I thought it would be interesting to see if I could easily determine which ships had the most works updated in 2023.

It turned out to be fairly easy, though a little time consuming. I think these results should be reasonably accurate.

Some points to note:

I did this on my own account, and I have like 2 people muted. So I am capturing the effects of archive-locked works, but my numbers might be off by one or two works due to muting.

Works updated in 2023 is a number that constantly changes as works are deleted or updated again in 2024.

I didn't scrape the entire archive or anything like that, so it's possible I missed a ship that would bump one of these down below 100. I'd take the last few at the bottom there with a grain of salt. But I think we can be reasonably sure the top ones are accurate and that the kinds of numbers that we see at the bottom there (eighteen hundred plus works updated in 2023) are about where the cutoff will be even if we find a ship I missed.

--

As for how I did this, I went to the category tags and the rating tags, filtered for updating in 2023, then excluded ships in the sidebar till I got to 130-150 ships excluded. I also grabbed ships that are big in general from tag search, which you can use to find all relationship canonicals, ordered by frequency.

I combined those lists of ships, cleaned off the works numbers, and generated a list without duplicates. That got me three hundred and something (yes, they were mostly duplicates). I generated the relevant AO3 URLs, opened them in batches with Open Multiple URLs, and copied the works totals into a spreadsheet. Not as tidy as using a script but honestly pretty easy if you know a few spreadsheet formulas to clean up data.

The key here is that if you're only going for pretty good and not accurate beyond a shadow of a doubt, all you need to do is generate a list of likely ships, then check them.

It's possible that there's some much-updated ship that is so evenly spread across these various other tags that it just missed showing up in the sidebar. Hopefully, grabbing more than just the top 100 avoided this problem.

This method also doesn't take into account backdated works. If a whole archive was imported in 2023 but all backdated, there could be some ship that didn't have new works but where AO3 users experience in 2023 was of an influx of content.

I also did this just now, in late March/early April, so some 2023 works have inevitably been deleted or updated again. So the exact work counts don't represent the experience of using AO3 throughout 2023. A fandom active in early 2023 might not have much updating in early 2024, while a fandom active in late 2023 would. This could demote the latter a few places in the rankings since I didn't grab numbers on January 1st.

Even if a person scraped AO3 every day or was monkeying around in the databases, you also have to ask what conceptual answer you're after. Is it works a user could have read at some point during 2023, whether they were deleted by the year's end or not? Is it new-to-AO3 works or only newly-created ones, not including imported archives? Does it matter if the works are fic? If they're in English? What about accidental double-uploads or translations of a single work?

I hope this makes it clear why a definitive ranking is not actually possible.

However, despite these drawbacks, I am confident that the rankings above accurately represent the broad trends on AO3 in 2023. Just don't get too fixated on whether a ship should be at number 73 or number 74.

And, of course, I excluded these from the top 100:

Original Character(s)/Original Character(s) - 20,026

Minor or Background Relationship(s) - 16,187

No Romantic Relationship(s) - 8,052

Original Female Character(s)/Original Male Character(s) - 7,195

Original Male Character/Original Male Character - 6,283

Other Relationship Tags to Be Added - 5,618

Original Female Character(s)/Original Female Character(s) - 3,990

Original Character(s) & Original Character(s) - 3,210

Here's a spreadsheet if you want to see the actual numbers not as a shitty screencap. I left the next few below 100 for context.

What are your favorite pieces of media that you think accurately represent magic and spirit work? Movies, books, even music..

This is an interesting question, but one that requires a lot of thought, as I have read and watched an inordinate amount of books and movies. Plus, even really good fiction with pagan themes that I've read/watched is generally inaccurate in most ways, with some realistic aspects of magic woven in here and there. Some of my very favorite media relating to the subject can't really be included, simply because of how inaccurate it is overall, but there are a few that have caught my notice.

I'm sure I'll end up missing ones, which bugs me, but I'll do my best to recount some examples that I can think of:

The Love Witch (2016) is a movie that I think presents a strikingly realistic portrayal of what magic can look like. It manages to show some of the ways one might use magic to great effect, without actually skewing into fantasy at all. Clearly, the magic shown isn't going to line up with every paradigm, and its not exactly a heady or spirit-based story, but I think it's a very real look at how ritual and magic is/can be approached by many folks in the modern day.

The Witch (2015) is, above all else, a great slow-burn horror film and an excellent period-piece. However, it also portrays quite an accurate conception of folkloric beliefs about Witchcraft in the 17th century, which inexorably inform the realities of modern Witchcraft traditions. It does just barely skew into fantasy horror, but the actual folkloric information being presented is quite sound.

A Dark Song (2016) is a film that portrays ceremonial magic realistically in many ways. Ultimately, it is still a supernatural horror film, but the bulk of the magic in the movie is based directly on the Abramelin Operation, which was interesting to see. A lot of the ways that the magic "takes shape" in the film feels real enough to me, too (though it certainly takes it to extremes at points, as horror movies are wont to do).

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson is a horror novel I much enjoyed when I read it a coulple years ago, but I also remember that it happens to contain small, but meaningful, instances of sympathetic magic within the story that I appreciated as a practitioner looking in. This one has been made into a movie as well.

Cunning Folk by Adam Nevill is one of the more realistic looks at magic—including the uncanny side of it—that I've come across. It's still definitely a horror story, first and foremost, but there's an oomph to the ritual and magic described therein that a lot of other similar fiction lacks—even when the ritual act being described isn't necessarily accurate in terms of historicality or my personal experience of the Craft.

The White People by Arthur Machen is a Welsh short horror story from the turn of the century, which I think is worth including here. There are elements and aspects of the story that feel surprisingly real in terms of Gloaming initiation and the Gloaming Spirits—though, of course, it takes creative liberties informed by the paranormal beliefs and trends of the time (1890s).

The Craft (1996) is a movie that I'm sure a lot of pagans have of nostalgia for in one way or another, myself included. I struggled with whether this movie should be here or in the Honorable Mention section, but I included it here in the end because a lot of the ways magic and ritual are presented in the film are accurate enough. I also think it did a fairly good job of capturing how it can feel to discover, revel in, and then become overwhelmed by magic. However, since it is a supernatural horror film, a lot of magic shown is portrayed more fantastically than the real thing, and there are aspects of the magic (rituals, entities, etc.) made up entirely for the sake of the story.

As implied above, there are also some pieces that, while largely inaccurate or too far into the realm of fantasy, still manage to succesfully capture some essence of realistic feeling magic in them. I will list those here as Honorable Mentions:

Practical Magic (1998) is another movie that I'm sure a lot of Pagans have nostalgia for in some way or another. I won't claim that it's a genuinely "accurate" representation of magic—and it certainly strays into outright fantasy at times—but there are little things throughout the movie that managed to ring a bell for me, as someone who grew up with magic in my family. I know this was originally a book, but I actually haven't read that as of yet, so I can't speak to it.

Pan's Labyrinth (2006) is a movie is squarely in the fantasy-horror genre to me, but even still, I include it here as an honorable mention because a lot of the lore depicted is drawn from real lore, and the overall ambience it manged to evoke strongly reminds me of some of my own experiences with chthonic journeying.

The Good Witch franchise isn't one I have ever actually watched any part of before, but I include it here because, oddly enough, multiple practitioners have mentioned to me that they think the magic is surprisingly realistic for a Hallmark series. As I understand it, the main character is a sort of local Wise Woman who helps the folk in her little town using things like folk-knowledge, remarkable intuition, and an uncanny ability to seemingly sway people and circumstances. Since I haven't seen it myself, my take on it may be somewhat lacking, (which is why I listed it as an honorable mention), but based on the description, it actually sounds like it may be one of the more realistic interpretations of magic on this list.

I know this is a strange addition, as it's not exactly magic, per se, but much of how Stephen King writes about psychic abilities like clairvoyance and healing throughout his works manages to touch on something all too familiar for me. I think, sometimes, that he may have known someone with the Sight and/or the Touch in his real life, as it comes up a lot in one shape or another in his writing.

As I said, I'm sure there's stuff I'm missing, but this at least a serviceable overview. I encourage others to share any other media that they think deserves a mention, too!

Leverage by Character Emphasis

So, for fun over the course of my rewatch I kept track of who I considered to be the main character of each episode, or rather who got the most narrative/emotional focus. I kept track of all those in a list here. I got curious about how it all stacks up in the end, so I went to a pie graph website and stuck all those numbers in.

I only used the main character in each episode, even if on my original list I had put it as having secondary emphasis on another person or relationship. However, if an episode was split pretty evenly in focus between just two people (as opposed to the whole team), I counted it towards each person's overall percentage. And of course all these stats are based off of my own personal interpretation of the episodes. So this is by no means truly comprehensive. But I think it's still interesting to look at all put together.

I'm putting the overall breakdown here, but below the cut I've got individual charts per season as well - plus a bonus list of how many people we meet that the team already knows/whose past they hail from.

All Seasons

Percentage breakdown:

Team - 36.9% or 31/77 total episodes

Nate - 17.9% or 15/77 total episodes

Parker - 16.7% or 14/77 total episodes

Eliot - 11.9% or 10/77 total episodes

Hardison - 7.1% or 6/77 total episodes

Sophie - 4.8% or 4/77 total episodes

Parker/Hardison - 2.4% or 2/77 total episodes

Sophie/Nate, Tara - 1.2% or 1/77 total episodes each

The show is primarily team-based, and that's reflected in the largest percentage by with a 19-point gap before second place. Nate holds that spot, though Parker is right on his heels in third. There's a bit more of a gap between them both and Eliot, then similar gaps between him and Hardison, and then Sophie as the team member with the least number of dedicated episodes. (However, this doesn't reflect a lot of time spent in S2 on her). Then the pairings and Tara each get just an episode or two spent primarily focused on them.

Looking at it in pure numbers, you can definitely see that Nate as mastermind got a lot of attention, and that Parker becoming the next mastermind was built steadily with a lot of focus as well!

Season One

Percentage breakdown:

Team - 38.5% overall or 5/13 episodes

Nate - 23.1% overall or 3/13 episodes

Parker - 15.4% overall or 2/13 episodes

Sophie, Eliot, Hardison - 7.7% overall or 1/13 episodes each

It seems fitting that in the first season, most of the time was dedicated to episodes that don't focus on any one person in particular. Instead there's a lot of time spent establishing the team as a whole. We do see Nate in second place and Parker in third.

(I thought about counting the Juror #6 job towards Sophie and Hardison, but in the end I didn't since the main emphasis was still mostly for Parker. However, that would have bumped them up to the same number of episodes as her.)

Season Two

Percentage breakdown:

Team - 40% overall or 6/15 episodes

Nate - 26.7% overall or 4/15 episodes

Sophie, Parker, Hardison, Eliot, Tara - 6.7% overall or 1/15 episodes each

So there's a lot more secondary focus/running themes this season that don't show up as much in this chart. Sophie's storyline in particular gets a lot of focus throughout the season, but is rarely the main focus of any single episode, so it isn't as well represented here. (For example, the Lost Heir Job is team-focused, but specifically on the team coping without Sophie, so it could possible have been counted as a Sophie episode as well.)

Given the parameters I'm working with though, we see again team episodes first, Nate second, and then this time everyone else shares third place equally (including Tara!).

Season Three

Percentage breakdown:

Team, Eliot, Parker - 25% overall or 4/16 episodes

Sophie, Nate, Hardison - 6.7% overall or 2/16 episodes

It doesn't add up to 16 just by numbers because this season had several episodes I couldn't assign to just one character, but also seemed not really focused on the team. I gave Eliot+Hardison each a point for Gone Fishin', and Eliot+Parker each a point for the Underground Job.

This season bucks the trend of Nate getting the second-most episodes dedicated to him. Eliot and Parker actually get as many episodes as the team in general. They're all a lot closer together though in terms of numbers.

Season Four

Percentage breakdown:

Team - 27.3% overall or 6/18 episodes

Nate - 22.7% overall or 5/18 episodes

Parker - 18.2% overall or 4/18 episodes

Eliot, Hardison, Parker/Hardison - 9.1% overall or 2/18 episodes each

Sophie/Nate - 4.5% overall or 1/18 episodes

This season has a lot of episodes focusing mostly on just a couple of people so it was really a pain to break down. I ended up sharing credit for Grave Danger between Parker and Hardison as Parker/Hardison, and Queen's Gambit between the team and Parker/Hardison. The Night Out Jobs I just counted as team episodes since they divvied up the focus fairly equally between the characters who were in them. On my original list I put the Hot Potato Job as Nate and Hardison but on further reflection I think it's more of a team episode, so that's how I counted it here. Still, this chart is the one I was least certain how to break down, and I'm not really happy with it but I eventually just kinda gave up.

Nate is back up in second place, right after the team as a whole. Parker's right behind him, while the others trail a bit behind. The ships get a couple episodes dedicated to them, but Sophie doesn't actually get an episode of her own at all this season.

Season Five

Percentage breakdown:

Team - 62.5% or 10/15 episodes total

Parker - 18.8% or 3/15 episodes total

Eliot - 12.5% or 2/15 episodes total

Nate - 6.3% or 1/15 episodes total

I attributed the French Connection Job to both Eliot and Parker, and put the Rundown and Frame Up Jobs as being team focused since they split attention pretty evenly between the halves of the team each episode had. The White Rabbit Job had a secondary focus on Sophie which I didn't count; same deal with the Blue Line Job since for the most part it was still more team than Eliot focused.

This season bucks a lot of the usual trends. The vast majority of the episodes are team focused with no major emphasis on any one person; this is usually the biggest percentage but this season far more so than any other. The other major departure is that Sophie and Hardison both get no individual episodes at all, and Nate isn't in second or even third place. Instead we have Parker, then Eliot, then Nate. And if I had counted the Blue Line Job for Eliot, which I considered doing, he would've been tied with Parker.

Bonus - Known Associates

This chart counts how many people we meet from someone on the team's pre-show past. It does not count people they meet during their time on Leverage who later become important to them, such as Peggy.

Percentage breakdown:

Nate - 38.1% or 8/21 total

Eliot - 33.3% or 7/21 total

Sophie - 19% or 4/21 total

Parker, Hardison - 4.8% or 1/21 total each

If you want to know who these people are, that's listed right underneath here. Nate's people tend to show up more often, while Eliot has a lot but they're mostly one-off characters. Sophie and Parker not having a lot makes sense given that Sophie's true identity is a mystery, and Parker was a loner almost all her life. Hardison being at the bottom of the list is really at odds to how we know he has a large family and is such a sociable person.

Nate - An old friend in the Miracle Job, Blackpoole, Maggie, Sterling, the people from McRory's, Jimmy Ford, childhood friend Ed Kelly from the 15 Minutes Job, his old IYS colleague from the Van Gogh Job.

Eliot - Aimee from the Two Horse Job, Damien Moreau, General Flores, Vance, his grifter buddy from the Juror #6 Job, his buddy Shelley from the Boys' Night Out Job, and Vance from flashbacks/the Rundown Job.

Sophie - A friend in the Wedding Job (not sure they actually count since they just tipped her to the job but I don't think we met them onscreen), the mastermind from the Two Live Crew Job, the Duchess from the King George Job, and Tara.

Parker - Archie Goodwin.

Hardison - Chaos.

Chinese Names + Naming Resources

Some of my most popular posts on this blog have to do with Chinese names. It seems like a lot of people who reblog those posts enjoy writing and are saving the posts as resources for naming their characters. So, I wanted to share some additional resources that I’ve found and used.

Resource #1: Name104

This site reflects names from Taiwan. It has quite a few different pages/features to explore. Just make sure you only enter in traditional characters--it won’t work properly with simplified characters.

First is the name generating tool (線上取名工具軟體).

You can specify the surname, if you want a one character given name, the second character of the name (aka first character of the given name), number of strokes, and things relating to luck. The specify second character feature is really useful for if you want a common 字辈 across names. The site will generate a bunch of names, and you can click each to learn more.

The tool I find most useful is the name similarity tool (名字相似度查詢). You enter a given name, and it will show a popularity score as well as lists of common names with the characters you included. The score is people/million, taken from college (I think) entrance exam takers over a 15 year period.

The default name when you click on the page is 心怡. This one is pretty popular. If you know you really want a name with the character 怡, you can enter in 怡怡 so it will show all the most popular names with this character (both in the first or second position), like below:

Some other pages of interest are the list of most popular characters in names (常用名字[單字] ) and the list of most popular names (常見名字). You can click on each character or name to see more. According to the website, about 90% of names are made up of the top 500 most popular characters, and the 1000 most popular names made up 22% of people. So if you want a “normal” sounding name, this is a great resource. If you’re wondering, the most common character is apparently 怡, with the most popular name being 怡君!

Resource #2 NameChef

This site is available in English and Chinese, so it’s relatively accessible for people who don’t speak Chinese. However, some of the specific information on individual names is only in Chinese. Also, that it seems to default to displaying traditional characters when you are in English mode, so you may need to ensure you are entering traditional characters in some of the later steps.

First I’ll discuss the name generator. This feature is great because it allows you to specify a region (Mainland, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, or any). Different regions have different naming trends. I can’t vouch entirely for how good this feature is, but I think it’s so cool that they offer it.

Another cool feature is that you can specify different traits. I can imagine this would be great for those of you looking for a name for an original character. You can also skip this step if you don’t have a preference.

Next you can enter a surname and a character you want included in the given name. As you can see, you can pick to include a character but not specify placement, specify the first character, or specify the second character. This is also good for 字辈 or if you’ve selected a character you want to include but are not sure how to finish formulating the name.

Here’s my list of names. It happens to just have female ones at the top, but since I’m on the “all” tab, it’s actually displaying a mix.

If you click on a name, you can see some more information. Further down, the page also shows stuff like gender, popularity of the name by region, and names with similar pronunciation. However, I noticed that the site isn’t the best at noting which names are more gender neutral, so this is something to keep in mind.

This site also has pages on popular names and characters by region! I find this stuff very interesting. The lists definitely reflect some trends in names I’ve observed by region, so even though I don’t know the data source, it seems fairly accurate.

Resource #3: Provincial Databases (重名查询)

Some provinces have websites where you can enter names and see the number of people with the name. Sometimes they include a gender breakdown too. There is actually a government site for the whole country that does this, but I think you have to be a Chinese citizen to use it. Luckily, some of the individual provincial services don’t require this. There are probably more sites for other provinces, but I’m just going to list a few. Guangdong, Henan, and Shandong are the three biggest provinces in China, so those are always good ones to start with. These sites are all in Chinese.

Shandong (city breakdown)

Jiangsu (gender breakdown)

Henan (search by whole province or city/county)

Jiangxi (gender, age, and even astrological breakdown)

Guangdong (gender breakdown)

Liaoning (gender and city breakdown)

If you use one of these sites, first I recommend trying a super common name like 张伟 so that you can use that information to interpret your results. Also, I believe for all of these site you have to enter a surname, so you can just pick a common one like 王, 李, or 张 (or whatever the most prevalent surname is for that individual province).

I hope these resources are helpful to you! If you know of other good websites, I’d love to see them too.

The Horny Cinematography of Seasons 4 and 5 of Supernatural

So I made this kinda silly post about how horny the late Kripke era of Supernatural was and it was mostly meant as a joke, but then it got me thinking. So I did a little bit of digging, went through some memorable scenes, and noticed some actual patterns in the way Dean and Castiel are shot versus other characters. Disclaimer: this is not exactly a scientific analysis. I didn’t rewatch the entire two seasons for this and there are probably shots with other characters that I missed that go against it, but this is just the general trend that I noticed. 

Click on the images for higher resolution. Analysis is under the cut.

So the general premise of this analysis is that Cas and Dean are shot noticeably close-up, typically staring intensely into each other’s eyes. I think we all know about the whole staring thing, but the actual close-ups were way more intense then I think some people might realize, especially when compared to other interactions between different characters. Cas in particular is shot very close-up frequently whether he’s talking to someone else or by himself (there are so many gorgeous close-ups of Misha in season 4), but the intense eye contact is pretty much only with Dean. 

It starts off almost immediately in 4x01 Lazarus Rising where in Dean and Castiel’s very first interaction, they stand very close and the camera focuses on their faces. First we have two close-ups, then in what is maybe my favorite shot in all of Supernatural, Castiel steps in closer to Dean and the close-ups get even tighter. He tilts his head and stares thoughtfully at Dean with those big blue eyes. Cut to Dean’s look of discomfort after being told (very accurately) “you don’t think you deserve to be saved.”

Things amp up in literally Castiel’s second appearance in 4x02 Are You There God? It’s Me, Dean Winchester with one of the horniest Destiel scenes in the show (again this is only their second interaction!) We have Castiel unexpectedly showing up at Bobby’s house, Dean sassing him, and Castiel stepping very close to Dean and saying “You should show me some respect. I dragged you out of Hell. I can throw you back in.” This is a very tense interaction with some beautiful low key lighting that pretty much went extinct after season 5. Notice how tight the frame is, even compared to 4x01. These are extreme close-ups where both Dean and Castiel’s chins and foreheads are cut out of the frame. 

Castiel’s third appearance in 4x03 In the Beginning is a lot more prominent as he has many scenes throughout the episode instead of just one. I’m not gonna include pictures of all of them because there’s lot, but there are plenty of close-ups and intense gazes between the two (e.g. sitting on the bed, “Hello Dean. What were you dreaming about?” which according to Misha, Kim manners said was “too gay” but they did it like that anyway) and contains the first time they touch and the first time they are shot in more high key lighting. Go rewatch the episode if you want to see more lovely close-ups between Dean and Cas. 

Next I would like to draw your attention to episode 4x07 It’s the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester. This is Castiel’s fourth appearance and the first time we see him interact with a character who’s not Dean. This is where the differences between how they’re shot start to become apparent. First we have Sam’s first interaction with Castiel (greetings blood freak) that is shot with standard close-ups. Eventually, Dean comes in, conversation happens blah blah blah and we get to the more intense discussion about how the angels want to destroy the town. The discussion is between Dean, Cas, Sam, and Uriel, but Dean and Cas get most of the focus. The camera tells us that they are the main subjects in this scene. Dean and Cas are shot more close-up and tighter and they are standing closer and looking in each others eyes unlike Sam who is looking back and forth between them and standing a few steps back. 

Of course this doesn’t stop in season 4. Here is a similar example from 5x02 Good God, Ya’ll! but the difference between Dean and Cas and Sam is even more obvious. This is the “I'm hunted, I rebelled, and I did it, all of it, for you,” exchange which I find interesting. Some people could say here that Cas means “you” plural as in Sam and Dean but the Camera is so focused on just Dean and Cas while Sam just sorta hangs there in the background. 

One thing that I think is interesting is that these types of shots-extreme close-ups with two characters looking into each other’s eyes and standing no feet apart-are not necessarily exclusive to Dean and Cas, but they are usually in a different context. Pretty much all (at least that I could remember) the other examples of this type of shot are between one character and a villain. Below we have three fairly intense confrontations between characters, Sam and Uriel in 4x07 It’s the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester, Dean and Alastair in 4x16 On the Head of a Pin, and Dean and Cas in 4x22 Lucifer Rising. The composition is almost exactly the same with similar lighting as well, but one of these things is not like the other. Very obviously Cas is not a villain and this scene in particular is a huge moment for his character that cements his decision to fully rebel against Heaven for Dean. 

Also characters that tend to be that close together looking into each other’s eyes in two shots are usually villains except for Dean and Cas. Below we have a shot of Ruby and Sam very close together right before he drinks her blood and a very close-up shot of Dean and Alastair both in 4x16 On the Head of a Pin. Compare that to the two shot from 4x02 Are You There God? It’s Me, Dean Winchester above for example. There is a certain sexual nature in these two villain scenes (and a lot of villain interactions on Supernatural in general). Obviously, Sam and Ruby are literally having sex, but Alastair is also portrayed as a villain who sexually objectifies his victims (the torture scene with Ruby, calling Dean “Daddy’s little girl, etc.) but Cas is not a villain and yet the framing is very similar. 

Now I want to compare two fight scenes, one in season 4 and one in season 5. Here we have the fight scene between Ruby and Sam in 4x09 I Know What You Did Last Summer. Ruby is of course a sexy lady who Sam sleeps with in a sexy fight scene where she “proves” that she wants to help Sam by killing the other demon instead of Sam. But of course, the fight scene in 5x18 Point of No Return is shot way more close-up and Dean and Cas are inches away from each other. While I wouldn’t described this scene as “sexy” (Cas is literally beating Dean to a pulp) it is way more charged...intimate isn’t exactly the right word but there’s a similar but more intense erotic energy than in the fight scene with Ruby. 

Unrelated side note: there is a great use of breaking the 180 degree rule in this scene that I think works way better in this instance at disorienting the viewer than the shaky cam does. 

Next I have some random examples I noticed that show some of the different shots between characters. We have Anna in 4x10 Heaven and Hell right before she has sex with Dean. It’s fairly close-up, but still pretty loose framing compared to a lot of scenes between Dean and Cas. Anna’s entire face is still in the frame. Then we have a scene between Sam and Ruby in 4x09 I Know What You Did Last Summer that is also not as close-up as a lot of Dean and Cas scenes. On the bottom is a shot from 5x17 99 Problems which is I think the closest Sam and Cas physically get in these seasons before they ever hug. It’s more of a medium close-up than most of the scenes between Dean and Cas where they get that close. Lastly I have probably the tightest close-ups between Dean and Cas from 4x16 On the Head of a Pin. It’s similar to the shots from 4x02 but the context is pretty different with Cas trying to reassure Dean about the apocalypse. I know these don’t really have a theme but I thought they were good examples of the general pattern.

Finally I would like to point out a scene that is sort of the opposite which is the infamous staring scene in 4x21 When the Levee Breaks that goes on for like an hour. I don’t really know what to say about this scene only that I can’t believe it’s real. They literally just stand and stare at each other.

So what’s the point of all this? I honestly don’t really know. None of these observations are hard and fast rules and I’m sure there are times when other characters are shot like this. However, Dean and Cas seem to be the only ones consistently framed this way-tight close-ups, staring into each other’s eyes standing zero feet apart. What does it all mean? To me it shows that their bond is unique and special (profound you might say). It’s not even like they’re shot in a similar manner to love interests, it’s that their framing is unique, it stands out. Was it on purpose? Maybe. How shots end up looking is interesting because it really is the work of a lot of different people including the director, the cinematographer, the editors and more. I don’t think they were thinking “we should film Dean and Cas in this very intense way because they’re in love” or anything, but they obviously recognized there was something special between these two characters. And truly, the intentions don’t matter all that much to me. What’s there is there, and watching it the first time around I noticed how close Dean and Cas always were and watching it back post 15x18 all those shots stand out even more to me. There’s really no conclusion here, but I think it’s interesting to look a bit more closely at the cinematography in TV shows that we don’t always think of as having the highest quality production. There’s a lot of layers to be discovered outside of scripts and acting and things we tend to focus on more as viewers. 

I’m so confused! I know it’s not your responsibility to educate me but in your post bringing awareness to the negative aspects of g!p fanfic you say

“Why do these g!p characters rarely if ever involve experiences reflective of trans/intersex women? Why are they so utterly cis and perisex-washed? Why do nearly all writers have zero idea that tucking is a thing? “

Doesn’t that answer your original question? The reason they don’t reflect those groups of ppl is bc g!p isn’t trying to represent those groups of people or else it WOULD be transphobic to limit them to one specific fetish right? it just refers to a canonically female character with the addition of a penis (I don’t argue the name “g!p” should be changed bc that’s a no brainer why that could be offensive). But the fanfic in general, how could it be harmful? I’ve noticed in my time reading it as a non binary person it’s given me great gender euphoria reading a reader insert where reader has a penis while being a femme representing person just bc that’s a reflection of my personal experience. I don’t see anywhere where g!p fanfic ever references or tries to emulate the experiences of trans or intersex people so how could it be offensive?

Sorry this is way too long I’m just very confused

I'm going to try and lay this out as politely as I can. It's after 3:30 in the morning here, so this could be a bit disjointed and rambling. More under the cut:

In real life, ~99.999999% of women with penises are trans women. Which puts us in a tricky situation of (A) being the only women with penises around for media involving women with penises to reflect back on, and (B) being in the lovely position of precious few people actually having had meaningful real life exposure to trans women, meaning (C.) all those stigmas and all that misinformation are going to purely affect us and it’s going to be uncritically gobbled up by the masses, since they don’t have any meaningful information to fill in the blanks with instead.

When we peer into the depths of femslash fandoms and see all these folks who aren't trans women writing about women with penises, and using cis women’s bodies as platforms for these penises, it’s the simplest thing.

I mean, some of those folks might actually be struggling and confused about why they’re into it, what the real appeal is, why they get off on it, why they might have some feelings about wanting a penis of their own…

…but from our vantage point, it’s really easy to gauge 99.99% of the time. We can generally see valid, legitimate yearning to have a penis pretty damn easily in a piece of art/writing, and we can also see when people who create this media are just hung up on a boatload of baggage and fetishization.

And 99.9% of the time, the creators are just hung up on a boatload of baggage and fetishization, and see trans women’s bodies as a perfect vehicle to tap into that, generally due to deeply held cissexist views that link us and our bodies and genitals directly to cis men, to maleness. As if penises are rooted in maleness and masculinity (which is absolutely not true).

And I have sympathy for NB folks (certainly TME ones who have reached out to me in the past about this) who might be struggling with that, but just because they’re non-binary, it doesn’t mean they get to appropriate our bodies and reproduce transmisogyny and trans fetishization in their attempts at feeling better. Shit doesn't work like that.

Because again, the only women with penises in this world, essentially, are trans women. Meaning any woman with a penis in media is a trans woman, implicitly or explicitly. Meaning that when people who aren’t us want to write us, intent doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter if it’s just the writer’s fantasy, it’s still going to attach a variety of messages directly onto us.

And more often than not, due to cissexism, those messages are linking us to maleness, to toxic masculinity, etc..

While I do want to believe they're a fairly small minority, a lot of NB folks in fandom spaces like g!p characters in part because they see penises as male and the rest of the body as female and think that duality is interesting and would be comfortable, and is a nice balance of “both worlds” or a nice position “between male and female”, but that’s a wholly cissexist, transmisogynistic view to have, and it’s one that absolutely cannot be supported without directing sexual violence against trans women and invalidating our entire existence. Certainly not all NB folks into g!p like it for that reason, but holy shit a fair bit of them do and it’s weird and wrong and fetishistic.

g!p emerged from the idea that women can't have penises, and drew on the transmisogyny and cissexism of tr*nny porn to structure that frame of desire and the core patterns and trends within these works. It's always been trans women's bodies being used as a vehicle, whether or not the writers of these fics are explicitly aware of it, because the trope itself still holds true to its original patterns and cissexism. It's not the name that's the problem, it's the content; changing the name would be a surface level change that wouldn't affect anything.

g!p objectifies women with penises (trans women). A woman with a penis is more than just a woman with a penis, but the use of the term and trope is literally to (A) remind people that women don't have penises, otherwise the g!p term wouldn't be needed if people actually accepted women with penises as women, and that (B) this is a story centered on a scenario where there's a woman with a penis, with key focus on that genitalia specifically. it's the drawing point, it's the lure, it's what everything is centered on. It is a means for folks to write lesbian sex while also writing about penis in vagina and getting off to it. It's also no surprise that the penises so clearly emulate cis men's penises in these works, that is by design.

As I’ve said many times before, if you’re only writing trans women’s bodies to showcase cis men’s penises, you’re not respecting the womanhood of trans women, and this ultimately has nothing inherent to do with penis-owning women, it has to do with (cis) men and their penises, because trans women are just being used as a vehicle to emulate them. When NB folks do the same thing, and imagining themselves as those g!p characters, they are ultimately embodying cis men, their maleness, and often toxic masculinity, in a way that feels safe and distanced enough for them, a shell that they often code as cisnormative due to their own unprocessed cissexism.

And trans women don’t deserve that.

You seem caught in the idea that if something doesn't directly perfectly reflect trans women, that it can't be linked to us., which ignores the long long history of media being used to misrepresent marginalized peoples and cast us in insulting, dehumanizing lights. You show a lack of understanding of the g!p trope and the long history of its usage across a few other names, even if the content and patterns remained the same. It shows a lack of understanding of tr*nny porn and transmisogynistic stigmas, which the trope draws heavily from.

I think we can all recognize that most 'lesbian' prn that's made does not represent actual lesbians, it's overwhelmingly catered to the male gaze. We can also recognize that this category of porn has led to a lot of harassment towards lesbians from cis men who at the very least want to believe lesbians are just like they are in the porn he watches, that lesbians just need the right man. Lesbians are being used as a vehicle for a fantasy that was created externally to them, and doesn't represent their realities.

It's the same kind of situation here. The way g!p fics play out overwhelmingly doesn't reflect trans women's realities, but they are inherently linked to us regardless, as we're the vehicles for those fantasies, as unrealistic and harmful as they may be.

g!p characters are built in our fetishized image that’s based on a deeply cissexist misunderstanding of us, of the gender binary, and of bodies in general.

I mean, when 99% of cis folks don’t understand how trans women tend to be sexually intimate… when they don’t understand what dysphoria is and how it works and how it can affect us physically and emotionally…when they don’t understand almost any of our lived experiences…then they’re not going to be able to accurately portray us even if they wanted to.

And I’ve read enough g!p fics where authors wrote those as a means of trying to add trans rep, but because they didn’t understand us at all, it wasn’t remotely representative, and it was ultimately fetishistic, even if there was an undercurrent of sympathy and a lack of following certain common g!p patterns there that differentiated it from the norm.

If g!p fics were at all about reducing dysphoria or finding euphoria, then it wouldn’t be explicitly tied up in the performance of very specific sex acts, very specific forms of misogyny and toxic masculinity, very specific forms of sexual violence and exertion of sexual power, etc.

But it is.

So the notion that creating g!p fics helps NB folks? Nope. It CAN certainly prevent/delay those folks from facing a whole boatload of shit they’ve internalized, and coddle them at the expense of trans women.

Because if it was really about bodies and dysphoria/euphoria, there would be a considerable push (allying with out own) to end our fetishization and to represent us in and out of sexual contexts with accuracy, respect, and care. Because they wouldn’t care what sex acts were performed and what smut beats were hit, they’d just want to see someone with a body like their ideal being loved, being sexual, connecting, being authentic, etc. Which very much is not the case in the overwhelming majority of g!p fics. That's what we want, and it's not what g!p writers want, it's nothing they give a shit about.

Like, a ways back I started doing random pulls of g!p fics from various fandoms and assessing them for certain elements to provide some quantitative clarity. I started on The 100 here, and did OuaT here. Never finished the 100 one since the results leveled out and stayed pretty consistent as the sample size grew, so I didn't really see the point in continuing any further after about 140 fics when the data wasn't really changing much at all.

Lastly, media influences people. I've read countless posts and comments from people who use fanfiction as a sex ed guide, in essence. Which is ridiculous, but I also know sex ed curricula often isn't very accurate or extensive in a lot of areas, so people take what they can get. Representation in media can be powerful, and when it overwhelmingly misrepresents people, that's also powerful. Just because fandom is a bit smaller than televised media, it doesn't make that impact any lesser, certainly not for those whose primary media intake is within fandom.

Virtually all trans representation in f/f fanfiction is misrepresentative of us. That has a cost in how people understand us, how people react to us, and how people treat us. Not just online, but in physical spaces, and in intimate settings.

I invite you to read that post you referenced again, or perhaps this longer one which is a response to a trans guy who seemed to feel something similar to you with this trope.

All I can do is lay it out there and try to explain this. It's up to you how you handle this. All I know is whenever there's a big surge in g!p in a fandom, trans women generally leave it en masse, because it's a very clear and consistent message that we're not valued, respected, and that people value getting off on us over finding community with us.

Just gonna go ahead & say it. interracial dating is not necessarily “progressive” or undoing racism in any capacity when like 99.99% of the time interracial relationships are one-dimentionally marketed as black male × white female. there's hardly ever any alternative (or even just generally broad) representation otherwise. i cannot speak for what marketing is like in other regions of the world, but here in the US at least, you see more commercials, advertising, movies & tv shows that endorse bmwf relationships than quite literally any other combination of interracial pairings & that is truly odd & transparent. esp where colorism & antiblackness are, let's say governing, around relationships between antiblack black men & culture vulture/misogynoir white women.

even wmbf pairings are sparse as hell; & that's literally just the genderswap of the same kind of interracial depiction. Black Women periodT, do not get portrayed in interracial relationships at all next to how often black men are. really think ab that. the wheels have turned so dramatically in fact, that Black Women have suffered a social demotion so profound at the v hands & passive will of Black men & nb women, we're looked at as less valuable than black men these days. so we don't get even a slither of representation interracially — & then they get included in more shit than we do full stop. even with every woman in every corner of the world thirsting to emulate us every single day in every single way. that is truly wild. it's like corporations have taken it upon themselves to capitalize off of not necessarily misogynoir ig, but definitely off of black men both significantly famous & significantly otherwise who aggressively establish how opposed they are to being involved romantically w black women; whether anyone asks, is interested or not. we can't overlook white women taking full advantage of this, either, but truthfully they've had a historic streak in dismantling black family structures for just as long as white men so we don't even have to delve into that. slavery, racial fetishisation & washing of monoracial black love is the face-value irony ofc (which is why calling this particular interracial corporate fav “progressive” has always sounded contradicting to me).

it will never not be wild to me how straight up uncomfortable/pressed it makes society to see a monoracial black couple genuinely love & be committed to each other; esp a dark skinned pair, Good Lord. that's pretty much ‘least aesthetically pleasing’ in most pop culture industries, lbr. which is why a lot of different brands have also jumped on the dark skinned black men × light skinned black women bandwagon as an easy copout. then what's ironic ab that is the equally controversial fetishisation around making biracial children directly related to racist stigmas ab producing children that are dark or brown skinned (speaking of swirlers, whom again are often black men & white women); not to mention those same biracial children being creepily put on social pedestals around colorism, featurism, as well as prejudices around hair texture. add to that how even more divisive antiblackness susceptibily makes biracial groups just to keep up w trends & ideals around fair complexions & particularly curly hair.

it's just odd how interracial couples are hardly ever not black men & white women is what I'm getting at. you don't even see them paired w other races anywhere near as much; never a white girl & an singaporean man, or a black man & a sri lankan woman. like I said, we see Monoracially Black Couples even less — which is even weirder. Bc if any race of ppl deserve controlling the narrative of their own cultural love, it would definitely be Black Folk. everybody feels like they can better cast & be a romantic partner for a black man with agendas to essentially exclude black women entirely & that — for the love of God & every Black Woman constantly invalidated & belittled by our own men & nb women indifferently & like always — is not ok at all.

stop half-assing the relevance of other interracial relationships to lowkey perpetuate antiblackness & the fetishisation behind bmwf relationships; we see what's going on. At least I do. honestly i don't think it's progressive at all to endorse white ppl in particular being in interracial relationships they fetishise openly af both in spite & bc of historic racial prejudice. like how in God's name are we basically open to eugenic exercise in 2020 & ignorantly misappropriating it as beneficially futuristic? Esp for our own communities & Black heritage, the vindictive swirl shit antiBlack black men be on is some truly backwards bullshit. more than that, there is a true abundance of many different races of ppl in this world besides Black men & white women. if film & marketing industries literally only have the energy to portray interracial relationships thru bmwf couples & the children they produce then imo that is just lazy & misogynoir af. & pretty insinuative as to the kinds of future generations corporate industries as well as brands are adapting to prune & profitably objectify for, you guessed it, being biracial. so yay, rite? .-. nobody that matters loses & nobody that loses matters type shit. i get it. & I see thru the illusions.

it's like market logic be like: “if it's gonna be interracial the guy has to be black; & preferably w/ a white woman. uwu just for like, mainstream purposes around ‘dissolving’ racial division, yknow? & if he must be w/ a black woman, honestly the best you'll get is one who is intentionally racially ambiguous. 😲 not for uhh,,,, not for colorist reasons or anything. 😅 black men are fine. we LOVE using black men. of any kind. Er.... that didn't come out right, either, heh 😶 its black women we don— 😧 i-i-i mean,,,, what we mean to say is...,, ahem, black women are just a little... more difficult different to uh. to market. err, advertise. interracially. *cough!*..... 👀uhm,, we love woc & understand how important it is to represent black women fairly as well as accurately. we just have a,,... harmless preference in casting them thru fair-skinned or half black women. if that's fine. 🤐 a-and again, we totally understand that it in fact is not. we just..... 👉🏻👈🏻i mean..... what would you all like us to do? besides literally just stop whitewashing the roles of Monoracial Black Women to conservative hollywood's satisfaction? & besides just pairing mono black ppl w other mono black ppl & allowing Black Love to be represented the way it has literally never been given the chance w/o white intolerance/interference?🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♂️”

Gotham’s 31 Most Wanted - NUMBER ONE

The first month of the new year ends today. Ladies and gentlemen…undecided…fellow geeks and nerds alike…the hour has come. Today marks the end of Gotham’s 31 Most Wanted. All throughout January, I’ve counted down My Top 31 Favorite Batman Villains of All Time. Now, the time has arrived for me to unveil the wicked fiend at the top of the criminal heap. If you haven’t guessed who it is by now – especially if you know me fairly well – that’s quite a shock. But if you need a hint: he can’t be killed, that’s why they cast a Phoenix to play him. (And again, if you got that reference, you are awesome.) MY NUMBER ONE FAVORITE BATMAN VILLAIN IS…The Joker.

Now, for MOST of you reading this, this is probably neither a surprise nor a disappointment. The Joker – The Clown Prince of Crime – has been Batman’s nemesis practically since he was first created. The character first appeared in the first issue of Batman’s title series in 1940; the character had only been around for three years, and most of his villains prior to the Ace of Knaves never really “stuck,” so to speak. However, despite apparently dying in that first issue, the Joker was, at the last minute, given a second lease of life: someone on the team making Batman recognized the potential of the character, and a final panel of the comic was hastily slapped together, revealing that the Joker wasn’t actually dead. This began a long tradition for the character: over and over and over again, the Joker has seemingly died in horrible ways. He’s been stabbed, shot, electrocuted, drowned, torched, blown to bits, hit by automobiles, and has fallen from great heights, just to name a FEW of the ways the character has seemingly kicked the bucket…but, inevitably, the character pops up again, usually with no real explanation of HOW he survived, just to cause trouble once more. However, one could argue this also marked the beginning of a trend that, in recent years, has been seen more and more frequently: the OVERUSE of the Joker. You see, after that initial appearance in Batman #1, the Joker appeared over and Over and OVER again in multiple stories that followed, almost one after the other. And to this date, the character has appeared – both in and out of comics – more times than any other Batman Villain out there. Counting only live-action standalone theatrical films (and you will note how VERY specific that category is), the character has appeared in movies no less than FOUR times. In direct contrast, looking at the same category, most Batman Villains who have even gotten a CHANCE to appear in such movies don’t get more than one or two appearances. I think the only ones who have come close so far are Catwoman and Scarecrow, and in the latter’s case, that was because he appeared in all three “episodes” of the Dark Knight Trilogy. So, technically, there’s only one version of Jonathan Crane in this sector. And let’s not even THINK of other media beyond that, like animated features, TV shows and their spinoffs, direct-to-video movies, video games, et cetera and so on and Scooby-Dooby-Doo. (Literally, since he’s APPEARED in Scooby-Doo…multiple times…see what I mean?) As a result of this constant popping up over and over again, the character has, in recent years, received a bit of a backlash. It’s probably been around for a while, but the time when I heard it becoming most vocal was when the “Arkham” games came out. In “Arkham City,” you see, the character died, and many fans felt it was one of the best “True” deaths the character had. It was even meant to cap off a career, as it marked – at the time – what everybody thought would be the inimitable Mark Hamill’s last time playing the role. But just as he has in comics before, the Joker – and Hamill as the Joker – returned in later installments of the series, and many felt the Clown Prince was starting to poke his pale nose into places he really didn’t belong. More and more people were saying that the Joker was, while perhaps not necessarily OVERRATED as a villain, certainly OVERUSED: people wanted other Batman Villains to get the same focus and attention he was getting, and for DC to stop falling back on him as a way to get sales going and get fans interested. I must confess, despite my placing him here at the top…very recently, I’ve started having similar feelings. I needn’t discuss the…well…EVERYTHING that was Jared Leto’s Joker, and while I personally liked the TV series “Gotham,” the way they handled Joker/The Valeska Brothers is actually one of my personal biggest upsets with the series. Those are just two examples. However, it doesn’t annoy me as much as the overuse I’ve mentioned from his (ex?) girlfriend, Harley Quinn, who really, REALLY gets on my nerves with how she keeps popping up in places and in ways she really shouldn’t. It's for this reason some may feel that me placing the Joker as my favorite villain is too predictable, and perhaps not even fully deserved. But here’s the thing: being overused does NOT mean the character, by default, is bad. Do I wish other Batman Rogues would get more attention? WELL, DUH. I’d love to see a more comic-accurate take on Two-Face, or a film with Scarecrow as the main bad guy, or, heck, ANYTHING with Jervis Tetch on the silver screen. GOD. PLEASE. JUST….SOMETHING WITH JERVIS TETCH. But that doesn’t make me like the Joker, himself, any less. The ways he works and the reasons he works have been analyzed, argued, and even essayed upon so many times, I think not even HE would find it funny at this point; he’s a character who opens up discussion very easily, and you can see why his fate as the Dark Knight’s arch-nemesis was so quickly set. With all the horrible things he’s done to Batman over the years, no one is truly a more personal threat than him; sure, Bane broke his back, and sure, Catwoman and Talia have had many a romance with him, but it’s hard to say any of them have CONSISTENTLY proven to be as big a pain the neck as the Joker. He’s crippled friends, murdered allies – occasionally allowing them to return as villains themselves – and done numerous other atrocities that are pretty hard for ANY Batman Villain to top, not only in terms of how high the body count ranks, but in just how HORRIBLE the actions are and how meaningless the reasons frequently tend to be. He is, very simply, one of the most evil characters in literary history…and yet also one of the most entertaining. The genius of the Joker, generally speaking, is he makes you laugh and grin…but then you realize what you’re laughing at, and you almost feel nauseated. He is the Master of Dark Humor. Ever since I was a little boy, the Joker was pretty much always my favorite Batman Villain. And as time has gone on, that feeling has never truly wavered, and I doubt it ever will. In fact, as time has gone on, instead of liking the Joker less, I’ve only seemed to like him more and more; as a kid, I liked the character for his dark sense of humor, his eye-catching design, his zany gadgets and tricks, and his flair for the dramatic. As an adult, I find the philosophy of the character fascinating, I like seeing how different people interpret his origins, and I love to see how people continually toy with the twisted relationship he has with the Dark Knight. Much like Batman himself, he’s another one of those characters it’s just really hard to ruin…though Lord knows certain reimaginings have done their best to attempt THAT. Is he perhaps too popular and too focused on for his own good? Oh, almost undeniably…but at least he’s popular and focused on for a good reason, at the end of the day. It's better him than Killer Moth. The Joker: forever and always My Favorite Batman Villain…and, very possibly, my favorite villain of all time, period. “Laugh, Clown, Laugh.” Thank you all for joining me during the course of this countdown! I don’t know if I’ll do another one in the future; not sure what topic it may cover or what event it could be for. XD We’ll see what happens, but in any case, hope you all stay safe, and let’s hope 2021 shapes up better than 2020 as the New Year Rolls On…

Low Effort in Their Own Way

All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." - Leo Tolstoy, "Anna Karenina"

I've been watching a fair amount of D&D content on YouTube of late, for varying reasons, and if I may paraphrase Tolstoy's famous quote above, I've learned that all good D&D channels make high-effort content, while each bad D&D channel makes low-effort content in its own way.

Low-effort content tends to be:

Content that is or can be created quickly; it doesn't require a lot of prep time (and the presentation usually allows this limited prep time to show)

Content that copies current trends; while a certain amount of response to significant events in the gaming world is to be expected, low-effort channels regularly feature content that basically boils down to 'here's my reaction to whatever rumor or scandal is currently being talked about among the community'

Content that does not spark or contribute to a discussion; when such channels go beyond simply recapitulating a recent event, they frequently spend very little time explaining their own reaction and seldom spend any time at all explaining or exploring contrary opinions except to make jokes or elicit emotional reactions from an over-simplified or straw-man version of the contrary opinion

Now let's start off by saying that I'm not knocking low-effort content per se; anybody who knows anything about online marketing can tell you that low-effort content has a role to play in any marketing strategy. Ideally, though, your low-effort content, the stuff that you can get out the door quickly and easily and get in front of your potential customers, exists to guide those customers to your higher-quality content that convinces them to buy your product, order your service, or otherwise become someone who believes that you have something of value to say. Because it's cheap and easy to produce, low-effort content can be cast far and wide to serve as a net to capture many potential viewers and guide them to the gold mine of the really important stuff you have to say. Unfortunately, when your low-effort content is what you have to say, it very much begs the question of what exactly it is people should be coming to your channel for.

Here are a few but by no means an exhaustive list of the YouTube channels that to me seem to feature way too much low-effort content.

The Dungeon Dudes

The Dungeon Dudes are two guys (Kelly McLaughlin and Monty Martin) who mainly do scripted back-and-forth style discussions of D&D-related topics. I've talked about the Dungeon Dudes before, when taking apart one of their recent videos, but they also stream a D&D game they play in on Twitch (and frequently post recordings of those sessions on their channel), do product reviews, and generally do whatever they can to maintain a consistent pace of content output, generally a minimum of twice weekly. They've been around for nearly four years now, and have amassed about 273 thousand subscribers on their channel, with over 44 million views for their content, which seem like decent numbers for a niche content channel. (Contract with CinemaSins, which exists as a viral content manufacturer, and has amassed over 9 million subscribers and over 3.3 billion views. I'm not trying to say the Dungeon Dudes are the CinemaSins of D&D; if they were, their numbers would probably look a lot more like those of CinemaSins.)

The big problem with the Dudes as content creators is that, despite being a niche content channel, they are clearly in it to try to eke out some kind of income or living from the work they put into the channel: they've got a Patreon, they use affiliate links in the descriptions of their product review videos to gain some additional referrer income, and they do sponsored content when they can get a sponsor. They started back in the summer of 2017 with a very 2016-era plan on how to succeed at YouTube: put together a bunch of short (5-10 minutes, occasionally longer, but go over 15 minutes at your peril) videos and release them on an iron-clad schedule to get people used to coming back to your channel and looking over your new content, and to their credit, they've kept up their content production schedule very consistently over the past four years.

They've also learned a few things during that time and have adapted the channel in response: their videos explaining rules and reviewing new products tend to be more popular, so they work those topics in on a more regular basis. They've learned that the YouTube algorithm has subtly changed over the past few years to reward channels that can provide longer 'engagement' (which gives YouTube more opportunities to run ads), and have expanded their video length to an average of about a half-hour, with their re-broadcasts from Twitch being extra-long videos (between two and two-and-a-half hours) which, while drawing fewer total views, probably draw as much or more 'engagement' from the algorithm for the views they have.

But the need to spit out so much content on such a rigid, unforgiving schedule means that they have to aim for quick-creation and easy digestion: putting subclasses into a bog-standard tier ranking, making 'top five' and 'top ten' lists that seem like they're being cribbed from a more thoughtful resource, and generally getting stuff out the door (like their 'Powerful Spell Combos Using Teamwork' video) without spending too much time thinking about how valuable or even accurate their advice happens to be. More to the point, it seems to be taking its toll on the guys who serve as the hosts of the show: Kelly McLaughlin has a fairly dour expression in general, but lately he seems to have the countenance of a man who's about to post a 'very special episode' discussing the dangers of YouTuber burnout.

The Dungeon Dudes feature low-effort content because they have to in order to support the publishing frequency they've chosen; if they were to take the time to put together a truly high-effort piece regarding one of their traditional topics, their Patreon subscribers would likely be asking why their release schedule had slowed down before their work was even half-done.

Dungeon Craft

The Dungeon Craft channel is run by a fellow who refers to himself as 'Professor Dungeon Master'; I have not yet found any reference in his channel or elsewhere that identifies who he actually is, so I'll just refer to him as Prof. Prof has been on YouTube a bit longer than the Dungeon Dudes, having launched his channel in October of 2016, and has put out 185 'episodes' (as of the time of this writing), thus averaging between three and four episodes per month. Prof's own 'trailer' video explicitly states his channel's concept: "Some channels focus on running the game, others on building terrain, others on painting minis. I do it all!" You might think, then, that this would be a place to find quite high-quality content, especially related to terrain and miniatures painting tips, but it seems like the main effect of Prof making his channel be about multiple topics (and there are plenty of topics he discusses that don't fit into any of those three categories above) is that he can't successfully communicate what his channel is actually about, other than about his specific opinions. Maybe that's the reason he's sitting at about 65 thousand subscribers and just under 5 million views.

However, being at a slightly lower 'tier' of content production than the Dungeon Dudes is not itself any kind of crime or even indicative of poor quality -- after all, one of my favorite D&D lore channels on YouTube is RavenloftTravelAgent, and she's got just over a thousand subscribers and only about 50 thousand views on her videos. No, Prof could have a very high-quality, high-content channel with the subscriber numbers and views he has, but he doesn't.

Prof's issue is almost exactly the opposite of that of the Dungeon Dudes: instead of cranking out a rapid-fire, breakneck volume of content to keep up with an arbitrary content production schedule because that's how you make a living producing content for YouTube and you have to keep feeding the hungry algorithm, Prof cranks out content that's very easy for him to write because he's been involved in the game for a long time and already knows that the way he learned to play the game is the best way. Any topic that comes up related to D&D, he's got an opinion and can spit out a script explaining his opinion quickly because it's the same opinion he's held for decades. Classic D&D didn't have skills, so the next edition of D&D shouldn't have them either. Classic D&D had slow advancement, so slow advancement is better than fast advancement. This becomes even more obvious in the videos that have very little or nothing to do with running a D&D game, such as where Prof explains why he thought Avengers: Endgame sucked, or why he thought Season 8 of Game of Thrones was 'nearly perfect'.

Some of the oddest episodes of Dungeon Craft have to do when Prof makes admissions that make him out to be, well, the D&D channel for 'that kind' of old-school gamer: the ones who can make comments to each other that they can't make in front of their wives or significant others because the latter find the comments sexist, the kind of guys you can complain to about not being able to tell a Polack joke at work, the guys who treated D&D in the 1980s and 1990s the way that guys in the 1950s and 1960s treated golf where they could build a wall between the world as it existed and the world as they wanted to believe it was (and, if we're being honest, the way that they believed it should actually be). Nowhere is this more evident than in the video where Prof starts by discussing the hot, rich girlfriend he had once who tried but never got into D&D who he just had to break up with, and which by the 3 minute mark has him "calling bullshit" on the idea that relationships are built on compromise and negotiation. (I mean, you saw this coming, right? Right there at the end of the last paragraph about how the ending of Game of Thrones was so good? You knew that's where this was going, right?)

And, of course, he's not immune to just jumping on the latest bandwagon to contribute his drone to the chorus of voices talking about things just to be talking about things. It shouldn't be surprising that Prof jumped on the bandwagon of the lawsuit brought by Hickman and Weis against Wizards of the Coast over the upcoming Dragonlance trilogy, which turned out to be a nothing-burger. Even weirder is the tag in the description of that video which says "Analysis you can't get anywhere else", even though the video doesn't contain anything that hadn't already been discussed over the three weeks between the lawsuit and Prof's video other than Prof's own opinions about it. My favorite howler that Prof makes in this video is his assertion that, because Hickman and Weis got a lawyer to file a lawsuit, that means there's definitely fire under that smoke, because "big law firms do not accept cases they don't think they can win", which both ignores the existence of SLAPP suits as well as the existence of authors who seem to take perverse glee in suing rival authors just to drive them out of the industry. He's also responded with multiple videos in response to Cody at Taking20s controversial 'illusion of choice' essay, and his response to Ginny Di's essay on making online D&D suck less didn't include any of Ginny's solid advice on making online play more compatible with an in-person mentality (recognizing interruptive behavior, or using text chat to maintain side-conversations that would otherwise not be distracting in person), but instead gave these recommendations to players:

Keep your camera turned on

Mute yourself when not talking

Don't distract yourself with technology during the game

Nothing specific on recognizing how online play differs from tabletop play and suggesting ways to bring those two styles closer together, just commands because he's the DM and he says so. Or, in other words, low-effort, opinion-based content.

Nerd Immersion

Nerd Immersion, a channel by Ted that started in May of 2014 and has amassed over 70 thousand subscribers, starts his "channel trailer" video by leafing through a book, then looking up and saying, "Oh, hello" as if he'd just noticed that there was a camera on pointing at him while he's sitting in his orange-trimmed gaming chair. That, sadly, is roughly the level of thought that goes into the actual content contained on this long-tenured but seemingly still super-niche channel.

The weird thing is that at some point, it was obvious that Ted put some real effort into this channel. There are defined sections of the channel that focus on particular things, avoiding the Dungeon Craft problem of 'what topic is our channel about this week?' On Tuesdays, Ted posts a top-10 list. Ted comes up with an idea for a series, like 'Fixing 5E' or 'Reviewing Unearthed Arcana', posts regular articles until he's said what he means to say, then ends the series. (There hasn't been a new Fixing 5E video in roughly a year, meaning that Ted isn't wasting his own time and that of the viewer continually beating horses he's long since killed.) And he comes up with some great ideas for series, such as his series reviewing products on the DMs Guild; that particular series comes out somewhat irregluarly, but not so irregularly that you think he may have stopped doing the series without telling you.

Nerd Immersion's big problem can be summed up by simply looking at the list of videos on his channel and noticing that when he puts his own face on the thumbnail of the video, the startling frequency with which he's shrugging or has a puzzled face or just seems to be presenting himself as if he's not sure what's happening in his own video. I mean, I get it -- that's his image, the personality he wants to present to his audience. He doesn't have all the answers (a refreshing change from Dungeon Craft, honestly), but has some things to share if you're interested, so go ahead and take a peek. But then you take a look at those different sections we spoke about earlier and see that the 'Fixing' series all have the word Fixing at the top of the screen, the Nerd Immersion logo in the top left, two images underneath the text, one on the right side of the page and one on the left, separated right down the middle, and they all have Fix-It Felix on the far right. The Top 10 videos always have Top 10 at the top of the thumbnail. The Unearthed Arcana reviews all have 'Unearthed Arcana' at the top, then 'Review' in an odd off-set to the right beneath 'Unearthed Arcana'.

In other words, Ted has a formula, and he's damn well going to follow it.

Now it's not a bad thing to have a workflow -- if you're going to be cranking out videos at the volume that Ted does (not to mention the others on this list), you'd better have some kind of process for making the video, getting the thumbnail on it, etc.; otherwise each new video is a horrible nightmare of effort as you re-invent the wheel for every project. Nobody wants to do that, and the results would likely be unwatchable. Having a process is a good thing. But the Dungeon Dudes clearly also have a process -- they've put out at least two videos a week for three and a half years, so they damn well have a process or they wouldn't have been able to get out that much content. Looking at their channel, though, shows you that while they have a brand, and one that's evolving over time to boot, they're not just making the same video over and over again, or at least you wouldn't think that from looking at the thumbnails.

Ted's most interesting videos are where he's interviewing another person or even just having another person in the video, because having another person around clearly takes him at least a bit outside his rigid formulaic comfort zone. The problem is that those videos are few and far between -- the review of the infernal tiefling is about eight months separated from his interview with Celeste Conowitch about her Venture Maidens campaign guide. Also interesting are his unboxing videos, because Ted clearly likes minis and takes some degree of joy in cracking open and looking at new minis. His unboxing videos aren't as irregular as his interview videos, but they are fairly recent, with the first appearing just a few months ago, so it's still not clear if this is going to be a new regular part of the channel, or just another series that goes until he says what he wants to say about minis and then stops.

Most of the stuff on the site, though, is just, well, stuff, cranked out on a formula and thrown out into the digital void with the same soft-spoken volume regardless of whether it's major news or a press release. As an example, while pretty much everybody had an opinion on the Dragonlance lawsuit, Ted covered when the suit was announced, when it was dismissed by Weis and Hickman, when the actual trilogy that was the subject of the novels was announced, and the official release date of the first book in the new trilogy. When it came time to get ready to announce the newest campaign book, Ted was on the job, posting a video preparing for the announcement, another video later the same day when his original prediction of a Feywild adventure book seemed to be contradicted by other rumors that the book would be a Ravenloft book, then posted yet another video when the actual book was leaked on Amazon at 11:24pm later that same day confirming Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, posted the video discussing the official announcement of Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft the next day, and then the day after that followed up with more details on Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft revealed in Dragon+. That's five videos in three days, for a grand total of just over 100 thousand views combined. The intention seems like Ted wants to be the CNN of the D&D news scene, but with those kind of distribution numbers, the result is more like your local home town's shopping circular that occasionally also features stories about the latest project to fix the potholes on Main Street. Just like nobody's doing 24/7 news coverage of your local town council, nobody is (or probably should strive to) doing 24/7 coverage of the gaming industry and Wizards of the Coast. At some point it just becomes running a script, pressing a button to upload the next video, because it's news, and while you don't have to think about news to quite the same degree you have to think about more opinion-based topics, once you stop thinking about the process and what it is you're making, all you have left is executing the formula, over and over again, and both the input and the output becomes repetitive.

Repetitive videos, in repetitive formats, with repetitive text, to keep the monster fed for another day. I can admire the effort that goes into it, but the overwhelming presence of the formula involved in cranking out this content keeps me from feeling that it's worth engaging with. It's low-effort, because the effort has been meticulously removed from the process.

I could go on, but I think I'll stop here. There's not really any constructive criticism I could provide to these channels because, as I hope I've pointed out, it seems like low-effort content is pretty much the only thing these channels have to offer or in truth can offer, and anything that might cause their owners to re-consider their channels to improve their content would almost certainly lead to a very different if not wholly different channel. With things being as they are online, there's no guarantee that any new, higher-effort channel would be any more successful than the old low-effort one (remember the RavenloftTravelAgent channel with absolutely miniscule numbers; effort doesn't automatically equate with success). I can't even claim that being low-effort channels necessarily makes these channels bad (despite what I said in the intro); after all, they all have at least some good ideas, especially Nerd Immersion, and they each have subscribers and a following. I guess this is just my way of putting some small amount of effort into explaining why I don't feel like doing more to help these channels succeed, because I'd rather put my support toward channels making higher-quality, higher-effort content, especially because its not the content itself, but people engaging with that content that really drives a channel's success.

HOW TO GET A JOB IN CANADA WITHOUT CANADIAN EXPERIENCE

Reach an Immigration consultant Kitchener for queries regarding work permit Kitchener

You’ve finally got your PR visa after having successfully uploaded your candidate profile at Express Entry and after having been selected based on your experience, education, language ability and other factors, and now you’ve recently landed in Canada to start your new life. You have even managed to rent an apartment in your new city and now there’s only one question on your mind.

How do I get a job?

The answer – or more accurately, the many answers – to that question actually start before you even land at your Port of Entry in Canada. So, let’s start there and find out how you should go about getting your first job as a new Express Entry arrival.

 BEFORE YOU ARRIVE – PREPARING FOR CANADA’S JOB MARKET

Before you even get on your flight to Canada, you must begin to do an extensive search of Canada’s job market and see how you can match your skills to opportunities in the Canadian labour market. This means several things:

 JOB BANK

Job Bank is a government of Canada website that matches people looking for jobs with available occupations across Canada. You should open an account at Job Bank and start browsing the site for jobs that match your skills. It’s a basic first step in getting to know the Canadian job market. Use the Resume Builder tool as well as Job Match where you can post your Resume/CV and obtain job offers from employers. (Although you might want to wait until you have your PR visa and are about to come to Canada before you start actively looking for work.) 

Reach an Immigration consultant Kitchener for queries regarding work permit Kitchener

INDEED CANADA:

This website is the Canadian version of a world-wide jobs board based in Austin Texas and founded in 2004. It’s one that’s highly rated and gives you detailed job offers across Canada. You can fine-tune your search to jobs in specific locations as well. Employers can post jobs for free or use the paid option to boost their company’s profile at the site. Any search for jobs should include this site as you will gain insight into what kinds of jobs related to your skills are available in cities and towns across the country.

 WORKOPOLIS:

This site is a home-grown Canadian job bank founded by The Globe & Mail in 1999. Indeed offers companies the ability to fine-tune their job offers by estimating how many applicants they want to sort through to find their ideal candidate. That means tight job descriptions in many cases. It may not provide your first job. 

 Workopolis is a great site to see what Canadian employers are looking for a little higher up the value chain from that entry-level employment you may be looking for. You can browse by job function or by region of Canada.

 Reach an Immigration consultant Kitchener for queries regarding work permit Kitchener

ELUTA:

The website has two search fields where you type in job title or functions, and type in a city, province or postal code in Canada. Then you hit the green Search Jobs button .

 GOOGLE FOR JOBS:

Google is now using specialized algorithms that employ AI and Machine Learning to integrate this component of their search engines with job boards and have the results of a job search pop up on your screen directly through searching in Google.  Rather than using a site like Indeed or Eluta. 

Another factor is that employers have to modify the HTML code on their websites in order to have their job postings appear through Google for Jobs. It involves adding what’s called job-listing structured data to the jobs page at your company website. Any data scientists/analysts out there looking to come to Canada?

 GLASSDOOR:

If you go ahead and type “google for jobs” in google.ca you’ll quickly notice that a lot of job sites are at the top of your search results. And they all promise the viewer they have the best jobs on … Google. Search is search and google is the main search platform by far, so clearly there is a symbiotic relationship here. In the case of Glassdoor, it’s not only a jobs board website but is also an employer review site. That means feedback about the people who are hiring, done by employees, which is a nice feature for potential job seekers to get a feel for the company they might be working for.

 MONSTER:

This truly is a beast of a website with an enormous quantity of resumes posted online but one that is fairly expensive for employers to post a job offer on. That means that you might not get as many smaller businesses posting on Monster as on a site like Indeed, for example. That means you’re more likely to find jobs posted by larger companies for key positions. That’s a good fit if you have an impressive resume and are looking to get hired in more managerial or upper level professional jobs where more experience and education is required. As well jobs are posted by city, so that can be helpful depending where you plan to settle in Canada. 

 The next thing you can do before even arriving in Canada, is to work on creating a resume that fits the expectations of employers in Canada. You likely need to redesign the look and the content of your resume to make it more “Canadian”.

Your resume needs to be short and to-the-point with headings and bullet points.

It should always be customized for the particular job you are applying for. It may be a case of changing the focus to highlight the skills that you feel will best suit the job you are applying for. 

Highlight your education, professional experience, and other qualifications.

You often have to use keywords depending on the job you are applying for. Overloading a resume with keywords will strike the HR person reviewing it as lacking credibility, but a few well-chosen ones can make a difference to someone who is often quickly skimming through a large number of resumes.

Decide if it should be a Chronological Resume (listing your experiences in the order in which they occurred) or Functional Resume (listing your experiences according to function - what skills were used in previous jobs and what specific experiences you gained). If you have gaps in your work experience or are a new graduate with little experience the functional resume may be the better choice.

You don’t have to include information on:

Age

Ethnicity

Nationality, culture etc.

Health (unless you require special arrangements)

Citizenship status.

Make sure when posting your resume online that it’s searchable. For example, on Monster.ca you have 3 levels of privacy:

Private: the resume cannot be found in a search of Monster’s database and your contact information is not visible.

Visible and Limited: the resume is searchable by anyone with access to the database, but contact information is not visible. Contact information is only visible by an employer when you apply for a job at their company.

Visible: Anyone with access to the database can see your resume and your contact information.

There may be cases where you don’t want your current employer to know that you’re applying for another job, but in general almost any new arrival in Canada will want to get their contact information out to as many potential employers as possible.

 ONCE YOU ARRIVE – NETWORKING & THE HIDDEN JOB MARKET

Reach an Immigration consultant Kitchener for queries regarding work permit Kitchener

When you’ve arrived in Canada, the next step you should take is to unlock what is called the Hidden Job Market. 

According to some estimates, over 60% of job offers in Canada are not done through public job offers but rather within business and social networks: corporate managers who know someone who knows someone who might be right for the job they need filled, for example. That means that to get the tip of your shoe in the door, you need to start developing networks as soon as you arrive in Canada. Or even beforehand if you already have family or friends in the country.

So, you first have to ask yourself: why are you doing this? Why are you networking? Aside from the obvious answer to get a job, the main focus of networking is to help make the task easier for the person who’s hiring or who may need someone at some point. 

Be helpful. Always be thinking about ideas and suggestions to problems people in your field of work might be having. And that also means listening carefully when you manage to get people in the field to talk to you. Read industry websites, periodicals, blogs and try emailing the writer of the article/blog if you have any ideas or suggestions.

Talk to people. Let them know you’re looking for a job. Let them know exactly what job you’re looking for. Include everyone from families to friends to local business owners that you feel might have useful contacts. If you’re also studying at a Canadian post-secondary institution, let your classmates and even your professors know. You can even use a calling card where you list your contact information on one side of the card and the job you’re looking for on the other side.  

You can even offer to write a free column in a magazine/periodical or blog that deals with your area of work interest.

Go to Social Media sites of companies or organizations in your field. Comment on influencer posts and start to work your way into the community through social media. Make sure your comments are well thought out and helpful and show you understand and follow trends in your field of work.

Link your social media comments to your own blog where you comment on your field of interest. 

What you’re doing is building a profile – both online and offline – of yourself as a potential employee. Managers and HR people do often check social media to get a better idea of who they may be considering for a job. Combine your online resume, your social media posts, your blog, any emails or direct contacts with people in your industry and you now have a well-rounded profile that will help employers see you for who you are: the person they need to fill that job.  

(me: matty is on break also me: here is a giant matty factfile)

The Basics

Name? Mateo Rosario Hernandez Moreno

Age? 26

Approximate height? 5′9

Hair colour? Dark brown

Eye colour? Brown

Do they speak with an accent? No

Where are they from? Zuzu City

Where are they now? Stardew Valley

Backstory

Who are their parents? Héctor and Jennifer Moreno

What is their earliest memory? Watching campy old superhero cartoons on tv with his dad, back at their old apartment. Matty would stay up late waiting for him to get home from his job bussing tables at their local diner, and would inevitably fall asleep before the show was over.

What did they want to be when they grew up? A costumed crime-fighter, a server at JojaBurger, or Tony Hawk, in that order.

What did/do their parents want them to be? They don’t really see each other enough to get into it on the job front, though Matty supposes it would’ve been nice if he’d’ve been a tech genius like them - carried on the family business or something.

Do they have siblings? Older or younger? Brothers or sisters? None, but he did have an imaginary older brother in the same way most kids have imaginary friends. Bit sad, innit. 

Do they have or have they ever had children? How many? No, none, and never!

Do they or have ever had a significant other? Are they still with them? Why? Why not? Not a significant other - he’s dated a little, but his enthusiasm tends to scare people off.

Up until now, what’s the most noteworthy thing they’ve done? To them? To the people around them? Matty doesn’t really think he’s done anything noteworthy. Noteworthy things are for other, cooler people.

Tastes

What’s your character’s favourite colour? Red! No, blue! Wait, no, red!

Do they/would they choose to wear a scent? What would it be? Axe bodyspray, he’s rich but also basic.

Do they care about what things look like? All things, or only some? Not at all. His apartment looks like a college dorm crossed with Comic Con crossed with a dumpster.

What’s their favourite ice cream flavour? Phish Food!

Are they a tea, or coffee drinker? Or soft drinks, or do they drink a lot of alcohol? What kind? Doesn’t really drink tea or coffee because his palette is that of a ten year old. He drinks a lot of JojaCola, and only bothers with alcohol when he has someone to share it with. Which isn’t very often.

What kind of books do they read? What TV shows and movies do they watch? Matty doesn’t read anything except for graphic novels and comic books because focusing on lots of words is haaaard. In terms of TV he likes most popular stuff if it isn’t too cerebral, stuff like the Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, anything from the MCU...

What kind of music do they like? Do they like music at all? He likes pop punk mostly, it’s hype!

If they were about to die, what would they have as their last meal? Mexican feast, next question.

Are they hedonistic? In all cases? Or does practicality sometimes/always/often win out? Yeah, in a way! Matty doesn’t see the point in doing stuff if he’s not excited to do it!

Do they have any philias or phobias? Nah.

Morals, Beliefs, and Faith

Do they have an internal or an external moral code? Both?

To what extent are their actions dictated by this code? Mostly, though some things (mostly grafittiing and trespassing) are worth breaking the law for.

Do they believe in a God or Gods/Goddesses/Higher being of some description? Nah.

Are they superstitious? Not really, but he will call out stuff as being bad luck.

Do they believe in an afterlife? If so, what’s it like? Yeah dude, he believes in like... alternate universes. So you die, and then you start your life over again in another version of reality.

Do they have any specific beliefs that manifest obviously? No.

Are they respectful of the beliefs of others? To what extent? Yeah, but he’d rather not talk about it? He thinks religion is private and therefore awkward to talk about.

Have they ever had to stand up to criticism for being religious? Or not being religious? Nope!

Would they be more likely to act for the good of the one, or the good of the many? The good of the many.

Relationships

Do they make friends easily? Not really, in the past people have tended to find his personality too intense to handle, and he has been told frequently that he’s annoying.

Do they have a best friend? It’s Bartholomew, his butler. Bit sad innit.

Can they get people to do what they want them to? If so, how? No. Even bribery doesn’t really work.

Do they have a lot of romantic relationships? Serious, or short term? Matty hasn’t found anyone to tolerate him long enough for any kind of romantic relationship.

Do they fall in and out of love easily? Yeah, he’s a sucker for a pretty face and a kind word.

Do strangers and acquaintances actually like them when they meet? Historically, no, but he’s hoping that will change!

Do they have a network? Not really... his parents are too often absent to count, and Bartholomew can’t be a network on his own.

What is their relationship like with their family? BIT SAD INNIT. Matty really loves his parents, and he knows they love him too, but the physical distance between them has made a metaphorical distance too.

Are they still in touch with non-family people they were in touch with a year ago? Five years? Ten? More? No.

Do they like children? Do they want children of their own? He likes kids (and frankly they usually have overlapping interests), but Matty is more a fun uncle than a father figure, he thinks.

Physical Appearance

How does this character dress? How would they choose to dress, if all options were open to them? T-shirts, hoodies, jeans, converse, denim jacket, and probably a hat of some description. Matty has enough money to dress how he wants, but his tastes trend on the cheaper side.

Do they have any tattoos? What do they mean? None.

Do they have piercings? How many? None, but maybe he wants his nose pierced.

Do they have scars? Where did they come from? Yes, Matty is extremely accident prone and hurts himself a lot. Luckily, most injuries don’t phase him much.

Do they alter their appearance in some way on a regular basis? Nope!

Is there something they’d choose to change about their appearance if they had the opportunity to? His wonky chin? :(

Is there something about their appearance they’re particularly proud of/happy with? His hair!

Objectively, are they physically attractive? Fairly plain? Unattractive? He’s cute for sure.

Do they have an accurate mental picture and opinion of their physical appearance? Yeah dude, Matty knows what he looks like, and he thinks he looks fine!

How much time do they spend thinking about their physical appearance? It would be a lot less if he wasn’t so obsessed with his hair.

General Knowledge

Can they navigate their own local area without getting lost? To what degree? No, his sense of direction is absolute garbage. Without his phone he’d be lost like 90% of the time.

Do they know who the top politician or monarch is where they live? What about elsewhere? He knows Mayor Lewis, does that count?

Do they know if/where there are any major conflicts going on right now? No.

Do they know the composition of water? ... no...

Do they know how to eat a pomegranate? Carefully?

Are they good with the technology available to them? Average? Completely hopeless? Okay, tech is something Matty is good at. 

Could they paint a house? Without making a mess of it? Paint it? Yes. Do it without making a mess? Absolutely not. He’s happy to be invovled though!

Could they bake a cake? Would you eat it if they did? No, and no, he’d try so hard, but he’s literally useless and would definitely give me food poisoning.

Do they know how to perform basic maintenance on the common mode of transportation? He can maintain his skateboard, but that’s it.

Do they know the price of a loaf of bread? How much can a loaf of bread cost? 20G?

Specific Knowledge

Do they have a specific qualification in a narrow area? The only qualification he has is his high school diploma, so no.

Is there something they do or know exceptionally well that most other people don’t? He’s actually a very good artist.

Do people often comment on a particular skill or area of knowledge to this character? Behind their back? Maybe on his lack thereof. Matty doesn’t really give the impression that he has any skills or knowledge. 

Is there an area this character could be considered top of their field or a genius in? God no.

Have they deliberately sought to gain knowledge in a specific area? If so, why? No, he’s stupid :(

Do they speak more than one language? More than two? Why? He speaks an embarrassingly small amount of spanish - the white family butler literally speaks more spanish than him.

Does their cultural background effect what they would be expected to know? I mean, maybe his taste in Mexican food should be better than frozen burritos from JojaMart.

Have they ever been publicly acknowledged for being well-versed in something? Never.

Have they ever been bullied for knowing a lot about something? Yeah, he reaaaally loved superheroes as a kid, and got rinsed for talking about them so much.

Do they actively seek new knowledge, or let it come to them naturally? If anything Matty avoids knowledge.

Miscellaneous

What did they have for breakfast this morning? Dry cereal because his milk went bad and he was too lazy to go and buy more.

What ridiculous belief/s did they have as a child? ): I mean, the imaginary older brother was pretty silly.

Do they like marshmallows? Yeah!

Do they sleep on their side, front, or back? On his front, mouth open, snoring.

Do they work better with sound or silence? Sound! Music makes brain work faster.

Do they have a strange obsession with something minor? His hair? Superheroes?

Do they like art? Uhhhhhh, medium? He likes comics and stuff, but he’s not going to a museum anytime soon.

How fast can they run? Fast!

Do they prefer to sit on the floor or on a chair? Floor.

What do they want, right now? A breakfast burrito. Preferably one he didn’t have to microwave himself.

since i’m busy atm, here’s the current concepts of my toontown ocs so far with nhung being the only one with a name so far LMAO under the cut!

as their designs are planned to be human ocs for an original story about vietnamese-american espers i have, it’s likely there’ll be this running motif that the “good guys” are more likely to be girls w vietnamese names while the “bad guys” are more likely to be boys w white/western names too atm

Toons

🎲 (Toontown Central): Nhung runs Jest for Laughs down at Loopy Lane, but messes around and plays tricks on everyone more often; she has great pride in her skills like taking risks in any situation, which help earn a lot of jellybeans and notoriety for her. While she has intentions to keep things happy around Toontown, they’re more out of self-interest with just causing mischief for the fun of it.

Her design is based on the dice game bầu cua tôm cá, the spotted sika deer in the game (not to mention antler velvet is a thing in traditional medicine), and red velvet cake. Specializes in throw and/or drop gags, taking a gamble with their accuracy rates for strong attacks like her dice rolls.

🌊 (Donald’s Dock): A Toon who spends her time swimming and fishing among the currents of Donald’s Dock, she has practically become one with the water itself, adaptable to gracefully flow along with any situation to sweeping into thunderous, freezing fury when necessary. Ironically, she can seem very rigid and nervous when she’s out of her comfort zone (both metaphorically and literally) experiencing something new like a fish out of water.

Her design would either be based on Vietnamese water puppetry, beautiful fashion like this dress based on the Trần dynasty, and/or sailors and fishermen. Specializes in squirt gags as she thrives in sources of water and practically has hydrokinesis.

💐 (Daisy Gardens): A hardworking gardener cultivating plants around Toontown, she enjoys growing various plants to help the world’s atmosphere and anyone in need of some organic gags or fruits to have enough energy for the day. While she does sell her grown products to everyone, she always maintains affordable prices with the main goal to fairly distribute and trade stuff (she has to use the same jellybeans she earns to plant for her gardening after all gdjhfdj)!

Her design would be based on agricultural aspects of Vietnam, such as farming attire, traditional flowers and fruits, etc. Specializes in toon-up gags as her green thumb has helped flowers, organic gag trees, and Toons flourish alike.

🎵 (Minnie’s Melodyland): A prodigy in the musical arts, this Toon is invested in honing her skills to conduct and play songs powerful enough to bring forth any emotion she wishes. While she likes using her instruments to revive the Laff in fellow Toons with her gardening friend, she also has a hidden side of screaming ear-wrenching nightmares to make cogs explode instantaneously.

Her design would be based on musical instruments (I’m personally debating on whether to focus on modern western instruments, traditional Vietnamese instruments, or both), along with possibly including singing like karaoke, especially as that’s an activity done with friends! Specializes in sound gags, as she’s always ready to let loose and unleash powerful death metal explosions.

⛸️ (The Brrrgh): A strong contender in the local ice skating competitions, this Toon enjoys friendly competition and motivating herself and her friends to always improve. She admires her friend from Donald’s Dock the most in particular, astounded at her graceful aquatic talents practically gliding on the water surface without the need of skates or ice at all.

Her design would be based on snowy aesthetics, and I’m thinking of leaning mostly into the ice skating side of things... Specializes in lure gags, as they’re combined with her skating to show off hypnotic performances impossible to look away from.

✒️ (Donald’s Dreamland): A fantasizing Toon who runs Visible Ink down at Loopy Lane with Nhung for fun, she spends more time at her residence in Donald’s Dreamland (day)dreaming and writing in her dream diary with the sparkling pens in her possession. Loves sleeping to the soothing songs of her musical friend, but also respects and fears her skills in playing and screaming echos that can be heard across all of Toontown.

Her design would be based on dream diaries and ink, and may include toys as well. Specializes in trap gags, as they’re scattered around like toys that haven’t been cleaned up before bedtime, along with the fact the traps are effective without alarming sound gags interrupting her slumber along with the cogs’s as well.

Cogs

📞: A Telemarketer who frequents the streets and phone lines across Toontown, he carries a self-confident attitude talking to anyone and everyone to buy/invest in whatever Totally Reliable And Actually Existing Product he’s “selling” or just listen to him in general. However, Nhung is the only one who constantly disregards and makes fun of his schpiels with a bantering attitude instead, and thus annoys him to no end.

🌱: During an invasion, this Bean Counter descended into the streets of Daisy Gardens and was caught off guard by the great amount of colors in the local flora he had never seen before in the other streets. Deciding to investigate these strange lifeforms as vibrant and energetic as the Toons, he eventually became enamored with meticulously collecting jellybeans and growing them into full-fledged plants, even having his gardening activities approved of when showing off his creations like organic money trees.

🔪: Sharpening his blades down the streets of Polar Place, this Back Stabber has an arsenal of weaponry... his most prized being a pair of ice skates. In the beginning, he initially had a piercing interest in doing his job with as much efficiency as possible, and picked up skating with the intent to increase the speed of productivity and battles against the Toons. Now he enjoys skating to his own leisure and competing in ice skating battles more these days, but would be defensive and try to claim otherwise if questioned about it.

🧀: An absolute blockhead of a cog, this Big Cheese always acts like a hotshot with his former fame being a formidable high rank among the Bossbots, all while also deliberately sidestepping armor-piercing topics like his incapability to fly with the lack of a propeller, gaping holes in his head, lacking a group attack, and being considered the weakest tier 8 cog for traits like these. Even with the days of glory behind him, he still adamantly tries to keep up with the current trend of what’s “cool”, constantly jumping the Loan Sharks.

🎭: The combined forces, or more accurately, faces, of Double Talker and Two-Face parts melded together during a low resource day in the factories, these two brothers both strive to earn great acclaim and attention to prove themselves... but the thing is, they struggle with such drastically differing personalities, desired ways to achieve their goals, and the predicament of sharing a single body. Even though they oppose each other often, they still stick together and secretly admit the concept of having their own separate body and losing their brother would feel wrong in the end.

Kabuki-mono

So there’s this thing Japan does a lot in their history where, because they utilize an ideographic written language in which some characters can be read and pronounced different ways, when certain words kind of become obsolete or taboo subcultures will make up a kind of homonym that retains the spoken word but changes the written characters and thus the meaning while sort of carrying on the spirit of the thing.  One of these is the word Kabuki[歌舞伎] which is written with the characters for “Song”+”Dance”+”Skill.”  But is derived in part from Kabuki-mono[傾奇者] written as “Strange”+”Trend/Inclined/Leaning”+”Person.”

The Kabuki-mono are often described as a “gang” but that is a somewhat disingenuous phrase as it carries with it a lot of implications that I don’t think reflect accurately what they really were...  Even a popular Japanese-English online dictionary defines the term as:

dandy;

peacock;

early-17th-century equivalent of present-day yakuza;

Edo-period eccentric who attracted public attention with their eye-catching clothes, peculiar hairstyle, and weird behavior

And while these are all fairly accurate in their own ways, I don’t think it paints a particularly complete picture.  So, allow me to try and add some context...

The Kabuki-mono have been recorded as a trend during the mid-late 1500s (the tail end of the period of Japan’s first major unification under Nobunaga Oda and his direct successor, Hideyoshi Toyotomi; of note is that the unification had ended the preceding Sengoku Jidai/Warring States era) into the turn of the 1600s.(Around which time the rise of the Tokugawa shogunate brought with it strict social rules that quashed a number of different social customs and trends, the Kabuki-mono among them.)

What this means is that for nearly 200 years Japan had been in a state of constant war; this same time period is where the romantic images of the cultural myths of the samurai were cultivated.  For nearly 200 years Japanese society had built itself around the inevitability of war: profit and loss came from raiding and conquering of territory, the warrior caste earned its social value according to its very real measures of worth in battle, and the dynamic of courtly politics was sustained by the privileged ruling class propped up on their military power and holdings.  For 200 years and all the generations that were born raised and died in it amassing soldiers, training for war, and winning social status and wealth in battle were a way of life.  And then peace came.

(So jarring in fact was the shift towards peace that the need to justify a bloated military force even pushed Japan to try and invade the Asian mainland, just to give their restless and disenfranchised soldiers something to do.)

But the awkward shift in life styles meant that while the highest echelons of Japanese society adapted to more peaceful politics, the middling ranks of aristocracy found themselves without wars to fight, without real political influence, and without roles in society: Many families found their heirs provided for, spoiled even, but aimless.  Herein came the ronin and wandering samurai that would become the beloved trope of samurai fiction for centuries to follow.

But among these disenfranchised yet financially well off (and very frequently well educated and cultured) soldiers were some who took to posturing their status, very probably as a direct result of their losing real power in courtly affairs as practices skewed toward the nuance of peacetime politics.  So, as if to announce their wealth and culture they would being to dress lavishly to show off their money, both to one another and to the peasantry.  Their tastes leaned into the gaudy, favoring bright colors, elaborate patterns, and exotic fabrics like leathers, animal furs, and light catching materials.  They also adorned themselves in beaded charms, metals, and even decorated their swords and sword sheathes.  Also popular became the almost comically large swords, again commissioned as a matter of social posturing; often depictions of Kabuki-mono will show them leaning on their swords while standing upright, using them as walking sticks, or slung over their shoulder to bare the heavy load.

From this M.O. there came a fairly logical development in style; many of these fashionable ex-samurai began to collect women’s clothing, because of the available clothes women’s possessed all the traits they found desirable.  For some this amounted to cross dressing, but because women’s clothes were often too small for the men to wear properly, they would drape them as capes, or fashion them into sashes.  This in turn lead to layering many articles of clothing over one another, as it allowed for a maximum of patterns and fabrics to be incorporated into a single ensemble.  But for those who were able to wear women’s clothes comfortably, or who had women’s styles fashioned in their own sizes, the fuller feminine aesthetic carried over with, and accessories also came into vogue for the Kabuki-mono.  Moreover, many would also wear their hair down (but not cut, as the length was still indicative of status, but the topknot itself being explicitly masculine) rather than in the traditional topknot, which had the effect of also evoking a more feminine style.

In practice these boastful and again financially frivolous groups of eccentric fashionistas would spend their time wandering lively urban areas to show off their visible wealth, or spending their time smoking* and drinking together in taverns where they were frequently known to skip bills. (it’s entirely likely many of them didn’t even have real money left to their name after the benefits of the war economy subsided)

Keeping in mind that this was an era in which their samurai status, however impractical in courtly politics, did still technically afford them a kind of diplomatic immunity and power over peasantry.  So when I say they “skip  their bills” it wasn’t so much a tricky dine and dash as it was a bold and arrogant saunter out the door with the utmost confidence that if a pub owner were to try and stop them, they could beat the commoner even to death with relative impunity.

In this same vein they were known to get quite readily into drunken brawls and wrestle in the streets with other “gangs.”  But of course “wrestling” here is actually the jujutsu that had commonly been part of a samurai’s military training.

And in this way common hang outs for different groups of displaced soldiers would become centers of what were basically gang turf, and these casually belligerent interactions and retaliations to them would begin to carry with them larger consequences.

A small aside that doesn’t quite fit anywhere else here: Another accessory to their aesthetic were large custom made Kiseru (a kind of Japanese smoking pipe with metal mouth piece and bowl) like their swords, crafted comically large as to make a loud statement.  Some accounts of fights between gangs actually describe pipes so large and with such prominent metal components that they could be used as weapons to fend off an unexpected attack, even from a sword or dagger. (ironically this trope has developed in one of two ways over the years, either exaggerating the size of the pipe further, or downplaying its size to that of a regular pipe to create a kind of dissonance where a skilled fighter can wield even a small inconspicuous object as a weapon.)

As these kinds of gangs grew in size, activity, and influence they did eventually attract the attention and ire of their superiors.  By the time the Tokugawa shogunate took over, they were on a short list of black listed groups targeted by legal reforms that outlawed, not the groups themselves, but much of their behavior and practices, affording the shongunate the impetus to act on arrests, that would do away with key leaders, until the gangs eventually dissipated on their own.

But there was another set of eyes that had been following the kabuki-mono activity, even in its waning years: one Izumo no Ikuni.  The woman who would go on to found Kabuki theatre while the memory of the Kabuki-mono was still in the public mind even as they vanished from the bars and streets.  It is from the kabuki-mono that Kabuki theatre would develop its audacious costume and distinctly pronounced mannerisms and even characterization of samurai.  It is also the alluring androgyny of the Kabuki-mono’s fashionable men that led Izumo no Ikuni and her all female troupe to so readily and confidently assume the masculine roles. (Ikuni herself was known to address her audiences directly, with no formal traditions of a 4th wall, and flirt with women while in character to great if often notorious effect.)

A curious side effect of this passing of the torch is that the strong associations with theatre fashion actually caused a lot of other media to distance themselves from various associations with theatre by effectively relegating the kabuki-mono fashion to the domain of theatre almost exclusively.  So stories about poor and disenfranchised samurai in the years following the Warring States period adopted a kind of universal trope of the plain clothes samurai, in rough and worn kimonos, or else distinguished formal wear befitting the status of the higher rungs, but nearly eradicating the image of the Kabuki-mono from any fiction that didn’t specifically feature them.

I guess my point is just that it's super cool to me that there was this whole brief era where a bunch of war hardened, genderbending, fashionista thugs were just kicking around Kyoto picking fights and showing off. And its a damn shame that circumstances as they are have kind of erased them. Also they so very much embody and legit pioneered the spirit of Bad Suit Energy that sustains me.

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to your first FiveThirtyEight Election Update of the 2020 primary cycle! This is a column in which we’ll talk about the primary race through the lens of our forecast model, which we released earlier this week. Sometimes it will be rather brief, and quickly run through the latest data — while other times, we’ll go into a deep-dive on upcoming states or some aspect of how the model works.

We don’t necessarily plan to publish an Election Update as a result of each single new poll, but Friday’s Selzer & Co. poll of the Iowa caucus, published by the Des Moines Register and CNN, warrants an exception and did have a somewhat material effect on the model.

Why is it worth focusing on this one individual poll — something that we’d usually advise against?

Selzer & Co. is a very good pollster, one of the best in the business.

There haven’t been a lot of polls of Iowa recently.

Iowa is pretty darn important, at least in terms of how our model thinks about the race, with the potential to produce fairly large bounces that will affect the rest of the calendar.

The poll showed Bernie Sanders ahead with 20 percent of the vote, followed by Elizabeth Warren at 17 percent, Pete Buttigieg at 16 percent and Joe Biden at 15 percent. This is a reasonably big shift from the previous Selzer & Co. poll, in November, which had shown Buttigieg ahead with 25 percent of the vote. (Although, for reasons I’ll get to in a moment, the model views the latest poll as more neutral than negative for Buttigieg.) Amy Klobuchar was next in the poll at 6 percent, but that was unchanged from November despite a couple of debate performances since November that voters rated strongly in our polling with Ipsos. Andrew Yang was sixth at 5 percent.

So then, how did the new poll affect our model? Here’s what our current national numbers look like:

Biden remains the most likely candidate to get a delegate majority, with a 38 percent chance, followed by Sanders at 24 percent, Warren at 13 percent, and Buttigieg at 10 percent. There’s also a 14 percent chance that no one wins a majority, which could potentially lead to a contested convention.

But those numbers do represent an improvement for Sanders and Warren and a decline for Biden. Here’s a before-and-after comparison:

How a new Iowa poll affected our numbers

Candidates’ before-and-after chances of winning a majority of pledged delegates following the Selzer & Co. Iowa Poll on Jan. 10, according to FiveThirtyEight’s primary forecast

Candidate Last model run before Selzer & Co. poll Current forecast Biden 41% 38% Sanders 22 24 Warren 11 13 Buttigieg 10 10 No majority 14 14

Current forecast as of Jan. 11 at 12 p.m. ET

Biden’s majority chances fell by 3 percentage points, from 41 percent to 38 percent, while Sanders’s and Warren’s each gained 2 percentage points. Buttigieg’s chances were unchanged.

I really like having a model at times like this because it allows for a fairly rigorous and objective answer to the question of: How much should I update my priors as a result of this new piece of information? If you’re just winging it, it’s super easy to screw that up in either direction, either dismissing new data as being “an outlier,” etc. — or claiming that the new data has massively inverted the trajectory of the race when it probably hasn’t. (The latter is usually the more common mistake in media coverage of the campaigns since it makes for more dramatic headlines.)

In FiveThirtyEight model terms, swings of this magnitude — Biden falling from 41 percent to 38 percent — are a relatively big deal. They will likely be on the high end of the shifts you see as a result of a single state poll, with the possible exception of final polls conducted on the eve of a primary or caucus. (Let me back up and caveat that: I think that this will be on the high end of poll-induced swings based on what we’ve seen in our past general-election models, but since the primary model is a new product for us, I’m not quite sure.)

At the same time, if this poll has completely upended your view of the race, then — I’m trying to put this constructively — you need to go back and add a little more rigor to your mental model of the primaries. Iowa still has four highly plausible winners; that was true both before and after the poll. Our model has Sanders (with a 29 percent chance) and Biden (also with a 29 percent chance) as being a bit more likely than the others to win, but it’s not really much of an edge (we have Buttigieg’s chances at 22 percent, and Warren’s at 16 percent). Perhaps the candidate who had the most reason to be disappointed by the new poll was Klobuchar. Making a very late surge to win Iowa is not completely out of the question — Rick Santorum did it in 2012 — but we have her chances down to 2 percent.

Biden remains the most likely overall winner of the delegate race, meanwhile, with Sanders in the next-best position. That’s because Biden, leading in national polls, would be awfully hard to catch if he won Iowa. For the other three candidates, there would be the question of whether the Iowa bounce would be enough to propel them past Biden, with Sanders being in the best position to do so because he’s second in national polls and because his polling is also relatively strong in both New Hampshire and Nevada.

It’s also worth keeping in mind that we do have some other recent information about Iowa apart from this poll. A YouGov poll of Iowa released last weekend showed a three-way tie between Biden, Sanders and Buttigieg. And our model also makes inferences about candidates’ standing in Iowa based on trends in national polls. That’s the reason the model didn’t have Buttigieg’s chances falling as a result of this poll; it had already anticipated that his numbers would decline as a result of his slump in national polls. Conversely, even though the numbers didn’t seem that terrific for Warren on the surface — her 17 percent in the new Selzer & Co. poll is only a 1-point improvement from her 16 percent in November — it comes during a period when she’d been declining in national polls. So it’s a bullish sign for her campaign that she’s still one of the front-runners in Iowa.

By the way, “one of the front-runners” is about as precise as it’s possible to realistically be in Iowa. Our forecast will get a bit more accurate as more polls come in and as the Feb. 3 caucuses approach,. but the model assumes that caucuses are awfully hard to poll, which means there are high margins of error.

That’s especially so in Iowa given some of the quirks of the caucus process, the most important of which is that in each precinct, voters for candidates who don’t have at least 15 percent of the vote must “realign” themselves to candidates who do. Iowa will also release three different ways of counting its vote. More about that stuff in future Election Updates. And although I’m not going to get into it today, some of the data from the poll that the model doesn’t use — like favorability ratings and second-choice preferences and how many voters have firmly decided on a candidate (not many, although Sanders supporters are something of an exception) — should contribute to the sense that the race is open-ended.

All of that is a long-winded way of saying there’s a lot of ambiguity about what will happen in Iowa. Through that fog, our model picked up some good news for Sanders and Warren and some bad news for Biden in this poll. But the fog is pretty dense.

Could you please explain in more detail what each of the math post-APs are and how easy/hard they are and how much work? Thanks!!

Response from Al:

This can be added on to, but I can describe how Multivariable Calculus is. First off, I want to say not anyone’s opinion should affect how difficult or easy a class would be for YOU. Ultimately, do the classes you’re interested in. Personally, I thought Calculus was cool as subject, so that’s why I pursued Multi. Multi. builds off of BC Calculus, Geometry, and even some of the linear algebra you learned from middle school (not to be confused with the Linear Algebra you can take at TJ), so as long as you have a good foundation in those subjects, I’m sure you’ll do well in Multi. Depending on your teacher, assessments may or may not be more challenging, and that’s why I strongly emphasize take the class only if you’re genuinely into it. Don’t take it because of peer pressure / because you want to stand out in colleges. I’ll let anyone add below.

Response from Flitwick:

Disclaimer: I feel like I’m not the most unbiased perspective on the difficulty of these math classes, and I have my own mathematical strong/weak points that will bleed into these descriptions. Take all of this with a grain of salt, and go to the curriculum fair for the classes you’re interested in! I’ve tried to make this not just what’s in the catalog/what you’ll hear at the curriculum fair, so hopefully, you can get a more complete view of what you’re in for. 

Here’s my complete review of the post-AP math classes, and my experience while in the class/what I’ve heard from others who have taken the class. I’m not attaching a numerical scale for you to definitively rank these according to difficulty because that would be a drastic oversimplification of what the class is.

Multi: Your experience will vary based on the teacher, but you’ll experience the most natural continuation of calculus no matter who you get. In general, the material is mostly standardized (and you can find it online), but Osborne will do a bit more of a rigorous treatment and will present concepts in an order that “tells a more complete story,” so to speak. 

The class feels a decent amount like BC at first, but the difficulty ramps up over time and you might have an even rougher time if you haven’t had a physics course yet when it comes to understanding some of the later parts of the course (vector fields and flux and all).

I’d say some of the things you learn can be seen as more procedural, i.e. you’ll get lots of problems in the style of “find/compute blah,” and it’s really easy to just memorize steps for specific kinds of problems. However, I would highly recommend that you don’t fall into this sort of mindset and understand what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and how that’ll yield what you want to compute, etc.

Homework isn’t really checked, but you just gotta do it – practice makes better in this class.

Linear: This class is called “Matrix Algebra” in the catalog, but I find that title sort of misleading. Again, your experience will depend on who you get (see above for notes on that), but generally, expect a class that is much more focused on understanding intuitive concepts that you might have learned in Math 4/prior to this course, but that can be applied in a much broader context. You’ll start with a fairly simple question (i.e. what does it mean for a system of linear equations to have a solution?) and extend this question to ask/answer questions about linear transformations, vectors and the spaces in which they reside, and matrices.

A lot of the concepts/abstractions are probably easier to grasp for people who didn’t do as well in multi, and this I think is a perfectly natural thing! Linear concepts also lend themselves pretty well to visualization which is great for us visual learners too :)) The difficulty can come in understanding what terms mean/imply and what they don’t mean/imply, which turns into a lot of true/false at some points, and in the naturally large amount of arithmetic that just comes with dealing with matrices and stuff. 

Same/similar notes on the homework situation as in Multi.

Concrete: Dr. White teaches this course, and it’s a great time! The course description in the catalog isn’t totally accurate - most of the focus of the first two main units are generally about counting things, and some of the stuff mentioned in the catalog (Catalan numbers, Stirling numbers) are presented as numbers that count stuff in different situations. The first unit focuses on a more constructive approach to counting, and it can be really hard to get used to that way of thinking - it’s sorta like math-competition problems, to a degree. The second unit does the same thing but from a more computational/analytic perspective. Towards the end, Mr. White will sort of cover whatever the class is interested in - we did a bit of group theory for counting at the end when I took it. 

The workload is fairly light - a couple problem sets here and there to do, and a few tests, but nothing super regular. Classes are sometimes proofs, sometimes working on a problem in groups to get a feel for the style of thinking necessary for the class. if you’re responsible for taking notes for the class, you get a little bonus, but of course, it’s more work to learn/write in LaTeX. Assessments are more application, I guess - problems designed to show you’ve understood how to think in a combinatorial way. 

Unfortunately, this course is not offered this year but hopefully it will be next year! 

Prob Theory: Dr. White teaches this course this year, and the course’s focus is sort of in the name. The course covers probability and random variables, different kinds of distributions, sampling, expected value, decision theory, and some of the underlying math that forms the basis for statistics. 

This course has much more structure, and they follow the textbook closely, supplemented by packets of problems. Like Concrete, lecture in class is more derivation/proof-based, and practice is done with the packets. Assessments are the same way as above. Personally, I feel this class is a bit more difficult/less intuitive compared to Concrete, but I haven’t taken it at the time of writing. 

Edit (Spr. 2020) - It’s maybe a little more computational in terms of how it’s more difficult? There’s a lot of practice with a smaller set of concepts, but with a lot of applications. 

AMT: Dr. Osborne teaches this course, and I think this course complements all the stuff you do math/physics-wise really well, even if you don’t take any of the above except multi. The class starts where BC ended (sequences + series), but it quickly transitions to using series to evaluate integrals. The second unit does a bit of the probability as well (and probability theory), but it’s quickly used as a gateway into thermodynamics, a physics topic not covered in any other class. The class ends with a very fast speed-run of the linear course (with one or two extra topics thrown in here and there). 

The difficulty of this course comes from pace. The problem sets can get pretty long (with one every 1-2 weeks), but if you work at it and ask questions in class/through email whenever you get confused, you’ll be able to keep up with the material. The expressions you’ll have to work with might be intimidating sometimes, but Osborne presents a particular way of thinking that helps you get over that fear - which is nice! All assessments are take-home (with rules), and are written in the same style as problem sets and problems you do in class. The course can be a lot to handle, but if you stick with it, you’ll end up learning a lot that you might not have learned otherwise, all wrapped up in one semester.  

Diffie: Dr. Osborne has historically taught this course, but this year’s been weird - Dr. J is teaching a section in the spring, while Dr. Osborne is teaching one in the fall. No idea if this trend will continue! Diffie is sort of what it says it is - it’s a class that focuses on solving differential equations with methods you can do by hand. Most of the class is “learning xx method to solve this kind of equation that comes up a lot,” and the things you have to solve get progressively more difficult/complex over the course of the semester, although the methods may vary in difficulty. 

I think this is a pretty cool class, but like multi, the course can be sort of procedural. In particular, it can be challenging because it often invokes linear concepts to explain why a particular method works it does, but those lines of argument are often the most elegant. This class can also get pretty heavy on the computational side, which can be an issue. 

Homework is mostly based in the textbook, and peter out in frequency as the semester progresses (although their length doesn’t really change/increases a little?). Overall, this is a “straightforward” course in the sense that there’s not as much nuance as some of these other classes, as the focus is generally on solving these problems/why they can be solved that way/when you can expect to find solutions, but that’s not to say it’s not hard. 

Complex: I get really excited when talking about this class, but this is a very difficult one. Dr. Osborne has historically taught this course in the fall. This class is focused on how functions in the complex numbers work, and extending the notions of real-line calculus to them. In particular, as a result of this exploration, you’ll end up with a lot of surprising results that can be applied in a variety of ways, including the evaluation of integrals and sums in unconventional ways. 

In some ways, this class can feel like multi/BC, but with a much higher focus on proofs and why things work the way they do because some of the biggest results you’ll get in the complex numbers will have no relation whatsoever to stuff in BC. Everything is built ground-up, and it can be really easy to be confused by the nuanced details. If you don’t remember anything about complex numbers, fear not! The class has an extra-long first unit for that very purpose, which is disproportionately long compared to the other units (especially the second, which takes twoish weeks, tops). Homework is mostly textbook-based, but there are a couple of worksheets in there (including the infamous Real Integral Sheet :o) 

This course is up there for one of the most rewarding classes I’ve taken at TJ, but it’s a wild ride and you really have to know what things mean and where the nuances are cold. 

Southern* Eorzea NPC count

After making an exhaustive count of all Ishgardian NPCs in FFXIV for my Ishgard lore compilation, I started counting NPCs in the other city-states of Eorzea too, just for fun. Here’s my findings as of February 2019.

(* This count currently excludes Ishgard for reasons I’ll get to in a moment.)

“Methods”, such as they are

This is a count and analysis of “targetable NPCs” -- NPC mobs -- in Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn and expansions.

As I play, I go through zones and add every NPC I can find to a spreadsheet, noting the race, clan and gender they use for their model, plus their national affiliation and their profession (if I’m able to judge what these are). I can easily include all the NPCs that are always present in a zone just by going from one end of the zone to the other. I also add NPCs who only appear during quests, duties, and FATEs as I see that content.

Unselectable NPCs who appear in the background as flavor aren’t included. NPCs given generic names (e.g. “Chocobokeep”) were counted. Infinitely respawning NPCs from FATEs and duties aren’t included (since it’s hard to judge how many “there really are”). Speaking-role NPCs who only appear in cutscenes are included. Really important, named historical figures who don’t appear in-game were included in the Ishgard count, so they’ll probably be included here too, but I haven’t entered any yet.

This count currently includes 1247 NPCs of Gridanian, Ul’dahn, Lominsan, and Ala Mhigan nationality. The first three city-states have about 350 NPCs each, and Ala Mhigo about 200.

Ishgard is currently excluded because my Ishgardian count included 650+ NPCs, and the unique demographics of Ishgard would throw off the totals. When/if I reach 500+ NPCs for the main three city states, I’ll add the Ishgard count to this spreadsheet.

Currently, independent or semi-independent tribes within Eorzea -- such as the U tribe in Southern Thanalan -- are not included in this count, but I’d like to add them soon.

Limitations

Because NPCs are hand-counted, you should keep in mind that there’s a possibility of selection bias. For the total numbers, I’ve tried to mitigate this as much as possible by entering all NPCs of a zone or quest at the same time.

Selection bias is potentially even more of a problem when I assign nationalities and professions to NPCs. I feel I do a pretty accurate job judging NPCs by their dialogue and outfits, but it’s possible for me to have missed characters or incorrectly assigned them.

And, of course, these are not exhaustive, unlike the Ishgard count. It’s possible that as I count more NPCs, the trends will change. But, when I went from about 150 NPCs per nation to the current 350 NPCs, the ratios really didn’t change much, so I’m fairly confident we can call these numbers representative.

For the gender analysis, I put all characters with “female” models and/or she/her pronouns into “female”, and all characters with “male” models and/or he/him pronouns into “male” (and characters with ambiguous models and unspecified pronouns into “other”). This is a capitulation to the limitations of the game, which uses unisex models for “beast tribes” and two binary gender models for PC races. In “reality”, just as there must certainly be mixed-clan and mixed-race Eorzeans, there must also be a varied spectrum of genders among Eorzeans -- but this can’t be easily represented with the models available in the game. So what I’m analyzing here is “what the game shows us”.

All that out of the way, let’s look at some nation-specific numbers!

Gridania

Encyclopedia Eorzea vol. 1 numbers: 40% Midlander Hyur, 30% Wildwood Elezen, 10% Duskwight Elezen, 10% Keeper of the Moon Miqo’te, 10% Other

I did include the adventurers at Buscarron’s Druthers in this count, since they seem to live semi-permanently in an area under Gridanian sovereignty, but I’m not totally sure about that call.

Not shown here: of the 26 conjurers I've counted so far, 61.5% use female models. “Conjurers” is one of the few professional categories where female model characters outnumber male ones. The other categories are “arcanist”, “culinarian”, “server”, and “skywatcher”.

Ul’dah

Encyclopedia Eorzea vol. 1 numbers: 30% Midlander Hyur, 10% Highlander Hyur, 40% Dunesfolk Lalafell, 10% Hellsguard Roegadyn, 10% Other

EE1 does not include [Ala Mhigan] refugees. I did include refugees living in the capital -- some of them have been living in Ul’dah for more than 20 years -- though Little Ala Mhigo’s residents (not Blades/Flames) I put in the Ala Mhigan category.

As mentioned, I did not include independent tribes in the region, such as the U.

In the count, Ul’dah’s military tends more male than any other Eorzean city-state other than Ishgard (which is currently sitting at 79.6% male). Some of the missing women are in Longhaft’s unit and appear in the Attack on Highbridge FATE chain -- I didn’t count them because they’re infinitely respawning.

Limsa Lominsa

Encyclopedia Eorzea vol. 1 numbers: 40% Sea Wolf Roegadyn, 20% Plainsfolk Lalafell, 20% Seeker of the Sun Miqo’te, 10% Midlander Hyur, 10% Other

Limsa Lominsa is the most racially diverse nation in the count. It also comes the closest to equal gender representation -- my theory is that this is because the high number of Miqo’te (almost all female model) balances out the other races, where male-model NPCs predominate.

Most of the “other” gender slice there are Qiqirn of gender indeterminate to me.

Ala Mhigo

Encyclopedia Eorzea vol. 1 numbers (repeated in vol. 2 with no change): 60% Highlander Hyur, 10% Hellsguard Roegadyn, 10% Midlander Hyur, 10% Seeker of the Sun Miqo’te, 10% Other

Something that I find interesting is that the gender ratios are really close for both overall and the Resistance specifically (at the moment, the Resistance is even slightly nearer equal!) I thought that this was because so many of the Ala Mhigans we meet are part of the Resistance, but it’s actually “just” 44%.

I didn’t count the M, Qalyana, or Vira.

Discussion

While the race numbers are interesting, I think the gender numbers really draw your eye. Like I rambled in my last post, there are a couple different reasons male-model NPCs might outnumber female-model NPCs.

Perhaps it is unintentional -- that is, the devs intend to be adding male and female NPCs in roughly equal numbers, but for some reason, they haven’t. If this is the case, I’d guess the most likely culprit is the tendency for people (especially men) to perceive a mixed-gender group as “equal” when men substantially outnumber the women and as “female-dominated” when the actual numbers begin to approach equality. In an interview with NPR, Geena Davis said she read a study that found "if there's 17 percent women, the men in the group think it's 50-50. And if there's 33 percent women, the men perceive that as there being more women in the room than men." I haven't been able to figure out what study this is (I REALLY WANNA READ IT! -- but in the meantime this and this also talk about the phenomenon) but if we consider its assertion reasonable, you can totally imagine the zone designers looking at a 1:3 female:male ratio and think “we’re doing GREAT!”

And I mean, I don’t have competitor games’ numbers in front of me, but I’d bet that FFXIV is a lot closer to equal gender representation than most of them. Under-representation of women in video game worlds is by FAR the norm.

But it could very well be that the FFXIV devs are intentionally putting more male NPCs into the world. One possibility is that Eorzean culture is somewhat patriarchal (and that this is more or less pronounced depending on the particular nation-state). Public-facing roles, such as those of merchant, tradesman, and especially warrior, more frequently belong to men than women, while women are more frequently in roles that the Warrior of Light doesn’t encounter in-game (housewives, farmers, etc.). Male dominance of these roles may at times be overtly enforced, but subtle enforcement seems more likely to me, in the form of stereotyping, discouragement, covert discrimination, etc. And the devs/writers are communicating this aspect of the world to us through the NPCs they choose to show us. I feel you can find evidence of Eorzean patriarchy elsewhere in the writing, too -- and it’s not portrayed positively, though there’s room to criticize how skillfully or unskillfully the writers/localizers have handled these themes.

And of course, both these things could be true at the same time: the devs could be intentionally trying to convey something about Eorzean patriarchy to us while simultaneously underestimating how much their own biases, inherited from real-world patriarchy, might affect their perception and choices.

And there could well be other explanations, too.

If you’re interested in Ishgard, the most recent numbers are available in my lore compilation -- if you like the pie charts for visualization, you can take a peek at this older post.