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ender-baggins · 3 years ago

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Just watched 14x13 Lebanon.

Will preface with the fact that this was a bit of my commentary on the previous episode, and that I do think John Winchester was a crap parent

Lebanon was a pretty good episode, actually. I know some people hate it, and I started off prepared to seethe every moment that John was on screen. but then I managed to get one foot out of the John-crit zone and put it in Sam and Dean’s shoes, and looking at it from both perspectives? The episode has a lot of nuance to it.

Spoilers for this 14x13 Lebanon (obviously)

Overall I think the most important thing to remember about this episode: the theme is that some things are too good to be true.

I knew which episode it was, but I was surprised because I thought it has been in season 15, and then John didn’t show up for a while, so I thought I was wrong until the Pearl came up.

I gotta hand it to Jensen. When John appeared, there were so many emotions packed into Dean’s face in that first short scene, I had to rewatch it several times to get them. Part of it was simple shock, but I could also see… something a little like panic in his face, along with Waay too many emotions for me to name.

The conversation between Sam and John was… I started off mad and then focused more on Sam’s perspective and realized that… yeah, Sam isn’t the same person he was last time he saw his dad. And he didn’t get closure. He never got a chance to get real closure on it, and then here, he did, at least in some form.

Also, interesting thing I noticed- I could see the beginnings of how it could turn into another argument, and John said something that seemed a little accusatory, “you didn’t have a problem talking about it before you left,” and then Sam was like “nope, not gonna argue, not gonna do it, REDIRECTING-“ Which, after what Dean said in the scene before—

—Sam doesn’t want to mess this up for Dean. No way is he gonna start a fight, not now, not when they just got their dad back.

I don’t like the last line of Sam and John’s conversation: “But you did your best, dad. You – you fought for us, and you loved us, and… that’s enough.” Because honestly- it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t. And… dammit he could have done better. But then again, that’s Sam’s dad, and he’s been dead for over a decade, and sometimes people tend to put rose-colored glasses on over the past. So I’ll still happily condemn John’s parenting but I won’t condemn Sam just because he’s unable to see things for what they are in this case.

Now- my absolute favorite part of this entire episode is the section of Sam and Dean going to get groceries and noticing things are changed, and realizing “oh shit, what else is different?”

One, gotta love Dean for implying that Sam being a kale nut is a worse thing than Dean being considered a serial killer by society (which, it’s not like society is wrong??). Like, ah yes, wonderful priorities there, Dean. You’re a wanted killer with your face up in the town, but clearly Sam giving a lecture about the wonders of kale is a much worse thing. (If you can’t tell, I’m being incredibly sarcastic here)

And then here. Castiel’s appearance. I was screeching watching this. Completely freaking out- so much adrenaline. I bet if I’d taken my pulse it would have been skyrocketing-

This was followed by the scene of Castiel and Zachariah in the restaurant, which was Awesome, very clearly highlighting the difference that Dean and the Winchesters made in Cas’s life (later this will be relevant in the Confession - “You changed me, Dean”).

*cue me posting an unnecessary amount of screenshots*

Castiel unfurls his wings—

(Note the messy hair from flying around everywhere. Not the same as his old haircut, but they did what they could with Misha’s hair at the time)

Notice that Dean’s got the angel blade point down, and when he attacks Castiel, he’s using the blunt end to hit him, not the sharp end

(On the other hand, Sam uses the sharp end of the blade to swipe at Castiel. No judgement from me here, Sam sees this as “not our Cas” while Dean still sees this as “my Cas, I can talk him away from Heaven again.”)

Then, the most interesting thing here- when Cas pins Dean agains the wall, Dean’s not even trying to fight Cas here.

See how his hand settles on Castiel’s chest? Not really pressing, just touching. His other hand is gripping Castiel’s wrist, I imagine to try to remove enough pressure from his neck that he can speak. Trying to use his connection to Cas to get Castiel to stop hurting him. And it doesn’t work. Castiel stares him the eyes, not even a flicker of doubt or questioning.

You’ll note that I referred to alternate Castiel in this episode as exclusively “Castiel” and not “Cas.” Because it’s not Cas. Cas is the angel that saved Dean from Hell, and the angel that’s been by Dean’s side for 11 years (at this point in time). And this Castiel has not done that. So he is not Cas.

I’m reminded of the scene wayy back in season 5 where Cas beats Dean up in the alley for trying to give up and give in to Michael. There, Dean actually encouraged Cas to kill him, at the end, and Cas softens. Can’t exactly parse out the parallels there because my brain isn’t working, but there you go.

Now, probably my favorite conversation with John is this one, with Dean.

Right here. The way that Dean says “I have a family.”

It feels almost defiant. “I do have a family. I have Sam, Cas, Mom, Jack. My mother, my brother, my best friend… and I have a son, we all have a son. And beyond that, I’ve got Jody and Donna and Claire and the girls. I do have a family. Yeah, it doesn’t look like the apple pie life, the white picket fence, wife and kids, and yeah, our son is the child of Lucifer, and yeah, I’m in love with my best friend who’s an angel in a man’s body, and I wouldn’t trade him for any woman, and you’d hate that. But they’re my family. And I’m good with that.”

It’s proud, it’s a little defiant, it’s also a little bit of a reassurance, as we see from John’s smile afterward. I don’t think John caught the hint of a challenge in there.

I loved that moment. That might be my favorite line in the entire episode. “I have a family.”

I also like… Dean’s acceptance, “I’m good with who I am.” Part of that… I think it’s both a good thing and a sad thing and also a half lie at the same time. I think he’s good with who he is, in the sense that he’s accepted that he and Sam are the people that have to fill this role in the world, y’know, saving everyone. I think he loves the people he’s with, he loves his family and wouldn’t trade them for anything, not even having John back. No way would he ever trade Cas or Jack or Sam, or Mary, for anything else, ever.

It’s sad, though, because it’s like… he can’t imagine who he’d be if he had a different life. Yes, he’s had a few runs at an apple-pie life, but they weren’t happy, there was always something wrong nagging at him. He… I think he believes there’s no way for him to be happy, and that this is the best he could have.

I’m not even sure how to analyze the goodbye scene. I mean, the clearest thing here is just so much grief from everyone. They got a taste of their father back, and now he has to go back to being dead. There’s so many complicated feelings for both of the brothers, because of the complicated relationship with John, but in the end? They can’t help but love him, and they can’t help but feel grief at losing him. I won’t fault them for that.

In short, I wanna give Dean a gigantic hug and also give him therapy-

And then Cas coming back to the bunker when he did. I bet he sensed something and headed back to the bunker as fast as he could. Also, no clue what he experienced during the whole “Castiel and Zachariah are alive” thing. I imagine it’s possible there were two Cas’s running around for a bit? Because Mary didn’t get affected by the pearl. And Sam was there with his own memories, despite there being videos up of him doing things in the parallel universe. As for Cas, he’s part of Dean’s group of “people” so my guess is two Castiels running around for a little bit.

I like how Dean looks at Cas at the end. He’s relieved to have his angel back.

In summary-

The theme of this episode is “some things are too good to be true.” John came back, the four of them got their moment together, but John couldn’t stay. Things were good for that single afternoon, because everyone was just happy to see each other again, but it sent so much stuff into chaos that it couldn’t last, it had to be undone. And even then, if they’d tried to keep going with it, I know it would have degraded, the illusion of perfection would shatter, and they’d fall into old habits, old arguments and new ones.

And so it had to end.

#THIS IS NOT JOHN APOLOGISM #JOHN IS A TERRIBLE PARENT #HE MAY HAVE APOLOGIZED BUT THAT DOESN’T ABSOLVE HIM OF HIS ACTIONS #john winchester #spn 14x13 #spn Lebanon #dean winchester #sam winchester #mary winchester #castiel #jack kline #destiel #supernatural #Ender’s musings

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opbackgrounds · 4 years ago

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so I was doing some research after watching movie 6...

...and apparently it was originally written as a comedy

Yeah, I was surprised, too

Baron Omatsuri is not my favorite One Piece movie—Film Z has too many of my favorite tropes to be usurped from that position—but I do think it is the most daring. Of all the supplemental material I’ve seen and read, it feels the least...One Piece-ish.

Yes, that includes the noodle commercials.

If you haven’t seen the movie and can stomach a little spookiness, do yourself a favor and give it a watch. Unlike movies like Strong World or Z that have the look and feel of a manga arc, Movie 6 transplants the Straw Hat Pirates into a world that doesn’t feel like a One Piece story, taking risks and exploring themes that would never fit in the manga proper.

In addition to the obvious changes in art and animation style, there are supernatural elements that don’t make sense within the One Piece world. None of the Straw Hats win a fight—Luffy included, although he is heavily implied to have killed the big bad at the end. The moral of the movie, if it can be said to have a moral, is if you lose the people closest to you, the answer is to forget about them and make new friends. The story ends with many questions left unanswered and the main drama between the crew unresolved.

And, if you allow me to get philosophical for a moment, I wish there were more movies like it. As I wrote in my review of Novel A, I don’t go to supplemental material or side stories looking for a repeat of what’s in the manga. Oda has written 1000 chapters of One Piece—why not spice things up a little and try something different for a change?

I know the answer isn’t that simple, and by their very nature not all risks will pan out. There will be people who don’t like this movie because it’s different, both in look and tone. But there’s something to be said about a creator putting their heart and soul into a work and having it show in the final product.

Which brings us back to the original premise. How does a movie go from a light-hearted comedy based on a variety show theme to...this

Baron Omatsuri was directed by Mamoru Hosoda and came out in 2005. To put that into perspective, the movie was in production when the Luffy vs Usopp fight was first seen in the manga. Manga!Luffy had not yet faced the challenge of an inter-crew disputes when the story was being written and boarded, nor did the creative team have the events of Sabaody and Marineford to see how Luffy would react to the loss of his loved ones. They were working without a full understanding of Luffy’s character, and to a lessor extent the character of the Straw Hat Pirates, and it seems like Oda was much less involved In production than has been in movies since Strong World and beyond.

Likewise, Hosoda had just left a tumultuous situation at Studio Ghibli while working on Howl’s Moving Castle, and if this interview is anything to go by (https://instrangeaeonsblog.wordpress.com/2016/04/24/mamoru-hosoda-on-omatsuri-danshaku-animestyle-interview-part-1/) was going through a lot of personal shit when he was brought on as director. The script he was given was originally written like a variety show—something that was carried over into the various trials seen in the final movie—and meant to be a lighthearted affair after the relatively serious Movie 5 (which I have not seen am thus unable to compare tone).

With that backstory in mind, it’s easy to see how the bickering and backbiting between the Straw Hats early in the movie is a metaphor for Hosoda’s time at Ghibli, which is something he admits to in the interview. Movie 6 feels different than any other One Piece movie because it’s the project of a man who has had to endure the loss of those who he was close with, at least in a professional capacity.

There are moments in Movie 6 where Luffy doesn’t feel like Luffy. More than once a member of the Straw Hats ask him to intervene during arguments, moments Luffy either ignores or doesn’t notice. It’s a version of Water 7 where instead of fighting Usopp, Luffy ignores the underlying differences within his crew, and as a result loses everybody.

The structure of the three trials follows a clear path of deterioration within the crew, the initial goldfish scooping game showing the Straw Hats at their best and inciting the jealousy of the Baron, the ring toss sowing discord among the crew even as they snatch a narrow victory, only for them to be utterly crushed in the third and final challenge as they’re unable help one another survive.

It is somewhat implied that the Breaking of the Fellowship(TM) is magical in nature—that like the One Ring, the Lily Carnation was able to influence the Straw Hat’s thoughts and actions, but this is never stated outright and I prefer the more mundane interpretation: That without strong leadership the Straw Hats fell victim to the manipulative machinations of the Baron, and simply self-destructed as a result. In the end, it’s up to the interpretation of the viewer.

And speaking of things up to interpretation, I love how the Lily Carnation isn’t explained in the slightest. The plant that initially absorbs the Straw Hats looks more like the stem of a devil fruit than a flower, it for some reason rings like a gong when hit, and somehow is able to turn pieces of itself into facsimile of the Baron’s old crew who can somehow move around despite being plans. It’s weird, it’s wonderful, and the element of the unknown works so well in the horror-lite setting.

My personal theory is the island somehow managed to eat a devil fruit which manifests itself as the Lily Carnation (which due to the L/R conflation in Japanese, is pronounced ‘reincarnation’, which I think is a nice touch of foreshadowing that may or may not have been intentional).

(Also, I can’t decide if little chewing animation it makes when it’s eating people or the weird bullseyes it makes when shit gets real are the most terrifying thing in the movie.)

Hmmm, tasty.

Anyway, this is getting long, so here are some final thoughts:

1) This movie has some low key fantastic outfits. The Straw Hats all look very cool without being over designed like a lot of recent movies. Big hat Robin is of course a fave, and makes me really want to see her in a Carmen Sandiego getup.

2) Screenshots do not do the animation of the movie justice. It’s very fluid and has a lot of excellent expressions/poses, although I admit the 3D is jarring at times. Do not let the art put you off if you haven’t seen it

3) Also, I don’t think there’s any shading? Like at all? The movie does a lot of cool stuff with color instead. For example, the scene where Luffy initially loses to the Baron his skin goes all grey, and I thought it was because he was fighting at night, but it stays grey even in the better lighting of the underground tunnels and stays that way until he finds out the Straw Hats are still alive, where it returns to his normal color

4) There’s an extended Benny Hill-type gag when Luffy first chases after the little mustache pirate that’s perfectly timed to the music, and ends when Luffy just uses his power to grab him. The comedic timing is amazing and it’s probably my favorite funny moment in the movie, of which there are several despite the overall darker tone

5) The extended jungle shot from Nami’s POV? Very cool

6) I love how from the earliest scenes nothing is as it seems. The opening text is Robin reading the map, but the storm that’s seen on screen is the one that sank the Baron’s crew. Likewise the whole fancy city is shown to be fake panels early on, the goldfish catching game is a trap, etc., etc. It does a good job clueing the viewer in early that’s something’s very wrong on the island, even if they don’t realize it at first

7) I don’t think this type of movie would work in modern One Piece without somehow nerfing Luffy. Horror works best when the protagonist is weak and vulnerable, and that fits best with a pre-Gear 2/3 Luffy (same with the rest of the crew, tbh. I was waiting for Nami to use her lightning stick during the games, forgetting it hadn’t been boosted yet).

8) I like how there are four captains on the island representing different levels of loss—the Baron has lost his crew and wants to destroy all others because of it, mustache pirate lost his crew and is willing to put it behind him to make new friends, Luffy has freshly lost his crew and hasn’t decided what path he will go, and coward dad hasn’t lost his crew yet but is at risk if he doesn’t change his cowardly ways

9) I think the reason why Chopper was the first Straw Hat to disappear is he’s the most likely to play the part of peacemaker. He’s also the only crew member needing rescuing at the end of the goldfish scoop game, when Luffy foolishly puts his life at risk trying to save him from drowning, just like he recklessly charges the Baron at the end of the movie. Except that time there was no Sanji to save him, leaving Luffy to get his ass thoroughly kicked

10) This is a very good Halloween movie, and I’m glad I watched it in October

#opbackgrounds #long post #movie 6 #review #one piece #Baron Omatsuri

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strawberry1212 · 4 years ago

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Asian drama female lead passivity

I feel like a lot of aspects of female lead (FL) passivity is discussed (the fish kiss being the most famous example), but I wanted to systematically analyze each trope under the theory of female passivity and its feminist implications.

This topic has been stuck in my mind ever since I read a blog years ago (literally like six years ago so I’m sorry I have no idea where it is, I can’t link it) talking about how intimacy in Asian dramas is always portrayed as something women relent to giving up half-heartedly, and men one sidedly pursue. Women are chaste, men are lustful, and women are yielding to men, that is the essential message.

This dynamic plays out in Western media as well--the movie Don Jon is a super interesting analysis comparing how women are indoctrinated by romcoms, to how men are indoctrinated by porn. So women attach grand romantic gestures and romantic commitment to their self worth, because that’s what the girl gets in her happy ending, while men attach it to sexual prowess/having women do kinky sexual favors.

This dynamic is super harmful because it works to suppress female sexuality, as well as male emotionality. People are always surprised when a woman would rather just want sex (or a career) over a romantic commitment. And men are applauded for having the bare minimum of emotional awareness because it’s so rare.

I think a form of Asian drama female lead (FL) passivity that is most talked about is the infamous “fish kiss.” See exhibit A:

The guy initiates the kiss on the usually unsuspecting girl, as if the girl ever going in for the kiss herself would be too sexually aggressive. And as if even enjoying the kiss would be too much, they have her just stand there eyes wide open. It’s awkward, and even slightly funny to watch, but our critique often ends here. But I think the fish kiss is a symptom of a much deeper problem.

You will notice that female lead passivity is present in all physical interactions between the romantic interests.

The pull in hug:

Which sometimes the FL looks uncomfortable to frightened in:

I even found a meme, so I know I’m not the only who thinks this is weird:

(meme/photo credit: https://goliath1357.tumblr.com/post/27115253892/kdramareasons-awkward-one-sided-hugs-k-drama)

What I don’t like about this trope is first of all, it makes female consent seem less romantic. It romanticizes this idea of male pursuit/female passivity, the man will protect her, the man will pursue her (basically like an object), the man will do all the work in making the relationship progress, etc., and it romanticizes this dynamic to women--this is easy to romanticize for us, because to the most of us that aren’t being constantly pursued by two hot men, this pursuit dynamic seems like a dream boat. Often the kdrama female lead (due to the Initial Misunderstanding trope) will even dislike and push away the male lead--and yet he still pursues her, how romantic! -_- Except in real life, the guy aggressively pursuing you and ignoring you disinterest is not romantic.

And the issue is on both sides, because it teaches women to just stand there, not express consent, and not express sexual/intimacy enthusiasm when we’re feeling it (that would be ~unladylike~). And on the other side, it teaches men to do all the pursuing and to assume that a girl standing frozen, wide eyed, and often looking scared as you kiss her, is consent. Sometimes the guy even interprets a clear “no” as consent. (Honestly I’m not even sure if these Asian drama writers are thinking along the lines of “xyz is consent,”...like I’m not sure how often they even think of the concept of consent tbh.)

But anyways, passivity. is not. consent!!!! That’s why we have the slogan “Yes mean yes,” meaning both parties must have enthusiastic, clear consent, for respectful intimacy. Asian dramas discourage women from expressing an enthusiastic “yes,” and it teaches men not to expect this “yes,” so they can steamroll past passivity and even rejection.

And I know some people will be boohooing me on this. “But sudden kisses and hugs are so romantic!” people will say. But what is “romantic,” like many things, is a social construct. We think things are romantic because they’ve always been presented to us as romantic, with swelling music in the background and the implicit understanding that anything is ok because they are Soulmates(TM) that end up happy together. We construct our idea of what is romantic largely out of media.

But that is not real life, and carrying those messages over to real life (as we inevitably all do), is dangerous. I just moved to Japan so this especially hits close to home for me: I dress conservatively by American standards, but I couldn’t bring a quarter of my clothes when I moved because I worried men on trains would interpret them as revealing, and therefore I would be “asking for it.” I, and I’m sure many women will feel me on this, think about and fear sexual assault very often. And when we don’t enshrine active consent, we perpetuate rapist culture.

Since “romantic” is anything our society constructs it to be, let’s romanticize enthusiastic consent! (like this NCT song!!) I think sudden kisses can be cute when you’ve established boundaries that it’s is ok, but it scares me that men and women are watching this and thinking suddenly kissing a person you haven’t discussed boundaries/intimacy with at all is cute. It’s all fun and games when it’s the hot male lead kissing the girl you know he’s going to end up with, but it’s not cute when it’s real life men thinking they’re entitled to women’s bodies.

Other examples of female passivity:

I stopped watching Moonlight Drawn over the Clouds at precisely this scene:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6I0WXeD-dc&ab_channel=KBSWORLDTV

because it was so painful to watch her sitting there like a fish as the guys got these cool fight scenes. Like girllll literally do anything, throw a rock, something! First dramas routinely disable the female characters by making the male characters the able fighters, but even if you’re not an able fighter you can do more than just sit there like a lame duck -_- Especially the parts of these scenes where someone is standing over the girl with the sword and the writers don’t give the girl the presence of mind to simply run away, but they give the guy the presence of mind to somersault into the room, jump over ten monkey bars, slash the antagonist, and catch the girl bridal style on his way down. I guess the damsel in distress trope is as old as the book, but just the complete passivity so many female characters show in fight scenes as they need to be saved is really annoying and disempowering.

I think the worst part is their faces, they’re all like omg! this is so sad!

well girl you could have done literally ANYTHING other than sit there as he took ten bullets for you lmao. Women don’t exist to stand by and be saved!!! This is a historical drama but the modern drama version is when the guy is getting beat up by bullies or whatever and the girl just stands by and does nothing but look upset.

Another good trope that is under this passivity theme is the double wrist grab, where we not only have ONE male lead (ML) manhandling the FL, but TWO MLs. Ahh yes the only thing better than forcibly ignoring consent and the FL’s wishes is TWO men doing it.

I heard this recently even happened in True Beauty...which...that drama...truly I thought Kdramas were progressing until I saw how much people were hyping up that mess of misogyny (not to mention how boringly predictable it was).

I can’t quite express this next trope in a screenshot, but something I also see a lot of is the ML professing his love to the FL and she sort of just stands there like O_O. Like she’s just sort of this object that sits there being admired? It’s just such an unnatural way to react to someone professing their love for you, and these scenes drag on for many minutes of just the ML’s dialogue so the female actress, having no lines, has no choice but to sit there O_O. Like give her lines! Give her reactions! Give her anything other than being wide eyed!!!!

And these physical interactions represent deeper emotional passivity in the female lead.

I’ve noticed it’s almost always the trend of the male lead falls later, but falls harder, and ultimately he puts more energy into making the relationship progress. Again, this buys into female fantasy, but it is an unhealthy fantasy that is grounded, I think, in our insecurities, and our fear of putting ourselves out there (so we would rather have someone pursue us than put ourselves out there and meet someone halfway).

This emotional passivity is why, weirdly enough, sometimes I will really like the drama because the girl is very stubbornly, openly, and aggressively pursuing the guy. A case of this is Itazura na Kiss, or Mischievous Kiss (there’s a Jdrama, Kdrama, and anime--I only watched the anime). Now the guy is downright meannnnn in Mischievous Kiss, this was not a healthy relationship at all, but there was something refreshing about the girl. Sure her aggression was in pursuing a man, but at least it was aggression, and I’d always only seen any hint of female sexuality/actively pursuing as something very stigmatized.

I think a sister trope to the passivity trope is the innocence trope. The guy will literally take the initiative to profess his undying love to the FL and she’ll be like “what?? omg stop teasing you’re joking ahahha.” Why do FLs need to be so oblivious/innocent? I think it caters to the way media is seen through a male gaze but that’s a trope to deconstruct another time.

#feminism #asiandrama #jdrama #kdrama #cdrama #kdrama tropes #kdrama analysis #kdrama feminism

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murfeelee · 4 years ago

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Simblr Asks - TS3

Saw these questions by Teauke on my dash, and y’all know I love talking/ranting about The Sims; let’s go! ^0^

1. how big is your mods folder?

That’s my mods folder with only mods/hacks/overrides; no CAS or build/buy CC installed. It’s a miracle that nothing conflicts, at least not as far as I can tell.

2. how would you describe your style? A sporadic mix of tv/gaming fandom-inspired conversions and recreations, of mostly fanciful and/or cultural themes & genres.

3. What is your favorite challenge? I’m a builder at heart, so I love recreating lots and interiors. Challenges where we find IRL rooms/scenes and remake them in TS3 are always the most fun for me.

4. do you make cc? if so, what kind? I make fanciful & cultural custom content (occult, sci-fi, boho, etc). I make CAS CC sometimes, but I prefer making buy/build CC.

5. what type of cc do you hoard? Not everything, but a lot. As creators retire and links die, I’m even more paranoid than I already was that CC will no longer be available anywhere.

6. what default eyes and skin do you use? I don’t use default-replacement skintones, but I do use Buhudain’s You Are Real mod.

As for eye defaults, I absolutely love Moonskin’s Shiny Glass replacements.

7. how many urls have you had, and what are the meanings behind them? All of my simming URLs on MTS, TSR, the officials, and Tumblr are some variation of my first name, Murfee Lee. Because yes, I am that darn creative.

8. who is your favorite gameplay blog? 9. who is your favorite storytelling blog? Ugh, there are too many good ones out there.

10. who is your favorite cc creator? All of my favorite creators retired years ago: DyM/Hekate999 (fantasy build/buy), Parsimonious (everything), Luna (everything build/buy), Qingshuangtongzi (Asian everything), Amethyst (Asian CAS), Art-Sims (CAS everything), etc. I swear, the day Sandy/ATS3 (everything build/buy) retires is the day I’m having a panic attack.

11. how do you edit your photos? Badly. Tweak the brightness & contrast and call it a effing day.

12. what is the last screenshot you took? It’s a surprise.

13. what do you do when you are unmotivated? I am never “unmotivated,” so much as I am distracted. I think the reason I’ve simmed so long is strictly because I’m always inspired by fandoms. If I get distracted by a tv/game, it becomes my next muse (aka current obsession). It’s not that I get unmotivated to finish the old stuff I pretty much abandon, it’s just that there aren’t enough hours in the day for me to do everything I want. Sometimes I return to older saves/gameplay. Most times I don’t though--unless someone messages me wanting to see it again (and that’s effing rare).

14. who is your current favorite sim? Sakura and Nasir are my alltime favorite sims. But I must admit that I patted myself on the back pretty dang hard when I created Tsukihime-Sama for my Moon Medicine gameplay. I love every sim I made for that gameplay (which I really need to finish one day, ugh), but my Lunar Moth Goddess? 👌

15. who is your current favorite sim that is not by you? Every sim that @obscurus-noctem is out here sacrificing goats in order to create. It’s just disgusting how pretty everything on their blog is. Those mersims? Those graphics? That editing? Makes me effing sick.

16. recreate someone else’s sim in your style. I think I saw a challenge like this a few months/years ago, but never did it. But I DID do the Picrew version.

17. do you talk about sims with people in real life? One of my professors plays SimCity. Naturally, we bonded over how wack EA is. ^_^

18. how many of the packs do you own? All of them, except the Stuff Packs. Barring Fast Lane and Movie Stuff, none of the other SPs are worth the price; it’s just build/buy/CAS CC any MaxisMatch creator.could make for free. I’ve always felt that way about SPs, which is why I never bothered with them in TS1 or TS2 either. I will say though, that TS4′s SPs are something else entirely, which brings me to #24 (see below).

19. how many posts do you have on your blog currently? 2764. JESUS.

20. how many drafts do you have on your blog currently? 363. U_U And most of those are CC sets & gameplay posts I never finished.

21. how many posts are in your queue currently? It’s a secret. ^_^

22. have you ever moved blogs? Never. I never even changed my theme or URL.

23. are you in any sims related discord servers? Yes, the Creators Cave, but I effing hate Discord; it’s just a royal pain to navigate, IMO.

24. what are your thoughts on the most recent pack? (paranormal) Speaking of Stuff Packs!

RANT ALERT!

If anything, TS4′s SPs are doing way too much (adding new gameplay, careers, lifestates/NPCs, lots, etc!? WUT.) Or rather, its EPs aren’t doing nearly enough. I love that TS4′s SPs add meaningful content. But if they’re raising their bar, that means the Expansion Packs need to rise by the same degree, to stay relevant, if anything.

But EA, in their infinite ineptitude, seems to be scaling back with their EPs! Cutting what should be 1 cohesive EP into multiple SPs & GPs piecemeals the content and cheats people out of money, by having us pay more for less! The TS4 SPs do a lot, yes, but now let’s talk about the Paranormal SP for example:

Paranormal Stuff does perhaps the most any SP in The Sims 1/2/3/4 ever has, and has by far the most worth for its money...but at a dire cost:

- the career only has 5 levels instead of 10 (thus being nowhere as deep as TS3′s combination of the Ambition EP’s Ghost Hunter and the Store’s crystal ball--which links with the Supernatural EP’s Spellcasting skill)

the crystal ball is a 1-trick pony

unlocking Bonehilda is tied to grinding skill/career levels, only for her to do EFF ALL once she finally arrives (and her face looks like melted cookie dough WTF)

most of the gameplay is tied to the pack’s new lot/venue

and the ghosts are still meh

So rather than TS4 having an actual Supernatural EP, instead it has the ok-but-disappointing Realm of Magic Game Pack (which I’ve already ranted about), the watered-down Paranormal Stuff Pack, and the INCREDIBLY OP Vampires Game Pack (which I’ve salivated over). That’s already $40--the cost of TS3′s Supernatural Expansion Pack, mind you--but with the glaringly absent inclusion of Fairies, Werewolves, AND Zombies. O_O WHAT THE HELL, EA. To get the full Supernatural experience in TS4 is gonna end up running people not $40, but perhaps DOUBLE, if werewolves & fairies get their own GPs (unless EA waters them down in SPs, which would still be anywhere from $50-60). EA is robbing people blind.

25. how many hours have you played sims? I have no idea, no doubt thousands.

26. if you play gameplay, do you play with mods? See #1 above

27. what’s the farthest you’ve gotten in a challenge? See #3 above.

Thanks for reading!

#simblr #the sims 3 #the sims 4 #ts3 #TS4 #EA you suck #questionnaire #RANT ALERT

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snkpolls · 4 years ago

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SnK Episodes 73 & 74 Poll Results (for Manga Readers)

The poll closed with 135 responses. Thank you to everyone who participated!

Please note that these are the results for the Manga Readers’ poll. If you wish to see the results for the Anime Only Watchers’ poll, click here.

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RATE EPISODE 73: SAVAGERY 129 responses

As expected, this highly anticipated episode didn’t fail to deliver and fans absolutely loved it, with over 95% giving it a 4-5 star rating.

I loved the episode 73. The fight between Levi and Zeke was spectacular! The animation was 10/10, definitely worth watching. Good, old Kenny's theme brought memories back. I have to admit that Mappa made Levi look hundred times better and definitely more masculine.

RATE EPISODE 74: SOLE SALVATION 128 responses

While episode 74 generated slightly less enthusiasm across the board, it still managed to garner a high rating from respondents.

when i read the manga version, i wasn't that much moved by zeke's backstory. but with the music, voice and color additions... it's fucking heartbreaking. mappa did an outstanding job. and the tension when he activated the thunder spear???? the animation? we were blessed. ALSO! the movement of the bodies when they threw the ball looked so realistic! it's a tiny detail that i loved.

Zook

WHICH WAS THE MOST MEMORABLE MOMENT OF EPISODE 73? 128 responses

Levi vs. Zeke 2.0 got the largest piece of the pie, getting 23.4% of the vote. Behind that was the moment when Levi had to kill his comrades in titan form (14.8%), Armin punching Eren in the face (14.1%), Eren disparaging Armin and Mikasa (11.7%), and at 8.6%, that one screenshot of Armin the entire fandom was thirsting over. Shoutout to the person in the comments who wanted Mikasa to pin them down (the pollster writing this feels the same!).

💥🐒 mOnKe and Lebi 🍄and Jean go BOOM 🐎💥

For me, the real gem of EMA talk isn't that one Armin frame that everyone's going crazy about. It's the frame before it, that low angle of Mikasa half sitting on the table holding Armin down. Holy...I wanted to be Armin so bad right at that moment.

WHICH WAS THE MOST MEMORABLE MOMENT OF EPISODE 74? 127 responses

35.4% felt the most memorable scene from this episode was the ending scene where Zeke triggers the thunderspear and sends Levi flying. Behind that was the moment where Zeke listens to Grisha yelling through the door (18.1%), Zeke and Ksaver coming up with the euthenasia plan together (8.7%) and Ksaver telling Zeke to sell out his parents (7.9%).

EPISODE 73 IS TITLED, “SAVAGERY.” OF THE OPTIONS BELOW, WHICH CHARACTER DO YOU THINK BEST EXEMPLIFIED THIS WORD? 128 responses

In an episode filled with both verbal and physical violence, we asked which character you thought best exemplified the episode’s title. 35.2% felt that Eren was the worst offender with his words and actions against Armin and Mikasa. 29.7% felt that Levi’s violent acts against Zeke were deserving of the title “savagery.” Only 22.7% felt that Floch most suited the episode title, while just a small handful, 12.5%, felt that Zeke is the one most deserving of the term.

HOW BADLY DID YOU FEEL ABOUT LEVI HAVING TO KILL HIS OWN SQUAD? 127 responses

The majority felt, on at least some level, sorrow for what Levi had to do in order to survive and catch up to Zeke. Though a small handful didn’t feel too bad for our Captain.

ON A SCALE OF 1-5, HOW WOULD YOU RATE LEVI VS. ZEKE 2.0? 127 responses

In general, the fight received positive reception. Though it wasn’t all hype, as the highest ranking was actually a 4 and not a 5. It was hype, but not quite hype enough for us manga readers.

I loved Levi vs Zeke 2.0 but they really should have used the instrumental version instead of K21, I laughed out loud when I heard that beacuse I felt like it took all the seriousness from the scene

levi and zeke goat

WHY DO YOU THINK FLOCH MADE THE RECRUITS BATTER INSTRUCTOR SHADIS? 128 responses

The majority of respondents feel that Floch’s motivations are a mix of factors. For those who did think there was a more specific reason, though, 16.4% felt it’s simply a matter of Floch having a massive ego trip. 10.2% feel that Floch truly believes what he says about taking out the old and bringing in the new, and 7.8% believe Floch simply wanted to make an example out of Shadis (presumably alluding to the fate of those who resist the Yeagerists).

He was testing if the recruits can go this far

He wants to intimidate people into joining his cause by using violence and threats of arrest and also make them feel empowered by his ideals.

Standard protocol when there's a change of regime, you'd want to eliminate the old guards' influence ASAP.

That's how fascism works

All of the above and the fact that he's a fascist.

HOW CUTE WAS BITTY ZEKE? 130 responses

After a long time waiting, we finally got to see child Zeke in animated form. The vast majority think he was cute as a button, ready to pinch his little baby cheeks! Only a small handful think bby Zeke is anything but cute.

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT GRISHA’S TREATMENT OF ZEKE? 130 responses

This chapter created more controversy surrounding Grisha after it’s publication. In general, fans still aren’t particularly proud of Grisha’s behavior. 36.9% felt that Zeke didn’t deserve any of the treatment he got from his father, and 24.6% outright want to give Grisha the award for worst parent in the entire series. 24.6% don’t approve of Grisha’s behavior, but they do empathize with the way Grisha must have felt. 10.8% feel that while he could have treated Zeke better, he also could have been much worse.

Zeke was a sweet child but no child deserves to be treated like that regardless of how nice or well behaved they are. Grisha is disgusting.

Grisha was a large dick and asshole and he deserved the all punishment he got.

Grisha is a terrible father but such a well written character

it's crazy to me how people really thought grisha wasn't that in the wrong in terms of how he raised zeke.

DO YOU FEEL THAT ZEKE WOULD HAVE GROWN INTO AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT KIND OF PERSON IF GRISHA HAD TREATED HIM BETTER? 129 responses

Just over half of respondents think it’s possible Zeke could have become a different kind of person if he’d had a brighter and happier childhood, though they didn’t want to say for sure as they feel that Grisha’s treatment wasn’t the sole reason why Zeke sees the world the way he does. 41.9% believe that the outcome of Zeke’s mindset would have been completely different. Only a few think that he would have come to the same conclusions about the world either way.

Unless Grisha gives up being a restorationist I don't see it as better treatment, if he does then yes

Yes. The whole point for the euthanasia plan was that Eldian children don't have to go through what he went through.

WHO DO YOU THINK HAD A BIGGER IMPACT IN SHAPING ZEKE’S WORLDVIEW? 126 responses

When it comes to “father figures” in Zeke’s life, 65.1% believe that Ksaver holds much more responsibility than Grisha does when it comes to the way Zeke views the world.

WHO TURNED OUT MORE LIKE GRISHA, IN YOUR OPINION? 128 responses

Between Grisha’s two sons, 68% of respondents feel that Eren is the brother who turned out much more similarly to Grisha, leaving only 32% who feel the opposite and think Zeke ultimately turned out more like Grisha in the end (For those who are curious, 81% of anime-only fans feel that Eren is the one who turned out more like Grisha).

WHO WOULD YOU MOST LIKE TO PUNCH IN THE FACE AFTER THESE EPISODES? 129 responses

There was a lot that happened in these episodes that could have bred resentment from fans. From the options provided, 35.7% of respondents would most like to punch Floch in the face. 22.5% wish to channel their inner Armin and give Eren a sock to the face. 14.7% felt more visceral toward Grisha. 11.6% don’t want to punch anyone at all. For those who wanna punch the pollsters, meet us out back at 16:00 hours.

Floch sucks

HOW DO YOU FEEL FINALLY GETTING TO SEE THE PAINFUL EMA CONVERSATION IN ANIME FORM? 127 responses

A lot has happened since chapter 112 published, but the chapter still continues to stick with us and spark conversation. With such a highly anticipated scene finally being animated, we wanted to know how you felt seeing the scene reimagined with music, voice acting and color. 29.9% just felt that the chapter hits much differently now after the contents of chapter 138. 25.2% had a much harder time watching the scene in anime form than they felt reading the manga. 12.6% felt even more strongly, expressing extreme heartbreak over E/MA’s breakup. Only a handful of respondents felt the scene hit much harder in the manga.

I'm over it, I felt nothing. Props to Yuki Kaji though, his voice acting is as amazing as ever.

I liked both manga and anime versions, but hearing Armin's sharp intakes of breath from being hit ;~; MY POOR BABY!

M M G H, boi

mmgh

There is no pain, only support for whatever horny animator drew that shot of Armin.

I love EMA emotionally destroying each other and Mappa made it SO FUCKING GOOD, I watched this scene like 100 times

Eren = me | Armin's fist = EMA scene punching me across my expressionless face | Mikasa = my anime-only gf

BEFORE THE FINAL CHAPTER HITS, WHAT DO YOU THINK WAS EREN’S “TRAIN OF THOUGHT” IN REGARDS TO HIS WORDS IN THIS CONVERSATION? 126 responses

With the last chapter just over a week away, we’re hoping to finally get some closure in terms of Eren’s characterization and the choices he’s made. 42.9% believe that Eren chose to be cruel to his friends in the hope it would drive them to be willing to put an end to Eren’s life. 24.6% felt the opposite, hoping that Eren would push them into a corner where they wouldn’t interfere with his plan at all. 18.3% still aren’t sure what to think. Will we get answers, Isayama?!

He wants to "free" Mikasa and armin from himself because he knew he was gonna die

Probably the first option but there might be some truth to what he was saying.

He definitely wanted to push them away and antagonize them but I'm still not completely sure why. I don't feel we've gotten a satisfying explanation.

He chose to be cruel to Mikasa and Armin in an attempt to make it so they wouldn't mourn him when he was dead and could be free of him entirely.

Eren still has heart warming feelings to Mikasa and - by being cruel - he wanted her to let him go (and most likely) kill him. His feelings to Armin however are much colder and they don't seem to like each other anymore. They are way too different. Armin and Eren are like two deities who will always fight each other.

Like he said in 138, he wanted to push them away so they would move on from his death and live happily without him.

SOME DIALOGUE FROM THE EMA CONVERSATION WAS CUT OR SHORTENED. WHICH PART(S) DID YOU MISS THE MOST? 125 responses

Due to time constraints, the EMA conversation took a big hit in terms of how much content was cut from it. Of the cuts we noticed, the dialogue snippets that were most missed by manga readers were; Eren bringing up Armin’s good judgement when they were younger, Eren telling Mikasa that the “real her” disappeared in the mountain cabin, the mention of Ackermans being a “byproduct” of titan science, and the mention that Ackermans manifest the power of titans in human form.

OVERALL, HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE AFOREMENTIONED CUTS? 123 responses

When it comes to how manga readers actually felt about the cuts in the EMA conversation, 35% agreed that they felt bitter about them, while still understanding that there was probably little other choice. 22% think it was just too watered down and cut down the impact significantly. 14.6% didn’t care, 11.4% felt the cuts were actually a positive thing, and 10.6% feel that the manga is simply just the superior medium for this series.

I find it interesting that the titan science stuff was cut and wonder if maybe Isayama agreed to those cuts bc he knows he won't have time to really explain in the last chapter of the manga.

Oof, too many important informations have been cut.

I'm okay either way!

Although I would've loved to see all of those aforementioned cuts animated, I understand why they had to be cut in the first place, so I'm not bitter by it at all. I still think the conversation still had the impact it was intended to have.

I kind of understand why some dialogues would have to be cut but it lessened the impact of how Eren tried to hurt his friends which I personally think is too much even if he might have good intentions in doing so. I also like how MAPPA rearranges scenes to better fit the airtime limitation of each episode.

MAPPA CHANGED EREN’S EXPRESSION AFTER HE WAS CALLED OUT BY ARMIN. THOUGHTS? 127 responses

A small change can impact a lot… or perhaps not. 34.6% felt let down by the change in Eren’s facial expression after Armin calls him out for hurting Mikasa, feeling that his original expression spoke volumes about his true feelings about what he’d done. 28.3% didn’t notice any change at all and so are unaffected. 15.7% are on a similar page and feel that there really wasn’t enough of a difference to gripe about anything, and 9.4% actually preferred the way MAPPA handled Eren in this snippet.

as they did when mikasa calls him out in liberio, they harden his expressionstry to make him look like a heartless monster with no empathy for his friends. this expression hinted that he was hurt by telling all of that to his friends, so his self sacrifice motivations can be misunderstood by anime onlies, or worse: they may even think it comes out of nowhere.

The manga was just superior here, from his expression to the fact that Armin did manage to make him bleed. It was disappointing.

I read this chapter way too long ago, I don't remember this stuff

He looks a lot more hurt and regretful in the Manga. Anime just looks annoyed.

Not a big deal to me. Manga is definitely superior though.

In the manga Eren was more human, while here we can clearly see his anger towards Armin's words.

THE ANIME ADAPTATION CUT OUT A BIT OF CONTEXT IN REGARDS TO LEVI STATING THAT THEY WILL FEED A YEAGERIST TO HISTORIA AFTER SHE GIVES BIRTH. DO YOU THINK THIS MAKES THINGS CONFUSING FOR THE ANIME-ONLIES? 123 responses

Historia’s pregnancy plot continues to get the shaft (for better or for worse), with the mention of her eventually eating the Yeagerist that eats Zeke being cut out entirely. 39% of respondents felt that this was a poor choice on MAPPA’s part, feeling that it will make things confusing for anime only fans (“why would they feed Zeke to a Yeagerist?”). 26% feel the opposite, and think anime only fans should be able to put 2 and 2 together to realize where Levi was going with his idea. 22% aren’t sure if it actually makes things confusing, and 10.6% just don’t care.

I'm not sure how confusing this makes it for anime-onlies but them cutting out mentions of her pregnancy makes it seem even less important than it already does.

That plan was shut down so quickly it doesn't matter

I don't/didn't really understand this. None of the Yeagerist have royal blood... maybe I'm missing something. I figured he was just joking? Bc, tactically, what does Historia eating a Yeagerist do or have to do with anything?

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE ADAPTATION OF THE ZEKE RUNNING PANEL? 124 responses

When Zeke ran from Levi in the manga, the scene was memed to death. 46.8% of respondents weren’t disappointed in MAPPA’s adaptation and felt it was just as enjoyable as it was in the manga. 29.8% felt even more strongly, thinking MAPPA did an even better job than Isayama had done. 17.7% still prefer the manga version.

It was funny in the manga but not in the anime and that's probably for the best given the weight of what's about to happen.

I honestly don't remember the running panel lmao

Funny monke

HOW WELL WAS ZEKE’S BACKSTORY ADAPTED, IN YOUR OPINION? 126 responses

60.3% felt that MAPPA did an incredible job with executing Zeke’s backstory in the anime, with the impact feeling even greater than it did in the original manga. 37.3% agree to a lesser degree, simply being pleased that it was faithful to the source material and feel thankful enough for that. Only a sliver of the pie felt that MAPPA didn’t deliver well on this or didn’t care.

Made him too sympathetic/made grisha look even worse

MAPPA REPLACED THE MONKEY PLUSHIE WITH A RAM PLUSHIE IN KSAVER’S VISION. THOUGHTS? 125 responses

We got a couple of Easter Eggs in this episode, with one of them being the inclusion of a ram plushie in place of the monkey doll that was in the manga. Knowing now that Ksaver’s Beast Titan was a ram, we were curious how many of you caught this. 55.2% absolutely loved the easter egg, and 31.2% just felt that it was neat. A few were confused, missed monke, or wanted to squish the adorable plushie. Baa!

I jumped out of my seat seeing that little fecker. I was literally like "...!!!! THE RAM!!! WE KNOW KSAVER'S TITAN NOW SO THEY PUT IN A RAM!! YOU..!!! ISAYAMAAAAA!!" It was hilarious XD

THE DOLLS IN KSAVER’S VISION APPEAR TO RESEMBLE ARMIN, MIKASA AND HISTORIA. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS? 121 responses

Aside from the ram plushie were also dolls that some thought seemed to resemble Armin, Mikasa and Historia. We got very mixed responses on this question. 20.7% felt that it was simply just a fun easter egg and didn’t hold any kind of narrative meaning. 19% were unsure what to think at all. 16.5% think the third doll actually represents Ymir Fritz and not Historia. 15.7% felt it was meant to represent the three people Eren is working hardest to protect, and 9.1% didn’t think they represented anything.

i thought that was ymir fritz, zeke, and either eren or levi

I think the two dolls inside the box look more like Gabi and Falco but I'm not sure who the doll with the pink dress is, Ymir Fritz maybe?

I didn't even notice this, lmao. I'm bored of overthinking things like this, there's one chapter left y'all.

Oh, I thought it was Eren, Zeke and Ymir lol.

Reminds me of the Eren doll in the Lost Girls OVA.

The box represents those who we will see in the final chapter. Sorry Historia :'(

All of the above xD

The doll isn't Historia - It's Ymir Frtiz - and her position under the wagon means that Eren values Mikasa and Eren more than Ymir/anything else. I think the wagon is also significant to that bit where Eren confessed to the squad that they were the most important people in his life, and that he doesn't want anything bad to happen to them.

EREN TELLS ZEKE, “I’LL PUT AN END TO 2,000 YEARS OF TITAN DOMINATION.” EVEN AFTER EVERYTHING, DO YOU BELIEVE IT’S POSSIBLE THAT THIS WAS HIS TRUE INTENTION, AND THAT HE CAN STILL BE THE ONE TO MAKE IT HAPPEN? 122 responses

Will there be a final twist in the series finale? 34.4% seem to think so, hoping that Eren’s words will ring true and he will somehow abolish titans from the world. 23% feel similarly, though they think he knew his actions would lead to the catalyst to rid titans from the world, rather than him doing it himself. 12.3% feel the opposite, and think Eren was simply just lying to Zeke about bringing an end to the titan power, and 9.8% think he’s just too dead at this point to accomplish anything. 19.7% aren’t sure what to predict.

Yes, ending the era of titans and setting Eldians free is one of Eren's goals.

GIVEN THAT ZEKE’S FLASHBACK ELEMENTS FROM 115 WERE ALSO ADAPTED IN THIS CHAPTER, DO YOU THINK THE FINAL EPISODE WILL HAVE ANY ANIME-ONLY SCENES? 124 responses

The episode has already aired and we can now confirm that there were no additional scenes. 41.9% were correct in their hunch that the remaining contents would be enough to fill an entire episode - in fact, they didn't even end up animating all of it! What about Levi and Hange?!

Since we won't reach Ch. 121 or 122 I don't really care.

Since Mappa took over, not anymore :(

What tou MEAN ”the final episode”?!

HOW DO YOU FEEL KNOWING THAT ANIME ONLY FANS WON’T HAVE A SOLID ANSWER ON LEVI’S FATE FOR MONTHS? 127 responses

We didn’t expect this question to come off as cruel as it now feels after MAPPA didn’t even throw us a bone in episode 75 about Levi’s fate. That being said, 29.1% are ready to snack on their popcorn while they watch anime onlies worry and theorize over Levi’s fate. 21.3% are simply feeling mischievous. 9.4% think it’s cruel to take any delight in anime watchers’ woes, as we also had to experience the same thing for several months. 33.9% think it will be next to impossible for anime only fans to avoid being spoiled about Levi’s fate.

It should be fairly obvious he's alive when they show Hange jumping in the river with him next episode.

Good. I think most of them will assume he's not dead yet though.

Maybe it will inspire some of them to read the manga to find out.

Ugh, I hope they won't be complaining as much as the manga readers did even though it was obvious he's not dead.

THE PREVIEW ONLY REVEALED ONE SCENE TO US. SO INSTEAD, WHICH MOMENT FROM CHAPTER 115/116 ARE YOU MOST ANTICIPATING? 126 responses

31% of respondents were most looking forward to the moment where Pieck declared Eren as the enemy. 23% had most anticipated seeing Ymir revive Zeke (rip) and 19.8% were most looking forward to seeing Hange dive into the river with Levi’s injured body (double rip). 10.3% were most anticipating the scene with Eren, Pieck and Gabi in the jail room, and 7.1% were most hyped about Marley’s airships showing up onto the scene.

WE’VE ONLY GOT ONE EPISODE LEFT FOR THIS RUN! HOW ARE YOU FEELING ABOUT IT? 125 responses

59.2% were feeling hyped to get an announcement about a part 2 of the season. 24%, on the other hand, are bummed out and have a new void to fill in their heart while they wait. 11.2% feel similarly and on a greater level… the seasons between the SnK anime seasons are just the worst anime seasons of all!

Too distracted by manga-ending-anxiety to feel much about it

Disappointed. It's not actually the final season.

I'm ready for this season of heartbreak to be over thank you just put me out of my misery and stop dragging me along behind the car

I can't believe it's near ending already

DO YOU THINK WE WILL GET AN ANNOUNCEMENT ABOUT THE NEXT ANIME INSTALLMENT NEXT WEEK? 122 responses

54.1% of respondents were hopeful for a part 2 announcement and the good news is that MAPPA didn’t let them down. 19.7% were right on the nose with this one!

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS ON THE EPISODES?

GOAT

The scene with Levi's comrades turning into Titans was one of the most visually stunning moments for me; the whole panning out throughout as they all started turning sort of gave me chills. Levi's reaction to it all, and ultimately having to kill them too was heartbreaking. Honestly that entire scene was quite gripping. I hate to admit that watching it in anime form has sort of solidified me resonating with Zeke in regards to his relationship with Grisha. Dude just wanted to spend time with his freaking dad and instead went through all of that, I don't blame him for the resentment at all. Still a douche for some of the stuff he's done. And ersonally I prefer him over Eren. Eren never went through that kind of treatment from Grisha and ended up... like that. Also!!!!!! Love me some Bertholdt crumbs, thank you Mappa! God, I miss him. :(

The removal of mostly anything mentioning titan scientists/research and Ackermans being a byproduct of titan science makes me wonder if Isayama regretted introducing that. I was already disappointed the manga didn't expand on that and the anime made it worse. Almost nonexistent tbh. Loved seeing Zeke's backstory, like all the other children in this series, he deserved better.

The ost during Floch's speech was brilliant. Young Zeke and Grisha VAs also. Makes me want to adopt Zeke right there. Not sure if Pieck and Porco already appeared as background characters (in ep 13&14) there were some figures that looked like them so I can't wait for the next episode!

Nah, I just loved them

These were one of the best of the season!

i just want more, also i loved MAPPA's style so far

In those episodes, the emotions weren't as strong as in the manga. I didn't feel much. And for the EMA talk... well, I liked Eren's neutral expression in the manga better, it was more fitted. And the animation of his "fight" with Armin was absolutely terrible, and it's sad to say that when you know that Mappa can do so much better.

*points at Zeke* WITNESSED!!

MAPPA stans Armin, it shows, and I am 100% here for it.

Being aware if latest chapters, I see young Zeke with different eyes

Mappa has done a fabulous job so far. The only thing I hoped for is that they should not have made the face difference so obvious from previous seasons to the last one, for the benefit of anime-only people. Yes, they stayed true to the manga, but their animators had to have control over it, which is what happened in S1 where girls had some sort of gloss on their lips and Yams requested for them to be removed in succeeding episodes.. that tells me that the animators/mappa have some semblance of control over how the characters look

I think MAPPA is doing a good job with the episodes.

Feels. That is all.

I really loved how Mappa executed that scene wint Ksaver's wife's murder/suicide. In the manga, they just outright depict it happening in the room. In the anime, they blended it in with the present surroundings. It literally gave me the chills. I do worry that the missing dialogue from the EMA scene, especially Eren explaining how Mikasa's dedication to him is nothing but science. I also worry about him not mentioning the slave/freedom thing, bc afaik the dialogue in the leaked panel of 139 says ""you are free"", and I always thought it was gonna be related to that.

WHERE DO YOU PRIMARILY DISCUSS THE SERIES? 118 responses

Thanks again to everyone who participated! We will post the poll for episode 75 soon!

In the meantime, please feel free to send us up to 5 of your favorite characters via ask or submission for our ongoing popularity poll - that poll will close on the 10th of April! :D

#snk poll #snk polls #shingeki no kyojin #attack on titan #snk #aot #snk spoilers #snk s4

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onedivinemisfit · 4 years ago

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2020 Creator’s Self-Love Extravaganza

Boy howdy, but it has been a year. So much so that I felt the need to dig up this meme so I can lavish myself with a little TLC, ‘cause you know what? I deserve it! And so do you. This year has been tough, and even in the best of times it can be a real struggle to remember that, instead of being your own worst enemy, you should strive to be your best cheerleader. Remember to be kind instead of cruel, to forgive rather than condemn yourself. Creativity is hard, and it is always a journey, never a final destination, so let’s take a moment and sight-see where we’ve been this year, yeah???

Rules: It’s time to love yourselves! Choose your 5 favorite works (fics, art, edits, etc.) you’ve created this year and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you’ve brought into the world in 2020. If you don’t have five published works, that’s fine! Include ideas/drafts/whatever you like that you’ve worked on/thought about, and talk a little about them instead! Remember, this is all about self-love and positive enthusiasm, so fuck the rules if you need to. Have fun, and tag as many fellow creators as you like so they can share the love! <3

Tagged by @bubblesthemonsterartist <w<

1. Shirayuki and the Black Bear-King - I won’t lie, this one meant a lot to me, personally. I had been dying for a theme native to my home country, so when I got the opportunity, I swore to myself up and down and sideways that I would deliver. It’s rare that I get to unite fandom and my own culture, so this was immensely pleasing. And detailed... and time-consuming...

2. Those were the days my friend - To be fair I didn’t really want to pick only one work from this year’s Obiyukiweek because WOW. I didn’t think I had it in me. Rarely have I overcome my own expectations in so solid a manner. But this too, was the work with the most emotion going into it, I just knew that if I was going with this sort of theme, it had to be well-done. It was also my first time making faux-screenshot type art!

3. Mothers - This is actually a three-picture series, but I’ll just preview the one I loved the most <w< I’m still in shock over how quickly these were sketched and rendered, I can barely remember creating them - tis what happens when I zone out completely, and why I suck so much at tutorials~ But I was really pleased with the result, because I wanted to symbolize the softness, the age-worn longing for a mother who is gone. ;;

4. The Story Paneling Redraws - here too it’s rather a series of pictures instead of a single one, but wowie was I surprised I could actually do this?? I had drawn AUs and changed a scene or two before, in big, single pictures, but never had I attempted to take it to this level, where I redrew whole segments of a manga, to fit my own AU. And it worked?? I actually could “retell” a story, in simple formats, to make my points visually easier to convey. That was an amazing feeling - and shocking, too.

5. The Snuggle Fight Club - ah yes, the sketch that took forever to turn into lineart that took another eternity to colour and render... ewe Most of the reason I’m so pleased with the outcome here is that my track record for finishing art that gets that old, is really really bad. At some point I usually end up abandoning them to the sands of time. But not this time! Hah!

Gosh this made me realize a lot of things about myself actually >/////> I’m proud even, what the heck.

I tag; @claudeng80 @sleepykaru aaaaaand @jhalya - and anyone who feels like doing it <3

#tag meme #about me #2020 art meme #I never in my dreams imagine this year would top last year in terms of productivity #but boy it did and HOW #I remain in awe of all the people who sublty give me that slight push to do this #and it's not in order to achieve perfection of my art #but an expression of love that I can look back on next year #and the year after #without feelings of distress or cringe or oh gosh was I in that mindset #just simply the love of creating #thank you #ans #akagami no shirayukihime #snow white with the red hair #obiyuki #man this fandom XD

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meltalks · 4 years ago

Text

my experience with addy / hiqey

i’ve contemplated posting my history with addy/hiqey for awhile now. my friends have encouraged me to do so, but due to her stance in the rpc i was always far too scared to do so. with all that is coming to light with her recently, not only is a huge weight off my shoulders as far as comfortably roleplaying as my escape, but knowing i’m not alone. my story with addy dates back to about september 2018. i do warn you this will be long, and i’ll try to include enough details to make it make sense while not dragging things on and on. this includes both my personal relationship with addy, as well as my experience with her in groups one where she she was an admin, and groups where i was an admin. as well as i believe we coadmined one together. i’ve put screenshots where i could, but some of this dates back to 2018 and i just don’t have access to those texts/rp accounts anymore.

a huge huge shout out to @bumkeyz for starting this avalanche, and for also supporting me one on one along with all my friends to feel safe enough to come forward. i’ll put all of my story under a read more.

i’m going to start this by saying, my name is mel/melanie. you may have heard of me because back when addy was on rpslayed she wasn’t a big fan of me for awhile. predominantly my group the cape(?) the main isn’t up anymore so i can’t remember the exact @. i’m 21 years old, i will be 22 this month. i am married & i have a 3 year old daughter. this is information i don’t normally tell people i’m married / have a child, because well, i just feel a little judged. not because anything anyone has specifically done or said, but my own anxieties worried that people will think it’s weird to be married with a child and still in twitter rp. but it is important to my story with addy, which is why i’m letting everyone know right off the bat.

i met addy in a group called producers. this group is from september 2018, so i’m not able to access anything right now, but am digging. i played (feel free to clown me) a g-eazy character named pierce. addy played a carlson young who’s name i can’t quite recall, and a gracie abrams named lolly. lolly & pierce became friends first & at some point we exchanged phone numbers. lolly & pierce flirted a lot, pierce was a player yada yada. eventually she ended up getting a different ship on lolly & pushed her carlson young onto pierce. pierce had a different love interest & didn’t end up going for her. this should’ve been the first negative sign/red flag. when pierce didn’t get with her character, she got very short & snarky ic and ooc. i believe both of her characters blocked me ic. even though pierce had made no ic promises to either to not be with someone else. we still maintained some level of friendship, but she was extremely weird about when i mentioned my ship. our friendship ended for a few months because of an incident that started ic between me and another character. the mun who played this character and i had bonded ooc over having been pregnant, we talked somewhat often about her dealings with her pregnancy. so i felt close enough/friendly enough with this mun that when something happened with her character & another character ic i dm’ed her to see if she was ok .long story short it went bad. i texted addy and told her that. i explained that i felt as if this mun & i were close and it was like dm’ing a friend. she held onto the fact that i shouldn’t have messaged her. when i didn’t immediately conform to her thought she kicked me out of the group. i was literally devastated. i loved that group, that character, my ship; all of it. she blocked me. though this story is 2 paragraphs long, it’s minor in the grand scheme of things. after this she smeared me on rpslayed for months until our paths crossed again in a group called glitches/glitch? we decided to squash our beef. this was december 2019.

in december 2019 we became friends again. honestly, i wish we never crossed paths. we got very close right away. she started telling me about a bad friendship she had, with someone we mutually knew from producers who i will not name since it’s not my place to put their name in this, and gained my sympathy. so much so that i ended a friendship with that person based solely on accusations that addy had told me. this is something that i can now realize i did wrong. i literally cussed this person out on the phone, solely based off things addy told me. i didn’t listen to someone who had been my friend for months, who defended me and picked me up when addy was tearing me down on rpslayed. i turned my back because addy convinced me to. she made this person seem awful. and again, i’m not naming them, but they know exactly who they are. and when thy do read this, i’m sorry.

now this is where things get out of hand. addy & i begun an intimate relationship. this is very personal, and i know some may pass judgment. but my husband was cool with it. addy also began talking to my husband, they texted. we had a groupchat. not to get into details about the relationship, but it was romantic. i am going to try and organize my thoughts. into themes.

money

this relationship lasted from about january ish to april romantically. i became addy’s crutch. she began going through personal issues with her family. and i started sending her money. to be frank i don’t remember how it started. i helped her with a job search, supporting her through these tough things that were going on. the money started casually i suppose. it was $10 for lunch. $25 for nails. but then it got worse. i bought her a phone. and slowly she grew more entitled to my money. asking for it. demanding it. guilting me when i didn’t give it. i lied to her and told her i lost my credit card and turned it off, but the guilt i had i told her that i could turn it on when she needed it. in screenshots i will post below she guilted me because i was sick and fell asleep before turning my card on. whether what she’s saying occured is true or not, it was just one example of how she made me feel. at one point she had my credit card on her uber, and charged nearly $400 of ubers on my credit card that i didn’t know about. she claimed it was an accident, because i let her put my card on her account under the agreement that she would turn it off. we had an agreement of what she would pay me back, some things that i got her were gifts and i didn’t want/need back. other things it was always an agreement she would pay me back. however whenever i would mention sending me a payment she had an excuse. one time even guilting me by reminding me how much better i have it than she does. all in all i spent / sent upwards of $2500/$3000 on her. only about $1500/$1800 i wanted back. i never saw a dime back, she never made good on her promises. at some point i gave up on asking.

ETA: as far as the uber situation goes, she did apologize and state that it was never on purpose when i found out that there was nearly $500 in charges. she said she thought she was charging her moms card. this shows a photo of 1 page of a 5 page statement of all the transactions put on my card by her in one month. there are only 6 of these transactions that were me. all of the ubers and venmo were her. i didn’t make her take off my card, which in hindsight was obviously a very bad decision. i just didn’t want to leave her stranded without ways to get home/where she needed to be.

this is her demanding money. this was in the summer. at this point i was so manipulated by her/scared of her/scared of losing her that i didn’t know how to say no. in this instance i deflected with a picture of my child. screen shot.

in the screenshots here, this is where i fell asleep. i was on vacation and got extremely dehydrated in the sun. i literally felt so sick and she made me feel guilty for falling asleep. X X X

this screenshot shows one of the times i actually asked her when she would repay me. at this point my credit card was nearly maxed out from ubers and sending her money. i was anxious about it and she made me feel bad for asking because her situation was worse than mine. this was the same day she asked me for $250 for a down payment on her car. X asking for money. X making me feel bad for asking when she’s gonna pay.

literally to this day im still in credit card debt because of this. yes i make good money, yes my husband does too. but credit card debt is hard and everyone knows it. i do fine for myself, but i don’t have hundreds extra to pay this down.

also, i cannot locate the bank screenshot. but as recent as this february, six months since she spoke to me, she still had my card on her uber and usted it again. i can’t find the screenshot of the actual of the bank transaction because i’ve completely had to close that account for fraud and transfer my balance to a new card. but here is a screenshot from february 12 where i tell my friends i caught her doing it. X .

manipulation in groups/related to groups

orbis. i ran a group called orbis, it was a reality show group. addy was one of my friends who really wanted me to open it. all of my groups i’ve adminned i’m the lead. i just always take on that roll so i do get very busy with them on top of my real life. i work full time and i’m a mom so i spread myself thin.she made me feel really guilty for this, saying i wasn’t giving her enough time, she wasn’t anyones dog. so i posted my unfollow. then she told me i was stupid for doing that. so i deleted my unfollow. then she said that me deleting my unfollow showed that i didn’t really care how she felt. screens. X X

lumeer. very similar situation to above. only this time i left the group completely for about 3 weeks. i called my coadmin crying about what she was doing to me, sent her the psds and templates for grpahics and left fully, though i helped them out if issues arose/they needed anything.

impulse. this was recently and this got brought to the tags. im going to copy & paste what i sent to bumkeyz as far as the story goes for what happened.

“ what happened in impulse is only one of several examples of addy being awful in groups i've adminned. this goes back to our friendship but specifically here's what happened in impulse. addy played a character named briar, the other characters involved were as mentioned in other posts loki & khalil (fai fc). one of he first days of the group khalil hooked up with both loki & briar. when the "updates" account posted about loki & khalil's hook up (we posted any and all plot drops that were sent in, it was a reality show so we consistently updated what the cameras caught), briar got upset on main. addy then messaged khalil's mun ooc and asked for the plot to be erased. essentially because she didn't like that khalil had hooked up with both her and another girl in the same day/same manor. as odd of a request as i was the khalil mun agreed to wipe it & asked that if there was anything that ever came up again that made addy uncomfortable to please not hesitate to dm. addy then softblocked khalil. which is strange. why soft block with briar's reason to dislike khalil has been wiped? that night addy posted on her personal tumblr hiqey "i forgot all fai khadra fcs are weirdos" or soemthing along that line. the khalil mun reasonably got uncomfortable with that, but was softblocked & didn't tell the main. they just ignored it since their characters weren't interacting now. for the next few days addy continued to shade khalil and loki on main, despite any ic reason for disliking them being wiped. loki then approached briar IN CHARACTER asking what was wrong/why she was shading/why they didn't like her. i don't know all the details of that conversation, but i know it ended with loki saying she was going to block briar & briar saying that was fine. bear in mind the admins had no idea any of this was happening at this point. addy then dmed the main, playing victim. after more shading of khalil, khalil's mun decided to block briar as well. addy despite wiping this plot and having 0 ic communication with khalil continued to shade the characters ic. so addy dmed the main playing innocent. asking for us to have them unblock, saying she had no idea why they blocked or what she did. as admins we had no idea why either, figured it was something ic so we dmed both muns. khalil's mun agreed after some hestiation, and asked if they had to follow her and i said no. they didn't elaborate. loki's mun however refused, & i'm glad she did because she told us what was going on. of course once we were told everyting we didn't make her unblock. up until we told addy that we were not going to make those muns unblock her, she was extremely sweet to us. she praised us on her rpt. said she loved the group. fed the main compliments. but when she didn't get her way out of us, and was essentially told on, she started causing issues on the timeline with different characters. she sent us a dm on the main telling us to "learn how to handle your group melanie" and deactivated before i could get a chance to reply. “

what i didn’t tell bumkeyz is that deejay/rpslayed played khalil. another example of addy’s manipulation is that when she saw deejay getting anons she followed deejay and texted her after several months of no communication, starting to tell her side of the story and play innocent -- not knowing that deejay was the person who was behind khalil the entire time. she made khalil out to be the bad guy, not knowing that it was deejay. after finding out deejay and i were friends, when deejay posted on rpslayed for people to follow me shortly after trying to get deejay on her side, addy blocked us both (again).

manipulation between friends (?)

i don’t really know a great way to title this, but this is similar to the situation i mentioned with the unnamed person above -- how addy made me think that person was the worst so i would stop being friends with them. this is a few more examples of that.

the entire time i was friends with addy, she told me that deejay hated me. she told me that deejay was convinced that i was this person who tried to get her kicked out of a group. she told me that she did her very best to convince deejay that it wasn’t true, but no matter what she did deejay just hated me. nearly a year later deejay and i cross paths in a group. we started talking ooc and i mentioned this. i asked her why she thought that was me. we found out that basically, while addy was telling me she was trying to convince deejay it wasn’t me, she was telling deejay that it was me. she would also tell me personal information about deejay that i had no business knowing, whether it be real life information or just telling me the groups deejay adminned when she knew deejay didn’t want anyone knowing.

i have found out recently that addy has recently been telling people a lie about when she came to visit me. on one evening when she visited me in june of 2019, we went to my friend’s house. we both drank, and smoked. i am someone who neither drinks nor smokes, and i got a very bad mix from it. my anxiety sky rocketed. i was crying on my friends couch practically paralyzed. i didn’t want to move. i felt sick. i felt scared. my friends were going to drive us back to my house and shortly before we were about to walk out addy said she needed to go to the hospital. my friend’s boyfriend drove her there, and when he came back they took me home. this night is very blurry for me. i remember barely being able to see straight, my friend helped me walk to and from the car. addy has told her friends that i refused to pick her up from the hospital that night, and i’ve now heard this from two of her close friends. when in reality, i was so far gone that not only was i sick and scared, but i couldn’t see straight. i had absolutely no ability to be behind a wheel. i’m not surprised she twisted this against me.

i provided a few people screenshots where addy was telling me to block them/trying to convince me that they were awful and hurting me. at the same time that addy was telling me this, she was doing the opposite to them -- to keep us apart. i believe this is some sort of power. always wanting to be everyones number one.

i don’t have a lot of screenshots for this, so i won’t go into much detail, but i can say on more than one occasion, or more than five or ten she told me who to and not to be friends with. told me to block people who had been our friends who were no longer friends with her.

flat out manipulation.

i don’t want to go back through my texts too much honestly. it’s still a sore spot. it still sucks and it still hurts. but i think anyone and everyone involved with addy at some point or another has similar stories about the way she treats her friends. there were points where i begged. begged and begged her not to leave me. i can’t even count how many times she blocked and unblocked me. how many times she made me feel the worst and then came back. she came back because she knw i was there. and that my generosity was practically endless. i couldn’t say no to her, frankly i can’t say no to anyone. if anyone dmed me today and said hey i need $15 for a ride home. i’d probably send it. that’s just how i am. addy completely had me wrapped around her finger. to the point that i left friends who were good to me. i left my own groups i worked hard on. i nearly ended my engagement (which cannot be entirely blamed on her, but the relationship she and i had was built off lots of manipulation). i know that i could go find 100 screenshots and texts of her manipulating me but honest i just don’t want to do that to myself again. she has made me out to be the villain to anyone she can. i have had 2 different people tell me that she told them i say the n word, which is the furthest thing from the truth. i fear the things she’s said about me to people. if she can 100% make something up, what can she twist from actual arguments or issues we had?

i know this sounds like a lot of rambling for nothing. but for nearly two years i’ve lived in fear in the rpc of addy. less so when we were friends. i’ve feared telling my side because i felt invalid. frankly even as i type this im scared. scared she’s already convinced everyone i’m awful and no one will read this or care. i just am thankful that this finally came to light. i am glad that i won’t feel scared anymore. roleplay is my one place to be free. as a mother, a full time worker, i don’t have a lot of time for hobby’s and frankly i don’t have a lot of them. i don’t draw, or read. i like to write. and i’m just thankful this can finally be lifted off me.

#twitter rp #rpt #rpc #rph #addy tw #hiqey

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wildfl0wer-meg · 4 years ago

Note

General 42 prompt? With Michael or Calum

Honestly contemplating making this into a lil series.

warnings: alcohol, single mom!reader, and cuteness

Michael Clifford x single mom!reader

General 42: are you flirting with me?

———

When your friends took your phone and downloaded Tinder it became a silly game you played when you were bored. Swiping left on almost every profile and sending screenshots to your friends of the most ridiculous bios.

You weren’t expecting to be getting ready for a date after talking to a guy on the app. He seemed too good to be real and therefore you weren’t getting your hopes up, Michael Clifford sounded like a fake name. He was beautiful though, and he had dogs which made you instantly wonder if he would be willing to put up with your having a six year old.

You’d talked for a few hours when you first brought your son up. Mentioning that you were a single mom and the biological dad was in and out of the picture. You made it clear you weren’t looking for someone to be a father to your son, but someone that would love him as well as you.

Michael said that he loves kids, and instantly said that it wasn’t a deal breaker. He was perfect, and so you decided to meet up.

“Do I look okay?” You walk out of your room and into the living room. Your best friend Mia sits on the couch with your son Landen.

“Girl!” Mia squeals, “you look so hot!” You roll your eyes at her, turning to the mirror in the hallway, you weren’t in anything exciting, black jeans, a gray sweater, and some Doc Martin boots, but you felt good in it.

“You look pretty, mama!” Landen smiles and you melt looking at him, all you want is for him to be happy, and while you know that if it does work out with Michael you won’t be introducing them for a while; you’ll be mentally testing Michael the entire time to make sure he won’t hurt your baby.

“Thank you baby,” looking at your phone you sigh, “I have to go, be good for aunt Mia, yeah?” You hug the blonde haired boy, planting a kiss on his forehead before waving bye to Mia and hurrying out the door to your car.

You had your son at eighteen, and since then you’d been to very few events, so when Michael mentioned there being a pizza and alcohol themed festival happening that you could go to, you instantly accepted.

Michael Clifford: I’ll wait for you by the giant blow up slice of pizza (you can’t miss it) I’m the dude in the red flannel.

As you pull up you read the message, smiling at it before sending a quick, I’m here, text back.

Walking up you realize that he was right, the blow up pizza had to be ten feet tall, a weird face on it and there was a bunch of people gathered around it, but standing off to the side you make eye contact with a man in a red flannel.

Blonde hair sticks out of a black hat that he wears backwards. You blush when you see that he’s holding a single red rose and he notices you as soon as you notice him, a smile making its way across his lips.

“Hi,” you smile as you get close to him, taking in that he is a real person.

“Hey,” he smiles back, holding out the flower, “I didn’t want to get anything big that you’d have to carry around so I hope you’re not offended by just one,” you take it, twirling the thornless stem between your fingers.

“Of course not, I really wasn’t expecting anything. It’s beautiful,” taking a sniff you smile at the sweet smell before looking at him, being mesmerized by his looks.

“You hungry?” He asks simply and with a nod you’re following him to one of the pizza stands.

———

You end up with a large margherita pizza, and Michael sips on a beer as you drink a fruity cocktail that the bartender promised that you’d love.

You talk about your lives, especially after Michael got stopped by a teenage girl for a picture. “I’m in a band, we’ve gotten pretty popular I guess,” you were amazed by how humble he remained despite a girl literally telling him how much she loved him.

You google the band once you’re sat down, laughing when you realize that they sing She Looks so Perfect... aka the underwear song.

“We were so young! You can’t think of that as being my best work!” Michael laughs quickly swiping away from the song and clicking on the album titled Youngblood.

“You have to recognize some of these songs,” he says and you do, and are still in shock that you’re sitting with someone in a world famous band.

The shock decrease as the night goes on. You both watch the performances that are put on, eat too much pizza, drink enough alcohol to make you both a little tipsy, and as the night winds down you find yourself sitting in the grass with him.

“So you have a kid?” He smiles and you nod your head.

“Landen, he’s six,” Michael smiles as you show him your lock screen, the blue eyed boy staring at him. “It’s okay if kids aren’t a thing for you, I mean you don’t even have to be in his life at all if you don’t want to.”

“He’s cute,” Michael smiles, “I can’t wait to meet him someday,” his words make you blush, one day, it’s promising and you smile.

“Did you know that you’re adorable when you blush?” You look at him still blushing and he chuckles, hand reaching out to touch your warm cheeks.

“Are you flirting with me?” You ask and Michael smirks scooting closer to you.

“Isn’t that the point of me taking you on this date?” Your eyes flash from his eyes down to his lips and your mouth goes dry. He bites his lip eyes flashing down to your lips as well before he leans in.

The kiss is soft but it lingers for a moment, you both just learning each other. Your hand finds its way to the back of his neck and tangled your fingers in his hair as his thumb softly brushes your cheek a couple of times.

When you finally pull away a goofy grin is plastered on both of your faces, Michael is the first one to speak up.

“I can almost guarantee that you’re going to have to put up with my flirting for a long time,”

———

Um I love this? Does anyone want to suggest a part 2? I might make this actually into a little drabble series. single mom!reader x Michael.

Masterlist

#5sos #michael clifford #Michael Clifford fic #Michael Clifford x reader #single mom!reader #5 seconds of summer #fluff #wildfl0wer meg writes

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iaintyourbro · 4 years ago

Note

What I consider a bad writing when it comes to the devs is Aerith fell in love with Cloud??? What did she fell in love with in a short period of time exactly!! Cloud wasn't himself ?? And he wasn't in a position to play at romance with her .Like just because Cloud is the protagonist she fell for him ?? I just don't get it she loved Zack deeply and a guy who she knows nothing about in just a short time she fell for him 🙄 like wow this is what a call a bad writing THIS and the LTD ugh

Hey Anon.

I don’t think it was bad writing on the devs part. Also a lot of things that show up online are players saying it, not the devs. The Aerith not loving Zack and loving Cloud thing is one of those things that gets spread around the internet. There are non-canon sources that are used for a lot of these things too.

I think they purposely made things vague. I don’t think Aerith fell madly in love with Cloud, either, but I think she developed feelings for him initially because he reminded her of Zack and then as they journeyed she realized he wasn’t “him” and wanted to get to know him since she started to like him. Love is a word thrown around that I think is too strong here. Interest, attraction, infatuation may be more appropriate.

And in Aerith’s case, she was in denial about Zack. So that’s why she acts like she does in the OG park scene. Like oh well, it wasn’t serious, haha I totally don’t miss him and worry he may have died or something. It’s easier to think he ran off with another woman than he’s dead. Which is permanent.. And then it’s option to find out later that she actually was in love with him. They just get that out right away in Remake and it’s not optional to find out.

In game, Aerith never comes out and says she’s in love with Cloud. She says she wants to get to know the real him (in a vague way). There are other post-game materials that make it seem like she loved Cloud, but I believe when she’s thinking of it, Zack actually materializes and she realizes that she actually does love Zack, and her thought of loving Cloud was because he was acting like Zack. Most of the lines and things she does during Chapter 8 are call backs to Crisis Core and things Zack said. She’s messing with him - and it’s hilarious at times.

The whole love triangle was there to push the illusion aspect of the first part of the game where Cloud is assuming a false persona. They wanted the player to also get attached to Aerith, so they tried to get this to work. Personally I never saw a romantic connection between Cloud and Aerith, but I know many did, so that’s fine. It doesn’t really change the story much either way, since it ends the same either way.

It wasn’t meant to be obvious - they wanted the player to think about it. Okay, so we have a guy who we find out isn’t himself, they want you to think back about everything that happened before he gets his true self back and wonder what implications that has. How do people deal with death? Also the fact that death is permanent. You can’t revive people (like really dead people, not KO’d people).

Except most of the people who played FFVII when it first came out were young teens... who had no real good concept of life in general (though we all thought we did, because that’s what 13 year olds do). So we got stuck on certain concepts and assumed we were still supposed to make the choices.

You notice that there’s a lot of player choice early on while Cloud isn’t really Cloud. Then it stops when he’s back. Part of the illusion - you are SOLDIER Cloud. You are the one making decisions for him. Once you go through the Lifestream (and even before that, really) that’s done. You no longer can make choices for him that are story impacting. Choices on who to bring in battle don’t count for this... So who goes where in the final dungeon isn’t Cloud choosing who he’s in love with.

Cloud tells us who he’s in love with. If you think about it, the writing is actually genius, especially if it works that you think you love Aerith. They completely shatters the illusion on you and it starts in the Northern Crater before Cloud gives Sephiroth the Black Materia.

And you start going down the WTF IS GOING ON RIGHT NOW! path. I know I did. Not because of romance, but because you’re playing as a guy who you think is just a little goofy and has weird flashbacks, but he’s the protagonist so cool, but then they’re like “Yeah, he’s not really him btw, oh and he’s gonna cause Meteor to be summoned.”

THE MAIN CHARACTER! THE HERO! THE PROTAGONIST! is the one being controlled to help ruin the world.

Then you think he’s dead. And you’re left in a daze, much like Tifa is when she first wakes up. You find out more about what happened when Tifa ran in to him in Sector 7 at first. You find out she has a hard time dealing with confrontation and dealing with how to handle many situations. She wakes up after a few days and you’re faced with execution and you’re still like W T F IS GOING ON!?

THEN the Lifestream happens. It’s a wild ride. You’re like okay, so he is actually in love with the girl he made the promise to. If you’re not familiar with the childhood friend romance trope (I wasn’t), then this may or may not surprise you.

I think the best reveal in the game is when you find out Cloud was the Shinra grunt that was with you during the flashback. That blew my mind the first time and I think I went back in to my daze of WTF IS GOING ON again. I still get chills when he takes his helmet off and the Main Theme plays. Ugh. So good.

So I think it’s genius. However, I think the audience was too young and not used to this type of story where they make you believe it’s up to you, but TWIST it’s not. They never get over the first part. They miss the point of her death, they miss the point of the persona illusion shattering. And by not used to, I mainly speak for western audiences.

I do think that things early on feel forced with trying to get you the like Aerith - but they don’t have much time. Also, many things are left out in these games, especially around this time. Xenogears suffered majorly for this in the second part of the game. They removed a lot of playable time and instead you read story. I enjoyed it - it really does make the story feel more filled out BUT it’s a video game, not a book, so a lot of people were mad about it.

They cut, change, and do things to get these games released on time or to fix ratings problems. The localization of FFVII was awful - it’s one of the big topic on how badly the game was translated and there are ones that directly helped to start the LTD. I don’t think that’s a thing anymore as much as it was back then. They took their time on FFVII Remake and it shows. They really fleshed things out for me, especially with Avalanche, Tifa and Aerith’s friendship, and how Cloud really is with Tifa - something that was very hard to convey in the OG since most of his stuff is shown through facial expressions and how he says things (voice acting).

Like the above screenshot is probably what made most people start going down the Horny Jail - Cloti Wing path. That scene was intense. They would have never been able to get that across in OG.

Unless they had a text box pop up that said “Cloud and Tifa roll off the train together and look at each other longingly for a moment and you totally could show this picture to somebody who’s never played this game and they’d think they about to get down.”

#ff7 #final fantasy 7 #cloti #cloud strife #ff7 story #the illusion of cloud strife #ff7r #final fantasy 7 spoilers #ff7 spoilers #ff7r spoilers

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itsagutthing · 4 years ago

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Places Carrie Mathison Has Lived: New York City Edition

this installment of my carrie’s apartments series is close to my heart because i also live in brooklyn, though not close to carrie. the show actually filmed a scene just a block from my apartment, but for obvious reasons i’m not going to specify which scene. i know, season six is overall meh with the exception of carrie’s blazers, but my lizard brain still goes, “that’s where i live!” so i give it more leeway than i probably should.

carrie lives in the bedford-stuyvesant neighborhood of brooklyn, which was once primarily home to black and latino families but unfortunately is in the process of gentrifying. some light googling tells me they filmed the interior apartment scenes on a soundstage in another brooklyn neighborhood called greenpoint, which begs the question: why didn’t they just make carrie live there? greenpoint has also been gentrified but is mostly home to eastern european immigrants, so the writers could have avoided the questionable racial implications of carrie living in bed-stuy, particularly when she’s working at a non-profit that promotes racial justice. and greenpoint is also more convenient to her office in williamsburg! i know the answer to this question is probably just “brownstones look pretty,” and there are lots of brownstones in bed-stuy but not in greenpoint, but i’ll still bitch about it.

anyway, we know from quinn’s escape to the bodega in 6.02 that carrie lives close to the intersection of throop avenue and halsey street, which means she lives off of the kingston-throop A and C trains and a sort-of far walk from the bedford-nostrand G. she probably takes the G to work in williamsburg. this is information that’s only important to me, but i love public transit.

the bike lane sign in the screenshot above reminds me how much i loved seeing carrie biking around berlin. even though nyc isn’t nearly as bike-friendly, i hope she does the same in brooklyn.

carrie appears to have free reign of the entire brownstone, which must have been two separate units at some point — both where she and franny live and the ~garden apartment~ on the basement level that has both a full bath and kitchen. she obviously can’t afford to rent out an entire brownstone in new york city, even in bed-stuy, so my headcanon is that otto bought it as an investment property and is letting carrie and franny stay in it at a heavily discounted rate.

brownstones are typically long and skinny, as we see here. there are really only two rooms on the first floor: the living room and the kitchen.

i love seeing all of franny’s drawings strung up on the living room wall and her chalkboard/easel in the corner. this fixes an issue i had with carrie’s berlin apartment, which was that there was a weird lack of kid stuff. i don’t think that means anything on its own — we see in 5.01 how devoted carrie was to her seemingly normal life as a mother — but it’s nice to see more little touches in her brooklyn apartment.

i assume the fireplace in the left-hand corner isn’t actually usable, but it does make the living room look homier. i’m surprised there isn’t more carpeting, since carrie loves a patterned rug. the living room looks a little cold without it. maybe she isn’t done decorating yet, though i think we’re supposed to believe they’ve been in nyc for a few months.

there’s a tv next to the fireplace in 6.05 that isn’t there in 6.01, which is very strange placement. the only furniture opposite the tv is a desk and chair, so there’s nowhere to sit comfortably while watching. i don’t think carrie spends a lot of time watching tv, but that’s still a confusing choice. i do like franny’s fuzzy chair with bunny ears, though. carrie probably ordered it on amazon but i like to imagine her schlepping it in and out of a cab.

now for the kitchen:

one nice thing the show did to convince us that this is an apartment carrie could maybe afford is that it’s not newly renovated: all the kitchen appliances are basic and/or old, and the countertops look like plastic laminate and are chipped along the edges. and there’s no room for the nice cutting boards or espresso machine she had in germany! i always find barstools charming even if they’re just a cheat to make an efficient use of counter space.

my favorite detail in the kitchen is the trio of framed drawings done by franny. again, i love all the “carrie’s a mom, remember?” touches.

the curtains are a gold color and match the curtains in the living room! carrie learned some design lessons in berlin.

even in the daytime the whole first floor feels really dark, which makes me miss the floor-to-ceiling windows in berlin. i brightened the screenshots a lot to see the details, but especially in the living room, the sunlight just doesn’t reach all the way across the house. the lack of natural light (and the fact that they filmed during the late fall) does a lot of quick work to set the dreary tone that persists for the entire season. i can’t help but compare it to the americans, which also filmed in brooklyn in the fall/winter, but at least the indoor scenes in that show were well-lit and generally warmer in both color and tone.

i associate the early seasons of homeland with warm yellows, probably because they filmed either in the desert or in charlotte in the summertime. the shift to gray winter skies and heavy coats is a little jarring, even with berlin in the middle as a transitional urban, cooler season.

that door behind carrie goes out to a set of stairs and their little backyard/patio:

it’s common, if a little depressing, to have bars on first-floor windows as shown in the second shot above, both to child-proof an apartment from the inside and to prevent break-ins. our first view of franny for the season is through those bars, but i’m not entirely sure what the symbolism is supposed to be. carrie already feels a separation from franny, maybe? this shot especially feels super foreboding.

carrie continues her trend of killer outdoor lounge furniture (remember the multiple chaises on her DC patio?) with the wooden chair with blue cushions right outside the back door. there are also more potted plants than i believe carrie would purchase/remember to water, especially in the winter, but maybe she figures if they’re outside they’ll get enough rain to survive.

i don’t have a lot to say about the patio itself other than i’m jealous that carrie has outdoor space.

inside by the stairs/front entryway is a framed berlin jazz poster which makes me inexplicably happy, and follows the same trend with the jazz posters she had in her DC apartment. it’s hard to tell what’s in the photos, so i’m choosing to believe they’re pictures of places she and franny loved in berlin, including some of the two of them taken by jonas. there is absolutely a photo of franny and carrie at the birthday party we saw in 5.01 where carrie’s wearing that balloon hat.

we don’t get to see a lot of the second floor, but i’m going to assume it’s just franny’s room, carrie’s room, carrie’s weird conspiracy closet, and a bathroom.

franny’s room is very colorful, with the rainbow sheets and rainbow polka dot curtains. it makes up for the dreariness of the first floor. behind carrie in that second shot is franny’s star lamp, which i love but have many questions about. it’s obviously an allusion to brody, of which there are many in season 6, probably because they’re in new york city and brody would have never served/been captured/turned/bonded with carrie if not for 9/11. assuming that carrie purchased this lamp for franny with brody’s memory in mind, does franny have anything else that’s star themed? if not, why this lamp? did carrie explain to franny that stars make her think of franny’s father, or is it just a secret nod for carrie alone? how often does carrie talk to franny about brody, if at all?

now we move to carrie’s conspiracy closet:

i’ve been in enough brownstones to know that sometimes there are strange inexplicable tiny rooms, which is what we have here. i’m sure this would be advertised as an office space on streeteasy but it really looks like a glorified closet with a confusing number of doors leading off of it. i count three total including the one saul came in — what are all these doors? i think the one on saul’s right goes to franny’s room but i don’t have a great spatial brain and i’m not confident about that assessment.

this conspiracy board reveal was kinda anticlimactic since very little happens with it, but i still felt like i needed to include it as a separate room since carrie clearly spends a lot of time here.

i wish we got to see carrie’s bedroom because i love to scrutinize the art she has, but sadly we’re limited to franny’s room. i’m going to assume there’s a full bath up here somewhere, and a half bath downstairs that we don’t see.

finally, we have the basement apartment that carrie allegedly rents out on airbnb. in real life it likely would be marketed as an entire unit separate from the two floors above, but since otto owns the entire brownstone / is in love with carrie he’s just letting her do whatever she wants with it.

the full kitchen is what convinces me it was supposed to be an independent unit — no one has a stove and sink and lots of cabinets in their basement. like we saw in carrie’s kitchen, none of the appliances are fancy and the countertops are nothing special, which makes the room look kinda drab but does help sell the idea that carrie could actually live here. there’s also some water damage in the corner by the fridge. i’m not sure why they decided to be realistic in season 6 — can we all recall carrie’s unnecessary two-bedroom townhouse in DC? — and it’s not particularly fun to watch, but i’m not mad about it.

the living room area of this basement actually looks cozier than carrie’s living room, with all the pillows and the exposed brick wall. i have a weakness for exposed brick walls, as we know from carrie’s DC apartment, and here it goes pretty far to make the space look homey. the couch looks like it matches the chair on her patio (with the wood frame + blue cushions), so does that mean the patio chair is meant for normal indoor use? why is it outside??

as we know from her berlin apartment, carrie really loves a two-curtain combo with a sheer under layer. these are dark green, similar to the navy ones she loved in berlin but not the same. i do like the thought of carrie taking her navy curtains with her from germany and relegating them to the basement to avoid the constant reminder of her past life, but i also have no desire to think about what it would mean that quinn ends up living in the basement with her jonas curtains. so those must be new!

in summary: musings about carrie’s role in gentrification, the color palette of the show, berlin jazz poster + photos, franny’s art on the walls, star lamp, a basement living room that’s cozier than carrie’s actual living room!

#homeland #carrie mathison #me acknowledging qu*nn's existence? only because i needed the screenshots #me bringing up jonas for no reason? of course #i cropped/brightened these photos while watching gilmore girls which sure was a tonal shift #cma*#i miss carrie even though i have every single episode at my fingertips

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slade-neko · 4 years ago

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Monster Hunter Rise ~ My Thoughts

Oh, man, Monster Hunter Rise, where to begin?! I guess I’ll start with the game itself in a nutshell is a BLAST! It’s not without a few issues I have with it personally, but I’ve been having a lot of fun playing it nonetheless. I want to take the time to mention I am a second generation hunter myself. Started playing Monster Hunter in 2008 with Freedom 2 on PSP at the tender age of 13. So its safe to say I’ve got a lot to say about this game! If you want to read the full thing then here it is.

This review is MOSTLY spoiler-free! There isn’t a lot you can spoil in this game... I mention some endgame stuff and there is a screenshot that contains the final boss’s armor but not focused on it. Just a friendly warning if you are a die-hard spoiler avoider.

The Weapon Types

I’ll start with the fact that the weapon types in MH Rise are all really fun to play and have very well polished movesets. I haven’t extensively played with all the weapon types, but I’d like to say a few things about the ones I have been using. Long Sword feels the best it has ever been in the entire series in my opinion, ironically this game starts you off with a Long Sword equipped too.

I went ham with Long Sword throughout the main story, but now have swapped over to maining Light Bowgun. I was a big Heavy Bowgun main in MH World, but shield spreadshot builds don't feel the same for me as they did in World, but the Light Bowgun in this game shreds. Narga Piercing LBG for distance shooting and then Magnamalo Spread LBG for getting up close and personal. Evade Extender 3 makes zipping around the battlefield a breeze and next to impossible to get hit making it a very fun and rewarding playstyle.

My brother on the other hand has been hitting hard with Long Sword and the new Hunting Horn. He misses the original note playing at times, but the damage on HH is insane and healing constantly with the Rampage Horn is a big plus too for a game with no health regen factors. He’s been building sets for nearly every weapon type, but LS and HH are his two mains. Both weapon types were introduced in 2nd Gen, where we started, so maining those two for him is a bit symbolic. Also the fact that LS has been heralded as the most used weapon-type and HH the least used as of recent games is a neat contrast to use both.

The Characters, Setting, and Story

I know Monster Hunter isn’t exactly known for it’s characters or story, heck most games hardly had a story until World came out. Typically Monster Hunter games follow the simple formula of big bad flagship monster causing problems with local village and ecosystem, hunt it, happy ending?, turns out bigger badder scarier secret boss monster was actually causing the problems, hunt it, true happy ending. Nothing wrong with that, I can roll with whatever story they make, majority of players are here for the gameplay. That said, I still enjoy and appreciate what story the devs put together no matter how it turns out. I liked what Rise offered, nothing too grand like World, more of a simple story following the old games formula.

Surprisingly I haven’t seen many people talk about the characters in this game and the little fact that this is the first time in the ENTIRE SERIES (outside of MH Stories) characters have REAL names! Hinoa, Minoto, Fugen, Yomogi, Iori, Hamon, Rondine, Hojo, Utsushi, like honest to goodness actual NAMES, not “Blacksmith,” “Village Elder,” or “Fish Mongress.” The characters are fun though, nice and memorable, not really annoying. Also following World’s fully voice-acted characters is a nice touch. I sometimes miss the days of old when characters had simple grunts and you read everything, but I doubt that will ever come back now, just something lost to the classic MH games.

Then there’s the super Asian-inspired ninja-like theme to the entire game. You’ll either love it, hate it, or maybe you don’t care about how the village is at all. I like the whole ninja aesthetic while it does work for this game in particular, but I will admit its a little bit weird in the entirety of Monster Hunter as a series.

The Hunts, Gameplay, and Everything Else

Ah yes, the gameplay, the heart of the Monster Hunter games... while yes I do think this game is a lot of fun overall, I do have a few complaints with it... I’m going to break this down into mini-sections because there is a lot to cover here.

Quest Preparations Maybe I’m just old school, but I feel like they took away a lot of the prep work for going on hunts. No cold/ hot drinks, access full inventory on quests, refill items, no longer eat for attack/ def buffs, monsters always visible on maps, no random spawning on High Rank quests, little things like that. In the old games you had to prepare for each hunt, it was part of the game. You go after a big monster, you make sure you got everything you need to win BEFORE you depart on the quest. It feels like they are double-downing more so on just the fighting itself.

Tracking Monsters Monsters aren’t even tracked anymore, they’re always visible on your map. No having to run around and look for them like classic MH games... Though to be fair maybe that’s better off in the old games with the paintball tracking system and individual loaded areas than in a game with a fully open-world setting because I got headaches tracking monsters in MH World’s open-world especially the Ancient Forest.

The Monsters The new monsters in this game a welcome addition. I don’t really have any problems with their designs or fights. Have to say Goss Horag has a very fun fight, but my favorite new monster is probably Rakna-Kadaki. A pelican spider is a dang neat idea for a monster and there aren’t a lot of Temnocerans. Would love to see the return of the Carapaceons though! This is literally the perfect game for Shen-Gaoren to come back with the new rampage system! Bring back my giant enemy crab, Capcom please!

Monster Behavior/ Minion Monsters/ Herbivores Added this subsection to talk specifically about the monsters’ behaviors in this game along with the minion monsters cause while not very important overall there are still some things to be said.

Same thing in MH World, but the monsters act more like animals now. While yes, that is more realistic and is mostly a good thing, but it honestly gives me second thoughts about hunting them. In World most boss monsters wouldn’t attack you unless you attacked them first. That made me feel terrible walking up to a calm Teostra just chilling in the dunes and then I start smacking the heck outta it with a weapon... Old games the monsters saw you, the “something’s gonna getcha music starts playing” and then it charges you and your in the fight! Now its like you’re the monster killing a bunch of animals (exaggerating a bit, but still!)

What’s not exaggerated is the minions in this game. The old games had minions that were incredibly annoying and I wanted to kill them. This game however has the sweet little bullfangos, jagras, and other minions just lazing around sleeping. My brother and I were in need of Rhenoplos scalps for some gear, set out on a quest to slay some, find them peacefully sleeping by some rocks and I ask my brother, “Okay, so you gonna bash its skull in with your hammer and pop its eyes out or am I gonna fill it full of lead with my bowgun?” Needlessly violent example, I know, but it still makes the point that it feels more like animal cruelty when they aren’t bothering anyone. I’d rather the minions just start charging me and piss me off as a player, so I wouldn’t feel bad defending myself to take them out.

Lastly, there’s the herbivores. Not a lot to say on the matter, but I feel like they could’ve given a few more herbivore types. Like no Aptonoth in this game? I thought they were kinda a staple of the series for herbivores. I also feel like the maps could feel a bit more lively with more herbivores placed around. Maybe Mosswines in the Shrine Ruins, especially when scaling the central mountain shrine with the mushroom colonies everywhere. Great spots for mushroom piggies!

The Maps/ Locales I love them! Well for the most part. They are good and I don’t dislike any in particular. My only problems is that they sometimes feel too big, too open, and too empty. I know they have a lot of stuff in them, gathering points, spiribirds, relics, and many other things, but there is an odd sense of emptiness there. Like I mentioned earlier, I think perhaps adding in more scattered monsters might’ve helped that a bit. Only other thing to mention is that the new locales rely too heavily on the Palamutes to get around effectively. I personally like bringing my kitties with me on multiplayer quests, so I am at the mercy of wirebug zipping to get around and often left behind.

Oh, last thing I will mention on maps is while its not in the base game, I pray they add back the Tower as a map. Preferably the 2nd Gen version where you start at base camp and scale the tower. A game that’s all about rising and verticality, the Tower is literally the PERFECT map to have in this game!

Spiribirds Love em or hate them, there’s the Spiribirds. Cool concept, but I don’t think it works very well in my opinion. I don’t care about roaming the map to collect my bird buffs, I just want to eat for Attack Up large like old games and be done. I definitely try to grab them when I can, but I can’t be bothered to chase down all the birds each and every hunt just to get my full Attack up buff.

Wirebugs On with the title of the game being Rise giving meaning to the new wirebugs feature. Wirebugs are fun to use, zip around the map, super attacks, and what-not, but I can’t help but feel its a little out of place in a Monster Hunter game. Feels like I’m Spider-Man or something. I know I praised this when I played the demo and I’m not dissing it now, I still enjoy using them, but I am also admitting that they do feel very outlandish for a Monster Hunter game. Still better than the slinger/ clutch claw though! Let’s never talk about those accursed items again.

Silkbinds The Silkbind attacks though are fully great! I love having access to super attacks like Hunting Arts and things like that for my weapons, so I sincerely hope they keep some kind of super attack format in future games.

Mounting The mounting system in this game is weird, but pretty cool! Its a great way to let you control a monster for a change and beat the snot out of other monsters as a monster. I saw someone describe it is as “going full on Ratatouille with the monsters” and honestly there isn’t a better way to explain it than that.

Palicoes/ Palamutes The Buddy System in this game is great! Palicoes still feel about the same as they did in World, maybe a little less powerful now since you can have two of them at once, still love them though and prefer to bring a Palico with me on my quests.

Then there is the new doggies, the Palamutes! Super cute and cuddly, but also quite powerful! I love the doggos, but I wish the maps weren’t designed around them. I like to bring my cat with me on multiplayer quests, so I don’t get a dog to ride and the maps are HUGE, very wide-opened, lots of running... Wirebugs help, but still not quite as fast as the puppies.

Oh and two little pet peeve of mine is you can’t see other players buddy names and you can’t change buddy comments! I want people to be able to see my buddies’ names and I need my Garfield cat’s comment to say “I hate Mondays.” and my Sonic dog to say “Gotta go fast!” and my Courage the Cowardly Dog dog to have “The things I do for love.” Unless there is a hidden menu somewhere where you can edit these, but alas I have yet to find it...

Voiced Hunters Hunters have always been the silent protagonists of the games with attack grunts, hurt sounds, and little to nothing more. Now they are full voiced for gestures and full hunting dialogue. I really like this, its funny to hear them shout things and stuff and having some familiar voice actors in the game is really cool to have them voice my characters. My brother rocking the Xander Mobus voice-type on his hunter is freakin’ cool and hilarious at the same time. I am tempted to make a Zentisu hunter, name him Zenitsu, give him the Zentisu voice-type, and go full Thunderclap maining a Thunder-type Long Sword just for the heck of it. Oh and also there’s the fact that CRISTINA VEE IS OFFICIALLY IN A MONSTER HUNTER GAME NOW AS A FEMALE VOICE OPTION! Still feels weird comparing it to previous games, but I’m okay with it because the fun factor in it outweighs the weird for me personally. Besides if you for some reason decided you hate fun you can just mute them in the options.

Layered Armor (or lack-of) I love Layered Armor... and there is only two sets in this game. The Deluxe Edition’s “Kamurai” samurai looking layered armor and the Magnamalo amiibo “Sinister” layered set with a few head only layered pieces as DLC in the eShop. I was honestly expecting all armor to be layered and unlockable in the base game after the huge demand for layered armor in MH World and Transmog being a thing in the side team’s last game, MHXX/ MHGU.

I think a mixed system of both Transmog and Layered Armor would be ideal. Transmog system for in-game armors and then additional bonus themed armor sets made as Layered Armors like the Kamurai set. That way players can be rewarded for crafting all the armors with use of a Transmog system even giving an incentive to make multiple sets twice to Transmog differently. While the devs could still make money off cool unique Layered sets as DLC in the eShop. Literally fixes both issues right there. Feel free to use that idea, Capcom, and you’re welcome.

Multiplayer/ Lobbies/ Scaling Four people lobbies are back! Not necessarily a good thing. I mean hey its not bad either, but I honestly preferred the larger lobbies like World had. Having more people doesn’t make it less social. All they need is to force people to do multiplayer quests in the Gathering Hub. I prefer large lobbies and have people do whatever they want and meet up in the Hub for socials. Mainly what I dislike about 4 player lobbies is everyone will be expected to help each other on their quests within the lobby. I just want to chill and do my own thing, but see and interact with other players in the village between quests. Oh, but the ability to join quests late is seriously great! Dropping into a lobby and seeing people already on a quest and being able to jump in with them is a godsend!

Difficulty scaling is a very weird thing. It’s basically a double-edged sword. Its good to have because you can beat everything on your own, but that also defeats the purpose of multiplayer. In the past games, Hub quests were scaled higher for multiplayer, so getting more people to help only made it easier. Now, why bother with players when you could just do it yourself scaled to an easier single-player difficulty? I can usually get faster times when I solo things now. Multiplayer is there just for the social aspect to goof around with friends or if you just wanna do chill hunting with people. It’s no longer a requirement or an aid for beating the game. Like I said, its a weird thing, not bad, but not good either? I dunno, I just compare a lot of things to the classic MH games. In the past getting a second player to help makes it twice as easy compared to beating a Hub quest by yourself, while getting four players makes it where you’re effectively doing 4x more damage. Now its like you get 4-players and the monster gets 4x the health too. That might not be the exact scaling, but you get my point.

One last thing I want to touch on which a lot of people have already mentioned is the fact multiplayer can get pretty chaotic. Especially when you have 4 players with 4 palamutes all smacking away at a monster. Hit effects are EVERYWHERE! Creates quite the mess and can be hard to tell what’s happening.

Quest Difficulty/ Harder Monsters I don’t care too much about how hard the game is and I know this is a touchy subject, but I do like challenging monsters, without relying on gimmicky crap to fight them. MH World was filled with gimmicky fights like Behemoth, Leshen, even Alatreon and Fatalis to some degree. I still have Extreme Behemoth PTSD. I just want good clean fights, no damage checks, unavoidable one-hit kill moves, crap like that is not cool. I want to cart because I screwed up and made a wrong move and got punished by some wicked strong attack from a big bad boss monster. Not a stupid damage check telling me, “Oh, you not do enough damage, you die now.” To be fair, old Monster Hunter games had some gimmicky fights too though. MH4U with Apex Monsters and Wystones, MHGU with HP tank Hyper Monsters, heck even Freedom 2 was unintentionally gimmicky with outrageous hitboxes haha. Oh, that game was brutal! Deviants in MHGU were amazing though! Some really tough fights there, but incredibly rewarding to beat, that’s what I love!

The Endgame/ Secret Bosses (or lack-of) There is no Endgame, we are stuck in the Infinity War for now (or Affinity War as my brother calls it since the meta is all about those crits!) Okay, so that’s a bit harsh, all jokes aside there is an endgame, but its not exactly what I was expecting and leaves me wanting more. One of my favorite aspects of Monster Hunter games is the endgames and the secrets they hold, which this game had very few! They revealed nearly EVERY monster before this game launched. I get it, they want to sell their game, but leave some secrets please. Only monster that was secret was just the final boss. I love getting to the end of the game and unlocking new quests to fight the big scary endgame bosses. I guess World kinda suffered from that too a little bit. Mostly hanging on to old games like Freedom Unite unlocking Fatalis, MH3U getting Abyssal Lagiacrus, and Molten Tigrex in MH4U was very cool! Could just be the state of games these days like Smash Ultimate where they reveal everything before the game is out since data miners will just leak them anyways... kinda makes me sad.

Updates and Future Content

I know this game has planned updates that will add a lot of content, but I can’t help but feel those “updates” were part of the game that’s been withheld to make the updates feel like so much more. Its like they ripped out the ending of the game and are passing it of as a big huge update to be released after launch.

The real kick to this is the fact there is no Hunter Rank in the current game... I’ve done approximately 300 quests so far in my game, its going to hurt me very badly when I see the HR update come out and I don’t get any HR for the hunts I’ve done so far. I know some people could care less about HR and just see it as a number, but for me that number is a nice thing to see. I love seeing it go up as I do more quests and play more of the game. Going hard at launch has been a lot of fun, but less rewarding knowing I am quite possibly not getting any HR points for all my gameplay.

Only reason I can see they would not want to allow a buildup of HR before this update is because this update will add a bunch of new endgame monsters most likely unlocked through getting high Hunter Rank. I pray for my boy Akantor to finally shine again, I know the side team loves him, so let’s please get him into Rise! AND Please don’t show them off in videos, Capcom! Just stealth drop a bunch of Elder Dragons and Endgame bosses into the game!

Final Thoughts

I’m probably just stuck in the old days some, I guess this is just how the games will be going forward, but a bit of that makes me sad. Feels like the game series I loved so much is losing some character and personality of what made is special and unique. This review might’ve got a bit ranty, but I like to critique a game series I am very passionate about. World was very similar to this. From everything I’ve said, by no means do I hate this game. I still love MH Rise and the entire series and I’ll keep playing it having a lot of fun along the way. Best way I can describe Monster Hunter Rise is it’s the Side Team’s Monster Hunter World. Its fresh, new, and very experimental!

All in all this game is still great and I stand by what I said at the beginning of this entire post, its a blast to play! I hope everyone can enjoy it and remember, Happy Hunting!

#Monster Hunter Rise #Monster Hunter #MHRise

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criquette-was-here · 4 years ago

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Replies!

@pocketsfullofposies said:

Hi Criquette! Looking through your screenshots from Feverfew, how do you manage to get your neighbourhood water so smooth and seamless? Mine still looks pretty textured and rough

Hey Dids! Umm, I’m sorry but I’m not sure I get your question right. The hood water in my game is hardcore vanilla, without any mods. Well, it’s mac version vanilla water with plain mirror-like reflection, with no subtle ripples of any kind. If you’re talking about the canal, then it’s not water as such, but rather just a deco ‘fake’ water I made since I needed it on a higher level than the real hood water.

@myfangladiator said:

as a part of Linden tree REDUX, can you also offer a forest grouped?

Well, since there are linden trees defaults made by @lowedeus that comes with defaults for both bunches of trees (forest and row), I’d love to have Redux version DRed as well, but that is still needs to be done.

Anonymous said:

Hello! I don't know if you are taking request, but I would like to know if it is possible that you could please make more types of parking to decorate the neighborhoods, as I really love your vehicle set, thanks in advance and sorry for my crappy English haha ^^

Hey Anon! You’re right there! It would be nice to have more parking related decos, but I don’t want to distract myself from Feverfew release any longer so there will be no any side projects until Feverfew is released.

Anonymous said:

Hi, Criquette. Big fan of your work! Have you come across Panmine's Sim City neighborhood on MTS before? Unfortunately, Panmine never uploaded a completed version of the neighborhood because of the size of CC included so I am currently re-creating the Sim City myself. Have you considered making a similar city themed neighborhood? I ask because you have created some great neighborhood decorations which I am using in my city build and were also used in Panmine's Sim City. Cheers!

Hello Anon! Thanks! Well, about a year ago I did enjoy decorating a megapolis themed hood for a couple of days, I took some pictures and realized that it would be a complete nightmare to finish this thing the way I want it to be. So no, no ‘big city’ themed hoods from me.

Anonymous said:

How do you resist the urge to just fill the empty spaces in the map with trees, and most importantly, how can it still look so beautiful???

I just pretend it’s grass fields and meadows with some trees here and there.

Anonymous said:

Is it me or the trees in your latest posts are more fluffy than they really are?

They are! And that’s because they’re completely remodelled and remastered due to upcoming Basic Tree Set Redux

Anonymous said:

dude ur like. a sims genius. pushing a decade plus old game to places it’s never been before. showing what fans can achieve with good ol passion, know how and trial and error. it amazes me how youve changed and revolutionised the game I grew up playing for the better and renewed my love for it in the process. and thanks to your deco cc I have a new hobby: decorating sims neighbourhoods to a ridiculous level! thank u so much!!

Hey Anon! Oh, most kind! Thank you. I’m glad that you’re enjoying decorating your hoods. It’s really fun thing to do. But I think it’s not just me, but the whole TS2 community that pushes this lovely game beyond the limits. There’s so many extremely talented simmers and modders out there who never stop exploring and discovering things to make Sims 2 better. I’m happy to be a part of this.

Anonymous said:

Of course! I should've know from the other pictures, but they do look different from that distance. Thank you for the reply.

... Oh! You’re talking about cobblestone paths! Yes. I should try and answer my inbox more often >.<

#replies #anon #pocketsfullofposies #myfangladiator

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dathen · 5 years ago

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TMA 164 liveblog dump

Spoilers under the cut!

WELL THAT SURE ISN'T A FOREBODING NAME I almost gotta laugh at how terribly these themes lined up, RIP rusty quill

"Beaujester Real" returns for the patreon thanks slfkjsdf still a legend

oh I hate this! I hate this!

oh I’m getting that hefty Brexit commentary through the metaphor BUT ITS NOT EVEN A METAPHOR ANYMORE

holy xenophobia batman

“they dress in blue and red and white, sometimes splashed with crimson red” convenient this works for both our countries god I thought this would hit hardest on plague level but nope the real horror is MAGA/Brexit all along

KEJDJJFJDNFIFIND MARTINS MIDDLE NAME OH GOD THAT “YOU THINK MARTIN IS MY REAL NAME” SHITPOST WAS RIGHT IM HOWLING

(also east asian martin hc GO GO)

JON STOPPING HIS OMNISCIENCE DEMONSTRATION TO RANT IN BETRAYAL I’M CRYING I LOVE THEM

“I believed you! That’s ridiculous, I thought; that’s not a real name, but you wouldn’t LIE to me—“ I CANT STOP LAUGHINF STOP THIS EMOTIONAL WHIPLASH AFTER WORST STATEMENT

Basira is alive and moving!! looking for Daisy!! DAISY IS OUT THERE!!!!!!!!

“Daisy, I’m sorry—“ ;A; “She thinks she’s going to kill Daisy, like she promised, but she’s conflicted” ;;A;; ;;A;; this isn’t emotional whiplash this is emotional blender

I’m genuinely surprised bc I thought of all of them, Basira would be the most likely to be trapped in something, I AM SO RELIEVED

can’t see melanie or georgie!! the fic theories are right!! the fear immunity!!

Jon having the Panipticon’s power is both sexy and horrifying in implications

“we are something between a pilgrim and a moth” MOTH JON MOTH JON MOTH JON!!!!!

ANNABELLE CANE WAS CALLING MARTIN I KNEW IT WAS THE WEB I KNEW IT WAS THE FUCKING WEB I’m glad they didn’t keep us in suspense for that one long

all those “Martin’s been web all along” theories just got demolished, he couldn’t have refused to pick up a call from her if he was on their side, but I doubt that will stop the theories

I bet the reason why jon can’t see annabelle is the same reason he can’t think about the web lighter

I am literally shaking from now cute jon and martin are, martin’s little “ah!” when jon admits he guessed something rather than Knowing it

“I’m starting to get a bit self conscious, being your post-apocalyptic google~” THE WAY HE SAYS THIS IS SO CUTE SO FUCKING CUTE CUTE JON NATION CUTE JON IS THE TRUTH

also I love Jon hinting that he wants to stop soon and martin agreeing and asking for one more, like I love that even for not Hard Boundaries they feel comfortable saying when they’re wearing down on something and know the other will respect it

MARTIN GOING SOFT SO FAST WHEN JON HURTS HIMSELF WITH THE KNOWING AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

oh boy oh boy I can’t wait to post screenshots of the times Jon rushed to calm Martin down with “hey, hey, hey, it’s okay—“ next to screenshots of martin’s “hey, hey, it’s okay, we’ll go slow for a while”

I can just picture Martin curling around Jon and tucking Jon’s head under his chin as he says this Jon muttering his weak little “alright” into Martin’s chest bblvlbllrbrbrlrbrbrlrbrr

yesssss Jon calling out the Distortion pretending to be Helen Herself as a lie I KNEW IT AND WILL INCLUDE THIS IN MY ESSAY

BRLGKRJGHLRKFBRKR “THE HAPPY COUPLE” oh my god I remember when we were fantasizing about how “more explicit relationship” would happen in s5 and “what if a villain taunts them about how cute they are together” was one THIS SEASON REALLY IS GIVING US EVERYTHING

helen: I always knew you crazy kids would make it work ^_____^ martin, warily: thanks. THIS IS REAL DIALOGUE?? THIS IS REAL????????

also it is just like the Distortion to actively sabotage Jon’s attempt to save Martin and laugh at him in his desperation, only to turn around and act chummy like a gossipy old friend placing bets on their relationship

HERE IT COMES HERE COMES OTHER PEOPLE BLAMING JON FOR THE APOCALYPSE RAGE TIME RAGE TIME fandom better not pull any bullshit

but of course the Distortion would try to paralyze Jon with mind games and guilt and make sure he doesn’t undo the fun new world

Martin I’m sorry but you suggesting Helen might be able to help is the lowest brain cell thing you’ve ever said. She literally just smelled the world loudly and called it a wonderland.

Martin, to the beating heart of the apocalypse: Jon honey darling don’t be rude Martin, to the manifestation of a fear power exulting in a dead world: Excuse me what you just said is rude to me

Martin: So...no shortcuts then. Understood. I’m not leaving you on your own. Helen: *gasp* Such devotion! BGNBBTBRHGLGJKTLGKTBGBBEHGBGBTBBTBFB ARE YOU KIDDINGNGNG NGNG MEEEE

I don’t trust her at all but can we PLEASE have helen trail along behind them the whole journey commenting on all their cute couple moments?? frodo and sam need a gollum after all

“Such devotion! You really don’t deserve it. But you know that already!” Jon.... ;;A;; ;;A;; god helen really is out to crush the humanity out of him with despair so he gives it up, going right for the jugular of not deserving Martin’s love

“Just taking a moment to look. You two are such an adorable couple!” jonny: I spent the whole hiatus creating this sign titled “Martin and Jon are in love and a couple and it’s wonderful” I hope you enjoy being beaten over the head with it ^_^

Jon, venomously: I am NOT nor have I EVER BEEN adorable!! Martin: Okay, first of all, not true. JFJFJFJJFJDNDFJJFJF MARTIN THINKS JON IS ADORABLE MARTIN IS PRESIDENT OF CUTE JON NATION AND HE’S RIGHT not about helen (wtf martin) BUT ABOUT CUTE JON?? correct as FUCK

Jon, adorably: I’m not CUTE I’m DEADLY

someone PLEASE sound clip jon denying that he’s adorable there are tears in my eyes I love him so much I’m going full cat parent

I am so glad Mir introduced me to the phrase “cute aggression” because I got it bad and it is suffocating I gotta go punch a WALL is that why helen is running around killing people?? cause of too much cute aggression over jonmartin???

#the magnus archives #tma #tma spoilers #TMA 164 The Sick Village

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autumnslance · 5 years ago

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how do you get into roleplaying on a ff server? like how do you do it and how do you know if your character is lore compliant? ;A; pls youre a big inspo to me

*Hugs Nonny* Getting into RP on a FF server can vary; I don’t actually RP much these days, outside of some friends I already have connections to--and that in itself can be difficult just due to Life! It can take time, and patience, and some fits and starts.

And this gets...really really long, so buckle up and go below the cut, please. :)

The cut got broken by an edit. Sigh.

In game there’s always the RP status tag, and just doing RP with folks in public spaces. There may be trolls now and then, but they can be ignored. I personally find Balmung’s Quicksand area too busy and anxiety inducing and not actually all that conducive to actual RP, even “meet at a tavern” walk-up type. But unless you already have a ready-made group of friends/FCmates willing to RP more than some random walk-ups with you, it may take some legwork to find folks you can and want to write with.

Social Media There are a couple of RP community blogs, like @mooglemeet and @ffxiv-crystal-rp and plenty of server-specific ones. There’s also some Discords for these communities. They host and advertise events and reblog people who are looking for RP contacts. Some of them have running gdoc calendars and in game linkshells and fellowships as well.

Shofie has a good post about Tumblr/social media RP blogging.

@shofie-ffxiv

It’s a fact now that social media outside game is a way to make contacts, or even a medium for RP itself. There are few centralized websites/forums for server RP communities anymore. Making connections over your social media, like Tumblr and Twitter, can help find RP. You can’t just throw your own character info out there or reblog prompts hoping others bite, though; you have to put in some work and show interest in others, too. This can be difficult and even scary. That’s OK.

RP is about collaboration and creating with other people, which means finding folks you can write with, and who see you as someone interesting but also interested in them and their OCs. If you want to keep it a solo endeavor focused on your own OCs, write fanfic (which I’ve actually made friends and gotten RP interests that way too through comment interactions, so hey).

If you reblog a prompt from someone, see others on your dash reblogging prompts, if people reblog that prompt post from you? Send them asks! Alternatively, don’t wait for prompts, just send asks, comments, or chats saying hello and things you notice or like about their blog/character/posts they make. Try to form connections with people you think are genuinely interesting and might be fun to talk with. Social media should be, well, social.

BUT respect boundaries, too. Don’t try sarcasm or jokes with people you don’t actually know, it tends to go over poorly. Unless someone’s specifically posting a naughty meme/prompt, keep stuff you others send clean and polite, especially if it’s unsolicited and you’re not already friends (doubly so if you don’t know how old they are IRL, there are laws you do not want to break). Respect if people aren’t open to random asks or chatting with new followers, or say “no” to RP, and know it’s not personal--it’s just what they have time, energy, and emotional/mental capacity for. Don’t give up on other people, though. This stuff can take time and effort to find those you click with.

Respect and communication with RP partners is pretty key.

Do curate your feeds and don’t be afraid to unfollow/mute/block folks, either. I’m selective in who I follow and remove as needed, too, for my own mental health. I miss so much of the discourse and drama and that’s fine by me. Also it costs nothing to not step in on a lot of the drama when it does pass in sight.

Profiles I have static RP profile pages for my girls here on Tumblr (and a lot of other static links and pages, but I’m weird about organizing like that). This way, if people want to write with me, send me prompts, if I sent them prompts, or they want to otherwise interact with my characters, the information is handily available. For some folks, this makes all the difference in who they choose to interact with: how easily can they find even basic info about your OC?

Some people make Carrds. Some folks have gdoc links, or use Dreamwidth, etc. Just keep the links in the blog’s sidebar menu, and/or in the blog desc so people can see ‘em on mobile. There are templates out there, or you can make your own. Feel free to snag mine if you’d like. A lot of times people also copy their profiles to rebloggable posts when looking for RP contacts. Profiles are a good way to let folks know just the at-a-glance basics about your character(s).

I picked a simple theme with a simple layout that makes it easy to add and show off links. I put them in the blog desc to make them easy to find on mobile, too.

[Images: links from my blog sidebar menu showing how over organized I am]

RP, Stories, Lore Post some stories or RP logs (with permission of others involved) or even just random little blurbs and headcanons, as well as any screenshots, art, aesthetic posts for your OCs. Have something of interest to show for your character, too, so some of those folks your interacting with have something of their own to see and ask about!

If possible, try some light RP with friends and FC Mates who are amenable. Go to events, even if just to lurk at first. When you do get up the nerve to talk to people, don’t try to throw a character’s entire backstory at them, or try to steal the limelight--RP is collaboration, back and forth, and a lot like real conversation. Maybe come up with little light things to talk about if asked; a recent adventuring job, a silly shopping incident, etc. They can break the ice or just give you something to reply with for a few minutes.

Lore Compliance is Variable. Some people really want lore compliance, others are OK bending it here and there, while still others throw it out the window entirely. If you want to be super lore compliant...read. There’s a LOT of information, in game and out, for finding lore; from official publications and website material, to tools like Garland Tools site, to compilation blogs like @mirkemenagerie.

Note what’s important for your concept. Narrow it down. Characters aren’t going to know or be or do everything, so only worry about what’s necessary for the base idea. And be flexible; it’s SE’s sandbox, we just play in it, and they can change things any time. They usually do it in the guise of characters not knowing/having all the correct information, at least, but also some places just don’t exist in game yet so we don’t have info.

I’m unspecific about a lot of elements of Aeryn’s childhood, for instance, other than “traveling merchants near Thavnair.” I don’t have to be super specific. I can keep most details vague, and focus on her family and those relationships.

Dark, as my first character, has a fairly simple backstory that I’ve expanded on and adjusted over time as I learned and came up with new info. I also bet no one remembers I originally said Dark was from the North Shroud. I’ve changed things (now from East Shroud, due to the proximity to Gyr Abania and its Hellsguards) as I learned more about the world and my character. You don’t want to change things willy-nilly, but sometimes being flexible and smoothing down some rough edges and making small changes can be fine, especially as one gets more lore over time.

Iyna has a pretty detailed backstory, that came from a basic idea, and checking dates in the pre-Calamity timeline. I based her being taken and trained the way she was not only on what info we have about Garlemald’s imperial practices with conquered provinces, but borrowed a bit from real life and the re-education schools many Native Americans were forced into (though I haven’t gone into detail on that yet, either). I tied the turning point in Iyna’s life to a major event that wasn’t the Calamity, and have left plenty of space in between for me to fill in as time goes on and I learn more about her and the world.

The world isn’t static, and is bigger and more diverse than what can be shown in the game. There’s space in the margins for plenty of weird stuff and contradictions or unusual cases. So read up on what you can, ask questions, and then find where in those spaces your OC fits. Then, find people who enjoy similar tastes in lore compliance (or non-compliance), and who enjoy playing with you and your OCs, and not worrying about the rest. Can’t please everyone, nor get along with everyone, so don’t try; just find what works for you, and who works with you, and don’t police anyone else’s pretendy fun times, either.

There’s no magic answer on the “right” amount of lore compliance, or how to quickly and easily find RP partners or break into the broader RP community.

I hope this helps at least a little bit! Good luck in finding your niche for RP, and maybe I’ll see you sometime at an event :)

#roleplay #blogging #writing #social media #long post #nonny got me thinking #some links #hope this helps?#Anonymous

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