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thedreadvampy · 2 months

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Jewish person here. No matter if we do or do not support Israel, Israel does in fact largely tie to us as over 40% of us live there. If we do not live there we usually know someone. A friend, a loved one.

Most of us know someone who has died, been kidnapped and / or raped on October 7th. So to a degree we all do represent Israel, diaspora or not. If things go bad it is the ONLY state we can flee to.

There are several places for Christians, Muslims, Hindus etc to go. There is ONE for Jews, be they religious or ethnically Jewish. Even if we do not support the government and wish for it to change ( which BTW the Israeli government is indeed not standing for most Jews, not the country itself. Israelis have been protesting before the massacre and now during the war too. ( Standing together is an Israeli-Palestinian peace group!)

Also btw Hamas are monsters. Palestine will never be free under their regime - even in a scenario where Israel disappears. Hamas will then simply kill anyone speaking out against them, kill their queer community.

So please, your group is right. You can actually offend Jews by being antisemitic, shocker!

Ok so is "genocide is bad" a statement you agree with or not? Because the thing is, I personally think it is bad to kill tens of thousands of refugees. I think it's fairly reasonable to say that it's good when babies are alive and ungood when they are bombed, shot and starved to death for 5 months. I think it is Bad when people perform colonial apartheid and I think it is Good if they do Not That. I also don't think it's fair to say that Killing Tens Of Thousands Of Civilians and Surveilling and Bombing An Entire Population are intrinsic parts of Jewishness.

As you say, many Jews and many Israelis don't agree with the actions of the Israeli government either - are they also being antisemitic? Is there something intrinsically Jewish about colonial violence? If not, why is it antisemitic to say that colonial violence is bad?

So to close again I guess my question is Is Killing Thousands Of Civilians Good? Or is it in fact a reasonable thing to say 'we would like it if thousands of civilians were not being killed day in day out for months'?

Is there fundamentally an issue with saying that the violence did not start on October 7, when over 200 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in the 9 months before that alone? Or is that what makes it antisemitic? Pointing out that Israeli forces have consistently killed 100+ Palestinians every year this decade? Is that the antisemitic bit?

(btw weird thing here but either Israel is the Only Safe Place To Be Jewish or there's an amount of violence constantly coming from Palestinians that somehow justifies kidnap, arrest without trial, and mass murder including of infants. you can't have both, because of the definition of the word 'safe')

#red said #zionist bullshit #btw I'm blocking the one person who responded to my last post so you know. gonna assume i won't hear from you again.#but if i do feel free to answer the question. is mass murder bad and if so why should it be antisemitic to say killing 100000 people is bad?

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side-b-bumblebi · 7 months

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Men who view women as their intellectual equals 😍

#pro tip for the boys: a lot of girls will respond a lot better to a stimulating conversation than to a guy trying to show off #ignore the movies they're lying to you when they tell you you need to be a show off #and if a girl wants that it's maybe not the best sign y'know?#but most girls just want to be treated like we're capable intelligent humans #that's all!! the movies and shit make it way more complicated than it has to be #and yes some girls do make things awkward and complicate everything #but maybe you wanna be careful about that because those girls generally have a lot to unpack #being friends with those girls is fine!! just make sure you have strong boundaries in place #and make sure she's doing some work on herself before considering a romantic relationship #but anyway i've had a lot of men in my life that i feel like wanted to be so much smarter than me #and not to be rude but they weren't?? i was just as smart and sometimes smarter #i didn't care that they were confident in their intelligence but i felt like i needed to dumb myself down #and it. freaking. sucked. i have no idea how i did it for so long #and i would even make jokes about like the guys i dated being smarter than me and nobody ever said anything??#and again these guys weren't smarter than me. that's not an insult to them just acknowledging i'm smarter than i was gave myself credit for #i'm outgrowing the notion that i have to dumb myself down for men and it's so freeing #and you know what really helps me actually? being in college #and especially being in college with so many intelligent men who know they're smart #these guys KNOW they're smart. and not in an arrogant way in a secure and confident way #them knowing they're smart makes them the OPPOSITE of arrogant actually #it's weird but i stand by my observation and it makes sense when you think about it #if you're secure in yourself and your intelligence you don't need to proce yourself by making other people look dumb #these guys are secure in their self-image and masculinity. they don't need women to be dumb and weak to feel strong and intelligent.#and it's so freaking endearing. i love that for these guys so much.#i am just so thankful for people in my life who are taking me seriously and who are helping me to understand i'm worth taking seriously.#wow these tags are long but anyway #guys you don't have to prove anything girls you should never have to dumb yourselves down live long and prosper

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sparrowsgarden · 7 months

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"i would do this project if i knew how to x" you don't need anyone's permission to learn a skill.

like i don't know how to say this to some people but you will need to learn new things, regularly, for your whole life. there is not some age at which you just know how to do shit, so one of the best things you can do is to get comfortable with the process of learning. knowledge is not going to magically descend upon you and also, hopefully, you are not going to subsist forever on what you happened to learn as a kid. so you'll need to learn the meta-skill of learning.

like 90% of my work is "nobody else has done this in a way that i like so i guess i'm going to", and that basically always means learning new skills! i learned plenty of things from school, but most of the stuff that i actually use regularly is self-taught to some degree.

let's make this actionable. here are some tips you can use if you want to learn art, or coding, or how to use a software, etc etc.

1. find somebody who knows how to do the thing and ask them how they learned/if they have useful resources.

there are some things which you have to actually go take a class for, but most things i see people vaguely wishing they could do are not those. however, it is worth asking someone who knows what they're doing which resources are actually helpful for beginners. the pros to asking self-taught people are they also had to learn from whatever stuff they could scrape together. the cons are they're more likely to have very weird ideas of how to do things. either should be fine for pointing you to stuff, though.

you can ask for tips too, that's always fine. but what you really want is to know which sources to trust when you need to look up how to do like a million specific little things.

also, if you're looking for beginner-level art stuff that is not for kids, it'll be to your advantage to find someone who has at the least gone through instruction targeted toward that level (such as, someone who's been in a college-level intro course that isn't specific to art students). it is super easy to get overwhelmed with art stuff if you aren't fairly careful and targeted about what you work on at first, especially if you're truly starting from scratch.

2. being confused is ok.

absolutely nobody opens up a program for the first time, without having done anything similar before, and understands how to use it. being confused when you start something new is not indicative of an inability to learn, it is a necessary step of the process. occasionally it also means that whoever designed the software did a bad job. either way, consider this part of the learning meta-skill.

3. fuck around. troubleshoot.

if the skill of troubleshooting problems is not one you're already good at, then you're getting a meta-skill two for one. don't be afraid to ask people for help if you get really stuck, but most of this is looking shit up. having that list of trusted resources to start your search will be a huge help.

4. don't do everything at once.

start simple and work your way up with mini-projects, no matter what you're doing. this is the advantage of having access to instruction, it's paced out to force you to practice regularly before moving on. depending on the size of the project you have in mind you can disregard this if it keeps you more motivated to see immediate progress, but beware!

5. resist the urge to redo.

at some point you will, presumably, get to actually doing that thing you want to do. when you get the urge to scrap everything and start over because you're not happy with your original approach, stick with it for just a bit longer. honestly, sometimes starting over is the right answer, but it's usually worth some extra consideration. if new stuff doesn't build on old stuff, you're probably better off moving on forward rather than getting trapped in the cycle of endless redos. if it does, at least really take the time to consider whether a redo would be helpful.

i would also say something like "make it a habit" but i have the type of intractible adhd where that's damn near impossible so like. do your best. anything that's worth doing is worth your persistence!

#what do i even tag this as #art ref #i am literally always free for the questioning. teaching people is my Thing #if i don't respond in 5-7 business days do feel free to try again

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spearxwind · 9 months

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been thinking a lot about my different oc worlds recently. ive said before ive got four, but technically it's five if you count extinction.

im gonna put all my thoughts under a readmore bc once again this got insanely long jkllkjjkf. i be rambling

most of my attention has definitely been going into challenger deep the past year (and will likely continue), recently i refurbished hollowridge as well and have had a lot of fun with it (even if i havent drawn much to show for it...)

the other two of the set of four i originally posted about are my agony drive and broken horizon settings. Broken horizon is more of a personal headworld where ive set my dragon ocs, but I have not really been successful with it in terms of like. worldbuilding and crafting a story for it, mostly because there are very few characters in it currently and i struggle with it. But it's the world where cercerion and my sona dima (as an oc) exist. i would love to actually do a better job with it sometime but it currently isnt a huge priority because ive been focused on the other two main ones (but again since its just a personal headworld it literally is just some place i like to mentally hang out and fly around in, im not super bothered by it being undeveloped.)

However we have the two troublemaker worlds now

the agony drive setting has been driving me more than a little nuts because of its whole situation with it. i absolutely adore the characters i have in it, but i have no idea what to do with the world itself. it used to be a joint project so i was extremely limited in the way i could develop it bc i depended on the other individual enjoying the ideas and i did my best to keep it afloat almost being the sole contributor to it, so now that its liberated i just didnt know what to do with it. i do like a bunch of the lore bits i came up with but some part of me is like 'idk if i enjoy this as a world' bc it still feels limited in some way? Another issue is that while hollowridge (previously my horror and slapstick gore setting with demons/angels/magic vibes) was dead in the water, i channeled that violence slapstick demon/magic vibe through TAD, but getting a focus back on hollowridge has kinda just. straight up deleted a bunch of TAD's reason to exist? i dont know if that makes sense

HR isnt really that much slapstick violence because death is final, and TAD is more cartoony in that sense bc death ISNT final which is its main reason to exist (unlimited violent major character death for the funnies), but theres a weird overlap that is keeping me from focusing correctly because it makes my brain go 'you are doing the same thing twice'

I would really really love to actually turn it into something fun and unique (separate from my other worlds) but i really havent been sure how to go about it because of that overlap. i genuinely think its just a problem of 'you have to actually develop the setting to have fun in it' and i just havent been able to do that yet bc i cant decide what i want it to BE. TAD has also never really had a lot of story to begin with so it makes things harder bc the story is the vehicle to explore the world with. its pretty frustrating bc midas set and david are some of my fav ocs ive made and i miss them but god dammit if it isnt hard to actually work with the whole thing....

and last but not least... the fifth one. extinction. a lot of you probably know this one from my comic. if youve been here since like... 2014-2015 (which would be insane) you might remember me beginning to develop that story until it eventually became the comic that is currently sitting unfinished and feels like a huge weight on my shoulders just out of sheer shame

the issue with extinction is that it was a lot of characters that i deeply loved (and still i still deeply love!!) all with fun plotlines, backstories, and a lot of fun tidbits to em that i ended up bending and breaking dozens of times just for the purpose of fitting them into a relatively short story that i could draw out and finish. and more importantly into something i hoped would be handleable instead of spiralling out of control like it had happened before

but what i didnt realize is that by doing so, i "locked" their lore in place into these very small boxes that would fit into a story, and thus i would remove what i had loved about those characters and their interactions that i had come up with years and years ago and a lot of my very very cool ideas for them simply went out the window in favor of .... well i dont. know. but off it went

i live in complete shame for not being able to finish the comic. it genuinely is a huge and extremely heavy weight on my shoulders and this whole thing has prevented me from even thinking of said ocs for years now even though they are some of my oldest and most beloved. saying all of this is not something i take lightly in the least as well

so recently I have been thinking about bringing them back as well... maybe (to the extent that i can... i have a lot of ocs and you guys know i have a lot of bias when drawing faves. so i cant guarantee content but at least i would be able to think about them again).

essentially the same way that i rewrote and got back my old concepts for hollowridge that slapped hard i want to get back my original ideas for extinction that i thought were really cool and just wasnt able to fit into a comic narrative

obviously this would come with a lot of retconning and i know a lot of people will probably not like it if i do it and i think thats something i have to face and learn to live with

but yeah anyways. TLDR is i really want to actually do something proper for TAD but have been having a lot of trouble with it unfortunately, but im working on it. and ive also been feeling rly nostalgic about extinction so you might see the characters again, albeit different in terms of story from what you probably know

#again please feel free to drop a like if you read all that and thank you very kindly if you did read it #thunderclap #long post #idk what to tag this as honestly #the agony drive #extinction #yeah since its these two that im mostly talking about. houhh #i know i have been having a lot of trouble answering DMs and such i rly wanna get to them sometime this week if possible #but honestly if you have anything youd like to discuss pertinent to this feel free to reach out #im going to try to do my best to respond. actually maybe ill do it right now #thank you again!! hope u have an awesome day

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isfjmel-phleg · 9 months

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#random personal stuff #whining ahead feel free to ignore #if I had a nickel for every time someone (usually a particular person close to me whom I love) responded to #my owning up to having negative or difficult emotions about something #by saying something like 'just ask the Lord to take that away' and acting like they've magically solved my problem #I'd have a lot of nickels #and I am frustrated with this #first of all it feels dismissive #it feels like 'I don't want to deal with your Bad Emotions so go get that quickly and easily removed so you can be acceptable again'#instead of addressing the problem it's telling you to slap a spiritual bandaid on it and everything is fine #and secondly I tend to doubt that God works like that #COULD he miraculously make me not feel things? of course #has he ever done that for me though? no not that I've ever noticed #so I would have to conclude that my emotions exist for a reason and I need to learn things by actually facing up to them #and I am trying to learn how to do that #but to be open and honest about my feelings with this person who is close to me only to get the ask-the-Lord-to... brush-off -#I don't know ... it just reminds me of how I've ended up in this mess in the first place and it's frustrating #surely we could apply our faith in other ways besides using it as a veneer for repressing and bottling up emotion

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skeletalheartattack · 7 months

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thamks

you after i free you from the tetrisphere

#ask #anon #im not sure what the thanks is for without assuming it to be like ''thanks. for those tags.''#anyway youre welcome? youre free from the tetrisphere now. find and enjoy life. out from the egg made of tetronimoes youve hatched from.#or whatever.#im still recovering from that nap #its fucked. i nap on my bed sometimes if i havent had enough sleep earlier in the day. and instead of using the bed normally #my ass just sleeps at the end. watching my moavies (youtube streams)#like a dog #ended up having to wake myself up cause i had my legs rested over a nearby table cause the width of the bed is not very wide #and my body feels so good when i wake up. scrunched up and shit. i feel So normal #anyway tetrisphere is a game i got long ago that. i dont know from where.#i either got it from a yard sale. or ebay. but im leaning towards yard sale. since it was around the same time i got hey you pikachu #also did you know the mic quality for hey you pikachus microphone is actually pretty decent #anyway i dont remember a lot about tetrisphere beyond you picking a robot to play as. and you drop tetrominoes onto a fucking ball #i completely forgot you freed a thing from within #as for why this was the first thing i used to reply to the ask. anytime i get an ask im not sure how to respond to. i look through my phone #and. this tetrisphere image made me laugh seeing it back when i first downloaded it #i think i had more i wanted to say but im at a loss for words now that im looking at this image again #its so beautiful and hes so free #that is how baby birds leave the egg. but opposite. they do it from the inside. instead of needing tetrominoes to open the egg.#can you tell im still not fully recovered from my fuckim nap #anyway thanks for the ask anon. i think!

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frecklystars · 1 year

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I want to say real quick, again, thank you guys so much for sending me asks. The messages just keep pouring and I cannot put into words how much it means to me, how much I need them right now. I know writing messages takes energy, and half of you don’t even know me, some of you are even saying “oh I just followed you today, I hope you feel better” and!! That’s so kind!!! I fucking love you guys. Thank you for using your time and energy, choosing to write to me. I know I’m just a stranger on the internet, but across the screens, you’re helping a real breathing person heal.

I missed so many of you, even the people I only interacted with one time, like for a commission you bought from me, or maybe you wrote a nice tag on my art, I do remember you fondly. I always remember when someone is kind to me because I didn’t grow up surrounded by kind people; when I recognize acts of kindness, I really hold onto it.

To the newcomers, welcome to my blog, and I’m so sorry you’re seeing me like this. I want to say I’m not normally in such devastated state, but I’ve felt so incredibly hopeless for such a long amount of time, I’m not quite sure how to be my old self again. I’m really hoping I can heal one day, and it feels a little bit more possible because of your support. It’s so touching that there’s so many of you who are like “oh I just found your blog today and I’m sending you so much love”. You’re seeing me in such a raw, wounded state, and yet you’re still willing to extend your positivity even though you don’t know me. It means so much.

I cannot tell you how comforting it feels to open my inbox and my dms and re-read all of these messages you’re sending me. And then I’ll refresh and suddenly there will be more. I promise you I am reading every single one of them, and I am slowly but surely answering as many as I can, even if I’m so slow at it, I’m very rusty from not speaking to almost anyone for nearly 9 months lol. Not only do I feel encouraged when you’re lifting me up like this, but spending a few minutes distracting my mind from the traumatic events by focusing on reading your words, it helps to ground me. When I feel more vulnerable to flashbacks, whether it’s just that kind of day where I wake up and the wounds are reopened, or maybe I’ve been triggered by something and my emotions are raw, I’ll try to open my inbox and read your messages again, to try to ground myself. Some of you are even worried about putting content warnings onto your asks, which is so sweet. I promise you you don’t have to do that, but that’s so incredibly nice of you to even think about that. You don’t have to worry about whether your transformers URLs are going to make me flinch, or if there’s pink profile pictures, or if you mention Starscream or Knockout or Megatron or Bee or literally whomever. Just the fact that you’re being careful with me, that’s so sweet, I can’t believe how all of you, 100% of you, have taken me seriously. None of you have made fun of me, none of you have put me down for being scared -- hell, even non-self shippers have told me they support me in my journey to reclaiming the many characters I’ve lost. I think I’ve reached over 100 messages in the last three days that I’ve returned, and all of them are nothing but kind and empathetic. I’m shocked.

I really thought I was going to be in this alone. I really didn’t expect anyone to believe me. A few of M’s close friends blocked me back when she was manipulating me, and it hurt, because I didn’t even know what I had done wrong. No explanation, I had lost a few people who I thought I was close with. And it was just more fuel for her to tell me how she would think I’m special, that she would never leave me like that. I was scared that when I’d return online, everyone would shun me, that she might be spreading rumors about me (which she is known to do). But I’ve even had FIVE PEOPLE come forward in the last two days and say “I know who you’re venting about, even though you didn’t say her name, and she hurt me too. She hurts a lot of people and I’m sorry she hurt you. Don’t let her ruin Transformers for you, it’s yours.” I felt so relieved to hear I wasn’t alone, that we’re not alone, that I’m not going crazy. Thank you guys for validating my feelings.

My ask box is always open, my dms are always open (when they’re not being glitchy lol) and none of you should ever worry about “being too overwhelming” when sending messages. You’re not tiring me out, you’re not making me feel pressured to respond. You’re all making me feel seen. You can send me 500 supportive messages and I am going to read all of them. I had no idea how much I needed support until I received it. I burst into tears the first time you guys started messaging me because I was awash with relief. You’re all really helping me get onto the path of healing and I appreciate you so much. Thank you for helping me and thank you for being patient with me as I heal.

#woof #im so scared that i cant get better. but so many of you keep insisting that i WILL get better #and man i hope you're right. i cant tell you how lonely it feels without my starlight :(#that love is still deep inside of my heart somewhere... i just dont know how to find it again #but all of you supporting me is seriously helping me so so so much #...also it's 5 in the morning and i couldnt sleep bc of a nightmare fhdhfj so. here i am #reading more messages and it helps me forget the nightmare and focus more on the Support #i was so isolated and lonely for so long. only filled with the belief that im unworthy of love #that my own comfort characters would *enjoy* hurting me #and im so shocked seeing these waves of kindness from so many of you #im not used to people being nice to me bc i spent so long being with one person who hurt me repeatedly #so each time i get a new Nice Message im like. surprised all over again #ok im gonna try to go back to sleep now bc i have a bartending shift at the theater in a few hours #im so excited! i genuinely love to bartend at the theater and i love getting to watch free shows #but i wont be able to pour any drinks if i am falling asleep at the counter sdlfjsdf #the nightmare really shook me up so i might be slow to responding when im home from work #but i will try to get back to as many as i can today. u guys are so amazing. thank you.

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bornetoblood · 9 months

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@littlealeta making a new post for this just cus I feel a little bad tagging onto this post ad infinum I hope you don’t mind :)

A lot of the things I have to say on this are pretty complicated (and I’m a little stupid) so sorry if this is like... uninteligable (also dw you’re not being mean! This is a pretty light hearted discussion about a video game I’m really not taking it to heart). I hope you don’t mind me doing the same right back at ya.

I don't really mind Vincent not saying he has a girlfriend since he's confused as to what he wants in his life, plus Rin and Catherine both threw themselves at him not Vincent. I think the game often gets viewed wrongly, a lot of people seem to think that if you have a partner, you should settle down with them and not think about breaking up with them. The game is trying to tell you that while it's not okay to cheat and betray your partner, it is okay to not have serious relationships.

My problem with Vince not telling Catherine he has a girlfriend doesn’t stem from the fact I expect him to settle down or think that’s best for him (the true freedom ending is my favourite for a reason) I have a problem with the fact it is a very serious betrayal of Katherine’s trust. While there are extenuating circumstances (the like... demon shit) Vince’s reluctance to come clean to both the girls purely stems from him not wanting to face consequences, which is selfish. Again I don’t think this is bad from a character standpoint, I find it very compelling, but it is immoral.

The problem is moreso how both Catherine and Katherine are written. They're both selfish and overly controlling to your character in different ways that it's just hard to fathom why Vincent would want to be with either of them. I wish Katherine was written to be less selfish, like why would you want to marry and have children with a man who drinks, smokes, lives in a messy apartment, and spends money impulsively? And Catherine had such rapey and yandere vibes from the start, which doesn't make sense because again, the game is focused on cheating and the idea of whether you want to live a free or traditional life. So why make both women so mean-spirited to the protagonist, one of them even raping and sexually assaulting him? And Vincent isn't even concerned about it? At least make Catherine's evilness more subtle and maybe not really come up until later in the game as Vincent starts pushing her away more and have Vincent not remember what happened between him and Catherine at the bar at all.

I agree and I think Full Body remedied the points with Katherine specifically to an extent. The scenes we are shown of Kath and Vince at the begining of their relationship genuinely makes me wanna see if they can make it work like that again! I think Kath wants to marry Vince cus they’ve been together for 5 years and they’ve both drifted apart over the years and don’t want to acknowledge that. The K endings read to me as the rekindling of their dynamic that had been dampened over time if that makes any sense. The deal with C is that I think her malice is already a slow burn (the SA point I fully agree on btw even if it is kinda ambiguous if they ever actually had sex when she says they did ((cus of the whole demon thing)). I think theres a relitive suspension of disbelief with C because she is supernatural. I think C nad K are both pretty compelling and both can be good for the Vince that ends up with them (the Vince that wishes to settle down and rekindle his romance and the Vince who wants to be king of hell).

But isn't that what all the characters in the game do? Is challenge women and each other? If they weren't, wouldn't we have Vincent agreeing to settle down with Katherine from the start? Sure Vincent has a problem with speaking up, but it doesn't mean he doesn't wish to rebel against the pressure women place on him. Personally, I can see Vincent's point here. He's often pressured by women to live a traditional, old-fashioned life of finding one partner and settling down with them. Vincent doesn't care about serious relationships, he just wants to take his time hooking up with women until he finds the one he truly loves. Like I said, cheating is never okay. But we've never seen Vincent make a move on Catherine.

Vincent may be jumping to conclusions about women here, but that's all he's ever known, since both Erica and Katherine and even most Catherine players are pressuring him to settle down and to stay with the one he's been with for a long time, even if she may not be right for him.

Vince being a guy who wants to sleep around and not settle down is the same Vince who wants to settle down with his family, or be with no one at all, we get to pick which Vince he becomes and the game is about Vince self discovering into the ending we pick for him. He is all and non of these things. Vince, and the other men in Catherine, experiencing pressure from women does not excuse thier treatment of them and I do not blame the women for this, it’s society as a whole that places this importance on marriage and women are more so affected by that expectation (that was created by men might I add). Marriage may be right for Vincent Brookes and it might not be. There is no right way to climb the tower.

Like Katherine, Erica can be well-intentioned at times, but just some of the things these two say just sound very morally biased, especially regarding relationships, mostly about the importance of being tied down. It's why I cannot stand any of the women in the game. They all just seem so shallow and narrow-minded. Maybe it's because I'm not someone who is focused on going after the idea of marriage, but I don't see how it's a problematic thing to not want to settle down, get married, and have a family, especially in the 21st century. Maybe that kind of thing is different in Japan, but here in the western world, where Catherine is set, those things aren't important anymore.

I’m also adverse to marriage for myself, the talk in Catherine about the importance of marriage all sounds the same to me. But it is the same coming from every character in the game, which is why I don’t hold it against Katherine or Erica and still fully enjoy them (Erica specifcially being one of my favourites I love that she takes 0 shit from anyone). Also sorry if this is pedantic but Catherine is set on Mars in an amalgum of the US and Japan (like Ace Attorney ((not the Mars part)). It being a made up setting allows it to make its own culture, which happens to be one where society deems marriage very important. I wish the characters ‘happy endings’ didn’t tend to end in marriage too but that seems more like a general thing with how Atlus decided to write the game than a specific character issue if that makes sense.

Again, I do agree that Vincent isn't written as well as he could have been but with what they had, I think they did a decent job, especially compared to characters like Shinji, Jerry Smith, and Arlo the Dinosaur who are just shallow and/or inconsistent characters. I just find everyone else shallow for the reasons I mentioned in the other post and I just can't find myself connecting to their characters. Orlando even goes back and forth between saying his ex betrayed him and he betrayed his ex. Like, am I supposed to even sympathize with this character? Is he a victim or not? I don't even know what exactly happened between him and his ex.

I ADORE these character inconsistancies. With Orlando specifically it’s implied his use of their finacies in the scam was a betrayal of sorts (like he lost their life savings by getting tricked) and his wife leaving him cus of this was also a betrayal. I love it because there is no good or bad guy here, it’s humans in a human scenario where they both made mistakes and I find that deeply compelling. Orlando’s struggle with blaming his wife and then himself for the totality of the situation is soooo fuckin cool I feel like I’ve known people like Orlando.

Like with Archie and some of the other sheep, trauma is not always an excuse to be an asshole. I went through some trauma, Vincent has gone through way more trauma, and we still care about others and want to do the right thing. We're not perfect, but at least we're willing to help others which Vincent's friends rarely do, at least they're not as empathetic with him.

I despise Archie and I would dance on his grave, but what I do love about this side quest is that it shows off how compassionate and loving Vincent is. He forgives and loves unconditionally no matter how awful a human being is and is always there to help them. When they die, he becomes quite shaken.

Here I think we are simply after different things in these characters. Archie’s trauma does not excuse his actions and never will but they do contextualise them and make him sympathetic. I can empathise with how he has come to the conclusions he has due to his past even if those conclusions are harmful and wrong. This is what I love in characters, messiness and humaness. This goes for all of the patrons for me btw. I agree that Vince’s interactions with the sheep bring the best out of him (tbh I think they showcase his more confident and heroic side in a much more natural way than Rin does lmao). Vincent finds comradre with a group of other traumatised, also misogonistic men. They learn together. Get better together. They open up to each other in a way society has barred from them outside of this life and death scenario and they are better people for it. They remedy their biases and they have each other now ( have i mentioned the bar patrons are my favourite part? cus they’re my favourite part).

I don't see the problem with the game showing another side to Vincent. I think it was Atlus's attempt at showing Vincent's more likeable side (which I think they did a good job with compared to the original) but it also tracks because we've seen Vincent being mentally stable and compassionate like this toward the other sheep. Rin is the only character who's consistently nice to Vincent, so it makes sense that Vincent would be at his best with him. Rin is perfect because he's an angel. And he does have flaws, he refuses to forgive Vincent after he apologizes for pushing him away. That was a cowardly and cold move considering how close they were. I think I just like that Rin is the only character who actually shows empathy and support for our main protagonist when everyone else hardly did.

My problem isn’t with Vincent showing another side, it’s that I think this shift is sudden and jarring. Vincent acts sooo differently in the Rin cutscenes (even when he’s with his friends he was stammering next to like 5 seconds earlier). Like I said I thnk this is done better in regards to his slow gain in confidence with the sheep. Rin is the only character who is pretty much always nice to Vince and, yes, it is because they are an (at least allegorical) angel but I do find this... boring and not very compelling. Flawless characters send me to sleep sorry I just can’t personally see the appeal in someone who has no room to grow. I feel like an angel character can have compelling flaws but they just didn’t do this with Rin and thus their scenes do not grab me the way the rest of the cast’s do. I am aware this is my personal preference but I do like my characters with a little more going on. Rin refusing to forgive Vince for having the literally textbook transphobic response to seeing them naked is not a flaw, in fact I think they reacted too mildly. While Rin is not explicitly trans I hope you understand I’ve seen the whole: Character is she/her’d, character is revealed to have a penis (shocking!!! violent and/or disgusted reaction expected!!), character is he/him’d like a billion times and I am a little sick of it actually.

I suppose my point here is that Catherine is about the relationships between damaged people. Navigating those relationships through the hardships is what I find compelling about the game and Rin distictly lacks that dimension. Vincent works for and cultivates his healthy support system by the end of the game. He gets closer to his friends, to other men, to himself- regarless on whether he chooses to persue romance. Rin throws a pretty hefty spanner in this for me in a way that could of been interesting but feels underbaked. I get why people like these additions but it runs in direct contrast to all the things I find interesting about the game soo uhh yeh.

#uuh yeh i like this game but i have problems with it like a lot of problems but that is okay #anyway fun fact about me is that my favourite character from anything ever is Astaroth of all people??? dont ask me how that happened #his lack of motivation aside sadism #genderfukery #and use of puns have enraptured me #anyway thanks for the talk! feel free to respond to this but i do have to sleep soon its late and i have work #again hope im like making sense here my brain is fried and im an idiot #the rat speaks #reluctant catherine tag #catherine game #yes #tw transphobia #just for that bit in the middle i know i cringed HARD when i got to that scene so #tw misogyny #for the discussion of characters diagnosed with it/j

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