in a world of creative people playing with creativity, and I believe that the important thing of online spaces ie being able to share them.

So please, make something, and show it to me.

No matter how small it is, no matter how little progress on it you get to make. Just spend a little time today starting something, continuing something or finishing something.

I’ll be proud of you, no matter what.

I promise.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[bottlecaprabbitgames]

Weight Loss, Dieting, Medical Shit Goin' On

At the request of @meethisharma , I'm making a big post of like. EVERYTHING I've learned so far since truly trying to lose weight and do better since February of this year. I'm of course going to go into my background as to why I need to lose weight and my life as an obese person, different references I've used to help with my weight loss, dietary changes, THE WHOLE SHEBANG.

So uh. Buckle up, it's a LONG post.

(Also, shout out to Jordan Shrinks over on YouTube, I've followed this woman for years and she is still the biggest inspiration and my favorite fucking person who has helped me shape my routine for weight loss.)

Why did I start trying to lose weight?

I have been obese pretty much my whole life. In high school, I weighed 260-270 lbs. Both of my parents struggled with drug addiction, and that meant that we ate a lot of unhealthy, over processed food as it was the cheapest. I also rarely, if ever, drank water growing up; we mostly had soda in the house, and that's what I drank.

Last year, in May of 2022, I weighed 330 lbs. This was after I had already lost an unknown amount of weight, as I put on a LOT working at McD's given the food was free and I was broke most of the time. This was still not enough for me to start losing weight, but I did start packing my own lunches and at least started eating better. In September, I started my first hotel job, and with the better work and pay, I was finally able to afford insurance for 2023 and start going to doctors like I needed to. I've always had a LOT of chronic issues, but none were ever diagnosed as I really didn't go to the doctor much unless it was an absolute dire emergency.

Timeskip to the first week or two of February, 2023, and I finally get in to see a nurse practioner who will lead me to find my current primary care doctor. I weighed 312 lbs, and she was very... well, blatantly, she didn't even give me the time of day LMAO. She didn't even bother to tell me I was pre-diabetic, I had to find that out from looking at my lab results myself.

Week 3 of February, I get in with the guy who's now my primary care doctor. He's also fat, like I am, and he was also far more direct with me about my situation. As it turned out, I was in like stage 3 hypertension (my blood pressure was 150 smth over 140), I was almost 90% deficient in vitamin D (y'know, the shit that makes your bones HARD), my iron saturation in my blood was in single digits (aka severely anemic, borderline needed a blood transfusion), I was well into my way to being a Type-2 Diabetic (my A1C was 5.8, you need to be 6.4 to be diagnosed), AND... my liver was struggling really, really badly. Side note, he's also a mental health professional, and he's the one who originally diagnosed my severe PTSD and got me in with my therapist.

NEEDLESS TO SAY, I WAS NOT IN THE BEST CONDITION. I was actually well on my way to developing early heart disease, osteoporosis, diabetes, blood clots, like everything I was the MOST afraid of was what I was about to have. Because I wasn't taking care of myself, I was living off of ramen and fast food and processed as shit food all the time, TV dinners... I'd make a meal out of a family-sized bag of chips or a whole roll of crackers and several slices of cheese.

My doctor was very point fucking blank about my outcomes. I could've died if I did nothing. A really horrible way to die, too. He told me that if I wanted to make changes, he'd get me every resource possible he could to help me, but I had to want the changes if they were gonna stick. Keep that in mind, right? YOU have to want the changes needed.

And that's when everything started.

THE GAME PLAN

SO, what did I do to start losing weight? What changes did I make?

Everything. FUCKING everything. My doctor said I needed a low-as-possible sodium diet, so I changed it. I needed to start exercising, so I did. I needed meds and to get into therapy to help deal with my mental health, so I religiously take my meds and I go to therapy as many times as possible each month. He also wanted me to get a daytime job, as my overnights were likely making things worse, and I finally got that done now, too.

A big thing to add here, too: my doctor has not talked to me about BMI. The only thing he has asked me to do is get to 200 lbs. He says so long as I don't drop under 120, he's said it's fine whatever weight I stop on, so long as I get to 200.

But where did I begin? The SIMPLE shit.

I started with ten minute walks. That's it for exercising, I started with TEN MINUTE WALKS. And you know what? It was fucking hard. It still is. It's like pulling teeth sometimes to get me to get up and go take a 30 minute to an hour walk. But don't let these fucking fitness influencers bully you into thinking that if you can't handle pumping iron in the gym for 6 hours straight then you're always gonna be a fat slob or whatever those fuckheads say these days. And, if you don't like walking, if you'd rather lift weights, you can do that too! If you don't want to go to a gym like I don't, order some cheap ones off of Amazon or Walmart. Go cycling or swimming or jumping rope. You don't have to go big and hard into exercise to be healthier. Start small.

Now, diet-wise, I threw myself in it a little too vigorously and I also paid the price of wasting like $50 each payday in shit I didn't eat or still haven't, and I also fucked up my GI tract for a solid month. I was ROUGHING it. Raw-dogged the low sodium diet and it did it back double time, do NOT do what I did. There's gonna be a WHOLE section after this one on dietary shit. Big thing, though? MEAL PLANNING. I don't care if you only meal plan one meal of the day, I only do my damn dinners. Just take time on your day off to batch cook a bunch of shit to be able to eat for one meal throughout the week.

MAKE GOALS. I don't care if the goals you set seem shallow to you or not, make some fucking goals. Keep them on a list you can easily find, especially like on your phone. HELL, keep the list in SEVERAL ways, like a paper on your wall. I have another section planned for like examples and my own goals on down.

EXERCISE

AGAIN, start small. Don't go hog wild and try to do an hour a day at the gym to start; that's gonna burn you out and wear you down before you even get started. Also, you don't need a gym to exercise. If you never wanna step foot in a gym, you NEVER have to.

Start with a five to ten minute walk every other day. You don't like walking? Cool, get some cheap weights (or a kettlebell weight) and lift weights for 5-10 minutes. I just recently got a 5lb kettlebell on Amazon for like $8.55 after tax so I can start doing weighted exercises. (NOTE: don't start with big heavy weights. You'll fuck up your muscles and joints. You'll want to research what weight to start with first.)

I think it wassss two weeks of me walking for ten minutes every other day before I moved to 15 minutes? Now, in May, I can go for an hour at a leisurely pace.

My Routine:

45 minute-hour walk at LEAST 4 days a week.

One day of 30 minute power walking or walking-jogging intervals. I walk along the street I live on, and I do 1/3 of the way jogging, the rest walking.

At LEAST one day using resistance band exercises. Resistance bands are like $10 at Walmart, I recommend using a light one to start WHILE AT YOUR HEAVIEST WEIGHT. Resistance bands work by using your own body weight as the resistance, so it's best to start while you're still at the heaviest.

Hoping to work the kettlebell in on at least three days of the week, doing weighted HIIT exercises (high intensity training).

DIETARY CHANGES

The BIGGEST piece of advice I can give you is to make sustainable changes. The reason diet culture doesn't work is because you can't survive off of diet food for a long period of time, meaning you'll just regain the weight back once you return to a normal diet. Also, carbs are not bad for you. Unless a doctor specifically tells you to lower carb intake, PLEASE do not just suddenly decide to stop eating carbs as you can permanently damage your major internal organs.

Now, I am not on a diet, persay. The changes I've made I plan to keep for the rest of my life. Now, I can only tell you what I do, and not what you should do. I have some formal training in nutrition, and I can give you advice on what not to do, but again, I can mostly tell you what works for me.

NOW THAT THAT'S OUT OF THE WAY, HERE WE GO! I am on a low-sodium diet, meaning I do not add salt to shit. I use Accent, a shit ton of seasoning and spices, and I get my canned food no salt added when I can. I also mainly only eat turkey and chicken (mostly chicken), while beef and pork are like... a treat every once in a while. I also get low sodium canned tuna or like... actually good fish sticks. And, as I live on the Gulf Coast, I get fresh shrimp once or twice a month. I also do NOT add sugar to something unless it's a recipe for like bread to feed the yeast. I get canned fruit in 100% juice, or I get it frozen mostly. If I want to add something to make it sweet, I dump fruit in it. I've also recently been adding like... one packet of splenda ALONG WITH FRUIT to my oatmeal. Tastes p good, do not recommend splenda in coffee. Shit's nasty.

I am also a calorie counter and believer. The easiest way to think of calories is like... energy. One calorie is one unit of energy. I HIGHLY recommend using a couple of calorie calculators to help figure out your daily intake, and I use the My Fitness Pal app to keep track of what I eat, especially as I am prone to boredom eating and binge eating, as I do still struggle with disordered eating. I also keep an eye on my macros (protein, carbs, fats), as well as my cholesterol, sodium, and saturated fat levels.

So, what does Cy do for food? A lot but also... not very much, lol. I am a convenience bitch. I ain't here to cook several times a day and shit, I ain't got time for it. I be makin' shit as easy as possible.

I do often drink protein shakes before or after I walk or have an intense workout. You don't have to, just keep in mind you DO need high protein intake before or after working out, to help your muscles repair themselves. I get the cheap af Purely Inspired brand at Walmart, mix it with frozen fruit and milk in my blender.

PLEASE, GOD, DRINK WATER! Drink plenty of frickin water. Your body has to be hydrated and the more water you drink, the less water your body retains as extra. A bit weird, I know, but take it from me as I carry about 10-12 lbs of water weight a day, and it was a LOT more when I wasn't hydrating properly.

I meal prep one meal a week. It's dinner now, so I take a day I'm off, make a big batch of smth, and separate it into like 5-7 containers, freezing some and fridgerating the others. I post recipes and total costs over on @cylentlycrafting , and I get those cheap ass Mainstays meal prep containers. It's like $5 for 5 of em, and I have like... 3-4 sets.

The main meat I eat now is chicken, as it has the highest amount of protein across all meats. I also pretty much exclusively eat whole grain foods (brown rice, whole wheat bread, whole wheat or brown rice or quinoa pasta), and I keep instant brown rice and instant oats on hand. Listen, I'm an impatient ass mfer, I don't have 45 mins to cook some goddamn rice.

I also luv eggies. And cheese. And dairy. Though I typically get reduced fat dairy products, except milk. Reduced fat sour cream, reduced fat cheese, sometimes reduced fat yogurt, but I take any yogurt I can get my hands on.

I use a LOT of canned beans, peas, chickpeas, and tomatoes. I also get frozen broccoli, cauliflower, sweet potatoes, red potatoes, and carrots as far as veggies go. I also often get chopped romaine lettuce, carrot chips, grape tomatoes, and onions. That is the beginning and the end to the veggies I eat, and best be fucking sure I put red kidney beans and chickpeas in everything almost it. Broccoli, too. Tomatoes.

Fruit wise, I have a LOT of fruit cups and canned fruit in 100% fruit juice, frozen fruit, and I also have a thing for clementines lately. Been eating tf out of them.

Snackies wise, I usually get that big box of baked chips from Lays. Peanut butter and graham crackers. Dark chocolate. Power Crunch protein bars because PROTEIN BARS DON'T HAVE TO BE DISGUSTING!!!!!

I pretty much exclusively use olive oil, but canola oil is also pretty damn good if you're on a budget! Just avoid regular butter, that shit's got so much calories and fat in it.....

Listen, you don't have to go broke buying shit. I tend to allot more money to food than most people because I have a LOT of food issues, and because I commit hard to shit. I have olive oil mayo and butter replacements, I keep low sugar and low sodium ketchup, and I buy expensive ass Lucini tomato sauce. You don't have to. Like I also buy tater tots and off-brand coco puffs and mini wheats.

I have experimented with a LOT of brands in the past few months, which I will probably make another post about eventually? Maybe? Also more budget-friendly shopping hacks and shit given I be trying to save as much money as possible.

GOALS

Listen, like every big project, you need goals. Getting your body healthy is a big project, and you should make goals. Goals on why you want to get healthy, goals on why to keep going even when shit gets hard. I don't care if it's the most vain shit ever, if it's a goal it's a fucking goal.

Here are some of mine:

More clothing options. If I lose more weight, I will be able to fit into smaller sizes and have more choices on what to wear.

SELF CONFIDENCE

Feeling less embarrassed when eating out somewhere.

HEALTH. A large part of me always feeling shitty is my diet and lack of proper vitamins and nutrients.

Prediabetes. I don't want to be like my mom and papaw and have to poke myself multiple times a day nor be reliant on insulin.

FINAL THOUGHTS

The main things I can impress upon y'all:

Build sustainable habits. If you don't think you'd be able to do it for the rest of your life, maybe rethink the habit before it becomes too set in stone.

You're gonna fall off the horse sometimes. You're gonna cheat, you're gonna make slip ups. And that's okay. Don't feel guilty, don't overrestrict or punish yourself for it. You're human, and you're trying, and that's okay. You can only do as much as you're able to right here and right now.

It's a hard and long road. Getting healthy and fit isn't going to be a breeze in the park. This shit is hard, especially if you're building new habits from scratch. But you got this. YOU CAN DO IT.

You HAVE to want this for yourself. No one else can want it for you. It has to be on you and you alone.

You're gonna find people wanting to sabotage you, as horrible as it sounds. Sometimes people feel threatened when others attempt to better themselves, because that person or those persons know they wouldn't put the time or energy into doing so themselves. And, unfortunately, some of those people are your close friends and family :/

TRY NEW THINGS. FAIL AND KEEP GOING. I have tried so much shit in the last few months, and some has stuck, some has not. I have learned I do not like a lot of vegetables, and that's okay. I also make taco salad (from 'scratch') at least two to three times a month. What works, works!

You are going to bloat A LOT when you start amping up workouts. Your body holds extra water and nutrients for up to FOUR WEEKS after you start exercising or start a new exercise routine/build up on your existing one. This is to repair your muscles and joints as they grow.

Scales like to lie, and they won't tell you how much water weight you're holding. And yes, you will be able to tell you're bloated. I never knew of bloating until now and sometimes shit fits weird when I'm majorly bloated. It SUCKS

Measure yourself. Your stomach, chest, waist, hips. All of it. Keep it. It'll be amazing to see how much you've changed eventually.

I actually would LOVE to keep making posts like this. But, here's my current progress:

I am a little under 270 lbs, unsure of how much as I am starting and trying new exercises, as well as my new job being HELLA more active than my old one.

I do have more processed stuff in my diet, but i do try to balance it with healthier food, too. Budgeting is.... hard.

My blood pressure tends to run 110/70 now.

I hope this helps someone out there.

My heart rate has gone down from 100+ bpm, to now it's at 60-75 bpm.

I also drink diet soda now, usually one a day.

[qedart]

First off, I love all of your art and writing:

concerning the time-warp au:

do the same names ever get confusing? i'm sure Ice calls Mav "Pete" sometimes and vice versa. would it ever throw them all off or confuse them? Have the youngers ever thought of new names/nicknames? How are they referred to around the house?

On a separate note, do you think you'll delve into Tom's past in another comic? if you do, will he have the opportunity to share a parental/brotherly moment with Ice?

p.s. i commented a very similar note on your latest chapter on ao3, so feel free to respond wherever's easier!

Thank you so much for this ask! I’m glad that you’re enjoying the au (and my writing, it’s been so long, so thanks for that haha). 

Now, to your question: Oh I definitely think there’s been some mild confusion, but nothing crazy. Now, full disclosure, I was one of those people that used to have at least one or two other kids in the class with the same name as me, so I’m leaning into that experience for this (I actually share a desk with somebody who has the same name, so this is day to day thing now lol). Essentially yeah, you look up when it turns out you didn’t have to every now and then, but it’s not really a huge hassle or that tricky to navigate. 

I think they might have covered the ‘hey, so if you want to have a new identity and start fresh - now’s the perfect time’ point during the ‘so it looks like you’ll be sticking around’ talk. But Pete and Tom are stubborn little shits. 

Seriously, Mav coulda changed his name and saved himself a hell of a lot of hassle/harassment back in the day and he still stuck with it anyway - no way Pete’s changing it just to avoid a little confusion. And I feel like Tom’s got a bit of a ‘my mother gave me this name. I’m not just gonna drop it’ thing going on. So, like I said, stubborn. 

Mav and Ice leaning a little more strictly into their callsigns is the work around that they’ve settled on though (and it was the primary way they addressed each other before all of this regardless, so not too much of a mental-transition). Is it fool-proof, no. But it gets the job done 90% of the time. 

Now, regarding Tom and his background, that’s absolutely part of the plan. Pete’s been a bit front and centre the last few updates but it’s definitely swinging Tom’s way soon, don’t worry about that. 

I hope that all made sense and thanks again for your ask(/and comment :D). I hope you enjoy what’s to come!! 

[miqo-tales]

Jobs at 100 - MELEE

DRG

Still don't get why they replaced Spineshatter Dive, but whatever.

Removing the charge-up for Life of the Dragon took some getting used to, but I like it. That said, I don't understand why they kept Mirage Dive.

Like just upgrade Jump a second time or something? We could go from Jump to High Jump to Too High Jump.

DRG's rotation still feels really awkward to me. I wish they'd do one of two things: give DRG another high potency weaponskill to use with Life Surge, OR, remove something from the primary combos to tighten that up.

Hell, I'm not sure why we still have our DoT (they're removed nearly every other one, after all). Take that away and make the DRG combos work like WAR's.

LVL100 AF thoughts: I think my favorite? Tied with the original, at least. It's just a nice, simple looking set with a really nice helm.

************************************************

RPR

I guess the biggest change is Plentiful Harvest giving you a free Enshroud instead of giving you meter. I'm quite happy with it. One less thing to micro-manage.

It's a little tricky to fit Sacrificium in during Enshroud.

OK, now that I have that out of the way... I hate Soulsow and Harvest Moon.

Can we just get rid of Soulsow and put HM on a minute or two minute timer?

LVL100 AF thoughts: Honestly, I think overall I prefer the Endwalker AF. I mean, yes, I like the exposed chest, but I still prefer the Endwalker set. Though I really like the fur collar on the new one.

************************************************

MNK

It took me a bit to figure out the new job bar and how the buffs work. But once I realized it's like VPR in that it's leading you through your combo, it clicked.

Not to say I'm particularly good at it. I just understand it. I'll never be a good MNK, but I can at least be decent.

The new abilities are neat, but I'm tired of hearing the growl sound effect for Pouncing Coeurl.

Six-sided Star still feels weird. I think I understand when to actually use it, but god that cooldown is awful and ends up making it feel like I shouldn't be using it at all.

I hate Perfect Balance. I hate that the blitzes are linked to it. I really hate that!

PB should have gone away when they got rid of Greased Lightning. It didn't, and now we must suffer because of that.

LVL100 AF thoughts: Easily the best looking one so far. That said, I'm not happy with how the hands and feet dye. Also the weapon is kinda meh.

************************************************

SAM

The above picture could apply to a few jobs, to be honest, but it feels particularly true of SAM.

Getting Tsubame-Gaeshi all the time is neat.

Zanshin! Cause SAM clearly didn't have enough AoE.

Gyofu feels like they couldn't think of anything else new to give to SAM, so they real quick came up with an "upgrade" to Hakaze.

That might sound mean, but seriously, at 92 you get Gyofu, which is Hakaze with a new name, the same animation, and a minor potency boost. And then at 94, all your other attacks get potency boosts. It's kinda silly.

LVL100 AF thoughts: It's nice. Very formal/ceremonial. Still, I prefer the Endwalker one, and even then, the original Stormblood one is my favorite.

************************************************

NIN

I dunno how others feel, but I certainly will not miss having to keep Huton up. Changing it to an AoE Suiton is nice.

Trick Attack getting an upgrade to an AoE is very nice for dungeons.

This is not a new issue, but I wish NIN didn't have two different abilities that gave a chunk of gauge. Why can't Meisui give you a free use of Zeppo/Bhava, like RPR and VPR get with Plentiful Harvest and Serpent's Ire?

LVL100 AF thoughts: It's ok, but I think it's a bit busy with details. Also, I dunno, somehow it doesn't seem uniquely NIN to me. I feel it could easily be a general striking or scouting set. I prefer the Endwalker AF.

************************************************

VPR

This job is so boring below lvl 70. And even then it didn't really feel fun until 90.

Once you do get this job leveled up, it can be quite fun. You just never stop hitting buttons, and everything, particularly after Awakening, is so flashy.

But this job is the KOF XIII trial combo of FFXIV melee jobs.

My very major gripes with this job are: too much fucking text in job abilities, and it's really frustrating that the job gauge does not give any indication of whether your positional is flank or rear.

The upside is that once you're in the flow, it's pretty easy to stay in that flow. And worst case, if you don't care about optimizing it, you can just hit buttons and still have fun with it.

All that said, this job is a strong argument for there needing to be an easier way to use combat abilities in gpose.

Also, it's a little weird there is no cpose for the combined blade.

LVL100 AF thoughts: It's pretty nice! I hope we get some similar looking stuff for other jobs during this expansion.

************************************************

[wildstar25]

Which jobs (incl DoH/DoL) are lore-canon for Arsay? Are there any you play a lot that aren't?

Arsay’s canon jobs are the following:

- Ninja (though she calls herself a rogue first and foremost! She is incredibly duty driven as a ninja is described to be within the quest line. Her duty is to her friends and family.)

- Summoner (she loves to baha blast! Her carbuncle is named Couscous)

- Dragoon ( in name only, in my canon she is not given the title of azure dragoon nor did she go through the lv1-60 lancer/dragoon story. She got Estinien to show her pole arm basics and developed her own style from there. Her draconian abilities stem more from her connection to Midgardsormr and her demi-bahamut. She only pulls this job out for hunting or other non wol stuff! Only exception was the steps of faith trail cause it’s more dramatic to be a drg on that fight)

- Astrologian (this was her post ARR patch and heavensward trauma response class. She heard that there were people in ishgard that knew how to predict the future and thought it would be a good skill to pick up for herself. She was really taken by surprised by everything that happened during the bloody banquet! And again with what happened after the vault. She wanted something, anything, in her pocket that could maybe prevent her from putting her friends in bad situations. After going through all the rigmarole of learning the stars and aligning her aether to them she soon found out that the cards aren’t nearly as forthcoming with information as she hoped them to be. She does keep up with the job in her spare time, just in case! Though urianger is much more suited to it than she is. )

- machinist ( Cid showed her this sick looking gun one time and she thought it was really cool so she got a job stone from the skysteel factory and signed herself up for eorzean e-sports (crystalline conflict and front lines) pvp is her main hobby and her primary way of de-stressing. )

- gunbreaker (soft canon atm. Essentially, it would make sense that she could pick this up as it’s quite functionally a combo of knife (ninja) and gun (machinists). It’s also a zippy enough class that it makes sense for need for speed. But I haven’t figured out a lore reason for why she would have picked it up aside from wanting to show thancred up in front of ryne for fun )

- fisher (she’s not patient enough to wait around for fish but she definitely knows how and its a vital survival skill for her to have)

—————-

All the other jobs that I have for her right now are more “jobs that would be canon if xyz were true”

Monk is the only other dps I have at 90, it’s the job she would have instead of ninja if she had decided to head for thanalan in search of her father’s family at the very beginning of her adventures.

I also technically have scholar at 90 but haven’t done a single job quest beyond getting the stone. Scholar would only be canon to arsay if Emrara had decided to pass on their scholar jobstone off to arsay before arsay left for limsa.

Other classes I have are:

Warrior (would be canon if she wanted to be like her mom and also had way more pent up rage about her parent related trauma )

Red mage, black mage ( au where arsay has a larger store of her own aether to pull from and also went to thanalan first)

Bard (au where Arsay could carry a tune and went to gridania in search of her mothers side of the family. Also wasn’t immediately put off by the many micro aggressions and full racism moments she had to deal with in the archers guild)

Samurai( au where she wanted to fight fire with fire against zenos in storm blood. That or during the ralgars reach he broke one of her knives and instead of just buying a new set she was like “I will shrimply adapt” )

[thatseventiesbitch]

Eric and Donna’s Wedding Fiasco Meta (Part 2)

Now, an analysis of Donna’s POV.

As mentioned, Donna did get cold feet before the wedding but she makes several comments throughout the course of season 7 about the wedding that indicate she is bitter over this. Let’s see.

In S7xE12 “Don’t Lie to Me”

Eric: I happen to know a lot of ways out of a pact, my friend.

Donna: That’s true. We once had a pact to get married and then he just didn’t show up!

from the same episode

Donna: Well I have one last wedding thing to return and once this is done the only thing I’ll have left to remind me we almost got married will be you [points to Eric][They kiss].

Donna also avoids Stacy Wannamaker (Jenna Fischer!) the whole episode because she doesn’t want to have to tell her she didn’t get married.

In S7xE19 “Who’s Been Sleeping Here”

Eric: Maybe you’d like to talk about how I didn’t show up to the wedding, too?

Donna: Oh, well I don’t need to talk about that because I relive it every morning when I wake up, ALONE.

Donna definitely had cold feet (her subconscious knew something was off - it wasn’t Eric, it was the way she was acting like she had to give up everything else) but I also think she actually did want to get married.

But what was driving independent, kick-ass feminist Donna to act like this? Why’d she buy that godforsaken trailer? Why the hell would she talk about giving up college?

I actually think a lot of it had to do with her parents’ unstable marriage, and her desire not to replicate it now that she’s entering her own.

Bob and Midge were Donna’s primary example of marriage, and they were... a fucking disaster, to put it nicely *lol*. Donna’s well aware of this. Now that she is getting married, she’s probably terrified of replicating those same unhealthy behaviors/patterns in her marriage with Eric. I think Donna’s very thoughtful in her decisions during this time (though not necessarily right), even if on the surface they don’t make sense or seem to contradict what she’s wanted in the past.

In S6xE23 “My Wife” Eric and Donna have this exchange,

Eric: Donna, all you ever talked about was seeing the world. And my dad’s better now. I mean, we can get out.

Donna: Well I don’t wanna get out. I just want to focus on doing this marriage thing right, and I think that means curling up every night next to you on that dining room table that doubles as a bed.

In the same episode, Donna has this conversation with her ex Casey Kelso,

Casey: I’m surprised to see you’re still in town. You’d always talked about gettin’ outta here. I always thought you’d be some place more glamorous by now like Paris. Or Reno.

Donna: Well I’ve got Eric, and my job, and a great place to live and or pull behind a car. I mean, it’s not what I expected but it’s definitely the right thing to do.

Donna thinks she’s doing the right thing by settling down with Eric in Point Place, and prioritizing building a home with him. She thinks that’s how you have a successful marriage, and even though she has other dreams like her career and traveling, they’re not as important to her as Eric is. 

It’s not what she saw modeled from her parents - who never prioritized each other, who fought over Midge’s ambition, who weren’t faithful to one another and experimented outside of their marriage, who had explosive fights in front of (and involving) Donna all the time. It seems like she’s maybe she’s inspired by Red and Kitty, methinks - or just the desire to have a traditional, loving, stable marriage in general. 

Which we do see, thanks to That ‘90s Show, that Eric and Donna ultimately achieve. Although there are no trailers involved, they left Point Place for the big city, and Donna has a fulfilling career as an author. 🥰💕

Part One here

[luxurybrownbarbie]

As someone who works in wealth management, how do you feel about the Sam Fried Bankman case?

😭😭😭😭😭. Strap in, bestie. (This is very long! I don’t know how to do read mores on mobile.)

Okay so. 1) He's making my job about 20,000,000 times harder, because the SEC is going to overcompensate like hell because of his stupid little scheme. The regulators have already started throwing meetings in on JANUARY THIRD. Like, please let us come down from the holidays? 2023 will have barely been in action for 72 hours.

2) He’s an idiot. I know it's hard to get to non-extradition countries right now, because 90% of them are acting up, but he should NOT have stayed in the Bahamas. Charter a jet and fly to the Maldives, bro. Robinette would have to send the entirety of the Navy SEALS to drag me out of any non-extradition country.

3) My sympathy for these people is inverse to the amount of people who told them *not* to invest in this very clear scam. There are clients who are crying and throwing up, but all we can do is refer them to the millions of emails we sent telling them *not* to put their money in this.

That money is gone. Also... there really is no law saying they have to get any portion of it back. If the feds didn't step in, he really could have disappeared with all that money. Imagine if the CEO of Capital One just decided to dip with the entirety of your checking and investment accounts. And unless the SEC decided to step in, you're just out of money. He stole money from his clients, investors, and used it to funnel his lifestyle, and the only reason he's getting hit with anything is because it imploded so spectacularly the government had to do something.

He's a con man, that much is clear. It's... not exactly shocking to me that a company without a board and practically no oversight was able to commit a crime this absolutely bonkers, because 99% of the people involved are white men, but it is very telling of exactly how dangerous tech bros have become. The guy who dealt with Enron's collapse was sitting on the floor of the House telling the SEC they should have stopped them from scamming billions of dollars, because there's no way to get those people that money back. And SBF was sitting in the Bahamas refusing to be extradited. That audacity is genuinely hilarious, sorry. Good luck, worstie.

Now. I was called all types of uppity and hating by several family friends when I told them to put their coins into a Goldman Sachs or Merrill account instead of some unverified crypto funds. The ones who listened to me? They've still got their money! Why? Because the house always wins.

The idea of some beautiful, revolutionary development when it comes to money is... laughable. I'm sorry. Every banking CEO, including the very much disgraced banks Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse, will lay down their lives to make sure they never allow these things to actually gain a real foothold in communities. At least not until they've managed to do it themselves. (And the actually successful and possibly revolutionary ones?They were bought up so fast, you probably only heard about them for about 0.02 seconds. They'll release them under the marketing umbrella of the banks and other institutions later on.) The house always wins.

And quite honestly, he's very lucky he got caught up by the feds. Because untraceable money attracts very unsavory people, and there's no telling what they're ready to do because of those astronomical losses. Especially if they can't even access some of the wallets. Some of them are happy to go through the feds, but I'm sure some of them have some more sinister ideas. Good luck worstie, redux.

He might be made an example of, but I truly doubt it. He’ll likely get a slap on the wrist in return for his information on some of those people, and the average joes who gave him money will have no recourse.

Bottom line: Please, for the love of all things holy, please do not invest in cryptocurrency. At least not as your primary investment method. Throw a couple hundred in there if you have it to spare, but nothing more. Until it is stringently regulated, you are better off putting your cash in the garbage disposal.

[checkoutmybookshelf]

Damn Right the Perfect Queen Uses a Cane

Fairbanks is somehow simultaneously too small and too large a town. Apparently one of my very best friend's partner has been friend with Elva Birch since they were both teenagers, so that's a degree of Kevin Bacon I was super not expecting but shouldn't have been surprised by, because I KNOW how small a town Fairbanks is. None of which is strictly relevant to why we're talking about the second book in the Dragon Prince of Alaska series, but it is a fun little Fairbanks Fact. Which is even wilder because this book starts in Florida. So let's talk The Dragon Prince's Librarian.

This is, as is typical on this blog for sequels and mid-series books, a SPOILERIFIC REVIEW. Be warned.

Ok guys, I swear we aren't going to do all six books of this series here, and I know I am way overdue for the next Dresden Files book, but where I take just...every single possible issue with how the Dresden Files handles disability, this book handles it SO FREAKING WELL. Tania is realistically tired, realistically has good and bad days, realistically uses mobility aids, and realistically has that all-too-familiar feeling of "No, no, you don't even get to DREAM of being rescued from this situation because a) it will be too painful when it doesn't happen and b) you getting rescued doesn't fix the hideous inequities of the US healthcare system and frankly, that shit NEEDS fixing."

Additionally, I appreciate that Tania doesn't hate her cane. She recognizes that it lets her move and stand independently and it can up her quality of life, if only in small ways. What she hates is that the cane is UGLY. And that is entirely fair, because there is nothing worse than a boring, utilitarian mobility aid that stands out from you and your aesthetic rather than integrating with you. And Rian, absolute PRINCE that he is (pun fully intended), doesn't try to fix or cure Tania, he gets her a beautiful cane that integrates with her personality and aesthetic. That level of support literally made me cry. And then I cried MORE because while Rian couldn't fix the American healthcare system, what he COULD do was donate a ton of equally beautiful canes in Tania's name in such a way that the people who need them most can access them, the process for getting them is as simple and barrier-free as possible, and Rian took care of ALL of this so Tania did not have to expend spoons on it. The care and attention included in how thoughtful and well-executed this was was absolutely breathtaking. Literally, our reality is not this good, and I love that this book took such care and respect with how disability/chronic illness and mobility aids are handled. At no point did any of it feel patronizing, infantilizing, catastrophizing, or an attempt to "fix" something that was "broken" or "lesser." Just A+ no notes, and I don't say that often about representations of disability in books.

The other thing that I just felt in my bones about this book is how the end of Tania's academic career played out. She literally got gatekept and gaslighted because the Small Kingdoms erased every single trace of her master's thesis, her primary sources, and even her ADVISOR (who was paid to disappear, not killed). This very handily gets Tania kicked out of school, and as her health worsens, she also loses her job and health insurance, so by the time Rian shows up at her front door in Florida, Tania's life has literally fallen apart and it is 90% Rian's fault. Which makes the whole fated mates thing SUPER awkward, because she's rightfully pissed with him for torpedoing her degree and academic career, and also he then gaslit the hell out of her about that until he realized they were fated mates, came clean, apologized, and...proposed. It was awkward as hell, you guys.

And let me say, as someone who went to grad school, had someone gone from admitting they torpedoed my life and gaslit me about it to proposing marriage, they would have been super mega deadsies. Like, no questions asked, they just would have been annihilated by the sheer force of my rage.

But fated mates and romance novel, so Tania just mostly spends the whole book going "remember how you torpedoed my thesis?" in varying tones. Rian is literally never living that down, and he shouldn't, because frankly he was lucky to SURVIVE admitting that.

Overall though, I was so happy with the representation of disability and a healthy, positive relationship that includes a disabled person, as well as Tania and Rian as characters, I was willing to overlook insufficient consequences for fucking with a grad student's thesis. Because this book was a delight to read, and it is UNQUESTIONABLY my favorite book in the series.

[solitarelee]

Hi! I'm the anon from Shirecorn's ask- I feel like my specific situation is very different. I'm not saying teachers Need to help (sorry if it sounded like that- bad with words. I wish you were allowed to, though) but in my district, for some reason, they refuse to at least stand by and let us work on student safety if that makes any sense? EX. we blocked some sites (like Kongregate and Newgrounds type sites, plus Instagram, Pinterest etc, exclusively non-school appropriate games and social media) and a bunch of teachers at multiple locations got extremely mad at us for some reason. We have a librarian who gets really. REALLY weird about us blocking anything explicit too. She's worse than the parents for some reason.

I know all districts are different, but also thank you for putting up the good fight at yours. 🙏godspeed soldier. May administration be conveniently looking the other direction

LOL they got mad because it also blocks it for teachers, which meant they couldn't go on instagram at work. They SHOULDN'T be going on instagram at work, mind you, but I'd be willing to bet that's why they got pissy (at work we also connect to the school wi-fi. yes it's a nightmare. yes it's slow. I worked at a school that had separate wi-fi for the teachers once, and that was heaven lmao). It's also possible you blocked some sites teachers were using as rewards. In order to motivate students, I've seen a lot of teachers basically say "if you finish early, you can play games on your laptop" in order to allow slower workers a chance to finish within the plan while not boring the faster students to absolute tears every class period. I've also personally run into the problem where students would go to increasingly sketchy, virus-ridden gaming sites because all the safe, popular ones were blocked by the school. Not saying they're right to get pissy at you (you're just doing your job, they should get pissy at the school board if they're gonna lol), just a few reasons, good and bad, they might be getting irritated.

A lot of teachers also get... I would say morally opposed to censorship. You have to remember that the association with censorship that teachers will have is very bad, books that aren't allowed in the library and an idea of "children's safety" that involves keeping them from learning anything about history, their own bodies, the memory of hired mobs screaming and calling them pedophiles at school board meetings (I work in English so I have a significant number of colleagues this exact thing has happened to. One of my closest work friends got called a faggot at one of those.)

A lot of teachers (honestly myself included sometimes) have a kneejerk reaction to a censorship-based concept of children's safety, because their primary experience with it is one that's built not around children's safety but around control of children. Most educators (and librarians) are inherently morally opposed to this kind of thing and will react negatively to any hint of it. When kids are coming from homes with "child protection" monitoring systems to schools with anything problematic blocked, it becomes an issue of control. This is potentially where some of the teachers and the librarians are coming from and why they're reacting that way.

The problem is at the same time, admin is often blocking us from teaching internet safety in a helpful way that isn't just revolved around blocking Instagram and Pornhub. In almost every school I've worked or was placed in for observation, lesson plans had to be approved by admin the week before, and they had to have a core curriculum connection, and internet safety ain't in there. That's supposed to be the job of comp classes that don't exist at any school anymore (comp class was where we learned internet safety when I was in school in the 90s/00s). Best I could ever do was internet literacy, because I'm an English teacher and there's a core curriculum about research that I could connect it to.

Needless to say, I wish we could help too, since just blocking sites (while necessary imo just for like... keeping students on task? a lot of ppl don't seem to realize children in schools from middle up have literal constant access to a laptop and are on it all day every day in all classes) doesn't really do anything to teach kids internet safety. Parents aren't doing it (parents are often the source of the problem too) and if teachers aren't allowed to... it just doesn't get done, full stop, as those are the only two kinds of adults we tolerate around kids.

[signalwatch]

Dog Watch: Lassie (1994)

Watched:  07/13/2023

Format:  BluRay

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Daniel Petrie

Like all good Gen-X'ers, I grew up in the aftershocks of the baby boomers, and Lassie - the very clever collie - was certainly a character and concept we knew of, if not through direct experience, then by osmosis.  I guess there was a book, originally (1940).  Our canine hero starred in wildly popular movies beginning in the 1940's (it's where Roddy McDowall got his start as a lad) and television - running for a cool 20 years, from 1954-1974.  Plus several more movies and TV shows over the years people who are not huge Lassie fans probably are unaware of.

I know!  That's a lot of Lassies.  

The artificial monoculture created via mass media and limited outlets did, at least, give us a chance to have some familiar talking points, and you never knew where they'd coalesce.  Personally, I didn't watch Lassie in reruns.  Or the movies.*  For most of us, Lassie was one or two jokes about kids falling down wells and dogs alerting us to calamity.  Maybe we whistled the theme song at our dogs.  

This 1994 film is more or less an original story, but if you know anything at all about Lassie from the TV show, etc... this movie carries on quite a bit of the world's bravest, smartest, wisest dog *and* best friend to a boy who needs one.  This dog seems like it's ready to pick locks and drive cars.  Three cheers for Lassie.

Our story:  

A family is moving from Baltimore (I suppose they heard Omar's coming) and to the - get this - home of the now deceased mom, a farmhouse in rural Virginia (it was shot in West Virginia, more on that in a bit). Dad has made the very, very wise choice to remarry in the form of Helen Slater, who is game for this move that - upon introspection - seems kinda weird and sad. The daughter/ sister is relentlessly cheerful in the way of movie characters who need to exist for color but who will not be impacting the plot.  

The son is, of course, roughly 12 or 13 and 90's-furious about being taken from the big city, complaining relentlessly while listening to Alice in Chains while skateboarding.  He's that "cool" 90's kid you'd seen in commercials and catalogs from which visions of Poochie sprang.  And allowed to mouth off to his parents in a way that would have gotten most kids in that era shot out of a canon.

Curiously, the 1950's Lassie show is diegetic to this show - something the younger sister watches - and lends its name to the Lassie of the film.  

Ok, so, Lassie in this movie is the beloved pet and working dog of a faceless sheep rancher who dies tragically at the start of the film and the family gawks as authorities haul off the body.  They then make off with the dog.  It is... weird.  But that's how they set up that this family has to do zero training with their thoroughbred dog no one noticed lurking around the accident scene (I guess fuck that guy's family, giving them something else to worry about).  But it also seems like *someone* would have come around saying "my uncle died and we can't find his dog".  

Here's the thing - this movie is *gorgeous*.  That's my primary memory of the movie from 30 years ago.  I couldn't really remember anything but "family moves to farm, there is a dog" and then sweeping scenery with rolling hills and beautiful trees and meadows.  The DP is Kenneth MacMillan, who was a veteran of the film industry, and recently shot Henry V.  By 1994, film stock itself was able to do an amazing job of capturing detail and color, and there's not much in the way of processed shots.  They're just letting the background do the heavy lifting.  I don't want to oversell it, but it's money well-spent in a movie that was probably imagined to be filmed on one of two ranches we've all seen a 1000 times before outside of LA.

Director Daniel Petrie was no slouch, either.  He wasn't a prestige director, but he did work on high-end TV movies and some feature films.

I sold Jamie on the film, describing it as "the gentlest movie you'll ever see". But, because that was because I didn't really remember the movie. The film includes genuine attempts at telling an actual all-ages story about a family living in the shadow of death that winds up pulling together and a boy who works through his grief. I won't say it's *because* of the dog - but Lassie certainly helps move the story along. Also, we borrow heavily from Shane and ranchers wanting their grazing land at any cost. Admittedly, this makes way less sense in 1990's Virginia than in remote spots in the 19th Century west. But there's also stuff like... wolf attacks.

It's also a reminder that pre-2000 family movies were pretty open about dysfunctional or complicated families, taking trauma at face value and the fact that bad shit happens is part of life, but not something to drown in.  It's something to overcome.  Maybe with your dog.  While fighting off wolves.

One thing Jamie pointed out was that these kids aren't... special.  They aren't the best at anything or a star or popular.  They're allowed to be "everyman" kids in a way that used to be SOP for kids stuff.  They have friction with their folks and their greatest concern is *not* disappointing the parents and their expectations of them (which I feel is the go-to these days).  Their parents are there and a focus, but they act as much as antagonist as ally.  Also:  Teens smoke.  Mom's die and kids grieve them with no therapy.  Dads move on and make huge life decisions for the family with minimal consulting of kids.  Kids are dumb about guns.   

That's not a call out of "we were right then, it's wrong now".  I just find it an interesting pivot.

I'm not going to sell this as anything but a movie that is better than you probably expect and better than it had to be.  The kid actors are not bad - this is the first film appearance of Michelle Williams!  The adults include Richard Farnsworth as the dead-Mom's dad and Frederic Forrest as the rancher next door.  I'm less familiar with John Tenney who played the dad.  But, of course, Helen Slater is lovely.

The dog itself is very well trained, and almost always nails what it's asked to do except maybe the one key thing dog trainers rarely figure out:  how to make the dog look like it cares at all about the actor who is supposed to be their best friend.  

Like, look, I live with dogs.  I know what it means to have a dog deeply focused on you, and the dog looking off camera stone-faced awaiting their next command ain't it.  Of course, I watched ten minutes of the recent Call of the Wild on cable, and a CGI dog acting like a cartoon ain't it, either.  But, man, if dogs acted crazy the way they do when they want to tell you they love you?  That would sell it.  Here, it makes the final scene a little...  underwhelming.

There remains a constant trickle of Lassie material, including a cartoon and live action movie out of Germany, I believe.  I guess American kids don't give a shit about dogs these days.  But - as you may have picked up on - I'm fascinated with how stuff that was popular for decades will quietly get consigned to the pop-culture dust bin.  From cowboy stuff to heroic dogs to Dick Tracy.

A quick Google search will tell you that the breeding of Lassies and who owns the idea and whatnot of Lassie and the pedigree is almost as messy as Rin-Tin-Tin, with a lot of dead URLs.  I can't quite figure out who owns the bloodline, but it looks like it's now an offshoot of the Rough Collie and registered with AKC?  But much like Rin-Tin-Tin, it's very confusing and I figure there's maybe a few hundred to a few thousand who know what the full story is at this point, and that ain't me.

I once saw a Lassie at the mall I worked at in Austin (Highland Mall, circa 1997) and had planned to stand in line to meet Lassie myself til I figured out it was at least an hour wait with moms and their young daughters.  I chose to not look like a psycho to the moms in line and just head on out.  And I regret it.  A nice, signed 8x10 from Lassie would have been nice.

All in all, I'd rather meet Helen Slater.  And now I'd ask her to sign my Lassie disc.

Also, did not have this on my "Lassie Research Bingo Card".

Apparently, according to what I read:  a strong maybe?

*I did watch a Rin-Tin-Tin show, briefly, on The Family Channel, but not the original movies or TV show

https://ift.tt/47OQBa8

from The Signal Watch https://ift.tt/bnuDdw1

[bleuberries-and-video-games]

Actually I want to come back to this.

Second this is supposed to be like a joke or a satire cuz this person's a cartoonist, but let's be fucking real here. Hillary Clinton wasn't the mean mom. Hillary Clinton is a dubious political figure across all spectrums of American politics and just general International politics. Yes, she has done a lot of charitable work, and yes, she is the pristine supposedly perfect candidate in the eyes of the DNC, but I have some bad fucking news to anyone who believes that she is actually a good candidate.

Her strategy in 2016 would not win no matter what the fuck she believed.

The infographic above is the last few months before the election, when things ramp up and the primaries are fully over. Comparatively look at where Hillary Clinton campaigned when things escalated, versus where Donald Trump campaigned when things escalated. Donald Trump's campaign stops overshadow Hillary's by a wide margin, and a number of them are in swing States and places they thought were a shoe in. Turns out, when you don't campaign places, and people think you're out of touch, that's a bad fucking recipe for winning an election, and guess what the fuck happened? She fucking lost. Yeah she got the popular vote, and I know the Electoral College is bullshit and American elections are a scam, but come on it's like basic politics 101 to fucking at least try to campaign in Middle america. It seems like bullshit and everyone fucking hates it and I'm sure Aaron Sorkin hates it, but come on, really?

Hillary largely stays in the fucking east, as does Donald Trump, but the sheer number of campaign stops and placements is fucking incredible to me. How they managed to drop this ball is an indication of just How Deeply out of touch the Democrats are. Also, playing Hillary Clinton, during one of the most apparent escalations of fascism, right after Barack Obama is in his latter term, without even so much as being slightly aware of the weird conspiratorial bullshit going on it's just so deeply off the pulse that it manages to fucking be a feat! I don't imagine the Democrats to have that much awareness, but for them to underestimate a movement that quite literally was doing some of the most fucked up shit on the planet should be an indication that they might need to fucking get some kind of heart monitor cuz the pulse ain't fucking where they're checking it.

Never mind the fact that the clintons are not exactly good people. Sure, they have lots of charity work, and they do some kind of good tangibly I guess, but there are numerous cases where the Clinton Foundation or the clintons have actively done harm economically, one of the most prominent of which is Haiti, and I don't know how to fucking say this but that's just the tip of the iceberg.

And no, it is not sexist to bring up these controversies, it is entirely necessary to bring up those fucking problems, because yeah she's better than trump, but the very actions of neoliberalism precipitated the fascist swing that we have. By deregulating a number of different things, from certain industries key to Global capitalism, to media and news coverage, it's a business regulation and monopolies, Hillary Clinton and most neoliberals in the modern democratic party, as well as larger American politics, are largely responsible for the capitalistic swing that has happened, and the utter unfettered misinformation that spreads throughout the world. It is the actions of neoliberal politicians and the deregulation of capitalism that quite literally caused us to get here. These people were on their way out, they were wheezing their last breaths, they got a shot of adrenaline with Reagan, an escalation during the 90s, and guess the fuck what, they found the perfect fucking scapegoat after Bush with obama. Neoliberal policies feed into the foundation of fascist narratives, half of neoliberal capitalism is founded on global capital, which ships jobs internationally to fuck people over and get cheaper labor while decimating the economies of Nations. A lot of this bullshit was marketed as something that would help lift Nations out of poverty, and I guess some of it did cuz there were some success stories, well that's debatable because in a number of places labor compensation went down and things suffered, stratification that was already apparent became exaggeratedly worse.

And I'm going to be real with you, I know that Donald Trump was sexist to her, I know a lot of people were sexist to her, that's one of the most frustrating fucking thing about modern day politics is that sexism and other prejudices are still apparent, the things that fucking flew out of people's mouths during the election of Barack Obama Astound me to this day and I was only about 9 years old when I heard them. But we can't pretend that it was only sexism that fucking disenfranchised her. We just can't. Moreover we can't fucking evaluate her as the mean mom versus Kamala being the cool mom because, I cannot stress enough, that's not how this works.

I want a woman president, I want to elect a Woman for president, I would actually very much like to abolish the seat of the presidency and make some kind of better world, but the compromise for me as a woman president until at least there are better labor movements in america. But I don't know, maybe running the neoliberal who is the primary focus of a bunch of conspiracy theories during a fascist backswing, when at the same time running there's a guy who very clearly can fucking go Toe to Toe with Trump and have no issue on both policy or charisma because he is neither Republican nor Democrat and is consistent in his political actions to such a firm and unwavering power that there is video of this man saying the same damn shit to the same damn people for 30 straight fucking years, it might fucking help to just maybe take a step back and ask the question is electing a woman president as important as fucking killing this fucking fascist bastard?

I do not believe Hillary Clinton could take on Donald Trump because she couldn't. She has all of the Charisma of cardboard and has had that since at least 2008, I'm sure back in the '90s she was hip and with it, but I cannot stress enough, as a political force, she is as dull as a fucking bag of rocks, and her policies are mediocre at best and often times influenced by capitalistic intervention at worst. She and other politicians in the neoliberal wave of bullshit that kind of grew up around the clintons are so interlaced into fucking capitalism that a number of them commit inside your trading crimes on the fucking senate floor and We Know It Happens because people keep track of it and the only reason why they're not fucking held accountable for it is because there's not really an apparatus to do so because they stripped that to fucking bits!

Maybe running a craving capitalist to oppose and even more craving capitalist who's willing to fucking play with fascists wasn't a good idea, and yeah, there were some mean fucking sexist terms exchange, Donald Trump was a monstrous man during that campaign, and you have ever got to be fucking mad, I'm not sorry to say that Hillary Clinton was probably the worst they could have ever run. The modern DNC and it's current apparatus has been largely maintained through self-interested Pricks, who managed to fucking bungle a supermajority and not codify any of the shit they promised.

And seeing her now going on podcasts and talking snarkily about how fucking Donald Trump will get his come up in it's so fucking stupid because we know she's associated with him, we know they both benefit from this fucking financial bullshit, and we all know that neither one of them is going to be as affected by the culture War as the very people they're fucking over by existing! As much as I would love a woman president, I would like that woman to represent my values, and I don't think a bastard capitalist who stripped this country and other countries to bits with a bunch of other fucking Democrats is the right direction to represent my values, especially in contrast to a fascist, who is only just a bit more open about how willing he is to dispose of human labor.

No, they're not the same, and frankly I'm sure Hillary should have won, but at this point we need to stop having this political celebrity about this dumb mother fucker who thought she could beat Trump by campaigning almost nowhere in the most important part of the election! And whoever the fuck really likes hillary, whomever the fuck in any generation before mine cuz it's definitely not fucking mine, you need to get the fuck over it. You need to get the fuck over her loss, you need to get the fuck over everything, and stop acting so fucking entitled to being snarky and right. She was a bad politician, who practiced horrible politics, and as an establishment Democrat, with very little charisma, representing a DNC that had no fucking semblance of understanding of the modern issues facing most of society and an outright hostility to acknowledging such things, what happened with not just the primary but after the primary and after the election of Donald Trump, I think she lost cuz she sucked and her team sucked and everything they fucking did suck and the only solution would be to fucking atone for that, which they are only just now doing having lost a couple elections and only gained momentum recently because guess what no one likes far right politics!

Hillary Clinton is not the mean mom and Kamala Harris is not the fun mom, they're both sitting politicians with histories and track records which people can track, one of which people absolutely did, and another group of people capitalized upon because there was no left wing apparatus to critique her from because, Guess what, the United States fucking dismantled it. So instead of fucking I don't know paying attention to history and what the fuck happened, they decided to run with the fucking most batshit idea of success and when it failed, they blamed the left that doesn't really exist in America because they're all that's left of it. The liberals, the neoliberals, the vague progressives that evolve into neoliberals or liberals, they're all that's left of the historical American political left. The reason why anarchism and communism and socialism is very popular with people is because it just doesn't have any sort of representation in America despite being represented in pretty much every Other Nation on the planet. It also promises radical change through Myriad actions, and gets people educated, something that the DNC really didn't fucking do to the extent it should have. They ran with the shit strategy and are terrible people. And let's pray the fucking god they ran with a better strategy, and let's hope it endures till november, cuz if Kamala loses after being handed the fucking fumble that is JD vance, and the unpopularity of the Republican party on a historical level, I'm going to be baffled that they managed to fuck it up. They are basically handed this win. If they manage to lose it because of cocky overcompensation, at this point, they're doing it on purpose