#i paraphased it a bit

[rubbish78]

dying at the last part of this interview as Gerard Way explains he would try to find people to play guitar with (like jam together in as a band) through ads in East Coast Rocker magazine when he was 15 years old. But most of the guys he invited over to his parent’s house were in their 30s, which his parents didn’t particular like:

love the fact he seemed to realize how weird that whole story sounded during that sentence lol while Frank Iero was trying to keep it together throughout the whole thing:

#i paraphased it a bit #he repeats himself a lot lol #gerard way #frank iero #mcr #my chemical romance #mikey way #ray toro #'mom why does gerard keep inviting old men over?' #danger days era #rubbish78gifs #my gifs #a little out of order #but the gist #cannot make this shit up

[stupidspidey]

DRAKE VS KENDRICK LAMAR

(Hey! here’s all of the songs i referenced that i cns actually add here! Plewse note i literally forgot to cover *meet the grahams*, but, fuck it, whatever.)

With the recent ongoing war between Kendrick Lamar and Drake, i feel like as someone with way too much time on their hands and nothing else going on for the day, what better than to write a cohesive timeline of literally *everything* that’s happened? And i don’t mean from **First Person Shooter**, i mean from **good kid, m.A.A.d city** type everything. Yeah, the Drake stuff isn’t exactly as recent as it may appear. Saying as theres no more ‘intro’ for me to give, here i go.

***Buried Alive Interlude (ft. Kendrick Lamar) - Take Care (2011)***

This was the beginning of the relationship between Drake and Kendrick, both of them considering eachother peers in the industry, despite being in such different lanes. (Lamar conceptual, and Drake more mainstream.), In an interview Lamar describes Drake as “A good guy.” (paraphased), regardless, things seemed alright for the two, the only real “beef” being their opposing views on how they views on their wealth and fame, Lamar keeping personal details quiet, while Drake frequently posts his lavish life to his thousands of followers.

***Poetic Justice (ft. Drake) - good kid, m.A.A.d city (2012)***

To say the two artists were always in some sort of feud would be wrong. On Kendrick’s debut album later rap classic, ***’good kid, m.A.A.d city’***, we see a feature from Drake on the track Poetic Justice. A few things of note though, is that this time period shows us a good natured relationship between Drake and Kendrick, even Drake going as far to say that *“GKMC was the last great concept album.”,* though there was definitely tensions between the two, as Drake’s refusal to work with Kendrick again began after the lyric **”I’m usually homeboys with the same n——s i’m rhymin’ with, but this is hip-hop and them n——s should know what time it is. And that goes for J.Cole, Big KRIT, Wale, Pusha T, Meek Mills A$AP Rocky, Drake, Big Sean, Jay Electron, Tyler and Mac Miller, I got love for you all, but i’m tryna slaughter you n——s.”**

Drake took an offence to this, and spited a refusal to work with Kendrick over it, seeing it as a diss, though nowadays most view this as friendly competition from Lamar. After the fact of Drake’s refusal though, Lamar did go back on another song to say **”Yeah, and nothings been the same since they dropped Control. Tucked a sensitive rapper back into his pyjama clothes.”**, this line being aimed at Drake, and actually being considered the starting point between the two’s feud, having Drake in interviews act nonchalantly and saying he isn’t “taking the bait”, he was the only rapper to have taken offence to Lamar’s initial lyric. Some also found Drake’s initial compliments to *GKMC* offensive, as the term “concept album” usually gives the idea that everything on the album is a story, or ‘made up’, implying that Drake believes Kendrick’s story in Compton was fiction, though i find that to be a bit of a stretch personally. Some people also found it as a fairly backhanded compliment because of this.

***Control (ft. Kendrick Lamar) - Big Sean***

I mentioned earlier about how this song sparked the real aggression between the two artists, and that statement still stands. Coming off of tour alongside Drake and A$AP Rocky, we saw Lamar feature on this song alongside Big Sean, in which he aims not just for Drake, but the rap industry as a whole. To repeat the lyric from earlier, **”**I’m usually homeboys with the same n——s i’m rhymin’ with, but this is hip-hop and them n——s should know what time it is. And that goes for J.Cole, Big KRIT, Wale, Pusha T, Meek Mills A$AP Rocky, Drake, Big Sean, Jay Electron, Tyler and Mac Miller, I got love for you all, but i’m tryna slaughter you n——s.”** This lead the press to obviously inquire Drake on his thoughts on this, to which he responded: *”I didn’t really have anything to say about it. It just sounded like an ambitious thought to me. That’s all it was. I know good and well that [Lamar] ‘s not murdering me, at all, in any platform. So when that day presents itself, I guess we can revisit the topic.”* This quote came with the claims that Lamar’s ‘dream’ of murdering him (metaphorically) was simply a fantasy, and that he simply couldn’t live up to what Drake had established. In other words, Drake believes his star power keeps him away from the threats Lamar proceeds.

***King Kunta - To Pimp a Butterfly/100 - The Game***

In these tracks, Drake begins to show a response to Lamar’s claims. In *King Kunta*, from Kendrick’s sequel album **To Pimp a Butterfly**, now widely considered one of the most influential albums in rap, Lamar pens **“I can dig rapping! But a rapper with a ghostwriter? What the fuck happened?”** this lyric is aimed at allegations that some of Drake’s music is written by a team, rather than himself—— more commonly referred to as ‘ghostwriting’, I haven’t heard much about this, but i do believe the lyric **”I got a bone to pick! I don’t want these monkey-mouthed motherfuckers sitting in my throne again!”** could be a potential dig at not just Drake, but the industry as a whole— something Lamar has done a few times as we’ve covered. Either in coincidence or response, Drake released a jab at Lamar around the same time, penning **”I would have all your fans if i didn’t go pop and stayed down on some conscious shit.”** these two lyrics are really the last time in the 2010’s we hear of the beef between Drake and Kendrick up until the recent events, with both of them seemingly simmering, nothing is really said as far as i’m aware between this point and the next.

***First Person Shooter (ft. J.Cole) - FOR ALL THE DOGS (2023)***

Oh J.Cole. you poor, poor man.

*First Person Shooter*, one of the lead singles for Drake’s album ***FOR ALL THE DOGS***, is with no doubt a victory lap for Drake and his colleague Jermaine Cole (more frequently, J.Cole). On the track, Cole pens **”People argue who’s the hardest MC, is it K.Dot, is it Aubrey or me? We the big three like we started a league, but right now i feel like Mohammed Ali.”** Now to most, this would come off as a compliment, with Cole stating that the big three of rap is him, Kendrick Lamar and Drake, though a few people saw this as fairly backhanded, seeing the following Mohammed Ali comment along with the fact that Drake was also on the song to be placing Lamar in third, implying that Cole believes those two usurp Kendrick, putting him in the top 3 out of pity in a sense. This is what set the current ball in motion, and more importantly, set off Metro Boomin and Future. (Well, not really, but the next instalment happens to come from their album ***We Don’t Trust You*,** so…)

***Like That (ft. Kendrick Lamar) - We Don’t Trust You (Metro Boomin and Future) (2024)***

This is where the games begin. Lamar is featured as a surprise feature on Future and Metro Boomin’s collaboration album, **We Don’t Trust You**. In this surprise however, Lamar comes in full force. Penning **”They think i won’t drop the location, i still got PTSD, motherfuck the big three, n——a it’s just big ME! (n——a bum!)”**, being the most iconic of the shots thrown from Lamar, as for after Kendrick continues to call Drake and Cole ‘bums’. It’s obvious that this is aimed at the two, as Kendrick starts his verse with **”Fuck sneak dissing, First Person Shooter? i hope they came with three switches, i crash out like ‘FUCK RAP!’ diss Melly Mells if i have to, got 2 tees with me, i’m snatching chains and burning tattoos.”** This is, of course, the beginning of what i like to call “the war” between Drake and Kendrick (and J.Cole, who immediately backs out, respect to him though, shit gets crazy.), for the first few weeks, neither artists really respond to these lyrics, up until J.Cole.

***7 Minute Drill - MIGHT DELETE LATER (J.Cole) 2024***

This is where the responses come in. J.Cole fires back at Lamar after a few weeks of seemingly nothing from the two aimed at in FPS, on this track, Cole aims singularly for Lamar, using a multitude of lyrics and phrases to insult him. This isn’t actually the first time Lamar and Cole have been in a sort of “battle”, though with the brotherly bond between the two, it’s been seemingly in good hearted nature. On the track, Cole raps **”He’s averaging one hard verse like, every 30 months or somethin’.”** in reference to the large release windows between Kendrick’s albums, GKMC, TPAB, DAMN. and Mr Morale. Following this, he states that **”If he wasn’t dissing, then we wouldn’t be discussing him.”** Implying that if he hadn’t been aiming for the two, nobody would be discussing Kendrick Lamar at all. This most likely comes from the radio silence from Kendrick since Mr. Morale outside of surprise features like **America has a Problem.** Cole also claims that he’s **”Front of the line, with a comfortable lead, how ironic, soon as i got it, now he wants something with me.**” Telling us that Cole’s belief is Lamar’s aiming is out of jealousy or envy, rather than the usual friendly competition between the two. In a more extended line proceeding this, he pens **”Your first shit? A classic. Your last shit was tragic. Your second shit put n——s to sleep but the gassed it. Your third shit was massive, and THAT was your prime, i was trailing right behind, and i just now hit mine.”** Each line in this lyric is directed to a different Kendrick Lamar album. His first shit (***good kid, m.A.A.d city***) is considered a classic in the rap genre, and is considered by some to be Lamar’s best album. His last shit (**Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers**) is taken in a completely different direction than most of Lamar’s previous work, this leads it to be more negatively reviewed among the rest of his works. His second shit (**To Pimp a Butterfly***)* Is the follow-up album to GKMC, showing us the first instance of Lamar’s social commentary (though, present in GKMC), this making Cole claim it as putting people to sleep, as it was too introspective and political (This line is heavily disagreed with, as most people perceive TPAB as the best rap album of all time.) His third shit (***DAMN.***) is considered by most to be Kendrick’s prime, and also the peak of his fame. Featuring artists like Rhianna and with hit classics like DNA. and HUMBLE., the album is considered some of Lamar’s most iconic work to date. After the release of ***7 Minute Drill***, J.Cole immediately backed out and apologised, stating “Do y’all love Kendrick Lamar? Cause so do i.” And basically apologising to him. To this day it’s unknown wether or not this was out of either respect or fear for Lamar, though we do know that ScHoolboy Q, a colleague of Cole’s, told him to simply not get involved, as he knew it was more of a thing between Kendrick and Drake.

***Push Ups (Drop and Give Me 50) - Drake (2024)***

This transitions is smoothly into where we really are today, the consistent stream of tracks between Drake and Kendrick that seemingly antagonise eachother to no end. We begin with **Push Ups**, a track where Drake goes not just for Kendrick, but for everyone involved with ***We Don’t Trust You***. Drake starts the track with **”Drop, drop, drop, drop…”**, a seeming triple entendre to a multitude of things relating to Kendrick. First off, some interpret this as Drake telling Lamar to “drop” something, either being a response to him, or just solo music in general. Another interpretation follows the idea that he is telling Kendrick to “drop and give him 50%”, as it’s suspected that Lamar’s label takes a 50% cut of whatever he releases. A third (and less interesting) interpretation is that it’s in reference to Lamar’s frequenting of the parks to do his exercise routines, namely doing 50 pushups. following this we hear **”I could never be nobodies number one fan, your first number one, i had to put that in your hands.”**, Implying Drake believes Kendrick’s fame comes from his features on Drake’s album ***Take Care***, and Drake’s features on ***Poetic Justice*** (both covered earlier.), following this, we get **”How the fuck you big-stepping with a size seven men’s on?”**, this is both a reference to Lamar’s album ***Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers***, and also Lamar’s height, being 5’5. Later on, we get **”Maroon 5 need a verse, you better make it witty. Then we need a verse for the Swifties, Top says drop, you better drop and give em 50!”**, this is in reference to how Kendrick has previously featured on songs for both Maroon 5 (***Don’t Wanna Know**)* and Taylor Swift (***Bad Blood***), Drake uses this almost in mocking. The “drop and give me 50” line is repeated through the song. Following this is **”Its like your label, boy, you’re in the scope right now. And you’re gonna feel the aftermath of what i write down.”**, this references both of the labels Lamar has been signed to, Interscope Records and Aftermath Records. To cap off what i’m gonna cover for this song (lest i be here for hours), Drake pens **”Pipsqueak, pipe down. You ain’t in no big three, SZA got you wiped down, Savage got you wiped down, Travis got you wiped down—“**, this line tells us seemingly whay Drake *a*ctually believes to be the big three, unlike what Cole claimed on First Person Shooter, this also seemingly a jab at Cole aswell, as Drake seems to ‘remove’ him from the big three. He later also says **”I don’t care what Cole think, that Dot shit was weak as fuck.”** seemingly solidifying this line of thought. Drake is now out for both Kendrick and Cole.

***Taylor Made Freestyle - Drake (2023)***

This song seemingly stems from Drake’s impatience for Lamar to respond. (something he’d largely backtrack on later), To give some context to the title, the real beef between the two began during the release of Taylor Swift’s album ***The Tortured Poets Department***, because of this, Drake accuses Lamar of being “scared” to drop within this timeframe, in fear of being overshadowed. Unfortunately, in this song Drake begins by targeting one of Kendrick’s idols, Tupac, through the use of his AI Generated voice, a move that would wildly lose Drake the public vote. I’m not going to cover the stuff that’s used from the AI Snoop Dogg or Tupac primarily because (and trying to remain as completely unbiased as possible), Drake is a massive bitch for using them. Anyway, onto the first line of note: **”But now we gotta wait a fuckin’ week cause Taylor Swift is your new Top, And if you boutta drop then she has to approve.”**, this comes again from Drake’s belief that Kendrick is scared of dropping out of fear of being overshadowed, stating it as if Taylor ‘owns’ Kendrick. If i’m being completely honest, that’s literally all i can say about this track, pretty much every line aimed at Kendrick can be summed up to that exact definition, so i’ll move on the the next track.

***euphoria - Kendrick Lamar (2024)***

This is where Kendrick begins his involvement, by not just dropping his response, but by dropping two in one day, **euphoria** and **6:16 in LA** (the latter of which i’ll cover next). The track begins with a reversed sample from a remake of ***The Wizard of Oz***, in which a character proclaims **”Everything they say about me is true!”**, this could be interpreted to Kendrick owning up to the title of *”The Boogeyman”* some have given him in previous beefs. Following up this, Lamar begins the track with a slow, melodic beat, as he softly rhymes over the top of it. He pens **”You’re moving just like a degenerate, every antic is feeling distasteful.”** in reference to Drake’s use of AI voices on ***Taylor Made Freestyle***. After this, we receive a beat switch in which Lamar begins to ‘battle-rap’. We begin with **”Have you ever paid five hundered thou’ like, to an open case?”** This line is allegedly written in reference to Drake’s sexual assault allegations from Instagram model *Laquana Morris*, in which he paid $350k in settlement. Though this could also be in reference to Lamar’s 2017 lawsuit in which LOYALTY. was accused of plagiarism by *Terrance Hayes*, a case that was later dismissed and dropped with little to no explanation. Later, Lamar pens **”Id rather do that than let a Canadian n——a make Pac roll in his grave.”**, Another reference to Drake’s previous usage of Tupac’s AI voice, and more notably, Kendrick’s desire to defend Tupac’s legacy from that sort of usage. **”What is it, the braids? Oh you dont wanna work with me no more? Okay.”** Is in reference to how Drake’s haircut (twisted braids) has him thinking wrong to go against him. The following comment about not working with him is in reference to Kendrick’s comments on **Control**, aimed at Drake, and his reaction to no longer wanting to work with Lamar. **”Its three GOATs left, and i see two of em hugging and kissing on stage.”** Is in reference to ***It’s All A Blur Tour***, in which J. Cole and Drake headlined together, a photo commonly shared of the two of them hugging on stage. **”Yeah, fuck all that pushing P, let me see you Pusha T!”** Is in reference to Drake’s previous beef with Pusha T, in which he revealed that Drake had a son, Adonis. This later removed all responses from Drake, making people consider Pusha T the winner. There’s a LOT more lyrics in this song, but i’m gonna cut it primarily for actually making space for the rest of this stuff.

***6:16 in LA - Kendrick Lamar (2024)***

In a surprising move from Kendrick, he released two songs in a row, this one more personally aimed at not just Drake and everyone he’s associated with, but Drake himself. With this track there aren’t many lyrics i actually want to select and really explain like i have in previous sections so i’d be better off more or less explaining how tensions were in the release of this track. People were no short of surprised to see Lamar drop such a substantial amount of tracks in one day, making most people seemingly ‘switch sides’ from Drake, while most others applied the argument that “most had decided their winner before their battle even started.”, however this song is the prelude before we really get Kendrick to delve into Drake’s allegations, and more impressively, straight up call him a p*dophile.

***Family Matters - Drake (2024)***

After a day or two of waiting with bated breath, Drake finally responded to Lamar’s tracks with a return to burn Kendrick. The song begins with a reused sample of **Push-Ups**, almost making the song seem to be a sequel to that, Drake begins by proclaiming that **”Cole losing sleep over this, that ain’t me.”**, in reference to Cole’s exiting from the battle. However a lyric following this further landed Drake into a negative public opinion, as he raps **”Always rappin’ like you’re tryna get the slaves freed.”**, seemingly dissmissing to the work Kendrick’s done for knowledge on Black History, as well as mocking Lamar’s general influence and introspective style of rap. Later, Drake finally fires back with allegations that Kendrick is abusive toward his wife, with the line **”Ay, let that shawty breathe.”**, allowing the listener to interpret that Lamar may be involved in abusing his wife, Whitney. (Though, this was later seemingly disproved by a tweet from Whitney’s brother showing support toward Kendrick.) Drake then raps **”Shake that ass for Drake, and shake that ass for free.”**, implying both that Whitney is disloyal to Kendrick, and that Drake supposedly wants this to be a song people dance to in clubs via twerking or something, this later backfired as Lamar’s next track, ***Not Like Us***, actually ended up being played in a multitude of clubs and raves upon release. Drake later raps **”good kid, m.A.A.d city van, we’ll pop the latch and let the door slide.”**, seemingly in reference to a drive-by in Kendrick’s Compton days, as in the album the Van is used as a symbol of protection from the violence in the world outside. Drake is proclaiming he will destroy Kendrick’s only sense of protection. In Part III of the song, Drake begins by rapping **”Kendrick just opened his mouth, someone go hand him a Grammy right now.”**, seemingly believing that all of Lamar’s Grammys are given based off of popularity over talent, though Drake follows this with **”Where is your uncle at? Cause i wanna talk to the man of the house.”,** this is in reference to the **Mr Morale and the Big Steppers** track **Auntie Diaries**, in which Kendrick tells the story of his Auntie transitioning into his Uncle. The bar basically mocks Kendrick for being less masculine than a trans person, sort of transphobic to me but, yknow. From here it’s just more lyrics about the allegations of Kendrick’s abuse of his wife, bringing us onto **Not Like Us**.

***Not Like Us - Kendrick Lamar (2024)***

This track is the pinpoint for when we go from ***To Pimp a Butterfly*** to ***To Catch a Predator***. In this track, Kendrick fully goes in on Drake’s sexual abuse and pedophilia allegations, exposing a major amount of Drake’s argument. The first influential lyric on this track is **”Say, Drake, I hear you like em’ young.”**, again in reference to these allegations, now, to get this out of the way now, i’m gonna say the same for **”Certified Lover Boy? Certified Pedophile!”** and **”Tryna stroke a chord, and it’s probably A-Minor!”**, the first of which being a reference to Drake’s album **Certified Lover Boy**, and the second referencing the guitar chord A-Minor, entendres with “a minor” (Holy shit, man.) **”Certified Boogeyman, i’m the one who upped the score with em’.”** Is in reference to the **Halloween** character *Micheal Myers*, and more importantly his intimidating presence, that of which Kendrick implies he also brings in his opponents, the usage of ‘certified’ could also be another reference to **Certified Lover Boy**., and with all that covered, that’s pretty much all that comes from this track and, honestly, the beef in general.

***THE HEART PART 6 - Drake (2024)***

To remain as unbiased as possible, this is where things get downright embarrassing, and honestly, what solidifies Kendrick Lamar’s win. For starters, the track title itself is in reference to Lamar’s **The Heart** series, which is typically used to debut a new album, like **DAMN.** and **Mr Morale and the Big Steppers.** This is actually a joke that was frequently used on Twitter beforehand, as well see with the rest of this track, most of Drake’s research comes less from his peers and more from Twitter, the track itself actually is an attempt to mock Kendrick Lamar’s sexual assault, something of which we learn, actually never happened. Drake raps **”Mother i— Mother i— That’s the one record where you say you got molested.”**, despite him saying this, **Mother I** is Kendrick talking about how his cousin didn’t molest him, but none of his family believed him, in other words, Drake completely misses the point. Before this Drake raps **”This Epstein angle is the shit i expected.”** When, in prior songs, nobody has mentioned Jeffrey Epstien. He also raps **”I only fuck with Whitneys, not no Millie Bobbie Browns.”** in reference to his allegations in messaging *Stranger Things* star Millie Bobbie Brown, despite being 17 years older than her. Yet again, Kendrick had never mentioned this beforehand.

***MR. MORALE VS THE 6IX GOD.***

In the end, it comes down to personal opinion on who you really think ‘won’ this sort of thing, it’s a very arguable and personal thing, wether you believe that Kendrick beats his wife, or that Drake is a pedophile, just know either way, when i release this Kendrick Lamar would have released 4 more tracks.

Wish me luck.

#kendrick lamar #kendrick diss #drake #drake diss #to pimp a butterfly #good kid m.a.a.d city #take care #j. cole #rap #hip hop #diss #beef #Spotify #SoundCloud

[felassan]

Some snippets of interest and insight from Mark Darrah, from an older Mark Darrah on Games YouTube video where he was livestreaming playing Dragon Age II some months ago -

Chat asked "Are you devs (former devs as well) hyped and excited about entire lore and world of DA like we are?''. Mark replied that the devs do get into the lore but that they actually often lean into the community to make sure that they aren't violating their own lore (because there's so much of it). "You guys have done a much better job of curating it than we have to be honest".

A comment in chat said "I think it's important to know that as DA4 ramps up, the fandom is going to change". Mark replied "for sure, definitely, as the marketing picks up for a game you draw in more people. Also, BioWare is carrying some Anthem people that picked up that never left, that have definitely changed the tenor of the fandom to some degree".

For dialogue, the reason why the paraphrase is different to what Hawke actually says is that they found in ME1 that if they just made them the same, it felt like everything you as the PC said was being repeated because you had already read it in your head and then it got said out loud. This does sometimes lead to disconnect as sometimes what Hawke ends up saying isn't really what was implied by the paraphase. Mark said "that's why we've been experimenting with different tonal stuff in different games, to give you hints as to more clarity as to what will actually be said".

Chat asked ''what is you opinion on the rewrite/corrections of a lot of the lore from DA2 in subsequent media?'. Mark replied "My opinion is that you should try to be respectful of everything that came before as much as possible. I don't like that some of the comics and things have enforced sort've standard canon so strongly. I recognize that, especially coming out of DA:O, there's not much choice, but I feel like we could have done a bit of a better job there".

[source]

He also talked more generally about DAII and the previous games in general. These bits are collected under a cut due to length:

The messages that appear at the bottom of the DAII start screen must be hard-coded as opposed to live updates received from online, as some of them still refer to long-past things

On Varric's embellished prologue scene, where Bethany's chest size is exaggerated, he mentioned that Varric was more of a pig in DAII than he is in DA:I. "Men writing men writing women"

First impressions have an impact on players' opinions of the companions. Mark mentioned that he thinks that might be one of the reasons why players tend to stick with the first 3 companions that they get in the game, because those are the ones they're used to and are forced to get a bit more context on because they're there with you for the duration of the prologue/introduction

One of the problems with DAII is that because the followers are so locked down in terms of their abilities, gameplay and roleplay are in conflict more than they are in DA:O and DA:I

Combat in DAII is essentially the combat of DA:O (the same systems underneath) if someone took the 'knobs' and cranked them in the opposite direction really far. So the same systems underneath, but just with very different numbers in them

In DA:I, lighting (what time of day it is) was created such that the best looking lighting/time of day for each area was chosen

In DAII Kirkwall, because it was essentially such a central character in the game, actually got a lot more attention than cities usually do in DA games

The design of Kirkwall's city map actually kind of discourages you from going out into the wilderness, which Mark doesn't think was the intention

He mentioned that accents are tricky and that you want replicable accents. This was a problem Mass Effect had, e.g. with Tali. Tali's accent was one her VA could do, but no-one else could do it, so they ended up with an un-replicable accent for this character

"I forgot how many redheads there are in DAII"

Adding in some of the 'this is physically impossible irl' moves and skills to warriors and rogues in DAII helped to better balance those classes with mages, which were sort've overpowered relatively speaking in DA:O

DAII tried really hard to establish an art direction. So for example, there was a strong effort to make elves not look like 'humans with pointy ears', hence they're very angular. They then backed away from this a bit in DA:I

Chat asked ''Do you guys prefer the strongest loot to be crafted or found?'". Mark replied that crafting is a dangerous thing because some players don't engage in it, so if you require crafting for the best loot you run into the problem of players who don't engage in crafting not being able to play the game. Usually the best loot is crafted, but you need to be able to play the game without using it

In DAII they were trying to control the game economy a bit better than it was done in DA:O, as especially in the first act you're supposed to be someone who has just fled the Blight, so it wouldn't make sense to have a sack of money

On the repeating cave environment in DAII, it was a very specific hole in the cave ceiling with a shaft of sunlight hitting the ground that was so identifiable/distinctive that was what showed that the cave was being reused. "That specific spot is the main reason there was backlash about and people noticing the reused cave". Chat asked whether Mark thought that a simple texture swap-out would have helped mitigate the repeating dungeons complaint and he replied that some texture swaps could have helped, but the reason why they didn't do more clever tricks to conceal it was lack of time

Another major thing that caused the noticeable repeating environments problem is that they had the same area map, as they didn't have the ability in the engine to have specialized area maps, "so what happens is you actually get lots of times where parts of the level look accessible when in fact it isn't" (blocked off doors and not making it look like that on the minimap), and that just draws even further attention to how repetitive it is. DA:O comparatively did better at disguising or effectively reusing content

Also, chat asked ''Development wise, was crunch much worse for DA: Exodus versus DA:O or DA:I since it had a year or two development period??'". Mark replied that "Crunch-wise, yeah, DAII was arguably the worst but because the game was short in terms of dev time it was less total time I guess. But it was kind've for the entire development process so that was not great. We decided to do it in December in 2009 and shipped in March of 2011, so total time from the day we decided to do it until the day it was on shelves was about 15 months." This is why the game relies so much on the followers, because they are faster to write, usually require less revisions and you can go with the first drafts a little bit more. "If Jason Schreier says it was 2 years dev time for DAII in his book Blood, Sweat and Pixels, he's incorrect". More development time for DAII would have helped but it would have needed to have been added to the timeline in just the right way. If it had been added at the end and the release date had shifted really late in development, that would have been the biggest way to help, "because you could take the game as it was and patched over the biggest shaky bits". If it had just started with a 2 year dev cycle "I think you would have ended up with weaknesses because you would have just filled up the bucket with more content and I think the solution would've been to not do that, to keep it super tight, keep the focus on the characters and then patch over the worse of the glaring things". Also, "I have slept under my desk, yes".

(pls note that in places there is a bit of paraphrasing of the info, the best source is always the primary source with full quotes in their original context. and also that this vid is from 11 months ago)

[source]

#dragon age #bioware #video games #long post #longpost #dragon age: dreadwolf #dragon age 4 #the dread wolf rises #da4 #anthem #mass effect

[i-love-to-draw1]

I'm actually kinda glad tht us Tumblr folks are a bit sad or off bout Tallulah's letter

It felt so off bc ik it's a summary n she's a kid. An isolated kid too [relatable] but like come on. We saw forever doing his best to care for Tallulah. N bad did his best with comforting her too, but he isn't gonna brake richas trust bout this VERY TERRYFYING side to himself to anyone yet. Not even to his sister bc again he said he isn't ready [paraphased].

Nothing wrong, wut makes a good character is thr flaws bc tht wut makes them human.

I'm just worried tht philza will not let anyone care for his kids bc of this. Bc thts not a way to go. I'm glad we all agree thy need to hang out more n get to KNOW eachother more. Bc like the parents don't see them often [just like with leo]

[Lmao makes me think back how protective my parents were tht I rarely left the house or leave without their supervision till 18. Which is why I crave to go out more]

It ain't gonna be a perfect road tbh. This a learning process for parents n kids n there will be conflict bc everyone still trying to learn bout eachother still lmao

#qsmp #qsmp rant #qsmp liveblog #man plz let the communication smp do its magic

[transformers-mosaic]

Transformers: Mosaic #376 - "Human Component: Minerva"

Originally posted on May 4th, 2009

Story, Art - Iván Mas Thanks to - Carlos Oliveros

deviantART | Seibertron | TFW2005 | BotTalk

wada sez: Minerva was one of the most dramatic reinventions of a Hasbro toy for the Japanese market, a complete redeco of Nightbeat into a medic’s car. Ignoring later retcons, she was the first ever toy of a female Transformer. Together with Shūta and Cab, she was one of the three schoolkids given a Master-Brace by the Autobots, which allows her to transform into a Headmaster and combine with a Transtector. Chōkon Power is involved somehow. Given that Minerva is a schoolgirl, perhaps you’re wondering why Mas has drawn her Like That. Great question! Mas’s stated justification (per the machine-translated commentary I’ve included below the break, along with some extra art) is that he found the premise of the young teens driving around saving the world too far-fetched, so he’s aged them up a bit. Sure, I guess. If we’re talking in terms of the plot of Masterforce, this strip appears to be set after the fourth episode, “Birth! Headmaster Jrs”, which has the first altercation between the Autobot and Decepticon Headmaster Juniors—but obviously Mas is adapting the story for a new audience so is at liberty to futz with this kind of thing. To paraphase a comment by Mas on deviantART, he justifies the sheer quantity of text in this strip by reminding readers that he’s writing about a story/characters most readers will have zero familiarity with, because he’s “not interested in explaining Starscream’s treachery towards Megatron, or how nice Hot Rod is”! Based?

The idea is simple, I want to introduce the main characters of Masterfroce, which outside Japan, are more or less unknown in many countries, and the series, in terms of potential, seems to me the most profitable and innovative.

Personally I have always wanted to face Transformers in a more serious and adult way, more in line with these times, I think that the younger audience already has its "Animated" and will always have the classic series.

I also think that it would be relatively easy to make Transformers a good comic of say "superheroes or robots" and I mean a comic that both Transformers and non Transformers fans would like. And I think it would be easy to put it at the level of ... maybe some x-men (?!) ( sacrilegeee!!!! ) ( not in terms of sales volume, that's logical, but in essence ).

Another of the "problems" that I feel transformers comics have in general is that at graphic level the robots are indeed very well, but that’s all.... when it comes to drawing backgrounds or humans ........... let's be frank although it annoys us, in the comic world, nobody takes transformers as something serious, it is considered a sub-product ( never better said "SUB" ) to simply sell dolls, of course, so far they have done well.

In the mosaic, first of all I tried to create the same feeling I had with Masterforce when I saw it,

- really, this is transformers ? no robots ! -

So, in none of these mosaics I'm going to introduce anything related to robots, although of course, they are an important or fundamental part of the theme.

But before we talked about giving an adult touch to the theme, and in this aspect, I am more interested in what the "souls" of the robots may think, which in this case is the function that humans do, in order to be able to understand better the metallic beings.

But in this aspect I always give the same example... in "the walking dead" the main thing should be the zombies, however they end up being something secondary... and nobody will deny that the series is more than good.

However in this Mosaic, those of you who know Masterforce will have noticed.... in the series, Minerva was not so grown up.... well, I have done it for coherence, the eighties were another thing, but today, it would be too far-fetched, even within the far-fetched nature of the story, that a girl of 15 years not only drove a car, without being stopped by the police, but also save lives and worlds, with the maturity that presumably entails.

Masterforce is also not a new twist to the same, which would be easy and what every X time is already done, but a new concept, an evolution of robots and characters, far are the already "incarcerated and typical" Prime and Megatron, beings to which I have great respect and appreciation, but I consider that neither the fans of Transformers or any series can live forever of the same characters, even more when they are so well known, in this case,

Wolverine is a good example, nowadays it is very difficult to create something surprisingly good and new with Wolverine and even more without breaking the different continuities.

Or Batman too... to create something that really catches the attention, they have had to kill Bruce Wayne .....

I know that I run the risk that many because people don’t see robots, they won’t be interested interested in the story, but without wanting to seem offensive, that’s your problem, we have been watching Prime and Megatron for 25 years..... and I'm starting to get a little tired, and besides even at the time Masterforce was better than the original G.1 in almost all concepts, in animation, character design, drawing and scripting.

So, I hope that people can discover and enjoy Masterforce and I hope that those who already know it can "open" their mind a little and they will like it, if not... they will always have Prime and Megatron.

#Transformers #Transformers Mosaic #Maccadam #Japanese Generation 1 #Human Component #Iván Mas #Carlos Oliveros #Minerva #Metalhawk #Fangry #Horri-Bull #Squeezeplay

[etrangersvoyageant]

It’s high time to write about Jon Stewart. I’ve wanted to do it before, but I also wanted to see how he progressed. Anyway, since he returned to the Daily Show, I’ve returned to watching it more often. Every Monday he has been on, he does strong segments on current events. Whether it’s Palestine, maga/republican bs rhetoric or media coverage, Jon hits the nail on the head.

Take last Monday’s episode about the latter, where Stewart dives into cancel culture after the response to Harrison Butker’s commencement speech at a catholic school where he incited conservative values upon women. This led to outrage and calling for the football player to be cancelled and no longer being able to go to the White House from the left. Rightwing media took this opportunity to defend Butker and complain about cancel culture yet again.

Stewart showed the fake outrage from the past, especially from Sean Hannity (described as ‘basically just a meat-bag support system for a forehead vein’): ‘’[I]t’s absolutely true that in our modern social media drive society, our interactions are incentivized and monetized for outrage and it is fucking exhausting for everyone. But contrary to your conservative book industry the outrage isn’t just coming from the left. It’s coming from the left, the right, for the right, for the left and the Swifties, and YA readers and anybody who dares to lift their head up to say fucking anything. We are not censored or silenced. We are surrounded and inundated with more speech than has ever existed in the history of communication.’’ ‘’And it is all weaponized by professional outrage hunters of all stripes, scouring the globe for graduation speech snippets, offhand comments during promotional tours, out of context comedy bits, lame marketing ideas or any words and phrases they believe they can latch onto to generate monetized clicks. Outrage is the engine of our modern media economy.’’

A few weeks ago, Stewart already held a mirror up to the media when confronting them with their coverage of the hush money trial after their ‘sober confessions’ from the past, paraphasing: ‘we shouldn’t have given him so much airtime’.

Unfortunately the Daily Show partook in this sport themselves and it felt like a missed opportunity with bigger problems in the world. Back then I already started this post, writing: ‘Unfortunately, having read Said’s Covering Islam this year, I’ve learnt American media doesn’t change. It creepily holds onto its false images and keeps reiterating them for the viewers and advertisers’ pleasure. And that’s the problem of course. All those media outlets are advertisement-driven, meaning they want the eyeballs to make money.’

Ah yes, the media landscape is just as fucked as 4 decades ago. That’s why it’s important what and who you give your time and attention to. The less people watching, the worse are the numbers and maybe, idealistically speaking, the media will change (a little bit).

Watch it back.

#Jon Stewart #Daily Show #on media #media coverage #Youtube

[acadprofesscomms]

Journal 5 - Future strategies

Concluding this final Journal Entry, I am overall happy with the progress I have made throughout the first semester, with me being completely new to everything I was a bit hesistant on what to expect but it is fair to say I am happy with my learning development for not only this subject but for all subjects for the first semester. Definately the one thing that surpised me was being able to get all the remaining outstanding work done in just a short amount of time, even with my circumstances with having to go overseas I still was able to hand in everything and be able to do them at an appropriate standard as well as pass this subject. Definately the positives for this subject was the classes that I attended for the first couple of weeks being able to learn more about academic and professional communications as a subject and how it is applied in the sporting and media world, one of the negatives I think was the fact that for this subject I did not in fact get to work with anyone as for all the group assessments I did them individually so in terms of next semester hopefully there will be no unplanned circumstances that will get in the way of my learning here at Holmesglen and that working amoung my peers will be a way for me to improve in teamwork and being able to get stuff done both individually and in groups, A strength that i have noticed I have picked up while being in this course is my ability to type alot faster than I usually do so I have all the essays and reports that I have done throughout this subject to thank for that, as well as my researching skills as I have never been able to know what Peer reviewed articles are and how I am able to distinguish them from a regular internet article. I also feel that my presentation skills have also improved as normally I would not see myself talking in front of a large audience or being able to present a presentation without being able to paraphase the information or having to maintain eye contact with also reading the information, another strength that I have developed as well would be my ability to be able to paraphase or summerise the key information from a large amount of text as this is important when being asked about the knowledge on the certain information. Overall I am very pleased with how this semester turned out it was a bit different to my other class mates with me unfortunately being overseas for the majority of the semester however I did not let this get to me and I was focussed on getting all the work done and I got there in the end. Hopefully the next semester will be more straight forward and not as complicated.

[cyclonesyndicate]

The End Of The World | Niflheim | Trial 6.3

"Uh, yes I-" At NULL's outburst about the meteorite shard, Xander started to respond before... Tempest entered the room. No longer a little kitty cat in a detective's hat, but their true human form. That's definitely more important than discussing that little incident. Honestly this was great, Xander had been wondering if anyone was going to tell Sly Tony that his beloved boss was dead and was also a cat and had been trying to think of a way to broach the topic but... Now he didn't have to. Thank god. "Welcome Tempest, tis good to see thou in this form at last!"

There's a bit of discussion about the plans they found, and the mastermind's technical abilities which causes Xander to think on that a moment. He can't really say much on that subject, it really feels like a tough point to nail to someone. "It.. Does narrow it down a bit if we think about it like that. Ragnarok is either someone with the funds to commission such wretched devices or someone with the technical know-how to build them themself." But it won't due to start pointing a figure all willy-nilly. So it's onto other evidence, and a topic Xander was quite happy to speak about.

"Speaking of Ragnarok, let us discuss that concept itself for a moment, shall we? I believe the name may give us a clue or to as to the person who picked such an excellent moniker for themself!" You can practically see the sparkles in his eyes as he starts up on one of his favorite topics of conversation, Norse Mythology. "Ragnarok itself, or rather Ragnarøkkr means Twilight of the Gods in old Norse, tis the end of the known world, resulting in the deaths of numerous great figures and natural disasters that would end in the world submerged in water. However tis not the true end, as the world will rise once more from this state and begin anew. Tis both an end and a beginning!"

He claps his hands together with a smile, and continues. "So, we have a clear parallel in our own Ragnarok already! Their plan to end all evil in the world with the meteorite and usher in a new age mirrors the idea of the gods deaths and disasters leading into a new age in the myth. However, I believe there's likely more to glean from the myth. For example, there is a prophecy given early on in the story that echoes this death game our Ragnarok hath put us in. 'Brothers shall kill each other, sisters shall define kinship, an axe age, a sword age, a wind age, a wolf age, the world shall go headlong with naught a single man having mercy upon another.' That's a bit of a paraphase but you can surely see the conenction."He recites the bit with only barely restrained excitement, his hands gesturing wildly as he talks.

"Now onto the individual events! The world tree, Yggdrasil begins to grown and shudder, the great serpent Jörmungandr causes storms and great waves, The fire jotun, lead by Surtr and his flaming sword begin to invade. The sun itself vanishes as Fenrir, the great wolf breaks free of his bindings and devours it. Fenrir then sets upon the gods, in particular killing Odin, the leader of the gods who was leading their charge into battle. The god Thor is killed by the serpent, the god Freyr falls to Surtr, who then buries the world in flames as all the stars go dark, burning the world up to even the heavens before it is submerged in water. After a time it emerges from the water, growing anew, while the few humans left take over the world from the remaining gods, who council is fractured. Tis a bit of a weak summary I must admit, there's also the great eagle Hræsvelgr and what a number of other gods such as Hel and Loki were up to but I don't want to go into too much detail, there's just so much but it's all quite fascinating and-"

He cuts himself off, a little embarrassed, and puts his hands on the table in front of him. Okay, time to rein it in a little there, Xander. Let the others process all of that. Stop talking, let someone else have the floor. 

"Well. In any case, I think there's definitely a connection to be drawn from the events themselves, especially in conjunction with the other evidence we've found. Tis a name loaded with meaning indeed." 

#ch 6 #demon of niflheim #submission

[lemonmangosorbet]

Rewatch of Arcane continued today with episode 2. Here are my silly little thoughts:

* Whoever wrote this episode really said “Right, we have to introduce Jayce Talis. How can we make him seem as pathetic as possible?” sdghkjf

* Wow, the first time Viktor meets Jayce and it ends with Jayce in handcuffs. Damn, the homoeroticism started early

* Loved how Heimendinger gave Jayce that speech about how the power of magic corrupts. He’s saying it as a warning to Jayce, but those of us who know the lore, we know it is Viktor who will be corrupted in the future. Gotta love that foreboding

* Jayce back at his mom’s house, back in his teenage bedroom with all the posters on the walls and his collection of precious gemstones. God, how could anyone not love this man???

* Remember when Jayce left and told his mom that if she didn’t believe in him, he would find someone else who will? Take note, you’ll need this bit of info for later

* Damn, that entire scene in Jayce’s destroyed apartment between him and Viktor. Their conversation (Viktor teasing Jayce for signing every page of his work), their actions (Viktor giving Jayce his bracelet back) - they really did feed us well with this scene

* Viktor’s speech about how he got to where he is because he believed in himself, and now he believes in Jayce - I know I am paraphasing because Viktor didn’t use the exact phrase ‘I believe in you’, but it was implied. And remember what I mentioned earlier, about Jayce telling his mom he would find someone to believe in him? That person is Viktor. This show is really setting up Viktor to be one of the most important people in Jayce’s life, huh?

#lemon mango rewatches arcane #jayvik #jayce talis #viktor #arcane #long post

[i-got-the-feels]

Things I love in Jessica Jones Season 1 that I don't see anyone else talking about:

• The bond Trish and Jessica share. That even before Jessica thought of turning herself in she went to see Trish's abusive mom, called her out on her bullshit (multiple times) and told her to stay away from her. That Trish tells Jessica she hopes she can allow herself to be happy, gives her money to run, and stands by her even if she doesn't understand her. Trish tolerates her mom presence and future possibility of same to know about Jessica's past accident and what made her like this.

• Luke, I liked how we wasn't written as her saviour for one moment. He supported her, called her out on his wrongs, lashed at her in hurt, and helped her. I loved how the writers didn't deviate from this being Jessica's story and only hinted at Luke's past to show why he lashed out at her and of course to create buzz for Luke Cage.

• DAVID TENNANT. How he made me feel hopeful Kilgrave could be redeemed, when there was none. Yes, he doesn't know love or good relationships because of what his parents did to him, yes he may be like this because the virus in him may affect his morality and judgements but after the bus stop, he had the chance to let go and live alone. He didn't. So the virus just influences mind control, not his desire to have a connection, or as he called it his yearning for her. Or how when he said, "I can't be hero without you" saying that it shows that before her he never considered using his powers for good because why would he, the world's safest people for children- his parent's tortured him (to treat him, of course, I'll talk more about that later). Moving on, there was anger and sadness when he said "I'll make her want me and then leave her. Make her feel despair" (heavily paraphased) shows he is hurt by her not choosing him, accepting him, understanding him and the anger and jealousy for choosing and understanding Luke instead. Or when he compelled Jeri's wife to make thousand cuts on Jeri because he understood and empathised with her because in his perspective, Jessica made a thousand cuts on him too (honestly, thinking about this scene even now gives me chills) Or the joy he felt when he could control her again because he genuinely believed that with time and control she would understand and forgive him because of that 18 seconds. He remembers those 18 seconds like that because that 18 seconds made him realise that's what he wants with her. He wants her to be with him because he feels for her. Otherwise, why would he be angry and scared she wanted to jump "I don't care about anyone's life but you. The rest are fungible to me"

• Jessica telling people to deal with their own grief (the jewellery person who wanted to kill her because of her mom's death - which valid, her mom shouldn't have lost life under a building caused by extraterrestrial- superhero war that could be avoided but that also doesn't give her right to kill people with superpowers) or how she calls out Kilgrave's parents for wanting to be God. They defended by saying he would die of neurogenerative disease at 12 years if they didn't do this, but that was also playing God. And if it was just him, you experimented on other kids, HOW do you explain that?

• Malcom throwing the drugs away after Jessica says that Kilgrave did that to isolate her (which yes abusers do), Malcom's prayer for Reuben (A beautiful funeral doesn't guarantee Heaven), Robyn telling Malcom that she forgives him and she hopes there is express shipping in heaven.

•(Edit 1) Kilgrave dying with with a snap of neck and while I was a bit disappointed then and thinking , "Oh? That's it? No showdown of epic proportion?" now that I think about it, that was beautiful. Because no matter what mind control super power Kilgrave had, or whatever power he had that made him super human- him dying with a snap of neck showed he was still vulnerable, and human. That no matter how powerful you are, there are chinks in your armour (and here I wrote why it reminded me of Harry Potter)

P. S it was nice to see you Claire Temple.

Season 2

#jessica jones season 1 #jessica jones #krysten ritter #kilgrave #david tennant #trish walker #rachael taylor #luke cage #mike colter #will simpson #hope shlottman #malcom ducasse #show review #character analysis #david tennant really made me kinda feel for Kilgrave #his talent #claire temple #netflix marvel #marvel cinematic universe #mcu

[helenofsimblr]

Cat face blushed, 

Cat: I was a bit older... my fosters felt safer having someone in the house while they were away. I didn't necessarily need a sitter, but they wanted one... to be safe. 

Suddenly, Cat felt that gut drop to your feet feeling... She didn't trust Guy's friend.

Guy: Well my mom told me losts of stories...

Cat stopped him before he started. 

Cat: I'm sure she did. You still haven't told me what I can do to help your dad. Isn't he. y’know... gone?

Ozen was watching silently, he had no right to step in but would if he needed to. He merely kept himself at the ready. 

***

Guy: He will be gone! Angle Tynas wants to take his booty, but to paraphase the issue, my farthers issue is his hippopottaums, camp is busted in his temporary lope creating a self repeating loop keeping him trapped in a comma, his brain active- it... eee... is minnniimilaal, and he is, almost die.

Isaac just stared a moment, if what Guy said was true… he had lied for years about his father, and his dad was just in a coma all this time? Cat furrowed her brow, trying to translate what he said, 

Cat: Okay... I think I understood about half of that. But I did get that he's not dead.

***

Isaac: Bob's in a coma?! What the hell Guy?! Is this real!? 

Ozen: Maybe coffee would help sober him up... just not in the way my sister uses it.... 

He rubbed the top of his head. Cat looked at Ozen with questions, but it was one she'd need to ask him later. 

Cat: We could get coffee, but it sounds like there may not be enough time to sober up and explain everything... Wait, what am I supposed to do for him?

Guy tried really hard to focus, like iron willpower to make his mouth move to produce the right noises. Desperation once again came back to the surface, fear, anger, and loss… it was almost like flicking a switch.

#ts4 #ts4 story #sims 4 #sims 4 story #The Tomorrow Men #KSU #collab #Sparkiekong #crossover #The axiom conclusion #guy #Cat #Ozen #Isaac #tw drunk #tw alcohol

[samueldays]

There Are No Fascists

1. The Fascist Party.

There were fascists in Italy, briefly. Mussolini's Partito Nazionale Fascista had members called fascists, but it did not have a coherent ideology of "fascism". There was some Italian nationalism, and some backwards-looking Romaboo trad-larpers, and some forwards-looking biker-gang-larpers who thought the point of fascism was fast-ism: the faster you went the more fascist it was, until eventually going sufficiently fast with advanced fastechnology would "conquer distance". This plan to conquer an abstract noun went about as well as the American War on Drugs.

At various points the fascists mixed it up with some feminism and some clericalism and some anticlericalism and some revanchism and some imperialism and some racism and some of whatever looked popular at the time. The early Fascist Manifesto called for universal suffrage, a higher minimum wage, a lower retirement age, and seizing the ill-gotten gains of the military-industrial complex, among other things. One of the talking points of fascists in the 1930s was a proto-horseshoe-theory of how capitalism and communism both led to similar fuckuppery by different paths, so the fascists were attempting to chart a "third way" away from both of these. For their trouble in trying to pick bits of both, the fascists got lumped together with communists by the right, and lumped together with capitalists by the left. Sort of like this political compass meme:

There was no clear ideology in the party. There was hardly even a clear ideology in Mussolini, who never wrote anything like Mein Kampf or Table Talk. "Fascist" was a party membership label, not a political signifier, because there was no identifiable political position for it to signify. With the destruction of Mussolini's Fascist party, it has no more members, so there are no more fascists.

Present-day use of "fascist" is confused nonsense, serving mostly as a boo light, verging on a slur.

2. Umberto Eco.

Perhaps you object that even if Mussolini had no coherent ideology, we can identify consistently recurring bad features of the Italian fascists and similar parties, and meaningfully use "fascism" about those, the way Umberto Eco identifies 14 points of fascism in his famous essay Ur-Fascism. I see it linked and remixed and summarized a lot when people are asked to explain "fascism" beyond "boo, hiss".

Here I will argue that Eco's essay is bad and wrong and still cannot be used to identify any "fascism".

Eco opens with an introduction of his childhood under Mussolini. When the liberation came, he says:

I had also learned that freedom of speech means freedom from rhetoric.

This is bullshit. Freedom of speech must include freedom of rhetoric. His own essay has so much rhetoric. Before we even touch on features of "fascism", we're off to a bad start.

Eco asks an important question:

Ionesco once said that “only words count and the rest is mere chattering.” Linguistic habits are frequently important symptoms of underlying feelings. Thus it is worth asking why not only the Resistance but the Second World War was generally defined throughout the world as a struggle against fascism. If you reread Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls you will discover that Robert Jordan identifies his enemies with Fascists, even when he thinks of the Spanish Falangists. And for FDR, “The victory of the American people and their allies will be a victory against fascism and the dead hand of despotism it represents.”

Unfortunately he misses what seems to me a now obvious answer with the benefit of hindsight and historical knowledge: Communists. The Communists had a strong propaganda apparatus and one of their lines was, paraphased, "Call all our enemies fascists". Smear by association. The Communists were on the winning side of the Second World War, and got to write the histories defining it as a struggle against fascism. FDR was a communist sympathizer, advised by communist agents like Hiss, repeating communist lines.

Simultaneously, FDR was not that far from Mussolini himself. FDR has no business complaining about "fascism" while he's rounding up the Japanese, and screening Gabriel Over The White House, and complaining about the military-industrial complex out of one side of his mouth, while the other talks about the DIRE THREAT that is Germany hypothetically invading the Azores because then German bombers would be merely HOURS away from bombing America, and so America totally needs to arm up and bomb Germany in pre-emptive self-defense. For Poland, or something.

Eco acknowledges the point that there was no coherent thing called "fascism" in Italy or Mussolini:

Italian fascism was certainly a dictatorship, but it was not totally totalitarian, not because of its mildness but rather because of the philosophical weakness of its ideology. Contrary to common opinion, fascism in Italy had no special philosophy. The article on fascism signed by Mussolini in the Treccani Encyclopedia was written or basically inspired by Giovanni Gentile, but it reflected a late-Hegelian notion of the Absolute and Ethical State which was never fully realized by Mussolini. Mussolini did not have any philosophy: he had only rhetoric. He was a militant atheist at the beginning and later signed the Convention with the Church and welcomed the bishops who blessed the Fascist pennants. In his early anticlerical years, according to a likely legend, he once asked God, in order to prove His existence, to strike him down on the spot. Later, Mussolini always cited the name of God in his speeches, and did not mind being called the Man of Providence.

The Fascist Party was born boasting that it brought a revolutionary new order; but it was financed by the most conservative among the landowners who expected from it a counter-revolution. At its beginning fascism was republican. Yet it survived for twenty years proclaiming its loyalty to the royal family, while the Duce (the unchallenged Maximal Leader) was arm-in-arm with the King, to whom he also offered the title of Emperor. But when the King fired Mussolini in 1943, the party reappeared two months later, with German support, under the standard of a “social” republic, recycling its old revolutionary script, now enriched with almost Jacobin overtones.

At this point, Umberto Eco should have stopped the essay and concluded there was no subject. But he's committed. (I like to imagine he's already spent the advance he received from the editor.) So he tries to put the embarrassing admissions upfront and dismiss the objections by acknowledging them, despite the fact they should be fatal to his point.

Having made these admissions, he nonetheless tries to salvage the idea of a "fascism" by appeal to Wittgenstein's philosophy and language-games.

The notion of fascism is not unlike Wittgenstein’s notion of a game. A game can be either competitive or not, it can require some special skill or none, it can or cannot involve money. Games are different activities that display only some “family resemblance,” as Wittgenstein put it. Consider the following sequence:

1 2 3 4 abc bcd cde def

Suppose there is a series of political groups in which group one is characterized by the features abc, group two by the features bcd, and so on. Group two is similar to group one since they have two features in common; for the same reasons three is similar to two and four is similar to three. Notice that three is also similar to one (they have in common the feature c). The most curious case is presented by four, obviously similar to three and two, but with no feature in common with one. However, owing to the uninterrupted series of decreasing similarities between one and four, there remains, by a sort of illusory transitivity, a family resemblance between four and one.

Bold mine. Again, the essay should have concluded here, with a thought like "If there are no features in common then there is no family resemblance". Resemblance is not transitive. The transitivity is, as he says, illusory.

If you try to reason by transitive resemblance, you end up calling every single government in history "fascist", because every single government in history is in some ways similar to another government that is in some ways similar to (...etc...) that is in some ways similar to Mussolini-ism. This makes the word "fascist" meaningless.

But in spite of this fuzziness, I think it is possible to outline a list of features that are typical of what I would like to call Ur-Fascism, or Eternal Fascism. These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism.

We approach the concrete list of supposed features of fascism, and Eco is flailing harder. If these features are contradictory, so a "fascist" can never have all of them, and also appear in non-fascist governments, what makes them typical features of fascism? If the features contradict each other, what stops you applying the principle of explosion to, again, end up calling every single government in history "fascist"?

(Perhaps a mathematical education would have helped Eco, and I speculate that he might have meant something like "Governments with at least 10 of these 14 features are fascist". But I will try to stick to attacking what he wrote, not what I imagine he meant.)

But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it.

This fucking sentence comes from the pen of a man who was complaining about rhetoric earlier in the essay. The use of "coagulate" as a supposedly-explanatory verb, the withdrawal to merely 1 feature, the distancing vagueness of "allow". And the features that Eco will list are themselves so vague that this statement has communicated nothing about fascism, it's rhetorical association.

We now come to the supposed features of Ur-Fascism. I will quote the first one in full, and shorter excerpts thereafter. Italics in the features are in original.

1. The first feature of Ur-Fascism is the cult of tradition. Traditionalism is of course much older than fascism. Not only was it typical of counter-revolutionary Catholic thought after the French revolution, but it was born in the late Hellenistic era, as a reaction to classical Greek rationalism. In the Mediterranean basin, people of different religions (most of them indulgently accepted by the Roman Pantheon) started dreaming of a revelation received at the dawn of human history. This revelation, according to the traditionalist mystique, had remained for a long time concealed under the veil of forgotten languages—in Egyptian hieroglyphs, in the Celtic runes, in the scrolls of the little known religions of Asia.

This new culture had to be syncretistic. Syncretism is not only, as the dictionary says, “the combination of different forms of belief or practice”; such a combination must tolerate contradictions. Each of the original messages contains a sliver of wisdom, and whenever they seem to say different or incompatible things it is only because all are alluding, allegorically, to the same primeval truth. As a consequence, there can be no advancement of learning. Truth has been already spelled out once and for all, and we can only keep interpreting its obscure message.

One has only to look at the syllabus of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers. The Nazi gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretistic, occult elements. The most influential theoretical source of the theories of the new Italian right, Julius Evola, merged the Holy Grail with The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, alchemy with the Holy Roman and Germanic Empire. The very fact that the Italian right, in order to show its open-mindedness, recently broadened its syllabus to include works by De Maistre, Guenon, and Gramsci, is a blatant proof of syncretism.

If you browse in the shelves that, in American bookstores, are labeled as New Age, you can find there even Saint Augustine who, as far as I know, was not a fascist. But combining Saint Augustine and Stonehenge—that is a symptom of Ur-Fascism.

Let's start with Gramsci. Gramsci was a 20th century Marxist. Including him on a syllabus is certainly a kind of syncretism for fascists, going back to my earlier point that "fascism" (Mussolinism, really) was an opportunistic movement grabbing at whatever was fashionable, not a coherent position in its own right.

But putting a 20th century Marxist in the supposed feature description where you talk about a "cult of tradition" - WTF??

Eco, are you sure you're not fascist yourself? Because you sure are tolerating contradictions, and seeming to say different or incompatible things that allude to the same primeval truth about Ur-Fascism, throughout this essay. ;-)

Combining Saint Augustine and Stonehenge, too, is in no way a useful sign of Ur-Fascism, neither specifically nor generally. Crackpots of every sort will come up with bizarre theories purporting to unify two ancient thinkers or cultures; politicians on every continent will reach for bits and pieces of history to justify their rule and legitimacy where it's convenient. Again, we have the problem that Eco's supposed identifying features easily lead us to condemn everything as "fascism", because Eco explicitly rules out requiring all the features (they're contradictory) and rules in the possibility that fascism might "coagulate" around only one feature.

2. Traditionalism implies the rejection of modernism. Both Fascists and Nazis worshiped technology, while traditionalist thinkers usually reject it as a negation of traditional spiritual values.

So the Mussolini Fascists did not have the feature you are listing in this very point. We're two points in and Eco is already contradicting himself. That was faster than I expected.

3. Irrationalism also depends on the cult of action for action’s sake. Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation. Therefore culture is suspect insofar as it is identified with critical attitudes. Distrust of the intellectual world has always been a symptom of Ur-Fascism, from Goering’s alleged statement (“When I hear talk of culture I reach for my gun”) to the frequent use of such expressions as “degenerate intellectuals,” “eggheads,” “effete snobs,” “universities are a nest of reds.”

The correct take here is by Sir Butler, often attributed to Thucydides: "The nation that will insist on drawing a broad line of demarcation between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking done by cowards." AKA: Jock-nerd synthesis, mens sana in corpore sano.

Fascism is wrong in having its fighting done by fools (and attempting to make everyone into fighting fools), but the "effete snobs" are real and are the other side of the same problem: thinking done by cowards. It is not virtue to defend one symptom of the problem against another. And whether the universities are a nest of reds is an empirical question to be resolved by inspection, because if they are, that's a serious problem which deserves mention and correction, just as universities being a nest of blackshirts would be a serious problem.

4. No syncretistic faith can withstand analytical criticism. The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge. For Ur-Fascism, disagreement is treason.

My humorous response: Discrimination is also a matter of making distinctions to distinguish, so nondiscrimination is fascist. :D Argument from the same order of synonym-play as Eco is peddling here.

But my irenic response is that this is idealization, verging on wishful thinking. The scientific community frequently objects to disagreement - witness the use of "methodological terrorism" in the replication crisis, credentialist gatekeeping against "epistemic trespassing", the ongoing insanity around "race science" where areas of human biology are dismissed as "not interesting" and wanting to study them is held as grounds for suspicion by progressives, et cetera, et cetera. Are they all fascists? Or this is a no-true-scotsman argument where those aren't real scientists?

Objecting to disagreement and trying to suppress it, especially where it would undermine the power of a powerful person, is closer to a human universal than to any characteristic of Mussolini's Fascism. Once again we have a supposed feature of "fascism" which condemns most of the world for imperfection.

5. Besides, disagreement is a sign of diversity. Ur-Fascism grows up and seeks for consensus by exploiting and exacerbating the natural fear of difference. The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.

This is the only feature where Eco says "by definition". I wonder, would he commit himself to the implication that non-racist movements cannot be fascist? Is this a more important feature than the others, or are these words just more empty rhetoric? He slides from disagreement to diversity to intrusion to racism in one paragraph, and again I want to stress that this is a man who rejoiced in freedom from rhetoric, then goes on to commit lots of it. Arguing verbally with feature 5 is like punching mud. Anyone can claim to be disagreeing and slide into this lane. Anyone who gets corrected can cry "you are trying to suppress dissent". In the present America we see a few professional blacktivists having weaponized something like Eco's rhetoric, condensed, into "Disagreeing with me is racist".

6. Ur-Fascism derives from individual or social frustration. That is why one of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups. In our time, when the old “proletarians” are becoming petty bourgeois (and the lumpen are largely excluded from the political scene), the fascism of tomorrow will find its audience in this new majority.

I would say this is the most usefully specific, concrete feature so far. It's still underwhelming: our default expectation should be that the [any political movement] of tomorrow will find its audience in this new majority, because it's a majority. The majority are where most people are, so that's where it's easiest to find an audience. Now the audience subset itself might be a minority politically, but it'll likely be mostly part of the economic majority.

7. To people who feel deprived of a clear social identity, Ur-Fascism says that their only privilege is the most common one, to be born in the same country. This is the origin of nationalism. Besides, the only ones who can provide an identity to the nation are its enemies. Thus at the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one. The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia. But the plot must also come from the inside: Jews are usually the best target because they have the advantage of being at the same time inside and outside.

Again, verging on a human universal. Obsession with a plot is a dysphemistic way of saying Find someone else to blame. Dodging blame is not unique to fascists. This is not a useful identifying feature of "Ur-Fascism".

8. The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies. When I was a boy I was taught to think of Englishmen as the five-meal people. They ate more frequently than the poor but sober Italians. Jews are rich and help each other through a secret web of mutual assistance. However, the followers must be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak. Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy.

2500 years ago, an orator in a Greek city-state went on about how the inhabitants of neighboring city-state were plotting to enslave and oppress us by treacherous ways, but also they were cowards and weaklings who couldn't face us in open battle, so we should invade them first. Was he an "ur-fascist"? Once again Eco is attacking some commonplace bad habit and calling it "fascist".

If we ever encounter intelligent aliens, I am confident that alien history will feature propagandists saying that the enemy is so strong you have to accept these restrictions and taxes and drafts, but also the enemy is so weak there is no need to be afraid and no reason to consider a diplomatic approach, we'll surely crush them.

We even see similar rhetoric used against people called "fascists" - on alternating days they might be a worthless bunch of overweight basement-dwelling neckbeards, or a dire threat to democracy that is only being held back by heroic effort.

The essay goes on like this. Summarized: Point 9 attacks fascist leaders for not solving a hypothetical problem, because no fascist movement has ever controlled the world. Point 10 attacks internal contradictions of amorphous Mussolini-ism and pretends to some vast generalization. Point 11 reads too much into one particular implementation of the commonly recurring question of how to get people to join the army and risk death. Point 12 I will quote because of how neatly 21st century vocabulary has boiled the accusation down to a single slur:

12. Since both permanent war and heroism are difficult games to play, the Ur-Fascist transfers his will to power to sexual matters. This is the origin of machismo (which implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality). Since even sex is a difficult game to play, the Ur-Fascist hero tends to play with weapons—doing so becomes an ersatz phallic exercise.

"Incel!"

Point 13 is not a human universal but perhaps a democratic universal, where lots of different movements claim to represent the "real" Will of the People that must be appropriately guided and channeled. Point 14 takes Orwell's Newspeak, invented for English Socialism, and declares it the language of Ur-Fascism.

But elements of Ur-Fascism are common to different forms of dictatorship.

And they're also common to different forms of government that are neither fascism nor dictatorship. In America you can see racial segregation enforced in the name of "diversity" and "inclusion". This too is Newspeak. But it would be stupid and uninformative to call DIE initiatives "fascist".

In conclusion, then, there is still no "fascism" to be identified from this essay. Present-day use of "fascist" is confused nonsense, serving mostly as a boo light, verging on a slur.

#all #politics #fascism #longpost

[blacklinguist]

inbox open..

i have the mental capacity to listen to any ranting / venting y’all want to do (anon or otherwise) about school, especially the past few months. so send messages if you want.

not gonna lie, i’m still thinking about my uni’s response to the protests, and how lackluster it was. their solution was to have a handful of zoom ‘conferences’ and ... talk.

we’re technically a pwi (predominantly white institution for non americans), but my campus especially is very diverse, and forgoing action for ‘talks’ that most people won’t attend (me included), that do nothing but give the school a pat on the back for loving the ‘colored staff and students we support’ (paraphased, they didn’t say colored loooool)...it doesn’t sit right with me.

this summer has been nightmarish from a teaching standpoint. the courses we’re working with are obviously watered down (not to the fault of the creators, they had little turn around time), and at this point, i don’t see how things are going to be smooth in fall either.

that’s also to be expected, but i just get the feeling things are going to be way more rigid than it should ..... i don’t see how we’re not working on a pass/fail scale (at least opt-in). 

i was quite literally losing my mind the first two weeks of this second course, though. the way students were talking to me just was not okay, i don’t even think i posted about everything. it’s genuinely baffling to me, i can count the number of times i’ve come close to losing my temper with my professors, but even then i didn’t sound like my students lol ....

things have calmed down a bit but i think everyone is just exhausted.

i’ll likely be talking to my supervisor soon, because i haven’t even given thought to what this semester means for my oral exam and my defense in a few months. never mind that there’s nothing written about this part of the process because they don’t expect anyone to take this route <3

also pissed off about money things that people are just dropping the ball on. if you want me to teach these classes then pay me... hello ? it’s a circus over here and i only have 9 more months to go or something like that but .... wow . 

spring feels like it was years ago at this point.

#and spring was a disaster

[saucylittlesmile]

For those of you who asked, a little bit of memory-only London stuff -

- among those in the audience was Mary Brannagan, Tessa’s physiotherapist through Vancouver and Sochi

- there was 3 video messages - Brian Williams reminisced that Torvill and Dean were the best ever, until VM skated in Vancouver - Scott Russell spoke - and Dominik Gauthier and Jen Heil (aka, b2ten) talked about the inspiration VM were to them - IIRC, all of them mentioned their accomplishments, but also talked about them as people.

- Rod Black was the unofficial ‘host’ of the event, opening the event with his own speech, in which he mentioned having VM on the air when they were just tykes and then watching them grow up and knowing they were going to go places.  He called them the greatest ice dancers ever.  He came back up to the stage several times to introduce other speakers, taking over the role that Jeffery had played in Ilderton.  He was making use of his public speaking skills for sure - complimentary and easy, a lot of improvisation and light jokes.

- The London mayor spoke well, he pointed out that if you’re in London, it’s Tessa and Scott, and if you’re in Ilderton, it’s Scott and Tessa... and that while Ilderton likes to claim Tessa as their own, London does the same with Scott.

- A spoken word poet, Wali Shah was in attendance, and he did a really nice, really kind poem about and for VM... but of course, the funniest and most... awkward moment (for me, I don’t know about anyone else) was the bit that said (and I paraphase, because his wording was better) ‘the Olympics aren’t easy and you had a lot on your plate, more than reporters who ask if you secretly date”.

- Rod, probably going off earlier news reports from VM’s Ilderton interviews, “announced” that VM would return to the 2022 Olympics (all in jest) and then talked about how he would love to be announcing them later in competitions: “55 year old Scott Moir and 53 year old Tessa Virtue, representing Canada....”

#CWOF #Hometown Stars #hey if you were there and wanna add in or correct any details please feel free

[arbuthnotblob]

I haven't read the books.... What's the queen gag?

It’s a joke about how The Best of Queen is a CD that everyone in Britain seems to own, and is for sale in every petrol station - in the book, every CD left in a car for more than two weeks turns into The Best of Queen.Which leads to Aziraphale or Crowley putting in CD’s and getting Mozart’s Another One Bites the Dust or Velvet Revolver’s Don’t Stop Me Now*. It’s the actual point of Crowley saying ‘Oh, I don’t  think you’ll like that one’, because he knows whatever Aziraphale lifted has already been Queen-ified.*(I’m paraphasing a little here, I don’t remember the exact combinations)Also, when Hell contact Crowley it comes out of the car’s speakers as Freddie Mercury’s voice, which is in the show, but is a lot more explicit in the book. There’s a particularly good section where they threaten him juuust as the ‘beelzebub has a devil put aside for me’ bit of Bohemian Rhapsody plays.If you liked the show you should definitely give the book a shot, they both have their respective strengths (I think the book is much, much funnier), and I regard it as one of the best things both Terry and Neil ever wrote.

#good omens #terry pratchett #neil gaiman #queen #the best of queen #crowley #aziraphale #the bentley #ABC ask #oops I mistook this for a message not an ask?? #tumblr literacy: nil

[arodrwho]

arospec nott things (serious version):

“why are all you big men making speeches to me????”

uncomfy w/flirting !

[paraphased] “did you love [yeza]?” [not paraphrased] “....i don’t know.....”

it would not have broken her cover story or revealed Too Much to say “yes, i fell a little in love w/the halfling prisoner, yes.” & most of what nott said in that story was true, so like. i propose that the “i don’t know” was also true. which is t’say i propose quoiro nott, who occasionally has a rly hard time telling what the fuck she is feeling for ppl, & just knows that she is feeling a Lot of it

gives absolutely terrible romantic advice, feat. half-jokes about JUST KILL THEM,,,

the latter part in particular is a hell of an aro mood my dude

aswell that she does not seem to realize her terrible romantic advice is actually terrible? not aro in itself but does suggest lack of understanding of how romance & romantic attraction works

“[yeza] seemed to like me”

my dude. this isn’t inherently aro but like that thing where someone shows u positive attention & ur either like “oh i choose them to like then” or “oh..!! they were nice & it made me feel a thing! it must be a crush! romance feelings!! At Last I See The Light !” this.... kinda sounds a little bit like that u know?

“we did what people do and got married”

sounds like amatonormativity at work my dude. following expected social norms just bc they’re expected social norms

also just--the least romantic framing of events i can possibly imagine? she doesn’t say “we fell in love and,” she says “we did what people do and,” & like. that’s super, that’s just. that’s rly unromo my dude

[paraphrased] “do you count after i lost my ring?”

i realize this is all tangled up in nott feeling that she doesn’t count as herself when she’s in a goblin body, but that’s still kind of a weird question for a romo to ask, i feel? & so, consider: nott perhaps doesn’t quite grasp marriage in the traditional way? nott perhaps has a fuzzy grasp of romance as a concept? & this perhaps is why she seems here to attach more importance to the ring than the feelings it’s sposed to symbolize, which should still exist in the absence of the ring--but which for her are perhaps more nebulous/less concrete than that actual physical symbol? which is t’say maybe she feels a bit disconnected from those feelings and/or from romance as a concept?

has trouble saying “i love you” to yeza, has to be prodded to go back & screech it at him

discomfort/embarrassment w/the i love you words? sounds aro. discomfort/embarrassment w/the i love you words in front of an audience that is beaten thru by making a production of it? also sounds aro

[paraphrased] “do i even want to go back to being a housewife???”

again this obviously isn’t strictly romorelated, there’s a lot tangled up in that question--but it’s fairly easy to imagine the whole...romantical aspect of the role of the traditional romantical housewife being just 1 more element of that whole deal that no longer feels like it fits quite right, u know? isn’t too much of a stretch i don’t think

aaaaaalso like she keeps just... ditching her husband at every available opportunity?

which again the same as above blah blah blah--but that uhh there’s certainly room to interp that as partly aro-related. like, real easily

in conclusion. i’m not saying that nott doesn’t love yeza, & i’m not even saying that she doesn’t love him romantically--but i am saying that, possibly, any romantical feelings she has for him might be somewhat complicated, & that possibly her old role in their traditionally-romo relationship might no longer feel as comfortable to her as it used to

conclusion of conclusion: she arospec

#daypost