Who Supplies the Krill

On Harvard, hatred, hats, and hilarity.

There I am in Wegman’s , selecting store brand fizzy water and otherwise minding my own business.

“Some school” comes the unsolicited derisive comment from guy about my age.

Now Tumblr, I want you to know... that I try. When Jean and the kids at the school tell me that I'm supposed to control my violent temper, and be passive and nonviolent like they are, I really try.

But.

I didn’t want this guy to think drive by critiques will go unanswered when I am on duty. I performed a quick threat assessment and moved in, to within an inch of his face

Problem? I asked.

His eyes went wide and he started shaking. Nnnnnno.

Didn’t think so. Happy New Year.

Now friends I am not a tough guy. I lost considerable musculature when I broke my shoulders. But, especially since I started getting prisoner haircuts, I do resemble a low level debt collector for the Irish mob. But, God help me if I ever actually get into a fight. Dodged this one.

Maybe he was a Yalie?

Response to @putaindeplagieur post

I really do think you guys should check out @putaindeplagieur and his well-written post here

Alright. Now since he's my friend I'll go easy on him ;D (Or will I?) (❋•‿•❋)(❋•‿•❋)(❋•‿•❋) Also, keep in mind this is just a good-natured civil discussion about characters. Don't want anyone acting weird or overly hostile towards me or plagieur. If you do, best believe I'll shame your ass in front of everyone. Ahem, that aside let's dig deep. Also, my responses will be in bold italic

Well whether a character is a stereotype for one doesn't actually mean if it's good or not. There are good and bad stereotypes that do exist. Also even for fiction it doesn't mean it's good or bad, only the execution and context. @a-student-out-of-time brought up how Linuj was wrong about making characters obviously bad and letting the audience know. I actually agree with him to a certain extent. Look, the fact is people can be good, evil and in-between. And if the writer wants people to know they are good/bad that's their right. If everything was gray we'd have no color. However I *DO* think it's inconsistent to criticize Linuj for making characters like Kanade or Shobai obviously bad people and letting the audience know this but IGNORE Junko and Mukuro who literally caused a global apocalypse. XDDDD Do you see how ridiculous that is? It's like constantly talking about how Sayaka is an awful terrible person for trying to kill Leon but you are a massive fan of Genocide Jill XDDDDDD

I find this to be mostly true. You can like and dislike whoever you want for whatever reason however don't be surprised when people make strong arguments and you're incapable of mounting a good defense. Look, all I'm saying is this. You know I LOVE Junko. She's obviously been a huge character for the Hope Universe. However I'm not going to sit here and play defense for all the terrible shit she did in Canon. I AGREE with the people who hate Junko in Canon. That's why I decided to remove the Kodaka-ness from her and make her an actual character. But when we're talking about within the confines of canonical events and the decisions the writers have made (Kodaka/Linuj), there are absolutely legitimate reasons to hate characters especially

WHEN THEY CAUSE THE APOCALYPSE

If someone says they love Canon Junko, they are literally a psychopath, an angsty teenager who wants to be edgy, or a contrarian. Do I need to bring up real life how people love serial killers or well....Hitler and Stalin? Mao? Sure you can like those figures but your character is immediately deemed suspect for good reasons. LOL

But that's the thing my friend. You actually *AGREE* with me here. The author can have favorites sure but even you admitted his decision to axe Sayaka and Leon was frankly peak Kodaka. It WAS a disservice to fans of those characters. I'm not a writer so I don't know if there is some sort of secret code or technique here but I CAN say that being LAZY with your characters will obviously be brought up against you. Just because an Author isn't perfect doesn't mean they get to literally just do nonsense. Whether it's V3 being used as a platform to scold the danganronpa community at the expense of the characters and canon itself, Sayaka and Leon dying because he had the same reasoning Junko would have, or Junko literally not being a character because....well of course not! She's the villain after all! I'm saying this because @a-student-out-of-time seems to correctly identify the laziness in Linuj writing and some of the problems with how he looks at people and touchy subjects. Kodaka *IS* better than Linuj, Yes. I'll say this a million times but he *ALSO* is lazy like Linuj sometimes. Am I saying every character needs an elaborate spin-off/backstory like Kyoko? No. But you know who IS a great character without needing so much backstory like Kyoko or Maki? Fuyuhiko. Nagito. The motherfucking Supreme Egg himself Makoto. Or if you hate the egg because you're a filthy heretic, you can use Chiaki. I do think that we often forget that even Linuj makes GOOD characters. Sora, Yuki before the Utsuro reveal, Satsuki, Ayame, Setsuka, Yoruko. However both Linuj and Kodaka make far more bad characters XDD

Yes, writers everywhere can make stupid decisions. I do it, Kodaka does it, @pyropsychiccollector did it for not killing Ruruka/Izayoi but killing Junko (人◕ω◕)*****, Linuj does it. But that's the thing. Kirigiri IS better when it comes to treatment of characters than V3/THH. Killer Killer while being really bad in some aspects at least put in more effort. Whether you agree they hit the ball out the park is in another matter. I respect a person who misses hitting a baseball with a bat then Kodaka who would just sit on the bench and not even try. Killer Killer actually did more for Mukuro than THH and DR3 combined.

I agree. Linuj did a really good job with making us believe it was an AU of Danganronpa THH but in reality it's in the same world. Well done.

Also the murders I don't consider a good point. I'm actually going to agree with @a-student-out-of-time and @pyropsychiccollector about the community having a REALLY weird obsession with the murder porn. These are still human beings regardless of fiction and we are being happy to see Linuj surpass his brutality towards said characters??? Nah bro. Linuj made DRA and SDRA2 waaaay too dark in tone. There was little to no hope and it was frankly just overwhelmingly dark and edgy. He was treating executions like Mortal Kombat/Corpse Party. Also, Utsuro was as badly handled as Izuru was if not more so. Utsuro should've been a sister project to the Kamakura project. It boggles me that so many people are just willing to accept a literal god-tier character to exist. He's the ultimate McGuffin simply by being born. No. Here's a better way of doing Utsuro than Linuj ham-fisted Izuru OC insert. Make it so the Utsuro program is developed alongside the Kamakura project or after/before it. The program is made as a result of all the lucky students throughout the decades. The goal is to basically create luck or to insert it into a singular being. You can do it genetically too! By that I mean, the Utsuro program was being used on several pregnant women, or Hope's Peak was trying to see if a talent like luck was genetically passed on. Regardless you could chalk up his existence to Hope's Peak human experimentation and having a fail-safe/backup in case the Kamakura program went nowhere.

Agree about Kizuna. Linuj is just being lazy with his handling of characters. Kodaka did this obviously with Ruruka but also Celeste and Hiyoko. Also agree about Nikei which is unfortunate. Also agree with you and @a-student-out-of-time about Kanade. Completely redoing Kanade's character just to fit within chapter 3 reeks of incompetence.

Also agree about Kanata. However you can say the same about Emma/Kokoro and Nikei/Shinji. Dude was just forcing kills with no real thought. Reminds me of when Kodaka DID THE SAME WITH MIU AND KOKICHI. Or killing Kaede off to subvert expectations. FML

I'm actually going to surprise many people by saying I actually agree with this assessment. However saying the "Best" is still weird. Best at what exactly? Best in terms of backstory? Yes. Best in terms of inspiring hope? No. XDDD Hajime IS more developed and fleshed out than Makoto but that doesn't mean Makoto is worse. I like to use the Superman and Batman comparison for an example. In terms of backstory, Bruce has Clark solidly beat. Bruce also has a far better rogue's gallery and better movies/shows/games. However would you say Batman IS better than superman? Well again you need to be specific with these things. Clark actually inspires hope whereas bruce doesn't. Superman gets flak for being a boy scout or too vanilla and hey if people don't like that I completely understand. But sometimes you *NEED* characters like Superman/Makoto. You need that person who's a beacon of light and hope in a world where there's an apocalypse and Kodaka got lazy with 77-B brainwashing. Hajime IS better written than Makoto. Funnily enough, Kyoko IS better written than even Chiaki. But both Makoto AND Chiaki inspire. And that's not something I see with Hajime/Batman. And that's fine as well! If we had one protagonist who could do everything and be morally upright all the time, we run into a gary stu real fast.

Oh boy Kyosuke. Another casualty of Kodaka not knowing what he wanted to do with the character. If you want a better Kyosuke I suggest reading @pyropsychiccollector re-imagining of GD and DR3 here It is a long read so keep that in mind. Right, so the quote you mentioned is actually the opposite. Kyosuke DOES care about Hope's Peak. However, Absolute Power Absolutely Corrupts. He became too selfish and ultimately fell into despair by thinking he was doing something good (@pyropsychiccollector I don't want to hear any slanders towards Hope Junko about this sir. (人◕ω◕)***). You can blame Chisa for manipulating Kyosuke throughout the events of the tragedy as well. I wouldn't say he doesn't understand Hope or Despair. I would say he has a different perception of it. He views Makoto's way of doing Hope as Too weak and soft and the only answer to Despair is with overwhelming force. You could rather see Kyosuke as Authoritarian. Absolute Order and control. Junko is the opposite end of that. Absolute Chaos and lawlessness.

You can make Kyosuke bad but can you make him *Compelling*? Magneto is bad. Doom is bad. Kang is bad. But they are *Compelling*. You can see *WHY* they do what they do even if you disagree with it. Hopefully you don't go the Kodaka/Linuj route and become lazy and make him bad with no real humanization added. If you do I will cook you ;D

And this is a good way to conclude it. Honestly I really do think we're all on the same side here just different approaches. I just hate how Kodaka is put on this golden pedestal when he makes childish and bad fanfic writer level decisions sometimes. Don't get me wrong though, when Kodaka is cooking he's cooking XD He has his great moments like GD Chapter 5, THH Chapter 2/4, and V3 chapter 5 minus Maki. It's just odd we're understandbly roasting Linuj for X decision but when Kodaka also makes X decision we turn a blind eye. Where's the consistency here? XDDDD Just because he's the official writer doesn't mean he doesn't have incompetent moments that Linuj also does. Sometimes it's in different ways and sometimes it's not.

CIVIL DISCOURSE

Joyce Vance

She said literature was increasingly viewed "through ideological rather than artistic lenses".

She continued: "Nothing demonstrates this better than the recent phenomenon of 'sensitivity readers' in the world of publishing, people whose job it is to cleanse unpublished manuscripts of potentially offensive words.

"This, in my mind, negates the very idea of literature."

Paul Graham’s “hierarchy of disagreement”

Fanfics vs Fanart

Good morning/afternoon/evening,

As per usual minors and those without ages in bios do not interact. You are not welcomed here beyond this warning. For everyone else, my blog is not a place for vicious argument, it is a place to appreciate good art and writing, and discuss some of the issues that can be seen within fandom from a controlled lens. If you can not keep nasty remarks to yourself or find yourself at risk of being a hostile person in places of debate, leave now. Everyone in my community should be an adult with enough control to hold a reasonable conversation.

Alright, now that warnings are out of the way, what is the deal with fanworks and commissions? Why the double standard. Authors of both original and fan work, artists of those works from both sides, I'd like a reasonable explanation for this.

How can fan-artists of all walks of life commission or sell their work for money while fanfiction writers are not? We get the same excuse that's illegal, well isn't fan art illegal? It is a recognizable copywritten character. Why is it that only fan writers are put under fire by the courts?

As an aspiring writer, I find it difficult to get my foot into the door or gain a following using my own works. But somehow using fan-based writing I can curate a following and slowly introduce more of my own works. Which incidentally could have me lose readers quicker than I gained them. On the flip side, an artist can go from drawing fan-based characters and very well could increase their following by changing who they draw or introducing original characters.

This is not to cause a riot of some sort to go against artists, they can help to bring out stories to life just as much as writers can help give meaning to theirs, my only issue is the double standard fandom has in regards to their treatment, both financially and as a whole in terms of taking writing for granted.

How do you guys feel about the subject let me know and remember, civil discourse only.

A Conservative Thought Experiment on a Liberal College Campus

Random thought . . .

Far from a revolutionary thought, but it's real easy to be "civil" when you're life's not on the line, innit? So if you want to wipe out some group of people, it'll always easier for you to be "civil" than it'll be for the people you're trying to wipe out. So if you're the target of genocide, it'll always be harder for you to be "civil" than the people trying to wipe you out.

So complaining about someone not being "civil" mainly benefits people that are trying to wipe out another group of people and harms the targets of genocide. Go figure.

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The key to effective dialogue lies in active listening. This involves not just hearing the words, but truly understanding the emotions, experiences, and values behind them. It requires suspending judgment,.. Accepting we all can be “Becoming Today”.

Arguments are a natural part of life.  They can and do occur between friends, family members, co-workers, and even strangers.  While arguments can be frustrating and even harmful, they can also become an opportunity for growth and learning. The key is to resolve arguments through respectful discussion. Perhaps we need to come to accept a renewed common understanding of what civil dialogue…

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Joyce Vance

Civil Discourse

“It’s time for the courts to stop giving Trump special treatment. To stop walking delicately and gingerly lest he claim foul play when he is merely subjected to procedures anyone else in his position would be held accountable to. The courts, charged with delivering justice, need to stop being afraid of Trump.”

Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it.

Jonathan Swift