one of the things that makes the umineko cast work so well is that they're very tightly written in terms of how they parallel each other but also how they parallel yasu first and foremost and i've always felt like that's an approach sotsugou tried to replicate with the higurashi cast and satoko

In continuation form my last post half an hour ago: Photos of mine on my 2021 wildlife calendar: October-December and five reserves 

Like the last post, mentioned below in order of appearance in this photoset 

October: Collared Dove in the garden taken March 2020 

As one of my prominent lockdown/working from home era photos this one sums up those days in when I loved taking pictures of birds in the garden, but had to battle more than most to make this calendar. Against Puffins, Seals and Bewick’s Swans this simply point and shoot taken Collared Dove cut a more modest figure in my shortlists. But in the real close looking at the pictures this darkhorse made me realise it was simple yet effective and a picture I really liked the quality of with its nice little bit of sun bringing out the bird well on a memorable sunny day so it made it. What I didn’t realise until recently is I believe its the first of my garden bird photos ever to make one of my calendars a huge personal thing to take from the days working from home/in lockdown. 

November: Grey Seal, Farne Islands from June 2019 

Another of the Farnes photos I liked so much, in my strongest year for them seeing so many Grey Seals and up close too helped make the Northumberland adventure so special too. This one just had so many elements I liked about and I rather hoped I might be able to put it in my calendar line up only the second seal picture to make it for me. Whilst its a summer photo I know November is a key part of the Grey Seal breeding season on the Farne Islands bringing back memories of a BBC Autumnawatch stint with them on the Farnes with Gordon Buchanan when I was younger when I first learned of this and longed to go so with many of the Farne photos competing for that June slot I took a bit of pleasure in giving this one the vacant (in terms of photos on the calendar taken in it) eleventh month of the year. 

December: One of my favourite birds the Puffin, Inner Farne, Farne Islands, Northumberland taken in June 2019 

When I finalise a calendar lineup I create a new folder (my shortlist is basically a folder of my photos on my laptop which after processing my photos on each trip/every time I take some I put copies of them/standout ones into to compete to be on my calendars) for the next calendars i.e. this year my 2022 calendars. I then pick ten wildcard photos so photos taken within six weeks prior to my lineup being finalised to put into the next year’s folder as they were taken in a time I was well into my choosing and maybe didn’t get a fair chance to stay around long enough for me to judge them truly so they effectively get a shot at being able to be ones I come to like enough over time and could make the next year’s calendar. I also do if I need to reverse wildcards where if I take a picture between finalising the lineup (creating the new shortlist folder) and my first social media reveal of the calendar that I think is good enough to go on the calendar I’ve just chosen instead of another I can do that. 

If it wasn’t for the fact my calendar lineups had already been revealed on social media for 2020 by the time we got to the Farne Islands this Puffin picture may have been on my 2020 one. Albeit, I took so many I was proud of on the Farnes this in a batch of three or four I picked out as my strongest when there among others it may have been unfair to accelerate only one to the calendar. I say that with a pinch of salt and just a way to explain finer details of my calendar selection process and mean no disrespect to the 13 of my wildlife photos from 2018 and earlier 2019 that made this calendar I’m so proud of on my wall now. 

As it happened this photo got the time to well and truly prove its worth among my others and make the calendar, but I feel as soon as I took it I knew it would probably make my 2021 calendar. There is just such an aura about it, I feel its again simple yet effective in the way I took the photo but its just such a memorable photo. As I said all those years ago for the good one I took on Skomer Island, Pembrokeshire in 2013 of a Puffin with sandeels in its beak that’s the money shot that’s the picture everyone wants to take of a Puffin. I did that here and its my best Puffin picture, potentially my ultimate wildlife subject in the UK especially, I’ve taken since that 2013 one that hangs on a big printed canvass I got for a birthday once with another of my past photos beside me. With this picture I just can’t really put into words what it means to me I just love it so much, it sums up why I love Puffins and why the Farne Islands experience was one of my greatest in my life. It sort of fell into December’s slot with the packed amount of June photos making the calendar. But actually the cloudy sky and white wall may make it quite Decemberesque thinking of snow haha. Fitting that the photo I’ve known would likely make this calendar for the best part of the year will close it. 

This is the first year I’ve ever shown you them I believe but I normally like to have five photos that during the selection didn’t quite make the calendar as reserves. This is just in case a photo on the calendar doesn’t look too good in any format on the website I make the calendars or something happens with the file or anything like that. Its an easy contingency and these photos so close but yet so far are unlikely to actually be on the calendars. These photos in this photoset the fourth-eighth pictures in this photoset are a mixture of one that were provisionally qualified at one point and had to make way for other photos or the remainder of my final league I do where I pit eight photos against each other to see what looks best at the time and do a little scoreboard to determine the last few places on my calendars. 

The reserve photos are, another Puffin on Staple Island, Farne Islands from June 2019, Common Tern on Inner Farne Island then, Kestrel at Richmond Park in October 2019, Water Rail at WWT Slimbridge in January 2020 and Small White butterfly near to home taken in March 2020 the same day as the Collared Dove and this one was provisionally qualified so I nearly had two locally from one day.

So there we have it, my wildlife 2021 calendar. My landscape and other outdoors 2021 calendar lineups had their final decision done later so I will do posts like these for them in due course corresponding so they’re a month after the Twitter reveal of them on Dans_Pictures. 

I feel like we’re probably being too harsh on the other Hargreeves siblings regarding their treatment of Klaus especially in light of where we start off in terms of the story itself. We come in when the UA is about thirty, and the flashbacks that we get are in short supply.

What we do know, from almost the outset of the story, is that Klaus is a drug addict and has likely been that way for quite awhile as a means to self-medicate himself away from the inherently traumatic aspects of his powers, which Reginald didn’t seem to give a fuck about helping him cope with but this isn’t surprising. So Klaus turns to substance abuse as a way to keep himself from having to deal with it. He is obviously going in and out of rehab, though it’s no explicitly told to us whether this is court ordered or voluntary. It does, however, seem to be a cycle. When he later ODs in the ambulance, the EMT seems to know him, indicating that Klaus is a frequent “customer” in their line of business. Again. Klaus is a drug addict. Klaus, even before suffering through Vietnam and that addition, suffers from PTSD as a result of his powers.

It’s unfair to indicate that none of his siblings (save Ben) are there for him in any way. We have very little information regarding what was happening before we came onto the scene, and it wouldn’t be out of the question that his siblings (except Ben who sort of doesn’t have many alternatives) have gotten tired of his never ending spiral.

We don’t know how many times Diego might have picked him up off the street to take him back to the house or to the gym to stay with him. We don’t know how many times Allison might have used her fame and her money to allow Klaus to go to better, more expensive rehabs in the hope that those treatments might stick better than the lower cost ones. We don’t know how often Vanya might have checked the alleys and the corners of her neighborhood for her brother because he showed up one time and now she’s worried he might forget exactly where she lives and freeze to death. We don’t know how often Luther could have tracked him down and tried to persuade him to come back to the house (prior to being sent to the moon, of course).

Most of what we get to see happens so far into their lives and so far into Klaus’ addiction, which likely started in some form during their teenage years, that it’s unfair to really throw too many stones at them. We don’t know what they’ve been through with him already.

No, they predominately don’t listen to him, but we don’t know about the possible years of rambling lies that Klaus could have been telling them in order to get money or items for fixes. Yes, they sort of just brush it off and don’t notice when he gets kidnapped, but it’s also fair to say that since it’s Klaus, they likely think he just wandered away on his own, which he is wont to do. It’s hard to say how many events in their own lives they have paused or had ruined by his addiction and taking time out to help him with that.

I don’t think the treatment of Klaus in the series is an indictment that they don’t love him. I think it’s simply us seeing most of the family at a point at which they simply cannot with him anymore. They cannot watch him tear himself apart anymore. They cannot listen to his weird ramblings anymore. There are more important things happening, the end of the world, Vanya and Leonard, their father’s death, 5 coming back, Cha-Cha and Hazel, Eudora’s death. In retrospect, the ramblings and disappearance of their addict brother, who often rambles and disappears, is normal in comparison.

Is this fair to him in the course of the story itself? No, of course not. It’s not fair, and it’s another clear indication of the fact that, while this family loves one another, they are terrible at communication and expressing themselves. Yes, Klaus talks. Klaus talks all the time, the issue is that no one can necessarily trust what he says because, as an addict, he’s potentially a consummate liar. Up to this point, his family have known Klaus to be the type of person who does anything and everything for himself and thus anything he says and does is suspect and likely to be him attempting to get something so that he can feed his addiction.

UA does a good job of showing us the ramifications of what growing up as kid heroes under an abusive father figure has done to these people and how they cope as adults. As children, they are not exactly encouraged to spend quality communication time with each other that we’re shown. They’re only allowed a half hour of free time. Other than that, they’re training. They’re pitted, in play. against each other to help build their skills. Their fighting styles aren’t the most cooperative. I still don’t even know why they were ever taking Klaus into the field unless that was Hargreeves’ way of attempting to unlock more of his powers.

Nothing in this family is healthy. The healthiest relationships we see are probably between Diego and Mom, Klaus and Ben, and Klaus and Diego (the fact that Diego shows up in two of these is sort of hysterical considering he is the definition of emotional wall). The rest of these people have been divided over the years and are, at best, resentful of each other as each one seems to think they’ve taken the better road/the others have it better than them because of x thing. This, too, is likely something that Hargreeves trained into them, this comparing and competition nature.

Anyway. I’ve seen a lot of things going around about how “nobody has Klaus’ back but Ben” and while I understand the thought behind those, I think it’s important to consider the fact that, they probably had his back up until the point when they just couldn’t anymore. That is a thing that happens. That is a flaw for them, but it is also a flaw for Klaus. All of these characters are flawed, and that’s part of their beauty.

@synth-recharge-challenge: Week 2 Meta Challenge

Overall, which series (1-3) has been your favourite?

Hmm…. I’m going into this essay without much idea what my conclusion will be, so let’s see where this goes, shall we?

Series 1 is obviously the OG - it has all the intrigue and character driven storylines, it’s very inward-looking and contained, which I definitely don’t mean as a negative - it made the storytelling very rich. The screentime was more fairly apportioned, too, I thought. I’d have liked more Fred, but other than that I feel like we got a fair amount from each character. The various storylines (of which there weren’t TOO many) fed into each other beautifully.

Series 2 expanded the world, put our faves in new situations, explored new dynamics and gave us the flagship Nistrid. It developed characters we already loved as well as giving Hester (a new character) a meaningful arc. It was gripping and exciting. However… some aspects were a bit disjointed. Not all threads contributed to the main story, but instead took time away from characters whose (more interesting) arcs were left a little depleted.

Series 3, in my view, combined something of the magic of series 1 with that of series 2. It was full of parallels of now-iconic series 1 scenes and motifs, had some brilliant character scenes, and fewer random plotlines (only Niska’s diverged from the rest, really, everyone else had lots of intersection with each other). It also brought in plenty of new characters and built on series 2’s world expansion and thriller-y elements. However, it killed a bunch of characters, and while I actually accept each one in isolation as being well handled… as a pattern, it doesn’t sit well. Once every two episodes, a female character died for the cause she was fighting for. These are all tragic, beautiful stories in themselves, with each character giving her life in a different way (and with varying levels of agency) that, individually, might be seen as something that makes sense for her personal story… but in terms of the “overall”, I can’t bring myself to love this trend.

Okay, so those are some general thoughts. Based on this I would rank them in the following order: 1 - 3 - 2.

Now let’s rank them more scientifically, using some categories.

Opener (3 - 2 - 1)

This one isn’t very fair because Series 1’s opener has a very different job, and I didn’t watch it for the first time after months of anticipation (pretty sure I only knew about it 6 days in advance lol and I had no pre-existing interest in any character). So the only victory here is (narrowly) 3 over 2. I was just SO VERY PUMPED after 3.1.

Characterisation (1 - 2 - 3)

I can’t speak highly enough of Series 1 when it comes to characterisation. The other two… I originally had them the other way round, but then I was comparing what I see as the major failures of each, and I’ve decided that 3’s crimes (Toby and Leo) are worse than 2’s (Mattie and Sophie). Toby might as well not have been in series 3, and Leo felt like a different person for most of it. In Leo’s case that might have been intentional because of his change of, well, species, but I don’t have to like it! In contrast, Mattie and Sophie bounced back entirely from the whacky things series 2 had them do (Mattie not giving half a damn about Odi and Sophie forgetting that she’s the only kid in the country who knows that synths CAN have feelings). Possibly S3’s good characterisation outweighs S2’s, but I decided to judge this one on the cons rather than the pros. They’re easier to quantify.

Themes (3 - 1 - 2)

In a sense 2 was an interim year, between the story at its core and the story of the world: it had more to do in terms of transitive plot, driving forward to point we’re at in series 3, where we can tell these huge, thematic stories on a global level. Series 1 did beautiful things with themes like humanity, family, technology, trust. Series 3 was at times a horrifying mirror to our own failures as a species. I’ve seen the creators characterise s1 as being about family, s2 as being about relationships/couples, and s3 as being about societies. Maybe from this point of view it’s not much of a wonder that I list s1 first and s2 last, hehehehe.

Plot (3 - 2 - 1)

This is kind of a hard category to call so I don’t really know why I put it down. I think I agree with this ranking. But let’s also say:

Integration of Plots (1 - 3 - 2)

Nothing will ever beat the beautiful tapestry that is series 1, where everything weaves together so well. S3 did a better job of joining things up than S2, but then as mentioned, S2 kind of had to be about fragmentation in order to expand the world.

Shipping (2 - 1 - 3)

Hello, I’m still bitter about S3 Nistrid so here S2 has to win. It also gave us several Karpet gems, and Flax and Trenie. Series 1 has so much beautiful Miaura, and the beginnings of Leotilda. S3 Leotilda felt a LITTLE rushed (working backwards from the finale it’s like: oh, we need her to be pregnant with Miracle Hybrid Baby by episode 8 so they’ll have to be making out ASAP!). Oh, but s3 did have the Nistrid ILYs… they were obviously quality content. Just not enough of it. Plus, my OTP got sunk in the FIRST EPISODE. Boo.

Finale (2 - 3 - 1)

I think series 1’s finale is pretty weak, compared to the rest of it: things are worked out a little too easily, and I love it as a character episode more than a culmination-of-the-plot-I’ve-been-invested-in episode. Series 3’s finale was sooo impactful and beautiful in many ways, but I can’t quite forgive it for Mia, yet, or the STUPID HYBRID STUFF. Whereas the Series 2 finale is, quite honestly, one of the best 45 minutes of TV that I’ve ever seen. It’s so satisfying, on both plot and character levels. I was literally watching curled up in a little ball, for some of it. It had the most gorgeously-shot closing scene, with all the synths waking up. I’ll admit that Mia’s memorial scene is also visually stunning, but I’m usually crying too much to really appreciate it.

Scoring time: let’s say it’s add a point for ranking first, and deduct a point for ranking last.

Series 1 ends up with a score of -1!

Series 2 ends up with a score of 0!

Series 3 ends up with a score of 1!

Itemised ranking: 3 - 2 - 1

This is hilarious! How has Series 1 lost?

Averaging my initial ranking with my itemised ranking, then:

1 - 3 - 2 versus 3 - 2 - 1 gives us 3 - 1 - 2.

So it would appear that Series 3 might be my favourite overall… which was NOT the outcome I was expecting. I think it’s probably fair, though. There has been a lot of gorgeous stuff this year.

What this system I’ve improvised doesn’t do is measure how MUCH the things that were better were better, and how MUCH the things that were worse were worse. I feel that s3’s crimes are worse than s2’s, but s3’s high points are higher than s2 ever really reached. S1 is at the perhaps unfair disadvantage of not being in the position to have taken many risks, because it was only building, not expanding, so I suppose it makes sense that it’s ended up in the middle.

Maybe one day I’ll do this on a proper 1-10 system that measures amount of individual merit, rather than just pitting them against each other directly. But for now… this will do.

If you’re wondering why you read this far, well, so am I, pal.

i saw a post calling out jaehwan for the sungwoon situation where even though sungwoon allowed jaehwan to have the main vocal/center position a few episodes ago, this episode jaehwan still voted sungwoon out of the never group so he himself could get more lines (even though sungwoon was being praised by the instructors for doing so well in the group during practice).... is it wrong of me to dislike jaehwan a little for this? or is it evil editing of sorts again?

Hello, buddy- this is a bit late jewklrjw sorry about that!

First, you are free to like or dislike whoever you want for whatever reasons you want as long as you’re not actively bringing anyone down or hating on them. Your opinions are valid, whatever they may be. I think it’s great that you’re looking for different perspectives, though~

Keep in mind, though, that it wasn’t just Jaehwan that voted Sungwoon out. All the members ranked the others in their group from 1 to 7 and the trainee(s) with the least points had to move concepts. We may think of Jaehwan as the one “against” Sungwoon because they were competing for main vocal but it wasn’t solely Jaehwan’s vote that determined it. Sungwoon and Guanlin ended up in a tie for last member and when the others voted again, Sungwoon was still last. (In fact, I think that Woojin was the only one who voted for Sungwoon because the 1 Sungwoon vote was written at the corner and in an earlier scene you can see Woojin writing at the corner of his paper). So you have 2 group votes and both times Sunwoon was last- I don’t think Jaehwan had the ability to influence 2 group votes on his own.

I didn’t feel like the scene was presented in an “evil” way, though. The boys were even shown joking with each other up until the end- keeping the atmosphere light and not letting the tension bring down the scene. If anything, Sungwoon got a great sympathy edit because they showed him as hard working but never being able to catch a break. (this is something I will bring up in the data analysis of Episode 10 rankings so I won’t go into it here). 

The question that’s intriguing is: why did the team rank Sungwoon so low? and was it wrong of them to do so?

If we look at it from an idealistic perspective then yes, it was very wrong of the people in team Never to choose a relatively less skilled beginner than someone who is objectively more skilled and well-rounded in singing and dancing. In an ideal scenario, everyone would judge others, like Sungwoon said “honestly, in terms of skill”. 

However this show is not idealistic and we have to remember the circumstances that put pressure on the trainees. The main one here being: live votes are important in order to get the benefit. Especially the benefit offered for the team that won: 20,000 points for each. Sungwoon may be the more skilled performer, but Guanlin has the power to rake in more live audience votes. In this scenario, where everyone wants the benefit points, it’s more valuable to have a member that can bring in those votes than a member who can’t. However, please don’t misinterpret this to mean that Sunwoon as a person isn’t valuable at all or that Guanlin as a person is more valuable- we’re not talking about value as in skills or personalities- we’re talking about the objective ability to bring in live votes (and by extension, fanbase size).

In a similar scenario, earlier in the show we saw Daehwi choose his Boy in Luv members on this objective quality (as well as skill level, because he also chose Sungwoon and the other boys were also good dancers). Was it wrong of him to do so when he was thinking pragmatically about the best way to stay afloat in the competition? I personally don’t think it was wrong of him to do so then and I don’t think it was wrong of team Never to do so now in regards to the reality of the situation- which is, they’re in a competition. 

“If you don’t have the greed, then what is the point of coming on this program?“ 

-Yoon Heeseok

Like Heeseok said, you need “greed” in some form or another to be on the program. You can call this strategy selfish, you can call it greed, but it’s more akin to being realistic. Team Never, as a whole, was acting strategically to help ensure that their team had a good. stable shot at winning. 

In regards to your mentioning of Jaehwan choosing to vote out Sungwoon so he (Jaehwan) could get more lines, yes, that probably was a factor for Jaehwan. But it was also probably a factor for Minhyun, Daehwi, and Seongwoo. In the second voting, this was even more salient. Any lead or sub vocal would benefit more from a team that was 4 vocals and 3 rappers versus a team that was 5 vocals and 2 rappers. 

Is it selfish of them to want to keep vocals to a minimum so that they all get more lines? Keeping Sungwoon means he and Jaehwan would get a lot of the lines, Minhyun would get the next third, then Daehwi or Seongwoo would get the least (even less than had in the final version). I don’t think any of them (except Jonghyun because he hates himself and his fans obviously, Jonghyun why did you accept a 4 second line) would have liked an even more uneven distribution than there already was. Especially Minhyun, who had very little lines during Downpour. 

Remember that it may have been only Woojin (a rapper, who is also close to Guanlin so I find it funny he didn’t vote for his friend, bless Woojin) that voted for Sungwoon in the tie breaker- the others were either thinking of line distributions or about the benefit that Guanlin’s live votes could help them win or both, probably. Is this selfish? Greedy? Realistic? Strategic? Yes to all of the above depending on which way you want to look at it. Point is, their actions were not unjustifiable. 

In the end, that scene allowed Sungwoon to get a really good sympathy edit which probably contributed a bit to his ranking being so high for the current ranking (think Sunghyuk). Both parties ended up benefiting from the final decision in some form: Never was very close to winning the benefit (and still topped the charts regardless of it) and Sungwoon did amazing in Showtime and -partly because of this scene- finally got his big break of not just breaking into top 11, but being top 3! 

If people feel bitter about any of it at all they are free to do so and I can see why. It would be great if things were fair, but they’re not. Instead of hating on the trainees who are merely acting under the pressures and rules of the system, hate on the nature of live audiences for akgae voting, hate on the fact that a large fanbase is often more important than objective talent- above all, hate on Mnet for structuring every single evaluation in such a way that pits trainees against each other and forces them to make unfair decisions. (and I’m speaking generally here, I’m not specifically saying you are hating because you’re not and I really appreciate how well worded your ask was).

TL;DR: Yes it was wrong of all of them to vote Sungwoon out, but given the circumstances, it was a logical, strategic choice. You are free to think of Jaehwan (and the rest of team Never) in whatever you want, though; your opinions are your own and they are valid~ :)

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When Harry Became Sally: Chapter 3

This chapter highlights the stories of a selection of detransitioners.

p49–52: INTRO

Anderson introduces the chapter, saying that voices of detransitioners deserve to be heard, and he’s going to present several of their stories. I don’t disagree that these stories should be heard, and I do think it’s sad that some trans activists have sought to silence these stories. I don’t think the media has helped, by trying to pit the two marginalized groups against each other, and I hope that the trans community can come to terms with these stories in a more inclusive way and that non-trans folks like Anderson can see these stories not in opposition to folks that are actually trans.

After reading the chapter, I’m definitely noticing that he’s only highlighting one type of detransition story, which works against his claim that he wants to showcase marginalized voices. He chooses six people, all of whom transitioned and then detransitioned because the transition didn’t feel right and didn’t address their underlying problems. He doesn’t share any stories of people who detransitioned due to social or family pressures, who may or may not still identify as transgender, and he doesn’t share any stories of people who detransitioned and then retransitioned.

And the elephant in the room is that he doesn’t share any stories of people who view their transition as successful and are living well-adjusted lives as transgender individuals. I can’t imagine his readers wouldn’t benefit from hearing those stories as well.

I’ll write very little about each of these.

p52–56: CARI

Experienced dissociative disorder. Transitioned due to gender stereotypes. She’s a lesbian.

I think it’s very clear reading this story that the medical profession fails people at times. She received poor care, and was rushed into transition.

p56–58: MAX

Transitioned due to gender stereotypes. She’s a lesbian.

Anderson did not reach out to her, and her comments when she found out her story was used included: “I’m not OK with it…I was not informed.”

She transitioned because she didn’t understand how she could live as a lesbian woman due to societal structures around her. And Anderson mentions that she’s careful to not discount stories of those who have transitioned and found it to be the answer for them.

p59–62: CRASH

Transitioned due to gender stereotypes and underlying trauma. She’s a lesbian.

Anderson did not reach out to her, and her comments when she found out her story was used included: “enraged to see my story distorted and used…would never have agreed to be included in such a book.”

She transitioned, she says, because she was harassed for being a lesbian and because her mom died by suicide. I feel like this story also highlights the need for better mental health care and perhaps a more cautious, measured approach to transition.

p62–66: TWT

Transitioned due to trauma. Experienced dissociative disorder.

Anderson did not reach out to him, and his comments when he found out his story was used included: “unaware my story was used to promote a political agenda…this happens a lot and it is not my intention.”

Another one which implicates bad doctors. No argument from me that we should have more good doctors and more comprehensive, high-quality health care.

While transitioned, he experienced much anti-trans discrimination.

p67–68: CAREY CALLAHAN

Transitioned due to trauma. Experienced dissociative disorder. Based on my reading elsewhere, I think she’s a lesbian.

Anderson did not reach out to her, and her comments when she found out her story was used included: “upset to be used as a rhetorical device by someone who does not respect me…enough to contact me.”

She questions young transition ages, since she got it wrong in her thirties. Anderson doesn’t share much of her story, but she appears to have been dissociative and hated her body. Her writings now are focused on hearing stories of detransitioners and responding to trans activists who try to shut them down.

p69–72: WALT HEYER

Transitioned due to significant childhood abuse. Experienced dissociative disorder.

Walt appeared on Christopher Cantwell’s podcast recently. Cantwell is a white supremacist who was part of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, and said “we’ll f****** kill these people if we have to.”

I have very little to say to anyone who’s running in these circles. He should have had psychotherapy. He also shouldn't suggest that what was right for him is right for everyone.

p72–76: WRAPUP

The chapter title is “Detransitioners Tell Their Stories” but this is really Anderson telling their stories. He didn’t ask at least four of the six people if he could use their stories, and therefore they weren’t allowed to weigh in on whether his was a fair account. This is, at minimum, irresponsible journalism.

The only point he’s really made is that transitioning isn’t the solution to every problem. He admits that in the first sentence of this section, and then goes on to make an absolute claim, saying “trying to align the body with a transgender identity does not resolve the deep issues…” He needed to add “for these six people,” since there are myriad stories of people for whom it has resolved their deep issues.

On page 73, he again misrepresents the Swedish study which doesn’t say what he wants it to say. This time, it’s tough to say it’s not just a blatant lie. The study found that for those who transitioned post-1989, their rates of mortality, suicide, and crime are in line with the general population. I already talked about this in the Introduction email.

If we know that transgender people overall have a higher suicide rate than the general population, and there’s a Swedish study that Anderson seems to like which says that those who transitioned post-1989 have a rate in line with the general population, the only reasonable conclusion is that transitioning was helpful to these people, not harmful. Why does he keep saying the opposite?

He ends the chapter by quoting most of an open letter from Crash, who detransitioned and is lesbian, to Julia Serano, a transgender activist who she believes has misrepresented and been unfair to detransitioners. This is a heartfelt letter, and I did go read it in its entirety.

At the end of her letter, she openly acknowledges trans people, and also that she is not. She notes of those who eventually detransition: “so many of them are lesbian [and it’s] common for them to question whether they are really female.”

Anderson could start by working for an world in which folks like Crash feel validated and accepted for who they are, with full recognition and human rights, which would keep many lesbians like Crash from wondering whether they are really female and whether transitioning is the solution to their problems.

POSTSCRIPT

Finally, I took a look at the 2015 Transgender Survey, to find out more about detransitioning. 8% of over 27,000 respondents had detransitioned at some point in their lives, but 62% of those were currently living in a gender other than that assigned at birth. So we're in the 3–4% range for permanent detransitioning, since many detransition temporarily for some other societal reason. Only 5% of those who detransitioned did it because it wasn't right for them. 36% detransitioned because of pressure from a parent, 26% because of pressure from other family members, 18% due to pressure from a partner, 31% because of harassment, and 29% because of having trouble getting a job. (Respondents could cite multiple reasons, so the totals are greater than 100%). So a total of 0.4% of respondents to the survey detransitioned because transition wasn't right for them.

https://transequality.org/sites/default/files/docs/usts/USTS-Full-Report-Dec17.pdf

The small number of folks (less than half a percent) who actually detransition because they made a mistake DOES NOT invalidate or lessen the importance of their stories. They should be heard, and transgender folks need to engage with them. We should also do more to ensure that we create a safe world for gender-nonconforming and LGB people such that fewer people like Crash transition for the wrong reasons.

Folks like Anderson also shouldn't appropriate detransitioners' stories to attempt to build a case that nobody should ever transition; clearly there are lots of stories he's not telling from the remaining 99.6%.

FOLLOW-UP

I received a response which I then responded to; I can’t print the response but I’ll print my follow-up:

My overall point was that his selection of people to profile is limited. These weren't transgender people; they were people with psychological issues who tried to solve them in a misguided way and for a time believed themselves to be transgender. You can't select a non-representative sample of people (non-transgender people who transitioned), note their psychological problems, and then post-rationalize your conclusions onto another group of people (actual transgender people). Your comment about whether or not those issues "exist within the larger community" is exactly my point -- Anderson doesn't know because he doesn't bother to ask. Probably because he knows what that would do to his argument. Obviously, then, we disagree about his political purposes. Minor point, also, but nobody ever claims that transitioning will alter chromosomal makeup, so I think we all agree there. Anderson, to this point in the book, has not spoken with a single transgender person! I'll eat my hat if he does anywhere in the book; my guess is he'll continue his current trajectory. If he were truly trying to engage the subject rather than pushing a preconceived position, he'd spend some time with folks in the community he's writing about.

I also don't see any evidence based on what you sent over that R.B. is transgender. Unless you've got data to the contrary, you're pushing the same strawman argument that Anderson is. She may fall into that 80% percent of Zucker's research, people who show some nonconformity in childhood but aren't transgender, and end up settling into a straight or LGB+ identity. People who are straight/gay living lives as straight/gay people do not invalidate people who are transgender, and my issue here is that Anderson doesn't interview or profile any of the large number of actual transgender people who do not regret their transitions.

I know some of them, and can assure you they are nothing like the detransitioners that Anderson highlights.

SUMMARY OF MY POINT: Profiling non-transgender people to make claims about transgender people is a strawman. Detransitioners' stories are important for their own sake, not for the sake of an argument that doesn't make sense and that they don't want to be a part of.

Sonic Forces Review

Sonic Forces Review

Work it out.

by Matt Espineli on November 10, 2017

From its opening stage, Sonic Forces displays a number of issues that are emblematic of the journey ahead: Its insistent tutorial messages interrupt your initial sprint down a winding road, the cinematic transition sequences that take you from one path the next that renders you an observer, not an active participant, and right as you're about to settle into the glee of your mad dash forward, the stage ends. In this 3D Sonic game, developer Sonic Team attempts to iterate upon the formula of games like Sonic Generations and Sonic Colors, but it falls short due to frustrating design choices and inconsistent level design. Even its most entertaining moments come with caveats. The game's story once again sees Sonic getting involved in a battle against Dr. Eggman--this time over the fate of the world. The conniving scientist recruits the expertise of a powerful entity known as Infinite, who he uses to make short work of the blue hedgehog. Six months pass and Dr. Eggman has nearly taken over the entire planet, leaving Sonic and his friends in a tough position. To combat the threat, a ragtag group of freedom fighters consisting of Sonic, a younger version of himself, most of his supporting cast, and a new character you personally create--simply named "the Rookie"--come together. At first, Sonic Forces' emphasis on story seems like a refreshing shift from the predominantly simple plot lines of recent games in the series. However, even though the heightened stakes provide an interesting power shift, they never culminate into anything interesting or impactful. It's only in Sonic Forces' levity where it manages to be somewhat entertaining, turning to puns or brief comedic situations to elicit a snicker, but all too infrequently. Throughout your adventure, you'll switch back and forth between playing as either Modern Sonic, Classic Sonic, or your custom character. Both Classic and Modern Sonic play similarly to their past iterations, with some minor additions: Modern Sonic has a double-jump and Classic Sonic comes equipped with Sonic Mania's Drop Dash ability; both are welcome tools that better distinguish the two hedgehogs. But the biggest addition to the formula is your custom character, who sports special weapons called Wispons that grant unique offensive and movement abilities. For example, the Drill Wispon allows you to quickly charge through foes or ride up and down walls. All three characters play distinctly from one another, and there are fleeting thrills to be had in plowing through robots with a speed boost or using a homing attack on a series of flying creatures to quickly clear a path towards the finish line. However, the excitement of these high speed escapades are held back by clunky platforming and unwieldy movement.

Expect to repeatedly careen off the edge of a stage in your mad dash forward.

During platforming and speed sequences, you frequently plummet down bottomless pits due to how abruptly your character builds up speed before a jump or how a road's bumpers aren't made clear. While death is to be expected, the level design repeatedly miscommunicates the placement of oncoming hazards and the timing required to avoid them. Admittedly, practice means you inevitably develop the reflexes demanded of you over time, but even with experience, the game's inconsistencies mean you'll often end up stuck on a ramp mid-run or make a double-jump that simply doesn't flow the way you want. Sonic Forces' sense of control is erratic and unreliable, resulting in a wealth of unintentional deaths and bizarre collisions with environmental hazards. Sonic Forces' level design does little to accommodate your need for speed. Although Modern Sonic and your custom character have abilities that encourage you to push forward at a blistering pace, it's often smarter to slow down. Telegraphing the right time to go fast has always been a major design issue in the series, but it's magnified here, where obstacles and platforming sequences that require slower, more methodical movements aren't as explicitly signposted as they should be. The game does a poor job of teaching you the flow of its design, instead relying on multiple frustrating and unfair deaths to educate you on the intricacies of a stage's pacing.

Set-pieces typically boil down to simplistic quick-time events that take you out of the high-speed action.

There's a pervading sense of monotony across Sonic Forces' seven unremarkable worlds. Nearly all the obstacles you encounter are rehashes of concepts and mechanics from previous games; lane-based level design, grind rails, speed boost sections, and side-scrolling platforming sequences all make a return. A set-piece sometimes breaks up the pace, but these encounters usually boil down to simplistic quick-time events that make you feel passive to the action happening on-screen rather than an active participant. Multiple routes or lanes in a stage create the illusion of branching paths, but they're so brief that they feel more like quick diversions than actual alternate pathways. It doesn't help that stages are also incredibly short, typically clocking in at two-and-a-half minutes. With cutscenes before and after each stage, you can't help but wish there was a little more ground to cover before reaching the finish line. Your custom character's Wispons add some variety to the mechanics, but even those are limited, as there are only a couple that offer practical benefits. For instance, the Lightning Wispon allows you to zip through a line of rings, often leading you to alternate routes in a stage. Out of the seven Wispons available, you're likely to stick to using one or two, as there's rarely any incentive to experiment once you've grown accustomed to how a couple work. In terms of performance, Sonic Forces runs smoothly at 60 frames per second on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. The Switch version, however, runs at 30 frames per second and suffers from a downgrade in visuals comparatively while docked or undocked. While tolerable, the higher frame rate of the other versions gives them a significant bump over the game's performance on Switch.

It'd be fair to write Sonic Forces off as another weak entry in the series. It's numerous shortcomings make for an uneven, often frustrating gameplay experience. However, knowledge of its various flaws can make for a smoother second run through. In replaying for S-ranks it's possible to use your accumulated knowledge of a stage's hazards and its most illogical pitfalls, the growing pains of overcoming these obstacles slightly lessened. It was rewarding and enjoyable to go back to older stages to take the most efficient routes, knowing precisely when to increase Sonic's speed to earn faster times. That said, acquiring S-ranks and completing challenges isn't entirely difficult, which makes the endeavor of replaying stages short lived, especially considering how brief stages can be. And speed running or not, Sonic Forces' ill-designed stages and poor handling are still major obstacles that detract from your time spent playing. For years the Sonic series has come up short in its 3D games. It wasn't until Sonic Colors and Sonic Generations that the series was able to grasp a semblance of quality that could change the perception of the series as a whole for the better. Sonic Forces ultimately fails to advance the mechanics of previously successful 3D Sonic games, or present them in their best light. A mediocre platformer at best, Sonic Forces manages to do nothing more than reinforce long held stereotypes against Sega's beloved blue blur.

Tags: November 11, 2017 at 04:23AM Open in Evernote

Stat Scaling

This is a bit of a broad, ranting entry, that’s gonna loop around a lot. The core of it is that I don’t trust game developers. The long of it is that games aren’t and don’t need to be perfectly balanced, but that makes me anxious.

As a starting point, I’ve played a handful of mobile games, mostly clicker games and similar genres. What annoyed me about them is that the levelling requirements and rewards are super exponential. Two (character) levels difference sometimes meant the difference between, “You can’t win this fight,” and, “This fight is really easy.” Also, one (game) level difference sometimes means the difference between ‘getting enough experience from enemies to level up in a couple of minutes’ and ‘leaving it overnight and still only being halfway to the next (character) level’.

I think it’s fair to say that this is because it’s easy to ‘balance’ when very extreme. In order to progress beyond point X, you have to be level Y, or be level Y-1 and have incredible luck. In this respect, ‘balance’ means progressing through the game at a certain pace.

The problem with this is that controlling the pace while also giving the user the appearance of choice sucks. If I’m given the choice between two weapons with similar stats but different on-hit effects, it probably doesn’t matter which one I choose, because I’ll be able to progress with either of them when I’m the correct level.

That’s some genres in a nutshell though. They’re designed to be a certain runtime, with the possibility to cut a fraction off if played optimally. And, there’s nothing wrong with that. A highly curated experience is not bad, as long as the user enjoys it. (Well made) clicker games, and similar genres, do good on their promise to give bigger and bigger numbers.

For me, the false agency is a real killer though. If a level up can double my damage, I know choosing between two weapons (or anything else) doesn’t matter much. So, when I say I don’t trust developers, this is what I’m working towards. They design a game where the damage I do is almost entirely dependent on my level, and I have to be level X to do enough damage to progress.

Now, in order to be fair and balanced, I’ll hate on RPGs that scale enemies and/or bosses to your level. As a baseline, let’s go with Pokemon. It’s great. If you have trouble with a specific battle, you can grind a few levels, and the increase in stats probably tips the battle in your favour. Sorted.

What happens if the enemies scale? Well, you get stuck. You have to try new strategies. The problem is, you’re against a boss. Good news, the boss is immune to all status affects. It’s also weak to the element attached to the sword you sold earlier so you could buy the sword that had slightly better attack. Your mage can cast the spell it’s weak to, but dies in one hit if not defending, and the boss has a fifty-fifty chance of hitting them every turn. Good thing your healer can cast buffing spells, as long as they’re not the one being killed. The tank does nothing, ever, because bosses can’t be taunted.

That’s a strawgame though, and I don’t know of anything quite so bad. In general, as far as I’m aware, more modern JRPGs (that scale enemies, or only bosses) tend to give the main party more health as they level up, so grinding makes the enemy do less percent damage of total health per attack.

What’s the point of scaling enemies? Well, maintain tension by having them continually being relevant. If you take any max level Pokemon back to the beginning area of the game, everything dies in one hit to the weakest possible damaging move and only does one damage. I’m pretty sure this holds true even for Magikarp. In a game where enemies scale, this shouldn’t be so one-sided, depending on how the scaling is implemented.

Why do I keep mentioning Pokemon? I genuinely think the Pokemon games are still relevant today because they’re well balanced. Not in terms of how strong each Pokemon is—the competitive scene ranks them in different tiers of strength for good reasons—but in how the gameplay experience is designed.

When I play a RPG, I worry that I’ll miss an item that will make the next boss battle easy, such as an elemental weapon or status effect immunity accessory. That’s a big part of why I felt I needed to play stuff like Final Fantasy IX with a guide.

As I grew up more, and in particular when I became a viewer of competitive gaming things, I tended towards guides more for optimal strategies. If I have to choose between being a sword user or a spear user, I’d like to know if one is massively overpowered. Games will gloss over little but important things, like invincibility frames or weapon reach, or even how critical hits work. I played through and enjoyed Nier: Automata, but only found out afterwards that critical hits are five or ten times damage (I’m still not sure which,) and not just double damage.

Knowing things like that are important for my enjoyment of a game, because I don’t like not knowing. If I don’t know, though, I wish I could trust the developer to make it balanced. I’m fine with a spear being better than a sword, so long as: the sword is safer, and the developer tells me before or lets me switch after.

Informed choices help me enjoy games.

To loop back to balance, and continuing the analogy/example, I’m not sure why I would choose the ‘sword’ (weaker but safer choice) in a more tactical or strategic RPG. I know that higher damage per turn progresses the game faster, and that most fights will be ‘easy’, and the game should allow me to complete it with either weapon choice. In Pokemon, I exclusively look for these glass cannon types, knowing that I can out-damage ‘bosses’ and use healing or type-advantages when it’s a harder battle.

The reason I do is that I can. I’m not sure if I’ve played any game outside of Final Fantasy XIII that really required me to use defensive classes and buffs.

Let’s sidetrack a little bit to something I’d like to discuss in depth another time. Games use health and attack and stats like that, because it creates a sandbox environment for dealing damage. Take my word for it. What I mean by this is that a large range of actions can get you from the start of a battle to successfully killing the enemy.

Awesome, we love choice.

Wrong.

It’s hard to balance a game around this. Something that’s been pushing me to give up JRPGs is that there’s basically no tactical or strategic thinking to them. Games that rely on skill in some manner require the player to perform specific actions to some degree of quality in order to progress. Like, jump over a large pit by timing a jump within half a second.

Given the sandbox nature of RPG battles, this isn’t possible, or, rather, isn’t the standard. At best, a boss might have a gimmick, like using a fire attack to put it in a state of panic, or attacking a body part to make it weak to something.

I think one aspect of what made Undertale so enjoyable was that it opened up the battle system to something highly varied but curated. Boss battles weren’t about putting out damage and maintaining health, but having a unique experience tailored to that character.

Looping back to stats now, RPGs are weird. Because of the way character stats work, every battle is basically down to a formula, which often is just flat out in favour of the player. A boss that can kill the player in one turn is unfair. A boss that can kill the player in two turns is always beatable, as long as it doesn’t heal and the player has enough healing (given that not all characters in the party are required for the healing.)

So, when the enemy is scaled to the player’s stats, the game should be inherently beatable at all levels. Depending on the exact game mechanics, this gives rise to the possibility of things like ‘level one’ or just ‘low level’ runs.

If that’s the case, then what’s the point of the rest of the game? It’s a bit of nihilistic question, but I think it has purpose. If grinding doesn’t make the player relatively stronger than the enemy, why have levelling in the game at all? It’s a false choice, wasted time. If levelling only makes you take longer to kill, why have the other stats change at all? Just increase the HP. If bosses aren’t affected by status effects, why have the option to cast them? Don’t bother giving the player eight spells to cast which do nothing. Don’t try and justify them with one boss who is weak to poison in a thirty hour game.

To summarise the last paragraph, I don’t trust developers to balance their game. I know that part of the attraction is a sense of progression, but it’s just so fake to me. In Pokemon, I can grind to be ten levels higher than the enemy, and I will stomp them, and that’s progression I can experience. I can also get stuck, and know that I can grind to get passed the enemy, or I can make a strategic decision to teach my Pokemon a move that is super effective against the enemy, or switch to a different Pokemon that knows a similar move, or use temporary, stat-boosting items.

At best, other games have buffs to increase damage or defensive stats, but I never know if they’re worth it. I can beat the bosses anyway by just hitting them and healing. Even if the game doesn’t scale bosses to the player’s level, it feels like they expect the player to be on the low side, even for bigger story bosses, so every battle is one I can walk into and attack my way out, healing as needed.

Well, I’ve ranted a lot by now, and not said all that much. To build towards a summary, I think a lot of games with RPG elements, including JRPGs, offer a lot of false agency. The battle systems are likely poorly balanced, requiring little actual thinking. In my opinion, scaling enemies makes the problem worse, and having highly exponential levels and stats does too.

To look forwards a bit, I see the JRPG genre receding into even more of a niche than it is now, in favour of more RPG-heavy Action RPGs. Examples are Nier: Automata and Final Fantasy XV (and the VII remake.) As a general, rough feeling, I feel like these ARPGs try to cover over the ‘boring’ turn-based combat without fixing any of the inherent problems with the damage sandbox. Battles are still throwing stats at each other, it’s just that the player has the ability to dodge, and so can focus further on being a glass cannon (either by choice or by game design.)

Rather, I would like to see more Final Fantasy Tactics and games in that genre. I think that the similarity to tabletop RPGs gives them a great base to build from, and the spatial aspect adds depth to an otherwise stats dependent battle system. Chess and Go and similar are rather enduring strategy games for a reason, after all.

As a bit of a closure, I don’t mean this entry as an attack on game developers or the genres I highlighted. In particular, I think JRPGs will always have a place as a means of conveying epic stories. But, I do feel that a lack of innovation in core game mechanics—the actual battles—is unfortunate. I don’t pay as close attention to the indie scene as I should so I might have missed them, but I really hoped Undertale would trigger a handful of awesome games that messed with battle conventions, and I haven’t seen any come up yet. As for mobile games, well, I’m just playing free stuff that entertain me for a few days in my short breaks, so they did their job well enough and I wouldn’t ask more of them. I just hope they continue to improve and innovate too.