#but you can see how this actively works against and is detrimental to said people when they try to get help for it

[carlyraejepsans]

speaking of dr, there's something that really annoys me about how shallow the ship discourse around kr4lsei is. I'm not sure I'm 100% behind this for the same reasons i doubt toby will go full in with noelle's mom being abusive, ie "those are very delicate and complex topics to handle, does he have the time and space to deal with them in deltarune's story?" so take this with a grain of salt.

(warning for brief mention of incest, so I'm putting this under a readmore)

i think the discourse being framed as "thinking ralsei is presented as a romantic interest" vs "thinking ralsei is compared to kris' brother or like a family member" is incredibly stupid because those are... both true at the same time. yes, there's an unskippable "tunnel of love" scene, and it looks like ralsei could have somewhat of a crush on kris. but ralsei still 1) looks just like a dreemurr, 2) clearly plays, as a character, on our feelings and memories of asriel from playing undertale, as evident by their designs and their names being anagrams 3) i am 99% sure Noelle was going to say "that kinda looks like asriel" while looking at him eating cotton candy with Susie, and Susie herself suggests telling toriel he's "a long lost cousin". either way, if ralsei is meant to play on our feelings towards asriel, then as asriel's sibling, kris is likely gonna feel similarly.

are you uncomfortable? good! you should be. that's the point.

it's not random that the snowgrave route was framed and portrayed with the imagery of a wedding. first the freezering, then the thorn ring are explicitly compared to wedding rings. "we're just friends"/"we're something else". "YOU'VE BEEN MAKING [hyperlink blocked (...LoVE?)], HAVEN'T YOU?" noelle with whom kris had a strained relationship, whose feelings (platonic? romantic? we don't know) we brute force in what is the most chilling, manipulative, cruel iteration of chapter 2's story we could take... it's almost as if deltarune uses kris being forced into romantically coded situations they're deeply uncomfortable with as a way to showcase their lack of agency in the story.

and being pushed into romcom-like situations with a guy who looks like their brother works pretty darn well to follow that pattern, if you ask me.

now, if a forced romance with noelle represents their lack of agency in regards to the player, then... a forced romance with ralsei could represent their lack of agency towards Fate. The Plot/Story. unskippable cutscene, remember? not to mention ralsei's whole purposepilled shtick he clearly has a complex about.

this does raise a couple of questions about susie though, as the third option in the "who would you take to the fair with you" question, the one option kris seems to agree with, as well as being a character who is actively resisting the narrative.

because there's people who are very much FOR krusie, just as there are people against it, i doubt their getting or not getting together would work to represent kris gaining their agency back. and i believe i speak for everyone when i say that susie is going to play a huge part in that arc. either way, i'm curious to see how this develops.

idk! like i said, I'm not sure just how much toby is gonna go into this because it IS a very delicate subject. but it's an example of what i mean when i say "there's more to fandom than shipping" and "fixating so hard on Shipping Good Things" can be detrimental to analysis. I'm not cancelling anyone with this post, go on doing your thing whether it's kr4lsei or r4lsusie or krus1e. but if your first thought going into this was "I'm gonna ignore the part where the game compares ralsei to asriel because that would make my ship incest and that is Bad and uncomfortable" then... that's a very cheap way to interact with media? lol. sometimes being uncomfortable IS the point. god knows utdr makes you uncomfortable on purpose sometimes. ok rant over :P

#incest mention #entry log #deltarune #kris #ralsei #metanalysis

[lizzaneia-elizalde]

LIZZ LIZZ LIZZ YOU HAVE TO HEAR ME OUT ON THIS ONE!!

What about a yandere! Prosecutor was Detective! Darling~ (oooh I'm so excited about this one). This detective darling is a clumsy yet smartest detective in the state. Our yan! Prosecutor is said to be the best in the country (i hope you know the difference b/w prosecutor and attorney for this one). Once they are teamed up against some big bad mob boss (you could do a lore here with mafias you have already AHHHH). And our yan is just so into his darling... but he doesn't like how others seems to be on her mind more than he'd like them to be (honestly he just wants his cute lil' detective all for himself) so, oops he commits a cute little crime as well (torturing and killing no, mutilating criminals who he previously worked against is not so cute if you ask me, but it's all fair, they were criminals to begin with darling!) and drops hints for his lovee~ a new serial killer is on rise and that taking a toll on darling but he loves it now he has her full attention, one way or another hehe :3

-🌼

yandere! male! killer! Prosecutor x fem! Detective! Darling

oh god I have to bend over backwards to remember what's the difference. It's been quite a WHILE since I did anything related to Law, and ace attorney. But I hope I did well? ASdhaKLJd I dunno.

ALSO, I LOVE THE IDEA! Mystery/Detective ain't for me though, so I did scrimp some ideas off of the floor since it's kind of hard. But anything for you, 🌼anon!

Another long fic as sorry for being away for so long!

Yandere! Prosecutor name: Yuta

TW: Drugs (I don't know if there's an irl drug with the same symptoms I mentioned, since i'm only writing what I can think of.), Bullying

Blaring red and blue lights, mismatched furniture upturned and wrecked beyond recognition, a house filled with used and unused drug paraphernalia, blood, bullets, the sing-y gunpowder smell, and the aftermath of a bloody confrontation between two opposite ends of the society.

The Silas mafia just had their hand on a powerful drug, and is spreading them throughout the population without any kind of remorse. It's a hallucinogenic that can induce a coma like state to a human, giving them the most ecstasy in their dreams, and making them yearn for more once done. But what's detrimental is that it wears out their nervous system and cardiovascular system when long term usage is induced. It can also cause schizophrenia, paranoia, and loss of appetite. Inducing a zombie like state.

A man in a simple turtleneck, pants, and black polished shoes entered the scene, asking the policemen and investigators on what they have discovered. They all bowed down their head respectfully, and told him that they have caught the right hand man of the Silas mafia, making him smile in satisfaction.

It's unusual for the prosecutor to be so invested in a case, let alone be in the crime scene itself. But the personnel just cooked it up to him being the best prosecutor there is, so he needs to be there personally on what could be the biggest case yet when it comes to the underground illegal scene.

Yuta, a man regarded as the absolute order in this city. Whichever case his hands pry on, it is sure and secured that the guilty verdict lands on the hands of the judge and the victim, along with the not so poor suspect.

Although, he doesn't take on cases that he knew the suspect isn't what they seem. They may be the actual victims, or that the investigation isn't complete, or that the charges are too small and needs to be delved down further.

When asked about the cases he doesn't take, Yuta would only say that it's his gut feeling. And his gut feeling never betrayed him. With this, he never lost a case.

Outside of the court of Justice, Yuta is your typical boy next door. Nice, friendly, a gentleman. Smart beyond his years AND handsome? It's no wonder people feel at ease with this stable man.

Although, one could see that he's actively putting up barriers. It's as if he doesn't want to get involved with people at all. That also meant dating is off of his calendar.

When asked once more why, he says that being a prosecutor, nay, a servant of the law is a dangerous career for a lover to have, let alone a spouse. He can't forgive himself if something happens to his family if they got harmed because of his work! He has received death threats and actual attacks, so he can't bare the thought of somebody getting wrapped up in this convoluted profession of his!

Yada yada yada...

While the people cried out for the soft heart that is Yuta, Yuta sighs and rolls his eyes.

In reality, people are such a hassle and a bother to his work.

They're distractions, and nothing but a liability. And if they actually end up dead, he'll be the one to blame.

Besides, they're not...

Yuta's eyes landed on you, the detective assigned to this case amongst others also. His heart raced a bit, eyes softening.

"Hey there detective~" A slightly flirtatious voice only you caught wafted from his soft lips. His eyes bending ever so slightly.

Oh, how in love he is with you.

You flinched a bit, not expecting Yuta to be here.

"Oh! Yuta! Hi..." you cleared your throat, a bit awkward. He gave a small smirk at your awkwardness, clearly enjoying the uncomfortable look you gave him.

"Hey, i'll be actively present in the case this time around." He said in a slightly happy voice. Making sure you're the only one who caught the happy tone. "And i've decided to help in the investigation."

With Yuta making sure that his voice was loud, everyone heard it. They almost stumbled back from shock.

THE Yuta personally helping this case?

Was this actually okay?

So many questions popped up in their head, but all Yuta could see is you, squirming under his heated gaze.

"So, let's go, partner?" He whispered sweetly, his hand gripping your forearm a bit too tight with his body pressed against your back a bit too intimately for your taste.

If only he didn't confess the night before...

Yuta came from a distinguished family of a long line of law personnel. Attorneys, judges, prosecutors, some even ventured to politics in general.

Despite being geniuses in their own accord, Yuta is a different breed. With no failed cases under his belt, and his arguments that is guaranteed to win with no hiccups, he's a one of a kind in his family.

In a law firm in which he oversees with his parents that was passed down from generation to generation, he made sure to only hire the best of the bests, nobody that will ruin the reputation of the law firm.

They also frequently partner with police investigators and detectives to help the cases they got. And made sure no conflicting cases will be at the law firm to avoid a hostile environment between prosecutors and attorneys.

This made an environment in which allowed for these people to advance and grow in their career without any kind of external stress except in their cases.

Back when Yuta was still a wee lad in law school, their University had a Criminal Justice course. At first, Yuta didn't care much about other courses, but had to see if his future possible partners are... Nitwits.

So, walking around the crim building was a bit jarring. Since it also houses future police and soldiers. Once he got to see the crim justice students, only one student caught his eye. And it's your friend.

She's smart, almost too smart. She's acing every test left and right apparently from the records and intel he got. Pretty also, she was your course's muse even due to how perfect she is.

Yuta was still quite naive back then, and was thoroughly impressed by her skills and intelligence that he decided to get to know her more.

Your friend, Shiela, was ecstatic. She knew who he was and how prestigious his family was. She's boastful and arrogant, knowing she bagged the heir of a highly valuable law firm.

The next few months was painful to say the least.

Shiela was never your friend.

She was your bully back in elementary and middle school. And both of you met up in University with how the both of you enrolled in the same course.

Unlucky you, you got snatched away from making potential friends when she latched her slimy and grubby hands on you. With her not knowing anyone, she gripped the arm of the only person she knew.

And of course, she never learned.

It's hypocritical how she's in criminal justice when she herself can be a potential suspect of a bullying case if you succumbed to her wiles. Of course, you never did, but...

She used you to make her homeworks, projects, even pinched you to help her every time she can't answer oral recitations for you to discreetly coach her. If you got caught trying to tell her the answers, she would blame you, saying that you were coaching, and insulting her intelligence by coaching you.

You never had the backbone to retaliate really, seeing as years of being bullied by her took a toll on your mind that you became instantaneously submissive to her.

But all of these arrogance ended when Yuta exposed the truth.

A bullying case, you were forced under Shiela to do her bidding, dealing psychological damage and trauma. Forcing you to do her activities, physical assault, and is essentially tormenting you for years upon years. Yuta, the man who got together with Shiela to expose her wrongdoings, was actually more interested in you, the real genius amongst the two. And for the first time, he cannot just let this slide.

The case got to court, and Shiela was expelled from the University with no recommendation and a smeared portfolio, alongside paying a hefty sum of fines with being imprisoned for three years.

It was wild, considering most countries doesn't account jail time for punishment, but Yuta made it possible.

You owed Yuta your life. And the both of you became unlikely friends.

Friends... Yuta doesn't like that term when he's utterly in love with you.

He saw you as this clumsy and poor girl who needs his help. Someone so helpless and so meek that his heart aches whenever he thinks of you being under that wretched bitch for so long. You're so smart, yet so dull against the scorching and burning light of Shiela. It's no wonder that you were dubbed as her moon. Always catching her light and not emitting your own.

Well, so what? The sun is irritating to him, and the moon has always been a sanctuary of peace in his mind. And he'll always have that sanctuary in his heart, and close to his body.

Yuta is patient when it comes with you. Helping you regain your confidence and strength, alongside your self-esteem. He had this sick sense of gratitude and ownership on you due to being the one to liberate you from your bully. Now, if you would just let him love you romantically, it would be nice.

But he knew he had to wait. And wait he did.

Years later, with him being this bigshot of a prosecutor and you a genius detective who solved mysteries and crimes in a jiffy, both of you were unstoppable.

Not until one day, at Yuta's birthday, he invited you for a simple drink in his house while eating steak he personally cooked.

This was no foreign event. He usually invites you to eat or drink whenever you or him got a successful case under the bag. And you thought this would be no different, but...

"Yuta... Not there..."

"Not here? Then how about..."

"Ngh~!"

"So this is your sweet spot?"

It was just supposed to be drinks. That's it.

But now you're under him, moaning in delight as he touches and pleasures you in ways you don't even know. Of course you won't know. He made sure you never got lovers after all.

A drunk confession from his lips got pass him when the both of you were just talking about life, and when you got to the topic of romance. You wanted to experience it, and Yuta got frustrated on how you were so dense!

So he confessed, and took your sweet lips upon his.

God, was it a night to remember for the both of you as the line between friends, coworkers, and potential lovers got extremely blurred.

But you, sweet you, decided to run away from his condo the morning after that. You just can't handle the fact that Yuta confessed his feelings for you, and slept together in a drunken one night stand.

And the rest is history, with you being awkward with Yuta. After all, it was just yesterday when that happened.

And Yuta didn't like that.

With this new case taken over by you and Yuta, you had no choice but to talk with him.

You really tried to ignore him, but what can ignoring do when he's always at your beck and call when you tripped over something, lil ol' clumsy you?

His arm would wrap around your waist with a little squeeze on your stomach, sending shivers down your spine.

"Darling..." The new pet name made you gulp from how... Right is sounded. "Be careful, right? We're dealing with the mafia here. Especially someone of the statures of Silas. We can't just bring them down that easily."

You nodded frantically, wanting to get out of his grasp.

You knew how dangerous it was to go toe to toe with the mafia. Especially if tit's the stature of the Silas with the lead of Rowan. You also knew they're involved with their rival family, the Underworld ran by their boss, Hades.

Despite being just there, they can't just arrest them. They're too powerful for their own good to just barge in their territory. There's also the fact that they effectively influence the economy which made it harder.

Right now, you just wanted to solve this drug case.

At least, with this case, your mind will be occupied with something other than Yuta, right?

Days passed, weeks even. And you got to busy with the case that you neglected Yuta. You were so focused in solving the over drug usage within the city, and the drug distribution within the country.

Especially with the Silas' right hand man being a scapegoat, and is actually an innocent man all along.

You were getting frustrated by this.

They were so close, yet so far. You can't find the lead at all on where the factory was.

Even just the factory and the destruction of it was going to be enough!

While you were pounding on your poor little brain for more clues and outcomes to come out, Yuta was coldly watching.

At first, he thought that finally confessing would make you finally his. Your attention on him only, your pretty little mind just consumed with him wholly.

But this case...

This case was something he didn't expect at all.

Sure, he partnered up with you to make sure the drug case got solved, but you were so focused on the work that you forgot he actually confessed to you. You even ran away from him!

His jaw ticked, leaning on the door frame as you slaved away for a case that took your waking days.

You even forgot to take care of yourself...

And oh, was he angry at the fact that...

You pulled up suspected photos of Rowan and Hades, still not sure if these guys are the right at all. You were obsessed with solving this case. Absolutely devastated for the people who got victimized by the drug. Yuta clenched his teeth in anger, his eyes hostile.

He doesn't like that other men occupied your mind.

Your mind should only occupy him.

And only him.

"What do you mean there's a serial killer on the rise?"

A shiver shot up your spine when you heard the news from your chief.

He rubbed his chin and nodded, a bit troubled and disturbed.

"Yes, a new serial killer." He gulped, his face pale. "I can't believe in this day and age where it's impossible to hide things we still have this cases."

"When did it start? The killings?" You asked, now a bit more interested but absolutely terrified.

"About a month ago. The dead people had carvings in their skin. A heart..." The chief placed down pictures on your desk that made you gag. These were graphic photos of the dead bodies with markings on them. "They have a heart carving with the letter f/l/n (first letter of name) in it."

You gritted your teeth, cringing a bit. Really? It had to be the first letter of your name too?

This is just getting creepier and creepier.

"Pattern of victims? Or are they randomized?" You asked, trying not to look at the photos.

"They're actually criminals, with random innocents sprinkled through. But those innocents are from... Well, personnel from the law and criminal justice." You groaned. Great. This is gonna be harder than you thought.

You didn't want to be involved with this case at all, but the fact that the victims are criminals meant that this is gonna be a case that will be sensationalized to bits. Also, there's a high chance you're going to be the next victim due to the serial killer also killing other law personnel.

It also didn't help that the prosecutor in most of the cases these criminals are from...

"Yuta... Are you alright?" You asked him, a bit spooked.

Yuta was hospitalized from shock. He also almost became a victim. A huge gash on his chest. The signature killing move from the serial killer. And a heart carved on his thigh.

You felt sad for him, and anger arose. Who is this fucking serial killer? Why was he or she attacking them?

You almost had a melt down thinking about how Yuta almost died.

On the other side, Yuta hid a smile from you, a shiver of pleasure running down his spine. Here you are, being so consumed by worry and rage. He should have done this earlier!

Killing was also really fun! He got to kill the people that annoyed him greatly and mark them cutely with a heart.

Somehow, the world is in his favor as he never got caught.

Aw, poor little you, so consumed by him in your waking days and not those disgusting mafia men.

He raised a hand, carefully caressing your hair as you started to weep from the shock that he almost died.

Oh, don't worry, he's not that stupid to slash too deep!

Seeing so many murders that he personally became the prosecutors from, he knew what to do in order to escape jail and being caught. The perks of knowing too much really.

Should he ask you to help him solve the serial killer case? Maybe add a little bit of weeping and begging so you would focus on him and him only?

And, who should he frame?

A name came to his mind. Shiela! Of course. He should plan out who will be the next victims, and paint the picture in which Shiela got jealous of you being successful and wanting revenge... He'll personally be the prosecutor and make sure to rig Shiela's attorney...

And as the piece de resistance, he's sorry but he had to make you the last victim. He'll have to think how to frame Shiela in the same place as you, her slashing you in the way he did, then he would come to the rescue at the pretense of visiting your home to drink... Shiela, so consumed by her delusions would try to kill you but he saves the day.

But how would he do that?

Well, he already kidnapped Shiela, and the drugs! Yes the drugs. It did have hallucinogens in them after all. All he had to do is brainwash Shiela while using the drugs, then wait for the right time.

Oh how exciting!

And while that wait, he held your weeping form close, kissing the top of your head with a sadistic smirk.

This is gonna be fun.

#lizzaneiaelizalde #yandere writing #yandere imagines #yandere boyfriend #yandere male #male yandere x reader #tw yandere #yandere x darling #yandere x you #yandere fic

[toastandjamie]

Alright nuance time! As you might have noticed I’m a fan of Mat/Tuon but the thing that makes them so interesting is the fact that they aren’t a perfect couple and the reason I love Tuon is because she’s complicated so that being said- I think it’s really interesting how unbalanced the amount effort in the relationship is. Mat by far puts more effort into making the relationship work and this is because of two reasons, how they view their respective prophecies, and their cultural differences.

Tuon’s prophecy has a lot more specifics in it, having actual signs to look for unlike Mat who received only a title and told they would marry. Tuon’s prophecy encourages her to take a passive role in the development of the relationship because the signs are all actions that Mat commits on his own, stealing and setting her free. So she waits and watches. Mat meanwhile is given no guidelines, he knows he’ll marry her and he can see that unknowingly his head is already in the noose so to speak. Unlike Tuon, despite accepted the inevitability of fate and no longer running away from it Mat still seeks out ways to enforce his own agency within the confines of fate. If his neck is the noose he’ll jump off the ledge instead of being pushed. The outcome is the same but at least he gets to control it. Mat treats his relationship with Tuon similarly, he won’t passively await a loveless marriage instead he takes steps to get to know her, to find the parts of her that he likes, he makes the active choice to love her. Ironically his desire to have agency is what causes their fated marriage.

Once they begin to persue the relationship their cultures come into play. In Seanchen society the Empress is considered infallible, in Tuon’s mind she’s a divine authority in her own right. While she’s willing to consider and listen to the opinions and advice of those she trusts she believes wholeheartedly that she is not just in the right but righteously so. Mat meanwhile has a view on relationships more akin to our own where compromise is necessary to creating a healthy relationship. Andor where Mat grew up is a matriarchy. While the Two Rivers may not acknowledge the Queen as sovereign, women are still the final authority in Emmonds Field, and an expectation of husbands deferring to their wives. Mat is a pragmatist, as a person he’s willing to bend his own morality for the safety and happiness of the people he loves to the detriment of all else including his own physical and mental well being. This means that while Tuon refuses to change she expects Mat to do so, and Mat is willingly to change for the sake of making the relationship work. He’s willing to tolerate things he wouldn’t otherwise because he wants his marriage with Tuon to be happy and he loves her.

The issue is that because they are fated together Mat is willing to do and put up with just about anything to make it work because that’s the only agency he has in relation to their marriage. Where as Tuon views herself as a passive player in her own fate and expects Mat to bend to fit her world view. This creates a dangerously unbalanced dynamic where all the expectation and pressure of keeping the relationship happy is entirely on Mat.

However we also see that there’s the chance for improvement. Mat might be willing to put up with a lot but he still highly values his own independence and sense of self. So if he views Tuon as threatening that, ie. trying to take his hat or threatening his friends/home he fights back viciously against it. While Tuon is immovable in her beliefs in many ways she can be flexible when needed and she understands when a fight isn’t worth it. And of course, she does love Mat in her own way, she shows this by giving him privileges and listening to his wants and needs. Mat is just stubborn enough and Tuon just flexible enough that growth and improvement are possible.

#mat cauthon #tuon athaem kore paendrag #wheel of time #wheel of time spoilers #minor wot book spoilers #wot meta #problematic fave tuon

[nighttime-tea-party]

soooo idk who else to ask but like what happened to all the big names during the sebaciel renaissance?? I’ve kinda been off tumble pretty much since nsfw ban, but what happened to blogs like chromehopelite and ciel’s lingerire or vexing young master? Im sure there’s others I’m missing I just can’t remember but I feel like no one uploads on the sebaciel ao3 tag as much as it used to in like 2017 and 2018. hopefully the fandom will come alive again with a new season?

Hello! I have no idea what happened to Vexing Young Master but as for the others, as far as I know, Ciels Lingerie got obliterated again and again, both here and on twitter, and I guess at one point they gave up. Their latest twitter seems to have been hacked by crypto bros.

Chromehoplite is still around, just not in the fandom anymore. And who can blame them, considering the amount of vile messages they got on a daily basis.

To be honest, I've been active in the tumblr fandom for... Idk how long, before BoC, and it was the most prolific back when BoC aired. After that, it's been a downward spiral. It got a bit refreshment through BoM and BotA but not in the same way. Back during BoM, the fandom felt huge.

I think it's a natural development. Manga fandoms are most active when there's a fairly recent tv anime adaptation (movies just don't do it like tv shows). There hasn't been one in a long time, and additionally, we've had to put up with our main characters virtually missing from the manga for about half a decade now. The twin reveal was that long ago!

So I completely understand that the fandom has become the way it is now. I consider myself crazy for still sticking around the way I do (but I have no plans of changing that) but most people aren't as weird about Kuroshitsuji as I am.

That being said, I also believe that the fandom will have a real renaissance when the show airs again. I never expected that twitter-borne renaissance to hold on anyway because it was mostly just born out of spite against antis (which is valid but not enough to give people the motivation to stick with a manga that's barely progressing over the course of years). Chrome and the others were there before the twitter renaissance and they were there after it too to some extent, but I guess lives go on, priorities and interests change and also, fandom can just be really nasty and detrimental to your mental health sometimes.

Maybe we'll see some familiar people come back when the new show airs, who knows!

I hope my answer helped!

P.S.: from the perspective of a creator myself, the disappearance of popular creators coincides with a strong decrease of engagement with authors' and artists' works. You could say it's a hen and egg kind of situation but I think the common denominator is the lack of progress in the manga and everyone's fatigue with everything. In any case, from a creator's POV it does feel kind of discouraging sometimes when you feel like your skill has increased over time but people don't interact with it as much as they used to. Like, I know it's the size of the fandom but I sometimes think, "has my art gotten that bad?" and I mean I don't draw for attention or else I'd draw Genshin or sth like that but it is a little difficult to process anyway. Sorry for the rant.

[thydungeongal]

Feel free to say "no", but can I get an explanation of how diceless TTRPG systems actually work at the table.

I'm not exactly a diceless guy, cause the only diceless game I've played is Godsend (which is an amazing game by the way) but I can give you a brief rundown of how it worked in that game's case. It's actually quite an interesting example because I think it demonstrates a bunch of different things you can do with diceless RPGs:

It's a game about playing gods and their avatars. Each player plays a deity and then each player also controls another deity's avatar. So the game has two different levels at which the game takes place.

Gods don't have stats. Pretty much everything under a god's power level is expressed as an if-then statement. If a thing happens, you can do this. For an example, if you're playing a God of Death and you have the epithet Lord of the Great Dwelling, "When you favour a mortal and that mortal is killed, your Fate goes towards your goal." That's just a thing that happens because you're the God of Death and that's your epithet. Besides stuff like this gods also have a resource called Faith (used for powering miracles and creating followers) as well as Favour (effectively a meta resource that represents which gods in the pantheon you have leverage over. Can be used to invoke effects on other gods and their avatars).

But the gods don't take active part in the world, they can only operate through their avatars (and their main forms of interaction with their avatars are giving them orders and punishing them if they don't obey their orders). Avatars are expressed as more traditional characters with stats and everything. Four stats to be precise: Charisma, Wisdom, Will and Valour, each rated from between 0 to 3.

So here's the thing: characters in Godsend are basically demigodlike, so when they set out to do something, they do it. But the stats are used in those situations of conflict and uncertainty to choose extra benefits and to remove negative consequences. An example Godsend move looks like this:

Unleash the fury of war

When you engage in battle against a powerful opponent (an army, a champion, another Avatar, etc) that you can harm, you achieve your objective.

Choose any number of additional benefits up to your Valour:

You fully defeat your enemy, preventing them from fleeing, recovering and regrouping; you won’t have to unleash the fury of war against them again.

People see the might of your Divinity and they begin to worship them; your Divinity’s Faith becomes stronger.

You learn something about your true enemy; the GM will tell you something about a Peril.

Finally, choose any number of calamities up to your Will that won’t happen:

You are fatally wounded in the process – you are harmed.

Something or someone important to you or your Divinity suffers unfortunate consequences; the GM will make a Move.

The field of battle is ruined for this Age and the Age to come. Update the map with a large area (Detriment: devastated). If any terrain feature was located here beforehand, erase it.

Unchosen calamities happen; the GM fleshes out the details.

Some of the things in that Move can lead to other Moves! For an example, if you're harmed it forces you to choose one of your harm options which are potentially deadly. If that Move leads to your divinity's Faith going to +4 then it triggers the End of Days after this scene and you get to do a time skip and commence play in the next age!

So, basically, diceless RPGs can use a bunch of mechanics like expending resources, using resources to leverage other players, abilities expressed as simple if-then statements, and even traditional RPG moves but with the role of dice taken over by a light resource management and forcing players to make difficult choices based on their stats.

But as I said, I'm not a diceless guy exactly, so this is just based on my experience with one diceless RPG (which is very cool and I like it by the way)

[mercurialbadger]

I understand the desire to make everyone keep the identities that they are comfortable in, but, like, sincerely, since when did keeping people comfortable became a good thing?..

My first molecular biology teacher who smoked constantly one or two cigarettes and had a very fitting smoke-related surname had this example against the synthetic evolution of Dobzhansky’s Fitness.

Snail’s shell provides an efficient - to a rather surprising degree - defense against osmotic, predator, parasitic stressors giving snails an incredible amount of resilience no doubt presented as fitness. Slugs, within this paradigm, lose quite a bit when they discard their shell due to lack of calcium or other abiotic pressure.

Yet slugs emerge all the fucking time, and slug-ification of nautilus-like cephalopod lineage within gastropods have resulted in emergence of The Most Successful group of molluscans, with unparalleled visual and colour acuity of cuttlefish, complex sociality of squid, excellent, if not the best among all protostomes (!) task-solving ability of octopus...

Fitness and resiliency, as a result, can not be deemed only qualities necessary for evolutionary niche maintenance, and especially not social one.

A coop of all the best egg-laying chickens will never be the best egg-laying coop of chickens.

Vulnerability IS potential, and while it is a good idea to hide it as to confuse the adversary about your future actions, but eliminating it means dooming yourself.

I think it is related to the point of an earlier post how capitalism hates excellence because it cannot comprehend “immeasurably good”, so it just overflows it to “immeasurably bad”.

Don’t let your worldly soul get lazy! Lest it sit twiddling its thumbs Your soul must work like it's a navvy Day after day, night after night! Make so it go from door to door, Drag it from one top onto another Along a path - all ruts and holes, Over a pass with snow covered! Don’t let it stay in bed, when seeing The early morning sunshine ray, Do keep your tightest rein on it, And treat the loafer like a slave. But if you cut your soul some slack And let it shirk from daily chores, The last shirt off your own back It will then steal with no remorse. If so, just grab it by the shoulders, Go teach it and nag it till the end, So that to behave like humans Your soul will have to learn again. It’s both a slave girl and a queen, It’s both a worker and your child It must work on a strict routine Day after day, night after night!

- Nikolay Zabolotsky, 1958 Translated by George G.

Our therapist said once that it’s a description of a neurosis... and it killed a desire for being healthy.

PTSR* is considered an actual malady by people outside of trauma psychiatry exactly because it’s a stress response to thing that should occur. If immense emotional strain causes only stress, leading to hypersensitization, without buildup of resiliency, which eradicates nonproductive sensitivity. Then it’s a disease.

But it’s so incredibly easy to put the blame on horrors instead of asking the questions of ‘why are incresingly smaller horrors producing larger detrimental effect?’, it’s so simple to make people take the pill or personal therapy or something to keep them from destroying themselves, instead of letting them improve themselves through strife and labour!

My higher nervous activity professor said that there is a single axiom in neurobiology similar to the Central Dogma and it’s a simple observation that:

- all nervous activity culminates in neuron activity;

- neurons are paracrine regulators of muscles or other neurons;

故に,

no nervous activity that does not terminate in modification of motor function can possibly exist.

As such, while I admit I have no qualms about letting newbies and schoolchildren have fun with words**, I find concepts of monoconscious or coconscious a bit... undeserving of the sort of attention and explanatory power they have acquired.

Attention is a measurable, quantitative, predictable value, commonly designated by a greek lowercase γ with a direct link to skill improvement. You can work on your attention to your own thoughts when not performing voluntary tasks, or to monitoring the world outside. But if you are “monoconscious“, it’s not clear what to do.

*You won’t force me to say “psychiatric disorder” anymore **Actually I do, as a person working in nuclear physics, plant physiology, molecular biology and model object synthetic biology I hate taxonomy with all my heart, being trans and plural is just a cherry on top of mounds of white toxic hatred.

#iris.txt #plural positivity #evolution

[nonfer]

Sundar Pichai explained why Apple gets paid so much more for its default deal | Ars Technica

"At the heart of the charges against Bankman-Fried were accusations that he and FTX falsely represented that customer deposits were safely in the exchange’s custody."

Actors Strike: SAG-AFTRA Awaits Studios’ Response To Latest AI Proposals – Deadline

wikipedia.org - 2023_SAG-AFTRA_strike

Santos Survives Expulsion Vote & Don Jr. Testifies in Trump’s Fraud Trial | The Daily Show - YouTube

the same reason i can't have better treatment much less a thank you for bringing your platform viewers is the same reason you don't have any ad revenue coming. you have no idea why you should be marketing to the thousands of communities represented by "100 million". i remember wordpress being dishonest. guess i am happier to not have tumblr lie to me about how many people view my work on their platform.

however, there's no shortage of bad role models to excuse your lack of comprehension. somehow it feels intentional to see so many inept and inconsiderate fools being put forward as responsible.

"Consider, too, that the 1982 CEO-to-worker pay ratio was only a relatively paltry 42:1."

may have promoted a bad business practice that increases ahead of inflation, and has since his promotion of it. certainly detrimental for a company to unfairly benefit management, is that wasteful activity economically detrimental to the extent that it could devalue a currency? possibly not on its own, but on its own maybe not as measurably so.

you could see though that not having a sales department that could handle at least a hundred different advertising markets would be an opportunity lost for tumblr and for businesses in those markets that want a choice of where to advertise online for their local business.

US v Google Antitrust Trial Transcripts I The Capitol Forum

103023-USA-v-Google-AM.pdf (thecapitolforum.com) free download

continuing on page 7740: "- I don't recall the specifics, but normally I would do this if I were about to comment on something of a personal nature about some person. So I think they were planning the speaker list for the event, about to ask my input, so I was about to comment on who I thought would be a good speaker or not. That's what I vaguely recall." available from the links above and included for those curious about the reporting from cnn.

coverage concerning mark meadows starts a little before sixteen minutes into the show.

finished with this. post is from nov 3rd to nov 5th of 2023.

it's not successful for you to aggravate everyone viewing this. can you remember when you decided to do this? remember whose account it was that inspired you? don't think i want to know. does make it next to pointless to post here.

[cobblepottery]

Can i ask what's your opinion on ai generated art?

I’ve put off answering this ask for a while because I have a lot to say AND I have a lot of conflicting feelings, but I’m beginning to get in fights about it online now so I guess this is the time to finish off this disorganized ramble lol

Tl;dr I think AI art is a very cool and useful tool, and I don’t really think it’s theft, but as with many new technologies, it has terrible repercussions and is going to be used by corporations to the detriment of workers.

I think AI generated art is very cool, in concept-- I mean, I love AI in general (that’s probably why you asked me), and I especially love creative AI. That said, I don’t think the results LOOK that good most of the time (at least not without substantial tuning). Plus I very much enjoy making art myself, and am unlikely to commission others, man or machine, if there’s an image I want to exist. I am fairly interested in the creative process of how other artists use AI art as a supplementary tool, which is often pretty fascinating.

I definitely dismiss any complaints about AI art that come down to “it’s not true art because AI doesn’t have a soul” or “true art has to be difficult to make”. The first argument is meaningless (a camera doesn’t have a soul either, it’s about where you, the human, decide to point it). The second argument is actively harmful to artists and has been used repeatedly throughout history to bash new forms of art. There are far better reasons to hate AI-generated art than either of these: like art theft!

This is an argument I’m very sympathetic to, because it’s very difficult to define whether using pre-existing art as training data is theft or not, I think. My gut tells me that it is theft, but I’m actively going against my gut on this one. AI art doesn’t trace bits and pieces of other people’s art or edit it together like a collage; rather, it learns from other people’s art what art is supposed to look like (i.e. portraits often have a squiggle in the right-hand bottom corner) and then creates an entirely new image according to the guidelines it has learned and the prompt it is given. If we decided that training a model on data is theft, then we would have to rethink what's allowed when humans create art, because it’s really very similar to how humans work when looking at other artworks as inspiration. (I know I’m going to lose a lot of people here, because a lot of people are going to think this is art theft no matter how little of their art is recognizable in the final product, and I get that. It somehow feels different than someone just using your art for inspiration, even if practically the final result is the same, and software automatically scraping a database is a lot less flattering than an individual coming across your art and deciding they want to emulate it.)

I think the biggest problem with AI generated art isn’t about AI at all, but is really a combination of two distinct issues unrelated to AI. The first of these is copyright infringement, and the second is job security.

On the subject of copyright infringement, I’m gonna be brief, because admittedly I don’t know a ton of law and I don’t want to look too stupid. The courts consider copying art to be “fair use” if the art is transformative in some way. When I’m using other art for reference in my own art, I’m transforming it in some way that leaves the final result very different from its references. How different does it have to be? Hell if I know! Andy Warhol’s estate is currently facing a lawsuit over this! More restrictive definitions of “transformative” tend to help corporations more than they help individual artists (you can see this in the music industry, which has much stricter copyright laws). So I don’t think making stricter copyright laws is the answer here, but I like having some sort of social etiquette revolving around crediting major inspirations. If you’re actively specifying stuff belonging to a certain artist or group of artists (i.e. if you specify “in the style of artist x” or “in the style of animation studio y” in the prompt for the AI), it would be a dick move not to credit artist x or studio y, less so if they’re incredibly well known (like Disney) and much more so if they’re relatively unknown. I don’t think this is as important for something like “in a comic style” because the number of artists used as training data is going to be so large that any individual influence will come out so diffused as to be barely noticeable. Of course, feeding in a single image to be slightly altered in some way and then claiming it was entirely made by you is utterly unconscionable.

Alright, now for the job security part.

I have a relative who is a concept artist. He's being put out of work by AI generated art, because why hire a concept artist when you can just use a free AI? (To be clear, there are many reasons why, and those reasons are why human artists are always going to be wanted... but the fact remains that they won't be wanted quite as much, and existing artists' careers will be negatively affected.)

I also have a relative who is a virtual reality artist, primarily working in 3D. She tends to commission other artists to work on smaller parts of her project when she doesn’t have time to do it herself, but that’s very expensive. She's very excited for AI generated art to extend to 3D models because it would make her artwork cheaper and quicker to produce overall. Her artistic career will likely be positively affected as these AI improve.

Some artists are hindered and some are helped. A lot of non-artists are also helped, like writers who want to create a webcomic but lack the ability to fully create visual art for their story by themselves, and can’t afford to commission it either. Corporations are very much helped, which I certainly don’t consider to be a good thing. It’s easier to create, and it’s also easier to take advantage of people.

When cameras were invented, the number of professional painters went down, but it became cheaper and easier to obtain visual representations of life. When digital art software was created, the number of traditional media artists went down, but again, it became cheaper and easier for aspiring artists to create art. As AI generated art improves, we will also see the numbers of professional artists go down. This is always the problem with technology that makes a task easier-- there's always someone out there whose livelihood depended on that task being difficult. BUT we will also see an increase in art overall, just as the invention of cameras-- the accessibility and convenience of cameras to the average person-- made it possible for ordinary people to start experimenting with photography and videography without needing to hire professionals. It's absolutely a horrible tragedy, and its been a tragedy every single time a similar automation has pushed workers out of jobs over the centuries.

So what do we do about it?

That’s where I’m stuck. Because I want to eradicate the cons, but I want to keep the pros, as well. I wouldn’t want to go back 200 years and destroy the camera. I don’t want to go, “it’s all capitalism’s fault!” but it’s all capitalism’s fault. If we had, say, universal basic income, then artists wouldn’t need to rely on art being difficult in order to make enough money to survive. But like, I fully acknowledge that UBI is a distant dream right now, and will not be a solution to the immediate real problem many artists are facing currently. I don’t know! I don’t know. I think you can probably tell from this post that I lean more towards the side of “AI art good”, but this part keeps coming back to haunt me. Fully hand-drawn art very well could be largely replaced by AI-made art, the way that so many artisan crafts have been largely replaced by mechanized versions of themselves, and it’ll probably happen much faster this time since AI image generation is SO fast. I really really really don’t want that to happen.

I guess probably one of the best things to do is to support and commission non-AI artists as much as we can? Push back against corporations relying on AI art and laying off their human workers? Try to encourage the use of AI art as a tool for human creativity, not as a replacement for it? Any and all of these.

Sorry if you thought this would be more coherent!

#ai art #ai art discourse #ai generated art #long post #SO fucking sorry for this being so long also

[lovecolibri]

SaL anon here friend back to bitch some more in your inbox if you don't mind (if you're tired of the negativity please ignore). So here's the thing I hate about the whole cheating storyline, which ties in with your disappointment over us losing the satisfying breakup we were hoping for. It's really the deception with TayKay after that got me, whatever I may think of her character. We not too long ago saw Buck give Eddie an impassioned speech at being on the end of relationship where TBC

he was the person more invested, and how heartbreaking that was, a confession that pushed Eddie to breakup with Ana, in part so he wouldn't cause the same hurt (that Buck had gone through). Now, instead of getting Buck doing the same thing (stopping things before people really get hurt and choosing himself) he can only get the reverse. Buck must realize he's not that attached to TayKay, that he's not happy in the relationship if he's kissing someone else, HE'S not invested. Now, after half of season of Buck trying his best, to his detriment, to make things work, of making those sacrifices and us having to watch him being miserable, it's instantly undone by him lying and doubling down how invested he is in the relationship by asking her to move in. HE is now the person causing that pain he so intensely warned Eddie against causing, and it makes no fucking sense why he would do that!!! It's a selfish choice in all the worst ways that Buck as a character is not!! And no, I don't buy the argument "but Buck is spiraling", so was Eddie when he broke things off with Ana (and he continues to) but he still was prompted in part by the idea of hurting someone long term. Buck has been in that position, I just can't comprehend him actively doing it to avoid an awkward confession. Anyway, the whole thing feels like a cheap attempt to garner sympathy for the reporter (who's leaving anyway??) at the expense of Buck's personal growth.

Hello my friend! You are always welcome to air your grievances in my inbox! I was going to do this yesterday, but my niece was in town for a visit and at almost 5, she has more energy than I have ever had across my entire life combined. 🤣 Also I started this one first but VERY quickly lost the thread and became a rambling incoherent mess so I had to simmer down and answer some other things and get my thoughts in order.

Absolutely YES to all of this. Remember back in season 1 when a bunch of girls accused Buck of cheating and everyone shrugged and Buck was so hurt that the people he loved and respected would think he would ever do something like that? Remember nine episodes ago where Buck flat out told Eddie that just "sticking it out" with Ana wasn't enough for Eddie, and wasn't fair to Ana? But please tell me again how his spiraling manages to turn him into a completely different person than the narrative has told us he is for the past 4.5 seasons. 🙄

As with RNM, an argument can always be made for why a character would do something they did. It's a natural response to want to make sense out of the narrative! And for the people who have found their peace with it, good for them, cope however you need to! But given what we know about KR, her attitudes and what she prioritizes, the argument can also be made that this particular moment of cheating isn't some masterclass in storytelling, but a petty showrunner making a play for cheap drama, and also making her pet-project character that everyone hated look sympathetic, while also working in Female Version of Buck 2.0 to throw at him seeing if this one sticks. (Spoiler alert, it won’t. The GA already hate her more than they did tay kay because while she was just mean to their beloved fave, this one made him a cheater. (don’t @ me, I’m not saying she MADE him cheat, but her character’s purpose was to make him into a cheater))

Look. I've said it several times (at least in tags, but probably in some posts too. My brain is still soup, but it's like....furiously boiling soup 🤷‍♀️) that I don't like and probably never will, how this storyline started. Just because the argument can be manipulated to make some kind of sense, doesn't automatically make it good or good storytelling. An argument could be made that when Maddie left, Chim got upset and and then met some new single mom at a mommy and me playdate thing and started a fling with a random woman in his heartbreak before Buck found out where Maddie was and Chim went to look for her. Because he's spiraling right? So he might do something that seems OOC, but it's fine because it's part of the trauma spiral! 🙃 Again, something you would expect to see on any other run-of-the-mill procedural show because that's the max level of *drama* packed into the storyline, but that wouldn't be true to Chim's character, and it wouldn't be good storytelling.

It's the same with this cheating thing with Buck, and I'm soooo angry, because if he had broken up with his gf and THEN kissed the new lady before panic leaving because he doesn't want to be Buck 1.0 again? Only to have her show up as the new replacement that he now has to work with? And Hen knows and spends the whole time teasing him, and it's a little awkward but falls on the fun side of soapy drama? I could have enjoyed that! I mean, I'd still be hardcore 🙄🙄🙄 and side-eyeing the writers for him getting to make out with Eddie's female counterpart because non-gay men and non-lesbian women cannot work together without banging it out at least once 🙄 but in the context of the show I wouldn't mind them sharing scenes and things being a little awkward. How many fics are there where Buck and Eddie meet and hook up and then, surprise! Eddie is the new recruit! And it’s awkward! Again, a little side eye at the writers, but overall a fun trope!

But now? With the cheating AND the lying about the cheating? (which, JAIL for the writers for dragging Hen into that mess without a firm “definitely yes always honesty” policy) All their scenes are going to be gross and cringe and unenjoyable. Plus if KR and AK are to be believed, she's going to pull an Eddie and fit right in with everyone, impressing them, teaming up with Bobby to tease Buck and KR is pushing to have her and her whole cop family brought around for season 6 which....I can't even talk about because my blood pressure is already high enough. The point is, instead of getting Lena 2.0 with some fun scenes (her face during the grocery store fight slays me every time as does her question to Eddie about her cat only to be like "I don't have a cat, you bumbling imbecile."), and her pushing Buck to be more and more reckless until something bad finally happens and Bobby has to intervene, it's apparently per AK going to all be "sexual tension" and her comforting Buck in his time of need and a whole lot of other bullshit we could all do without.

It's absolutely cheap drama by a writer and showrunner who has clear priorities (rando white women hooking up with Buck > literally anything else), and who doesn't see the value in important conversations. Because Tim is the one who wrote and included the Will scene and the scene where Buck goes to talk to Chris after he leaves the hospital, and she’s out here saying the will isn't important and won't come up again (meaning the shooting likely isn't something on her radar to discuss either even though it's like...THEE elephant in the room), and saying Buck and Chim talked it out off screen (though the last we saw was Chim still being pissy and not quite ready to forgive so IDK what the fuck she's talking about), and cutting scenes like Bobby/Chim and Eddie/Chim (but there was only so much of the reporter because they didn't have enough cast and needed someone cheap to fill in don't you know? Don't tell that to all the Ghost Stories footage on the cutting room floor). It’s just....it’s A Lot, and I don’t think it’s fair to hate on people pointing out that while this narrative CAN lead to something interesting, it didn’t have to be this way and it’s not the best choice they could have made, because we know that one of the people in charge right now is Like That. 

ANYWAY. I have another ask from someone else that is about the narrative satisfaction of the breakup and the one we DIDN’T get satisfaction out of in RNM so stay tuned for something real salty coming up probably tomorrow. 

As always, it is a JOY to have you in my inbox 😘 Come spill the tea any time!

#my sweet nonnie friends #sleeping at last anon #911 #911 spoilers #evan buckley #anti bucklucy #god it really is 🚗 all over again isn't it? #timmy! come collect your og show #it's going off the rails

[celticcrossanon]

BRF Reading - 27th of September 2021

This is speculation only

Cards drawn 23rd September 2021

Question: How is Her Majesty the Queen?

Note: This reading was done before the NYC pseudo-royal 'tour'.

Interpretation: She is at the end of a cycle, reviewing her life, and stressed about current and future situations within the monarchy.

Card One: The World. This is one of two major arcana cards in the reading, and a dominant energy of the reading. The world card is about being at the end of a cycle, looking back to review the work done to reach this place, and taking time to celebrate before you step into the future. This is what Her Majesty is doing.

Her Majesty is reviewing her entire life as a monarch, with all the successes and failures, and reflecting on everything she has learnt and done that has brought her to this point in time: on the verge of celebrating her platinum jubilee. She is taking a moment to review and reflect on the past before she moves into the future, starting with the celebrations next year. She knows that she no longer has 60, 40, or even 20 years ahead of her, and she is using this time to reflect on her life as Queen and to try and distil what she has learnt into advice that she can give to her successors.

Card Two: The Six of Wands. This is card about the success of a project and celebrating that success. It can be the success of a project or achieving an important milestone. The card shows Jason holding triumphantly aloft the goal of his quest, the golden fleece.

In this reading the Six of Wands is the Jubilee celebrations for next year, a milestone celebration for Her Majesty. The Queen is looking over the Jubilee plans and giving her input for the public celebration of her years as a monarch. The energy here is of an activity that is relaxing and relatively stress free, so I think she is enjoying the planning.

Card Three: The Seven of Wands. This is a card of conflict, and the cards before and after it show what the conflict is about - the Jubilee and Harry (the Hermit card). The Seven of Wands can be about holding your ground or your position against threats to it. The picture shows Jason and his followers fighting with the supporters of his usurper uncle.

This card shows conflict, and the conflict is between HMTQ and Prince Harry. It concerns the Jubilee celebrations. Her Majesty has taken a certain position on this - most likely concerning Harry's involvement - and is fighting to hold her ground against the supporters of Prince Harry/Prince Harry himself, who most likely wants a greater involvement (like Jason's usurper uncle wanted to keep ruling the kingdom, Prince Harry wants to have his old place in these celebrations).

Card Four: The Hermit. This is the second major arcana card of the reading, so it is the second strong energy of the reading. The card shows the god Kronus, also known as Saturn, who we see today in the figure of Father Time.

This card has two energies. The first, minor energy is that of a sun-sign Virgo, as the Hermit is the card of Virgo. Prince Harry is a sun-sign Virgo. This energy of Prince Harry is tied into the previous card of conflict.

The second and stronger energy of this card is that of being alone, as the Hermit is alone, and of age and approaching death, as per the figure of Kronus/Saturn/Father Time. Her Majesty knows that she is at the end of her life, and the celebrations for next year may very well be the last major celebrations of her reign. She feels alone, bereft of support, as Prince Philip is no longer with her, and she misses him. This energy is of age, the death of loved ones, and mourning for them. I feel that her parents and her sister are also in her thoughts. Her Majesty is the last one left of her family 'group' - her parents, sister, and husband have all gone before her, and this makes her sad. She would have liked at least one of them to be with her for her jubilee celebrations (realistically Philip or Margaret), but that was not to be.

Card Five: The Nine of Pentacles. This is the card of someone who has worked hard and who is contemplating the fruit of their labour. The card shows the craftsman Daedalus standing and contemplating the result of his lifetime of work - the golden pentacles at his feet.

This is what the Queen is doing - looking over her lifetime of work and contemplating her legacy, soon to be celebrated as her Platinum Jubilee. However, the Nine of Pentacles is also a card about being single, and Her Majesty is recently widowed. The energy here is threaded through with sadness and loss. In the midst of preparing for her jubilee, HMTQ feels the loss of her husband keenly. She is reminded that she is once again alone, without the man who has been the rock of her long reign, and she feels this keenly.

Underlying Energy One: The Four of Cups. The card shows Psyche sitting between her sisters, as they gossip with her about her marriage and her husband. The gossip makes Psyche discontented with her married life, as she never sees her husband and gossip says that he is a monster.

The Four of Cups is a card of emotional dissatisfaction. It can mean being disappointed in something, or feeling disillusioned with life in general. In this deck, the suggestion is that those feelings arise from listening to gossip. It can also be a time when you are reevaluating things internally, and not taking any new opportunities because you want to be sure within yourself that they are the right thing to do before you pursue them.

This is how HMTQ is feeling underneath it all. She is aware of gossip, which here is coming across as public opinion/what people are saying, and it is bothering her. She is dissatisfied with how things are going or how they have turned out. She is rethinking or reevaluating her decisions as she is no longer sure that they are correct, and she doesn't want to proceed any further along a set path until she has worked out the right thing to do.

Underlying Energy Two: The Eight of Swords. This card shows Orestes trapped in a semi-circle of swords. On one side are the Furies, beings that torment him for murdering his mother, and on the other side is the god Apollo, who laid on Orestes the task of murdering his mother to avenge his father.

The Eight of Swords is a card of feeling very stressed and trapped, but that feeling is only in your mind. If you look at the situation carefully, there is a way out, as Orestes could walk backwards out of the semi circle of swords and run away from the Furies, but usually the person can't see the way out of the situation.

With respect to the dissatisfaction in the Four of Cups, HMTQ feels trapped and extremely stressed. She knows that the situation is causing people to feel very upset and vindictive (the Furies), and that this anger is directed at the BRF (the god Apollo). She can not see a way out of the situation, and that is the cause of her stress. The way out is likely to involve going backwards in a situation, and here the energy is of rescinding something that she has said, or taking back a gift that was made, and she does not want to do that as it is against her precepts of good behaviour, so she is blind to that solution as it is something that one just does not do in her eyes. The situation most likely involves someone or someones who HMTQ sees as trapped by their behaviour (as Orestes is trapped in the semi circle of swords), and she is unable to influence them into better behaviour (Apollo is looking very stern but Orestes is so stressed that he is not listening to Apollo), and so the anger at their actions falls on the BRF as a whole as well as on that person or persons.

Underlying Energy Three: The Three of Wands. This card shows Jason standing on the shores of a river. he has lost a sandal, and by that sign is identified as the rightful king. The usurper king, his uncle Pelias, kneels before him and offers him the crown.

The Three of Wands is a card about initial success in a venture. A project has been started and so far things have turned out well. More opportunities are available to you, and they will enable you to expand your current venture, but you have to go looking for them and that may involve venturing out of your comfort zone.

In this deck, the Three of Wands is my card for the line of succession - the passing down of the crown to the next legal inheritor - and it is this energy that is coming through here. HMTQ is worried about the line of succession. It is not an energy of confidence, but one of concern. This could just be a mother worried about how her son will cope with the responsibilities of a new position, but the energy feels like more than this. HMTQ is worried about what sort of king Charles will be, and how his reign will affect the future of the BRF. She has genuine concern about his ability to be a ruler and not second in command. I'm not getting that she thinks he is unfit to rule, but rather that she thinks his judgement is questionable at times, and that she thinks that he may make decisions that will not be in the best interests of the country and those decisions will come back and damage the monarchy, to the detriment of the future heirs, William and George.

Underlying Energy Four: The King of Cups. This is the card of a water sign person, particularly a Scorpio, and here it stands for Prince Charles, who is a sun sign Scorpio. Taken with the card before it (the Three of Wands), this tells me that Her Majesty's concern with the line of succession is focused on Prince Charles in this case, and with the future of the monarchy as represented by her heir.

Major Arcana Cards: The World and the Hermit. Her Majesty is aware that she is at the end of a cycle, and she is reviewing her life as Queen and looking at the results of her life of service. She feels very alone as she does this.

Dominant Suit: Three of the nine cards are wands, the suit of PR and of creative energy. In this reading, wands are coming across as how the actions of individuals within the line of succession are affecting the stability of the monarchy through their affect on the public perception of the monarchy, both now and in the future.

Conclusion: Her Majesty is at the end of a cycle, and she is looking back over her past in preparation for what is to come - the celebration of her Jubilee and, eventually, the end of her reign. She is enjoying planning the milestone celebration of her Jubilee, but with this comes conflicts with Prince Harry. She feels very alone and very single as she reviews her life's work and contemplates it from the perspective of being at the end of her reign. She is missing Prince Phillip very much in all of this. Underneath it all, she is dissatisfied, worried and stressed about the positions of various members of the family, and she is reviewing her actions with respect to those people. She also has concerns about Charles's judgement as future king and how that will affect the monarchy.

[freedom-of-fanfic]

i’m here for the discussion, not the discourse (a manifesto)

In my FAQ I mention that ‘despite running a blog that talks a lot about anti-shipping, I try to ignore anti-shippers.’

Of course, I don’t actually ignore anti-shippers. I read their posts regularly and think about what they mean, and why they’re saying it, and who planted the rhetorical seeds condoning their behavior. But I try to not get into arguments with anti-shippers.

There’s a lot of reasons for my reluctance to argue with members of a community I frequently analyze. Most importantly: anti-shipping rhetoric is intolerant*. But another reason I avoid arguing with anti-shippers is because they discourage and shut down nuanced discourse on complicated topics. When any attempt to engage in a less than black&white discussion of fraught topics such as taboo sexual fantasies in fictional works is buried in an avalanche of disgust, no meaningful discussion can occur.

What I’m advocating for these days is less ‘anything goes, absolutely no limits, full stop’ and more ... well. what the rest of this post gets into.

Here’s my FreetoFic manifesto, aka: why I run this blog:

Mainly: I believe nuance is everything. 

Hardly anything is black&white ‘bad’ or ‘good’, ‘safe’ or ‘unsafe’. For example: in moving to huge aggregate social media sites, fandom became easier to locate and adult/dark fandom content easier to access on accident. Realistically, we can’t just censor all adult/upsetting content: so how do we keep underage minors/anyone who doesn’t want to see this stuff from seeing it? What is the responsibility of the creator vs the consumer? Sites like tumblr and twitter make it hard to address things in nuanced ways, so I’m trying my best to discourage simplified groupthink and encourage nuanced, independent thought on complicated & fraught subjects.

I prefer accurate education on potentially dangerous things to censorship of the thing. 

Censorship doesn’t made hated things go away; it just pushes it into hiding. Pretending upsetting things don’t exist by forbidding people from writing or talking about them doesn’t actually make the upsetting thing stop existing. I advocate letting ppl talk about these things via fiction if they want while increasing education on the reality of the thing, so even inaccurate, bad fiction doesn’t trick ppl into thinking the fictional version is realistic.

I think reality and fiction have a complicated relationship that can’t be reduced to ‘fiction does not affect reality’ or ‘fiction affects reality’. 

I use this blog to examine the actual relationship of fiction and reality.

I think fandom and activism have been conflated, to the detriment of both. 

When fandom/fanworks are ‘supposed’ to be activist, it stifles creativity and hurts ppl who consume fanworks while thinking they’re all activist educational material when they’re not. I try to fight this conflation.

Words have definitions and they matter.

people who defined themselves as ‘anti-[ship]’ had begun to use words like ‘pedophilia’, ‘children’, ‘child porn’, etc in wildly expansive ways, which has been used to justify accusing people who ship what they hate of being sexual perverts and child molesters. It upsets and tires me out, so I use this blog to address the hyperbolic rhetoric.

I’ve noticed a lot of abusive, cultlike behavioral patterns and intellectual dishonesty among people who argue fandom should be censored according to their tastes/beliefs. 

It makes me worry because (1) I’ve noticed that these behaviors are spreading, even to some people making counterarguments, and (2) the dishonesty and misdirection irt how to identify dangerous people in fandom is literally making it easier for abusers to hide. I do my best to point out the abuses and untruths perpetuated in the name of ‘anti-pedophilia/incest/abuse’ rhetoric - and to address that predatory people are on all ‘sides’ in fandom, advocating for whatever their chosen prey advocates for - to protect people from false flagging.

I am increasingly aware of a connection betweeen fandom policing rhetoric and anti-kink/anti-porn rhetoric, which are SWERF arguments.

I want to draw attention to nonintersectional radfem influence in fandom for those who don’t want to be influenced by them.

I want to remind people who are targeted for harassment campaigns by people policing fandom that they are being abused, and no matter what they said or created that triggered the attack, it does not justify the treatment they are receiving.

.

I want to remind people that it’s okay to imagine and examine potentially harmful/dangerous concepts. 

It doesn’t make you a bad person & doesn’t mean you’re doomed to act on your imagination in reality. Fandom policing seems to have made a lot of ppl scared of themselves, and I try to dismantle that.

fandom is a microcosm that echoes the social climate it’s swimming in. 

For example: as authoritarian thinking has swept through America / the western world, so it has swept through English speaking fandom. Sociologically speaking, fandom is a great place to observe comparatively low-stakes behavioral patterns. I write about what I notice here.

Finally: I love fandom.

and I want everyone - even fandom policers - to find fandom a happy place to be instead of an upsetting place. I don’t know how we get there, but I figure talking about it is the first step.

---

‘discourse’, in the academic sense, is an ongoing (& ideally intersectional) dialogue dedicated to defining, debating, expanding, and exploring complicated, often-fraught topics. This is deeply valuable!

But colloquially, ‘discourse’ means ‘ongoing public argument in an open forum.’ Modern social media is designed to encourage it - and nothing keeps the argument going like limiting context and nuance. Intolerant groups thrive in environments like these.

I’m not here to participate in the colloquial ‘discourse’. I’m here for something deeper (and kinder.)

*intolerant rhetoric dehumanizes and scapegoats a group of people, then advocates for committing acts of violence - physical, mental, or institutional - against them.  As a person who calls for tolerance of opposing ideals, I’m obligated to ignore and shut down intolerance. (This is the Paradox of Tolerance.)

#why I do the thing #i really need a FAQ #in defense of freedom to fandom #nuance is important #Context is key

[just-char]

Hey Char, been a while. I'm curious, did you play the Snowgrave route of chapter 2 and if so what were your thoughts? I played it and it makes me think of you with the horror elements, so I wondered if you gave it a go.

Hello, Bun! Long time, no see, indeed. I’m glad to hear you thought of me as I primarily associate playing Deltarune and Undertale with you (you were the one who bought me it in the first place, after all, and convinced me to play it. Even when I listen to the soundtrack I think specifically of how you enjoyed it!)

Also, Napstablook = Krickis as far as I am concerned. Where there is Napstablook, I am thinking of Krickis. On actual serious thoughts, the Snowgrave Route is certainly an exciting one. I have not played it myself (Kris and Noelle are so young and I can barely manage to play the genocide route in Undertale) but I did watch another person play through it and my thoughts are as follows: wow!

Toby Fox most definitely has a hidden penchant for horror and it’s planted all across Undertale and Deltarune (Alphy’s lab in the true pacifist run in Undertale immediately comes to mind.) It’s a lot to do with the environment and atmosphere he’s capable of building in all areas of the game creating process, whether it be music or art design or battle mechanics (I imagine with the help of others too, but unfortunately I’m not very familiar with who works on the games) and creepy seems to come easy to him! I know you didn’t ask about Spamton, but his boss battle is another fantastic example of this. That horror element is a lot more... nightmare-y, though, I suppose? What I mean to say is, it’s almost silly. It doesn’t feel as real as what’s happening with Kris actively throughout the game, or what happens to Berdly. Part of this is because fighting Spamton doesn’t have consequences (that are obvious to the player.) The worst that happens is that Kris appears to have a panic attack afterwards and is visibly upset by what they’ve been forced by us to witness, but what I like specifically about the Snowgrave Route is that this lasts and it’s really explored. The lasting consequence it seems to have on the psyche of Noelle and Kris and the implication of the entire route is horror through and through, in a fantastic, amazing, wowza way.

And now, because I am a little bit too excited to talk about this, an unedited and possibly impossible to read ramble about horror and Noelle and Kris below the cut. The way I describe the game and the role the player has might be upsetting, so please do not read unless you’re very comfortable with body control horror etc..

Deltarune isn’t a horror game but its premise mirrors one in multiple ways and I find that very fascinating. It is almost more unnerving that such horrible experiences are masked by the fun, whacky outer layers. One could play Deltarune and never find Jevil or Spamtom’s boss fight or play the Snowgrave route and remain blissfully unaware of what lurks beneath a very normal (if occasionally dark!) adventure story.

Despite this, there is a lot to be said about Kris and the player’s control over them, as well as some choice words from Noelle about Kris’ recent behaviour and demeanour. It’s hard not to assume that Kris is possessed by us. We can force them to say things but they can react to these dialogue choices and become visibly upset at the actions we force upon them, so even playing the game as intended without discovering anything remotely below the surface, it’s impossible to ignore what actually playing the game and controlling Kris does to them. Essentially, stripping away all of the scariest parts of Deltarune doesn’t matter, because its actual premise, where you play, not as Kris, but as an entity CONTROLLING Kris, is in itself horrific! Kris is a child, at most sixteen and I certainly believe younger than that, and no amount of drawing them weirdly tall and lanky and emo-y can change that.

Possession and inability to control one’s self are heavily utilised in horror. When you consider how many times you’ve watched someone be tied down, forced to witness whatever is happening to them in real time, or the general horror and gore associated with demon possession in even current mainstream movies like The Conjuring (or even a mix of both! Media that explores being trapped inside the body without any control while being possessed and the effects it has on your mind is not common enough) it’s easy to see the connections between a lot of horror tropes and Kris’ ‘problem’. Only thing is, we’re directly perpetuating this horror every time we play. We are the demon! We are the person who is strapping someone down and forcing them to witness horrific things by our hand! I mean, it’s just fantastic. Deltarune is by no means a horror but it certainly feels like it. I suppose that’s the power of implication!

Being more specific to the Snowgrave route (I promise the previous ramble was related!) the player extends this control to Noelle, arguably the most vulnerable and ‘helpless’ character in the game so far besides Kris themselves (and even then, that’s in a much more literal way.) unlike Kris, who physically has no choice, Noelle feels as though she has no choice. She’s a pushover and unable to prevent who she perceives as her childhood friend from forcing her to do things she doesn’t want to. Her relationship with her mother seems to play into this complex. Noelle has always been one of my favourite characters— even with what little we see of her in chapter one, she makes a lasting impression and it’s not surprising that people wanted her to be a party member in this chapter. (The irony!) But this newest chapter also furthers an interesting trait of hers, namely, her fascination with fear. She enjoys being scared, she gets a rush from being in dangerous situations, feeling unsafe. She says so herself, though she uses more external situations to explain it (scary forests, etc.) It certainly explains her crush on Susie, but in the Snowgrave Route, it really works against her. Or, we use it against her. At a first glance, what we do to her in the Snowgrave route is awful, and then, the more you think about it, the worst it gets (usually a trademark of excellent horror and great writing in general, in my opinion.) not only are we playing into her deepest insecurities (because remember, it’s not Kris doing this, or us playing AS Kris, it’s just we, the player) we are actively abusing her as a person. We force her to fight. We force her to hurt people. We do all this for power. And we do all this while simultaneously doing it to Kris as well! And forcing Kris to be our mouthpiece, forcing them to hurt their friend who they presumedly love and care for! Unlike Susie and Ralsei, Noelle’s opinion of us cannot affect our journey and she is easy to control, so we do it. And once again, these are kids! They are children! We are not fighting Sans Undertale to the death, we are actively abusing and controlling children, much to the detriment of their mental health and the physical health of those around them.

Details such as the watch and the blackened “conversation” we have with Noelle in the hospital really only add to the experience. The implication that Berdly has been seriously harmed and potentially killed by what we’ve done to him (or more accurately, forced Noelle to do to him) is handled really interestingly from the younger persons perspective, where he simply doesn’t wake up. I could really go on and on, but unfortunately time is a constraint and I don’t think what I’m saying is very easy to parse anyway.

To summarise: Snowgrave Route good. Very well-written. Deltarune is a horror in disguise, but I will continue to put my hands over my ears and pretend everything is okay, just like Mr Toby Fox would like me to do. Thank you very much for the ask, I hope you’re doing well! If you have any thoughts of your own, please share them with me. I’d be delighted to hear your opinion as a writer (horror or not.) :]

#deltarune #deltarune spoilers #tw: horror #tw: mind control #(Technically? I’m very worried about the way I describe the game in this post. I don’t want to make any of my followers uncomfortable)

[ecoamerica]

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#ACLA24 #ACLA24Leaders #youtube #youtube video #climate leaders #climate solutions #climate action #climate and environment #climate #climate change #climate and health #climate blog #climate justice #climate news #weather and climate #environmental news #environment #environmental awareness #environment and health #environmental #environmental issues #environmental justice #environment protection #environmental health #Youtube

[ninjas-and-coffee]

WU SUCKS but not the reason you think

I'd like to preface by saying Wu has made a lot of mistakes and should be held accountable. But like the main arguments against Wu be like.

1: Morro

2: Traumatizing kids

3: Keeping secrets

4: Mot treating his nephew like is damn nephew.

5: Flirting with his brothers wife.

And the thing about that needs talked about. 1:Morro. First off getting kids hopes is not cool. It can be detrimental to development depending on the age of the child. BUT. Not a single soul told Morro to train tirelessly for 60+ years after his death to take revenge and be the green ninja. Absolutly no one. Wu had compassion for his failings and wanted to show Morro he could still he great without being the green ninja. But the little brat ran tf off and got trapped and died. And he got cursed, how- we dont know. But its implied that it's either intentional entrapment or you have to be a terrible person, guess which category he probably falls into. Mind you Wu also told our OGs that they could also be the green ninja and none of them went off the rails to settle some invisible score. Morro made his choices and he made shit ones. Wu was an influence but not the problem. Morro is unstable, dramatic, and holds grudges Wu didnt cause that.

2: the traumatic experiences the nina go through are also not exactly his fault. He didnt just pick them off the streets. THERE WAS A PROPHECY. Ok? Yall with me. Fate isnt uncontrolled by anyone the ninja needed to be trained to help Lloyd fight the Overlord. That wasnt his decision. And yall act like the ninja couldn't leave whenever they wanted to. He didnt gaslight them or belittle them in anyway that wasnt for teaching. Please bring me receipts if you think otherwise. I do admit he could help a little more, be more clear, but when has a old magic teacher character ever been straightforward. With that logic fuck Dumbledore, and Gandalf, and any wise old teacher that goes to find chosen one who once again are chosen by fate not the master himself. Yall literally cant blame Wu for Child's Play and you cant blame Wu for their experience with Nadakhan either. The enemies that go out of there way to attack the ninja are not a direct cause if Wu himself. Usually. It be like blaming Garmadon for Chen. Yes they had history but it's still not his fault

3: Secrets. I will admit there is next to no reason for keeping secrets from the ninja. Considering history always has kind of score to settle. But considering his age and the apparent imprisonment or death of his past enemies there no way to predict every problem that comes back to screw him over. The Time Twins for example. Yes they came back for Wu. But he did remove their powers and separated them over 20+ years ago. They were not exactly threats to his new students now were they? Again with Aspheera, who was literally locked in a tomb why take the time to educate the ninja on a problem he had no idea was going to come back for him. Same with Morro to a more confusing degree. MORRO DIED. How was he to prepare the ninja for that? Yes please tell me how they were supposed to prepare for a dead guy. I'll wait.........k. he should be more forthcoming with the ninja, about things he knows could harm them, like the Serpentine after Lloyds released them, Chen, the Overlord, the effects of Travelers Tea, Tomorrow's Tea, Oni, Etc. But most of the time the ninja go and do it first then wonder why Wu didn't warn them.

4: His nephew. Wow his parenting sucks. Morro is not his damn child let's start there. Comparing their relationship is unfair. Wu cared for Morro the way he cares for Kai and Nya. He never accentuates a paternal relationship with then. Cause they are students, students he has to train with he intent to send them out onto dangerous battle fields and mind games. He was alone so yes it looks different but it's also a leap to just assume that Wu viewed Morro as his own despite treating him the exact same way as his 6 other students. Now back to Lloyd. Why didnt he get his nephew from Darkleys where it was known he ran away from multiple times? I DONT KNOW. No one does. That is a bad move I can only theorize about. Maybe Misako said something about staying away, maybe he wasnt kept in the loop about his nephews whereabouts due to idk KICKING HIS FATHER INTO HELL. C'mon yall. Now in the later seasons my best guess is that he doesnt know how to differentiate his nephew from the chosen one side and the goofy child side. Hes never had a child and his early relations with Lloyd were scarce and when Lloyd came to live with him. It's not due to some familial obligation, destiny literally called for it. Putting some definite strain on their relationship. I'm not excusing it he should try better, but he'd have to build a relationship from nothing and most people know their immediate family upon birth or during childhood which is not the case here. Wu treats his nephew more like a vessel of power than a person which isnt cool but knowing that the kid might not come back after every fight is a good damper on happy relationships is it not?

5: Misako. Good lord I don't have to explain this one. No excuse. It shouldn't be happening. BUT. After Garmadons death she was a free woman as gross as it is. It's more a flaw on her than it is him she chose to have a baby with one brother and still try to get with the other. And I know it takes two to tango but dont get mad at the idiot that the cheater is cheating with. Be mad at the cheater. The thing people really dont get about love triangles. The "other guy" brings on the questions/options but the person who cant choose or screws with both parties is the one in the wrong. Lloyd seems ok with it. Because Tommy said so. I dont particular give two shits about his take on the show half the time. If Lloyd were actively against it the Wu would probably stop. If the Fsm family acted like a normal ass family we probably wouldnt be here. But their priorities are a little screwy compared to typical nuclear families. Not an excuse just some perspective

NOW, why he is a bad character despite all of those arguments. he chooses to train soldiers rather than care for impressionable teens. Yes the situation called for it but the pressure could he alleviated if he decided to actually help before the world was on fire. He chooses to teach by experience than be upfront. Which works sometimes but not when actual lives are at stake. His trial by fire teaching works but the possiblity it could go wrong is to big to be brushed aside. His seemingly unreachable vault of empathy is hard to swallow. He rarely actually feels things for other people, his lack of enthusiasm when they pull through something hurts to watch. His lack of empathy about raising his nephew to attempt to kill his father is frightening. The pride he demonstrates by choosing not to disclose his past until it's too late is dangerous. He doesnt directly put down the ninja unless he has to and its more implied than anything and is on his students and this fandom for taking it so harshly. He trusts them a lot because he doesnt see them as kids anymore. They are warriors and it was necesary. He should have more compassion. He should be more straight forward, he should try to act like a person and not some ethereal being of elsewhere that doesn't have time to appease feelings or care about people until after hes wronged them. His values are off kilter sometimes which is whatever until it starts to hurt people

But yall need to stop blaming him for other people actions. Morro was a mess to begin with. His problems are in the past because he took care of them already. Misako came onto him. (He should have resisted but he didnt start shit she did). He needs to try to be an uncle alongside being a teacher. He needs to act like a fucking person more than the infinite cache of wisdom and unforeseen unused power that he acts like. And also it's a kids show. How many children think the way yall do?, we're teens/YAs we're reading into things. A LOT which makes everything more complicated. Comments rebuttals open. There's a collection of little mistakes hes made along the way that dont fit into these categories but these are the main reasons I know people hate him and the little things add fuel to the fire. I will legit talk about anything Except for the morro thing I am so tired of seeing it Morro made his choices hes a fucking Villain Wu didnt make him that way being a bitter asshole did that. Thanks for reading!! :3

#ninjago #coffee speaks #lloyd garmadon #fuckin misako #Wu ninjago #discourse #ranting #tw: negative #replies will be on my second account of there are any #trust me i hate him too #morro #tw: aldultery #not art

[savagenutella46]

And Thus With A Kiss I Die

Jasonette 1/1 - A fic I wrote for @moonlitceleste because she’s amazing

All quotes/title in bold italics derived from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

"Banishèd' is banished from the world, and world's exile is death."

There's no finite end to where white and black meet. Everything is shades of grey; infinite on a foreboding scale of fate and destiny: entities that push you to make the choices you do.

It had ended with a flash of light—real or her imagination, she had witnessed it between her own eyes. The kind of flashing light that tells you, "you've died."

Ladybug could still hear the shrieks and screams of civilians echoing ringingly around her, confused, scared, as to why an akumatized villain was hurting them the way that it was; this wasn't how akumatizations usually went, maybe a few scratches, worn out knees, but never this.

(—And to think, it had started out as a normal day.

Marinette rose out of bed with the same grogginess lingering at the corner of her eyes, brushed her teeth, kissed her Maman on the cheek as she ran to school, late.

You'd never suspect you were going to die on a day so normal, so domestic.)

What had this person been through before submitting to Hawkmoth with such a vicinity? How had Hawkmoth prayed to a cacophony of emotions like this—to kill, order, destroy everything in its path? Marinette would never catch an inkling, dying and all that jazz.

It's easy to see the world through a rose-colored lens. To believe that people do the things they do because they're bad. (but no one ever talks about why they do the things they do because they're good.)

And Marinette, masked in all her red-and-black glory, had pushed a frozen-with-fear civilian out of harm's way, an absurd amount of unleashed dark magic from the akuma hurtling its way toward them, and she'd taken the hit. Rolled on the ground for yards from the sheer force that the akuma's magic had flew and stricken her and pierced the skin, blood splattering and trailing as she slapped and hit the street from every possible angle.

Ladybug can't move, can't call for help when she desperately needs to, because her partner is miles away trying to fight what has her plastered to the ground, laying limp underneath her dead weight, breathing muffled and heavy underneath her physical detriment.

Ladybug's eyes droop under the weight of exhaustion, barely running on fumes before she had run out in an attempt to defeat what was supposed to be an everyday activity.—Crazy, how something can seem so domestic until its so, so much more.—A hemothorax forming in her chest where Marinette had been hit, a very open thoracic cavity filling up with blood, and she's spluttering for breath, because her throat is closed up, filled with blood from where the akuma hit her to where it burned.

It burns real bad, almost like an explosion stemming from her chest to the nerve endings on her toes. Marinette feels like she's being tortured with every meek twitch of her wrist as she lays on the ground, unable to see over the car shouldering her path, the pain burning behind her eyes, the white-hot disappointment in her heart.

—And she knows it's time. Because this is the work of fate. Her life in its hands. It had seemed miles away from Marinette just this morning, and how she wished she could go back and cherish the moments since she'd arisen from unpremeditated slumber.

She cannot. This is her destiny, as it seems. No one can be saved if Ladybug cannot save herself, can't will herself to detransform and heal herself because she can't, and she feels a gripping amount of remorse before emotions hit her all around—she should've told Adrien something, she can't recall what it is—should've told her Maman she loved her before running out the door in such a rush—should've squealed about the hot superheroes in America with Alya one last time, before she feels nothing.

Nothing except for the white light. And then dark again. Absolutely nothing.

                                               _________________

It's dark when she opens her eyes, and she blinks to make sure her eyes are actually open, and sees a big, fat, load of nothing.

Marinette's—the ladybug suit had disappeared, her normal clothes taking its place—body feels light, floaty, and utterly weightless against the dark mass she's standing atop of. Her head feels eerily light, calm without the weight of the world on her shoulders, and a calm feeling washes over her.

Her voice echoes against endless sound barriers as she utters her first words since death.

"This is what death feels like, huh?" Utterly amazing. Marinette can't believe she didn't do this earlier.

—But, for a moment, she feels empathy. Empathy for the people stuck in Paris, wondering if this was the day they were going to die, the people all around the world living in fear of something so inevitable.

She closes her eyes for just a second, a moment of vengeful peace. Opens them again, and this time, she's somewhere different.

She's in a library. Unfamiliar, but welcoming all the same. The smell of crisp, unopened books float idly in her senses, a synthetic warm feeling creeping up behind her back. Distantly, she realizes that she recognizes the place, tables placed and shelves abundantly filled with books, ranging from science fiction to classic literature, and it feels exactly how it did all those years ago.

Years ago, when she'd first visited the United States of America, the first place her Maman and Papa took her was a public library in Gotham City, New Jersey. It had welcomed her so openly that she couldn't help but smile a little, slip under from her parent's grasp, and wander toward a vast section of William Shakespeare, someone she'd heard so much about in her eight—nine years, she couldn't help but be pulled toward the ordain shelf.

She'd even met someone, too. Her mother would forever deny—if Marinette had still been alive, but Marinette was convinced the little boy sitting against the mass of wooden shelves had been very, very real. Marinette had smiled at him, sat down next to him, even if he gave her a wary, and borderline aggressive look, she'd introduced herself.

"Hi, I'm Marinette." She'd said with a horrible stutter and an almost unintelligible accent. The boy closed his book—a black and white cover with words she couldn't quite understand the meaning of as well as a simple name like Shakespeare's, and she smiled a little harder.

"Jason," He'd said in a heedful voice, staring at her curiously. "Whadda' you want?"

Marinette shrugged as best she could with weak shoulders, and turned her head from the person next to her to drink in every corner of the library that she could see without moving from her increasingly-uncomfortable crouch on the ground.

"Nothing. Just wanted to see what you're reading." She leaned over his shoulder, monosyllabic and complex English text alike filling her view, so many words that blurred together, and she felt a heat at the top of her head in frustration.

She couldn't read English.

The boy next to her—Jason, had seemed to recognize her distress and pull the book closer to him, floundering for a moment before he exhaled loudly, and started to read.

Words flowed out of the him, smooth and languid, and she found herself trapped in the moment, mesmerized by such an eloquent reading from a boy who looked just her age.

"What cursèd foot wanders this way tonight to cross my obsequies and true love's rite?" He reads off, breaking unevenly for gulps of air, and dove back right where he stopped without much distraction, and moments, minutes passed under his voice.

And the memory fell away from view. She opened eyes she didn't realize had closed when a voice seemed to float from the corner of her vision, a body stepping into view and a realized this wasn't imagination.

Another boy, dressed in tattered—but comfortable looking jeans finds his way over to her, a curious glint in his magnificent blue eye and a raised eyebrow, though he looks troubled, aged where he ought to look youthful.

"Who're you?" He mumbles, lips barely moving around syllables as he stares at Marinette, defensive, yet hopeful.

His voice. Despite the clearly street-wise accent, his voice is beautiful. A voice that could recite hundreds of words and never get old in the canals of her ears. Marinette found herself wanting to hear more.

"Marinette." She blinks, seems to realize the way he seems nervous, and, "You like jazz?" Blurts out the first thing that comes to mind, which, just so happens to be the only sentence capable of such utterance in damning—literally—times like this one.

Jason finally cracks a smile after a few more moments of cricket-inducing silence, and the newfound tension in her shoulders seems to melt away again, just as it did with her entrance to a magnificent limbo such as this. "Not in particular, but I do like to read." His smile is utterly contagious, and Marinette feels it spread its way along her own face, eyes crinkling under the weight of emotion.

They spend their days in an endless limbo like that, reading, laughing, sometimes in the comfortable chair in the library, and sometimes they're gazing upon clouds, feeling the prickly sensation of grass under their backs as they lie next to one another under a cool breeze and warm sun—which is the scene they're settling in, when Marinette turns her head toward the boy next to her.

"It's been," She pauses for a moment, adding up the days since they've both died—it had to be around the same time—and Jason turns his head toward her in a similar fashion, an eyebrow raised. "A few months? And..." She trails off, suddenly feeling less confident in a horrid question.

She knows the way she had died hadn't been peaceful, and if the boy she'd grown so close to in months of passing had died as painfully, he might doubt their budding friendship, as new as it is.

But then Jason reaches over and covers her hand with his, a blooming warmth enveloping her hand all the way to her heart, her vision snaps back to where it had wandered down to the rest of her body, reliving a turret of emotions. "Marinette," Jason stares at her in earnest, "You can ask."

Another thing she'd never understand was Jason's ability to read people so well. He'd always know her intentions, as bad or good as they may be, like something mundane, a book she'd eyed for a few minutes before he'd sighed heavily and got up to get it for her, or when Marinette wanted to be left alone. Just for a minute, to pull herself back together.

"How did you die?" She watches as Jason closes his eyes, curling in on himself despite the foretold question, and waits.

She's good at waiting. (A familiar feeling of heat creeping up to her cheeks, the same way it did with someone else, not so long ago, but in a different lifetime.)

"It started out when I tried to steal Batman's tires—" Marinette widens her eyes in surprise.

Oh, so they're going way back then, huh?

But by the time Jason finishes speaking, pats his sweaty hands down on the slacks he wore that day that came from God knows where, Marinette finds the humor and her mood had dimmed significantly.

And Jason, he looks terrible. Like it was the first time he'd said something about it since, well, death. Almost hyperventilating, Jason is breathing heavily, gripping onto his pants with malice and intent, almost as if stopping himself from something. He'd told his beginning to end with an increasingly shaky voice, cracking at the edges where he'd relived the fear and abandonment he felt when trapped in an unfamiliar country, in a dirty warehouse, trapped in his own feelings in a suit that he thought would always protect him.

Without a dad that he'd thought would always protect him.  

Marinette feels a little sick. The boy next to her had died so brutally, alone, scared and slowly.

"I don't regret it. Being Robin." He adds quietly after a moment of hesitation. It's small, but it's there and plain. He doesn't regret something that changed his life, but— "Just the death part."

He would want to change his death, and she couldn't agree more.

If only it meant they could've still met despite living, that is.

She doesn't say that. Instead, she laughs a little. "You and me both." Marinette reaches over to hold his hand once more, and pretends not to see the tears climbing out of his eyes.

"So early waking, what with loathsome smells, and shrieks like mandrakes torn out of the earth, that living mortals, hearing them, run mad—?"

How it felt to tear his way out of the ground, shivering, shaking, flinching at the way his fingernails tore away with every claw and scratch at the unyielding wood before him. Jason was vaguely aware of a horrible groaning noise that might've been his own, but when his hand stuck through to crisp Gotham air, dirt flinging and spilling down on his face as he gasped and choked for breath, he could only think of a single quote from such a cliche play.

He thought of it while tearing out the bloody uvula of his victim, spurred on by the Pit and Talia's ruthless training, starving for the sound of screaming that rung in his ear, continued to clang loudly even in sleep, when it bestowed itself upon him.

Because he couldn't think about anything else. Wouldn't allow himself to, because then he would start thinking about her.

About how she left him.

Jason had turned to retrieve a book from their peaceful library limbo one day, muttering to himself about something so mundane that he didn't even remember, but he'd grabbed the book—a simple fiction, because they were both bored of astronomy—and turned around to silence, instead of the shiny mop of dark hair he was expecting.

"Marinette?" Jason calls, swiveling his head around when the chair previously occupied by her stood empty.

Jason waits.

He doesn't know how long he waits, searches, but she isn't there.

And the feeling of disappointment and fear runs up his spine again, before he knows it, he's kneeling on the ground, trying to catch his breath as tears run down because he's been abandoned again, and it's just as damning as the first time.

His father, his brother, his mother, his birth mother, and now his friend.

Jason breaks down again, gripping harshly onto his hair while he cries, where he'd usually hold onto Marinette's hand.

So he doesn't think of much at all, really. Not when he turns on murder mode, not when he forces himself to stare into the eyes of the person he's killing while they die, because he wants to remember how it felt. How it felt before he met another superhero torn away from her life almost as harshly as he was ripped away from his own.

He wants to go back. Before he flew to Ethiopia unsupervised and unprepared, before he took the Robin mantle, before he decided to make quick cash off of the Batmobile, before his mother died by her own hands, loosely holding a syringe and shaking, shuddering from her overdose.

Jason wants to go back to Before. He can't stand living in the After, where he makes the choices he does.

He’s supposed to be good.

permanent taglist: @nathleigh @stainedglassm @officiallydarkgeek @certainmuffinbagelcalzone @buterflies-and-ladybugs @maskedpainter

#i told yall this would be a Right Person Wrong Time #HOW MANY OF YOU LISTENED #HUH? #jasonette #maribat #mlb x dc #ml x dc #marinette dupain cheng #Jason Todd

[writingonjorvik]

Can We Discuss Game Hiatuses?

I want to preface this enter post with the comment that I am absolutely not saying "Oh, if you're not enjoying SSO, you should just leave the community." That's a bad argument used against criticism that I do not promote. However, I am going to talk about how if you're not enjoying SSO, why you should take a pause from playing.

I'm going to generally credit @centeris2 on this topic, because while I'm not using direct quotes (because private convos aren't exactly the style I want to use for Can We Discuss), we had a long conversation about this topic and she made a lot of good points for this that I wanted to discuss. Some of these points are based on her opinions, a lot of out thoughts blurred together so it's hard to directly credit, and she gave me the ok to talk about it and use her thoughts.

In any case, let's start with the fact that it is perfectly normally to like something and still drop it for years at a time, or to not directly engage with it. For instance, I adore the Legend of Zelda franchise (were it not obvious from my recent to be rescheduled event), but I haven't personally picked up a LOZ game for a year-ish now when I replayed Minish Cap. That doesn't revoke my LOZ fan card, that's a perfectly normal thing to do. Most of you will have done this throughout your life, more and more recognizably as you get older.

This however can get blurred by fandom. It is very often that folks with hyperfixations on a thing, who may or may not engage with something more regularly than other media, will get involved in fandom and make a lot of content for that fandom. These people can produce loads of content on a piece of media and this can fuel a community, even if the rest of the community isn't actively engaging with that media. It also doesn't specifically mean that people with hyperfixations are constantly engaging with that media. Going back to that LOZ example, I wrote LOZ fanfic for years without actively playing more than one LOZ game maybe a year or two. Content can be queued, be entirely original outside of the media, and still last a long time and engage with the fandom at large.

The point is to say, even if you make content and enjoy a piece of media, you don't have to actually be playing/reading/listening/watching it constantly. In fact, normally modern fandom culture makes that pretty easy to do, though it can sometimes make us feel like we're still engaging directly with the media even if we're technically not. But it's good to take a step back and acknowledge that. A lot of younger fans in fandom have a hard time with this, which is why I'm taking the time to point it out. A lot of young fans will hyperengage in a fandom because they want to be involved in this fandom they love, only to burn themselves out and be turned away by their frustration. It's important then to acknowledge this scenario to encourage better, healthier involvement with fandom. Still, in this situation, you can easily bow out of a fandom if you need to take a break and then come back when something new happens in it, like a new release or update. This may feel like a fandom "dies" when a piece of media ends, but for active media, it's a normal and healthy thing to do.

SSO on the other hand does not encourage the ability for people to take a break, or at least it does it at the detriment of the player. Because of the weekly updates, players are constantly checking for the chance that there is something interesting coming out. This is somewhat addressed by the monthly roadmaps the team has been putting out, but that also just extends the period of time people are waiting for news and they're still staying in the release cycle for more clarification. For instance, we know Silverglade Village is getting an update at the end of the month, but knowing SSO's release cycle, are they going to tease some more of the changes? Are they going to reveal how wide the area of update is going to be? Will any NPCs get updates with it? This is still in the weekly cycle and it keeps players from building up actual suspense for updates if we know when content is coming out. It also takes away a lot of suspense when the content isn't main content, like new areas or story. While the suspense for the Fripp quests I would say were quite large, I wouldn't say that any of the other updates have shared the same attention. This is why most companies will release roadmaps for quarters or for a year.

And this isn't to say that SSE as a company shouldn't be releasing media content weekly, they should. That's good social media. But there are ways to engage with fans that don't drag out a reliance to engage weekly, things like community contests, highlighting fans, or promoting fanmade content. But when every update is super in the eyes of social media, fatigue and apathy are going to start to kill actual excitement unless it's something major.

I don't think it's a secret that I think the weekly updates aren't good for the game on the development side. I think it creates a pseudo-crunch culture on the developers so that they can't work on larger projects that players are asking for, like an engine overhaul (it took FFXIV two years to do theirs, when are the devs supposed to have time on SSO to switch now). But, I also don't think it's good for the players. Yes, there's something every week, but how are players actually engaging each week and how much time can we build up anticipation or get excited when each week that gets diffused by something that's not super exciting the majority of other weeks? Which doesn't mean that that content is bad, but it clearly builds frustration in the community to have "filler" content. When's the next story quests, when's the next map expansion, when's the next major mechanic being added, etc. We're constantly discussing the next big thing and then finding reasons to be excited in the meantime. This does not spark joy.

But in order to take a break, either you need to be on top of your Stable Care (likely to pull you back in), or just stop caring about your horses while you're away (unlikely considering the horse girl is strong in this community). The first requires Star Coins, which is arguably saying "You have to pay real money to take a break," and the second is actively punishing you mechanically for not being committed to playing. Neither of those allow the player to take healthy, normal breaks from the community to engage in other things. And that's an issue.

Yes, MMOs need regular engagement. Active servers and participation are a part of what makes them more marketable. But there are ways to do that without penalizing players. And I'm not suggesting that the care system needs to be entirely removed, but it does need to be entirely reworked so players can leave the game without coming back penalized. Things like the care system not affecting stats, but increasing your RNG for finding doubles of crafting items, or doubling your shilling rewards from dailies. WoW's inn system rewards players for taking breaks by double your exp gain longer depending on how long you were away. Others like Guild Wars 2 will give you log in rewards that build up to bigger prizes over time. There are ways to do this.

And I understand that a lot of folks like the current care system because it's realistic. But there has to be a line in game development where enjoyment in a game is prioritized over the realism of the game, not to mention the health of the player. Yes, the daily care system is more realistic, but if it is developing an obsessive habit of play to enjoy content that is, realistically, months to years down the line, that's not good for the player and should be changed so players can break from the game without coming back to punished controls. There are better systems that can still be realistic, things like crafting feed schedules to recover health boosts faster instead of having to see the vet, increasing how often the mood goes up so it doesn't take a whole week, changing it so when taking a horse for a ride the mood will increase every 10 or so minutes by engaging with a horse you like. Rewarding players for getting on and playing the game instead of making them dread missing when they should be coming back with excitement for the game.

All of that said, I want to encourage all of you to play more games where you can. I know there are system limitations, restricted budgets, and sometimes regional limits because of limited languages or just straight regionlocks. But in the same way reading makes you a better reader and writer, gaming makes you a better gamer (and developer/designer if you go that route). It helps you identify what you like in games and in the same way that reading other things makes coming back to your favorite all that much better, so does playing other games. I'm going to reblog this in a bit with some games I'd recommend with links to Steam and Epic and I'd encourage you all to do the same.

The takeaway I hope to give is that it's normal and healthy to take a break from games. You can still engage with media without directly engaging with it through fandom. SSE can do more to not penalize players for wanting to take a break, and should. And where you can, you should play more games and break for the health of your relationship with a piece of media you like.

#sso #star stable online #star stable #starstableonline #starstable #woj analysis #ssoblr #sso blr

[lizacstuff]

Your thoughts on the first episode of the new season? And can we talk about all those parallels? Also I'm loving the summer vibes!

I'm LIVING for the summer vibes! Doesn't everything feel like a breath of fresh air? I definitely feel like new life has been injected into the series. And that new location is so beautiful, I LOVE IT.

As for the episode, I thought it was masterfully done. You could tell Ayse was back and bringing the perfect mix of comedy, romance and drama. And the sparkle! The show sparkles again. The almost two and half hours flew buy, I was on the edge of my seat, and the performances from Hande and Kerem were amazing. Plus I just adore every moment between Serkan and his new nemesis (aka his secret daughter).

On the sober side, I don't care how jerky Serkan got while battling cancer, or how he may have pushed her away, nothing they've shown us so far even begins to justify Eda not telling him about Kiraz, and it certainly doesn't justify her continuing to lie when he's standing right in front of her making overtures (and her daughter is clearly longing for her father). Obviously, there are still many things we don't know and I'm sure there are many flashbacks to come, and Eda has been though so much, but still...I don't see how they will thread that needle and have Eda come out unscathed.

That being said, with this first episode they executed this story so well and it really does give new life to the series, so I won't dwell on the fact that Eda never would have done this. Never. We just have to move past it, accept that it's a soap opera plot device designed to give us an amazing second season packed with all sorts of amazing scenes and just enjoy every minute while it lasts.

(More under the cut)

I'll get to more on Edser later, as for everyone else... silliness abounds.

First... Erdem cheated on Leyla? WHAT!?!?! With whom? But I guess that was a clean way to explain Leyla leaving.

Engin and Piril, I love that Engin is staying home with their son, and that young actor is a cutie! As for Piril... GRRRRRR... she is still on my shitlist. Last time it was for betraying Eda (and Serkan) by enabling Selin's reign of terror, this time it's by betraying her friend and business partner Serkan! Good grief. If Piril just found out recently at the start of this project I could accept on her holding off because it's not her secret to run off and tell, but what I can't accept is her actively working against Serkan finding out. Even if in this episode she had gently said to Eda... "do you think maybe it's time you told him?" it would be a lot easier to swallow... but nope! She's acting like it would be the end of the world if Serkan found out. I sincerely hope that when everyone finds out and Engin finds out Piril knew, it causes problems between them. She deserves that.

She remains my second least favorite character. Who was my least favorite character this episode? Oh you know! Awful Ayfer is back! We got a reprieve from her in the last arc, but she's back to her annoying, controlling, Serkan-hating ways. Eda is a mother, an international award-winning landscape architect and business owner and she still has to lie to Ayfer because she's such a pain-in-the-ass? Watching her is going to be a trial.

Even though it feels like both Aydan and Ayfer were reset to zero character development, and Aydan has done worse (keeping the fact that Serkan was alive from Eda) I still find her a much easier character to take. Probably because Neslihan is a much better comedic actress, so she's a lot more entertaining. But... Aydan's been with Kemal for 5 years and hasn't told Serkan? WHY? I can't believe Kemal didn't give her an ultimatum years ago. I was loving, however, Serkan being in the way for both Aydan/Kemal and Engin/Piril. GOOD. Those people caused problems for him at one point or another or were in the way, it was nice to see him return the favor. I like Kemal and am still hoping they'll do a parallel "not knowing your father thing" and reveal he's Serkan's bio dad while Serkan is finding out he had a child he never knew about.

Melo and Seyfi were their awesome supportive, funny selves. It was great to see both of them, I'm so glad they stayed.

As for the new characters, love the kids. The new hotel manager is apparently ditzy and starstruck over Serkan, and I don't really understand how she's going to be integrated into the cast, but I love that she was used as a device to show us that Serkan has zero interest in any woman who is not Eda Yildiz. Eda's assistant seems like he'll be a fine side character. As for Burak, he seems harmless, obviously he has feeling for Eda that she does not reciprocate (fuck off Ayfer trying to push her on him) but hopefully they don't make him a psycho like Deniz. I did think he was a bit out of line to Serkan. Isn't that his cafe? And a customer has his glass spilled by a child in his care, and he insults him instead of apologizing? That is the worst customer service I've ever seen! He's a character that could wear on me quickly, we shall see. Kiraz can't help but be sassy because of genetics, but some of the adults in her life seem to be modeling rude behavior!

Now on to Eda and Serkan, I can't say enough about Hande and Kerem's acting in this episode. Phenomenal! They were both brilliant. Plus both are doing a great job working off of Maya (especially Kerem) those scenes were priceless. I don't often enjoy kids on shows, but so far I'm loving this dynamic.

As for Edser, while we don't know everything yet it feels like Serkan got to a point where he couldn't stand to see Eda in pain and putting her life on hold, he outright mentioned that she might not have graduated if they'd stayed together, and so that was part of the reason he reverted to his robot self and pushed her away. I'm going to guess she tried and tried and he was just unyielding. Saying he didn't want to get married or have kids in the harshest way possible. Perhaps even she went to tell him that she was pregnant and he went off on not wanting kids before she could even tell him. Time will tell.

At this juncture, my best guess is Eda's fear is rooted in rejection. It can't be that she thinks Serkan is a terrible person that doesn't deserve to know his child, or would be detrimental to Kiraz. However, she knows what it feels like to be rejected by Serkan, I'm sure she was beyond devastated, so I'm guessing now she's bent on protecting her daughter from feeling that same rejection. She fears if he found out, but wanted nothing to do with her, it would feel worse than him not knowing. She's not thinking clearly and perhaps it hasn't even occurred to her that the man she fell in love with is still under there and that man is fully capable of opening his heart wide to their child.

The fact that this child, a stranger to him, already has him wrapped around her little finger to the tune of being late to meetings while he waits for her to pick berries, speaks volumes.

The lies that Eda is telling Kiraz though... there is a fairy tale poetry to Eda saying her father is among the stars... but there was no way this would ever end well. Such a bad idea. Eda.... has made mistakes.

As for Eda and Serkan, their reunion was so bitter sweet. The way Serkan was sure he was hallucinating her and couldn't believe she was real, speaks to the fact that his thinking he saw her that morning was not an anomaly. It must happen all the time. She's never left his thoughts in 5 years. Especially since Engin makes it clear that women throw themselves at Serkan all the time, and he never bites. That's a lot of years celebrate, pining after a love he lost through his own actions. Though it's not that surprising that he didn't pursue other women, as he's never been a character who was motivated by sex. Which makes it hilarious that during his presentation that's where his mind was at, remembering their intimate times together. Serkan Bolat is an Edasexual.

Serkan seemed to want to brush past what happened between them, how they ended, but from Eda's pain, it's clear it was gut-wrenching and tragic and that's something he's going to need to recon with in the coming episodes. But how refreshing that they actually talked! That Eda actually expressed her pain to him! Wowza, that's a change from recent episodes when they didn't even have a proper conversation after he got his memory back.

The flashback scenes were a combination of pure brilliance and pain. Just rip out my heart why don't you. Serkan's angry reactions seem very believable for someone suffering what he was going through. I think it's typical to lash out at the person closest to you. And their fear and pain, their commitment to getting him better and seeing it through... those scenes were made all the more heartbreaking knowing that they didn't make it out the other side intact.

On a lighter note, I loved how even despite their intention and best efforts to remain closed off to one another, and away from one another, they couldn't. Physically, Serkan couldn't stay away, and every time Eda was in his presence you saw her resolve slip and her start to feel that old pull towards him. The fact that Eda thinks there's any way to keep this secret and get rid of him, she must just be in full panic mode and not thinking clearly. She's never going to shake him.

Thank goodness Serkan came back and actually issued a sincere apology for what he said at coffee. He definitely owed her one, but what was extraordinary is that it showed that the growth he went through when they were together didn't regress. He was able to apologize and explain that he was angry and hurt and that's why it happened. If you remember from the first time around, saying sorry was something he was just unable to do, so this felt big to me. He's not the same robot Bolat, she left an indelible mark on him.

As for him making her present her proposal, it's really not out-of-line for the professional relationship, however, we all know he did it just so he had an excuse to be around her. That man will take any excuse, plus he likes to get a rise out of her.

The dinner scene was breathtaking. How beautiful and achingly romantic was that setting? Wowza. And what a roller coaster of emotion those scenes were. It was great to watch them talk and laugh. Who didn't swoon when he deveined her shrimp and when she gave him fries? But we had to know it wouldn't last. Eda's speech had me breathless. Serkan had that coming, it hurt but it had to happen. What a relief to see them get things out in the open. Now I hope we get to see them really talk about what happened and why. Explain yourself Serkan!

As for the next episode, I was so hopeful that the Kiraz secret would be out after the final scene, but the first fragman makes it look like that's not going to happen, at least not at the start of the episode. My fear is that if Eda outright lies to him that just makes everything worse. The longer she keeps it from him, when they're back in each other's orbits and it's clear he's not running away, it makes her more and more at fault.

In any case, it looks like we're in for some fabulous scene so I look forward to the second episode!

#Sen Çal Kapımı #Sen Cal Kapimi #edser #sck discussion #edser discussion #sck episode discussion #sck 2x40 #edser meta #sckask #asklizac #anonymous