#relatability factor 100%

[bairdthereader]

There are many, many relatable moments in Heartstopper, but this one right here takes the prize.

[da-janela-lateral]

I've always been curious about esper aura textures. Do they form based on the way psychic energy emerges from its source and weaves itself into an external structure? Do their appearance have a genetic factor just like the very presence of ESP, or its purely a matter of a person's soul? Are there registered patterns in which they can manifest? Do their shapes, colors and movements have a general reason to appear like that, or does it depend on the person? Can the patterns change? Do the patterns interfer in sensorial properties, like perceived temperature, texture or hardness?

Oh that's an anime only thing right.

[mukuharakazui]

genshin impact is craaaazy.....zhiqiong and jeht and lyudochka and dunyarzad don't get visions for all the shit they pushed themselves thru (rana got one so npcs can still get visions) but layla spent a semester writing papers that her professor didn't like and got one.

[drchucktingle]

On your blog you've talked about dealing with chronic as a result from the stress of masking your autism.

It's a bit of a different situation, but my little sister (who we've begun to suspect has adhd) has been experiencing chronic pain in her arms and legs. I may be totally off base, but I was wondering if a similar stess might potentially be a factor in her pain.

If you're willing, would you mind talking about how your pain affected before you found a way to manage it (I tried searching your tumblr, but not much came up, so sorry if I'm asking a question that's already been answered)?

Thanks either way, I love your books. Love is real!

sure buckaroo GOOD QUESTION. i have had chronic pain in some form or another for LONG TIME in a number of STRESS RELATED WAYS. in past it has been cracking teeth from clenching dang jaws while i sleep and things like that, but a few years ago it was FULL ON BODY PAIN AND TIGHTNESS like every muscle was clenching up. went to the doctor over and over all kinds of dang specialists and it was very difficult to figure out what was going on. eventually landed on a sort of nebulous trot of STRESS but i can get more specific.

there are several things about me that you would never know just from looking or even talking to me for long times. i am a bi buckaroo, i am a non-dysphoric trans buckaroo, i am an autistic buckaroo. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THESE THINGS IS EITHER HIDDEN AUTOMATICALLY OR I AM SUCH AN EXPERT AT HIDING THAT IT IS SECOND NATURE

autism presents its trot in many ways, so my words do not apply to all, but my version is EXTREME ORGANIZATION AND ENDLESS WORK ETHIC. in way of freud (which is a silly way but sometimes good for symbolism talk) i have what you would call an OVERDEVELOPED SUPER EGO which is a double edged sword. i can write 100s of books at an incredible pace, but also feel like my body is constantly collapsing in on itself

this is not really something i consciously think about much, but eventually these health problems started creeping up. it was all from carrying this mystery tension in my body, because while it feels EASY for me to mask i believe all that tension goes somewhere and it stores up and stores up and stores up.

so i think the HEALTHY way that i have found to deal with this (i think of it as releasing the steam valve a bit so the boiler does not break down) is ART. this space where i am allowed to be CHUCK TINGLE and write without obsessing over the spelling or punctuation, or to loudly express my queerness, or explore gender, and to let my neurotypical mask down DIRECTLY RELIEVES my chronic pain because it literally makes my muscles relax.

when i started out this ARTISTIC TROT as chuck i used a LOT of metaphor to keep my privacy, with different words or different versions of people for different things, and buckaroos found this very funny. as a way to express myself artistically i also liked this metaphor trot a lot, but i have also found that the LESS metaphor i paint over my life as chuck, the better it is for my health. if you have noticed, i talk less about some of the parts of my life that were metaphors, or maybe you have seen that my voice has relaxed a bit in interviews, or that i carry myself a little differently over time, this is partially why. (there is another artistic reason that was a planned trot from the beginning and it has to do with my feelings as a young autistic buckaroo of not fitting in on this timeline, but we can dive into that later).

anyway, as PRACTICAL ADVICE i would say that FINDING A SPACE TO EXPRESS YOURSELF WITHOUT FEAR OR MASKING has been the number one trot for me. that can be a pink bag over your head writing hundreds of erotic shorts, or that can be just laying on the ground howling your heart out, or doing whatever stim you need to do.

i will also say that ONCE I REALIZED IT WAS MUSCLE TENSION getting a physical therapist helped a lot. because there are two sides, you have to start releasing steam from the steam valve, but at the same time youve also gotta start HEALING THE DAMAGE. so i think stretching and techniques like that can be very helpful.

hope that helps buckaroo LOVE IS REAL

[maryrouille]

Toxic romanticization of studying

In a word of introduction, my profile partly shows that studying and exploring is wonderful. But as a person involved in science*, I would like to show healthy and true patterns of this beautiful adventure in acquiring knowledge.

The inspiration for writing this post this time was not the phenomenon from Tumblr (although you can also observe it here), but from Pinterest. There you can come across cycles composed of quotes and photos whose aim is to motivate young girls to learn, succeed and get good grades. These images often also show examples of characters from movies, TV series or real life that you can aspire to be like. Overall, I have to agree that it really works! But I would like to draw attention to certain elements that need to be verified.

1. You shouldn't get up at 5am

First of all, the correct amount of sleep is one of the most important factors affecting the proper and effective functioning of our brain. During sleep, nerve cells regenerate, organize information acquired during the day and consolidate memory traces, which is directly related to learning. Lack of sleep increases impulsivity, deepens negative thinking and slows down the body's reaction time!

2. You can be a genius without good grades

Of course, good grades are a pleasant confirmation of our knowledge and praise for hard work. However, sometimes it is worth considering whether the structure of exams themselves, especially those with closed questions, affects the results. We often study for one specific exam, the knowledge of which may be very… limited and sometimes not useful, so it is worth prioritizing the topics that we study hard.

3. It's not cool to think you're better than others

We are different and have different priorities in life. It is also worth considering how many people escape from the rat race and start a slow, stress-free life. So we have to agree that judging people based on grades or responses under stress (sic!) is not cool.

The good thing about romanticizing studying

As I have already said, these types of collages are really motivating. So let's talk about what's great about them and what's worth highlighting and saving for later.

1. Knowledge is beautiful, but your outfit and surroundings can also be

We know that we should never judge a book by its cover, but… the issue of social perception painfully confirms that we do and will continue to do so because this is how our brains work. And isn't it nice when someone looks at us and thinks this girl is so classy?

Moreover, a nice outfit that makes us feel good gives us a lot of self-confidence. There are also many studies confirming the positive impact on motivation and concentration of a neat and aesthetic workplace.

2. Not just cramming, but also discovering

Broadening your horizons is easier with passion and real commitment. And to achieve this, the topics must really interest us. Not everyone has yet found something that they are extremely passionate about in science, so that is why you have to dig deeper and discover different areas.

3. Don't be afraid to use your knowledge in practice

Schools and universities, unfortunately, have their own rules and they do not always allow you to show your 100% potential. Thus, share your knowledge with others externally, write essays, blog and social media. This form of activity also makes you learn things faster and easier. In addition, contacts with others will expand your knowledge.

Therefore, I must say that it is worth choosing your inspirations carefully. Nothing helps you enjoy studying better than a clear head and lack of prejudices.

*This post was inspired by my own experience with studying. If anyone is interested, I think I can share my mistakes that did not help me in an academic adventure :)

[boytoyhalo]

actually i have thoughts about qfit coming out and the fucking courage that had to have taken him as someone who spent the past 10 years of his life on 2b2t

Idk how much people who have never played on 2b2t actually know about the culture and environment there but because it has no rules, theres a shit ton of casual (and not so casual) bigotry of all sorts. Im 100% sure fit has to cut a TON of shit out of his videos, because the first and only time I ever logged onto it it was less than 10 seconds before i saw a wall of bedrock swastikas and slurs being thrown around in the chat. and anti-gay slurs in particular are a big part of the common terminology there, at least according to the wiki and a few of my friends who used to frequent it. Actually, the reason I never watched fit before the QSMP despite being aware of and interested in his content is because I made a point to stay away from anything 2b2t related for my own mental health - the hate speech there is so notorious that I had been warned to do so, and that was reaffirmed the one time I tried to play on it

Basically, that server is a fucking nightmare to be gay on just in terms of the real life community - in-universe, i imagine that would be reflected tenfold. So for Fit to have spent so long surrounded by that kind of attitude towards gay people, presumably closeted and possibly not even aware of his own queerness... it makes sense that he's been as hesitant as he has been to verbalize his feelings for pac. He can do it just fine when it's played as a joke with Phil or Forever or whoever else, but to find yourself entering into a real queer relationship after spending so long surrounded by violent (and most likely deadly) anti-queerness is fucking SCARY. Even without factoring in the general trust issues that spending that long on an anarchy server gave him, there's no way he didn't internalize at least some of that attitude.

So the fact that after these 7 (8??? is it 8 now i cant be bothered to count) months on Quesadilla island, surrounded by queer people in queer relationships being treated completely normally and supported he feels safe enough to (kind of) come out as gay to his son.... idk I'm just feeling super soft over it rn. Obviously it's Ramon, it's his son, who's been talking about getting him a new husband, so he knows he's safe. But knowing that logically and FEELING that are two different things and it's huge for a man who's spent a third of his life on arguably the least queer friendly space in the entire minecraft community to be able to speak it out loud like that..... im so proud of my bald gay cubito guys

[jozor-johai]

The Red Comet appears exactly 400 years after the Doom of Valyria. Doesn’t that seem significant?

Because round numbers like that make me want to look twice here… and in doing so, there’s something very interesting in the timeline that GRRM has made efforts to keep slightly veiled.

The Red Comet appears a year before the turn of the century in ASOIAF—that is to say, 299 AC. The Doom occurs in 102 BC. The non-existent year zero of this kind of timekeeping makes it look wrong, but that’s exactly 400 years.

I always thought it was interesting that the Doom of Valyria happened in 102 BC—it’s so close to being a round number, but it’s just off. Just enough off, though, that the Red Comet in 299 AC lines up.

Round numbers feel meaningful, and that’s even true for the characters within the world of ASOIAF:

Joffrey and Margaery shall marry on the first day of the new year, which as it happens is also the first day of the new century. The ceremony will herald the dawn of a new era. (ASOS Tyrion I)

The new century, of course, is 300 years since Aegon’s Conquest:

It’s a new century, my lady. The three hundredth year since Aegon’s Conquest. (ASOS Sansa IV)

It’s almost dissatisfying that all this talk of the new century doesn’t line up with the Doom and doesn’t line up with the Red Coment.

So do we have Aegon to blame for making these numbers not line up? Actually, no—Aegon invaded Westeros in 2BC, exactly 100 years after the Doom of Valyria.

It was then that he crowned himself… but that’s not the date that Westeros counts years from; Westeros counts the years from his coronation in Oldtown. This is a detail apparently so interesting (and perhaps important) that it’s described twice in The World of Ice and Fire. For example:

Only a handful of lords had been present for Aegon’s first coronation at the mouth of the Blackwater, but hundreds were on hand to witness his second, and tens of thousands cheered him afterward in the streets of Oldtown as he rode through the city on Balerion’s back. Amongst those at Aegon’s second coronation were the maesters and archmaesters of the Citadel. Perhaps for that reason, it was this coronation, rather than the Aegonfort crowning or the day of Aegon’s Landing, that became fixed as the start of Aegon’s reign.

If Westeros counted years from the year Aegon crowned himself, rather than from the year Aegon was crowned by the Citadel, then the year that the Red Comet appeared in the sky would be 300AC, and that would be exactly 400 years after the Doom. Seen that way, everything lines up curiously well…

So much happens when the Red Comet arrives—the revival of dragons and the return of magic in the world, whatever the relationship between those things is. Those events, and that year, feels much more like the “dawn of a new era.”

Additionally, seeing it all line up so well raises some eyebrows. Seeing all the dates like this make it seem significant that Aegon invaded exactly 100 years later, and makes room for interpreting the Red Comet as potentially having some kind of relationship to the Doom, because 400 years feels just too regular. Why does the comet appear exactly 300 years after Aegon’s invasion, exactly 400 years after the Doom?

At the least, there’s a sense of fate involved that Dany’s dragons wake exactly 400 years after the Doom—or do the revival of magic and the return of dragons both relate to some unknown third factor?

[still-a-morosexual-help]

Trembling like a little wet idiot again because BECAUSE

Eve was tempted to take a bite from the apple. The Original Sin! It separated her and Adam from God. They were banished from Eden, they had to leave God's Safe Garden, and, for better or for worse, had to venture out into the broader outside world

Diavolo planted a fucking apple orchard for Lucifer while Lucifer was still an angel, just because Lucifer offhandedly mentioned liking apples. It was a gesture that was probably one of the stepping stones towards their budding friendship and towards Lucifer questioning the celestial realm and his father, towards Lucifer's growing anger. One of the many* contributing factors towards Lucifer starting a war against the Celestial Realm that would eventually get him and his brothers banished, that would force them to leave their Father's Safe Realm, and, for better or for worse, venture out into the broader outside world. That would cast them into officially becoming Sins.

And Nightbringer has so much apple symbolism relating to Lucifer, that it's on the fucking title screen itself** and up until the present moment Lucifer's favourite food is Poison Apples (it's not even on the nose anymore, it's just straight up a punch to the face)

Diavolo may not have meant for it to be as such, Diavolo 100% only did it because he was starry eyed over Lucifer from day 1, but at the end of the day a Temptation is a Temptation and he held out the Apple and Lucifer took a bite

*the main reason was obviously Lilith, which y'know you could kinda lowkey parallel with some of the stories about og! Lilith's part in the whole apple/eden thing

**and it's explicitly stated that the type of apples Diavolo grows are a deep, vibrant red as opposed to Celestial Realm apples which are all gold & shining:

[identitty-dickruption]

okay let's fucking go what is the social model of disability actually about?

the first thing you need to understand is the divide between disability and impairment. this is best understood as parallel with the sex/gender distinction drawn by some feminists. the social model says that impairment is medical and disability is social

impairments are understood as innate features of how your body functions (or. doesn't function). think about symptoms that are held in your body/mind. pain. fatigue. anhedonia. etc. you have an impairment when your body/mind/bodymind does not function in the ways expected of a healthy/abled human body

disabilities are more socially and culturally contingent than impairments. a disability is generated when a person's impairments are not met with adequate social structures, built environments, etc. this is where you might see claims such as "a wheelchair user is disabled by an inability to walk in the same way as an aeroplane user is disabled by an inability to fly". here we are thinking about social and cultural attitudes as well as a lack of physical accessibility

it is from this fundamental binary that the social model emerges. the social model says:

while impairments are real and can be disabling on their own, disability emerges or is worsened by a failure of society to adequately cater to differences of body and mind

there is a dialogue between bodies and environments that changes the nature of ability and disability from moment to moment

there is a coherent identity group we can call "disabled people". this group is bound together by shared social experiences, and are subject to shared discrimination/oppression

disability is contingent on social and cultural factors in such a way that someone who is considered disabled in one place would not necessarily be considered disabled in a different place (e.g. in an environment of high illiteracy and low reliance on written communication, dyslexia is less disabling than in an environment where literacy is assumed)

disability is not a personal tragedy, and disabled people do not exist to be pitied by abled people

all of these features of the social model of disability are 100% open to criticism. there is a grey area between impairment and disability that isn't well catered to by the social model. there are issues with calling 'disability' a coherent identity group for all the usual identity politics reasons. etc etc. criticisms of these nature are entirely acceptable and reasonable, and I agree with a lot of them (which is why I am not a supporter of the social model, I'm a supporter of the political-relational model)

however. criticisms that narrow down to "but not 100% of disability is socially constructed".... yeah not valid, acceptable, or reasonable. on account of the fact that the social model Does Not Say That. Michael Oliver (the creator of the social model) himself admits that it's not 100% social. which is why he isn't arguing that everything is social. he's just not

I recommend reading Tom Shakespeare's analysis of the social model of disability. the key parts of this analysis can be found in the disability studies reader 4th edition, which you can find here: https://ieas-szeged.hu/downtherabbithole/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Lennard-J.-Davis-ed.-The-Disability-Studies-Reader-Routledge-2014.pdf

sorry for the long post hope it helps

[eroguron0nsense]

The Mysterious Mysteries of Mr Sir Crocodile (Character Analysis)

(Apologies in advance for discrepancies from my usual tone and for holding off on everyone who voted for this on my last poll. Honest to God I hope y'all enjoy this in some capacity because I've been procrastinating on this meta so long it's derailed ALL my other One Piece writing and I only accomplished it through addy-fuelled mania)

This was such a fucking pain to write. I really wanted to say something about Crocodile and what makes him so fascinating that wasn't like, another fan theory or just a set of headcanons, but that's easier said than done?? We could boil it down to immaculate design, screen presence, attitude, or just the fact that he got brought back as an unlikely ally who shocked everyone by saving the protagonist, but I don't know that those factors in and of themselves make for a villain who's become such an object of fandom obsession.

Whatever it is, it's certainly not backstory or depth, because 24 years and hundreds and hundreds of chapters after his introduction, we still know nothing about Sir Crocowani's past beyond a vague confrontation with the Late Great Edward Newgate (that apparently like, ruined his dreams or something?), and some totally-not-just-a-threat-to-out-him-if-he-betrayed-the-alliance blackmail material the Queen of the Queers is holding over his sandy reptilian ass. I was born and grew into adulthood in the time it took Oda to tell the world fuck all about where he's from or his inner thoughts, or his actual honest motivations and traumas.

All we have about this character are questions. Why did he save Luffy and Ace –very conspicuously after both of their lineages were revealed to the world– against all logic and reason? Does he have ties to the revolutionaries? Is he the long-lost son of Rocks D. Xebec? Did he bounce on Comrade Dragon's Monkey D and squirt out the fucking Warrior of Liberation? I assume Oda's going to tell us more about him, but at this point, he's managed to keep a tighter lid on Sir Crocs, Inc.'s past than the fucking Secret History

You may be wondering, dear reader: what the fuck is my point? What is there, at this final stage of Long Running Pirate Manga, for me–Frankie EroGuroNonsense, OP Tumblr Community Z-lister with like, 7 mildly popular meta posts under my belt–to write about the legendary Sir Krokorok that hasn't already been said or theorized? What eagle-eyed observations did I make while rereading Alabasta and writing toxic Crobin fanfic? Am I going anywhere with this? Sorta. Yeah.

Let's start with listing things we actually know about Crockpot, in roughly chronological (??) order: –attended Gol D.'s execution way back when he was my age, along with anyone else who's anyone from his generation.

–At some point, met and was known well enough by Iva that she could effectively blackmail him

–Made it far enough on the Grand Line, somehow getting to the New World, and managed to pick up an 81,000,000 bounty (low end for a warlord, presumably scouted fairly early in his career)

–Wanted to be Pirate King until he gave up on it, not 100% explicitly confirmed but most likely due to getting his ass beat so badly by Whitebeard that he settled for picking off small fry and racketeering behind a government desk job. This makes him profoundly relatable to the rest of us depressed fucking losers who acquiesce to our own mediocrity.

–At 30, after presumably licking his wounds for a hot minute, sets up shop in Alabasta, comes up with a clever evil plan to quietly build up enough arms to conquer the world with a WMD, and then gets his years-long bioterrorist coup attempt foiled by a 17-year-old.

The rest we know: after a brief moment of glory as the unsung MVP of Impel Down/Marineford, he immediately reverts to Failguy Mode, gives all his money to a literal clown, and consequently gets roped into the neverending uncontrollable PR nightmare that is Cross Guild. It's still super vague and we know little to nothing about his past before the Alabasta Saga (for all we know he had a fling with King Cobra)

...Onto his personality and mannerisms. This shit's a lot more revealing. Superficially, he's everything: immaculate Bond villain levels of charismatic villainy, unbelievably ostentatious, dripped out like a Pimp, constantly smoking cigars, absolutely dripping with smugness and grease and disdain. Owns exotic pets and a giant casino, and spends every waking moment either grinning like a maniac when he's got the upper hand or storming around in a fucking mood when anything goes mildly wrong.

He's also pretty hardened underneath all that, obviously couldn't have lived a day on the grand line or survived Impel Down Torture otherwise. But even in Alabasta, Crockery gives off an air of being distinctly more grounded and willing to get his hands dirty than other flashy, established villains who flaunt their wealth and status. A big part of it is just his really hyper-masculine indomitable tough guy persona, but even early on he's very much micromanaging his operation, fighting people hand to hand in (as opposed to, say, Doffy, who literally puppeteers people while lounging around) and makes a point to keep almost all of his followers at a distance and rely on them as little as possible. He rants a bit about how dreams and whatnot are pointless follies, as One Piece antagonists tend to do, and repeatedly taunts Vivi about how her idealism can't save her, but with the context that he wanted to find Laughtale himself, it feels a lot like projection.

The character trait that's harped on a LOT in canon, and probably the most pertinent one to whatever demons he has, is Croconaw's profound pathological distrust for everyone around him. It's a huge part of what makes him a good early foil to the Nefertari family and the Straw Hats, whose collective strength is derived from organic human connection; Crocalor, by contrast, makes sure that up until the very last moment, he keeps most of his people so distant from him that they genuinely have no idea he's even their boss. His relationship with Robin is interesting, but he turns on her immediately when he realizes she either can't or won't give him the location of Pluton and has his dramatic stabbing/"I forgive you" lines about how he never trusted her or anyone from the start. He says the same shit to Mihawk when he suggests they join forces, even citing their mutual distrust as a kind of paradoxical justification for why they'd actually work well together.

Arguably the only exception is Daz Bones, but even that relationship is still a pretty reserved one; one of the few traits Daz exhibits is a similar avoidance of human connections to his boss and even though they've ironically formed a bond despite it, I can't imagine that they're emotionally close. I find these more explicit declarations of paranoia a lot less indicative of what's actually going on in Croconut's head than subtext, but I feel inclined to mention them just because it more or less tells us that his background/trauma has something to do either with betrayal or alternatively just being jaded and deprived to the point of self-isolation.

Krookodile's character gets a little bit more interesting when we get to see him again in Impel Down being a smug little manipulative rascal right up until he gets blackmailed by his endocrinologist, which is definitely medical malpractice but also funny as hell. I also appreciate that literally the first thing he does after getting out of his cell is change into a big coat and cravat to keep up appearances, but it's not until Marineford proper that things get really complicated. Saving Luffy and Ace is the first selfless thing we see Crobat do–while yelling at Luffy that he needs to protect what matters to him properly, no less– and he just keeps fighting for them after that, teaming up with his most hated rival crew to cover Luffy's retreat and telling the entire WG to go fuck itself multiple times over. He fights everyone on sight with no regard for his own safety, talks mad shit to Doffy, and demonstrates a genuinely compelling amount of honest to god chivalry.

For a short time, we see Crocomotive less as a really entertaining cartoon villain and more as a person with hidden, profound emotions and a confusing moral code that's seemingly incompatible with the vicious little creature we met in Alabasta. We come to understand, in a few very brief lines that give us way more questions than answers, that Cromagnon has deep-seated, emotional convictions he actively suppresses, and that whatever baggage he has is probably tied to wanting to or failing to save something of his own. His resentment of Newgate, who he really really wants to have a go at (despite theoretically no longer caring about the ambitions of his youth) is indicative of a desire to revisit the fight that probably ruined his dream and ego, but it's also tinged with a deep-seated grudging respect for a living legend.

Crock–Afire Explosion's obvious seething hatred of Doffy also gives us a few more insights into what's wrong with him. On a surface level, it makes sense that he dislikes a profoundly obnoxious, even flashier fellow warlord who achieved more or less the same goal he set out to in a shorter time, fucks with his business, and then mocks him/tries to recruit him right after his very public defeat and imprisonment. He postures a lot, especially with his lines insisting he's on a higher level and that Doffy could only ever join him as a subordinate, but he's visibly steamed in their initial encounter and clearly hasn't liked him for quite some time. I bring this up because if we stretch our interpretation a little (for the sake of my argument), Croc Holliday's distaste for someone who's (outwardly) so much like himself and embodies all of his villainous characteristics from back in Alabasta might also suggest that deep down, he doesn't actually like the things they have in common; he sees right through Doffy because he's done the same shit and he hates what he sees.

Having gone over all that, I've come up with some key characteristics of Crocomelon that I'll use going forward:

–Extremely performative: puts an ungodly amount of energy into maintaining a carefully curated persona, and projecting a certain amount of power, masculinity, and prestige. Not necessarily an unnatural or inauthentic one, but a constructed and purposeful one nonetheless

–Deep-seated paranoia, hidden secrets; probably intertwined. Keeps personal details on tight, tight lockdown, probably afraid of being known.

–Constant projection of his own insecurities and failures onto other people, making a point to be uniquely cruel in Alabasta to an idealist who loves her people and a dreamer who wants to be the Pirate King.

Ironically, he demonstrably respects and defends two people–Luffy and Whitebeard–who theoretically embody everything he hates or scorns (ambition, goodness, love, connection, romanticism, greatness in the traditional sense) and he intensely dislikes the villain most like himself, or at least the one who shares a lot of his worst characteristics (ostentatious manipulative scheming rat bastard backed by people stronger than himself) –The Grinch's heart grew three sizes at Marineford because of like, the compelling power of brotherly love and reminders of his youth or something

SPECULATION, CONCLUSIONS??

The difficulty with writing anything definitive about Crocko's Basilisk is that he's such a mystery, which functionally lets the fanbase project literally whatever weird personality traits, potential backstories, or anything else they could possibly come up with onto him. So I want to be clear that I have absolutely no interest in theorizing about the specifics of his past or secret identity or potential baby daddy or anything along those lines; I'm only interested in what we can infer about his personality by extrapolating from canon. And the conclusion I keep coming back to, the one that I'm convinced is true on some level, is that Crocodile is living a lie and he fucking hates himself. Everything he does, from how he acts to what he claims to believe, is a desperate effort to cope with his own insecurity and failure and cover up a past version of himself he's deeply ashamed of.

Now, unfortunately, Oda did not conceive of Crocodile as a trans man but stories belong to the people and we can do what we want let's forget about that and play it straight because he's constantly performing gender as a means of compensating for a deep-seated shame and self-loathing from whatever traumas and secrets he keeps hidden. Even assuming he's a cis man, he deliberately chooses a hypermasculine persona with a Capital V Villain moniker and pimp outfit and speech pattern he's carefully curated to project masculine power–physical, political, and financial–and we know it's performance because we see him break kayfabe and get legitimately fucking angry whenever he's confronted by a person like Luffy, who's crazy and brave enough to try and do what he couldn't and risk everything for love and hope that he cannot bring himself to feel for another person, or reminders of the past he tries so desperately to bury.

The lessons he's wrongfully obtained from his past are as follows: Idealism is a weakness. Dreaming is a weakness. Connections to other people and being known are crippling liabilities (If he is, in fact, trans and closeted, that's all the more reason to be existentially disgusted by what he used to be). All the hope he brought to the Grand Line, all the excitement of trying to carry on where Roger left off, needs to be purged and buried because all he got to show for it was loss and humiliation. But he can't stop wanting more, and ironically, after he gives up on conquering the Grand Line, he ends up chasing the same fucking poneglyphs and weapons because his ambition's still there; it's just compromised and much more jaded.

Everything he does that's seemingly contradictory makes sense when you realize that Crocodile resents his failure and wants to avenge himself. He makes a big show of talking down to Luffy and Vivi's petty ideals and shit-talking Newgate and his family, but he still wants to fight Whitebeard like he did way back when and help Luffy protect what matters to him. He hates Doffy, who's honestly just a more successful schemer than he is because it's a constant reminder of what he settled for when he took that warlord post and fucking gave up. He claims to trust no one, but he keeps Daz by his side and rewards his loyalty because he can't help but trust someone who respects him so deeply and follows him to the ends of the fucking earth long after losing the material incentive to do so. He claims to look down on people who aim for the stars and fight for love and joy and freedom and yet, in his most vulnerable moments–not in the face of violence or imprisonment, but when he's emotionally compelled to defend a child and help save his brother–we see how badly he wants that for himself.

TLDR: Crockman Holic is deeply insecure in his masculinity, desperately needs psychological help, and his character/potential redemption arc in One Piece is just dealing with his midlife crisis.

[paluding]

Owned Restaurant Profit Increase

Two versions to download:

-Double profit: SFS / GD

-Triple profit: SFS / GD

Choose only one version!

We all know how hard it is to maintain a restaurant business in The Sims 2, right? You barely make any money and, if you have some employees to get paid hourly, there's a good chance you'll even end up losing money. Well, once again I've been digging through the files for a while until I've found something to fix this issue. I have to say, this is not the ideal solution at all, but it still makes the business actually profitable, so I thought it might be worth sharing anyways. This tiny mod edits just one single BCON value, and it's super easy to tune to your liking! A lot of technical details, a tutorial on how to tune it, and a big testing research under the cut (bear with me please, I promise it's worth reading).

So the way an unmodded game moves money in a restaurant business goes like this: the moment your waiter puts the dish on the customer table, you get a small percentage of the price of the food deducted. Then, once the customer finishes eating, they pay you the full price of that food (based on how expensive or cheap you set your business). Simple enough, right? Ideally, the best solution would be increasing the price of the food, but no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't find those values anywhere. So what's left on the equation? Yup, that small percentage you get deducted first. I was lucky enough to find that one, so changing it to a negative value means you actually get extra paid first. And that money comes from nowhere, the customer doesn't pay extra, they only pay the price of the actual food. That works for me!

As a quick example, in a new business with 0 stars, if you keep the default price on average, you always gain 28 simoleons for serving a bowl of Mac N Cheese. However, you also get deducted 4 simoleons first, so it's actually 24 simoleons per customer. That's just sad. The Double version of my mod makes it so you get 22 simoleons first, and then the customer pays those 28 simoleons. That's a total of 50 simoleons per customer. More than double the profit, not bad! The Triple version gives you a total of 71, pretty self explanatory. The numbers don’t match exactly with double or triple profits, but I didn’t want to spend that much time finding the exact value to make it exactly double or triple, you know, especially considering there might be other factors that affect your business income. I’m not that good at maths to be honest... orz

So how do you tune this? All you need is SimPe. Open the package, click on the BCON file and edit line number 14, on the Dec box. The default Maxis value was 20. I changed it to -100 to get roughly double the profit, and -200 to get triple profit. If you want to increase the profit even more, make sure you keep it negative when changing the value! Then just click Commit and Save. Done!

One extra note before I continue. The extra money you get with the mod does count for the balance you see on the UI menu for the business on the top right. So if you like to keep track of your income, the mod will take effect on those bars. However, it won’t count for things like the First Simoleon prize thingy. So for now I’m not really sure if this extra money would count for other things such as Lifetime Wants related to gaining money. I haven’t tested it that much.

Okay, now you know almost everything you need to know about this mod. If you want to read some ramblings on how I tested this, keep reading. Otherwise, you’re good to go!

So, let’s talk testing, because that’s something I actually enjoy doing. I built a simple restaurant lot, with about 5 tables available. The conditions were:

-3 Sims from my household to work as host, waiter and chef. No external employees, so I don’t need to keep track of extra salaries to pay.

-Schedule is roughly 15:00 - 22:00.

-New business level 0. Prices were kept at the default average.

-I didn’t use the Basic Sell interaction. If the customer didn’t want to eat at my restaurant, then so be it.

-The chef had 10 points of cooking skill, so I could add any food to the menu. However, I only chose one food to cook to keep the profit numbers as consistent as possible.

For the first case, I chose cooking only Mac N Cheese, a very cheap food that makes almost no money at all. It doesn’t require any cooking skill points. Mac N Cheese gives you 28 simoleons when the Sim pays. -In an unmodded game, you also lose 4 simoleons, so it’s 24 simoleons per customer. After running the business for the set schedule, I got 240 simoleons of profit. Pretty disappointing! If I had employees to pay, I would only have a few simoleons to spare, if any at all. -With my Double version of the mod, you get an extra 22 simoleons, making a total of 50 simoleons per customer. After running the business with the mod in, I got 400 simoleons. Not much, but hey, it’s something.

For the second case, I chose Filet Mignon. This food is pretty fancy, and it requires max cooking skill. Filet Mignon gives you 83 simoleons when the Sim pays. I also noticed the customers take way less time to eat it compared to the Mac N Cheese, so that’s an extra bonus to make the business run faster. -In an unmodded game, you also lose 13, so it’s 70 simoleons per customer. After running the business, I got 630 simoleons of profit. Not bad, but considering you need to max out the cooking skill, it’s almost insulting spending so many hours just to get that… -With my Double version of the mod, you get an extra 65 simoleons, making a total of 148 (!) simoleons per customer. After running the business with the mod in, I got 1036 simoleons. Okay, nooow we’re talking! That's the fancy restaurant status I like to see.

You might be wondering why these numbers are so inconsistent. Well, sometimes my lovely waiter decided to drop the tray on the customers, poor guy. That added to the randomness of how customers decide to enter the restaurant or not, and if the game sits more than one customer on the table or just one of them, if someone gets stuck for a while losing time… all of that can end up making the results a bit inconsistent. That being said, I had better luck when I was running the business without the mod in, yet I still got quite a lot more money with the mod in. I didn’t keep track of the numbers for the Triple version, but as you can probably guess, that one would be even more profitable.

One last case I wanted to test and compare: a completely different type of business, a games and entertainment one using the Bandatron ticket machine. In that scenario, I got 21 simoleons per customer, each hour. So after that schedule of 15:00 - 22:00, I got a total of 789 simoleons! All my sim did during those hours was bartending. That shows how easy it is to run a business with a ticket machine, and the biggest advantage is that you don’t have to pay employees if you don’t need them, and you don’t need any skills at all. Just plop down that machine, put some objects, relax and let the money flow by itself.

So yeah, in conclusion, Eaxis really messed up programming the restaurant businesses, there’s no doubt about it. Hopefully my mod helps balance things out. And if you think it's still too low on the incomes department, you can always tune it to your liking! As far as I know, this should not conflict with anything, but if you run into any issues, let me know and I’ll try my best to fix it asap.

Special thanks to EddySims for their fantastic HQ Icon Pack I used to make the preview pic! <3

[queenvhagar]

"Fire and Blood is biased propaganda by the maesters so nothing in the real Dance of the Dragons actually happened like in the books, you can't critique the show for showing things as they really were!"

I'm so tired of this take...

GRRM wrote the original ASOIAF series as an anti-monarchy and anti-war story. He's an author who makes a point to flesh out characters and motivations, he understands that there isn't truly a good vs bad narrative to any large-scale, real-world conflict like war, and he understands the sociopolitical factors involved. His series highlights that it's the most vulnerable people in society who suffer when those in power play their game of thrones and make consequential decisions based on their own personal motivations without thought to the consequences to those that will have to the pay the price for them. That's GRRM's entire point with the original series: war destroys everything, it is never really justified, and through war the powerful set in motion terrible events that the most vulnerable are most like to suffer.

So the idea that all of a sudden with the prequel book Fire and Blood GRRM pivoted to write a biased textbook that purposefully misconstrues a conflict where the real story behind the pages is that one side of a dynastic civil war was led by a faultless, pure woman whose divine right to rule was stolen from her, and she's justified in plunging the realm into war to reclaim her throne because the other side was uniquely misogynist against her and was made up of selfish flawed people who just wanted to steal her power from her because she was a woman...

Sure, Fire and Blood may be a history book with unreliable narrators and sources that are trying to recount long-lost histories of the realm and possibly failing to capture the totality of what actually occurred. But I can absolutely guarantee you that the intended real history of the Dance of the Dragons as it took place in the world of ASOIAF was not some black and white, good vs bad tale of morality where one side was right and the other side was wrong like the show and some fans are insisting.

The actual Dance of Dragons as it exists in the ASOIAF timeline and universe, keeping in line with GRRM's original intention and message of the ASOIAF books, is 100% a story of a flawed, ultra-powerful family that fractured into two ideologically different factions that led to a pointless civil war in which neither side was justified in their attempts to seize power from the other. The result was that the family killed themselves until the only survivors were the traumatized children left over from either faction. In this pursuit of absolute power within one family thousands were subjected to the abject horrors of war: pillaging, famine, torture, sexual violence, being burned alive, and so much more. Neither side was faultless. Neither side had "the right" or justification to enact this conflict. Neither side bore sole responsibility for the conflict. Neither side was good or bad while the other was the opposite.

It really just fits outside of the world of ASOIAF to think that Fire and Blood's account of the Dance of the Dragons was uniquely biased against a single woman and her side of the conflict wherein this woman and her supporters were actually good people that had bad things done to them and all accounts in the book relating to them are inaccurate, yet most accounts of everyone else in the story were more or less true and accurate to how events played out. Like are you actually serious that this is how you think this story and history played out in this world of ASOIAF? That ultimately the story of the Dance of the Dragons is not anti-monarchy and anti-war in line with the original ASOIAF series but actually it's the story of a uniquely good woman in this terrible world who had a rightful claim to the throne and whose power was taken from her solely because of misogyny so she was justified in going to war to take it back? Like that's your analysis and interpretation on this conflict?

The way that the show is presenting this story is so unbelievably and ridiculously reductionist and simplified to the point where you begin to question why someone wanted to try to adapt the material at all... but then of course you remember that 1) Game of Thrones made a lot of money for a lot of people 2) its later seasons of mediocre, oversimplified writing continued to be rewarded with huge budgets, profits, and awards nominations despite the obvious downgrade of quality 3) so many modern writers believe the general audience needs to be spoonfed ideas and that they can't handle complexity, so it's more important that they shape an existing story into something that is a palatable, profitable hero vs villain tale that everyone can casually enjoy (and ideally appeals to modern sensibilities) than they try to create a compelling, thought-provoking, interesting and faithful adaptation of the source material.

[daenerysstormreborn]

The whole concept of left brain/right brain isn’t super solid but I think it’s the most accurate way to describe the difference between Arya and Sansa’s skill sets. I think with training either girl could be a politician or a warrior. I think they both could’ve survived if their roles were swapped. Both have demonstrated the ability to adapt.

Arya specializes in the concrete and logical, in immediate observations and perceptions, and intuitive reactions to those. Arya is quick on her toes and great at making on-the spot assessments and reacting appropriately. She’s extremely observant and perceptive and these things come very naturally to her. She’s great at learning language, but isn’t said to write poetry and doesn’t take marked interest in story or songs. Her focus is typically on her immediate environment and current situation. She doesn’t spend time ruminating or crafting distant future lives for herself. She is alert and attuned to the facts and the present.

Sansa is more abstract and artistic, focusing on the qualitative aspects of life, engaging in creative pursuits. She loves the romantic and fantastical and is more attuned to ideas and concepts than the facts of her immediate surroundings. She absorbs history and heraldry and has a knack for aesthetics and mastery of her native language (i.e., writing poetry and being an eloquent speaker. Learning new language is “left brain” whereas mastery of your native language is “right brain.”), but isn’t said to be very good at math and her romanticized lens inhibits her perception of fact at times. She has a vivid imagination and spends a lot of time ruminating on her past and conjuring fantasies of idealized futures, comparing her own life to familiar narratives instead of being 100% present in her surroundings.

Which isn’t to say these skill sets are mutually exclusive to the girls. Arya can be very creative (she is excellent with performing and getting into roles as a faceless man) and Sansa can be quick on her toes (like when she saved Dontos). These skill sets also are not opposites and the girls do not “complete” each other. Both are full complete people on their own who are learning to apply their natural strengths to navigate their worlds.

What’s interesting to me is that they’re both a little aimless right now for different reasons relating to what I described above. Arya is great at taking action but doesn’t have a vision of her ideal future (at least not that we’ve seen) so she doesn’t know where to go next. Her biggest desires are “go home” and “go to the wall to see Jon” but those aren’t options to her so she ends up a bit directionless, traveling across the ocean and becoming a faceless man because she has to do SOMETHING because she’s a doer, but doesn’t know what to do. Meanwhile Sansa has goals for her future of being a lady with a loving husband and a family, but she is not a doer and doesn’t know what steps to take to escape her current situation, so she goes along with Littlefinger’s plan. Arya has inertia but no direction and Sansa has direction but no inertia

Of course, for both girls, age and and trauma are factors in them going down the paths they’re on and I expect that we’ll see them both grow!

[evilswag]

like im reading articles about it now and they think that, because hypermobility can have huge (bad) effects on the way your nervous system functions, it fucks w yr fight or flight response and reactions to stimuli, thus the anxiety and stress related gut conditions.

but they're saying it that mis-formation of the nervous system could cause the amygdala to get fucked up and can cause other mental illness too (Including psychosis btw)

this study analysis is straight up suggesting (not necessarily that we're making up symptoms) that CBT would be helpful for hypermobility due to the anxiety aspect, especially cuz the studies show a lot of that anxiety surrounds hypermobility specifically

fuck man I just read an article that said w people who have hypermobility, not only is it associated w gut disorders and autoimmune deficiency, but WE HAVE A 16X AVERAGE POP. ANXIETY RATE!??? like a difference of 20% in avg. pop. vs a whopping 70% IN HYPERMOBILE PEOPLE... no one has EVER mentioned that to me before...

[xoxochb]

I have a very strong opinion that paul blofis is poseidon and I think I have a pretty good argument so here are two reasons I’ve come up with:

so first this is an absolute minor detail but I feel as though it adds something onto the factor. when percy first met paul he compared his last name to ‘blowfish’ which is a sea creature and I think since poseidon is the god of the sea he still wanted to use an ocean related word in his name, which is why he created ‘blofis’

second reason is estelle. she was described to have the same sea green eyes as percy, which he inherited from poseidon. so how would it be possible that estelle has sea green eyes but her father isn’t poseidon? if you think about it, even if paul didn’t have sea green eyes poseidon still does which means that any of his offsprings could inherit that eye color

this may be a bit of a stretch and I might even be digging to far into this whole thing but I’ll honestly never give up on this thought because I am 100% a paul blofis is poseidon truther

[dj-wayback]

are you guys real. like if you think about it. consciousness in real living beings that are 100% organic is already elusive, and what it really *is* has always been a difficult topic. most assume its related to intelligence, but just because youre intelligent doesn't mean you're conscious of yourself and your surroundings. since you're synthetic robots, are you really conscious? or were you only programmed to behave that way? Do you actually feel emotions or were you programmed to respond a situation with said emotion? are your interactions with the world just a set of predetermined responses to external stimuli that depends on the coding of your personality? that also brings up the question of if your personality was predetermined or developed. the former would imply that everything you have ever done was written and designed by someone, and the latter would imply that you show the potential for evolution and development however cannot due to the artificial nature of most of your body. if something is programmed to perceive its surroundings and act accordingly, then thats not consciousness, that is a pre-established response to external factors. you cant really be conscious of yourself if your consciousness was never really yours in the first place