#but I’m just conflicted because I don’t like that my fp could be in the wrong I don’t like that | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

therhythmafterthesummer · 5 months

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Hello my dearest rhythm, I am back with my (still messy) thoughts on FPS part 2 🥹

First of all, i had to reread it cuz the first time that i saw it was after a day (or days) of hectic training when i just wanted to shut off my brain but i saw that u updated and my whole world sTOPPED, i swear i held my breath and thought i was hallucinating the new part 😭 i’ve been waiting for it for so long and it’s definitely worth it 🥹😭

I might babble a lot about it so if anyone hasn’t read it, pls don’t read this cuz it will have spoilers 😭

I WAS NOT PREPARED TO EXPERIENCE THE CONFLICT IN HIS HEAD WHEN THE REVEAL HAPPENED 😭😭😭😭😭 literally, i was holding my breath,, i wanted to cry too 🥹 MY BABIES, why should the world make them meet like that 😭 they just wanted to love and be loved huhu i hate u (i love u so much pls i know it hurt u too). Knowing everything that was going on in his head, gosh, I’m so crushed. I want to hold him and tell him it’s okay because he didn’t know it was her 😭 akshjsdjjdskbsjsjx

“The fact that you wouldn’t take his life puzzled him. How could you not want him dead? After all that had transpired, why wouldn’t you?” ——BECAUSE I LOVE YOU GOD DAMMIT 😭🤕🥹

“and if you’d been fine with it, he wanted to ask you to move in with him.” —nO WAIT STOP PLS,😭 i’m beyond wrecked and i haven’t even gone thru half of the story yet.

The flashback to their first date 🥺🥺🥺 i wanna scream. Knowing how both of their lives were filled with chaos, them being able to find peace and comfort with each other is just sooooo wholesome. WHICH HURTS EVEN MORE WHEN I REALIZE ITS JUST A FLASHBACK——brb gonna go sob in a corner. “If I tried to kiss you… would you let me?”——😭😭😭😭😭i love love love how they get so spontaneous and relaxed with each other. I love how you wrote about it between the lines of their stressfully calculated and rigid line of work 🥹

3 freakin’ months of no contact 😭 i wonder what happened to MC then. Although you did write a bit about her forfeiting her mission and also, technically, her spot in the Guild, I wonder what she was thinking after everything. Three months is a (kind of) long time, and I guess like Chris, she would’ve been wondering all of her what-if’s. Did she ever think about contacting him too? Did she ever considered his side of the story? idk i’m just hurting with them at this point.

—i’m gonna skip the reunion but just know that i screamed and held my breath and punched the wall and banged my head on the desk and— yeah

The honesty and vulnerability between them is just so pure. The way they both pined for normalcy with each other is just *chef’s kiss* 🤍 i love them so much, it hurts how much shit they went thru even before they met 🥺 i’m not gonna spoil much about the rest of the story but i just want you to know that i loooove how you wrote them. Their stories feel so real to me and their emotions were very well conveyed. I love how the story went and, to be honest, i don’t think i mind the ending being open as much as I initially thought. (tho i wouldn’t complain if ur brain lizard decides otherwise— 👀)

Aaaahck my babies 🤍🖤 thank you for publishing this new part!! I hope you have a really nice day :> hugs!!

~🍓

plssss this is so detailed kjfhsdjfshfdkijsjikd

that whole first scene recounting the reveal from his POV hurt me more than you can imagine. every time i sat down to write this story i felt like my heart was being squeezed (which was exactly what i was looking for sdjfhskdfh). Chris really just wanted to have that bit of peace he had with his girlfriend and it was ripped away from him ))):

as for what happened on the MC's side during those three months... i'm sure she almost called him several times, but, just like Chris, i don't think she was ready to face him. she had hurt him and tried to kill him (before she knew it was him, ofc), so she probably had to process all that, plus the fact that she couldn't finish her mission at all (which i'm sure was a whole different problem in itself). essentially, both her heart and her pride was hurt, and, honestly, if she hadn't heard those people talking about picking up her failed mission, i feel like she wouldn't have reached out at all (or at least not that "soon").

everything that happened at Chris' flat after they met again was very therapeutic to write for some reason??? idk, i feel like i was able to let a lot of feelings out writing this story in general, so i'm glad some of those feelings were conveyed well.

i really wanted to leave the ending a bit open so the reader could interpret what could happen next. they could run away together, one of them could retire, Chris could try to get the Kims to pardon her, or (for those that want a bit more angst) maybe you can even imagine she is deceiving him still, trying to fulfil her goal and that's why she came back... the possibilities are endless atp haha. all i know for sure is that i wanted to end this story with them together, so i did!

thank you for reading this, and for your thorough feedback. i'm glad you liked it💜💜💜

#🍓 anon #ask #fps ask

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askaborderline · 2 years

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I split really on my FP a couple of days ago and it's still going on and I don't know what to do. My life has gone downhill in its entirety whilst my FP is living life to its fullest, partying and having fun and not being incredibly depressed like I am. I hate her so much when I know I really don't, I'm just incredibly jealous of how perfect her life is. It's not, really, she has issues I take seriously, but it's nothing compared to what I'm going through so I split anyway. I'm not quite sure what to do, I don't want to upset her with how I'm feeling in general. She puts up with so much stuff from me just in the form of BPD.

Hi anon,

First of all, this sounds really difficult and I’m sorry! Feelings can be overwhelming, confusing and conflicting.

Is it helpful to talk to her on the phone, or is that an option? For me, when I am feeling a certain way towards someone, it's easy to feel it over text but hearing someone's voice or seeing them in person kind of makes it disappear. If that doesn’t work for you, then please completely disregard it because it could make things worse for you.

It sounds like the why you split is related to jealousy if I’m reading this right? (Super valid by the way, just checking). I know it’s hard but approaching things with a view point that what someone is going through is “nothing compared to you” isn’t a fair way to look at things, and I’m sure you know that but sometimes we need to hear these things from someone else. While her experience is different than yours, it’s her experience. She has no way of knowing what you’re going through, and that’s not her fault, but I’m sure her issues feel really real to her and since they’re all she knows, her perspective and feelings on them could be similar to things that you see as “worse” just because she doesn’t have the same baseline as you do. Your feelings are valid, they really are, but part of this might be re-focusing your thoughts on “nothing compared to what I’m going through.” You need to look at her experience, not as how you would react to it, but that she is her own person and has her own feelings that are unique to her.

It sounds cliche, but focusing you rather than her is important. What can you do to improve your life? I recommend looking into the ABC skill for DBT.

Does it help to think of good times? When I split, I tend to flip through screenshots where the other person has made me smile, laugh or feel good. And sometimes rationalizing that they are overall really good to me can help me overcome it.

I also find communication can help. Sometimes, my partner says something that really upsets me. He doesn't mean to. And he hasn't even said anything wrong. I usually tell him that "hey, I know this isn't rational, but I'm feeling hurt/upset/angry about ___". Sometimes talking about the feeling helps me "release" it if that makes sense, and he can provide reassurance. So it might be worth talking to her about things and giving her a chance to support you and be there for you if that’s what you want. With that said, think about what you’d want from her. It’s valid to ask for her help, but knowing how she can help can be important. I find I am really willing to help others but I don’t know how. (With that said, of course if she can’t help you, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t care. It depends on how you want that help and whether she’s capable of meeting that.)

You are valid, anon. And I hope it gets easier for you.

Edit: I missed reassuring you that you’re not a bad person at all for feeling this way and I should have made sure I said that. You aren’t a bad person for feeling this way, and struggling with jealousy is normal.

#answered #splitting #jealousy #Mod April #AAB

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tiredassmage · 1 year

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Memo to future me: there is a reason you avoided pubside Makeb like a plague (it’s long, not particularly my favorite segment of gameplay, why the hell do I always forget the last droid’s second move is an instakill (bc you’ve done this maybe twice, @ myself), dude I just got here give me more than 3 seconds to orient myself). Would not recommend doing again, self akfnlksafdnlkdsfdsf. Rhyst is finally free, but I forgot prelude to SOR is the two back to back FPs and I just don’t have that in me tonight.

So!!!! Back to impside Makeb I guess!!! Because Savosta is also there. I’ve also decided I’m maybe a bit into the utterly doomed bonkers vibes of impside Makeb, like... depending on who you put on that mission, it really can feel like a death sentence - for you as much as it was a bit more obviously to the rest of the crew.

This brought to you by my belated re-rotating of it for Tyr bc I always return to him sooner or later and that made me realize I could probably come up with at least one half-valid reason why the Empire might be displeased with each of the impside characters (or at least certain parties, power plays, y’know) and I distinctly remember Tyr sitting through that briefing thinking ‘what the fuck’ and like particularly with him, it just hits some kind of way.

Think, no Black Codex, Intelligence disbanded, nobody in on him being a double agent for the SIS now anyway, and then a Dark Councilor - y’know, the Dark Council that already thought you were too big for your britches once and thought you should be dead, was swayed just narrow margin into just brainwashing instead - puts him on a seemingly backwater mission for the war effort with ‘failure is not an option’ as a condition. Doesn’t exactly spell the most cozy briefing, and then he gets planetside and finds out the whole damn place is coming apart is like ‘ahaha! nobody mentioned that when i agreed to this!!!!’ And, naturally, any perceived failure is on you. But, I also like the note that Makeb is one of the last good bits Intelligence did dig up, so there’s almost a sense of duty to be there for him. Tyr’s loyalties haven’t been simple since his success on Hutta, I guess, lol.

Then again, I say this, and Savosta doesn’t take it that way, but he’s the Emperor’s Wrath, so he at least has the position to back up any swings back he’d make, if he felt the need to remind everyone of his position again. But he did have to prove himself for that position.

So, it’s a matter of perspective, but it’s a wider variety than the easy, Republic hero go be a good Republic rep and save Makeb! That’s obvious.

Anyway, tldr is probably just me writing another open love letter to the complications of my impside characters. I love you bastards with your conflicted loyalties and troubled identities.

#dot talk #dot plays the star war #continuing to realize my impside toons have taken over my life and i can't even be mad bc i just love them #them and their many many problems tbh #their many layers and the many layers to everything that happens to them and around them #rotating them in my head like rotisserie chickens bc i'm obsessed with their morphing identities and challenges

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funkymbtifiction · 3 years

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Please, help me understand Fi more.

Hello! I hope you are enjoying your day!

I was hoping that could help me understand xSFP types and Fi types in general better, because as an ENFJ most of them seem reckless, annoying and egotistical to me. It’s easy to resonate with some of their fears and desires, however, I don’t really get them.

E.g.: in ‘Shadow and Bone’ Alina Starkov’s whole personality is a huge red flag. It is quite difficult to understand how one can think only about herself (and Mal sometimes) when there are much stronger forces at work and you can feel that historical events are literally at your doorstep. It’s quite surprising to see Alina not making any effort(she doesn’t really want to know other Grisha or train or even think about what is going to happen). She gets a chance to feel normal, to fit in, to have a kind of family with other mages, and yet…

As you have probably guessed, I have no problem understanding Kirigan’s intentions, but I would like to understand Fi a bit better, as there a lot of main characters with Fi.

Thanks in advance.

I am enjoying my day, thanks. I got done with work early, and realized I’m exhausted, though, so I doubt I’ll get much more ‘productivity’ done today.

SFP / SP types “live in the moment” and focus on what is immediately in front of them; they don’t see or look for the big picture, and whatever Ni flashes of insight they have are rational “sequence of order” premonitions. For that reason, you cannot judge them from an NF big-picture perspective, because their focus is here and now. Sometimes, they are reckless; other times, they are “on point” and skilled at seeing what is coming and doing something about it (either being part of it, or getting the hell out of Dodge).

I had a conversation with a friend one time about Marie Antoinette, as we debated whether she was ESFP or ISFP, and she pointed out that Marie could not have been ESFP, or she would have had a quicker sense of the reality of her situation. One of her ladies in waiting, an ESFP, saw what was happening and the way the trend was moving toward beheading aristocrats and left France. Marie was swept up in it all, and a casualty of it, because her feelings (subjectivity) outweighed her Se objectivity.

That is, in a nutshell, what is happening with Alina. Her personal feelings are directing every decision she makes. You have to “get” her not only from an ISFP perspective, but a 6 perspective, and factor in that she’s a social-blind Enneagram type. Her feelings are all that matter to her. Her feelings dictate her actions. Who she cares about influences her choices. She is a Fi-dom. Fi-doms have barometers that are in flux between “I love this,” “I hate this,” and “I don’t care.” For love, they love a lot. For hate, they loathe. And for the “I don’t care,” there’s no middle ground, and no need to think about it further, because they really do not care. Fi weighs everything according to itself – what its ethical judgment is about this thing, person, situation, belief, etc. How *I* judge it.

Alina is an orphan who has only ever had her best friend, and she is ripped away from him without any choice in the matter, and forced to attend a magical school where the only other person who seems to care about her, and offer her protection and guidance (the same thing Mal did) is the general. She’s an sx-user – if she doesn’t have fire with someone, she doesn’t “bond” with them. She’s an sp-user, she wants to feel safe and keep herself “okay.” She has no social instinct, which means friends aren’t to be made for “casual reasons.” (To be honest, that baffles me to; I have strong soc and not to make friends, take an interest in the other girls at the school, and think about what my role is would never occur to me.) She is a Se user, so she’s thinking about what is immediate and what she wants rather than seeing the bigger picture. It takes her time to start doing that, to start breaking down things and trusting her Ni, and by the end, she has a sense of her place of “belonging” in the world, but it’s still… about the person she cares about the most. It will always be that way.

She’s a Fi-dom, she has sx, and she’s a 6 – she NEEDS Mal. The story is all about a 6 learning to trust herself and do things for herself, rather than relying on other people all the time; like the Darkling’s mother said, you can’t always be using “amplifiers” (other people), you need to do it yourself. Every 6 must learn this. She’s about her connection to Mal (and later, the Darkling) and protecting that person; that is the central focus and drive of her life: I need you and me to be safe, and to be together. Other ISFPs aren’t like this. Harry Potter is one, and he takes on plenty of things that are “not his problem” because his Fi says, “Wait a damn minute here… this is WRONG. I MUST ACT.” SFPs act on what they feel is right – you see it in Harry Potter, in Buffy Summers, in Legolas Greenleaf, in Thomas from the Maze Runner. Feelings lead to action.

Fe/Fi conflicts a lot, and it’s not hard to see why, because it’s going in opposite directions. FJs want to be situationally-appropriate, FPs want to live their truth. FJs feel like they are obligated to society, to put themselves aside and work for a greater good; FPs feel like society is made up of individuals who should make their own choices, and not be “forced” to do anything. For an FP, it’s a choice of “*I* am going to do this, because it’s the RIGHT thing to do.” Consider Frodo in LotR. He didn’t have to take the ring, and throw his entire life into the toilet in the process, but he decided, with his Fi, it is the Right and Moral thing to do, and that the task should be his. The Ring came to him. It’s his responsibility.

Alina was not given a choice; she was revealed to have magic, and forced away from the man she cared about, her entire life uprooted – and it was not her choice. IFPs just want to live their life free of outside interference and for others to be able to do the same. Some of them are selfish, some are generous. Some of them would make friends, others would not. Some of them would say, “I have a responsibility to society to do X,” others would say “X is not my problem.” It’s all dependent on the individual. That’s what you need to remember about Fi: it’s all subjective. Everything for a Fi is subjective. You won’t find two Fi’s who are exactly alike in terms of what they think is right, if they feel responsible for what happens, or what should happen. They live in a world of a continuous testing of the outer world, to see where their barometer arrow swings. Do I care? If so, what am I going to do about it? If not, then what?

Ironically, an INFP introduced me to this show. As it turns out, her Fi only cares about the trio of Crows, so she watched it focused on them and sometimes felt angry about the changes to the book / their characters; she didn’t care about anything else, so she didn’t absorb it (or even necessarily watch other scenes). I watched it, absorbed everything, but only cared about the Darkling’s arc, as I found him the most interesting. As a result, we have nothing to talk about after seeing the show, since she only cares about the Crows and I don’t care about the Crows. For both of us, the viewing process was a process of looking for something to care about, something that means something to us as individuals, and devaluing everything else. That’s how Fi works: if I care, I care a lot. And this matters more to me than that does. It comes with a subtle tone of dismissal at times -- I don’t care about that -- but it’s really a process of what draws Fi.

That is just the tip of the iceberg about Fi; you can read a lot more about them and all the types in my upcoming MBTI book. ;)

#question #mbti #isfp #alina #shadow and bone #submission

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sometipsygnostalgic · 3 years

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Steven Universe - How the show fails to handle emotion, irrationality, and trauma

I have a better understanding of why SU is the way it is now. Why it is very dramatic, and why the characters often act in ways that are entirely out of proportion

When making a critical post about the handling of Flame Princess in Adventure Time, /u/samhadj01 attributed part of the problem to be that Rebecca Sugar was responsible for Flame Princess’s conceptualizing, and wrote her and Finn the same way that she writes SU characters - in a heightened emotional state, where they are feeling the EXTREMES of their emotions at all times, yelling at the top of their voice when angry, crying their eyes out when sad, and hurting each other. The reddit user said this made it difficult for the writers to figure out where to take Flame Princess next.

I challenged this reddit post’s claim that Rebecca writing FP’s first episodes meant that the crew didn’t know what to do with her. There is a lot of oversight in the AT crew, and Rebecca was just one cog in the wheel, even if she was full of ideas that ended up getting used. If she came up with a bad idea it would be the responsibility of her colleagues to put it back on track, and I don’t even think FP’s initial portrayal is the problem - the issue is she was completely marginalized after the fact, and bizarrely rewritten to lose her early immaturity without there being enough progression into that new stage. Following this she was basically written out of the show, with the exception of when she’d be useful to show off another character’s development (Finn, PB, even Cinnamon Bun).

WITH THAT BEING SAID, I thought Samhadj made a good point about SU.

Rebecca Sugar always loved writing music into her stories because it was the purest form of expression. You can hear how much love she puts into her music. She wanted to create a show where she could really sell emotions, where she could fill it up with songs that the characters would sing to express themselves and their troubled feelings. She wanted all the characters to be expressive, emotional, angry. She wanted Steven to be a character that helps everyone else learn to deal with their emotions, much like how her brother Steven helped her, as she’s said before.

The issue is that, in order to facilitate this, she would need to write characters who would BE in these conflicts, feel heightened emotions at all times.

So Rebecca conceptualized the gem species.

Even though they take the form of adults, the gems are incredibly stunted. They remain the same for thousands of years. They are not equipped to process emotional trauma, having lived in a society where you have to cover up all your flaws and feelings at the risk of being shattered. The show follows several Crystal Gems who rebelled against this system, but still haven’t figured out what it means to be free from this systematic oppression. They’re trying to live peacefully, but they’re prisoners still, in their hearts.

Steven is the catalyst for change that points out the things that upset them, and forces them to deal with their emotions. He acts as emotional support and encourages the crystal gems to grow. Steven also has much growing up to do himself. He has to confront the truth about what it means to BE a crystal gem, to have inherited the gem of the person who started the revolution, and Steven over time learns how messed up everything is. He is overcome with the desire to fix it, while still learning about himself.

Why is this sort of storytelling a problem?

For the characters to have heightened emotions all the time, it means they have to keep getting in conflicts that reveal these emotions. It is these conflicts that make the show feel overdramatic and edgy - how characters will lash out and hurt each other, all the time, because they had a bad day, or something reminded them of something that hurt them.

More urgently, who they are lashing out against. While the Crystal Gems hurting each other in season 1 makes sense, it is when they start taking things out on Steven himself that things become straight up toxic.

Steven has to bear the brunt of EVERYONE’s problems, AND his own. He chases after Pearl in “Rose’s Scabbard” and nearly falls to his death while she ignores him, he fights with Amethyst when she is insecure about Jasper, he has to deal with Ruby and Sapphire’s fighting. He has to deal with all the townies and their stupid conflicts as well, Lars and Sadie’s fighting, so on. And ON TOP OF ALL THIS, people are trying to kill him all the time!!!!! But he is getting absolutely no meaningful support, and this is obvious, because the show itself acknowledges this later on.

You start to ask the question, is this even worth doing? The characters around Steven display incredible immaturity, and after a certain point, they stop feeling like heroes. They feel like leeches who are taking advantage of a young boy.

Things get RIDICULOUS in the final season. Even after the episodes where Amethyst acknowledged the shitty status quo of everyone leaning on him, Steven then has to deal with the emotional problems of the Diamonds themselves, who it turns out lashed out the entire GALAXY because they didn’t know how to talk about their feelings?! For millions of years?!?! To be turned around by one teenage boy, even after a revolution where many of their gems expressed why they were wrong???!!!

I think it was these final episodes of Steven Universe that completely shattered any remaining suspension of disbelief about the diamonds.

I’m no alien to ancient, immortal characters in charge of millions demonstrating incredible immaturity. Look at Princess Bubblegum and Marceline. Marceline would lean closer to the Amethyst side of the spectrum where she lashes out against everyone, while PB would be on the Pearl or Diamonds side where she’d pretend to act all rational and coolheaded and then do something insanely bad like crash a wedding or manipulate children. Pretty yikes, even up to the finale. However, the difference is that AT is a more lighthearted wacky show where immaturity can slide for jokes, and most of the issues these characters have are inward facing. They identify and work on their problems themselves, with some support but not much interference from outside. They also do NOT act crazy all the damn time, and have plenty of moments before, during, and after their development where they are fully supportive friends. I enjoyed learning more about these characters and their pasts, because the immaturity never broke my suspension of disbelief.

The DIAMONDS, on the other hand, never get any sort of character development. I was excited to learn more about their creation, and how they came to be these insanely powerful beings that controlled a fascist society where emotion is not allowed. Why is it this way? Why do they want to keep it like this?

We never find out. We just see Steven embarrassing White Diamond after she attempts to murder him, and then she immediately goes full 180 redemption. It makes no damn sense!

Steven Universe Future attempts to address the issues with everyone Steven knows being emotionally dependent on him, but Future forgoes genuine themes about healing in favour of its edgy focus on how Steven has become “damaged”.

I was shocked watching SU Future’s first few episodes. I was astounded that the show would deconstruct itself so thoroughly, and have Steven address the exact things that were on MY mind. He realised that he’d been used.

How ballsy is that for the show to have the protagonist literally tear it to pieces in the final few episodes?

However, any hopes for Steven directly addressing these issues, communicating with his friends and HEALING were dashed about half way through, when he only kept escalating. Steven got so outraged that he shattered Jasper, and attempted to kill White Diamond while also injuring himself. He started to see himself as a monster. He becomes a murderer. He turns into a kaiju at the end since that’s how his perception of himself is different.

I was really disappointed that the show had wasted its entire runtime to build this up.

The emotion that Rebecca Sugar was trying to capture was Steven’s pain, anger, the disconnect he had with his friends.

Future did not spend ANY time in demonstrating that Steven’s friends were acknowledging his pain. In fact, quite the opposite - they kept dismissing all of his feelings about Ruby and Aquamarine, and Greg was revealed as The Literal Worst when he thought his perfectly normal conservative upbringing was way worse than Steven literally getting tortured by aliens every other day and having no friends or education. When Steven has his breakdown, they all cROWD him and start yelling at him. They have absolutely no regard for Steven’s boundaries at all. It’s almost like Steven’s friends are P-zombies at this stage.

I did not like how Steven was portrayed as a dangerous, out-of-control killer. It’s not just that he SAW himself as this - it’s literally what he was. You can do bad things because of your trauma, but it won’t turn you into a monster. If you act like a monster, that is your responsibility.

And then the series ends with the hug, but we do not see Steven’s actual healing process or reconnecting with his friends. We only get a brief goodbye episode.

After watching Obsidian, I cannot help but compare these scenarios. Obsidian was about Marceline healing from her emotional trauma. It was still very much a part of her, but she was learning to recognise when it was damaging her life, and communicate with others about it. It’s about learning to accept your cracks.

If SU Future had been about dealing with trauma properly and healing, it could have been the best series on Cartoon Network, and fully redeemed the weaknesses of the original show.

However, Rebecca and the SU crew decided to focus too much on Steven’s pain, and Future ended up exacerbating the issues of the show.

#steven universe #steven universe future #adventure time

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paragonrobits · 3 years

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A friend asked me to give a stab at a Tierlist Maker for Video Games Not Yet In the Video Game Hall of Fame Tier List Maker, so here's my list for it!

This is based primarily on what I considered to be overall value to gaming history as a whole, with games with greater influence or impact ranking higher than those that had less impact on those to follow, or on culture. All the entries are those that have been nominated to the Hall of Fame, but not actually inducted as of this post's writing. Games that I personally like are generally rated higher, though mostly because I'm more familiar with them and thus can judge their impact from a personal POV.

(Tier List explainations, below!)

SHOULD BE IN ALREADY

Final Fantasy: I mean seriously. How is this one not already in yet?? It is not, as my research suggests, the first true RPG; that likely goes to games like Ultima. It is certainly an incredibly influential one; FF is a name closely associated with JRPGs in general, and its diverse class system is one of the strongest things to do with it, as noted by challenges like beating the game with a party of Black Belts. FF is THE name of RPGs in general and I'm startled it hasn't made it in, though I suppose that's owing to more notable entries (Hard as that is to imagine). It doesn't hurt that the majority of my favorite FF titles are those most similar to this one, such as FF6 and FF9, in terms of approaching the general world setting and class systems. Most significantly is that this game popularized RPGs and made them accessible, in ways that previous games such as Dragon Warrior/Dragon Quest did not; the field of gaming would be VERY different without it; RPGs became VERY popular, to the extent of RPG elements being almost universal among other games in the modern day. (I am also pleased and amused to see 8-Bit Theater mentioned on the actual Wikipedia page. Now THAT'S notability!)

Sid Meir's Civilization: HEY NOW HALL OF FAME JUDGES, DON'T YOU BE MOCKING CIV, ALRIGHT. CIV IS FUCKING AWESOME. Okay, jokes aside, I'm genuinely astonished as the Civ series is considered the first true main game of the 4x series, and it shows; the entire genre centers around expansion, resource usage and diplomacying or conquering your enemies, and considering the impact of this game and its sheer popularity, to the extent of the meme of the game getting people to play for Just One More Turn, I'm a bit disappointed that it's not already in the hall of fame. I also note that I am personally more familiar with the spin off Alpha Centauri, a sci fi variant, which is still one of my all time favorite games.

Half-Life: Given this game's popularity, to the point of its release alone consigning the likes of Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines to cult classic status and its engine spawning a whole THING with GMod and the usage of physics mechanics in FPS games, one thing of note is its use of scripted sequences; at the time, an unknown in most games of the time. There may be something to be said for how the entire game is spent as Gordon Freeman, behind his eyes, possibly engendering a lack of separation between self and character that would be later emphasized in games like Bioshock. It's influence on games cannot be denied, with publications using it as a bookend between eras of gaming. One consistent element of what seems to make this game so distinctive is its approach to storytelling, without simply imitating film techniques which don't always work well with gameplay.

Candy Crush: This is an example of something I don't personally play myself, or even like very much, but I'd be remiss to dismiss it out of hand. There's no denial that phone games are one of, if not THE biggest market of games in the here in now; if now in scale, certainly in quantity. You might call it the TF2 Hat Economy theory; people aren't spending BIG bucks, but they are spending a LOT of little bucks all the time. It proves that highly accessible games that are generally free to play, with optional purchases, are a legitimate means of game business, and this certainly revolutionized how games were seen by the money-makers.

Super Smash Bros Melee: I loved this game as a kid, but truth be told i have a bit of a love-hate relationship; i REALLY dislike the competitive community that has fixated hard on this game, so any thoughts on it will have a slight element of pause beforehand. Even so, I can't forget the thrilled delight I felt watching the trailer for this game in supermarkets for the first time as a kid. at a time when getting any new games at all was a HUGE deal in my family. So, there is a lot of feeling behind this one! Ultimately, I have to concede that while i have complicated feelings about this game, its worth noting that the vast majority of things that made Smash iconic, and influenced the competitive scene AND the games inspired by Smash AND shaped the course of the series going forwards, largely owe themselves to Melee in particular. 64 was far more slow paced, while Melee began the trend towards much more fast paced action (and while I doubt it's SPECIFIC to melee as a whole, it may have been a trend for the genre from then). Melee is STILL widely played, especially on the competitive scene, and this sort of longevity always bears evidence of notability.

Goldeneye 007: I have to admit that despite being a kid in the 90s, despite someone who put most of their time into gaming, and despite being someone whose favorite system at the time was the Nintendo 64, I mostly missed out on the trend of history by honestly not being that much into this game. I have to say that I DID play it, however; I just never managed to get past the first level or so. I have strong memories of triyng and failing to sneak around a snowy lair of some description; it wouldn't be until the mid-2000s, playing Deus Ex Human Revolution, that I got the hang of stealth. All the same, personal indifference really doesn't matter much because HOLY SHIT THIS GAME HAS SOME STAYING POWER. IT HAS INFLUENCE, FRIENDORITOS. Perhaps chiefly, at the time it was made, consoles were not considered viable platforms for first person shooters; Goldeneye revised that notion, and created a whole revolution in multiplayer and shooter games. We would later see the ultimate consequence of this in games like Halo, which further revolutionized the whole genre. Ironically, the stealth attributes I was so bad at were part of what made the game so unique! It's one of those games that may not have aged well, by modern standards, but its import to gaming as a whole goes a long, long way.

Guitar Hero: I expect this one might be a bit hard to justify, but on its own, this game is INCREDIBLY innovative, though its not entirely the first of its kind, having mechanics based on earlier games. The very first entry has a respectable library of 30 songs, which is impressive considered at the time it was made, its not likely people expected it to get as far as it did; bear in mind that the massive libraries of later games were the result of years of this game series being a massive steamroller of a franchise! At the time, this one was an unknown. It has an interesting history as being a successor of sorts to an arcade exclusive, and inspiring a genre of imitators and spiritual successors on its own; of great note is the sheer impact this game had. With so many of those successors, the increased value of liscened soundtracks, and the way the game's concept became so influential, its astounding this one isn't already on the hall of fame. (It's also very fun, but fun alone doesn't make for memorability, sad to say.)

DESERVES IT AT SOME POINT

Myst - an iconic and incredibly atmospheric puzzle game, I'm genuinely surprised that I haven't heard talk about this one in some respect; it bears note as a rare game with absolutely no conflict whatsoever. I actually rank this one on par with the 7th Guest in terms of atmospheric games, though their tones could not be more different. So why do I think this game deserves it at some point? It was an incredibly immersive and beautiful game, lacking in genuine danger or threat, encouraging the player to explore and tackle the puzzles of the game. This sort of open-ended lack of peril makes it an interesting precursor towards certain flavors of sandbox games around now. It's worth noting that it was a tremendous achievement, given technical limitations of things such as the CD-Rom it was stored on, maintaining a consistent experience, as well as tying narrative reasons into those very constraints. It has been compared to an art film; if so, it certainly is the sort that invited imitators and proved to be a great technical achievement.

Portal: PORTAL! What can I honestly say that hasn't already been said by other people? The amazing integration of a physics engine into innovative puzzle solving, combined with a slow burn sort of minimalist plot reveal concerning the AI proving itself to be a kind of reverse HAL 9000? This game got a HUGE number of memes back in the day, and I expect anyone reading this can probably reference a few. The cake thing, certainly, and its relevance to matters of deception. There is much discussion over the game's utility in academic circles, which is certainly quite notable, and for my part, I'm interested by the point that at first the game gives you a lot of hints towards what you're supposed to do, gradually making it less obvious for the player you're on your own entirely, using your experience with the game to get past the puzzles from there, and its excellent game design. Ultimately though, I place this below Half Life in hall of fame urgency, because while I probably like this one more, it doesn't have the same impact on other games, per say. (That's a lot of awards for it, though. Wowza.)

Resident Evil: Is it fair to call this one the major survival horror game of its era? No, because it's apparently the FIRST, or at least the first to be called such. It's certainly up there with shaping the genre as a whole, both its immediate predecessors and modern games. The flavor of a survival horror can even be judged about whether its close to Resident Evil's style of defending yourself with limited resources vs controlled helplessness. It's also worth pointing out that I quite like the restricted, cramped setting of the mansion, rather than an expansive city; Biohazard was a real return to form, even if its something I mostly watched through funny lets plays because OH NO ITS TOO SCARY I CANT WATCH.

Asteroids: It's called the first major hit of the golden age of the arcade. I'm forced to say... yeah, it absolutely deserves it. The actual implementation and hardware of the game makes for interesting reading, and so its innovative nature ought to be noted: it lacked a soundchip at all, making use of handmade circuits wired to the board. It's reception was great, beating out Space Invaders and needing larger boxes just to hold all the money people spent on it. It also invented the notion of tracking initials on the top ten score, which has implications for arcade challenges.

Ms. Pac Man: This one consistently ranks HIGH in gaming records of its time, though there is admittedly some confusion to whether it or Donkey Kong was a better seller. Interestingly it appears to shape most of the gameplay mechanics people remember most for Pac-Man, such as the improved AI of the ghosts. It's more highly regarded than the original game, and on a personal note, I remember being a kid and seeing this arcade machine at ALL the laundry places my family usually wound up going to.

Frogger: It's placing on this list is not solely because CUTE FROG. The accessibility and wide appeal of the game bears a great deal of consideration, the flexibility of its formula, and just how many dang times it's been ported in one form or another. (And also, cute frog.) It also gets points for the creator being inspired for the game when he saw a frog trying to cross a road, hampered by the vehicles in the way, and he got out of his car and carried the frog across the street. The game is also evident of broad appeal, and some money-makers resisting it, goes back a long way; it was apparently dismissed as a kid's game by some, which just goes to show that some problems are older than quite a lot of gamers alive today.

Uncharted 2: this is one of those games where I cannot honestly say I have personal experience to draw from. Of the playstation's big games, I remember the Jak and Daxter series; I remember Kingdom Hearts, and I remember Ratchet and Clank, and I remember Infamous, but the Uncharted series remains

something of a 'I don't go here?' obscurity in my personal playbook. It does look memorable and charming from what I've seen, and one consistent element I've seen in comments about it is the cinematic nature of the game; it feels very much like a fun heist movie, based on what I have seen of it, and the notable thing is how the game FEELS cinematic.. in a literal way. As in, it combined elements of cinematography with game design, and that's no mean feat: what works for movies are unlikely to translate well to the interactive side, and it shows how that can be done for other games. The extensive praise does the game a LOT of credit!

WORTH NOMINATION AT LEAST

Angry Birds: As noted before, I'm not the biggest fan of most phone games, given that i prefer a more passive experience than most provide. As such, Angry Birds isn't something I've played as of this writing, but I have to appreciate the straightforward and simple gameplay; it reminds me a bit of the Burrito Bison game series, which I HAVE played, and I'm going to go out on a limb and assume it's because Angry Birds is probably the innovation that coined that particular style of gameplay. It's an example of what made phone games profitable and worth the time of developers to work at them; its easy for casual players to get into, and there's a fun sort of impact involved. Given the popularity of phone games, this one has a LOT of influence in getting that rolling, similar to candy crush, if not as much.

FIFA International Soccer: Simulation games are a tricky business; it can be really difficult to get them right, and this game provides an example of it being done in a way that a lot of people REALLY loved, set up an entire game series, and revived the 3DO system after a very bad year. Of note, apparently it was commented that it was more of a simulator than a console game, and this is rather funny considering how simulator is its own genre nowadays! Such do things change. It seems to have been a revolutionary game and simulation; setting the shape for modern sport games of its type, and tending more towards realism (accounting for acceptable breaks in reality) than was typical of the time. This one's position is thus picked for its impact as a whole; while it may not necessarily be a household name now, the series continues on, and is popular enough that even after 20 years, it's still been going.

Elite: I nominate this game in this position for being a startlingly early entry into what we would now consider open-ended games, even with an element of exploration and trading; if one stretches definitions a bit, a precursor towards gameplay of the like scene in 4X players who strive to avoid conflict, if possible. Its technical breakthroughs are some very interesting reading and make for good game history; a vast and complex game (not just by the standards of the era, either), and opening the door for persistent world games such as World of Warcraft.

Wii Sports: A significant game, and much as how other titles mentioned above were famed for gateway entries into gaming for an unfamiliar audience, or those that would want o play on a more casual basis. It seems notable to me for being most suited as a family game, or a more casual experience of multiplayer than usually associated with games like this; this has greatly influenced Nintendo's design philosophy, and one can see elements of this all the way through the Wii U onwards. It's essentially a fliparound from Mario Party; less competitiveness, but definitely meant as a group thing. Controversy is evident, because like with Mario Party, injuries did result from it.

Call of Duty: I place this one here because, while it DOES hold a very significant role in gaming history, with countless imitators, spiritual successors, being a game-changer in ways that its modern reputation might surprise you with, ultimately it is less so than other games such as Goldeneye, Halo or Half-Life. It's development in AI pathfinding and tactics is incredibly noteworthy from a mechanical perpsective, and the sheer level of awards it won is notable. In the end this game's popularity and continuing influence means that it shouldn't be overlooked.

Metroid: You can't spell 'Metroidvania' without this game! A relatively open ended exploration-based game with further options opening as new tools were found give it an interesting vibe, and the oppressive atmosphere distinctive to the game says great things about its sound and level designs. It wasn't the first open world game, or explorer, or even the first to open new aereas based on equipment, but it had ALL of these elements in a very memorable package. (Samus Aran as a female protagonist is something I'm a bit reluctant to give it credit for, as her identity was obfuscated for most of the game, and only revealed in a fanservicey way in a secret ending. All the same, credit where it is due, I suppose!) It's music seems to endure as a mood setter, too!

Pole Position: Perhaps not the FIRST racing game, but still considered one of the most important from the golden age of gaming, and the one to codify many of the firm rules of the game series. It's three dimensional gameplay is incredibly innovative for its time, and having played it and games like it in the past, I'm struck by how smooth the whole thing feels. No wonder it was popular! It is notable for having been designed specifically as a 3d Experience, meant to execute techniques like real drivers might attempt, which makes it a different sort of beast in that it tried to do more realistic actions; in some ways, a precursor to modern trends of realism in many games, for ill or best. Ultimately I think this one is worth a nomination because of its influence towards racing games (a popular and long lived genre, to say the least) as a whole.

OUTSIDE CHANCE

Nurburgring 1: On the one hand, I feel a bit guilty putting this one so low; it is recognized as likely being the earliest racing game in history, and given that I just finished noting Pole Position's influence, it feels a bit mean to rate this one as relatively insignificant all the same. However, in terms of notability, I never even heard of this one, and it was tricky finding information about it. Accordingly, that may say something about its influence, though this position DOES make it noteworthy as the first of its kind, albeit with Pole Position refining and introducing elements that shaped the genre.

Dance Dance Revolution: It feels a bit strange, putting this one fairly low. This thing was a MONSTER back in the day; entire arcades were built around the dancing control peripherals it required, rhythm based games or mechanics specifically invoked it by name, and it was an absolute cultural touchstone for years and years. So, why place it low? Partly, its because I can't just shove EVERYTHING into the 'deserves a nomination' folder; I do think it's fairly reasonable for this one to at some point get a nomination in the future, though ultimately there's games more noteworthy on the whole. It's specific rhythm qualities continue outside of its genre, and are quite influential to gaming as a whole, though unfortunately the series seems to have lost something in notability over time; popularity is a factor, but so is the impact on other games.

NBA 2K and NBA Jam: I put these two together because they touch on similar touchstones for me, and they really did popularize basketball games back in the day. Jam in particular seems to be invoking the Big Head mode that were a big thing in games at the time, at least going from the screenshot. They were very popular and highly beloved games back in the day, though I don't know if they have much influence on later games. I note that interestingly, they take opposite approaches; 2k focuses on AI and realistic experiences, while Jam was deliberately less realistic and more actiony in its over the top gameplay.

Nokia Snake: This one really impresses me for the sheer number of releases, in various forms, it's had! Interestingly, there seems to be little consensus on the name of this game; most just call it Snake or something on that theme. I went with Nokia Snake because... mostly, it sounds funny, and that's how its done on the list. This one is fairly low, but I Have to give it credit for having hundreds of releases!

Farmville: My mom liked Facebook games, a lot. And I am certain this one was one of her main ones! I rate it fairly low, and no doubt her spirit is yelling imprecations at me across the void of time, space, and abandoned socks; all the same, this one is ranked low because of the sheer number of displeasure aimed this one's way. (And to be fair, she complained about it. A LOT.) It is thus notable for unusually negative reasons; an example of exploitation, pressuring players to pester their friends to play it in an equivalent to electronic chain mail, and microtranscations.

Tron: I'm inclined to give any game that takes place in a computer land and uses programming or mechanical terminology a free pass! Interestingly, this has some association with the Snake game, as they have similar gameplay and Snake games are sometimes called Light Cylce games, after this one. It has an interesting history; the graphical system was chosen largely because it was believed it was more likely to be achieved before the deadline.

NO BUSINESS IN THE HALL OF FAME

Mattel Football: I do feel a little mean putting anything in this category; firstly because I don't want to make actual fans of something sad, and secondly because I believe you can probably find notability anywhere you look, if you are inclined. And here is the chief difficulty with this one: I could not find any real information in this one. It has no Wikipedia page, a google search only led to undescriptive links of SALES for the game, but not any information on the game itself. Notability is my main resource for sorting these entries, and honestly? If google has nothing on you, that's a pretty poor sign. Sorry, Mattel Football, but you look like a poor man's Game And Watch. You're no Portal, Myst or Pole Position.

#tier lists #tiermaker lists

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britesparc · 3 years

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Weekend Top Ten #497

Top Ten PC Games No One Talks About Anymore

Blimey, Quake is rather good, isn’t it? Have you heard about it? I really hope so, because it’s only twenty-five years old. I mean, Jesus. What’s up with that? Quake is meant to be the future. It’s full of true-3D polygonal texture-mapping and real-time dynamic light-sourcing. Fancy it being a quarter of a century old. That’s ridiculous. “Old” is for things like, I dunno, Space Invaders or The Godfather or I Wanna Hold Your Hand. Stuff that our parents heard about before we were born. It’s not – it’s absolutely not – used to describe something that people bought 3D accelerator cards for. It’s not used to describe a game that popularised online gaming.

But old it is, getting silver anniversary cards and everything. No longer the angry, hungry young tiger, devouring its ancestors and growling at upstart rivals like Duke Nukem 3D – sure, you’ve got non-linear levels, interactive scenery, and toilet humour, but we’ve got grenades that bounce with real physics – Quake is now an aged beast of the forest, resplendent, battle-scarred, weary with gravitas. Quake is the game that shaped the now, but it does not represent the future anymore. In fact, arguably its greatest rival – Unreal – is the game with the lasting, living legacy, its progeny building the next generation of gaming with one of the most popular and impressive engines around, the framework underpinning everything from Gears to Jedi to Fortnite. Quake blew us all away, but arguably it ceded the conflict, secure in its status as one of the most important and influential games of all time. Quake II got plaudits for actually having a proper story and an engrossing single-player campaign (and coloured lighting!), and its immediate descendants such as Half-Life changed the nature of what FPS games could do, but in a funny way it feels like Quake has long since retired. A sleeping titan. It got old.

So it’s great that they rereleased it on modern systems! The version of Quake released last month is basically the game I remember, but tarted up a little around the edges, with texture filtering and dynamic shadows and other stuff that I couldn’t manage on my Pentium 75 back in the day. It plays great – it’s slick as anything, and you go tearing round the levels like a Ferrari with a nail gun, blasting dudes and ducking back around a corner before you get hit with a pineapple in the face. It’s the first game I’ve played in a long, long time that evokes the feel of classic PC first-person shooters of that era – which, y’know, kinda makes sense as it is a first-person shooter of that era. But that style of fast-paced run-and-gun, circle-strafing gameplay has gone out of fashion now, with FPS games usually favouring slow, methodical, tactical combat, or larger-scale open-world warfare usually involving vehicles. Whether it’s a straight-up no-frills blaster like Quake, or a game that takes you on more of a linear, narrative journey, like Quake II, or even just a multiplayer-focused arena shooter, like Quake III Arena, it does feel like a dying artform, like a style of gameplay that could do with a resurgence (and, to be fair, there are games on the horizon that look like they’re harking back to the era, so that’s cool).

But it’s not just first-person shooters like Quake that I feel have slipped from gaming’s shared consciousness. Maybe it’s my age (it’s definitely my age) but there seems to be quite a lot of games that were a big deal twenty or so years ago that are utterly forgotten now, whereas some – Doom, Duke Nukem, Command & Conquer, Age of Empires – are often namechecked or rebooted (even before the full-on 2016 reboot, Doom must have been one of the most re-released games of the last thirty years). But there are lots of others where sometimes I feel like I’m the only one that remembers it. And that’s where this list comes in: inspired by the excellent re-release of the Quake franchise, here are some other great PC games of that general era that I feel still need shouting about, even if I’m the only one doing the shouting. Maybe they don’t all need a full-on remaster or whatever, but it’d still be nice if they got a bit of modern gaming love.

No One Lives Forever (2000): coming at a time when most FPS games were still Doom-style blasters with little in the way of real plot, NOLF was different: stylish and funny, genuinely well-written (as in the dialogue), with interesting objective-based missions and a cool female protagonist. It skirted similar ground to Bond and the then-white-hot Austin Powers franchise. Two games were made and then, as far as I’m aware, it evaporated into a mess of tangled rights, hence no sequels or remakes. A shame, because it was great.

MDK (1997): the next game from the people who made the multimedia phenomenon that was Earthworm Jim, MDK was a really cool slice of sci-fi style, all sleek level design and intriguing features. It had a supremely bonkers plot which bled through into a game with a sense of humour, but mostly it was the run-and-gun gameplay and innovative use of a scoped weapon – possibly (don’t quote me on this) the first sniper rifle in a videogame. An even wackier sequel followed, but despite its cult status, that was it.

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Klingon Honor Guard (1998): it’s probably fair to say that Star Trek has not had as many great videogames as Star Wars, perhaps because Trek’s historically straightlaced earnestness just didn’t translate as well as bashing someone up the chops with a laser sword. Honor Guard shook things up by casting you as a Klingon, showering levels with pink blood and going Full Worf. It was the first game to licence the Unreal engine, and had a cool level where you walked along the outside of a ship like in First Contact. Also: shout out to the Voyager game, Elite Force (2000), which was another really good FPS set in the world of Trek, with intriguing gameplay wrinkles as you fought the Borg. It also let you wander round the titular starship between levels. Trek deserves more quality action games like these.

Earth 2150 (2000): the nineties on PC really saw RTS games come down to those who liked Command & Conquer or those who liked Warcraft, but as the decade drew to a close other titles chased the wargame crown (including Total Annihilation, which would have made this list, except I feel like the Supreme Commander franchise is a sequel in all but name). 2150 was notable for its Starcraft-like mix of three factions with contrasting play styles, and its use of 3D graphics and the ability to design and build weapons of war that could lay waste to armies and bases with spectacular results. I think the genre has ossified into something more hardcore, and this was probably an inflex point where idiots like me could still get a handle on things.

Midtown Madness (1999): Microsoft has a history of building up great racing franchises and then abandoning them, but their “Madness” line of games in the late nineties/early noughties was terrific and much-missed. Back when tooling round actual 3D cities was still new and exciting, this was a no-holds-barred arcade racer, with some gorgeous shiny chrome effects on the cars, and very nippy handling. It was great fun smashing up VW Beetles and the like. It was surpassed, I guess, by Project Gotham on the Xbox, and sadly the whole franchise was then forgotten, despite the ascendent Forza franchise mostly shunning city driving.

Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines (1998): part tactical war game, part puzzler, Commandos was famous for its gorgeously intricate graphics and its difficulty – I mean, it was way too hard for me. But its beautiful top-down design and its slow, methodical gameplay was compelling, as you evaded Nazis and solved missions with a team of unique units with special skills. Sequels followed, and western spin-off Desperados, but there’s not been a true follow-up for quite some time, despite promises; and few games have echoed its style or look.

The Pandora Directive (1996): okay, so really this is just a placeholder for an entire subgenre of game that appears to have been forgotten: interactive movies. I know, there are flirtations with this from time to time; and many of these games featured obtuse puzzles and relatively little gameplay strung between FMV scenes. Pandora was great though; a first-person 3D game with loads of old-school adventure aspects, as well as FMV, it was a noir-tinged detective story but set in the future. The Tex Murphy series (of which this was the fourth instalment) has had sequels – the most recent one was sadly cancelled only this year – but many other games of a similar ilk, such as Phantasmagoria and even Wing Commander – have fallen by the wayside. With in-engine graphics now allowing the fluidity and expression of cinematic renders of old, shooting movie inserts doesn’t seem like it’s worthwhile; but I still always loved a point-and-click game that featured digitised actors milling about. Toonstruck, anyone?

Marathon (1994): before Halo there was… Marathon! Back when I used to lug my Pentium round my mate’s house so we could play different games on different machines side-by-side, he’d bang on about this Mac-first series of games, like Doom but better, with an intricate plot and complex levels. And y’know what? He was actually onto something. There’s a style and an earnestness to the Marathon franchise, along with many concepts that would be refined in Halo years later. With Bungie now seemingly committed to Destiny, and Halo in Microsoft’s hands, I’m not sure what could possibly become of this, their forgotten FPS forebear, especially as it shares so much DNA with its offspring.

Outlaws (1997): LucasArts are famous for two things, really: their Star Wars games and their adventures. But they made loads of other stuff too – including this intriguing Western shoot-em-up. Back when Western games were rarer than Western movies (which were rare at the time), this quirky and difficult cowboy-em-up saw you rounding up outlaws in typical oater locations such as saloons, trains, and mines. It had great music and a really intriguing set of weapons, including (don’t quote me on this) the first sniper rifle in a game. Sadly Outlaws’ success could be described as “cult” and it never got a proper sequel. and, weirdly, despite the success of Red Dead Redemption, we’ve never had a bit Western-themed FPS again. Which is really odd.

Soldier of Fortune (2000): I pondered whether to include this one, as if I’m honest I’m not sure I want this licence brought back. But I can’t deny the game was a huge deal and has seemingly been forgotten. A relatively gritty and realistic combat game with a huge variety of excellent real-world weaponry, its big hook was its incredibly detailed damage modelling, that could see you blowing limbs off enemies, or splitting open heads, or disembowelling them. Whilst its OTT violence made headlines, the granularity of its systems meant you could be more tactical, shooting weapons out of hands. But really its biggest controversy should be its association with a big old gun magazine.

There are many, many other games that nearly made the list - I almost had a Top Ten of just FPS games, for instance. Little Big Adventure was here, till a sequel was announced the other day. Hexen and Heretic I think still have a place in FPS history. Toonstruck, although without a sequel, was only really a cult hit at the time, and I feel the people who’d love it already know about it. I do tend to overthink these things, y’know.

So maybe not all of these could make a comeback, but all the same I don’t think they should be forgotten, and it does make we wonder what games will fall by the wayside twenty or more years from now. That game about the big green space marine dude in a mask – what was that called again…?

#top ten #games #pc games #fps #shooter #strategy #1990s #2000s

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thepointoftheneedle · 3 years

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Fragment

I’m really enjoying the fragments (and I freaked myself out with that word count thing so I’m taking some time off from writing....note to self -NEVER look at the stats page.). Anyway I keep trying to write this little soulmate thing but, without me intending it, it always becomes an academic paper on the philosophy of colour perception. And I can’t imagine anybody but me is interested in that!

Below the cut anyway....(I guess this should have been for Friday but what the heck...)

His eyes fluttered open as he awakened but, feeling the warmth of the sleeping girl by his side, he closed them tightly. He wanted them to have this experience together. Nothing would ever be the same for them again. It was a special moment for a couple and he wanted it to be perfect. He had installed the app on his phone so he fumbled for it, knocking some loose papers from the nightstand and cursing gently. She mumbled and stirred so he put his hand over her eyes. “What the hell J? What’re you doing?”

“I’m opening up ‘Soul Truth.’ We can look together.”

“Oh J, no, don’t do that,” she moaned softly, beseechingly.

“Ssh, don’t worry. It’ll be great.” He kissed her gently, voice-activated the app and removed his hand from her eyes. She was looking at him, not the screen so he gently turned her head and looked down as she did. The screen was a uniform blue. His stomach lurched. It must be a glitch. “Wait, wait a second,” he muttered, clicking the app closed and reopening it. Solid blue. He looked at her and saw the sadness in her beautiful dark eyes. Sadness but not surprise.

She reached out a hand and stroked his cheek softly, “Hey, I’m sorry J. I didn’t want to disappoint you but I already knew. I just didn’t feel it last night.”

“Jeez Rox, I’m so sorry. I can do better, you just have to tell me what I did wrong. I know I can be what you want. I thought you’d…I thought I felt you...”

“I did, Jughead, of course I did. Listen. It was great. You were great. So tender and kind. It was beautiful and I really had a good time but it wasn’t…I don’t know. It wasn’t whatever soul mates have. You’ve heard Fangs talk about it. It’s next level. Transcendent. What we had was great sex, but it was just great sex. No angelic chorus. You had to feel that?” She was normally tough and streetwise but now her voice was gentle, trying not to hurt him. There was a painful lump in his throat.

“I thought it was transcendent, you were anyway. I think I’m falling in love with you Roxie.” His voice was quavering. He was ashamed of his weakness. “It has to be a mistake. It’s the app. It has to be.” Abruptly he was up and heading down the hallway before she could say another word. “Fangs, “ he yelled. “You in there?” He stood waiting, shivering, in his boxers, while disgruntled groaning emanated from the room, until eventually the door opened a crack and Fangs peered out at him.

“Jones, the building better be on fire. We didn’t get in til four. What time is it?”

“Just after eight. Look, is this broken?”

Fangs looked at the proffered screen blearily then a small smile appeared on his face. “Aww cute bunny.” Jughead snatched the screen back and swiped up. An image appeared in his visible spectrum of a cartoon bunny rabbit holding out a carrot. The legend underneath read “I wuv you.”

“Uggh, why don’t they have something with a bit of gravitas? Shit. Fuck it!” Jug turned around just as Fangs understood the situation.

“Oh my god Jughead! Did you and Rosaline finally do the do? Oh shit…you can’t see that can you? Oh Christ man, I’m so sorry.”

Jug swallowed down his disappointment, just like he had been swallowing down his anger and sorrow and guilt and sadness for most of his life and shrugged at Fangs. “No biggie. Apparently I’m destined to die alone. Whatever.” He stalked off back to his own room only to find Roxie already getting dressed. “Roz, shit, can’t we talk about this? Don’t go. Maybe it’ll happen later, perhaps it’s not always instant?”

Her voice was low and mournful when she spoke. “J I really care about you, you’re my good friend, but we’re both searching for something that we’re never going to be able to give each other. Let’s just take some time apart. Maybe in a few months we’ll be able to go back to being pals again. I’m really sorry that you’re disappointed.” With that she was gone in a whisk of magenta hair and Cabotine perfume.

He sat on his bed and stared into space. He’d been so sure. She was a dear friend, she understood him, laughing at the same things, enjoying the same movies. There was never any stress or conflict with her. It was easy. She indulged his bad moods and cajoled him out of sulks with food and silly jokes. He knew enough to leave her well alone when she was getting into one of her rages. Then gradually, as they worked together on the documentary project, he found himself wanting to touch her hair, wanting to hold her tiny body against his in a protective embrace, wanting to make her feel good with his touches. She’d seemed uncertain but he’d persevered, wooed her really. Then finally, excited and giddy after the showcase where their documentary project had taken first place she’d kissed him and whispered, “Do you want to go back to your place?” He’d been so happy as they’d crunched back to his apartment through the first snow of the winter. He’d wondered if it might happen when they finished the film. While sex tended to be the main way that a soul bond was revealed, a lot of soul mates actually bonded on completion of some other kind of shared project. It hadn’t happened then but he’d been so sure that, if they made love, it would click and the missing shade would be revealed to them. And then it hadn’t happened.

The app was pretty new. Before the advent of the smart phone, folks would have a painting or a poster in their homes. To those who were not matched it would look like an ordinary scene but once a soul bond was formed, the missing colour in the spectrum was revealed, and the soul mates could read the message in the image. It was a little like a magic eye poster. You looked at it for a moment or two and then the missing colour reconciled itself into words or an image. Originally they had some gnomic inspirational quotation. The one in the trailer he grew up in had, his mom said, had the Rolling Stone’s lyric, “You can't always get what you want but if you try sometime you find you get what you need.” Ironically FP and Gladys had been neither what the other wanted nor what they needed. Later it would turn out that FP had lied when he stood in front of that poster and told the innocent, love-struck young girl, wrapped in the sheet from his bed, that he saw it for the first time too. Actually he’d already bonded with someone else, someone who had no intention of getting tied up with a guy in a gang from the wrong side of the tracks. He must have thought it was his lucky day, a second chance for happiness, when the beautiful girl he’d been romancing excitedly admitted that she could see the colour for the first time. He’d nodded enthusiastically, said, “Yeah, me too,” and whisked her away to a world of damp trailers, drunken arguments and angry guys repossessing their truck, or the tv, or the kids’ toys. She’d stayed because she believed he was her soul mate. She thought she had no other options until, in a drunken rage, he’d revealed that it had always been a lie. She snatched up her daughter and left him. And left the boy too, unwilling to take a kid who looked so much like the man she had been fool enough to trust and who had ruined her life with his lies.

The fact that scumbags with no moral scruples lied about this shit had led to the development of checking apps like Soul Truth, “the truth, the soul truth and nothing but the truth” according to the tag line. You both looked at the screen and noted down what you saw, then swiped up and the image was revealed in ordinary unbonded colours. It made it harder for predators and perverts to take advantage of young innocents while their good sense was overwhelmed by romantic dreams. It also revealed that about ten percent of bonds were unreciprocated like Jughead’s parents, one of the couple bonded and the other didn’t. Those couples had to decide if they would make that work, aware that one was more invested than the other, or if it was better to simply part, the bonded still feeling that desperate pull to their mate even decades later. Jug guessed he should be relieved that he hadn’t seen the colour that morning since, clearly, Roz was just not that into him.

He’d been sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at the rug like that for thirty minutes when Fangs tapped softly on the door. “Not now,” he snapped but Fangs ignored him and pushed open the door.

“Ok Jug. I know you’re upset but it just means you haven’t found her yet. She’s still out there and if you go into one of your epic sulks you’ve got less chance of meeting her. What classes have you got today?”

“Nothing I can’t cancel. Everyone’s cramming for Finals. I was supposed to meet the princess to go over the final layout for the literary magazine. She can do it on her own. She’ll like that better anyway.”

Now Kevin joined his boyfriend in the room, both of them making him feel self indulgent and guilty with their solicitousness. “You shouldn’t shut yourself away and mope, Jughead. Go and edit like a champ and then come by the theatre for us and we’ll go for burgers. We’re striking the set but we can take a break. Our treat. What do you say?”

Jughead pondered for a moment. Nothing was going to change if he sat here, the princess would be unbearable if he blew her off, and burgers on someone else’s tab were his favourite kind of burgers, so he grudgingly allowed himself to be persuaded.

An hour later he was in the midst of a heated argument with the princess about his perfectly legitimate decision to kill a terrible poem about the fall which she, inexplicably, had marked for an already overcrowded page four. “You can’t just take things out without consultation Forsythe. We’re an editorial committee, we make decisions together. It’s supposed to be a collaboration.”

“What, you want to keep this pile of third grade horseshit do you? And you’re just calling me that to make me mad. Don’t think I don’t know.”

“I didn’t say that. It’s terrible. It obviously has to go. But you can’t just do it unilaterally. And you can’t call me Princess and not expect me to retaliate. You know my name.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake Princess... sorry, my humblest apologies, for fuck’s sake Betty. What the hell are we arguing about if we both think it’s bad and needs to go? And why is it even in here in the first place?”

“It’s in there because we were waiting on your egregiously late piece of sub Lovecraftian geek porn. I was filling space. Since you finally got your ass in gear we don’t need it anymore. So spike it.” She had this way of making him feel like he lost, even when he won an argument. It was infuriating.

They worked on pagination for another couple of hours with surprisingly little conflict, and then he wrote kickers for a few of the longer submissions, hoping to tempt the reader to give a story a chance. She made sure the submissions were correctly attributed and that the running heads and page numbers and folios were in place. Finally it seemed that they were done. He clicked back to the front page, checked the position of the artwork and the masthead and looked over at her with a questioning expression to see if she was satisfied. She nodded her approval and, at last, under the words “Joint Editors”, he typed "Betty Cooper & Jughead Jones.” As he clicked ‘save’ something shifted in his field of vision. He was alarmed, pushing back from the desk and looking around, meeting her startled eyes. Her green eyes, which weren’t green anymore. He couldn’t describe what colour they were, there were no words.

“What just happened?” she whispered, obviously badly frightened.

“Does…does anything look different to you?” he replied, hesitantly, reaching for his phone.

“Yes, everything. What’s going on?”

“I’m not sure. Look at this.” He pulled up the app. On the screen he could see, without difficulty, a cartoon cat, Pusheen maybe, its paws deep in some dough. The caption read “I knead you.” As he read the words in his head, she said them aloud. “Fuuuuck,” he murmured. “I think we’re soulmates, Princess.”

#fragment #bughead fan fiction #bughead fan fic #colour perception is way interesting #pink is nearly always the last colour word in a language

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mc-doppomine · 3 years

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Day 20 Bonus: Bad Ass Temple vs Matenrou

I’m just going in order of the battle dates at this point. And I’m just going to go from the music to the character stuff again because I feel it would just get long again. Look, I wanted to go for Bad Ass Temple. Sometimes you want to hope for an underdog. However when it comes to style...I just couldn’t get into BAT as much. Which is a shame because they have the same foundation of their team as MTR and going in the fight a similar way. But in terms of the individual songs, they’re actually pretty even. I didn’t have many songs that I really liked from either side besides One, Two, Law and Black or White.

I feel this is also the time that I have to say, with music a lot of the time, I’m basing it only as music. It’s lyrics and the like are secondary and mainly used to like inch any song forward if I was truly stuck. So sound wise, it’s been all over the place. Between having flashbacks to high school with Jyushi and feel like I’m being taken to church by Jakurai...it’s been a time. But of course the ones I like are the ones that are ultimately the ones about more mundane stuff I guess?

And with the group songs...I had to grow to like Kaigen. It’s just a personal thing with slow build up songs, I don’t usually have patience for them which is why I usually like fast paced songs over ballads (there’s always exceptions). But when you get to it though, it is good. I won’t deny that. (Yosh, Jyushi part and then him going off, is such a fuck yeah moment!) Well, Kirei, Kaigen is more fast paced than Tomoshibi, what gives? There’s always exceptions. One is that Tomoshibi doesn’t have as slow a build and that it caught my heart without me knowing what’s going on. Like a lot of my initially crying over Tomoshibi was over how it SOUNDS, not their lyrics. Also it’s slow but not ballad slow.

Which then brought us to the actual battle. And they would not make us wait. I was gut punched when they let Jakurai and Hitoya go from right out the gate. Anyone else notice how they mirrored each other’s final line of defeating the other with everything they have? Shivers! I initially wondered why these two were put together to fight but it makes sense after Light & Shadow because they have essentially the same ultimate desire of finding safety and growth with their teams but how they go about it is very different. Neither of them are wrong but it’s a matter of the clash between those difference.

If I had one thing that threw me so thoroughly in this battle though was Hitoya. Like I bet he was the real threat of BAT and I don’t feel I was wrong. But his angle was way different from what I was expecting. Like it seemed like his perspective changed before the 2nd DRB happened. Which ends up coming up really strange, at least for me, in this battle. Because HE is the one that initiated a fight with MTR by challenging Jakurai and was determined to take him down. Not that he still isn’t but he’s already had his chance of reflecting and changed why he’s fighting Jakurai from wanting to drag him down from his high horse to wanting to do this as a challenge against himself. Which isn’t bad, it just makes for a strange dynamic when it felt like it was set up for settling this grudge and he settled it himself before even getting on stage.

As for the rest of the battle, I don’t have as many memorable lines as they go so fast in this one. It’s a lot easier to lose them but considering this track was designed like a final boss encounter, I guess that’s to be expected. But overall...I just felt like Kuko and Jyushi were too...not that they didn’t take it serious but too green to this kind of scene? Like it reminds me of Jiro and Saburo in War War War except I think Kuko and Jyushi delivered some great lines such as ‘you’ve been so shaved off by society, there’s nothing left of you.’ But they also didn’t seem to hit with me? Although I guess there is a small bias there as like...I feel weird hearing them say ‘middle-aged men’ when I’m not that much younger than Hifumi or Doppo. And know that it’s really not that old...it reminds me of my younger sister.

Lyric wise, it felt like they were fighting two completely different ways and I don’t know how it worked out honestly for me. Like I’m really glad for the sound because a lot of it...wasn’t nonsensical but just didn’t feel like they were going at the same thing. Like MTR didn’t even seem to really focus on beating down on their opponents whereas BAT did. And it makes for such a weird confrontation. So I basically defaulted to what I usually do with the music and go with how I feel from the music and I felt MTR through it. To me, I felt more passion from their delivery and also I’d be lying if I I was living through Hifumi’s haughty laugh, Kuko’s roll of words and Doppo’s screaming (how does Itou-san do it???).

So yeah, MTR got me with music.

I said I did the character thing because it’d be shorter to do the music...I didn’t realize I had to so much to say about the music until I was writing. I’m so sorry that this just ends up being super long as I add the character/story aspects...which honestly I guess would be shorter because in the grand scheme both BAT and MTR just have a lot less to lose of going against other teams. Which could be argued is their charm but I don’t know if that alone could save them from future shenanigans to happen in this DRB. But let’s get to the team stuff

BAT vs DH would have to be the most even chance music wise for both teams because they’re new to this battle season. Although I am absolutely terrified of what kind of sound would come from mixing their sounds together. I’m sure all the talented folks behind the DRB music can do it...I just can’t imagine it. I can’t really think of the conflicts here since for the most part they don’t know each other outside of Kuko and Sasara being in MCD for a time.

BAT vs BB would be a chance to make the ‘koi yo Bad Ass,’ ‘Ou yo Bus Bros’ from Division Battle Anthem+ come true. I’ve hung onto that direct call out since I’ve heard it. There should be answers to their fall out. Ichiro didn’t forget it and feels like Kuko had to have some kind of revelation with it. This would be the chance to resolve this. Meanwhile I also entertain that this iust good hearted fun of like Ichiro, Kuko, Jyushi and Jiro all being around the same age and just being boys having fun. All the while, Hitoya is groaning as he pulls out another set of adoption papers.

BAT vs FP...I can’t think of anything really since they haven’t had any real connection outside of Ramuda--and I think it was OUR Ramuda--thinking Kuko was too irrelevant for his plans. What a kick that’d be for Kuko to be like ‘so, I heard you were talking shit!’

BAT vs MTC, I also have a problem seeing as much of an issue. Outside of Hitoya trying to not have a whole ass conniption. He needs to bring like most of these bastards to court. And also dadtoya because he would not want to drag Kuko and Jyushi around these guys. I fear of Jyuto eating Jyushi alive. Although there could be a slight chance of anger from Samatoki towards Kuko because he’s one of the few people that know the extent of Kuko’s abrupt departure left with Ichiro and even if he doesn’t forgive Ichiro, I don’t think that erases that nasty taste in his mouth.

And then to reverse around with MTR vs DH, I still think of it being more light-hearted of Hifumi and Doppo being like an accidental rival manzai to Sasara and Rosho. And just ending up petty over it. Watch Hifumi insult Sasara’s suit, ohmygod Hifumi can you not--And meanwhile I’m pretty sure Rei knows that Chuuoku is trying to use Jakurai’s rap ability and I can’t tell if he’s interested in how it goes or if he’d stop it. Because Rei I feel has less hesitance in doing extremes to eliminate what’s in his way. Be that incapacitating Jakurai’s ability or Jakurai himself or ruining Jakurai in a way that he can’t help...that’s all doesn’t seem outside the realm of possibility for Rei to me.

MTR vs BB would also be a lighter affair as it just seems like bros just going against each other as I don’t know, I think MTR has a softer spot for BB than all the other teams. And to BB it’s like going against dad because I will die on the dadkurai hill.

MTR vs MTC is rematch REMATCH. DEATH RESPECT PART II. Let’s get it. But yeah outside of sore feelings from last time, I don’t think it’d be as bad as last time. It’s really a ‘nothing personal but you’re in my way’ sort of thing. There is a meeting for the anti-Honobono club that goes on, maybe? Maybe there could be some bad blood if Samatoki knew about Jakurai thinking of helping Chuuoku with perfecting the thing that, at least for a long time in his head, took Nemu from him.

But unsurprisingly most that would happen is if they did MTR vs FP. Because on one hand, it’s a REMATCH and one I’d personally love because their rap battle was my favorite. But they have the most story threads. I glossed it in the previous but it’s a chance for collaboration or using the other team if Honobono came up. Such as FP throwing MTR at her to distract her from getting Ramuda. They’re cutthroat enough to do it. Or if they could see past their rivalry and work together to save both of their sides from this mutual threat. I think this would be a time for Ramuda and Jakurai to REALLY go at each other.

Because despite their disdain of each other, I don’t think they hate each other as they like to proclaim. Chuuoku seems to know this feeling on Jakurai’s end as they dangle Ramuda’s well-being in front of him time and time again. Even if he can’t get along with Ramuda, he sure as fuck doesn’t want him DEAD. And it seems to get forgotten but Ramuda IS Jakurai’s MENTOR, the person that taught him to survive in the new direction of the world. Even if this was orchestrated, that bond still exists. And it’s not one-sided because I can’t imagine Ramuda being pleased with Jakurai willingly going with the bitches that made his life hell. He’d be pissed as to how Jakurai could roll over to them (as he might perceive) and his effort to keep Jakurai from them failing.

Phew...done...with the thing. But yeah in terms of like story/character....mmm, yeah that would have to go to MTR too. I really don’t feel like it’s BAT fault. I just think they’re at a disadvantage for coming new to a battle season.

#30 days of hypmic challenge #bad ass temple #matenrou #long post #I'm so sorry at the length #and dissolving into gibberish #kuko harai #jyushi aimono #hitoya amaguni #jakurai jinguji #hifumi izanami #doppo kannonzaka

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pokeydapuppy · 3 years

Photo

The groups I’m cheering for this DRB ovo

Pfft, I am suuuuper late

But my final thoughts!

As you can see from above, I want BB, M, and FP to win. I only realized that I just needed Samatoki in there to be TDD haha Honestly a bit disappointing that I didn’t but lemme explain myself for my reasons.

While I do love the new divisions (I’m a hard DH fan tbh lol), I mostly wanted to focus on how it would affect the story and then the group’s performance. Since the start, before the lives, I wanted to support BB, M, and MTC. As you can see, It’s been changed from MTC to FP X”D

(Black Journey is too powerful imo it has me rolling every time. Though ramuda’s first beginning aprt definitely caught me off guard and that lil intro had me laughing. That chorus??? Freaking <3<3)

Buster Bros, I think I only got around to talk about the first two groups never the next two pfft. As much as I would like to see our favorite comedy duo win, I really want them to beat their father and get a sense of victory as well. I won’t forget the fact that they were the first to go first DRB rip Re:Start is ultimately better than Wara Osaka in my opinion, even if its tacky dance lives rent free in my mind and I think about them often lol. Jiro’s Aniki is going to take some time to get used to, but I think that development (all of them, save Ichiro tbh ??) in the drama track has pulled my heartstrings and they’re adorable.

Hmm, honestly when it does come to M vs BAT, my sibling has had me conflicted many times. (She’s also the one that converted me from MTC to FP blame her lol) It’s true- if BB is going to win, wouldn’t we want a Naughty Busters like reunion? If we aren’t going to get it from DH and MTC that is. Kaigen and RIP are also superb compared to Tomoshibi... (it was a good song I swear- just come on, BAT had more energy this time around XD It fit the hype I was looking for in the 2nd DRB) Rip for Kuko’s scream that isn’t in the actual recording only in the live ashdjkk. If he doesn’t do that future lives still Imma be sad lmao. Anyways I don’t think the “champions” should just go afterwards either. Also les make that inferior complex worse ehhhhh jkjk Also, overall I just feel like M’s popularity and that Drama track might secure them that win. I think the plot might be cleaner then?? Of course, it’s all debatable and Im sure that if either team won, the story could still develop just fine.

Dear goodness, Jyuuto’s part in Hunting Charm actually haunts me. Anyways, Fp doesn’t deserve to lose, what was that one joke floating around about the pink one getting it. Please. Just let them trick or treat form other clones, he doesn’t deserve this ajhsjkkk While as much as I think Samatoki deserves that win and revenge for Nemu (Also potentially meeting her?? But ig he doesn’t have to win to have that opportunity) I feel that FP’s stronger bond and passion to live might push them for that win.

As for the versus songs themselves-

Ohhh dear Most favorite to least favorite:

Reason to Fight - Light Shadow - Joy for Struggle

I’ll be honest, for the amount of hype that I had for the 2nd DRB, DhvsBB disappointed me... In the sense of energy of course- I still find it a heckin good bop. But I think what I wanted was just them spitting fire at each other, just fire XDD It was cute- their lil manzai and joking, but I think it would’ve been cooler to throw heat in there. Seemed more to DH’s vibe than a mixed battle vibe.

Now the other two songs, much like the past DRB songs were LIT. I absolutely loved them. That banger part in Reason to Fight that makes me throw my hands in the air to go with the beat (Yall know it lol) is killer. Doppo’s scream -beautiful as always (but also Jyushi’s and kuko’s lol)- including just the raw energy I felt from Light Shadow was absolutely phenomenal.

I honestly wish there was more anger(?) in Dh and Bb But I also get why it didn’t lol Either way, although they're like my top favorite divisions, that’s my reasoning. I’d chat about the Drama tracks too, but tbh I haven’t seen the translations yet so I don’t wanna spread misconceptions lol

This has gone long enough- Imma try and throw up some more art of hypmic though. I had this done a couple days ago but just wanted to post it anyways. You can sort of tell the rush because while I made some of the top transparent I didn’t erase the overlay LOL

Also I had 2/3 BB icons done, but I really want to post the three of them together... Hopefully I’ll pull myself up soon to finish Saburo pfft

#I'm sorry this is such a long rant ashdfkjk #I shoulda done this earlier LOL #hypmic #hypnosis mic #hypmic 2nd drb #yamada ichiro #amemura ramuda #jinguji jakurai #I didn't read over this because I have notes to do #Sorry for the mistakes lol

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borderline-itsfine · 3 years

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TW: mental illness, self harm, triggers, swear words, mention of therapy, mention of “mum” or mum figure.

Okay. Let’s stop right there. I don’t look mentally ill.... wh.... what does that even mean? I don’t.... what? I don’t look mentally ill. How is mentally ill supposed to look?

Because I didn’t brush my hair today and turned it into my aesthetic. My dress isn’t ironed and it’s only clean because my mum did my washing for me. I became hyper focused on my make up today.... again. It’s my newest “thing” and I’ve wasted money that I needed on it on an impulse buy where refunds aren’t accepted. I like shaving my legs, haven’t for..... ??? Same with arm pits. That pic is also the one I liked most from around 105 other pics, in different rooms.... with different lighting.... poses, smile, head tilt, slight.face.change.only.I.notice and tbh I really fucking hate myself while I go through 105 photos, some where I forgot the filter and I saw mirror me. Hate her.

Every time I walk across a bridge I want to throw my fucking phone off it. Typing that made me really angry. There is just something about walking over a bridge and smashing my phone off it. I think of it and my whole body gets agitated, I might even twitch. It’s now all I can think about. I want to do it. I love my phone! There’s so many precious photos on there (I don’t back up stuff, I want to though, promise....) and I don’t want to smash my phone but I really, really want to throw it off a bridge and smashing it. I think about this every day. I don’t know why I’m so passionate about it. This one I can trigger on purpose and I regret it every time because one day I think I’ll do it and then hate myself. All those f-bombs are totally impulsive by the way lol if I didn’t write those I was never gunna sleep until I did. That’s just the rules. I don’t make the rules but I do.

I have little impulse control, especially if I’m manic or psychotic at the time.... I do shit I regret CONSTANTLY. And I know it’s going to make a mess of my life but I do it anyway, come down after it and regret it.... then I bury it so deep until the next time I do said thing. Most of the time it’s for attention and most of the time I get it even if I manipulate it out of people. I will go to the kitchen, take my meds, walk over to my mum who’s in another room and tell her that I’m not taking them today or ever again.... ???? I just took them. I do the same the next day. It makes her mad. Make sense? Nope. But I can’t stop myself from doing this. I feel guilty every time I do it. There’s constant conflict in my head.

I test people to see how far I can push before they leave me and then I test that boundary for the rest of the time I know you. Don’t worry, it’s only if you’re in my close circle of people who might care for me, mum, FP, siblings, friends.... they cop it the most and I love them and they don’t deserve it but my golly gosh, sometimes I’m just that mad that everything inside me explodes out and I become a monster. I’ve said things I can never take back that make me want to die every day. Evil, evil things. I hate myself for it. I feel a lot of guilt and shame about this. I bet everyone is so done with my shit. Because same. Everyone else, I’m just adjusting myself to whatever social context I’ve found myself in. I’m good at adapting. You’ll like me, promise because I am you, pretty much.

I mask. Incredibly well. That’s not about my face. Next is about my face. I make it LOOK like I’m not mentally ill by literally ACTING LIKE IM NOT MENTALLY ILL. But I am, on the inside, like in my brain. Which you can’t see. Because it’s a MENTAL ILLSESS. Do umm... do we get it? I feel like we get it. I hope we get it. I’m also self aware, which took years of self reflection and therapies so I could learn about myself and try to “fix” it or at least just learn enough to do the opposite of some things. I’m mentally ill but I’m still a person, I’m still out here doing people stuff, doing the best I can.

Also, you may also notice I have a black eye. I was having a psychotic episode that was triggered because I argued with FP and they ignored me for what I see now was their own sanity. So I feel pretty rejected and abandoned. I just need to add that myself and FP have an extremely unhealthy relationship and I’m aware of this also. Erghhhhh. Anyway. While they were ignoring me, I called them as many times as I could. I also wanted to kill my self. I also told them this. Fucked up right? And I would never do this if I wasn’t in an episode. I then became frustrated and stressed and when that’s at max level I begin to punch myself in the head and the face.

This hurts, a lot. I’m often seen with a black eye, facial bruising, head lumps and split lips because I punch myself in the head. This is also new for me, maybe the last 12 months I’ve done this. One day I just couldn’t keep it in anymore and started punching myself in the head. I hate myself when I do this.

I hate myself a lot and I hate that statement. Dw I do love myself too. Depends on the hour or the minute. I promise I’m not faking. This is just today. It’s 10:30 in the morning and I was trying to cover a black eye at around 5:30 because I had a dream that felt too real and I was really angry and couldn’t sleep and I kept getting brain zaps.

This is what it’s like in my head. I know you can’t see it, I know I don’t say it but trust me, my head is.... and the hating myself and being exhausted all the fucking time by everything because so difficult.

Please don’t tell people they don’t look mentally ill. This is also the only place where I can vent like this and people are like “same, just same” and we nod at each other and we carry on. It’s beautiful. Don’t ruin that for us! It feels like the world doesn’t get it as it is.

Also, I REALLY LOVE YOU LOVES! ❤️❤️ thanks for being there and listening to all my bullshit. Especially when I don’t proof read very often so idk if it even makes sense. I’m glad you guys support it though, you’ve been the best diary I’ve ever had 🥰

#RANT #VENT #BPD #ADHD #GAD #BAD1 #BORDERLINE #PERSONALITY #DISORDER #mentally ill #probably makes no sense #didn’t proof read again #sorry everyone #back with my bullshit #don’t message me with this

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mbti-notes · 4 years

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My esfp brother has recently started saying racist things, talking about how white men have it worse in this country than anyone, etc. I’m having a hard time dealing with it. I’m intp, so my instinct is to counter with a factual argument, but this is not an effective way to communicate. For one, he tends to see challenges or contradictions as personal hostility, even when they’re gently stated, and a debate usually ends up with him digging in, raising his voice, and resorting to statements (1)

[con’t: like “It’s just my opinion” or “You just hate me no matter what”. Secondly, he has a slippery relationship with facts and not a lot of philosophical integrity, so logical debate is pretty pointless; sources that confirm his argument are real and ones that don’t are Fake News, and he’ll also freely change his line even if it contradicts what he was arguing yesterday. For these reasons, our family doesn’t usually take the bait when he picks fights or says something outlandish (I think in our interactions, he’s motivated to be racist because he likes to provoke and knows it’s one of the few things he can say that will consistently get under my skin, and also because he thinks I look down on his alt-right friends (he’s right, though I’ve always tried to be diplomatic about why I find that worldview disagreeable). I don’t want to think my brother is a lost cause, and I don’t think he’s as invested in the ideology as some of his friends are at this point but I still don’t know what if anything I could do to get through to him. Any ideas?]

I often hear people say that they hope to have “a reasonable debate” about controversial issues, but then what they proceed to do is not debate but rather squabble, lecture, preach, proselytize, compete, or browbeat. You know that constructive debate (i.e. one that reaches a satisfying conclusion for both parties) can only happen under very specific conditions, including:

good faith: the willingness to give fair consideration to the opposing viewpoint as well as the willingness to allow fair critical examination of your own viewpoint

higher purpose: a commitment from both parties to seek out the truth and put it above personal ego and pride

critical reasoning: the ability to carefully construct and deconstruct arguments such that one can draw logically valid and sound conclusions

I’m not making any statement about you or your intentions. I think you’ve shown patience and restraint. I’m simply pointing out the fact that most people are not prepared to have a proper debate because they do not meet the conditions for being able to debate well. This matters in the sense that you should ask yourself whether it’s worth it for you to engage in debate with someone who is obviously not debating in good faith. This also matters in the sense that, if you are the person who isn’t able to engage in good faith, then you might be part of the problem in creating and continuing the conflict, despite whatever good intentions you possess.

I think many of us know someone who likes to be contrarian for the sake of being contrarian. Perhaps they like the drama of provoking people. Perhaps they like the feeling of being “special” in going against the grain or belonging to an “underdog” tribe. Perhaps they hide behind victim mentality (i.e. claiming “persecution” of their beliefs) because they don’t want to feel responsible/guilty for their ignorance or complicity. If someone is irrationally motivated to hold on to their beliefs, they’re not open-minded, in fact, they might even “debate” you just to use you as an excuse to double and triple down on their beliefs. It would be nice if everyone in the world were rational and came to their beliefs rationally and listened to reason all the time, but humans are just not that simple.

People at low levels of ego development have a very difficult time admitting when they’re wrong, often due to misplaced pride. Also, Fs use their moral beliefs to define who they are, which adds an additional obstacle to changing their mind. ESFPs are not particularly serious people, and that can be an advantage because it means that they are mentally flexible in terms of easily getting bored with any one idea. If you are right that your brother is only “flirting” with these beliefs and doesn’t actually believe in them wholeheartedly, then you should be careful about pushing him the wrong way. You don’t want to push him into a position where he is: 1) too embarrassed/ashamed/guilty to admit to being wrong, and 2) too personally identified with these beliefs to change his mind.

Fs are often insecure about their intellectual abilities, so perhaps it is difficult for you to understand how they feel when they have to admit to being wrong - it is a vulnerability for them that serves to harm their self-esteem. Different types have different vulnerabilities, but most people don’t like feeling vulnerable and do what they can to avoid it. Therefore, if you want to change someone’s mind, do it in a way that lets them maintain a sense of dignity in their vulnerability. In other words, make it easier rather than more difficult for someone to change their mind by being sympathetic (e.g. by creating a “we all mistakes” social atmosphere) rather than indulging the desire to humiliate or punish them for their mistakes.

If he’s just trying to provoke you to get your attention, then he’s not interested in debate, right? It’s a “game” that he plays with you, on repeat. ESFPs are mostly about having fun because they are easily bored, so perhaps this is his way to create some interesting drama between you, though it isn’t fun for you. If you take it too seriously, you push him into defending his beliefs, which has unintended consequences. Studies have shown that simply being asked to defend a belief for a few minutes leads people into identifying more strongly with it. Therefore, avoid putting him on the defensive too often, otherwise the beliefs get gradually subsumed into Fi, and then he really won’t budge.

Also, note that he may genuinely feel that he has it tougher as a guy, etc. Something that people often don’t understand is that inequality hurts everyone. It doesn’t hurt everyone equally, but it does hurt everyone in some way. For example, men also suffer from rigid gender expectations in that they are extremely limited in the ways they can express their identity. Maybe this is the point he’s trying but failing to make. If so, you’d do better to acknowledge the feeling itself while not agreeing with the subsequent conclusion/belief. Of course, you know that feelings do not equal fact, but he doesn’t, because FPs treat feelings as facts. You coming in to counter him with your facts doesn’t work because you’re ignoring that his beliefs don’t come from "fact” as you define it, rather, they come from his personal feelings. Instead of letting him bait you into conflict and invalidating his feelings, tell him that you respect his right to have his feelings/opinions, though you disagree.

Explicitly establish that you agree to disagree, and you stop playing your role in this game of his. Show people that you understand why they have their beliefs (despite them being wrong), or let them know that you will continue to love them (despite disagreeing with what they stand for). Then they have little reason to feel defensive and hold even tighter to their beliefs. When people approach you with the attitude of “winning” or getting the upper hand (though you have nothing in particular to lose), you should NOT join in and try to get the upper hand over them, because this will make it harder for them to change their mind, since they will perceive it as being “defeated” and then feel “inferior”. Leave people their pride by remaining as neutral about them as possible, then they are more likely to calm down and be reasonable.

Remember that Fs value relationships and, deep down, they often want nothing more than to be validated and loved. If they have psychological development issues, they may choose the wrong methods for seeking love and attention. In that case, it’s up to you to be the bigger person if possible and avoid playing their game of “bad attention is better than no attention”. He already knows your beliefs at this point, so there’s no need to debate him in circles over and over again. You can simply say that you disagree and leave it at that. If he suddenly shows the willingness and capacity to examine his beliefs, then by all means guide him. But, until then, don’t give him an excuse to engage in tribal mentality and fashion you into his enemy, especially when he’s already feeling “aggrieved”. Focus on the fact that he’s your brother and you care about him. Remember that “to err is human; to forgive, divine”. From there, your approach should be empathetic enough to create the space that is necessary for him to change his mind without losing too much face. It’s hard, but sometimes you have to admit that you can’t help people who don’t want help and/or you might not be the right person to help them at this time.

Yes, some beliefs are quite morally abhorrent and difficult to stomach. But the fact is that they exist out there. The point isn’t about eradicating them, it’s about trying to discover the best strategies for reducing the number of people who believe. One subject I came across in my studies was about people who had been politically radicalized and then later de-radicalized, e.g., incels, terrorists, white supremacists, etc. If you are interested, you might benefit from reading a book or watching a documentary about why people get radicalized so that you understand how it happens and how to avoid exacerbating the process.

#intp #intp relationships #conflict #debate #communication #empathy #relationships #politics #ask

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hood-ex · 4 years

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Roy Harper Characterization

I am a HUGE fan of Roy Harper. I’ll defend him until the day I die. I’m always interested to read what other people think about him and how they might interpret his actions, so I was interested to read the issues detailed by roywilliamharperjr. I don’t really like N52 and RHATO was eh, but I was surprised by how conflicted I felt about some of their points.

There were some things I agreed with right away - the erasure of Brave Bow, for example, or outright making his father abusive. Roy’s connection with Brave Bow is integral to his connection to archery, it is something that I personally think means a lot to him, so including it in his origins is essential. Making his father an “abusive alcoholic” is also unnecessary. I don’t like this trope, because it implies that all addicts are abusive. His father was never mentioned to be an addict originally, but that part of his characterization would make sense. Addiction tends to run in the family. What I take issue with is automatically making his father abusive. It’s a trait that often gets lumped in with alcoholism, which can overshadow the tragedy of it. But that’s neither here or there. These were the points I agreed with. But there are some things that really gave me pause.

They literally kept pushing the idea that he couldn’t even be trusted with money since he’ll spend it all on useless junk like ??? Like yeah that the parent that runs a household a business can’t be trusted with money, sure. In Pre52, He was completely independent when he went solo. He even refused to rejoin the Titans at first because he wanted to do things solo and find himself, and most importantly… he was a single father! A responsible father who independently raised a daughter…

Pre-FP was lighthearted, but he was also serious because of what he’s been through and he was smart and great at what he does. N52 changed him into a literal idiot (like I said, Lobdell loved reminding us of this) who can’t handle himself alone and has to crack a dumb joke every second and doesn’t take things seriously and has to be babysat by Jason. Even when they tried portraying to do things like build tech, they still wrote him as dumb. Roy’s always been someone that was good with tech, since he obviously built his arrows, weapons, so many high tech bases, etc. But the N52 chose to portray that intellect by portraying him as a mad scientist… that’s literally what they refer to him as multiple times, or a “rockabilly genius”. Basically, they wrote him so that he could only build tech, but he gets so carried away with it to the point where he either destroys a lot of crap while doing it or if he’s unsupervised, he’ll spend all their money on it. They wrote him as someone who was so irresponsible and had to be kept in check, whereas Roy is actually someone who builds things when he needs to. He’s someone who prefers to spend his time either with his family, training, or volunteering somewhere. He doesn’t spend his entire time building things for no reason, he has to plan something out, know why he needs it and adds it in. Technology is a hobby for him that he occasionally spends time on, it isn’t an obsession and it’s nowhere near being his main focus. He was extremely dumbed down to serve a role of being the dumb guy who’s good with tech.

Regardless of what the writer meant, being careless with money is a trait impulsive people tend to have (impulsivity also tends to be common for people who have issues with addiction). Not dumb people. I never read Roy as dumb. The mad scientist trope is actually indicative of high intelligence. Dumb guys aren’t good with tech. Was he scattered and irresponsible in RHATO? Sure. Are some fathers like this? Yes. Does that make him a bad father? No.

I think having Lian made him keep those impulses in check and he took on responsibility that didn’t come naturally to him, but I don’t see how fathering a child would mean you’ve now unlocked x, x, and x trait. That seems unrealistic. It’s okay to struggle with fatherhood. That is much more relatable and interesting. Roy could struggle with these impulses and still be a good father.

Anyway, this was a very simplistic explanation of Roy’s supposed lack of intelligence, which aren’t defined by any of the listed traits. I can see how he might come off that way, however. Anyone looks at disorganization or bad decisions and immediately thinks the person is a moron. This is not the case.

N52 made him an outcast in the hero community, made the league and all other heroes look down on him instead of being his friends. He looked up to the heroes and wanted to be treated as an equal among them, and he was-- he was just like any other hero, but that was all thrown out to, once again, justify him being an “outlaw”.

I do realize the OP feels otherwise, but I don’t think it was out of the question for Roy. Again, this wouldn’t be the highlight of Roy’s life and it wouldn’t be the healthiest he’s ever been, which I think is obvious, but expecting someone to remain consistent throughout their entire life isn’t realistic. Do I think it was stretched? Yeah. But again, Roy is a complex character, and when someone feels as if they aren’t living up to an ideal, it’s not uncommon to rebel against that ideal. It went a little far, but it’s not that out of the question.

Roy being a dad, and the erasure of Lian Harper. When Roy’s a dad, he was something to fight for. He has a reason to be a superhero and do what he does, to be responsible and to be more mature than he already is. Him being a dad completely changed him and gave him a reason to strive to become a better man than he already was, all for his daughter. He helped so many characters because of how his fatherhood changed him. Him being a father gave him so much happiness and brightness in his life despite the mistakes he made before. On top of that, Roy became a father when he was young. He risked his life just to see Lian and take her in. He could have easily ignored her and left her with Jade, but he chose to actively seek her out and risked his life to do so. He wanted to be a father. He wanted to raise his daughter right and be an inspiration for her, and to me that just shows the kind of man he was.

Being a father is one of Roy’s biggest character traits. It isn’t just some random thing, it was part of his characters for literal decades. It’s so much of who he is and holds so much of his development, and the erasure of it just changes so much about him for the worst.

Okay, so… while I agree that Lian is important to Roy’s growth and development, I do not think a character’s personality should be completely shaped around having a child. I do agree that Roy wanted to be a good father and improved exponentially because he took responsibility for Lian. However, there are a lot of different types of fathers. It isn’t really fair to assume Roy was perfect when he was that young, or that didn’t make mistakes.

So yes, this characterization does change him “for the worst” because he has nothing to keep him accountable. That’s okay. I am personally more interested in seeing characters crash and burn and then being shaped by that experience, not deciding to be better just because they’ve reproduced. Children aren’t bandaids.

This next part is my biggest issue with their post, however. The subject of addiction.

And then there’s his addiction… N52 changed his addiction from heroin to alcohol (it was changed back in Rebirth but still.) Addictions are not and should not be treated like they’re interchangeable. The original drug addiction story, Snowbirds Don’t Fly, was an award winning story that changed the landscape of stories that could be told in comics. It was that good, and changing for just a generic addiction story is pretty ridiculous.

Okay, so… while I get what they are trying to say, in general, addictions don’t stay in neat little boxes. People prone to addiction will often have other addictive behaviors and/or vices. Sometimes they do trade one addiction for another. I realize that their issue is eliminating the heroin from the story altogether, but my point is: addiction is the problem. The object of that addiction is not.

The original story showed that Roy was the one who kicked his addiction away, all because of his will and drive to kick it away. He was the one who wanted to get rid of his problem. With some help from people around him (aka Dinah), he kicked it away and was determined to be a better person because of it. He wanted to become an educator and volunteer to help people dealing with addictions like his, and he wanted to help fight drug dealers and help fight the drug problem. That’s why he joined the DEA– he wanted to help people who went through what he did. Roy appealed to a specific demographic of teenagers that fell low and fell into drug addiction– something that hasn’t been done before with any other character– and he served as a role model as someone who overcame it. N52 just got rid of all that and not only changed his addiction type, but had him be completely be saved by someone else (who he shouldn’t have any relation to in the first place).

Here is where it started to get really cringey for me. This person is very naive if they think that an addict can “kick their addiction away” with “will and drive.” No. It takes so much more than that. Therapy. Medication. Rehab. There is no shame or weakness in asking for or accepting help. Even if they do everything right, most people relapse. Perpetuating the idea that Roy’s willpower overcame a heroin addiction is ridiculous.

N52 focuses on him relapsing and being tempted back all the time, which is against what the character stands for. The whole point is that he’s someone that wants to move on past his mistakes and become a better person and let others see him for who he is as a hero, but N52 keeps throwing his addictions back at him

This is a terrible understanding of drug addiction. Relapses don’t happen because the person doesn’t want to “move on” or get better. Relapses happen because people are human. Relapses are extremely, extremely common, and it doesn’t make that person a hypocrite like the OP suggests. This rubs me the wrong way for so many reasons.

Heroin addiction is insidious. It’s a literal epidemic. The relapse rate is ridiculously high (over 80%). Trying to tout Roy as someone who should never relapse because it “goes against his values” is very naive. It also won’t resonate with actual drug addicts.

The real message should be that it’s okay to let someone help you. It’s even more okay to ask for help. In fact, you need to ask for help. This is not something most people can do alone.

I love Roy Harper and I will defend him until the day I die, but I don’t love him because he’s perfect. I love him because he makes mistakes and gets back up. I love him for how he handles those mistakes. That’s the real success story and that’s what people are inspired by: no matter what happens or what you do, just get back up. Keep going. Keep fighting.

It’s tiresome to see fictional characters held to impossible standards. Mistakes don’t negate good qualities and it doesn’t make them less likable.

How is an addict going to feel if they received that type of message after a relapse? They’re going to think that they went against everything they stood for, not that it was a simple mistake that happens to an overwhelming percentage of people who suffer from addiction. How is that inspiring or encouraging?

Also to comment on N52 “throwing Roy’s addictions back at him” - look, I have my problems with N52, but this isn’t one of them. That is the life of an addict. They have to overcome their addiction every day. It isn’t something you ever recover from completely. That’s why it’s so easy to relapse.

Sorry for the ramble. I know you didn’t even write this originally. I do follow your blog and <3 it, and I just needed to say something about some of these points, especially where it concerns drug addiction, because it troubled me. Roy Harper is an icon.

_____________________________________________________

I won’t put words in the OP’s mouth, but since Roy is prob the character I know most outside of the batfam, I’ll touch on a few of these points.

1. I agree that Roy’s personality doesn’t revolve around Lian. Parenthood itself is not part of the personality, but a child can impact personality in certain ways. For example, forcing someone to be more assertive, responsible, or outgoing.

You said something about how it wasn’t fair to assume Roy was a perfect father. I didn’t get the impression that was a point OP was trying to make. Roy himself said he went into fatherhood fighting and screaming, so it obviously wasn’t easy for him at first. But I got a sense that OP was mostly highlighting the fact that having Lian is the transitional point in Roy’s life that took him from boyhood to manhood. To the newly single father who works as a private detective and then transitions from Speedy to Arsenal to Red Arrow.

2. I will have to disagree with your view on switching out the heroin for alcohol. I understand what you’re saying about how the addiction to a harmful substance is the main issue. And yeah, in general, the main message of Roy’s drug abuse is that anyone can fall prey to addiction, not just misguided people.

But “Snowbirds Don’t Fly” was inspired by heroin addicts on the streets and in the drug rehab center that the authors encountered/worked with.

The effects and risks of heroin addiction also differ from that of alcohol. They produce different struggles for people to deal with, different withdrawal symptoms, etc. Alcohol can be abused more often because of how accessible it is yadda yadda yadda.

This is why I personally take issue with the two being interchangeable. It may also seem like a minuscule detail that doesn’t really matter (because like you said the focus is the addiction, not the substance itself). But it would be kind of like switching out the murder weapon that killed Bruce’s parents. You may think that the weapon itself doesn’t matter because the focus is on the loss of his parent’s lives.

But everyone knows Bruce’s parents were killed via gun. As a result of that, Bruce has always had an issue with guns in particular. So if we were to switch out the gun with a crowbar (shoutout Jason) in The New 52/Rebirth then that changes Bruce’s character in some ways. It changes his trauma and his association with guns. In his mind gun = murder = loss = grief = failure. The image of the gun is very much so tied into the trauma of losing his parents, which puts significance on the murder weapon.

Readers would be like wtf I thought Bruce’s parents were killed with a gun, why does this say they got whacked with a crowbar? It would be inconsistent writing and it would make readers confused about what was true and what wasn’t true.

So I guess you could say the same thing for Roy and heroin. Heroin is the vehicle he used to try and cope with his life, not alcohol. Heroin is the drug that got him fucked up, not alcohol. Heroin is the drug he suffered withdrawal from, not alcohol. Heroin is the drug he constantly has to fight to stay away from, not alcohol. (Although, yes, addictions can be switched out for other addictions, but canonically, as far as I know, Roy never abused alcohol.)

3. In real life, yes, people with addictions generally need to go to some kind of rehab program to get help. However, if we’re going strictly by what’s shown to us in comics, then yes, Roy kicked his addiction without rehab, meds, or therapy. He quit cold turkey and went through the horrific withdrawal symptoms with Dinah by his side. That’s what’s portrayed in the comic. Roy literally attributes his ability to kick the addiction by getting help from Dinah, Hal, and his friends. Not going to rehab or any of that.

That’s why I think OP possibly found it insulting that N52 portrayed Roy as someone who continued to relapse. Because before N52, he managed to kick his addiction without relapsing. Obviously, not many people in real life can quit cold turkey like Roy did in the Snowbird issue. And before Flashpoint, Roy actually did relapse when Lian died. So I do agree that maybe OP wasn’t very uh… sensitive to the rate of relapse amongst people with addictions.

Anyways, this is just me sharing some of my thoughts on your points. Glad we can have discussions like this. Thanks for following my blog <3

#Roy Harper #drugs cw #alcohol cw #addiction cw #heroin cw #character analysis #submission #replies #anon

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littlesailorinthesun · 4 years

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fact or fiction #1

hello! I have seen a lot of discussion on various love nikki theories recently and I decided to rate them based on how plausible I personally think they are, as well as evaluating the evidence we currently have for them.

however keep in mind that I’m sort of the type of person who likes to get a feel for author’s intention (it helps when trying to read these botched translations). I still try to be as unbiased as possible though. still, the information below is my personal opinions!

Queen Nanari is the Lord / Shadow

★★★★☆ - easiest explanation

This was already commonly believed before Black White Puzzle ("tree of life lore") arrived on the English server, but when I read it through properly for the first time, my only thought was "wow, this is very blatant" - especially in the last few stages. I felt pretty confident that that was what the writers intended to get across. However, I was surprised to find that that was not a universal takeaway.

For me, the crucial piece of evidence is that Neva has the same relationship with Nanari and with the Lord. She is blindingly loyal to them. She serves them both at the same time. She has sworn her life to both of them. How can she swear her life to both of them and serve them both at the same time with apparently no conflicting loyalties from either? Worth also mentioning the framing: Neva does not think of Nanari specifically during the whole event. "Nanari" is only mentioned during the event when you see the part from Royce's own memories.

Essentially this is something where I believe nearly every piece matches up, even beyond this. Weird foreshadowing about Nanari, dates and times and knowledge... the Kindred blood is basically the only thing about the Lord that does not link them to Nanari. I also need more explanation on the motivation here, but considering how many characters don't even canonically have motivations for things they do (Reid, I'm looking at you) this also isn't make or break.

The Ancient Pavilion Designer is Xiao Zong

★★★★☆ +0.5 - easiest explanation

Like the one with Nanari, the evidence for this one lies largely in the relationship with another person: King Sayet. For a very long time in the story, it was indicated that the Ancient Pavilion Designer (APD) studied together with Sayet. Volume 2 Chapter 4, which came right before Nine-Night Tales chronologically, was later released, which named APD as Sayet's senior and described him as being cold and aloof. Then, Nine-Night Tales lore was released and - Xiao Zong is described as Sayet's senior, and the fandom collectively looked back and realized that XZ and APD stories lined up in more ways than one.

Except the big thing: The Ancient Pavilion Designer died years ago.

Or did he?

Well, according to the Miraland Civilization Files book timeline (lore book), he did. But the book was apparently written by the curators of the Ark (time-and-dimension-traveling Shining Nikki construct thing), meaning even they may not have known (or bothered to investigate) the truth. (Meta reason: to keep us guessing). I actually consider the book to be more conclusive evidence, because it reveals something that wasn't stated in the main story - something they went out of their way to change:

In Fu Su's dreamweaver, Sayet dies and APD dies shortly after. You would normally assume this to happen in 672, since it doesn't mention how much time has passed. But the book went out of its way to name the year as 673 instead, which lines up exactly with when Xiao Zong decided to leave the Flower Field (that place where the Ancient Pavilion is) and run off with Mr. Interesting Zhu Yuxian.

So, the situations line up, but the reason I take half a point off this one are because of the huge leaps in logic you have to make to take these pieces and figure that Fu Su’s wise old mentor faked his death and is actually this pretty ruthless guy who literally murders people in cold blood. Still, this gets many points because it seems obvious this is what the writers are trying to say.

Evelyn (Flickering Pistill) is the Elf Queen (Chloris & Cesare's Mother)

★★★☆☆ - could go either way

Truly one of the few theories where I genuinely have no idea what the writers are intending.

A little bit of background: Due to the prevalent lore chart that spread around many eons ago, it was stated that Evelyn (Flickering Pistill) = Evelyn (Wind's Whisper) = Chloris's Mother. Well... much time has passed and though whether FP and WW are the same character seems to just be up to interpretation (and translation) as it's doubtful that they will release anything else that references Wind's Whisper, new lore about both the Elf Queen and Evelyn is still being released, which carefully does not refer to them as the same person.

Most people don't really think there is a difference, but I encourage you to read lore without conflating the two if you're interested in the theory. Hahaha, just kidding I wouldn't wish reading elfkindred lore on anyone. I may make a post later about how much of it retcons itself, both in terms of events and in characters, because it’s been kicking my ass recently.

Noah is the Fantasy Envoy

★★☆☆☆ - it's not impossible but doubtful

I really used to think this one at a point in time. The points in favor of this one include: Concern over Fantasy Envoy's identity (Nikki and Momo seem to recognize him), Noah being a trickster/master of illusions, similar personalities, and sprites drawn using a similar looking face. They also both spent some time in Pigeon Forest, as well as in Lilith (Envoy because he's a traveller, Noah because I guess he was doing things for Cesare).

However, the fact that Nikki and Momo seem to recognize him isn't actually evidence he is Noah (Bobo would recognize him, which she doesn't). It's actually an easter egg to Nikki 2 - where incidentally one of their friends Polo the detective dressed up as the a mysterious guy called the Fantasy Envoy, who is a guy on Earth too I suppose?

Anyways, even though this one isn't total nonsense, I don't think this is the route they're going. Noah is an actual character and Envoy is... more and more just an eccentric weirdo.

===

This is all I have energy to write tonight but I definitely intend to do more in the future. Other ones I have planned include Nikki as Hostess L, Fu Su’s bloodline, and some stuff that’s debunked that I just wanted to mention. If you want me to do any others, send me an ask and I will do my best!

#love nikki #love nikki lore #love nikki theories

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funkymbtifiction · 3 years

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Good afternoon, I’m in a bit of a quandary. So type wise I’ve been between INFP INFJ. I’ve had most other say I’m INFP and a few others say INFJ. Function wise I relate more to having Se inferior over Te inferior; I’m often stuck in my own head, mind swirling in mental imagery and imaginings on what could be happening out there or within, spaced out and not really engaging with the present moment. I often don’t act until I feel completely prepared and motivated but by then the moment has passed. I’m often loosing items and forgetting how I’ve gotten to places especially when driving. Whereas I’m not sure how Te works let alone inferior Te, but I haven’t been described as blunt and bossy, or see myself as that. I can organise my environment and have no problems doing that but it’s in my own way, if that makes? Like how I order my paperwork or books or plan how to do a task may not be how others do as standard but I mostly do get the job done by doing my own thing.

I have wondered about being Fi lead because I am constantly in my mind figuring out how I am really feeling or how I would react in situations; I self insert when reading stories for example or would imaging how I would feel if I was in an event that someone else had gone through. That said, my focus is a bit worrisome in that I haven’t been able to easily figure out who I am. I rely on external feedback perhaps too much and fret that I have no authentic inner core. I know myself better now but I am in my late 20s. I’m quite open minded towards others’ preferences and values and will assess my own to factor in external feedback. Or if I have my own strong preference I.e. a book I love everyone else hates I’ll keep quiet to keep the harmony in the group and not cause embarrassment or conflict to myself and others, but I’ll retain my preference as private knowledge.

Ti as a tertiary may fit better than Fi because I am overanalysing and seek to understand myself and how I work, if that makes sense? For Fe as an auxiliary I would say I am shy and in my own head a lot, prefer alone time and have strong emotions and fluctuation moods, but between my values vs others I will seek to adapt to others and I suppose subconsciously will sacrifice my preferences for others.

For auxiliary Ne, I did wonder if I had that due to being often seeking alternative perspectives and looking at an event or person from many angles, but I read that Ne is more to do with leaping on opportunities and crafting those opportunities, which I don’t think I do so much. I’m still not sure the nuances of Ni or Ne though.

Finally, I wondered about Si as a tertiary because I am very nostalgic and prefer home comforts and a routine, but having said that my routine is more to do with making sure I know what is coming, orientating myself to have order externally so that mentally I can zone out in my daydreams and insights, and having that physical sense and psychological of comfort and coziness (warm bath, thick covers, not too loud places or too much activities, around accepting non demanding people, safe to be myself). Which I suppose we all do regardless of function right?

Anyways, thank you so much for reading all of this and for facilitating this great place for understanding and growth and support :)

I would guess INFJ, simply because some things you said indicate a perceiving dominant (EP, IJ) rather than a judging dominant, and since you are "in my own head" a lot, that rules out Ne-dom.

I mean...

I’m often stuck in my own head, mind swirling in mental imagery and imaginings on what could be happening out there or within, spaced out and not really engaging with the present moment. I often don’t act until I feel completely prepared and motivated but by then the moment has passed. <- Introvert + high Ni, usually INFJ and inferior Se problems (must prepare, prepare, think, plan, prepare... oh, it's too late, never mind)

I haven’t been described as blunt and bossy, or see myself as that. <- every FP under stress becomes obnoxiously blunt, and it has happened to them all at some point in their life, where people go ... what was that??? Who died and made you dictator?

my focus is a bit worrisome in that I haven’t been able to easily figure out who I am. I rely on external feedback perhaps too much and fret that I have no authentic inner core. <- not Fi-dom, very likely strong Fe.

I’m quite open minded towards others’ preferences and values and will assess my own to factor in external feedback. <- perceiving dominant, secondary judging function (Ni/Si + Fe + Ti -- does what they say have merit? Should I apply it to my understanding or life? Analysis and detachment, scrutiny, rather than "well, that insulted me")

Ti as a tertiary may fit better than Fi because I am over-analyzing and seek to understand myself and how I work, if that makes sense? For Fe as an auxiliary I would say I am shy and in my own head a lot, prefer alone time and have strong emotions and fluctuation moods, but between my values vs others I will seek to adapt to others and I suppose subconsciously will sacrifice my preferences for others. <- yes, Fe and Ti. As an INFP said recently, there's no need to analyze myself, I am who I am. I don't have to understand it, I just have to live by it.

For auxiliary Ne, I did wonder if I had that due to being often seeking alternative perspectives and looking at an event or person from many angles <- Ni also does this, but it all happens inside your head rather than "talking it through with others" ("what about this? or maybe that? what if it means this? but I should factor in that?"). Ni shifts perspective on purpose to look at something from a different perspective. Ne drifts away from it, to see what thoughts it can inspire in other directions.

Ne is more to do with leaping on opportunities and crafting those opportunities, which I don’t think I do so much. <- It's more that Ne uses one idea to spark a lot more in various directions, ie, you watch a movie about sharks and start thinking about how you'd love to go deep sea diving or write a novel about an upside-down world that has sharks in it. You leave off whatever it is you are paying attention to to go on a mental rabbit trail and/or abstract away from it into other related ideas, and it all happens continuously and quickly and others wonder how you got from talking about sharks to mentioning how much you love hot dogs.

I am very nostalgic and prefer home comforts and a routine, but having said that my routine is more to do with making sure I know what is coming, orientating myself to have order externally so that mentally I can zone out in my daydreams and insights, and having that physical sense and psychological of comfort and coziness (warm bath, thick covers, not too loud places or too much activities, around accepting non demanding people, safe to be myself). Which I suppose we all do regardless of function right? <- strong self-preservation Enneagram instinct, and maybe 9 core. You want to feel safe and comfortable so you can avoid inferior Se problems of spacial awareness and live in your head. ;)

#question #infj #mbti

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