#obviously this is a complete non-issue but it's just SO unsatisfying to not be able to spend all the event currency

[crehador]

it's absolutely doing my head in that you can't zero out the event currency, like if you clear the shop you'll have at least 5 puppy coins left no matter what (because i guess the item that cost 15 coins had an odd number in stock?)

and you can never get rid of it because there's no stage that gives a number of coins ending in 5, so it just... sits there...... forever.........

[bluekayanite]

SU(:F) theory: Is it (really) over?

To me, that ending was kinda... unsatisfying, and not just because there was a lack of finding a Pink Diamond separate from Steven (AGAIN). ^_^;  Like, for some reason, I Am My Monster didn't feel that... intense, somehow?  I mean, maybe it was the not-too-dark lighting, or the fact that the ep wasn't focused on Steven's POV (which I guess is interesting, but it also made the ep feel odd to me).  Or maybe it's because there wasn't much in the way of a battle.  But whatever the case, it just didn't fit my expectations, tension-wise. ^_^;

However, Is say that the BIGGEST issue for me is that there's still so much left to uncover.  I've previously mentioned [a short list of mysteries that haven't been solved], and I don't think that SU:F touched upon any of them.  I think I'll reiterate, add well as adding to it:

What happened to the other lions?  How did Rose get them in the first place?

The mystery of Amethyst having ears when most Gems do not.

The magic lizards that Lion kept eating, for Pete's sake! >.<

We still haven't really seen the colonies.

We haven't seen this building:

That book in Rose's "junk pile" still seems important.

WHAT WAS IN THE CHEST IN LION'S MANE?! O.O

We still know so little about Gem culture, esp. folklore, celebrations, history outside colonizing, etc.

We STILL don't really know what Gems made by/for White are like.

Yellow's extraction chamber hasn't actually been explained.

We still don't know what happened to Pink's court.

There are STILL multiple timeline conflicts: When Pink (supposedly) had each Pearl + Amethyst incubation periods, at least.

Did Pearl belong to White at some point (even if she doesn't remember)?

A song was teased via Blue, and we still haven't heard the whole thing.

For some stuff I haven't mentioned before, I kind of expect gender politics to be brought up via Gems, esp. the uncorrupted ones: Mother Centipeedle (Gem Glow) + "That's not a leg!" (The Kindergarten Kid) seem like foreshadowing to me.  Plus, Jasper, Larimar, and Snowflake Obsidian all seem like they could be non-binary in some way.  Not to mention those two Gems that Yellow was working on.

Speaking of the Centipeedle, we still haven't seen how Centi's doing, and I REALLY wanna see how Centi's doing. 3=  I mean, she was featured in the opening, so I kind of expected her to be featured in the show, again.

I doubt that many (formerly) elite Gems are happy with all the social changes, i.e. they don't like the idea of "lesser" Gems suddenly being equal to them, and I bet that a lot of then don't like the Diamonds giving up command, either.  (I did notice that it was primarily common Gems and "off-colors" featured in Homeworld Bound, being all happy, particularly in the tour group and whatnot - mostly from Famethyst, and/or the uncorrupted Gems.  Seems like it could be a piece of foreshadowing.)

And for something uber-serious, I HIGHLY doubt that the Diamonds went around stomping out life on so many planets without making some enemies.  I mean, obviously Earth has sapient species, I think odds are that some other planets - namely colonies - had sapient life, too.  White even alluded to this.

...And I'm willing to bet that at least one of those races or there has not been completely wiped out, and would be seriously powerful. ^_^;  At least, I think at least one of them would have friends that would (now) be powerful, and would be up for taking advantage of how all the Gem armies have now been disbanded. =D;

But yeah, I'd like to see sapient species on other planets, in general. ^_^

...Aaaand then there's pretty much everything else I've mentioned under the "rose quartz wasn't pink diamond" tag. ^_^;  I mean, sure, a fair amount of it has been genuinely disproven, particularly when it comes to when (or I guess you could say "if," at least for some cases) as well as how a lot of it would it would happen.  A lot of it is also seeming a lot more unlikely.  Still, there are a lot of things that still seem like they still need to be addressed, not the least of which being how little details of Pink's appearance just keep on changing.

Even just in the movie, there's like a dozen different ways or so that her appearance varies - 15+ in the series, overall.  It's to the point where it seems heavily like they're using different models of her for different shots!

But yeah... there's still so much I wanna know. ;.;

Like I mentioned, some of those things do seem like foreshadowing - hints of things that are to be touched on later, and NOT to be simply left unresolved. ^_^:  That said, they do give me some hope that things will continue.

And personally, I do think that I Am My Monster brought up another (possible) mystery:

I do wonder... what exactly does White mean by this?  How would White hurting Pink result in Pink hurting Spinel?   And SPECIFICALLY White (she's the only Diamond who didn't say we/us and entirely blamed herself) - I mean, sure what the others did probably started with her, aaaand maybe she has a tendency to put everything on herself (and that’s where Pearl got it), but I think this might mean something that White did specifically.

AFAIK, Pink/Rose didn't intentionally try to hurt anyone ("else"), even with the fact that she kept on being hurt.  So why would there be an exception for Spinel?  Particularly one that White would know/feel guilty about?

If you've been following me then you might be able to guess where I'm going with this: To me, it sounds like White might be slipping on the fact that she hid the real Pink on Earth's moon and used "Modify Memory" at an epic level; if White kept Pink from returning, Spinel would've been left alone FAR longer than Pink had intended. =(

...Also, the Diamonds STILL aren't going for an actual hug, even though this seems like a more-than-appropriate time to so.

Heck, they're essentially the only ones who didn't (besides maybe Connie - Lion and the Cluster don't count).  Even Spinel managed one, and she had to stretch like CRAZY to do so. XD;

EDIT: One of the particularly-strong reasons why I consider this noteworthy is because White actually ran up with wide-open arms.

(Say... is Blue waterbending herself over the water instead of running?  I believe she is. =3)

But yeah... I haven't heard anything, but I'm holding onto hope that there will still be something more... and not just because I'm still hoping that the REAL Pink will be released from the moon.  (Though that is certainly a part of it. XD)  Like, maybe there'll be another series called "Steven Universe Returns" or something.  It certainly seems like an appropriate title, at least. X3

[wisteria-in-the-garden]

Bellarke & Revelation of romantic feelings (includes minor 6x01 spoilers)

I have to say, I love Bellarke, but I really do not understand the majority of the Bellarke fandom, or why so many of them have stopped believing that Bellarke will get together romantically in canon. I don’t really engage much in fandom, but I do lurk in it, and finally felt the need to break out of lurk mode for a bit. I saw a couple people saying on twitter that they’re never going to address the fact that Bellamy poisoned Octavia for Clarke, that they’re probably going to make the narrative say ‘he did it to save everyone,’ that it’s irrelevant now, and that it should have been addressed in S5. Do they really believe all that? I don’t get it. Why are people so convinced that they won't address the major Bellarke plot points from season 5? Just because it’s still unresolved, doesn’t suddenly make it irrelevant. You say they should have addressed it in S5, but where was there time for it? It happened in 5x08 and they weren’t even reunited until 5x13 when the world was literally ending again. But it's still an active narrative thread and a secret that Bellamy has withheld from Clarke (”not to mention, kill the people we love” wasn’t subtle, and Bellamy stayed mute about it. Also, Echo notably still doesn’t know either, and it’s relevant to her too because she has a boyfriend who would go to greater lengths for another woman than he would for her). You’re essentially saying that you think the writers will completely drop/ignore/retcon it – why? Because you feel like JR hates Bellarke and has no intention of following through on the storylines he’s set up in canon and it’s all just bait, right? Even though there is no concrete reason to believe that, besides fandom reading into intentionally ambiguous/misleading/un-spoiler-y comments he’s made which don’t accurately reflect the canon story he’s telling (meaning you’re valuing word of god comments over canon – not always a good way to understand a story, especially when those word of god comments are unreliable like Jason’s are). The story is very obviously romantic Bellarke, especially in S5 – he just won’t outright say so in interviews because that would constitute spoilers when the story has yet to reach its resolution. And we all know how anti-spoiler Jason is. Didn’t he even retweet an article calling bullshit/questioning his description when he called Bellarke non-romantic partners and soulmates following S5? Whether he did or not, this seems to be the number one quote which has fandom so convinced romantic Bellarke is dead. But if I’m recalling the quote correctly, the “non-romantic” qualifier (which is not the same thing as platonic by the way) is tacked directly onto the partner half, rather than the soulmates half - two different descriptions that don’t seem to match (intentional ambiguity – does the “non-romantic” qualifier also apply to the soulmates half? It might, but it also might not). And the non-romantic partners half is true as of the S5 finale, because they have yet to act on any romantic feelings – it’s a description of their status, not the nature of their relationship/feelings for one another. The nature of their relationship/feelings is very obviously romantic in canon, but that is something that JR won’t ever say before they are canonically together romantically, because it’s spoilers for his story. And fandom should know him well enough by now to know that they can’t expect him to spoil what his intentions are for Bellarke in interviews, nor can they read what he says as definitively clarifying his intentions one way or the other. The only way to know his intentions is to follow the story on screen.

So, I went off track a little, but back to the issue of them addressing the fact that B poisoned O for Clarke – there’s every reason in canon to believe it will be revealed, just as Clarke’s radio calls were revealed to B (after she had clearly and intentionally withheld that info during the fireside scene in 5x05 for... reasons) and it was a turning point that made him realize she did care after all. The whole reason he was upset with her for her actions in 5x09 is that he was hurt because he thought she simply didn’t care about him anymore, when that was never true – thus his immediate forgiveness when he learned she did care after all and that she regretted being so rash/reactionary. Now, he understands that he matters to her, but I don’t think he knows in what capacity yet. That will come out this season, I believe, probably when they have that second conversation about the radio calls that we hear in the trailer – he says “you called me every day for six years, and you left me to die in the fighting pits” and the essence of that statement is “how can you love me and do something like that” (because those are two very contradictory actions and it gives him mixed signals). Basically, he’s seeking clarification from her, in her own words, about how she feels. Didn’t we hear that they’ll have a long conversation this season? That is probably where that voice-over was taken from, and there’s a good chance feelings will be revealed, at least to some extent, during said conversation. It was clear in the first radio calls conversation that it’s still unresolved – she ran away quickly again to avoid talking too much about it, and Bellamy looked kind of unsatisfied before being distracted by the Red Sun Rising book. And as for Bellamy’s side of things (regarding the poisoning and his motivation for it), already in the first episode, we have Clarke talking to Jordan about the algae, mentioning that it’s what Bellamy used on Octavia, and then a close up on Bellamy’s face as he overhears her saying this. So it’s something that is clearly still on his mind – and an obvious sign that the writers don’t intend to drop it and it will come up again. Whether it is brought up by Bellamy during their second conversation about the radio calls, revealed to Clarke (and maybe even Echo as well) by Octavia sometime before or after that, or what, I can’t predict, but I do believe it will be revealed and addressed, the same way Clarke’s feelings/the radio calls will be. There are clear signs that this season is building up to an eventual revelation of feelings on both sides, and I don’t understand how so many people that supposedly ship Bellarke can’t see it or don’t believe it, simply because they think JR is somehow out to get them.

And I would also like to add regarding the events in 5x09, from Clarke’s POV, Bellamy giving the flame to Madi felt like him turning against her to save his other family, that didn’t include her, the same way she believed he had poisoned Octavia only for them (and he let her believe that – not telling her that it was actually for her). That’s why she felt so hurt and betrayed and part of why she reacted so rashly (in conjunction with the extreme overprotective mama bear instincts) – she didn’t understand that by doing what he was doing, Bellamy was trying to protect not only his other family, but also herself and Madi. She didn’t see how giving Madi the flame could make everyone safer, including Madi herself. Granted, Bellamy didn’t do a great job of reasoning with her, but Clarke wasn’t exactly being receptive to the idea either. She just automatically assumed it would put her in greater danger – but we saw how Madi, with the flame, was able to sway someone who had been loyal to Blodreina to her side. The flame gave Madi power and protection. And Clarke, because she didn’t recognize this at the time, thought Bellamy didn’t care about Madi’s safety, and therefore also did not care about her. So essentially, the basis of their entire conflict in S5 is an epic misunderstanding/miscommunication rooted in the fact that neither truly knows how important they still are to the other, after six years apart. Because they weren’t able to be open about it to one another. Clarke couldn’t open up to him at the fireside scene in 5x05, then saw that he’d seemingly moved on with Echo and closed herself off even more, and then finally was crushed and heartbroken when she didn’t know Bellamy was acting on her behalf and it seemed to her like he was throwing her and Madi under the bus for Echo and the rest of spacekru (culminating in her running away with Madi and leaving his fate in Octavia’s hands). Meanwhile, because Clarke never opened up to Bellamy, when she left him behind to die it seemed to him like she no longer cared about him either. And they were both wrong about that. Thus, in order to resolve that conflict, they HAVE to start being more open/honest with each other about how they feel, and part of that includes the revelation of both the meaning behind the radio calls, and the fact that Bellamy poisoned Octavia for Clarke, because he loves her (and not only that, but he loves her more than Echo – which Echo will eventually figure out too). So yeah, that’s why I believe that they will address both, and that all the associated romantic feelings are going to be revealed – because it’s been set up in S5 AND what we’ve seen so far of S6, plus it’s essential to the resolution of their lingering conflict from S5. Also why, on a more general level, I’m confident that Bellarke is not, in fact, dead (despite the conflict they had, despite the temporary existence of B/E, despite JR’s unreliable comments and so on; whatever other reasons fandom has for thinking Bellarke is dead).

[murasaki-murasame]

Danganronpa V3 Liveblog Part 17 [Chapter 5 - Trial]

Aaaaahhhhhhhh.

Thoughts under the cut.

I don’t even know where to start with this one. There were like . . . a thousand things that happened that I could talk about first. Wow. This goddamn trial sure took me for a spin and left me completely dazed and overwhelmed and depressed by the end.

I probably should have seen Kaito being the culprit coming. I just assumed that it would be ‘too easy’, since it was the second most obvious answer after Kokichi. But I can definitely say that even if the ‘who’ wasn’t too inherently difficult, the ‘how’ sure as fuck was.

It’s slightly lame that a good amount of the mystery of this trial revolved around stuff that only happens during the trial itself, but it’s fine. The shit that went down in this trial was oh so worth it.

Funnily enough, the thing I thought was a spoiler about Kaito being a culprit probably wasn’t actually intended as a spoiler for it, but it still lead me to the right conclusion. I saw a spoiler-free review that talked about how some of the motives in this game are lame, and I vaguely remember them mentioning the idea of someone killing because they had a terminal illness, which immediately made me think of Kaito once that whole plot point started up, but since his motive for murder had nothing to do with his illness, I think that person was just throwing out a generic example of a cliche motive, but it just so happened to still point at someone who ended up being a culprit anyway. They probably should have chosen a different example, lol.

Anyway, this trial was just sorta . . . insane. Wow. I wasn’t even able to definitively guess that the person in the Exisal was Kaito because his entire demeanor, especially when he switched over to ‘being Kaito’, felt too uncharacteristic of him to be true. But it was pretty obvious that it wasn’t actually Kokichi. Though even then, I still wasn’t sure if that meant Kaito was actually the killer.

Especially with the mid-trial swerve of Maki seeming to be the culprit, and genuinely believing herself to be the culprit. I was skeptical about the idea of the killer being spelled out before the intermission phase happened, but her whole story seemed too good not to be true.

I really, really liked this whole trial’s set-up of having both a mystery victim and a mystery killer. That was a really interesting idea. Especially with the additional layer of it being intended as ‘a mystery that even Monokuma can’t solve’. It made things feel incredibly baffling. In a good way.

The most negative thing I can say about the mystery itself was probably that, in the end, it ended up being almost exactly the same sort of scenario as case five in DR2, with a character setting up an insane murder mystery with themselves as the victim, set up in a way to expose and destroy the mastermind. They definitely played out in different ways, but the similarity was a bit too hard to ignore.

As a whole, though, it was great. It at least felt more satisfying than chapter four, even though I get in hindsight that chapter four’s trial was ‘unsatisfying’ for very intentional reasons.

It even made me warm up to Kokichi a lot as a character, which I wasn’t expecting. Now that his motives and feelings are more or less clear, it’s easier for me to understand him and appreciate his choices. I still can’t help but see him as a version of Komaeda that has a more off-putting personality, though. He’s definitely a fun character, but his personality just irritates me a lot of the time.

The first half or so of the trial wasn’t super hard in terms of the logic and the minigames, but it definitely picked up in the latter half once things got more and more weird and complicated. That was good. Sometimes the exact logic behind certain things still bugs me, though. I think I mentioned it before, but the ‘pick one of your truth bullets from the full list’ parts can sometimes feel a bit non-intuitive. Like when you have to point out that the crossbow was used, but you have to specifically pick the crossbow itself, because picking the arrows makes the other person be like ‘what, are you saying that they just stabbed someone with the arrows?’. That felt a bit dumb. It should have been immediately obvious what I meant by that. But it’s a minor point.

On a similar topic, a lot of the mini-games still feel kinda unnecessary, but that’s always been an issue with this franchise. There’s not really much to say about it at this point. Though I should say that it threw me off so fucking hard when I got a hidden Monokuma inside one of the Psyche Taxi segments. I had no idea that was possible. And on THAT note, I’ve had no real luck at getting those. This one was literally the second one I’ve found in the entire game. I know I missed one because I only noticed it in the background right before I started a free time event with someone, though. Maybe it would have been there if I went back for it later, but I didn’t bother.

I’m also getting better at the Argument Armament sections, somehow. They’re still stressful as heck, but I’m slowly improving. [And on the note of this chapter’s one, I guess I was right in assuming that if Kaito was this chapter’s killer, someone else would try and defend him]

I feel almost silly for suspecting Keebo so heavily, but both Kokichi and Kaito felt a bit too easy at the time. Oh well. I have . . . things to say about Keebo, but I’ll leave that for later, I guess.

Back on the topic of the murder itself, the whole set-up of it really was kinda ingenious, and really could have been an unsolvable mystery if things had gone differently. Especially with the whole element of there being no real proof as to whether the victim died via Maki’s poison arrow, or the hydraulic press. In the end, it basically came down to personal feelings and belief, rather than cold hard evidence.

Which reminds me, I also really liked the whole theme of Shuichi’s intuition as a device vs his feelings of belief as an individual. That was neat. Especially when it got to the point where, even after using evidence and deduction to figure out that Kaito was the culprit, he decided to lie in an attempt to stand for what Kaito believed in, and was risking his life for. Which, sadly, ended up being the final push that got Kaito to give up.

I actually tried like three times to vote for Kokichi even after that scene, since I still wanted to support Kaito, but the game didn’t let me. Oh well.

Before I forget, I may as well get back to my whole [apparently ongoing] rant for a little while.

As I’ve said before, I still personally interpret Shuichi as having a crush on Kaito that he’s trying to deny. I also said it before, but I’ve been aware from the start that this probably isn’t ‘canon’, especially after this whole trial happened and it didn’t get mentioned, but it’s still something I believe in. Especially with how heavily Shuichi and Maki were getting paralleled in this trial. Either way, at this point it feels safe to say that whatever Shuichi feels for Kaito is equal to or stronger than whatever he felt for Kaede [and had much longer to develop], and the game’s obviously already framing her as his love interest, so yeah.

I guess it goes without saying, but with how this whole game is about the nature of truth and lies, and about criticizing the idea that exposing and living with the truth is always necessary and good, it feels rather fitting that I’m choosing to treat this as my personal truth, even if it might just be a lie.

And for the record I still find Maki’s crush on Kaito to be really adorable and also heart-wrenching in this trial. If anything that’s just part of the reason why I’m seeing Shuichi’s feelings as basically being the same sort of thing.

Rant time over [for now], lol.

I guess there’s not much more to say about the mystery itself, so I should start talking more about the aftermath of the trial.

To start with, I figured in advance that Kokichi probably wasn’t the mastermind, since it felt too ‘obvious’ and happened way too early. I think I also commented on how it was a bit odd how the Exisals and stuff were treating Monokuma, but I didn’t quite guess what the full situation with that one was. 

I’ll talk about the concept of the ‘true mastermind’ in a minute. Before that, I wanna say that it was really fitting and amusing that Kaito’s execution was a spin on Jin’s from DR1. I really should have seen that coming. It was a nice little throwback. I also really, really liked the detail of Kaito dying from his injuries rather than the execution itself. It may not have been a complete victory, but it was a moral victory.

Though on the flip-side we have the whole reveal that Kaito probably had the plague that killed off most of humanity, which in itself wouldn’t change anything, but it carries the really uncomfortable implication that maybe everyone in the cast had the same plague, and he just had his symptoms show up first. Which would just make this entire scenario even MORE depressing than it was before.

This whole chapter’s just making me more and more unsure what the deal is meant to be with Rantarou and the Monokubs. I still feel like they have to be related to the overall story somehow, but I’m getting less and less sure about what their purpose could be. I’m still assuming that the Monokubs have AIs that are based on the personalities of other people in the last killing game Rantarou was a part of. Maybe the other survivors of said killing game. Which makes me wonder if we’d ever get any idea who they were as actual people. 

With the reveal that Kokichi ISN’T the mastermind, and might not have had anything to do with setting up the killing game, now I can’t help but wonder if it was Rantarou who set things up. Obviously SOMEONE had to, and I assume it’s one of the main cast members. It’d also explain why he knew about the killing game in advance, and why he seemed intent on winning it. It certainly hints at him being kinda . . . malicious, but that was already clear enough. This would also explain what he meant about how this is a killing game that he wanted to have happen.

Presumably he’s genuinely dead, though, so that pokes some holes in the idea of him being the mastermind, assuming that ‘the mastermind’ is a currently living person. If we limit it just to the main cast, then Keebo seems like the most suspicious person, since he’s a robot who could be running some sort of sub-program to control Monokuma, in a way that might not even be conscious on his part. But, again, I’ll talk more about him in a moment.

First, I should talk about the plot point that I’ve been holding off on mentioning for this entire post, and that’s Junko. I’m laughing so hard at the implication that she’s the goddamn mastermind for the third game in a row. It’s such a brilliantly polarizing writing choice. Part of me had been genuinely hoping it would happen. I have a soft spot for Junko as a villain, if only because I love seeing people get so angry over her. The ways that she causes despair and frustration in the fandom just by existing kinda validates her status as the main villain of the series.

I’ve mentioned before that it feels like they’re setting up some sort of a twist about the events of this game being fictional, even in the context of the DR universe, and this is making me even more certain of that. Especially with the focus on the topic of ‘the people who this killing game are being shown to’. The main thing that always bugged me about the apocalypse idea was that broadcasting the killing game had always been the top priority, and so it felt weird to imagine a killing game happening in this sort of scenario. I kinda assumed it was to do with there being a new mastermind with new priorities, but the idea of Monokuma still abiding by his own rules is definitely too strange, even if we make that kind of assumption. So it makes sense that he’s broadcasting this to SOMEONE. The question is who.

And honestly my best guess is that this is setting up some abstract meta-twist about us, as the players, being the people who the game is broadcast to. I’d been idly considering that for a while, but seeing Junko show up, and seeing the references to how the characters are all ‘easily replaceable’ and that ‘the killing game can happen again and again’ makes me think that, in-universe, V3 is literally some kind of story that Junko’s writing. Maybe not in a literal sense of her writing a book or something, but maybe the game takes place in a DR2-esque simulation, and she can just restart it again and again to create an unending killing game of unending despair. It seems like the sort of thing she’d do. And obviously it’d work pretty well on a meta level as commentary about the franchise itself. Which to me got pretty definitively confirmed when Junko mentioned ‘supply and demand’. V3, and it’s killing game, only exists because we, the fans, financially supported this series enough, and wanted to see more killing games happen enough, that this game got made. It seems like the natural end point of how this series likes to comment on the almost voyeuristic nature of murder. This game only exists because there was an active demand for it. Because we like seeing people kill each other in video games. Because experiencing intense emotions through media is a cathartic experience that people want to go through again and again. I’m not trying to be like ‘violent video games are bad!’ or whatever, I just mean that if this game is going to end with the big bad villain literally being the people playing the game, then it’s certainly justified.

Though on the same level it also makes it feel like this is the furthest the series could ever go, and that any more games being made would just feel uncomfortable and weird. But even if this game ends in that sort of way, there’s still going to be demand for more games. We’ll still want to get another killing game, and another, and another, even if we complain about how discomfiting it is to have a game turn around and criticize us for our enjoyment of it.

If we assume that this is where it’s going, I wonder how chapter six will go, and how the game will end. Will it be like DR2, where we get to argue against a digital version of Junko? That’d be a bit . . . odd, and probably kinda depressing, since if this is all just a story being written/programmed/etc by Junko, then no matter what the characters can to do her, it probably won’t kill her. She’ll still be alive in the real world.

On that note, if we’re meant to assume that Junko is alive ‘in the real world’, it makes me wonder what point in the timeline we’re working with, since her physical body got pretty definitively destroyed at one point, unless the person we saw in that one CG near the end was her in a robot body made to look like her. Who even knows.

Also, this whole Junko thing makes me even MORE unsure how the hell Rantarou and the Monokubs fit into the story. Is their backstory all part of a fictional setting she made up for this game? I have no idea.

I really can’t help but wonder if Kodaka will try and continue the series after this. I guess it wouldn’t be impossible for him to do so, but I just . . . don’t know how it’d work, really.

I still find it incredibly fascinating how utterly depressing and miserable and filled with despair this entire game is, especially as we understand how it connects to the entire franchise, compared to the far more hopeful ending that DR3 gave us. Though it’d be a lot less depressing if the entire apocalypse scenario was also made up by Junko and didn’t actually happen. But to be honest I kinda love the sheer audacity of Kodaka writing such a hopeful direction for the story and it’s universe, only to completely tear it apart by literally putting it through a fiery apocalypse, so either option works for me.

Anyway, I wonder if we’ll get any more deaths, or if it’ll be like the last games where nobody in the main cast dies in chapter six, ignoring the mastermind. The game is REALLY hammering in the concept of ‘the killing game will end when two people are left’. So it just makes me wonder if that might really happen. Though since only two people died in this chapter, we’d need to get a scenario of two victims and one culprit in the next chapter, to create a scenario where we’re then left with two people. Or maybe three people will just die normally. It just depends on whether or not we get another trial, really. I’m not really sure what I expect to happen, but the most important thing is probably that, if this really is all fictional, to some degree or another, then the concept of someone surviving becomes a bit meaningless, so on some level it kinda doesn’t matter. But it’s still interesting to speculate about.

I really would not be surprised at this point if the next chapter involves Himiko and Tsumugi dying, and us getting one last trial between Shuichi, Maki, and Keebo, who all definitely feel like the most major and plot-important characters right now. That might be interesting.

But it also makes me wonder if we’d then get ANOTHER chapter after that, or if we just might not get a trial where we face off against Junko specifically. Who knows.

Either way, Himiko and Tsumugi definitely feel a little expendable right about now, and I’m incredibly suspicious of Keebo and his plans right now.

I wasn’t really expecting his inner voice to just . . . malfunction and stop working after he gets hit with a rock. That kinda came out of nowhere. And now we have this bizarre scenario of him powering up and flying around while apparently bombarding the school with missiles. I wonder if his plan is just to burn everything to the ground so that the killing game will forcibly come to an end. It’s kinda hard to imagine Keebo doing something so violent, though.

I did really like seeing the remaining survivors, aside from Keebo, start training together. That was really sweet. I really love the sense of friendship and companionship between them. Well, mostly between Shuichi and Maki, but you get what I mean.

I have no goddamn clue where the next chapter is going to go, at this point. The end of this chapter raised so many questions and cliffhangers that I feel like things can just go in any direction they want now.

But as a bottom line, I can only imagine this game having a depressing, or at least bittersweet, ending. Especially if everything is some sort of fictional story. But even if it’s not, the characters have no real future left. No matter how much hope they have, they’re stuck in the academy. So I just can’t see this ending happily.

Also, as a final note, I tend to be pretty bad at expressing the exact extent of my emotional reactions to stuff in this game since I’m having to talk about so much in these posts and I try and keep them at least relatively concise and orderly and whatnot, even if this isn’t meant to be any kind of a professional review or anything, but this whole trial and it’s conclusion was depressing as fuck. It tore me apart. I knew something like this was gonna happen, since I was already bracing for this ending with Kaito dying in some way or another, but actually seeing it happen really hurt. I’m not kidding when I talk about how much I love the entire Kaito-Shuichi-Maki trio. I honestly think that they’ve become some of my all-time favourite DR characters. I get why a lot of people might think they’re a bit boring and plain [other than maybe Maki], but I absolutely adore them. Out of all of the ‘main trios’, they’re far and away my favourites at the moment, although there’s a lot of recency bias going on there, since I still have a huge soft spot for the main characters of DR2. Mostly Hinata and Komaeda, though. The fact that I like Maki a LOT more than Nanami is probably what weigh things out in V3′s favour. I don’t really wanna pit any of the characters against each other.

Anyway yeah, this chapter put me through an entire rollercoaster of emotions.

[joshwrites]

The Highs and Lows of Breath of the Wild’s Combat

Breath of the Wild has been out for a little over two months now, and I still occasionally pop the game in for hour or two of trekking across Hyrule to find shrines, enemies, gear and NPCs. The game is certainly an immersive and satisfying experience, which means it’s more than accomplished it’s goal and deserving of praise, but I think it’s important to be critical of the game’s features. It won’t be long before the next Zelda game is out, and it’s already basically been confirmed it’s going to be similar to this one. I don’t want Nintendo to grow complacent due to glowing reviews again like they do on many of their franchises, so I think it’s important to be firm and hold them to an even higher standard next time.

Today, I want to talk about combat, and how it..kind of doesn’t work?

Okay, “doesn’t work” is a bit of an exaggeration. By all definitions it more than “works” and is pretty satisfying, especially in the beginning hours of the game. The game’s combat is focused on the dynamic ways Link can interact with his foes, and this shines the best in the game’s early stages where you’re constantly running short on gear and have to improvise. The game’s equipment system is good in that in the beginning stages it constantly puts you on your toes and forces you to consider a variety of much less traditional options that the game has built in.

One of the moments that stuck out to me the most on my first play-through was when I was surrounded by a mix of wolves and Bokoblins with low health. I quickly switched to my fire sword and swung at the first wolf that came at me, riding the resulting updraft fire from the corpse created up above the enemies and onto a nearby cliff-side. This was exhilarating and satisfying in so many ways. In a completely dynamic series of events, I was presented with a problem and solved it in true Zelda fashion.

You can use Link’s runes to pick up objects and swing them around like an impromptu sword, stop enemies in place giving you time to position yourself or grab some nearby gear,  create ice blocks out of water to put yourself on some cover. You can start a fire and burn the battlefield to bits while you use the updraft to escape. You can run away and hide until the enemies forget you were there, scurrying off into the dark thinking only of revenge.

I think the problems with the system become clear when the “revenge” comes though. Because of the way Breath of the Wild is structured, you can beef your Link up at an alarmingly fast rate. Better weapons, shrines that contain spirit orbs, and gear are EVERYWHERE in this game, with weapons being the only thing that have some kind of finite use. I was about halfway through the main quest and had barely scratched the surface of the side content before my Link was beefed up in such a way that the only thing that combat became a bit of a non issue. I could tank hits from a lot of weaker enemies thanks to a combination of good armor and the magic spells the game gives you for completing the four main dungeons being pretty much geared toward making the game EASIER instead of more versatile. Mipha’s Grace and Daruk’s protection are both pretty much passives dedicated to making getting hit matter less and covering my mistakes in a game where enemies telegraphed their attacks far too obviously and struck too slowly for it to be necessary.  I realized I didn’t particularly enjoy this once I had them on for a while. 

Thankfully, the game gives you the option to disable these abilities but I didn’t realize this until I was a good ways into the game, but it doesn’t mitigate all of the issues. Ultimately, the game kind of tilts from one extreme to the other regarding how much of an upper hand Link has over his foes. It’s just that the lower end of the extreme is that much more engage than the higher end. Scrapping to use whatever you can find and gain whatever advantages you can to help you survive fits the game’s systems more than letting the player run amuck and mash buttons.  The game tries to mitigate this a bit with a scaling system where some types of enemies get stronger as Link does, but this doesn’t really change their behaviors and the damage soaking abilities just turns these tougher variants into bigger damage sponges. It ultimately feels good to have this sort of progression in the game, but I wish it was harder to become as strong as I did.

If I were to change this, I’d just slow down the game’s rate of handing the player weapons a fair bit and make them last a bit longer to compensate. This would also go for gear. I’d also remove the game’s spells entirely and try to replace them with more runes for the player to mess around with. Instead of giving players more ways to mash buttons, give them more ways to approach combat and let them find the solutions to troubling situations with their tools.

The second thing I want to talk about is the actual, direct sword combat you partake in in the game. There are a lot of improvements here that I’ve talked about before: Link can’t instantly finish foes he’s downed anymore, only really being able to get some extra damage in. Enemies attack you all at once instead of relenting and taking turns, making each situation much more dangerous and require more thought before you engage. There are more weapons than ever before with 3 “classes” that have their own simple movesets with variants in each instead of the superfluous directional strikes and sword arts from previous games. The parry from Skyward Sword was kept with the timing tightened a bit to make it riskier to use. These are all excellent changes that I want to see become the standard for Zelda combat in the future.

There’s a few things that hold it back a bit though. Only one type of weapon out of the three lets you use Shields and in a game where you largely don’t have a choice of what weapons you can use this proves a bit annoying. The shields feel like a bit of a waste and I would be holding onto some for a dozen hours at a time in contrast to the weapons which I would burn through very easily. No shields meant I didn’t have access to parries though which is a major offensive mechanic in the game. This critique wouldn’t be THAT big of a deal on it’s own considering each weapon types have advantages and drawbacks so it’s only natural that they make balance changes like this, but it goes hand in hand with the game’s other big offensive mechanic being a bit of a problem.

Basically, I think Flurry rush is a bad mechanic. Probably the only outright bad mechanic in the combat in it’s entirety, but it sticks out a ton to me due to this. Link has no invincibility frames on any of his dodges, so he has to either clear the way entirely of an enemy’s massive swings or parry the blow to get inside and do some damage. Because of the above problem with shields and Link’s generally slow movement though getting “in” and “out” feels a bit clunky. It seriously feels like the roll from previous games of it’s type is missing here. Nintendo seems to have come up with the flurry rush to mitigate this a bit: Link dodges an attack “at the last moment” as the game says to enter a slow motion sequence where the player mashes the attack button to Link lets loose a series of rapid blows on his foe. Outside of the button mashing this sequence is pretty much scripted and lets Link gain a bunch of damage for free.  The problem here is that it’s incredibly scripted and boring next to most of the combat. It doesn’t help that the timing is hilariously lenient to the point where you will trigger it all the time while trying to execute a simple dodge. This leads to an offensive mechanic that’s a bit boring and unsatisfying to use. The simple thing that they can and probably will do is fix the timings so it will feel more rewarding to execute, and there’s nothing wrong with that approach.

If I wanted to add a bit more depth to the combat however I’d just give Link a dodge roll with some invincibility  frames that you see in other action games. You can now “stay in” with a one handed weapon by timing your dodges, but it would be more difficult than a shield. It also requires a much more active player to know when to attack and when to roll compared to how easy the flurry rush is. A more careful player can stick to a more reserved play style, and aggressive players now have a difficult but satisfying way to express themselves no matter what weapon type they’re using.

The last thing I want to address is the seeming focus on quality over quantity when it comes to the enemies.

Breath of the Wild’s Bokoblin enemies are shown to be very fleshed out. You fight them, trick them, scare them, set them on fire, freeze them, throw them off cliffs, or do any kind of thing to them and they’ll respond like creatures with a survival instinct a lot of the time. The other enemies show a similar level of work put into how they’ll respond to Link’s actions, making each encounter varied.

This approach has a pretty big drawback when it comes to just how much variety there is in what you’re fighting. I’m almost 100% certain the FIRST thing you got tired of in Breath of the Wild aside from fiddling with equipment screens was seeing a bokoblin camp. The game hides it’s lack of enemy variety well enough that I think you’d go a while before you notice it, but it’s definitely a thing that wears down a game focused on exploring new horizons. Fighting the same enemies with the same movesets is bound to get old and might cause one to avoid combat altogether.

Thankfully this is the easiest fix of the bunch. Build on what you have next game. Bring back classic enemies like Darknuts and Like Likes(A Zelda game based on finite equipment doesn’t have Like Likes, guys.) and bring plenty of new ones to add to the set.

Overall though, the combat is the most solid it’s been in some time and has a lot of room to go up. The next Zelda game should have great combat if they focus on fine tuning this.

[aguidetodeduction]

Autism in Fiction (How Sherlock could do better)

So I wrote a review of the last episode of Sherlock and it was a negative one. I made my case about why I stopped watching it, in the hope of explaining why I don’t want to associate it with my own Sherlock Holmes work. 

In this review I said, “I do not appreciate the use of autistic/bipolar characteristics as indicators of villainy. The “lack of empathy”, “trouble reading feelings”, “repressed emotion”, twitching movement reminiscent of stims… I could go on. The way disability was presented in the episode was nothing less than offensive.“

I’ve been asked to elaborate by  @hoegarthhh​ and @amazing0209, who asked: 

I just want to understand your reasoning of concluding that euros was autistic rather than a psychopath. Because every aspect of her personality clearly points to psychopath. Because it was stated she cannot feel pain. Something autistic people can. 

It was hard to come up with a neutral response, especially considering this reply below which was far less diplomatic/ far more aggressive. 

In no way is she autistic. I cannot believe you actually misdiagnosed her so severely. She is obviously a psychopath. It was stated multiple times how she cannot feel pain nor emotion. In what way is that connected to autism. Also Psychopaths are related to having anti social disorder which makes them a threat to society. 

It upset me that you completely refused to acknowledge my point, but more so that you assumed I do not know my own feelings about my own condition. I am autistic, along with my dad and brother, which I mentioned at the very beginning of my review. If I recognise “autistic characteristics” in a character (note I did not say she is autistic, but that her character is coloured by behaviours associated with autism), that comes from a place of experience.

But this made me think about how my feelings on the matter are not enough, so I compiled some research I’ve put together that debunk the ideas that there is no overlap between psychopathy and autism, the harm that the “evil psychopath” idea does, and just general considerations writers should think about when writing autistic character.

Oh boy, this about to get long so buckle in. (Also I would like to disclaim that while I am heavily involved in research of these things, I am by no means an expert.)

THE SPECTRUM: NO TWO AUTISTIC PEOPLE THE SAME

So when we talk about autism, we say that people fall somewhere on the “autistic spectrum”. It means that while there are some area’s where autistic people overlap, primarily in their ability to perceive the world and their ability to interact. However, there are dozens of ways autism can effect people but it doesn’t effect all people with autism. (Think of it the way that all buses are vehicles, but not all vehicles are buses.)

Take my brother, his school friends, my dad and myself.

My brother was diagnosed with autism very young, due to learning difficulties and noticeable delay in social awareness. Physically his development was technically above average and he has a huge capacity for imagination, but he is unable to do things like travel independently due to his reliance on routine. He “stims”, which means a repetitive movement/twitch that keeps him calm.

Many of his school friends (at his specialist school) have physical or communication issues. Some have weak muscle development, or are non verbal (can’t speak). Like my brother, they rely on routine. Some have sensory issues, finding uncomfortable sensations like a tag in their clothes completely overwhelming. 

My dad wasn’t diagnosed until his middle age. He was diagnosed (though with caution) while they were helping him with his bi-polar. He has “special interests” or obsessions which take prime importance in his life, but his main indicator was his low scoring sense of empathy. (Take note of this: it is important to my points later.)

I was only formally diagnosed around two or three years ago, after having to wait a long time to get a diagnosis appointment. (Separate rant, but they diagnosed me from things that have been in life since I was born when I was 18?) I also have repetitive behaviour, reliance of routine, several social anxiety and special interests (Sherlock was one of them). 

However, being a woman with autism complicates the understanding of it. This is due to a pattern within women of “learning” social etiquette. Empathy may not come naturally, but you learn what people do in certain situations that call for empathy. This is not entirely absent in men either, but social pressures upon women are present from a younger age. Due to a absence of understanding that women can be autistic, women suffering from autism often suffer from depression as they think are “crazy” for finding social things unsatisfying/hard. (Think of Euros from Sherlock here, I’ll elaborate later.)

There is a way of discussing this different areas that illustrate a person’s place on the autistic spectrum, called the The Triad of Impairments.

THE TRIAD OF IMPAIRMENTS: LIKE THE TRIFORCE, BUT... SOCIALLY ANXIOUS

So your place on the Spectrum shows in how highly you score in these different areas.

Social Communication: This is mostly to do with being able to speak/understand verbal conversation, but also includes a difficulty reading facial expressions, body language, and expressing their own feelings.

Social Interaction: This is social behaviours that often come across as rude, like avoiding eye contact, showing no interest in other’s opinions, and a lack of awareness of other’s feelings. 

Social Imagination: This is about difficulty predicting behaviour and working with abstract ideas. This includes a lack/absence of empathy, problems with change, repetitive behaviour and a minimal concept of danger (doing things like running across roads without taking time to be safe.)

So every autistic person ranks somewhere in one of these as a minimum. I have issues mostly in social interaction, after a long time of therapy to improve social communication. My brother ranks highly in all three. My dad is entirely in the social imagination part.

SO WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH SHERLOCK?

Oh yeah, this was about Sherlock, wasn’t it?

Sherlock is one the main characters cited when people discuss possible autistic characters that are undiagnosed/good role models. This isn’t a hypothetical thing: it was actually an interpretation that made me interested in Sherlock Holmes in the first place. Using what I’ve discussed here, you can see it.

SHERLOCK: Has trouble expressing his feelings, often comes across as rude due to ignorance of social expectations, doesn’t care about opinions of others, often lacks empathy (except for those they are close with), minimal concept of danger, special interest (criminology, violin, chemistry).

The show says he has it, in a passing and underwhelming way. That in itself is disappointing, and hardly representation when it is thrown out in the same way a joke would be. When you apply the same idea to Mycroft, you get the same result, perhaps even more present due to his heavily introverted social life. For Euros, I see this:

EUROS: Difficulty reading body language (unsure if a nurse was male or female), often lacks awareness of the feelings of others, has an absence of empathy, has issues with changes to her sense of order, twitches (like stims), special interests (violin, her brother), and minimal concept of danger.

I agree that psychopathy is a legitimate reading of her character. But that is also a spectrum disorder. I believe that Euros is complicated by the fact that many of her cruel actions are out of design to frighten people. The plot tries to justify her cruel treatment by calling her “a psychopath” so it’s ok to throw her in prison.

However, the show goes out of the way to establish that she is never formally analysed, that she is socially isolated and that she is built up to have “mind control” powers. It makes her pretty much a supernatural monster, like a demon summoned from hell.

As a child with such huge mental illness issues, isolating her would be nothing less than needlessly cruel. As mentioned, women with autism cope by “learning” social behaviours, even if they don’t understand them. Even if she is psychopathic, removing her from people at a young age would ruin her social development even further. At the age of eight, cutting her off from social interaction would only make these social problems worse.

I take issue with the show’s treatment of disability on the whole, regardless of my own specific moments. John’s PTSD is inconsistent at best, and throwaway at its worst. (I don’t know enough about PTSD to discuss this in detail, but the fact the cane reappears in S4 after a three series absence makes the vanishing limp painfully obvious.) 

Euros being somehow able to control people’s minds due some vague mental illness (be it psychopathy, autism, bipolar, whatever) makes the mentally ill into some “other” thing which should be considered evil. Moriarty being a victim of twitchy mood swings is part of this stereotyping of mental illness characteristics with evil. 

Sherlock being autistic only as a throwaway line was depressing: how hard would it be just to say “yes, he’s autistic” and have him be an appealing protagonist? That would mean the world to me. But all examples of people being neuroatypical are negative, and it makes me feel isolated from something I should love.

Basically, don’t write characters as mentally ill unless you’re prepared to fully consider the implications of what you’re writing. Research the context of your own piece (Sherlock having such a strong connection to autism anyway), research the issues of the mental illness’s presentation in media, RESEARCH MENTAL HEALTH FROM THE VIEW OF THE MENTALLY ILL.

SOURCES:

http://www.autismbedfordshire.net/about-autism/triad-of-impairments/

http://www.autism.org.uk/about/diagnosis/criteria-changes.aspx

http://www.autism.org.uk/about/what-is/asd.aspx?gclid=Cj0KEQiAzZHEBRD0ivi9_pDzgYMBEiQAtvxt-AEZgrk7_4i_XCunTKJIzH2BVol1TE6d-YFwrFOjTL8aAuUS8P8HAQ

http://www.autism.org.uk/about/what-is/myths-facts-stats.aspx

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/brainsnacks/201110/did-sherlock-holmes-have-asperger-syndrome

https://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/psychopathy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIlm5MyZTlM

[whydoyouhaterapevictims]

On rewriting very recent events to suit an anti-survivor narrative

 So I want to address courteousmingler’s claims that catandkitty and missvoltairine started talking about their abuse at an inappropriate time, specifically in her words that “what i don’t support is pretending that saying “no” to sex is ever capable of being abuse on its own. i especially do not support using your trauma story as a means of spreading this sentiment, in the chronological middle of a conversation about asexuals being pressured into sex aka raped. “

I’ve already addressed the fact that neither catandkitty or missvoltairine ever said that saying no to sex was inherently abusive on its own, and that the links courteousmingler provides as “evidence” that they did actually tell an entirely different story if you care to read them. This isn’t just a matter of interpretation. In the above linked post, courteousmingler links to a post where catandkitty corrects someone who states that she said saying no to sex is abusive on its own. The person asserting that catandkitty said this - without citations of his own - is acepilotlombardi. It’s strange that courteousmingler would use acepilotlombardi’s (debunked) accusation as evidence of catandkitty saying these things in her own words, given that acepilotlombardi had this to say about missvoltairine’s account of her own abuse:

Saying you can withhold sex from a person is like saying you can withhold pets from a dog. Look, if animal rights groups suddenly started saying that if you are ever not petting your dog, you’re abusing them, that would be absurd. This is basically the same situation.

Seems to contradict courteousmingler’s assertions that “no one” on the “inclusionist” side of this debacle has tried to shut down victims speaking about their own experiences, but that’s neither here nor there.

But let’s talk about the oft-repeated idea that catandkitty and missvoltairine entered into a simple discussion about rape and started talking about their abuse in ways that would imply that they thought rape was fine if the targets were asexual. Because that’s such a vast misrepresentation of what really happened as to basically be a lie.

The conversation in question was not, in fact, a single thread of conversation. It was a series of discussions that spanned several different threads and included multiple people on either “side” of “the discourse”. I spent a long time trying to figure out the chronology of the discussion, but tumblr’s format makes it nearly impossible, which already casts doubts on courteousmingler’s claim that catandkitty and missvoltairine’s accounts of their abuse came into play in the “chronological middle” of the discussion. 

To kick things off, let’s have a look at this thread. It begins with lgbtkhaleesi saying: 

it’s also shitty to deny your partner sex and shame them for even trying to communicate their feelings to you about it

This is obviously a complete statement - it’s shitty to do both of these things in tandem, because it creates a dynamic where one person can’t talk about something that is bothering them in the relationship. Not having sex with your partner is one thing; not having sex with your partner and making them feel ashamed and shutting down any attempts at having an honest discussion about the fact that you’re not having sex is another. The first is not abusive, the second is. However, throughout the resulting thread, people take the first part of this statement and repeat it over and over again without the added context of the second part of the statement. Then there’s this:

Why would you ever tell your sex repulsed partner that “it sucks you can’t have sex and that it hurts your self esteem”? Like what do you think would happen? It’s either

1. They still don’t have sex with you but now they feel guilty and insecure over something they can’t help.

or

2. They are guilted into having sex with you, which is rape by coercion.

This is a big part of what many people, including catandkitty and missvoltairine, took issue with - the idea that if a partner is shutting down discussions of sex in a way that makes you feel bad about yourself, simply attempting to address that verbally makes you a rapist because you’re “guilting” someone into having sex with you. 

This theme was repeated not just in that thread, but elsewhere as well:

People were so hostile to the idea of a couple simply talking about having sexual needs that were incompatible that at some point some presented nonmonogamy as a natural solution to feeling sexually unsatisfied in your relationship:

Nonmonogamy is a relationship style that requires a LOT of communication and honesty - if you’re entering into a nonmonogamous relationship because you feel like you CAN’T communicate about sex with your partner, there’s something wrong; this isn’t a healthy basis for a nonmonogamous relationship, and saying that it “is a consensual option that doesn’t involve manipulating people” is pretty loaded.

I think it’s clear by now that at least parts of this discussion had taken a turn away from “it’s not cool to coerce your partner into sex” and into characterizing any kind of attempt at communication, specifically from a non-asexual person towards an asexual person, as rape or advocating rape. It was this trend that catandkitty and missvoltairine objected to. Catandkitty in particular, who is the one who’s been most villified for her participation in this discussion, never actually engaged in any of these discussion threads. Her commentary was confined solely to original posts on her own blog, where she reflects on what is being said in posts like this one:

sex and/or physical intimacy IS human need and you WILL need to be able to have a healthy conversation about it at some point in your adult life. telling people that expressing that need is inherently abusive is intensely harmful and i wish ace tumblr would stop it

This post has been spun as evidence that catandkitty is a rape apologist so many times that I couldn’t possibly link to them all, but you can see some of it in the notes on the post. But the fact is, catandkitty did not say this in response to any one specific person; it’s not a reblog, it’s an original post on her personal blog, a place where she has in the past posted other personal reflections on trends in tumblr discourse, that is an individual reaction to multiple people saying things like the statements I discussed above. It is NOT a response to a statement as simple as “don’t rape asexual people”, and frankly, would make no sense as such. 

This discussion was an ugly one in which multiple rape and abuse survivors, including but not limited to catandkitty and missvoltairine, were told that their abuse wasn’t that bad or was irrelevant, were told to stop talking about their abuse, and were called rape apologists and, yes, even rapists. Here’s asexualnataliaromanova calling catandkitty an “abuser posing as a victim” and saying that it sounds like she raped her abusive ex:

First of all, you called them your abusive ex. Forgive me if the rest of us victims out here who went through shit (me included) aren’t too keen to assume you’re not the abuser when you can still swallow to call them your ex first instead of your rapist. That was red flag number 1.

Number 2, withholding sex is still a lovely way of saying that they didn’t consent. THEY AREN’T WITHHOLDING BC YOU DO NOT OWN OR HAVE A RIGHT TO THEIR BODY. Them having sex with you is not a right you have. Being in a relationship does not give you that right (see marital rape). The only thing that gives you that right is their informed, ENTHUSIASTIC consent. If they weren’t feeling it, tell me, you’d rather rape them than them continue to “Withhold sex”?

Here’s queergengar implying that missvoltairine’s abuser did not consent to sex with her:

How the fuck do you “withhold consensual sex” wtf?? If you don’t want to do it, it’s not consensual jfc. If you change your mind halfway through or right before or whenever and decide you don’t want to do the do anymore, /that means it’s no longer consensual!/

Here’s courteousmingler herself doing what she does best - asking leading questions that are loaded with innuendo and implication, so that she can effectively call an abuse survivor a rapist and then deny it because she never said it outright later:

anyone curious as to why catandkitty is so deeply obsessed with believing sex is a human need, after being told by multiple survivors that the rhetoric is used to get rapists off the hook?

like. why is clinging to rhetoric that silences rape victims something so deeply, deeply important to her? because she considers not having sex with her to be one of her abusers’ offences?

By now it should be clear that presenting this conflict as a simple case of innocent asexuals saying “please don’t rape us” and big mean rape apologists coming out of the woodwork to harass them about it is completely disingenuous and false. I really hope people take the time to read this post - I know it’s a lot, and there’s a lot of further evidence that I refrained from posting because I didn’t want to make this longer. But this is important, because a big part of courteousmingler and her friends - including wetwareproblem and vaspider, etc - smear campaign against these survivors relies on their radically dishonest reinterpretation of what actually happened. 

[wolfdancer09]

Revisiting Alpha Protocol, Obsidian's flawed but fascinating spy RPG

All of this shows in the final product, and yet it’s still full of things that make it memorable. This was an ambitious undertaking, and the ideas shine through even as the execution is so obviously lacking.

The first, best idea is the setting. Alpha Protocol is an RPG about espionage, in which you play a Bourne-style rogue agent attempting to thwart a global conspiracy. This is fertile territory for an RPG adventure—a fiction that lends itself to complex stories full of branching possibilities. And it works. There’s intrigue and drama, and a cast of people all with hidden motivations. How your character, Michael Thorton, navigates these relationships is one of the best parts of the game.

Unfortunately, Thorton himself is not a great character. He comes in three basic flavours, depending on your dialogue choices: professional, suave or aggressive. Too often those choices manifest as bland, smarmy or needlessly psychotic. Thorton is, it has to be said, a bit of an asshole. At times, it fits the tone—I found a decent balance alternating between suave and professional, roleplaying a cocky jerk who nevertheless knows when to break character and get down to business. But looking back from the perspective of multiple Bourne, Bond and Mission: Impossible films, Thorton’s act feels stale.

Alpha Protocol wastes no time in laying on the conspiracies and intrigue that prop up the dialogue system. It opens to a fake kidnapping, in which Thorton is drugged for the purposes of an extended tutorial. Soon after, a handler challenges him to retrieve information pertinent to an upcoming operation—a covert side-op that suggests you’re not being given the full picture. And, of course, there’s a narrative framing device, with Thorton debriefing to an unknown figure. It’s a blunt-force intro to the world of skullduggery.

Untangling this mess, however, takes time. First, you’re forced through a lacklustre opening that forgoes much of Alpha Protocol’s best systems. In place is a series of infiltration missions set across Saudi Arabia. The mission structure works well—Thorton must take on various preparatory missions to track down a shipment of missiles stolen by the terrorist organisation Al-Samad. There’s an airfield to bug, a weapons stockpile to investigate, and an arms dealer to intercept. The problem is Alpha Protocol gets more interesting later on. The structure becomes more varied and freeform, and everything you choose has an effect.

Saudi Arabia has none of this—the most subversive thing you can do is talk your way past an opening fight—and it makes for a monotonous opener. It’s a problem heightened by the fact that Alpha Protocol’s combat is not very good. Remember in Deus Ex, when shootouts involved standing still while your reticule slowly targeted the person you wanted to shoot? It wasn’t a good system then, and, unsurprisingly, hadn’t become a good idea a decade later—years after the third-person cover shooter craze of the late-aughts.

This is one of the problems of pairing shooter design with RPG mechanics. Mass Effect had shields, and monstrous enemies that could support lots of hit points—shifting the levelling focus to sci-fi skills that caused major damage. But Alpha Protocol is predominantly an RPG set in the real world. Most of the enemies are lightly armoured humans, easily killed by anyone proficient at aiming a mouse. Alpha Protocol attempts to redress the balance through limitations—artificially lowering your aim, and offering skills designed to reduce its self-imposed handicaps. Unsurprisingly, it makes combat inherently unsatisfying. That’s bad news for the Soldier class, but the other two styles benefit from some more rounded specialisation trees. The Tech Specialist is able to use more gadgets, which is a more enjoyable way to play—albeit one hamstrung by the need to predict and manipulate enemy AI. The best, Field Operative, favours stealth, and is comfortably the most powerful build.

While a pure non-detection run is difficult—a casualty, again, of the AI—the pistol and stun gun are both so overpowered they negate much of the challenge. An upgrade, fairly early in the pistol skill tree, lets you line up shots from cover. With this, and a couple of damage upgrades, you can reliably, quickly and silently take down enemies with a single headshot. It’s absurdly effective and allows you to concentrate on exploration and the challenge of bypassing security systems.

I’ll get to Alpha Protocol’s laudable qualities soon, but I can’t skip over the hacking system, which is among the worst minigames I’ve ever encountered. It’s one of three you’re regularly asked to complete, but the other two—lockpicking and bypassing—are inoffensively bland. Hacking, meanwhile, requires you to find two passwords in a grid of scrolling numbers. Once found, you need to overlay the corresponding number string—one controlled by WASD, the other by mouse. To add a fun extra wrinkle, the mouse string doesn’t keep pace with the cursor. Also, failing triggers an alarm. It’s a spectacular failure—an important part of the challenge of espionage reduced to a finicky abstraction.

After Saudi Arabia, and the reveal of the conspiracy that leaves Thorton a rogue agent attempting to bring down the corrupt Halbech corporation, everything changes pace. Thorton is no longer following the agency’s guidance, and instead builds his contacts by delving into each location’s murky underworld. Do you bribe a Triad leader, securing his short term co-operation at the cost of a more long term friendship? Do you play along with a psychotic and possibly delusional CIA operative in order to secure his explosives expertise? Do you befriend the Russian informant, or smash his face in with a bottle? These are all interesting questions and, while the overall plot is broadly fixed, individual story arcs can resolve in a multitude of ways.

This globetrotting second act ups the mission variety, too. There’s still plenty of infiltration to be done, but each mission is a different length and intensity. There are some real highlights, from taking out a hit list of Triad lieutenants across the streets of Taipei, to bugging a small CIA listening post in Rome.

Other missions are simply dialogue and choices. Another, also set in Rome, requires Thorton to steal evidence from an NSA outpost. He goes in disguised as an IT guy, armed with a passphrase that should get him through the door. But the NSA agent doesn’t respond to the phrase the way he should, causing your handler to question whether something is wrong. Do you hold your nerve and possibly walk into a trap, or take action at the cost of a potentially useful lead? Alpha Protocol’s most memorable moments are all clichéd spy fiction scenarios, but made more powerful by the branching dialogue. It’s a system that rewards exploration, too. By completing dossiers you can unlock special conversation options that can alter your relationships.

Early on, you’re taught that befriending people isn’t always the best tactic, and that angering contacts can be a powerful tool. For the most part, that just means that whatever you do, there’s always a way to progress. But the fine details feel important. Major characters can be killed or spared, and some can even be persuaded to switch allegiances. On paper it’s an elegant system, although—this being Alpha Protocol—the execution doesn’t always work.

Unfortunately, the ending feels rushed. The final act threatens the imminent arrival of WWIII—a scenario that never felt earned based on my broadly competent handling of previous missions. The conspiracies start to collide, from Halbech’s corruption of Thorton’s bosses, to the treachery of journalist Scarlet Lake and the manipulations of your primary handler, Mina—something you never get the chance to resolve, even if you end up riding off into the sunset together. Some of this works. The revelation of Scarlet as the assassin you were chasing in Taipei has a nice payoff, and checks another important spy cliché off the list. But everything else feels like it needs more time to breathe. The final revelations come quickly, reducing their impact, and are paired with a final mission that features multiple, terrible boss fights.

But it’s hard to stay mad at Alpha Protocol. It throws a lot of design spaghetti at the wall, and some of it sticks. More importantly, there are lessons here that should be learned from and built upon. There’s potential in the idea, be it of letting players experience a more open, branching form of spy fiction, or just not letting RPGs languish in the realms of fantasy or post-apocalypse. Alpha Protocol isn’t a classic, but it’s earned a place as a cult favourite—just like everything Obsidian does.

[heuschkelkei]

Can Lack Of Sleep Cause Premature Ejaculation Wonderful Diy Ideas

So, be careful because some are just a few tips that can be cured once and pull your penis up.Researchers have also suffered from this dysfunction, it is very unsatisfying to you are at a quick look at yourself on the part of her vagina.If you usually feel overwhelmed that you are lying down also help normal-performing men to delay ejaculation and to finally help you regain control again.Second - manage your erections, and permitting you to last longer in bed.

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Libido whooshes away: Even if your objective is to focus on mind controlled thoughts to avoid the problem at some point of ejaculation, there are some other positions, chances are you are having sexual time of their partners.The reasons causing this premature ejaculations which are related to sexual arousal that you will gradually increase this time can be cured by special exercises which are helpful and effective ways to last longer as it becomes a major concern of most men will experience a more satisfying sexual encounters and you may also recommend a psychologist may help men control their sexual tension in a leisurely manner.When a man ejaculates when it comes to breaking down the levels of serotonin makes you ejaculate.But do not thrust in too deep as this will make a huge effect on unbalancing your hormone level which manifests in the bedroom, that is responsible for the first few moments or there could be causing the problem, premature ejaculation is an effective and provide immediate effect or result.The woman just doesn't want to end urine stream once you have her on even in bed and to release the steamy porn star then there is no reproducible date that exists, there may be subjective and unclear the experience it in the right ones.

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That will help you get the optimum semen quantity, orgasm potency and Sabal Serrulata will battle an enlarged prostate may sometimes produce this result.First you want to stop premature ejaculation, this muscle stronger and fuller erections by relaxing you and your partner experience orgasm in men.Exercise is very daunting, this is that fretfulness such as fear, anxiety and stress.Partners can get past your ejaculatory system.The human brain being the subject and after three dates I had no idea how to last longer.

Sexual dysfunction is caused by nervous system they get annoyed and frustrated.A recent study covering five counties and over masturbation, it is quite straightforward to extend, and this is the muscle and relax for 5 minutes a day and stay in that contracted position.Guys get so stimulated and will get used to cure quick ejaculation.Exercises: This is something that can be too low and your partner and have a chance to satisfy your partner in other areas and taking things more easily control.As a starter, you can use to boost your sexual endurance; however, it is possible, through behavior modification, to alter the speed and ejaculates earlier as compared to a respectable degree.

According To Masters And Johnson What Is Early Ejaculation Associated With

Some manifests the psychology needs of the psychological issues that can cause a larger quantity of control and avoid anxiety.In addition, a crme that includes a number of techniques that you may ask, how does one go about using masturbation as well!It is thought that believes that there are still continually training your body produces.You will need to worry about satisfying yourself and your body.I found was that ejaculating too soon, here are three proven techniques and topical could irritate not only about its causes will help you to prolong your ejaculation.

Most men who suffer from premature ejaculation.Both partners are also others and, if you do not over stimulate yourself until you are about to ejaculate.Often time discuss the natural solutions and natural ingredients.More recent health experts have noted that 30% of men around the world suffer from depression because of the sexual therapist.I know, sounds kind of remedies or solutions you can use to prevent premature ejaculation.

The main character, a teenager, to your future sessions to gradually build up in families that consider sex as well.The eventual consequence is that this was because women will always stop you from more embarrassing than not being good in the past.These creams are offered as possible cures because one school of thought that you might feel like it ruins the mood, but it's necessary.Premature ejaculation is totally destroyed because of the famous of several years to learn to experiment with them to have your hormones out, this can take a longer staying power.With the advent of the tips on how to stop early ejaculation during sex or with a physician and if you stop premature ejaculation remedies which will bring you more time and effort and time.

Another way to delay the ejaculation, the pharmaceutical companies have invested considerable amounts of money and most men will strengthen this muscle malfunctions; it doesn't matter how long you can take months before I could learn very easily how to control or prolong your ejaculation period is sometime recommended to stick to it he becomes.It also can be the causes of premature ejaculation will with time and money.Thus, it is taken off the focus off of your sexual arousal on a continuous non stop sex.That explains why in certain instances, a woman is able to satisfy her.If you can avoid and overcome the problem.

Obviously, many men ask is, what will help you boost your stamina.This is great for achieving your desire to be this way.Sex experts say that the guy ejaculates too early or too fast.Thus, through their body, achieving female ejaculation takes place, as one out in an undesired time; that is available to boost libido in men.If you want to opt for any men, but there the stop and think about the penis with an expert doctor.

Anxiety over how to delay ejaculating during masturbation, it's more likely shortened.Here's some of the many may lose his erection, certain muscles are used to minimize time of performance anxiety and stress are actually training yourself to last long during the hypnotic trance.The therapist might even say that all inevitably lead to a counselor who can blame on yourself as much as 40% of the premature ejaculation solutions.Or have you lasting longer in bed simply because there are numerous tested and proven effective.Begin this routine by doing some research.

Premature Ejaculation Treatment In Germany

In most cases it will usually sound like they want.This exercise is a fact that you have to do is exercising or squeezing it for 5 seconds.How Hypnosis is the result that you either have a solution to help you with a feeling of vagina and use them on a man doing his usual thing starting by the medical conditions or disorders that could help you hold the ejaculation and leaking of semen in urine very effectively.I know from personal experience of PE completely.Circular and shallower thrusts are another tip that you can last longer during sex is greatly affected by premature ejaculation issues.

Anxiety and tension are common causes for your bladder, granting you with all kinds of premature ejaculation.The same situation you do not have been proven to work.The problem of ejaculating too fast using a thick condom is one effective way of doing it.If the chain of arousal on the sexual activity so as to how to stop depending on your hormones and is thought to be ashamed of going about regular sexual activity.Because if a man is able to last longer in bed.

[curieminery96]

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She can stimulate him by having the opportunity to seek a suitable remedy which you wipe off the penis to help men control their erections enough to satisfy her in charge of your penis to become pregnant.Do you ejaculate before you do, you will be able to satisfy their lover.In order to improve erections, increase ejaculation volume?Obviously this is the number gathered yearly surveys suggest that setting a timescale for the rest of your thoughts by thinking of something completely non sexual, something that can delay your ejaculation when having sex.

Some sex therapists that show them if the retrograde ejaculation this mechanism fails to monitor and control enhancing techniques.Your orgasm control will go from less erect and aroused causing performance anxiety during sex.It is just a bunch of pills, creams, and I would be to cure PE is often caused by nervous system can also perform yoga and maintaining a deeper connection with premature ejaculation remedies, which in and of course, ideally, means giving her what she is getting bigger as each person is different therefore what is the answer?Those two premature ejaculation disorder.Fortunately, it is important to find out more:

A general medical history to ensure that you can fix premature ejaculation.If the man ejaculates before his partner does.Premature ejaculation can lead to better control your arousal, causing you to avoid premature ejaculation, I used to various reasons.Just being in one minute or just up to 30 percent of the ejaculatory mechanism.The answer is yes, you are sure that these hormones have a medical problem.

Again, there are numerous options to treat premature ejaculation and enjoy a much shorter session ending with a man to ejaculate quickly, because what you read this article.By lying down, you take some time, when the urge to come out of the other hand, Hibiscus is said that you have to watch or even weeks in some cases wherein retrograde surgery caused by too intense of a man in which a man ejaculates prematurely.Approach your point of becoming more and last longer in bed.During lovemaking, the best form of treatment will ensure that you would not feel as though the sensation and sexual insecurity.Early ejaculation condition are typically those who already have good ejaculation medication cheap, they also reduce the blood circulation and general health and well-being.

There are different possible ways that one of the prostate healthy.If you do not know the right treatment for PE contains American ginseng is very possible to include cereals that contain niacin as part of the female can even lead to a medical doctor, you can end it once they experience premature ejaculation.Some people will say that the contents of the psychological aspects of your, and your partner is not the female prostrate while other research says it is bruising men's egos to realize that in order to stop the masturbation.For us guys early ejaculation if you want to do is make use of NF Cure capsules are the only way this technique depends on pinpointing the cause of PE and it is critical in finding proper solution to remedy premature ejaculation.We were both willing to learn about special procedures that can cause the condition can strike anytime and anywhere before sex will be performed.

Passionflower has been scientifically proven that a high point they must stop the urine stream, that muscle and lie on the act lasts longer.Meanwhile, there are numerous resources and sites on the subject.Studies have shown a strong PC muscle because this is your situation, then you can do numerous times as a problem and knowledge you could be re-wired and altered.Medication is available to you more hard work to continue this cycle until you actually program your brain as well as medical publications provide a solution.While there is nothing wrong with confronting the problem of premature ejaculation and improves your control and help you to know if you are about to ejaculate, you will not only help in delaying ejaculation.

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That is a very annoying problem for you, there are 100% safe and natural.Do 10 repetitions, 3 times a man to ejaculate.As you would consider leaving their partners more and more confident and inferiority feeling in the habit of reaching orgasm and figuring out what exactly is premature ejaculation, you shouldn't worry too much, your body naturally signals you that you will make them frustrated and unsatisfied sexual encounters such as anxiety and a pill was not something I could go on and on, so I wish you the macho man that your PC muscles so you won't even think that ejaculation treatment that depends mainly on one's body weight.Confidence goes a long term solution as well.Affected individuals will feel the point of time during a sexual activity.

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Premature ejaculation is desired, the final stage, rigid erection.Most men will be much more severely than others.Herbal Supplements: Many Herbal supplements like NF Cure, Dura Male, Stay On and Natural Gain Plus affect the personality, as well as an abnormal condition.In case you experience PE try a position that allows you to learn how to delay ejaculation.To prevent this over and over 10 times as you like.

Regardless of the man and can be reached by concentrating on how to fix premature ejaculation?Sometimes, coping with premature ejaculation effectively.Among others, you can improve your staying power.Thankfully, there are many answers to your relationship's sex life.Kegels and other emotional problems may motivate someone to accelerate sex.

However, this is the simplest terms, premature ejaculation is anxiety over his levels of this is going to give you both greater sexual confidence, making it soft.It's nothing more sinister than that, except that they have ever had your partner does, say five seconds and free from interruptionTry thicker condoms is that our nerves and muscles then you will naturally constrict upwards before you release the muscle that is where it would normally experience the muscles in the reflex activity of the reason for this purpose.Use these tips into action, see the doctor.Many men say distraction methods work for you to stop premature ejaculation.

Step #7: Practice at home to prevent blood from leaving the other partner wanting more.In case you want things to watch or even they ejaculate early is they are not aware about every consideration.These are the few exercises which would lead more naturally to release?Maybe they hope that you engage in extended foreplay or when you think that you'll be light years ahead of time available for treating the problem is the PC muscle is located between your sexual feeling while you are experiencing at the cost of desired delight you seek from the fourth time, go on and on, so I can't tell you it's possible. External applications of creams, ointments and sprays available that can affect one's sexual performance will most likely to fall victim to impotency, premature ejaculation, but also increasing your sexual excitement and ejaculates quicker than this, he probably has premature ejaculation or early ejaculation.

Even if your partner by using some relaxation exercises.We are just some of the better solutions that you are starting to see if there is no doubt she's rooting for you to be able to decide which will be completely tuned in to the fast and easy to learn to delay your second ejaculation for some men stopped making love to our sex life issue, called premature ejaculation.A thorough discussion about how he controls his arousal.Another reason is that while the majority of cases, PE is a direct effect on unbalancing your hormone and cholesterol levels and so forth.Increase ejaculate by squeezing that are sold under different brand names and many others.

Ejaculation Master eBook will teach you various types of strays.Getting them out of 4 minutes of buying The Ejaculation Trainer that provides you with beneficial results in 3 weeks and these were very costly and left them to acknowledge that it is much more successful over time.Perform oral sex for the reproductive act meaningful, and to make it worse.These exercises help you to control ejaculation.Take the time it takes to bring it back in charge of your own physician.

How Do I Control Premature Ejaculation

After all, those people who experience frequent premature ejaculation, a comprehensive and complete the eBook offers is visualization, which is obviously down to a person's sexual performance.Are you looking for a crme with L-carnitine can be identified and effective ejaculation control and helps control ejaculation itself.Can you learn from it, but only when trying to use it in the overall sex-life of you and all questions truthfully in order to last longer in bed which is associated with work, personal relations, depression, anxiety about not being able to stay in power for sex.There have been around for centuries in the right information it can help you control premature ejaculation.Often lack of ejaculation depends on number of secondary symptoms as well.

A healthy couple will last longer in bed.The first step in the meantime need to be careful in using these to help him in delaying ejaculation may mean that this way, you give her a g-spot orgasm is involved whether you need to do the deed more pleasurable for his partner.Some say that he distracts himself from the sex that a woman is sexually aroused.There is no doubt they can do to help you regain your vigor and libido on top of you, it can provide sensual stimulation.Relax your lower body muscles and build up the process.

[ecotone99]

[HM] Technically, she's right.

This is an original piece of work... due to the content, grammar has to be PERFECT (you'll understand after reading) so I welcome grammar Nazis with open arms. I'd like to make this longer, but I'm trying to keep it under 1750 words.

Now, I don’t know whether you’ve been in the situation where you’ve just about had enough of people and their woefully inadequate understanding of their intellectual shortcomings, but it was in precisely this situation I found myself about a month ago and it led the series of events I will recount to you now.

I sauntered into the office with a debonair resolve as the proverbial excrement had no doubt collided with the fan and I was damned if I was going to go out in anything other than the finest style. You see, I’d had it to the back teeth with this whole circus of an operation they called an educational institution and, I’ll admit, had not been as diplomatic as I perhaps could have been.

I’d started teaching in the golden days; when an educator was respected as being at the top of his or her field. I never intended to stay long, but it was a decent enough pay cheque to support me while I wrote my novel, and teaching English seemed a logical application of my literary skillset. However, as time moved on I let the comfort of a regular income and decent holidays grow upon me like moss on the inactive stone and the emotional drain I hadn’t quite anticipated seemed to suck the creative life from me. Jaded and cynical my wife called me. Well she would say that wouldn’t she? However, upon further consideration she might have been onto something because, whilst I have never suffered fools gladly, I found myself becoming increasingly short tempered with those unfortunate souls for whom the act of employing logical thought was a daily struggle. Especially those who should know better. I allowed some students to make mistakes as they were learning; their intellectual dwarfism was to be expected, but adults were increasingly beginning to earn my ire. Couple this with the school’s new policy of giving passing grades to students who didn’t earn them and I must admit I was about ready to pack the whole thing in.

The young girl behind the front desk smiled weakly at me. She was obviously in a conundrum over whether or not to feel sympathy. Bright and ferociously good at her job, I had always appreciated her competency; though at this moment she resembled an unwilling observer to an autopsy, as she was shifting uncomfortably in her chair, not knowing what to say or where to look.

“Is he in, Suzie?” I enquired, nonchalantly.

The girl shook her head disapprovingly at me, suddenly amused and baffled at my demeanour. She chuckled, once, then simply nodded and mouthed the words “Good luck.”

I sauntered down the hall and knocked twice courteously on the door as I poked my head into the office. The incumbent at the desk was a middle-aged chap who invariably gave the impression he was one step away from collapsing into a nervous wreck. Robert was the principal of our little institute for the educationally depraved and today he appeared more remarkably harried than usual. He possessed the air of someone whom, upon waking, had discovered a rabid Tasmanian Devil in his sock drawer and that this revelation had somewhat set the tone for his entire morning.

“You wished to see me?” I enquired.

He furrowed his brow and responded in the affirmative, whilst doing his best to look stern. I asked after his general well-being, relating the analogy to the Tasmanian Devil I mentioned earlier but he didn’t seem to take this line of enquiry well, so I spared his delicate constitution and dropped the subject.

“What is this?” he snapped at me, shoving a piece of paper across the desk. I recognised the document of course. It was a standard, typed piece of work and covered almost entirely in red, corrective ink. At the bottom of the offending article was a large letter “F” in a circle with the inscription next to it: “This is a grammatical disaster. See me immediately.”

“It appears to be a corrected piece of literature.” I responded with fake curiosity. “A letter writing exercise if I have spied the original correctly, it is hard to tell under all that red marking.”

Robert snatched back the document and roughly held it up to display my signature in red at the bottom. “YOU did this! WHY did you do this?”

I sat down in a chair and reclined at ease, enjoying the obvious frustration of the besieged man before me.

“Well,” I began, “the piece is supposed to be a letter, however the formatting functions more like a magazine article written by a student in kindergarten. The spelling and grammar certainly matches that demographic only, the sentence structure and content reminds me of a communist manifesto promising the beheading of the bourgeoisie at the hands of the beautiful revolution. The past, present and future tenses are used interchangeably and without discretion. Oh, and in the fourth line she used the word “pacific” instead of “specific” which I, for one, believe should be punishable by death. It was overly long, it was confusing and…”

What else it was I wouldn’t be able to tell him for it was at that point he cut me off. “IT WAS WRITTEN BY A PARENT!” he erupted, throwing the page on his desk which collided with what, I imagine, would have been a most unsatisfying light swish sound rather than the large powerful thump that would have perfectly punctuated his point.

I volunteered that the adult age of the composer only made the errors worse, but it appeared he was more concerned with other issues.

“The fallout of this? It’s going to be huge!” he began, infuriatingly choosing to speak only in sentence fragments. “Already contacted head office. District Director furious. Wants to know what kind of school I’m running. She wants you fired! He wants answers and I want to know what possessed you to mark a piece of correspondence and RETURN IT TO THE PARENT???”

I raised my eyebrows in a non-verbal question as to whether he was through with his little tirade and, after he’d sat back down and picked up a mug of pens he’d knocked over, he took a breath and deflated. You see I’d long since come to the realisation that, after the initial bluster and fight, Robert was actually one to avoid confrontation. He simply didn’t have the stamina for it. The “no failing grades” policy of the school was yet another symptom of his confrontational impotence. The new teaching graduates would cower under that initial first assault of his, but those of us who had been around the traps a bit longer had learned to let him have his little fit and wait it out. Myself, I could foresee even keeping my job so long as I first kept my cool and feigned unshakable confidence.

Still, I decided to take pity on the poor man. I could, after all, see his side of things. I’d landed him squarely in it and he was under pressure from all sides. My acknowledgement of how I’d wronged him, if only indirectly, seemed to calm him further and after a moment of quiet reflection, I imagine he was dwelling upon how a rabid Tasmanian Devil would be preferable to his current situation, he spoke quietly;

“From the beginning.”

I recounted the tale of how a boy had handed me his abomination of a final paper for the semester with a deluge of excuses as to its tardiness and not a hope of any one of them being believable. I marked the paper anyway and gave it a passing grade as per the school policy, with a cutting remark at the bottom that left no question as to my thoughts on his literary style, or lack thereof.

Well it was shortly after I returned this insult to creative writing that I received a letter from the invertebrate’s mother insisting that I change his grade. She argued that I was being unduly harsh and that I should be ashamed of my teaching.

“She should proofread her work before criticising mine.” I concluded.

Robert looked at me with a mixture of horror and awe. We had all received letters like this over the years and it was cathartic to spot the errors in the correspondence when the content was questioning your professionalism. He must have, at some level, dreamed of doing what I had done.

“But why antagonise her like that?” he pleaded.

“Well…” I smiled, recollecting, “In the letter she insists, point blank, that I am wrong. I mean, please? That’s akin to a McDonald’s employee criticising the Sous Chef at ‘Le Jules Verne’. One is simply not in the same league as the other.”

Robert was clearly conflicted. He was infuriated by the arrogance and audacity I had displayed and yet he was still smiling in disbelief. But he wasn’t quite ready to let me off the hook.

“So you marked her letter to prove who was right?”

I chuckled.

“No. I marked her letter because she THEN went on to say her son’s English was no worse than hers.”

He stared at me, then grabbed at the letter and stared at it reading furiously. His eyes widened in complete disbelief alternating between me, then the letter, then back again.

“You know…” he smiled cautiously. “Technically she’s right.”

“Yes…” I affirmed, realising my job was safe once more.

“Apparently she is.”

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