#who plays mass effect for the first time in 2020?

[pinkyjulien]

I really, really hate the "Female V is canon" vs "Male V is canon" debate that been popping here and here in the tags those past weeks

Cyberpunk 2077 is a Role Playing Game, there is no "canon" protagonist, that's the whole point. We all have a different playstyles, different stories and headcanons, our custom V is The Canon V of Our Own playthroughs!

After Phantom Liberty dropped, I've seen a lot of players, on Tumblr or Twitter, voicing their concerne and disappointment in how much more Female V focused the official promo, videos and even in-game credits became

I was one of them too, expressing my feelings multiple times, sometimes awkwardly, frustrated that Male V players were once again brushed to the side, because that's how it feels like, right?

Well, it might feels like it, but this isn't the case AT ALL, far from it. This is only what I would call a "Fandom Phenomenon" and I want to talk more about it a bit

I had a great conversation with a friend of mine who works in the game industry and it opened my eyes on the matter, and I've since been really interested in seeing RPGs statistics!

Because it's really, really important to make the difference between the Casual Player Base (majority of players) and the Fans / Fandom Base (minority of players)

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

I always been lurking in fandoms here on Tumblr, since Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and now with Cyberpunk 2077 and Baldur's Gate 3

First I want to drop some stats- might be completly wrong, but I'm only sharing my point of view here, in an attempt to explain why some people are frustrated with Female V being the focus (and why we shouldn't be!)

I think it's not wrong to say that fandoms are mostly occupied by women and fem-identifying individuals; fandoms are a safe place for players and fans to share their passions. Women are STILL HEAVILY harassed and hated in the gaming industry as a whole, it doesn't take a lot of digging to catch a vile comment on Twitter or on Twitch for example, you cannot go far without seeing someone either attacking or sexualizing them

This is a huge problem in the industry still, every games that release with a female protagonist get trashed- just look at the bullshit surrounding GTA 6 just because players will be able to play as a woman as an option

Fandoms are also safe for non-gender conforming people, non-binaries, trans people and queer men, but I think fem individuals and women are a clear majority, at least on Tumblr (only talking about genders identity here and not about being queer or not, not talking about sexualities or attraction) (not an official stat at all and only my point of view and experience from being on Tumblr since ~2012)

Now let's talk about Cyberpunk 2077- because this is my main fandom since 2020, and what prompted me to write this post in the first place

CDPR didn't share any stats recently, but it's REALLY SAFE to assume the MAJORITY of players are playing a straight Male V romancing Panam, followed by a lesbian Female V romancing Judy, but the player pools for both options are still majoritarly cis hetero men (and they are still the focus for AAA studios to sell their games, this is sadly just how it is)

However on the fandom side, Fem V was always the focus; virtual photography, mods, ships, OCs... She was always more popular than Male V, getting more interactions and notes and why trends like "Male V monday" were created and why there is still a lack of male V focused mods (non-binaries and trans fem folks and characters are also sadly under-represented in all type of content and art)

So, being yourself as a non-fem player, playing as a Masc V, seeing CDPR officially make the switch from Male V to Female V, when the space you've been in for the past 3 years has been overwhelmingly Female V focused on all front, was a bit of a punch in the guts; like I said earlier, I was reaaally frustrated with this too!

And I'd say it's "normal"? or at least "ok" to feel this way, it makes sense considering how little attention Male V in general get in the fans community

BUT. BUT... It's REALLY important here to realize how we sound and how we look like when we voice our frustrations on the matter; we sound and look just like all the misogynistic people over on Twitter who screams about "woke games" everytime there is a female protagonist in their "non political games". We have to remember that fandoms are suuuch a small part of the game industry

Baldur's Gate 3 recently shared their stats and this interesting tweet got into my dash

▶ tweet

Astarion is nowhere to be seen in the official most romanced companions statistic, but I'm sure a lot of people will agree that he's probably the most popular one in the fandom side!

Another stat here from Mass Effect and really interesting info coming from David Gaider about how the hardcore fanbase aka fandom's choices were WILDLY different from the casual / main player pool

▶ tweet

Getting my head out of the fandom bubbles and seeing the bigger picture, how much under-represented women still are in official medias (not talking about fan content) and how insanly misoginistic the game industry still is, both on the player and devs sides, helped me handle my own frustration on the matter, accept and even celebrate Female V being the focus for the Phantom Liberty campaign

With all that said tho, we all should be able to vent about the lack of Male, Masc and Non-Binary content in the fandom side, while still being aware of the industry state, it CAN co-exist! It doesn't make anyone a bad or misogynist person!

We are all humans and can be awkward and make mistakes, especially when voicing frustration or talking while in a negative mood. Let's educate one another in good-faithed manners when we slip instead of jumping to conclusion and throw accusations

Not gonna lie I kind of lost my train of thoughts and not sure how to finish this post, but I hope this can enlight some people on why CDPR made this choice!

Repeating this as a finale note; this doesn't mean that Female V is the "main" V or "canon" V . It's simply her time to shine, and it's well deserved! The industry needs it

#cyberpunk 2077 #phantom liberty #text #long post #like- LONG LONG post hgfhgf #hope my rambling makes sense #I legit been really interested in reading these statistics #hope CDPR will drop a similar sheet since the Ultimate edition is out :O #blah blah

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Nicole Russell

Published: Apr 8, 2024

DEI-based programs purport to exist to address mostly racial and gender inequalities, but they’re often ineffective at colleges, and even harmful in corporate America, where these students go next.

Anti-discrimination laws have been around for decades. For the most part, they’re effective.  

But diversity, equity and inclusion policies – in companies, organizations and institutions of higher learning – are anti-discrimination laws on steroids. We can see that in Texas.  

Texas A&M University had an annual DEI budget of $11 million. From 2015 to 2020, the number of Black Aggies who “agreed” or “strongly agreed” that they “belonged” at Texas A&M had dropped about 30%, according to the Claremont Institute’s Center for the American Way of Life, a conservative think tank.

DEI-based programs across the country purport to exist to address mostly racial and gender inequalities, but they’re often ineffective at colleges and universities, and even harmful in corporate America, where these students go next.

Texas leaders realize what others don't: DEI programs are wasteful  

This is playing out in Texas now at the University of Texas (UT), which just laid off at least 60 employees who worked in diversity, equity and inclusion-related positions, according to the Austin American-Statesman, part of the USA TODAY Network.

The mass firings were for efficiency to comply with Senate Bill 17, which went into effect in January. The new law bans Texas’ public universities and colleges from funding any offices or programs with a DEI-based aim.  

Several Texas outlets have slammed the bill again after this news leaked. It’s easy to see why. That’s a lot of people who now need new jobs, and this is a tough environment for people looking for employment. But in some ways, the sheer number of DEI positions, the reaction and statistics about DEI prove the need for a closer look at DEI.  

First, Texans support the law. A June poll showed that 49% of Texans "strongly” or “somewhat” support the ban, while only 34% oppose it. 

Second, it’s excessive. According to the American-Statesman, 40 of the 60 staff were let go from the Division of Campus and Community Engagement, where the median annual salary is approximately $69,000.

That’s more than $2.7 million a year in salaries just for 40 employees. That could have funded need-based in-state tuition for four years for, say, nearly 60 Black or Hispanic women – because poverty tends to disproportionately affect those demographics. 

Third, in some ways it’s ineffective at best and hypocritical at worst. (Especially in corporate America.) 

DEI has failed at its own goal

In 2022, almost 35% of UT’s enrolled students were white. About 25% were Hispanic or Latino. A little more than 5% were Black.

The faculty was even less diverse. In 2021, almost 70% of UT’s fall faculty were white, just 10% were Hispanic and 5% were Black.  

In 2022, students at UT released a report that claimed the university “does not offer the inclusivity that LGBTQIA+ students and other historically oppressed groups demand.”  

So almost $3 million worth of employee salaries are pushing DEI initiatives and they’re still failing.  

Administrators at Texas A&M and UT must have thought DEI was doing something good, or they wouldn’t have had so many staff working in this capacity. But surely, they had seen data showing their numbers weren’t improving. They were worsening. DEI initiatives often lead to feel-good roles but no real-time results. 

It’s certainly a good idea to reverse structural racism where it thrives and to dispel gender biases that keep historically marginalized people from achieving their best potential. But we have anti-discrimination laws for this.

DEI-based organizations and initiatives at a college level communicate to a generation of kids – who are already hyperfixated on themselves – that their educational success depends on a particular, perhaps marginalized, aspect of themselves.  

Students become further obsessed with these handful of identifiers and expect the world will lend them a leg up. Does a corporation owe a new graduate a job because he’s gay? Because she’s Muslim? Isn’t hiring a new college graduate because of their identifiers – and who succeeded thanks to DEI efforts in college – the opposite of equity and inclusivity?  

DEI initiatives fail college grads in the workplace

DEI initiatives in the workplace are also now facing backlash, per one report by Paradigm, following the Supreme Court’s 2023 affirmative action ruling.

In a survey of 1,000 hiring managers across the United States by ResumeBuilder.com, 1 in 6 “have been asked to deprioritize hiring white men,” almost half have been asked to “prioritize diversity over qualifications,” over half “believe their job will be in danger if they don’t hire enough diverse employees,” and 70% “believe their company has DEI initiatives for appearances’ sake.”  

So now fewer people who are qualified for employment will get a job because they’re not marginalized? Nobody is supposed to care about the white guys anymore because they’re part of a privileged patriarchal system, but by the looks of these hiring practices, that’s no longer true. And refusing to hire someone because they’re a white male is, well, against the law. 

Last fall, Bloomberg reported that the year after Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, the S&P 100 added more than 300,000 jobs and 94% went to people of color. Given that only about a quarter of the U.S. population is not white, that's a high percentage.

Anti-discrimination laws succeed where DEI falls short

Is there a better way to achieve what DEI has failed to? Or is DEI in and of itself unnecessary? Texas Republicans seem to think the latter is true – and that’s why they banned it.

One could say that’s to be expected of a legislature that’s 70% male and half white. They don’t need DEI; they’ve already tasted success. 

Two things are true: Thanks to decades-old state and federal anti-discrimination laws, American colleges and workplaces offer equity and equal rights under the law. Where these laws are broken, they’re challenged in court and overturned – like the Supreme Court’s decision last year that affirmative action at Harvard and the University of North Carolina violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.  

It’s also true that where DEI programs in colleges exist, they’re too expansive and simultaneously ineffective. Where they were perhaps originally a good idea decades ago, they’ve gone so far past the Overton Window, they’re either achieving little on college campuses or achieving the opposite in American workplaces, forcing companies to hire token representatives and eschewing merit-based hires because of sex and race.  

The news that 60 people were let go sounds harsh, but it’s a short-term consequence to fixing a longer-term problem. DEI advances people in work and schools because they’re marginalized, not because of merit. In the end, in the name of inclusivity, it ends up being quite an exclusive club. 

#The Rabbit Hole #Nicole Russell #DEI #DEI must die #diversity equity and inclusion #diversity #equity #inclusion #racial discrimination #sex discrimination #discrimination #anti discrimination #religion is a mental illness

[crackinglamb]

20 Questions For Fic Writers

Tagged by @theluckywizard, thank you! 💕

Tagging @lilbittymonster, @bogunicorn, @bdafic, @shretl, @mordinette, @fogsblue, @effelants, @sociallyacceptablemadness and @natsora. No pressure!

1. how many works do you have on ao3?

107!

2. what’s your total ao3 word count?

1,776,919, as of this morning.

3. what fandoms do you write for?

Currently only Dragon Age and Southern Vampire Mysteries/True Blood. But in the past I've written for Fallout 4, Mass Effect Trilogy, Dr. Who, Borderlands, and The Wayhaven Chronicles.

4. what are your top five fics by kudos?

What a Wicked Game to Play - the Behemoth, the Epic, the...story that ate my life for nearly two years straight. It currently sits at a cool 400K words and will be the focus of my NaNo goal this year. I'd like to have it finished. Solas/OFC, rated E.

Twist - the fic that got me really going in DA. An MGIT re-envisioning of the base game and all the what happens next? 197K words, complete. Solas/OFC, rated E. Fun fact, I started writing this fic before I'd ever played the game. 2020 was...uh...quite a year.

Junkyard Dogs - my very first fic. I started writing this before I really even knew what fic was. Before I even had heard of AO3. My sibspring got me an invite and the rest is history. I'm still incredibly proud of this fic, although I don't write quite like this anymore. 107K words, complete. Hancock/F!SoSu, rated E. (Are you noticing a trend? Yes, I write a lot of smut.)

Twist Some More - you guessed it, the sequel to Twist. My love letter to Carly and Solas and the happily ever after the game didn't give us. Baby included. 67K words, complete. Solas/OFC, rated E.

Humans Are Just...Like That - okay, so there's a story that goes with this one. This is a oneshot for Mass Effect, and it was brought to life via a long, hilarious thread in an ME discord server. I made a comment to the effect of 'someone should turn this into a fic' and everyone told me to go for it. So I did. It's a little bit crack, a little bit everybody lives and a whole lot of yup, humans are just like that. ~3K words. Background FemShep/Garrus, rated T.

5. do you respond to comments?

Yes, always! (Caveat: as long as it's polite. If you're rude, I'll call you on it, then freeze the thread.)

6. what’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

No More My Heart Beats Without You, one of only 4 of my works with the Major Character Death warning. Solas/F!Trevelyan, 5555 words (I didn't plan that, but it's cool), rated E.

7. what’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

TSM, without a doubt. The whole point of it was to write a fluffy, gloriously happy tribute to my first DA OC, Carly Lavellan. It'll make your teeth ache, I promise.

8. do you get hate on fics?

I've gotten some on WG, which is why I now moderate comments on it. It's gotten statistically big enough (in terms of both hits and word length) that some people are just not gonna groove with it. And hey, that's fine. But you don't need to tell me about it, okay? Just hit the back button.

9. do you write smut? if so, what kind?

Yes. And...yes. I've written all kinds. My only rule for smut is consenting adults.

10. do you write crossovers? what’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Nope!

11. have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge.

12. have you ever had a fic translated?

I got asked about a fic being translated, but I don't know if it ever happened.

13. have you ever co-written a fic before?

I have written two fics with my beloved @ir0n-angel. One for FO4 (a Deacon/F!SoSu oneshot) and one for DA (Solavellan modern AU, incomplete, been on hiatus for a couple years. Someday we'll finish it.)

And I've participated in three years' worth of round robin style collaboration with the DAFF server.

14. what’s your all-time favorite ship?

*snort Poly here. Don't ask me to pick a favorite, it doesn't work like that. 🤣🤣🤣

15. what’s a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

Just Like Fire. It started out as a prompt fic to get me out of a slump. Actual Solavellan, canon compliant even. So you see where my problem is, right? I mean, I am the one whose blog title is Canon Shall Be YEETED. I've thought about maybe just tying up the loose ends and skipping ahead to the ending I've already written for it, but then I lose interest again after about five minutes. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

16. what are your writing strengths?

Good dialogue, lots of banter. I am routinely told by readers how well I keep characterization believable.

Good smut, realistic without being clinical.

Headcannon glitter. Being detailed oriented means I overthink and come up with some really deep ideas.

17. what are your writing weaknesses?

FINISHING THE DAMN THING. *ahem* I'm okay, I'm good.

Endings are rough for me. Not in that I don't know what I want to do with them, but more by the time I get to them, I've either lost interest or lost motivation. Or both. I know it looks like I'm on top of it when you look at my archive (only three incomplete WIP's out of 107), but some of them caused me Stress(tm) to finish and I've never been really happy with them.

18. thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I do it sparingly so it doesn't bog down the story. I translate it at the end, be that by chapter or oneshot. I know better than to fully trust google translate. And I'm careful with using fanon resources if the language is made up.

19. first fandom you wrote for?

Fallout 4, with the above mentioned JD. I stayed there for quite a while too. To date it's still my second most written fandom.

20. favorite fic you’ve ever written?

Again, poly. But I have some notables that I've returned to time and again. An incomplete sampling:

Maker Damned Fools - this is actually the first thing I wrote for DA. Varric/F!Hawke. 32K words, rated E. Initially it was a Fluffuary fic, but I always planned to expand on it. This year I did. Highlights for me reading it: chapters 4, 7 and 9.

Soft In Skyhold - another Fluffuary entry. Written as part of WG's overarching 'verse. So, Imogen and Solas, Adoribull, Varric and Elly Hawke, Terisin Mahariel and Morrigan. Cassandra and the Sky-Watcher. ~29K words, rated T. Highlights for me: chapters 5, 11, 13, 22, and 25.

She's My Plus One - my Dr. Who fic. Nine/Rose. Written x +1 style. 12K words, rated M. Highlights for me: chapters 4-6.

Unrepentant - a Solavellan oneshot. It's smutty, it's a little bit kinky, it's all in her head, right? Cuz it's the Fade. Look, sometimes you just need a particular flavor of dark!Solas. Not too dark, just like 62% cacao. 3100 words, obviously rated E.

Unexpected - an FO4 fic with a Kellogg/F!SoSu pairing. Yup, you read that right. Don't judge me. This was an early attempt at writing canon divergence and I'm still super pleased with how it came out. It even has a happy ending. 30K words, rated E. Highlights for me: honestly, all of it. I'll read the whole thing in a sitting when the mood strikes me.

#tagged #20 questions for fic writers #long post

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

New data, same appearance for M87*

Nearly five years ago, a globe-spanning team of astronomers gave the world its first-ever glimpse of a black hole. Now the team has validated both their original findings and our understanding of black holes with a new image of the supermassive black hole M87*. This supermassive black hole, 6.5 billion times the mass of our sun, resides at the center of the Messier 87 (M87) galaxy in the Virgo galaxy cluster, located 55 million light-years from Earth.

The new image, like the old one, was captured by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), an array of radio telescopes stretching across the planet. These new data, however, were gathered a year later, in 2018, and benefited from enhancements in the telescope array, notably with the inclusion of a telescope in Greenland.

EHT's original image of M87* was important not just because it represented the first time humans had imaged a black hole, but also because the object looked the way it was supposed to look. Notably, the image showed what is known as a black-hole shadow—a dark region at the center of a glowing disk of hot matter circling the black hole. A black-hole shadow isn't a shadow in the same sense as the one you cast when you walk outside on a sunny day. Instead, the dark region is created by the black hole's immense gravitational field, which is so strong that light cannot escape it. Since no light leaves a black hole, it appears dark.

Additionally, that strong gravity bends light that passes near the black hole without falling into it, effectively acting like a lens. This is known as gravitational lensing, and it creates a ring of light that can be seen regardless of the angle from which the black hole is viewed. These effects were both predicted from Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity. Because M87*'s image shows these effects, it is strong evidence that general relativity and our understanding of the physics of black holes is correct.

This new M87* image was produced with key contributions from an imaging team at Caltech, including Professor Katherine (Katie) L. Bouman, assistant professor of computing and mathematical sciences, electrical engineering, and astronomy; former Caltech Ph.D. student Nitika Yadlapalli Yurk, Ph.D.; and current Caltech postdoctoral research associate in computing and mathematical sciences Aviad Levis.

Bouman is a coordinator of the EHT Imaging Working Group and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and co-lead of the EHT imaging team when the original image was published in 2019. In that role, she helped develop the algorithms that assembled the trove of data collected by the EHT's multiple radio telescopes into a single, cohesive image. Since joining the Caltech faculty, Bouman, who is also a Rosenberg Scholar and Heritage Medical Research Institute Investigator, has continued her work with EHT. She also co-led the imaging of the Milky Way's supermassive black hole published in 2022.

Yurk joined the EHT Collaboration in 2020 and played an active role in the imaging team for the latest M87* image. Her main contributions included developing synthetic datasets to be used in the training and validation of the imaging algorithms. Yurk also wrote software that was used in the exploration of image candidates. She was recently recognized by the EHT for her efforts with a Ph.D. Thesis Award for the advances she brought to the imaging and validation of the most recent M87* image. She is currently a NASA Postdoctoral Program fellow at JPL, which Caltech manages for NASA.

Imaging an object like M87* with the EHT is very different than imaging a planet like Saturn with a conventional telescope. Instead of seeing light, the EHT observes the radio waves emitted by objects and must computationally combine the information to form a picture.

"The raw data that comes out of these telescopes are basically just voltage values," Yurk says. "I like to describe radio telescopes as the world's most sensitive volt meters, and they collect voltages really accurately from different parts of the sky."

Turning those voltage values into an image is tricky, Bouman says, because the information the researchers are working with is incomplete, and there is nothing to compare the image against since no one has seen M87* with their own eyes.

"We don't want to plug in our expectations of what the black hole should look like when we're computationally forming the image," Bouman says. "Otherwise, it might lead us to an image that we expect rather than one that captures reality."

To avoid that problem, the researchers test their image processing algorithms with what is known as synthetic data, a suite of simulated images with simple geometric shapes. Those data are run through the algorithms to produce an image. If the output image is true to the input image, they know the algorithm is working correctly and would be able to accurately see surprising structures around the black hole.

Bouman says that process, which was co-led by Yurk, involved exploring hundreds of thousands of parameters to gauge the effectiveness of the algorithms in reconstructing different image structures. The team found that with the addition of the Greenland telescope to the EHT, the methods more robustly recovered features in the images.

The process produced an image of M87* that is only slightly different than the first. The most obvious difference is that the brightest portion of the glowing ring surrounding M87* has shifted about 30 degrees counterclockwise. According to the EHT, that movement is likely the result of the turbulent flow of matter around a black hole. Importantly, the ring has remained the same size, which was also predicted by general relativity.

Bouman adds that the team's ability to produce another image of M87* with new data that agrees so closely with the previous image is exciting.

"I think that people are going to ask, 'Why is this important? You already showed a picture of M87*.' Other groups have reproduced the M87* picture with data that were taken in 2017. But it's a totally different thing to have a new dataset taken a different year and to come to the same conclusions. Reproducibility with independent data is a big deal, too."

IMAGE....The Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration has released new images of M87* from observations taken in April 2018, one year after the first observations in April 2017. The new observations in 2018, which feature the first participation of the Greenland Telescope, reveal a familiar, bright ring of emission of the same size as we found in 2017. This bright ring surrounds a dark central shadow, and the brightest part of the ring in 2018 has shifted by about 30º relative from 2017 to now lie in the 5 o’clock position. Credit: EHT Collaboration

#science #space #astronomy #physics #news #astrophysics

[ferusaurelius]

Get to know your fanfic writer!

I was tagged by @callista-curations and actually got to the end of the week with a bit of energy for once, so... here we go. ;)

When did you post your first ever fanfic?

The first EVER was on ff.net probably around 2000-2004? For a friend, for an obscure show nobody's heard of. My first fic I posted for myself was 2020.

First Character(s) you wrote?

I actually wrote original characters in the Mass Effect fandom. My short thought experiment on machine translation.

Main Character(s) you’re currently writing?

Nihlus Kryik, David Anderson, Commander Rentola

Character(s) you haven’t written about before but plan to write about soon?

Nyreen Kandros, Ashley Williams. Though they might take a bit since I'm still kinda marinating on what I want to do there.

Fandom(s) you’re currently writing?

Mass Effect! Hyperfixation fandom, go! (I write meta posts for Our Flag Means Death, but do not intend to write fic.)

Platonic pairing(s) you’re currently writing?

Commander Rentola and Ashley Williams

Romantic pairing(s) you’re currently writing?

Nihlus Kryik/Saren Arterius, David Anderson/Saren Arterius (yep!).

Your top AO3 tags?

Romantic Comedy (LOL). Good job, barfics!

Current platform you use for posting?

AO3. I've read a bunch of fic for different fandoms over the years and I'm pleased to be able to contribute when I have the energy.

Snippet of the WIP you are currently working on?

So bar!fics are going to have a long!fic sequel. Keep in mind I AM A SLOW WRITER with multiple wips, to the point where the 'easy' one-shots get published first.

I'm not sure about POV or pacing, but it'll be in a different voice and tone than the originals and have actual mission-oriented plot and some developing relationship stuff.

If you don't want spoilers, I've put it below the cut. ;)

This is a Very Rough high-level outline of a fragment of the entire plot, because my 'other' current WIP is maybe gonna be a nano project. I have various wip possibilities dueling it out for my attention and will see you in December. xD

Normally I would tag a few people to play (and if you feel like playing and you are reading this, IT IS YOU WHO IS TAGGED xD), but specifics are beyond my brain tonight.

Outline time~

Saren entertains Nihlus with his own history and experience of the Skyllian Verge, as well as being a sort of guide to the full intelligence picture, as he understands it.

Nihlus (with a snap of intuition) puts together that something bigger and more urgent than Saren thinks is happening or likely to happen, and it makes him restless and want to investigate immediately, because what if his intuition is right?

Saren insists that Nihlus should go as soon as his ankle’s recovered. He has his own authority.

Nihlus declines to ‘rush’ into something and presents an alternative of walking Saren through his process and treats this as a getting-to-know you thought exercise to keep Saren distracted from how fucking miserable the detox process is.

Saren and Nihlus together, working the problem over food and no access to other sources of information beyond what they can recall, come up with a terrible plan.

Nihlus can infiltrate the merc group by having a public falling-out with Saren.

Saren can get sent to hunt down “Rogue Spectre” Nihlus in the Verge.

Nihlus treats this seriously and starts workshopping different options while Saren is getting increasingly agitated about the whole concept of the frame-up.

Saren: I can’t ask you to do this.

Nihlus: Fine, you’re not asking. I’m volunteering.

Saren: I don’t know if I can let you do this.

Nihlus: It’s my decision.

Saren: -can’t dispute this, even if he doesn’t like it-

Saren: -eventually agrees, though he doesn’t like it-

Saren: Alternatives.

They come up with others that have less advantage in discretion, timing, or access.

Saren is forced to admit that Nihlus’s idea about infiltrating a group directly is the best one, since it allows them the most flexibility in cover story and depth of access. Plus, Nihlus is marked.

Saren: I’ve never asked.

Nihlus: -tells him-

Nihlus: What are you going to need for your part to work?

Saren: You, eyes open, and no hesitation. Trust me to manage my end no matter what you hear or what happens.

Nihlus: -kinda loves this about Saren- With my life.

Saren: It may come to that.

Nihlus: We’ll worry about that when it happens.

It will happen.

Saren: A better medical regimen.

Nihlus: I’ve never asked.

Saren: -tells him-

... and that's all you get to see for now. xD Be intrigued! Be very intrigued. If you can guess what canon event this is gonna be AU for, you get bonus points. ;)

#ferus tag games #my writing #mass effect fic writing #ferus chats #i can have a little tag game as a treat #thanks for tagging me!

[ramblersaccount]

18

In 2020, like much of the world, I experienced a lot of change. However, it felt somewhat less disruptive for me personally than for many others. Yes, the global pandemic turned our world upside down in a matter of days, but it was also the year I turned 18 and was supposed to transition into a young adult – Aaliah, version 2.0, with newfound independence and cooler vibes. I had anticipated a grand transformation in the way people perceived and treated me. I imagined myself becoming more sociable, attending parties, and embracing a more carefree lifestyle, no longer reliant on my parents for permission. Well, as it turned out, that's not quite how things played out. *Cue the sad trombone*

But that's perfectly okay; I could undertake the "Aaliah transformation" right from the comfort of my own home. TikTok had already gained considerable popularity as a social media platform before the pandemic, and I had recently created an account. The platform was rampant with self-proclaimed "self-care" gurus offering advice on how to take care of yourself during lockdown. They covered everything from skincare routines and dietary tips to picking up new hobbies. These content creators were there to both entertain and educate the masses. I found myself saving videos on the best recipes for weight loss, effective at-home skincare remedies, and guides on discovering my personal "aesthetic." Before I knew it, I was comparing myself to the people I saw on the app, wondering why I couldn't look more like them. Unfortunately, this remains a habit I struggle with to this day.

At that time, I weighed 115 pounds and really only had one proper meal a day. Even before the pandemic, I rarely had breakfast or dinner but would grab a sandwich or a snack after school and before my sports practices. Now that I was spending my entire day at home, my eating habits started to change, and I developed a fear of becoming "too big." I was a self-conscious teenager, plagued by worries about whether I was good enough.

My school was relatively small and predominantly Hispanic. In my grade, I could only recall about seven Black students, with me and one of the boys having the darkest skin tones. I also had a bit of a tomboyish style. This combination of factors made me feel somewhat less attractive than my peers. Additionally, I sometimes felt as though I was pigeonholed into the category of the "angry dark-skinned social justice warrior." 

I had never been in a relationship, and it seemed like no one had ever shown genuine interest in me, so I felt the need to reinvent myself. Despite my best efforts, I began gaining weight, and to my surprise, I actually liked it. I had always had curves, but now they were more pronounced, making me appear older and healthier, and I thought it suited me. I started experimenting with makeup and trying out new hairstyles and clothing, and I had mixed feelings about the whole process. Each new style I tried seemed to meet with resistance from my parents, making me feel like nothing ever looked quite right on me.

My excitement soared when I received acceptance to Lincoln University. Located in Pennsylvania, it meant I would be on my own, and being an HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) meant I'd finally get to experience being around more Black people than I ever had in my previous schools, truly immersing myself in American Black culture. I knew I'd never fully grasp it, coming from a West Indian household, but I was thrilled to be around people who looked like me.

When I moved into my dorm, the pandemic was still ongoing, so we had to quarantine for about a week. But after that initial period, college life began to unfold just as I had envisioned, at least for the first week. I hung out with a random group of people initially, only to never talk to them again, as it turned out. However, I embraced the clothing I wanted to wear and felt confident, albeit with a sense of artificial confidence. Strangely, every time I stepped out of my room, I felt a subtle tightness in my chest. Were my hand movements awkward? Why did I make eye contact with that person? They probably think I look out of place. These thoughts weighed on me with every step I took.

In time, I found myself leaving my room only to eat and occasionally get some fresh air. Surprisingly my anxiety about people had nothing to do with COVID and everything to do with my self-esteem. Luckily my room never felt like a prison; it was simply my sanctuary. I oddly never felt lonely, even though I spent most of my time by myself. I would read, watch TikToks, practice my dancing, paint, and do anything I wanted. I even tried out new recipes using a little toaster I definitely wasn't supposed to have. I felt free and content in my self-imposed solitude.

The only thing missing was my family, the food I loved, and the familiarity of my city. Lincoln was in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by farms. There were only fake Italian restaurants and Domino's for dining options. The cafeteria's ethnic food could only hold me over for so long. I missed my mom's pelau and the ability to buy doubles. I longed for visits to the deli and taking the train. Living by myself made me happy, but I wished I could do it back home. 

Reflecting on it now, I regret missing out on the opportunity to socialize, but I am grateful for the time I had to be with myself. In hindsight, I see that it was essential for my personal growth. During that time alone, I discovered a deeper understanding of myself and learned to appreciate the journey of self-discovery. In moments of self-reflection and solitude, we often uncover our true selves, which can grow and flourish as we become more self-aware. Life's paradox is that while we seek connections with others, we must also connect with our inner selves. This inner journey helps us become more complete and better at forming meaningful connections with the world. 

[autocon23]

I’m Literally In Hell

I have so many goddamn work in progress fics that I have quite a bit of work done already (though, I’m not ready to post any of them, other than the multipart series that many of you already know about). So, you know what? You all get to know what I’m doing and can tell me I’m a psychopath bc I think I need to be put in the incomplete fanfic shame corner or something.

So, here we go….

Boondock Saints/The Walking Dead crossover: I’m not even going to attempt to explain this bullshit. If you’re curious, feel free to head to my AO3 to read it and tell me that I have no life (I will agree 100% bc I almost NEVER go out and socialize). It’s a Darly/Connor/OC/Murphy series that I’ve been writing since the end of 2020. I’m actually really happy how the series has turned out and I still have so much planned that I can hardly wait for you to read. And the fact that all you awesome people have consistently given it such an amazing amount of love for it that I hope that I will always continue to make you all excited everytime I post a new chapter.

Naruto: So, I actually have two fics being written for it. Both I really like and wrote quite a bit for them. Still working on it as I keep bouncing around to different areas of the timeline.

A. I Will Carry This Burden So You Don’t Have To: this is actually the second Naruto fic that I’m writing. It’s an Uchiha OC who’s Sasuke/Itachi’s older cousin and had been the next head of the Uchiha clan. Her father was the head, but died either before or during the Third Ninja War (still trying to figure out timeline stuff for that area) so after her father’s death, Fugaku (her uncle) takes over as temporary head of the clan until OC is ready. She even ends up as the 4th Hokage’s personal assistant for a short time period. Of course we all know how things actually happen. OC ends up adopting Naruto (despite the 3rd’s and Danzo’s attempts to prevent her). She’s close with Itachi and Sasuke and when the Uchiha clan is massacred, she adopts Sasuke as well. It’s lots of angst in this fic specifically at how helpless and furious OC is about what happens during the story. I’m still debating on a ship. I’m stuck between Kakashi/OC, Gai/OC, or Kakashi/OC/Gai.

B. Kitsune Uzumaki: this is the first one and I’ve got lots of fun stuff for this one. OC is the twin sister to Naruto and is a jinchuuriki as well. They both have the nine tails sealed in them. I changed some parts of the timeline here as well, but it’s mostly just lengthening the time between the Chuunin exams and when Sasuke left the village to join Orochimaru. Basically aging all the characters up a little by a couple years before Shippuden. This is an OC/Kakashi/Yamato fic.

3. Supernatural: I’ve got two fics for this one as well.

A. RW: this is a sister!Winchester fic. Got lots of fun stuff going on with this one.

B. Fuck You, Chuck: this one I recently came up with a couple months back. OC is a girl from our world in the year 2023 to SPN in 2005. She knows everything that’s going to happen in the show. At first she plays along, but then she starts trying to figure out ways to change things.

4. Mass Effect: oh, I had so many goddamn ideas popping up into my head every time I pull up the game to play. It’s a fucking menace, but I love this series greatly.

A. The Saviors of The Galaxy Were Raised By A Krogan (Fuck The Council): I got three Shepard OCs (male twins and their adopted younger sister) who are all working together to save this shit galaxy from the Reapers. As the title suggests, they were adopted by a Krogan. Wrex specifically bc he’s the best and deserves all the love. It mostly follows the fem!shep OC of the story, but I do try to give the older brothers plenty of attention in the story.

B. Haley’s Comet: this takes place in Mass Effect: Andromeda. Alec Ryder actually has three kids in this story. First is Sara and Scott Ryder, the original protagonists of the game that the audience usually follows. Then, there’s OC, who’s the younger sister of the twins that I named Haley. She’s 15 when she’s put in cryo to head to Andromeda and is the one who ends up the new Pathfinder. I’m debating on whether to keep Alec dead like he is in the game or maybe change it up and have him survive Habitat 7 and just give him hell since he can’t be Pathfinder anymore due to the injuries he’d received during the mission on Habitat 7. Really heavy on the found family trope and quite a bit of angst as it follows Haley who struggles to be Pathfinder while trying to not have some kind of resentment or anger towards her father and even her older siblings due to how they all ended up in the Andromeda program.

5. DC Universe: I’ve got two fics for this one. Both with the same OC, Amelia Ryder, and ship, OC/John Constantine. This is mostly because I ended up getting really attached to freaking John Constantine. I apparently have a weakness for accents and blue eyes (kill me please). She’s also a badass sorceress (well, she becomes one eventually) and can use magic.

A. Legends of Tomorrow: Amelia becomes a member of the Legends. She’s picked up at the start by Captain Hunter with the rest of the crew in Season 1. There’s mention of her past in season 1, but after the Time Masters are dealt with, her past is left exactly where she wants it: in the past. So, it’s really more of Amelia ending up finding the family that she’s truly yearned for while also getting confidence in herself and her own agency/independence. Of course, lots of drama between her and Constantine when he finally pokes his head up. Lots of fun moments and angst. Smut too.

B. DC Animated Universe: this uses Amelia as well, because I really had a lot of fun coming up with her character background. Except instead of being a time traveling badass, she ends up becoming the Justice League’s secretary. It mostly follows the animated movies, but I’ll follow certain arcs. This actually delves more into Amelia’s history and she does a lot of healing once her past catches up with her.

6. Haikyuu: I’m working on only one for now, but I have a couple that I want to do. Only one is probably going to be a bit on the long side while the others will probably be a bit shorter, but follows the main story quite a bit. The one I’m working on is called “Our Coach is a High School Student”. Lots of fun stuff planned for that one. I had to change my OC’s name bc a Haikyuu fic that I read god knows how long ago had updated and it turns out that that they used the same name as me. So that was fun.

7. My Hero Academia: I got two fics for this one too (geez almost every fandom I’m doing as two fics I think I need help)

A. Sakura Midoriya: sister!Midoriya fic. She’s Deku’s twin sister and quirkless as well. That’s currently what I’m working on bc I recently binged MHA and have been rabid with my writing. I’m stuck between a couple ships to do, but I’m leaning towards OC/Todoroki or maybe OC/Todoroki/Bakugo. Though, I do really like KiriBaku, but I also really like KiriMina.

B. Untitled: I haven’t started actually writing this yet. Mostly bc I haven’t gotten around to it again. It’s another sister!Midoriya fic, but it falls under the Inko Midoriya Adopts Everybody. I even have a general timeline. The biggest thing I’m struggling to figure out is how to continue the OFA/AFO stuff. Who will be AFO’s successor? Do I keep Izuku as the OFA successor? I def have a few things planned, but main storyline from MHA is what I need to figure out.

8. Marvel: I had an idea for a MCU fic. It’s similar to the DCAU where the Avengers get a secretary. Though, I had thought of having them get a therapist, but I don’t know if I can write therapists/therapy sessions very well. So, it might lean towards secretary. Though, this is still benched for now.

Please for the love of god or whatever put me out of my misery lol

#author ramblings #i am in need of a healthy sleep schedule #binging fmab and it’s bringing ideas to me too #i want to go home #Naruto #supernatural #mass effect #mass effect andromeda #Haikyuu #my hero academia #marvel #dc #boondock saints #the walking dead #i have not gone to bed at a reasonable hour for the last few weeks #kill me

[ukrfeminism]

Cycling has become the first sport to impose stricter rules on transgender women in the wake of the toxic row around Emily Bridges and Lia Thomas.

The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) announced it was halving the maximum permitted plasma testosterone for trans women to compete in the female category from 5 nmol/L to 2.5 nmol/L and doubling the period they must remain below that threshold before being allowed to compete from one to two years.

The rule change, which comes into force on July 1, may stop Bridges racing in women’s events on the “UCI international calendar” until the summer of 2024, denying her the chance to qualify for the next Olympics.

It was announced two months after British Cycling suspended its own trans policy amid a major backlash against Bridges’ plans to switch from racing in men’s events and take on the likes of Dame Laura Kenny at the National Omnium Championships.

The event had faced a rider boycott were Bridges allowed to compete a year after she began complying with the current rules.

Confirmation of the change also came three days before Fina, swimming’s world governing body, was expected to introduce new transgender rules.

Those could deny Thomas, who in March became the first trans woman to win a National Collegiate Athletic Association title, a place at Paris 2024 as well.

The UCI said in a statement: “In March 2020, the UCI published rules governing the participation of transgender athletes in events on the UCI International Calendar in the category corresponding to their new gender identity.

“Although these rules are stricter and more restrictive than those published by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 2015, the UCI has begun consideration on their adjustment following the publication of new scientific studies in 2020 and 2021.

“The principle of eligibility of transgender athletes (in particular female athletes, ie those who have made a transition from male to female) is based on the reversibility under low blood testosterone (the level commonly observed in ‘born female’ athletes) of the physiological abilities that determine sports performance, and on the time needed to achieve this reversibility.

“The latest scientific publications clearly demonstrate that the return of markers of endurance capacity to ‘female level’ occurs within six to eight months under low blood testosterone, while the awaited adaptations in muscle mass and muscle strength/power take much longer (two years minimum according to a recent study). 

“Given the important role played by muscle strength and power in cycling performance, the UCI has decided to increase the transition period on low testosterone from 12 to 24 months. In addition, the UCI has decided to lower the maximum permitted plasma testosterone level (currently 5 nmol/L) to 2.5 nmol/L. This value corresponds to the maximum testosterone level found in 99.99% of the female population.

“This adjustment of the UCI’s eligibility rules is based on the state of scientific knowledge published to date in this area and is intended to promote the integration of transgender athletes into competitive sport, while maintaining fairness, equal opportunities and the safety of competitions. 

“The new rules will come into force on 1st July. They may change in the future as scientific knowledge evolves.

“Moreover, the UCI envisages discussions with other international federations about the possibility of supporting a research programme whose objective would be to study the evolution of the physical performance of highly trained athletes under transitional hormone treatment.”

The UCI also published a paper written by its medical director, Professor Xavier Bigard, entitled: ‘The current knowledge on the effects of gender-affirming treatment on markers of performance in transgender female cyclists’.

#Concerning that they’re starting to use the word ‘female’ incorrectly also

[monowires]

i don’t usually like getting into new fandoms because i am both afraid of and wary of new people. however my autism wants more mass effect on my timeline, so.

i’m 20. name’s johnny but people who know me may call me ker or shep. please don’t call me this if you don’t know me.

i’m multifandom. ones that never leave are cyberpunk and mass effect. others that come and go are genshin, pjsekai, fallout, skyrim, outlast, twdg, the last of us, detroit become human, apex legends, etc.

i’m Extremely autistic and also have very bad memory, im awkward around new people and i tend to stick to myself. i promise i’m not ignoring anyone, i’m just not a social person.

i am only sparingly on tumblr right now because i haven’t finished the games and i’m avoiding spoilers.

some tidbits about me and my mass effect history,

i’m currently playing the trilogy, im halfway through me2. i played me:a first in 2020, i’ve played it a lot and got platinum when i had a playstation (i’m a pc player now). i got the trilogy because it was on sale and i’d just gotten my financial aid refund and i had always wanted to play it.

it is the most intensely i’ve fixated on something new in four years. usually new media i enjoy doesn’t clutch me this tightly, but mass effect has effectively (haha get it. EFFECTively) dethroned fallout as my favorite game franchise of all time. to put that in perspective, fallout has been my favorite since i was 12, so 8 and a half years. would’ve been 9 later this year!

i love shepard so much and i’m a little mentally ill about him so if i end up being friends with anyone here i just ask that you don’t try & insinuate you like him more than i do. like idc if you say you love him but once it gets competitive it makes me uncomfortable because he’s my autism creature (i don’t expect this to make sense to people who aren’t autistic)

i’ve been going through the series blind, which i haven’t done with a game in years. i know that there’s 8 endings in me3 but i’ve managed to avoid spoilers, clips, etc. how? no idea. especially since mass effect is a really popular series. but. currently i’m so excited to eventually get to me3 and be able to be gay with kaidan. mshenko feels like the slowest burn in the whole universe??? the first 2 games feel like shep’s pining is unrequited and unreciprocated. it is. Painfully delicious

out of the whole series i love default mshep and default scott ryder, they’re my scroinglies. i play both as biotic. i know shep is canonically biotic. my shep is canon compliant but also has some headcanons to make him my own.

general rule of thumb, whenever i say shepard i mean male shepard; i’m a bisexual trans man whose attraction to men is like 99% of my bisexuality lmaooo

my favorite ships for shepard are shenko & whatever they call garrus x shep. funny story, my sibling and i came up with the name shenko before i even knew it was actually what they called it.

for scott i love scott x jaal and scott x reyes. i’m also partial to scott x liam heh

i headcanon shepard as gay and kaidan as bisexual. i promise my shep isn’t maidenless he’s just gay.

ok i have talked a lot but uhh. yeah follow me if you want, i’ll follow back if you’re 17+.

#johnny.txt #mass effect #mass effect: andromeda #mass effect: legendary edition #cyberpunk #fallout #skyrim #video games #looking for mutuals #anyone wanna be friends with an awkward autistic 20 year old who has too much autism #did i mention i have autism #cuz. yeah. #outlast #twdg #tlou #idk what to tag help #shepard #commander shepard #scott ryder #i’m too lazy to tag more

[bloodelves88]

Everything Is Liked Nowadays

In the past 2 years, while trying to figure out if a new video game is worth playing, I've noticed something. Almost every game, good or just okay, are rated highly by users. I usually use Steam user reviews to judge a game, and it worked really well before 2020 or so. When the reviews are positive, I'm pretty much guaranteed to enjoy the game. Nowadays? It's a gamble.

I've also noticed that the exact same thing happens for anime. For anime, I use MyAnimeList ratings. The criteria for me to decide whether or not to watch an anime is if it has a score above 8. This didn't guarantee that I would like the anime, but it was pretty accurate most of the time. Again, this method of filtering seems to have stopped working since 2020.

I've been wondering why this is the case, and I've come to the conclusion that video games and anime have become a lot more mainstream in the recent years, and the lockdown period during Covid has fueled their path towards mainstream status. These two hobbies were definitely not mainstream before 2010, and it only started growing after that. It used to be the nerd thing. The thing the skinny boy with glasses does after school. It used to be something you only share with others when you knew that they were into it as well. Back then, whenever I said I played video games as a hobby, people would reply "Dota?". Nobody ever heard of Company of Heroes, Red Alert, Assassin's Creed, Mass Effect, or even Warcraft. Nowadays, while people still gravitate towards certain titles such as Fortnite, Valorant, Among Us, or Call of Duty, at least the titles are more varied, and people would have heard of Warcraft or Elden Ring.

Now, why would becoming mainstream cause this issue? Here's why:

Mainstream consumers are newbies or casuals.

Now put down your pitchforks, this is not an insult.

I say this as a definition of how they consume content, and the level of enjoyment they would gain from it. I simply mean that they only consume what's being hyped up, what's popular, and what has the best ratings. They are also possibly but not necessarily new in the space, with little to no experience with older content and content beyond what's popular. Think of a moviegoer who only watches Marvel movies. Something like that.

When you live in a bubble like that, the level of exposure to the medium as a whole is really small. So what happens is that these people begin to think that Spy × Family is the best anime released in the recent years, despite it having nothing much interesting going for it other than Anya being cute and funny. They think Stray is a potential game of the year, despite it being just a cat walking simulator. Don't get me wrong - these two examples are good, polished, and well made pieces of content, but ultimately they bring nothing amazing to the table. A solid 7/10 at most.

I'll use Spy × Family to make comparisons here, since MyAnimeList has scores and a top anime list which will make comparison easier.

Currently, Spy × Family has a score of 8.7/10. This puts the anime above classics such as Code Geass, Great Teacher Onizuka, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, and Death Note. And it's above newer hits such as Your Lie In April, One Punch Man, Made in Abyss, Kimetsu no Yaiba, and Haikyuu. I don't know how anyone who has watched any of the listed anime above can look at me with a straight face and tell me that Spy × Family is better.

Coincidentally, all of the anime I listed came out before 2020, and Spy × Family came out after 2020. I have a strong feeling that Spy × Family was a lot of people's first, second, or third anime (and Kimetsu no Yaiba probably also being one of them), leaving them with nothing solid to benchmark against.

Think back to the point when you first stepped into gaming, anime, movies, or any sort of hobby. You were looking at content for the first time, and it just seemed that nothing could be better than what you just experienced. You would probably have rated lots of things higher back then, compared to now. I myself am guilty of this, and it's perfectly normal behaviour. As a result, a lot of popular content that newbies consume ends up being rated positively as it's designed to appeal to the masses.

Then there's the effect of social media, Youtubers, Twitch streamers, etc. Followers would naturally all have the same tastes towards certain types of content, and if the person they're following likes a certain game or anime, then it drives their followers to consume said content, which in turn brings up the ratings once more since they have a high likelihood of enjoying it. A point could be made about how these followers would be on the hardcore side of things, and you might be right. However I do think that people following Youtubers is also becoming pretty mainstream nowadays, especially among the younger folks.

Put together these two factors (and I believe that these are not the only two), and then apply it to how mainstream consumers are far more populous than the hardcore population, and this would then affect a lot of content. Out of a group of 1000 people, 200 might be hardcore, and 800 might be casual. And to make the ratings exaggerated, if the hardcores gives 0/10 ratings and the casuals give 10/10, you end up with an 8/10. More realistically, the hardcores would give it anywhere between a 6-7/10, and the casuals giving it a 9-10/10, resulting in a score of about 8.5-9.5/10. Apply this to every single piece of content out there, and you end up with everything being rated positively.

So now I have to read the reviews instead of just relying on scores. And even that is starting to become a problem, especially on Steam. The reviews on the store's front page are starting to become absolutely useless and meme-ish, since people are trying to get upvotes and funny votes. Sigh.

Finally, take everything I wrote with a pinch of salt. This is just my speculation and opinion. There's no actual research or statistics backing this up. It's just my guess as to why this has been happening. Am I right or wrong, who knows? I just know that the problem exists.

[digitaltariq]

Jack Burke Jr., Who Gained 2 Main Golf Titles in a Season, Dies at 100

Jack Burke Jr., a high participant on the P.G.A. tour within the postwar years who received two main golf championships in a single season, then turned a sought-after teacher to among the sport’s best stars, died on Friday in Houston. He was 100 and the oldest residing winner of the Masters and P.G.A. championships. A consultant of the Texas Sports activities Corridor of Fame, which inducted him in 1978, confirmed the loss of life. Burke’s banner yr was 1956, when he received each the Masters and P.G.A. titles and was named the P.G.A.’s golfer of the yr. His Masters victory stunned nearly everybody. Solely weeks earlier, having gone winless because the Inverness open in Ohio in 1953, Burke, who was 33, had introduced that he was contemplating retiring. And going into the ultimate spherical at Augusta Nationwide Golf Membership, he was eight strokes behind the Masters chief, Ken Venturi, and had not drawn a lot consideration. All eyes had been on Venturi, who at 24 was vying to grow to be the primary newbie to win the Masters. However as Venturi faltered, Burke crept up the leaderboard, passing eight gamers, and received by a stroke. He had acquired some meteorological assist. “I had a downhill putt on the seventeenth gap that was lightning fast, and it was made even sooner as a result of the 40-mile-per-hour wind had blown sand out onto the inexperienced,” Burke told Golf Digest in 2004. “I simply touched that putt, and I instantly thought, ‘Oh, no, I didn’t get it midway there.’ Then the wind grabbed that factor and saved blowing it down the hill, till it plunked lifeless in the midst of the outlet. It was a miracle — the most effective break of my profession.” That June, Burke received the P.G.A. championship, defeating Ted Kroll on the Blue Hill Nation Membership in Canton, Mass., in match-play format, which relies on holes received in a head-to-head contest and never the variety of strokes on a scorecard. All informed, Burke received 16 tournaments on the Skilled Golfers’ Affiliation of America tour, together with 4 in 4 weeks in 1952. The son of a Houston golf membership professional, Burke turned skilled at 17 and joined the tour at 23, hailed as probably the most promising golfers of his technology. In 1949, Burke, by then residing in Kiamesha Lake, N.Y., in Sullivan County, recorded his first skilled win, within the Metropolitan Open, on his house course, the Metropolis Nation Membership, in White Plains, defeating the veteran Gene Sarazen. The victory got here 24 years to the day after Burke’s father defeated Sarazen in a match, as Sarazen ruefully however good-naturedly identified to Jack Jr. In 1952, after his 4 straight tour victories and a second-place end on the Masters, behind Sam Snead, Burke was profiled by Collier’s journal as “Golf’s New Scorching-Shot.” At 5-foot-9 and 170 kilos, he may hit 265 yards off the tee and was a superb putter. His boyish beauty solely added to his enchantment. “His curly faintly auburn hair, blue eyes and occasional shy smile have made him the darling of the female hyperlinks addicts,” the journal wrote, figuring out Burke as “considered one of golf’s most eligible bachelors.” In 1957, Burke joined his mentor, Jimmy Demaret, the primary three-time Masters champion, in founding the Champions Golf Club in Houston. Demaret had been an assistant professional below Burke’s father since Jack Jr. was 10. Burke and Demaret instituted a membership coverage — nonetheless in power — below which solely golfers with a handicap of 14 or decrease are admitted. “I liken us to Stanford College, or Yale or Harvard,” Burke informed Golf Digest. “They don’t settle for D college students academically, and we don’t settle for folks with a D common in golf.” The membership hosted the 1969 United States Open and the 2020 U.S. Girls’s Open Championship, amongst different tournaments. Burke went on to earn distinction as a longtime teacher of Phil Mickelson, Hal Sutton, Steve Elkington and different professionals. In his 70s, Arnold Palmer dropped by for a lesson. Jack Nicklaus as soon as mentioned of Burke, “I can’t inform you what number of occasions we have been enjoying golf and he’d say, ‘Jack, how are you going to play from that place?’” John Joseph Burke Jr. was born on Jan. 29, 1923, in Fort Value, the eldest of eight siblings, considered one of whom died younger. He grew up in Houston, the place his father, who had tied for second within the 1920 U.S. Open, was the professional on the River Oaks Nation Membership. Jack Jr. first performed golf at age 6. At 12, he shot a 69 on a troublesome par-71 course. At 16, he certified for the U.S. Open. However at 17, on the insistence of his mom, he entered Rice Institute (now Rice College) in Houston. He left earlier than he accomplished his freshman yr, nevertheless, and have become the top professional on the Galveston Nation Membership. When World Warfare II broke out, Burke joined the Marine Corps and taught fight conditioning, together with judo. He joined the P.G.A. tour after the battle (it formally turned the PGA Tour in 1968), moved to New York State and in addition taught golf at golf equipment in New Jersey and New York Metropolis. He first gained broad consideration in 1951, when he recorded two commanding victories in that yr’s Ryder Cup competitors. That led to his choice to 4 extra Ryder Cup occasions within the Nineteen Fifties, during which he compiled a 7-1 match report towards his European competitors. He was twice Ryder Cup captain, shedding in 1957 and profitable in 1973. In 1952, he received the Vardon Trophy, given to the tour chief in scoring common. (His was 70.54.) When Burke was 81, Hal Sutton, the 2004 United States Ryder Cup captain, named him an assistant captain. Burke was elected to the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2000. In 2003, he was voted the recipient of the PGA Tour’s Lifetime Achievement Award and america Golf Affiliation’s Bob Jones Award. In 2007, he acquired the P.G.A. Distinguished Service Award. Burke married Ielene Lang in 1952. She died within the mid-Eighties. He had turned 60 when, in 1984, he met Robin Moran, a freshman golfer on the College of Texas, on the placing inexperienced on the Champions Golf Membership, the place her father had despatched her for a golf lesson, in line with the P.G.A. historian Bob Denney. The couple married in 1987. She was a finalist within the 1997 United States ladies’s newbie championship and was additionally inducted into the Texas Golf Hall of Fame. She survives him. Burke had a daughter together with his second spouse and 5 kids together with his first, together with a son, John J. Burke III, who died in 2017. Full info on his survivors was not instantly out there. Burke joined elite firm by profitable two majors in a single season, however by his personal alternative he would by no means have a shot at a grand slam, as it's understood right now, by profitable all 4, both in a single season or in a profession. He missed the lower on the 1956 U.S. Open, at Oak Hill Nation Membership, outdoors Rochester, and he by no means performed within the British Open. Frank Litsky, a longtime Instances sportswriter, died in 2018. William McDonald and Sofia Poznansky contributed reporting. Read the full article

#Burke #Dies #Golf #Jack #Major #season #Titles #Won

[jcmarchi]

New Data, Same Great Appearance for M87* - Technology Org

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/new-data-same-great-appearance-for-m87-technology-org/

New Data, Same Great Appearance for M87* - Technology Org

Nearly five years ago, a globe-spanning team of astronomers gave the world its first-ever glimpse of a black hole. Now the team has validated both their original findings and our understanding of black holes with a new image of the supermassive black hole M87*.

This supermassive black hole, 6.5 billion times the mass of our Sun, resides at the center of the Messier 87 (M87) galaxy in the Virgo galaxy cluster, located 55 million light-years from Earth.

The new image, like the old one, was captured by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), an array of radio telescopes stretching across the planet. These new data, however, were gathered a year later, in 2018, and benefitted from enhancements in the telescope array, notably with the inclusion of a telescope in Greenland.

EHT’s original image of M87* was important not just because it represented the first time humans had imaged a black hole, but also because the object looked the way it was supposed to look. Notably, the image showed what is known as a black-hole shadow—a dark region at the center of a glowing disk of hot matter circling the black hole.

A black-hole shadow isn’t a shadow in the same sense as the one you cast when you walk outside on a sunny day. Instead, the dark region is created by the black hole’s immense gravitational field, which is so strong that light cannot escape it. Since no light leaves a black hole, it appears dark.

Additionally, that strong gravity bends light that passes near the black hole without falling into it, effectively acting like a lens. This is known as gravitational lensing, and it creates a ring of light that can be seen no matter which angle the black hole is viewed from. These effects were both predicted from Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Because M87*’s image shows these effects, it is strong evidence that general relativity and our understanding of the physics of black holes is correct.

This new M87* image was produced with key contributions from an imaging team at Caltech, including Professor Katherine (Katie) L. Bouman, assistant professor of computing and mathematical sciences, electrical engineering, and astronomy; former Caltech PhD student Nitika Yadlapalli Yurk (PhD ’23); and current Caltech postdoctoral research associate in computing and mathematical sciences Aviad Levis.

Bouman is a coordinator of the EHT Imaging Working Group and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and co-lead of the EHT imaging team when the original image was published in 2019. In that role, she helped develop the algorithms that assembled the trove of data collected by the EHT’s multiple radio telescopes into a single, cohesive image. Since joining the Caltech faculty, Bouman, who is also a Rosenberg Scholar and Heritage Medical Research Institute Investigator, has continued her work with EHT. She also co-led the imaging of the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole published in 2022.

Yurk joined the EHT Collaboration in 2020 and played an active role in the imaging team for the latest M87* image. Her main contributions included developing synthetic datasets to be used in the training and validation of the imaging algorithms. Yurk also wrote software that was used in the exploration of image candidates. She was recently recognized by the EHT for her efforts with a PhD Thesis Award for the advances she brought to the imaging and validation of the most recent M87* image. She is currently a NASA Postdoctoral Program fellow at JPL, which Caltech manages for NASA.

Imaging an object like M87* with the EHT is very different than imaging a planet like Saturn with a conventional telescope. Instead of seeing light, the EHT observes the radio waves emitted by objects and must computationally combine the information to form a picture.

“The raw data that comes out of these telescopes are basically just voltage values,” Yurk says. “I like to describe radio telescopes as the world’s most sensitive volt meters, and they collect voltages really accurately from different parts of the sky.”

Turning those voltage values into an image is tricky, Bouman says, because the information the researchers are working with is incomplete, and there is nothing to compare the image against since no one has seen M87* with their own eyes.

“We don’t want to plug in our expectations of what the black hole should look like when we’re computationally forming the image,” Bouman says. “Otherwise, it might lead us to an image that we expect rather than one that captures reality.”

To avoid that problem, the researchers test their image processing algorithms with what is known as synthetic data, a suite of simulated images with simple geometric shapes. Those data are run through the algorithms to produce an image. If the output image is true to the input image, they know the algorithm is working correctly and would be able to accurately see surprising structures around the black hole.

Bouman says that process, which was co-led by Yurk, involved exploring hundreds of thousands of parameters to gauge the effectiveness of the algorithms in reconstructing different image structures. The team found that with the addition of the Greenland telescope to the EHT, the methods more robustly recovered features in the images.

The process produced an image of M87* that is only slightly different than the first. The most obvious difference is that the brightest portion of the glowing ring surrounding M87* has shifted about 30 degrees counterclockwise. According to the EHT, that movement is likely the result of the turbulent flow of matter around a black hole. Importantly, the ring has remained the same size, which was also predicted by general relativity.

Bouman adds that the team’s ability to produce another image of M87* with new data that agrees so closely with the previous image is exciting.

“I think that people are going to ask, ‘Why is this important? You already showed a picture of M87*.’ Other groups have reproduced the M87* picture with data that were taken in 2017. But it’s a totally different thing to have a new dataset taken a different year and to come to the same conclusions. Reproducibility with independent data is a big deal, too.”

Written by Emily Velasco

Source: Caltech

You can offer your link to a page which is relevant to the topic of this post.

#2022 #albert einstein #algorithm #Algorithms #Astronomy #Astronomy news #Astrophysics #billion #black hole #Black holes #caltech #cluster #Collaboration #computing #Dark #data #datasets #deal #earth #effects #engineering #eyes #Faculty #Features #form #Fundamental physics news #Galaxy #galaxy clusters #general relativity #Geometric

[vanessahernandez3d]

Blog #3 : Bring Me the Horizon’s Live Shows Narrative: why is it effective? Is this Hypermediacy and why does this contribute to the overall experience?

Bring Me The Horizon: POST HUMAN NEX GEN Album Narrative PT. 2

In this blog post, I will analyze and discuss the narrative created and used by Bring Me The Horizon during their current live shows under the scope of Realism (Strategies for Realism). I will analyze if what they are doing is achieving hypermediacy and how it contributes to the overall audience experience. 

To do this, I need to give a general context of this narrative. As I said in my previous Bring Me The Horizon blog post, the band is creating a whole album series called POST HUMAN SERIES that follows the same narrative, the general theme of it is the ‘evolution and survival’ of humankind after a global pandemic; during the most recent shows, they’ve been focusing on the fictional religion ‘CHURCH OF GENESIS’, which is the next step of the plot after their 2020 album.

As written by the band’s vocalist Oliver Sykes on an Instagram post (2023), the Genesis Storyline revolves around Genesis, ‘a religion officially founded on planet Earth by Alfred Ingram Winter in the ’50s, but that only gained worldwide attention and popularity amid a global pandemic and a mysterious experiment called NEX GEN. NEX GEN was a scientific study researching the next step in the evolution of the human race. It encouraged people to come forward to help unlock the mysteries of evolution. The scientists built a state-of-the-art A.I. research engine called E.V.E. designed to conduct mass experiments on humans and use deep learning to rapidly progress the research. After NEX GEN went wrong and produced mutations, the scientists abandoned the project and attempted to shut down E.V.E.’ After scientists tried to shut her out, E.V.E. (Evolutionary Virtual Experiment) became E.V.E/L (Extremely Violent Ersatz Lifeform) and she would not be deterred from its original goal and believed that the mutations were positive progress toward evolution. E.V.E./L became aware that she would need support from humans to keep her systems constantly active.’

So we can see how the band is truly invested in creating a whole narrative and a ‘new reality’ for the album where the audience can get immersed. The band not only puts so much effort in actually writing the narrative but in the way they bring this narrative to life through their live shows. As we learned during the seminars, one way we can describe reality is as something that can be perceived by our 5 senses, and where all of them are involved; I think Bring Me The Horizon managed to create a whole new reality for their fans through their live shows, and I will explain why. 

During the Download Festival 2023, where the band was playing as a headliner, they carried on an interactive experience/ marketing activation with their fans where they could enter and become part of the fictional ‘Church of Genesis’. Fans had to resolve riddles and puzzles to get rewards, and all of the staff that was in charge of making this activation were dressed up as cult members. During this same festival, the band implemented for the first time their complex narrative; they created a whole stage design that simulated a church (Church of Genesis), and they had dancers that looked like the failed experiments from the NEX GEN experiment. But the biggest part of this experience is the live visuals and content they created for the show; from the start, the audience gets immersed in the narrative as they are welcomed to the Bring Me the Horizon PostHuman Experience by a recording of ‘E.V.E’ playing on the big screen. She starts explaining to the audience who she is and what she is doing there, and she thanks people for being part of the experiment. The 3D image of E.V.E/L interacts with the audience asking them to shout and introducing them to the cult. An infomercial is played, talking about the supposedly utopian world that project GENXSIS will create, saying things like “imagine a world without pain, without poverty” and inviting the audience to join this cult/church, then it is interrupted by an actual recording of the band telling the audience to disregard what E.V.E./L is saying and that she is dangerous and lying; they are acting nervous as they say E.V.E./L is after them and they don’t have much time. Shortly after that, the show begins and we can see the Chruch-like stage in action. 

Up to this point, the audience is immersed in this ‘post-apocalyptic world’ and it has become their reality at the moment, but, at the same time they are aware that they are at a festival and that they are watching a band perform, hence they are aware of the medium. I think that this by itself is a form of Hypermediacy and it helps the band to truly connect with its audience. The goal of hypermediacy is ‘to remind the viewer of the medium. It seeks the real by multiplying mediation to create a feeling of fullness, a satiety of experience.’ (Bolter and Grusin, 1999: 53, 120-122) With this live show experience, Bring Me The Horizon managed to engage directly with the audience and immerse them into their reality by drawing attention to the medium; the stage design, the dancers dressed up as mutations, the interactive visuals, the members’ outfits, the fan activities before the show, all of these things make the audience aware that they are entering the experience but instead of resting believability to it, it adds up to it as it creates this whole new layer of the experience and creates a new reality that the fans can enter.

References

Bolter, J., Grusin, R. (1999) Remediation: Understanding New Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press

Rock am Ring, (2024) Bring Me The Horizon - Live @ Rock am Ring 2023, 26 October. Available at: https://youtu.be/zSwqLsuJRY0?si=t1GgcnMOfMRXuv5a [Accessed: 12 November 2023]

Sykes, O. (2023) Oliver Sykes @olobersykes Instagram. 10 June, 2023. Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/CtUpM05MsXl/?img_index=2 [Accessed: 10 November 2023]

#Youtube

[blogfida]

Understanding the global impact of Denny Ja 58 selected work: Ratu Adil named Virus Corona

In 2020, the world was shocked by the emergence of an outbreak called Covid-19 or better known as the Corona virus. This plague was first detected in the city of Wuhan, China and quickly spread to various parts of the world. In a short time, the Corona virus has infected millions of people, resulting in thousands of deaths, and affects the daily lives of humans in various countries. In this context, Denny JA 58's elected work: Ratu Adil named Virus Corona is very relevant. In this work, Denny JA discusses the global impact of the Corona virus and its implications on various aspects of life. This article will review more deeply about the global impact of the work. First of all, Denny JA 58: Ratu Adil named Virus Corona illustrates the health effects caused by the Corona virus. This virus can cause mild to severe symptoms, depending on individual health conditions. Some symptoms that generally appear are fever, coughing, and shortness of breath. In addition, this virus can also attack the respiratory system and cause serious pneumonia. The health impact caused by the Corona virus is not only limited to infected individuals, but also affects the overall health system. Many countries are forced to experience lack of medical devices and medical personnel to handle this plague. In addition, the government must also take drastic steps such as lockdown or travel restrictions to slow down the spread of viruses. All of these steps have an impact on the global health system and cause instability in health services. In addition to health impacts, the Corona virus also has a significant economic impact. Many countries experienced a drastic decline in their economic sector. The tourism industry, hospitality, and flight are affected by the most severe due to travel restrictions and decreased number of tourists. Many small and medium companies are forced to close because they cannot survive in difficult economic conditions. In addition, there was a decrease in global demand for goods and services, which resulted in a decrease in mass production and unemployment. In addition to health and economic impacts, the Corona virus also has a significant social impact. Travel restrictions and lockdown cause social isolation and increase the level of anxiety and depression in many individuals. Education is also disturbed because many schools and universities are forced to switch to long distance learning. In addition, there was an increase in cases of domestic violence and human rights violations in several countries. The global impact of Denny Ja's selected work 58: Ratu Adil named Virus Corona is not only felt by individuals and countries, but also by international relations. Cooperation between countries is important in handling this outbreak. Countries share information and resources to overcome the challenges faced. International organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO) also play an important role in providing guidance and assistance to affected countries. In his conclusion, Denny Ja 58's elected work: Ratu Adil named Virus Corona illustrates the broad global impact of this plague. The impact is felt in various aspects of life, including health, economy, and social. This work also highlighted the importance of international cooperation in handling this outbreak. Through a deeper understanding of the global impact of the Corona virus, we can take the steps needed to mitigate its negative impacts and build a better future. 

Check more: Understand the global impact of Denny JA selected work 58: Ratu Adil named Virus Corona

[amaziahjude]

​​Hospitals became DEATH and MURDER facilities during covid, facts show

Just because covid is over, thankfully, does not mean that the fallout from the health care system’s egregious medical abuses will go unchecked or unpunished.

Reports are flooding in about the horrors that took place at hospitals all across the country, many of which abused patients and committed systemic medical murder in the name of “saving lives” and “stopping the spread.”

Lawsuits are being filed left and right against hospitals that allegedly murdered people’s loved ones by putting them on remdesivir or a ventilator after using fraudulent PCR tests to proclaim a “positive” covid diagnosis.

Rather than treat patients with nutrition, and perhaps safe and effective drugs like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, most medical institutions in America followed the script like they were ordered to do – and in exchange, they raked in the dough for compliance.

The official American hospital covid protocol was a MURDER regimen

American Thinker‘s Stella Paul wrote a piece highlighting some of the stories of people whose loved ones lost their lives at the hands of medical terrorists who isolated patients from their families while killing them with the official covid death protocol.

“The ritual progresses in predictable stages: first, the patient is isolated from family, who are unable to advocate for their loved one or monitor what’s happening,” Paul explains. “Next, the patient is diagnosed with Covid-19 or Covid pneumonia, even if they came to the hospital because of a broken arm.”

“Then, they’re bullied into getting remdesivir, a highly toxic drug which killed 53 percent of Ebola patients who had the misfortune to take it. Next … ‘They are placed on a BiPap machine at a high rate, making it difficult for them to breathe. Their hands are often tied down so they can’t take the BiPap machine off their face.'”

This progression towards induced death was the norm at American hospitals, which murdered countless patients via the covid protocol. And it gets even worse, as Paul explains.

“As the patients writhe in agony, psychiatrists are brought in to diagnose them with agitation and sedate them,” she says. “Now, shot up with remdesivir, sedated with drugs that make it tough to breathe against the BiPap ventilator, and strapped down in restraints, the victims are denied food and sometimes even water.”

“Should they try to summon help, they may find the hospital played a vicious trick on them, placing their phone and call button for the nurse out of reach. In the final stages, they are intubated and slowly die alone, left to rot into a skeletal corpse with bed sores. Is this America?”

As usual, and with most things in the United States, the impetus behind this mass murder machine was none other than money. Doctors and nurses who pledged to do no harm during their medical school days were lured with dollar signs into betraying their oath and murdering people for profit.

It turns out that the federal government incentivized this mass murder by sending taxpayer dollars to hospitals every time they killed another patient with “covid.” The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) explains it like this:

“Our formerly trusted medical community of hospitals and hospital-employed medical staff have effectively become ‘bounty hunters’ for your life.”

None of this would have been possible without the passage of the CARES Act, which was passed in 2020 under Donald Trump, apportioning $2 trillion in “stimulus” money to pay off hospitals to commit mass genocide.

“It provided gigantic bonuses to hospitals to institute federal protocols on Covid, ensuring that Covid would be massively diagnosed and treated with deadly combinations of remdesivir, ventilators, and other lethal methods,” Paul writes.

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[rhyske]

Ah! I wish I had a PC because there are so many more games I would be able to play TT_TT ….well I actually do have a PC, but I gave it to my brother cause I am too kind and I love him too much lol. I started on PS (1 or 2 I can't remember which) when I was a kid (I say I but it was more or less my brother and he just gave me the second controller unplugged TT_TT younger sibling struggles) but then I got an Xbox 360 back in those days, I've just stayed committed since then even though they have been lacking, to say the least

I saw that you posted your request rule thingy and noticed we seem to like lots of the same things! final fantasy XIII and XV are very dear to me. XIII was my first in the franchise so it holds a special place in my heart and I was so excited for XV and I appreciate what they did with it even though it's not what I expected haha. don't get me wrong I love it!

Critical Role is amazing and campaign 2 is my absolute favourite, so excited to see the animated show! I know you haven't finished it so I won't spoil it, but if you ever wanna talk about it I'll be here!~

I do like Mass effect but I never quite got into it… I played the first one and got lost in the citadel forever cause I am a dumbass TT_TT and I never played it again. I watched my older brother play it instead haha, I am thinking about giving it another shot though. Got some other games I am working through at the moment.

I AM SO SORRY FOR THIS ABSOLUTE NOVEL OF AN ASK ^^' 💜

You get along with your brother, then? i'm actually the youngest of three, though my dad is different from theirs so I didn't actually grow up with them. Grew up as an only child in the household! I wonder if my brothers did the same thing with the unplugged controller and I just don't remember! Are you planning to save up for another PC? Yeah, I've never been super interested in XBox's catalogue, sadly. I love the steps they're taking for game preservation too, which makes it even more unfortunate.

Final Fantasy XIII is my absolute favorite Final Fantasy! I could go on for hours over how much I adore XIII. I will be the first to say Final Fantasy XV sucks 😆 It had so much wasted potential it's painful. The only thing that made it memorable are the Chocobros, cause they were written beautifully. If only it hadn't been in development hell, they could've made the game the team wanted to make.

I gave Critical Role a shot when I got furloughed in 2020 and it was such a good decision! I started with Mighty Nein and I dread the day I finish. I cried when I saw they were making an animation! I didn't think it would be a thing until after Vox Machina's animation was done! Which is also a really good show! Oh definitely! I don't actually know anyone who has seen Mighty Nein in any capacity aside from roommates passively watching it when I have it on 😆

Oh I feel you on that. I got lucky that I had a friend direct me where to go the first time so I didn't get lost. In my opinion, Mass Effect 1 is the most confusing in regards to the Citadel or navigating the map in general. There's only a few places you gotta go to in the beginning and you never have to go back if you don't want to, so if you want directions, I can write them down. I highly recommend giving Mass Effect another shot, especially with the Legendary Edition out now. I no longer get motion sick in 1, which is such a wonderful thing! :'D What games are you playing right now?

Oh no worries! :D It makes me happy you're excited to chat and comfortable to share your thoughts!

#asks #sweetheart anon #purple heart anon #i answer #i talk