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tailsrevane · 1 month

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gencon 2024 after action report, part 1: pregame (wednesday) & day 1 (thursday)

under the cut for anyone who doesn't care about all the cool indie rpgs i played over the weekend lmao.

the players!

me!

mommy! ( @vi-the-deer )

grammy! (my & mommy's partner)

cj! (grammy's husband, our metamour)

grammy & cj go to gencon nearly every year, and as grammy had accompanied us to magiccon chicago she figured she'd return the favor by having us along for this year's gencon!

mommy & i flew to st. louis tuesday night to meet up with grammy & cj. our hotel that night was pretty nice in a weird way, it kind of reminded me of a really upscale college dorm with a very modern/ikea aesthetic? it's one of those hotels that's trying really hard not to look like a hotel. but yeah, it was nice! not weirdly, shockingly bad. ([hbomberguy voice] foreshadowing is a literary device--). we belatedly celebrated mommy's birthday with some cake and got some rest to get ready for an awesome roadtrip followed by an awesome convention.

on wednesday we originally wanted to go to the st. louis science center, which i had been to & loved decades ago when i went to college in springfield illinois, but sadly it is not open on wednesdays! so instead we went to the st. louis zoo, which is apparently the biggest free zoo in the country? and i gotta say, it offers an experience that's pretty comparable to most non-free zoos i've been to. (also, yeah, i'm a bit ethically dubious about zoos, but my going to them or not going to them isn't really going to affect whether they exist or not, and from what i could tell this one was very well-run by people who genuinely care about the animals there.)

we saw a number of awesome animals, but i think my favorite part was probably the bird house as birds are among my favorite animals. we spent a few hours having a very pleasant (other than it being extremely hot outside) walk through the zoo, but eventually it was time to get on the road.

i'm not necessarily going to talk about everywhere we stopped for food, but i would be remiss if i didn't mention that our day 1 dinner stop was the burger king. no not a burger king, THE burger king, a tiny restaurant in a tiny town in illinois that won a lawsuit to keep its name because it existed before the larger chain that shares its name. (well, minus the "the.")

i will admit that while i lived in illinois for fully more than half of my life, and even having spent my college years in central illinois rather than the comparatively more progressive chicago area, i was somewhat unprepared to be back in a small town in the middle of nowhere where 90% of the population is white and it feels like you're being stared at when 3 of the 4 of you are very visibly trans. it kind of felt like being back home in a not entirely pleasant way, but no one was outright hostile. and to be honest if you like extremely unhealthy cheeseburgers you can do MUCH worse than the original burger king. the food was kind of incredible.

anyway, we got back on the road, and crashed at a hotel most of the way to indiana. this was another totally normal hotel that wasn't weirdly bad with a staff that was weirdly preemptive about it being weirdly bad. (foreshadowing is a literary dev--)

we got up super early thursday morning, and headed for the con. i've actually been to indianapolis for multiple conventions because when i used to live in chicago the two furry cons (yes i used to go to furry cons & it's not inconceivable that i will do so again at some point) it was the easiest for me to get to were midwest furfest (which was in chicago and huge) and indyfurcon (which was in indianapolis and not nearly as huge, especially considering i went to the first few iterations of it, no idea what it's like these days if it's still a thing). this is the first gencon i've ever been to, and it's markedly larger than any other con i've ever been to. i'm used to a con taking up a fairly large conference hotel or (at most) part of a city's convention center. gencon took up an entire convention center plus multiple nearby hotels plus a literal nfl stadium??? (see the pic above the cut lmao.)

that also wasn't even the only way in which it was larger than any other con i've been to before? it's also the first con i've been to that had a full slate of thursday events as well as the more typical all-day friday/all-day saturday/half-day sunday. heck, most furry cons i've been to don't even have all-day fridays since the first thing that happens is usually an opening ceremony in the early afternoon.

mommy & i booked a couple mtg events on saturday because of course we did, but i was really looking forward to playing a bunch of indie rpgs considering that we have a rather embarrassing pile of them at home considering we've never actually sat down and played one. (tbf i am working on a solo run of the almanac of sanguine paths, but i think that's the first rpg i've played that isn't d&d apart from playing like one session of shadowrun that ended up not going anywhere.)

the first thing mommy & grammy & i did on thursday was play a session of yazeba's bed & breakfast. already we were starting with a game that's drastically different than any i've played before. it's sort of a cozy, queer, story-heavy roleplay experience with predetermined characters & scenarios. you keep track of character progress by making physical changes to the book & character sheets with stickers and such, and you can "unlock" different characters & scenarios & features of the hotel as you play through various chapters.

the vibe of the game is very much that you're taking on roles of already-existing characters and playing through their choices in a storybook, and i have to admit that prior to playing this game i had never really understood the appeal of these sorts of games as creating a very specific character to express myself has always been a big part of the appeal for me with rpgs. this reminded me more of the kind of enjoyment i got from one of my favorite pc games, beacon pines. it's less of a big world where you have adventures and more of an already-written story that you get to participante in and shape with your choices.

the chapters in the book are intentionally given fairly arbitrary chapter numbers and arranged in the book in a pretty random order, which resulted in our gm saying the highly enjoyable words "we'll go ahead and start with the first chapter in the book, which is chapter 3."

each chapter starts with a pretty detailed prompt that reads like the opening few pages of a chapter in a book, ending with a jumping off point for the people playing to take over deciding what their character is doing. there doesn't seem to be any kind of initiative or turn order, but everyone at our table was pretty polite about making sure everyone was getting roughly equal chances to make their choices. the game is also diceless, with chapters having some kind of fixed way of resolving their various actions including taking & giving tokens, flipping coins, picking playing cards, etc.

after you've played through the chapter, there's a passage for the gm to read depending on how successful you were at whatever mechanic the chapter is based on, and you might unlock some boons for your characters, the hotel, or unlock new characters & chapters altogether.

the game also seems to actively encourage you trying out different characters. each chapter seems to have one or two mandatory characters and then allows you to pick any characters you've unlocked, though our gm was super nice and offered to let me use a character who wasn't technically unlocked yet because they had come up in my brief research of the game and i liked the sound of them, but i was too shy to take them up on that in our first chapter.

for the first chapter i played gertrude, and while she wasn't as natural of a fit for me, me playing a moody, anxious teenager also certainly wasn't the biggest stretch anyone's ever asked someone to make while roleplaying.

the character i really enjoyed playing, though, was the moon prince.

i know a big part of the game is probably "trying on" different characters, and i do genuinely want to give more of them a try, but i feel like if i get a chance to play this game a lot more i'll likely end up "maining" the moon prince in a similar way to how i mostly played mercy when i played overwatch but side-mained d.va or lucio at various points in my "career." (yeah, cannot imagine anyone else is out there comparing this rpg to overwatch, but it's the point of comparison i have for this specific aspect, leave me alone.)

i really do enjoy the vibes of this game so i do hope i get to play more of it! mommy did buy the book so there's a decent chance we'll be playing more of it. fingers crossed!

after this, which was our first scheduled game, we kind of flailed around looking for stuff to do. we did end up spending a good amount of time in the exhibition hall but that was hella overwhelming so i was only able to tolerate it for so long. we did get to see wyrmspan being demoed and i get what people are saying when they say it's more crunchy than wingspan. while "wingspan but draogns" is still a phenomenal concept for a game, i will admit that as i saw it being demoed no matter how cool the new mechanics seemed, i kind of found myself missing the cozy vibes & lightly educational aspects of wingspan? i especially wish they had replaced all the bird facts with fake dragon facts rather than just using the whole card for gameplay stuff, but ah well. i'm sure i'll enjoy it if i get around to playing it.

eventually we ended up checking out the "games on-demand" room, and ended up playing a game i've seen a bunch of times at work but never actually played, untitled ghost game.

this game is normally gm-less, but at the convention with players who had never played it before, we had a really awesome gm facilitating it for us. and honestly i think that was a big part of why the game went as well for us as it did, because mommy & i were matched up with an extremely normie couple one of whom unironically said "just don't call me late to dinner" when asked for pronouns which is basically the 20s equivalent of the 90s "i just don't see color" for those who are fortunate enough not to know.

that being said, we managed to tell a really great story together thanks largely to the guidance of our gm but also just... not to get too hippy-dippy (that's for a later game! you'll see.), but this really reminded me of the way games can often bring wildly different people together. everyone is just here to have a good time, and... i don't know, there's something really encouraging about that.

so yeah, basically you all take turns describing different aspects of the setting and then us as a ghost and then the person or place being haunted, you decide if you want to intensify the feelings that the person or place is having or if you want to help them overcome them, and then you flip a coin to see how you do. and in the case of our game we very quickly established an identity as a ghost who, while somewhat mischievous, really did want to help, and it ended up being incredibly wholesome.

i don't know that this is necessarily a game i'll come back to unless i end up thinking someone else will really vibe with it, but i really am glad i had the experience i had playing it. it was genuinely lovely.

once we finished that, grammy had finished her gm shift and it was time to meet up for dinner and chill until the first game all four of us were playing together, weird heroes of public access.

whpa is a 2d6 game in which the players take on the role of a host of a local public access tv host in a town that's about to experience some supernatural fuckery. your can host something like a cooking show, a variety show, a talkshow, etc. i named my character kenny kaiju and gave him a monster movie review show called kaiju kino.

our scenario saw the town being taken over by some kind of demon who was using the station to hypnotize its denizens into slaves. i had very normal feelings about this!

our gm (sorry, "station manager") was pretty cool and i had a lot of fun with this game. it wasn't my favorite of the weekend or anything, but i think it solidly delivered on its premise and i wouldn't mind playing it again sometime.

anyway, that was a wrap on day 1! i was pretty exhausted thanks to a combination of jetlag and getting up early to drive the rest of the way to indy, and i think all of us were in a similar boat (even though grammy & cj weren't dealing with jetlag, having only crossed one timezone). so we headed to the hotel which was... pretty awful tbh.

like, it's genuinely fine, it's not like we were going to spend much time there doing anything other than sleeping, but the weird preemptive defensiveness of the staff made it much worse. my favorite part was when we were surprised that there wasn't an elevator and the front desk clerk who was nowhere near us yelled that um actually this was built before the americans with disabilities act so it didn't need an elevator. um, ok, cool? really set a tone there. (they also made some really weird choices like actively removing chairs from the breakfast area on sunday like they were actively trying to shoo all the convention attendees out of the hotel faster. like, y'all, DON'T worry. we were NOT planning on lingering.)

again, it was fine, it wasn't wildly unsafe or anything, i don't want to come off like i'm being overly complainy. but i will say that it is NOT very obvious from their website that the hotel is completely inaccessible to anyone with mobility issues. which fortunately isn't really any of the four of us, but like... i've literally seen events be more clear about the accessibility of buildings they do not own than this hotel is about the place you're relying on being able to sleep at? (heck, i've ORGANIZED events at older venues that unfortunately weren't accessible, and we were always VERY clear about that in every form of advertising. as far as i can tell, literally the only way you can tell that about this hotel on their website is that there's a small tab on the features that's greyed out instead of white. i know most people with mobility issues likely check very closely for this kind of thing so hopefully no one has ended up in an unfortunate situation, but like... seriously, do better.)

and like, yeah i get that it would be kinda difficult to install an elevator in a building that wasn't meant to have one, but you know what's not difficult? adding as many power outlets as a modern hotel should have. having walls that don't have holes in them. having mattresses that aren't lumpy & stiff as fuck. bringing new towels a single time? or failing that, when we ask for more towels at the desk giving us towels rather than not being able to find any and just giving us bathmats instead??? having dressers that aren't literally missing all their drawers?????? this was a hotel owned by a large hotel chain. there is no reason it should be this crummy & depressingly poorly maintained.

again, it's fine, but absorbing all this while we were all super sleep deprived and overwhelmed from the con was kind of a... Moment. we did our best to take it in stride, though, and crashed to get ready for another day of gaming!

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viridiave · 11 months

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A little love post to HORROR JRPGs

Content Warning:

So I'm gonna be talking a lot about some pre-Undertale era RPG Maker Horror games, and this post is gonna contain both spoilers and the discussion of the following:

Blood and Gore

Psychological horror

Child abuse

Sexual assault

Suicide

Violence

Fictional minors being put into very messed up situations, because that's just the kinds of games these are

Other upsetting themes

Hetalia (because I can imagine that all of us have very complex feelings about this fucking franchise. It existing feels like it needs a warning)

This post is a nostalgia trip and exists purely because uh. I have literally no one else to talk to about these games, and please just click away if any of the above makes you uncomfortable in any way. Some of this stuff can't exactly be handwaved as just being products of their time.

I'll draw smthn real quick later just to make up for it I promise

I'm like days late to Halloween but I just wanted to write this after getting a bout of nostalgia lmao

I absolutely fucking love Horror JRPGs - the freeware ones, even though I haven't touched one in a LONG time. I'm talking about the pre-Undertale era freeware games by the way, and in the first place I don't think I can consider Undertale a horror game but that's a topic for another day. OneShot also doesn't count aksjak OneShot gives me existential dread and a nonzero amount of guilt sure, but never terror

But let's dial that back a bit.

To begin with. 'Vir, you're a fucking coward, you run upstairs when you see that someone on TV has a gun. You can't stand watching horror movies. How the FUCK did this happen'

Weirdly, you can thank Hetalia for that. Specifically, the freeware Hetalia fangames that used to circulate on DeviantArt - that shit led me down this rabbit hole. And I guess it made sense, most Hetalia fangames are a coin toss between a horror game and a fantasy JRPG with countries getting isekai'd. I also played the fuck out of those.

For a bit of background, I love video games, but neither me nor my family ever really had that much spending power to buy game consoles, so my selection was pretty limited. Before I turned 18, I remember that we owned a GameBoy, a GameBoy Advance, a PSP, and one of those Fun-Sized Nintendo consoles with built-in games. We never bought cartridges either. I got my first DS from my dad on my birthday when I turned 18, and that's all the consoles that my family has ever owned. Still kinda jealous of my friends who have Switches, but eh - one day.

I just played a lot of Harvest Moon growing up, that's been my object of interest in my elementary days. The most of a horror game that I've been exposed to was watching my friends play Five Nights At Freddy's back in 5th grade.

Then high school happened, and I got new friends and shit - and was introduced to both more conventional horror games and Hetalia. Which is. A really weird combination when I think about it now, but everyone who was alive and kicking around in the early 2010's would know what HetaOni is, and you can see how that slope led to me playing freeware horror games. I'll always be grateful to these games, seeing as I never had easy access to mainstream experiences growing up.

I think I played HetaOni exactly once, on my first laptop. I played most Hetalia fangames exactly once, but they all just stayed on my old hard drive. None of them really had anything interesting going on gameplay-wise, I mean it's RPGMaker and these were people who just really wanted to make Hetalia fangames, but I remember some of them just sticking with me. I'd play them while I was away on trips to my grandmother's house, then watch let's plays on YouTube when I wasn't otherwise occupied with schoolwork. Really when I say Let's Plays I only mean KyoKoon64's - and that's how I was actually introduced to horror JRPGs.

CLOÉ'S REQUIEM

There's been a couple of times where they played some of the more recognizable horror JRPGs on their channel, but the first one I REALLY saw a playthrough on was one called Cloé's Requiem. I don't know what exactly it was about this specific game that stuck with me, and at the time I didn't know that this had like. More warnings than you would usually find on a horror JRPG. Calling it now, please look up said warnings before you try ANYTHING with this game - I can't promise quality and nuance, but I can promise great moments. Those moments stuck with me to this day, SOMEHOW, even after encountering games with better story and gameplay experiences… it's about a cursed 12 year-old boy trying to free a cursed 13 year-old girl, never getting a shot at the normal life he wanted and playing the violin because he can't do much else.

I think this game changed my life. Not in like, any grand manner mind you - but I feel like it's the game that best represented this time of my life as a weird high school outsider who obsesses over games that nobody's ever heard about. I was introduced to a lot of things through this game, it's just this whole volley of firsts that I wouldn't trade for anything else. Baby's first horror game, first jumpscare I ever consented to, first taste of games containing disturbing themes of sexual assault and gore, first trips to Pixiv and NicoNicoDouga - just all the fucking firsts. I wouldn't call it a great game, but it IS important to me.

When I think about it now, it's a game about curses. Michel D'Alembert is a talented violinist at 12, and his alcoholic father milks the shit out of this talent because they're not exactly what you would call well-off. His twin brother Pierre is a pianist, is nowhere near as talented as his brother, and hides his misery over this situation under a big-little brother façade. Cloé Ardennes is a pianist too, she's wealthy, talented, and still plays with her stuffed animals. She is cursed with an insane father who rapes her, and a mother who hates her. Charlotte is a young maid with nothing and tries her best, only to be killed because she happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Unsurprisingly things fall apart for everybody very quickly.

Pierre's frustrations with his spoiled, lazy brother boiled over, and he curses Michel out in a heated moment. This drives Michel to murder their Charlotte by accident, and she becomes his curse - he runs out of the house, kills cats, and finds himself in the dilapidated mansion that Cloé inhabits. Cloé by this point is already dead, and so is her dad, her parents, and the maids. Cloé's father may be her curse but she is the curse of this mansion, and it transforms into something hostile until Michel comes along and saves her from the shadow of her father. Michel plays her a requiem, and resolves to go home to confront his crimes - and back to Pierre, who regrets everything he's done. Watching the sun rise with a disappearing Cloé in the True Ending will likely be the last peaceful moment he will ever have in his life.

That's like. Not everything that happens in this game, but this post is already so goddamn long and I still have a lot of other stuff I want to talk about. But the gist of it to me nowadays is that these children are cursed with loveless lives and the whims of the adults that have power over them. In the end, their lives are all ruined. Cloé and Charlotte are dead, and we have no idea what becomes of Michel and Pierre when word gets out that Michel killed a maid and assaulted several others in the house in a fit of emotional instability. In every other ending, Michel is killed and Cloé remains an evil spirit, so really this is the best that anyone ever gets out of this experience.

I remember watching a playthrough of Con Amore on YouTube, but I understood none of it because it was in Japanese, and the game itself was untranslated at the time. It follows the cats Noir and Blanc and basically serves as an addendum to the base game - honestly it made me feel sorry for Charlotte, who was nowhere near as psychotic as Michel thought she was. There's also light novels, but international shipping is expensive and I don't know Japanese so. I'll just never figure out what happens to everyone after the game ends I guess

One of these days, I'll buy the remake on Steam - which exists, and I can't say I recommend it if everything I just listed bothers you in any way. But I can't shake the attachment I feel towards this game no matter how many years it's been, nor how uncomfortable its themes are, so you know - maybe one day. I'll go back to it.

So - following that, I got pretty curious about the other games in this genre of freeware horror. Ib is the one that everyone knows the best, both Markiplier and Pewdiepie played it so you KNOW it gets press, but even in Japan this game was a hell of a hit. To me, it's a simple game that I can finish in an hour, but man what an hour it can be.

If you were to play this game right now after seeing how much press it gets (which I think you should, it's on the Switch now! Go get it!), you MIGHT be a little disappointed. It's nowhere near as gory or disturbing as Cloe's Requiem for one and you know - a bunch of blood and guts and ghosts on the walls does not a good horror game make, but make your choices accordingly. Nah - instead this game's staying power lies in its atmosphere. Like how many games can you say take place inside of an art gallery where most of the pieces try to fucking murder you? I mean there's probably a lot, but something about Ib's almost ambient sense of dread and exploration just kind of sticks in people's brains. Everything's a little scarier when the shapes are so close to being discernable but aren't, and I guess that's the appeal and horror behind Guertena's gallery.

Ib herself is a mute protagonist, pretty typical, but she's also NINE, and the game will let you know that no matter how unfazed she gets or how precocious she can be, she is a child all the same - and children break very easily. I personally love how the game barely has to say anything about how shaken she actually is about her situation, because it will show you how - she has nightmares that you can't escape, she sees herself getting hanged, Garry will need to shake her out of her shock when she sees a picture of her parents in the gallery that should not exist. She loses all of her will to live when she loses Garry to insanity. And speaking of Garry…

There's one standout room in this game and it's the Doll Room. 10/10 would NOT recommend it to anyone who suffers from anxiety because WOW I did not think the RPG Maker 2000 engine could ever have been capable of that. Nobody blames Garry if this room fucks him up. I mean come on the dude has to literally rip open the stomachs of dolls to find a paint ball. Those sound effects make it sound like the dolls are made of skin and flesh and all the while the giant fucking doll is creeping out of the goddamn painting while some of the most anxiety-inducing background noise is playing -

Yeah no I don't know why I ever said you'd be disappointed by this game. Or maybe you still would, this is a low-res game made in 2012. But my god does it TRY to scare you in the best ways it can.

One of the best moments in this game I think is the one where Mary and Ib are alone together, and the conversation gets increasingly unhinged with Mary asking Ib questions non-stop with no background noise other than their steps. At this point, they're separated from Garry, and they're trying to find a way back to each other. Garry meanwhile is slowly piecing together the truth about Mary and how dangerous it is for Ib to remain alone with her, all the while still trying to figure out how to get back to both of them.

The section after that is in the Sketchbook which honestly? The vibes of this place are impeccable. Somehow it's fitting that one of the tensest areas in a game about a fine arts gallery is the place made entirely out of childlike scribbles.

Overall, I'd say the experience is well worth an hour or two - I'd recommend it happily over Cloé's Requiem, if only so you can have a taste of what Horror JRPGs were like before Omori came along. Yes I know that Omori isn't Japanese but it's very much in the same vein as these games.

OTHER GAMES

Those were the safe two that planted my feet firmly into the Horror JRPG fandom, but there's a lot of other titles out there, so let's go - lightning round!

Ao Oni is the ubiquitous one, like chances are you've at least HEARD of it in passing at some point in your life. Like this shit made it to the big screen in Japan, that's how much of a deal it was. I've never played the original myself, but it's partly because its formula of stuck in a mansion with a horror that chases you around is present in pretty much every Horror JRPG after its release in 2007. If you want some classic fun with the big blue demon though then you can't go wrong with the freeware version.

Mad Father and The Witch's House are part of what I like to call the Big 3 of JRPGs starring preteen girls experiencing the Horrors™, mostly because back in the mid-2010's I couldn't go three posts without seeing them all together. Mad Father is the only other one of said Big 3 that I've touched, because I was too coward to touch The Witch's House and Ellen's whole deal remains a mystery to me to this day. I think Mad Father got a remake a couple of years ago, so you can check that out if you want, but keep in mind that these two games in particular might not stoke the same kind of magical staying power that Ib somehow retained years after its release, and I know those two rely on jumpscares a lot more than Ib does.

I'll eat my fedora right here by the way, because one of my cardinal sins of being a Horror JRPG fan is that I've never played Yume Nikki. As far as these freeware games go, this is probably one of the more avant-garde ones - it's artsy, atmospheric, and a game best experienced by getting lost in the strange environments it provides. Out of every game on this post, this is the one I'd describe as the most Earthbound-esque, with its horror lying mostly in the surrealist ambience of just… wandering around in Madotsuki's mind. The end is just as quiet as the beginning, but is no less chilling to watch happen. Then you fuck around a little bit on Youtube and you find out what's actually going on, and uh - yeah that checks out, cosmic horror sounds par for the course at this point.

Yume Nikki and OFF are two of the games I think of when I hear about Horror JRPGs being talked about alongside Undertale - and nope, I haven't played OFF either. That's my other Horror JRPG sin. I was a picky teenager, but I've grown now and wow I need to find a time to play these games in peace. OFF actually isn't even Japanese, it was developed by Mortis Ghost and released in French back in 2008, making both pretty old and already pretty weird in the library. The reason I bring up OFF is because it's one of the older examples I know of that also incorporate Earthbound's precision 4th-wall breaks, and that it's a game about judgment and interrogates the player (more you than the Batter you play as, serving more as a vehicle that the game uses to ask questions through) about the choices they make in the game. OneShot is probably the one game in this genre of indie RPG that I know so far that employs this metaphysical idea of the player existing in the game in any kind of charitable fashion (aside from again, Earthbound and to some extent Mother 3), so between it, OFF, and Undertale they're what I'd refer to as the Interface Screw-RPG Trio.

Some other titles that I like are between the same devs, even some that I haven't really played to completion. Cloé's Requiem for example was made by Buriki Clock, and they've made other titles like Fantasy Maiden's Off Hideout and Trauma Traum - the latter I can't play because it doesn't have an English translation rip. Miwashiba is another dev which I think people who have a taste for light lolita goth-pastel colors would like, because my god the character designs in both Alice Mare and LiEat are peak. Don't even get me started on the fashion of 1BitHeart because everything in that game has such an impeccable aesthetic. I think I saw something at one point about 1BitHeart that like. Might count as a shared joke between Xenoblade fans, but I'd be hard-pressed to give context because again… packed schedule, who dis?

Just to talk about Alice Mare a little more, I've actually played this one - it sports a heavily storybook-inspired cast with some unique tastes on the tales. Most of my actual experiences with Alice Mare were from the English Light Novel, which I do still have! I really recommend it to people who have a couple of hours to spare on some light, relatively bloodless horror. Most of these games have Light Novels, come to think of it - hell Ib even has whole audio dramas, one of which was fanmade in English, and from what I remember of it the voice acting for Mary was PEAK.

One last dev I want to talk about is Segawa. I've saved them for last because their brand of horror is reserved mainly for one game, but their other games Farethere City and Tower of Hanoi are no slouches either. I don't know much about Tower of Hanoi (or if it even has an English translation right now), but Farethere City is a pretty cute experience as far as pseudo-horror games go from what I've heard, which is probably good for us because their other standout game is anything but cute.

END ROLL

Ah, End Roll. The last of the Horror JRPGs I've played before school kicked me even harder in the shins and I had barely any time for it. Out of all the games I mentioned on this list, this is the one with the most staying power in my brain - and also the one that influenced me the most.

So, I don't talk a lot about my original works. Nobody asks, so I don't overshare. But some of the prevalent overarching themes of my personal mythos are those of guilt, self-love, and the burdens of love. All of these themes were lifted directly from End Roll - which is to say, End Roll actually only deals in guilt, my brain just ran buckwild with trying to wrap itself around the logistics behind InfoRuss. One of my main protagonists, Rosso, is a dead-ringer expy of Russell - the same goes for Blanco with the Informant. One of the only ways I can describe Rosso and Blanco's relationship is 'selfcest as a metaphor for the painful coexistence of self-love and self-loathing', and how this relationship reached this point was largely thanks to the Informant and his role in Russell's dream.

I don't really know why I've come to associate the idea of self-love with guilt, because that's like. Not what the game is trying to do. The game's express purpose is to tell you the story of a boy who comes to love his victims and self-destructs under the crushing guilt that he carries from killing them. By some weird hand, I've fixated on the Informant and his determination in seeing that mission of the game through - AND his secret boss fight. Actually, I should. Go ahead and describe the build-up to his secret boss fight

You can only access it if you've purchased the optional villa, and if I recall correctly you can only fight him on the last day of the dream. The locked shed next to the villa is revealed to be a library of some kind called the Graveyard of Books and like - sure enough, there's books of every kind just torn apart and scattered about everywhere. The reason for all of this is because of the Informant's jealousy. He is created specifically so he can provide Russell with the necessary information to complete the Happy Dream Experiment, and in this regard he thinks Russell doesn't need anyone other source of information than him. So he does away with the useless other books, except for the strategy guides because that's the only kind of book Russell likes - and thus, the only kind of book that the Informant likes. Notes are scattered in the hallway leading up into his boss room, with the last one sticking out in my mind to this day:

'He thinks he's the most important thing to you.'

Which. I don't know why that line is so important to me. Whether it be because it awakened something weird in me, or because I myself was dealing with my self-loathing in a VERY complicated manner at the time, that line has gone on to dictate the way that I write about my characters even to this day.

It's such a visceral depiction of self-inflicted brutality. Russell Seager is a 14 year-old serial killer who grew up loveless and abused, and has no shortage of things that make every waking moment of his life fucked up. He killed people - some who just happened to be wherever he was at the time, some willingly by his hand - could not feel guilt about any of it, and when he lost Yumi to his drunken father while his nymphomaniac mother watched he snapped and killed both his tormentors. He then turned himself in to the police, a teen on death row. Happy Dream is him discovering guilt through dream versions of the people he killed. Happy Dream is what allows him to manifest the newfound emotions he felt through interacting with the kinds of people that his victims COULD have been. The world he creates morphs into the self-inflicted hell that is his guilt.

Russell has no happy ending, his guilt won't allow him that. Everything around him becomes a reminder of the lives he's destroyed, and how much of a living hell his own life was. Through feeling happiness and love from these fabricated visages of the people he killed, he learned guilt. It's such a weird exercise in sympathy, knowing that you're playing as this remorseless kid going through rehabilitation through extreme means. It either doesn't work, and he's deemed a failure - or it does, and he commits suicide either by confessing his crimes to one of his victims and stabbing himself to death with a syringe, or he stays in the deteriorating dream, never to wake up again.

At some point it honestly just turns into misery porn, if you look at it from a certain angle - this game is set on having Russell die no matter what. I couldn't tell you what EXACTLY it is about this experience was so impactful that it would go on to influence the way I want to spend my life - that is, I want to make games exploring these kinds of themes. Guilt. Sins. If loveless lives can be redeemed and made better. By the time the last day in the game rolls around, it's just a matter of giving Russell closure over his miserable life and choosing for him what his last freedom is going to be.

I think one of the reasons I like thinking about the Informant with regards to Russell is the scene that happens if you choose to go through with the first True Ending. Russell never really much liked the Informant, and the feeling is mutual. Russell is cold to him, and the Informant takes every opportunity he can to rub all of Russell's sins in his face - and that's his job, he represents the fundamental, uncomfortable truths of Happy Dream. If Russell chooses not to leave the dream, he is resigned to its destruction and waits for the inevitable along with the other denizens of Nameless Town. But if Russell chooses to get out of the dream, the Informant returns to Russell in tears, happy that he can finally be back to being a part of him - to this game, it's the ultimate acceptance. Russell then goes on to confess his crimes and the reality of the dream to one of the citizens, and he wakes up when they kill him in tearful retribution by his request.

He grabs the syringe next to his bed, and stabs himself to death, unable to handle the guilt. That's how the game always ends for me. The Informant succeeded, Happy Dream succeeded - and Russell chose to die as person who could finally feel remorse.

It's a regretful story with themes that really shouldn't be replicated in any fashion in real life, but somehow I found it fascinating in the way it explores the facets of the self. It makes me want to ask more questions and explore that angle of self-reflection to the furthest extremes that I can conceivably reach, and I guess that's one of the many reasons why I respect it so much.

SO… WHAT NOW.

Nah, that's kind of it. Like, OF COURSE this isn't all I have to say about the games that I mentioned, but wow this post is so long and I was just pining for the days of a couple of years ago. These games were present for the most transformative years of my life, and uh - whether or not that was actually a good thing remains to be seen, but I'll always be grateful for their presence in the void that I call my gaming experiences.

Horror JRPGs will always have a special place in my heart for how they tell their stories. Nowadays, I've developed more of a taste for fantastical RPGs that prefer to hide their horror in the margins of the narrative, fridging the terror for when the player wants to step back a bit and think about the implications of certain events in the greater world. Undertale, OneShot, and the Octopath Traveler games all tick that box for me - and all of those games are ones I hold dear. Like I'll probably ramble about OneShot some other day, because that's the other game that really changed my life in a way I felt like I can never come back from - but there's just a lot of special things to be said about these neat little self-contained, 6-hour freeware games. For now I'll close this long-ass post out. Happy late Halloween I guess - the M&Ms in our fridge have never tasted better.

#rpg maker horror #rpg maker #horror rpg #ib rpg #cloe's requiem #end roll rpg #ao oni #mad father #the witch's house #OFF rpg #yume nikki #alice mare #farethere city #cw horror #seriously please read the content warnings

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staringdownabarrel · 1 year

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The Game hits differently as an adult than when it did when I was a kid.

Back when I was a kid, mobile games were still in their infancy. Like yeah, there was Snake and Bounce, but that was pretty much it. A mobile phone had the games it came preloaded with and while you could get new ones online, most people didn't. And while there was still that phenomenon of annoying little kids going up to random adults and asking if they had games on their phone, I feel like it wasn't as common.

For the most part, mobile gaming hadn't really gotten to the point where it was psychologically addicting the same way it is now. That kind of thing only really started up when I was in high school. Even then, I tended to write off the "oh, my mum's addicted to Candy Crush" stuff as just a meme-y thing rather than an actual phenomenon. It's really only been in the eleven-ish years since I finished high school, and mostly in the last five or six years, that I've really been aware of people getting super addicted to mobile games as a thing. (This isn't to say it wasn't happening at all before then; just to say I wasn't as aware of it before then. Keep in mind that I live under a rock.)

The other thing here is that back when I was a kid and watching The Game for the first time, it wasn't really as acceptable for people to just sit there on their mobile for hours on end. For a long time, the mobile phone was seen as a thing you had for emergencies only, and even then a lot of people wouldn't bother to take it with them when they left the house.

This did eventually change around 2009 or 2010, when even less well off people could get a mobile phone that wasn't just a Nokia brick that was really only good for texting and calling people. Once that happened, people started using them more. But before that? Nah, not really. The Boomer cartoons from the mid-2000s about Millennial teenagers always being buried in their phones were either making mountains out of molehills or based around the one kid they knew who was a bit more of a social butterfly.

So the first few times I saw The Game, I wrote it off as just being a product of its time. When I thought of video games at the time, I was mostly thinking of console games, not of Snake. I dismissed the idea that someone would get addicted to a video game as being something that didn't really happen that much outside of a few edge cases here and there where maybe a guy died at his keyboard after playing World of Warcraft for a week straight, and even then I thought it was mostly because they had no life outside of it.

Nowadays though, I think it was weirdly prophetic, and I'm not entirely sure the writers on that episode fully realised that at the time. People really are getting addicted to mobile games (and, to some degree, MMOs) much more than they used to, and that's largely by design. Those games really are designed to be addictive.

So while in 2007, I wrote The Game off as being a wonky fantasy written by a generation who were maybe a little bit out of touch, now I realise they were probably on to something. The idea that someone might design a game to be extremely addictive and try to weaponise it somehow doesn't seem as farfetched now as I thought it was back then.

More to the point, there really are people out there who'll do remarkably stupid things because of an online game. It doesn't have to be some propaganda campaign or anything like that; they'll just be mad that a certain part of the game isn't realistic enough. War Thunder in particular has a bit of a reputation for this--there's been multiple military personnel from multiple countries who've leaked design specifications for their country's tanks online because of the game. I wouldn't be too surprised if most spy agencies have people keeping an eye on message boards related to it just because of that.

I don't know if I necessarily think The Game is a good episode. Of the Wesley Crusher episodes made after he goes to the Academy, this is the only one that really falls into that "Wesley the wonder boy" trap a lot of season one episodes had where he'd be pivotal to saving the day. It's still a more interesting take on that concept because it's ultimately Data who does it rather than him, but that honestly could have been incidental more than anything.

What I do think, however, is that it's an interesting episode. It's the kind of episode that's definitely made me think as I've gotten older. My opinion of it now is that while it's not really the best episode, it is good science fiction because it was remarkably on point about the general direction society was going to go down and it inspires thought.

#rant #star trek #star trek the next generation #star trek tng #the next generation #tng

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runwayrunway · 1 year

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No. 37 - National Airlines

This post is about liveries, I promise! That is the only thing it's about. No tangents to be found!

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! New* livery dropped from an established airline!

*not, like, brand new. Just relatively new. I was informed of it very recently.

It must be pretty hard to name an airline. I've never had to do it, but I have worldbuilt fantasy settings, and choosing names for things is broadly speaking very difficult. There's a reason so many surnames are either vocational, geographic, or patronymic. It's really hard to come up with something interesting and you just have to settle for "that's John from Over There. Yeah, the greengrocer. Yeah, Bob's kid," and that's how it's always been. When etymologies develop they tend to develop slowly and unintentionally. You usually don't just hit on a perfect name for something, but you need to put something on your tax forms, if you do pay those.

Flag carriers have it easy. They just get to use the name of their country, maybe with a 'royal' tossed in if they're still a monarchy. But private airlines? You have to mess around a bit. Some hit on something pretty good, like IndiGo or, I hate to hand it to David Neeleman, Breeze. And some, on the other hand...completely phone it in.

I have a soft spot deep in my heart for airlines with unbearably stupid names. Things like 'Jet2' and 'Fly2Sky' and my personal favorite, 'Fly Air'. Cargo carriers have their own brand of this, some combination of 'Cargo' and frequently 'Logic', leading to my personal favorite 'CargoLogicAir', which went defunct last year.

One name is really weirdly popular. Seriously, I don't get why it's popular, because it's a terrible name. I've done a lot of talking about national airlines, lowercase, adjective followed by noun, but it's time to talk about National Airlines, proper noun, capitalized.

Why would you name your airline this? It's such a silly name. National...to what country? Certainly it's probably clear based on what country it's operating in, but I don't think that's an excuse. And there have been an entire five National Airlineses in the US. Since 1934 there has never been a period of five years or more without at least one, and sometimes more, National Airlines in operation. It's a bizarre phenomenon and my only guess is that it's a side effect of the US's lack of flag carrier, where legacy carriers all wanted to have a name that sort of sounded like what a flag carrier might have. United Airlines, American Airlines, US Airways/USAir, Republic Airlines...National Airlines just feels like it belongs there.

I might cover this livery in future. Let me know if you'd want that.

Without question the most historically significant National Airlines was the one founded in 1934. Based in Miami, in the 70s it was one of the elite few carriers - the others being Braniff, TWA, and of course Pan Am - allowed to operate service to Europe, meaning it was actually an international airline. It was merged into Pan Am in 1980.

Today's National Airlines was founded in 1985. That's right, they've existed for nearly 40 years, likely without your knowledge! They fly charters, both passenger and cargo, though since 2015 they've also had a couple of scheduled routes - and yes, they fly internationally. Their fleet has ten entire aircraft. To be fair, they're all jets. The smallest thing they've ever operated is a DC-8.

For one whole year they had a Tu-204, for some reason.

If you know them, you probably know them for that one plane crash! And that's not important at all here and occurred in circumstances completely irrelevant to normal operation for basically all airlines, but I just want to point out that the accident plane was named for the owner's wife, and years on the company gave the name to another airframe. I'm not saying that this plane is also going to crash - it is so unlikely that it's not worth considering - but I do just feel like that's got to be tempting fate. Imagine telling your wife the second plane you named after her also crashed. I can see that ending in divorce.

Imagine if the plane was literally named after your wife, too. I could never do that to myself.

I didn't know there was a .aero domain. Huh! You learn something new every day. "We Deliver The World" is funny for an airline called National, and even funnier now that they're a scheduled passenger airline. Anyway, the livery. Nicely branded, not terribly many similar ones to confuse it with, big billboard wordmark in a legible and minimally offensive sans serif font. As for the main design...I look at it and vividly feel like it's familiar but can't quite place where from. Of course, it has quite the typical vaguely patriotic vibe to it, but that can't possibly be the entirety of it, so what...oh. I think I know what it reminds me of.

It's a shame the USPS doesn't have airplanes, because they could probably do something at least a little interesting.

It is far from an exact resemblance. But I think that has to be it.

The design on the tail also reminds me a bit of the IndiGo swoops even though they're definitely not related. It's just that sort of really long dramatic wave pattern in a similar color scheme. They even both have a sort of 'trim' on the side.

I do think the wave loses something by getting cut off sharply in the middle there. It reminds me of Airbus's carbon fiber livery where it starts to resemble a mermaid's tail...and that's something airlines should try to do on purpose, yes, but doing it by accident doesn't really do it for me. It feels like it stops the momentum in a way.

National made the...interesting choice of using both white and silver in the same livery. I think it...kind of works, if only because the white surrounded by the blue doesn't really blare out the way it does when it's the main color. The silver itself is...also interesting. It looks like the plane has been painted using metallic sharpie.

They probably use these to cover up chips in the paint.

This livery has a lot going on but it just feels kind of cluttered and boring, to be honest. It is undeniably USPS-y, so I think maybe somebody who doesn't live in the US wouldn't look at it the way I do, but it just reminds me of mail even though I don't think they even carry mail. The idea of being a passenger on a USPS-looking airplane is a bit strange to me.

Flag in the window not changing my mind about the feeling of the name.

This livery is one of contradictions. Clearly recognizable yet somehow generic; full of atypical features yet somehow still boring. It feels almost inexplicably cluttered, and above all it feels sort of sloppy. I think that's really a sign of the era it comes from. The 1980s were a weird time for airline liveries. It was in the early 80s when cheatlines really began to fall out of favor, and we entered an era of airlines trying to figure out what they wanted to do instead. They experimented with colorblocking, vertical stripes, all sorts of things that hadn't been seen yet. Not all of them were super creative. We got a lot of planes that were half white and half off-white, some early Eurowhite-esques like SAS's belly stripes and JAL's good-logo-bad-livery situation. It also produced a fair few liveries which really stuck out, enough to carry over to the modern day. Korean Air is a prominent example designed around the same time as National. Also designed around the same time is my second-ever subject, a livery I chose to cover specifically to discuss how a mostly-white livery could be done well: Kalitta Air. And a handful of these odd liveries are still flying right now, like KAL's.

Okay, but the all-grey, two-tiered wordmark DC-8 livery actually looks so much better.

That's where the sloppy feeling comes from, I think. Cheatline liveries, modern Eurowhite liveries, minimalist billboard liveries, even the transitional 90s horizontal colorblock - these were iterated on over and over again. They might be boring but they usually seem very deliberate. In the 80s, liveries were designed how I used to build characters when I was a preteen playing 3.5e. You add things and you don't really think about how they work together. And there's...some charm to it. But you know what? It's been nearly 40 years. Maybe they've refined it to something a little nicer.

No. No. How could you do this to me? You solved a problem by making it worse! Like, yes, it does look marginally cleaner at the cost of individuality, but just...why leave the red line in if you're cleaning things up? Before, it lined up with the start of the blue curve, but now it has no reason to exist! It looks less like part of the livery and more like, whoops, my monitor's yaw string is telling me my desk is slipping to the left!

Like, it's such a minimal change, and in theory, yes, it addresses my earlier issues, but it doesn't actually manage to stop being generic or boring, and it doesn't manage to stop looking a little messy and lacking in direction, and honestly removing the singular color they didn't share with USPS didn't help them either!

I think what bothers me most, though, is that it doesn't feel much more deliberate. It might be the fact that they made such minimal changes, or the fact that they didn't manage to make it look that much neater, but it looks like they tried to improve their livery without knowing what makes a livery good or bad.

Once upon a time they were novices trying their hands at an art which was in a turbulent place for even experienced airlines, unsure of what they were doing but trying their best. I can't give them any sympathy for that anymore. They have committed to being persistently incompetent. They make lip service towards improvement, but they don't know what improvement would look like. They're out of their depth. They're washed up. They don't know what to do.

Airline liveries often seem to function on a trend cycle similar to clothing. Every ten years or so, large airlines do a brand refresh. Smaller carriers, maybe every twenty years. But some liveries stay longer, either through timelessness or through inertia.

Kalitta Air was timeless. They kept their livery for what felt like eons and it never stopped looking good. Sure, it's a little retro, but in a classy way. It doesn't look dated, it looks stylish. I mean, this company was founded by a racecar driver!

I really like this picture on their website.

Maybe a couple of little tweaks wouldn't be the end of the world. I think the cheatlines could be shortened a bit, maybe, since they make the nose look a bit like it's being pinched, or like the cheatlines are a very elaborate moustache, and maybe the wordmark could be moved a bit forward. Minor tweaks on that order have been made before. But the livery as a whole is fantastic.

In 2021, they released a new one.

The livery of a cargo carrier from Michigan is a very minor part of my life. But when I first saw this image, I really, for a moment, thought that I genuinely wished I had never been born.

I read a lot of comments about it on whatever forums I could find. Generally a lot of my opinions are actually a bit contentious, but I couldn't find anyone who disagreed with me. And one thing I saw repeated fairly often was that this plane looks unfinished. You can't modernise something by just taking away one of its most prominent features, if not its very most prominent feature, even if white is in fashion. This livery was designed with cheatlines. Taking off the cheatlines doesn't make it look like a modern livery, it makes it look like a charter plane midway through being painted for a wet lease. It's just miserable.

And National Airlines isn't as bare now, and wasn't quite as incredible before, but it feels much the same. You can't update something by just removing part of it. That's not new. It's not modern. It's not slick, or clean, or minimal, or whatever else you want to call it. It's unfinished.

So they start out sloppy and they end up looking like a shell of their former self. What do I rate these? Well, I definitely prefer the original livery, that probably won't shock anyone, but the difference is so negligible. Sloppy and inept. Being silver instead of white, or cleaner rather than messier, isn't going to save you.

So they'll both get a D+.

That feels like such an unfulfilling rating to give, but at the end of the day I don't feel like there's anything else to say. They were just figuring it out, and I am too. I blindly stumble into a tepid dissatisfaction that makes me feel nothing at all, really, to the point my own distaste for the revision feels phoned-in. But there's really not much else to say about it. It doesn't feel like anybody, in this process, really understood what makes a good livery, and they didn't learn a thing since 1985.

#tarmac fashion week #grade: c-#era: 1980s #era: 1990s #era: 2000s #era: 2010s #era: 2020s #region: north america #region: united states #kalitta air #national airlines (1934)#national airlines (1985)#charter airlines #cargo carriers #legacy carriers

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maleyanderecafe · 2 years

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Please, Let Me Return Home (Webcomic)

Created by: Hwa-yeon-jae

Genre: Isekai

Vacation time is the perfect time for reading isekai stories, so I have another one I found. This one's premise is a bit different since unlike a lot of isekais, the main character actually does want to go home, and to make things harder, she has no idea what story she isekaied into. As of writing this, there are 37 chapters out, and the translations wane from either really good to weirdly awkwardly worded. I actually found this webtoon through this youtube short here.

The story is about Estelle, a knight who died by the hands of her trusted right hand man and reincarnated into the body of an aristocrat girl named Lucifia. Upon reincarnation, she realizes that the side she used to fight on has lost and that she is wed to a man named Zedekiah Heint, an adversary. Her body is now weaker and no longer in the shape that it used to be. She tries to find some of the knights she used to fight along side (by trading places with her maid and buying a knife), but ends up fighting a serial killer that was on the loose in the capital. She's able to defend herself and the killer gets caught. She goes to a ball later with Heint, where rumors of her jumping off of the building get spread around greatly. While she's able to defend off the rumors, she recalls the event of Lucifia jumping off of the building, supposedly to claim her love for the crown prince despite him seeming to not care about her, and as a result she ends up kicking the crown prince in the dick when he tries to go down on her. She realizes that the man who killed her, Khalid is still alive and swears to seek revenge. She eventually gains a memory from her past of how her mother died and how her father almost committed suicide because of it. To prevent rumors from spreading about her attempted suicide, she meets up with a trading deal to set things straight. However, things turn to the worst when the traders attempt to kidnap her, forcing her to run into the forest where a monster resides. Here, Khalid is able to save her, and nearly dies. Estelle nearly leaves him to die, but knows that if he dies here he will be regarded as a hero, so she saves him. Luckily, Heint is able to save both of them and nurse them both back to health (much to Estelle's dismay). Lady Loer (the one Estelle thinks is the one spreading rumors) invites Estelle to a tea party, however, things turn to the worst when Khalid interrupts and talks down about Estelle on the battlefield, specifically about how she was a female knight and couldn't even defend her country. Heint ends up defending her and the teaparty ends. The last couple of chapters talks about Lady Loer and how despite how it seems, she is trying to help Estelle, as she really admired Lucifia and wants to help her.

Surprisingly, this is one of the few isekai I've seen where the MC tries to get back to real life, since most of the time the MCs just accept their fate while being stuck in this world. I actually do like the MC's design before she gets isekaied into Beatrice and I wish that her quirk of making scary faces when she's happy was integrated more into the story (it only shows up once after she's been isekaied, which is a shame because I think it would be a really funny character quirk). She also blushes A LOT for an MC, which I don't particularly understand. I do think it's kind of interesting to have her not know the story she's been isekaied into since she's read so many different romance books only to find out that it's partially from her own story of tragedy. Her character as Beatrice is okay, I guess, she doesn't particularly stand out to me much as an MC.

Ellin is a pretty cute male lead, and he has a sad backstory to boot. I actually really do like his backstory though. It's pretty cute seeing a shaggy child Ellin learn how to trust with a guard who is sort of incompetent. I think that him and Beatrice's relationship is actually pretty cute, though it's too bad it seems that the empress seems to be very possessive and possibly even yandere for Ellin, considering he tells him to throw away earrings that Beatrice got for him. I wonder what the empress's relationship with Daniel is as well, since they both seem to have a similar motivation of keeping the one they love close to their heart.

The yandere in question is Cha Yejun's doppelganger, Daniel. It's a bit hard to tell if he's a yandere since the translations are kind of rough, but from what I can tell, he kills the assassin in an attempt to get rid of both Ellin and protect Beatrice, and even ends up drugging Beatrice out of jealousy and to prevent her from testifying in court. With the way he's aware that he's in a story, it makes me wonder if Daniel is actually Cha Yejun isekaied into the story, and that maybe he had this kind of personality this entire time. We don't know that much about Cha Yejun other than he was a popular student that was close to the MC, though it does seem strange that the two would suddenly be friends since there's not really any explanation to how or why they met. This could also not be the case since we see that when the MC was isekaied, the smoke that she sees in the mirror is identical to the one that Daniel is able to make. It also wouldn't necessarily make sense that Cha Yejun would be Daniel since if the story she's in is actually something she wrote in third grade, then there's no way for him to have read or known about it unless the two knew each other back then (or he had somehow read it). It does bring up questions on how Daniel knows that Ellin is actually an extra (as it were) or if he's just really arrogant and believes that he's the center of attention. I'm not sure why exactly he's interested in Beatrice in the first place- it might have something to do with his lineage and how important the marriage is, but he does seem jealous over her when she hangs out with Ellin.

Anyways, I wish this story had a better translation since it can be a bit annoying reading through it, but I did have a fun time reading the story since it does present some concepts I don't normally see.

#male yandere #yandere #yandere boy #recommendations #ongoing #webcomic #please let me return home

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mariana-oconnor · 1 year

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Wisteria Lodge pt 4

Last time, we left Holmes and Watson about to mount an intrepid rescue of probable inside woman and possibly dead Miss Burnett, who at 40 years old is apparently too old for love, because the Victorian era was an ageist hellscape.

I have come up with a solution by which Mr Garcia (who I have decided is a bisexual spy) and Miss Burnet are actually the good guys. But this requires the two girls to have been pre-kidnapped and so Garcia's plan would be a counter-kidnapping.

I mean, I jumped straight to kidnapping as soon as it seemed likely that the governess was involved and there were two young girls. I may have jumped the gun a bit, but weirdly the idea is sticking with me.

It was not, I must confess, a very alluring prospect. The old house with its atmosphere of murder, the singular and formidable inhabitants, the unknown dangers of the approach, and the fact that we were putting ourselves legally in a false position all combined to damp my ardour.

Psh, I bet they didn't damp Mr Garcia's ardour.

Yeah, that was a cheap shot, but seriously Watson, come on. Screw your courage to the sticking place and all that.

But it was not destined that our investigation should have so adventurous an ending.

...well that's anticlimactic. I was all geared up for a rescue mission! What am I going to do with these grappling hooks now?

“They've gone, Mr. Holmes. They went by the last train. The lady broke away, and I've got her in a cab downstairs.”

Did they go because of Holmes' investigation of the house or did they go because of whatever Mr Baynes' mysterious cunning plan is?

"I shan't forget the face at the carriage window as I led her away. I'd have a short life if he had his way—the black-eyed, scowling, yellow devil.”

A lot of 'devil' faces in windows this time around. And all on ethnic minorities as far as I can tell. Racist Victorian tropes, my beloathed.

Good for Miss Burnet for fighting back even when she's been drugged up to the gills on opium. I really hope she wasn't planning a kidnapping because I want to like her. And I really don't like her employer. Not drugging or whipping your employees is like the lowest bar of employer conduct to jump over. Even Violet Hunter wasn't drugged or whipped and she had a terrible work environment. I want him to be unambiguously the bad guy. Also because I want the poor cook to be acquitted.

“I was sure Henderson, as he calls himself, felt that he was suspected, and that he would lie low and make no move so long as he thought he was in any danger. I arrested the wrong man to make him believe that our eyes were off him. I knew he would be likely to clear off then and give us a chance of getting at Miss Burnet.”

OK, fine. You were right, but fuck you for arresting and attacking an innocent man. Poor show. Dick move. Be better.

(is that the first gif I've posted from an actual Sherlock Holmes media for one of these liveblogs? I think it might be...)

"We can't arrest without her evidence, that is clear, so the sooner we get a statement the better.”

Read this as 'her without' rather than 'without her' and was confused about what was going on, as she seems pretty innocent of the murder. But then I reread and realised that I once again fail at reading comprehension. Not like I have a degree in it or literally work in a related field or anything.

“Henderson,” the inspector answered, “is Don Murillo, once called the Tiger of San Pedro.”

Who the fuck is that?

OK, Watson's going to become Captain Exposition for a minute, great. Gimme some backstory, bay-beeee.

Oh... Is San Pedro a fake country? Did ACD make up a fake country for this story so he couldn't be accused of being rude about a specific country? Or do I just not know history?

Central America, okay, not the Caribbean, but right ballpark.

The dictator, his two children, his secretary, and his wealth had all escaped them. From that moment he had vanished from the world, and his identity had been a frequent subject for comment in the European press.

I feel... I feel like if this had been real information and a real country I would have worked this out? Like if I had known there was a mysteriously missing dictator from a formerly Spanish colony with a green and white flag, who had two children, I feel like I called every part of this except the specifics, which I couldn't have called because they're made up.

“Once already his life has been attempted, but some evil spirit shielded him. Now, again, it is the noble, chivalrous Garcia who has fallen, while the monster goes safe."

Alright, so no kidnapping, just assassination. Chivalrous, charming bi assassin Garcia is once again on the side of good and not abducting children. Pity he got his face beaten in.

"My husband—yes, my real name is Signora Victor Durando—was the San Pedro minister in London. He met me and married me there. A nobler man never lived upon earth. Unhappily, Murillo heard of his excellence, recalled him on some pretext, and had him shot. With a premonition of his fate he had refused to take me with him. His estates were confiscated, and I was left with a pittance and a broken heart."

Vengeance!

"I was to see that the doors were open and the signal of a green or white light in a window which faced the drive was to give notice if all was safe or if the attempt had better be postponed."

Light not shutters, but coolcoolcool.

"But they determined to get rid forever of Garcia. They had gagged me, and Murillo twisted my arm round until I gave him the address. I swear that he might have twisted it off had I understood what it would mean to Garcia."

How did you... not know... what it would mean to Garcia? Like, what did you think they were going to do? Have a tea party? Invite him to play his guitar at their next shindig? Have a chat about gardening? I get that you were being tortured for information, so there's no shame in giving him up, but you can't say 'well, I didn't know they would kill him.'

"This afternoon a good lunch was brought me, but the moment after I took it I knew that I had been drugged."

Also feel like maybe you should have guessed this before you ate it, after they'd been starving you for days. But you were probably out of your mind hungry and on the edge of hallucinating, so I suppose that makes sense.

It is a matter of history, however, that a little time was still to elapse before the Tiger of San Pedro should meet with his deserts. [...] Some six months afterwards the Marquess of Montalva and Signor Rulli, his secretary, were both murdered in their rooms at the Hotel Escurial at Madrid.

In the best traditions of these stories, the bad guys reach justice offscreen at the hands of unknown people. 😂

But Vengeance has been satisfied.

BUT, there is just enough time for some more racist discussion of the cook, because of course there is. And it turns out his entire inclusion as a character is completely pointless and a racist little red herring that goes nowhere and just had some extra racism piled on top for garnish. Wonderful. I hope they released him and didn't keep him in prison for assaulting a police officer/resisting arrest, because when you literally arrested him illegally for a crime you knew he didn't commit, that's bullshit.

I was right about it being a Victorian depiction of Voodoo, though, so... I get points for knowing my racist stereotypes? I feel like that's like an extra level of losing, though.

Wow this story went from gay hookup gone wrong to racist mess in two seconds flat, huh? I miss the simpler times when Mr Scott Eccles being an oblivious tory was the biggest problem.

On a happier note, Silver Blaze is next, and I remember a lot about this one just from the title, so I guess there will be no attempt to solve it, just memes for days.

ETA: That little wrap up does not tell us what happened to the children. What happened to the children? Where did they go? The little girls just disappear. Did I miss something? What happened to the children?

#Wisteria Lodge #Letters from Watson #Sherlock Holmes #Long post #Well that was an experience #I get why he used a fake country but still feels a little like cheating #I will choose to remember the charming bisexual assassin fondly and the rest of it with regret #Maybe I should start using the content warnings for these things #but I feel like then I wouldn't have as much fun because I'd just be waiting for the racism

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transsexualraskolnikov · 1 year

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this is just a personal rant, but i have this side gig where i write articles for this one slovak website about our country. i write mainly about history, literature, and arts and for the most part, it's super cool. yet there is this fine line i'm always balancing on whenever writing anything history related. slovakia was christianized in its very early days, we're talking 9th/10th century and the people, focused heavily simply on agriculture, had a bit of a hard time accepting this faith as eagerly as anticipated, as is usually the case. they still clung to their pagan faith and the result of that was this weird mix of both christian values and traditions and pagan ones.

and the thing is, whenever i write an article about ye ol' traditions this fact has to be brought up over and over and you can't help but slowly begin to realize how christianity was forced upon the oblivious peasants who did their best to accept it in their own ways because they had no other choice. and that in and out of itself doesn't bother as much as i might have made it out to seem, i mean it's a thing that has been happening for centuries all over the world and is not necessarily unique to christianization.

what is the thing that truly IRKS me is that in this awfully conservative country where people become weirdly nationalist the moment you say even one mildly critical thing towards its history (despite how CLUELESS everybody is in regards to history. like you'd be blown away by how LITTLE people here actually know of anything. everybody just knows that we used to be like... czechoslovakia last century and that's pretty much it) and also everybody claims to be oh so christian (but only when the moment's convenient) so i constantly have to watch my words and toy this line between truly pointing to the bastardization that chirstianization has done to traditional slavic pagan values as well as being like 'but it's cool!!!!! because we got THIS cool tradition out of it!!!! :)))) yay!!!! praise jesus!!!!!!!' just so i get paid and the people in the comments don't lynch me.

and as somebody studying history, it truly does pain me how the truth and reality has to be obscured in order to be made family-friendly and marketable and i know that i'm not saying anything new and ground-breaking here. i guess now that i'm feeling it on my own skin and am actually the one actively contributing to the myth of face-tuning history in order for it to be more easily digestible, i'm suddenly overtaken by the realization of what really goes down in this world.

oh. i've made myself depressed. well, a girl's gotta get paid so i guess i better get to writing about funeral traditions.

#omw to write an article about funeral traditions and vampirism #wow i thought writing this would bring relief to some pent-up frustration i've felt over this but :D the opposite is the truth!#i feel even more shitty now that i have realized that i am an active contributor and cog in the machine of the constant sanitization of #history!!!!!!#i'm going against my own beliefs and values and doing something i have sworn to never do! i'm becoming not only a part of the system but th #system itself!#god i'm spiralling #this article is due today............................... better finish it #personal #history #rant #natali speaks

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bluberimufim · 8 months

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Hello! Just stopping by with a question about writing XD Do you have any characters who's role grew bigger than you expected? Any surprising changes your characters went through during the writing process?

Hi! This ask is a week old! Sorry for that!

Tbh the obvious answer would be Asha and Dora, who really began as tools to facilitate the plot and developed into major side characters with an unhealthy, self-destructive romance. I've talked about them a lot.

But this post is not about them. We all know of the war lesbians at this point.

I wanna talk about General Edward Fallin for a sec. You might know of him. I refer to him exclusively as "Theo's brother".

In the WIP that existed in 8th grade that would later become literally unrecognizable and turn into "Devourer of Souls", he was a major character and I liked him quite a lot. I felt like there was something interesting that I managed to hit with his character.

(I really wanna make a post about this proto-WIP but I keep procrastinating -_-)

From one WIP to the other, he was the one to maintain the most character traits (tbh competition is nonexistent bc they all changed so much - literally not even genders were maintained). He's always been Reiner's (part of Flick) father, Theo's brother, and a Master of the Order devoted to his work.

But he's a really minor character. He only appears in 2 scenes: one in the first half and one in the second.

Allow me to ramble about My Boy for a bit:

Ed is a bad person. He's an antagonistic force (not necessarily an antagonist) and is in direct opposition to Theo from a military standpoint. He is responsible for a fuckton of deaths and outright says he's willing to hurt people himself if it gets him what he wants faster. He denounced his own sister to the Order when they were teenagers, leading to her getting a death sentence and running away, he ordered his men to break Seth's cane in half so she literally can't run away when they capture her, and he stabbed Theo through the shoulder the first time he saw her again. He vaguely talks like a pissed-off mob boss. Good people don't do this shit.

But that's the surface-level stuff. Because once you listen to what he's saying, you start to see something else.

For an antagonist, Ed has a weirdly strong attachment to his family. And not in a weird way. When Seth straight-up asks him "why tf are you doing this" he just says "Whatever it takes, I want my children to grow up in a world without war".

He knows he's doing bad things, but he's willing to do them if it means the war will end faster and his family will be safe. His motivation is 100% to protect the people he cares about.

But I ain't no basic bitch. I'm not leaving it at that.

He feels like an antagonist because he's being seen from Seth's POV. Flick's POV is very different.

Reiner (who is part of the whole that is Flick) is Ed's youngest son, and he sees him fully as a hero, as do most people in his country tbh. He admires him, even when Allana's soul joins his because of divine fuckery (not getting into the divine soul fusion fuckery rn).

And I mean... can you blame him? Ed is a super-competent general who made his way up the ranks at a very young age, led an army against two demigoddesses at the same time and kept the upper hand, won a fight against a demigoddess and survived, was the first person to push for a (temporary) peace treaty and managed to maintain it for 20 years, and constantly does everything in his power to keep that peace in place, even going against the will of the gods themselves.

That sounds pretty heroic to me - not necessarily good, but heroic. Hell, that feels like a protagonist's storyline, almost.

I'm all about that perspective switcheroo. Theo probably seems like a horrible person from Flick's POV, before meeting Seth.

Adds that ✨flavour✨ to it, don't you think?

#i've been waiting for a chance to rant about him for SO LONG #this post was gonna be quick but i got carried away~#oooh i could write essays about the DoS characters (from book 1 bc the others aren't fully developed yet)#i love them all So Much #writeblr #writing #my wips #devourer of souls wip #asks

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thenightling · 1 year

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The Sandman Universe: Nightmare Country: Glass House issue 3 Review:

I just read The Nightmare Country: The Glass House issue 3. I still occasionally mess up the title because there is a Witcher comic called House of Glass. Anyway, it's just kind of... unpleasant. I try to force myself to read it but I'm not enjoying it. It's not as bad as the first Nightmare Country but it's not a nice story. It's decidedly unpleasant. It has that edgy 90s style that got boring by 1998. The Corinthian is the only semi-likable character and that's saying something. That was sort of my problem with The House of Whispers back in 2018. The House of Whispers wasn't terrible but that one was kind of boring where the only points of interest were Anansi (the Spider trickster God) and The Corinthian and how The Corinthian handled those abusive parents. The portrayal of Lucien is just awful. Not only is it flat but the character "Voices" don't feel right. Though The Corinthian is enjoyable his language, his use of words, it doesn't match any previous version of the character. It's very articulate but it doesn't feel like there's a personality in the dialogue. Everyone talks the same. That was a complaint I had back when Caitlin R. Kiernan was writing The Dreaming (1996-2002). Except with her everyone spoke like a cheap 80s action movie character, tossing around the the f word and trying to sound edgy. They don't do that here. In here The Corinthian is relatively well spoken but no one has a truly unique voice, a individual's way of talking. Every character should have their own "voice" a chosen vocabulary, or style of speaking and I'm not seeing that here. It's hard to get into the story when everyone talks exactly the same way except Lucien who... comes off like a self-righteous jerk. It's a bit like Simon Spurrier's version of Lucien in The Dreaming (2018) but not really Lucien of The Sandman by Neil Gaiman. Lucien pretty much shows up just to tell The Corinthian that he asked Daniel what he do if The Corinthian steps out of line and Daniel apparently said he'd unmake him. That's great, you conspire to unmake the only character actually doing anything in this story. Thank you for being completely useless, Lucien. The Corinthian and Lucien both bring up some very good points. The dead girl whose ghost is now residing in the form of a cat (I couldn't be bothered to remember her name) The Corinthian tells Lucien "Did you know she doesn't even like cats?" and Lucien says something to the effect of "The Dream Lord would not have turned her into a cat if she didn't like cats." This does make a valid point. I know Daniel is different than Morpheus but Daniel does share a lot of his traits and memories and Morpheus would never create a raven from someone unless he knew that person would prefer to be a raven than the mortal they had been.

It feels like DC shamelessly tried to make an expansive story out of something that didn't really need or deserve it, such as bringing Thessaly in after the events of Dead Boy Detectives as if to go "See, i is a shared universe!" Yeah, that only works if the stories being connected are... you know... good... This is better than The Corinthian: Nightmare Country in regard to the pacing but it still has that ugly, sadistic, and weirdly dull "gritty" 90s comic book style. I don't know if I can continue reading it just to review it. It's that unpleasant for me. It's not the worst thing I've ever read but I have little reason to want to continue reading it.

#The Sandman #The Sandman Universe #Nightmare Country #The Sandman Universe: Nightmare Country: Glass House #The Sandman Universe Nightmare Country Glass House #Nightmare Country: Glass House

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aeolianblues · 4 months

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Was anyone else's mum just weirdly particular about giving long and emphatic lectures about how bad drugs are, and how they ruin lives and all, and how you've got to avoid certain industries, types of work/lifestyles and certain people because she just automatically associates them with drugs? (What am I saying 'was' for, my mum brought it up literally two weeks ago...)

Thinking of it now, I find it almost absurd, the association of certain fields with illicit and life-altering drugs. Because I'm someone who currently works in music and entertainment, my mum has been bringing this up nearly bi-weekly since I accidentally mentioned to her once that I felt a bit embarrassed at how I didn't really know how to order a drink, nor had a drink of preference because I just hadn't really done that very often, and whenever I had I was super awkward, because through a mixture of growing up in a very bar-free environment and lockdown hitting around the time I came legal, I just didn't have a drink order ready at the top of my head the way my housemates (way heavier drinkers) did the second they'd locked our front door to step out.

To me, knowing what you wanted when you stepped up to the bar was a slight power play thing, if I was interviewing a group backstage at a venue or whatever, and people are looking to me to lead the way on things because 'it's your show, we'll do whatever you want', then I feel like you've at least got to look like you're comfortable in your environment and don't look out of your element or like you've never been to a bar before. And it's just such a common thing for people to be all, oh yeah, let's get a drink to break the ice and then we'll settle into a nice chat, hopefully a little looser and more comfortable chatting than when you'd first met. The last thing you'd want to do then is make things awkward in the moment that's supposed to loosen things up.

My mum took that as all the possible warning bells that I was on the verge of becoming an alcoholic, because 'that's how it begins, just take an orange juice' (I had one (1) drink). It's completely not about the drink at all to me, it's about not seeming like I'm 12 and flummoxed at a place where I've technically invited someone. I've sort of dragged myself into this one: I got right annoyed at the writers at our campus newspaper's arts and culture sections, because they write like absolute idiots. I've had at them before, I think their music writers have written some of the worst pieces of music journalism I've had the misfortune to lay my eyes on. Sure, the pieces get worse as you read further down, but right from their opening sentences, they sound like they've never been to a musical event that hasn't been musical chairs at an 8 year old's party, and there and then I lose all respect for them.

This writer was at a gig and had requested an interview with a huge artist (you know how Foo Fighters are widely known and pretty much decorated with at least three Grammys every year that they release music? This artist was like that, but for my country, and my country's equivalent of the Grammys. To me, they're the Coldplay of our country and I think they're a bit naff, but whatever, people really like them).

Requesting an interview with an artist is fine, shoot your shot, I repeatedly do, but you have to understand when people turn you down, and you also know that the bigger the artist, the earlier you've got to reach out, because the layers of bureaucracy and email chains only get bigger as you go up in stature and to bigger record labels. Their writer reached out to a band that's been nominated for 15 [our Grammys] in about as many years, 5 hours before the gig, was unsurprisingly turned down, and then was in a huff about it the entire show. Complained about the venue staff being 'hostile' towards them for... informing them that their request, which had been passed on to the band's management, had been turned down after being asked the day of the gig. Months babe, you've got to reach out months in advance! When we reached out to a significantly smaller group than this one, who were on BMG Records, a Sony subsidiary and so by proxy a major label, it took us 3 months and the reason we ultimately got it was because the guitarist in the band liked us. The label said no, he said yes and so we could tell the label to suck eggs. You can't reach out on the morning of, or even the week of, and then throw a tantrum in print because you didn't get the interview. First time?

This writer then went on to complain about health and safety when caught in a moshpit of 17 year-olds, then complained when they went to venue security about it and were offered to be moved further back in the audience, saying how were they supposed to do their reporting job if they couldn't be in the front, where the pit typically is, but while also not taking part in the pit. If the 17 year-olds who've been locked indoors throughout lockdown for 3 years and are now attending their first-ever concerts can know this, why don't you? First time?

This writer also went on to say some fairly questionable stuff about the opening acts and the crowds, talking pretty exclusively about the opener's sex appeal and subsequently describing the excited 17 year-olds as groupies, which is always a fun accusation to be throwing at minors about a band of twenty-something year-olds. Got all your band info from movies and AO3? Have you been to a gig before??

And so I lost all respect for that writer and the entire paper, I do not fucking understand how they ended up as arts and culture editor of the student newspaper, they'd have got fired as a contributor from like, Melody Maker back in the day for less, and let me tell you some of those 90s and 00s British print publications let them write some pretty indulgent stuff. They spent the whole entire article moaning woe-is-me, I learned nothing about the gig they meant to review from the article.

And I never want to be like that, I won't let anyone think that of me. You've got to come across as comfortable in your surroundings. This is your place! You're the music journalist, you are expected to have been in a bar or a pub before. I was reading the recent long feature interview NME did with Fontaines D.C., they talked separately to Grian and Carlos, and the entirety of the interview with Grian takes place in a London pub, and that's necessary because it adds to the character. Grian, with some good descriptions courtesy of an astute writer, can completely believably inhabit the character of the pub poet, the people's poet, the punk poet and spiritual successor to John Cooper Clarke, and to do that, it is necessary to sit him down in a London pub on a hazy afternoon, let his character take its time to really come through in its natural home. Here, the focus isn't on you, you can't really disrupt that flow with a fucking orange juice. You aren't on the same wavelength, I think, if he's talking about his Guinness and you're sitting there, having fumbled at the bar because you don't have a made up mind about a drink, and are clearly out of your depth in the company of someone that can contemplatively nurse a pint while reflecting on when to let go of the ordinary lad in a loose tee, incognito in a pub, and embrace the weirdness.

Now I could be being extra harsh here, after all the very same NME have interviewed Grian previously on a walk in the countryside. I suppose everyone has something new to bring to the table, and that's what makes things interesting. And if you're a good enough writer, you can place your subject onto any sort of backdrop and find them either right at home, or at odds with their surroundings in ways that allow you to highlight their interesting qualities. Writing is fun. But I do think being able to order a drink is 1) a good confidence skill to have 2) something you probably should be able to do once you're inching towards your mid-twenties 3) does not fucking mean you're becoming an alcoholic, my god. I don't even like a drink, I just think I should 1) be allowed to push and discover what my limits are rather than not know it when I need to know it 2) be allowed to be drunk like once ever properly without it being considered a moral failure on my part 3) be able to hold myself up in the second home of the music scene: the venue with a bar, a pub, a nightclub.

But the reason why I find my mum's association of music/nightlife and the direct pipeline to hardline addiction absurd is that she thinks getting into other fields somehow makes it safer. Some of the worst stoners I've known have not necessarily been actors or musicians, though that could just be because I know more people who aren't actors or musicians. And my god, I'm in the tech sector (outside of music journalism, because as we all know, none of the things in the music industry except accountant, lawyer or exec's son, have been actual jobs for the last 20 years and the rest of us are really just wasting our time chasing sweet nothings. We make nothing from what we do, so we also have other jobs and degrees). It's basically an open secret that tech sector folks are at this point abusing ritalin/ADHD medication for the productivity and often are also booze abusers. My sister is a business student. The 'London bankers doing cocaine on the clock' stereotype doesn't come from nowhere. These are brushed aside as unfortunate realities of a dark industry that you should strive to avoid, but for some reason the entertainment industry is a no-go for these specific reasons. (Although tbf the fact that I don't get paid to do a lot of the stuff I do above is also a pretty massive problem in my mum's mind, which is fair.)

It frustrates me that you can 'corporate-wash' all bad habits away. If it's happening in an office, then it's acceptable, a sad reality but what to do. If you're a coked up banker, you're a respectable and ultimately wealthy dog of a human being, if you're a musician smoking weed, you're the dregs of society. If you're a crazed developer driven to exhaustion by a gaming corporation with unrealistic deadlines, being asked to work 24 hours with no overtime pay during the 'crunch period' that seems to come every year and for every single game the company launches, then you're just doing what you have to do to stay alive in an industry where you should remember that there will be ten more people eager to replace your lucky punk ass if you pass out from exhaustion, but an artist on drugs is better off dead. Baffling to me.

Is this just my mum though?

#it's this scaremongering around the music industry to me #music related #music journalism #radio stuff #long #chitter chatter #quite meandering; feel free to skip through mutuals #music industry related #also omfg this writer. 'I'm disappointed that [huge band] are refusing to provide young bright journalists with much appreciated #career opportunities' who do you think you are Maddie

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definitely-not-a-real-phd-diary · 2 years

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I've been returning to dance as a hobby this year, and as of yesterday fulfilled a little goal of mine, performing my own dance choreography!

I found out I was choreographing a routine for our winter dance in November - as I was learning a different dance routine for a Scottish Country Dance Festival. So between country dance rehearsals and ceilidhs I jumped around my bedroom trying to come up with the winter dance choreography - first rehearsal I was leading was literally the morning after Festival performance! Thankfully I mostly got a skeleton of a dance together in time.

Teaching other people my choreography was honestly intimidating and more stressful than coming up with it in the first place. I weirdly felt like every move I suggested would be scrutinised and judged by everyone - and I was worried because this group usually has a set choreographer who just didn't have time this winter. Thankfully everyone in the performance group was lovely, and one of the more experienced dancers in the group helped lead the class. I was really lacking the confidence at the start, but I like to think by rehearsal number 3 I had gotten a bit better!

I was also pretty stressed at the dance before our performance, but it went pretty well overall I think! We got some applause, a few extra compliments, and - most importantly - the performance group members seemed fairly happy!

The rest of the winter dance I could finally relax, catch up with some friends, and dance.

And, minor success, I won my first ever dance-related competition. Mind you, it was a solo jazz relay race in teams of four and nothing serious. But you got to take your wins (and enthusiastic victory crash landing slides into your friends) as they come!

Dance is lovely and joyful. I just need to keep fighting my fear of being judged and laughed at. We will get there!

#dance #sillyness #phd life #Phd blog #grad student #university #university life

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father-time-and-baby-new-year · 3 years

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alphabet boy II

SYNOPSIS: college AU. Armin, your brilliant tutor, invites you over to his house for some studying. Naturally, you're nervous and he seems to be giving you a reason to be.

PAIRING: SCUMBAG!Tutor Armin x FEM!Reader

WARNINGS: half edited, noncon/dubcon, fingering, non-penetrative sexual content. gaslighting, manipulating,

A/N: really need the motivation to write again and I've been slacking on my multi-parters so here's a somewhat highly anticipated one. Armin fuckers, this is for you. non-Armin fuckers, I hope this converts you

WORD COUNT: 2.0k

II. I.

“You’re not paying attention.”

You feel his voice right by the shell of your ear, and the proximity nearly makes you reel back in surprise but you manage to catch yourself.

“S-sorry” You apologize, wishing you didn’t stutter.

The thing is you’re just really out of your element. This is the first time you’ve been to Armin’s house for personal tutoring, and it was hard to focus on the material when his presence was so distracting.

It wasn’t like you were fantasizing about him or anything [well…]-you always tried to banish those thoughts as soon as it came. But still, being alone with an attractive boy with a disarming charm was causing some jitters. You felt like a shy middle schooler, on edge and jittery.

The last tutoring session in the library when he [basically] called you stupid plagued your mind. The memory of him feeling up your thighs lived in your head rent-free.

“Let’s take a break.” He sighs. Your heart drops at the noise of disappointment but you suppose it’s what you deserve.

You push your laptop lightly aside on the table, the bleak light straining your eyes, and ask for the bathroom. You just wanted to freshen up and be alone for a few seconds. The bathroom is meticulously clean, something even you knew was unexpected for a boy. You looked at yourself through the spotless mirror, scrutinizing every flaw.

You sigh, fiddling with your dress collar. Why you had tried dressing pretty for a boy so out of your league, he may as well be in Mars--you didn’t know.

When you return, there is a tall glass of lemonade waiting for you.

“Thought you might be thirsty.”

It’s a simple gesture that makes you blush so you thank him earnestly. Like the gentleman he is, he assures you it’s no problem. Not wanting to prolong the awkward silence, you compliment his apartment, “This is a really nice place. So much light and space.”

You’re babbling but he engages you regardless, and you two are mindlessly discussing the benefits of living at off-campus housing over dorming. His words are pleasant but there’s a sinking feeling within you as you notice he’s bored. Or maybe distracted was a better word.

“So, do you have a boyfriend? Or anyone you’re seeing?”

You nearly choke at the question uttered through a buttery voice.

“Oh um, not really.”

“Not really?”

You made a mental note to answer in definitives. Armin seemed the type to snuff out anything he reasoned as half-truths.

“No. I uh, don’t have a boyfriend.” And then you clarified a pin-drop later, “And I’m not seeing anyone either.”

The blond hums a playful tune that’s vaguely nostalgic.

“Have you ever had a boyfriend?”

You don’t understand the point of this line of incessant questioning, and can’t calm your heart rate.

“I-um, I don’t-“

Taking one look at your serious face, eyes rimmed with worry and cheeks pink, he laughs. It’s a startling sound like bell chimes.

“Relax. I just wanted to know if you had any experience.”

The sentence flies out of your mouth before you can even ponder it: “What do you mean by experience?”

It’s not his fault if he can’t hide the feral grin that crosses his mouth right at that moment. You can’t discern his expression as you’re staring at anywhere but him, so you don’t notice the uncontained excitement that glimmers in cerulean eyes.

“Let’s move to the couch. You’ll be more comfortable there.”

You think about saying that you’re fine wherever you are and didn’t really feel like changing positions, but he’s already striding towards the couch. So you start packing up the materials, before a clear voice calls out to you, “It’s okay. You don’t have to bring all that. Just bring your flashcards.”

You hoped that wouldn’t mean he’d quiz you, but that’s exactly what he meant to do.

“Law of diminishing returns.”

“Wait! I know that one!” You brightly exclaimed, “ Uhh..it gives way to the catch-up effect which means poor countries tend to grow more rapidly and they’ll one day essentially catch up with wealthier economies.”

The blond ran his hand through his hair before sighing. You could feel your heart drop. You were sure you were right. Was your answer wrong enough to cause exasperation?

“Stick with the formal definition next time. I didn’t ask for the theory based on the law.”

You pouted, and Armin couldn’t help but relish in how eagerly you sought his approval, like a puppy performing tricks to appease their master.

“You should sit closer. Can you even see the word?”

You moved closer to him, knees knocking into each other. He looks down at the completed set.

“Well, you didn’t do as bad as I expected.” Ouch. But maybe he meant it as a compliment?

“But,” the corners of his mouth curled, “I’d say you’re still struggling.” Never mind.

“T-this is a new chapter though. I don’t think we’ve even gone over it in class.”

Blue eyes narrow, and you wonder if he’s going to give the well-meaning spiel about how staying ahead was the only way to keep up. That mantra may work for someone with high ambitions and an extremely good work ethic but you were no well-oiled machine. You had other classes too!

“Why are you so defensive?”

Your eyes widen in surprise at the question, spoken so softly and casually, you almost miss the disdained lilt.

“Oh uh-“

“Listen to me. I quizzed you so I’m able to assert your skill level. And your response to my assertion is that it’s something you haven’t gone over in class yet. Do those things relate to each other at all?”

Meekly, you shift your attention to the rug.

“Answer me.”

“N-no”, you squeaked.

“And what have I always told you? The only way to keep up is to-“

“Stay ahead.” You finished, “I’m sorry, I just-“

“Did I say you could interrupt me?”

You could feel the blood rushing to your ears, unsure when the atmosphere had shifted. Your heartbeat was beating rapidly and you could feel your body go warm.

He sighed, and placed a hand over over your folded ones, squeezing your palms.

“You know I’m just looking out for you right? It almost feels like you don’t care-“

“No!” You exclaim, “I-I do.” Heat pools into your cheeks once you realize your grave mistake, “I-I’m sorry for interrupting you.”

The blond smiles radiantly and it nearly melts away all of your worries…until he opens his mouth to deliver another damning remark.

“You know, with your looks…you don’t really even have to graduate. Maybe choose an easy major and then get some rich husband to take care of you.” There’s a distinct lack of humor in his tone as if he wholeheartedly believed every word he was saying.

Your eyebrows furrow in blatant confusion, and in the back of your mind, danger signs are flashing at the back of your head. Your thighs are growing warmer. Oh no, this could not be happening right now.

“That’s what most girls’ dreams are anyways.” He inspects his spotless nails, “You chose this class because Ackerman’s attractive right? That’s why his class has such a high drop rate…silly girls join, not understanding how harsh of a grader he is.”

You open your mouth to defend yourself but the next inflammatory remark he spews almost sends you to shock, “Though I bet, if you got on your knees for him, you’d be getting an A on those finals.” He laughs as if he was saying something particularly amusing, an undercurrent of spite coloring his words, “You wouldn’t even need me as your tutor.”

There are a million things on the tip of your tongue but no voice to speak them out. You want to ask him why he’s been so weirdly invasive, what his weird hang-up with professor Ackerman was, and of course, the casual sexism was really throwing you in a loop. Still, you have no doubt Armin could beat you to a bloody pulp several times over in a verbal lashing, and your mind was too fragile to deal with this.

You’ll sign up for a new tutor or better yet no tutor. You’ll get over your social anxiety and join a study group. You’ll go to all of Professor Ackerman’s office hours. Anything had to be better than this. You’re giving yourself this pep talk in your head but there’s no denying that your legs feel warm, and the self-improvement speech is withering away in your mind as it seeks to instead process how Armin fucking Arltert is touching you right now.

He pins you against the cushions, one hand locking both of your wrists. You’re shaking but your pupils are blown out wide.

He smirks, “There’s an excellent stress reliever for studying you know.”

You limp in his hold but the cocky attitude behind his words brings you back. You thrash under him, earning an annoyed growl from the blond.

“I’ve been so fucking patient with you, you know? Planning out your study guides, sharing my notes with you, proofreading homework, going over the mock exams—don’t you think I deserve a little compensation?”

“I-I’m sorry.”

He's right. He's right. Armin actually has done so much for you. Maybe it was too easy to take for granted because of how efficient he was, and how he acted like it was nothing. But right now, nothing really was everything.

He smiles. Yeah, this is who you were. Add just a little bit of pressure and you crumble. That flash of bravery from before was nothing but a petulant outburst from a child who didn’t know any better.

Armin coos, “Isn’t it a little embarrassing to be a virgin at your age?”

With unbridled precision, while he’s still holding your lower body down with the weight of his legs, he unbuckles his belt and ties it around your strained wrists. Red fills your face, and like always, you’re struggling to find the right words to respond. To say anything at all. Most of all, you can feel a wetness building at your core.

“I know the way you look at me, you know.” He kisses the dip of your neck, slender fingers splayed from under your shirt, “I know you’re into this.”

And because he is a scientist who must have evidence to back up his hypothesis, his hands find themselves under the waistband of your floral skirt that you foolishly wore, pushing the cure pastel underwear aside. You’re writhing in his grasp but maybe not as much as you should be, but it’s not your fault your movements are sluggish right?

“You have such a funny habit of not deleting your windows and keeping your bookmarks open.”

You freeze.

“This entire time I thought you were some prudish virgin even though you dress like a whore. Someone with who I had to be gentle. But all that fucking porn you read? Nasty. Is that why you need help in this class?” He punctuates slowly, "Because you're wasting your brain for something else?"

Immediately, you remember how you left your laptop on the table. You remember how many times he used your computer to double-check the notes, and you trustingly let him, forgetting that despite deleting your tabs, the hidden windows of steamy erotica were not yet erased out of their existence. Embarrassment violently paints your body.

He doesn’t wait or care for your response as he starts a vigorous assault on your clit with his slender finger, rubbing up and down in a vicious manner. The second finger prods at your entrance, feeling a tight cavern despite the amount of slick collected. Your eyes roll back in pleasure-is this what being with someone is like?

Stop. Get a hold of yourself. Why are you so fucking horny right now? It doesn’t matter what Armin said about you or how he called you out for the fiction you’ve read, because this is real life. But Christ, it’s Armin, the boy you’ve had a crush on since the moment he explained to you what a marginal abasement curve was. Stupidly handsome Armin with a gentle voice and too-blue oceanic eyes. Stupidly handsome Armin who coerced you into being under him.

You’re so fucking warm and tight, and Armin can’t wait to sink himself inside of you, can’t wait to humiliate you further. With nimble fingers he untied the ribbons of your dress like you were a Christmas present, groping your soft mounds and marking up your collarbone with teeth and tongue. Crystalline tears roll down the side of your face. You really shouldn’t be crying when you’re this wet.

“So fucking funny how you can’t look at me in the eye when we have a conversation but you read the filthiest fucking smut I’ve ever seen.”

taglist: @candy-hime

#tw noncon #tw dubcon #attack on titan fanfiction #armin arlert fanfic #yandere armin arlert #armin arlet x reader #armin arlet x you #manipulator armin #armin x y/n #armin arlet imagines #armin smut #tw manipulation #tw gaslighting

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super-predictable98 · 3 years

Text

The Therapists From Music Room 3 (Host Club x Reader)

Fandom: Ouran High School Host Club Word Count: 1,5k Warning: mention of depression (Masterlist)

You had a comfortable life, of so you thought until your dad was transferred to Japan and his company started paying for your education. You started your second year at Ouran High School, a place filled with young billionaires with no common sense. You came to realize what real wealth looked like and it wasn't as pretty as you thought.

Some of the people there were very cruel, they were quick to dismiss anything and anyone that wasn't up to their standards. There were a lot of hidden fights with passive-aggressive remarks, and even when they didn't mean to offend, they could be so clueless when it came to people who had a normal life.

As a result, you didn't have many friends, mostly because you were scared to approach people, but also because you were previously traumatized by the bullying from your last school. You didn't even wanna imagine what sort of humiliation waited for you from these rich snobs.

With almost no one to talk to and living in a country completely different, so far away from home, it didn't take long for you to start feeling depressed.

You didn't have the nerve to tell your parents you weren't happy. Who wouldn't be? Going to one of the most prestigious institutions in the world, eating some of the best food in the country, surrounded by beauty... You just couldn't help but feel a bit ungrateful, whiny.

"Jesus, in a castle so big, there isn't a single place without anyone to bother me?" you fixed the sleeves of your silly yellow uniform. For the past ten minutes, you had been going from one room to the other, looking for an empty space to be alone.

So far you had no luck, every little corner of the building seemed to be inhabited by rich people promenading like they were in a period drama. Weirdly enough, no one seemed to study a lot there.

"Welcome, princess," a choir of male voices greeted as soon as you opened the door to music room 3 (yeah, the number of music rooms in the school did surprise you).

Before you could close the door and keep wandering around, your attention was captured by a group of seven young men: a tall quiet one, a tiny cheerful one, a blonde one with the most beautiful smile, one with glasses who was taking notes, a delicate one with the kindest eyes you had ever seen, and a set of twins.

"We weren't expecting any guests yet, what brings such a beautiful angel here so early, my darling?" the blonde one stood up, flashing you a charming grin and offering his hand. "Come in, don't be shy."

"Sorry, did you say guests? Is there a party or something? Cause I wasn't invited so I-"

"There will be a tea party soon!" the tiny one, who didn't look much older than your 8-year-old brother, said. "Don't worry, you're invited, every girl is invited!"

"Who's more your type? Quiet and cool? Shota? Little devils? Smart?" the one in glasses asked. "You can have your pick since you were the first one to arrive."

"Excuse me, I'm not sure I know what's happening," you laughed awkwardly. Those guys were all really cute, but you couldn't stop thinking that it all seemed like a cruel prank. "Who are you?"

"We are the Host Club, of course!" the blonde kissed the back of your hand gracefully bowing. "We are here to bring smiles to the faces of every girl in Ouran High. If I can make you smile at least once, my existence in this world will have been worth it."

"What?"

"I've seen you before, you're the other scholarship student, right? I'm Haruhi," the kind-looking one introduced himself. "These are Tamaki senpai, Mori senpai, Honey senpai, Kyoya senpai, and the twins are Hikaru and Kaoru Hitachiin."

"H-hello, I'm y/n."

"A commoner? I love commoners, this is gonna be so much fun!" Tamaki cheered. "Would you like some instant coffee, my dear? Maybe you'd rather taste it on my lips?"

"I don't think she likes being called a-" Haruhi tried to intervene, but Tamaki shook his head.

"It's all right, daddy's taking care of it," his exceedingly charming facade dropped for a split second.

A host club? So they gave girls attention to make them feel special? As nice as it sounded, you couldn't shake the feeling that it would be painful to have a guy talk to you out of obligation, not because he really cared or wanted to know you better.

"Actually, I was looking for a place to be alone..." you let go of his hand.

"Why? You have seven perfectly handsome guys right here, who would choose to be alone instead?" the twins said in unison.

You didn't really have an answer. You wanted to be alone to cry, to think about all the things you used to do that were fun and now weren't anymore, about the friends you lost, about how everything seemed to have turned upside-down with no signs of going back when all you wanted was to keep living your life the way it was. You were happy, why did all of that have to be stolen from you?

"Are you okay?" Haruhi asked, a worried frown twisting his delicate features.

"I'm sorry, I don't wanna ruin your tea party, I just wanna be alone," your voice cracked through your plea, your eyes involuntarily filling with tears.

"The moments you want to be alone are the moments you need other people the most," Honey timidly made his way to you and held out the pink bunny he was carrying. "Do you wanna hold Usa-chan? It always makes me feel better."

"Hey, don't cry, come here, sit down," Tamaki gestured to the couch. "A beautiful face like yours shouldn't be stained with tears unless they are tears of joy."

You wanted to walk away, but you didn't have the strength to. Having someone be so nice to you, even if it was technically their job, felt so overwhelming and good. You couldn't help but want more of it.

Tamaki sat right next to you, the twins did the same. The others sat on the opposite side, except for Kyoya, too busy typing on his laptop and calculating finances for the club. He trusted the others would be able to help without a problem.

"Why are you so sad?" Kaoru asked. "Is it because you don't have money?"

"Kaoru!" Haruhi scolded.

"I just miss my home, I feel lonely, I wasn't able to make any friends here, I feel so excluded," you finally said, it was like getting a weight off your chest. "I don't feel like I belong here."

"Oh, I get it... It takes a while to get used to it," Haruhi murmured, remembering how he didn't even have a school uniform when he first started. "But I promise it won't last forever, even if most people here are completely out of touch-"

"HEY!" Tamaki yelped before charmingly resting his chin on your shoulder. "I don't know about everyone else, but no one in the host club is out of touch, especially not me. I'm always in touch, and right now I'm craving your touch, princess."

"You're being weird!" Haruhi sneered, which seemed to hurt him way too much. "What I mean if even if it seems like you don't belong, you deserve to be here and you already have a friend in me."

"Right!" the twins agreed. "Us too! Please don't cry, do you wanna play Which One is Hikaru? If you win, you get a kiss... Or maybe you'd like to watch us kissing instead?"

"Wait, what? Is that a thing? Also, I just met you, it's still a little hard for me to tell who's who," your lips formed a smile as Tamaki gently wiped your tears away.

"Do you want some cake?" Honey suggested. "Strawberry shortcake is my favorite, but I can get whatever flavor you like, y/n-chan!"

"I know how hard it is to change your entire life like this," Tamaki admitted, something he usually didn't talk about, but he felt like it would be worth it if it brought you some peace. "I moved to Japan not too long ago, I had to leave everything behind, but now I feel like I have a family here, not only at home but in this club. It's always harder in the beginning, but I promise it gets better, and you can always count on me to distract you if you ever feel sad," he crooned, ending that moment of vulnerability.

"Thank you, guys... I- I don't know what to say," you looked down, your cheeks burning. Even though all of them were hosts, you simply knew they weren't talking to you out of obligation or throwing some cheap pick-up lines at you, they actually cared and it showed.

"Say you'll stay for the party!" Honey clapped.

"Yeah, I guess a cup of tea and some cake wouldn't hurt."

Tag List: @myherokatsuki @elliethesuperfruitlover

#ohshc x reader #ohshc #ohshc fanfic #ouran high school host club #ouran x reader #ouran fanfic #fanfic

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notanotherinfjblog · 2 years

Note

Sometimes it's more difficult to interpret people's personalities across cultures. What particularities of culture do you notice have shaped you in contrast with someone of a similar personality from a different culture? For example, you mentioned your first language is German and that you also experienced learning other languages and perhaps other cultures as well?

So many interesting questions lately, thank you! I'm afraid, I can't give you highly specific answers concerning some cultural personality differences for the simple reason that I just don't really know many INFJs in general. But I will tell you a bit about how cultural differences shape our perception of social rules, which, after all, shapes us in how we navigate social settings. Different cultures express niceness differently, for example.

There are definitely differences in culture that are subtly noticeable. I'd even go as far as to say that our culture affects not just our personality, but also our body language. Not dramatically, but noticeably. I always like to speak of dialects here. Dialects in body language. That's honestly one of the two reasons why I hesitate to write my How to spot type XY posts about North Americans. You can spot an American tourist from miles away because even their way of walking is so different that it biases me too much in my perception of them leading me to perhaps falsely attribute them strength in some cognitive functions (typically Se, in this case) that might be but a mere result of their upbringing. Similarly, I remember watching a German journalist interviewing people in the middle of a protest in front of the White House once and I didn't see "ah, hello ENTP" anymore as I used to when he was out and about in Germany and instead my mind went "that is the most German behaving guy I have ever seen in my entire life, don't get trampled down, dude." Likewise, every time I've been to Montmartre, the art district in Paris, at least one street artist would see me walking past them and approach me by asking me if I was German. Every single time I was there. Pretty freaky, but I digress. The other reason for my hesitation to use North Americans in my How to spot type XY posts is that interviews on American talkshows are pretty useless to analyse because they are so weirdly staged and scripted. I remember watching interviews with the Austrian actor Christoph Waltz (an ISTP) in an American and a German talkshow once for comparison and they were so vastly different that he almost seemed like a completely different person in those interviews because he was just so taken aback by the American interview style and setting. Interestingly, I find a lot of American ISTPs much more grumpy than German or British ones, so it was funny to see that grumpiness suddenly being turned up from a base level of 4 to an 8 just because of the American setting.

In general, there are so many social rules that don't always translate well to other cultures. You can think of it like the divide between urban and rural living: in one setting, it's rude to have a chat with the cashier because you're stealing other people's time, in the other setting it's rude not to have a chat with them because you are being distanced and unfriendly. Now put that divide into a bigger framework across countries. For instance, I lived in France for a while and I always said that French people (or Parisians, specifically, I don't want to group them together with all of France) were rude non-verbally, but very nice verbally. If they were or weren't, I can't really say. That's just how I perceived them through the glasses of my own culture. I bet French people found me nice non-verbally and rude verbally, in return. An example: I frequently took the train from Paris back to Germany and so I always played the game of guessing which of the other passengers were French, Belgian or German just by watching their behaviour. And you could bet on it, those people that immediately moved their feet and made themselves small in their seats as soon as they saw someone coming their way so they wouldn't be an obstacle for the person coming through, were Germans. The French and Belgian people, on the other hand, didn't care even if you specifically asked them to make room for you. However, they were the ones being outwardly friendly, sometimes even striking up a conversation with the person sitting next to them. Most Germans, in contrast, would rather die than spend 3 hours on a train talking to a stranger. I never really realise in the moment how antisocial I must come across whenever I’m abroad and some stranger tries to start an innocent conversation with me. You see, not even the most extroverted German you could find would ever randomly strike up a conversation without some really good reason and even then they’d typically choose not to talk to other people, so my mind immediately jumps to the assumption that the stranger on the bench next to me must be a psychopath who’s going to murder me cause there can’t be any other explanation for why they would be talking to me. I think the Northern European countries would agree with me on this, the Southern European ones, however, not at all. These are things you need to consider and put into perspective when typing people from other cultures. I'm pretty sure a lot of extroverted Germans would be considered introverts elsewhere.

Issues get communicated differently, too, and that might skew your perception of them as well. One morning, for instance, I entered our office kitchen in Paris and it was covered in an abundance of heart-shaped notes on every seat and every cupboard saying "thank you for cleaning up after yourselves and considering other people coming in after you". I'm not gonna lie, it seemed so nonsensical to me that it took me almost a week to finally figure out that this was meant as an angry instruction to clean more. Cause you see, in Germany, a note like that would have been a much more direct "Guys, why is the kitchen always so dirty? Please just clean up after yourselves. Other people are using the kitchen, too. Thanks." Taken out of cultural context, you could theoretically use that to argue "huh, that's pretty straightforward and a bit insensitive, can't have been written by a feeling type", but oh yes, it can. In a similar gist, you could misinterpret someone refusing to cross the street until the traffic light turns green despite it being 2am and there being no cars in sight as stereotypical rule-following Si, but no, could just be a German.

Different cultures also put different value on different cognitive functions and that can shape the nature of your interactions in general because we will adapt to that social standard regardless of our own type. On average, I'd say Germans value Ti most, but that's also dependent on the specific region. The Rhineland, where I'm from, is more Fe prone and slightly more extroverted than most parts of the country. It's normal to have a little two minute chat with a neighbour in passing, to make little jokes with the pharmacist etc. (I know that seems contradictory to what I said earlier about Germans avoiding conversations like the plague, but as soon as the reason for talking to someone is clear (i.e. a transaction, asking for directions, you already know the other person etc.), Rhinelanders are usually quite warm in their interactions, but there just always needs to be an underlying reason for the conversation). That's what's normal to me, to leave every conversation with a smile and take at least two minutes to say goodbye after meeting someone and hug them before parting ways and not just rush off with a "bye" like the Americans I've met. Likewise, if I'm having a conversation with someone, I absolutely will be staring into their eyes for three hours straight. That's what I've been taught to be polite to show attentiveness. Again, the Americans I know found that quite unsettling.

So, I think culture shapes us in the way we express ourselves and how we perceive other people's behaviour. Due to a cultural mismatch between people, this can lead to some discrepancies. There are some American actors whose type I just can’t figure out and so I’ll be bouncing from ENFP to ESFP back to ENFP because I don’t know if they are a sensor-passing intuitive because I got tripped up by their Americanness again, or if they are an intuitive-passing sensor because they exist, too. In the same vain, I sometimes have trouble with American ESTPs with properly developed Fe because I rationalise that them being loud and big on body language (i.e. occupying a lot of physical space) is just them being American and dismiss my first instinct of ESTP and go for ESFJ instead, only to come around later to realise that I had it right the first time. But I don't think that the core being of a type would greatly differ across cultures, only in how we express ourselves and understand each other. Overall, we just adapt to some kind of standard around us, both to our close social circle of friends and family (e.g. an ESTP who grew up in a family full of FJs might be more outwardly emotive than an ESTP who didn’t) and to our culture as a whole. People of the same type, regardless of culture, run on the same basic software, but they use it slightly differently, giving way for both individual, but also cultural differences between them.

#ask #typing post

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