#it's rather listing stuff than analyzing

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Solitaire - Chapter 1

overanalyzing/-interpreting and probably pointing out the obvious... just random notes and thoughts (ca. 2100 words in the form of bulletpoints)

counting got fucked up, imma fix it later, sorry if it's confusing to read -> should be fixed now

Solitaire, a fictional story with Tori (Victoria Spring) as homodiegetic narrator

Pride and Prejudice Quotes introduce us to the tone of Tori’s story

→ we know that Tori rather identifies with mr Darcy, so lets see what we find about Mr Darcy that might tell us something about Tori before we even get to know her:

Quote 1:

‘And your defect is a propensity to hate everybody.’

‘And yours’, he replied with a smile, ‘is willfully to misunderstand them.’

→ we learn about Mr Darcy that he allegedly tends to hate everybody and that he assumes willful misunderstanding one sides of the other party

(PART 1) Quote 2:

Elizabeth Bennet: Do you dance, Mr Darcy?

Mr Darcy: Not if I can help it.

→ without having a specific pace as instance in mind, it definitely sounds like something Tori would word for word answer to a question as the one given

• Getting to know Tori, before she ‘officially’ introduces herself to the reader (p.3f)

she perceives the majority of people in school as almost dead, including herself (p.3)

→ creating the picture of a crowd that allegedly shares a tragic similarity

2. she observes her steady numbness opposed to the socially anticipated numbness as reaction to the contrast of a phase of event (here: Christmas) and the eventless phase after (p.3)

→ differentiating herself from the crowd

3. Becky says that Tori looks like she wants to kill herself (p.3) to what Tori responds with ‘It’s funny because it’s true’ (p.4); Tori describes Becky’s reaction as her looking some more without really looking (p.4)

→ Tori feels perceived by Becky, but not seen

4. Tori says she and Becky are laughing about something that isn't funny (p.4)

→ Tori’s inauthenticity

5. Becky realizes Tori’s apathy and moves away while Tori leans into her own arms and falls half asleep (p.4)

→ Becky not taking action but physically bringing some distance between Tori and her, while Tori stabilizes herself by her own strength, escaping into a state of being half asleep but also halfway remaining in reality

6. Tori’s focus on appearance and her insecurity about her own

→ changes in peoples’ appearance like in hair and makeup that make herself feel ‘inadequate’ to which she ‘deflates’ into a chair a.k.a. makes herself smaller and hides away (p.4)

Tori’s ‘official’ introduction to the reader (p.4f)

‘My name is Victoria Spring’

→ she starts off with her full name

2.she makes up a lot of stuff in her head

→ focus on reality in form of her interior world

3. likes to see, and blog, and is going to die someday

→ listing the obvious fact of dying right beside other mundane activities emphasizes the priority of that topic in her daily life

4. Rebecca Ellen as only real friend and therefore probably best friend (p.4); Tori categorizes her as a ‘popular girls’ due to being recognized and therefore popular because she has long purple hair (p.4); Tori differentiates between being known by name and known personally (p.4)

→ Tori categorizing people even her friends

→ Tori challenges the significance of being popular and its lack of guaranteeing depth and significance

→ Question: Since when are people popular in school when they have recognizable purple hair? In my experience teenagers with colored hair are the one’s being likely to be bullied by the popular ones 🙄

5. Evelyn Foley categorizes as ‘alternative’ due to her appearance (p.5)

6. Tori questions if Becky actually likes Evelyn and she believes people only pretend to like each other (p. 5)

→ does Tori think that, because she only pretends/ feels like she pretends?;

→ is Tori worried that people only pretend to like her (believes that she is so unlikable, people must pretend)?

7. Tori does not participate in Becky and Evelyn’s conversation and only reacts to them when she ‘deduces’ she’s supposed to (p.5); she feels ‘pressured’ to contribute something to the conversation (p.5); she expresses her disinterest in the current discussed topic (p.5) and believes she ruined the conversations, so she leaves

→ Tori doesn't connect naturally with people, even when she considers one of them her friends and rather feels pressured to react in certain way than feeling invited to share herself authentically

→ without Becky and Evelyn even saying anything nor showing any reaction regarding Tori impacting the conversation immensely negatively, Tori’s insecurity of not meeting expectations causes her to escape the situation right away

8. Tori says she sometimes hates people what must be bad for her mental health (p.5)

→ does she include herself in that statement like she did in the beginning (p.3)?

→ self-awareness

→ awareness of mental health (I’m just adding that, because when I was her age ‘mental health’ was not a term that was used too often yet nor truly cared about/ talked about, so in my reality it is somewhat remarkable that Tori observes herself and immediately evaluates whether her thoughts could be detrimental to her health, that she immediately makes that connection; I also wonder if that’s caused by being confronted with mental health due to Charlie being such a big part of her life)

9. Tori focuses on ‘social hierarchy’ in school (p.5)

→ categorizing her social environment

10. ‘shoot me in the face’ (p.5)

→ another self-detrimental joke/ phrase

→ radical way of thinking and agains with the worst outcome for herself in mind

11. Tori not feeling pretty in school uniform (p.6)

→ insecurity about her appearance

the plot commences or Tori in action

Tori sees and follows post-it (p.6)

→ she observes and takes action

2.other people don’t see post it; ‘…or they don’t care. I can relate to that.’ (p.6)

→ people oblivious; Tori differentiated from people

→ Tori can relate to the general sense of not caring, however in this case she does care contrary to her words; at least she cares enough to register the post-it and actively follow it

3. doing stuff that other people don't seem to care about makes Tori feel like she is doing something important (p.7); ‘mainly because no one else is doing it’ (p.7)

→ differentiating herself from others

→ paying attention to things that seemingly don't get attention (Is that an interior wish of hers as she feels like not truly being payed attention to?)

→ shows her trait of not leaving things (or people) alone by themself (Charlie)

→ she cares, she seeks out moments of significance

4. she’s rather paying attention to the game Solitaire than to the IT class (p.8)

→ solitaire = alone, isolated

→ again, paying attention to what others don't

→ literally involving with what’s alone, while being alone doing so; isolating herself from her surrounding by seeking out what’s isolate; bonding over isolation

→ she also evaluates that playing Solitaire does more for her intelligence than paying attention to the IT lesson (p.8) → being alone appears to be more beneficial to her

5. Michael enters the room and verbally registers the room first (p.8)

6. Tori thinks that he registers her only after he scanned the inanimate parts of the room (p.9)

7. Tori judges Michael’s appearance (p.9)

8. Michael ‘absorbs’ Tori’s face (p.9)

→ not just ‘looking’ or ‘seeing’, he literally takes her in from her perspective

9. ‘his eyes flare up’ + ‘I swear to Got they double in size’

→ most animated way Tori has described something yet

→ (I love the eye flaming up phrase so much!)

10. ‘leaps towards me like a pouncing lion’ (p.9)

→ comparison

→ wildness, strength

→ movement towards her (contrary to the last described encounter in which Becky, her allegedly best friend physically moves away from her)

11. ’ fiercely enough that I stumble backward in fear that he might crush me completely’ (p.9)

→ it is possible that Michael actually moves in such exaggerated manner, but it might also be such a drastic contrast to Tori that she uses such strong wordings to describe him due to not being used that people react so strongly to her

→ the unfamiliarity of Michaels demeanor overwhelms Tori

12. ‘he leans forward’; ‘face only centimeters away from mine’ (p.9)

→ Michael leans into Tori’s presence

13. Tori sees herself in Michael’s glasses

→ she sees herself first when she’s forced to look at him closely

14. ‘He grins violently’ (p.9)

→ I just love that sentence, okay. Michael just has such a strong presence, especially in a place like school that Tori keeps describing as ‘dull’ (p.6). So many contrasts that crystallize characteristics.

15. ‘’Victoria Spring’, he cries’ + big arms thrown in the air movement (p.9)

→ he celebrates that he found her

16. Tori stay quiet and ‘has a headache’ (p.9)

→ contrast to Michael’s reaction; her lack of reaction

→ overwhelm?, confusion?; hating people?

17. Tori finds her picture awful (p.10)

→ insecure about her appearance

18. ‘It’s like I don’t even have a face’ (p.10 )

→ lack of identity, significance?; hidden away

19. ‘Michael steps back a little’ but only to give her back her personal space (p.10)

→ he moves away, but remains as close as possible without irrupting Tori’s comfort unnecessarily

20. Michael’s ‘insane smile’ (p.10)

→ Tori describing/ judging his appearance (she’s so obsessed with his smile, haha)

21. ‘Everything lit up like it’s on fire’; ‘He notices me looking too’; ‘’It’s like it’s pulling you out, isn't it?’’ (p.11)

→ the foreshadowing, hehe

→ he notices her actions/ immersion/ interest and reacts to it by directly talking to her

22. ‘You are definitely Tori Spring, aren’t you’. ‘This should be a question, but he says it like he’s already known for a long time’ (p.12)

→ he does know her from when he showed her around at school last year; Tori doesn't know that they already met yet

→ without knowing, she intuitively interprets his words correctly; he knows she’s Victoria Spring, he recognizes her and has known about her for a long time

23. contrast of interest level regarding the solitaire case/ mystery (p.12)

Tori calling the day ‘pointless’ (p.13)

→ Tori lost interest I the post-it and blog the second Michael joined the moment; she already stated that she finds significant in moments no one but her is involved in and with Micheal now being another person paying attention to the post-it, Tori’s attention isn't the solely presence anymore ergo she looses interest and a feeling of significance

24. Tori feels deeply for Michael’s sudden sadness (p.13)

→ she can’t but care

25. Tori doesn't know what to do (p.13)

→ the post-it task lost significance due to Michael ruining her solidarity, but now Michael she is alone with him and the only one who is paying attention to him, therefore his sudden reaction forces her to go through a sudden shift as well, him bringing a sense of significance

→ Tori’s apathy and confusion collide with the rollercoaster of the situation

26. ‘You don’t say anything you mean’ (p.15)

→ Michael doesn't know Tori yet sees through her

27. Tori describes her laugh as a ‘pathetic sort of expulsion of air’ (p.15)

→ emphasis of her insecurity by choice of words connoting a neutral thing such as a chuckle or laugh

28. ‘Who are you, Victoria Spring?’ (p.15) - ‘I am nothing’ (p.15)

→ we just got an introduction by Tori beyond only her name and now she states she does not know how to answer that question beyond listing her name

→ insecurity, low self-worth

→ also, the fact that she thinks so deeply about how she could possibly answer that question by a stranger, just to realize how she does not feel like being anything/ anyone more worthy than ‘nothing’, instead of not caring and walking away, well, proves that she does care; she listens and thinks and doesn't find an answer that she evaluates as satisfying

29. she doesn't know at on point Michael hands her the post-it before he vanishes;

‘This is probably how it starts’

→ with a moment of significance (her own definition of significance in moments of seemingly being the only one paying attention and taking action)

→ with being seen and looked at and talked with (encounter with Michael)

→ by taking action as one’s own decision (following post-it)

→ by being recognizes (by Micheal)

→ by an unfamiliar encounter in an otherwise familiar and dull place

→ by being confronted with oneself (seeing herself in his glasses; being asked who she is)

Analepsis

Tori became form leader by getting volunteered ‘mostly because no one else wanted to do so’ (p.9f)

→ taking action when others don’t

2. Tori’s hair cut story (p.14f)

→ her inner tumult and its exterior display

[going-to-ikea-for-the-fries]

141 Headcanons: Going Shopping

Grocery/Food Shopping

John Price loves being the one in charge of the buggy/shopping cart. He loves being the one pushing it, holding the list, and watching you walk ahead all pretty, plucking whatever you'd like to buy onto the cart. He also has a natural eye for deals and sales, and knows when something is actually for sale or when the shop is trying to lie to you.

Johnny MacTavish is a menace when he's shopping. With or without you, he's definitely straying from the list and the budget. He's definitely the type to go shopping while hungry and ends up getting too many snacks, or buys seasonal products that you don't need but that "will get rotated out" of the shop so he better buy them Now.

Kyle Garrick makes a whole day out of going shopping. He'll disappear while you're getting a cart and come back with Starbucks or a cold drink of some kind for you to sip on while you go along and buy whatever you need for the house. He's also very efficient, so he bags everything very well, heavy stuff on the bottom, light/fragile on top, and, especially, all the cold/frozen things together.

Simon Riley is too efficient. It's almost scary. He goes in and out of the shop in record time and doesn't even let himself be affected by sales, new products, limited-time-only displays... Nothing. He follows the list to a T and would rather go inside alone than have you follow him and slow him down. But that also makes him an ass and he'll definitely realize you forgot to add something to the list, but will STILL not stray from his 'route' to go get it. If you wanted it, you should've written it down.

VS.

Clothes' Shopping

John Price is of the opinion that all his clothes are fine and, therefore, he doesn't particularly need new ones. That being said, he does know all his sizes and measurements, and won't be opposed to getting news shoes or a new button-up every once in a while. He's also very much the type that'll give you his honest (and sometimes hurtful) opinion on the fit of the clothes you're trying on and sincerely suggest you try the size up/down.

Johnny MacTavish doesn't really like buying new clothes, though he can be convinced... if you promise him you'll go to a lingerie shop and pick out something sexy to wear just for him, he'll let you take him to Levi's or what have you to get him new clothes. That being said, he is the type who, when you're trying to find his size, will fuck off and disappear, only for you to find him by the till, looking at the male jewelry displays and analyzing all the chains and bracelets and cheap watches.

Kyle Garrick is a sweetheart to shop with. He has a good sense of what looks good and what doesn't, and knows the basic of 'big prints work well with small prints and with plain colours', even if he doesn't really wear much of either. He also knows about colour blocking, funnily enough. He loves when his sweetheart tries things out in the dressing rooms just for him.

Simon Riley is the worst person to go shopping with. Be it for yourself or for him. He hates waiting around as you skim the clothes' racks... He'd rather sit outside in the Husband Chair™️ until you're done. And if you try to drag him to a male clothing shop to buy him stuff? He'll complain the whole time about the price and the quality. "Why would I pay 15 quid for a t-shirt when I can put in an order and get 5 shirts from the Army for free, da'lin'?"

[inchidentally]

"short and easier to read" babe I am so sorry to you and everyone else for how my insane posts come out - it's why I link to so much stuff bc it is a struggleee for me to not write just run-on sentences ;__; but I do get what you mean and I promise I tried my best - it's def shorter than the og and in smaller bites if that helps ??

(I actually wrote this on someone else's laptop so it's got proper punctuation and capitalization and everything!)

For those who don’t know: Oscar is an acts of service guy Lando is a words of affirmation guy. Let’s remember that someone’s love language is how they choose to express themselves, not what they should demand of others!

Oscar is also very much not a PR guy, for anyone totally oblivious to the obvious (and that all his "greatest hits" in PR were done unintentionally or bc he's awkward or bc his mom is cooler than him). For example, Oscar brings up his girlfriend of 4-5 years a fair amount but it’s almost hilariously not gushy or romantic (having a “cuddle” is as far as it goes lasfgjlsagfl). But he’s said himself that for the most part he’d prefer not to have too much private life available to the public. *His downtime with Lando joins in with all his other social life in being extremely limited to the public. 

The “thanking the sponsors” thing is one of Oscar’s safe, approved speeches he pulled from Andrea so that Oscar doesn’t have to do spontaneous on-camera speaking. Sorry but not all of us are good at it and it’s wayyyy easier to just have some rehearsed pre-approved soundbites. He tends to have a few that he repeats for a while until he updates the list lsafjslafhlafh.

He also very openly struggles to do on-camera speaking and no one knows that better than Lando who’s had to help him a huge amount. 

It does seem to be mostly cameras that make him stressed bc he was fine thanking Lando for his help in Baku at the fan stage in Singapore and overall he can use more of his dry humor when he's speaking to people rather than just to a camera. 

Lando’s recent inclusion of Oscar in his media responses to this degree is a reaction to Hungary and Monza - normally, his post race responses focus on himself and his own performance (which is literally normal and the default for drivers!!). The recent emphasis on teamwork/Oscar is something he feels he needs to do with his own PR work right now. He’s a smart man who’s been doing this a long time, so his reasons are valid no matter what fans think. He’s not sitting there working out or analyzing Oscar’s PR, just his own. 

People are absolutely running away with themselves over Monza and ignoring that apart from that one moment, Oscar is widely popularly seen as the supportive teammate role. To the point where last year and even part of this year, Lando was criticized by a lot of fans for not acknowledging Oscar enough.

Going off of that, let’s show how easy it is to take PR and media to make one of them look bad by turning it around onto Lando (!! this is for an example, I do NOT endorse hating on Lando for any of it !!)

Lando openly disliked being referred to as the “older teammate” and kinda left Oscar to his own devices so much last season that Oscar wouldn’t know where he was going a lot of the time and even semi-joked “my teammate’s abandoned me” (again, reminder this was not a source of drama for anyone but fans). He got called a little duckling a lot bc he’d tail Lando closely so as not to lose him. In fact it started irking some people that Lando would spend so much time with Carlos or Daniel and not getting to know his new teammate and helping him out with his rookie season of F1 the way Carlos did for Lando.

In every team photo where Lando has had a podium and Oscar has had nothing (and sometimes due at least in part to team orders!) which is very often! the comments sections have always had plenty of ‘Oscar is such a great team player, always happy and showing up for Lando no matter what’. So the whole ‘Oscar doesn’t do enough for Lando’ narrative is extremely recent and at odds with the rest of reality.

Please read the very first part of my enormous full post bc Lando didn’t thank Oscar for his Miami win, he praised his driving.

Even though at Silverstone this year Lando got on the podium and Oscar didn’t, Oscar made the fan stage all about bringing Lando out of his disappointment and even said he did the shoey “to make us feel better” and then dedicated the top row of his IG that week to photos and videos of him and Lando. Special note that this is in no way Oscar’s home race and he was solely seeing it as emotional for Lando and McLaren - and he had zero reason to personally be very happy after that weekend.

I’ve seen Melbourne this year get mentioned in the team orders discussions on my fyps, so that’s a handy example in many ways: Despite Melbourne being Oscar’s literal hometown race - and Lando even filming some Quadrant stuff at Oscar’s childhood karting track where a corner is named after him* - this year Lando didn’t acknowledge Oscar really at all over the weekend until someone mentioned him at the end of the podium press conference. Lando acknowledged that Oscar following team orders made his (Lando’s) drive a bit easier in Melbourne this year but said that he was faster than Oscar and deserved third over him anyway. (Good contrast to Hungary and even Carlos stating that something an undercut due to pit strategy shouldn’t erase one teammate being faster/more dominant in a race in order to give the other teammate the win!) He did PR work with pretty much everyone except Oscar actually, even doing promo for his (Lando’s) dad’s electric scooters on the new dotmov acc. Kind of like him being on a similar PR campaign at Singapore this year because of a sneak preview of Quadrant rebranding and announcing the Landostand at Silverstone  - he went for the biggest PR hits and posted Daniel on his jpg account, did a golf day with Carlos and Max F and was more active on socials than he had been for months. All while only having Oscar in one photo out of the whole weekend’s carousel despite the McLaren double podium. You could even read into him cutting Oscar and Oscar’s trophy out of two of the shots if you wanted! (He did include Oscar in the big group photo after the podium celebrations.)

*I saw some ppl say he didn't include Oscar in the Melbourne karting filming bc McLaren doesn't cross over with Quadrant, which isn't true. Zak has shares in Quadrant and Bianca has been included in the Quadrant rebranding launch with Lando's Singapore helmet design.

See how easy that was to flip it around?? If you’re even slightly biased against a driver or never see flaws in another- or are dying for two teammates to hate each other - then confirmation bias will always find plenty of “evidence”! Because the reality is that after the Austin GP, Lando found his “older teammate” mode and began helping Oscar out with his rookie year. In Melbourne, Lando spent his first day filming for his .mov account including the Oscar jersey and merch he came across - and Oscar mentioned how he and Lando talked about Lando filming at his old track. (Again, not PR coordinated or filmed, just mentioned!) And that after the Singapore race this year, they beamed at each other every other second of that night, filmed a deliriously happy post race video and joked in the cool down room - I honestly doubt have even noticed yet what the other has posted to IG salfhsalfafa. All of the negativity fans are coming up with is their own personal spin and does not resemble how Lando and Oscar are behaving to or speaking about each other.

They base their relationship on their conversations and interactions solely away from the public and the cameras and don’t do any inflammatory commentary about each other. They bragged about the door in the team hub that separates their drivers rooms from everyone else and leaves them open only to each other. Their communications only matter to each other when in private.

Segueing on from that: media and social media are literally PR. Lando is extremely skilled at it now and Oscar is not at all naturally skilled and is still learning. Lando is quick to be able to adapt his media responses, Oscar is not and often sounds stilted and uncomfortable. But it still has nothing to do with how they think of each other and talk to each other personally.

And “Landoscar” has never had the typical PR bromance aspect that we all love in other teammates, and it never will. Lando and Oscar mention but don’t broadcast or package their downtime together and they don’t share their private dynamic with fans or the media apart from the glimpses we see in more relaxed content. It’s just their choice! And just like it doesn’t mean Lando and Oscar are less friends because they don’t PR their relationship, it doesn’t mean the friendships who do utilize PR are less friends! 

And tbh that’s a good note to leave on: that seeing two drivers with no PR to gain from openly liking and respecting each other should mean that we as fans place less importance on the PR responses they give to media and put on social media. So many people want them to hate each other (Netflix even begging them outright) and rivalries get far more headlines and fan engagement, that if these two didn’t like each other or even were blah about each other, they wouldn’t waste time trying to fake it (side note ppl actually thought this joke was deadly serious for a short while). F1 isn’t team sports, no one really cares if drivers or teams appear “friendly” unless they’re desperate for money/engagement to keep them afloat (even there, Alpine prove it clearly isn’t a priority to have friendly teammates when you’re lower down the grid!)

There is absolutely nothing to be gained for them in faking the smiles and laughter and twinning. Equally there’s nothing to be gained by us as fans in judging them and their relationship based on their PR responses and PR work. Lando beams and smiles the same at Oscar after all of Oscar’s awkward, stiff debrief speeches and I kind of want one of these crazy stans to say to him that Oscar is a bad team player and doesn’t show Lando enough appreciation just to watch what his adorable face does in response (don’t do that I’m joking).

[comicaurora]

These have been pent up for a while, so there's a whole list lol. Some are Aurora, some are not.

1) Can lacrimas carry out multiple purposes at once? Or will they blend them? I'm assuming that this is possible, considering that the automaton in the ruins was using a lacrima as a brain

2) Has anyone tried to make tools or weapons out of lacrimas? I'm talking like chisel that needs no hammer. Or maybe a Fire lacrima on a bow that sets your arrows on fire

3) Can you engrave runes on lacrimas to make them affect themselves?

4) Where can I read more about the Twins? If I'm not wrong they're the creator gods, aided by the Light dragon and the Void dragon to create life, but I might be getting a wrong read on that

5) Since we see Erin successfully become the first Void mage, does that now mean there's potential for him to make a Void lacrima? The dragon probably won't allow it, but still

6) What exactly does elemental corruption of each element do? Fire literally burns you up, as we saw in Arc 1. I can infer that Life likely makes you a chimera. Void corruption makes you a cave crawler. But what do the other one do? Does Earth make you a statue? Does Wind disintegrate you, Thanos style?

7) Now onto the non-Aurora questions, is your art vector or raster? I believe it's vector, but it's always better to confirm

8) What are your opinions on reading into the environment and the character design to infer things about the character themselves? In any type of media

9) Have you played Baldur's Gate 3?

10) Do you have any music that you'd recommend? I've listened to every song I liked so many times that I hate them now.

11) I'm new to Tumblr, anything that I should know? You don't have to answer this one if you don't wanna. I think I know some of the basics already. Reblog what you like, and avoid the terfs, right?

You might be able to tell that I like the idea of the lacrimas a little bit. Just a teensy bit. The artificer in me definitely isn't obsessed. I appreciate any answers you can give :3

Cheers!

Ooh, lots of stuff!

Yes, it's possible. A lacrima can be engraved with multiple spells, set in a casing engraved with commands, or some combination of the two. Typically, all spells engraved directly on a lacrima will activate at once when the lacrima is "switched on", but a spell can be quite complex, and conditional activations are possible - "if-then-else" statements, basically.

Yes, magic items exist.

Generally no. If the lacrima is disrupted or broken, the spell generally stops functioning, so a self-affecting lacrima will run only as long as it takes for the lacrima to distort or break.

There's an extra lore page about them!

He probably could if he wanted to (and the Dragon allowed it) but Void energy is very dangerous, so he likely doesn't want to.

Each form of elemental corruption agitates the presence of the element in the mage's body. Earth corruption can damage or alter bones, encourage unhealthy petrification of soft tissues, etc. Wind corruption can have physical effects but it often most obviously produces breakdowns in the person's ability to speak or understand language. Lightning damages, numbs or intensifies a person's physical senses.

Raster, I draw with CSP's digital pens. I've only very briefly experimented with vector art - I don't like how it simplifies the lines.

I think it's a fun school of analysis but, like all literary analysis, it runs into trouble if it tries to lock down exactly what the writer was thinking or intending (which is an objective fact that one can be incorrect about) rather than trying to analyze the story on its own and what meaning might, intentionally or unintentionally, be factoring into it.

Nope

don't trust my taste in music it's 90% nu metal and sonic OSTs

Like what you like, reblog what you want, generally it's considered dubious form to add a comment to a reblog unless you have something profound to contribute (commenting in the tags is fine), steer clear of discourse and callout posts and generally the sectors of the site that are constantly on fire, blocking someone for any reason is 100% fine

[tumblingxelian]

How do some even think that RWBY has male characters “hijack the narrative?” It’s like they project what their grievances with past stories on what looks like the same but not really.

Like Jaundice in Volume 1 flies right by marathoning the season. No bigger than a single episode of TV at 20+ minutes.

So the answer to that questions ranges from what you said to several things like:

Not watching un years & misremembering what was watched, being misinformed & not having watched at all, lying and such. But, I think I hit on another major reason for this problem and its kind of hilariously twisted so please hear me out.

Every arc I've noticed that a certain strain of "Fans" get very attached to one or two male characters and start projecting the idea that they are the real MCs & then get offended when it turns out they aren't.

In V1 to 3, it was Jaune & Adam. Then in volumes 3 to 6 it was Qrow & then Ozpin, Followed by Ironwood in volumes 4 & 7.

All these guys are introduced either in a typical shounen hero or antagonist or mentor and ally role.

Then have the layers people back to show what exists beneath the archetype and what they either have to overcome to remain on the actual main characters side. IE, Jaune, Qrow & Ozpin.

Or what it is that they long since failed or will fail to overcome and grow from that makes them into villains, IE, Adam and Ironwood.

The reason this keeps happening is because that particular strain of "fan" has such a "Men as default" head-space that they cannot, genuinely cannot grasp that they are watching a story about women. Thus they keep expected ay given guy who shows up to be the "real" main character.

Aside:

You may also notice Ren, Oscar & Marrow never gets on the above list. The closest they get is being someone else's cheerleader or not mentioned at all. Meanwhile the white (Or perceived as white in Qrow's case) cis and overtly straight men do get said treatment. I wonder why that could be? Such a mystery :/

But I digress, this is important because it reflects a deep subconscious bias in those "fans" & I think said bias also exists in the people making claims like this.

IE, because they treat men as the default & the protagonists in a given scene, while subconsciously placing women below them and more as accessories, their focus on any given scene is always on the men.

Kind of like those tumblr posts that are explicitly about women & have a bunch of people with piss poor reading comprehension tagging it with dudes or even going so far as to say "Just say gay men". & rather similar to that observation that a lot of fandom treats men, any man from a piece of media, as an inherently deep and complicated character with so much to analyze or so much freedom to expand on. Meanwhile dismissing women out of hand as awful & or boring.

Thus, when they see a group conversation scene, they instinctively assume that the one leading the conversation, with the most to gain from the conversation, with the most narrative weight in the conversation is a man.

Even if he barely said anything and all the lot relevant, interesting character stuff and such was being done by women.

This head-space persists consistently and inflames any given scene, story beat or exchange.

But, here's the twist, these "critics" know o a conscious level that RWBY is about women and that, that is a selling point. But then they look back over their memories, subconsciously blurring out the women and think, "Wow, the girls didn't do anything, it was all about the guys!" Even though its actually just cos they refused to pay any attention to a character that wasn't a man.

Then they get mad because "Clearly the writers are doing this wrong" and ten they get madder when these men fail, or are villains or have to learn lessons, because in their eyes, those guys are the righteous protagonists, and super complicated, "Can't these blank slate girls realize that? Can't the writers!?" But again, its just because they weren't paying attention, rather tan it being a problem in the writing.

Its very similar to that trend of, "There was no queer foreshadowing, they were both obviously straight!" & then their evidence is like, she looked at a man once, & so therefore every interaction with women she has is platonic by default and therefore does not contain foreshadowing.

Damn, could have just led with that, its male bias, rather than straight bias, but the end result is the same. They don't perceive the women on the screen, they don't see the queer signals.

Then, when the story develops around those women, when queer characters & events set up across years happens it slaps them across the face & they insist it must have come out of nowhere.

Sadly, nothing you can say is liable to change their minds, because in a way, they really are watching an entirely different show.

It'd be like if I went into Naruto thinking Rock Lee was the main character & then never adjusted from that perspective.

Not an identical situation, but one that conveys my point regarding why they claim so much nonsense with such confidence.

[baeddel]

long post abt accessability in games, DMC3, DS1, and control schemes

games like God of War or Devil May Cry can be inaccessible because they have inputs which require button mashing, which is difficult for someone with arhritis or other problems that affect their hands and wrists. but these inputs are generally not required to beat the game; you have a lot of options, so you can just avoid using any move that's too difficult. the main issue is that these games become more demanding the further into the game you want to go; keeping a combo going in DMC requires a very high apm and use of the entire controller, so a person with a motor disability will hit a wall eventually.

this is a design problem which i think is difficult to analyze. DMC starts from a very unique design—it has a huge number of moves, almost all of which are accessible out of neutral rather than hidden at the end of an attack string—which it has to pay for by using a large number of unique inputs (forward + attack, back + attack, forward then back + attack, hold shoot to charge, hold devil trigger to charge [charges can be buffered]). it introduces a lot of complexity, but it's actually less complexity right away than other action games; instead of having to memorize a long list of complicated strings (cf. Bayonetta's Punch, Punch, Kick, Kick, pause, Kick, which is different from Punch, Punch, Punch, Kick, Kick, pause, Punch [click]—have fun with those!), you can learn attack, shoot, devil trigger, then forward attack, hold shoot... etc., one at a time, and mix them into your play and find out when they're good. its combo system is not just complex but also discoverable; players can try out how its different pieces fit together without opening the movelist.

but once a player already knows all the moves, the game starts to ask more and more out of them. not only do you want to use all of the inputs one after the other very fast (try jump cancelling Beowulf's Killer Bee into another Killer Bee for the first time—pretty tough, right? and all you're pressing there is X and △! the inputs get harder!), but since your charge moves can be buffered, you also want to hold O and L1 to charge your shot and devil trigger for when you might need them, and you might also want to lock-on by holding R1. when watching a really good player playing with an input viewer it's not uncommon to see every single button on the controller light up at the same time. doing that stuff is really fucking hard.

so far we don't have any problems; it's a picture perfect picture of a system that's 'easy to use, hard to master,' right? but because the thing thats hard to do in this case is input a lot of buttons at once on a physical controller, we've just frozen out any players with hand/wrist problems or motor issues from high level play, at least without adapting the game somehow. this is a problem that's difficult to predict, difficult to foresee, and difficult to design around; i don't see how you could fix it without making DMC a completely different game than what it is.

so if you started from the premise of designing a game that was accesisble to people with hand/wrist and motor issues (including suckers like me who played a bunch of high apm games like DMC and Runescape and fucked up their wrist), you'd have to come up with something pretty different at a very fundamental level.

this is why Dark Souls is, in a lot of ways, a VERY ACCESSABLE action game. what do i mean? its control scheme is extremely simple. once you press every button on the controller you've learned everything you're going to learn about it (apart from one very non-obvious hard-coded universal cancel, but don't worry about it). all you have to do is dodge or block the other's guys attack and then hit him with yours.

there's a lot of ways that DeS/DS1 approached the action genre differnetly to other games, but right now i'm only going to highlight one: the kind of 'questions' DS is asking its player. if you think about DMC, what is DMC trying to get the player to do? while you can beat the game with one or two simple combos, the system is obviously made in a way that encourages freedom and flexibility, and the game has systems to reward long, varied combos (the 'style' rating). and that's all it wants you to do (apart from in a couple of levels where they want you to do platforming—ugh!). to accomplish this, they lock you in a room with some enemies and only let you out when you beat them all.

in Demon's Souls the main thing they want you to do is navigate complicated dungeons that are full of traps; some levels have mazes in them, and lots of traps kill you instantly. it's similar to Kings Field, which its a spiritual successor to, but it's also similar to other early 3d RPGs: Deathtrap Dungeon, Die by the Sword, Dungeon Lords... (in one interview Miyazaki said part of his job was to play a bunch of 'open world RPGs' for research, and i imagine that included some of these old, weird games; the first dungeon in Dungeon Lords has a rafter-walking section with projectile-shooting enemies, chain-pulley mechanical elevators and highly damage-resistant slimes). they also want you to kill enemies. but the game never forces you to kill these enemies; you're never locked in a room until you kill all the enemies, and enemies never have items that are necessary to progress in the level. enemies are just one obstacle among others. consequently, enemy encounters are designed in a certain way that makes avoiding them difficult and approaching them complex. an enemy that throws firebombs will stand at the top of a long, narrow staircase, forcing you to dodge them on the way up; two enemies will stand behind a doorway and, if you run in blindly, will both attack you from behind. things like that. it was hard to avoid enemy encounters in Demon's Souls because the levels involved suffocatingly narrow corridors and the enemies followed you forever. but it was possible and sometimes desirable. in DS1 running by enemies is often preferable and, with foreknowledge of the level, always possible. it's also a lot easier as enemies don't follow you very far anymore (this change was patched into the game after release).

running and jumping both consume stamina, as do dodging, blocking, and attacking. getting hit costs hitpoints, and falling off a ledge costs all your hitpoints. both aspects of the game (navigation and combat) use all of the same resources, and engaging in combat is generally one of a few options the player has to navigate an area. it is, a lot of the time, by far the easiest option, but most players will find a few areas that they hate enough to always run through. one of the messages players can leave to each other is 'try dashing through.' the game rewards you for killing enemies by giving you souls and loot drops, but it also punishes you for making mistakes by leaving you down on resources—less health, fewer estus, and fewer spellcasts—so the best thing to do at any given time is difficult to analyze.

the questions DS is asking its players, therefore, is to familiarize themselves with the level, come up with a plan, conserve their own resources and make it out with the loot. at lower levels of play the game is mostly about succeeding at lots of combats and navigating lots of traps over a long distance without making too many small mistakes. then, at high levels of play, the gameplay is mostly about movement, exploiting the game's verticality and taking advantage of holes in the enemy placement. but the change from low to high levels of play mostly takes place in the mind of the player, not their hands; they understand the levels better, they are better able to respond to things which were previously unpredictable to them, and they have more confidence in their ability to do what is needed of them.

so our game not only starts off very accessible to players with hand/wrist or motor problems, but it finishes there too. although, i've gone a little too far: the player's hands will change a bit as they improve at the game. like Monster Hunter, the best way to play Dark Souls is to have a claw grip in both hands; the thumbs should operate the analogue sticks, the index finger should operate the d-pad (for toggle escales, the universal cancel i mentioned, as well as changing spells) and the face buttons (for rolling, using items, interacting with doors and items), and the remaining digits manipulating the shoulders/triggers (for attacks, blocks and parries). while running, you want to hold L1 (block) so you can roll (circle) out of a run without jumping. this might be hard for you depending on your condition, but i don't think it's that much worse than holding a controller the regular way.

anyway, the point is this: you might want to think about making your game accessible not just to the general player with disabilities, but to the 'hardcore' player with disabilities. do you want disabled people to not only beat your game, but be really good at it? how would you design systems to accomodate that? i've talked about hand/wrist and motor issues here because it's what i was thinking about (and some games, like Runescape, aren't really accessible to me anymore thanks to my wrists, at least in the way i used to play them), but there are other disabilities you could probably design around. imagine a player who has CFS or ADHD in a way that keeps them from practicing consistently; could you make a game that is rewarding for such a player to try and get really good at nonetheless? Runescape (conceived of competitively, ie. racing to the leaderboard &c) was good for players with certain kinds of disabilities and neurotypes since it required a huge amount of time and dedication, it really rewarded being unemployed, LOL. but what if there was a game that somehow rewarded inconsistency? who knows...

anyway, i'm saying how i tend to think about it as a rebuttal to the way i see most people talk about accessibility in games, which is merely playing games. thus Dark Souls can be criticized for being difficult for a new player to complete, for example. but this always struck me as a bewildering way to talk about games. plenty of disabled people don't just want to complete games, they want to be good at them. and disabled people can and do become good at games and compete and win at them. so the question for me is not so much 'how do i make a game someone with this disability could play?' but 'how do i make a game someone with this disability would want to master?'—a game which doesn't create headaches for them, which works with rather than against them, and which they actually enjoy at all levels of play.

[lucky-clover-gazette]

kings rising highlights & annotations

chapter 4

indented text is from the book. some quotes have commentary, some do not. some comments are serious, and some are definitely not. most of them will only make sense to people who have read the series. and, like, there are spoilers. so please read the books first if you're interested!

also: part of the reason i'm doing such a close reading is to study cs pacat's style, especially in terms of how she does romance and erotica. there are "craft notes" that might seem weird, like i'm being redundant or restating something rather than analyzing, but those are more things that i want to remember/take away from the writing!

i'm going to tag these longer posts with "sam reads capri" in case anyone wants to read them all at once.

this is a google doc i wrote with overall content warnings for the captive prince series. it's not perfect, but i do think it's important to include.

‘Does it bother you to think of him hurting your country?’ ‘You know it does. Are we playing now with the fate of nations? It won’t bring your brother back.’ There was a violent silence.

the girls are fightinggggg (love damen calling laurent on his misdirected bullshit)

‘You know, my uncle knew who you were,’ said Laurent. ‘He spent this whole time waiting for us to fuck. He wanted to tell me who you were himself, and watch it wreck me. Oh, had you guessed that? You just thought you’d fuck me anyway? Couldn’t help yourself?’

i’m sure it’s easier for laurent to entertain the notion that nothing damen did was real at all, and doing so also hurts damen, so two birds one stone

‘You said, “Kiss me”,’ said Laurent, each word enunciated clearly. ‘You said, “Laurent, I need to be inside you, you feel so good, Laurent,”’ He switched to Akielon, as Damen had, at the climax, ‘‘it’s never felt like this, I can’t hold on, I’m going to—’’

i did my complex analysis of laurent’s mean girl era last chapter. this is a good example of him just being a petty bitch for the reasons outlined in that analysis

‘Charcy,’ said Laurent, ‘was a distraction. I have it from Guion. My uncle sailed for Ios three days ago, and by now he has made landfall.’

and it worked, and laurent was too emotionally compromised to anticipate or prevent it. imagine laurent learning that, directly after being tortured. and now he’s dealing with this. Ls on Ls on Ls.

(or did he know? stuff he says later makes me think he might have, but then again, he also lies to damen a LOT in this scene)

‘I see. And my men are to die fighting him for you, the way that they did at Charcy?’

i mean the previous chapter already established that they both know laurent meant to be there, but if they’re doing cheap shots, i guess this works fine in a pinch

Laurent’s smile was not pleasant. ‘On that table is a list of supplies and troops. I will give it to you, in support of your campaign to the south.’ ‘In exchange for,’ said Damen, steadily. ‘Delpha,’ said Laurent in the same tone. He felt the shock that made him remember that this was Laurent, and not any other young man of twenty.

He had not come here prepared to negotiate. Laurent had. Laurent was here as the Prince of Vere facing the King of Akielos. Laurent had known who he was all along. The list, written in Laurent’s own hand, had been prepared before this meeting.

all true, but don’t underestimate the fact that laurent did NOT anticipate falling in love or actually trusting you as an ally

He said, ‘Did you plan this from the beginning?’

so "from the beginning" is complicated here. if i'm going to try to sort things out to the best of my ability, i think a good place to start is making a list of things laurent could NOT have expected at the beginning of the series, when he was presented with damen:

that damen would not immediately take any opportunity provided to him to escape captivity

that damen is a respectable and admirable person and invaluable strategic and military asset

that damen and laurent would fall in love (and even still now, i don't think laurent is letting himself believe damen really cares, and certainly isn't letting damen do the caring)

that the regent would try to assassinate his own nephew. laurent says in the text, at some point, that this was a genuine surprise, and that he didn't think his uncle would ever go that far

but, okay, even if laurent didn't expect the assassination attempt, or any of the other minor things in vere like the patras debacle, did he expect at some point to find himself and his men forced to do a military campaign? he must have, which is why he started the correspondence with delpha. i suppose he could have planned to do that from vere, too, and just adjusted things when he was forced to travel. and nothing that laurent failed to expect directly got in the way of the foundation of his plan, if his objective was to obtain delpha and make enough allies that together they can take down the regent.

so to answer damen's question, yes! laurent planned this specific long-term objective (taking delpha, getting kastor and the regent in ios, methodically turning a faction of powerful akielions against kastor and gaining the support of vask and patras) from the beginning. because he recognized damen the moment he saw him, laurent could immediately put together that kastor is allied with the regent, who would totally come up with something like this to torture laurent. and so laurent put his mental energy into planning a way to gain enough political and military power to defeat both kastor and the regent, and further manipulate them into being so confident that they would have no time to retaliate when the people laurent enlisted attacked them. i don't think laurent gave a shit if kastor lived or died, or stayed on the throne, as long as the regent was defeated, but it made sense for kastor to be a priority as well since the alliance between kastor and the regent makes the regent more powerful.

and, to be generous to laurent, none of this really has anything to do with damen. like none of it is designed to punish him, it doesn't even really involve him. it's another instance of laurent just living in a different genre from the start. damen's pov has been so fixed on his relationship and interactions with laurent, but there's been so much more happening that we just haven't seen. and laurent, i think we can assume, is and has always been deeply focused on things other than their relationship.

but even now, this plan doesn't do damen direct harm. the most harm it does is make things awkward with nikandros, and make damen feel bad about the regent being in his own country (which was probably going to happen anyway). but still, damen is super pissed. he doesn't realize or admit it, but i almost think the fact that laurent always had this plan makes him a little insecure. like, to realize that he hasn't been as important or useful to laurent as he previously assumed. on top of all the other stuff pissing him off about the situation, he's also jealous of an abstract plan, because it's had laurent's attention from the start, and right now laurent is choosing that plan over their friendship/relationship. a kingdom, or this.

laurent doesn't want to deal with "this," and honestly has some pretty pressing matters beyond "this" to handle, so he's chosen "a kingdom." even if damen's heart is still stuck with "this," he'll have to follow laurent's lead and focus on "a kingdom" too. i'm sure they'll both do a perfectly professional and functional job of this, and it won't make things inconvenient or uncomfortable for any of their allies at all.

‘The hard part was getting Guion to let me into his fort.’ Laurent said it steadily, the private edge to his voice a little more private than usual.

do they ever talk about it? like does laurent ever tell damen what happened in the cell?

also i like how damen doesn’t take this as like flippant and arrogant, as he would have in book 1. he immediately clocks that laurent is hiding something and just deflecting.

Damen said, ‘In the palace you had me beaten, drugged, whipped. And you ask me to give up Delpha? Why don’t you tell me instead why I shouldn’t simply hand you over to your uncle, in exchange for his aid against Kastor?’

like you ever would.

‘Because I knew who you were,’ said Laurent, ‘and when you killed Touars and humiliated my uncle’s faction, I sent the news of it echoing to every corner of my country. So that if you ever crawled back onto your throne there would be no possibility of an alliance between you and my uncle.

good failsafe, laurent didn’t know he wouldn’t need it. although i’m sure it’s both vindicating and hurting laurent to hear damen threaten this, making the failsafe necessary, even if we know that damen’s heart isn’t in it.

'Do you want to play this game against me? I will take you apart.’

this is all very complicated and unnecessary and frustrating to damen, but it's laurent's area of expertise. this kind of emotionally evasive manipulative political negotiation makes him feel empowered. the approach laurent takes in this scene is almost certainly a way for him to cope with the things in his life that feel uncontrollable and uncomfortable, by doing something familiar that he knows he can control.

‘Take me apart?’ Damen said deliberately. ‘If I opposed you, the remaining scrap of land you hold would have a different enemy on each side, and your efforts would be split in three directions.’ ‘Believe me,’ said Laurent, ‘when I say that you would have my undivided attention.’

this is soooo amy dunne of him

Damen let his eyes pass over Laurent slowly, where he stood. ‘You’re alone. You don’t have allies. You don’t have friends. You’ve proven true everything your uncle ever said about you. You made deals with Akielos. You even bedded an Akielon—and by now, everyone knows it. You’re clinging to independence with a single fort and the tatters of a reputation.’ He gave every word its weight. ‘So let me tell you the terms of this alliance. You will give me everything on this list, and in return I will aid you against your uncle. Delpha remains with Akielos. Let’s not pretend you have anything here worth a bargain.’

damen honey i’m so sorry but you cannot win this one. especially when you yourself would probably lay down your life on instinct for laurent if someone randomly came into this tent and tried to kill him

‘Please,’ said Laurent, ‘insult me further. Tell me more about my tattered reputation. Tell me all the ways that bending over for you has damaged my position. As if being fucked into the mattress by the King of Akielos could be anything other than demeaning. I am dying to hear it.’

and somehow laurent still manages to turn even his own shitty decisions back on damen, implying that even if laurent owned up to being fucked by damen, it couldn’t be anything other than demeaning, and damen is a fool for considering it to be genuine lovemaking

‘Did you think,’ said Laurent, ‘that I would come here without the means to enforce my terms? I hold the only proof of Kastor’s treachery that extends beyond your word.’ ‘My word is enough to the men that matter.’ ‘Is it? Then by all means, reject my offer. I will execute Guion for treason and hold the letter over the nearest candle.’

cunt (affectionate)

‘Are we going to play another kind of pretend?’ Damen said. ‘That it never happened?’

and in this game of pretend, damen doesn’t get to hand-feed a pretty blonde named laurent >:(

‘If you are concerned it will go unmentioned between us, never fear. Every man in my camp knows that you served me in bed.’

“you served me” GOD laurent you are such a bitch

And that is how it is to be between us?’ said Damen. ‘Mercenary? Cold?’

if laurent was normal, there are plenty of reassuring things he could tell damen to explain that they can do this together, and ios will be okay, and they're in a good position to win as a team. but since he's being a salty little bitch, he's not going to do any of that, and he's going to make damen feel extra bad by using their romantic history against him. and despite all of these slights against him, damen knows that he has no choice but to give laurent delpha and ally himself with laurent's cause. because laurent really has planned this from the beginning. sure, current damen probably still would have done all that if laurent had just asked, but book 1 laurent had no idea of anticipating their allyship, and book 3 laurent is intentionally trying to push him away.

‘How did you think it would be?’ said Laurent. ‘You’d take me to your bed for the public consummation?’ It hurt.

this is a brutal scene for damen, even if i understand laurent’s headspace. i’m sorry buddy, breakups are no fun.

actually, do you think damen has ever experienced a breakup? he’s a prince who grew up with a harem of sex slaves. jokaste just kind of did whatever she wanted and damen was chill with it. so probably not.

It was too neat. He hadn’t thought as far as Kastor’s defeat, or who would become kyros in Ios, the traditional seat of the King’s closest adviser. Nikandros was the ideal candidate.

not laurent doing damen’s job for him…

‘I see you’ve thought of everything,’ said Damen, bitterly. ‘It didn’t have to be—you could have come to me, and asked for my help, I would have—’ ‘Killed the rest of my family?’

i mean, laurent definitely wants the regent dead. i think this is just a dig about auguste, and furthermore about damen not telling laurent the truth at any point.

also, damen straight-up admitting that he would have helped damen is something laurent would have needed a gun to his head to say out loud, and there aren’t even guns in this world. i said this in a note last chapter, but laurent assumes that damen is just as terrified of attachment and vulnerability as he (laurent) is, but we see that damen is willing to swear attachment and make himself vulnerable in order to support laurent and build trust. laurent is just denying that aspect of damen, because he’s traumatized and stubborn and doesn’t want to be let down.

Thickly, Damen remembered running his sword through the man he’d believed was the Regent; as if killing the Regent would be his expiation. It wouldn’t.

that explains why damen acted how he did in battle. but he also knows, in the reality of this moment, that it wouldn’t have made up for auguste even if he had killed the regent. killing a member of laurent’s family isn’t going to make up for the fact that he killed a member of his family.

He thought of all Laurent had done here, every piece of impersonal leverage, to control this meeting, to ensure it played out on his terms. ‘Congratulations,’ said Damen. ‘You’ve forced my hand. You have what you want. Delpha, in exchange for your aid in the south. Nothing given freely, nothing done out of feeling, everything coerced, with bloodless planning.’

this is almost laurentian, in terms of dialogue. very poetic and theatrical. damen is not handling this breakup well, and it’s almost like he’s defensively taking on some of laurent’s overdramatic bitchiness. it’s a reaction from him we haven’t really seen since book 1.

this dialogue also feels slightly anachronistic, in a good way. with some minor editing it could be a believable text that modern au damen would send after laurent breaks up with him in a formal email even though they still have to work on an assignment together. i think it's the "nothing given freely, nothing done out of feeling, everything coerced, with bloodless planning" that really gives off the vibe of an emotionally compromised teenager trying to cope with the fact that they still have to see their ex in english class.

‘Good,’ said Laurent. He took a step back. Then, as if a pillar of control had finally collapsed, Laurent surrendered his full weight to the table behind him, his face drained of all colour. He was trembling, his hairline pricked with the sweat of injury. He said: ‘Now get out.’

laurent: i won. get out. also laurent:

Laurent had known who he was, and had still made love to him. He wondered what mix of yearning and self-delusion had allowed Laurent to do that.

may i interest you in the “sam reads capri” tag on my tumblr blog, damen?

also i just think “he wondered what mix of yearning and self-delusion has allowed laurent to do that” is a BANGER line. maybe one of my favorites in the series. astute, bewildered, devastating (sad), and devastating (scathing) all at once.

If he’d imagined it, it was as a single, cataclysmic event, an unmasking that, whatever followed, would be over. Violence would have been both punishment and release. He had never imagined that it would instead go on and on; that the truth had been known; that it had been painfully absorbed; that it would be this crushing pressure that wouldn’t leave his chest.

damen always thought that he would be the one to rip off the bandaid for them both, so the entire time he has been saving them the pain by waiting. but now he knows that laurent never had a bandaid, and he (damen) has been left to slowly and painfully pry off his own. the pain isn’t over, it’s just beginning. and laurent has felt it this entire time, in a way damen put off for himself.

Laurent had tamped down the smothered emotion in his eyes, and would endure an alliance with his brother’s killer, though he felt nothing but aversion. If he could do it, Damen could do it. He could make impersonal negotiations, speak in the formal language of kings.

(also wow do i want to tell damen that laurent isn’t averse to him, he’s just lashing out, and badly needs someone to show him love and support at this time. but as always, oh fuck, he can’t hear me. and to be fair, it isn’t really in-character for damen to just passively accept poor treatment, or to force laurent to accept his support when he’s been told to go away.)

The ache of loss didn’t make sense, because Laurent had never been his. He had known that. The delicate thing that had grown between them had never had a right to exist.

and yet it did exist, and it does exist, and it will exist, and that’s why we’re reading about it.

damen and laurent both feel like they have a right to their kingdom’s thrones as princes, but they don’t have the right to simply be people in love. again, a kingdom or this. the themes are theming.

If it hurt, it was fitting; it was simply kingship.

what did i just say??? THE THEMES ARE THEMING!!!

If he could give Laurent up, he could do this.

stoppp can someone get him a pint of ice cream and an olivia rodrigo album (should i make lamen divorce era playlists. like one for each of them.)

Damen remembered hoping for a homecoming where it could be between them as it was in the old days. As if friendship of that kind could survive statesmanship.

damen’s being soooo broody about the ways kingship nerfs his social and romantic life, omg. it’s a hint of his immaturity and relative youth to other people in power, and his difference in jadedness and trauma compared to laurent. he is still lowkey a frat guy who wants to party, even though he cares about his schoolwork and future prospects

‘He’s playing us against each other,’ said Nikandros. ‘This is calculated. He is trying to weaken you.’ Damen said, ‘I know. It’s like him.’

"yes, honey..."

nikandros private twitter venting moment #4. especially considering damen’s response

‘He left us at Charcy.’ ‘There was a reason for that.’ ‘But I am not to know it.’

damen doesn’t really know the reason, but he can assure nik, there was a reason. nikandros private twitter venting moment #5.

It was not worth Delpha. He could see that Nikandros knew it, as Damen had known it. ‘I would make this easier,’ said Damen, ‘if I could.’ Silence, while Nikandros kept his words in check.

nikandros private twitter moment #6. this time he just posts a blurry picture of laurent’s offer and captions it with “🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬”

‘The men will talk,’ said Nikandros. He was pushing the words out with distaste, he did not want to say, ‘About—’ Damen said, ‘No.’ And then, as though Nikandros couldn’t help the words that came out next, ‘If you would at least take off the cuff—’ ‘No. It stays.’ He refused to lower his eyes.

kind of curious why, in this moment, damen is so determined about this. he’s had reasons in the past, but it would be cool to get some current insight, if it’s not just an instinctual thing

Nikandros turned away and put his palms flat on the table, resting his weight there. Damen could see the resistance in Nikandros’s shoulders, bunched across his back, his palms still flat on the table.

nikandros private twitter moment #7. he just posts this meme with no further elaboration:

Into the painful silence, Damen said, ‘And you? Will I lose you?’ It was all he allowed himself. It came out in a steady enough voice, and he made himself wait, and say nothing more.

AWWW poor baby :( no like fr damen :(((( it’s going to be okay

As though the words were coming up from the depths of him, against his will, Nikandros said, ‘I want Ios.’ Damen let out a breath. Laurent, he realised suddenly, wasn’t playing them against one another. He was playing to Nikandros. There was a dangerous expertise in all of this; in knowing how far Nikandros’s loyalty might be stretched, and what would keep it from snapping. Laurent’s presence in the room was almost tangible.

i think this was more an unintended outcome of the plan, but i’m sure mean girl era laurent would be pleased to know that his actions inadvertently incentivized damen’s best friend to declare himself loyal to his ex (laurent) instead

‘Listen to me, Damianos. If you have ever valued my counsel, listen. He is not on our side. He is Veretian, and he’ll be bringing an army into our country.’ ‘To fight his uncle. Not to fight us.’ ‘If someone kills your family you don’t rest until they are dead.’

i know this is nikandros trying to convince damen that laurent isn’t just going to let go of what damen did to auguste, and can’t be trusted as an ally. but it also makes nikandros accidentally sound like a book 1 laurent apologist, by making the statement with “you” as if it’s a universal maxim. like, if nik was in laurent’s shoes, he would have wanted damen tortured and dead too. nik is an interesting guy, because he's a little more aggressive with his principles unprovoked than damen, but he’s also similarly limited in perspective due to his status and lack of humbling experiences. i’ll try to do more complex analysis in addition to memeing on him, if/when opportunities arise

Nikandros was shaking his head. ‘Or do you really think he’s forgiven you for killing his brother?’ ‘No. He hates me for it.’ He said it steadily, without flinching. ‘But he hates his uncle more. He needs us. And we need him.’

damen going full ant with a bindle :(((

‘You need him enough that you would strip me of my home, because he asked you to?’ ‘Yes,’ said Damen.

nik private twitter vent #8. this time he literally just tweets a single “.”

The men came to attention as he passed, and said only, ‘Exalted,’ if he spoke. It was not like sitting around a campfire swilling wine, exchanging low tales and ribald speculations.

he should be at the club

Jord and the other Veretians from Ravenel had been sent back to Laurent to rejoin his army in the extravagant tents at Fortaine.

jord and the others standing awkwardly nearby laurent’s tent, trying to ignore the muffled adele ballad playing within

Alone, he didn’t have to be King.

i can’t believe that damen, groomed from birth for eventual kingship, now resents that kingship almost exclusively because it means he can’t be boyfriends with laurent. blonde man brainrot

He wasn’t alone. She was naked, at the base of the stark pallet, her full breasts hanging downwards, her forehead to the floor. She didn’t have palace training, and so could not quite disguise the fact that she was nervous. Her fair hair was caught back from her face in a fragile clasp, a northern custom. She was perhaps nineteen or twenty, her body trained and ready for him. She had prepared a bath in an unadorned wooden tub, so that if he pleased he might make use of it; or of her.

the way this is written, especially in the context of the series so far, makes this hard to read as anything other than revolting. i think this is due to a few craft elements:

the clinical description, lacking sensuality entirely

damen relating the things he’s observing to the aspects of the institution that he understands (she wasn’t trained in the palace = slaves are trained to do this. she was placed here for him to use = she didn’t show up here because she wanted to be here, or even knew him at all, or wanted pleasure of her own). unlike his past self, who passively understood the institution but chose not to think too hard about what it implied, the mental connections damen has made through being a slave himself prevent him from regarding this slave with the same thoughtlessness

damen's observations portray the anxiety and vulnerability of the slave, rather than willingness or submission. in book 1 we have a lot of moments where damen thinks of slaves as lovely, sweet, aimless non-people, almost like they're lobotomized. he regards them in a way that's both condescending and unconcerned for their free will, because they don't want or need free will, because they're slaves. his issue with the mistreatment of the akielion slaves in vere wasn't with their enslavement itself; it was with the cruelty of their masters, non-slaves who have free will and therefore should use it honorably. at the time, he truly believed that, as long as a master is kind, a slave has no reason to feel anxious or vulnerable or afraid, because there is honor in a slave's submission. if book 1 damen noticed that a slave was nervous, he would have found it adorable and charming, and would have taken it as an invitation to prove himself a caring master. but that doesn't even cross his mind here, while noticing this slave's nervousness in book 3.

another interesting craft detail: a sort of parallelism in the last part. damen notices that the bath, an object, has been prepared for him—just as the slave, a person, has been prepared for him. he groups them together, in that their same designated function is to be used: "he could make use of it; or of her." and that's where he stops the description altogether, because i don't think he feels comfortable with what that similarity between person and object implies.

it's easy to simply tell a reader that a character has evolved. if this story was written by a different author, there might have just been a moment where damen said out loud, "actually i've realized that slavery is bad," while the topic was otherwise avoided beyond its relevance to the story.

it's much harder to show, consistently throughout the story, exactly how that evolution has occurred, and the difference in damen's perspective compared to how he'd thought about slavery at the start. well done, pacat.

He had known that there were slaves with Nikandros’s army, following behind with the carts and the supplies. He had known that when he returned to Akielos there would be slaves.

… but seeing it in person is still viscerally uncomfortable

‘Get up,’ he heard himself say, awkwardly, a wrong order for a slave. There was a time when he would have expected this, and known how to behave around it. He would have appreciated the charm of her rustic northern skills, and bedded her, if not tonight then certainly in the morning. Nikandros knew him, and she was his type. She was Nikandros’s best, that was evident; a slave from his personal retinue, perhaps even his favourite, because Damen was his guest and his King. She got up. He didn’t speak. She had a collar around her neck, and metal cuffs around her small wrists that were like the one that he— ‘Exalted,’ she said, quietly. ‘What is wrong?’ He let out a strange, unsteady breath. He realised that his breathing had been unsteady for some time, that his flesh was unsteady. That the silence had been stretching out between them too long. ‘No slaves,’ said Damen. ‘Tell the Keeper. Send no one else. For the length of the campaign I will be dressed by an adjutant, or a squire.’

see my previous comment. this is really well-done, especially the panic attack-esque reaction and ptsd trigger. i made a comment a WHILE ago about the way both damen and laurent have ptsd in this series, but it manifests differently due to their proximity to their own traumas. laurent’s trauma was prolonged but a few years in the past; he’s had a lot of time to learn how to cope with it since. but damen’s trauma began when the story began, and it’s been intense and unrelenting basically the whole time: his father’s death, kastor and jokaste’s betrayal, his enslavement, his time in arles, his loss of identity by laurent’s side, and his forced return to his royal identity and obligations. that’s a lot of shit to unpack, and most of it is still happening. it's raw, and damen has had no time to process. nor has he received comfort, or even acknowledgement of what's happened to him as the trauma it is.

"he realised that his breathing had been unsteady for some time." this is a person experiencing a ptsd trigger for what might be the very first time, realizing as it happens just how quickly and thoroughly trauma can disorient his mental, physical, and emotional awareness and self-control. there is the complex intellectual development i discussed in the previous comment re: damen's feelings about slavery, but it's also this visceral gut reaction that tells damen and the reader that things will never be the same.

‘Wait.’ He couldn’t send her naked through the camp. ‘Here,’ he unpinned his cloak, and whirled it around her shoulders. He felt the wrongness of it, pushing against every protocol. ‘The guard will escort you back.’

he felt the wrongness of doing the right thing, but he still did it anyway. i think that is a big moment for damen, especially relating to akielion slavery.

i know i talk a lot about laurent in these notes, because i love laurent very much. but i also love damen, and i’m glad that he is our narrator. his pov is a big reason why these books work, in their chosen genre, at all. and i do think that this genre was a choice—laurent may be living a gritty psychological thriller, but a big theme of the series as a whole is that laurent was sweet in the past, and has the right to a life where he can be sweet again. but laurent, as we meet him at the start of these books, is heartless by choice. damen is many things, but he is never heartless. and whatever genre these books are, i think they're deeply defined by the fact that they're written with heart. they are not cynical, and they are not jaded. that's why damen, and not laurent, is our narrator. laurent's cynicism and jadedness are a foil to damen's idealism and trusting/forgiving nature. while damen does have some things to learn from laurent about strategy and cultural misconceptions, the ethos of the series matches damen's emotional and philosophical outlook far more than laurent's. ultimately, damen's heart helps laurent reclaim his sweetness, and become a better ruler and happier person. damen's heart is also what leads damen himself to reform akielion slavery, unite his kingdom with vere, and step out from his father's shadow. this is, at the end of the day, damen's story. and i don't think it would be the same story, with the same meaning or heart, if it was told by anyone else.

which, regarding meaning—in addition to the individual chapters, i do want to start thinking more about some of the more overarching things going on with capri. so i might as well start now. and if i had to start formulating an overall series thesis at this point in the re-read, i think it would have something to do with the concepts of submission and captivity.

captivity and submission both imply, in our common perception, a coerced and degrading loss of free will. and we certainly see that, in the way damen and laurent have both been held captive and degraded throughout their stories. we also see how, despite being victims themselves, they both have used captivity and submission to coerce and degrade others (laurent coerces and degrades damen to avenge his brother) and deny them free will (damen is complicit in the institution of akielion slavery, which denies slaves free will). for a lot of the series, damen and laurent are in constant disagreement about which of them is morally worse—damen thinks laurent is worse because of the coercion and degradation, laurent thinks damen is worse, and therefore deserves the coercion and degradation, because damen is complicit in akielion slavery and killed his brother. but we as the reader start to realize, as the series goes on, that they're both right about some things, both wrong about other things, both hypocrites on occasion, both doing harm, both trying to help, both captors, and both captives.

from this, it would make sense to assume that captivity and submission are the problem here, and the story's thesis is that those concepts are always dishonorable. however, i don't think that's the point at all. i think capri is about the ways captivity and submission can be honorable, if actively chosen with the moral responsibility, complex thought, and emotional depth of a person with free will. after all, what are loyalty and integrity, if not freely-chosen emotional and intellectual captivity? what are vulnerability and attachment, if not physical and emotional submission freely given?

damen and laurent are both complicated people who do dishonorable things. however, in their own respective arcs and in their shared romantic plotline, they both come to understand the multifaceted nature of captivity and submission, and reclaim those concepts as sources of empowerment, healing, and positive change. it's the difference between damen being forced to submit to laurent as a slave in arles in book 1, and damen choosing to stay by laurent's side in book 2 as a man. it's the difference between laurent submitting to his uncle, being manipulated into vulnerability so he can degraded and abused, and submitting to damen, making himself vulnerable despite his trauma so he can be truly loved and cared for.

this isn't a fully formed thesis yet, but it's good to at least get it cooking. and i'm not trying to guess the author's intention as much as summarize my own succinct interpretation. there isn't, like, One Right Answer here, and i'm not setting out to read the author's mind.

but still, i dunno, man… i think i'm onto something. after all, we have these major arcs about damen realizing slavery is wrong and laurent struggling with submission, and yet both of them proudly choose to keep the cuffs. and in a more metatextual sense, the evolution of this story's genre and purpose (slavekink erotica -> whatever the fuck these books are) is not irrelevant. so i'll keep an eye on it, and hopefully come up with something solid by the end of the re-read. i unironically love the challenge of writing a succinct thesis, which is not the nerdiest thing i've ever said, but it's definitely in the top 5.

[friendlybowlofsoup]

Another Update

Hello Friends,

I have a rather long (but optimistic!) update to share with you all today. As many of you are probably tired of reading these kind of posts, I have a TL;DR here, but I did want to share what has been on my mind in that past half-year that I haven't been here.

It has been rough, and busy as always, but I think I'm finally facing myself and my project for the first time in a very long time.

TL;DR (it's actually long, I have a lot to say (*_ _)人)

I soul-searched and decided to stop compromising on my own feelings with regards to this project. I gave in to everything I wanted to do.

Plot changes, which means some character changes, which means some of the demo is outdated.

GotRM will be switching over to Twine.

----

OH MAN DID I SUFFER THE LAST FEW MONTHS

After my previous update, I hunkered down and really analyzed how I wanted to proceed with GotRM as a project. Because even prior to that post, I had already been going through long periods of hiatuses (which you are all aware of), and while I didn't lie about school taking up my time, I was also harboring a growing dissatisfaction with my own writing that really killed my progress for a long time.

So after everything had settled, I sat down and forced myself to peel apart my work. I know I said I would answer asks, but I uninstalled all of my social media and put aside this blog to focus. I made a note of all the things I liked and didn't like, and I made a list of things I wanted to change or improve on. The biggest point was that I also looked at my efficiency during actual writing sessions: how much of my time was spent writing vs. fighting with code? How could I change that?

And after a lot of deliberation, I figured there were a few things I had to change from the ground up, summed up in four points:

My working style was super incompatible with grad school. I can't spend 20-30 minutes scrolling up and down CSIDE checking code or looking for narratives while also jumping between chapters to make sure events line up. As this story grows, the more difficult it becomes to keep track of all the branches, so I needed an alternative working method, which I am adhering to now, and it prioritizes efficiency.

I hated the way I was tracking and coding stats in-game. I have griped so much about coding stats, and I have adhered to such a rigid style that I really felt trapped whenever I was confronted with balancing them out. So I'm throwing that to the wind and redoing how I utilize and convey them. Player-side, this decision doesn't change much since I never fully utilized stats in the demo anyway, and the stats page with indicators will still exist, but I'm getting rid of stat bars and how I treat stat checks.

The story I want to write now is different from the one I started out with. I've known for a while that GotRM was becoming far more than the tiny, wishful novella that I wrote as a teenager. I held onto that old story for a long time, but there's just so much I want to change that I realized I'd been clinging to a story I no longer enjoyed writing. So I spent the majority of the last few months rewriting GotRM from scratch. I redid some worldbuilding, I changed a lot of plot points, and I fixed a lot of characters' backstories accordingly. This meant scrapping stuff from even the demo, but that turned out to not be the biggest issue because:

I wanted to branch away from ChoiceScript. Honestly, I never really cared about getting officially published, but the camaraderie in the forums and on Tumblr were why I committed to CS and CoG. However, ultimately, I really want the functionality that other tools can offer GotRM, and so after a long internal debate, I will be switching over to Twine. Fortunately, since I was rewriting everything anyways, this has been relatively painless, and passage mapping has made everything so much neater. I am trying my best to make it up to chapter 2 before I release the new demo, so please look forwards to that!

And so yes, I am still here, chugging along.

I love this game and this story: it's been my creative escape for as long as I could remember, and you can imagine how frustrated I was when I realized I was starting to dread working on it.

I am forever learning more about myself and my writing style, and this is simply more of that journey. Thank you everyone for sticking around, for joining the discord, and for checking up on me--that I have all of you has truly been a dream.

Hopefully more updates to come soon! I understand that there may be questions about these new changes, so please ask away! I will (try) to release some asks that I've been working on in the drafts too, but I will wait until at least tomorrow to release them so that this post doesn't get drowned out immediately.

And as always, with a lot of love,

FriendlyBowlofSoup (Mei)

[psychelis-new]

pick a pile: "Your true colors - (3/7) Yellow"

take a breath and choose the photo or number that calls you the most to read a message for you from the color yellow, the third of the 7 rainbow's colors. in this serie of readings about the rainbow's colors, I will try to channel about your true colors, so to help you look inside and see your most beautiful self, appreciate yourself more and hopefully provide some type of guidance if necessary. as cindy lauper would say: "your true colors are beautiful like a rainbow", so let's look at them and hear what they have to say to you and how they (you) can help you look at things in a more positive way.

yellow is the color of intellect, happiness, optimism, confidence, power, charisma, humor, leadership (solar plexus chakra)... in this reading, I'll try to analyze this side of your character.

you can find the other colors' readings in the pacs list in my pinned post

don’t take the reading too seriously. only take what resonates with you and leave the rest. if you're not called by any pile, let this reading slid as it may not hold messages for you. if you're called by more than one pile, there may be messages in each of those piles. remember that is a general reading and some things may not resonate with you. energies can change and readings are based on present ones (as you read); you're always in charge of your life.

(photos found on unsplash)

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1 2 3 - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ -

pile 1 (pile 3 may have messages as well, if you feel called by it too you can check it)

You may try to hide yourself a bit, cause you don't feel confident enough or cause it scares you to have others around judging you. Probably you've been judged (maybe gaslighted too) a lot in your past, even on small useless stuff. You don't like to be under the spotlight, you rather stay behind the scenes, but what you don't see is how worthy and deserving of staying there in the light you actually are. You're funny and bright, but you hide behind your walls made of fears and insecurities. You don't let that cool side of yours show that often or that much. Ofc you may have blockages around trusting new people, but it's like you kind of let only a few chosen ones into your core self. Something, or better someone, or a bunch of different people and situations, may have really hurt you in the past. Probably you felt like you were treated in a special way and then you were abandoned out of nowhere, and it feels like you've been betrayed and told lies by all those people. And your mind sees that as an evidence of your fears: you're not worthy, not enough. But honestly, you can't let others decide your worth: especially those people who cannot see it or understand it fully, or treat you as you deserve or show you care and only send you mixed signals. Trust your guts: you are an amazing being. Validate your feelings, realize what you've been through, grieve about what has been but realize also that nobody has the right or power to give you a value or remove it from you. Only you can give yourself value, and you have plenty honestly. You know, I just read that elks energy's is about taking and radiating pride in the self, having perseverance, endurance, resilience and strenght to reach your dreams and seen that you have elks in your picture, you should totally start doing the same cause you can. Believe in yourself and your power more, see your real self, not what others see of you (they cannot grasp you fully anyway, especially if you don't let them in: how can they "judge" the real you?). Build a better relationship with yourself: the way you see yourself has a lot to do with your fears about others may see you. If you only see flaws in you, you may fear others will do the same (and you may unconsciously let them notice those alone as well, while there's more of you... I heard irony, so you may use that too if necessary). You don't start nor end with your flaws (which all the humans have anyway). You're much more than this. Realize it and remind yourself of the amazing soul you are. Keep doing that until you won't be scared anymore to be seen and won't run away from others but let them into your amazing world, having no fear of being seen and even "judged" for who you are. You are you, and you should never be sorry about it. Take pride in the person you are and in the fact that you are even willing to make yourself better (not for others, but only and always for yourself).

song: mammamia | maneskin; my way | frank sinatra (channeled in my mind during your reading)

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pile 2

I think you have it all: you're fun, gentle, cool, kind, a positive presence in others' lives as you're able to cheer them up pretty easily. It feels like you know what to say almost all the times, no matter what they go through. You also know how to make them think and believe in themselves more. But... you are somewhat afraid of taking charge and being that same person for yourself. It's as if you unconsciously thought of yourself as someone "less than" or... you're too focused on others that you forget about yourself or end up having not much time left for you. That's not good. Ofc, you're doing an amazing job and all the ones that happen to be in contact with you, even to exchange only a few words, may feel relieved, happy and glad that you're around (you may be able to grasp the smallest change in someone's mood or energy and kinda know what's the matter without even talking, you know how to adapt to the other person -despite at times you may overthink a little too much and let your mind wander and get to a point where it's your fears talking... and basically misinterpret it all). We're all thankful for you being around btw. But you need to value yourself as much as you do with others, to give yourself the same amount of attention and support and time. You need time for yourself, for your hobbies, for anything you want. Maybe your boundaries need to "level up" (I literally heard a videogame music here like in Super Mario, maybe it's a sign for someone). I am not saying you need to be harsher or not help others at all, but rethink about urgencies and priorities. Evaluate situations better: sometimes we perceive an urgency in an answer we need to give when actually there's none. It's just our need to be of help asap talking and fearing the other will feel let down (maybe you felt/feel the same) while in reality we're just asking for a little break to regain our energies (which you totally can do: just openly tell the other). Actually, thinking it over a little more and taking our time, can also let us be more accurate and find better words to understand the other and explain ourselves. And maybe will help also the other person to calm down and gain another point of view too in the meantime (sometimes people just want to be listened to and feel seen/acknowledged... I know you know, I'm only reminding you). It also seems like you're waiting for something to happen and you're not really going after what you want by taking charge. Maybe you don't know how and that's fine. It will come to you the moment you try to focus on yourself again a bit more (if you first think about others' problems, you cannot focus on yours accurately). I think you have all you need to make it, but sometimes you don't believe this, you don't believe in yourself... Start believing in your power, plan things for you too, be your own cheerleader as well, not just others'. You need yourself more than anyone else. Ofc, others may need you too, but they can rely on more sources and on themselves as well in the meantime. Give yourself the things you want as well. (I think this pile could also have some people pleasing and codependency tendencies, but maybe not everyone: most of you are a very giving person and may get carried away with it -meditate on this though). Also you have time, the right amount of time you need to do everything, for yourself and others too... just schedule it better. Be more in control of it. Do not wait for others to take control of your life or tell you what to do, do not wait for things to happen to you, go after them and make them happen. Take yourself to the other side of the window from which you're looking at your life. Be the protagonist of your story. You can and honestly have to: you deserve that for yourself.

song: come away with me | norah jones; the silence | manchester orchestra (it popped up)

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pile 3 (pile 1 may have messages as well, if you feel called by it too you can check it)

Pile 3 you're pretty smart, probably you have lot of air placements in your chart, but even if you haven't, you do appear as someone cultured and book-smart/well-read as well. You may love to read or gather infos/learn here and there about any random subject. Your mind is well structured and if you put it to something, you know you can reach amazing results (at times you just tend to not do that out of laziness? lol I understand). There's some type of confidence here anyway which is very good. I'd say you're pretty analytical. But it feels that this is also "your cage", or has become this. Maybe you feel like people mostly uses you for your knowledge and your abilities to solve problems or find solutions, and after that you're left alone. Or you use this side of yours as a way to hide your more emotional self (you deal with emotions through your analytical mind, which is not that bad per se, it could be a way to start). You may feel a bit lost on how to relate with others. It feels like... you don't know how to manage your emotions well, you shy away when it comes to express anything emotional. You don't know how to deal and express them properly. Maybe you fear being too much at times, and be seen as too much or made fun of. It's like, you don't know well this "emotional world" or how to navigate it, and you feel more at ease and in control in the analytical world, where "things have strict rules", or something like that. You know you can't mess up things there, while relationships may sound a bit scary and make you feel a bit lost. Try to work on the relationship with yourself, to know your emotional self first. To let yourself see yourself. It's nothing too scary: don't you know that math is the base of everything in life? (And yeah, if you don't like it or don't get it much, by any chance, it's cause of this too... dw).

But anyway, you're smart, you can find the key to your emotions as well and you can learn to relate with them and talk with them and about them with others too. You only need to work on that a little more and... to let go of your control a little more. Make mistakes even (which you may fear a lot: but they're part of learning, remember?). Emotions are about this too: letting go, letting yourself feel them and experience them without any fear or restriction. Emotions aren't as structured as you'd like them to, but they're complex. And I think you may enjoy complex things (probably you like to solve puzzles or something like that, maybe you enjoy detective movies/series or anything of that kind), so work on emotions with your analytical mind this way. You can do that too to start with, as mentioned above. And the moment you'll realize there's nothing really scary about them and you can process them with your mind to transform them into feelings (you can control your feelings based on your experience and perception and explain them to you), you'll be able to let them flow through yourself, your body in particular too. Don't be scared to feel, you are able to find solutions about that too so trust yourself on this. Be more positive about this experience and about yourself (I think you are a positive person, you just feel a bit insecure at times when you don't know where to put your mind to or when there aren't determined rules to follow -which yeah emotions don't have). And if you cannot navigate this world alone, find someone else that can help you. You don't have to sail on that boat by yourself. Or you can read books on this matter (especially psychology stuff I hear?). Don't be scared of being in touch with yourself and get even more in touch with others. Let them guide you too if you need. Maybe you're a bit shy or really fear being seen on an emotional level at times or being made fun of for something (? Only stupid people would and that's not the type of people you need in your life anyway), but there's nothing to fear. Just try. You're cute btw, I bet all the people around you find you cute too, even if they don't tell you. Rebalance yourself by finding your own power also in the things you don't know well and don't feel confident into. Confidence can come later in those too.

song: touch | yoshimi iwasaki; what makes you beautiful | one direction (others had 2 so... here's your second as well)

[vicholas]

i can't remember which page exactly but before october 7 one of wikipedia's pages on israel-palestine conflict had a section continually stressing how many Poor Israelis have died but another page linked in that same section showed statistics clearly displaying the far higher rates of death for palestinians. been wary of wikipedia's handling of this topic since

It's pretty bad, I only learned today that their official policy is to use the term "Israel-Hamas war" :|

It's extremely easy to exploit Wikipedia's guidelines regarding sources and 'neutrality' to endorse fascist bias. Wikipedia's bureaucratic system just makes it harder to fight against that because they make it harder to change that status quo when the biased version is considered the neutral one.

This person in that one discussion page put it well:

How do you take a stance in neutrality when you're convering a conflict in a world of biased journalism? What is the use of having a list of "reliable sources" for Wikipedia if those sources are unreliable in a specific topic? Wikipedia admins are too spineless to take strong stances in things like these, regardless of importance or consequences. That's how you get the right wing taking advantage of that.

Even a decision as simple as "The BBC is a reliable source when it comes to X topics but when it comes to Y it should be analyzed how it handles the topic, rather than taken as gospel just because it's the BBC" is too complicated and how their policy of reliable sources works. The BBC either is entirely reliable in everything or it is not.

It's particularly irritating seeing people in the discussion page saying stuff like "we can't call it massacre because we have to wait first for media to agree on how to call it". You can't preach about being all about neutrality and they say that you aren't allowed to call a person killing another 'a murder' unless the news explicitly used the word murder.

But that's not the Wikipedia way of seeing "neutrality". The Wikipedia definition of neutrality is this:

And it's worse because Wikipedia's influence in the world means that whatever they call the page has a strong chance of increasing the usage of the name of their choice. But somehow I feel like Wikipedia admins have no conscience on how much they affect bias.

So of course people who want the article to be named 'incident' instead of 'massacre' insist on keeping the 'incident' title "just for now" and wait to see what terms ends up more commonly used. Because of course the term that Wikipedia uses will bring more search results over time.

They know it and they exploit Wikipedia's system of bureaucracy by making the title changing discussions go on forever so it keeps making this the common term.

Sorry if I sound insane I need people to understand how frustrating the inner workings of Wikipedia are and how people exploit the flaws in the system for their own gains and Wikipedia admins are too incompetent to even admit this is a problem.

A lot of us who grew up with the internet didn't even get to know physical encyclopedias and thus the Wikipedia model has been kinda internalized as the only way to handle encyclopedic knowledge, but god this isnt normal. A historian has to take stances towards biased sources and analyze them in order to reach conclusions rather than relying on a list of "trusted" secondary sources as gospel truth. An encyclopedia writer should be no different! The whole model is wrong.

[chakotaybodypillow]

sorry yall for not posting about my Chakotay stuff ☹️ even though i said i wanted to get as much out before school started, Ive taken a bit of a turn on that for a few reasons.

I really wanted to start by addressing and sharing info about the Nicarao, but I wanted to provide more information than what was available with a quick google search, and tbh, it has proven to be difficult. I've been able to find some solid research backed with sources so I'm working on summarizing that, but I want to languish over the material so I can fully grasp the historical context being discussed. Its mentioned several times in the book I've chosen to read that the research is a difficult mosaic. So its taking me several reads to digest the series of events listed. It's a lot but not that much a at the same time. Ive had to expand my readings to encompass the entirity of Central America as well as Mexico.

Unfortunately the amount of contemporary ethnographic research of the Indigenous people of the Rivas is also very very limited. Which is disappointing :/ from what I've read the Nicarao as a group are extinct. So I've also had to shift my focus to groups that are still active to get a better understanding of the Native populations.... its a lot and i more than likely will post in chunks as i take in more information. So when i finally do make the first post it will be a small historic break down of theories and studies about the arrival of the Nahuas to Nicaragua :)

Also....off topic i had a discussion with my editor (my mom) after i posted my topics and she told me that i had essentially created an outline for a master's thesis 😅... and that posting it publicly was a mistake 😅😅... bc now it cant be considered my research😅😅😅 ....... She was telling me to consider making this into real academic research and we discussed the different methods of pop culture research and such. Ive considred making this into something bigger, but idk. it would make all of this worthwhile, but im also kinda insecure about this .

But to clarify i use the terms "thesis" or "research" lightly. While yes ive done research, i dont plan to make this a formal thing when i post to tumblr and elsewhere, just to stay on the safe side. I guess I'll make this more of a blog where i discuss my thoughts and address concerns rather than dive into these super academic discussions.

I just want to encourage others to think critically about chakotays portrayal and possibly lay down a framework for his background story. I only intend to speak on things that i feel comfortable speaking on as a poc analyzing anither poc character and will avoid some indigenous specific perspectives.

so yeah school starts for me soon and i'm going to be hemmed up with that, but im excited becasue im taking some classes that will help me with the chakotay topics hehe.

thanks for listening to my yap session! Im almost done with the summarizing and hope to post a little bit soon :D

[lorynna]

Please understand I am writing this from a position of genuine curiosity and not one of malice.

I saw your response to the anon talking about their aroace friend and you both agreed that asexuality is being “muddied” by people who identify as asexual since there’s so much variation between them.

I am honestly quite confused as to why you are dictating the definitions of lived experiences you don’t share. Why do you have to decide how people feel and perceive their feelings if those are completely separate people than you?

Is it truly your business to decide how labels should be applied if you aren’t the one using them? As an asexual, the way you discuss my identity dismisses me and other asexuals as people, because you make assumptions about what and how we should be feeling. It feels dehumanizing.

Again…I write this with no malice, I just don’t understand your position on this matter.

Hello anon.

My response to the other anonymous person submitting an ask involved both of us agreeing about the fact that those labels are hard to get taken seriously due to a lot of people either trying to weaken the definition of asexuality/aromanticism by widening it until cinderella's unique custom-designed shoe is a one-size-fits-all, (in other words:) it completely looses it's meaning and can be applied to the average person or a person who simply has a low sex drive and/or are following a trend, where it "seems cool and quirky" to pick out a label and make it your entire personality until you get tired of it and need to get something new.

Touching on your comment implying that I am calling this term (who in my opinion has become useless due to the above mentioned reasons) as me not rejecting the label therefore but because "there is so much variation between asexual/aromantic people". Which is just...sigh.

I don't think I have to point out that the reasons (again, listed above), that I have also stated in multiple of my takes about this subject, don't indicate any sort of valid variation but the broadening of a simple term until it is applicable to the average person who "sometimes does not feel like having sex" or "feels like not having a relationship for some time in their lives".

Now a counter question. Am I really dictating the definitions of lived experiences I don't share (like you claim) or am I simply talking about my opinion? What power do I have to truly dictate how someone can/has to label themselves? Suprise: I don't! People can continue to pick labels how they please and I can give my opinion accordingly, how I please.

I am challenging you to try and analyze if I am truly trying to be malicious towards actual asexuals/aromantics or if I am just fed up by everything getting used as a trendy label or people pretending to "be cool". I am challenging you to form an opinion on wether or not I am truly coming from a place of hate or rather constructive criticism. And I am challenging you to not see everything that defies your worldview as hate. Opinions are like assholes, everyone has them and sometimes they stink!

My favorite saying : You cannot define something, without actually excluding anyone from said definition. To defines means to limit and that's okay, that is essential. Otherwise words, labels, definitions, it all means nothing. To open the doors to everyone means to protect no one.

I would encourage you (if you are really interested in my take on the topic) to take a look into my pinned post, where I am talking about this more intrinsically. I'll link it here down below.

Also linking here now below the question of another anon that THIS anon is referring to.

[subzeroparade]

Im playing my first NG+ and it’s striking to me how bustling and alive Yarnam is while the sun is still up. The people scoff at you, outsider. The residents of Cathedral Ward are grateful, so grateful, to the church. You’re known as a hunter, smelled through the grime of beasts and blood and incense. You talk to someone; they respond with sanity. It’s so striking, to be part of a breathing world again, after the loneliness of the endgame after everyone is either gone or lost their minds, and the silence oppresses with its emptiness. Anyways. I can’t stop thinking about that relationship between Yarnam, its people, its powers, and you — the hunter. One of many. A slice of society. So many details stick out: the hunter chief emblem shows that hunting is an old tradition. Gilbert mentions that Odeon Tomb is in a more colorful part of town, and while you’re there, you can see how it’s more charred, from the Old Yarnam fire. A new lore video on the archeology of Yarnam analyzed the previous religion of the city, on its focus on motherhood. How base, and material, and bodily, this whole idea of divine ascension is. I saw a post on how Yarnam was possibly attempted to be evacuated— luggage and bottles of blood left everywhere, as if in a hurry. How few houses are occupied, how few people there are left— and despite Eileen’s assertion, there are a few left. Who here is the list one?

I so want to write about this — the relationship of the city to all of what’s going on. The perspective of a resident on these new foreign hunters. The betrayal of the church, sequestering itself beyond the Great Bridge. The way that this is just another hunt, we know how to do this. But it isn’t. We all know it isn’t.

I don’t know if I will espouse on this, but I love love love how you get into this in your Cainhurst execution fic. The tension between plebeian living and aspirational authority — its fascinating, especially in a place as fucked as this city.

Anyways. It’s 3 am. I think I’ve put my thoughts on a page. I hope to maybe elaborate of them further. But I wanted someone else to see them too. Thank you, for reading.

I wanted to actually share and respond to this because you’ve hit on some juicy stuff that I absolutely agree with. I’d never thought about the passage between endgame Yharnam and dusk Yharnam - which seems appropriately cyclical, if you think about it - but the difference, as you said, is stark. Even then, dusk Yharnam is still bathed in this sepia hue. It’s bleak, and grimy, and the air is full of smoke and soot and the smell of singed fur and gunpowder; the cries of beasts and the sounds of men having their last mindless hurrah before they too succumb. It’s “bustling”, but it’s still hellish, and grim. One of the reasons I love writing pre-Church and Church heyday is because if you rewind enough, you may, with a bit of effort, picture Yharnam as something other than depressingly dried-blood brown - green, even, with new marble, and polished white and yellow cobblestones. Glass and iron and slate and avenues lined with flowering trees, and the sounds of market and the clatter of carriages and all these things that become the drone of a lively city rather than the prelude to something coming to kill you. Surely there were bleaker sides of Yharnam, even in its heyday, as with most major cities - but the threats are different. Night is different. The smells are different. Everything is a little less stained, in all possible senses of the word. It’s also such a fascinating contrast to wonder how long people sat idly with the Church’s assurances before they decided “okay, that’s it, we leave tonight.” It seems like there might have been an event or two that triggered an exodus, or attempted flight by the cityfolk - and most didn’t make it out, as you rightly note, based on the scattered remnants of objects clearly intended for travel. It’s interesting to mull over what event(s) might have triggered that tipping point, for the people to finally ignore the Church and its Hunters’ calls to calmly lock their doors, and instead try their luck on the road. It’s certainly good fodder for a fic.   

Thanks for the kind words about my work - I’ll deal with some late-Church timeline soon enough, especially in two upcoming fics. But your point about the “perspective of a resident on new foreign hunters [and] the betrayal of the Church” is a really nice prompt, and you should write about it!

Hope you don’t mind me sharing your 3am rant lmao but I appreciated it. I don’t have any worthwhile WIPs to share atm, so please accept this Bloodborne-specific corner of a collaborative whiteboard session from a while ago (full disclosure idk why the elden ring crab is there but enjoy).  

[cloudmonarch43]

[ID in alt text, repeated below the cut]

My to-watch list is pretty short now and it's not especially satisfying to write about movies while trying not to say too much about what happens in them, plus I barely like Instagram anymore (where these posts are focused), so it'll probably at least be a while before there's another post like this. But never you think that I don't want to talk about movies!! (Oops, I never noticed I wrote the wrong year for Alien. It's right in the alt text because I typed it all first and then copied it down!)

Image 1:

Saw (2004) is a very silly movie that manages to stay enjoyable the whole way through. Aside from a few good bits, I didn't like Saw II (2005). There were too many characters, underdeveloped, so that even in context it just felt cruel to kill them off. I like engaging with the mechanisms of the games, and yeah the point of the games is violence, but the second movie felt like it didn't care about the game part. It made some good moves as a sequel, but the first one was a lot more fun.

Rather than telling me a story, Dirty Dancing (1987) felt like it was telling me about a story. I liked watching the dancing, and I liked the story that was being summarized, so I liked the movie, but it was strange how much of it just felt like information. Even though the plot was a bit convenient, the great variety of relationships made it feel like a genuine world.

The first time I watched I Saw the TV Glow (2024), I didn't know what I was in for; I kind of stumbled home in a daze of delight and sadness. Movies are such a capacious medium and I love it when that potential is actually used. It also feels good to watch something where the queer interpretation is not just a side effect yet it's still abstract and metaphorical.

We're All Going to the World's Fair (2021) is a super effective movie about watching other people's videos. In reviews I saw, I thought people credited it with a lot that wasn't actually there—only a place was set, which the viewer automatically filled. It didn't resonate with me as much, but I think it's cool to be put through the same sort of process as the characters.

[pencil sketch for Dirty Dancing of Johnny and Baby dancing]

Image 2:

Pretty much everything I wrote in my journal about The Sixth Sense (1999) is using it as a comparison to clarify other things, so I don't know what to say about it on its own. I enjoyed watching it.

After that I rewatched some stuff.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) is great. It really lets you sink in, and there's a lot to sink into, both visually and conceptually.

Blade Runner (1982) seemed more self-contained and a lot easier to follow this time through. I liked it overall but it's so bleak. I guess it's supposed to make me think about what it means to be human but "either you're a cop or a little guy" is the undisputed thesis statement I heard.

The Thing (1982) remains one of my top favorite movies (which is a list I haven't written, but "I Saw the TV Glow" is on it too). I hadn't even remembered a solid half of the great special effects moments because there's just so many.

Alien (1979) didn't work out as well. I still think it's a good movie, but it turns out a lot of what I liked about it was the suspense that doesn't hold up when I know what's going to happen. I know people love to analyze this movie but it's just not catching me that way.

Challengers (2024) is all about three random people I don't have any reason to care about... plus I don't care about tennis. It's not really my kind of movie. That said, it's just about as satisfying as it could possibly be.

[pencil sketch for 2001: A Space Odyssey of an EVA pod]

Image 3:

Pulse (2001) is really sad. What if the loneliness was never ending! It's a high quality, coherent representation, and then it just exists and there's nothing you can do about it. (Also it definitely should have been called Circuit.)

I watched Happy Death Day (2017) because I love time loops a lot. It didn't give me more than that, but it was easy enough to sit through. I think it could've pushed its concepts further but at least it didn't fall apart.

Of course then I had to rewatch Groundhog Day (1993), which I'd mostly forgotten, and I was delighted to discover that this movie rocks. It's efficient, covering a lot of ground without feeling distant or dense, and it really felt convincing.

Nightcrawler (2014) is brutal, unforgiving, and a great movie. Lou isn't a defeatable villain; he's a concentration. This movie refuses to lie, and that feels good even though the things it's saying don't.

[pencil sketch for Pulse of Ryosuke kneeling next to Harue, who is hugging herself]

[liesmyth]

Do you have any recommendations for feminist theory books?

genuinely I'm not as well versed on it as I'd like to be! I mostly read, like "contemporary mainstream" books rather than academic lit — currently I am reading delusions of gender by Cordelia Fine which is very good but it's taking me literal months because I need to stop in between chapters and yell a bit. as one does.

anyway. speaking of more academic-ys stuff: this is a cool reading list I'm working my way through. my all-time favourite work of feminist theory I've read was sister outsider by audre lorde, which should also be on that list iirc, or at least some essays from it.

also copypasting the OP note from that reading list because I think this is a very important context note that people often forget when it comes to academic & historical feminist writing lmao. especially on this website

I urge you to be highly critical of all of these authors. Take notes. Write a rebuttal and reason why you are opposed to or concerned about the aspects of some theories. Compare one author to another. Write down key notes that you find profound or impactful on how you think about something, and reason why. Analyze key points and think about how they can be expanded on and applied to current events. Write down a list of further questions to research later.

[fatalism-and-villainy]

I've been trying to comment more habitually on others' fic on ao3, because I know I really appreciate it when people comment on my stuff. Unfortunately I just... find commenting on ao3 actively unpleasant a lot of the time. The expected register and style just does not align with my natural way of expressing myself in writing.

I think specifically, I have a lot of trouble exuding enthusiasm while also being in more of an analytical commentary mode. This is a problem for me in tumblr posts as well - when I'm talking about a piece of media, it's much easier for me to analyze it in a "neutral" mode (even if I'm not critiquing or saying anything negative) than to analyze why I enjoyed it, because the latter just seems to involve listing disparate elements that landed for me or affected me without drawing any kind of analytical conclusions from that. And I find that form of self-expression feels kind of insincere? Like, even if the enthusiasm itself is sincere - which it generally is, if I'm commenting on a fic at all - the transposition of it from my head to text just makes it feel affected.

I feel most comfortable, most like myself in writing when I'm sharing ideas, or asking questions about interpretation, or discussing my own interpretation. And I find that the culture on ao3 isn't very open to that sort of thing - when I try to give more in-depth commentary on what I liked about what the author's doing in a fic, or discuss interpretations I have that I feel overlap with what they're doing in the fic, I find that authors tend not to engage very much. So it's not a very intellectually stimulating process.

When I have had interactions through ao3 comments that feel intellectually stimulating and rewarding to me, it's usually with authors I already know or have some sort of rapport with. Something about having pre-established knowledge of each other I suspect makes both of us feel more comfortable emoting at each other and sharing ideas. But ao3 just does not feel like a great place to establish that rapport. Or rather, it could be, but the current culture there does not engender that sort of thing. The culture seems to be mainly using the comment box as validation input machine for authors. And I don't feel entirely fulfilled by that sort of interaction, either as a reader or when I'm the author.

Anyway, I'm genuinely curious to know if others ever feel like this or have similar feelings of dissatisfaction with ao3 comment culture, or if this is just a me problem!