#usually was low 80s in those two tbh

[givemewallywestorgivemedeath]

I had to do math for that last post guys. Math. My mortal enemy. Never do math guys, never.

[melmac78]

I had waited a bit to see if I’d post this, but feel I should.

In case folks have been reading about recent tornadoes in west Texas:

A. I have not been in any of them.

B. I do not know Pottsboro nor have been there.

C. I DO know however about Matador, which was hit Wednesday evening.

••••••

Matador was where my grandfather and great grandparents lived.

They’re all buried there.

The city was used in the last movie Roy Rogers made: “McIntosh and TJ.”

Probably won’t be able to travel there for at least a month, and it may affect some economy as it’s a throughway for trucks. (A key reason the town of about 800 is still around).

•••••

I can tell you many memories, and visiting there recently with Mom to view my granddad’s marker.

It’s TBH one of the few places I feel ties still with my Dad’s family.

But some those places will be gone - hell, they just lost their restaurant and hotel in this, a key business for them with truckers eating there.

One set of the red seat benches was where Dad and I ate one of the last times we went there together. (Oh yes, I do have a bonkers story about that. It isn’t appropriate for this post).

I even remember most of what that coffee cup sign says: it’s basically rules if you’re a coffee drinker.

I do know one location with family ties - Bob’s Oil Well, is standing, but I’m pretty sure the windows were blasted out like the Allsup’s and Hop In (both gas stations had this, but at least one pump intact).

The American Legion and City Hall are up, not sure rest of the square.

Their First Baptist Church is at least standing as it’s being used as an emergency shelter, shower and laundry area (latter two are trucks).

They’ve been blessed so much with food, water, etc. they’ve had to request now to stop that and do financial donations to rebuild.

•••••

But these are things. As most know now there were at least 4 deaths and 9 injuries.

The Dollar General was destroyed and my understanding is it was an expanded one with a grocery. (I do not know about Family Dollar on either point: they traditionally do not but do keep some foodstuffs similar to what folks stock up on for hurricanes).

They DO have a second in the square (a Lowe’s) but again, it depends if it was hit or not. (The advantage was it was in the center of a series of businesses, which will help some on protection.)

The two gas stations were more junk food (though Allsup’s usually have a hot bar/grill), so that won’t help, especially on a town where the nearest store (I think it’s Paducah but biggest city is Vernon 60 miles away, then Lubbock at 80).

So basically:

Please pray for these towns hit by the tornadoes and their recoveries, and if you get a request to donate to any of these towns, check to ensure no scam. I’ve caught one myself… for Matador and I can tell you my family there, including the 3-great-grands, would be hopping mad.

Should point out the 3-great-grandfather was a sheriff there and could part a rioting crowd with a cold stare. (True story by the way, the missus also stopped a jailbreak when the folks tried to escape from the second floor of the jail.)

[archive-of-note]

🏳️‍🌈 Queer Pedro Character HCs🏳️‍🌈

Cause I’ve seen sm ppl worried about HC his characters as LGBT+, and I’ve seen sm others be mad about it. So of course I’m rubbing my grubby gay hands all over them.

Javier Peña

Bi(? He has no fucking clue tbh with you)

Def prefers women, but won’t deny (to himself at least, it is the 80s) that sm guys around the embassy have great asses.

He’s an ass man, there are a bunch of shots of him looking at women as they walk by and his eyes are obviously trailing down

Never really considered getting with a guy until he moved out to Columbia.

One male secretary/file clerk, a few too many late nights, BAM! Now he’s getting blowies in the supply closet on the semi-reg.

Eventually curiosity (and the feeling that he’s being a bit of an ass, never really getting the other guy off.) makes him broaden his horizons.

Din Djarin

Ace (is the place with the helpful hardware folks)

Doesn’t really know it’s an option

Just figures that, since he’s like the only one who can leave the Covert, then being hunted by the guild, then looking for Jedi he’s got a lot on his plate! So he thinks it’s just stress blunting his hypothetical libido.

Usually quite neutral regarding sex, it’s a thing ppl do, so what? But has been thankful for the canvas of his flightsuit and the thick armor of his Beskar

Xi’an makes him uncomfortable, they never had any sort of relationship, she just wanted to push his buttons and when there was no obvious reaction, she kept trying to up the ante.

Isn’t looking for romance but open to the possibility, his biggest worry is that he won’t be enough

@scribbledghost has a sweet Ace!Din fic and you should read it

Also very little concept of gender roles, you’d have basically non either if you grew up surrounded by ppl in armor who cared more about number of people you could lay flat like a picnic blanket

“Is that a blaster in your pocket, or are you happy to see me?”

*Din pulls out a gun*: it’s a blaster

Pero Tovar

Genuine affection means a lot more to him then he thinks.

Demisexual feels close but not right(? You know what I mean? Like it’s just a lil off, like horseshoes)

Never factored actual care into his plans for the future, he was fully prepared to live the rest of his days fat with a rotating selection of prostitutes coming and going from his lap.

He’s got low self esteem under all that crusty grime and dirt. He didn’t factor actual affection in because he didn’t think he could have it. He’d always assumed he’d just be tolerated.

Had feelings for William for a while, freaked out about that.

Jack “Whiskey” Daniels

BI! No I will not be taking questions or criticisms at this time.

Married his high school sweetheart, so he doesn’t rlly consider that he might not be straight until after he joins Statesmen.

It initially leaves him a bit off kilter, cause he’s lived his whole life thinking that’s just what everyone was like?

itty bit of internalized homophobia, but deals with it with his THERAPIST!!! (I refuse to believe an organization that has ppl killing in close quarters on the semi-reg doesn’t have mandatory therapy sessions)

Unfortunately(? Depends on your perspective) his first time with another man was for work. Security for a tech firm.

Messed him up a little, cause the guy was real nice all things considered. And trying new things, especially with smth that can get as intimate as sex? (Whiskey is a romantic at heart, I’ll fight you on this) leaves you vulnerable in ways you might not realize until after the fact.

If that guy suddenly got a much better job offer about a week after he hooked up with the slightly nervous older guy with the whole cowboy thing going on? Well those two things aren’t connected in the slightest.

Oberyn Martell

The man, the myth, the legend

The bisexual menace who’s one of the handful of men in GoT with any rights!

He doesn’t care what’s in your pants or under your skirts, he’s here to have a good time!

Look, I saw a gif of when he spanked that male prostitute before he got kicked out and it lives in my head rent free

So does that gif where he’s kissing Ellaria shirtless with her on top and tries chasing her with his mouth, you know the one.

@absurdthirst had him say “I mount a man properly.” In one of her fics and I have not known peace since.

Ezra

Bisexual Menace 2: Electric Boogaloo

@max--phillips said he’s trans, and you know what? They’re right.

Of the longer relationships he’s been in, most of them were with men.

Now yes sm of this has to do with the prospecting and the general demographic of the sort of people willing to skirt the edge of the known (barely) habitable galaxy for money.

But… maybe it’s his vernacular, maybe it’s his grandiose dreams for the future that are based on long strings of contingencies that are so detailed they seem within reach. Or maybe it’s because many of the women he’s gotten with are just looking for smth exciting, not lasting. Those always seem to end in arguments, shouting matches interspersed with the sound of smth breaking.

Those either end in him immediately getting kicked out, or sm very ill advised angry sex. Either way he and his meager belongings (and likely a few of hers) are gone by morning.

He sees himself settling down with a man, maybe a bit younger, or maybe he just looks younger from a life with much softer work. A place with clean air, blooming plants everywhere (not a lot of green, too much of that makes his arm throb and chest ache) a room filled wall to wall with books, and maybe an apiary.

Dieter Bravo

HOE!!!

He’s an actor, you think he hasn’t kissed a guy before? I defy you and that assumption.

Can suck the soul right outta your dick, no one believes it though, he seems too selfish

He’s a queer and he’s a slut, not a slut because he’s queer.

Sleeps around with just as many men as he does women, but the tabloids never talk about those fr sm reason 🤔

[meichenxi]

Hey, could I ask you how you do shadowing? Like the different ways you do it? You mentioned in your tag that shadowing is good and I'd love to hear how you do it! I do not attempt shadowing much so I don't really know what helps, etc. ToT (my studyblr is rigelmejo)

Hellooo! Thank you for the interesting question!

Tbh I think I do it fairly basically - I don’t use any particularly fancy software, but software like Language Learning with Netflix has certainly made it easier. There’s a whole video on how to get the most of it here: [on mobile, link didn't work - How to study Chinese with Netflix! by Chinese Zero To Hero] (I’d recommend checking out all of their videos actually, they’ve done a bunch of livestreams recently and they place a lot of emphasis on shadowing + the course they are trying to sell you is…actually phenomenally good)

(Also, I have to preface this by saying that I have been very lucky in terms of pronunciation: I learnt about 80% of my current vocabulary by ear without characters or pinyin. I have been in China for eight months in total, and while I didn’t speak Chinese for all of that, I was constantly soaking in info on natural sentence intonation. I still often don’t know officially what the tone of a vocabulary item is, especially if it changes tone like 教, 为 or 相, but I don’t get yelled at so I have definitely internalised a lot of those changes. I definitely would have more trouble with this if I hadn’t had that experience - my other areas are waaaay weaker because of this though- my reading SUCKS lmao and I can literally handwrite about ten characters)

Anyway. How I shadow:

1) Quite simply by playing the line, and repeating it with all the emotion it has!! I usually use Netflix or Viki for this. I try to do it as fast as possible, and if I can’t do the whole thing, I ‘chunk’ it: if I were doing the sentence 我们还不知道他会不会来, I would start from the end with 他会不会来, then 不知道他会不会来, and then the whole sentence. Notice that this isn’t breaking it down into words or even grammatical phrases, but intonational phrases: it would be perfectly sensible to just do 会不会来 without the 他 but realistically, since this is a question, it’s likely that a strong stress will be placed on the first 会, and you wouldn’t be able to replicate that without also included the more weakly stressed syllable before.

2) I locate (intentionally or subconsciously) the main locus of stress within the sentence, and I focus on that accordingly. Tones may become less extreme if they are not stressed, and may become more exaggerated if stressed. This is always a good exercise. I accompany this with physical actions - I throw my hands down, I sigh, I groan!

3) I put away the text, and don’t look at the tones or even my computer screen - more on this below.

4) Finally, when I think I’ve got it reasonably accurate, I’ll record them speaking the line into my phone with an appropriate pause for copying and play it back to myself at various points throughout the day.

5) I then go and find other words with the same tone contour to slot in, and copy it again. After that, I find words that are slightly different tonally and pop them in too.

6) I finally do fun things like hold a conversation with myself. This can be really simple phrases imbued with some kind of emotion - 这个女子到底是谁呀？为什么不认识我？应该是新手吧。You can do this either really informally, or very formally, or both - trying to speak in the latter way is very fun! So then it’d be idk something more like: 那位姑娘是何人，来自何处？This is fun because you can really slow down your speech and sound as elegant as you like!! (this will sound stilted if you do it for modern speech, but it’s a very fun exercise)

Choosing your media!!

1) Don’t use donghuas. Seriously. The voice actors usually speak at a ridiculous pace and not with the same range of ‘normal’ intonation

2) Your Chinese is definitely good enough to recognise when anyone is quoting poetry or speaking in a paricularly sexy literary way so, uh…don’t do that. That rules dramas like Nirvana in Fire OUT.

3) Modern dramas and reality TV shows CAN be great, but they can also be quite intimidatingly quick and almost too mushy at times. I’d recommend informal speech in guzhuang dramas more, because they have professional voice actors and extensive sound editing, meaning that although it might be fast and the vocabulary harder, it’s actually much more accessible and easier to copy. You don’t want to be stuck with the awfulness of 50% failed foreigner and 50% 12 year old boy who can’t enunciate properly!!

4) CHOOSE YOUR WEAPON WISELY. I try to find characters that speak in a dramatic, whiny or childish way. This is so important! There’s literally no use copying Lan Wangji unless you want to be able to have that particular cadence and tone of voice you get reciting poetry. Childish/whiny/dramatic characters on the other hand stress some words very strongly, and rush others together - this is great for hearing what actual real speech sounds like. Whininess wins. In The Untamed, characters like Wei Wuxian (not yllz!wwx but just…regular wwx), 一问三不知 Nie Huaisang, Jin Ling, and Jingyi are all great. Also Jiggy, who is just very extra constantly and speaks much slower as well, which really helps. In SHL characters like Gu Xiang are good.

5) CHOOSE YOUR VOICE WISELY! If you are really aiming to copy them 100% (which you should try at least sometimes), you want somebody with your pitch range to sound normal. I have a sort of party trick in Chinese that because I’ve spent so much time listening to women in guzhuang dramas I can change my voice and sound like a) a scheming concubine with honeyed words, or b) the voice of the Beijing metro. My teacher found it hysterically funny. But it’s not my natural voice, and if I speak like that for too long it hurts. The women usually are too high for me, and the big burly manly men too low - so I’d recommend finding a man with a higher voice, or an older woman (like some of the female characters in Nirvana in Fire). Again, sorry that this is mostly the Untamed (I’m just most familiar with it) but the voice actors for Wei Wuxian and some of the juniors (+jiggy) has a higher voice. Likewise Chengling in Word of Honour.

On intonation in general:

- The thing is that whilst shadowing is useful it requires prior ability in a whole bunch of other skills that you can train - it relies on your ability to accurately mimic pitch, emotion and other contrasts. Training this in ANY language, including your native one, will help your ability to do this in Chinese - so I’d recommend spending a fair amount of time practicing shadowing (or speaking just after somebody whilst listening to a string of text, like monolingual simultaneous interpreting) in your native language too. Any training copying accents or mimicking other people is going to similarly help, regardless of the language.

So, with that in mind, further tips:

1) Hum / try to copy the intonation without any words. What this does is force you to pay attention to what the intonation actually is, versus what you may think it should be.

2) Don’t look at the text! Do! Not! Look! At! The! Text! If you look at the characters or pinyin you’re telling yourself ‘ok this is a third tone here’ etc, but you want to override the part of your brain that has gotten into bad habits and is supremely self-confident in how you’re pronouncing the third tone, and actually just go straight back to mimicking.

3) Don’t be afraid to do it with vocabulary that is way beyond your level. Actually, I find this can sometimes be helpful, because you don’t have a prior idea about how a particular tone pair should be useful - and you don’t know which tone you should be producing.

4) Learn vocabulary by ear - listen to a vocab podcast or even make one yourself (I often do this; I record my daily Anki and listen back to it through headphones copying throughout the day - if you’re not confident in your pronunciation you can get Google Translate to do it). Similarly, pick unknown vocabulary out of a longer segment and remember it, trying to internalise the tones instead of figuring out which tone it is.

5) Find emotional sentences, and copy them with emotion. This is SO CRUCIAL!!! We remember things when we relate to them, and when we imbue them with emotion - and it also helps in hearing exactly how an angry second tone sounds, for instance.

6) When you’re copying, look up, and imagine you are having an actual conversation. Carry yourself with conviction and poise!! Really try to whine like wwx or slime like jgy. After a couple of turns copying them, try to turn off the audio and keep delivering it in the same manner.

7) Swap individual words out. Once you have a line properly figured out, swap a word or two that has a different tone pair, and focus on delivering it with the same pattern of stress.

8) Finally, practice doing this in your native language too!! It’s a skill that we don’t use often, and it can be trained. Some people are terrible at it at first go even in their native language, but you can work on it!

About intonation in general:

1) I think a lot of pronunciation problems with people sounding unnatural or stiff ultimately come down to a fundamental misunderstanding of what intonation looks like across different languages. In English we mark it by pitch: and we are so used to the rhetoric that Chinese has ‘tone’ and not ‘intonation’ that we try and focus on blindly copying every single word textbook perfect without listening to how it actually sounds.

2) Chinese does have intonation!!! Except that, unlike English, when you stress a word, the pitch doesn’t change, but the tone contour is exaggerated - basically the only time you will ever hear a full third tone is in isolated or very exaggerated speech. If you have a Chinese friend, get them to record a sentence like the English ‘I didn’t ask her to steal his rucksack’, and put stress on the different elements of it - I didn’t ask, I didn’t ask, I didn’t ask, and so on. Notice and copy how the tones change. When shadowing, you should always be paying attention to where the stress is in the sentence: when you speak by yourself, practicing saying a sentence neutrally, and then with stress on one component, the next, and so on. If it feels unnatural, it’s because you might not have practicised like this before - it’ll get better!

Hope that’s somewhat helpful / interesting!

- 梅晨曦

[anewbeginningagain]

I have a question, since I didn’t follow that stream: weren’t those commentators the same as always? Or were they other new ones?

OK so let's dissect the commentating debacle (I should warn that some of my opinions might not be that popular) since I got many asks about it.

British Eurosport has had three pretty iconic figure skating commentators: Nicky Slater, Simon Reed, and Chris Howarth. Nicky is a former ice dancer, Chris was a single skater and later a coach, and I'm not sure what's Simon experience. All three have been with British Eurosport since sometime in the 80s I think (they were for sure there in the 90s) and are in their sixties. For the most part in the last decade, it has been Simon and Chris doing skating commentary for Eurosport (Nicky hasn't been around for a long time imo) and for about two seasons Mark Hanretty joined the commentating team (2015/16 and 2016/17) and for the past two seasons, they are also added Louise Walden (former ice dancer) to their team as well.

Focusing on this quad, ISU started streaming skating events internationally in the 2019/20 season. At first, it had no commentators and then they added them to major events (GPF, Europeans, 4CC) and then to all competitions. Up until this Worlds the feed only featured one commentator, and so far they used Simon, Chris, Mark, and a 4th commentator whose name I can't recall but was by far the worst of them all (I'll dig it up later).

This time and for the first time the ISU international feed featured two commentators - Simon and Nicky, which to me was a surprise since not only do they usually have only one commentator, Nicky hasn't commentated skating for a really long time which makes it odd to have this be his first skating commentating gig after a while.

And now let's pause for some unpopular opinions. I have a really big soft spot for the three BESP commentators, growing up BESP was the only skating coverage I could get so I basically grew up with their commentary and while it was always flawed it was also very supportive of the skaters, pretty knowledgeable, and extremely enthusiastic and full of love for skating. All three of them did some of my favorite commentary about Tessa and Scott all the way back to when they were just debuting as seniors and all through their careers. The issue is that while they so fit the requirements of the type of commentary you'll have on a sports channel, they are (relatively speaking) not a good fit for the international crowd, and especially the current skating fandom. Some of the reasons are valid, they are not doing enough research, they are not always up to date with the latest developments in the sport, and in a time when every avid skating fan can do pretty comprehensive research online, they often feel dated. At the same time, the current skating fandom holds them to a pretty ridiculous standard imo, I'm going to be blunt here, but I never expected them to refer to Tim LeDuc while using the correct pronounces. Perhaps I have low expectations and I'm definitely generalizing here for the most part, but I also have enough relatives in their 60s to know that they are not in a level of knowledge and understanding to be able to understand the current norms regarding gender and identity. And I think that it's one area where they should be given the benefit of the doubt. At the same time, their comments yesterday about missing the Russian skaters were also interpreted in the wrong way imo, to me it felt like they referred to it in the context of skating and not in the context of the war or supporting Russia in any way.

So now that I played the devil's advocate let's talk about yesterday. Simon and Nicky were commentating on the ISU feed (Chris and Louise are on the BESP feed and doing phenomenal work tbh, their coverage today of Ivan Shmuratko from Ukraine was a class act and brought tears to my eyes). From the start, Nicky was too loose with his tongue and it felt a bit unprofessional. During the two events they covered (Ladies SP, Pairs SP) they made some comments that were a bit much but not all of them were too bad. But it got worse as the day went on and some of the comments they made were completely out of line. Listening to them I knew fs Twitter is probably reading them apart (again some of the criticism was justified and some exaggerated for me), but when the pairs SP event ended the feed stayed on and it picked up Simon referring to someone as "a Canadian bitch" and Nicky laughing, later we realized it was about Meagan Duhamel. That got serious backlash and deservingly so, it got so big that CBC, Phil Hersh, and others reached out to the ISU for comment. It ended up with Simon and Nicky being dropped and Ted Barton being called in to commentate (how they managed that in less than 12 hours I have no idea) and the ISU issuing this statemtn:

And Meagan herself posted this:

ISU are clearly saying they won’t work with Simon or Nicky again (tbh I’m conflicted about it but that’s on me) which pretty much leaves Chris and Mark to cover all ISU events and since Chris is sometimes busy with BESP and Mark has his own things sometimes, ISU might need a new roster of commentators, which tbh there’s a very short list of people currently up for the task. So it will be interesting to see how the ISU solves this issue for next season’s coverage. Generally peaking, Mark Hanretty is definitely the best current skating commentator, but I’m not sure he can carry an entire season of commentator. We’ll have to wait and see I guess.

[rigelmejo]

Unrelated completely, regarding listening reading method:

I am genuinely so excited to test the listening reading method out wholeheartedly. When I looked up the method, few people were trying it with Chinese, and of the people I saw a lot were beginners with less vocabulary than I have which I think both made the task harder for them and made their progress look different than I imagine mine will.

For example, in my first attempts using listening reading method, I noticed I picked up a TON of words I could already read, and a TON of phrases I could already read but didn’t properly “chunk” until I heard them aloud. Whereas the beginners tended to document picking up entirely new words, and not understanding much of any paragraph for the first several chapters. Whereas again, because I had more vocabulary, my first chapters I listening reading method did I heard a TON of individual words/followed the main gist, and it took several chapters for me to start finally understanding full phrase chunks and sentence chunks together. I 100% think the listening reading method can work with mandarin, I just think since few people have tried it and shared the experience, I’m going to find out how much it can improve someone’s mandarin myself...

I saw people who did listening reading method with german, and Dutch, who like the creator of the method ended up going from 0 to B1-B2 listening and sometimes-reading* skill in 3-5 months (reading skill tended to depend on how much they focused on the actual text during target language audio/target language text portion). The people with the most success usually already had a foundation of several hundred or a couple thousand common words, and had seen some grammar summarized beforehand (both of which I have already done with mandarin). I’m extremely curious how far the listening reading method can take my reading skills specifically - since the method mainly improves listening, and reading is simply affected a bit as a consequence of picking up new words/reading target language text along with the audio during one of the steps. With Chinese I suspect I’ll have to do more Hanzi learning, and reading-only work like intensive reading, to supplement my reading skills. However I already do a lot of intensive reading, so maybe that will keep the skills relatively even.

I do know that only couple dozen hours of listening reading method already boosted my listening skills a TON. So listening reading method definitely improves listening skills, as it is intended to. The actual method suggests learners listen read through an entire novel in a week or two, then do another novel etc, at least 3 novels though potentially more - and redoing some novels again from the start if desired. For my kind of novels - like Guardian by Priest, that means 106+ chapters, 800+ pages, 30 minutes audio a chapter (53 hours for the English text-chinese audio portion, another 53 hours for the Chinese text-chinese audio portion, and lets say half as many hours to read it in English 26.5 hours). So that is 132.5+ hours to listen read to Guardian. The listening reading method assumes you do a few books, so let’s say around 3 books, 396 hours (roughly 400 hours). Well... no wonder people saw such improvements! 400 hours of listening to comprehensible input in a European language will get an English speaker quite far into learning. Most European languages according to FSI take around 600-750 hours for an English native speaker to learn. Listening reading method would fill a huge chunk of those hours, and if you focus on the reading portion too, then that should definitely at least be a solid foundation into B1 I can imagine.

Listening reading methods creator also tends to do these in 6-12 hour reading bursts per day - which I absolutely never do because I’m lazy and unable to focus on things for too long usually without switching things up. But like I’ve mentioned, even me just doing maybe 12 hours of listening reading method so far, in small 30 minute to 2 hour chunks, has been enough to make noticeable improvement in my listening comprehension. If someone is already intermediate and just wants to improve their listening skill, I think they’d see fast results like I have regarding their listening skill dragging up closer to their reading skill level.

When I read the listening reading method creators website, they sounded like 10 hours was about how long it took (for beginners in a language) to start parsing individual words and recognizing them, 30 hours to start hearing word chunks and phrases they could understand, and 60-100 hours to start comprehending a majority of the words.

I am therefore very curious what my rate of improvement will be. I do feel chinese study using the listening reading method at least for listening skills will see similar levels of improvement. I’m wondering if my listening skills will improve a bit faster, since I’m already past the “progress at 30 hours” mark expectations wise - I can hear many individual words, can hear many sentence chunks/phrases, and just struggle to follow some full sentences and catch brand new words until I’ve heard them several times. I do very much want to completely go through Guardian with this method - for many reasons lol. 1. Because I’ve been wanting to read it in english and I’ll have a chance to use that for study which is cool, 2. Because I’ve been wanting to read it in chinese and this makes it doable/more comprehensible for my current skill level (aka following along to the audiobook I will read at a less slow pace/comprehend more since the English will be fresh in my mind, compared to if I just read it extensively on its own), 3. Avenuex made a beautiful audiobook I adore and I’ll have an excuse to listen to it while actually comprehending everything since I’ll have the English and Chinese novel to look at while o read! So... once I’m through Guardian, I’ll be able to answer for myself what over 100 hours of progress doing the listening reading method produce, how well it works when using a book with a more complicated/high vocab style - which is sort of priest, reading challenge wise, and the kind of novel the listening reading method creator recommends using. Also, I’ll have read Guardian! ovo)/ and I will have read a full priest novel, so I’ll have picked up words by my favorite author that will hopefully make other priest novels easier to read (the same reason Tian Ya Ke may be helpful).

———-

Another thing people who have tried the listening reading method suggest doing first (particularly if studying a language much different than your native language, but for any language tbh). The creator of the method suggested: knowing a few hundred to a few thousand common words, and having looked at a grammar guide or overview prior. That’s something anyone who’s already a bit of a beginner, to low intermediate, probably has done or is doing. In addition, some people who have done this method suggested using something like sentence audio flashcards (in English and target language audio) and listening to them a few times, repeating them, until one felt comfortable with them. Generally common word/grammar ones, and you could do “listening reading” with those sentences too (reading them while listening to the audio). This would serve as a primer to learn the basics comfortably before going into listening reading novels. They suggested doing yjis would make the method work better - they got to B2 in Dutch in a handful of months of intensive listening reading by doing this beforehand and they think it helped a lot. While I think it’s not necessary, I do think of listening reading is hard, then getting a basis beforehand as a beginner and/or covering a easier basics common language material first will help. I use the Chinese SpoonFed Audio files which basically amounts to the same thing but no reading (if I used the flashcards still, it would include reading). So I do have some sentences/phrases/words I have a good listening foundation for already. Also, as mentioned, I do read, so for many common words and Hanzi I already can read them. I do think this advice is very good for beginners though, if they want to see noticable results sooner (versus 30-50 hours into listening reading before they start learning significant amounts - basically it just means they’d do 30-50 hours prestudy instead of basic common words/grammar, to make the listening reading initially less difficult). A total beginner could dive right into listening reading (just like my chaotic self first started to try to read Chinese knowing 500 words and brute forcing mdzs and guardian a few paragraphs at a time), it just means it’ll feel more difficult at first for a while, and they’ll be mostly learning basics for a while first before they build enough of a basis to comprehend more. Which is fine. It all just comes down to how much incompréhensibilty can you personally tolerate without giving up. The creator of the method? Can tolerate a TON. Me? I can tolerate a brutally large amount, surprisingly, but usually I need to comprehend had least the main idea and that’s a minimum of like 40-60% depending on which parts I’m comprehending. Most people will feel it’s unbearable until they can comprehend at least 80-90% (and I certainly PREFER material I comprehend that much of). And most people ideally are comfortable once they understand 95-98% (think reading a book in your native language with some unknown words you can figure out easily from context, or graded readers made to feel this easy with around this many unknown words for you to figure out in context, or maybe manhua/manga/comics once you’re a pretty decent intemediate level in a language etc).

[army-of-mai-lovers]

hello arthur!! tbh people are being terrible in your inbox and the last ask killed my brain cells so this is your free bingo card to talk about anything you like. also sometimes googling sharks with human teeth (exactly what it sounds like) helps!! much love <3

oh my gosh I’m OBSESSED with these photos they’re so cute!!!! and thank you for the bingo card Effie I appreciate it so much. I’m gonna rant about Deadly Class (a show I definitely don’t like and thus don’t run a fan blog for....smh) bc it’s on my mind and it looks like it’s just going to go quietly into that good night instead of being made fun of and dissected and I think that should change bc goodness gracious that show does not deserve a dignified death. also I’m gonna put this rant under a readmore bc this is gonna be long and it has nothing to do w atla. warnings for discussions of racism, callous mentions of murder and death, swearing, discussion of Nazis, discussion of gore, abuse ment

Okay so for those not in the know (which is probably everyone considering the show was on Syfy and it’s being canceled due to low viewership) Deadly Class is a teen murder drama set in the late ‘80s starring Lana Condor, which makes it sound like it was engineered in a lab to appeal to me. Literally my friend and I were in the middle of watching Schitt’s Creek, which I adore, and she was like “well I heard about this show called Deadly Class” and described it and I was like fuck Schitt’s Creek we’re watching this. It had a 64% on Rotten Tomatoes, which usually makes me nervous, but I was literally like “I don’t care because I know I’m going to love it.” 

And well. I did not love it. 

I truly do not understand how one fucks up “teenagers (mostly) of color go to murder boarding school in the late ‘80s” that bad (I mean the Russo brothers are involved and they fuck up everything they touch so perhaps it was just that). I haven’t read the comic the show is based on but it does appear that a *lot* of the issues of the show stem from the comic, which is...disappointing. Basically, our MC, Marcus, starts off the show homeless after his group home burned down (and it’s heavily implied that he was the one to do it) and gets hunted down by these elite teenage murderers who invite them to their murder school. 

Already, numerous problems are starting to show themselves. First of all, Marcus is Latino, which, yes, it’s very cool that the MC is Latino, except he is literally the white-passingest man I’ve ever seen in my life, and I’ve seen my dad. I didn’t realize that he was Latino until they showed his extremely stupid backstory in a shitty animated sequence and whoever was voicing his dad did this really, really thick Nicaraguan accent and I was like wait a damn minute. So then, I looked it up, and the guy playing Marcus is named Benjamin Wadsworth, which immediately made me think that they had pulled a Noah Centineo and made me think this fully white actor was half Latino (and yes, Latinos can be white, but I think Marcus is supposed to be a nonwhite Latino, and I thought Benjamin Wadsworth was both white and non-Latino). But you know, as an light skinned ethnically ambiguous mixed kid myself, I thought I owed it to him to dig a little deeper, and turns out our pal Ben is mixed (also, he’s like six months older than me and married, which is a trip). And like, okay, I guess I’m glad they didn’t get a white non-Latino man to play a Latino character, but they literally got the whitest looking Latino they could think of to play him. He originally auditioned for Billy. Billy’s the token white. And the producers were like “wait you have Latino ancestry?” (how they found that out I don’t fucking know) and let him go for Marcus. And like. Okay. The character in the comics is light-skinned but he does not look white, and Benjamin is not a good enough actor for them to just pass on the actors who surely auditioned for that role and were more visibly Latino but like. Okay, I guess. 

Second of all, this show is mega racist and it starts to reveal itself when you look at how the murder kids are styled in literally their first appearance. What struck me the most was the fact that the Latina (whose name is fucking Maria, for heaven’s sake) was wearing a sexy red dress and Day of the Dead makeup, which, I’m sorry, huh? That just so happens to be the Mexican girl’s murder outfit? I’ve tried to give them the benefit of the doubt and speculate that maybe she wears it to like, subvert people’s expectations, but at this point idk how this is subverting anyone’s expectations nor why she’d be so invested in that. Also, she’s supposed to be a teenager. It’s fucked up to sexualize any of your child characters but it really hits different when it’s your Latina character (and yeah, I know the actress playing Maria isn’t a teenager, but still, it’s the principle of the thing). And then of course, the Black guy, Willie (no he’s not related to Billy they were just like yeah two guys with rhyming names in our main cast sounds legit) is a gangbanger dude who talks the way that white people think Black people talk. I keep waiting for this guy to have one line that’s not complete garbage, but I’m five episodes deep and so far nada, which sucks so bad because there’s like, kernels of an interesting character buried in this horrible racist trope. Also, they had him sleep with a N*zi. I hate it here. Lana Condor (her character’s name is Saya) gets off fairly okay, at least in this first shot (they don’t have her wearing a kimono to go murder people, thank fuck), but the way she behaves is super weird, like kinda flirty towards Marcus, kinda badass but not enough to actually do anything, etc. Billy’s white so they couldn’t make him a racist caricature or anything but I have no idea why he’s here. See, instead of talking about the real politics of the real world, Deadly Class makes up fake prejudice that honestly makes the lok bender/nonbender bullshit look sensible. Maria, Willie, and Saya are Legacies, which means that their families are established murderers (fun fact: the N*zi girl is also a Legacy, because her father murdered hundreds of civil rights activists. And the characters of color align themselves with her. I don’t understand.) Billy, and later Marcus when he decides to go to murder school, are Rats, meaning they have no affiliation with established murder groups. So, in this show, the people of color have privilege over the (mostly white) Rats. Make it make sense. Further, this means that Maria, Saya, and Willie should have absolutely no reason to hang out with Billy, and yet they do because the Russo brothers have heard that the kids these days like the found family trope, so they put five unlikely friends in a room together and insinuated that they could all be besties. I swear, this show is the La Croix of found family tho, in that there is absolutely no flavor whatsoever. None of the characters develop into a found family. Saya is bound to care for Marcus for reasons, Maria is using him, Willie is also using him, and Billy is only his friend because they’re both Rats. Saya and Maria are already friends (and honestly their friendship is the most compelling thing in the whole show). There are no other connections between the characters. But they’re totes a found family!!!!/s

Also, they don’t let Saya be mean. Every character says “oh Saya’s such a bitch” but do we ever see Saya being a bitch??? No! Saya is literally just a nice girl who is kinda quiet sometimes and murders people and has a tragic backstory. There’s an argument to be made for Maria being more bitchy than her tbh. And like, fine, if you want Saya to be nice, she can be nice, but stop telling me she’s mean then!!! If you’re gonna tell me that I’m gonna get to see mean Lana Condor in a leather jacket in this show then deliver bitch. 

There’s truly so much more I could talk about (Chico??? What the fuck is Chico’s arc???? What in the actual hell were they thinking when they were writing anything to do with Chico????? my DUDES WHAT IN THE SAM HELL. also making Billy straight was so fucking stupid he’s literally gay come on now, also Master Lin is so fucking useless what is he even doing here) but instead I’m going to outline the version of Deadly Class my friend and I have been talking about while we watch the inferior real Deadly Class. 

lots of things are the same actually because there are some elements of the show that have potential. Marcus is still homeless at the beginning, everybody still thinks he burned down the group home but he didn’t, Willie is still a pacifist, he and Marcus are still partners for their first murder school assignment, Saya’s mean (but like actually), Billy still has green hair and is the token white of the group (although a Billy of color.....thinking), and they all hate Reagan

in an ideal world Willie and Maria would have different names (Willie bc his name rhymes with Billy’s and that’s fucking stupid, also Willie is just a terrible name in general, Maria partially because it sounds way too similar to Marcus and I don’t understand why the guy who wrote this couldn’t make his characters have different sounding names, and partially because no Latina character of mine is going to be named fucking Maria), but for the purposes of this outline I’ll keep their names the same for clarity.

Marcus doesn’t initially have his rep. He’s on the streets when he sees a girl his age (Saya) come out of this elevator in the back of a restaurant brandishing a sword, and decides to go into the elevator, sees the stash of weapons, and decides to steal one so he can fend for himself better. 

also keeping the detail of Rory murdering a bunch of homeless kids, but now Marcus knows that Rory is actively hunting him down. 

in the process of robbing the school’s weapons collection, Marcus figures out that it’s a murder school

Master Lin catches Marcus robbing the school, they fight, Master Lin overpowers Marcus and ties him up. He says the weapons are for students only, and Marcus says he’s applying. Lin asks what his qualifications are, and Marcus says “you know that group home that burned down three months ago? all the kids that died? I started the fire.” 

(also no shade to Benjamin Wadsworth but in this version he is not playing Marcus. Marcus is not white-passing)

Master Lin initially doesn’t believe him, but Marcus presses on and eventually convinces Master Lin that this is really what happened, and so Lin welcomes him to murder school. 

Marcus’s first class is Poisons, and his lab partner is Billy, who takes a shine to him and shows him around school. There’s no Legacy/Rat nonsense, but you do have normal high school drama adapted slightly for murder school. Maria is the prettiest and most popular girl in school, Saya is the mean girl/valedictorian, Willie is the jock, and Billy’s the punky weirdo. 

Marcus is, of course, the new kid with a reputation to live up to. 

Things kind of fall apart when Willie and Marcus are paired up for an assignment: to seek revenge on somebody. 

also Willie’s backstory is extremely different. his dad was a Black Panther, and he was murdered by the FBI when Willie was a kid. distraught, his mom moved to Texas, where she started working a corporate job and rose really high in the ranks. To maintain her status in the company, she had to do some really horrible things, including working with the FBI to take down other civil rights activists. Willie found out about this and was absolutely horrified. his mother insisted she was doing this so that he could have a better life, but he refused to listen to her, and ran away, and ended up at murder school. 

Willie got into murder school because Lin knows who his mom is, and assumes that Willie is just as cutthroat as she is. he gains a reputation as well. 

also, Willie’s extremely wealthy, and this shows in the way he dresses (preppy jock vibes)

you don’t find out about this backstory for a minute tho bc unlike Albert Kim and the Russo Brothers, I can wait until the right opportunity presents itself for a backstory drop. 

ok anyway back to what I was saying earlier

they have to seek revenge on somebody. Marcus asks Willie if there’s anybody he wants revenge on, and Willie very sincerely says no. Marcus scoffs at him and says he’s clearly had a very easy life, to which Willie replies, “Well, who do you want revenge on?” 

Marcus immediately says, “Rory.” 

So they track Rory down, and since Marcus hasn’t actually killed anybody, he hands the weapons over to Willie. Willie frowns and says that he has nothing against this dude he’s never met before, so Marcus should be the one to hurt him. Marcus says that this is a group project and Willie’s got to pull his weight, and they get into an argument

the argument gets loud, and Rory hears them fighting and starts chasing them. 

in the midst of the chase, both of them divulge their secrets to one another. Willie laughs hysterically and says that they deserve each other bc they both lied to get where they are, and now they’re going to die because of it

Rory backs them into a corner, and Marcus uses one of the swords he tried to steal earlier to shank Rory

They throw the body in a dumpster, and after this, they’re friends, and Marcus decides he’ll fit right in at murder school. 

ok so that was only one episode but things to look forward to in the version of Deadly Class that only exists in me and my friend’s heads: Marcus dealing with the emotional and moral fallout of his first murder, Willie trying to figure out what it means to be a pacifist in a world so hellbent on doing violence towards him, Saya being mean to everyone except Maria, Maria convincing Saya to relax and have fun, the gang bonding in a Breakfast Club style situation adapted for murder school and making a joke about how this is like the Breakfast Club because it’s the 80s and the movie just came out, Saya and Maria falling in lesbians, Marcus and Saya being depressing edgelord besties, Billy being gay and fighting his abusive father, Marcus and Billy being uncool weirdo bffs, Willie and Maria rolling their eyes at Marcus and Saya’s cynicism, Billy coming out to Marcus and talking about his experiences being gay, which makes Marcus think “hang on, why do I relate to that?”, Willie seeing Marcus make a sarcastic comment about kissing a guy and having a crisis, Marcus and Willie falling in love, the gang taking a road trip to Vegas to murder Billy’s dad and giving Billy a gnc thrift store makeover on the way, and eventually the gang murdering the shit out of Ronald Reagan. 

[sailorvinusmoved]

🙌🙌 give us TWO!

✨ @destructiveglitch. meme. still accepting!

virote met tina moragne at the starry plough, during the nightclubs slam poetry night on a rainy wednesday. he paid his $7 cover fee, watched jaz sufi do her thing between guests, and did the only thing there was to do! eat an entire cast iron dish of mac n cheese with pulled pork and jalapenos while chugging beer. a lot of chardonnay, too. while crying to himself. what????? he had a difficult day.

tina’s few minutes on the stage was beautiful.

too bad he was too busy hunched over a trashcan in the hallway before she could finish, losing the battle between small man vs too much alcohol and greasy food. she found him there, pulling him up by his jacket and telling him to have some self-control. also to tell him he’s an asshole for running out during her time on stage. but, you know, it’s hard to stay mad at a weepy-eyed guy who’s clearly not having the best time of his life.

          ❝  hey, well, you wanna get the fuck outta here? we can go to azit for some bulgogi udon. ❞

         ❝  suuuuuuure… and, uh. tina? sorry for, like, puking during your set. that poem about betrayal was pretty cool. what inspired you to write it, huh? sounded like some, like, real visceral shit. raw. what happened to you? who hurt you? ❞

         ❝ my cat ate my smoked turkey stick when i turned my back. ❞

san francisco native, tina’s a tattoo artist by day that’ll use some downtime to drive for lyft and a weaver of words by night. she can turn anything into a poem. just last week she wrote about the pain of existing under the boot of capitalism as a woman of color in america while also writing about how underboob sweat is the worst thing to ever happen to her. her presence online is pretty good, patreon posted up for folks that want more of her work. she’s got a little bit of a temper when provoked and you might not leave the conversation alive, but she’s pretty chill outside of that. maybe a little too chill. she hasn’t answered some of her texts since 2016. has a cute little apartment, a cute wife, cute pet cat named sir reginald the third, and can’t nobody tell her nothin tbh.

a lover of naps, awful but satisfying beer, and cheap lipstick, she might also be gifted in hypnotism but shh.

also if anyone else tells her she looks like missy elliott, she might break their neck

she knows!!!!! leave her the fuck alone.

your local, native american ( oneida ) trans woman that invented looking good. you ever wonder where virote got all his drip? that pizzazz? that sauce??? giselle lee got that all covered. she's a brilliant designer and her eye for fashion is sharp. you think she won't walk out the house in shockingly 80s blue eyeshadow wall over her lids, bell bottom jeans, every single inch of her arms covered in gold bangs, a raspberry beret, and hair that would make glam rock bands blush??? she will. and she’ll look better than you. :) you are can't run them fair 1s on her, because you'll lose. and that's sad! but those are the rules.

he always wandered by her shop, 00HONEY, and looked at whatever was in the window. burgundy bodycon dresses with feathers, earrings that looked like rainbow lemon slices, platforms with starburst candies in the clear heel, low riding black and gothy bondage pants with cutouts in the ass. eclectic! cool! the instagram baddie but... for those a bit more willing to step out of the box. she never did care about abiding to one style.

truthfully, her love for fashion started in the early 2000s when gyaru / ganguro culture was running wild in japan. giselle always admired the nails and the dozens of charms dangling. the para para. the bright pink lips and take-no-shit attitude. and freedom. the freedom always appealed to her. so, she got to sewing! you know what’s better than sewing in your downtime and selling over the internet to myspace era influencers? having your family and friends invest in letting you move across the country from the bumfuck parts of the east to manufacture ( on a small scale, of course ) your artistic visions into a lucrative business. and that’s what she did. a storefront, equally gifted staff, and a whole lot of determination.

she noticed virote always walk by and stare in, eventually inviting him to actually get a good look at her store. and he was dazzled!!! whenever he needs a little something special, he goes to 00HONEY. you think he’s buying those bondage pants from hot topic? well... he could. he might indulge once a year, but he’s a loyal customer of the little shop down the street from his penthouse.

giselle’s bright and ambitious. always prepared with a good joke and has the patience of a saint. outside of always dreaming up new ways to innovate a miniskirt, she’s usually practicing how to play bass guitar, craving honey butter chips, dabbling in textile studies, watching old soap operas, and collecting really weird hats. she has so many weird hats??

         ❝  giselle... this is a lot of hats, sis. ❞

        ❝  i know! ❞

        ❝ does... does your husband know about this? does he? ❞

       ❝ ... are you implying my husband’s never been in this room even though we’ve owned this house for five years? is that what you’re saying? do you hear yourself, vi? ❞

you know who’s there when virote needs someone to join him in karaoke? giselle. you know who’s the mariah carey to his katy perry? giselle. vi’s lucky he’s cute and semi-okay at singing. she clowns him every couple of saturdays.

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

I feel you with that “Joker killed a god” stuff, but what gets me as well is whenever I see those discussions over “strongest group btwn P3-P5” I’ll see some comments saying Futaba could hack into Aigis and defeat her that way. And idk... that always really bothered me. Sure P5 already treats Futaba like a hacking god, but could she really hack into Aigis? I personally don’t think so, and even if she could, I doubt it would be for very long. Unless Futaba really is just that good *rolls my eyes* but what do you think?

Welp this one is new for me ;w; Welp, I can add it to my list of other takes I don’t like when it comes to hypothetical fights (under the cut for length):

Joker killed a god (so much wrong there)

SEES has Aigis so they win (I’ll def talk about this one since it’s relevant)

PT are more physically capable/have had more training so they win (I’ll explain this one too) 

P1/2 can use real guns and Personas in the real world so they win (usually when P1/2 are in the mix, I do think they could have a surprise advantage, but its not like P3-5 can’t use Personas IRL....it’s just that they’ve never had a chance....also the gun thing.....which I’ll get to, also they forget Aigis/Naoto have real guns dfklsjafjal)

P5 kids can use guns so they win (it’s similar to Aigis I’ll get to it, also did we forget about Naoto and Aigis????? ksldjfa;kjdfa;jf also those aren’t real so they are SOL if they aren’t fighting in the Metaverse)

Now I can add “Futaba hack win” to this list DX

Never stating if we are doing it ala PQ style (aka we’re ripping people out of their main game timeline, aka teens vs teens), or if it’s Arena style (aka we’re doing it as a sequel and it’s adults vs teens),I mean their strength is different between PQ and Arena so it’s fair (plus Labby and/or Sho might choose to side/help on P4′s side which is also important), basically there needs to be some kind a rules/basis of P3/4 chars so we know what version to pit against the PT otherwise it’s anarchy and we’re getting nowhere

Not stating which terrain they are fighting on (it is kiiiiiinda important, hometeam advantage)

Assuming a certain terrain is an insta win for a certain group (reality/Tartarus is a bit more of a struggle without evokers but not impossible, also SEES is kinda honorable and wouldn’t like the disadvantage even if it was still doable without evokers....except maaaaybe if lives are on the line that is kfljsafdajf, TV world is the most neutral but it really depends if it’s Arena style or not cause that determines if there is fog or not)

For reference, personally I’d put it at P2IS/P2EP>P3/P4>P5, still working on where P1 goes tbh so there are def gonna be changes, same with PTS, P2 manga is probs gonna be with the other P2 cast. And this list is my personal opinion AT THE MOMENT (cause I just know Atlus is gonnna screw over P3/4 in Arena 3, either cause they need to weaken them with it not making sense or they are gonna nerf them cause they haven’t been active in a long while >.> which def shouldn’t have been the case after Arena or at least Ultimax but nope still tier 1 Personas 8U) regardless if it is PQ or Arena style. It’s mostly cause 1) fusion spells (P2/3/4 have them, even tho P4 doesn’t call it that, it operates EXACTLY like a fusion spell so I’m categorizing it as such) and 2) P4 kids.....are pretty strong to hold their own/beat people who have upgraded Personas.

.......sorry side tangent there’s gonna be like 1 or 2 more but they are in relation to the topic (and it’ll be at the end) falkdsjakfj. But yeah that’s BS. And def something Atlus would do except they forget that the teams have hard counters against that. >.>

(might change if I remember something but atm I’mma just say it) Iirc Futaba’s Persona doesn’t usually hack people, her only two hacks in battle are against her own mother (”hacking my cognition” my ass, you just imagined it there, how about you imagine your mom away???? oh wait that should’ve happened before the damn fight and thus us not needing a fight so stupid!) -ahem- and when we get a insta hold up (which is really just her blinding the damn enemy it’s nothing hacky about it....so stupid)

Aigis literally willed her way out of someone remote controlling her, not even hacking, like a literal remote designed to control her and kill SEES....and she broke free of it. 

Arena style wise, Fuuka was able to break Labby free of control too, tho that was non-hacking and against a weakened god (would not be surprised if she trained that to Rise, and/or because it’s Futaba and not a god, Rise could probably do it as well.....since Rise knows how she just wasn’t strong enough against Kagu...but Futaba isn’t Kagu 8U). 

If it’s non-Arena style, it’s possible that Fuuka (and by extension Rise) could be susceptible to someone interfering with their Navi-ing, as seen with Chidori messing with Fuuka (even after she’s evolved)......but only Chidori has shown to have that type of ability not Futaba (and Chidori isn’t even a hacker so “hacking” isn’t really what’s going on ksdajf;a). It’d probs only work pre Arena (cause Fuuka is supposedly super strong in Arena), but it’d require Atlus to create a damn ability for Futaba that doesn’t exist yet. Also iirc Chidori’s really was just used to mask her/team’s whereabouts and used to relay a message (not mine control Fuuka)

if Futaba HAD this type of power, A) P5 would be a walk in the park, B) she would’ve used it iirc

In case Sho/Labby are allowed, Labby was also able to break free of her own remote control in Ultimax (thanks to S!Labby)

Fun fact, not a point, but apparently Aigis can possible reach her sister’s but not if they are being mind controlled (or “hack” as she said in Arena). I dunno something to note kfsljda;jf

So like.....no......I don’t think she could “hack” them. Hell, I don’t even think Sho was hacking Labby, I think he just has a similar remote control that his dado had (which he probs got what he needed from hacking the Kirijou/or his dad giving him info....need to replay Ultimax a bit tbh, but low key I think they just like using the word “hacking” fksdlajaj;fdjfkd), and Futaba would need to do that prior to the fight. And that’s not even counting that it’ll actually work (because of reasons listed above).

Now for the side tangent, it’s funny people think her hacking Aigis means insta win (or that Aigis is an insta win), and that the “PT are better cause they trained and are more physically fit plus they have the outfits that help them” and like no????? P3/4 (freaking they train too sakdljfa;jf what the hell?) but they also have crazy physical abilities. You think Chie can just punt a giant robot and not have her leg broken? Or Mitsuru can crotch shot a shadow with her boots and walk away fine? Like an 80 ft robot is a normal enemy for the IT, both SEES and IT are taking face shots from TANKS on a daily! Why else do you think SEES/IT can survive Takaya/Adachi’s bullets (or Jin’s bombs)? It’s because of their Personas that ANY team can survive being set on fire or electrocuted! XU The PT’s outfits are just a physical representation of their status as Persona users in the Metaverse tbh, it’s a cosmetic symbolism, doesn’t mean SEES/IT don’t have it too (and they should if they go into the Metaverse).

So yeah Aigis, or even guns, aren’t a deciding factor, esp when SEES/IT are shown to be able to handle/beat Aigis/Labby just fine klfjsdajfa Hell iirc they HAVE to beat (at least Shadow) Labby to even continue the series sdkaflajfja And she was tortured to be a literal fighting Machine! 

So yeah, hacking isn’t an isnta win (also forgetting Fuuka is a hacker too fkdasjfl;), Aigis/Labby isn’t an insta win, guns aren’t an insta win. 

“But Shinji died from a bullet” but Shinji nothing. 1) He didn’t have any armor on, and most IMPORTNATLY 2) He was willing to die, and considering P3 really puts an emphasis on will to live being a crucial part to summoning a Persona......and thus him not having his Persona activated at all made him not get the nice Persona perk that we usually have. 

But will Atlus do it despite it not making sense? Probably! Cause the PT are oh so special! uwu Even tho they’ve yet to prove themselves in being better than at least SEES/IT, let alone P1/2 cast. .....stupid temp buffs..... >.> can’t do anything without your stupid deus ex machina temp buffs can you Joker? Tbh, other Persona chars beating “Full Cognition Joker” would be the most Persona thing out there, so I don’t even think FC!Joker would win (not that there’s really a good organic way for him to get that back). “Full cognition Joker is like god level!” oh didja hear what other Persona chars like to do to these so called “gods”? 8U

[ayyyez]

Hey, could I request some drunk Neji, Kakashi, and Gaara headcanons???

After doing 80+ headcanons for Neji I had a feeling I’d done drunk Neji headcanons before and I had a look and found I have so I’ll link them below but I’ll do some more anyway since I had two requests for it. Ya’ll really wanna see Neji drunk huh? Also it’s really funny because I originally wrote those Neji drunk headcanons 2 years ago when I drank everyday and now I’m writing them when I’m a year sober, like, CAN WE TALK ABOUT GROWTH!?

Anyway some drunk Neji, Kakashi and Gaara headcanons coming your way. (First time writing Gaara so keep that in mind). x 

Drunk Neji public/private headcanonsNeji with drunk s/o headcanonsNeji with drunk and emotional s/o scenario

Neji

-Neji, before he is legally an adult just doesn’t do alcohol for fun or casually, it’s as simple as that. He will do it on formal occasion or for the sake of being respectful when a superior insists he has one (even then he’s reluctant). There’s just something about not being in control that Neji can’t handle. Boy needs to be in control of himself. 

-When he’s an adult he will mellow out a little bit and have the odd drink with his partner or teammates but he rarely gets drunks tbh. For him to get drunk it would have to be in the comfort of the village with people he trusted/knew extremely well. But even then it’s rare. Like so rare that if you miss it, it’s the event not to miss. It would be like missing a rare occurrence such as a meteor shower or what not. 

-Lucky for you if you are his partner because you are the person he is MOST comfortable with so he’ll do it if you happen to be there. It’d likely happen in your home or his (or the one you share). Also because he doesn’t drink much his tolerance is pretty low. He isn’t used to the tingle in his fingers when the alcohol makes him dizzy nor the way his head spins. He hates it and will do 1 of 2 things depending on his mood. 1) be cranky, call it a night and go to bed (cuddle him to make him feel better he is nauseous as feck) or 2) try one more to see what happens. 

-The next drink will loosen him up a bit and won’t feel so out of control even though there is a voice in the back at his mind scolding him. But that’s a tomorrow Neji problem for the Neji that has a stick up his butt and drunk Neji is out to play. And by play I mean stick to you like glue! He get’s really whinny depending on his level. Sometimes it brings up the insecurities in your relationship he tries to hide from you. Please don’t leave me. He’ll plead in your ear (because drunk Neji can be pathetic in front of you but not anyone else there.) But Neji I’m just going to the bathroom. Then again later. I’m just getting you a drink of water. I’m not leaving you. If you laugh at him he’ll remember in the morning and feel worse. Like hungover Neji is worse than sassy Neji because his head is spinning as well as being irritated. Do not prod the beast.

-Drunk Neji’s cheeks are inflamed. As the night progresses it will grow across his face. He has squinty eyes. Thinks activating his Byakugan will help him see. No Neji that’s not how it works, you’re drunk dear. Clutches his cup in his hand so hard it crushes but it’s alright it hasn’t been full in about half an hour. He didn’t know that though and he stares at his hand for a solid 5 seconds. Hold his hand and guide him to a chair. 

-Think he likes giving lectures sober? The drunk ones are more passionate and unrelenting. HE IS RIGHT! Won’t back down from a fight but won’t instigate one either. More of a verbal fighter. When he thinks you two are alone will grab the back of you clothes and fist the material tight between his fingers. Likes running his hands down the small of you back dangerously close to your backside. Will go to lean his forehead against yours but ends up just flopping his head down and smacking his hot skin against yours with a bit of a crack. Apologises and closes his eyes. Drunk Neji becomes sleepy Neji. When you put him to bed because you will need to (he won’t go to bed without you because he can’t leave his side which means you’ll have to shower with him and everything. Hold his head up please.) MUST SPOON HIM OR HE WILL GET UPSET! He’s clingy Neji now, something sober Neji will despise in the morning. 

-Don’t be surprised if he doesn’t look or talk to you in the morning because he is so embarrassed. Tease him at your own peril but say the right thing and he’ll become a flustered mess. Neji won’t throw up while drinking but he might in the morning because he feels awful. He has a migraine. He is going back to bed and never drinking again, how could you let him do this? Grumpy Neji but also Neji needs a spoon again. He won’t be verbal about this. 

Kakashi

-Kakashi can literally be that drunk who sits in the corner quietly and you cannot tell he’s even buzzed. Kind of watches everything with an even more glazed over expression. In the earlier years like original naruto and before, he’s likely to be more of a sad drunk. Just kind of mopey in general but he can’t help it he’s been through a lot. 

-Drinking for Kakashi can come close to becoming a coping mechanism but eventually he will be firm with himself. There were times when he would get really down thinking of the past and all he has lost and just sit leaning against his bed (sitting on the floor) and drink without realising it. He just switches off to the world completely and keeps sipping on the burning sake almost has if he wants to deepen the pain. It’s when he feels he deserves to be punished. He gets to a point where he gains an incredibly strong resolve about changing because he is alive and he needs to make the most of it. Especially when there’s people who need him. 

-As he gets older drinking becomes a way for Kakashi to unwind. He will get a drink with the fellow jonin after a mission or a way of catching up and talking about their students (or former students) which encourages the others to brag. In the period when Naruto is away from the village with Jiraya he will feel a little sad again while drinking with them and feel like he failed his team while the other instructors talk about their teams successes. The moment will pass, usually with him changing the topic in the best aloof manner he can muster and the evening becomes enjoyable again. Sometimes when he carries himself home though his mind will wander back to that sad place except now he distracts himself with Icha Icha. 

-With you drunk Kakashi is different because he has more of a reason to stay distracted and be happier. He isn’t alone anymore so you’ll find him sometimes just staring at you in a hazy gaze with a smile. You have grown to see his smiles beneath the masks, knowing their meaning by looking into his eyes. Kakashi doesn’t have a lot of tells when it comes to revealing emotions but one of the few is his eyes. 

-On the way home and away from prying eyes he will hold onto you and not just some innocent arm around you, no no, there’s intend behind the way he holds you. He needs to confirm that you are his because he can’t quite believe it, almost as though you would disappear from view if he did not hold you close. There’s gripping onto the material of your clothes, sometimes so tight he almost pinches your skin. There’s a head resting on your shoulder if he’s drunk way too much. There’s a bunch of nonsense he’s telling you about how he is sorry you have to deal with this but he’s thankful. He’s still a bit vulnerable in a romantic relationship so he won’t babble “I love you’s” yet (unless you are in bed doing the old frick frack, then one or two might slip). 

-When he’s older Kakashi embraces the old man drunk. Drinking and feeling happy while also giving wisdom out even, if not most especially, when nobody asked for it. Will definitely do this with Guy. After the war Kakashi takes it upon himself to take Guy out for drinks whenever he can, he may also be an excuse to forget about being the Hokage for a moment or two. Guy and Kakashi have silly bar bets and different rival contests that no contain alcohol. It gets wild and this is when Kakashi laughs/smiles the most because drinking isn’t something bad that brings up sadness anymore, it’s something he does with his friends and you. He gets more into it if you tell him that you’re betting on him to win. 

Gaara

-At first he seems exactly the same with his neutral expression and keen eyes looking at the people in the room around him. The only give away without talking to him is his red cheeks. Isn’t the biggest social drinker, except maybe after the war with celebrations, ceremonies, hanging with the other kage etc. But he is also someone who likes to keep a level head and not risk making a fool of himself. Gaara is the king of cool after all (at least shippuden and onward lol). 

-Knows he can get emotional when he drinks so he avoids it when his mood is in turmoil. He makes strategic decisions in life and it’s no different with drinking. There is no dancing on table tops and singing for Gaara. He’s more of an observer then an attention seeker. Will smirk a lot at witnessing other peoples shenanigans. Will even talk Kankuro into doing some ridiculous things then deny it when Temari lectures him. But let’s be real him talking Kankuro into doing something his him saying ‘Should I do this?’ and Gaara saying ‘Yes.’ Then all hell breaks loose. 

-Can be a little awkward around you if he doesn’t know you to well. He is still quiet and reserved but more likely to keep a conversation going. If he is with you then it’s still similar but every now and again he will whisper something sweet in your ear or clue you in on an observation he made of someone around you two. If there was ever need of a designated driver he would volunteer because drinking isn’t that important for him. 

-Is the type to have a drink or two after a long mission or day of work especially as the hokage. Keeps a bottle in the bottom draw of his desk. At one point the bottle is a gift from Tsunade after the war. He splits this bottle with Naruto sometimes when he visits. More of a slow and steady drinker than a fast and crash. Gets drunk at a steady pace so he still feels in control but extremely relaxed and able to let go of his usual stresses. Doesn’t really get nausea from a hangover either but will get a mild headache. Temari will yell at him in the morning to instil the consequences of his actions into him. If he’s with you he will just stay in bed a little longer and will either hold you or have an arm connected with you for comfort. 

-Not a fan of shots but will never back down from proving himself if it’s with either you or Kankuro. Probably Kankuro though and that’s usually the one way Gaara can get drunk. Kankuro can hold his alcohol but so can Gaara and they start swaying in their seats and come close to passing out before a winer is decided. Gaara does a good job at keeping himself composed and tries not to speak when he knows his slurring. Speaks really slowly with extreme concentration in an attempt to cover how drunk he is.  

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s weekly politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

sarahf (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): Last week, congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib captured headlines for breaking with House Democrats and Nancy Pelosi on an emergency border aid bill that lacked protections for migrant children.

This wasn’t the first time the so-called “Squad” broke ranks. Or the first time their public disagreement with House leadership has led to sniping in the press (Pelosi told New York Times op-ed columnist Maureen Dowd that “All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world. But they didn’t have any following. They’re four people and that’s how many votes they got.”)

But it’s not just Democratic leadership taking aim. Republicans have tried to paint “the Squad” as part of the “radical left,” and the direction the party is moving in. And on Sunday, President Trump sparked a firestorm — at least among Democrats — when he tweeted that “‘Progressive’ Democrat Congresswomen” should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”

So what is it about the Squad that has captured the attention of both Republicans and Democrats? Let’s try to tackle this in two parts: 1) What role do we think the Squad has in pushing the Democratic Party in a new direction? 2) And what, if any, do we think will be the electoral repercussions in 2020?

To get us started, what do we make of the news surrounding the Squad and their split from Pelosi and House Democrats on the emergency border aid bill?

julia_azari (Julia Azari, political science professor at Marquette University and FiveThirtyEight contributor): Well, I can start from providing the view from poli sci Twitter, which tends to be a fairly pro-party group of people (and leans Democratic/anti-Trump). So in response to the Twitter fight between the House Democrats’ account and AOC’s chief of staff, there was a lot of talk like “have these fights behind closed doors, don’t have a big, public blowup.”

But I disagree. Party infighting should not be done in a smoke-filled room. That’s just not what people want from politics anymore, and I think when that does happen, it contributes to further institutional distrust and disengagement.

natesilver (Nate Silver, editor in chief): I’d note that AOC has a Trump score of 18 percent, meaning that she’s voted in line with Trump’s position 18 percent of the time. But according to her data, you’d expect her to vote with Trump about… 0 percent of the time based on how liberal her district is.

So she’s actually proving a bit problematic for Pelosi, in the sense that she should be a guaranteed vote, but Pelosi is only getting her ~80 percent of the time. Except none of this has really mattered since Pelosi has room to spare in the House, and a lot of legislation that passes the House has no chance of passing a GOP-led Senate anyway.

sarahf: Is there at least an argument to be made that Pelosi and the Squad should take fewer swipes at each other over their disagreements, as too much of a focus on intraparty fighting can’t be good for the party?

julia_azari: So here’s my galaxy brain take.

natesilver:

julia_azari: It’s good for the Squad for Pelosi, at least, to take swipes at them. After all, part of the anti-establishment brand is to be in tension with, well, the establishment. And it’s possible that leaders like Pelosi know this! What I’m not really sure about is how good the Squad (so much shorter than typing all their names) is for the Democratic Party.

I don’t think they’re a problem, but it’s too early to gauge their party-building potential. And obviously, they make some people nervous. But if the goal is to engage young people, women and people of color, and keep the left flank of the party somewhat happy, they seem like a good bet.

I am really long-winded today. #sorrynotsorry

perry (Perry Bacon Jr., senior writer): It would be smart for the party establishment to think of this as natural tension between the wings of the party.

The problem is I don’t think they actually do, which is one of the reasons why this is all so interesting. (The House leadership’s official Twitter account attacked AOC’s chief of staff over the weekend, with the implication that she should fire him.)

sarahf: To Julia’s point about the Squad’s party-building potential, isn’t there an argument to be made that they don’t even need to have that? Their ethos is that they’re here to do away with the old system. They agitate for change; they don’t need to bridge consensus within the party, unlike say, Pelosi, who has a very different role to play.

And the fact that virtually all of the 2020 Democratic candidates have a position on the Green New Deal is a testament to their effectiveness at pushing the party in new directions, no?

julia_azari: Right. Which maybe Pelosi likes and maybe she doesn’t. Obviously, moving to the left carries risks. But (and this is where I got into it with a bunch of people on Twitter on Sunday), it’s not clear to me that Democratic leaders actually want to go back to the 1990s and early 2000s.

Yes, the party was more “professionalized,” and less split internally, than it is now. It also won two plurality elections and lost to George W. Bush. Not to mention, voter turnout was low.

So one lesson you might learn from the 2008 period onward is that the party does well with fresh faces, even if it also has to win suburban swing districts that might not view AOC and Rashida Tlaib all that favorably.

perry: But the Democratic establishment (I don’t know about Pelosi, personally) seems to think that the prominence of these four women is not a natural, healthy tension, and instead is broadly bad for the party.

And I think their preferred outcome is that the AOC wing basically stays quiet until December 2020 (after the presidential election). That’s where the real tension is.

julia_azari: We’ve (and here, I specifically mean academics and the media) way overemphasized the concept of party unity.

sarahf: I guess I just don’t understand why the Democratic establishment is making this into such a big deal. But I agree with Perry that they definitely would prefer the AOC wing of the party stay quiet, especially when polls like this are leaked. (Axios wouldn’t disclose the group that conducted the poll, so there’s a lot we don’t know about it, and its findings should be treated with skepticism. But it reportedly found that many likely general election voters who are white and have two years or less of college education had a negative opinion of AOC and socialism.)

julia_azari: For the record, that Axios piece is extremely misleading.

sarahf:

It’s just hard for me to believe that these four women really would have that much of an impact on 2020?

natesilver: I kinda come back to Occam’s razor on this. When you have a bunch of new members who want to push the party in a more ideological direction, it usually entails electoral risk. But the benefit, potentially, is that you also shift the party’s platform in that direction.

perry: Yes, but so many party establishment people want to take away any unnecessary election risks–and I think they would argue AOC talking about getting rid of the Department of Homeland Security, for example, is an unnecessary election risk.

natesilver: It’s also probably a very marginal electoral risk in a world where Donald Trump is president and there’s much bigger news all the time.

julia_azari: Part of the problem is that the lessons of 2016 aren’t clear. You could say that 2016 showed that there was a real push to move Democrats to the left. Or you could say that 2016 was about how Democrats lost groups of voters to Republicans (e.g. the diploma divide among white voters). And those forces push the party in different directions.

perry: The party establishment is probably overstating the rise of the AOC wing in terms of affecting the 2020 elections. But their risk assessment, I think, is driving these tensions–leading Pelosi to bash the AOC wing fairly often, for example.

natesilver: But it’s not crazy for the party establishment to be worried about it! Sometimes I think everyone in this discussion is not always clear about what they think will be electorally advantageous versus what they do — or don’t — like policywise.

julia_azari: Most of this in relation to the Squad is marginal, though, no matter how many hot headlines Axios posts with polls that don’t actually say anything about AOC being the face of the party or about swing states.

natesilver: Journalistic malpractice on Axios’s part TBH to publish a poll without even listing who conducted the poll.

We don’t even know who leaked it. We don’t even know if the poll was real. We should be that skeptical when basic facts and details about a poll are missing like that.

sarahf: That’s fair. And I know we’ve talked about this before, but I think part of what we’re seeing play out here, especially with AOC, is there is now a group of politicians that aren’t willing to play by the old rules. And they will use their large social media followings to get their message across, and on their terms.

So maybe party leadership is scared of losing control?

And so we see Pelosi snipe about how they’re only four votes.

Maybe the Freedom Caucus and the headaches it has caused for the Republican Party has so scarred Democratic leadership that they’ll do anything to stop this faction of their party from growing.

But is this kind of fear misplaced? How much is the Squad really moving the party to the left?

natesilver: Clare said this yesterday on the podcast, but the Squad are very effective at getting media attention, and the media is quite happy to play up the “Democrats IN DISARRAY!” storylines. So in that sense it does seem like a mistake for Pelosi et al. to hit back at them.

perry: About a third of the 235 House Democrats (CNN has this number at 82) support starting an impeachment inquiry into Trump.

Ninety-five support the Green New Deal; 118 support Medicare for All. So just in terms of raw numbers, the positions of the AOC wing are much broader than four people.

I think the big shift for Pelosi is that she has never had a vocal, powerful group saying that she is too far to the right. For basically the entire time Pelosi has led the House Democrats, her biggest tension has been with the right flank of the party — some conservative Democrats in the House thought that she was too far to the left.

But now, Pelosi is being attacked from the left in a serious way, for the first time. And I actually think she and Biden are responding in similar ways to these attacks from the left.

My sense is they both see themselves as liberal icons–the man who helped elect the first black president, the woman who pushed through a huge health care reform that extended insurance to millions. And I think this criticism from the younger generation of Democrats makes them mad. Pelosi seems indignant at times, so does Biden.

julia_azari: Biden and Pelosi also managed to establish themselves as liberals when cultural/LGBT issues were on the rise in the party, and you didn’t have to do anything particularly radical to be liberal enough on economics and race.

In 2019, it takes more to be a liberal icon.

natesilver: I mean… I don’t know that the Squad always pick their battles all that well, and in that sense they are pretty Freedom Caucus-like. On the other hand, they have a lot more star power than the Freedom Caucus. There is a lot of political talent there.

And they’re all pretty young. So a lot of my critiques of Bernie Sanders’s campaign, for instance, i.e. that he doesn’t have a good plan to expand his base, definitely doesn’t apply to the Squad when they can unify leftist Democrats with nonwhite Democrats.

sarahf: Something I think we’re all touching on here is the fact that it is four women of color pushing the party to the left and challenging the status quo. And that matters. Each of them have made appeals to their background and how they represent people who historically haven’t had a seat at the table.

And this probably, to put it bluntly, does make certain older vanguards of the party uncomfortable, because they consider themselves to be liberal, and that now they’re forced to reckon with the idea that they’re maybe not as liberal as they think.

perry: I want to come back to something Nate said earlier that I think is essential.

“Sometimes I think everyone in this discussion is not always clear about what they think will be electorally advantageous versus what they do — or don’t — like policywise.”

The AOC wing at times says its ideas, like Medicare for All, are both the right thing to do on policy AND will help Democrats electorally, by either increasing turnout among people who might not otherwise vote or appealing to swing voters. Whereas the establishment wing often says a policy is bad on substance and that it will hurt Democrats’ chances in 2020.

To me, both sides are overconfident in saying that their policy views are the best electoral position, too.

natesilver: I get annoyed by this sort of question for a couple of different reasons. On the one hand, I think it’s generally bullshit to think that a policy that polls as being quite unpopular will magically turn out to be electorally helpful because it motivates the base or whatever.

On the other hand, there’s a lot of bullshit in which more establishment/centrist Democrats will deride a policy for being unpopular, when their real motivation against it is that they don’t like the policy.

perry: I know it’s our job to analyze elections. But I think it’s really hard to figure out exactly how policy ideas and outcomes affect election results. So I find claims people make suggesting “Policy X is unpopular so Candidate Y will lose” to be way too overconfident at times. At the same time, we can make some judgements.

For example, “Medicare for everyone who wants it’ (the basic position of Biden, Pete Buttigieg and other more centrist Democrats) is probably a safer political position than “Medicare for everyone and change the whole system” (the stance of AOC and Sanders). I say that even though Medicare for All might be a better health care policy.

natesilver: “Medicare for everyone who wants it” is indeed quite a bit more popular than “Medicare for all,” and one of the reasons “Medicare for all” polls well is because people assume “Medicare for all” means “Medicare for everyone who wants it.”

julia_azari: So my view on the policy thing is complicated. Nate has the Occam’s razor view that I think makes sense, but here’s another galaxy-brain take. I spend most of my time in Wisconsin, a state with a long anti-establishment political tradition, and around a lot of younger people (my students), so my sense of how popular some anti-establishment and left-leaning policies are is probably inflated. But in general, I think most people are NOT sophisticated on policy specifics, but they are sensitive to scary images and wording. There’s even evidence that policies that sound too left-leaning or disruptive are especially vulnerable to scary images and messaging. So while it might seem like a lot of people are not happy with the status quo, that does not mean major, risky policy change isn’t still intimidating.

perry: That’s well put. Medicare for All is very vulnerable to scare tactics.

sarahf: Especially when abolishing private insurance enters the equation.

natesilver: I don’t know. I sort of agree with Vox’s Matt Yglesias that people are learning the wrong lesson from Trump. He was actually perceived as a relative moderate by voters in 2016.

perry: I understand many voters said that Trump was more moderate than Clinton.

But I just have a hard time with this idea that the candidate who ran calling for a ban on Muslims traveling to the United States and suggested that he would “lock up” his opponent was the moderate candidate.

natesilver: IDK, I think we’ve shifted from a media environment in which a lot of outlets took an (implicitly center or center-left) “view from nowhere” to one in which the media is more outspoken, and the difference between partisan and nonpartisan media is a little blurrier.

And I think that’s shifted the assumptions about whether centrism is electorally advantageous in a direction that claims that, actually, elections are all about turning out your base. But I don’t think there’s actually any evidence that how you win elections has changed.

julia_azari: I don’t think I read Matt’s piece but that’s not gonna stop me from saying I’m not sure I think the discussion around moderate candidates is useful. Even if Trump was thought of as a moderate, he ran in a way that criticized the status quo.

Basically I’ve become one of those Twitter trolls who reads the headline and then makes a critique.

natesilver: Trump also won independents 46-42 though!

sarahf: We can’t downplay just how much Clinton and Trump were disliked in 2016, though. Yes, Trump won, but that might say more about how we think about women in politics more than anything else.

natesilver: What if Clinton had run as more of a centrist, though? Would she have gotten more than 8 percent of the Republican vote? The Democrats had a pretty darn liberal platform.

julia_azari: My suspicion is that it’s a wash, but I may be discounting the impact of Democrats being perceived as too left/liberal.

sarahf: If Clinton had higher favorables, I don’t think it would have mattered how she ran, i.e. centrist or super liberal.

perry: So that gets to the real question. Would Democrats be marginally better off if AOC

and company were a little less prominent till December 2020?

sarahf: Yes, I think that’s the argument Pelosi and leadership are making. I just don’t think it’s particularly salient. But I also haven’t seen the attack ads yet, I suppose.

perry: My own, non-data judgement, is yes, Democrats would be slightly better off if AOC and her allies were less prominent in the run-up to the 2020 election. Why? Because having issues of race and identity (like immigration policy and four very liberal, female people of color) being central to the presidential election is hard for Democrats. They have become the party of people of color but most voters are white and this is especially true in key swing states (in particular, Michigan and Wisconsin). Also, Trump is likely to run a 2020 campaign about race and identity that raises the question of who should represent America–forcing voters to take sides.

Pelosi, I assume, does not want the 2020 election to be seen by the public as a battle between AOC’s vision of America (even if Biden is the Democratic nominee) and Trump’s vision of America. And I think she is right to be concerned about that. This is not a new challenge for Democrats. Hillary Clinton was probably not helped by the rise of Black Lives Matter preceding the 2016 election, and backlash to the civil rights movement arguably helped Richard Nixon win the 1972 election.

natesilver: I guess the counterargument, which folks were sorta alluding to above, is that Pelosi can push back against the Squad to show that actually she’s the “reasonable,” moderate one. I’m not sure I buy that counterargument, but it’s an argument.

julia_azari: YES, THE GALAXY BRAIN TAKE.

My read on this is that this stuff is always bubbling under the surface, also. Like you can’t indefinitely ignore race issues because they’re tricky politically.

natesilver: Democrats derive certain benefits from having a more diverse coalition, one of which is that the coalition is simply broader — more people identify as Democrats in this country than Republicans. It also entails certain costs, including tension among different parts of your constituency that can have racial undertones (or even overtones).

The hard part for Democrats right now is that nonwhite voters are significantly disempowered by the Electoral College, and especially by the Senate.

[sunnyvaiprion]

Hi! I have a question (two actually) So how do you use Mr Dark Prince in battle? And is there a 4th mysterious member along your Julius/Reinhardt/Child!Azura team? (I love these interactions of them you draw btw~)

Oh, thanks!! 

About the team: yes! Since it’s a primarily AR team, there are two more! One of them is basically defaulted to Eir, but more often than not she stays as far away as she possibly can from any action (she has a nice heal though. Also she can throw Julius into enemies if he cant walk there fast himself). And second is a wildcard that varies from team to team (it was supposed to be a bonus unit, but it seems like Eir will stay for quite a long time), but my “main” now uses Bride Ninian for… no apparent reson besides being a dancer and me liking her. I will most likely change her for someone else/heavily alter her build because it’s actually pretty wacky with this team, but for now she stays (because she can fulfill her main purpose which is assisting trap removal in tight spaces). 

And now, About Julius: Ranged units can be a major pain. Sometimes (more like nearly always) you cant initiate on one and run without the rest of them scattering like dust particles if you blow on them all across the map with their dancers (especially now with Lazura), and to bait them you need someone who can take entire triangle and probably physical damage too, all at once. Use a dragon? Yes… a dragon.

Due to it being a somewhat lenghty text, I am putting it under the cut. 

If someone else thought about using him but was afraid that he isnt “a good unit” or “not favoured by meta” - I’d recommend you read into this too!

I have my Julius with Loptous, Reposition, Iceberg, Distant Defence, Guard, Attack Ploy, and another Distant Defence. which is - a wall. I place him in a space where he can be targeted by units I want (nearly any ranged, tbh. IF there’s a melee frontiline unit - Reinhardt has a message for them.) so he can kill them or hold them in place, and make sure my team can give him maximum amount of drives without putting anyone in danger. (oftenmost it’s just Azura and that’s it but still). 

Pros:

It’s VERY hard to kill him during EP. Even blue mages and bows/daggers with high attack struggle to deal non-zero damage to him, especially pre-dance. TA blue mage dancers included, as they usually dont break 50 attack mark by much.

No specials. Unless a special is pre-charged on turn 1 (or 2CD with Heavy/Flashing blade after dance), no luck trying to damage him with one either while guard is up and have fun offing it. Glimmer still deals a 0. Moonbow most likely a single digit.

He has high attack but without QR he will unlikely kill a unit coming at him on their first initiation (unless its low res green OR Reinhardt)…. which will waste a dancer’s turn to dance them instead of dancing some out-of-range thing you DONT want to attack, like a melee fast sword in that far-off corner.

On second initiation (if danced, alternatively someone else if the first unit died or didnt get a dance) that unit is guaranteed dead, though, because Iceberg hits like a truck especially with his already nice attack and STUPIDLY HIGH RES especially on EP. If they somehow survive this (Aversa with res wave on comes to mind) - its not a crazy PP unit so their damage is definitely a hard 0, so no biggie. Also works with a fast dazzle staff or if first enemy fails to double, since CD is 3.

With his res he can atk ploy virtually any unit of his choice, making the most dangerous unit to him (usually a physical or Ophelia) less dangerous at least pre-dance (when they have a chance to land more attacks).

His speed is actually not THAT bad. He usually doesnt mind getting doubled, but still. If you throw some speed buffs on him he can deny even some fast units their doubles. This might come in handy when fighting aforementioned units.

He is a lot easier to actually obtain and merge than similar units (Micaiah, Deirdre, Kliff maybe?) due to not being a 5-star locked or even limited unit. Unless you are a whale, and I dont judge, but for me it’s a big plus right there. Skills I have on him are also all widely available (I got DD off Garon).

Ranged anti-dragon weapons are all green (= normal blue for Julius, multiplier-wise). After Nagas got refines I actually started seeing them on defence maps. Guess what, still 0 damage. Daggers are trickier but a lot rarer and still manageable. They added an inheritable one just now but… why would anyone actually use it on heroes except it’s native user (who is also green) ?? Either way you wont see much of that.

See that Surtr? Julius will take care of him for you, too, with his high attack. In a single hit, if you pre-charge his Iceberg on something else. I know that almost any red mage can do it, but I heared some people still struggle. He can take a DC-hit from him too, if he runs one.

He can tank Ophelia, but be careful. For her he needs res buffs, especially the visible one, because of her initial AoE. Atk ploy her. If she can get an attack buff, It’d be great for you to have panic ploy too (right now there’s a lot of options, including Panic Manor). On a positive note, there should be plenty of mages on the same team as her, probably red and green, which wont really bother him afterwards.  

That’s Julius. We love our possessed lord.

Cons:    

While he takes little to no damage from any ranged source, Poison Strike-esque damage will get him good. Pain+ healers arent particulary dangerous because they cant deal any more damage to him no matter what, but units like firesweep bow double poison lyn are not very nice for him to face head-on (yes, I hate her in particular with burning passion), especially if she gets danced, receive a buff and attacks again, while there are other non-zero damage units in the back. But unlike a melee unit in the front line, it’s not always an option to snipe her (or any other unit like her) prior to Julius getting in range. This is, honestly, your worst nightmare. Be very careful with things like that and calculate damage dealt to make sure he wont die. … even though I think it’s not just his problem. But he doesnt easily solve it.  

He is reliant on team support to fight ranged physicals. Not going to lie about it. Def Tactic (or a wave if you’re into them) and 1-2 drive defs (ideally distant guard) should do, which is by no means too much investment, but it should be done.

His player phase leaves a lot to be desired. But like… what’s new? He’s enemy phase per advertisement. He still can Iceberg someone to the ground should he have it ready, or finish off someone previously mangled in EP, though.

He’s likely to deal more than 50% HP in one hit to PP heroes, especially ones that dump res or run LnD, which will activate wings of mercy, and a WoM melee unit can warp to his face and smack him. BUT usually dancers run WoM, and those have lower-end stats, so he should be okay at the very least. The only lancer dancer in the game is OG Azura, but …when was the last time I’ve seen her…  anyway, be careful with WoM.

He’s going to get Chill Res’d. He will get Chill Res’d every time every day of the week cause you wont find any ally with more res than him to “bait” chill res. It’s not like he will die from it though.

He’s infantry, so unfortunately, no easy fortify/wards for him. But if he was any other movtype - it’d bring it’s own problems, so… maybe it’s for the best. Also distant guard is a thing now.

He wants to stay above 80% hp and it’s very easy until he starts taking 5+ damage per hit. If it’s the case - you need to start paying attention to enemy specials again, especially longer CD ones.

Alternatives: While I am happy with how he does his job for now, I am planning make one adjustment, which is - give him Steady Stance 4. (once I get the fodder Surtr, which is not so soon). It will allow him to use his entire HP pool more effectively, and will give him extra survivability against physical threats, even if by a little bit. Additionally, it will protect him againt melee units too (like a WoM dancer teleporting to him) for safety measures and it will open up B slot! Losing 6 res (and 3 Iceberg damage) is not a big deal compared to all those benifits, ESPECIALLY since staying above 80% would be no longer needed.    

I .. dont really have a plan what to put in B slot then, because I intentionally want to avoid QR for a reason I explained above. But hey, I’ll figure something out when the time comes. However QR is also a viable option if you want him to kill everything in one go.

Iceberg is also, in theory, could be replaced by Glacies, if you want more damage. But I personally decided against it, because Iceberg’s cooldown is easier to manage and it’s damage is already enough in most cases. Also Iceberg is a lot better with QR should you want to use him for insta-kills.

And for the love of Loptyr himself, dont try to build him player phase or give him Fury. There are heroes with a lot better stat spreads for PP (yes, I’ve seen a PP Julius), and Fury is a fastest way to turn off Guard/QR and ruin his excellent ability to take zeros from most things. I tried it while I didnt have DD to fodder, and I didnt get much out of it. 

Now, he fits on virtually any map, but here are some examples of AR maps which he absolutely murdered.

I rely on my dragon! I’m very glad I decided to pick him up, even if he’s not that popular of a unit. 

[only-sunday]

Im going to try and start positive. Honestly I've tried to start a blog of some sort so many different times and its never really worked out but I'm all for some positive affirmations and my therapist is always saying that I should stop always focusing on the things I do wrong so I'm going to think of all my other blog starting posts as practices for this really amazing and cool new one that I'm starting right now. So let me start again and give an intro real quick.. 

Hello! welcome to my BRAND NEW blog! Okay, great, done. 

This is one of the few non-work/university related hobbies I'm testing out in an attempt to give my mental health a little boost and keep my brain functioning semi normally. One of the ways I keep my brain from totally exploding is writing its entire contents onto paper or into a computer journal. I find this helps calm the noise inside my busy, chemically imbalanced brain and acts as a relief system. It also creates a  good ‘user manual’ to take into my therapy sessions instead of paying hundreds of dollars to sit in uncomfortable silence and, on a more positive note I guess, it helps me keep memories. Remembering certain days, certain feelings or life stages, even tracking well-being & general mental health improvement is something I find easy when I'm writing it all down. Now obviously I'm not going to be sharing all of those journal entires on a super public internet forum for the entire world to see because I don't really think that leaking my naked vulnerability is going to give me the same success in return as it did for Kim K and Ray J so I'm going to stick the the rules of “some things are better left unsaid.. or just not leaked on porn sights specifically for riches and world domination”. No judgment Kimmy.  Instead this is where I'll post my more PG stream of consciousness along with some pictures of things I like, videos of things I've done and thoughts I wish to share. I want to document my other de-depression-ing hobbies that I'm trying to include into my life as well as finally fulfilling my dreams of being a real life blogger and posting my outfits, my outings and my reviews of things. All while simultaneously improving my astonishingly low self-confidence (because to-be-fucking-honest I'm getting a little sick of not doing all the things I reeeeeeally wanna do thanks to that bullshit little dude named “self-esteem”. fuck that guy he SUCKS).  My girlfriend and I recently started a youtube channel, thanks to her beautiful friend Hannah, which started out as a joke but has actually turned into a fun little hobby for us. I like the process of filming for memory-keeping purposes but the actual editing and fine tuning of the video itself is what's most fun for me. I have no idea what I'm doing the whole time, so the challenge combined with creative energy required is a really good source of good timey feels for me- thus the basis of this blog. With working almost full-time and studying 2 degrees at university, its hard to have full days of film worthy content, which means my new and beloved vlogging hobby is now taking weeks to have a video worth posting. So I thought why not get back into blogging where I can post texts and some pictures that require a little less time, a little less editing and can help my general well-being in the process. Great idea right?! yeah duh of course!  Now here's the thing. I, just like my split in-half bi-polar brain, like to split my year into two different seasons. The first half- the shit half- is January through July (more mid July-ish I guess, depending on the whole mercury/retrograde thing) is when I'm experiencing what I call my “growing pains”. Its the part of the year that I feel moves the quickest and is usually filled with lost of sadness and tears and not a whole lot to look forward to. I hate this part of the year. But then come Leo Season. Now I'm not super into/knowledgeable of astrology etc but I do absolutely, without a doubt feel a change when Leo Season hits. And it hits hard. My self confidence is suddenly through the roof, I feel so much happier and more excited and I start to get really excited for all the good events coming up for the rest of the year. Now I'm not trying to totally discount my mental health here. I still have my MASSIVE downs and up, I still need to go to therapy and do all my other things I do to stay alive but there is a general change in who I am. My super confident, all-pink-everything, 80s loving alter ego comes out and she tends to sick around for the rest of the year while really kicking my years 2nd season off with a bang. Then following that comes, Halloween (a real favourite of mine), my anniversaries, thanksgiving (big celebration in my house hold), end of year uni celebrations, the almightily Christmas which tbh I love so much I can't even get into it in this post and then finally New Years. And as much as I really prefer winter over summer, there really is something about summer holidays that a love so much. Everyone is always getting together with other people to have fun and celebrate something, there's always lots of laughing, lots of alcohol, and pretty much no-one wants to do nothing every cause we’re all just on one big summer vacation despite all still going to our full time jobs everyday. This 2nd season of the year truly is the best. So all pf these feel good things to look forward to are something that's most definitely going to contribute to my postings.  Along with all of this I'm going to post some food recipes, some currently reading & book reviews, my YouTube videos, my outfits, my attempts to create a more eco-sustainable household, my little garden that I'm going to start soon, some photos that make me happy and my thoughts that I need to get off my chest. 

So I’m going to try and stay positive because honestly I've tried to start a blog of some sort so many different times and its never really worked out but I really feel that maybe this time could be a little bit different. I guess we’ll just have to see what happens. 

[makochosena]

Writing Chicago

okay, so i saw this reference post a long time ago that was all about new york city to help people who write about it but don’t really know about it. and i haven’t seen one about chicago, my home city, so i thought i’d make one!!

you are allowed to like this, reblog this, etc. this is for everyone to use as a reference!! i might add more information if i missed something!! if you think something is wrong or should be changed, please let me know!! this is just some general knowledge you should have about chicago from a native that you can’t really get from wikipedia. i hope you find this useful!

Linguistics

No, we do not talk like Mike Ditka. At all.

Soda is called pop.

People say “you guys.” “Y’all” is used more in southern Illinois.

Chicagoland area = Chicago + the surrounding suburbs + Northwest Indiana

The Lake Effect: a term often used, especially on the weather report. This term describes the effects the lake, Lake Michigan, have on the weather. Basically, it keeps it cool during the summer and warmer during the winter. But it’s not like you notice it in the winter because temperatures easily remain under 20 degrees from November to April.

Chicagoans will always and forever call the Willis Tower the Sears Tower. If you hear somebody say that, they either work there or they’re not from around there. And if you say it to somebody from Chicago, you’re going to get a funny look.

“The Lake” = Lake Michigan. Referenced often.

While this may not come up in writing, we say caramel like “car-mel” not “car-a-mel.”

When people say “the city,” they mean Chicago. You often hear this in the suburbs.

CTA = Chicago Transit Authority. It is comprised of train lines and bus lines.

Transportation

Sometimes you might hear something called the “skyway.” It’s Interstate 90 and it connects Chicago to Indiana. What’s noticeable about it is that it’s this giant, tollway on a giant bridge over the Calumet River. And there’s a McDonald’s right smack dab in the middle of it.

O’Hare is one of the biggest airports in the country and pretty much the primary airport of Chicago. However, there is also Chicago Midway International Airport (just called Midway). O’Hare is in northwest Chicago and Midway is closer to the Loop and Chicago’s south side.

Chicago does not have a “subway system.” Like, trains that run underground. Instead, Chicago’s subway is above ground and goes above traffic. It’s called the “L” which is short for elevated. There are 8 lines, each one named by color (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, brown, and pink). The Red Line is the longest one, going from north to south. And it is the only one that does actually go underground in downtown Chicago. Nobody uses the Yellow Line because it only goes from Northern Chicago to Skokie, one of the northwest suburbs of Chicago. People who use the Yellow Line are commuters between Chicago and Skokie. The only other Line that goes outside of Chicago is the Purple Line, which goes to Wilmett and Evanston, two suburbs literally right outside of Chicago.

The Loop is Chicago’s downtown. It’s called the loop because majority of the CTA lines have stations that circle around the downtown. So it’s called the loop because of it. People say “the Loop” when they’re talking about downtown or taking the CTA. Some lines of the CTA only circle the loop.

Metra vs. Amtrak. The Metra is a train that connects Chicago to the suburbs. The L is more like a subway that arrives at every station in ten-minute intervals. The Metra is more like a train with more scheduled times. The L takes you around Chicago. The Metra takes you out of it. The Amtrak takes you out of Chicago to the rest of the country. Some stops are in the suburbs. But if you’re taking the Amtrak to the suburbs, chances are, Chicago was not your starting point. You’d be coming from another city, such as Springfield, and stopping in Chicago before going out to the suburbs. The Metra is for commuters.There are two stations for the Metra and Amtrak, Union Station and Ogilvie Transportation Center (OTC), both located a block apart from each other, both in downtown. 

You don’t drive in the city. It’s a nightmare. Road rage is everywhere. Most people take the L, the bus, cabs, or Uber. People only drive in the city if they’re coming from outside or going outside of the city. 

Here is the CTA map just for shits and giggles. 

Weather

It’s so unpredictable. It will be 50 degrees in the morning and snow by 3 pm.

Also, 50 degrees is considered warm in Chicago. People are wearing shorts even at 40 degrees tbh. Also, it is always colder in Chicago than in the suburbs. And the suburbs are colder than central Illinois. You can tell the difference when you are traveling. 

Chicago is a very windy city. And there is a big difference in temperature with the wind chill. 

Schools will not close, even if there is a foot of snow on the ground and/or it is below zero degrees.

Likewise, it can be extremely hot in Chicago. Like, summers are usually well over 80 degrees. There just is no in-between. 

Natural disasters? Uncommon. There are occasional earthquakes that happen like once every other year and they’re usually so little that people just sleep right through them. Tornadoes are the most common, but even those are infrequent and only really occur in rural Illinois. 

Attractions

Some popular sites in Chicago, even for natives, are Navy Pier, Millennium Park, Shedd Aquarium, Adler Planetarium, Brookfield Zoo, Sears Tower, Museum of Science and Industry, Field Museum, The Art Institute, Lake Michigan, the Chicago River, and Wrigley Field.

Millennium Park is extremely popular. It’s located inside the loop and every year, there’s a special Christmas tree lighting. People ice skate there all the time in the winter and there’s the Bean. The Bean is officially called the “Cloud Gate” but everybody calls it “the Bean.” It’s this giant, stainless steel sculpture that’s like looking into a mirror. This is prime selfie spot here.

The Field Museum is home of Sue, the most complete T-Rex skeleton in the world. She’s pretty cool. People love swimming in Lake Michigan or going to the beaches, even if it is 50 degrees out. The Polar Plunge is popular. Wrigley Field is kind of a major attraction because of the Cubs but also because it is the second oldest baseball park in America. Except for the giant screens and a brand new bullpen, the field pretty much is the same as when it opened in 1912. You can go to the top of the Sears Tower, to the 110th floor, and go on the “Sky Deck.” There are glass boxes attached to the outside of the building where you can walk on and view the city. It’s the best view in the whole city. 

You can also get the world’s largest ice cream sundae at Margie’s Candies, or so they say. I’ve had it, it is absolutely enormous, and it tastes incredible.

Lollapalooza. This is the biggest event in Chicago every single year. It is this giant music festival. It is filled with young adults, drugs, cops, and booze. It’s the Coachella of Chicago. Tickets sell out within hours of going on sale. When I was in high school, people honestly skipped school so they can stay home and buy their Lolla tickets. People do not fuck around when it comes to this.

Population

Very Polish. You see it in the street names.

Very democratic. Illinois is a democratic state because of Chicago’s population. Rural Illinois is way more Republican.

The main ethnic groups of Chicago are Irish, German, Latinx (especially Mexican), Assyrian, Arab, Jewish, English, Black, Korean, Chinese, Filipino, Puerto Rican, Indian, Italian, Cuban, and Polish. The suburbs tend to have a higher population of white people with low populations of people of color.

Sports

It’s a major thing in Chicago. Home of the Bulls (basketball), Bears (football), Blackhawks (hockey), Cubs (baseball), and White Sox (baseball).

The Bulls and the Blackhawks are Chicago’s most successful teams and the most popular.

Everyone is a Bears fan and everyone hates the Bears. They have been extremely unsuccessful the past like 7 seasons. People care a lot about the Bears. Most Bears fans really hate the Green Bay Packers.

The north side of Chicago belongs to the Cubs. The south side belongs to the White Sox. The city is very divided on this one and fans of either team don’t really get along with fans from the other team. However, everyone can agree that the Cubs winning the World Series was amazing. The Cubs have an intense rivalry with the St. Louis Cardinals, and the fans hate the Cardinals like the Bears hate the Packers. 

Food

So you’ll mostly find your average food chains around Chicago. McDonald’s, Starbucks, etc. However, Chicago is also known for its Chicago-style hot dogs, Maxwell Street Polishes, and the deep dish pizza. Chicagoans will always tell you that their pizza is better than New York’s.

However, the most popular food chains are local ones: Portillo’s, Giordano’s, Oberweis, Steak ‘n Shake. Portillo’s is famous for their beef (hot dogs, Italian beef, burgers) and their chocolate cake shakes. Portillo’s is Chicago’s In-N-Out Burger. If you are looking for the most Chicago pizza ever, Giordano’s is the place to go. Oberweis sells ice cream, milkshakes, and milk. And Steak ‘n Shake is crazy popular because of their steakburgers, shakes, and for their ridiculously low prices.

Other Notes

Illinois south of Bloomington is like a whole different state. Northern Illinois is dominated by Chicago. Outside of the Chicagoland area, it’s more rural--save for smaller cities like Freeport, Rockford, Springfield, Bloomington, Peoria, Urbana-Champaign--and extremely different. People even talk differently in some places!

The Chicago River is dyed green every St. Patrick’s Day. Like, it is legit green. St. Patrick’s Day is one of the biggest celebrations in Chicago, even if you aren’t Irish. There’s the huge parade and people just like to see a bright green river. People get so lit for this. 

Ferris Bueller’s Day off was known as “John Hughes’ love letter to Chicago.” Regardless of your opinions on the plot, characters, actors, director, etc., this film really is all about Chicago and will give you great insight on what it’s like. 

Ever since, like 2014-2015ish, Chicago has banned plastic bags. So if you go to the grocery store, chances are, you’ll be charged to use plastic bags or you wil have to bring your own or you will use paper. Depends on the store, really. Here’s a useful wesbite on the ban that tells you what you need to know. 

If you have any questions, comments, concerns, feel free to ask me!! Happy writing!!! 

[galacticnova3]

that anon's a weirdo for passive aggressively complaining that your take on a villain from a video game for children isn't their preferred flavour of sexymanifiable or whatever. anyway i think magolor can be a funny loser jerkhole of a teenager as a treat, your take is honestly more in-line with how he acts in-game than a lot of interps i've seen tbh

Ikr? My guy this site is a buffet line if you don’t like what’s being served just move on to the next blog.

I’ll admit I do water him down a little more than most in that he’s not like, actively an asshole or seeking ways to cause trouble beyond average young person mischief. Part of that is because he legitimately wants to try and be better(why squander a second chance at life the same way he did his first?), but there’s also a degree of ‘I’m tired of people being mad at me, like, I cause a series of events that lead to me trying world domination ONE TIME and suddenly I’m “evil” and “a threat” and “shouldn’t be here”’ to it as well. Far from a heart of gold, but definitely not a heart of coal either, just like actual people. Many bad things have been done with good intentions, and in my Magolor’s case his actions were 80% wanting to make his home not suck, 19% “power and influence is cool, I want it and I’ll do some bad things to get it if need be”, 1% history nerd learns cool magical artifact is less than 2 hours from his home and is curious.

And in terms of leaning more towards him being anxious vs incredibly confident, it’s just a case of me looking at things like… He probably scripted a lot of his interactions in RtD, most of the Let Me Explain Everything speech included(pretty much everything up until “your planet gets to go first” and afterwards). It’s easy to be confident when you have a plan to follow and have come up with ideas for how to respond to a given situation; just follow your own instructions. It’s usually anxiety or the like that leads to someone wanting to plan out interactions before even having them, though; winging a conversation can be stressful, and the thought of saying the wrong thing with so much at stake would also be a factor. To me the small things point to that to a degree; the seemingly not-so-thought-out haircut excuse, telling Kirby to hurry up, “high-five low-five all that” style giving up on word choice. He was running out of script and kinda scrambling. Also, as someone with anxiety who regularly plays out possible conversations in my head to be prepared for them regardless of how unlikely, I just find it much easier to write. It also feels nice to make content of someone who’s anxious but not particularly looked down on for it or teased about it or constantly pressured to “just stop being anxious!” because for a long time I didn’t have that experience.

I admit Magolor is one of the characters I’m most nervous to talk about specifically because my interpretation seems to differ so much from others’. I don’t feel the same way with Lor, or even Nova, I guess just because it doesn’t feel like I’m a piece of bread among a flock of fandom pigeons with those two. With Marx the “being different is scary” is outweighed by my spite for asshole Marx fans I’ve dealt with. But with Magolor I feel a lot more pressured by fanon and also specifically how he’s written in most external media. RtD light novel that I despise notwithstanding, it feels like HAL is leaning towards him actually not being genuine at all, which I just think is pointless and boring. But I also prefer not to contradict canon when it comes to making my interpretation— I’m definitely the “well canon doesn’t say this ISN’T how stuff is” sort of headcanon haver— and if it ends up being canon idk what I’d do.

I appreciate the encouragement a lot, though, so thanks for that. I feel like a golden retriever who has been told I am a good dog.

[bunchofbooks]

It’s Time for Kyrsten’s Opinion: Books Finished in September Edition

Hello all! As September is finishing and October is right around the corner (!!!) I thought it’s time to make a post for the books I finished in September. As you can see above I read 6 books in the month of September (4 five star books, 1 four star book, and 1 2 star book), and one book that is not pictured I did not finish. Below the cut are my reviews of the books read including the one I did not finish in the order of most enjoyed reads to least enjoyed. Please note if any of the books have content warnings! 

Have you read any of these books, what was on your TBR for September and what did you get through, what is on your October TBR? 

1. My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix; 5/5 stars (CW: animal abuse, violence) - It’s 1988, Abby and Gretchen are best friends and when they and two other friends go skinny dipping and take acid one night, the timid and kind Gretchen completely changes. Everyone thinks that Gretchen is going through some normal teenage emotions, but Abby thinks something much more sinister is going on with her friend. This book was actually the last one I finished in September but one of my favorites. It was such a good way to kick off the fall season with a spooky book. There were definitely parts of it that made me uncomfortable and the ways that Gretchen changed at points was so subtle that I could see why no one would notice them right away and the ending was so good and corny (much like other 80′s books/shows/movies). I would not recommend this book to younger readers, mostly because of the language and some of the scenes were a lot to read, but for someone who was trying to get into the mood for the spooky season I would say go for it. 

2. Foolish Hearts by Emma Mills; 5/5 stars - Claudia over hears the most popular couple in her school break up at a party and is a new victim for Iris, who is “brutally honest” (but really means rude), when the two have to work on a year long project together, a production of a Midsummer Night’s Dream, they begin to bond and form a relationship that some might even consider a friendship. I went into this book with such low expectations, I honestly thought I was going to hate it so imagine my surprise when I laughed out loud at some parts, almost cried, and did not want the story to end! I thought Claudia was hilarious and as much as I did not like Iris at the beginning, by the end she was great. I even loved the love interest, Gideon and his friend, Noah. Gideon and Noah are seniors in high school and best friends and are not afraid to show their platonic love for each other, which is awesome to see because men, especially boys at this age re not usually ones to show that they appreciate their friends. I thought the way the teenage characters spoke to each other was so realistic and their reactions to certain situations were spot on. I saw a lot of myself and my group of friends when we were in high school in this group of friends. 

3. How to Make a Wish by Ashley Herring Blake; 5/5 stars - Since she was two years old and her father died, it has always been Grace and her mother, Maggie. Unfortunately for Grace, since she was two years old and her father died it has always been her and her mother, Maggie. Maggie is not a stable person, she has put her child in many difficult positions time and time again, she has taken her to bars, moved her into homes with men she has started dating only to have them kicked out months later, she has driven while intoxicated with her child in the car. Grace knows this is wrong, but this is just the way that her mother is - has always been. Grace is more of a mother figure to her own mother than Maggie has ever been. When a new girl, Eva, moves to town into Grace’s best friend, Luca’s house after her mother suddenly passes away, Grace and Eva quickly bond over the absence of a mother in their lives and develop a relationship that exceeds friendship. So many times when we have abusive parents in books, they are physically, emotionally, verbally, or sexually abusive but I found Maggie to be a beast in YA fiction we have yet to really encounter - a mother who is generally a good person to her daughter. Grace knows her mother is not always stable, but believes she is a good person deep down. Maggie does not put her hands on her child, does not call her names, but she is without a doubt an abusive parent. She puts her daughter in harm’s way and does not think anything of it, which is what I thought was great about this book. 

4. Hawkeye Vs. Deadpool by Gerry Dugan; 5/5 stars - It’s Halloween and Hawkeye and Deadpool need to team up to fight a group of vigilante’s who are dressing as superheros and causing chaos throughout the city. This was my first time reading a Hawkeye comic and I loved it, I had read other Deadpool books before but this one was especially hilarious. I love Deadpool so much and have enjoyed the comic of his I’ve read so far. 

5. Kids of Appetite by David Arnold; 4/5 stars- Kids of Appetite starts with the murder of Mad’s uncle and the death of Vic’s father. VIc’s dad dies and his mother is with her new boyfriend and his two awful children and when she gets proposed to, Vic runs and meets right with a group of kids who ran from their own homes and together form a group, The Kids of Appetite. While I loved the idea of family being not what you come from but what you create, I was not as into this book as I have been with Mosquitoland. I thought how Vic saw Mad was very manic pixie dream girl-ish and could not be less enthused. I feel like a large portion of her part in the book was to further Vic’s plot and I wished I knew more about Mad. She just screamed manic pixie dream girl in Vic’s POV and while it was her own POV I loved her. I just wish she was perceived better, especially by Vic. 

6. Catalyst  by Laurie Halse Anderson; 2/5 stars (CW: abuse and incest)  - Kate Malone is an honor roll student, star track runner, preacher’s daughter, and on a one way track to MIT (just as soon as she gets her acceptance letter). Until her life has a pretty big wrench in her plans, her neighbor’s home burns down, and the girl who lives in it - the bully of the school - Terri Litch needs to move in. I picked this book only because it was a Laurie Halse Anderson book and hated it. Speak is one of my all time favorite books, so when I read Catalyst and was less than thrilled I was super surprised. I thought the character, Kate was unlikable, her friends were terrible, and the only person who I felt bad for was Terri and every character did the most to make it seem like she was the villain. I will say I absolutely lost it when I was reading this book and sobbed on the couch, but that does not necessarily mean that it was good by any means. I would not recommend this book at all to anyone who was a Laurie Halse Anderson fan. 

7 (kind of). How to Hang a Witch by Andrea Mather; DNF - Sam is moving to Salem, home of the infamous witch trials, with her step mother. Sam does not believe in ghosts or monsters or haunting, but the town certainly does. When it is found that Sam’s (insert like a hundred greats here) grand father was the person responsible for hanging the most witches in the town, another group of kids who are (you guessed it) the (insert so many greats here) grandchildren of the witches who were accused and killed in Salem, tensions are high and Sam very well may have to become a believer in order to break a curse placed on the town that puts the people she loves in the cross-hairs. I did not like what I read of this book. I read less than 150 pages and even that felt like too much tbh. Sam was unlikable, her step mother was unlikable and essentially it was an instant love story and Sam and the kid that lived next door knew each other for like fifteen minutes and broke up and got back together three times in those fifteen minutes. The ~descendants~of the witches were. . . terrible. They were so obnoxious and if I wanted to watch a cheesy movie about witches I would watch Hocus Pocus or Halloweentown.