#I feel like it makes choices and failure have more impact

[darkfictionjude]

Lowkey think of being evil and taking away the back and forward buttons hehehe

#I feel like it makes choices and failure have more impact #although it would fuck me a little since I use them to play a code heavy section of a the game to check it #housekeeping #game play #we wretched creatures

[bsd-elle]

Thoughts on Buddy Daddies Episode 9

I have so many thoughts about this episode and it all stems from P.A works' fantastic SUBTLE writing choices.

This episode, on paper, sounds like a pretty cliche sports day episode, but they somehow managed to show us the character progression and the relationship progression between the characters.

The biggest progress we can blatantly see is Rei taking an effort to help Kazuki more.

And we can see that Kazuki reacts accordingly.

Kazuki is surprised by this development, and voices his concern.

Rei was genuinely impacted by the events in episode 7, realizing that he was pretty 'useless' when it came to raising Miri, and has taken the initiative to give a helping hand.

And what I love about that is, we know that Rei had absolutely no clue how to work a microwave or any basic cooking, so for him to automatically suggest and start making onigiri shows that either he had previously asked Kazuki how to make simple items, or two, he was more observant when Kazuki was cooking, because he wanted to be able to do more, do anything to make his little girl smile.

And it's so wonderful to see them actually bring up this plot point and continue it, rather than letting it be a one-off plot point.

They pick up on his interest to be more involved and we see him actually trying.

Knowing the unfortunate circumstances of his childhood, it's not that Rei doesn't want to help out or get into Miri's activities, but rather that he simply doesn't KNOW what to do. Doesn't know what's right.

His hesitance throughout the Episode is evidence of that, his hesitance to give Miri his riceballs.

He genuinely looks so sad, feeling like he can't compete with Kazuki's sheer talent with cooking.

His hesitance to even cheer for Miri.

Growing up in a family full of espionage and assassination, quietness and taking up little to no space must've been embedded into his system, into his psyche, and the fact that he's actively trying to be loud, to draw attention to himself, just shows the effort he's putting into taking care and raising Miri, something his father never attempted to try.

And both Kazuki and Miri appreciate his efforts.

They understand that he's trying and are so enthusiastic and receptive to his attempts.

Which is why he takes it to heart that Miri fell down because he was 'loud'.

I think, in that moment, he thought that he failed, that failure is never acceptable.

But, that final reassurance from Miri (in the cutest way possible), that he didn't fail, he didn't do anything wrong, and Miri considers them all to be a family, something he never had, something he's never known, that's all he needed to realize that, yes, maybe he'll fail, but at the end of the day, Miri is happy, and there's nothing else that matters.

The other one I wanted to talk about, which is definitely more subtle, but the progression of Kazuki and Rei's relationship is truly so beautiful.

Kazuki treasures the help Rei attempts and supports him in every way possible.

When Rei said that he wanted to make riceballs and was worried if Miri would like it, Kazuki instantly reassures him that Miri would love it.

In fact, he proudly proclaims to Miri that Rei would be making onigiri. And I'm sure that if he hadn't, there might be a chance that Miri wouldn't have been able to eat it, while Rei was clouded by his doubt.

When Miri says that she likes the onigiri and she thanks Rei, Kazuki immediately tells him, "hey, you did good, look our daughter agrees too. You're doing good and trying, and we both see that".

When Rei is drowning in his self-loathing about potentially causing Miri to lose the gold medal, Kazuki tries to reassure him and tell him that he didn't do anything wrong.

Finally, when they're walking back, Kazuki tells him that he's proud of him, that he worked hard, and you can tell that Rei really appreciated that, to know that his efforts were being accepted.

And that's why their relationship grows in such an organic manner, Rei puts in the effort, tries his best to help out to the best of his abilities, and Kazuki reassures him, let's him know about things that he would have no idea about, and vocally supports him.

And Miri, my sweet angel, with her bright personality and even brighter smile, constantly comforts both Kazuki and Rei, that she's happy, that they ARE a family.

The reason they are a family is because each one of them helps each other, is an equal part in the group.

And at the end of the day, they're just all trying their best, taking one step at a time, while the others, cheer them on.

(And this picture is the perfect symbolism of that sentiment, Rei awkwardly trying his best to smile, and Kazuki physically trying to bring him closer into the picture).

#buddy daddy spoilers #miri buddy daddies #rei buddy daddies #kazuki buddy daddies #buddy daddies #anime #manga #bd #kazuki kurusu #rei suwa #i had so much to talk about but I tried to concisely explain it even though I'm losing my mind #kazurei

[akindplace]

To those afraid of aging: don't be. You will find yourself, you will slowly find your purpose as you age. Give yourself time to process what happened to you when you were younger. Don't pressure yourself to be at the same speed as everyone else, don't compare yourself too much.

If there is something you wish to do, you should find the courage to do it, to follow that career, that dream, that relationship. Achieving things takes time, and everyone has their own timing.

You’re still young, you still have time to make decisions that will impact you in the long term, and it’s okay to not feel ready yet to commit to just one thing for your whole life. Please don't let other people push you into making decisions that should impact the rest of your life while you are so young. Don't pressure yourself either.

The thing about adulting is that everyone is just winging it, no one is any idea what they are doing, not even your parents, or grandparents. We are all just living, trying to deal with the unpredictability of life.

It is okay to change your mind about who you are, what you want. It's okay to feel scared of the future. It is okay to want more. It is okay to fight to achieve what you want. It's okay if you don't care about achievements. It's okay to be lost when you're not even a full grown adult. Because most adults are still lost, but less than when they were younger.

It does get better. You get more freedom, you can make your choices, you figure out what you like and what you can't stand, then you start molding a life according to your needs, your happiness. Please remember life is here to be enjoyed.

I spent my teenage years and early twenties so anxious about the future, and it didn't help me prepare for all the absurd stuff that happened in my life. I have had to spend a long time just healing from the past and figuring out the present.

You can only learn about life if you live it, by going through it. Let the future come, just one day at a time, you don't need to rush into anything. It's an amazing journey, but please be patient, kind and forgiving with yourself. You are still growing and figuring it out. And you will.

You have to live a bit so you can figure out who you are, what you want to do, how you can change. Don't be afraid of throwing yourself out there just because you're not perfect or you are afraid of failing. Just because you have failed, it doesn't make you a failure, it makes you a student of life. You didn't know it before, but you know better after failing. Don't be so afraid of judgement from others, live the life that feels most authentic to you by being honest about who you are.

Embrace life, it is here to be enjoyed, you are here to figure stuff out and heal and find yourself and you will! These things take time, but you will! Life is a beautiful journey of self-discovery, it will continue to surprise you until you die. There is always so much to see, to learn, to grow, to become. And you will get there.

#original writing #about growing older #tips #about adulthood #adulting #self-acceptance #self-worth #reassurance #validation #positivity blog

[homestuckreplay]

Week 1 Retrospective: Who Is John Egbert?

It’s official - Homestuck is one week old today! And while a week is not a long run for a comic, it’s already got more pages than the author’s earlier work Bard Quest, so maybe it’s something worth recognizing. So I wanted to mark a week of Homestuck by doing a deep dive on what we’ve learned about our protagonist John Egbert so far. It’s some fact collection, some wild speculation, and some ongoing questions. It’s over 3000 words, so it’s under a readmore for anyone who’s interested.

If that doesn’t sound like a fun time to you (or even if it does), you can take the John Egbert Big 5 Personality Test to see how you score on John’s five key personality traits. It’s 14 multiple choice questions, so a much quicker read.

We’re introduced to John on page 4, where we’re given five key interests of his: bad movies, programming computers, paranormal lore, amateur magic, and gaming. I’ll take these one by one and use them as a framework for John’s character so far.

“You have a passion for REALLY TERRIBLE MOVIES.”

John has eleven (11) movie posters on his walls. Of these, three star Matthew McConaughey and two star Nicolas Cage. More notably, six have a Rotten Tomatoes rating below 50%, and two of these are below 10%. I haven’t seen any of these movies, but as far as I can tell, here are the one sentence summaries [broad spoilers for all these movies].

Little Monsters: A boy befriends a monster and visits the monster world, where they try to convert him into a monster too.

Con Air: A paroled man disrupts a gang of prisoner’s escape from a prison transport plane.

Deep Impact: Earth tries to prepare for extinction after a comet is found on a collision course with Earth.

Ghostbusters II: After going out of business, the Ghostbusters reunite to combat a negative energy slime monster.

Mac and Me: A boy befriends a young alien who gets separated from his family and lost on Earth.

Contact: An Earth scientist successfully discovers alien life and travels to an alien world.

A Time to Kill: A father is acquitted in court for killing the perpetrators of racial hate crimes against his daughter.

Failure to Launch: A 35 year old man’s parents hire a woman to persuade him to finally move out of their home.

Face/Off: A terrorist and a FBI agent go through facial transplant surgery and temporarily swap identities.

Armageddon: A group of space workmen go on a mission to stop an asteroid from destroying Earth. 

Ghost Dad: A man temporarily dies but is able to interact with his children in ghost form.

From this we can see that John really likes science fiction movies related to aliens, ghosts and monsters, as well as action comedy. We also know from page 21: ‘Films about impending apocalypse fascinate you’. A Time to Kill and Failure to Launch are the only ones that don’t fit his taste. The implication here is that John really loved Matthew McConaughey in Contact and so watched his other movies even though they were things he wouldn’t usually watch.

I’m curious if these movies are intended as clues to John’s character, the future of the comic, or both. In terms of his character, they make me see him as someone who’s imaginative and goofy, young and carefree, not concerned with other people’s opinions, more interested in watching movies for their surface meanings and exciting stories, maybe wants to escape to a different world, might be a little bit gay. 

In terms of the future of the comic, it could be that we’re going to see literal aliens or monsters - they could even be already here, keeping John ‘homestuck’. Slime monsters are particularly highlighted, with Slimer from Ghostbusters appearing on John’s shirt and computer background, and his chumhandle, ectoBiologist, relating to slime. Slime invasion honestly feels too obvious, and anyway, several of John’s movies are about befriending a more benign supernatural force - could John’s Pesterchum friends be something other than human? Or maybe it’s a more metaphorical meaning, referring to John having a very different life to his friends? 

Two of these movies feature Earth extinctions by giant space rocks, but there’s absolutely no indication of this being a real world threat John is dealing with. Again, it could refer more generally to a sudden, life changing event that’s about to happen to disrupt John’s current state, something that would fit thematically with this being John’s 13th birthday, a milestone age.

There’s also a theme of crime and the legal system in several movies, including Con Air, the one that’s been most highlighted. The most obvious interpretation of John’s dad right now is that he’s a clown or performer, but there’s an outside chance he could be in law enforcement, or a criminal. It’s even possible that he’s currently in hiding or some kind of safe house. This would explain John being ‘homestuck’ and sick of spending time with his dad.

Speaking of John’s dad, I’m concerned for him based on the Ghost Dad summary - the comic keeps teasing his presence, but we haven’t actually seen him yet. Could he be a ghost? Or become one at some point? Alternatively, we know John has an already dead relative - could his nanna be a ghost? Did John dropping her ashes release her ghost? Family is a really common theme in movies, so I don’t know if a large number of these movies being about family (especially fathers) is relevant, but I’m noting it all the same.

“You like to program computers but you are NOT VERY GOOD AT IT.”

John claims he ‘likes to program’, but it actually seems to make him angry. We first learn ‘[y]ou were never all that great with data structures and you find the concept [of the stack modus] puzzling and mildly irritating.’ We then see three files on John’s desktop, two in ^CAKE - ‘pff.^CAKE’ and ‘FUCK FUCK FUCK.^CAKE’ and one in ~ATH - ‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH.~ATH’. These tell a clear narrative of John trying to work on his programming and getting increasingly more frustrated with his attempts, until inevitably giving up. Both of the programming languages are puns, too. ^ is often called a carat (carrot cake) while ~ is a tilde (til death). 

I know this is wild speculation, but… John started off coding in a harmless programming language, was already struggling, then for some reason switched over to the most ominous possible sounding language, screwed it up even worse, and now… he’s constantly haunted by the ghost of failed programming attempts in the form of his sylladex, which he appears to be new to using (he had no prior understanding of it on page 7 - although this could be handwaved due to video game tutorial logic), and which operates similarly to a computer program and seems to cause John endless frustration. He’ll have to figure out how to exploit the inventory system in ways that help him, which involves actually figuring out some stuff about coding, in order to partake in some real life ghostbusting, or monster hunting, or dealing with whatever threat he’ll have to deal with by using inventory hacks.

“You have a fondness for PARANORMAL LORE,” (...)

By far the interest of John’s that we’ve seen the least of so far, John’s love of the paranormal is mostly inferred through his movie preferences, and we don’t see any direct evidence of an interest in lore. However, I can’t stop fixating on John’s chumhandle: ectoBiologist. The comic’s first act was to draw attention to giving John a name, and for many 2009 kids, the names they go by online are more meaningful and representative of them than their real world names. 

‘ecto-’ means ‘outer, outside, external’ according to dictionary.com, and it’s actually a common prefix in a variety of fields of biology, but there’s no such thing as ‘ectobiology’ as a field, or an ‘ectobiologist’ - neither term has any search results prior to Homestuck. I think it’s way more likely that this refers to ectoplasm, a term from both cell biology and spiritualism that was popularized by Ghostbusters to mean any substance secreted by a ghost, in practice often manifesting as green slime. Slimer, who we can guess is John’s favorite, is a benign ghost made of pure ectoplasm. I love the idea that John loves this dumb ghost so much that he’s memorized all the lore about them in their appearances throughout the franchise, and devised this username based on being an expert on these ghosts right down to their biology (or at least thinking he is). 

The only catch is, ‘fondness for paranormal lore’ is very passive and doesn’t even imply much knowledge, much less action, while ‘biologist’ implies that John has been doing actual experiments. The idea of John trying to create a real life Slimer the same way other kids make slime in their kitchens is really entertaining, if an off the wall theory. Does ‘homestuck’ just mean John is grounded for an unethical science project? 

(...) “and are an aspiring AMATEUR MAGICIAN.”

The magic chest is one of the biggest, most eye catching and most colorful objects in John’s room. We see its contents on page 8, which lean more into joke store items than things a magician might use, except for the trick handcuffs and perhaps the collapsible sword. The narration on this page states that John is neither a skilled magician nor a cunning prankster. I’m nitpicking definitions here, but everything John has done so far has been way more about pranks than about magic. 

John’s uses of the magic chest to date are…

various putting things into his inventory and removing them (funny, but unintentionally)

combining fake arms with cake (p.36) out of necessity, which ‘makes the cake at least 300% more hilarious’

merging hat with beagle puss to create a clever disguise (p.45) and wearing it for 25+ pages, which he acknowledges is a ‘shitty disguise’

attaching fake arms to harlequin doll (p.65), which makes it ‘AT LEAST a million percent funnier’

All of which are definitely not magic tricks, and honestly not even pranks. Arguably John’s best and most successful prank so far has been when he pretended not to have arms for the first six pages, before revealing his arms after the interface had gone to the trouble of moving the cake off his magic chest to get him some arms.

John keeps thinking about reading Colonel Sassacre’s Guide to Magical Frivolity and Practical Japery, but always finding some excuse not to. He can’t read it until he captchalogues it, but once he does that, it gets buried in his inventory. He assumes that the book can tell him the exact percentage increase of hilarity a prank leads to, but it’s too big for him to actually look anything up. 

An outside theory for this that I don’t think is likely simply because it’s so much darker than the comic has been so far, is that John loves this book, but since the incident where his nanna was killed by a copy (perhaps even this copy?) he hasn’t been able to bring himself to read it. A far more likely theory is that while John is an aspiring amateur magician, it’s more of a big idea, and he hasn’t actually done any magic yet. This also tracks with his weaksauce pranks above. And if that’s true, then it says a lot about John that he defines himself by a hobby he aspires to but doesn’t actually practice - he’s someone with big dreams and less motivation, just like his big dream of going to collect the mail from his father despite the lack of motivation that’s kept him messing around for 70 pages. 

“You also like to play GAMES sometimes.”

Potentially most important of all is Gamer John. We get a list of games John likes to play from inspecting his CD tower the same way we get a list of movies from looking at his posters. 

Bard Quest

The Caper Havers

Problem Sleuth

And It Don’t Stop

What Pumpkin?

Ghostbusters II MMORPG

Little Monsters (for Nintendo)

Harry Anderson: Call My Bluff!

The first five games all reference previous work by the author of Homestuck, and as such probably don’t need in depth analysis. However, the fact that within the world of Homestuck, these are all games (instead of comics) is one of several suggestions that we should think of Homestuck as a game, something that needs further analysis. 

The next two games are video game adaptations of movies we know John likes, and the last is a branded video game from Harry Anderson, whose book we’ve already seen in John’s magic chest. Notably, none of these are real video games in our world either. It says a lot that John plays game versions of things he already likes (he’s put ‘countless manhours’ into this assortment of quality titles). 

However, it’s undeniable that the most important game in John’s life right now is Sburb. The poster is behind his head in the first panel, placed centrally with one of the only two splashes of color in the panel. The beta release is the only thing marked on his calendar for April besides his birthday, and the Sburb logo is even the picture printed on the calendar - perhaps it’s a calendar themed around new game releases? There’s clear delight on John’s face when he thinks about getting the beta, and his quest to fetch it from the recently delivered mail is the closest thing to a story this comic has so far.

Unfortunately, we know almost nothing about Sburb, so we don’t know what it says about John that he wants to play it. It’s publicized as the Game of the Year, and according to GameBro, the game may be about houses and the player may not get to thrash anything, although these details are provided by someone who hasn’t played the game so I’m not taking them as expert opinion. It might be multiplayer - TT has been pestering TG all day about playing it with her. Maybe John just wants to share a game with his friends.

Speaking of GameBro, John can’t stand the magazine, although he for some reason has a copy on his desk. He describes the publication as ‘a joke’ to TG, and he makes the effort to take it downstairs to the fire and burn it, presumably releasing asbestos fibers into the house and causing serious lung damage to himself and his father. Does he read this because it’s the only games magazine that exists? Or did he like it just fine until now, when it trashed the game he’s excited about, and now he’s furious with it? Either way, it tracks with John’s overall fondness for critically panned media that he would be angry about contrarian critics. 

–

All of this has left me with a few questions about John as our main character. These are the things that I’m keeping an eye on and trying to answer as the story continues.

What is John good at?

We hear so much about what John is bad at. He’s explicitly stated to be bad at programming, pranks, and magic. He’s bad at using his sylladex. He’s clumsy and knocked over his nanna’s ashes. He’s got bad taste in media. He’s funny but only when he doesn’t try to be, and even then he’s sometimes the butt of the joke, where the joke is how not funny John’s joke is. He was tempted to squawk like an imbecile and shit on his desk. He has like six different prankster props and he doesn’t even use all of them. I’m saying all this with love and kindness because he also just seems like such a sweet kid, but so far he doesn’t have any defined strengths or skills. 

Is he going to turn out to be really good at gaming and kick ass at Sburb? Are we going to get a curveball where it turns out John is an amazing baker, and he hates the cakes in his room and the smell of Betty Crocker because he can do so much better than that packet mix? Or is he starting off from this low point so he can develop skills as time goes on?

What is John’s relationship with his dad really like?

John doesn’t want his dad to monopolize his time and feels trapped in his room, despite his dad baking cakes and leaving notes on gifts telling John he’s proud of him. John’s dad gets his son one great present that John’s really appreciative of, and one terrible present that John immediately hates. All of this feels very reasonable and normal for a teen feeling misunderstood by a parent who’s trying their best. 

And then there’s the clowns.

John can excuse magical frivolity and practical japery, but he draws the line at harlequins. He’s an aspiring magician, but his dad’s figurines are ‘fucking garbage’ and his dad ‘sure can be a real cornball’. John seems like somebody who gets angry at ultimately unimportant things, like bad reviews of games, too many cakes, and harlequin figurines, but because of the subject matter it reads like an intense rivalry between two highly specific subcultures that outsiders would group together. John is really making a huge deal of needing to disguise himself and mentally prepare himself to go down and face his dad, and I want to know if there’s any genuine reason behind John’s fear, or if it’s solely the overdramatics I’m starting to think are typical of him.

Is John ‘Homestuck’?

‘Sometimes you feel like you are trapped in this room. Stuck, if you will, in a sense which possibly borders on the titular.’ (p.30)

John clearly feels like he’s stuck at home, but is this the extent of the title’s meaning? His dad has recently returned from getting groceries, so leaving the house is in theory possible. Reasons why John might be homestuck include: he’s not allowed to leave the house (for example, he’s grounded, or his dad is very controlling), he can leave the house but there’s nowhere to go (he lives near major roads, bodies of water, farms, or other obstacles, and there’s no public transport to get anywhere), or he can leave the house but it’s not safe to do so (there’s some sort of external threat, either supernatural like a monster or alien invasion, or mundane like a criminal or bomb threat). Seeing out of John’s window and into his front yard does not provide any clues; it looks like an extremely average front yard with a tree, swing and mailbox, and we know the mail was recently delivered, so there can’t be anything too world-ending happening in the neighborhood. Right now John’s goal (the Sburb Beta disc) is inside the house, so this might not get answered right away - in fact, my running theory is that the game itself might hold the answers, as its logo is a house.

What’s the differentiation between John and the narrator?

My biggest question of all, and one that probably deserves its own essay. I’m fascinated by the lines ‘In a kid's yard, a tree without a tire swing is like a proper gentleman without a monocle.’ (p.27) and ‘In a home, a FIREPLACE needs a fire, because that's what FIREPLACE is for.’ (p.50). These lines carry so much opinion, but because the narrator is constantly addressing John with the second person ‘you’, I don’t think these are John’s opinions. The narrator does have a window into John’s thoughts, so the line between them can be blurred, but there's clearly a distinction somewhere, because there have been pushbacks and disagreements between the two of them. 

One theory is that John’s dad is the narrator - John’s at home a lot for whatever reason, and so the constant and overbearing presence of his dad means that he can’t get him out of his head even when he’s alone, the commands at the top of each page reflecting John’s dad’s level of control over his son’s life. But I think this question is open ended enough that I’m not willing to commit to one theory yet. After all, we ‘examine 3rd and 4th walls of [John’s] room’ which is a directly meta allusion to the comic’s audience that only really makes sense if the narrator isn’t a character in the comic itself. 

–

I think John Egbert has been really well characterized so far. He feels like a real kid, one who keeps getting off track and forgetting what he should be doing, but one who it’s enough fun to get to know that I don’t really notice. While the main character in media often doesn’t end up being the most interesting character, I do want to keep an eye on John because I think he has a lot going on to analyze. Above the style and the world and the mechanics, John as a character is the aspect of the comic I’m most interested in right now.

#homestuck #john egbert #analysis

[matan4il]

Hi I read your post about the fallen victims and I had to stop at 5 year old Ido Avigal and just cry. If he was still with us he would've been my nephew's age today (and my nephew is my entire world). And his adorable smile looks like my nephew's so it's even more painful. I can't imagine what his family feels or his friends. Poor thing. I hate all of the pain and suffering in the world I truly hate it.

I'm not Jewish but I will pray for these people and their loved ones. I hope their loved ones have a strong support system and that pain will probably never go away but I hope their loved ones find strength and peace and courage to continue living.

Idk I'm rambly and emotional.

Sending you hugs too. 🫂

Hi Nonnie!

Thank you so much for your very humane response! I have a nephew as well, I know exactly what you mean. I've always loved and adored kids, but there was something about accompanying my sister on her motherhood journey that made me realize just how much more it is to be a parent. And in that sense, an uncle or aunt, too. What it means to raise a child, and love them before they're even born, and be so invested in every single second for years, things I might have known as an idea, but have such a more profound impact when you actually experience them...

Ido Avigal specifically is someone who I remembered even before my sis got pregnant. Like you said, that sweet smile! The contrast before the first pic of him that was shared, in which he's seen in a Purim costume (such a joyous occasion, and you take it in while trying to process such a tragedy). The fact that the family did everything right... When Hamas fired their rocket, the warning siren went off, the family heard it in time, they all got into the bomb shelter, they closed the door and the window... they did everything right. And still, the rocket hit the next door building, a splinter of the rocket flew off and hit their window at such an angle, that it went through the shut metal covers on the window. Ido passed away a few hours later, in a hospital, but the family had to watch him get hit with a lethal strike right in front of their eyes.

How did it happen? Because when the decision was made on how thick the metal covers over the windows in every bomb shelter had to be, Hamas' rockets were less advanced than they are now. Even with all of the effort Israel invests in it, it's simply not possible to keep "updating" our bomb shelters at the same speed Hamas get rocket upgrades from Iran. That's the tragedy. That defense systems, no matter how good, are always bound to fail eventually. And we can talk about statistics (Iron Dome did succeed in intercepting 97% of rocket threats in May 2021), for that one family, nothing is going to ever fix what happened, and bring their kid back.

If Israel hadn't left Gaza in 2005, our soldiers could have done more to intercept what Hamas is getting from Iran, to make sure they can't upgrade their rockets, and become more lethal. But we didn't want to rule over Gaza anymore, we wanted to try giving it to the Palestinians, give them autonomy, give them something to develop and invest in, give them something to lose if they choose terrorism, so that hopefully they wouldn't... So here we are, realizing we have to sacrifice our 18 and 19 year old children in order to protect our 5 year old kids, the kind of choice that no nation, that no parent and family, should have to make.

And you know what's even worse? Since Ido was killed, in May 2021, I've seen his pic more than once, used in anti-Israel propaganda, presenting him as if he was a Palestinian kid (along with Nadine Awad, a 14 years old Israeli Arab Muslim Bedouine girl, who was also killed by Hamas during the same time). Ido's mom publicly spoke out against them doing this, BTW. They're literally appropriating our dead, and using them against us, to de-legitimize our self-defense, and bring about more murdered Israelis. I can't understand that kind of moral failure other than in terms of antisemitism.

I can tell you that Ido's dad wrote and published a song in his son's memory, called "measured hope," and an article from two days ago stated that Ido's mom has been giving interview to explain Israelis better to the world, since Oct 7.

Thank you again for the very kind words and hugs! Sending you big hugs and much love right back! xoxox

(for more of my posts regarding Israel, click here)

#israel #antisemitism #israeli #israel news #israel under attack #israel under fire #terrorism #anti terrorism #hamas #antisemitic #antisemites #jews #jew #judaism #jumblr #frumblr #jewish #israelunderattack #ask #anon ask

[cherishedproperty]

Play

Have you ever thought about why we use that word in the scene? I’m going to a play party. They’re my play partner. I like wax play. Obviously, part of the word choice is a euphemism. But still, the use of the word “play” feels intentional to me.

I was thinking about this last night when I went to a play event at a dungeon. It was the first bdsm event I’d been to in a while. I’d forgotten how good it can feel to be in the energy of other people who are playing, even when I am not playing. Last night I saw people exploring a variety of sensations—wax, rope, fire, impact, vacuum play… I saw people expressing themselves through their clothing—or sometimes lack of it. I saw tops focused on their craft, soaking up the reactions they created in their bottoms. I saw a friend’s eyes light up with glee as she introduced people to her violet wand.

While watching all this play, it occurred to me that play isn’t something we do very much as adults. We fill our time with work and chores and taking care of others. And when we’re not doing those things, we’re watching tv or scrolling endlessly on our phones. We forget to play.

It’s so easy to get trapped in the rhythm of everyday life. Work, kid, chores, sleep, work... But that’s exactly why play is so important. It breaks us out of the routine. It opens us up and makes us truly engage and be present in the moment. It gives us space to experiment without the risk of failure. And when we do it with others, it builds connection and trust and intimacy. We learn new things about people when we play with them. We play to feel free but also to understand boundaries—our own and those of others. Play is key to our emotional and social well-being.

Monsieur and I have gotten away from play lately. I don’t think I realized how much I missed it until I felt the energy of others playing last night. I love playing with Monsieur. I love the sparkle in his eyes when he gets the reaction he’s looking for. I love trying something new together. I even love the moments where it doesn’t go quite as planned, and we dissolve into laughter. It’s so much fun.

We need to set aside more dedicated time to play—to let go of expectations and just focus on each other. Exploring, experimenting, connecting. And of course, having fun. We both need it.

Monsieur, do you wanna play with me?

#personal

[antianakin]

And you know what pisses me off about Ahsoka Tano in the Siege of Mandalore arc? Is that she actually considered joining Maul’s crazy ass and that she actually bought into his inane anti-Jedi rant.

I actually kinda like that she considers it for a minute, because my most favorite version of Ahsoka is one who's also just teetering on the edge of darkness herself. Ahsoka listening to Maul talk about how the Republic is an Empire in everything but name and that it can't be saved, but that he alone can help her take out the Sith Lord anyway so long as she joins him, and she genuinely takes that very very seriously is arguably one of the most interesting things to happen to her since like season 4. I REALLY wish that the idea that she nearly joined a Sith Lord was something that was ever at any point followed up on, quite honestly.

Maul as Ahsoka's Palpatine just WORKS for me. Maul was the apprentice parallel back in TPM, both in opposition to Obi-Wan and foreshadowing what Anakin would eventually become. So for him to end up being sort-of Sith Master to Anakin's own apprentice just has a certain SYMMETRY to it.

I don't even hate that Ahsoka turns away from him specifically because he then mentions that they'd have to take out Anakin in the sense that Ahsoka is SUPER FUCKING ATTACHED to Anakin and this is something that's true within Rebels, as well. Ahsoka is RADICALLY attached to Anakin, to that relationship and the loyalty she feels she owes to him and his memory. And it's something that's absolutely THERE in TCW and Rebels, and it would've been a really interesting thing to explore in the Ahsoka show, the fact that she holds this attachment to him that's super unhealthy and that made it difficult for her to accept the truth about him. But they... didn't. And so instead of this kinda neat parallel where Ahsoka struggles with attachments just as much as Anakin did, we get this idea that her relationship to Anakin is what gives her the most strength, that it's the most positive thing to have ever happened to her, the only part of her life before the Empire she really remembers fondly at all (she does remember the Jedi more fondly in Rebels, but that's not there in the Ahsoka show where she explicitly calls them all failures).

And this is one of those things that frustrates me the MOST about Ahsoka's trajectory. There's so many times that they could've really explored Ahsoka's own darkness, her true struggles, and REALLY honed in on that to showcase not only the impact of things like the war and Order 66, but the impact of having had that relationship with Anakin at a foundational time in her life when Anakin was arguably at his WORST (before he became a literal nightmare genocide machine obviously). She's a gullible, malleable child put into a position where she has to have a lot of trust in Anakin and give him a lot of power over herself and Anakin is at a point in HIS life where he's giving into his darkness more and more. He's already someone who's massacred an entire village of innocent people, he's already a fascist who believes in MAKING people do what he wants, he's already a baby killer who feels no real remorse over it, he's already a massive racist who uses that prejudice to justify murdering people. He is selfish and he is greedy and he is losing his battle against his own darkness more and more to the point that he can be four bad days away from double genocide. I find it kind-of impossible to believe that that WOULDN'T have had an impact on how he trained Ahsoka and the way Ahsoka ultimately turned out.

But because the person writing Ahsoka is a fucking anti-Jedi Stanakin, what we get instead is a story that refuses to acknowledge Anakin was super dark at all and so refuses to really look at Ahsoka's OWN darkness at any point and mostly just justifies what Anakin did and the choices Ahsoka makes and her feelings about the Jedi as complete and utter failures because it helps fuel his agenda of making Ahsoka into The Greatest Jedi specifically because she was trained by The Greatest Jedi.

So, in a vacuum, I DO actually like that Ahsoka nearly joins Maul, and I even like that she ultimately refuses to do so specifically because of her attachment to Anakin causing her to be loyal to him over the possibility of getting more information about the Sith Lord. I think that that WORKS narratively and that it could've been a really interesting jumping off point for Ahsoka's character journey. But what I DON'T like is that this moment ended up turning into, as you mentioned, Ahsoka agreeing with the anti-Jedi sentiments and that her connection to Anakin is the better one because it's what allows her to reject darkness or whatever. I don't like that, I don't think it makes ANY sense, and it's boring. It makes her BORING and that's by far the worst criticism I can give any character.

#star wars #ahsoka tano #ahsoka critical #ahsoka tano critical #maul #darth maul #tcw #the clone wars #anakin critical #anakin skywalker critical #anti anakin #anti anakin skywalker

[spiderfreedom]

identity disorders and becoming the perfect me

I feel like the big connection between gender dysphoria, 'racial dysphoria', body integrity disorder (wishing to be disabled), body dysmorphia, 'species dysphoria', etc. is all are based on the promise and joy of self-transformation.

Something is wrong with you. The source of this wrong-ness may be internal (e.g. people who report wishing they were amputees as age 10, boys who wish they were girls after cross-dressing at a young age, etc.) or external (beauty culture and the demands to look beautiful, or fatphobia). This sense of alternative identity is deeply felt and almost precious to you.

You have a self-image that doesn't match who you are. The distance between your self-image and you is excruciatingly painful. You are aware of your failure to realize your self-image every day, all the time. However, there are steps you can take to get there. Every step shows you that transformation is possible, and you can become closer to being your 'ideal self.' Much like how putting on makeup brings the joy of being able to change your appearance, doing things like pretending to need crutches or using a packer brings you closer to your self-image.

You fantasize about what you're going to do. You feverishly research cosmetic procedures (am I describing cis people or trans people?). You fantasize about your life after the procedure. You bask in the happiness of knowing that your outer appearance will melt away, and finally other people will be able to see the "real you."

Unless the procedure is completely experimental, it will probably look more or less like the surgeon promises. You've heard that gender affirming surgeries have very high satisfaction rates. Did you know this is also true of breast augmentations? (88% satisfaction per one study.)

For instance, as discussed earlier, breast augmentation is relatively routine with a fairly high satisfaction rate [...] This said, studies do report that patients gain psychological benefits from surgery, for instance in terms of improvements in body image, and that they are mostly happy with surgery [...] Given the small size and small number of these studies, any attempt to make claims about the psychological harms and benefits of surgery on the individuals who engage should be treated with some caution. But undoubtedly some individuals do benefit, and most report satisfaction.

"Decreasing depressive symptomatology, and alleviating their eating disorders," now who wouldn't want that?

Several longitudinal studies on breast augmentation have shown that its impact on women is positive, increasing their psychosocial and sexual well-being and their satisfaction with their breasts and body image, improving their self-esteem, decreasing depressive symptomatology, and alleviating their eating disorders. In short, women have a better quality of life derived from changes in their sexuality, satisfaction with their body image, and personal wellbeing. (Source)

What liposuction, sex reassignment surgeries, and voluntary amputations all have in common are the promises of getting closer to your ideal, imagined self. Your hard work is paying off. It has to pay off.

First, simply engaging in body work evokes feelings of satisfaction, as this is active work on the self and, irrespective of outcome, is virtuous. Second, those who undergo such procedures have invested significant time and effort and commitment, and therefore are likely to report that the engagement is worth it, as the alternative is to suggest that they made a mistake. Because the language of choice (and consent) places the whole responsibility on the individual, those who “chose” to have surgery either have to claim that they feel better, happier, for it, or they have to recognize that they made a bad choice.

And it's hard to turn back when you consider, for example, that surgery is a point of no return. By the time you arrive at the surgeon's door (or the endocrinologist's), you've already made up your mind.

Likewise, studies show that those who have had cosmetic surgery commonly report that they would not have changed their mind, no matter what information had been given to them at the point of consent; implying that at this point had they been alerted to additional risks they would still have gone ahead. For example, Davis’s interviewees reported that more information would not have altered their decision. This suggests that the point of consent is not a point at which people seeking cosmetic surgery are likely to change their mind and consider alternatives (if this is the case, effective intervention needs to be earlier in the decision-making process).

Though gender dysphoria, body integrity disorder, body dysmorphia, and the other identity conditions all have different origins, they all share the same common theme of moving towards a newer, better self, one that is more 'authentic' and more 'you'. Often this self is imagined as more successful and accepted. (When it comes to conforming to beauty and gender expectations, the fantasy may be rooted in a reality.) There is work to be done, and you look forward to doing it. You have the power in the hands to change yourself from the current you, the you you can't stand, to the fantasy you in your head, which must be the real you. You're worth it, aren't you?

All unlinked quotes are from "Perfect Me: Beauty as an Ethical Ideal." Previous posts on the matter include "my suffering is profound and legitimate, yours is frivolous nonsense" (on the relationship between beauty culture and gender dysphoria) and a reblog elaborating on the commonalities between trans-gender and trans-racial identification and dysphoria (more on racial identity here).

#mypost #radical feminism #beauty culture #identity disorder #bookcitation

[adhsea]

You should give Pathfinder 2e a shot

Given the state of everything surrounding WOTC and OneD&D, I figured that now was a good time to make a post like this. I know how things like this sound, so I’m going to promise up front that I’m not here to shit on D&D. I played 5e for years and had a lot of fun with it. This is a message from someone who decided to try out PF2e and found a new favorite system, and thinks you might enjoy it too. So without further ado, here’s a few reasons to give Pathfinder 2e a shot:

Tactics and Teamwork: Combat is incredibly rewarding in 2e. Every character has 3 actions, and abilities are balanced with the idea of each action being just as valuable. Attacking multiple times a turn imposes a penalty, so it's important to figure out what you can do besides attack in order to help your party members do great on their turns as well. Attacks of Opportunity are rare, so moving into a flank position is easy to achieve. You can use skills to learn about your enemy, frighten them, knock them into the ground, it's a lot to put in one tiny snippet. If you've wanted more dynamic and tactical combat, why not give this a shot?

Balance part A: This game is incredibly well balanced on pretty much every level. The math in this game is built around the crit system, where every roll that's 10 or more above the DC is a critical success, and every roll that's 10 or more below the DC is a critical failure. This means that even as the numbers get higher and higher, they're still consistent. As a result, encounter building is simple and can be easily adjusted to fit the challenge the DM wants to give the players. It's trustworthy and reliable math that rewards tactics and good playing.

Balance part B: The martial vs caster disparity is much less of a problem in this game. Spellcasters can’t trivialize encounters with a single spell slot, and martials can feel like they have an impact on fights. For some people used to playing spellcasters, this can feel like a huge nerf. There are ways to play blaster casters and do it well, but for the most part casting is balanced around versatility and support. Martials on the other hand are stronger than in any other sword and sorcery system I've ever seen. Seriously if you've never played a martial character because you've felt they're too boring or don't have enough of an impact on the game, try one out in this system.

Character Building part Classes: As of writing this post, there are 24 unique classes to choose from in the game. 12 were released in the core rulebook, and 12 more were slowly released over the game's 4 year life span. They're not done either, there's another class coming in late summer. 2e is a game that tries to make as many character concepts possible as it can. Will you play an Investigator trying to solve crimes, an Oracle who struggles with a divine curse, and Inventor trying to create the perfect weapon, or maybe a Magus studying to deliver powerful spells through the might of your blade? The possibilities aren't endless, but they're not stopping until they might as well be.

Character Building part Ancestries: Also known as Races in D&D, your choice of Ancestry is a more impactful choice than you might expect. At various levels, you'll earn meaningful Ancestry feats that allow you to define how your character's origin shaped them. Your dwarf might've spent so much time around a forge that things like fire and smoke are easier to handle, while your goblin friend might have such a fascination with fire that they get a small bonus to doing damage with it. You can even get versatile Heritages to further define your character. Have you ever wanted to play an elven tiefling, or a gnomish aasimar? There's a lot that you can do to make your character feel truly yours.

Ease of Access: All of the rules are available for free online. Legally. This isn't a piracy statement Paizo literally makes the rules freely accessible without having to spend a cent. There's a ton of tools made by the community available online to help you play too. Pathbuilder is a great character builder that's available for free. The Archives of Nethys for 2e have the rules from every single published book available, even adventure paths. pf2easy is another great catalogue you can search through and filter. I could go on and on. The only time paizo ever really insists on payment are the prewritten adventures, which is completely understandable. And speaking of which.

The Adventure Paths: Paizo's prewritten Adventure Paths are great. They're available in physical copies or pdfs, always in sets of 3 or 6 books, with the 3 book sets being adventures spanning 10 levels and the 6 books spanning 1 to 20. They're written with making things as easy for the gm as possible in mind, and you can expect them to be mostly prepared for player approaches to problems. And hey, if the campaign goes off the rails before you finish the first book, you don't have to buy anymore and can just keep things going however you want. If you're just starting out, the Beginner's Box is a great way to get introduced to the system. It comes with simplified rules and prewritten sheets to teach you the basics if all the rules feel like too much to wrap your head around.

I'm cutting myself off because this post is long enough, and I'll just keep on writing run on sentences if I don't. If you've made it all this way, I hope I've convinced you to try out 2e. It's an incredible system that more people should know about. You can sometimes find people willing to run the beginner's box for free online, and there's no shortage of people willing to help answer questions about the system. And if you're willing to take the plunge right away, I'll leave you with the Rules Index on AON. Just click the tab that says Core Rulebook, and boom you have access to everything you need to get started. Good luck and have fun.

#dnd #dnd5e #pathfinder #ttrpg #sorry about getting so rambly at times i am just like that

[levmada]

how do you think levi dealt with erwin's death? was he distant for awhile from others, trying to deal with his feelings by himself? was he feeling guilty of not killing the beast titan?

i also saw a post which said that "isayama said levi had become weaker after erwin's death" which was actually without any sources or whatsoever.. anyways, what are your thoughts?

i want to cover that "fact" first.

lol it depends on your perspective whether levi in fact got “weaker”, but that has ultimately nothing to do with isayama's comment on levi's state after his death, because that's a gross mistranslation.

that quote is from an interview done with isayama in 2017 and has to do with the impact of erwin's death and dreams. specifically relevant to that statement, isayama doesn't say that levi is weak now, but that he's like a balloon dangling in the air, in limbo, or aimless. partly because levi felt that they'd completed their role when they reached the sea (confirmed by ch136), and partly because levi needs to kill the beast titan, but he can't at that point, and not out of a lack of trying.

i can't say "aimless" is a relative to "weaker" when both reasons for that are simply out of levi's control.

levi can contend with weakness from grief at this point in his life. the pain he feels from losing erwin is extremely powerful, but what is more powerful is the conviction he feels to keep fighting as a result of both it and the context of his death.

so do i think levi is weaker after his death? yes and no. levi's state is just way more complex than the wider fandom seems to give isayama credit for writing (and everything in general tbh).

canonically, levi retrieved erwin's remains after everything was said and done, and he got a special memorial/funeral. so it's not like he was in denial at least, or it was an event that he refused to acknowledge.

1: i definitely see him distancing himself emotionally from the others. not once in season 4 does levi even use erwin's name while thinking of him until chapter 136 while reconciling the scouts' dream, and not choosing erwin back then.

he doesn't open up about erwin in a significant way to anyone, although hange and levi sometimes talk about him, such as when (in marley w/ the 104th passed out drunk) hange says that erwin was the type of person who would've tried feeding carrots to the cars and levi agrees.

2: i think there's certainly grief levi stuffed down in the moment like a dam that's been waiting to burst since the day it happened, with the wall keeping it at bay being (1) zeke's still being alive, and (2) the meaning of everyone's sacrifices, especially on that day, being unaccounted for. the biggest reason he could get along like this is by compartmentalizing imo

3: feeling guilty implies feeling regret, so no not in the immediate fallout. as a result of his grief, he has more strength, and as a result of the poor outcome of his choice, he has more conviction to carry his goals out.

erwin says this in the anime adaptation of acwnr, and levi says it in his special side-monologue story: having regrets allows others around you to make your choices for you, will make you hesitate, make you fall victim to your emotions, and get killed. this is exactly what happened to levi when his 30 comrades were titanized in the forest by zeke, only because of his ackerman blood, he didn't die.

that's more of a tangent than anything, but point is, it weighed on him more over time.

4: naturally, his nightmares got worse. sleeping was even harder. he was certainly depressed. also, i strongly feel that levi coped realllyy poorly with his failure to kill zeke by over-exercising, to the point where (probably) hange had to step in and force him to do other duties.

#doesnt have to be read as shipping #eruri #aot levi #levi ackerman hc #eruri hc #levi ackerman snk #snk levi #captain levi #captain levi ackerman #levi heichou #eruri aot #levi.thoughts

[scoobydoodean]

do you think Dean has survivor's guilt? I'm thinking mostly of 01×12, but I'm also wondering if there's a running theme there that I don't remember

Yes, I do. In fact, I think Dean blaming himself for the outcome of traumatic experiences he couldn't have changed or that aren't his fault is something that happens very frequently, because Dean has a very overactive sense of responsibility—primarily resulting from his parentification (and the people in his life don't always help—sometimes they do, but they also sometimes feed into it).

1.12 "Faith" sets the stage for the entire theme. Dean struggles to deal with Layla not being healed when he is, and how horrible it is that a man died in exchange for his life. At the end of the episode, Dean stops running from the reaper, planning to let it kill him so Layla can be healed, but it doesn't happen because Sam disrupts the ritual before Sue Ann can complete it. (Kya has a great gifset here). What tends to co-occur with Dean struggling with survivor's guilt is the idea that Dean has a job—a responsibility, even—to the rest of the world. This is both why he must survive, and also something that weighs him down with even more guilt in a vicious cycle.

DEAN Why? Why me? Out of all the sick people, why save me? ROY Well, like I said before, the Lord guides me. I looked into your heart, and you just stood out from all the rest. DEAN What did you see in my heart? ROY A young man with an important purpose. A job to do. And it isn't finished.

I've written about Dean's survivor's guilt in the context of season 2—how 1.12 and John's sacrifice in 2.01 are primary motivations for Dean making the demon deal in 2.22. We get dialogue from Dean in 2.04 actually apologizing to Sam for John's death, because he blames himself even though it wasn't his fault and none of this was his choice.

He also blames himself for Sam's death in 2.22, even though that also isn't his fault. The parentification aspect of all of this is screaming loud in the following dialogue from Dean in 2.22:

You know, when we were little— and you couldn't been more than 5— you just started asking questions. How come we didn't have a mom? Why do we always have to move around? Where'd Dad go when he'd take off for days at a time? I remember I begged you, "Quit asking, Sammy. Man, you don't want to know." I just wanted you to be a kid... Just for a little while longer. I always tried to protect you... Keep you safe... Dad didn't even have to tell me. It was just always my responsibility, you know? It's like I had one job... I had one job... And I screwed it up. I blew it. And for that, I'm sorry. I guess that's what I do. I let down the people I love. I let Dad down. And now I guess I'm just supposed to let you down, too. How can I? How am I supposed to live with that?

Dean even as a child felt responsible for Sam, and even for John. We see John blame Dean for his own failures as a father in episodes like 1.18 "Something Wicked" and 1.21 "Salvation", and we see the impact of that tendency reflected in how Sam sometimes treats Dean as well. Hell—we have indication that even before Mary died, Dean was "cleaning up [John's] messes" according to Sam (5.16). We see John apologize for Dean having to take care of him in 2.01 instead of the other way around—an acknowledgement that he knows this has been a source of harm to Dean for a long time... but it's too little too late—and ultimately is ruined by John's next actions, leaving Dean seething with resentment toward John for seasons to come even as he grieves and blames himself for John's death.

Dean's guilt for things that aren't his fault is further explored in episodes like 1.18 "Something Wicked", 5.11 "Sam, Interrupted" and 7.04 "Defending Your Life", where Dean is confronted by his guilt over Jo's death, and feeling responsible for Sam being a hunter, which is absolute horse shit despite the fandom also trying to insist this is the case frequently (see my tags #sam the hunter for a start). He blames himself for Kevin even getting involved with hunting to begin with. Dean blames himself for the havoc Michael is wreaking (14.03, 14.06, 14.14). Dean also blames himself and feels horrible guilt for torturing souls in hell, despite the fact that this happened under extreme duress and literal decades of torture and psychological conditioning—i.e., Dean had no actual choice—he's just presented with the horror of being made to feel that it was his choice when it was deeply and torturously coerced. The very worst part of Hell for him was that he tortured other souls, and I don't think he ever recovers from the guilt of that. He clams up about it after being called weak and pathetic for being guilty about it and then he never speaks about it ever again.

Dean certainly isn't the only one with these issues. Sam, Dean, and Bobby's survivors guilt is all explored simultaneously in 4.02 "Are You There God? It's Me, Dean Winchester" when people they couldn't save like Meg Masters and Victor are brought back by a curse.

DEAN It's my fault you're dead. I left you [Victor] behind. And the minute I heard about that explosion, I thought, "I should have known." I should have protected you.

This whole episode implicates hunters as a whole with serious survivor's guilt for the people they can't/don't manage to save. Multiple hunters die in the beginning of the episode, killed by the people they're haunted by not saving. This is a natural and understandable result of the work itself. You just barely don't get to someone in time, or you make a choice with an outcome you didn't forsee at the time, or you weren't fast enough or strong enough, or you dodged left when you should have dodged right, or you should have stayed, or you "let" the monster get away and it killed again. You are in a line of work where you are probably always left thinking, "If only I had done [insert hindsight judgement here]". Bobby blames himself for the deaths of two kids in 4.02. He blames himself for his wife Karen's death (3.10). Sam blames himself for Ava (2.11) and they all accept blame for the Devil's Gate even though that wasn't their fault either (and other hunters throw the blame on all of them too) (3.01).

The thing about being a parentified child is that you are, by definition, held responsible for things you are not equipped or qualified to handle—things that are too much for you, that are not actually your responsibility, and that are/were entirely out of your control. Combine growing up being blamed for things you did not actually have the power or authority to make happen or prevent from happening, with the overall tendency within the line of work hunters are in to feel survivor's guilt, and you get Dean. Add in that Dean cares deeply for other people—even strangers—and therefore feels an extra empathy when people are harmed for these things he thinks he could have prevented. You get someone whose moments of suicidal ideation are usually deeply connected to survivor's guilt or guilt more generally.

#1.12 #2.01 #2.04 #2.22 #1.18 #5.11 #7.04 #5.16 #parentification #1.21 #14.03 #14.06 #14.14 #spn revisionisms #projecting displaced aggression and scapegoating in spn #do i look like a ditchable prom date to you? #victor #ava #meg masters #cw suicidal ideation #mail #dean the narrative heart #the very touch of you corrupts #john #i dont deserve what he put on me #dean and guilt

[cheekinpermission]

Happy 500 followers!!

How about 1 and 10 for the ask game?

Thank you for you participation, anon! Ask game is here! Send them in if you want <3

1. Who's hand did you first grab? Why? Would you choose someone else if you could do it over again?

I grabbed Idia's hand! When I first got into TWST, I had absolutely no clue what I was getting into so I really just went based on which voice actors I recognized LOL. I know Kōki Uchiyama from a ton of different anime (JJK, Buddy Daddies, Haikyuu, BNHA, Yuri on Ice, etc.) so I just went with his character. While Idia doesn't crack the top 5 for me, I don't think I'd choose again. The only reason I would is if it impacted the story somehow but I really doubt it will. I'm COMITTED.

10. Top five favorite characters?

Grim occupies all top five spots. BUT since that's boring, so I'll limit my choices to the main cast lmao. (My love for the dire beast is PROFOUND) I got VERY wordy here so here's the short answer: 1. Riddle Rosehearts

2. Vil Schoenheit

3. Malleus Draconia

4. Ruggie Bucchi

5. Kalim Al-Asim Explanation below the cut! (I got very excited to talk about my favorites and wrote a lot so I figured I'd condense it for people who didn't want to scroll through it all lol whoopsies.)

1. Riddle Rosehearts - I have no explanation for this?? He's pretty much the opposite of my usual favorite characters so idk what happened here. I've always been drawn to the Alice in Wonderland aesthetic so maybe that has something to do with it? He's got such great character writing, too?? Everything about his personality just makes sense when you know his backstory. When we learn that Riddle's tyrant of a mother was strict and controlling over him, the pieces just seem to fall into place. His whole life was just following her rules and studying like a good little boy, and when he stepped out of line even a little bit he was reprimanded harshly for it. Of course, he's going to the exact same thing once he's in a position of power. It's all he knows. He's just another version of his mother. Not only does he uphold the tradition of punishing rule breakers rather severely as he was when he was younger, I think there's also an element of fear there as well. Like, his mother just instilled an innate fear of breaking rules because bad things would happen if he didn't follow them exactly. I really do see Riddle as a scared little boy who is suddenly realizing that he was set up for failure by his own mother. And THEN he makes an honest effort to improve himself post-overblot?? His transformation after the fact is one of the more obvious ones and I'm just so proud of him. A THOUSAND HEAD PATS!! Okay, I'll stop rambling about him lmao I love Riddle sm (Also want to make clear I'm not saying Riddle was right for anything he did, only that I appreciate how his character was handled. Added for legal purposes so people don't come after me :c ) 2. Vil Schoenheit - This one comes as no surprise to me. Pretty boys who challenge gender stereotypes are RIGHT up my alley. Like Riddle, I think Vil has some great character writing is one of the more complex characters in the game. He just feels so compassionate to me?? I don't know how to explain it - he just gives such nurturing vibes. I'd trust this man with my drink at a bar fr fr. And then he tells Epel off for saying ballet is too "girly" for him?? Thank you TWST for bringing me this man. I pray at the altar of Vil Schoenheit. 3. Malleus Draconia - Doesn't Malleus top everyone's lists LOL I think my favoritism for the dragon man is more to do with his relationship with Yuu than anything else tbh. He's like one of three characters that actively engages with the main character and I think they've got such a fun relationship. Two people who feel very alone in the world finding friendship (or something more for you malleyuu shippers) in each other is so beautiful. I'm glad they can be there for each other like that. Side note: I adore romantic Malleyuu for sure, but I think it's equally as endearing if all of Malleus's flirtatious lines were never meant to be romantic but he's just really bad at communicating his feelings in a platonic way. Like, he doesn't mean to flirt he's just socially inept. 4. Ruggie Bucchi - Gremlin hyena boy is just too good for words. Ngl, I started off not really liking Ruggie all that much because of what he did in the Savanaclaw book. My mans was basically shoving people down flights of stairs?? I'm not really sure where the turn around happened tbh. Mischievous personality types do tend to draw me in in fiction so that probably has a lot to do with it. I also felt really bad for him at the end of the Savanaclaw book when Leona was ready to Thanos him out of existence despite everything Ruggie had done for him (and continues to do for him). I appreciate his work ethic, I can respect the hustle, and he's got such a cute little laugh. I wanna pet those big ole ears of his. Leona - pay this man more smh 5. Kalim Al-Asim - SUNSHINE BOY!!

He's such a breath of fresh air in this game LMAO. As much as I love the fact that most of the cast are unapologetically flawed, it's nice to have a few characters that are genuinely good people. His VA (Kazuki Furuta) absolutely kills it imo. I can hear his laugh in my head as I'm typing this - it's just so warm and happy :D He also breaks the sterotype of most rich characters in media by just being a nice person? He's not evil or greedy (although naive and entitled) and he just wants to be bffs with Jamil. Break his heart Jamil and we're gonna have WORDS. Also just like FORGAVE JAMIL??? His bfffl yeeted him across the desert, brainwashed him and admitted to wanting to get him kicked from the school and Kalim didn't really hold it against him. He was so understanding and sweet about everything AHHHHH

#I TOLD YOU I GET WORDY AJDKSAJD #twst #twisted wonderland #disney twisted wonderland #disney twst #twst riddle #riddle rosehearts #twst vil #vil schoenheit #malleus draconia #twst malleus #ruggie bucchi #twst ruggie #kalim al asim #twst kalim #cheekinrambles #thank you for the ask! #twst ask game

[mdhwrites]

Was Ratio a Good Free Five Star?

TL:DR All the things that make him look bad on paper as a free five star are exactly why he was frankly a FANTASTIC choice.

But I do mean it when I say that on paper he looks like Hoyo taking an L while we get left with Ratio. Not because he's bad though. For entrenched players like me, he was exciting. A main DPS that had to have a team comp that was pretty different from a lot of the other hyper carries out there since most supports, especially the hyper carry ones, don't do debuffs. If you try Tingyun and Bronya next to him, you'll often end up missing on MASSIVE damage since you need those three debuffs on the enemies. So who supports him best? That's an exciting question for someone with a wide variety of characters.

BUT.

A free five star like this is literally never for the entrenched players. It's a nice gift to them but this sort of thing is either a sign of desperation as they plead for old players to come back or it's a marketing trick to pull new players in. As Star Rail is still one of the best in its genre monetarily and Ratio was put out specifically because of all the awards it had just won, it was clearly the latter. A way to pull people in while the buzz around the game was big. Finally convert any last Genshin players who were on the fence while also finally moving people over from ALL the other team comp focused, turn-ish based gachas out there. A flex of dominance.

With that in mind... Think about who your first half a dozen, guaranteed characters are. Only half of Trailblazer has a debuff and it lasts one turn. March 7th has her freeze on her ultimate and that lasts for one turn. Dan Heng is the only member of the team with a debuff through his skill but it's only a two turn debuff and again: requires a skill point.

Then after that, the next three guaranteed are Asta, Serval and Natasha. Asta doesn't have a debuff without her trace ability to burn on basic meaning you have to get actually a decent bit into the game to actually get a debuff through her. Serval finally gives you a long lasting debuff with her Shock DoTs and can even extend those, making her not that skill point intensive. Then Natasha is, well... A healer who eventually dispels debuffs, not adds to them.

So two planets into the game and a new player could theoretically have a team of characters who all have debuff on skill but one of those debuffs lasts one turn and they ALL need to be using their skills most rounds in order to keep up the three debuffs to guarantee Ratio has good damage... On his skill. In a game where, unless you have a limited time 5 star that ISN'T free, you only have up to five skill points a round and that's only if you used a lot of basic attacks before hand. If you invest in her, you can swap one of them for Asta who I think would have her burn on basic to help but you'd still be running at a pretty extreme deficit mostly.

That is what you're guaranteed and so the shiny five star you were given, who was pushed towards you, is... Awkward. To put it mildly. Even potentially frustrating as every time you miss with his skill is a failure and feels AWFUL. Worse yet, you can so clearly see how he could work and how he could be strong!

And that's why he's amazing as the free five star.

I've jumped into plenty of long running gacha games that had guaranteed five stars or the like and do you know what happens? They make my brain turn off entirely for the starting content because they are usually demonstrably more powerful than anything else I have and the early game content wasn't designed around them. Even 3rd Impact, which I tried to get into now that it's on PC, has this problem where early on, they actually throw so many 5 star characters at you that you have to pick and choose between them instead of literally anyone else they give you early on. It's overwhelming but it also makes any curve of power just vanish as suddenly you are tackling content already meant to be easy with a character you don't have to think about with.

Ratio (and admittedly a lot of things about Star Rail) avoids this by being a character that requires characters who can work with him to function. He DEMANDS thought and in a way that leans into Star Rail's greatest strength: The fact that team comp matters. I could do an entire blog on how I think Star Rail is genuinely a breath of fresh air for turn based combat but this really is the big one for this blog. A new player is given this new five star who not only demands intelligence as a character trait but also for gameplay purposes. Can't figure out how to make him work? Then his gift is wasted on a fool like you. Maybe find someone a bit more your speed?

And as a Seele main who's only 5 star they used (besides Trailblazer) for over a month of play was Seele when the game came out... I wouldn't have wanted to be given Seele for free. Seele is a great character but she is monstrously powerful, even when played poorly. I don't even hyper carry with my Seele and I can tell you that she'll wreck house for a LONG time just on her own. She doesn't showcase the depth and strategy of the game, especially early on, and so a new player would just think that the game is simple and basic. They'd get bored with the character they potentially see as their win button and move on to a different game.

And for those stubborn enough to go "No, I am using Ratio!" then he becomes a goal. Not only does every limited 5 star that comes out suddenly look all the more appealing if they do debuffs (Boy was Kafka a fucking perfect pairing with Ratio's banner btw) but every four star is all the more exciting because hey, do they do debuffs? How many? How efficiently? How can they fit into the dream team that made me first get into the game?

Just by existing within a player's roster, one way or another, he raises questions about the game that ask the player to dive deeper into the mechanics of the game than they would have otherwise. Makes them think more about the early game, when it's going to be at its slowest, than most mobile games would ever even risk doing until they can hope sunk cost is keeping you there. He's not just a shiny trophy but an actual hook into players, old and new.

Frankly, if I had to say anything critical about choosing him, it's that he's just not had any good content associated with him. I think his quest, especially post 2.0, will mostly be a let down for any new players who came in partially because of him, especially if they decided to force him as their main. Admittedly, he's the like ONLY good thing about that quest (I could do a blog just about why that quest is bad) but even he doesn't get to shine in it. Penacony hasn't done him any favors either with his brief appearance so far. His writing is very strong though, easily some of the best of the smart characters in Star Rail, and his personality is interesting even in those appearances so they're not all bad, just that they could easily be disappointing to those new players who had to wait a while to get to see their boy in story.

But I suppose it had to falter somewhere. Hoyo has a tough act to follow if they ever give out a free five star for Star Rail again and keeping it in the realm of those who are simply intelligent, rather than having pulled off something only a genius could, is befitting for the good doctor. Have a good day everyone and until next tale.

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I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

#hsr #dr ratio #honkai star rail

[jacksprostate]

having finished rewatching the movie recently, me and @a-forsteri I think nailed down a little about what fundamentally is different about the dynamic between the narrator and Tyler in the book vs the movie. Beyond the book being more violent and dark and the narrator being much less reserved about participating in all of it, I mean.

Fundamentally, the strife between Tyler and the narrator in the book is the narrator's failure to commit to anything. Blowing up his old life — blew up his condo, still goes to work. Saying fuck you to his job — acts like shit, takes until Tyler intervenes to actually 'quit' (he doesn't but Tyler does kill his boss so basically). Hell, even hating his job — he does, plenty, but he stores all his feelings about his boss in Tyler and pretends Tyler's feelings have no source in him. Pursuing his ideal of changing things — joins and creates fight club, project mayhem, immediately backs out once Tyler is shown to not be real. He does project mayhem assignments, doesn't even quit his real job. Tyler does it. A gift to him. The thing he wanted to do before he died. Thinks about suicide constantly — doesn't actually kill himself, never fully lives, either. Killing Tyler — he tries repeatedly because he gets it in his head, but fails repeatedly until he shoots himself to evade the cops. And that in itself is arranged by Tyler. Tyler tries leaving the narrator and that does manage to make the narrator commit to being fucking annoying, but not much more. Still not actually making choices with impact. The narrator had to know the fight club men wouldn't kill him. He backed away from the edge. Tyler ultimately creates a circumstance to force the narrator to choose and commit to life or death. Tyler is trying to make the narrator better even if it means the narrator chooses to kill them and even if it means Tyler is the evil guy intending to martyr them — if that's what's needed for the narrator to choose, then fine.

In contrast, the movie focuses more on his inability to let go of his old life. Slide. Tyler will haul him kicking and screaming and one day the narrator will thank him. Tyler says relax, let me do what I'm doing. The narrator can't let go — gets cold feet about mayhem, can't imaine sex with Marla, quits his job but only on orders of his new boss. Refuses to grow beyond him. Dependent as always. He can't let go of it. Tyler gives him a near life experience, tells him about the future he is crafting for him, and leaves him to sleep as Tyler works to secure their future. All the narrator has to do is let it happen. Let himself become the person who is free to change his life. Let himself evolve and break things, stop clinging to his past. Again, Tyler is trying to make the narrator better. They are less separate— Tyler doesn't ever tell the narrator that he has essentially given up on him, they're going to live separate lives now, he says the narrator has to forget everything he knows about them. And when he tells the narrator the truth, he says we don't have time for this. He will hold the narrator down, he will put a gun to his head if that's what it takes to force the narrator to let go and let it all happen. It is all always steps in his plan. For the narrator.

Both Tylers, making little chrysalises.

Book Tyler? I don't know if he wants the narrator to become him. He's more independent. He still cares, the narrator is still his purpose, but it was the narrator's refusal of Tyler giving up on him that provoked Tyler to his artfully megalomaniac ending.

Movie Tyler, he does. He wants the narrator to grow, become what he wants to be. That's Tyler Durden. Maybe they merge. But The point is— if the narrator would let go of who he was, every step takes him closer to who he wants to be. Tyler. And Tyler has less actions that speak of his own desires and grown independence, even with how much he does and plans, because it's all for the narrator.

Tl;dr

Book: narrator's lack of commitment, more independent Tyler, narrator pushes them into the climax

Movie: narrator's unwillingness to let go, less of Tyler as an individual more as the vehicle for the narrator's enlightenment into him, Tyler pushes them into the climax

Both: Tyler ultimately acts to benefit the narrator as he sees it

#fight club #probably rambly

[hyperanaemia]

Sorry, I don't mean to disappear for months, but I've been getting back into reading comics after taking a super long break to play bg3. So, I've finally gotten around to reading the Knight Terrors: Robin issues that have been sitting in my 'to read' box months after they've been relevant. I’m sure everyone else had a bunch to say when it came out but here’s my two cents. 

The issues just really fall flat to me. Like, I wasn't expecting a two-shot to be a deep dive into Tim's dead-dad trauma or anything, but I do feel like it misses what the core fear/horror that surrounds Jack's death is. 

Like, the KT issues posset that what Tim fears the most is failing to save people, with his dad's death being the figurehead of that. That this failure is what makes him unworthy of being Robin. I'm not going to say that isn't true, that reasoning definitely factors into Tim's trauma. But it also just feels basic to me.

Like, 'failing to save a loved one' is one of the most basic superhero tropes at this point. I'd be hard pressed to think of a hero who hasn't failed to save someone they know. It might as well be a rite of passage.  

(In fact, here's a panel of Tim thinking as such about his parents in an issue literally called Rites of Passage.) 

Also, Tim has already had a 'crisis of faith' arc after failing to save someone with the character of Eldon Adams (Young El). It had a very big impact on Tim and the fallout of that lasted for several issues.

Identity Crisis certainly has its flaws and at times I question the need to kill off Jack in the first place. But, to me anyway, Jack's death is beautifully written and manages to tie his and Tim's decades-long storyline off in an interesting way. 

The important point to make about Tim in relation to all this is that he chooses to be Robin. He was never picked, he was never fated, he was not born to do it. Robin is something he actively chooses to be. At first, it's an easy choice to make. Tim reasons that since his parents are off doing their own thing it won’t be an issue if he’s gone all the time. But, as time goes on, Jack starts spending more time at home, wanting to spend more time with Tim. The issue "resolves" in this instance by having Jack's time get taken up when he starts dating Dana Winters. But this tension continues to be a major subplot throughout Tim’s series. Tim and Jack’s already strained relationship is constantly made worse by Robin.     

Tim feels guilty that his duty as Robin keeps getting in the way of his relationships. Tim's friends like Ives and Ariana are constantly stood up or brushed aside. Anything that ties Tim to the normal life he used to have is always being balanced against Robin. And for as much as Tim tries to maintain it, for as much as he says his normal life is what keeps him grounded when push comes to shove Tim always ends up choosing Robin.  

The thing that makes Jack's death different from all the other parental deaths in the Batfam, and the Identity Crisis did right, is that they made it a direct consequence of Tim choosing to be Robin. Bruce's parents were killed at random. Dick's were targeted in a situation outside of his control. Jason's mother was killed for her involvement with the Joker, which started before he even met her (and his dad with Two-Face).  

Jack was killed because his son was Robin. In Identity Crisis, Jean Loring targets the family members of heroes. She never would have hired Captain Boomerang to kill Jack if Tim wasn't Robin.  

(Obviously, none of this is to minimize any of these characters' pain or to say one is worse than another.)   

The added twist of the knife is that Tim had been spending that week with Jack instead of helping everyone find the killer. It's the one night that Tim chooses to go out as Robin again that Jack is killed. If Tim had stayed just one more night, even just one more hour, he could have saved his dad. And Jack lets him go because he knows how important Robin is to Tim.

This is more of an aside, I love this sequence of Tim ripping off his Robin uniform. Like obviously the intention is that Tim can't be seen wearing it when the police arrive. But the subtext to me reads that Tim is ripping Robin off, this thing that's come between them at every moment. Tim, before he even knows if Jack is alive or dead, doesn't want Robin to come between them anymore.

And Jack's death is something of a 'point of no return' for Tim. Before this, many of the people who know Tim is Robin have pointed out that he could always return to a normal life if he wanted to. Tim himself believes that he'll probably retire being Robin at some point. (I have my own thoughts that aren't relevant here about how that's more about him being practical as opposed to his genuine wish for his future, but I digress.) But after this, Tim is locked into the vigilante life. There's nothing normal he could return to. If he can’t be good at this, then what was the point? 

KT Robin just feels uninspired. It doesn't try to extract what makes Jack's death unique or interesting. It just picks the most surface-level takeaway you could have from it. Like, it's not just about being not good enough for the job. It's losing everything because you chose to do this job and you still don't know if you're good enough to do it.

#sephs comic reading tag #tim drake #jack drake #my 'in order' reading list has me around the start of Cataclysm right now #and it's been a few months since I've read Id Crisis so forgive me if I'm misremembering anything

[lilithspade]

Percy Jackson & the Olympians episode 7 spoilers

If you asked me which part of the books I would cut from the series adaptation I would’ve told you definitely Procrustes. The thing is… Uncle Rick made sure that the whole scene with Procrustes wasn’t just a dumb trap on the side of the road like on the books. No, it was a confrontation between brothers about the theme that permeated the entire season, that is: how ridiculously f*ked up and dysfunctional the Olympian family is. And it’s amazing!

Having Grover lose the fourth pearl links with how he always gets the blame for himself in the first book due to his failure with Thalia. It works to remind us that he feels like he should be the most responsible person of the group, but can still make mistakes. And, seriously, it’s lot more in character for Poseidon to give them four pearls.

Somehow this adaptation makes me feel like the characters make a lot more sense than the original work they come from. Sally teaching Percy about Greek mythology from a young age sounds a lot more like Sally than just letting him grow up completely clueless about what he’ll have to face someday. Having her praying to Poseidon when she sees no other choice, and having him coming immediately to answer her, but not dare to see Percy in fear of the consequences looks a lot more like the Poseidon that loves Percy, but preferred to keep a distance for his safety. It sounds a lot more like the god that is still in love with Sally, but doesn’t want her involved in the family drama.

And can I have a round of applause for the most accurate depiction of Hades in recent history?! This man is just chilling in his house, living his best life away from the family drama, the dysfunctionality. He’s just thriving in his realm, alongside his wife (for half the year) and his dog, you know. Hades is just vibing, sipping his wine and watching his siblings fight over the most ridiculous things through TVHepheastus. And I love him for it!

This entire episode the only thing I was thinking is just how it’s all within the adaptation theme and all just makes so much sense for all the characters. Even the small chances they made for the adaptation had a positive impact that left me thinking it actually makes more sense if this character had made it this way in the source material too.

#resenha #spoilers #pjo tv show #pjo series #ramblings #rick riordan #percy jackon and the olympians