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becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys · 1 month

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Odd question but - I'm looking to study in the UK this fall, and I'm trying to get to grips with the grading system. Could you explain the grading boundaries to me please? It's different from the US, as far as I can see!

I found this handy table which you might find useful - I don't really understand the US system either lol.

Here's what I will say though - I have many times before seen Americans online seeing the percentages for the UK grade boundaries and immediately wax lyrical about how EASY and SIMPLE it must be to do well in the UK because OH MY GOD I could tooootally get 70%!!! In the US that's barely a C!!! Wow education must be soooo simple in the UK -

And uh. I have seen very few Americans in those discussions stop and ask themselves how much harder it might be to hit 70% in the UK. Which, as the international academic office in every university will tell you, is the crucial question you absolutely should be asking. Does an American 70% look the same as a UK 70%?

(It Does Not.)

So don't be fooled by that! Over here, at undergrad the pass mark is 40%. 40-49% gets you a third; 50-59% gets you what's varyingly known as a lower second (formally), a 2:2 (most commonly), or a Desmond (by sad people. It's a reference to Desmond Tutu - two two). A 2:2 is also the most commonly awarded degree classification over here.

60-69% is a 2:1, or upper second class honours. And then the top level is the first - 70% and up. The vast majority of firsts are earned by students who got 70-79%. Exceptional work pushes into the 80s. It is incredibly rare that you ever see a mark in the 90s, and when you do, it's almost always on maths papers where there are right or wrong answers and that's it.

I can't remember how the US's summa cum laude etc stuff maps onto that, though you could probably find that on Google as well. But as a rule of thumb, think first = excellent, 2:1 = good, 2:2 = fair, and third = you need to be careful and see what you can do to improve (although that is still a pass at university and that is not to be sniffed at).

Ooh, as a final point, though, there's also how assessment works, which again, I know is very different over here (again I don't really understand it in the US). Your lecturer cannot set random work here and there to count as summative assessment. Every module is different in how it's set up, but let's give an example:

Module: Coastal and Marine Conservation Two assessments, each worth 50% of the final grade. Assessment 1: A report on the biodiversity of Ramsey Island in the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park. Explore the cause of the lower biodiversity there than nearby Skomer/Skokholm; how was this challenged/rectified? How have species recovered since? What should be done into the future? Assessment 2: A two-hour closed book exam. Half of this exam (50 marks) will be a mix of short and medium length questions; things like "Define these five terms (two marks each)", or "Describe the process of longshore drift and its impact on sedimentation patterns (15 marks)" or what have you. The second half is a 50 mark essay - pick one of three essay questions offered, and off you go. (Essay questions are a staple feature of exams over here, and multiple choice questions are extremely rare and generally frowned on as being Not Sufficiently Academic.)

Now, in the case of this module, these are the only two assessment points. Both the report brief and the exam paper are registered with the academic office in the summer before the academic year even starts, and both are triple verified - by the lecturer who writes/sets them, by an internal verifier in the department, and an external verifier from another university. This is part of quality control.

If, for some reason, you fail one of these, or cannot submit them by their due date, or what have you, you still have to do them. If you claim for Extenuating Circumstances (e.g. "I was made homeless and my cat blew up, so I couldn't do it in time") then you get an extension on it; as long as you submit by the end of the academic period, you're fine. If you don't, you need to resit it. This normally means over the summer after the main term ends.

But, in the UK system what we can't do is go "Okay never mind, how about you submit a write-up of the volunteering you're currently doing with SeaLife instead and we'll count that?" The reason being, under the UK system that is not a quality-controlled solution. That has not been checked and verified as an equivalent assessment to what the rest of the class has done; so if you do that and get a 2:1, there is no assurance that you are actually of the same academic quality as one of your peers who got a 2:1 for that research report on Ramsey's biodiversity.

Which... don't let it scare you! As I say, there are a LOT of systems that can help you if things start going wrong (always, always, always keep Student Support and your lecturers in the loop). But that is a different system from what I understand you might be used to, so heads up on that.

(I am not arguing that one is better than the other, by the way. Last time I explained a difference in the UK university system I got a very hostile and aggressive American in the notes throwing a right strop over how terrible the UK system clearly is because XYZ, right up until I had to actually say "I am literally just describing how it's different, not claiming superiority," and then they went mysteriously quiet and stopped replying. So to forestall that, I am only describing the differences. There are advantages and disadvantages to each.

The UK system is certainly more inflexible. But it does, incidentally, at least free you from the tyranny I see reported so often by US students of the dreaded Tenured Professor who deliberately as a matter of pride sets impossible exams that everyone fails. Over here, that shit Does Not Fly. So there's that.)

Anyway - hopefully that answers your question! Any others, hit me up. Good luck, and enjoy your studies!

#asks #the professional world of careers and tasks

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bleue-flora · 4 months

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Well, now I feel challenged /lh /j.

I think that cDream being autistic make sense quite a lot BUT I definitely think that it is not a root of all / most misunderstandings - at least at the beginning, he was being absolutely challenged by cWilbur and cTommy and I think that he did the only logical thing, trying to protect his server and friends. His friends later turning their backs on him bc he was unable/unwilling to explain his reasons and feelings adds to the autistic theory but as a toxic cDream apologist I can not help but blame them for just abandoning him without really trying to understand him - like, even if he could explain himself better, I really don't think that would change that much - the root of all problem here would be more other people being unable to understand HIM, not the other way around (although cDream definitely made some wild assumptions(or didn't understand how some people think at all) regarding certain people (*cough* Sam) that backfired spectacularly)

(again, this is meant to be completely light-hearted, I like your hot take, just wanted to challenged it. This is also my first time trying to analyse dsmp outside of my brains so sorry if it's weird 😅

Nah not weird, welcome to the fun! Glad you’ve decided to share. (Hopefully this won’t deter you from pitching in in the future. <3) Don’t worry it’s all light hearted around here, as far as I’m concerned this blog isn’t about arguing it’s about discussion. Agree, disagree, further add, I just have a good time talking about my obsession. :) Generally speaking, to me I don’t think it’s about right or wrong (though to be clear I am always right/jk lol XD) because I think there is typically a bit of both mixed in and there is always something to take away.

Anyways… yea so challenge accepted lol. (just as fyi I did write this and the essay kinda simultaneously so umm whatever I don't cover here is probably in that... somewhere....). Now, I did pick my wording very specifically and it’s ok to kinda miss exactly what I was saying. So just to clarify, I did say ‘a’ root because while I believe it is a huge factor at play I do recognize that it is by no means the only factor at play. Along the same lines, you are exactly right, it is not just about him failing to understand or communicate but also largely about them misunderstanding him. It is very much a failure on both sides and assumptions made that cause this miscommunication. When I mean misunderstanding and miscommunication I mean all around. Though I also agree. As an autistic person (and a c!Dream apologist) I do tend to see it more as a failure to understand c!Dream and a lack of willingness to try on the part of the others. Because as an autistic person I am often the one without the information to realize that something has gone wrong. I may not recognize when I’ve broken an unspoken rule or when I’ve failed to communicate properly. But even if I did the other people have to be willing to hear me out in the first place and understand my actual intention.

With that in mind, it does go back to the very beginning. I challenge you to watch the early streams (especially when c!Wilbur gets involved) and see c!Dream struggle to be heard and get his viewpoint across. The founding of L’manberg? Make no mistake it was in large part due to declaring c!Dream the unfair tyrant and villain. And it was easy for them to do so because a) c!Dream is at a disadvantage to communicate the latter. - And it’s not for a lack of trying. Because he does try, he pulls out dictionaries, he pulls out former events, he tries so hard to get them to hear him, but time and time again they miss it. And make no mistake that is on them, as you said they are to blame here. -

And, b) because c!Dream is different that spurs people to think he is wrong, often more subconsciously. (I’m not going to get into too much more detail on this point as this is already so long and I meant for it to be shorter…. oops. So I am aware this is overly simplified and likely poorly worded, but I'll try and cover it more in the essay.) But yes not only is miscommunication and the misunderstanding at play but also misunderstanding in relation to their perception of each other. Both their misconceptions about c!Dream - taking c!Tommy and c!Wilbur’s words at face value, making poor assumptions about him, and fearing/hating what they don’t quite understand - and his poor assumptions about them (don’t even get me started on c!Sam…), often stemming from their brains being literally different.

#yo thanks for responding hopefully my reply was sufficent? made sense? was helpful?.......#<3 <3 <3 <3 #dsmp #dsmp analysis #autistic headcanon #c!dream is autistic #c!dream #did someone order an essay?#I sure hope so lol....#slowly losing my mind trying to convey why c!dream is autistic while also being autistic...#like its really hard to point out him being different based on society when he makes perfect sense to me...#dream smp #dreblr #dream smp dream #dsmp dream #autistic c!dream #hello there

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transmutationisms · 11 months

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sorry could you explain your chatgpt essay thing again? i get the general gist of it (who cares if they cheat) but i still cant grasp it entirely as someone who hasnt experienced the college system 💔 i had thought that essays were a foundational part of undergrad education? and so cheating on that part would essentially mean that: a) their education/understanding is "invalid" b) it discredits the work of other people in the same system/their classmates c) their future publications/written work in academia are going to be of worse quality d) in cases of people going to non academia jobs, like being a doctor or a lawyer, this would negatively impact their clients e) they have bad work ethic = will not survive job industry

my guesses are that just in general theres no direct correlation between these things but ppl assume there will be? and that if a plagiarized essay ruins everything then the system wasnt rlly that good?

the only one im rlly unsure of is the second one, but i suppose thats always been a problem with any type of academic cheating amongst peers, and will persist unless academic rankings/validation of excellence/general attitudes toward "success" r also banished. still, while i rlly dont care abt anyone i know cheating on stuff like this lol, i cant help but empathize w students struggling under that same system feeling frustrated. tho Man seeing the lack of empathy they, in turn, can have with chatgpt users. idk, is it just a lose lose situation until you get through the system?

ok sorry again and also thanks

hi, no worries. let me try to break down my position here.

i had thought that essays were a foundational part of undergrad education

i mean, this varies widely by course / degree / department. but, even when it's true, it doesn't mean that the essay is inherently a valuable or helpful exercise. undergrad essays tend to ask for one of a few very formulaic responses and ways of structuring an argument. essays also often have a specific prompt, which can be better or worse in terms of its potential to generate engagement with the course / material. often professors who are getting a lot of chatgpt essays turned in are designing essays poorly (ie, asking for the types of formulaic responses that students find unengaging and unhelpful for their own academic development), and / or failing to provide instruction and support in how to actually write an essay.

on a more fundamental level, we often take for granted that essays are and should be foundational to an undergrad education, but i simply don't think this is self-evident or always true! what are we training students to do, and why? there are certainly jobs, career paths, and academic research areas in which essay-writing is an important skill. there are others in which it's not. the assumption that all undergrads need to demonstrate the same sorts of writing skills says more about the university and what pedagogues value than it does about those students' actual chances for future career success / financial stability. if we're designing assignments that, for many students, are mere hoops to jump through, then we shouldn't be surprised that many of them find ways to make the hoop-jumping faster and easier.

so cheating on that part would essentially mean that: a) their education/understanding is "invalid"

again, what i'm trying to get at here is larger questions about what we value in education, and why. it's true that if you don't practice writing the type of essay the academy demands of you, you won't learn that skill. but, why do we assume that skill is useful, valuable, or necessary in the first place? how many people actually need to write that way outside of undergrad classrooms? even for those who are intending to pursue a career in academia, the writing taught in undergrad should be, at best, a stepping-stone on the path to more effective and interesting means of written communication. once again, if the skill being mandated by the university is not useful for students, it should not be surprising that many of them resent having to demonstrate it, and turn to tools like chatgpt instead.

b) it discredits the work of other people in the same system/their classmates

this is an argument that many educators make, and i wholeheartedly disagree with it! first of all, i simply do not believe that student a's academic performance is relevant to the assessment of student b's. if a professor is grading that way, that's terrible grading and a terrible pedagogical philosophy. if a student has learned something from their coursework, that shouldn't be undercut or devalued by anything that their classmates have or haven't done.

what this type of argument points to on a deeper level is the fact that university degrees have acquired a sort of double meaning. although the university likes to propagate high-minded rhetoric about the intrinsic value of education, the degree granted is a class barrier that serves to allow certain people access to certain (usually promised to be higher-paying) jobs, and bar others from these jobs. this is a large part of what i'm talking about when i say that the university serves to perpetuate and enforce class stratification. and their narrative about degrees being markers of individual merit and achievement is undercut by the fact that they also plainly fear losing prestige status by granting degrees to those students considered 'unworthy'. if you can make it through an undergrad education without learning the skills the university purports to teach, that's a pretty massive indictment of the university—which, remember, is collecting a lot of tuition money for these degrees.

c) their future publications/written work in academia are going to be of worse quality

lots of assumptions baked in here—that undergrad essay-writing teaches 'good' (effective / clear) writing; that many academics don't already write poorly by these metrics; that aspiring academics have no other way of learning written communication skills (eg, outside of the academy, or in grad school).

d) in cases of people going to non academia jobs, like being a doctor or a lawyer, this would negatively impact their clients

firstly, i would again point out that in many non-academic jobs, academic writing is simply not a necessary skill; secondly, in both of the examples you cite here, these are people who need to go through a lot more schooling and training after undergrad, where they pick up what written communication skills they actually do need (eg, legal writing looks nothing like standard undergrad essay-writing anyway); thirdly, MANY people getting an undergraduate degree are intending to pursue jobs for which they need neither undergrad essay-writing skills, nor further higher education—there are so many reasons a person might want / need a college degree, and so many careers in which this specific academic skillset is simply not relevant for them.

e) they have bad work ethic = will not survive job industry

again, i think this is making some pretty big unstated assumptions! in general i don't really think that 'work ethic' (or the related 'laziness') is a useful way to try to evaluate people's behaviour, and this is a good example of one way in which it fails. if, like i said, we are dealing with a system in which people are told they need to receive a degree in order to have access to jobs they want and financial stability they need; and in which many of them are being forced to demonstrate a specific writing skill they may never need again and may have no interest in; and in which they are often not even receiving adequate training and help to learn and demonstrate that skill, even if they do want to; and in which they may be working other jobs, caring for family members, dealing with disabilities the institution does not provide support for, or any number of other life circumstances that make schoolwork difficult at best to complete; and in which a tool exists that may be able to help them complete some of this work freely and quickly... like, i simply do not fault students for using that tool!

there are so many points of failure in this system long before we get to this moment: the increasing pressure to get a college degree in the first place; the poorly designed curricula that prioritise skills considered 'standard' (for whom? why?) over skills that students actually need or want to acquire; professors who don't actually teach students how to write, yet expect them to turn in essay assignments anyway; specific essay assignments that are uninteresting and / or unhelpful to students; lack of support for students who are struggling with their workload or assignments in any number of ways (and no, 'come to office hours' is not adequate support for so many students and situations).

i simply do not care about people 'cheating' a system that is so fundamentally broken and unjust. it doesn't matter. the ability to write an undergrad essay is such an incredibly trivial and specific skill, and one that most people simply do not need. it doesn't make a person generally 'smarter' (fake concept) and certainly does not make them any more competent at the vast majority of jobs, careers, or general life skills. even for those very few who do need to know this specific thing, i reject the assumption that the university is the only way to learn it, or even a particularly effective way. once again, if chatgpt is successfully completing assignments, maybe those assignments weren't very good in the first place! and even the theoretical amazing professor is simply not able to counter all of the structural issues and inequities in the university system that produce students' desire to turn to tools like chatgpt in the first place. the textbot itself is simply not the issue here.

#academia #long post

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jackoshadows · 11 months

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Sorry to send you a sansa ask lol I was just wondering if you could help me out. I'm trying to understand why people say sansa is a literal child right now but they also want her to be queen in the end. Are they assuming we will have a big time skip? I mean, if she should be excused for being dumb because she is a child then why do they want her to be queen, wouldn't that make her situation worse?

Welcome to Schrodinger's Sansa!! It's an asoiaf fandom phenomenon where the character of Sansa Stark is simultaneously many things at the same time.

No, they are not expecting time skips. They are arguing that Sansa is simultaneously both very smart and also she's a little child unable to understand when adults tell her things.

Exhibit A:

Linking to this essay because it's often send to me in discussions about Sansa being very smart.

But there’s no reason the readership should share those views. Sansa is a very clever individual who makes increasingly good use of several skills she started the series with, and develops greatly as an observer and an actor over the course of the story.

Same person then writing about Sansa pushing the Maester to drug SweetRobin with the dangerous SweetSleep despite the Maester warning her that it has long term consequences for SweetRobin's health:

I’ve said before that I don’t think Maester Colemon is doing nearly enough to actually explain the problem with sweetsleep to Sansa, so I’ll have none of that either, thank you. She’s thirteen with no grounding in any sort of natural science whatsoever;

More broadly, do we expect thirteen-year-olds to be able to take full responsibility for another’s medical care? Do we expect them to have a sophisticated understanding of, say, heavy metal poisoning, or prescription drug abuse? Even with modern resources? Sansa, who cannot head off to wikipedia and start researching for herself, is in a situation where she doesn’t know what she doesn’t know.

Sansa does not have wikipedia and therefore cannot double check on what a doctor is telling her about a drug is still one of the funniest things I have read on here about the character 🤣, right up there with Sansa being the 'embodiment of hope for the future' and 'flames coming off the side of the face' for a bnf when a blogger called out Sansa for bullying and mocking Arya's appearance.

Again, keep in mind that Maester Coleman is Westeros' version of a physician, a doctor who treats the sick. This doctor is telling Sansa all this in the text:

Give his lordship a cup of sweetmilk,” she told the maester. “That will stop him from shaking on the journey down.”

“He had a cup not three days past,” Colemon objected.

“And wanted another last night, which you refused him.”

“It was too soon. My lady, you do not understand. As I’ve told the Lord Protector, a pinch of sweetsleep will prevent the shaking, but it does not leave the flesh, and in time …”

I try, my lady, yet his fits grow ever more violent, and his blood is so thin I dare not leech him any more. Sweetsleep… you are certain he was not bleeding from the nose? I must speak to the Lord Protector. This feast… is that wise, I wonder, after the strain of the descent? Lord Robert mislikes strangers, you know that, and there will be drinking, noise… music. Music frightens him”

“This descent… my lady, it might be safest if I mixed his lordship some milk of the poppy.

And then when he gives her a final warning, she threatens him with Littlefinger because 'father and I have larger concerns' than SR's health and well being.

Very well.” They paused at the foot of the stairs. “But this must be the last. For half a year, or longer.”

“You had best take that up with the Lord Protector.” Maester Colemon cares only for the boy, though. Father and I have larger concerns” - Alayne, AFfC

This is what happens when fans self-insert and project onto a character and rely on fan made headcanons instead of actually interacting with the canonical text. They want her to be flawless, therefore she's a naive, innocent little baby. The same consideration is never afforded to the other children, even Arya who is two years younger to Sansa. And yet if one looks at their character endgames, Arya is always an assistant to Sansa, there to give her the information while clever Sansa puts together and uses the information to rule.

They want Ned Stark and Maester Coleman to explain stuff to Sansa like this for her to understand what they are telling her:

And yet she is also the smartest, most cleverest character in the series - smarter than Jon, Dany, Arya, Bran, Tyrion, LF etc.

One of the reasons for why we get so many of these bnfs thinking that 'Sansa Smart' will be queen/lady of WF and at the same time arguing that Sansa is naive/innocent/a little child is because they see her as this flawless symbol of kindness and compassion.

I already wrote about this here that in fandoms like asoiaf, virtues like compassion and kindness is seen through the lens of white, western liberalism and traditional femininity. I wrote that long ago and now with the rise of tradwives, it's even more relevant to this discussion.

It has always baffled me that the character trait most often highlighted in fandom for classist and sexist Sansa is kindness and compassion simply because fandom thinks that being polite and having good manners = being kind and compassionate.

This results in posts like this where they argue that Sansa is actually being kind to Jon Snow by treating him like a bastard when the author through Jon Snow is actually being critical of the character!!

Remember this is the quote from the books!

He missed his true brothers: little Rickon, bright eyes shining as he begged for a sweet; Robb, his rival and best friend and constant companion; Bran, stubborn and curious, always wanting to follow and join in whatever Jon and Robb were doing. He missed the girls too, even Sansa, who never called him anything but “my half brother” since she was old enough to understand what bastard meant. And Arya … he missed her even more than Robb, skinny little thing that she was, all scraped knees and tangled hair and torn clothes, so fierce and willful. - Jon, AGoT

We also have a bnf chiming in and agreeing that yes, Sansa was indeed being considerate of Jon's feelings here!

Even Jaime Lannister has had moments of kindness, where he tries to help Pia. And yet the only character in the series on whom these character traits are constantly pushed onto is Sansa Stark.

Sansa can actually be an interesting character if her fans let her be one. She's not a little child who does not understand what Ned and Maester Coleman tell her. She does understand and chooses to ignore it for her own selfish reasons - marrying Joffrey, whom she loved, and becoming queen or wanting LF's plans in the Vale to succeed. That's why she feels 'as wicked as Arya' when she goes and tattles all of Ned's plans to Cersei. That's why she thinks that while the Maester cared for the boy, she and LF had larger (more important) concerns.

Sansa is interesting in the way she deflects and refuses to acknowledge the unpleasant truths before her and lives in this alternate reality where everything is fine. She ignores Joff's sadism because it clashes with her idea of noble, beautiful princes. She ignores what is being done to poor SweetRobin because she thinks it is essential to her own survival that LF's plans succeed.

The reason her stans refuse to dig deeper into the character other than extremes of naive, innocent child and smartest character ever is because Sansa would then be as flawed as Jon, Arya, Dany, Bran etc. and they don't want that for her. They want her to be special in some way and this is it.

Arya killed the guard to survive - and she's portrayed as too damaged to ever live happily with her family. Jon and Dany face hard choices of doing the pragmatic or the morally right thing and are often called out on those choices, especially Dany. Pretty much most of our protagonists engage in morally grey actions.

And yet Sansa fans insist on her being this flawless character- it's everyone else' fault except hers. It's Ned's fault, it's Coleman's fault - they didn't explain properly. It's Arya's fault for trying to help Mycah, Arya should have tried to build a relationship with Sansa. Suddenly it's Sansa who is the outcast in Winterfell and Arya the favorite. Suddenly Sansa is Ned like and Arya 'bites people like Catelyn'.

This leads to her being interpreted as this idiot who cannot understand when a doctor is telling her a drug is dangerous. Which then clashes with their essays about 'Sansa Smart' and how she is going to be the best queen ever and change the system and bring about women's rights and all that.

It's the same with this 'pawn to player' stuff they write for the character. They expect her to be this smart player of the game and at the same time remain this good, idealistic, 'kind and compassionate' leader... How?! LF and Varys did not get to where they are by being good people. Sansa has to get her hands dirty, be ruthless and often times not be concerned about the well being of others - just as she does with poor SweetRobin. And yet her fans think she will become LF level of game player and do it while being kind.

Especially baffling because GRRM is deconstructing all these tropes of good knights and kind ladies. Brienne of Tarth is the embodiment of the perfect knight and yet she is not what one would expect a knight to be. This was part of Sansa's arc of growth - where she sees and experiences up close the brutality and lack of morals of these knights in KL.

The Northerners are loyal to Ned Stark, not because he was some beacon of kindness and compassion or because he had good manners and said please and thank you but because he ruled according to the laws of the land and enforced those laws in a just manner and was therefore an honorable Lord. He beheaded those who committed crimes, he put down rebellions, he took child hostages and he also kept the peace of the land.

And Ned Stark was as flawed as all the other characters. So this insistence that Sansa has to remain this caricature of 'kindness and compassion' - even if it's canonically untrue considering bigotry is not kind - is bizarre and one of the main reasons for why we have Schrodinger's Sansa. I can't wait to see all the excuses and justifications bnfs will come up with if we get TWoW and Sansa is doing all sorts of morally grey shite and going along with LF's plans.

#asks

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seirei-bh · 9 months

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Resolving Ashelin plot holes in Jak 3

I originally wrote all of this essay in a Word document for myself, trying to find various possible solutions for those plot holes, as something for my fanfic, but since I've spent months thinking about it and trying to figure it out on my own, I wanted to share my entire struggle with these issues here with the fandom too XD because maybe they could help to some people who also writes fics or we could just share opinions about it.

The plot holes were big and I don't know how they could have gone unnoticed the first time I played Jak 3, omg~

Ashelin's main problems and plot holes were:

1) Ashelin knew that Damas was still alive, but she didn't tell anyone.

2) Ashelin knew that both Jak and Damas belonged to the House of Mar since she gave the Seal of Mar to Jak in the oasis, and because she knew Damas before he was banished, but she never mentioned any of this to either Jak or Damas. Maybe she didn't know for sure that The Kid of the Underground was Damas's son, but she could have at least deduced that they were family and that Damas could be his uncle or something similar.

3) There is no explanation about how Ashelin managed to find out that Damas was still alive after his banishment, how she found him, and why Ashelin had a beacon to call him (the beacon she gave to Jak at the beginning of the game).

4) Ashelin had the power to directly dissolved the Grand Council without any problems, but she didn't do it before Jak was banished.

Okay, let's first resolve the issues regarding Damas:

1) The first problem can be solved simply by Damas making Ashelin promise that she would never tell anyone that he was still alive, so Baron Praxis wouldn't try to go find him, kill him, and wouldn't find out Spargus's existence. And she didn't tell this to the Underground either probably because Damas was already king of Spargus when Ashelin found him and he had no intention of ruling Haven again.

This issue actually could have been solved just with a line of dialogue and it's something at least to can imagine easily, but the other two problems are more difficult to solve, especially the second.

2) I can understand why Ashelin didn't tell Jak about Damas being his family at the beginning of the game because she was busy fighting a civil war and ruling a ruined city, also because she needed Jak to return to the city, and also the promise she (maybe) made to Damas. But she had had other opportunities throughout the game to mention it to Jak after Jak met Damas in the desert, or at the very least to tell him that Damas was perhaps his relative, without specifying why or how. I can also understand that it would be very difficult for her to explain the whole time travel mess to Damas, but still, it's no reason not to at least tell Jak. Or to tell it to Samos, Keira or Daxter, because they are the ones involved in the time travel and the characters closer to Jak since his childhood, so some of them could help her to explain all that to Damas. So a possible option that I have thought of is that Onin told Ashelin that she should not say anything so as not to intervene in the fate that the Precursors have in store for Jak. It's still a cheap excuse, but Onin is the character who always seems to know more about the future than everyone else. So my final conclusion was that Onin convinced her not to tell Jak, while Damas convinced her not to talk about his own existence to others or reveal that he was the king of Haven City. Besides in this way Onin's role in this game would be useful, lol, because I swear she got the same writing problems than Keira.

p.s.: I've read somewhere that some people think that Ashelin never told him just so that Jak would return to Haven City and not stay in Spargus, but Ashelin is not a villain like her father nor a manipulative person (that's Rayn, lol .And Onin-Pecker-Samos too in some way, but only for the greater good) so I doubt it. As I said it could have been a believable excuse at the beginning for tense moments in the war and having to take drastic decisions, but not throughout the entire game. She's a good person, dammit. However I admit this could have been an interesting idea but only with a better and longer writing and with a proper character development of both or the to create more drama and tension between Jak and the City, and even a reflection for Jak himself on whether he should put his personal affairs above the good of others or if the right answer is the opposite, and a post conversation with Damas about this and what means to be a hero and a ruler...

3) Now we are going to try to solve the third problem… here I came up with three options: A) Ashelin gave Damas that beacon so that he could tell him that he was still alive and Damas activated it only years later to ask for help at some point . B) Sig, any other wastelander spy or even Damas himself, went to Haven City and asked Ashelin directly if she knew anything about The Kid's kidnapping, and then they stayed in touch because she promised she would try to find out where the kid was. C) Ashelin ventured into the desert at some point before Jak2 events or sent someone to look for Damas to see if he was alive and perhaps ask him to return to the city, which he refused, but Damas still gave her a beacon to keep in touch because he appreciates her.

4) Now there is the matter of the Grand Council. Well, this isn't exactly a plot hole, it's lazy writing XD There's no logical excuse in the game, unless at that time Ashelin had more power than before for unexplained reasons or just scrapped democracy and became a dictator like her father, lol. She also might have gained more political power over the war issue, but this is conjecture. Personally my decision with this has been to change this completely in my fanfic for another type of more coherent path, so Ashelin would not have the power to resolve the Council just like that in that scene, but she would have to balance the power later and gradually take power away from Veger (I didn't post the chapters with that subplot yet, so I won't be very specific, but it is based on Ashelin gradually acquiring more power and influence among other politicians in a slower, but also more rational and cunning way, GoT style~)

As a side note, we also have the issue that they completely removed the romantic relationship supposedly established between Torn and Ashelin at the end of Jak 2, and replaced it with Ashelin with Jak, forgetting about Keira's existence as well, but that's not exactly a plot hole either, it's forced rewriting, and at least it was solved in Jak X.

OOHH, and there is a problem also related to her design, and I'm not only referring to her soldier uniform is totally sexualized and that's not funtional for a soldier either for a ruler who wants to be respected, but there is also other problem: she still wear the symbol of the old KG on the shoulder, while she should be wearing the symbol of the Freedom League, and probably also some blue/yellow colors instead of only red.

Well, that's all... it's amazing how I used to think the biggest problem with Jak 3 were the writing of Keira, Errol and the Dark Makers. Because the more you write, the more you find plot holes with other characters and subplots.

#jak and daxter #jak 3 #ashelin praxis #jak 3 the last war

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galactikburzt · 7 months

Text

Oh yeah remember that one post i made about that forbidden testing tracks mod before it came out a while ago

I have decided that I am gonna be this mod's strongest soldier because some people out there are being mean about this mod when there was clearly a lot of passion behind it and it really seems to be someone's first mod ever and like, i do really hope that we get to see new things from the creator in the future because i do see a lot of potential in the mod

Putting my thoughts over the mod in detail under the cut

Personally, I do think that this mod's main issue was that it tried to be way too much at the same time

Which, as someone who likes writing for myself from time to time, I get it. Sometimes you kind of just write something so ambitious that you later realize that its so big for you that you wont be able to manage to get yourself to complete it

The mod has A LOT of mechanics, and I mean A LOT. While I have never had the chance to learn how to build puzzles in portal since my pc is currently not working, I do know a little bit about level design since I am interested in the topic, and also because I do also like messing around on custom level editors whenever I can which was the thing that made me feel interested on level design lol (i really love seeing video essays about gameplay mechanics whenever i can because i do find that very fascinating but that's not the point i am trying to make right now)

Forbidden testing tracks does have lots of mechanics, several multiple types of guns, a dimensional traveling portal sort of, i think, sparks you can jump on, explosive cubes, hell it even has a test room that rotates itself

When you put it out in paper like that it sounds amazing

But the thing is, I can't get myself to mention all of these mechanics, and that's the thing

The mod has so many mechanics, that it is difficult for the player to process all of these new things at the same time

Some of these mechanics appear only once or twice only to not be used ever again

I do think, that whenever you add a new mechanic to a game of any genre, you need to let the player have the chance to process it, learn it, and mess around with it until they get the hang out of it

Let's take a look at the first portal game for example

Im not gonna go into detail about all of the mechanics and how the entire game is constructed because that would be exhausting and too long to write, but I do want to point out the introduction of the portal mechanics

At the very start of the game, we do see the first portal in the game, which we need to use to get out of chell's relaxation vault

We don't have the portal gun in our hands yet, and for a person trying to play for the first time it would be overwhelming to get the gun with both the orange and blue portals at the same time, so the game lets the player get through one portal to walk through to get to the outside of the relaxation vault

And then the player is able to process the main mechanic of the game in that way, you get through one portal and you come out to the other one

There are other tests that do a similar thing to get the player to be used to the portal mechanics and the portal gun

like the test we get after the first one and the test we use to learn how to use the portals to reach higher places, so we can get to learn about stuff like learning where to place portals, how to move around and how do portals work in general, all before we get the two portal gun thing so it can be easier to process for a regular player

(sorry if i am not explaining myself correctly 😭😭😭)

I do think that the mod could benefit itself by focusing on one or two mechanics, like some other mods out there like Aperture tag and Portal Reloaded, who do focus on the gel gun and the time travel mechanics respectively

And speaking of adding way too much, I do think the writing does also suffer from this in a way

So there's this core called SAIC (which is honestly the best part out of the entire mod in my opinion)

I think that the voice acting for him is very good, and I personally Do love his animations as well

When I first saw the trailer I was very excited to see this core in particular, because his lines were delivered very well and I was excited to see more of him in general

but unfortunately, he didn't really get too much dialogue

Yeah, there is this section at the second chapter where we grab him for a bit, but he really just says two small dialogues at the start and at the end

After we meet him, we kind of just hold him for a bit and he doesn't say anything while we walk until we get at his management rail

The game does have a couple walking sections which can feel empty sometimes

I think the game would have benefited from small dialogues through the way while walking these long ways, along with solving some small puzzles outside of the main test chambers, something like the start of portal stories mel with the old aperture which had the player exploring the place without it feeling too lonely thanks to the recordings and later also virgil along the way so the player doesn't feel too lost

There are many things that come off as out of context, we don't really know about SAIC's motivations as far as I can remember and the first half of the game feels very empty, because there's nothing to guide you or give you context

Maybe someone could think that the creator didn't leave too many recordings so the player could feel lonely, but sincerely it is very possible to have a game full of dialogue along the way which also makes you feel isolated, and Portal 1's atmosphere along with GLaDOS having lots of dialogue through every chamber proves it

So while we have the first part of the game being completely empty and out of context, then we have the second half of the game which is overwhelming.

So, let me try to describe it

A lot of nothing happened, i THINK that SAIC was trying to get us to escape, and then GLaDOS catches the player or something and then SAIC apparently dies. And then Wheatley takes over the facility because TURNS OUT that the whole thing is happening at the same time of portal 2

Then things happen i guess and the player just keeps testing because i forgot why, then something happens and we are at the moon and apparently cave johnson is alive and then turns out SAIC's death was a fakeout, and then there's something about Rachel Johnson twin sister of chell because of a something failure???? And then i think everyone just decides to destroy aperture at the end

Just like some of these mechanics out there, there are so many things in the story coming out of nowhere (along with some of these way too into the headcannon territory) that feel out of context, and overwhelming, and then there are some elements which are not used enough or just appear once or twice to not be seen ever again, like SAIC, for example

His voice feels nice to listen to, and I feel like the mod would have benefited itself by having more dialogue and exploring his character with small stuff like him peeping in to say a couple things and adding random comments even if it's just something like a "so... What's your name?" "Hey hey, over here!" Or anything like that

He genuinely should have gotten more screen time, the way his lines were delivered was very nice to hear even if his dialogue was short and the writing could get nonsensical

I think SAIC has the potential to be just impactful as Wheatley if handled correctly, but unfortunately he was set aside even if he was supposed to be one of the main characters because the mod itself was trying to add way too much at the same time, which didn't allow the player to get attached to the story

I think the creator just. Added so much that they couldn't focus on the details of the story

which is understandable because I myself had a couple original stories that never saw the light of the day for the same reason

I realized on the hard way that I was biting off way more than I can chew, because i kept adding more and more, to the point i either had so many characters with no purpose or i couldn't get to work on details because there was too much to work on

So yeah, I do think that sometimes less is more in creative projects, you don't need to be the next super big project immediately, just focus on the essentials and then add the final details later. Try to know the size of your project and keep it in mind, because even short things can be very enjoyable and memorable to experience

With that aside, there's only one question left that I do want to answer

Why

Why do I like this mod so much? What do I see in it for me to call myself the #1 fan of PFTT despite everyone disliking it? Why am I taking the time to write a long essay about a mod that probably no one else aside from me might even like?

Well, I'm pretty sure you have noticed me repeating this one specific word through the whole essay so far:

Potential.

Yeah, the mod is messy both story and gameplay wise, but I think that the mod does have a lot of effort and passion put behind it

I seriously hope that the creator is not gonna end up stopping with doing more content after feeling discouraged by the reactions of all these people

Because I do think that this developer could create for example, the next portal stories mel, or the next aperture tag in the future

Because even if it is very flawed, I think the mod does have it's charm regardless

Yes, it was surreal to watch, it made no sense sometimes, it had lots of things coming out of nowhere, and some other couple things

But I had a good time watching it

I absolutely love SAIC, and when I saw the trailer I KNEW that he would be one of my favourite characters once the mod came out, and I was right

Even if the mod was nothing like what I have expected

I had lots of fun while watching this mod, and sincerely I do wish I was able to play it despite everything

Because it seems like something you could get on a call with a couple friends and talk about it

And ironically even if I can't remember the story, waiting for the mod once the trailer came out, and later watching this mod on a stream through one sitting was one of the most memorable things i could have experienced

I can't stop thinking about SAIC, even if he didn't appear as much as I hoped he would, and even if he didn't have that much time to shine, he has left an impact on me despite everything

When i saw this line in the ending screen while seeing other people's reactions it absolutely broke my heart

I do want to wish lots of luck to the creator, and I genuinely hope to see what they create in the future

And I hope people are gonna be kind to this new creator, because I can tell that this mod clearly had a lot of passion and love behind it

Now, Lastly I do want to apologize if there's anything i have not worded correctly, since English is not my first language

And with that aside, I am gonna end this essay right here (unless there's anything i forgot to mention that i want to edit in the future aha)

Thank you for reading, and have a nice day

#galactikburzt rambling #portal #portal forbidden testing tracks #SAIC portal #claiming myself as the number one forbidden testing tracks fan immediately /hj

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thetaekookcloset · 2 years

Note

Hello! So I'm a little nervous about sending this in because I don't generally like using the anon option as I stand behind my opinions, but I also recongize that means I'm opening this up to all your followers, as a jikooker who runs a jikook focused blog myself. So I'm sending this in with respect and just as a "opinions from the other side" type of deal. And I hope that even though everyone who follows you won't agree with me, the respect and courtesy will be returned. Kindness costs nothing!

A few days ago you posted this ask and reposnse about GCF in Toyko. Both the anon sender and yourself mentioned not seeing GCFT as romantic or non plantonic or understanding necessarily why jikookers say what they say about it. You both did so fairly respectfully, which I fully appreciate. I'm not trying to change minds at all. I'm all good on disagreeing about viewpoints here. None of us know anything for sure and everyone bases their own opinions off their own life experiences and biases. We are all only guessing here. Lol just figured I'd try to answer the question over what "we" see in it. So apologies for all the explanations over why I am here, and for the essay in your ask box. I write long ass posts all the time on my own blog and it's just how I work now 😂 You don't have to feel obligated to post or respond to this either if you don't want to.

GCF in Toyko is not the make it or break it "piece of evidence" for jikookers in thinking that Jimin and Jungkook could be in a romantic relationship. It's just one in the many things that build on top of each other that is their bond that jkkrs see as likely being romantic in nature. Its one of the things that had many jkkrs, including myself, looking back on previous interactions and on future ones with perhaps a more questioning eye. It's also something that I've seen non armys and non jkkrs raise eyebrows over. I introduced my friend to BTS before and they watched Jungkook's GCFs with me (in order, all of them) before she even knew all their names (we were introducing her to the members one by one and JK caught her eye first so we watched his videos and music before the others) and she asked while watching "is the blonde in the video his boyfriend?" And I explained that it was actually Jimin, who was in the same band and as far as the fandom and we all know, no they are just best friends. And she said "well that's some friend then!" And we moved on to the next GCF in Osaka. Or how often i see clips of Jimin from GCFT in armys "pov: you are on a date with jimin" tweets. Lol But it does show that's its not always just the jkkr bias that makes us think the video has some romantic inclinations.

I have... a lot of posts on my own blog that talk about their Toyko Trip and GCFT as well too, but I'm not going to link them or anything because they are definitely written with the assumption that my views and guesses over their relationship is correct and they are boyfriends, which is not what I'm wanting to do here necessarily. But for a lot of jkkrs, the importance placed on the trip comes from the importance placed on it by Jimin and JK themselves. They talked about that trip constantly since it happened, even in interviews in 2020, as well as expressed interest in doing it again. It was how they went through that trip wearing matching fits on their personal time, went sightseeing and went to Disney and had a good time. How JK filmed a video about Toyko, but Jimin ended up being basically the only focus. The intentional choice of the song because he had to pay copyrights for it and the way he matched movements of the video to lyrics on the song, including during the lyrics "love is a road that goes both ways" with a cut scene of them driving down the road and you get flashes of both a rainbow lights ferris wheel and a regular one. Which felt fairly intentionally queer coded, in a video that starred Jimin that Jungkook made.

Jimin also had no idea that the video would even be made at all. So it gave the idea that the Jimin we were seeing, was the Jimin that Jungkook sees all the time. Goofy, happy, having fun, treated well, etc. All that, paired with the music, paired with how they talk about it, paired with how it was edited, paired with the trip itself, paired with JK surprising Jimin over it all, paired with JK telling us he used inspiration videos from a video editor YouTuber called "making a video for your boyfriend or girlfriend," gives off romance vibes (to me).

Your post also mentioned JK being camera shy during the trip, but I disagree. Being camera shy and preferring to be behind the camera don't have to be one in the same. JK made it into a few shots of the whole video, included starting it off with a shot of his feet on the airplane too. I think it just shows that for Jungkook, the point of the trip and the point of the video wasn't about him, or even about them, but about Jimin. Which also feels romantic to me.

You guys (you and anon) also mentioned how you can see two friends making the exact same type of video about a trip they took and were excited about. I disagree, but this could just be life experiences bias coming into play for all 3 of us. I think a good example that could show the difference in what I think would be a normal vlog video between a friend trip and a "could be something more" trip would be Jimin's toyko vlog that he shared. I did a post about the differences there too on my blog, but rather than get into ALL of that. I'll just highlight my points about how JMs video showed JK ALOT, so he wasn't camera shy, he just wasn't in his own video. Jimins video highlighted more of their activies done, them being goofy together, paired with fun music and cute transition slides. For me, this doesnt disprove a possible romantic relationship between them either, it just is what you would expect from a video about two best friends who went on a vacation together. JKs video was a totally different vibe all together. In my opinion. So the completely different vibe as well as everything else about the trip all put together made the video seem more than just plantonic.

https://youtu.be/5TbIyRhvIBQ

^ Jimins Toyko Vlog, with English Subtitles included for anyone who wants to see it if they perhaps haven't. And if you weren't in the fandom long, or aren't a Jimin bias, it doesn't get mentioned a lot. Lol plently of jkkrs also don't even know about it for a while! He posted it originally to Twitter in 2 parts, this army just combined them for us for convenience 💜

https://youtu.be/XrTNLkqGrlc

^ GCFT if I'm here linking things, JK always deserves more streams.

Lastly, his following GCFs were mentioned in your post as well and while all the members do feature in them, Jimin always appears to be highlighted in them. In Osaka, JK cuts the song out completely to highlight Jimins laughter 3 times. In Saipan, Jimin has not only the most screen time, but he also he paired Jimin with the same specific lyrics time and time again which were the more romantically inclined lines. In Helsinki, the colors changed from black to white when Jimin came on screen. Jimin is also the only member to appear in every single GCF video from his first to the last one we have so far. Jimin joking about being the model doesn't just come from no where. Lol but no jkkrs should be claiming (at least I'm not) that app GCFs are indicative of a romantic relationship between jikook or JK and any member. And one or more can be considered romantic while others aren't, or however anyone sees them. Not all GCFs are trying to give the exact same message. At least I personally didn't see them that way.

But again, I'm not here to try and argue really. Or change anyone's mind. I fully recongize how my biases can be influencing my opinions and vice versa for yall and every "shipper" as well. I dont mind if people disagree. I just saw the post and saw the confusion over how/why jkkrs see GCFT specifically in the way that they (we) do and figured I'd offer my perspective as a jkkr who is active in a blogger space. And I think I said all (probably more) that I can say over this topic in one ask. Lol so if you read all of this, thanks for taking the time to read an opinion that differs. Hope you all have a good week!

~ Storm

Hey Storm!

This is really interesting! I'm going to present it mostly without comment and treat it as basically a guest post from a differing perspective.

One thing I just want to clarify about my own feelings on GCFT specifically is that even though I don't really get romantic vibes from it myself, I do get why people see it that way. I get why it might be a big "maybe" moment for Jikookers, and I know that it has definitely piqued the curiosity of non-shippers too, and I understand why. I just don't see it as inherently romantic, or like something that can only be interpreted in a romantic way, and that's why there are plenty of people who come away from it without getting that impression too. That being said though, I definitely see the argument.

I re-watched all of the GCFs after reading this and I definitely noticed some new-to-me things. It's so fascinating how we can watch the same material and take different interpretations and details away from it. If anyone hasn't watched the GCFs, or hasn't seen them recently but read through this whole post, I'd definitely recommend revisiting them.

Also, I'm sure it goes without saying, but please everyone be respectful. I'm glad that we can talk about differing opinions in this space, that's something that's valuable to me.

Thank you for taking the time to share your perspective, Storm! You put a lot of work into this, and I really appreciate the clarity and attention to detail. I hope you're doing well!

#ask #taekook and gcf #i know this isn't really about tk but i want it to be accessible in the gcf discussion

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bunnieshoneys · 5 months

Note

Incredible chapter as always, although this one hurt! 😭

I was going to ask this in the comments, but I wondered if you'd generally prefer to answer questions here? Anyway, it's clear Suguru had a great relationship with his dad growing up, but the mutual (I think?) resentment (maybe?!) and growing distance from his mother intrigues me. I was thinking about that one line early on which is something like "but her opinion doesn't matter when it comes to racing" — because that's kind of dismissive coming from Suguru! But it's unclear what he feels about it, other than happiness that he can continue to race.

Maybe that's the extent of it because he's a kid through all this and perhaps couldn't see the complexities of his parents' situation at the time, but considering their fate in canon, will we come back to Suguru's relationship with his mother at all? Or do we leave it here with the implication that this void between them just continues to grow? If it's the latter, it makes absolute sense, but could you share some insights on how you think their relationship changes (or stays the same) throughout Suguru's life?

Feel free not to answer if it spoils anything for future chapters. I'm just aware that you're already tackling lots of big themes so maybe this isn't something you were planning to explore in more depth, but it caught my attention, I guess. Sorry for the essay — please see it as evidence of my enthusiasm for the fic!!

Thanks again for the update ♥

i definitely prefer to answer questions here - my ao3 comment count is climbing because i have convos with people in the comments which is lovely, but it means my comment count is VERY close to my kudos count and sometimes higher than it, which i find a little unsettling lol!!!

the relationship DOES get bought up more, definitely. its unclear at the moment whether it will be a past thing or a present thing (there are a couple ways i could do it, and im still deciding) but yes, it will be expanded upon. i would say the resentment isnt mutual bc his mom's resentment for him is a VERY different beast to the mild resentment getou held for his mom as a teen.

its left kind of deliberately vague, but essentially getou and his dad were the ones doing all the karting stuff together, and since their family wasn't particularly high income, getou's mom wanted them to stop due to issues with income, travel, etc etc. at times, i would definitely say she had a point lol. but ofc getou resented the fact she didn't want him to continue.

the way getou's mom resents him is.. a different deal. i wont go into it right now because i think it'll be explored later, but if it ends up not being ill come back and explain some more :) thank you for your comments, they're wonderful <3

#fic: coanda effect #bunny answers

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angryborzois · 9 months

Text

im bored so i'm gonna start drawing parallels between raison detre and gojos past arc 💀

i think the first part is getou's part and the second part is gojo's part and the third part is the two of them as a duo (parts of the third part I marked with red and blue as well but anything after purple is the third part)

(I'm sorry if the colors make it hard to read I didn't know how else to split the sections without it looking awkward)

Also this gets progressively sloppier as the song goes on so yeah..

漂うこの空気にストップただ矛盾を抱いている | Stop in this drifting air / I'm just harboring a contradiction

今更猛スピードでスタート切ったって | Even if I took off dashing from the start line now

どうやったって追いつきゃしないぜメーデー | I wouldn't be able to catch up no matter what I do, mayday

This part represents the rift Getou felt after Gojo who became the strongest (also the contradiction part matches Getou's wavering philosophy)

強がりに嫌気がさしている | I'm tired of acting tough

弱音も吐けないままでいる弱音も吐けないままでいる I'm still unable to whine / I'm still unable to whine

Pretty self-explanatory lmaoo.

損得のものさしでぽいって捨てられ | Thrown away by the measure of profit and loss

I think this part would represent people like Riko and Mimiko + Nanako

よそいきの顔してまたやり過ごす | I go through it again with a nonchalant face

Although I put nonchalant here (lol google translate), it means to act polite and well-mannered. This is basically what Getou did; despite seeing the same bullshit play out over and over again, he told himself to bear the burden of being the strong and forced himself to stay grounded and act well-rounded as an ideal server of society.

存在もないようなもんだ誰もわかっちゃいないや | It's like I don't exist / nobody gets it

This part relates to how most people aren't aware of his existence and importance of his job as a sorceror. Even more, nobody would understand the pain of his cursed technique; even to those who do know him.

感情論に縋ってなんて憚れば堕ちる | If I cling to an emotional argument and hesitate, I'll fall

Okay this part was hard to translate lmao. I wrote emotional argument, but the word basically means to go along with your emotions rather than hard sound logic. It can also be used to describe the manner of the action of an emotional or impulsive person. But anywho this is basically what Getou did. Look, it makes sense in my head but I don't know how to explain without writing up a whole essay. And anyways he fell.

だけど夢に目覚めた君は何をみるの | But what do you, who awakened in a dream, see?

I think this sounds like Getou asking Gojo after the latter unlocked his full potential

最低な日を超えて最善の成る方へ | Overcoming the worst days / Going toward the best way

どうしたんだ期待なんてもうしてられないから | What's wrong / I can't keep having expectations anymore

その時をじっと待っている | I'm waiting patiently for that time

曖昧な視界に立って際限のない方へ | Standing at the vague view / Toward the limitless

こんな気持ちさえも捨てきれないのなら | If you can't even throw away these feelings

混ざって混ざって生まれ変わるまで | Mixing / mixing / until we're reborn

終わらない夢を | This endless dream

These parts symbolize Gojo in a lot of ways, like how he was forced to move on toward a future he wanted to achieve with his friend but now has to achieve alone; chasing a dream that suddenly feels unclear to him as he realizes that despite the fact he was the strongest, he was unable to save the person closest to him. However, I also think this closely matches Getou trying to pursue an unclear dream that he justified himself upon after he massacred the village.

従わないことでしか忌み嫌われることでしか | Only by being disobedient / only by being hated

Gojo acts against the higher-ups out of spite for what they didn't do for the students when they should've. He wants them to hate him; he wants them to remember him; he wants to get back at them and leave an impression. (This sounded better in my head).

焦りだけでは満たされないありのままなど見せたくはないね | I don't want to show my true self that won't be satiated with only panic

ヘラヘラと今日も笑っている | I continue to laugh pathetically today

弱音も吐けないままでいる弱音も吐けないままでいる I'm still unable to whine / I'm still unable to whine

This part is literally just Gojo in a nutshell lmao. He continues to laugh and go on, but really, he's just shattered on the inside.

詭弁に振る舞う自己暗示さえ | Even the self-affirmation of sophistry

真実に拘る必要もない | There's no need to fixate on the truth

裏切ってしまいそうな今日がかける言葉もないな | The today that seems like it might betray me / I don't have any words to give

金輪際もう一生なんて憚れば堕ちる | If I hesitate and say I'll never lead a life again, I'll fall

だけど答えなど待っても君に会えやしないと | But even if I waited for an answer, I wouldn't be able to meet you

Okay lmfao this part is pretty complicated but I can say this part definitely--even if Gojo waited and waited to figure out the reason behind Getou's actions, in the end, it would be pointless, and either way he wouldn't be able to go back in time to right things. And either way, he wouldn't be able to meet the him that he knew and loved anymore. The self-affirmation part does tie in with Gojo making himself move on and tell himself he's the strongest, although personally, I don't believe he can see himself as the strongest without Getou by his side anymore.

相対武器をとって感情の鳴る方へ | Relatively we take up our arms and go in the direction our emotions ring

こんな気持ちさえも捨てきれないのなら | If you can't even throw away these feelings

混ざって混ざって生まれ変わるまで | Mixing / Mixing / Until we're reborn

終わらない夢を | This endless dream

I'm kinda too lazy to do this part lol

足りないものばかりの僕ら | Us, who are full of lacking things

The duo...

外見だけ取り繕った | I only patched up my appearance

続かないことに苛立った | I got irritated that things didn't continue

他人を見下し嗤ったんだ | I looked down on others and laughed

そうしないともう僕の心は壊れてしまうから | If I don't, my heart will break

本当はもうわかってるんだ | But really, I already know

期待されない人生だ | I'm living a life where nobody expects anything from me

Getou reflecting on his past, but at the same time this works perfectly fine for Gojo as well

根拠もないあの日のような | Just like that day without evidence

The day Riko died, the day Getou chose his path, the day Getou and Gojo parted ways, etc.

真っすぐな瞳は | The straightforward eyes

だけど夢に目覚めた君は何をみるの | But what do you, who awakened in a dream, see?

Getou questioning Gojo probably

最低な日を超えて最善の成る方へ | Overcoming the worst days / Going toward the best way

どうしたんだ期待なんてもうしてられないから | What's wrong / I can't keep having expectations anymore

その時をじっと待っている | I'm waiting patiently for that time

曖昧な視界に立って際限のない方へ | Standing at the vague view / Toward the limitless

こんな気持ちさえも捨てきれないのなら | If you can't even throw away these feelings

混ざって混ざって生まれ変わるまで | Mixing / Mixing / Until we're reborn

This part I already explained earlier

終わらない夢を | This endless dream

その先の君を | [And] to you, ahead of it

THIS PART. THIS PART. IT'S LIKE A MESSAGE TO GETOU. crying

#angryborzois rambles #take this with a grain of salt

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infinite-happiness · 1 year

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GKS-G 2023 (1st Round Embassy Track) - Part 1

Hello world!

So this is my very first post here.

Maybe I'll be talking about my GKS application journey on this blog and share my experiences online with you guys (if you happened to stumble upon my writings or just somehow ended up here on this blog :D)! Let's get the ride together!!

Anyway, I made it to the 1st round selection (and hopefully will do so until the final round - Amiin *praying hard) of the Global Korea Scholarship program for the 2023 intake . Well, so proud of myself for making it so far (patting me on the back XD). You did well myself! :)

The application itself is such a tiring, long process which require time and dedication (money I could say hehe). Currently, I am waiting for the 2nd round result by NIIED (합격 고고) which will be announced on early May (dunno maybe in the first week? last year it was on the 6th!) And while waiting, I think it would be good to record my application journey so far, so here I am writing this! Hope this will helpful too for you guys who are interested in applying GKS in the future!^^

So first thing first, I had to prepare all the documents while working full time that it was quite stressing for me. I only had time after work to write my essays. In addition, as English is not first language in my country, I had to get my documents translated into English first and then going back and forth to get my documents apostilled (as I am not living in the capital city - it took me 2 hours one way). Another thing is about the recommendation letter (this consumed me more time and energy than I thought haha - you guys better prepare it beforehand). I asked my academic advisor to write one (I had prepared my draft before contacting him, which he then asked about it actually). I had to explain to him multiple times to make sure he signs across the backflap of the envelop as well. But when I got the document.. no.. nothing! my professor didn't sign on the backflap :( On top of that, the document was so messed up, it was crumpled here and there (JNE is not professional this time ㅠ). I had to contact my professor again and asked him to send me a new one (with sign on the backflap) and to put some cardboard along with the packet to make sure it arrived safely. In the end I got my letter back (safely), but it took about one week (obviously lol).

After that, I arranged all the documents needed and sent it to the Korean embassy like one weeks before the application closed (still using JNE tho wkwk). The applicants of the embassy track in my country (I'm from Indonesia) was around 699 people and the quota is only 27! YES, you read it right! I had almost like 700 competitors ㅠ but I was indeed so lucky to get selected (Thanks God!).

The Korean embassy in my country chose like 45 candidates in the document screening. They announced the successful candidates list on their website, but they only posted the applicant's given name (last year they published the full name), and there was my first name as well! But, but.. the thing is my name is not unique at all, most of the women in my country are having the same name with me :) and that was not cool all lol. I was afraid if it actually were not me (although I had a feeling that is was me ㅋㅋ) and got more paranoid after asking one of the 2022 successful applicants as he said that last year the embassy mailed the successful candidates first before posting the list on the website. And I didn't receive any mail from the embassy (had been checking every 5 minutes lol, inbox and spam). I couldn't concentrate on my work because of my anxiety (despite that my Korean ehm crush (?) kept telling me that I would make it because I have TOPIK level 6 - but still.. ㅠ). And then the lunch time came and I was about to do my Dhuzr prayer that I got an email from the embassy congratulating me! I was so happy and was about to cry until I finally read on the mail that I had to do the interview the next day (they said it would start from 8 to 11, first come first serve based)! Yep, the next very day! Congrats to me! lol . I felt overwhelmed because I'm new in my company, and I didn't know if one day notice for a leave is acceptable here. So as soon as I finished my prayer, I reached up to the HR representative in my Department and asked her about the matter. She said that it was okay as long as my supervisor okay with it. Fortunately, my supervisor let me to take a leave for the next day (thank you Mr~ - I told him that I had an urgent family matter lol).

With that, I started the interview preparation as soon as I got off from work. I studied my essays (read it again and again), watched videos related and read people's blogs as well (thank you people :)). I also made a list of questions that the interviewers might ask and recorded myself to practice my answers until late (not recommended but I had no choice ㅜ).

Well, this is going to be a loooong story so maybe I will split it into some parts (I know you guys will be bored to read a very long passage coz so do I :D). Will be back for the second part about my interview experience (and hopefully will be consistent with this blog XD)!

Thank you for reading! Have a lovely day! <3

XOXO

#gks #kgsp #gks2023 #global korea scholarship #studyinkorea #korea #beasiswakorea #indonesia #niied #scholarship #graduate school #korea selatan #south korea #2023

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fayesdiary · 2 years

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Chrom and/or Robin for the ask game :)

I'll do both!

Chrom

First impression: I don't even remember when I first got properly introduced to him. Heroes, maybe? No, I think it was before Heroes got released. It's definitely not when I first played Awakening though, since that was just last year.

Impression now: Truly the most male character of all of Fire Emblem. He's amazing. The perfect combination of Marth and Ike. His voice is perfect. He singlehandedly puts my sexuality into question.

Favorite moment: It's got to be either his battle convo with Walhart or his reaction to Lucina's reveal, immediately believing and comforting her without asking how or why.

Idea for a story: Something about his journey in search of Robin after the ending, that and him fitting into the role of Exalt (granted he's already been at it for two years by this point, but you don't exactly learn how to govern properly in just two years)

Unpopular opinion: I feel that Chrom's approach to trusting people is, as always, really misinterpreted by the fandom (and honestly one of these days we need to have a whole discussion on how this fandom treats naive characters and the belief that naive = stupid).

He knows the danger of trusting everyone, but he still chooses to- as he explains in his support with male Robin, he'd rather risk falling into a trap than turn his back on someone in need. Heck, if he didn't do this, Robin wouldn't be with him now.

Besides, he's got Frederick to watch his back and do the suspecting for him.

And you know, the fact a good chunk of fans just shrug it off as "lol he's so stupid" is just annoying, when the whole philosophy is yes, dangerous, but also fascinating and noble!

Favorite relationship: Romantically with Robin, no question. The two pair each other so well it's baffling, especially with male Robin. I feel they have even more chemistry there!

Platonically with Lissa, mostly because I like they act like actual siblings. Well, besides the occasional "big brother".

Favorite headcanon: He's a huge mythology nerd. He knows a lot about the lore of other worlds, even if he doesn't know they're real until Heroes or his trip through the Outrealms. He actually learned Aether by reading about Ike's stories and imitating him.

Robin

First impression: Again, no idea. They're one of those characters that feel they've always been there.

Impression now: I'm just so fascinated by them. They're by far one of the most intriguing characters in the entire series, through their personality, their relationships, their special connection to Grima and their metanarrative role. I literally wrote a whole essay about it! Of all the FE avatars, they're the only one who I think actually works better as an Avatar, even if I still thing they get restrained by the role sometimes.

Also I like female Robin (those pigtails are iconic and her map sprite looks so fluffy), but I still like male Robin a lot more. His default look and voice is just perfection, and I feel his supports are overall better!

Favorite moment: Their ending where they sacrifice themselves and the bad ending of Future Past. Those scenes are just *chefs kiss*

Unpopular opinion: They're a lot more interesting than people give them credit for, and it saddens me that a lot of fans think they're just one-note and generic. (But really, you can say this about almost every 3DS FE character, they just shrug them off as "lol anime stereotypes" and then some of them go on explaining why a character of the Kaga games that only has three lines is better written than all of Fates or some other bs)

Favorite relationship: Romantically again, with Chrom. But I really like Cordelia and Tiki too!

Favorite headcanon: I love the idea of the line between them and Grima being even more blurry than normal and they keep rubbing off on each other, like for example Robin feeling this near unstoppable rage when their loved ones are being horribly threatened or wronged, or Grima having a strange fondness for the Ylissean family despite them being technically their enemy.

#fire emblem #chrom #robin #ask replies #good-beans #my rambles

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nyomkitten · 2 years

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yesterday/today's scattered rabbit hole

deeply deeply disappointed about how the first draft of this ended up lost because i was drafting it on tumblr's editor. redoing it in a fragile attempt to get some kind of inner peace.

(i say rabbit hole. it's mostly a collection of articles and quotes i really liked.)

people can be really dismissive of recreation as you hit middle age. After 25, you start to seem a little weird or unserious if you’re still really into, say, roller-skating, Dungeons & Dragons, or seeing Phish live. Real grownups have more pressing demands on their time. … But what is friendship but time spent together? And what are hobbies but love? Is the connection any less deep or real because you found each other through surfing or Fortnite instead of through an app or mutual friends?

Adrienne So reviewing Gabrielle Zevin’s novel Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, WIRED

When you live your life in the closet, there’s a part of you that’s never really human. You’re always worried about getting caught. You’re never transparent about all the parts of who you are. … What was really hard for me to hear was how so many Dalits were afraid to come out.

Thenmozhi Soundararajan interviewed by Lizzie O’Leary, Slate she's an icon. these lines are so powerful and well done. i keep dilly-dallying on whether i have a "right" to claim my caste position, because of the material privilege of my parents' hard work, but these lines hit hard, so i have more courage to.

Eric Ravenscraft, "What is the Metaverse, Exactly?", WIRED No specific paragraphs to quote, but this is a wonderful explainer for how the term is mostly used in hype marketing and pitching copywriting. Which is fine for tech companies doing their visionary thing and getting R&D money. Not so fine when they use said hype to sell overpriced phones and other gadgets to consumers, claiming the (tangible) advancements are so much more than they actually are. Also not fine for the very tenuous blockchain-based currency and art markets, which people easily mistake for 'investments' rather than 'gambling'. (I stole this analogy from Johnny Showbiz's Last Week Tonight, which particular segment he disclaims might age badly, but i think will age rather well.)

Neal Stephenson coined the term 'metaverse', because of course he did. Here's an essay by him (self-admittedly outdated) that I want to read that compares proprietary and open-source OSes (among other things), and a later interview where he is very funny and also name-drops lots of books i want to read.

Cryptographer and computer scientist Matt Blaze's blog.

Marmur has been working in the film industry since the ’90s, but over time grew weary of studios only wanting “the lowest-hanging fruit” and balking at the notion of making anything original. … Name-brand actors and high-concept plots have driven Hollywood success for generations, so why shouldn’t that work for Netflix?

David Sims, "'Netflix Thinks Exactly Like an Old Movie Studio'", The Atlantic (lol, fuck you, milkable IP.)

In all the various interviews that I've given, the one element that I stress above all is a lesson that people don't seem to learn — you cannot use time travel as a plot device. You can't use it as a way to get yourself out of a plot. Somebody gets killed, "Oh, we'll just go back in time and stop the bullet from reaching his heart." That's lazy writing. It's too convenient that you happen to have the technology to solve a dramatic problem like that.

You see so many movies that go into the future, and it looks like they tore everything down and started all over again. I love the original Blade Runner, I really do, but there isn't a damn thing in Blade Runner that looks like Los Angeles. But if you were to take somebody from New York in 1955 and bring him to New York today, they would know where all the streets were, they would know how to go to Central Park, and the subways are still going to the same places. Lots of stuff has been torn down and rebuilt, but the grid of the city is exactly the way it's been for over 150 years.

Bob Gale interviewed by Marah Eakin, INVERSE this is a lovely interview and i want to read the rest of the articles in this series at some point. maybe as i watch the things they cover. aside from writing approaches, and an actually constructive critique of the Marvel supermegaultraverse style of writing, it also name-drops movies i want to watch.

a nice, short, wholesome article (Ryan Britt for Fatherly) explaining the uniqueness of Tron (the old original one), in terms of its visual approach, VFX, and (perhaps most significantly) its storytelling devices. i have a soft spot for aged sci-fi that looks bad now but was groundbreaking at the time, and this article explains it really well.

one of Elora Dodd's reels (can't find the exact one; she might have taken it down) which explains how (heavily paraphrased, with my own thoughts)

cutting your own hair is the most about having control over your appearance. it is also about extending a middle finger to the expectation that you have to look made up, and how you're judged if you're not pretty. it does not matter if the haircut is bad. it matters that you get to have that control over how you present.

things i would like to get back to:

alt lit (1, 1.5 , 2)

metafiction and autofiction

aphorism vs epigram

(all rabbit holes here.)

#nk:txt #nk:rabbit #articles #sci fi #science fiction #anti caste #caste discrimination #movies #film #metaverse #marketing #tech #nk

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kath-artic · 1 day

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aforementioned talking

was sitting in the shower thinking of things I'd like to say to him and its so funny the way I've become obsessed with the concept of cohesion. like I really read one essay on coherentism like 4 years ago and said "yeah kinda if you account for the fact that moral imperfection is not necessarily evil and also if you account for the fact that most contradictions can be solved by taking a step back because even the most opposing points branch out from the same source." like I was reeeaaallly explaining myself in my head there just to make sure my logic was airtight for no damn reason. anyway one thing I thought was silly (and its something I've realized before but its a realization that kinda faded from the forefront of my mind) was that I started thinking about how to explain that I try not to concern myself with outcomes and that lead me to the example of the situation with my friend wherein I haven't "decided" if I want to still be her friend in the future because my concern in the present is having space away from her--why close a door that may better serve me open and why ask someone in when they may be better off outside and why concern yourself with doing either when there's no one at the door to worry about--and to determine an absolute outcome is to limit myself and then I thought "what if he says 'oh I would've cut her off'" and I thought I'd explain my whole thing about avoiding cruelty because cruelty is the first seed that turned me from being in touch with myself as a woman on account of my not-so-good relationship with my mom growing up and THEN I started giving examples in my head and started reflecting on when I was little and she'd ask what I wanted for dinner and I'd accidentally pick something expensive (I was a kid w no idea how much things cost) and she'd get mad and start yelling at me and then I'd say "I'm sorry I didn't know, I'm fine with anything we can afford" and she'd still get the expensive thing to prove a point. Anyway this final bit is the point I was getting to because its been a while since I've reflected on this memory and like. 1) its why I struggle so much whenever people ask me what I want to eat and they're paying because I'm hyper conscious of the fact that I'm putting them out and I have no concept of how much is too much (like whenever people ask what I want to eat I almost always ask some vague question like "what are the parameters" because I never feel like I have enough information to make an informed choice) 2) its part of why I cant understand what my friend was expecting of me. because whenever I tell someone "no its okay" and they STILL do the thing I initially wanted it feels like a guilt tactic. so why would I read into subtext and not do something I was given permission to do when all my life that has been a tactic used to make me feel horrible.

anyway lol that one other memory is starting to finally fade again I think. it just pisses me off in so many ways that it was ever back to begin with. like she's not really To Blame for it being on my mind, but that situation is what triggered it. like 1) having that one incident where I went catatonic because she brought up the topic my first ex would threaten me with whenever he was raping me at knife point like 9 times in one week compared to her getting upset over something I DIDNT DO because it reminded her of when she was lonely on her birthday in middle school kinda pissed me off 2) if comparing traumas is the name of the game then how's 'having your best friend's abusive boyfriend get into a whole public fight with her over the fact that she's coming to your birthday so she has to leave early and then your first boyfriend sexually assaults you once she's gone' for bad birthdays 3) her telling me that I will never experience the kind of connection I've dedicated my life to finding in her last message just to hurt me 4) the only other time I've ever felt the kind of betrayal she made me feel (and obviously it was on a far greater scale in this latter case) was when I realized what my first ex had been doing to me. all 4 of these things have just been making me so anxious again and I make such a point of not letting the fact that I was raped instill distrust in me. I still believe people to be fundamentally good. but its been hard recently and that's what hurts me even more. I trust the guy I'm seeing. I trust him so much and I want to let myself be close to him, but it's been hard to talk because now there's this specter of cruelty looming over me. I don't want it to affect my ability to speak anymore. I don't want to be haunted by the ghosts of things that cant hurt me anymore

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swampthingking · 2 months

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i think you're trying to rationalise like/dislike of characters too much. i can't speak for other ppl but i don't choose the characters i like by a process of weighing their good deeds against their bad, or evaluating their situation, etc.

i dislike aaron compared to other foxes because he is homophobic. i cannot personally reconcile that, its just a boundary for me ig? if that's what you'd call it.

no amount of dead mothers, murdered rapists, strained relationships with brothers, strained relationships with girlfriends, etc, will reconcile the fact that aaron is homophobic.

no amount of anger at neil, or concern for his brother, or need to test neil, makes it okay for aaron to call neil a slur. nothing makes that okay. and im not saying ur arguing that it is, im just trying to explain what's going on in my head ig.

i think when most ppl dislike aaron, it is because of the homophobia, so an essay evaluating Aaron's character changes nothing. like yeah, I'd be spiteful if my twin brother killed my mom, forced me to overcome my addiction issues, then dated some dude i didn't like all while being a shit to my girlfriend, but yknow what i wouldn't do? take it out on gay ppl. the fuck they'd have to do with all that?

hey! thanks for messaging, this was actually really thought provoking so thank you :)

(for context, i am a gay man)

yea i defo see where you’re coming from. however i wouldn’t say that i am trying to rationalize characters, more so that im just trying to understand them. (i don’t really understand what you meant by ‘rationalizing like/dislike of characters’ so i apologize if this doesn’t quite answer what you said). i feel like trying to rationalize behavior and place them in boxes of ‘good and bad’ defeats the purpose of the book. for me, i choose the characters i like by if they grow as individuals, or if they’re just flat, and part of that is evaluating their situation. (i also just over-evaluate shit. my reflection posts for class are a 200-word minimum and my posts are usually always 700+. jesus christ. anyways.) to me, aaron is a dimensional character that exemplified growth through the trilogy, so that’s just me!

people disliking aaron is totally up to them— and perhaps i should have touched on aaron’s homophobia but my post was already long enough lol. i could have made it clear that i believe aaron is capable of change and he could come around, again, early 2000s excuse yadda yadda.

i think i just have trouble automatically classifying a character as unsalvageable because of that, especially after we see aaron have a bit of growth, which shows that he is capable of it. to me, aaron’s actions towards/protection of andrew shows that he cares enough to change for andrew (in the future obviously as we didn’t see much of that in the books). and maybe it’s hypocritical of me to pick and choose who i’d defend, because i would not defend seth the same way i defend aaron, but yeah.

for me, a deep dive into aaron’s character did change it for me, because i did noooot fuck with him at first because of his homophobia. i do understand where you might think i’m trying to excuse aaron’s homophobia because i did not touch on it in that last post. i of course agree that it’s never okay to call someone a slur. not excusing it, never that, don’t misunderstand me please. i think there’s a difference in rationalizing someone’s behavior and…trying to find the root of it??? i guess?? maybe that’s not the correct words. i don’t really know what i’m doing in regards to aaron. i just know i’m not ready to cast him aside because of his comments. does that make sense?

i do think aaron is capable of seeing the wrong in his ways and is capable of learning, esp now that the twins are in therapy together. i can’t expect people in the early 2000s to have the same morals as we do today. i don’t think aaron ‘took it out on gay people’ though. aaron was quite a bitch to everyone. again not okay, but it would add another layer of hatred to aaron if he was mean to only the queer people.

to include your second ask: yeah dude, it’s fine if you can’t stand him! it’s fine if you never want to look deeper into him because he’s homophobic. i super understand homophobia being a boundary for you, that’s all you and i’d never try and change your mind or push you on that. just pleading my case ig lol, because you brought up some really good points. i don’t want to seem like someone who ignores issues like this, but for that specific post i was trying (key word: trying) to make it simple and stick close to what the original poster said

#mail

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